Just One Drink may have been made in 2015, but it feels like a film from 2005, not least because its star – Barbara Nedeljakova – is the star of one of the biggest horrors of 2005, namely Hostel. She’s back to her old tricks in filmmaker Andrew de Burgh’s debut short film, which is – depending on your perspective – either a boon, or a shame. If you liked life in 2005 a hell of a lot, then this short film is a love letter to the more ordeal-orientated horror which was breaking out all over the place at that time. If you want more of a nuanced conclusion, or if you feel that the whole ‘tied to things’ motif has had its day, and had probably had its day a decade ago, then this may well affect how feel about this one. In any case, feel free to check it out: it’s available to view on YouTube.
The premise is that a pair of affable stoners called Eric and Steve like to while away the hours discussing strains of cannabis and pondering the evolution of mankind. Steve, however, gets a message from a mysterious and beautiful woman (Nedeljakova) who invites him to a New Year’s Party round at hers. He shares this news with his pal, and they both decide to head over there on the big night because, despite the fact that Steve has no idea who this woman actually is, she’s hot, and that makes the whole idea worth a punt.
When they get there, they’re all alone and, having parked their common sense at the door, they glug down a glass of alcohol each which is spiked with something that causes them to instantaneously lose consciousness. Upon waking – strapped to what looks like a surgical trolley and a chair apiece – it looks like Nedeljakova has plans to dispatch them both in a series of unpleasant ways. Bit of a pity for Eric, who is, sadly, mainly collateral damage; it’s Steve Tamara knows, and Steve she wants to get. But why?
The exposition given is a bit of a big ask as (look away now) it seems that our mild-mannered stoner Steve has been a bit of a brute in the past. His reasons (and look away now if you want to see for yourselves) are that the man in question – the man which links both of our main characters – was a collaborator with Stalin, which – even if we accept that we’re going back ten years at the time of writing – is a bit of a puzzler for the timeline, and the film itself can’t possibly be set any further back, surely – the use of tech points to an early 21st Century timeframe. But the film does at least try for an abrupt volte face and tries to reframe its lead character in an interesting way, and its notion of tit for tat has some potential, even if the pieces in play are a little surprising. There are no especially complex layers here, which is to be expected in a film with a very modest seventeen minute runtime, so it just does what it does, but it’s clear to see the beginnings of a more ambitious writing approach. Really, Just One Drink is an experiment and a calling card, as so many short films are, so see for yourself what you think and, hopefully, appreciate the effort made to recast a lead character in a more ambiguous light.
That’s that, then. That’s religion. It had a good run. Except, of course, if you happen to be religious, and will brush away any such declarations with the power of your faith.
In a nutshell, that’s the premise behind, and the dispute within Heretic (2024) – a film which comes off as a kind of theological Barbarian (2022), which is appropriate, because ‘barbarian’ has long been a handy epithet for a person outside the fold of Christian faith. Its horror derives from its antagonist’s determination to test that faith, recategorising religiosity as just another element of culture – probably derivative and ultimately, even trite. The two girls selected for this test are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – Mormons, to give them their usual moniker, named Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East, who funnily enough looks a bit like Sara Paxton). They never refer to one another by their first names; their bond is their sense of belonging to the Church, and their hope that today’s the day they will convert someone, baptising them into the Church and fulfilling their religious duty to evangelise. They have been raised to believe all of this, so in their defence, this is very important to them. But, based on listening to the girls’ early conversation, you get the distinct sense that they are each far from worldly – particularly Sister Paxton, whose naivety is probably written through and through her, like a stick of Brighton rock. Sister Barnes is perhaps a little more cynical, but it’s a low bar overall.
Their day’s work takes them to a pre-arranged meeting with a layman called Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant). Again, no first names, but this is a planned visit, rather than a surprise call. Mr. Reed has expressed an interest in hearing more about their religion, and they didn’t wait to be asked twice: they arrive, full of hope, carrying a Book of Mormon apiece, and ready to proselytise. Their subject is an affable-seeming gentleman of middle years, a little flustered maybe (it’s Hugh Grant after all) but agreeable; he invites them in, allaying their fears about propriety and safety by telling them his wife is also home. Here’s the first test: do they go in, despite not seeing any evidence of their agreed mark of safety? No woman, no go? Of course not; in they pop, literature at the ready. They start to converse with Mr. Reed, who explains to them that he has spent a sizable chunk of his life studying theology – looking for evidence of the one true faith, the alpha and omega of religious belief. Showing them a heavily-annotated and indexed Book of Mormon of his own, he explains that he has unfortunately come up against more barriers to religious experience than genuine possibilities. Now, in this, he is not particularly unusual, either within the film’s narrative or, in a broader sense, as a representative of modern man, but his conclusions – and the ways in which he decides to advance his knowledge – are a little more unorthodox.
The girls soon come to the (testable) assertion that they have been locked in a house which is part residence and part sophisticated trap. To stand any chance of getting to safety, they have to pass Mr. Reed’s theological tests – which both demand uncomfortable self-analysis and more practical problem-solving, which as mentioned above, turn out to be challenging for two very young girls fresh out of a very sheltered and absolutely certain moral space and place. It’s been impossible to avoid the discussion of Hugh Grant’s performance in this film, so far does it deviate from his usual, tousled, charming and awkward persona, but really he maintains that tousled, charming and awkward persona for the biggest share of the film. Sure, he gets more overtly cruel as the film rolls into its last act, but the real horror is in how this perfectly agreeable-seeming man is forcing a situation which threatens spiritual crisis, as much as it threatens physical harm, and he does this by raising some always-uncomfortable posers about religion – the ‘Big Three’ monotheistic belief systems in particular. Placing faith on a level with the worst aspects of consumerism – regarding them all as different species of ‘iteration’ – he tries to unpick the girls’ built-in systems of belief, promising them that he can show them the real essence of faith – if they can solve his puzzles. It would be a lot weaker if he did all of this by glowering with menace and trying for the sort of transformation you get with, say, Robin Williams in One Hour Photo (2002) – where an actor with a very distinct style does plump for a different mode altogether, but it fits that film very well. In Heretic, Hugh Grant remaining Hugh Grant does the job just fine.
