Archive: Author: Keri O'Shea

Fantasia 2021: Martyrs Lane

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Any expectations I had for Martyrs Lane (2021) were very quickly blown out of the water; it’s a ghostly tale which in many ways feels like it comes from an earlier time, having more in common with the subtle horrors of the 60s and 70s than the flashier, quick edits of modern cinema. This is a heartbreaking and very intimate domestic drama, centred plausibly and sensitively on the experiences of children, perhaps between Paperhouse (1988) and The Others (2001) in terms of its content and tone. But it is very much its own story, too.

Leah (the superb Kiera Thompson) is an isolated little girl who seems to be troubled by a fear of the dark and ominous dreams at night. By day, she seems to exist as something between invisible and a nuisance to the adults in her life. She’s about to be Confirmed at the local church, where her father is the minister, but there are early hints that her religious feelings are quite genuine and not just part and parcel of her father’s role, family pressure, or anything like that. She believes in angels, or what she perceives to be angels, and seems fascinated by stories about them.

One day, this bright but conflicted little girl sees another child in the woods near her house – not long after big sister Bex has been trying to scare her with stories of Tudor ghosts who walk again at night. This isn’t scary, though; the little girl seems to be about her own age, and, innocently, Leah tells her she can come to her house, if she wants to. That evening, she does, tapping on Leah’s bedroom window and asking for her help.

A different filmmaker might have continued the Wuthering Heights similarity here in grisly fashion, just like the novel, but Martyrs Lane director Ruth Platt isn’t about that. No blood washes down the window panes here. The new friendship between the two children – and what ensues – makes for a deeply sophisticated story, blending familiar aspects of ghost lore with cultural beliefs about the special abilities which children have to see things which, as adults, we say aren’t there. Think of all those stories we share about ‘invisible friends’, and what they could be. But it isn’t just a ghost story. It’s underpinned by other plot devices, and these work together to make Leah’s story a rich, intricate and often unbearably tense one. For example, the family dynamic here is incredibly strained, particularly between Leah, mother Sarah (Denise Gough) and Bex (Hannah Rae). There’s an unpleasant, simmering tension which manifests itself in a variety of ways, said and unsaid. At first, the conversation between the two little girls is very open and natural by comparison; it makes a pleasant change to some of the other exchanges which take place, even if it doesn’t remain that way.

The film really excels in its representation of that gap between adults and children; it’s a representation which, in places, makes for difficult viewing. It’s not comfortable to watch. Firstly, this is because it can be difficult to recall the specific nature and intensity of childhood fears: we’re largely socialised out of them. Martyrs Lane brings them back, doing so from the perspective of a little girl you can’t help but empathise with, whether she is anxiously using a torch to look for whatever might be making a noise in the dark, or (most poignantly of all) struggling to gain any recognition from the people in her life who should love her. Again, the film handles this brilliantly. The camera frequently stays at Leah’s height, or at least it does early on in the film, which helps to demonstrate the physical distance between her and the adults. It also often peers down at her, making her seem all the more vulnerable. The sound design is really important too, as it keeps adult conversations distant, a miserable babble which breaks off here and there only to scold Leah, or at best to trot out all the usual things people say to kids to get them to behave. It feels genuinely like relief when an adult is kind to her.

Leah, does, thankfully, get a little more interaction as the film moves on, though that tension and distance is always there on the periphery, in much the same way as Leah is – always on the threshold, looking in. So Martyrs Lane successfully captures both a child’s susceptibility to strange phenomena but also aspects of their powerlessness, but it also knows it’s being watched by adults: some of the moments of peril make you cringe as any adult would, watching a child steadily putting themselves at more and more risk.

As the film progresses, you may be able to make an educated guess at the backbone of the plot, but that does not take anything away from how the story unfolds. Elements of mystery, particularly the use of objects and clues, are used carefully as scares and revelations are doled out just as carefully, but they’re no less unsettling for that; some developments here are deeply unpleasant and unsettling. Ultimately, Martyrs Lane takes an oblique, almost delicate approach to grief, family and childhood in a thoughtful, confident way. It never misses a beat, and it sticks with you perhaps a little uncomfortably after viewing.

The World Premiere of Martyrs Lane will take place at the 25th Fantasia Film Festival.

Fantasia 2021: Don’t Say Its Name

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

An exploration of Indigenous folklore and myth offers rich and often unknown, or lesser-known potential for horror stories. Don’t Say Its Name (2021) interweaves aspects of folkloric belief with real-time concerns and anxieties afflicting a small First Nations community; in doing so, it has many merits, though in time resorts to very broad strokes and more recognisable tropes which dispense with the film’s earlier subtleties.

On a remote Canadian First Nation reservation, a young woman is knocked down and killed one night in a hit and run incident. This death rocks the small, close-knit community; slowly, it’s revealed that it’s especially tragic as the victim, a girl named Kharis (Sheena Kane), had only recently returned to that community after enduring a lot of hardship whilst living away. Her identification, and the reactions of her family and friends, are unusually tender, going a long way towards establishing a real sense of togetherness amongst these people, making for a commendable start to the narrative.

