Hey folks, Harry here. I love Genre festivals, as well as the regular film festivals like TORONTO coming up - We've had years of reports from festivals all over the world and with your continued support and input, we'll continue to have bits from around the world. If you have a festival you're attending, either Big or Small - let's hear about it on AICN! Here's Major Calm with an excellent write-up of his two days at FRIGHT FEST!!!
Hi guys, Major Calm here, with my yearly review of the excellent London-based Frightfest. Guillermo Del Toro, a huge fan of the festival, refers to it as “the Woodstock of Gore” which is, in part, correct. That label does, however, suggest that it is only for gorehounds which couldn’t be further from the truth. Over the last 9 years Frightfest has played host to screenings of genre masterpieces such as Del Toro’s own Pan’s Labyrinth, Joon-ho Bong’s The Host and this year’s Let The Right One In (more on that one later). The four organisers - Paul McEvoy, Alan Jones, Ian Rattray and Greg Day – have created an event whose audience is made up in part by fans and in part by moviemakers themselves. Most directors showing films at the festival stay for its duration (often to be found chatting with the audience between movies) and many well known faces not exhibiting are also to be found across all five days (Neil Marshall is a regular attendee). Moving, next year, from its already huge auditorium to one of London’s biggest screens, Frightfest has clearly established itself as one of the most important genre festivals in the world. I will be splitting the reviews into three posts (Days 1 & 2, Day 3 and Days 4 & 5) over the next few days as I saw a fair few movies (23 in total). To that end, I’ve tried to keep my reviews as brief as possible and, as they are hastily written - owing to sheer volume - please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors they may contain. Also, in the interests of a balanced opinion, I’ve also included the thoughts of either one or both of my fellow travellers for any of the movies they attended with me. I should point out that I missed four movies in total: I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer – an Australian low budget slasher comedy which I understand from other attendees was awful, Bad Biology – Frank Henenlotter’s return to film which is not really my kind of thing but was apparently good fun, the animated anthology Fear(s) of the Dark – apparently not great and Tokyo Gore Police – a little too crazy Japanese-exploitation for my tastes but imaginative fun for others. Before I dive into nights 1 and 2, I must make special mention of two directors, Adam Green (Hatchet, Spiral – returning for his 3rd festival) and Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2 – returning for his 2nd) that are such huge fans of the festival that, as a gift to the audience, they filmed 5 short films to introduce each night of the festival - each one a hilarious five minute variation of the opening sequence to Twilight Zone: The Movie. Anyway, without further ado, “do you wanna see something really scary?”... DAY 1 (opening night) Eden Lake (UK) The first of many wilderness survival yarns at this year’s Frightfest, Eden Lake features a young middle-class couple, on a romantic weekend break in the English Midlands, finding their quiet getaway disrupted by a menacing gang of local youths. Feeling that his masculinity is being challenged, the man confronts them, thus setting in motion a series of events that quickly take a serious turn for the worse. Well acted and slickly crafted, James Watkin’s directorial debut takes a simple (albeit fairly hackneyed) premise and turns out a surprisingly effective white-knuckle ride, constantly escalating the levels of suspense as the situation gets more and more out of control. The script works hard to make sure that the characters’ desperate actions remain credible (for the most part) throughout the duration of the film, only faltering slightly in the final ten minutes as a result of someone, somewhere deciding that what the movie really needs is yet another cheap ‘twist’ ending, seemingly de rigueur for the modern survival horror flick. That said, it thankfully isn’t so awful as to diminish much of the power of what has come before it. A word of warning though. The violence is perhaps a little too strong and graphic for the average viewer causing the film, at times, to feel more like a protracted feat of endurance than an enjoyable night at the movies. Technical credits are all solid and, on the thesping front, Jack O’Connell is the standout as the utterly remorseless and terrifying leader of the gang, Brett. 