Abertoir 2012: Festival Report

By Keri O’Shea

I don’t tend to go on conventional holidays, but for four years now I’ve been making a yearly pilgrimage to a picturesque seaside town in mid-Wales…and, hand on heart, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I first became aware of this unique horror film festival via FAB Press all those years ago, and enjoyed it so much that, not only have I been to every Abertoir since, but I’ve enthused about it enough to convince lots of other friends to join the party. We’re now a committed crew who meet up every year, and we make new friends each year too. This is exactly why I am not going to add any provisos about nepotism in this report, because actually merit has led to the friendships, and not the other way around.

One of the things which has happened in the UK since Abertoir has taken off, though, is that there’s been a real boom in horror film festivals and – for obvious reasons – most of them take place around Halloween. This leads to a lot of tough calls for horror fans on a budget; you can have too much of a good thing unfortunately, and most of us can’t be at every festival, so we have to pick and choose. With the greatest of respect to the other film festivals out there, all of whom I believe are worthy of merit, I hope that my report on this year’s Abertoir will go some way towards explaining why I’ve chosen it as the only horror festival I’ve attended in 2012…

The Film Selection

Well, duh, you might almost say. But it’s not as simple as just scheduling whatever is ‘big’ in horror that year, or succumbing to whatever trend is currently proliferating in the scene; Abertoir has long done a sterling job of balancing classic horror cinema not only with new movies, but movies which may have unfairly slipped under the radar for reasons which have nothing whatsoever to do with their quality. The festival also avoids clashes between films altogether, so that fans never have to choose between screenings – every film is treated fairly, if it’s selected then it’s meant to be seen, and there’s no hierarchy whereby all the hottest films get the prime time slots.

I’ve already reviewed Resolution and Antiviral (also pictured above), which were two of my favourite films from the festival; Ben, who was just one of the Brutal As Hell team able to join me, has talked about the brilliant John Dies At The End and Ben ‘Kill List’ Wheatley’s bloody good comedy Sightseers. Other highlights included the traditional Abertoir Vincent Price film, this time in very well realised 3D (The Mad Magician) and League of Gentlemen star Reece Shearsmith as a deliciously everyday and more up-to-date madman – albeit a complete agoraphobic – acting alongside Pollyanna McIntosh in the short film Him Indoors.

Another notable addition to the bill came in the form of Noburo Iguchi’s latest offering of genetic engineering gone haywire – Dead Sushi. If you’ve seen his other films, then you’ll have a reasonable idea of what to expect from the special effects which go with a title like that, but the film actually has a heart beating beneath its zany exterior and, well, by the end of it all, you’ll have found yourself empathising with a sentient egg roll. if that doesn’t convince you then know this: Asami’s ‘robotics’ dancing is amazing.

Catriona MacColl was a guest at this year’s festival; she’s a warm and agreeable lady who, I think it’s fair to say, has moved from faintly confused to rather proud of the cult status enjoyed by the horror movies she made with Lucio Fulci in the early Eighties. As she noted during her Q&A, people’s love for these films has given her a long-standing reputation and also extra opportunities to act again, often-times for filmmakers who are also Fulci fans. The festival showed two of the three in which she starred – The House By The Cemetery and The Beyond – and it was a lot of fun to watch these flawed, but atmospheric and captivating films on the big screen with a group of other admirers who would show themselves to be utterly unfazed by spider attacks, melting flesh or undead cellar dwellers.

One of the most anticipated films screening at Abertoir this year was the latest feature-length movie from the ‘Twisted Twins’, Jen and Sylvia Soska – namely American Mary, which has been garnering praise and adoration worldwide. Our own Nia has waxed lyrical about her love for this film here at the site, and essentially everything we post here on Brutal as Hell which pertains to the Soskas in any way, shape or form gets a huge positive response. With all of this as context, it was impossible to finally sit down to watch the film itself without carrying something of the weight of expectation into the cinema with me, and I’m mindful of that fact when I say that – actually – American Mary didn’t do anything for me. Spoilers to follow in my next paragraph, whilst I justify that statement and then no doubt get chased from the internet…