The loss of Kharis is a shock, but it’s not the only issue facing this community. Their fate is being threatened in other ways. Surveyors are in the area on behalf of a mining company known as WEC; they want to unlock the rich potential of the area, but most of the local residents are shocked by what this would mean for their land and their way of life. Two surveyors taking a look at a proposed site come under attack by something unidentified, unseen; these mysterious attacks continue, usually targeting outsiders. The newly-deputised ranger Stacey (Sera-Lys McArthur) is agreed to be the best person to try to track whatever is causing these attacks, whilst the Sheriff’s Department, led by Betty (Madison Walsh) try to figure out the links, as the killer now seems to be targeting locals, too. Why them?

The beautiful, snowy landscapes are shot to good advantage here and Don’t Say Its Name is certainly atmospheric, creating a community which is vulnerable by nature of being so remote. There are some interesting explorations of the divide between First Nation and Caucasian residents, though the script tends towards simplicity in this respect; the crude racism and sexism, for example, of one of the surveyors edges things towards caricature, which detracts from some of the finer points which the film seeks to make. A man smilingly claiming to be bringing hard cash to the ‘squaws’ seems too obvious to be believed, at least in terms of characterisation. Also, as the film moves towards its final act, much of the mystery surrounding the invisible attacks dissipates, blurring the lines between natural and supernatural in some ways which affects the nature of the threat itself, reducing it, or at least radically changing it. There are a few other tics which are rather distracting: the representation of the WEC as quite simplistic bad guys denies the possibility of an interesting discourse, whereas the character of town elder Carson – the only character really given a more nuanced perspective on the events unfolding in his community – has that voice stripped away regardless. Some of the other choices, such as the electric guitar incidental music, and the ‘sounds of war’ shortcut to represent a character’s military PTSD to us, feel rather clumsy and less in keeping with the terrific beauty and power of the setting itself.

The film segues into some good action sequences before its finale, and there are some hints at the cause for all of this which add a new layer to the storytelling, but all told, subtlety is not the name of the game in Don’t Say Its Name. Perhaps this was never the aim; if director and co-writer Rueben Martell wanted only to tell an entertaining, suitably-paced horror yarn with a few novel plot developments, then Don’t Say Its Name fits the bill very well. It does offer something which overlaps to a degree with existing folklore, but adds its own elements and gives it context by making links to very real anxieties over the environment, land rights and autonomy.

Don’t Say Its Name will feature at the 25th Fantasia Film Festival.

Fantasia 2021: Small Gauge Trauma

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Short films are always a highlight of the film festival calendar, and as we’ve been saying on this site for years, it’s such a shame that they don’t often get seen outside of the festival circuit – with the odd exception, such as ABCs of Death. Hopes were high that this would kickstart a new appetite for short films to get releases, but sadly, so far, it hasn’t happened. The Small Gauge Trauma collection of ten short films would work brilliantly well in the form they’re presented in here: they’re varied, they’re without exception brilliantly done, and a couple of the films in question achieve what features often cannot – the element of surprise. We get technology anxiety, body horror, new mythologies and new treatments of old mythologies, science fiction and lashings of dystopia across the collection.

With a well-known British cast, Aria satirises our surveillance and high-tech society with a young couple setting up a new smart home system (Aria being a version of Alexa, and look out for Natasia Demetriou as the friendly product guide). There are a few teething troubles, but then Tom (Daniel Lawrence Taylor) keeps getting notifications at night that the doorbell is detecting something. The film plays up the divisive potential of this kind of technology, with one partner affected by the phenomena far more than the other, and there’s a funny, dark and surreal conclusion to it all. Thumb has a lot going on in the background which is only explored to a degree, but there’s more than enough in this narrative to justify a longer film; after the death of her performance artist mother, ‘Thumb’ (Kate Adams) has taken on her estate. Packing and going through her things brings up details of this tense relationship, which she explains to her mother’s former partner Red (DeMorge Brown). Steadily, it seems that her mother’s spirit hasn’t gone anywhere, and has more demands to make on Thumb: there are some surreal touches here, and all in all it’s an examination on where performance begins and ends, with a very grisly punchline.

One of my two absolute favourites in this collection, The Tenant does everything which you would hope of a short film. It’s a terrific calling card, very unsettling and creepy. A woman awakes with a strange pain in her leg. As she limps through her day, she’s approached by a stranger who tells her that the reason she’s limping is because the ghost of an old woman has attached itself to her; she gives her advice on what she needs to do to get rid of it. The woman is scornful, but as events unfold, she begins to believe the advice she was given. A neat, economical piece of horror, the final scene of this is perfection. Another Spanish language film, The Darkness commences with a woman dragging herself from a body of water. She is in some kind of trance; automaton-like, she gathers her things and makes for civilisation, arriving at a school where, it seems, she works. Why was she in the water? What has happened? The principal is unsurprised to see her, but their dynamic is about to shift: there are a number of intricacies in this story, and I enjoyed what the film didn’t explain, as it provides more than enough for the audience to fill in those blanks.

