By Stephanie Scaife
Click here to read part one of Steph’s FrightFest 2015 report.
Abner Pastoll’s Road Games was a pleasant surprise, an interesting UK/French production that is not (as I’d thought) a remake of the 1981 Jamie Lee Curtis film of the same name. Instead Road Games is about Jack (Andrew Simpson), an English tourist that finds himself stranded in rural France with little more than his passport to his name. Whilst trying to hitchhike to Calais, Jack comes across Véronique (Joséphine de La Baume), a fellow traveller and kindred spirit. They decide to travel together for safety as there have been stories of a serial killer in the local area. When Grizard (Frederic Pierrot) stops and offers them a lift Véronique is apprehensive but reluctantly agrees, he informs them that there is a strike at Calais so they won’t be able to get a ferry to England and offers to put them up for the night. Grizard lives in an isolated mansion with his American wife Mary (Barbara Crampton) who seems more than a little unhinged and things quickly go downhill for Jack and Véronique. Despite the fact that it’s fairly obvious where the narrative is going quite soon into the film, it didn’t necessarily detract from my enjoyment as the atmosphere that Pastoll creates is incredibly tense at times, and the twists the narrative takes to its somewhat inevitable conclusion are still intriguing because, although I knew where it was going, I never knew how it was going to get there. Simpson and de La Baume have great chemistry too, and both Pierrot and Crampton are as excellent as you’d expect. I think that it is so important when making a small, low budget movie that the script and the actors are good as so many of the films I saw at FrightFest this year fell victim to having neither of those things. Road Games though worked surprisingly well and it definitely works best the less you know going in.
I was looking forward to Inner Demon as it has been labelled as the next big Australian film since The Babadook; however, the only two things these films have in common is that they are Australian and both have a female director… it is a stupid comparison to make. The Babadook is of course a very good film and Inner Demon really is not. In fact if I’d been responsible for naming this film it would’ve been Inner Bore. It’s a shame really because it started out pretty well: Sam (Sarah Jeavons) and her little sister are abducted by demented couple Karl (Andreas Sobik) and Denise (Kerry Ann Reid) and driven out into the woods. Sam manages to escape, in an admittedly ingenious way, only to find herself trapped in the home of her captors. She takes shelter in their closet, which is where the majority of the film takes place, and yes, it’s as dull as it sounds.
Slumlord definitely wins for the most nausea inducing scene of the festival – I won’t spoil it but I will say that it involves a toothbrush. Written and directed by first time filmmaker Victor Zarcoff, Slumlord is about a creepy landlord, Gerald (Neville Archambault), who sets up hidden cameras all around his house before renting it out to unsuspecting couple Ryan (PJ McCabe) and Claire (Brianne Moncrief). Gerald is just about the most repellent character that you can imagine; sweaty, crazy eyed and monosyllabic, he sits watching his monitors surrounded by piles of used tissues and becomes so frustrated when he notices blind spots that he returns to the house to fit even more cameras. Thankfully this is not a found footage film and we only get the occasional glimpse through Gerald’s cameras at what he is watching. Another plus is that both Ryan and Claire and believable and flawed characters, and although at times unlikeable (Ryan in particular) they still manages to illicit sympathy. The main problem with Slumlord is that it is very slow and it covers very well-trodden ground that we’ve seen numerous times before so nothing is ever much of a surprise, and although the general ick factor is quite high it is mostly just a bit of a slog to get through; I definitely came close to nodding off a few times.
I was a little disappointed by The Nightmare as I’d heard good things about it and thought there was great potential in the subject matter to make a fascinating documentary. Directed by Rodney Ascher (Room 237) The Nightmare explores sleep paralysis and the experience of those who suffer from this terrifying affliction. Sleep Paralysis is a condition where you become conscious during REM sleep, when your body is paralysed to stop you acting out your dreams. During this state of waking it is very common to suffer from hallucinations such as the feeling of someone being in the room with you, and these episodes can last for a few seconds to a few minutes before you wake up. It’s not something I’ve ever suffered from myself, but a close friend has and the experience she’s described to me sounds terrifying. I think it’s an intriguing subject, and as the condition isn’t widely known it could really help those out there that may not understand what they’re going through. However, instead of speaking to a broad range of subjects, the documentary focuses on people who suffer from the condition that seem to have had little professional help, and who instead keep referring to demons, spirits, alien abductions and different dimensions. What we are faced with is a lot of very confused people who have found their solutions in religion and the paranormal, and who in turn pretty much just sound insane. There are no interviews with any professionals or doctors, or seemingly anyone who has successfully found a way to treat the condition. I found this to be a very biased documentary and I really struggled to take anyone seriously who describes themselves as having found Christ as a result of sleep paralysis.