2nd opinion: My fellow travellers both largely agreed that the movie was successful, though one suggested that Watkins’ ear for dialogue was perhaps not his strongest suit and that he might like to focus on directing instead. Not great news, I guess, for those looking forward to the imaginatively titled, Watkins-scripted The Descent: Part 2. Scar 3-D (USA) Angela Bettis (still to achieve anything close to the potential she showed in May) is Joan Burrows, the only surviving victim of Bishop, a creepy serial murderer of teenagers (of course), who supposedly died at her hands. Several years later the facially scarred Joan returns to the small town where it all happened and (surprise, surprise) the killings start all over again. The script is so achingly predictable that it practically writes itself and the killer’s usp (he tortures one girl until she chooses between more torture or the death of her friend) is almost identical to that in the infinitely superior Waz (aka The Killing Gene) shown at last year’s Frightfest. Yet somehow it all remains fairly watchable. Maybe it’s the over-the-top acting. Maybe it’s the insane amount of red herrings flung the audience’s way despite the fact that the killer is blatantly obvious from the first moment you set eyes on him/her. Maybe it’s even the edginess lent by the uncharacteristically gory torture scenes in an otherwise candy-wrapper glossy teen slasher movie. But one thing it certainly isn’t is the excruciatingly below par use of 3-D, which seems like nothing more than a gimmicky afterthought to sell a few tickets to people that want to see a bra-removal in 3D. 2nd opinion: My fellow traveller (only one made it to this screening) felt pretty much the same about this one. DAY 2 Time Crimes (aka Los Cronocrimines) (Spain) A quiet, middle-aged man named Hector (Karra Elejalde) witnesses some strange goings-on in the woods surrounding his home and, before long, he finds himself pursued by a scissor-wielding maniac whose face is wrapped in pink bandages. To reveal much more would be a crime in itself as much of the fun in this warped tale comes from the many surprises up its sleeve. What can be said is that it’s refreshing to see a story of such complexity sidestep pretty much all of its potential logic holes right through to the exciting and thoroughly satisfying conclusion. Brilliantly cast (it’s nice to see a hero who is a fat, balding, borderline unlikeable guy) and efficiently directed, this moderately low budgeted gem defies categorisation. Already picked up for release in Magnolia’s Six Shooter series alongside Let the Right One In and the excellent Donkey Punch, and lined up for a remake by George Romero or David Cronenberg (depending on where you read it), Time Crimes is, without a doubt, one of Frighfest’s (and quite possibly the year’s) best movies. 2nd opinion: My fellow traveller (only one again) loved this movie, appreciating the low-key treatment of a high concept thriller whilst it straddles multiple genre boundaries. King of the Hill (El Rey de la Montana) (Spain) Ironically substituting the officially scheduled The Substitute was the Spanish thriller, King of The Hill. The unfortunately named Quim (Leonardo Sbaraglia) has a tryst in a gas station with the mysterious Bea (Maria Valverde) where she relieves him of his wallet amongst other things. After spotting her car further along the road, and keen to reclaim his belongings, he follows her into the countryside only to be shot at by a sniper. Before long both he and Bea are fighting for their lives, trying to escape the confines of the hills that surround them. Suffering very slightly from following the similarly themed Eden Lake, King of the Hill is nonetheless a solid and somewhat affecting thriller. The characters are certainly more mysterious and, for the large part, their back stories remain satisfyingly unexplained. Aesthetically, the picturesque scenery that surrounds them is, at once, both stunningly beautiful and starkly depressing and the director, Gonzalo Loez-Gallego, and cinematographer, Jose David Montero, know how to make the most of it. The only serious blot on the copybook is that the final ‘shock’ revelation of the killers’ identities utilises a device that has been used far too many times in recent years to be seen as anything more than hackneyed. Trailer Park of Terror (USA) Norma, a trailer park teenager, dreams of a life with her rich-kid boyfriend as far away from her roots as possible but, after a scuffle with the locals, her beau finds himself impaled on an iron fence and Norma finds her dreams in pieces. After a chance encounter with a cowboy-hat-wearing, acid-pissing Devil, Norma returns to (trailer) town with a gun and a large amount of ammo and raises it and its inhabitants to the ground. Several years later, a busload of tearaway teenagers headed to reform camp breaks down in a rainstorm nearby. The only shelter available... a seemingly deserted Trailer Park. Before long, a zombiefied Norma and her clan are munching on some fresh meat. Taking its inspiration from a comic book of the same name, Steven Goldmann’s Trailer Park of Terror plays pretty much the way that the title suggests. Plot-wise nothing happens that you can’t see coming from miles away but the whole enterprise is a lot more entertaining than it really has any right to be, largely owing to the occasionally witty script and nice directorial touches such as the rockabilly zombie who regularly accompanies the carnage with a song describing the events he is witnessing. A couple of gory sequences seem unnecessarily sadistic and out of context, given the general comic-book tone but, by and large, Trailer Park of Terror can be appreciated (if only) as a guilty pleasure. Mum & Dad (UK) A young, Polish airport worker, Lena, misses her bus home one night and accepts a lift with a couple of co-workers back to their parents’ house. Once inside the house, she is drugged and held captive by the sadistic and deranged Mum and Dad, who