Habitat reverts to the terrors of technology, blending outdated tech with a version of the world where you collect ‘clicks’ in order to make purchases – the spirit of Black Mirror is strong with this one. A man sits, alone, obeying the commands of adverts and website promising him a killer prize when he gets up to 100,000,000 clicks – and he’s nearly there. The film grows increasingly oddball and disturbing, eventually becoming a satire about loneliness and the horror of the mundane. There’s much to unpack and consider here. Tropaion continues in a dystopian vein, explaining that our word ‘trophy’ comes from the notion of the tropaion, a tribute to victory raised at the battlefield where prisoners – living and dead – would be attached to it. A young girl living amongst a small group of disorientated, scared people tends to her brother, but whatever is in the woods demands some sort of tribute. This film hangs onto its mysteries and it’s very understated, but it’s a beautiful, stark vision.

Laika grapples with one of the toughest real-life stories of the space race, which in itself takes some bravery; when the Soviets sent a living dog into orbit, they sent a terrified animal to a slow death in the name of progress. It’s a story which made me cry as a child, still does so now, and its bold handling as a basis for a particularly dark piece of sci-fi is inspired here. Watching the shuttle blast off, a child called Oleg will one day become an astronaut, and we’re thrown straight into the mayhem of a terrible accident at the ISS, with Oleg barely escaping into a pod. But something is accompanying him. The tense, effective opening scenes here are worthy of any sci-fi blockbuster, and whilst there are a few seconds of CGI which didn’t work so well, the film overall is incredibly strong and unsettling, whilst also being vindicatory. An overwhelming, ambitious piece of film.

The Relic feels very much as though its world-building could be explored much further, possibly in a feature-length film, but what it provides as a short film is engaging in its own right. Starting mid-event, a person is being brought back to a remote shelter covered in blood; another member of the party is missing, and there are hints of a ‘something’ monstrous in pursuit. The wintry setting crossed with the rising paranoia and tension, not to mention the practical SFX, calls to mind The Thing: the addition of some creative moments of body horror reinforce the feeling that there is a lot here still to explore. The Last Marriage shifts the tone dramatically, offering a well-observed black comedy against a backdrop of our old friend, the zombie outbreak. In rural Sweden, a husband and wife bicker about their domestic situation, where if chores aren’t done there is quite a lot at stake: that electric fence isn’t going to maintain itself. Things get worse: Marie (Emma Molin) thinks she might want a divorce. Janne (Christopher Wagelin) is a little put out by this, seeing as how he’s probably the last man on Earth. Gently funny and well observed, The Last Marriage shows how much character development can happen with a great script and good performances.

You’re Dead, Hélène closes this collection, and keeps the surprises coming. Starting as something very caustically funny, it shifts its tone incredibly successfully throughout, becoming quite moving as it does so. We start with a couple at a cinema screening; the problem is Maxime’s girlfriend has already passed away, but won’t part ways with him. He is at a loss, unsure how to ever move on: channelling Nina Forever, Hélène seems to enjoy his dissatisfaction, interfering in all his plans. Things grow darker and darker as he tries his hardest to get on with his life, before becoming rather poignant: we are made privy to the chain of events which brought both characters to this point. With a few clear nods to existing horror classics along the way, this is a sure fire festival success, but in its own right it’s a superb piece of storytelling.

Fantasia 2021: Hotel Poseidon

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Hotel Poseidon (2021) begins with an almost-mute man listening to some strangely motivational speech-making from the room next door; hard to imagine why someone would be quite this optimistic, given the dilapidated environs, but then this is a strange film and Hotel Poseidon itself is an odd, decrepit place, the sort of place Possum‘s Philip might go on holiday. The listener is a bloke called Dave (Tom Vermeir), who turns out to be the hotelier. He gets himself up and ready to face his day, but bear in mind that Dave is a man who listens to a head cleaning cassette on his Walkman in order to relax (ask your parents).

Dave is a reluctant participant in the hospitality industry, to put it mildly. He’s not overly keen on guests at all, but later that day, a young woman called Nora (Anneke Sluiters) manages to talk her way in; she’s somewhat put off by the spectacle of Dave’s deceased Aunt Lucy in the corner of one of the rooms, a fact that Dave hadn’t noticed and is perturbed by, as he relies on Lucy’s pension to keep the place going. Anyway, despite the surprise, Nora hangs around. Then there’s Dave’s associate with big plans for the place, promising live music, an elaborate buffet – basically, a range of things that Dave would rather not do. An assortment of overblown characters steadily encroach upon his time and personal space, leaving him perplexed and desperate to get away – but where on earth to go?

Evident care has been taken over the way this film looks and feels; this kind of rot and decay is difficult to achieve at scale, but here every inch of the hotel and its denizens is in keeping with that ‘past its best’ vibe. The camera makes the most of it as well, with lots of long takes and deliberation over the finer details. Of course, this means an array of analogue tech, which is something which virtually all indie films of late seem to favour, and you can be hard pressed to find a film which doesn’t have a big telly or a Bakelite phone somewhere. Here, at least, it makes some sense as the whole hotel is a garish time capsule, last updated in around 1988, if that. The sound design is an important component here, too, lending a steady, heavy and ominous presence throughout.

