By Stephanie Scaife
It’s that time of year again…yes, FrightFest is here and like Christmas, it seems to come around quicker each year. Having been a regular since 2003 I’ve seen the festival go through many changes and this year has seen some major ones. Firstly, you can say good bye to a single screen for weekend pass holders, as the main screen is now spread out across three smaller screens with an additional two discovery screens. It’s not been without a fair few hitches either, with problems booking tickets online (it took me over two hours to get mine), a major reduction in the number of seats available (hence no press pass), some odd timings (either running from film to film or hours in between) and there are more clashes than ever, so I’ve had to pick and choose very carefully what I see. But with an awesome line-up, a chance to see old and new friends and a five day diet of caffeine and sugar ahead of me, I was excited to be venturing into the depths of depravity to visit one of the world’s best genre film festivals once more.
Thursday went off with a bang with the British première of Adam Wingard’s The Guest, a loving homage to the preposterous 80s action movies we all know and love. It stars Dan Stevens (yep the guy from Downton Abbey, with a flawless American accent) as David, a recently discharged soldier who shows up on the doorstep of the Petersen family claiming to have served with their recently deceased son, Caleb. David immediately works his charms and worms his way into the hearts and lives of the Petersens, with the exception of their daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) who remains suspicious of this intruder and his intentions. The Guest is strongest during its first half as David sets about ingratiating himself in some ingenious ways, including taking some seriously funny (and heavy) revenge on the school bullies terrorising the youngest son Luke (Brendan Meyer). When we as the audience still don’t really know what David’s plan is, The Guest proves to be curious, sexy fun with a really fucking awesome goth-synth soundtrack. However, towards the end it does get slightly weaker the more far-fetched it becomes. What’s interesting about the film is that you expect it to be a fairly standard home invasion thriller, when instead it takes a very different and unexpected turn which, although a bit silly, I have to admit I didn’t see coming. This may not be quite as strong as Wingard’s previous film You’re Next, but it is very good fun, and if you can ignore a few plot holes and some dodgy dialogue then it’s an easy watch with great performances.
Next up was Sin City: A Dame to Kill For which I have to admit I wasn’t all that excited for and as it turned out, with good reason. It has been nine years since the first film and it shows, especially in the dodgy wigs donned by many of the male cast (Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke, I’m looking at you). This is a real mixed bag, a sort of portmanteau movie that loosely interconnects three storylines involving Marv (Rourke),the newcomer Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Dwight (now played by Josh Brolin) with the uber femme fatale Ava (Eva Green) turning the sexy dial up to 11. Not much of it makes a whole lick of sense, with endless voiceovers that manage to provide exposition yet little insight, some dodgy sexual politics and some excessive and often unnecessary violence. As you would expect Gordon-Levitt is as charismatic and watchable as always whilst Green continues to be the best thing in every film she stars in, plus there’s a tiny cameo from Juno Temple (whom I adore) that almost makes the film worth watching. Overall though it screams vanity project on behalf of Miller and Rodriguez, and feels wholly unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.
Okay, so I really had high hopes for Zombeavers, I’m not sure why exactly as I should’ve learned my lesson by now, but there just seemed to be something so awesome about the idea of beavers killing people. How quickly my hopes were dashed, as even in the opening minutes I knew this was going to be a great big pile of steaming shit. Zombeavers is a dumb movie that thinks it’s being clever. The characters are all so unlikeable and unfunny that I really did not give a shit at all what happened to them; the girls were all skinny and scantily clad whilst their schlubby boyfriends were all dumb and honestly, out of their league in terms of the girls they were paired with. I can only assume the guys were friends of the filmmakers whilst the girls were hired to look good in bikinis. There was also an over-reliance on improvisation which really didn’t work. Jokes fell flat, were often repeated and sometimes they were just plain offensive (are we really supposed to think it’s funny that a girl’s boyfriend refuses to go down on her, because he thinks vaginas smell bad? Are the writers 12 years old for fuck’s sake?) Now, I guess you could potentially argue that all of my complaints are actually down to the filmmakers satirising the genre, but no, they are definitely not that smart and despite some rather good creature effects Zombeavers is pretty dam (sorry) bad. Avoid at all costs.
Thankfully Friday started off much better with Honeymoon, from first time writer-director Leigh Janiak. It stars Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway as newlyweds Bea and Paul who arrive at a remote cabin in Canada for their honeymoon. Now what I liked most about this film was just how believable they were as a couple: their chemistry was fantastic and I totally bought into them as a being completely loved-up, when usually I’m rarely won over by on-screen romances. This is testament to these two young actors who, although bogged down with doing slightly ropey American accents, both deliver very strong and honest performances. I’m a bit of a sucker for the slow burner when it comes to horror films and Honeymoon really delivers on that front: we’re given a lot of time to invest in these characters and when things start to go wrong for them I found myself both distraught and also completely at a loss as to what they could possibly do to fix things. Even though by the end you get a fairly good idea of what is going on, nothing is ever explicit and instead you are asked to draw on your knowledge and understanding of the genre to put the pieces together in a way that makes sense to you. I won’t spoil it here, but this is a creepy little two hander that definitely delivers a few scares and ick moments, whilst retaining its drama and momentum. Janiak and her cast are undoubtedly going to go on to do great things. Highly recommended.