The sets used here are astonishingly good, and the clever, snappy script, a script which is often as funny as it is dark, adds a new veneer to every otherwise familiar-feeling room or space. The gloomy corridors, statues with glittering eyes, lights which snap on and off on timers – as if the whole house is part of a board game – and of course the damp basement, are all recast as playing a part in an as-yet mystifying whole, where only one person holds the key, physically and metaphorically. But as the game goes on, the girls grow in confidence to try and reinterpret what’s in front of them. Sophie Thatcher does a great job as a young woman who clearly harbours something other than the seemingly twee received wisdom of her Church Sister; her oscillating defence of the Church’s old (and officially banned) policy of polygamy makes for a very powerful scene. However, Chloe East rises very successfully to the challenges placed before her. These are quite physical roles, too, with brief flashes of bloodshed which remain more about suggestion than splatter.
The film’s rising weirdness as the different levels of the house reveal new and appalling things (hence the Barbarian reference earlier) may take it closer and closer to fantasy, but again, its central premise is regularly and consistently steered back to the millennia of dreadful things done due to religion. It’s like a tap on the shoulder to make sure you’re still paying attention; there’s plenty weirder or worse than we’re being asked to consider, the film seems to say. And there’s no hard and fast lesson at the end either, just a solid balance of the ambiguity and the careful parcelling of details which keeps Heretic on track throughout. Sure, there are a couple of Chekhov’s Guns along the way, but always reintegrated into the narrative with skill. Heretic is a damn good job, and directors/writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have clearly and successfully brought their wealth of writing and production experience to the table here.
As MadS (2024) opens, the camera pans back from what turns out to be an image of a woman’s agonised face; you could call it foreshadowing, or perhaps it’s just an incidental feature, an arty poster on the wall of an apartment being used for a drug deal, as a young man called Romain (Milton Riche) does more than a few lines before heading out into the cold light of day. He rapidly enters a state of Peak Bravado before hopping into his dad’s vintage Mustang and heading off to join his sometime girlfriend and their other friends for an evening soiree. The evening already has ‘interesting’ written all over it. He’s off his tits. What could go wrong?
The film’s first shock is when, as Romain pulls up to inspect the car’s leatherwork after he drops his cigarette, a young woman comes out of nowhere and approaches his vehicle. She can’t speak, but she’s clearly distressed and he, for obvious reasons, doesn’t really want the police involved. He decides he’s going to take her to the nearest hospital, but she grows ever more agitated, clearly fearful of being followed, and handily for the plot, she’s also clutching a tape recorder which relays some very concerning information about where she’s been and what’s been done to her (which goes straight over Romain’s head at first, it seems, but at least we can listen). Bereft of sane ideas, he changes tack and drives the woman back to his place and, well, if he was worried about his seat leather before, then it’s safe to say things get rapidly worse. We’re faced with a young man used to a life of ease and comfort, high on drugs, and trying to balance all of the mundane details which continue to unfold around him with a bizarre situation he would clearly rather forget.
Like the very best of the New French Extremity titles – one of which, Ils (2006), was directed by the director of MadS, David Moreau – this film makes a hell of an entrance, all whilst whisking us along with its slick production values and carefully curated sensory overload; the film is a visual and aural feat. It also aims to run as one long, unflinching take and invests a lot of time and care into this sustaining this idea, which really helps to capture something of the strangeness of the unfolding situation, and the plight of each protagonist in turn. Starting with Romain, it’s clear that he and his friends are careless people, blasé, a little antagonistic and patently unsuited to any kind of crisis. These are party people, and it turns out that partying is far from the ideal environment for what is about to happen. But off Romain goes: is his behaviour due to a bad trip, or something else? Oh, and just to add insult to injury, it’s his birthday, too.
It’s hard not to take on some of Romain’s headspace as the film unfolds, so much time do we first spend with this character, and it’s also worth saying that many films have done more than enough with the whole bad trip idea to make a decent film, without the addition of any other plot points: the bad trip here is particularly immersive. However, MadS continues to broaden in scope, in ambitious and brutal ways. LikeMartyrs(2008) – probably the last true line in the sand for New French Extremity titles – there’s the same sense of a bigger picture, an ‘intellectually curious’ organisation with a vested interest in experimentation.
But unlike Martyrs,MadS doesn’t decide to narrow its focus onto one individual and their plight, and instead scans around, picking up the same story through the experiences of others. The fact that you can pick up on a few sets of influences doesn’t mean that this film feels samey or particularly derivative, either: it feels fresh and exciting. Things tick along quickly, and the film never fully dehumanises its key characters, so that you are always left wondering how much of them is still there. Full exposition isn’t the film’s thing, but that’s because of its unerring focus on its people, who have to ask the same questions as we do. MadS is another great calling card for Shudder, a streaming service with a growing and impressive roster of original titles, and an entertaining, bold, well-made film.
1750, Austria: any film based on ‘historical records’ which starts as devastatingly as The Devil’s Bath does, at least, place its cards on the table. This richly beautiful, if always stark film examines the lives of women, and as much as it focuses on one woman, it allows us to pause long enough to extrapolate, thinking about the generations of women who must have felt the same miseries, only never entering the record. Hundreds, thousands probably, for every one whose sad fate was ever written down. It’s a devastating watch, and it keeps this up throughout its runtime.