Hotel Poseidon is avowedly ‘experimental’; in practice, this often means that films will do similar things, things which are easily recognisable here. Step forward stilted dialogue, limited narrative progression and a heavy focus on visuals, rather than a story as such. In effect, Hotel Poseidon is more of a sensory experience than it is in any conventional ways a narrative. Right down to the characters themselves, wearing gaudy face paints, the film maintains its surreal atmosphere and style throughout. Tom Vermeir’s turn as Dave, with all the growing confusion and panic he feels as he loses control of his quiet, ordered existence, is nicely done and in places I was put in mind of Mother! (2017), with that similar inclusion of home invasion and the horror of other people. There’s something of Eraserhead (1977) too, again in terms of a man being swept along by demented events beyond his control.

I’m sure many will read Dave’s plight in a metaphorical sense, too, seeing Dave as a kind of feckless Everyman, events simply overtaking him when he would much prefer a quiet life. For this reviewer however, all the practiced weirdness did begin to wear rather thin; this is a film which looks and sounds great, but personally there isn’t quite enough substance here to sustain interest across the film’s running time. Your enjoyment of Hotel Poseidon will depend entirely on how willing you are to balance this kind of existential viewing experience against more conventional on-screen components, such as plot. If you favour the former, then there is much here to love.

Hotel Poseidon will feature as part of the 25th Fantasia Film Festival.

Fantasia 2021: Baby Money

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

This kind of crime thriller isn’t standard fare at Warped Perspective, but Baby Money has a great deal to recommend it: it’s well-paced, well-developed and carries enough surprises to maintain interest. Beginning with a young woman, Minny (Danay Garcia) having an ultrasound scan, it’s clear immediately that this is a wanted baby but – Minny immediately questions how she is going to be able to afford this child. An animated title sequence insinuates that she has been a dancer for a living – something which is out of the question for the moment – and her baby’s father is apparently willing to take drastic measures to get them some cash.

Cut to a particular evening: Minny’s partner Gil (Michael Drayer) has teamed up with local low-end criminals Dom and Tony to orchestrate a home invasion, seeking a specific something which is evidently worth a great deal to someone higher up the chain. The plan is: they break in, retrieve the box, and then get out of there, with the heavily-pregnant Minny as their getaway driver. What could go wrong? Well, everything. The family in question is at home, and Minny, in a panic, drives off when she gets a glimpse of what is going on inside. The men are trapped inside the residence and news of their crime is soon all over the city, with a police cordon and a manhunt. To make things worse, they are operating under a time limit, but the burner phone they need to answer is in the car…

Cue a widening web of characters, each with their own arcs and fallibilities, but make no mistake: Baby Money is an incredibly female-led film. The film is also very quick to humanise its characters, making them plausible and flawed seemingly very succinctly, avoiding the urge to make people into straightforward heroes or villains. Garcia is excellent in the lead role here, clearly a woman in turmoil with a great deal going unsaid, but still being enacted. But perhaps the best of the bunch is Heidi (Taja V. Simpson), a good person who deserves none of what befalls her. Her performance carries a great deal of the tension, tension which never relents because the initial pace and panic hangs over the rest of the film: you know more is coming. The chain of errors which unfolds is incredibly difficult to watch, covering ground from life-threatening events to communication breakdowns, though all of these drive the film towards its grim conclusion. The behaviour of Gil and Dom (Cabin Fever star Joey Kern) is so erratic and wrongheaded that it strays towards farce in some moments – but, again, always with that threat of far worse staying with it.

In its heist-goes-wrong motif Baby Money resembles, to some extent, Reservoir Dogs: the same confined location, fallible players and natural dialogue hold sway (there’s something of Pulp Fiction, too, in the mysterious box which they are sent to retrieve). However, Tarantino never could write women characters in the way Mikhael Bassilli has here; it’s a cleverly-paced thriller, where the dynamics shift and develop into a story all about motherhood. It’s also interesting that, in a film which at first seems to be about a relationship, the couple spends so little time together. Really, the film is about women realising their strengths. It’s impossible not to like Minny and Heidi; it’s impossible not to be utterly exasperated with the short-sighted stupidity and cruelty of the men. Increasingly, this very tense film becomes a very humane story, with some brilliant moments of redemption. Baby Money is not a comfortable watch, but it’s an engrossing one.

Baby Money (2021) will feature at the 25th Fantasia Film Festival.

Fantasia 2021: Agnes

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By a strange coincidence, I sat down to watch a screening of Agnes (2021) almost exactly fifty years since the release of The Devils (1971), Ken Russell’s incendiary historical horror about possession in a 17th Century convent. Since then, misbehaving nuns have featured in cinema fairly regularly, though often (if not always) appearing in more salacious stories, or in straightforward horror. Agnes starts off looking very much like part of this tradition. It doesn’t stick with this, though, and broadens in scope, looking at life outside the convent walls and taking an oblique look at faith in a modern context. Does it give itself too much to do? It certainly has its charms, but overall the film takes the audience on a journey which is just a little too meandering.

The Carmelite convent of Santa Theresa is a very small community, presided over by a Mother Superior who seems very ill-disposed towards any sort of rest, relaxation or enjoyment of any kind; as such, she can barely conceal her dismay at celebrating one of the Sister’s birthdays. Sister Agnes (Hayley McFarland), one of the younger members of the order, would seem to agree, and begins hurling her birthday cake at the other women in the room. But there’s perhaps more going on here than a minor meltdown and the Sisters fear a case of demonic possession: the gravelly voice is always a giveaway. The Diocese is called, and two priests – the older, more experienced Father Donaghue (Ben Hall) and the neophyte Father Benjamin (Jake Horowitz) – attend Santa Theresa’s. Whereas Benjamin believes in demons, Donaghue is more worldly, believing exorcism to be effective because of the showbiz of the rite itself, but they find their feet in the convent and quickly get underway.

