In the year 2050, the world is in the grip of economic disaster. In South Africa, the city of Cape Town is hardly an exception to the rule, experiencing ninety percent unemployment and daily unrest as the homeless try to survive in a society where it’s just them and the super-rich. Displaced from a middle class which no longer exists, Alex (Donna Cormack-Thomson) is taken in by the friendly Ronald (Sean Cameron Michael) and his bunch of amiable street-dwelling misfits whose aim is to have as quiet a life as possible – until, that is, they uncover a plot by the establishment to exterminate those deemed undesirable with a toxic chemical agent…
I clearly remember renting the original Street Trash on VHS and being stunned at how it was lifted from the morass of most direct-to-tape offerings by being so bizarre and wilfully offensive, to the point of having me crack up laughing on several occasions and subsequently love it to bits. I’m aware it’s a movie that a lot of people don’t like and, if you’ve seen the Jim Muro source material and are on that particular, rather crowded boat, I understand your annoyance.
In the list of movies ripe for a remake, reboot, reimagining, call it what you will, I would not have expected Street Trash to be given that treatment, but here we are. We live in interesting times. When I heard Ryan Kruger was going to be in charge of the new version, it seemed the perfect choice as his previous movie, the frankly bonkers Fried Barry, possessed a great deal of the scuzz and the seemingly random, episodic happenings of Muro’s 1987 opus.
Muro (credited here as J. Michael Muro) and original writer Roy Frumkes are on board as executive producers and there’s still a feel of the ’87 version in the way our jolly band of homeless folks are introduced, although there’s a sharper focus on the main plot and fewer, button-pushing diversions. This time out, you don’t get a vignette in which someone’s severed penis becomes an extended game of piggy in the middle, but there is a nod to that in an early chase sequence in which a powdered variant of Viagra is used to slow down a pursuing police officer.
The contaminated hooch of Frumkes’ story is replaced by a much more sinister agenda, as those flagged as surplus to requirements are experimented upon via injection and aerosol. If you’ve come for the melting, there’s someone leaking neon goo and losing bits of themselves even before the opening title card shows up. From there, we’re spun through a series of RoboCop-style news articles detailing the terrible state of affairs – including the confirmed death of the last rhino on the planet – before homing in on Ronald and his unlikely band of heroes.
No previous knowledge of the origin tale is necessary to enjoy the 2024 incarnation of Street Trash, but for those of us who have seen both, comparisons are inevitable. The OG Frumkes screenplay sets out to assault the viewer’s sensibilities as much as possible and succeeds a fair amount of the time. This redo, co-scripted by Kruger and James C. Williamson, still features a number of awful things happening, but the ludicrous nature of it all is given more emphasis, which goes a long way to taking the edge of the potential offence. That’s not to say that innocent folks being made to dissolve into puddles of goo doesn’t have the necessary punch, but there’s a certain cartoony element to the proceedings and a clear delineation between the good and bad guys which gives the whole thing the air of a very gory pantomime. Oh no, it isn’t, I hear you cry. Oh yes, it is and you’re waiting for the boo-inducing villains to get their comeuppance.
Very much like Muro’s messy mini-maybe-masterpiece, mileage will vary, although in this update it isn’t the level of offence you can stomach, it’s how much of the often puerile humour, often centred on bodily fluids or sex, you can take. If you like the idea of a foul-mouthed, sex and violence obsessed alien called Sockle which only Gary Green’s character of 2-Bit can see, then you’ll most likely enjoy the rest of what Street Trash has to offer. Yes, Gary Green was the titular subject of Fried Barry and is a welcome presence here, giving a welcome, off-kilter turn which you suspect is going to shift in an amusingly different direction come the third act (it does).
For a movie with Trash in the title, the performances aren’t rubbish (See what I did there? Sorry). Sean Cameron Michael is a genial presence as the philosophical Ronald, Cormack-Thomson gives good wronged, out for revenge lass and Joe Vaz rides the lovable/annoying line for all he’s worth as the talky Chef. In terms of the real criminals of the piece, Warrick Grier as the conniving Mayor Mostert and Andrew Roux as the thuggish Officer Maggot are fine, but aren’t given much to do other than being the punchline to a couple of major confrontations.
And this is where Street Trash, unfortunately, does fall down somewhat. The heroes are, for the most part, fun and engaging to follow, but their enemies lack the detail to be genuinely worthy adversaries. There is a point to be made that, come the revolution, the folks in power will prove themselves to be genuinely useless in defending themselves, but a last stanza overthrow of the regime never seems remotely in doubt and perhaps I wanted a little more jeopardy in getting there. Still, it would be churlish to throw the entire film under the bus because of that and seeing the usual “eat the rich” manifesto turned into “melt the rich” is satisfying, if only to see yet more gloopy effects.
So, how does 2024 Street Trash stack up against 1987 Street Trash? I may not be the right person to answer that question, as I’ve seen the 1987 vintage more times than is probably safe for one human being to see it and I should give this young whippersnapper the same level of consideration over a longer period of time. What I can say is that Ryan Kruger has brought his own stamp to the material while maintaining a level of reverence for the audience-baiter upon which it’s based, softening some of the spikier edges to make it more palatable while still delivering on the spilled guts and liquefying limbs.
Street Trash will be available on limited edition Blu-ray from 17th February. Pre order on HMV & Amazon here.
Another year, another bunch of comments about how this year’s been a terrible one for decent horror titles. To be fair, the quantity of those comments appears to be substantially smaller than the pile of posts which bemoaned 2023’s genre output. Narrowing the field down to ten proved, as ever, exceptionally difficult because there’s been so much damn good stuff to enjoy. This is also the reason that there are six Honourable Mentions instead of the usual five, because I felt it would be too mean to drop one of them.
As is customary, the rule is that to qualify for inclusion the film has to be a new (or new-ish) one which I viewed during 2024. As usual, if your favourite isn’t among the list, it might not have landed with me, but it’s more likely that I enjoyed it very much and it didn’t quite make the cut or I wasn’t able to get around to seeing it. There are thousands of movies out there and a finite amount of time to watch them. It’s a rubbish excuse, I know, but it’s my rubbish excuse and I’m sticking with it.
Enough waffle. Here’s my Top Ten, in purely alphabetical order…except for the fact that I’m going to mention which two were competing for my best of the year. On with the list!
BLINK TWICE
Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut features Naomi Ackie as Jess, who accepts an invitation to the private island of Channing Tatum’s tech bro Slater King, a place where the luxury holiday experience seems too good to be true, with the weird visions that begin to creep into her mind suggesting that could be exactly the case.
Kravitz gives toxic masculinity a considered kicking in a tale which carefully constructs the rarified atmosphere of a billionaire’s world in which something is clearly up from the start, unveiling the clues and shocks at a measured pace before hitting the viewer with the stark terror of what’s behind the exotic locale, the unlimited champagne and the Michelin-starred meal options.
Blink Twice is a stylish, satirical thriller which combines the #MeToo movement and the re-energised “eat the rich” notion into a slick package, amping up the tension and sardonic humour as we wait to see whether or not a bunch of the most hideous blokes alive will get their comeuppance. It’s a feminist movie, no doubt, and all the better for taking that stance, but there’s genuine catharsis here for everyone and the resolution is a sly, pleasing one.