We start in a sparse, rural location with a woman carrying a crying baby into the nearby forest, putting her own rosary around its neck before matter-of-factly hurling the child off a waterfall. This being done, she calmly walks to a nearby town and confesses her crime. But the film doesn’t then backfill her story, instead picking up with another local woman: Agnes (Anja Plashg) is about to marry, but she’s still young enough and naïve enough to measure and mark her height against a barn beam at the family farm before she gets ready – a final childish indulgence, perhaps, before she heads for the more laborious strictures of adult life. Certainly, despite the celebrations, this marriage feels transactional, as much about heaving the marriage goods to church, then swapping a floral crown for a cap and pinafore, as about anything to do with ‘love’ per se.
Agnes has been raised properly, and desires to be a ‘good wife’ to her husband Wolf (David Scheid), a man who remains ambiguous, by the by, rather than overtly cruel or dismissive. The film would be the poorer for it, were he written as a villain, and the film looks more at the whole societal structure of Agnes’s life than at individuals. Likewise, Agnes’s new mother-in-law (Maria Hofstätter) is more aggressively disappointed in her new daughter than aggressive per se, as much as her gruff instructions on how to run the household are hard to bear. It’s soon clear that Agnes’s life will not turn out as she imagined. Her marriage is colourless, perfunctory – and unconsummated, putting paid to her simple dream of having children of her own. The environment is harsh, the work (as a fishwife) is exhausting, and her new community is tough through circumstance, with little time to accommodate a newcomer, especially one with a tendency to stubbornly hang on to youthful affectations. Agnes is alternately chivvied and overlooked; the days begin to roll sadly forward.
Women for whom the daily grind proved untenable had few options open to them. Hey, in many places in the world, that’s still the case, which is always at the back of your mind as you watch this story unfold. Agnes becomes ill; we’d call it depression, but in her century it was called melancholia, or more colloquially ‘the devil’s bath’, a tendency to self-flagellate or even attempt suicide due to one’s state of mind. By this point in time, melancholia was deemed to be treatable – albeit in a horrendous blend of folk wisdom, religious penance and bodily harm kind of a way, which we see inflicted upon an already brittle Agnes by her concerned new family. Of course, not only women feel this misery, and Agnes has already witnessed the aftermath of a suicide near her new home, and the disposal of the man’s remains amongst the cattle corpses and unburied bones, given the religious edict ‘gainst self-slaughter. The often-absent priest speaks to the congregation of the dead man’s great sin, recalling that a local woman who recently murdered her child could at least confess before her execution. Agnes has already stumbled on the woman’s remains, preserved nearby as a caution to others – her severed head preserved in a cage for, presumably, longevity (the tableau would lack something if animals carried off the head). Does any of this help Agnes? No, but in her fevered state, it seems to offer some kind of warped solace. She understands something, and begins to act accordingly.
The Devil’s Bath falls midway on a timeline between The Witch (2015) and Lady Macbeth (2016) and whilst it lacks the occult aspects of the one and the more straightforwardly rebellious instincts of the other, it nonetheless retains the same issues of moral rectitude, isolation and the impact upon young women of being bereft the trappings of respectable life: marriage and children, a sense of belonging, a community, or any legitimate support. It resembles The Witch in its use of natural light and candle/firelight too; yes, other films using natural light are available, but it still feels as though The Witch sets the bar for that shooting style in recent years, although The Devil’s Bath blends in more variety, even arguably pathetic fallacy, moving from warm sunlight to gloom, mist and what feels like an abundance of darkness.
Although some of the film’s visual symbols are quite straightforward – not hard codes to crack – they still fit subtly and seamlessly into the drear substance of everyday life. It’s a wonderfully shot film. Group shots are reminiscent of Brueghel, probably because the lives of the European peasant class barely changed in the interim between the painter’s lifespan and that of Agnes Schicken – again, a real person, a person on the record. The film is perfectly cast, with plausible and real seeming people and it’s a small point, but the absence of anachronistic veneers and fillers in this group of actors really helps sustain the illusion. These are hardworking, God-fearing people, even if God only pops up on the periphery; that is, until people decide to take themselves closer to Him. Agnes is sympathetic throughout, finely written and finely acted with no superfluous dialogue. Everything spoken is meaningful, and even at her most desperate, we can understand her terror.
Of course, two hours of a story like this is not going to be for everyone; this is not a horror in a conventional sense either, more a character study and a devastatingly fleshed-out history lesson. For this reviewer however, it is a note perfect, quiet but compelling reckoning with a real-life past tragedy. Is it a folk horror? Sort of; it’s more a horror about folk, and that distinction is important. That all in mind, The Devil’s Bath comes wholeheartedly recommended.
The Devil’s Bath (2024) is available now on Shudder.
The Final Pact starts with a Suspiria-lit house and a fleeing priest; we’ll be here again, you catch yourself thinking, but it’s not quite how you’d imagine. Rather than a tried-and-tested religious horror, this is much more of a psychological drama, albeit one which draws on supernatural elements to get where it needs to be. As such, we move away from the solo fleeing, terrified priest, to a sunlit suburb and a gathering of young deacons (not yet priests) attending their last day at the seminary. We meet three of them in much closer detail: these are John (Charlie Prince), Mark (Sam Sneary) and Paul (Austin Freeman), the latter being quickly signposted to the audience as someone with demons of conscience. But there’s more: the priest in charge of the seminary drops a surprise: there will be, he reveals, one more exam before graduation, as part of a secretive tradition at St. Edwards which has yet to be revealed, other than adding that it has already begun.