What follows is de rigeur for possession on film – a sequence of scenes where it seems Agnes is cured, but then she isn’t, then there’s some violence, then they try again. Donaghue seeks reinforcements and his small jumble of outsiders does its best to help the almost always-absent titular character. But it’s Agnes’s closest friend Mary (Molly C. Quinn) who shifts into focus; her friend’s predicament seems to cause flashbacks to her old life and the person she was. This troubles her to the extent that, as events threaten the order itself, she begins to wonder if her place is in a convent at all.

The set-up in the film, where we establish our setting and who’s who on screen, is the most successful and visually charming and goes furthest towards establishing director Mickey Reece’s own aesthetic style. Agnes is quick to show its strange, dreamlike vibe; it’s achieved through little quirks such as suddenly focusing on an object, changing the lighting to emphasise it, or by varying the shooting style, from a slowly spinning camera to a sequence of quick edits. The convent looks attractive on screen, a place out of time. Then there are the odd emphases on, for instance, saying grace at a roadside diner, taxidermy seated at the table, or the anecdote about a demon that was never exorcised, because the afflicted family just got used to his company.

The film’s abrupt about-face, then, is a shame because it deprives the audience of some of the more interesting content. It’s via Father Donaghue that a lot of the more interesting questions and points about modern Catholicism are raised; he’s a realist, referring to genuine beliefs in possession and exorcism as ‘medieval woo-woo’ but also appreciating the importance of ritual, and what it can achieve for people laid so low that they really imagine they’re possessed. The priests talk about rational causes for possession – a swathe of mental illnesses could be responsible – but Benjamin is very much the foil to Donaghue’s worldliness. There are other topics, less explored, which also affect modern Catholicism, and some interesting content on how the secular world interacts with the faithful (or the once-faithful).

But this is dropped quite abruptly, characters and all, as the film seems to fall into two fairly separate chapters. It’s difficult to feel anything for Mary’s character and the gamut of new, partly-explored characters makes the film feel rather thin, a departure from the elements which seemed to work best. The arty style hangs on in there, so the film always looks good, but the narrative wanders and ends quite abruptly, only hinting finally at any meaning behind all of this. An ambitious and visually appealing film, Agnes works well in some respects but struggles in others.

Agnes (2021) will feature as part of the 25th Fantasia Film Festival.

Fantasia 2021: Alien On Stage

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that adapting Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) as a drama project would be completely mad idea, and you’d be correct. Step forward a group of bus drivers and amateur dramatics enthusiasts from Dorset, England, who were determined to do just that (and for the record, they considered doing Kill Bill). The documentary is based on their journey from the beginnings of the idea to a sell-out show on the West End, and it’s a funny, uplifting film which somehow makes you feel that there’s a lot of good in the world.

The group – calling themselves Paranoid Dramatics – initially saw Alien as the perfect project to get into, despite the challenges: it takes place in more or less one setting, with a limited number of characters, and it offers a good, dramatic story. Still, the small matter of building all the sets, getting the right costumes and the creature design all offer some difficulties. It’s hard not to warm to someone explaining that they have build a wearable xenomorph costume from scratch, using insulation foam for the creature’s ribs and affixing its skull to a bike helmet, for ease of wear. You also get to know the team, who are family and friends that believe taking part in hobbies after work is not only good for them, but a great opportunity to raise money for charity. The Alien production was put on for that purpose.

You’re already invested by the time you find out that, after all their hard work, the first show was incredibly poorly attended; you feel disappointed with them. Then, you are utterly on their side when you find out that their fortunes shift and they get invited to put the show on in Leicester Square, a big indicator of success in theatre. The documentary itself is fairly no frills, a largely fly-on-the-wall style film with a little bit of Q&A thrown in, but you steadily get to know each of the people in the production. They’re a pleasant, self-deprecating bunch, perfectly well aware of the fact that they are amateurs, but they clearly care about what they’re doing, even if there’s a spot of corpsing involved. You also get a sense of the frustrations and the pitfalls of doing a thing like this, certainly by the time they get to the West End theatre and realise they have a sell-out audience on their hands. There are a few lulls before we get to that point – lots of scenes of the team reading through their lines but not having learned them – but once we get to London, everything is worth it.

It’s interesting that, early on in the film, they explain that they wanted to move away from the whole pantomime area which am-dram groups are often known for (and there’s an explanation of what panto is all about, presumably for international audiences who don’t have a festive tradition of cross-dressing participatory theatre). Then, they bring their show to London, and it somehow turns into an Alien pantomime! It’s completely impossible not to join in with the laughter when one punter can’t stop herself from yelling, ‘It’s behind you!’ when the xenomorph steps onto the stage. The film is an engaging study of amateur dramatics as a whole, a popular pastime which doesn’t that often get on screen; you don’t see a lot of the people and places featured in the film, either. The end result is all kinds of charming, even if low-key.

