Report by Kit Rathenar
There’s a wonderfully idiosyncratic charm about the Bram Stoker International Film Festival. Hosted in Whitby, the windswept Yorkshire coastal town forever associated with Stoker and Dracula – and this year celebrating the hundredth anniversary of its namesake author’s death – it combines its core film programme with a whole range of themed entertainments ranging from goth bands to burlesque shows, seemingly attempting to emulate the much more established but these days rather played-out Whitby Gothic Weekend. There’s a distinct DIY ethos to the festival and it seems to get by mostly on the pure enthusiasm of the organisers, with a prevailing spirit of disorderly friendliness that transcends boundaries and doesn’t allow anyone to get too self-important. I was only recruited to reviewing the festival at the last minute because I live in Whitby, and none of BAH’s other staff could make it up to help me out so I apologise for the rather limited amount of films I actually managed to see! Given restricted time I deliberately tried to focus on the films and events unique to BSIFF rather than rehashing films that we’ve already covered recently, as one of BSIFF’s strengths is that it tends to run genuine obscurities and not just whatever’s come out this year.
Thursday, 25 October
The advertised opener was Scott Leberecht’s Midnight Son, but the spirit of the festival came through in the decision to run an unbilled opening short that consisted of the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love”, set to a huge range of classic horror clips synchronised so as to have Freddy Krueger, Gremlins, Count Dracula and more all singing happily along. I don’t know who made this but it was a work of twisted genius, which I wish I could also say of the film that followed it. Midnight Son was well received in some quarters, but I found it tiresome, as it makes the currently fashionable error of confusing “relatability” in a protagonist with “being just like everyone else”. In attempting to humanise reluctantly vampiric protagonist Jacob (did he have to have that name, after Twilight?) and his druggie girlfriend, Leberecht has created a film that’s about as engaging as reading a stranger’s self-absorbed blog posts right up until it suddenly realises it needs a money shot and promptly veers off into cheesy, gung-ho vampire-gangsta territory that feels like an outtake from Blade. It has its moments of beauty – whoever made the paintings that cover Jacob’s apartment is an artist of no mean talent – but that doesn’t redeem a film that’s as ultimately awkward as its socially-inept main characters. I admit, though, that it probably also wasn’t helped by being screened in a badly skewed aspect ratio that gave the cast Pinocchio noses and flattened cars out like ironing boards, which unfortunately was a warning sign for similar problems that were to recur throughout the festival. A lot of the films I saw were out aspect-wise by a little or a lot, and this can really ruin a movie so it’s something the organisers might want to seriously look into rectifying before next year.
That problem did at least go away for the next few films, thankfully. First came Karen Lam’s short The Stolen, a dark little fairytale in which a girl rescues a bullied young boy from her cruel elder brother, only to discover that she has intervened in something far beyond her imagining. Simple and coldly beautiful, seamlessly blending folklore archetypes into a modern setting, this film feels like a preliminary sketch of an idea that could yet be fleshed out into something far deeper, and its final image chilled me by presenting an interpretation of a concept that I’d always had in my head but had never considered what it would really look like. Excellently played. This was followed in a double bill by Patrick Rea’s Nailbiter, which I heard someone behind me loudly denigrate as “cheesy” but which I loved. Despite being released this year it feels like it might have come from the glory days of early eighties horror, ignoring current fads completely to give us a classic-style tale of three girls and their mother who, overtaken by a tornado while on the road, wind up locked in the storm cellar of a stranger’s house with a mysterious Something outside that apparently wants to eat them all. The characters are likeable and believable; the scares are straightforward but they work, in an almost comfortingly old-school fashion that will remind anyone of a certain age of all the times they sneaked out of bed to watch stuff just like this. As for the monsters, I could only love them for being real, rubber-moulded, non-CGI critters that actually spend some time onscreen instead of being eternally out of shot of someone’s hand-held camera. Utterly unfashionable and with no pretentions whatever, and yet it comes up trumps above half the horror I’ve seen this year.
But not above the next film. First-time director Steve Stone has created a masterpiece with Entity, which received its world premiere here and despite a major technical issue that broke the screening up for the better part of ten minutes still managed to keep its audience spellbound. When the crew of a psychic-themed TV series go to investigate a mysterious site in the Russian forests where thirty-four dead bodies were dug up twelve years earlier and their identities never revealed, they find themselves caught up in the aftermath of a government black-ops project that has left a massive abandoned research facility drowning in bad vibes, ghosts and residual nightmares. The resulting film is a harrowing, claustrophobic, utterly terrifying piece that raises itself far above the generic by its compassion for its characters – both the living and the dead. Its pigeonholing into the found-footage genre is completely undeserved, as it’s primarily shot in traditional third-person and only switches to character camera feeds for a few key scenes for maximum effect. The sound design is devastating, at its best making the whole cinema shake with monstrous bass frequencies and a symphony of screaming that you could truly believe was recorded straight from hell. And for the whole film I was enthralled by the eerie derelict building that had been used as the primary set, only for Stone to reveal in his Q&A session after the movie that he’d actually written the film from the location up. The building itself had been the inspiration for the story in the first place and he added that while he’d deliberately avoided any kind of “based on a true story” shill, he’d felt at the time that he was telling a story that at least reflected something authentic about the site. Bizarrely enough, at this point a member of the audience pointed out that Entity really does conform to certain known historical events – and Stone promptly admitted he had thought he was making that part up! Uncanny and intriguing, like this film itself; when Entity gets its general release, I will be first in the queue to see it again. (Read Nia’s review here.)