A little rattled, our three ponder whether this might be some kind of a ruse, and decide to celebrate the end of their training anyhow while they wait to find out what the ‘test’ actually is. It’s an opportunity for them to discuss what has brought them to this point, too. They each have their reasons for electing to join the priesthood, with Paul in particular riven by doubts as to his calling. Perhaps inevitably, faith has to be tested in films of this nature. There’s a problem at hand first: as they drive to a bar, they encounter a woman, broken down at the side of the road. They stop to assist and she pleads for them to drive her home to her daughter, who is sick and needs her. In fact, she’s sick and needs them: her ailment is of a spiritual nature. The phrase ‘demonic possession’ is soon mentioned, and where most people would baulk at this and/or simply make their excuses, it’s a tempting quandary for a group of young priests, it seems. They drive her home. Ah, there’s the house from earlier…
Here, the film could have simply introduced a bendy-backed pre-pubescent with a potty mouth and it probably would have settled into a fine, if samey religious horror, the likes of which have popped up semi-regularly since the Seventies, and usually following the same story arc. Happily, The Final Pact plumps for a more ambiguous approach. There is a young woman at the house, but there’s no pea soup or gravel-throated jibing, only a normal – adult – woman who seems both baffled and amused by the arrival of three nervous men brandishing crucifixes. But that’s not it. She does seem strangely knowledgeable, and it becomes clear to the visitors that this set-up may be part of the mysterious test which was mentioned earlier; although they leave of their own accord, they regroup and decide to re-enter the house, to try and decipher the woman’s coded words.
As soon as they do so, the house morphs into a range of surreal set pieces, loosely themed around the Nine Circles of Hell (which led me to wonder how we were going to get through nine circles in eighty minutes – but as stated, it’s loosely done). On a very modest budget, the film is nonetheless very visually impressive, offering up warped…perspectives, vivid colours and chiaroscuro, all in the service of representing the surreal, and unreal elements now unfolding. The idea that these men each need to navigate the different circles in order to ‘pass’ the test is an interesting one, too, and one which doesn’t really need to avail itself of much in the way of overt horror. It’s more about suggestion and symbolism, with each room arranged, lit and shot differently to reflect the different sin present in each. More and more, the focus is Paul, and the backstory which has given him a unique range of references and issues when it comes to negotiating an exit.
As engaging an idea as this is, The Final Pact has one or two issues with tone, shifting from the dark night of the soul to the comedic in places in ways which feel somewhat jarring; there are also a couple of harried and/or stilted encounters with members of the public which are intended to look at how members of the clergy are regarded in everyday life, or to boost the sensation of oddness, as per the film’s requirements. However, it’s hard to fault the sheer ambition on display here, especially where it means disrupting many (or most) of the expectations around on-screen ‘exorcism’ and all that this entails. The performances from the leads are very good, too, and if there are a couple of additions or twists which aren’t perfect during the course of the film, then this doesn’t derail the whole. Written, directed and edited by F. C. Rabbath (whose work I have reviewed before), here’s more evidence of his commitment to indie cinema and what can be achieved by doing things differently.
Right, cards on the table at the start of this review: I think we need a moratorium on the kinds of time- and space-bending which are so beloved of independent filmmakers right now. Where big budget offerings have opted to take a flashier route with the likes of high action time travel, explosions, robots and wars, you know, the big stuff, indie cinema – which is curtailed by lack of money and to a large extent, the influence of its peers – has Gone Philosophical. A cynic might say that breaking the fourth wall of space and time is so appealing because it allows a kind of ‘anything goes’ approach to narrative development, which at its worst tends towards complacency, leaving questions unanswered because if physics is out the window, then so are all the other rules, and don’t you dare challenge it. It’s about the character journey, stupid. Now, whilst Me, Myself & the Void (2023) avoids the worst pitfalls of its kind, it nonetheless has a few of its own. Its cardinal sin is that once you strip away all of the fantasy elements, it’s another indulgent exercise in Main Character Syndrome, and do we really need to indulge another main character in this way – or any other way, come to think of it?
Gentle piano music opens the film as we’re taken through the life of Jack (Jack De Sena) from birth to date, via a loving childhood and a jovial adulthood, watching as he starts his career as a stand-up comedian (here based on De Sena, or DeSena’s real career). As Jack takes to the stage for the first time in the film, we slot into standard audience mode just in time to curl our toes as he recounts a recent messy break-up from the stage, a decision which doesn’t get him many laughs…
So he metaphorically dies up there; this soon translates to what looks like a literal death on the floor of his bathroom, but wait: Jack is by now standing outside himself, looking down at himself, all from the perspective of a de facto version of his apartment, now blended with the stage where he just did the gig. This is the ‘void’, a strange place where Jack can pore over all of the decisions and events which may have led to him lying unconscious on his bathroom floor. Alongside him is a projected version of best friend Chris (Chris W. Smith), there to help in this process. It’s a little like a Clerks spin on the first chapter of Pandemonium, red door and all, but what seems clear – somehow – is that time is limited. If these two can’t deduce what has led to Jack’s collapse, then he might die for real.
So what ensues is all Jack – Jack who can’t remember anything, but together, the two men piece together events on the night in question. A lot of the film takes place in the void itself, a Beckett style, semi-real environment which operates outside pesky norms. However, the film also blends memory, fantasy and skit – said skits being in the mumblecore tradition, though with a few fixations: drugs, the weird roommate, and women. It’s funny, the film openly addresses the issues around calling women ‘crazy’, but can’t really help itself in depicting women as unreasonable and at times, brittle. But these are all just trials sent to test Jack, who segues in and out of flashbacks and cycles, albeit the edits are nice and smooth throughout.
Of course, a lot hinges on how likeable you find this character, given that the entire focus of the film is this guy’s wellbeing, and it seems likely that director/co-writer Tim Hautekiet intended Jack to be a kind of modern-day Everyman: flawed, vulnerable, but trying his best. But this broke, money-borrowing, weed-smoking, Xanax-eating guy can’t be for everyone, and what the film can’t quite do is make him genuinely sympathetic, despite his flaws. Without that engagement, the journey becomes a slog, another facet of therapy, therapy, therapy in a world full of therapy. The film becomes an elaborate riff on ‘taking control’ and ‘knowing thyself’. Quantum therapy, if you will.