All in all, as much the interpretation of a classic sci-fi like Alien is funny and engaging on its own terms, the emphasis is much more or the people themselves than the original film, though what we see of the performance is just glorious good fun. What the film shows most of all is the joy of people just getting up and doing something, showing us where that can take them. You will absolutely find yourself rooting for these guys, and directors Lucy Harvey and Danielle Kummer have done a good job here by allowing the people and the project to speak for themselves. That’s all you really need.

Alien On Stage: the Documentary will screen as part of the 25th Fantasia Film Festival. For more information on the film, please click here.

Fantasia 2021: Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

In thinking about how to begin this review, it feels impossible not to come at it from a British perspective. In so many ways, Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break is the archetypal British dark comedy – sad, sometimes bitter, bittersweet but very funny. And, as it takes us through all of this, it’s more than happy to remind us that many things are, well, a bit crap. This is its central success, as although it also takes some swipes at the world of social media, it’s primarily character-based and sticks with its central character very closely, investing us in his pitfalls and accidental successes. It’s hard not to be charmed by it.

In a terraced street in a smallish UK town lives Mr. Paul Dood (Tom Meeten), talent show veteran. Although he’s in his forties and working by day in a charity shop, he’s still determined to succeed on the stage: his elderly mum (June Watson) is rooting for him too. Now that he’s using a social media platform called Trend Ladder (which is essentially Instagram Live) he holds onto hope that his all singing, all dancing act will find a new audience. Focusing avidly on any and all interactions doesn’t help his time management, though, and he realises whilst at work that he’s got the Talent Ladder Talent Show date all wrong. It’s today, not next week: in a lather, he rushes home, collects mum, and they dash off together.

Their journey to the venue is, and sorry to bring it up again already, the most British farce imaginable. Be it petty little jobsworths, megalomaniac business owners or other politely-bullying individuals, everything which can go wrong does go wrong, and it does so agonisingly slowly. Oh, it’s hard not to shout at the screen, even while enjoying the spectacle. These things mean that the Doods arrive at the audition too late, and it only gets worse from there: what unfolds when they manage to speak to the dreadful host of the show, Jack Tapp (Kevin Simpson), turns the mild-mannered Paul into a very different man. This doesn’t play out as he wants, necessarily, but the film does offer a kind of misguided catharsis; it doesn’t happen in a Falling Down style, but it happens via a number of accidents, incidents and misunderstandings which range from socially cringeworthy to very grisly.

From the ‘clubland style’ performance outfit Paul wears to the phenomenon of the charity shop to the teacake binges, the backdrop for all of this is so, so recognisable – though to international audiences, it may need some explanation. This is a catalogue of the things which often drive us mad over here, and the humour present in this film is an excellent reflection of all that. It’s gallows humour, shown in unlikely situations but everyday language: barring the fact that a handful of the jokes or characters flounder because they’re so obvious, it works very well. It’s hard to get that kind of unpracticed, well-observed speech done right, but writers Brook Driver, Nick Gillespie and Matthew White have nailed it here; it also helps that the film boasts a who’s who of British comedy, and yes, thankfully Steve Oram is in it, as it wouldn’t be proper otherwise.

So Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break nicely satirises a lot of things, but it manages to hang onto a sense of poignancy too. For starters, we’re certainly not alone in the UK in obsessing over talent shows, and this has been the case since way before the internet. Now, the rise and rise of social media has only intensified this urge to get famous, and the likes of Susan Boyle has pushed the idea that anyone, any time can do it (we see a clip of Susan doing her thing in the film). Paul Dood is to an extent a victim of this thinking, but it runs deeper with him: a lot of his desires to make it stem from his close relationship with his mum, wanting to make her proud. Looking further, these godawful shows and their offspring are sold on the notion of instantaneously lifting people out of poverty, something else which affects the Doods, who seem to be ‘making do’ at best. Paul accidentally succeeds in social media notoriety, but it’s because he breaks down under the weight of expectations and grief, and that is genuinely sad in places. You can’t help liking him, whatever he does, because it’s easy to buy into his frustrations and anger. Thankfully, the film’s moments of serendipity are perfect, and balance out the abject misery to give us something incredibly well-handled overall.

It won’t be for everyone, this one. Admittedly it’s dour, it can be bloody and it has a very low-key style of humour. But seeing an everyday guy kicking against the pricks? It’s great, and I haven’t seen it done quite like this before.

Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break (2021) will screen as part of the 25th Fantasia Film Festival. For more details, please click here.

Fantasia 2021: On The 3rd Day

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

There’s been some great cinema coming out of Argentina in recent years, now joined by On The 3rd Day (2021), a clever and carefully-structured horror film which successfully incorporates several horror tropes without settling into a rut. Taking first one route and then another, the film makes you doubt your allegiances and presents several narrative strands, bringing all of these together as something which is familiar, but feels brand-new. That’s no mean feat.