BROKEN BIRD
Vying for my favourite film of the year along with The Substance (damn it, I’ve given away one of my picks), Joanne Mitchell’s mix of vivid fantasy and crushing reality sees mortician Sybil meeting the man of her dreams and then being given the most gruesome opportunity to spend a lot more time with him. I heard this described as “Coraline meets Nekromantik” and that’s a fair shout, although Broken Bird is better than both, if you ask me.
The screenplay from Dominic Brunt, rich with detail, sharply contrasts the mundanity and low key hilarity of life in a small place with brilliantly rendered dream sequences. There’s also some surprising gore along the way and a few genuinely startling moments as Sybil’s view of the world becomes increasingly skewed, leading to a fiery and heartbreaking climax.
Elevating the material still further is as astonishing lead performance from Rebecca Calder, her fragile outward appearance concealing a steeliness and fierce imagination. Sybil is driven to do some dreadful things, but it’s difficult not to have some sympathy with her plight, even when an equally damaged detective is on Sybil’s trail and tragedy surely lies just around the corner. Despite the often ghastly business in play, Broken Bird is a rather beautiful and ultimately tear-jerking foray into the workings of a unique mind.
CANNIBAL MUKBANG
My first opportunity to see this was in December 2023 at the Soho Horror Film Festival, but that didn’t pan out and I ended up viewing it this year, so last year’s loss is very much this year’s gain. April Consalo plays Ash, whose hungry online audience is frequently sated by videos of her consuming vast quantities of admittedly delicious looking food. A chance meeting with the socially awkward Mark slowly develops into something more serious, but their fledgling romance is about to be tested severely, especially when Mark discovers the source of those tender morsels.
Blood. Sex. Food. That’s the tagline of Cannibal Mukbang and there’s no skimping on any of those in Aimee Kuge’s tangy blend of romcom and raucous revenger, twisting the tropes of those genres in unexpected and darkly comical ways, including the turning of the developing relationship montage into a series of gleefully executed murders.
The whole production oozes confidence and class. Kuge’s smart script has much to say about toxic relationships and the cycle of dependency. The cinematography and lighting cannily matches the shifting mood of the piece. The performances are terrific across the board, in particular the complex character of Ash, perfectly portrayed by April Consalo. How she isn’t already a massive star is something I can’t fathom. If enough of us watch this, maybe we can make it happen.
HELL HOLE
The Adams Family returns with a pleasingly twisted take on the monster movie, as a fracking operation in Serbia releases something far more deadly than a gas pocket, throwing the project into an escalating nightmare which mixes mumblecore workplace comedy with The Thing. You probably don’t want to know how the monster gains access to its victims, but that’s made abundantly clear quite early on.
This is slightly less of a family affair this time out, with Zelda Adams absent and Lulu Adams on co-writing duties only, but John Adams and Toby Poser are present and amusingly incorrect here, working with a Serbian crew on their latest opus. This reflects the onscreen action in a lovely way, with all of the culture clashes and language barriers which that type of enterprise produces.
Sure, it’s a creature pic which is a huge amount of fun and it can be enjoyed purely on those terms, but lurking just under the surface there are big themes, including bodily autonomy, the ethics of profiteering from an increasingly unstable planet and American involvement on foreign shores. There’s much to chew on while being grossed out by the impressive gloopy and bloody special effects and, for anyone who thought Where The Devil Roams was a little too downbeat and brutal, this finds the Adamses in more playful mood. It’s grisly, hilarious and unsettling, often at the same time.
HERETIC
I did not have “Hugh Grant – Horror Icon” on my bingo card for 2024 but here we are. Festival goers and indie fans feasted this year, but denizens of the multiplex were provided with choice cuts too, Heretic being one of the prime examples of its type. Two young missionaries show up at the front door of Grant’s Mr. Reed and find themselves in a battle of wills as Reed brings a studied, increasingly worrying shakedown to their entire system of belief.
Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, they of A Quiet Place (and, yes, 65, but let’s not think about that right now), this is a similarly high concept piece which may be rather talky in its first half but oh, the talk is good, raising pertinent queries about the fundamentals of religion and the wider topic of control, while taking care to portray those with faith as rounded, engaging, sympathetic folks. Its approach of questioning everything never feels like an atheist-driven hit job and there’s a central mystery to the strange goings-on which is adeptly unravelled down the home stretch.
Grant is excellent and clearly relishing a well written, multi-layered role which constantly keeps the viewer on their toes as to just how far he will go to prove his points. Swerving, for the most part, the albeit skilfully crafted jump scares of AQP in favour of an overriding air of unease throughout, Heretic proves that you don’t need to dumb down to win over your audience. Also, Hallelujah! for an ending which doesn’t have a sequel on its mind.
THE LAST PODCAST
Charlie Bailey (Eric Tabach) hosts a podcast which debunks supposedly supernatural occurrences, but when one episode backfires spectacularly he finds himself being followed around by the ghost of junior professor Duncan Slayback (Gabriel Rush). Charlie sees a chance for both personal and follower growth, but his focus on clicks and monetisation threatens to derail both his relationship with long-suffering girlfriend Bree and Duncan’s side mission to complete some unfinished business.
Writer/director Dean Alioto’s inspiration was the buddy humour of An American Werewolf In London and the back and forth between Tabach and Rush does contain traces of that, but The Last Podcast is very much its own beast, balancing the humour and horror with a great deal of skill and revealing layers to our two protagonists that we may not like while keeping the chuckles and chills coming in regular fashion.
Combining classic ghostly activity with pointed jibes about the contemporary influencer’s issue of growing your follower base, The Last Podcast delivers a number of genuine jolts on its way to a satisfying rug pull and a surprisingly poignant conclusion before rolling out a mid-credit tease as to which direction this particular universe could be heading next. I don’t say this often but hey, bring on the sequel.
THE PARAGON
When tennis player Dutch is the victim of a hit and run accident, his life is changed forever. Unable to continue his athletic pursuits, Dutch turns his attention to finding the driver who left him with a smashed leg and a growing sense of injustice. How does he go about this? He follows up on a newspaper advert which suggests it’s possible to learn how to be psychic, which leads him to no nonsense teacher Lyra and the beginning of a bizarre adventure Dutch never expected.
The Paragon grounds its plot in well-worn horror motifs, but this genre offering from New Zealand leans into the inherent daftness of the premise and plays most of the proceedings for laughs, be they smart, silly or just plain puerile. The humour hits the mark over and over, which makes the shifts into more emotional territory land all the better and the double act between Benedict Wall and Florence Noble, who play Dutch and Lyra, is a delight. Noble’s deadpan reactions to Wall’s unflinching idiocy are particularly fine.
New Zealand continues to provide fertile ground for comedy horror and while The Paragon doesn’t delve into the dark stuff nearly as much as, say, Housebound, the set pieces and cult subplot mean it doesn’t stray from the genre entirely. I think that people who would normally run a mile before watching anything in the genre would love this and as such, it’s the perfect gateway into horror while also providing something warm and fuzzy for the fans. Also, knife tennis!
PATER NOSTER AND THE MISSION OF LIGHT
Starting out as a cross between Clerks and High Fidelity before taking off on an excursion to weird, bloody, cult madness, writer/director Christopher Bickel takes the grindhouse-flecked promise (and some of the cast) of his previous flick Bad Girls and delivers a psychedelic nightmare in which a group of vinyl-loving friends track down a reclusive band of musicians and soon wish they hadn’t.