Firstly the premise fell flat for me. Modern Primitives came out in 1989, and although the extremes of implants and tongue-splitting are still unusual, seeing them doesn’t exactly pack a punch. Less than an hour away from where I live, for instance, you can pop in for a legal, professionally-done tongue splitting. This stuff isn’t all that underground and hasn’t been for a very long time, so making it the ‘dark heart’ of the plot immediately makes it problematic because it seems out of touch. If the argument is that the plot simply takes this premise as a starting point and develops it into something more theoretical and extreme, then I’d say that it never quite attains that either; it’s either contradictory (Mary says she doesn’t do anything as pedestrian as piercings but we’re soon after shown that she does) unbelievable (whole limb transplants require up to forty staff to achieve) or not revealed whatsoever (as in the rather jarring, lengthy Soskas cameo where they arrive to get some ground-breaking surgery done – then after all, we don’t see it anyway). The explicitness is largely missing, the violence is nonsensical, and whilst Katherine Isabelle is obviously meant to be an emotionally-alienated character, I struggled to believe in her at all. Aesthetically, this is an accomplished piece of work, and I thought that Tristan Risk (as Beatress) was excellent in her role – but I don’t see this movie as genre-defying, rather genre-straddling, and as such incumbent with the flaws of both exploitation and art-house cinema styles.

So much for my contrary view, however. I’ll finish by saying that I was evidently in the minority amongst the Abertoir crowd, so perhaps this is a case of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. And, whatever my opinion, the film certainly got our group talking. It’ll be interesting to see how opinion divides up (if at all) as the film inevitably reaches its wider audience…

Music, Theatre and Discussion

Abertoir has developed a strong theatre tradition over the past few years, and one of my favourite performers so far was attending for the second time around in 2012: Robert Lloyd Parry performs the short stories of one of the world’s best ghost story writers, M. R. James, and he does it in the character of the author himself, articulating upon the stories as well as telling them by candlelight, a simple touch but a deft one. This year Parry told two stories, ‘The Ash Tree’, which is certainly one of James’s more weird tales, and then possibly the best known Jamesian yarn, ‘Oh, Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad’. With some embellishments to the introductions to each, Parry was able to establish an easy rapport with the audience, before effectively communicating the dread and terror at the heart of each story by following more closely the language which James himself used. Ghost stories should be told aloud, and by performing these stories as he does, Parry is now part of a noble tradition. His show comes highly recommended.

There were also talks and discussions on specific horror traditions, such as Italian horror (delivered by Dr Russ Hunter) and a general talk on what exactly constitutes a horror film: Gavin Baddeley (author, broadcaster and sometime contributor to this site) attempted to get a handle on this ever-burgeoning genre, and later opened the floor to the audience members for their own takes on the topic. A fun debate (and some bloody tough questions) ensued…

And of course, no Abertoir would be complete without a silent classic, and a live, original accompaniment performed on piano by ‘frequent flyer’ Paul Shallcross. This year the movie was Tod Browning’s The Unknown, and, as is now traditional, having to watch it endlessly over the previous year had made Paul hyper-aware of its quirks and flaws. You can hardly blame the man, but then Paul’s introductions are as much a part of his performance as his music!

So long for another year…

My report contains just a selection of the films and events which stood out from this year’s festival; there was lots more going on, and it’s quite possible that someone else who was there could write their own report without repeating anything I’ve said above. Now that the festival lasts for six days, there’s even more scope for that to happen!

At the risk of repeating myself though, let me just say again that the key reason that this festival works so well is due to its friendly, convivial atmosphere. The organisers always go out of their way to make everyone feel welcome, they’ll listen to suggestions and ultimately it really matters to them if the people who travel to them enjoy themselves. Without that, Abertoir would still be a good festival; with it, it’s a great festival, and that’s why I’ll definitely be making that trek to Wales again next year. Many thanks to Abertoir and we’ll be seeing you in 2013. A little bird tells me it’s going to be something extra special, too…

For more information: http://www.abertoir.co.uk/