From actor turned director Ruth Platt comes The Lesson, a micro budget (£28k) British thriller that was one of the surprise highlights of the festival for me. Fin (Evan Bendall) and Joel (Rory Coltart) are fairly typical teenage boys; bright, but failed by the education system and their negligent parents, they act out as a result of boredom and frustration. Their English teacher Mr Gale (Robert Hands) one day snaps and takes the two boys hostage before proceeding to “teach” them under the threat of physical violence. It turns out to actually be a pretty successful tool, and with a nail gun to the hand Fin is certainly quick to learn! For such a small film The Lesson is incredibly well written, and both Bendall and Hands are excellent in their roles; it’s a real credit to Platt as a filmmaker that she’s managed to do so much with so little. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t have its flaws, as some of the acting from supporting characters is patchy at best, and there are a few all too convenient moments and plot holes that took me out of the story. But overall this is a tense and surprisingly naturalistic (considering the subject matter) film that is well deserving of your time, and Platt is definitely one to watch.
Mark Murphy’s Awaiting, another low budget British offering, was perhaps troubled by immediately following The Lesson which was similar in scale but infinitely better. The always excellent Tony Curran is Morris, a reclusive psychopath who lives in a remote farmhouse with his daughter Lauren (Diana Vickers). After a car accident, businessman Jake (Rupert Hill) is taken in by this odd pair and finds himself in the centre of a rather bizarre family who aren’t too keen on him leaving any time soon. Morris has some funny ideas, not least of all the fact that they celebrate Christmas in September, complete with a tree and a dinner of roast pork. Insisting that Jake stay to celebrate Christmas with a promise to drive him to town the following morning they settle down for a meal and a few drinks, only for things to take a turn for the worst as Morris’ behaviour becomes more erratic and unpredictable. There’s definitely a good idea in there somewhere, even if the film does feel very familiar, and Curran and Vickers are both good as the bizarre father and daughter, but the major weak link here is Hill who is just awful as Jake; perhaps it’s the script, but I just found everything that came out of his mouth to be ridiculous, and the situations he was in also pretty unbelievable. After a fairly creepy opening Awaiting loses its way in the second half as it becomes painfully obvious what is going on, and you’re stuck watching Jake run around in circles trying to escape.
The last film I saw at FrightFest this year was Emelie, the first feature from director Michael Thelin, who is perhaps better known for directing live concert films. The entire film plays out over the course of a single evening, with Joyce (Susan Pourfar) and Dan (Chris Beetem) going out to celebrate their anniversary whilst a babysitter looks after their three young children. After having seen the genuine babysitter get kidnapped at the start of the film we know that the girl claiming to be Anna is someone else; in fact her name is Emelie (Sarah Bolger) and her motivations are unclear for the majority of the film, which works in its favour. Initially her behaviour is just a little odd, but when she shows the kids a sex tape of their parents and feeds their hamster to the eldest son’s pet python you get the idea that she’s pretty messed up. The acting is great, and all three of the main kids manage to avoid being too annoying, whilst Bolger is genuinely unsettling as Emilie. I think where the film falls flat is that there is no real sense of danger; this isn’t Michael Haneke after all, and nobody ends up particularly worse for wear by the end.
FrightFest 2015 was a very mixed bag for me, there were a few good films but nothing I’ll be rushing to see again, and for the most part I saw a lot of very forgettable films. As I’d said before, I feel that this is a combination of FrightFest falling victim to its own success, and also with the way the film industry works at the moment. There is no money out there anymore for midrange movies; everything either has to have a huge budget or a shoestring one. You either have the $20 million budget of The Conjuring or $1 million dollar (or even much, much less) movies like Unfriended, with very few in between. As a result you see a lot of films that have clearly been made for very little indeed. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t, but I sat through so many films where it was just two or three characters in a single location that it has become almost as boring as all the found footage films from a few years back. As with The Lesson and Pod, a lot can still be achieved with limited resources, but overall I started to feel like I was seeing the same film over and over again. Having now seen the line-up for The London Film Festival my fears have been confirmed, and all of the strongest genre outings this year are now to be found there, with the likes of Green Room, Bone Tomahawk and The Witch all appearing on the schedule. From now on I think I may just pick a few choice films to see at FrightFest and focus more on the LFF. I’ve had a lot of fun over the years at FrightFest but as the line-up becomes weaker and more packed with films I just don’t really want to see, not to mention being inundated with titles soon to be released via Icon on the new FrightFest Presents label, I feel like the festival is more like a business than just a group of genre fans getting together for a weekend.