Made for the price of a second hand car, Pater Noster And The Mission Of Light belies its microbudget, maximising its resources with evocative, readily available settings, a committed cast and some impressive gore. It has the slasher sensibility of picking off its characters one by one in a wilderness from which there appears to be no escape, but elevates itself way above the usual set ‘em up, kill ‘em off fare with trippy visuals and a lively examination of both music fandom and collector culture.
As a music lover myself, I was overjoyed that the soundtrack for this is an absolute cracker. There are tracks from the titular band themselves, creating its own strange feedback loop, blurring the lines between the fiction of the movie and the fact of creating and being able to listen to the songs in the here and now. The tune which plays over the closing credits is an earworm; you have been warned. Bickel’s output just gets better and better without ditching his punk rock ethos. This is lo-fi indie cinema at its finest.
STRANGE DARLING
Splitting a movie’s story into chapters is an affectation of which I’ve had more than enough. Non-linear narratives also possess the potential to wind me up, because they’re often a misguided means of giving a straightforward tale an appearance of depth. Strange Darling is split into chapters. Not only that, but it also opens with Chapter Three. I did not storm out of the cinema. Not only I did I hang around for its entire runtime, but I also loved it more than even I could have hoped for.
For much of the time this is a two-hander, but there’s no treading water for an hour before the real action kicks in as we’re launched immediately into a lethal game of cat and mouse, carried off with surefootedness by the always reliable Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald, both given tricksy roles as the boundaries between hunter and hunted blur. Gallner’s brand of onscreen persona and knowledge of his previous filmography play into the watcher’s expectations as to how his character may or may not behave whilst Fitzgerald almost nonchalantly drops a career best, boundary pushing performance.
That’s all I really want to say about this one. In general, the less you know about a film before going in, the better the experience will be and in the case of Strange Darling, I would recommend that you talk to no one about it, as they’ll be too eager to blurt out spoilers. Don’t even watch the trailer. Sit back, enjoy, and think about how it went all those places you didn’t predict.
THE SUBSTANCE
Seven years after Coralie Fargeat’s ferocious feature debut Revenge, her follow-up often makes that previous movie look positively restrained by comparison. Demi Moore’s fitness show star Elisabeth Sparkle hits fifty and is given the news that the network is looking for a new model. Shady medical advances afford her the opportunity to turn back the clock and exact some measure of revenge on Dennis Quaid’s oily TV exec, but there are rules to follow and increasingly drastic consequences every time those rules are broken. Which, of course, they are.
Vying for my favourite film of the year along with Broken Bird (which isn’t a giveaway unless you’re reading this from bottom to top), this showcases a turn from Demi Moore which proves what I’ve been saying for years about her acting work always being great, regardless of the quality of the movie she’s in. Here, at last, she’s in a shameless, splattery, sledgehammer satire which is perfectly suited to her talents and would have almost certainly given her more award nods, had this not been one of those dirty genre items that soil “proper” cinema.
I’ve seen comments that the film is too long. Yes, it does clock in a whopping one hundred and forty minutes, which would exceed the unwritten rule concerning the ideal horror film length by at least fifty, but this a story which needs to breathe so the viewer can fully immerse themselves in the neon-soaked nightmare and, of course, to appreciate Moore’s stellar work. Contrasting the glitz and glamour of Hollywood with some of the grimiest, gorge-rising body horror in recent memory, it’s a startling riposte to the unrealistic standards of beauty that women have had to endure for an age. You won’t know whether to laugh heartily or lean over to throw up. And that, my friends, is a recommendation and then some.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Here are six further titles which are well worth your time. I know that I only listed five in my 2023 list, but I don’t make the rules. Hold on, I do make the rules. I agonised over which one of the following to remove and didn’t have the heart to do it, so six it is. More filmic goodness for you to check out.
BA
Finding himself into a parlous financial state, single father Daniel makes a deal in which he is given the monetary security he craves, but has to act as a modern day Grim Reaper, assigned to take the lifeforce of the people he’s assigned within a set time limit, all while avoiding the attentions of the city’s law enforcement and a local social worker who’s concerned about the well-being of Daniel’s daughter Collette.
Writer/director Benjamin Wong builds his world – and path to another world – with an eye for the crucial details that makes collecting souls a rational, if rather shady, career for those pushed to the fringes of society. It’s great to see Michael Paul Chan and Brian Thompson lending their considerable talents to important supporting roles, but it’s the convincing, emotional rollercoaster of the father-daughter bond between Lawrence Kao and Kai Cech that seals the deal here. Get ready to pretend you have something in your eye.
THE BUILDOUT
Friends Cameron and Dylan take a motorcycle trip out into the desert where Dylan plans to join up with a religious group which has restored her faith in existence after suffering traumatic, personal loss. This has been described by writer/producer/director Zeshaan Younus as “a pseudo-found footage, Terrence Malick-inspired, cross-genre film.” If you’re going to mention Malick then you’d better bring your A-game and Younus does not disappoint.
Jenna Kanell and Hannah Aline are never anything less than believable as lifelong friends whose relationship is tested to the limit by the ghosts of the past and the weirdness of the present. The horror is oblique and unnerving, the settings are staggeringly gorgeous and, if you’re in the mood for something which steadfast refuses to explain every single incident, this is a movie which will stay with you. Pause the proceedings to admire the visuals and press play to marvel at Kanell, who continues to be a fascinating performer.
FREWAKA
Making its proper bow in 2025, I was lucky enough to catch this when it screened at the Celluloid Screams Festival in Sheffield, where it lifted the Audience Award for Best Feature. Who am I to disagree with the Celluloid audience? The title of Aislinn Clarke’s thoroughly unsettling folk horror refers to hidden, tangled roots and Clare Monnelly’s care nurse Shoo is about to know that word’s true meaning, as she’s sent out to rural Ireland to take care of the combative Peig (Bríd Ní Neachtain). Peig is convinced that ghosts are out to get her and after a short while at her crumbling abode, Shoo comes to fear that her patient might well be correct.
An Taibhse blazed the trail for Irish language horror this year and Frewaka picked up the baton of spooky happenings in the countryside. Although Clarke’s movie is set in the modern day, there’s an unhealthy dose of the past coming back to haunt the present and some DNA is shared with her debut The Devil’s Doorway, which is also well worth your time. The sound design is flawless and, combined with a disquieting Die Hexen score, has the viewer on edge even when the camera isn’t prowling around the darkest recesses of Peig’s place. Frewaka may cause you to keep checking behind you while you’re watching it.
GANYMEDE
A high school wresting star grapples with his sexuality as he finds himself developing a crush on his openly gay classmate. His family fear it will ruin their reputation as pillars of the community, calling upon the services of a local pastor who suspects that his subject has been possessed by an evil creature which must be exorcised.
Colby Holt and Sam Probst’s film is one designed to make you angry and I’ll admit that I spent a good deal of it wanting to shout at the screen. Small town bigotry is uncomfortably realised in Holt’s keenly observed script, which plays down any sensationalism and paints an all too realistic portrait of a place in which reputation is everything and any transgressions must be squashed, otherwise Hell awaits. David Koechner (yes, Champ Kind from Anchorman) proves that he can make you scared just as much as he can make you laugh, his fire and brimstone preacher bringing a marrow-freezingly, dangerous real edge to the already fraught situation.