Friday, 26 October
I knew I was only going to see the early screenings today due to a prior engagement, which was frustrating as it meant I had to miss, among other things, a full-on, costume-encouraged, bells-and-whistles screening of vampire classic The Lost Boys. So I got in early to catch what I could beforehand. The opening programme was a double bill, commencing with Josh Alott’s silly short Wasted Youth, in which two student housemates wake up with hangovers in the middle of an apparent zombie apocalypse. Shaun Of The Dead has a lot to answer for for kickstarting this suburban zom-com trend, frankly, although Wasted Youth did manage to make me laugh out loud so credit where credit is due.
Following it, though, was the documentary Nightmare Factory, which is a brilliant insider look at the Hollywood horror special effects business from the perspective of the men who created leading company KNB EFX Group: horror buffs Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero, and Robert Kurtzman. While one large part of the documentary’s interest factor lies in the “so how DID they do that?” appeal of any special effects reveal and in the appearances from directors of such stature as George Romero, Quentin Tarantino and John Carpenter, its real charm for any true horror fan is its simple honesty, as a selection of well-known and respected grown men from the film industry enthuse about the childhood passions that they’ve been fortunate enough to turn into decades-long careers. The enthusiasm and love that Nicotero, Berger, and guys like Tom Savini bring to their work, the affection with which they discuss their backgrounds and the films they’ve worked on, is heartwarming and inspirational. It’s also fantastic to see some of cinema’s most famous monsters finally on-screen under good lighting, as rather than destroying the illusion it’s amazing to see the artistry that’s gone into KNB’s creations and how well they hold up even when removed from their natural milieu. The special effects teams are the unsung heroes of every classic horror movie, the dreamsmiths who bridge the gap between the inside of a storyteller’s head and the silver screen, and this documentary is a fantastic tribute to their work. Brilliant.
Meanwhile, J.T. Seaton’s 2011 short Divination is cursed with a rather generic title – sharing it with two other films that came out in the same year – but this is no reflection on its quality. A phony medium is visited by a bogus client, and finds that she’s let more into her house than she bargained for. It’s a simple, classic supernatural retribution plot, but given an extra edge by the brilliant performance of Lynn Lowry as the smarmy, instantly hateable medium who gets what she deserves in epic style. I also loved this movie’s fearsome black ghosts, a nice change from the traditional spectral white.
Double-billed with this was Dennis Gansel’s German vampire flick We Are The Night, which I had quite high hopes for as it’d been well reviewed by Ben. Sadly the curse of the wrong aspect ratio struck again here, which was a shame for a film that relies so heavily on its sumptuous aesthetics. As for the actual plot, this is a bitter, exploitative, actually quite uncomfortable story dressed up in glamorous visuals to disguise it as simply another pretty vampire flick. A young girl, Lena, is turned into a vampire against her will by the beautiful but psychopathic Louise and finds herself swept away into a world of exotic luxury and indulgence; at first glance it looks like it could be any vampire fan’s wish-fulfilment fantasy, but it’s swiftly apparent that Lena’s new life is a gilded cage. This is a film where nobody wins, and the unease and grittiness of the characterisations and plotting sit strangely with the lush, titillating visuals. An interesting experiment for sure, but I can’t exactly say I enjoyed it; I was torn between wanting to switch my brain off and enjoy the prettiness but having my teeth set on edge by the characters’ treatment of each other, and wanting to delve into the story but being put off in turn by the weird sense of softcore exploitation that the cinematography was inducing when I did. I couldn’t decide whether this film wanted me to care about the characters or just perve on them, and that’s never a comfortable dilemma.