are determined to make her a willing part of their little ‘family’. Certainly borrowing from the true-life case of Fred and Rose West and pitched as part Mike Leigh-style social commentary, part 70s-style exploitation horror, Steven Sheil’s microbudget shocker is really only successful in part. Whereas Mum & Dad are both well played and frightening creations, it seems a shame to have made such a conscious decision not to reveal any of their back story as events unfold, forcing us to focus far too much on the mind-numbingly irritating Birdie (Ainsley Howard), their other, more compliant ‘daughter’. Sheil, in his feature debut, is striving for something more than the simple horror movie but the violence is so unpleasant and the commentary so empty, that it all results in being nothing but. And, to that end, it is a fairly effective ride. Lena’s increasingly desperate attempts to evade her captors build an efficient level of suspense; the escalating depravity of Mum and Dad only helping to heighten it. Which is why it is such a shame that Sheil loses his nerve a little in the hurried and over-the-top Christmas party conclusion, allowing characters to behave in completely inconsistent ways. Technically, the ‘kitchen-sink drama’ look is well suited to the narrative and the setting, a semi-detached house beneath the flight path for Heathrow airport, works well to enhance the oppressive tone. As an aside to Mr. Sheil: one or two cutaways of planes flying overhead would have been enough to get your point across. The Strangers (USA) As it has already been on general release in the US and is released this weekend in the UK, I won’t go into too much detail on The Strangers. But, for what it’s worth... James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) are a couple on the verge of break-up who stop one night at his family’s summer house on the way back from a wedding, only to find themselves terrorized by three masked intruders. Bryan Bertino’s debut feature (which was a surprise but deserved success on its US release) is a short, sharp little thriller that borrows liberally from the excellent French thriller Them, whilst creating a flavour all its own. The characters are unusually well drawn in the opening scenes and Speedman and Tyler are terrific, lending the movie a class that most movies in the genre cannot touch. The scares are also very effective although, towards the final stretch, I felt myself tiring of the rinse-and-repeat nature of the ‘slow build-up, quick shock, slow build-up, quick shock’ rhythm of the film. Likewise the strange inconsistency of continuity (concerning a 911 call) within the film’s timeline was very hard to ignore, slightly (but only slightly) diminishing the power of the movie’s tidy conclusion. Freakdog (UK) A team of medical students find themselves at the mercy of a vengeful killer, who has the unique ability to leave his comatose body and possess others to do his dirty work. Paddy Breatnach’s previous foray into the genre was the generic but stylishly-realised Shrooms. His follow up, Freakdog, is certainly generic but, unfortunately, has none of the style of the former movie, playing like a particularly nasty and drearily shot episode of the Masters of Horror TV anthology. The medical students are all off-the-peg characters with virtually no back stories - the quiet, determined heroine with a conscience, the joker party boy, the steely, dependable boyfriend, the slutty best friend, the alternative ‘goth’ chick - and the killer, a slightly retarded hospital worker who the others accidentally put into a coma, is the only one given any history, only for it to be immediately jettisoned once the movie gets started. The performers are equally dreadful although you have to pity any actor that has to fling about the term of insult ‘Freakdog’ with such regularity that we are expected to believe it is commonplace in modern vernacular. The story is so utterly implausible but goes to such lengths to be taken seriously that it constantly elicited stifled giggles from several members of the audience. One particularly hilarious sequence has our heroine trawling through medical journals, trying to create a compound that will alter an experimental serum, only to be told by the computer she enters her formula into that the compound will have a “40% chance of success”. If only all computer programs could be that prescient. As is the case with all movies of this type, once you’ve written off the plot as nonsense, all that is left to rescue the proceedings are characters you can empathise with and the cheesy thrill of grisly, imaginative deaths. That’s definitely strike 2 on the character part then, and the deaths don’t fare much better. One or two interesting set pieces take so long to get to their conclusion that it was almost as if Breathnach had forgotten he had five more characters to kill before he could wrap the movie up. So what we are left with is several characters being dispatched in almost completely throwaway scenes in the last stretch. It would be unfair to say that Freakdog was an unwatchable experience (that treasure was saved for Day 3) but it is certainly a pretty bad movie and best avoided. That concluded Frightfest Days 1 and 2 for me. I’ll be sharing my experience of Day 3 with you guys in a few days. Until then... Major Calm