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
Arguments over AI generated content aside, no algorithm can generate the uneasy atmosphere and queasy suspense of Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ chiller, with a noteworthy performance from David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy, a TV talk show host with an idea to boost ratings with a special, occult-themed episode. Everyone’s interested in the supernatural, right? This results, inevitably, in matters going horribly awry.
The aesthetic of 1970s US talk show television is superbly recreated and playing out the plot in real time in front of both the studio and home (or cinema) audience throws a neat spin on to the found footage subgenre, as well as freshening up the possessed girl trope. The switches from set to backstage during each ad break are a nice touch, also allowing the drip feeding of Delroy’s backstory to inform each act as the suspense builds, leading to an outrageous pay off. Dastmalchian commands the attention as the epitome of calm on camera, increasingly twitchy and unsure away from its glare.
THE WELL
What this list needs is a riotous, gory, Italian horror which is clearly influenced by the straight to vid splat-fests of the 1980s and whaddya know, The Well fits that bill perfectly. Lauren LaVera sheds her Terrifier trappings to play a restorer of damaged art, called upon to work her magic on a particular painting with a peculiar past.
With flexible logic, a certain level of incoherence, bursts of extreme violence and actors who don’t so much chew the scenery as bite bloody great chunks out of it, this is nectar to those of us weaned on those wonkily dubbed “What the hell did I just watch?” VHS rentals, the icing on this blood red velvet cake being a cameo from the late, great, genre stalwart Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Free from the BBFC cuts which would have been imposed, had this been released in the era from which it clearly takes its inspiration, gorehounds will lap this up. The casual observer may find it silly, overblown and downright repellent, but if you know, you know.
Emma (Corrinne Mica) stands to inherit the estate of her aunt Milda (Jane Hammill) if she agrees to abide by a specific and somewhat odd set of stipulations. Faced with financial problems, Emma sees this as a serendipitous – if tragic – way of getting both her and boyfriend Gabriel (Guillermo Blanco) out of their current situation. However, the rules and regs of the agreement seem to focus on keeping Gabriel out of the picture at much as possible and he is not happy about that at all, especially when all and sundry are behaving in strange ways, including Emma…
Writer/director Nicholas Bain’s bio mentions that he’s a student of film history, that he incorporates styles of the past and emphasises the structure of story. All of these points play into the overall feel of Voice Of Shadows, which is distinctly old fashioned when it comes to both its tone and its key props. It favours atmospheric chills over noisy jump scares, although it allows itself one or two trips into the latter. The lingering, carefully constructed, well-lit shots of the interiors serves up a pleasant contrast to the rat-a-tat editing of many a contemporary genre piece and there are several occasions where the drift around the rooms holds just long enough to make the viewer wonder if there’s something lurking in the shadows or on the other side of a door frame.
As a feature debut, there’s a confidence in the material that allows it to skate over some of its shakier moments. The performances are generally decent, but there’s a slight tendency for some of the line delivery to be overcooked, which would be fun in a more schlocky context but risks taking the viewer out of the spooky set pieces which are aiming for admirable straightness in the way they’re played.
There’s also a handful of great ideas which unfortunately feel a tad underdeveloped. One of the tasks Emma must undertake in the house is to answer the phone whenever it rings and talk to whoever has called. Initially, this leads to a chilling moment in which Gabriel picks up the phone and is told bluntly to leave the house or everybody will die. There’s mystery to be had in not knowing just who Emma is conversing with but, to disagree with Elvis, a little more conversation and a little less action would have fit the bill nicely for me.
Likewise, the story’s subtexts concerning faith and the role of religion are potentially fascinating, but aren’t given enough time to be explored fully. An opening scene has Gabriel wrestling with his present and his past in a confessional booth, his backstory soon revealing that he has previously carried out an act which may make him a perpetual sinner in the eyes of God. Any conflicts of true faith are left until late in act three and any doubt cast upon Gabriel’s belief never properly materialises, as is the avoidance of an ecumenical ding dong with Michael Paul Levin’s shady Father John.
Voice Of Shadows belies its low-budget indie trappings with a distinctive, striking visual style and a reliance on suggestion rather than splatter. In fact, it’s only when the film feels the need to throw in a dollop of screen mayhem that its footing becomes less sure. The VFX are certainly serviceable, even pleasing in some cases, but the drive to deliver a big bang of a climax shows both the filmmakers’ knowledge of what is saleable in the horror market but also ends up being exactly the kind of thing that can undercut the often thoughtful build of the previous seventy minutes.
As with many debut offerings, there’s a lot going on in terms of plot detail and much of it threatens to get lost in the shuffle. In addition to the aforementioned faith crisis, there’s comment concerning the working classes and the hindrances to social mobility, a performatively weird will executor played by Martin Harris (who looks like he’s enjoying the character’s stilted speech patterns and odd ticks), a strategically placed book on the occult, a cult, the afterlife, a pentagram 101 plus a subplot involving Gabriel’s sister Celeste, which threatens to be by far the most interesting left turn in the whole thing right up to the point it’s sidelined for about three quarters of an hour.
It’s easy to see why Voice Of Shadows ditches the slow burn for a fiery denouement and, in spite of itself, it does work as a closer even if there’s a last minute “Aha, but…” delivered as part of the fade to black, but this is perhaps a case where less would have been more, especially considering the previous approach pacing. Having said that, fans of slow burn horror will appreciate the attention to the setting’s natural eeriness and it’s clear that Bain already knows how to make a film look fab. A slightly sharper focus on the tale itself in subsequent work could result in something special but for now, this is a curious glimpse into raw talent being honed.
“Our younger selves sing on in our hearts. We hear them still.”
Thirty years ago, Luo Tong was a member of a choir which achieved a short-lived period of fame during the 1990s, thanks to their performances on a national stage. Now a filmmaker, Tong reunites with her fellow singers and teachers to reflect on the passing years and the transformation of both Shanghai as a city and the roles of women in Chinese society.
Split into chapters, Shanghai Girls covers such topics as friendships, marriage and the challenges of being both mothers and daughters via chats with various members of the choir in the present day, interspersed with archive footage of concert performances and glimpses of the city as it was three decades ago, building towards a class reunion, an event to which Tong believes no one will bother to show up. Non-spoiler: her choirmates and teachers do show up.
Early in the film, Tong and her 90s “desk mate” Lin Fang take a trip to the site of the Xingzhi Performing Arts School only to find that it had been demolished some years before, but where this would be an excuse for some documentaries to wallow in a longed-for past, Shanghai Girls brushes this off with a cheery air of “life goes on” and embraces the here and now, never drifting into the sentimentality of what might have been. Yes, the beautiful musical numbers will bring a tear to the eye, but they’re used to inform the progress and tenacity of that group of talented pupils.
Lin Fang, for instance, had ambitions to be a professional singer, but her family stressed the importance of having a job they viewed as more stable. She didn’t end up pursuing those dreams, but she shows few regrets and has continued to be involved in musical projects. The back and forth between Luo Tong and Lin Fang is sweet and funny and could have easily been the focal point for the entire hour and a half, but there are many other old friends with which to catch up.
By the time we reach the section “What Marriage Is,” the recollection turn more serious, with stories of divorce and abusive husbands, but the material is handled with a light touch and is balanced with the ultimate successes of those women. Zhang Li spent ten years as a housewife, doing “nothing” by her own admission, but now runs her own business and plans to retire when she’s fifty years old. Lou Bin, free of her aggressive ex, moved back to the city to start again and found her soulmate. Luo Tong herself is a single mother, but there’s no bitterness or using the platform of film to vent. The feeling is one of positivity and the drive to make something of your life.