Saturday, 27 October
I was at the cinema bright and early today, as I’d been anxious to see the opening film ever since I saw it on the programme listings – especially since I hadn’t even been aware previously that it existed. One of horror’s best kept secrets may be the fact that while the famous Universal Studios Dracula was being shot in 1931, the same sets and script were being used at night to shoot a Spanish-language version, directed by George Melford and an uncredited Enrique Tovar Ávalos. Drácula, the result, disappeared completely from the English-speaking public’s awareness for years, resurfacing on DVD in the late nineties and here receiving a rare big-screen airing. And after Midnight Son and We Are The Night I’d frankly had all the modern interpretations of vampirism that I wanted, so going back to a vintage version like this felt like a real treat. While it’s debatable whether Carlos Villarías’s portrayal of the Count stands up by comparison with Lugosi’s, he’s certainly effective in the role and some of the tiny details of his performance really charmed me, such as when he and Renfield are in the castle and hear the wolves howling outside. Villarías’s Dracula reacts to the sound with an oddly joyful look that makes the famous “what music they make!” line seem like a genuinely sincere sentiment, which is an achievement given how many actors have faltered on it. I also loved Pablo Álvarez Rubio’s Renfield, who is almost the main character of this version and is played with an edge of genuine lunacy that sends a chill down the spine. While this is a slow film to say the least – running half an hour longer than the Universal version – I didn’t find this a handicap, as the mannered, old-fashioned feel of the directing and acting made it easy for me to relax and enjoy it at its own pace. The only thing wrong with it is that it doesn’t have proper subtitles, only the closed captions – that’s mere nit-picking though, and this film comes highly recommended for serious horror fans and cinematic history buffs. Well worth seeing.
The next film I made it to was yet another vampire flick in the form of Jake West’s Razor Blade Smile, which I’d never seen before and so didn’t want to miss a chance to discover on the big screen. It’s a love-or-hate classic by anyone’s standards, so I’d better just cut to the chase and admit I hated it. The acting veers between teethgrindingly OTT from Christopher Adamson and wooden enough to make coffins out of from Eileen Daly and that would be bad enough; but I’ve never felt so patronised in my life as I did by Lilith Silver’s narrative voiceover, and any heroine who annoys me so much that I want to challenge her to a catfight even knowing I’d lose has to be a bad thing. If there’s such a genre as vampsploitation, Razor Blade Smile practically defines it, with a ham-fisted plot and a low budget, camerawork configured to maximise your opportunities to stare at the heroine’s ass/breasts/etc, and plenty of sex and plenty of blood neither of which are executed with any real sensuality or style. Even the minor details of this film seem calculated to bug the viewer, like the fact that the wealthy and powerful Illuminati order appear to have bought their talisman rings from the local Pound Shop. It does have its moments, with some genuinely pretty shots and impactful little directorial touches, but I got the distinct impression that most of those were probably down to luck or accident; and while the plot twist at the end was a neat idea and could have been great, it’s destroyed by the abysmal acting. I usually cheer for the vampires in any film that has them, but in this one I was just praying to see them all get staked.
For the evening I decided to treat myself to one of BSIFF’s special attractions, the annual Vampires’ Ball. Billed as a costume masquerade with a strict dress code, the Ball featured live bands, burlesque and dance performances, a house DJ and a touch of dark cabaret in the form of the legendary Rosie Lugosi “The Vampire Queen” (pictured below), recruited to act as compere for the show. I made the right decision, without doubt, as I had a fantastic night and this is one aspect of the festival I’d advise anyone attending to make the most of. Opening band Winter In Eden are cast in the mould of Nightwish and Within Temptation and had made a full effort to get into the spirit of things, wearing masks and glamorous costumes to perform their emotional, symphonic dark metal. Following them was a short performance by members of the legendary Scorpius Dance Theatre, who come to the festival every year to perform their Hallowe’en special show “A Vampire’s Tale” – sadly I missed their main show this year but will definitely catch them next time. Second band (and band of the night, going by audience response) were the charming Method Cell, whose playful, sardonic, dancefloor-friendly electronica seemed to fit the mood of the gathering perfectly. Sadly the same luck didn’t attend Arizona’s Bella Lune, who despite playing a set of genuinely beautiful ethereal gothic-pop had trouble keeping people on the dancefloor; undeservedly, in my opinion, as their performance was excellent. Headliners for the night were cabaret-goth act the Beautiful Deadly Children, renowned for their lush costumes, theatrical performance, and an irreverent take on gothic cliches that spans everything from sudden outbreaks of twenties music hall to an inspired rock’n’roll version of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (what could have been more fitting at a Dracula-inspired film festival, after all?) The night wound down with a round of gothic disco courtesy of DJ Ghost, though by that point only a few diehards were still on the floor – most of them in costume, cutting a spectacle of their own to rival any of the performances onstage. I even spotted Alex Chandon, director of Inbred (which would be screening the next day) wandering around with his smartphone shooting footage of the dancers. Only at the Bram Stoker festival…
Sunday 28 October
Rather than a simple film, the opening event on Sunday was an exclusive lecture/screening/performance by David Annwn, titled Dracula’s Phantasmagoria. Before horror movies existed, audiences scared themselves by attending magic lantern shows that projected slideshow images of Death, demons and monsters onto backdrops wreathed in wavering smoke, and these shows inspired the horror authors of the era including, of course, Bram Stoker. The most renowned and terrifying of them all was the Fantasmagorie, run by one E.G. Robertson in a derelict Capuchin convent in Paris; and Annwn, with the help of an architect friend, has reconstructed this legendary show in the form of a walkthrough film, working from period descriptions and a ground plan of the long-demolished convent. The film in itself is a fascinating achievement, but as well as getting to witness its premiere here we were also treated to an authentic magic lantern show by Annwn, featuring slides inspired by the originals that would have been used in the classic phantasmagoria shows. While to a modern viewer pop-up still images of monsters are hardly all that frightening, watching the images play out in front of us accompanied by Annwn’s soft-voiced narration was a strangely enthralling experience nonetheless – with a little imagination, it was easy to conceive of the effect shows like this must have had on an audience who had little to no experience or understanding of projection images. A brilliant little piece of niche horror history, highly recommended if you get the chance to see it performed.