Looking at other reviews after my own viewing – and excepting the slew of highly suspicious, glowing IMDb/RT reviews from accounts with only one review apiece (oh, come on) – it seems I’m in the minority on not loving this one. But as above, without feeling that draw towards Jack, his Pilgrim’s Progress towards a more enlightened life simply can’t land. That all being said, it’s appreciable that the team has wrung a lot from a little here, with some moments of ingenuity and the intention to jazz up the indie staples of a limited set and small cast. But tearing a hole in spacetime purely to indulge a narcissist is bound to be divisive, and so it turns out to be.
Me, Myself & the Void was released to VOD on October 1st 2024.
An unusual but effective blend between high-colour giallo-esque stylistics and… small town Wales, Scopophobia (2024) is a surprisingly intimate and engaging crime thriller. Thanks to those giallo elements, there’s plenty of proximity to horror too, but overall, this is a surprisingly intimate character study of a group of young women who share a nasty secret.
Milton, Wales: the early part of the film centres on a small business in this small town, Milton Steel, and its staff – one of whom is shown carrying a bright red cash box (picked out sharply for us against the rest of the film). Things get dark very quickly, even if, as remarked, the cash box doesn’t look like a lot. It’s still the difference between sink and swim for that entire month, however, so when it’s the subject of an opportunistic theft shortly after we first glimpse it, it triggers a chain of events at Milton Steel which leads to an untimely, grisly death.
Moving away from all this, at least for now, we meet a young woman named Rhiannon (Catrin Jones), receiving professional care for mental health issues – but she has the support of a small but close group of friends, and after her therapy, she is heading off with them. But the trip isn’t quite as planned: it was meant to be a night out in Cardiff, but Bethany (Sam Williams Potter) takes it upon herself to suggest they head back to Milton instead. Milton is very clearly signposted as the source of Rhiannon’s anxiety, so of course she isn’t too keen, but agrees to grin and bear it as she gets reacquainted with the rest of the girls. The meeting isn’t fully positive though; we may note a few potential sources of tension between them. Back to Rhiannon, however, and it’s obvious that this is part catch-up, part intervention: clearly all of these young women have unfinished business with the town where they grew up, and a determination to finally face it, with Rhi most in need of all.
As they descend upon a deserted local pub with courageous intent – Rhiannon pausing in this to chat with an old flame, Oliver (director and writer Aled Owen) now working behind the bar – talk turns to Milton Steel, with which Rhiannon, as it turns out, has a family connection. Whatever else is true of her, she’s harbouring knowledge which she has yet to share with the other girls, but for all of them, a late-night trip to the now deserted and derelict building is on the cards. This is more than just a trip down memory lane. They discuss something which may or may not be hidden on site, and this prompts them all to recall a period of time in their younger years when they were drawn to thrill-seeking, criminal behaviour of their own; they’re far from blameless, female victims. So they head to the building late at night, and whilst this has the potential for a showdown on its own terms given their shared history, there’s more.
After exploring the old place, the girls find out that someone has locked them in. Whoever it may be is in there with them, too, stalking the girls from room to room whilst menacingly calling out warnings. This person seems to know who they are, and maybe even what they’re doing there. But this is just the start of the girls’ reckoning with their past actions.
Criminals, or at least flawed people being confined in a small space and made to confront their deeds is a fairly popular motif in film, and whilst this first section of Scopophobia is long enough to lose some of the initial wow factor, it does establish character, with a decent, natural script and performances. There is some use of flashback, as is perhaps expected, given the ways things are panning out in the present, though unusually, the actors look plausibly school age when they are shown at that age, which is something which eludes plenty of filmmakers: it shows a good eye. The film also does an effective job of turning up various red herrings, again successfully emulating its forebears in giallo cinema: from the intro titles to the music, lighting and camera shots, it wears its heart on its sleeve in terms of its influences, and it’s a surprisingly effective blend, with a number of effective, escalatingly tense scenes.
As for the representation of Wales itself – unusual enough in a film of this type – there’s certainly some use made of very Welsh concerns. The derelict steel plant is a large feature of the Welsh cultural and physical landscape at this point, and it’s both engaging and fitting to see it used as such a key location here, newly requisitioned as a place of secrets and lies, and given some status as a setting. There’s also some interesting use made of the fact that this is such a small town, with perhaps ever-limited prospects if you have big plans (or at least plans bigger than a small town such as this can handle.) Personally, the use of modern pop music feels like a bit of a mismatch with the rest of the very effective retro soundtrack, but it’s at least understandable, and likely used as a way of bridging the gap between the very recognisable genre features and the more realist, up-to-date content. Overall, Scopophobia belies its budget to bring us an unusual and ambitious crime thriller which does more than enough to hold the interest, showcasing both a love of genre and a determination to bring a fresh approach to its storytelling. Not bad for a fifteen-day shoot. Oh, and it accounts for its unusual title, too.
The longer we live with social media, the more of a subgenre of horror it’s going to generate: as such, it’s little wonder that gaming is having its turn too, whether that be through screenplays based on successful games, or screenplays about gaming itself. Really speaking, although the technology is new, these films bring us stories about real problems clashing with the unreal, often forging links to far older ideas about the supernatural. That brings us to Livescreamers (2023), which is actually a sequel, but that doesn’t matter in terms of understanding the newer film. It’s a lively, interesting spin on its subject matter, familiar in some respects, but innovative in plenty of others.
We meet a group of content creators working for a gamer channel known as Janus Games – Janus, hmm? Founded by Mitch (Ryan LaPlante), and hosted by Zelda (Anna Lin), Nemo (Michael Smallwood), Gwen (Sarah Callahan Black), Jon (Christopher Trindade), Taylor (Coby Oram), Davey and Dice (Evan Michael Pearce; Maddox Julien Slide). On the day we meet them, they are preparing for an online session where they’re going to welcome a fan of the channel onto the stream to play alongside them. This is a big deal for fan Lucy (Neoma Sanchez), who moves between enthusing about her love for Janus Games and worrying about the exact game they’ll be playing together.