If this sounds like men are generally portrayed as the enemy, that’s nothing of the sort, with familial and cultural expectations as much to blame for creating obstacles in the lives of independent women, an example highlighted in Ban Ban’s retelling of being “stuck in a bubble” of a marriage going nowhere, but then being urged to take back her estranged husband when he didn’t embrace the single life as fully as she did. The so-called “leftover women,” as they have been dubbed in Chinese society, are now making a name for themselves with no men figuring in their plans for a fulfilling life.
There are still many barriers to break down, but there’s a band of quietly formidable subjects in Shanghai Girls which leave the viewer in no doubt that they’re more than up to the task. Actually, there’s one – there’s always one – who is the very opposite of quiet and in this case it’s the memorably hilarious Wu Qiong, who married her “wrong” date, runs a restaurant and likes a drink or three. After a run of demure, thoughtful, introspective interviewees she crashes the proceedings in fine style and provides welcome, irreverent counterpoints without derailing the whole thing.
This is, for the most part, as gentle and graceful a call to smash the patriarchy you’re likely to see but it’s a call, nonetheless, couched in a great big hug of a film about the enduring nature of friendships and the willingness to strike out in directions which were not considered acceptable just a few decades previously. The sentence “Do what you want you want and love however you like” is said at one point, which sums up the mantra of Shanghai Girls perfectly. You’d have to be a curmudgeon of some note to watch this and to disagree with that.
Free spirit Nina (Inès Anane) has lost custody of her daughter as a result of a court hearing centred around her unconventional lifestyle. Given her daughter back for just a weekend, Nina’s aim is to take her to see the sea, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t really have the requisite amount of money to travel or a car to get there…
The title of Sara Olaciregui’s comedy/drama short translates to “What Woman Wants, God Wants” and is an expression used to illustrate how women will, somehow or other, ultimately have their way. Nina, despite the obstacles she faces, proves this maxim to be correct, mainly as a result of her sheer obstinacy.
The opening moments instantly provide the viewer with questions as to its central character, first seen dancing the night away in a nightclub and then, not stopping to change, racing through a town centre to a hearing about access to her daughter. Adding her naturally spiky persona to the mix doesn’t paint the picture of the most sympathetic of characters. She snaps. She swears. She steals. But the obvious love for her daughter shines through as they head off on a mini adventure, encountering other females who rail against the world and try to find their place in different ways.
Ce Que Femme Veut Dieu Veut is a curious one, introducing a larger number of characters than you’d expect over a half hour runtime, presenting them with enough detail to make them stand out but not overloading the tale with backstory. The men of the piece, when they’re featured, are mostly confrontational types, either doling out unnecessary advice to Nina or being the anecdotal subject of a court case which generates the cash for a final sequence sojourn but the overall approach is that few of the folks here – male or female – are exactly angels, and the viewer’s inbuilt expectations and prejudices will feed into how they see Nina and each of the people she meets.
A road movie which spends extraordinarily little time on the road, a character study which then veers away from its initial subject to focus on other characters, there’s much here to both intrigue and confound, with the usual hitches to Nina’s final destination dealt with in neat fashion early on. This leaves the rest of the tale free to unearth capsule summaries of various lifestyles around a wine-fuelled dinner table discussion, which is authentically free of glamour and full of dialogue which is shot through with the humour and pain of everyday struggles.
Given the title, it isn’t a huge spoiler to reveal that Nina eventually makes it to the sea but, as is often said elsewhere, it isn’t the destination, it’s the journey and Sara Olaciregui has crafted a trip which abandons the familiar urgency of such a plot and stops not only to smell the flowers, but to shine a light on lives which may appear humdrum but have their own sense of vitality (and, in some cases, petty criminality).
This may sometimes feel like only the first episode of Nina’s ongoing kicks against the pricks and some of its messages may be writ a little too large because they don’t have a feature-length space in which to breathe, but Ce Que Femme Veut Dieu Veut is a captivating piece of work with a bold central turn from Anane, who reminds me of a French Mary Woronov in terms of both look and ability to take no crap whatsoever. There’s no specifics as to what may happen next to Nina but the thirty minutes spent in her company gives the feeling that she’ll never compromise and, despite the potential desperation of her situation, that’s uplifting in itself.
Douchebag businessman Richard (Kevin Janssens) charters a helicopter in order to take his mistress Jen (Matilda Lutz) to his swanky holiday pad in the desert for some extracurricular activity. The next day, Richard’s friends Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède) arrive, with the three men intending to go off on a hunting trip. That evening, the four of them party; they drink far too much and Jen, in her inebriated state, dances for the guys as a bit of fun. This is something which Stan is, inevitably, going to misread entirely.
With Richard away the following morning, Stan sees his chance to move in on Jen, but when she rejects his advances he turns aggressive. When Jen tells Stan to stop, he doesn’t and goes on to rape her. Dimitri sees and hears the assault but chooses not to step in. When Richard returns, he learns of what has happened, but rather than call the cops on Stan, he suggests that Jen should move to Canada and that he will finance it. When Jen threatens to reveal Richard’s philandering ways to his wife, he slaps her, she tries to flee and, in the ensuing mayhem, the men think they’ve killed her and that they’ll be out of there before anyone discovers the body. Wrong.
Before Coralie Fargeat delighted/disgusted audiences with The Substance, she brought her unique sensibilities to the rape/revenge thriller, pitching the gross goings on against a glossy backdrop and throwing multiple buckets of blood over the whole thing (apparently, the production kept running out of said, er, substance). It’s more in line with I Spit On Your Grave than Promising Young Woman in the way that justice is meted out via a traditionally male series of shootings and stabbings, but the extended sequences of extreme violence set a high watermark for a subgenre that wasn’t known for skimping on the claret to begin with.
Absent is the sickly voyeurism which accompanies a number of thrillers of this ilk, its inciting act kept offscreen for the most part and amplified in its power by the lack of explicit visual detail but an abundance of dreadful, accompanying sound. We follow Dimitri around the house and into the pool, intercut with shots of Jen’s hand pounding the bedroom window. He may not be the one attacking Jen, but he’s complicit in the crime and just as awful in his own, shameful way, turning up the volume on the TV to block out the noise coming from elsewhere and then thinking that hiding underwater will do the trick.
It’s difficult to know who Jen should kill first once her transformation into grime-coated, rifle-toting avenger is complete, because the three married man in her path are all reprehensible: Stan for being the average guy for whom the word “no” means nothing of the sort; Dimitri for cramming chocolate marshmallows into his slobbering mouth in disgusting close-up and facilitating the horrendous behaviour of his friends; and Richard, a guy who knows he’s hot, emphasises his sense of importance and thinks he can wipe away Jen’s indelible memory of her assault by essentially paying her to keep quiet.
It’s to the credit of Janssens, Colombe and Bouchède – and Fargeat’s dialogue – that each convinces as three totally different men who would nevertheless enjoy each other’s company, knows their place within their local hierarchy and have each other’s back, regardless of how heinous their behaviour became. Lutz, initially appearing to be the glam arm candy and slightly vapid good time girl, is quickly shown to be nothing of the sort, metamorphosing into audience pleasing worst nightmare for our trio of toxic males. Revenge is a movie that leans into familiar tropes and plays with the audience’s preconceived expectations before subverting them.