That all being said, I had grave doubts about where things were going at first. ‘Familiar’ can lead to all sorts of issues. The opening scenes introduce us to an older man, Enrique, who receives a mysterious phone call about his ‘cargo’, which he needs to deliver somewhere. He gets ready to go, moving whatever it is onto his truck: the sight of chains and various other items in his dilapidated house provided some misgivings that this was going to turn into something choc-full of torture, which is one modern trope too many, too often. But, the film leaves him behind for the moment and, in a rather brighter, more modern house, a mother and son – Cecilia and Martin – are getting ready to go on a trip by car. As fate would have it, Enrique’s vehicle and Cecilia’s car wind up on the same road at the same time that night: there’s an accident, and Cecilia is somehow separated from her young son, regaining consciousness in a shell of a building somewhere on the side of the highway.

Disorientated, she goes looking for help and is eventually taken to hospital, where she cannot get any of the rest she needs. Somehow, she and Martin had been missing for three whole days, time which she cannot recall. Her dreams are full of her son, and she hallucinates him everywhere, his red coat and hood strongly reminiscent of a certain other horror film where an anguished parent keeps seeing their child. The doctor in charge of her case is mystified by her, but feels drawn to her: he assures her that the police are looking for Martin, but she’s wary, delusional – and flees. She’s not completely alone; Doctor Hernán (Lautaro Delgado) tracks her down to offer further assistance. Other people have a vested interest in finding her, too, and their motives aren’t so good. Eventually Dr Hernán takes her to a friend who has the ability to use hypnosis. Together, their aim is to fill in the blanks and help Cecilia (Moro Anghileri) find Martin.

The first act of the film is where it is at its weakest, or at least its shakiest, but that is largely down to personal perceptions; on a basic level, there are a few unlikely plot developments in the first twenty minutes or so which feel a little thin, and evidently, safeguarding in Argentina is a very different animal to Europe. In terms of what else is going on, after fearing that this was going to be yet another ‘kidnap and torture’ style of film, I then feared that this was going to be a film based entirely on hallucination, a kind of jaded riff on mental illness, as there are some indications that it could be. Rather, these are elements placed there to lead the audience in a series of dead ends or potential leads, laying down clues and giving hints which may or may not go anywhere. It’s a mystery movie as well as a horror, and once the mystery begins to unfold, it’s hard not to be hooked. The film has a solid pace, making you work to keep up and, once it is really underway, it hangs together incredibly well. You have to love a film that, when the credits roll, you immediately look back over spoken lines and scenes and see them differently, now that you know how they fit in.

Visually, this is an interesting film too, combining something of the blue-tinged, Noughties torture-porn rot and grime with some of the stylised, carefully-lit cult horror of the 70s: indeed it draws from aspects of those decades, as well as seemingly directly referencing some classic horror scenes too, and it’s only fitting that the aesthetics reflect that fusion. The performances are excellent, but full credit goes to Moro Anghileri, who is so able to show the contrast between loving mother and terrified amnesiac – and that’s not all she can do, either. It’s also helpful to the bedrock of the narrative that Martin (Octavio Belmonte) is actually a nice, pleasant little kid, and their relationship seems authentically close.

It’d do the film a disservice to describe it any more detail which would give the game away: essentially, On The 3rd Day is full of different elements and ideas, putting its own spin on them whilst showing a wealth of genre awareness. It’s effective, ambitious, and it’s economical, too, with none of this two-hour plus runtime which derails so many other movies. One further note: make sure you watch this right to the end of the credits.

On The 3rd Day (2021) will screen as part of the 25th Fantasia Film Festival.

Fantasia 2021: Tiong Bahru Social Club

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Because the world has altered so rapidly over the past twenty years, with new ways of analysing, modifying and recording human behaviour, it’s already quite usual to see this reflected in cinema. The thing is, it’s more often than not treated as a grave concern, coming to us via technological horrors which plump for a series of worst case scenarios. That’s not the only way to do it, as proven by Tiong Bahru Social Club (2020), a charming, light-touch Singaporean comedy; it’s equally possible to just laugh at the absurdity of it all, even whilst learning a couple of gentle lessons too.

Ah Bee (Thomas Pang) has reached a series of milestones when we are first introduced to him: it’s his 30th birthday, he has just left his job at an insurance claims firm (so surely any way is up) and, best of all, he has been accepted to join the Social Club of the title. This is both a new place to live and a new job: their slogan, or at least one of their slogans is ‘putting unity back into the community’, by working as a Happiness Agent to improve the lives of others. Tiong Bahru achieves this by careful monitoring, using algorithms to improve its residents’ experiences and monitoring individual data. This all sounds very hi-tech, and whilst it is, it comes in a very pleasant, pretty package. It’s not often we get to describe films as straightforwardly pretty on this site, but this one is – think the suburbia of Edward Scissorhands (1990) only refracted through the brightest, cleanest and most lush aspects of modern Singapore. Ah Bee is lucky to get into this little utopia.

Still, there is a progression route here, as anywhere else, and in order to move towards promotion Ah Bee has been assigned an elderly neighbour. His job is, simply, to make her happier. His client, Ms Wee (Jalyn Han) is not massively receptive to his almost-mute early overtures, however. Her first proper conversation with him is to take him through a long list of cats she’s known and loved, with added details on how they died. In the wrong hands, this could be a dreadful misjudgement of what to include in a comedy, but in testament to this film’s tone, it’s deeply, darkly funny. When he’s not trying to please the very forthright Ms Wee (oh, she’s glorious) Bee is taking part in happiness-boosting activities…cuddle workshops, team-building mornings in the pool…and his results are soon in. He’s not as happy as the management would like him to be. This begs the question: what happens to people who are just not able to get happy? And what if you reach 100% on the algorithm – then what?