This turns out to be a new horror indie, newly available – and there to be road-tested by the team. It’s called House of Souls, and you know what? The graphics which are incorporated into the film are very good indeed, as is the mock gameplay. The team sets about modding their characters, which is a quick way for the film to showcase the care and attention to detail which is on its way, and the tension starts to build as they are each invited to select one help item for use during the game. This being done, they’re in, walking into the prerequisite Old Dark House to try to decipher what’s going on, and indeed how to ‘win’ the game…
Whilst it’s possible to make a guess as to how gameplay and real life are going to cross paths here, all whilst begging a few questions as to the precise details of that crossover, Livescreamers deserves ample credit for the way it splices gamer lore, gamer sociolect, urban legend and myth. There are lots and lots of ideas, well presented and thought out. The use of split screen, in-game footage and what we can assume is an often ad-lib script all work together nicely, perhaps most closely resembling another excellent social media horror, Deadstream (2022), in its use of pace, humour and tone, but doing plenty of its own work too. There’s maybe some Panic Button (2011) in there too, which – although an older title – really did set the bar for the blend between omnipotent social media and unsavoury personal revelations.
Livescreamers has a lot to say about modern gaming, and so is clearly coming from a place of love – and frustration, too, as it talks its way through a range of well-established current annoyances, as well as more significant issues. We get commentary on the sometimes-unpalatable balancing act between integrity and making money, for example, and plenty of commentary on gender and gender/queer issues, which have been tenaciously haunting the world of gaming for years, and don’t look to be going away anytime soon, either. Yes, the use of an increasingly hostile environment to force home truths is a horror cinema staple, whether it’s in a game or not, but the blend of on-camera footage, side footage, gameplay and even analogue media playable by characters inside the game (!) showcase a good range of narrative ideas. The film worries away at character traits and faults at just the right tempo, with a series of reveals along the way. It’s also interesting that the film moves most of its purest horror scenes into the game itself, but it’s decently creepy and works well when it happens.
In terms of bigger social ideas, aside from the gender politics at play, the film also asks questions about fame and what it means, now that it is potentially so accessible to so many people – even people who, once, would have just played games with their closest friends. There are of course lots of pitfalls – actually, quite literally in the world of the game – and Livescreamers explores these in just enough detail, raising questions as well as focusing our attention on certain aspects. It also carries a sense of dark humour throughout.
The world of online gaming is huge, but nonetheless Livescreamers may find its appeal lands best with a comparatively small audience in the grander scheme of things, and that’s okay: it may be a film for one tribe in particular, but given its decent writing, authentic performances and a deft understanding of how to tell a story in ninety neat minutes, it’s a decent, enjoyable horror indie and a successful labour of love from director and writer Michelle Iannantuono.
Livescreamers (2023) is coming to VOD and Blu-ray on September 27th.
Body horror has always given us repellent answers to pertinent questions, and The Substance (2024) is a great entrant to the genre, even if it’s quite busy paying its dues to a whole host of past directors and titles. The key question under consideration here is a very familiar one: what happens to women in the public eye when they dare to grow older? But it’s not just about stardom: this is a hideous microcosm of the horrors of ageing in a patriarchal society. It’s focused on celebrity, but it runs deeper than that, so as grim as it gets, it’s coming from a recognisable place.
Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is the star of a long-running TV fitness show, and she’s a big success until – bam – she has the temerity to turn fifty. On her birthday, she overhears head honcho Harvey (a brilliantly repugnant Dennis Quaid) pondering aloud how the old bitch has even lasted this long. She’s being replaced: the channel needs someone ‘young’ and ‘hot’ instead.
Elisabeth’s day from hell continues when she leaves the studio and, momentarily distracted by a vast billboard bearing her image (the film goes a bundle on distracting, unsettling posters) she’s involved in a car accident, at which point the film rolls out the first of its waves of noise trauma, as the sounds of the impact cut through the air like shards of metal. At the hospital, Lizzy is told she’s had a lucky escape, with no major injuries. But as she prepares to leave, a handsome young doctor – who seems enamoured of her spinal column for some reason – tells her she would be a “good candidate” for…something. She finds a card and a memory stick in her coat pocket after she leaves, mentioning something simply called The Substance.
When you base your entire existence on the kind of shiftless popularity upon which LA is built, then a day like this is completely untenable. Faced with a bunch of roses with a cutting past tense message: ‘you were great!’, Lizzy plugs in the memory stick and swayed by the information she discovers, tracks down this Substance to a grotty PO box. Soon afterwards, she’s ready to create the ‘best version of herself’ using an appropriately vivid green concoction, a syringe and an array of drips. The instructions are sparse – surely we could get a few good short films out of people misinterpreting what they have to do here – but Lizzy gets through it, and…
You’ll have to see the process for yourselves. No descriptions here. My word.
Her ’best self’ turns out to be a twentysomething girl (Margaret Qualley) with little about her beyond prettiness and that kind of saccharine, unspoiled tabula rasa quality which people in the industry love: not for nothing, we can guess, does she choose the name ‘Sue’ (‘Use’). She is excited by the possibilities this creates and decides to gyrate her way back to her old job under her new guise, heading down to the studio to audition as Elisabeth Sparkle’s replacement. Sue dispenses with even notional fitness value for the new act, instead dropping a bubblegum-coloured, softcore dance act instead – which, obviously, the dunderheads in charge absolutely love (women’s bodies may shift and twist and change in this film, but all the men here are born grotesques). Whilst it’s initially quite difficult to see Lizzy and Sue as essentially one person, it beds in, clearly following in the footsteps of the likes of Dorian Gray and Dead Ringers (1998). Each incarnation begins to detest the other self, each of whom seems to deliberately goad the other, eventually attempting to break the rules of conduct expressly given by the makers of the Substance by hanging onto more time as the favoured self – which can only go one way: disaster.