The second half of the movie sees tables turned and hunters becoming hunted, eschewing swift executions in favour of suspenseful, drawn out action set pieces which all have a sense of the ludicrous about them while being played dead straight. A notable synth score by the prolific Robin Coudert (who, as “Rob”, also provided the soundtrack for the Maniac remake, amongst other things) ramps up the genuine excitement as Jen goes head to head with her tormentors, with special effects artist Laetitia Quillery conjuring up a series of nauseating prosthetics. If you’re a bit squeamish about folks digging around in open wounds – and I suspect there’s a lot of us who are – prepare to get a damn good wince workout.
Ticking all of the exploitation movie boxes without ever feeling remotely exploitative, Revenge is a bold debut, its escalating carnage played out across exotic, sumptuous settings, beautifully lensed by Robrecht Heyvaert and culminating in a satisfying, final act showdown which is Grand Designs meets Grand Guignol. It’s hard to imagine a better calling card for Coralie Fargeat and her recent, satirical take on body horror builds on the style, shocks and taste for the outrageous to be found here.
After biologist and coral smuggler Dr. Theresa Gorgeous dies in strange circumstances, Interpol agents Chase National (Alex Zhang Hungtai) and No St. Aubergine (Esther Garrel) head to Mexico to investigate a convoluted case that may be connected to Gorgeous’ illicit cargo. Can they solve the mystery before the body count spirals out of control?
Described as “an absurdist homage to 90s basic cable TV thrillers”, writer/directors Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman serve up all of the clunky dialogue, slightly stilted performances and poverty budget trappings of programme makers desperate to harness the lightning in a bottle previously captured in relatively resource rich network fare such as The X-Files. The overarching structure is seven mini episodes of a show called Dream Team, complete with smash cuts to black which would normally signal the end of a cold open giving way to the opening titles, a pause for ad breaks or the lead into the closing credits.
The initial parody is on point, focusing on a cool male/female crime fighting duo thrust into odd situations, but it’s not long before the plot spins off into all sorts of unexpected areas, mixing Coral 101 explanations from expert Dr. Veronica Beef (Minh T Mia) with dream visions, dance workouts, meditation advice, wine tasting, the gardening exploits of an invisible agent and a discussion of Schrödinger’s Cat.
The film is also described as “A post-modern, soft core fever dream.” Sidestepping the fact that I could spend the rest of this review on exactly what I think of “post-modern” as a term, let’s address “soft core.” There are elements of Dream Team which nudge towards some kind of muted erotica, but as the unofficial (and, I might add, still thoroughly unsuitable) sexy time correspondent for Warped Perspective, the material is far too coy if it’s trying to titillate, especially to someone who remembers the era of Red Shoe Diaries – also a cable show – playing British TV. “Fever dream”? That’s often a get out clause for incoherence, but here the head spinning stuff and the lack of explanation at key points is clearly deliberate.
Dream Team is an interesting item to review, setting itself up as a thriller but slowing the pace and obfuscating a conventional narrative to such an extent that thrills very quickly find themselves removed from the menu. That said, the 16mm cinematography is alluring, the visual collages chime with the slightly woozy feel of the ongoing inquiry and there are moments when the idea of drifting along with the tale seems an attractive proposition, but the avant garde trappings of the project result in sacrificing any comfort the viewer might take by regularly throwing in ideas out of left field. As intriguing and daring as that might be, it jars the viewer back into their previous state of wondering just what the hell they’re watching.
Putting the emphasis on the penny-pinching leads to some fun jokes (watch for the one with the “Interpol” sign) and the intentionally terrible would-be zingers in the script are plentiful, but the approach ultimately clashes with the more interesting, philosophical nature of the tale. Big themes are introduced but these are undercut far too often by a double entendre or a sequence which doesn’t seem to belong. The thwarted ambition of this mirrors many a television programme which thinks big and can’t quite deliver, but I think Horn and Kalman could have grappled more with existential crises without losing too much of its wacky side.
The final act sees a change in tack, unveiling a new plot which hints at knitting together with the overall story, but could equally be utterly disposable given the M.O. of the fictional series. It rounds off with the promise of a second season, which will either continue the adventures of Chase and No or swerve into wholesale cast changes, delving further into the vagaries of a co-ed/co-op basketball league. Where do the basketball players come from? You have as much idea as I have, and I’ve had the supposed advantage of watching it. Confused? You will be after the next episode of Dream Team…
Oscillating between fascinatingly bizarre and patience testing, Dream Team appears to be the work of artists who still aren’t quite sure if film is for them and their experimentation with the format risks the viewer pushing the off button at any time. At some points it felt as if it were actively attempting to make me lose interest, which had the effect on me of wanting to keep watching, if only to see where it was going and if any of it would ultimately make any kind of sense. It’s movie making, but not as a lot of us know it. I think it will prove too obscure for most, which is kind of a shame for something which includes a scientist with the name of Dr. Veronica Beef.
For this year’s mystery Celluloid Screams grindhouse screening, we were promised something equally as bonkers as the previous year’s Lady Terminator. I was also advised by someone on the CS programming team that I’d probably seen it, which somehow meant to fellow Screamers that I would be able to pluck the name of the film out of thin air because, after all, I’ve seen so little horror content over the years.
With not even a hint of what was about to come until the opening shot of the film was projected, the caption “Boston, 1942” triggered the 1980s genre cesspit area of my brain. Although the spectral gorehound on my shoulder was screaming “IT’S PIECES!,” I didn’t transfer this information to my longish-suffering seat grindhouse screening seat buddy, back for another year of me chortling inappropriately.
So, is Pieces as bonkers as Lady Terminator? In my opinion, not quite, but you’d have to go someone to be quite that bonkers and, to be fair, Pieces has more than its fair share of non sequiturs, clunky developments and thumpingly offensive plot wrinkles. Aficionados of the PG-13, come one, come all type of multiplex-friendly shocker might spend most of their time preventing their jaw from hitting the floor, whether it’s the thuddingly terrible dialogue, the gratuitous violence or what passes for the whodunit in this head scratcher from director Juan Piquer Simon, who went on to unleash Slugs. It’s produced by Dick Randall, who also gave us Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas. Given that information, you can probably guess the direction this will take.
Edmund Purdom, who went on to appear in – and partially direct – Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas is the Dean of a college where pretty young things are being hacked to bits by a chainsaw-wielding killer, whose endgame is to build a human jigsaw puzzle from the various body parts. Well, everyone’s got to have a hobby. On the trail of this madman is the quite frankly shite Lt. Frank Bracken (Christopher George) and his equally useless sidekick Sgt. Randy Holden (Frank Brana), reduced to enlisting the help of charisma-free sex pest Kendall James (Ian Sera), a student who knows his way around the campus and seems to be only too willing to play amateur sleuth and sleep around rather than, you know, do any actual coursework. He may already have had sealed his graduation in Being A Total Irritant but the story never tells you this.
Rounding out this low-wattage investigation team is Mary Riggs (Lynda Day, George’s real life wife of the time), ex-tennis pro turned ‘tec, going deep undercover as an instructor, hitting some backhands that don’t threaten Wimbledon qualification and somehow not slapping the cuffs on Kendall as the result of his creepy attention. It’s established early on that Kendall could not be the murderer, which is a shame because most audience members would point to him and say “Psycho sex maniac? You might as well take him down to the cop shop right now.”