I admit that I skipped Inbred as other members of Brutal As Hell’s team have already voiced their opinions on it elsewhere (Steph and Ben hated it, but Keri liked it); but when I got back for the following screening, I discovered that Alex Chandon’s director’s Q&A had not only overrun but dissolved into what sounded from outside like gleeful anarchy, with a banjo-accompanied mass performance of the Ee By Gum song in progress onstage. When the show finally ended I saw among other things a man leaving with a live ferret in a crate. I’m not sure whether to be glad or sorry I missed that one, all things considered.
Some semblance of order was restored with the following film, Kevin McTurk’s animated short The Narrative of Victor Karloch. A Victorian-style story of horror and adventure reminiscent of a Jules Verne yarn, this beautiful little piece uses rod puppets and classic animation techniques to tell its tale of a young adventurer-scientist’s descent into the ocean deeps in an experimental bathysphere, and of the supernatural terrors he finds waiting for him below. It sounds like something a modern, sophisticated audience would sneer at but this is an amazingly atmospheric and effective piece, and also managed to be the only film all festival that properly got me with a simple jump-scare. This is apparently supposed to be the first of a series – I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more.
The final new film I caught this year was Death, the work of first-time feature director Martin Gooch – a man who to judge by his comments in his following Q&A session made this film on effectively nothing but love and luck, with a seat-of-the-pants directorial approach that can only be admired for its effectiveness. When an eccentric inventor dies in an accident at his huge, rambling home, his four children – two sons and two daughters – must reunite for the first time in years to deal with their father’s legacy and the tragedy of a brother’s death that hangs over their heads. I wasn’t sure what to expect of this film but I was absolutely charmed in the end by its blend of magical realism, humour, and simple but effective cinematography. Effectively a ghost story although with little to no actual horror element, the plot feels like it could have been drawn from a children’s fantasy novel of the seventies or eighties but the use of adult characters allows for a very different slant on the intrinisically idealistic and magical storyline, making for one of those rare movies that’s intelligent and cynical enough not to cloy while still appealing to the inner child in all of us. One of the secrets of its success that particularly intrigued me was that, as Gooch explained afterwards, the dialogue for the film was created by asking the actors to get into character and then improvise the scenes from an outline; the lines they came up with were simply recorded and polished up to create the script, giving each character a very distinct voice and personality. The organic, realistic feel that results is impressive and a large part of the movie’s charm. I won’t say more as this is a film that really doesn’t lend itself well to spoilers, but given that it not only earned the Audience Choice award of the festival but brought Gooch the Best Director award to boot, it comes highly recommended to all those who can appreciate a change of pace from gore.
The awards ceremony followed Death, in fact, and was short and simple, with its feature attraction being the presence of a direct descendant of Bram Stoker who had flown in from Ireland to act as special guest presenter at the ceremony. The full awards list:
Best Screenplay – Before Dawn
Best SFX – Inbred
Best Short – Baby Sitting
Best Director – Martin Gooch (Death)
Best Film – I Am A Ghost
Audience Choice – Death
The final film of the festival was a celebratory midnight screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. An obvious but fitting choice, of course, and a film that should never be missed on the big screen. I hadn’t seen this in years so it was great to watch it again, ridiculous as it is – a feast of gorgeous sets, extravagant costumes, overcharged sexuality, unreliable acting and farcical facial hair, it’s a film you can’t take entirely seriously but can always have fun with. A feelgood sendoff for a thoroughly entertaining festival.
I do feel slightly foolish for having missed all the award-winning films apart from Death, but with the limited time I had available there aren’t many viewing choices I regret making and I will definitely be back in 2013. A great event with a fantastic atmosphere and some truly excellent film choices; literally all this festival needs to sort out is its technical problems with the projection and it’ll be perfect. See you there next year!