By Stephanie Scaife
It’s that time of the year again: FrightFest is back and it is bigger than ever, screening a massive line-up of 51 films across 3 screens at London’s iconic Empire Leicester Square cinema.
After sadly managing to miss the world première of The Dead 2: India, FrightFest 2013 began for me with everyone’s favourite killer doll in Curse of Chucky. Now, I’m honestly not a fan of the Child’s Play films, with the exception of Bride of Chucky, which let’s face it is awesome, and despite the appearance of my absolute favourite person in the world (John Waters) in Seed of Chucky it is a series that I’ve never been particularly excited by or interested in. Having said that, Curse of Chucky provided some pretty decent, silly entertainment and proved a popular choice with the audience who laughed and cheered throughout. Written and directed by the series creator Don Mancini, Curse of Chucky tonally has far more in common with the early instalments and plays it fairly straight throughout. We are introduced to Sarah (Chantal Quesnelle) and her paraplegic daughter Nica (Fiona Douriff) who unexpectedly receive a Chucky doll in the mail. After the mysterious death of Sarah, Nica’s sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) shows up with her family to help settle affairs, which in actual fact means putting her sister in a care home and selling the family home. However, once Barb’s daughter takes a liking to the Chucky doll and the pair become inseparable, all hell breaks loose. I think that although there’s nothing particularly new going on here and it is a straight-to-video release there is still fun to be had, even if it lacks any genuine scares. Brad Douriff returns yet again to voice the little red-haired fella, giving it his all with some cracking one liners, and his daughter Fiona gives us a great heroine in the form of Nica. If you’re a fan of the franchise then you’ll definitely not be disappointed in this sixth instalment of the series (and make sure you stick around for a decent post credits sting), but for me it mostly just made me want to go home and watch Bride of Chucky again.
The opening evening came to a close with Adam Wingard’s You’re Next, which seems to have been around forever. Although it’s actually very good, its release now seems to be due to the recent and massive success of The Purge, with which it shares some similarities. This however isn’t exactly your typical home invasion thriller and I really enjoyed its mix of dark humour and grisly violence. There are some great twists (that I honestly didn’t see coming) and some truly inventive death scenes. After A Horrible Way to Die and now this Wingard is proving himself to be someone to watch in the world of horror. You can read Dustin’s review here.
Saturday started with The Dyatlov Pass Incident, which I had already seen and disliked so wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. You can read my review here. This was followed by the world première of Kit Ryan’s Dementamania, a British psycho-thriller that very much wanted to be Jacob’s Ladder but came across as a rather over-ambitious and jumbled mess. It centres around Edward (Sam Robertson) a bored office worker with emotional problems who one day gets stung by an unusual looking wasp that causes him to slowly unravel, physically and mentally. There are some laughs to be had as Ed imagines in violent bloody detail what he’d like to do to his annoying co-workers, as well as some great effects work and surreal imagery, but ultimately it’s all over the place and I would be pretty surprised if this is the final edit of the film before it secures any sort of release. Neither did the use of women (phwoar… lesbians!) and a little person (aren’t they just hilarious!) sit entirely comfortably with me. It’s a shame because regardless of my issues with the film, it was nice to see a British genre film attempt to do something so different and out there.
Vincenzo Natali’s Haunter proved to be an interesting little ghost story in the vein of Groundhog Day, when a teenage ghost is forced to live the last day of her life over and over. Abigail Breslin is fantastic as 15-year old Lisa and it’s great to see a young female character with smarts and moxy (not to mention great taste in music). There are also some lovely period touches and a few atmospheric moments, but ultimately it lost its way and provided an unsatisfactory happy ending that left me with more questions than the film answered. It’s a novel twist on the haunted house narrative to have the ghosts in the forefront, and the living providing the mystery and some of the scares, but ultimately it proved to be an altogether average and forgettable picture.
Next up was V/H/S/2 which I have to admit I wasn’t looking forward to at all. The love for the first film has always been a mystery to me as I don’t particularly enjoy portmanteau or found-footage films, so a combination of the two proved to be my kryptonite. The second outing is very much like the first; this time we’re given a couple of PIs who, whilst searching for a missing teenager come across a dodgy pile of videotapes. The first offering comes in the form of Adam Wingard’s (A Horrible Way to Die, You’re Next) disappointing Phase I Clinical Trials, where a man with a robotic eye starts to see dead people. The second segment from Edúardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale (The Blair Witch Project) is a fairly uninspiring and one-note zombie tale entitled A Ride in the Park. Thankfully, Gareth Evans (The Raid) and Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre) come along to save the day with Safe Haven, the longest and best segment of the film. To say too much would be to spoil the fun but you literally will not believe your eyes when you see what these guys have come up with. It’s absolutely mind-boggling and completely off the wall, well worth sitting through the rest of the film for. The Safe Haven of the title refers to a religious commune dogged by rumours of child abuse. The commune is led by a charismatic leader known only as Father, and a documentary film crew have seemingly just talked their way into the inner sanctum hitherto unseen by the uninitiated. Just moments after entering the commune all is not as it seems and when the shit hits the fan, it does not let up. Just when you think it can’t possibly get any weirder, you’re quickly proven wrong. This is jaw-dropping stuff and Gareth Evans is proving himself to be quite a filmmaker, something confirmed after the film when we were treated to a world exclusive sneak peak from The Raid 2 (and it looks fucking insane). The last segment of V/H/S/2 by Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun) entitled Slumber Party Alien Abduction is as noisy and insane as the title may suggest, but also as annoying. It was frankly the worst sort of found-footage; endless screaming, shaky camera, loud noises and not to mention incoherent once the action kicked in. I was in need of a cup of tea, some painkillers and a nice quiet sit down afterwards.
Lastly we had 100 Bloody Acres, a wonderfully dark and funny Australian take on psychobilly horror by sibling writer-directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes. It’s starts off fairly predictably as we meet Sophie (Anna McGahan) a sassy city girl who is on the road to a music festival with her straight-laced boyfriend James (Oliver Ackland) and their cocky Cockney friend Wes (Jamie Kristian). All fairly standard personalities when it comes to the genre, so it comes as no surprise when Reg, a creepy local businessman that produces fertilizer, picks them up after their car breaks down. You may feel like you’d trudging into familiar territory here, but the first indication of something different comes in the immediate bond that develops between Reg and Sophie, bizarrely over their shared love of country music. What 100 Bloody Acres does is take an overly-familiar genre and cleverly manages to both work within its confines whilst creating something entirely original, all the while carefully balancing the fine line of comedy horror, providing both in droves. Reg’s psychotic brother Lindsay (Angus Sampson) is perhaps the only weak link, one-note character present here. Overall though, 100 Bloody Acres is another addition to the impressive output of recent Aussie horror (The Loved Ones, Wolf Creek, The Horseman etc) and it is one of those films that is the reason horror fans are so resolute and defiant despite an ongoing and continuous output of rubbish – this film is an unexpected surprise, smart, funny, original and it absolutely doesn’t skimp on the gore!
Editor’s note: read the second part of Steph’s FrightFest 2013 report here.