I’m not sure what it is about Eli Roth, but I always want to like his films more than I actually do. I think this is because he is such a nice guy, so smart, enthusiastic and a great champion of the horror genre. But honestly, as a filmmaker I have never loved his work and there has always been something that has left me feeling uneasy about his fish out of water narratives, whether it be kids against local rednecks in Cabin Fever or American tourists versus eastern Europeans in the Hostel movies… and now we have co-eds and a Peruvian tribe of cannibals in The Green Inferno. I’ve always felt that there is a good reason that the cannibal sub-genre has largely stayed in the 70s and that’s because this idea of the “native savages” feasting on the flesh of the white intruders is well, a bit racist, or at the very least colonialist. Of course, Roth tries to overcome this by making the co-eds dumb and deserving of their fate and by tacking on an ending that paints the intruders as the bad guys, but ultimately this is still a film that portrays an indigenous tribe as one dimensional and essentially bad. Of course, if you can overlook this, The Green Inferno is a perfunctory genre film that hits its marks, including a few in jokes along with the poop jokes and as always Greg Nicotero provides excellent make-up effects.
Next was Homebound, definitely the best horror comedy I’ve seen in a long time, and although low on scares it’s an effective genre bender with a lot of laughs. After a botched robbery attempt Kylie (Morgana O’Reilley) ends up under house arrest at her childhood home with her motor-mouthed mother Miriam (a fantastic Rima Te Wiata), a local gossip queen who is convinced that the house is haunted. Initially sceptical, Kylie along with her gormless probation officer Amos (Glen-Paul Waru) come to discover that Miriam may be onto something. As the spooky goings on increase Kylie thinks she’s figured it all out… but as the plot unravels, we realise that the truth is something altogether different. Homebound works because it’s funny, original and entirely unlike what I went in expecting. Although there are a few tonal shifts between callous humour and much more serious themes that feel a little off, overall Homebound mostly pulls off that most difficult of tricks; making a horror movie funny whilst still successfully providing the requisite genre moments. Leave it to the Kiwis to make such a darkly dry and laugh out loud film.
The last film I saw on day two was The Canal, directed by Irish fimmaker Ivan Kavanagh. It has been much hyped since its Tribeca midnight screening earlier this year. I always try to see as many British and Irish films as possible at FrightFest, as I feel like it’s good to support local talent working within the genre, so I feel sort of bad saying this – but I really didn’t like it very much at all. Rupert Evans stars as David, a film archivist who suspects that his wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra) is cheating on him. After she mysteriously disappears, David is left to care for their young son Billy whilst local police detective McNamara (Steve Oram) investigates the incident. After uncovering an old film about a murder that happened in his home, spooky things start happening to David and as he tries to convince those around him that something is amiss, it becomes increasingly ambiguous as to whether he’s simply being driven insane by grief or if there is something more supernatural at work. The main flaws for me were around the child actor, who it seems is being spoon-fed lines of dialogue that seem very unnatural and overly perceptive coming out of the mouth of a five year old, as well as some weak performances from the central characters that I just didn’t buy into. The story unfolds in a way that felt overly familiar and even though there was an apparent desperation to be subversive, ultimately I found it to be quite boring. Also I was left wondering whether or not the ending was supposed to be a twist or not; it was played as such, but there was nothing surprising about it. As with many FrightFest films over the years, such as Dark Tourist last year, there’s always one film about a guy losing his shit that desperately tries to shock but is ultimately forgettable.
Saturday however was off to a much better start with John McNaughton’s The Harvest starring the ever watchable Samantha Morton and Michael Shannon as Katherine and Richard, distraught parents struggling to care for their son Andy (Charlie Tahan) who uses a wheelchair. Their lives are upended when new girl Maryann (Natasha Calis) moves in next door and befriends Andy. Suddenly not all is as it seems and Katherine becomes increasingly hostile towards both Maryann and her son. To say too much would spoil the film and it’s definitely one that works best going in blind, as I really didn’t know where it was going right up until the very end. Morton is absolutely terrifying as the desperate mother with dubious motivations and Shannon gives an uncharacteristically restrained performance as her cuckolded husband, and yet even with these two heavyweights, the two young actors really manage to hold their own – especially Tahan who really makes you feel for Andy; there are a few moments in particular where I was gritting my teeth, completely immersed into the film and genuinely fearing for his safety. McNaughton has had a very varied and patchy career over the years and has yet to again reach the heights of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but it’s great to see him heading back in the right direction after a decade of mediocre directing for television.
Next up was a film that I’d very much been looking forward to, Starry Eyes, an over the top Faustian tale directed by Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer about the price of fame and the lengths that those desperate enough will go to in search of it. It stars a string of indie horror stalwarts including Amanda Fuller, Pat Healy, Noah Segan and Marc Senter, along with relative newcomer Alex Essoe giving an uncompromising performance as Sarah, a waitress who dreams of becoming the next big thing. After a series of bizarre auditions for a horror movie called Silver Scream where she is increasingly pushed out of her comfort zone, Sarah finally quits her job at the diner as she is convinced that the role is hers. That is, until she meets the producer who wants a lot more than Sarah is prepared to give, at least initially… Starry Eyes is a slow burner that is definitely worth the wait because it certainly delivers, and there are some really grizzly moments towards the end as Sarah is forced to pay the price for her decision. Although the whole selling your soul for success story is nothing new, the filmmakers have managed to do something unexpected and fresh here. Not for the faint of heart but almost certainly a warning for those willing to do anything to achieve their perception of true happiness and success, Starry Eyes is definitely one to look out for.