While we’re on the subject of influences, this is a film which very clearly signposts a number of films and filmmakers, though The Shining (1980) is probably highest in the mix, alongside a fair few other, often very open nods (bows?) to Kubrick – this makes for a rich, interesting aesthetic mix, particularly around the use of interiors, with some direct references to killer Kubrick scenes. But there’s more: as the film progresses from a more sober, clinical body horror (the likes of Brandon Cronenberg) to a much more OTT, late 80s-style body horror (David Cronenberg; Brian Yuzna) the film manages to balance being its own beast against a clear, if occasionally hectic homage to the greats.
It does work, though. At its heart, the messaging behind The Substance is sincere, clear and devastating. We can all think of anecdotes – with different outcomes, admittedly, or hopefully – where stars, usually women, reach a certain age and are immediately sidelined. Moore, who is fantastic in this film, has probably been far closer to this cruel system during her own career, and her performance is sympathetic, even whilst showing us a woman whose entire sense of self-worth is built on sand. She’ll do anything to get the applause back, and look what happens as a result. We get Sue, a girl so hooked on that applause that she will do anything, even playing fast and loose with the rules of the substance (see also: Death Becomes Her) that she messes everything up in grand, irrevocable style. But then we only get Sue because she is, incredibly, the best version of Lizzy, a woman who, for all the money and the billboards and the designer clothes, is lonely. It’s a brittle, aimless life. Whilst The Substance is a hammer blow to the brutal vicissitudes of celebrity, it is also a distillation of wider attitudes to women. Moore – who looks great, but that’s to evaluate her against exactly the same bullshit scale as the one used in the film – really gets put through the wringer here, and so does Sue. It’s quite something to behold.
As an addendum, it was a pleasure to watch this with a non-horror crowd who’d come to see it entirely based on its lead actresses; these were people who have lived pleasant lives, with no knowledge of Society (1989) or anything like it, and then they were faced with…this. Hope they’re okay today. I hope, too, that they are with me in appreciating this well-crafted, vivid, bold piece of body horror with clever ideas, references and developments. There’s no let-up, all whilst retaining an artful, consistent visual style, a hellish soundtrack and killer performances. If Demi Moore doesn’t win an Oscar for this, then the Harveys are still, sadly, in charge.
The ‘heist gone wrong’ is a surprisingly popular motif in genre cinema lately. From Livide (2011) to Don’t Breathe (2016) through to Peppergrass (2021), to name a few, ideas about what could happen in such an unfamiliar, high stakes situation have given a fair few filmmakers food for thought, and each subsequent film uses varying blends of realism and fantasy to explore the aftermath. This brings us to Things Will Be Different (2024), a film which also uses the heist idea, but marries it to another modern genre film predilection: time travel. The resulting film has some of the almost inevitable issues which come of toying with quantum mechanics in a ninety (or a hundred) minute screenplay, but on balance, it’s still one of the more humane and intriguing riffs on the subject matter to date.
As the film begins, a phonecall between adult brother and sister Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy) tells us that these two need to go off-grid for a while – actually, for a very specific while: two weeks exactly. The reason for this is so that they can lay low following a robbery – a robbery which is of course going to change everything for them. Meeting at an ominously timeless diner, Sidney with a rifle strapped to her back (which looks seismically unsuited to laying low, all told) and Joe with a couple of bags of loot at his feet, they enjoy a last supper of sorts before heading off into the nearby woods en route to a mystery house, known to Joe, where they intend to hide. Continuing to fail at being inconspicuous, they first have to clear a carful of locals from out front (which they do by shooting at them!) but, the house is clearly key to their plans, so they go inside. The place is derelict, but there are some old pieces of furniture still around and some of these seem to be, let’s say, unusual. There’s clearly more to this place than first appears, and both siblings know it – even if Joe takes the lead. Using special know-how, they gain access to a hidden room and sit tight while the sirens slip in and out of sound range. It looks like they’re going to be okay.
It’s when they emerge that things really reveal themselves as weird. The house now appears neat and tidy; the fields outside are different. What? How long were they in there? When Joe meddled with the dial on the clock downstairs, it was clearly something more involved than just springing some secret lock or mechanism: it seems that these two have somehow taken themselves outside of conventional time, which means that they can hide their deeds and hide from the cops by hanging out in a kind of never-never land, with the house operating as a dimension of its own. Joe and Sidney decide to use their two week vacation from space-time as a good excuse to fix some bad blood and unspoken tensions, which they duly do, but it will be absolutely no surprise to anyone to discover that apparently you can’t simply opt out of the passage of time and then hop back in where you left off. Time travel, quantum worlds – these ideas essentially function as a new wave of supernaturalism in cinema, the new ‘forces you don’t mess with’ without prompting fear, disorientation and unease. In the case of this film, it turns out that there are others with more of a handle on these kinds of possibilities, and that they are watching Joe and Sidney: messages start to appear, recordings are shared. The siblings find themselves trapped in a hostile situation where they are being watched, but by whom? Who is coming, and what do they want?
Codes and signs, covert knowledge – the plot of the film takes some time to bed in, and at first feels a little like Episode Two of something, where you may have missed a few of the essentials – the whos, the whens, the wheres. The script is clearly aware of this and attempts to rectify it, with characters discussing some of the facts behind the so-called “magic house” and at some points, some aspects of the suspension of disbelief required seems to be of some concern to writer/director Michael Felker, who comes close to shrugging at some of the finer details. But in other respects, the film’s determination to only ever afford its characters (and audience) just enough understanding is played spectacularly well. Sometimes, taking its strangeness as a given allows the film to change tack very abruptly, introducing distinct horror elements – bodies, blood, watchful and seemingly omniscient ‘Others’ who retain control of an increasingly vulnerable and desperate pair of protagonists. These shifts in pace are effective. Key to all of this? Thompson and Dandy are charismatic enough to carry the close focus of their roles, bringing enough of a fractured family relationship to bear on the film to keep their characters interesting and sympathetic. High energy sequences are lower in the mix than slower, more philosophical content, but given the small cast and fixed abode, this is to be expected. The film itself is highly technically proficient, with beautiful shots of bright sunshine ceding to dust-mote-opaque interiors, summer giving way to autumn and winter, and every shot carefully lit and framed. There’s also a simple but ominous musical score which scales up the tension, even when things may at least appear calm; it really draws things together well.