There’s the usual list of suspects, including Paul Smith warming up for Crimewave as the shiftiest employee ever, managing to look suspicious even when passing the time of day and wandering the grounds with, surprise surprise, his trusty chainsaw. Jack Taylor, who showed up in more than a few Spanish horrors, plays a Professor who, it’s implied, clearly isn’t on the level because he happens to be gay. I mean, sheesh. This explanation, followed by a late in the day sort of backtrack to say that he’s okay really and he’s making more of it than he should, demonstrates just what a tone deaf attitude Pieces possesses in terms of inclusivity, even though it probably thinks, by its own twisted logic, that it’s breaking down barriers.
Pieces is not a good film. It’s not even an average one. The performances range from complete non-emoting to outright hysterical. The gore, although plentiful, is mainly unconvincing and looks cheap. The mystery provides almost no clues as to who the killer might be and hinges on two people looking through a series of files in the final act. It’s edited with, I suspect, the same chainsaw which features in some of the set-pieces. The score is a cut and paste job from various sources, featuring library pieces from, among others, Fabio Frizzi and also several cues from Carlo Maria Cordio’s work on Absurd from the previous year. Characters are tasked with delivering lines which have never featured in any actual conversation. There’s even some casual racism served up as a throwaway suspense sequence. Despite all of this, it somehow manages to be a hoot. Doubly so if you see it in a packed cinema at midnight.
Considering its propensity for chopping bits off women in gruesome close-up, it’s hardly a revelation that Pieces didn’t receive the video rental treatment in the 1980s, especially as the furore surrounding the Video Nasties was fuelled by particularly draconian treatment of horror titles, particularly slasher movies, and a general concern about imitative violence. Some sources refer to Pieces as appearing on the Section 3 list, but this is not the case. Had it shown up on tape, it would have been prime Section 2 fodder, would almost certainly have had its day in court and would almost certainly have caused a severe sense of humour failure among hard of thinking members of Parliament.
To be honest, if anyone were going to attempt to emulate Simon’s plodding kill sequences, the intended target would have legged it into the night well before the chainsaw had even spluttered into life. As ridiculous and patently fake as the slayings appear now, some folks forty years ago would have been asking whether or not people actually died during the production.
My feeling about Pieces is that, for all of its potentially offensive content, it’s carried off with such a breathtaking level of ineptitude that, other than a few snippets of dialogue which will make you want to cringe yourself inside out, renders the whole thing silly rather than troubling. It also off proceedings with a scene in which the killer takes so long to attempt to bump someone off that the forces of law and order can drive all the way across town to the building, faff around with a door and then climb several flights of stairs to carry out a last minute save. If you think matters have reached peak stupidity, brace yourselves, because there’s a closing shock which scores points from coming out of nowhere but then instantly loses all of those points and then some because it makes absolutely no bloody sense whatsoever.
The Spanish title for this is Mil gritos tiene la noche, which translates to The Night Has A Thousand Screams. Genre fans may be screaming but it’ll be with laughter. Clod-hoppingly staged and remarkable for its ability to generate no tension whatsoever, this makes Slugs look like a masterpiece and ultimately it’s memorable only for Lynda Day’s amazing work when it comes to repeatedly screaming the word “Bastard!.” Catnip for bad movie connoisseurs, cat shit for almost everyone else.
Small-time drug dealer Wes (James Nelson-Joyce) has a good thing going in his hometown of Dennings, with a growing stream of punters getting hooked on a form of ecstasy called “Clown.” He’s in a stable relationship with Zoe (Olivia Frances Brown), they’ve recently welcomed a son into the world and, longer term, they’re looking to make the move to their ideal location. All of that is jeopardised when Wes’ partner Tommy (Kyle Rowe) is released from prison and targets bigger and better things for their operation. To say Tommy is a loose cannon is an understatement and his increasingly erratic behaviour threatens to end in disaster for everyone in his orbit.
In development for over ten years, director (and co-writer with Dean Gregson and Jordan Derbyshire) Martin Law’s unflinching slice of life in a northern town rings with authenticity, from the grimy surroundings to the expletive-laden screenplay and sudden, vicious bursts of violence, mostly kept off-screen but shot in a way that feels up close and personal, forcing the viewer into becoming an uneasy onlooker.
We’ve been in the company of an unstable, criminal presence many times before and Tommy may initially seem to be a one-dimensional character, heading off to see – and giving a seeing to – local girl Tasha (Robyn Sass) in an encounter which doesn’t even avoid a pre-climax slap because the woman dared to see some humour in the situation. Tommy has learned nothing from his time inside, except perhaps a new perspective on refining his illegal activities in a place where a police presence seems to be absent much of the time.
However, as the story progresses, it’s clear that there’s no redemption for Tommy and that what you see is what you get – he’s a fragile, boorish thug who resorts to spiking the whisky of the town’s resident drunk for shits and giggles or breaking a guy’s nose because the bloke went to University and obviously, to Tommy at least, thought he was in some way better than everyone else. Wes has always seen this side to Tommy, but their time apart brings Tommy’s cavalier disregard for everyone but himself into sharp focus.
This is an unashamedly down and dirty British view of the “small time crim trying to make good” subgenre and where its American counterparts would often throw in an action set piece too flashy for its own good, Reputation keeps things admirably low key, dragging the supporting characters into a scenario where the tension simmers, even in the scenes without Tommy crashing the proceedings. A subplot involving an unsolved child murder in the area gives the tale extra momentum and throws the spotlight on Tasha’s sister Becky (Sass again) who still can’t get past her grief.
Of course, things start to go wrong, not helped in the slightest by Tommy’s incompetent sidekick Grayson (Ross Thompson) and, as Wes sees a growing threat to both his family and friends Aidan (Andrew Purcell) and Lips (Stephen Rostron), a confrontation seems inevitable. The final act throws in a couple of shocking developments, given extra punch because we’ve been allowed into the lives of those threatened to the point that, even though their law breaking can’t be ignored totally, there’s a sympathetic side to them.
The very end of Reputation may jar with some because it potentially leaves space for the viewer to work out what happens next, but I was absolutely fine, even happy, with some of the plot threads hanging as the credits rolled. Life is messy. Punchy without falling into the trap of going so big that the denouement undermines the preceding hour and twenty, the last shot resonates more keenly than a melodramatic closer would.
Bringing familiar elements to the thriller genre but having some tricks of its own, this is an impressive calling card for both Martin Law and his talented cast. Nelson-Joyce is thoroughly engaging, adding depth to an already well-written protagonist; Rowe is consistently, realistically unhinged and Sass is fantastic in her dual role to such an extent that I had no idea she was playing both parts until I read the end credits. If you’re in the mood for a moody, tense thriller and don’t flinch when you hear the c-word (if you do, prepare to flinch a lot), Reputation will fit the bill and then some.
Reputation featured at this year’s Spirit of Independence Film Festival at Sheffield, UK.
Isaac (Rupert Turnbull) has already had to come to terms with the death of his mother, but he now has to deal with the loss of his architect father James (Charles Aitken) in a car accident, leaving him, stepmother Laura (Julia Brown) and their dog to rattle around their grandly-designed house in the middle of rural nowhere. The local reps from Social Services present Laura with the options of taking guardianship of Isaac, or giving him up to the care system. Laura isn’t keen on the second choice, but matters are complicated somewhat by the fact that Isaac hates her.