Happy…happiness…these words are used pretty relentlessly throughout the film until they start to come apart at the seams, and in all likelihood this is the point. In inviting us to consider what happiness actually means, the audience is kept on a par with Bee himself, who is ever the sweet, slightly bewildered everyman, taking it all in and trying to make sense of it all. The film is also busy with terms which have, at the time of writing, become ubiquitous: ‘algorithm’, ‘data’, ‘consent’, ‘analytics’ and ‘KPIs’. These are important aspects of modern life, and come complete with a lot of legitimate concerns for us, but in the world of the film these don’t morph into anything monstrous. It’s too subtle for that, picking its more philosophical moments with great care and prioritising its very own brand of gentle humour. The activities which do – and don’t – raise Bee’s happiness data will almost certainly get a knowing laugh, whilst some of the moments are so bizarre and awkward that laughing out loud is unavoidable. Without going into spoilers, Bee’s misinterpretation of the rules of a question and answer game he’s asked to play with some of his neighbours is just superb.

There are some deeper meanings here, but getting to this point through a film so bright, clever and charming is a really pleasant change from the norm. Tiong Bahru Social Club is a warm and eccentric comedy, and one which deserves to be known everywhere as a timely, feelgood film.

Tiong Bahru Social Club (2020) will screen as part of the 25th Fantasia International Film Festival. For more details, please click here.

Fantasia 2021: King Car (Carro Rei)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Balancing a dark sense of humour against several other themes and elements of genre, King Car offers an adventurous look at the relationship between man and machine. Sure, we’ve seen sentient vehicles before, but not quite like this. It’s a smart, if zany piece of work, busy, but (just about) giving us something which brings those ideas together.

We start with a glimpse of a Brazil which is rapidly modernising; the municipality of Caruaru is firstly shown with skyscrapers in the distance, but the remains of a rural, agricultural past still clinging on at the outskirts of its growing cities. Cows meander through scrap cars and drift onto the narrow roads, preventing a man from getting his wife, who is in labour, to hospital. In fact, she doesn’t get much further and gives birth in the back of the car. This seems to trigger some unusual ability in her son, Uno, who by the time he is a few years old seems able to communicate directly with cars. One in particular, part of his dad’s taxi fleet, even seems fond of him (though it’s not long before this ‘friendship’ seems suspect, and devastates the small family unit).

As Uno grows up, he seems to lose – or to forget – his abilities and he struggles to take his own path. Emphatically, he doesn’t want to spend his life simply doing what his father has done, and wants to train as a bio-agriculturalist, addressing issues like pollution and food production which have only worsened in the time it’s taken him to reach young adulthood. This causes a rift with his father, coincidentally dragging Uno back to the scrapyards and vehicles he’d left behind in his childhood. Finding his way back to the same, now wrecked cab from before, Uno realises he can still communicate with it. Thinking perhaps that his ‘gift’ can be turned to some purpose or perhaps out of pure curiosity at this stage, Uno enlists the help of his uncle Zé, and they renovate it (think Pimp My Ride meets Lawnmower Man). As it turns out, Uno and Zé have a particular set of skills with all cars, and it’s just in time: these old, fuel-guzzling cars made before a certain date have just been made illegal. It becomes a battle of Building Back Better against The Greater Good.

If the film has one flaw, then it’s in how it gives itself an awful lot to resolve. Its ideas on big topics like sentience, class and power lose some of their more thought-provoking, interesting elements as things settle into a more familiar-feeling good vs. bad narrative. King Car is at its best when it more tentatively explores some select ideas, and this it certainly does, whether or not this is a film which features talking cars as a central plot device. For example, it has a lot to offer on family dynamics, such as in Uno’s home, where tradition and respect bump up against his own plans and hopes but can’t push him entirely away from his father and uncle – for good or ill.

King Car also looks at the complexities of modernisation, which it does very well, examining the idea that ‘better’ is a debatable term and never means better for everyone; the drive to save the environment, for instance, is often decided by people who are negatively affected by it the least, and we get that here, more as a lesson than a lecture as Uno, his friends and family navigate their unprecedented situation. Well, Uncle Zé does a bit of lecturing on the sheer, endless possibilities for the relationship of mankind and technology, though he is represented to us as a rather wired, if largely well-meaning oddball who lives in a junkyard and moves around like Raoul Duke. That’s another thing we probably inevitably get here – comedy. Things shift from the sublime to the ridiculous as the film moves along, but jokes add some much-needed levity to a film which shifts from fantasy to coming-of-age drama right through to something which isn’t all that far from any number of ‘mad scientist’ stories, or ‘mad mechanic’, anyway. It’s a film which makes serious points, but it’s not po-faced.

Director Renata Pinheiro has used her art direction background alongside her previous directing experience to make a very beautiful, visually rich film here, with its fantasy-tinged Brazil looking genuinely superb on screen. All in all, King Car is an energetic, ambitious film which puts its own spin on the role of technology in people’s lives and has a great number of strengths.

King Car will screen at the 25th Fantasia International Film Festival. For more information, please click here.