Admittedly I’ll always have a sneaking suspicion that these kinds of quantum horrors add an inarguable layer of ‘science’ to otherwise familiar (and arguable) magic storylines, but there are still plenty of ideas and developments in Things Will Be Different to hold the attention, and in many respects it’s a considered and engaging film. Perhaps to add that ‘those time guys’ Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson are producers, with Benson also taking a more involved role, will ultimately tell you whether this title is for you or not – as there are some similarities with Benson & Moorhead projects to date, and director Michael Felker has also worked on several of their past films. But Things Will Be Different certainly has a lot to recommend it on its own terms too, and ultimately the ways in which its human relationships are overlaid with incredible circumstances have more than enough aplomb here for a first-time feature.
Things Will Be Different will be in UK Cinemas from 4th October and on Blu-ray and Digital Download from 18th November.
In the tradition of updating the afterlife mythos – from Beetlejuice to The Lovely Bones – directors and writers the Butler Brothers have turned their hand to the ultimate hinterland in Purgatory Jack (2023), taking for a setting the place where souls wait to be cleansed of residual sin before getting into heaven. And they’ve done some interesting work with it; The Divine Comedy this ain’t, and instead their version of Purgatory is weirdly recognisable, a little ramshackle and in many ways, original and bizarre. This all unfolds to us with some early bridging shots, getting us from Earth to afterlife – firstly with a photo of what looks like a couple’s suicide pact, some time in the mid-twentieth century. This is what does for Jack: we see him, still wearing clothes in the style of his time on Earth, hiding away, alone, in a bar-cum-residence which is filled with clocks (to remind him that time is still passing, even if it doesn’t pass the same way where he is). We also see some paramedics desperately working on a young woman; it’s left to us to work out whether their efforts are successful, because the first time we get a good look at her, she’s materialising in a strange place, watched by a group of young women – one of whom is clutching a severed arm.
Okay. In short order, we also find out that Purgatory runs by certain rules. Blood – which turns to ashes if a person spends a long time there – is treated like a drug by older souls, which is of great peril to new arrivals, particularly if there’s still a question mark over whether they’re dead or alive, in a hinterland of their own. That seems to be the case with punk musician Viv Vacious (Alexandra Beaton), who is famous enough that the three muses sitting on the bench nearby are instantly starstruck. We also glean that body parts are interchangeable here, thanks to a black market in hacked-off limbs. Put people anywhere, living or dead, and it seems they’ll create some sort of godawful underground economy before too long. In any case, Viv is at risk and one of her fangirls tells her she needs to lay low, get off the streets: to help her to do just that, she is taken to Jack’s residence, and he’s able to fill her in on a few more relevant pieces of information.
They talk – or rather, Jack talks, Viv Vacious snarls and huffs (there are some issues with this character, who blows hot and cold at points, reverting to shouty feminist platitudes which are probably intended to make her relatable as an alt-rock pioneer, but can wind up keeping her at arm’s length). It turns out that Viv’s own mother committed suicide some twenty Earth years previously; Jack doesn’t really help himself here by pointing out that Purgatory is filled with suicides – maybe her mom is here, too. On hearing this, Viv quickly decides that she has to seek her out, talk to her one last time about what led her to leave a seven year old child behind. As a result, Jack decides he has to go along too as a kind of penance, perhaps, prompting an odyssey of sorts – which puts them both in danger, but also reveals a lot more about the machinations going on behind the scenes, and how the worlds of the living and the dead overlap.
How to define this film, in genre terms? Cyberpunk neo noir perhaps? There are definitely noir elements here, and not just because of Jack’s outfit: a flawed main character, the search for a covert truth, the use of flashback…but then, the majority of noirs weren’t hinged around ideas such as organised bloodletting and underground surgery, so the label won’t do on its own. Maybe that’s just fine. You really can’t fault the range of ideas initially at play here: the film is often funny, often thoughtful and occasionally profound. Microbudget or not, the film gets a lot out of its resources: it uses visual clues and touches to add to the strangeness; it lights and frames all of the interior shots very well, and also manages to make outside locations look suitably strange – all through relatively simple devices like the use of post-production cartoon panel colours, and/or framing things so that the place looks like the savage wasteland it should be. To come back to the idea of influences, it reminded me in places of the Clive Barker novella Mister B. Gone, which depicts hell as just a place where demons live, shop, socialise, cook, and live out almost humdrum lives, just in an extraordinary place.
The main issue with Purgatory Jack is that, after establishing an intriguing, creative take on its selected setting, it doesn’t quite have enough other surprises to carry it through an hour and forty minutes which, although by far not the longest runtime ever seen in an indie film, is long enough to need a solid narrative arc with a few questions and resolutions. Really speaking, the idea here is very simple, so once the initial impression made by this particular take on Purgatory settles, you’re left with quite a long wander through the landscape while the main characters look for someone, which can feel like it’s lagging in places. Yes, we do get some resolutions, but these are guessable to a point (alongside some other plot points which raise a few issues but don’t linger over those particulars, which can make things feel uneven by the end.) But nonetheless, the Butler Brothers’ dark humour, so prevalent in Unfriending (2023), is still here in enough measure to land with audiences, showing them to be filmmakers with plenty of ideas and promise, and happy to take on the big ideas along the way, even life and death.