As Laura attempts to build bridges with an ever more distant Isaac, her stepson experiences visions and visitations from a creature who seems all too familiar with the current situation being played out. Is Isaac unravelling psychologically, or has his father somehow returned from the other side. If so, what are his intentions for the family?
Daddy’s Head is director Benjamin Barfoot’s second feature, his first being 2017’s horror comedy Double Date, and it could hardly be more different than his debut, this time working from his own screenplay and ditching the knockabout shenanigans for a sombre, measured piece in which less is most definitely more, pushing most of its terrors into the shadows and keeping the audience on their toes with a refusal to spell out exactly what is going on.
The small cast all turn in sterling work here. Turnbull and Brown are both excellent, the former steering far away from being the archetypal brat, the latter gradually retreating into the comforts of her luxury home’s well-stocked wine cellar without resorting to that overly theatrical portrayal of being perma-sozzled as a coping mechanism.
Her increasingly forlorn attempts to connect with Isaac elicit real sympathy, but the story keeps the proceedings ambiguous enough to paint neither main protagonist as hero or villain, at one point giving Isaac a decent proportion of the emotional high ground when he spots Laura drunkenly kissing James’ longtime buddy Robert (Nathaniel Martello-White) who’s there to help out. Yeah, right, some of you may be thinking.
If the set up feels recognisable – troubled kid, fraught stepmum, family friend with possible ulterior motive – it is, but Barfoot swerves most of the clichés you’d be expecting, delivering a low-key and unnerving chiller which avoids tiresome screaming matches between Laura and Isaac, their cold, clinical exchanges often matching the trappings of the modern home in which they find themselves increasingly trapped. It also avoids tiresome screaming matches in the horror set pieces, opting to play it far creepier until the final showdown.
There may be the odd moment where the deliberate vagueness applied to almost every plot turn may frustrate but, for the viewer who doesn’t like to be spoon-fed each revelation, Daddy’s Head is a film which doesn’t go the easy route. Its slow burn vibe won’t enamour it to folks who want constant monster action, but there are effective jump scares along the way and the creature design here is the stuff of nightmares, made all the more terrifying for the brief glimpses it’s given across the runtime.
A British chiller that leans into the uncanny and mines the natural weirdness of its rustic locations rather than trying to ape the more brash tropes of family fear fests across the Atlantic, Daddy’s Head embraces its eeriness and only allows itself to break out the bloodshed when absolutely necessary. Even then, some of that is only viewed in its aftermath in order to maintain the mystery in the run up to those final moments, which are very much in keeping with the previous eighty minutes, only tying up the tale with the final shot, again leaving so many blanks to be filled.
To criticise Daddy’s Head for not being spectacular would be to miss the point. It’s contained, often subdued and has interesting things to say on the subject of how different people process grief. It may not hit the mark all of the time, but it’s a movie which sticks resolutely to its own, strange path and only comes unstuck when it reverts to time-honoured touchstones that don’t seem to belong, even if the result is further conundrums. By this I mean: What do you think is going to happen to the dog? Still, if you’re looking for something which gives you the space to do much of the potential plotting work yourself, you could do much worse.
Daddy’s Head (2024) will be available to stream on Shudder from October 11th.
After being beamed up into an invading force’s spacecraft, a mischievous and resourceful Gigantopithecus called Rufus escapes his captors and hijacks an ongoing scientific procedure, resulting in a dinosaur receiving the brain of a long dead insurgent and becoming Trexx, a courageous T-Rex (well, obviously) who has to deal with a stream of alien thoughts and a drive to fulfil a newly-found destiny.
Trexx’s mission is not going to be easy and, if he’s to succeed, he’ll need help if he’s to defeat the hordes of evil Plutonian warriors led by the smart, conniving Ebo Kalif. Time to for Trexx and Rufus to travel space in search of the most exceptional examples of their kind in order to assemble the ultimate team of dinosaur astronauts. Dinonauts, if you will…
Made over a period of ten years in the garage of director Omar Distrakt Jones – here credited with the mononym of Distrakt – Dinonauts harks back to a period of animation which will trigger a pang of nostalgia for those of us who arrived home from school or hauled ourselves out of bed on Saturday mornings to see various weird and wonderful cartoons in which teams of creatures would battle against an all-powerful Big Bad for as many seasons as viewing figures and action figure marketing would sustain.
The sheer enthusiasm for this type of tale is evident and there’s very much a feel of a number of differing offerings from the 80s and 90s, be they Hanna-Barbera, the collaborations of Rankin/Bass with overseas production houses and even a smattering of Ralph Bakshi in the mix (don’t worry, this doesn’t veer into Fritz The Cat territory if you’re thinking about possible damage to any kids watching this). There’s less polish to the end product that any of those studio efforts, of course, but that’s all part of the charm.
Clearly a labour of love, Dinonauts does suffer slightly from the syndrome of putting everything possible on screen just in case there’s no sequel. The plot crams in origin story, team recruitment vignettes and first mission in just seventy-six minutes and there are several points along the way where there seems to be far too much going on, especially with a reasonably large cast of characters and a hefty chunk of backstory to be filled in.
In fact, it’s the moments where Dinonauts takes a breath to kick back and spoof other, popular forms of culture where it works best. The sequence in which Trexx and co show up to invite Toro, ace Triceratops navigator, to join them is a glorious mickey take of gladiatorial combat served up as a Las Vegas-style prize fight, complete with shouty announcer, sponsorship by a dreadful sounding alcoholic beverage called Crud 40 and the event being run under the auspices of the Gorfian Bludgeoning Commission. It’s also the scene in which one of the characters steals an Ivan Drago line from Rocky IV, so what’s not to like?
Elsewhere, there’s plenty of thumping in general, plus a lot of space combat and various wisecracks from Rufus which range from reasonably amusing to astonishingly irritating in time-honoured sidekick tradition. This is a film that also makes jokes at its own expense (or lack thereof), at one point bemoaning the lack of budget which apparently has rendered a planet without colour. For every instance where the action goes on a little too long and flirts with becoming wearisome, there’s a burst of welcome imagination such as the Cosmic 8-Ball or Ebo being given a metaphorical kick in the cods at a meeting of a Space Council which is exactly how those mind numbing trade talks of The Phantom Menace should have proceeded.
The voice talent on display may not have the seasoned nuance of a Kevin Conroy but hey, we were never going to be in the same ballpark here. Everyone in the cast understood their assignment and the enjoyment of delivering purposely stylised dialogue comes across often, particularly the work of Matt Steiner, bringing an educated, casually cruel air to Ebo Kalif, frustrated with the erratic success rate of his underlings and relishing the opportunity to foist a historic, Pathé-esque newsreel on a captured Trexx in a Clockwork Orange style.
The mix of animation styles in Dinonauts may prove a sticking point for those who are looking for a consistent aesthetic throughout and the screenplay occasionally skates over details in order to rush the action to the next punch-up or shootout but overall it’s an entertaining tribute to the television staples of past decades, complete with open-ended assignment and the promise of more galactic arse-kicking to come. If nothing else, stay for the cracking electronic soundtrack by 20SIX Hundred which immediately sent me to seek out their other work the moment the credits stopped rolling.
Dinonauts (2024) featured at the recent Spirit of Independence Film Festival in Sheffield, UK.
