Toxic female friendships have not infrequently come in for a good, hard, if specious look in cinema. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of these films have opted for the horror/thriller route, sometimes putting a spin on the home invasion idea (i.e. Single White Female) and sometimes going a step further, having a woman infiltrate the life of another woman who is, for whatever reason, doing a better job of nailing those social rites of passage, which are more often than not still marriage and motherhood: from The Hand That Rocks The Cradle to The Stylist, beware the woman who doesn’t have it all. So Homewrecker (2019) is certainly a film which springs from that stock, but it does do a few things rather differently. Firstly, it opts to retain a certain level of black humour, at least until its ‘throw everything at it’ final act. It also manipulates at least some of the ‘unhinged women’ norms, even if quite subtly, so that it hangs on to a few surprises along the way, although these come at a cost: ultimately, this does all boil down to two women fighting over something which hardly seems worth having, and any finer points about this, or female friendship generally, get rather lost in the mix.
Anyway, we start by seeing a couple of ladies clearly getting their memberships’ worth out of the gym: thirtysomething and, as it turns out, interior designer Michelle (Alex Essoe) gets chatting to another gym member, fiftysomething Linda (Precious Chong) after a class one day. Let’s make no bones about it, things seem a tad off with Linda from the start; her rather manic befriending style is a shock to the system for Michelle, who has a lot to think about currently: she’s been trying, and so far failing, to have a baby with husband Robert, but his rather distant attitude is giving her second thoughts anyway: is it a good idea to essentially sign yourself up to a lifelong contract with a man who can’t even look pleased to be in a coupley picture on your desktop wallpaper? Maybe this is why she finds herself opening up to the older, maybe wiser woman, who seems to be taking a rather wide-eyed interest in her wellbeing. And, when Linda suggests that Michelle might like to take a look at her place with a view to doing it up, Michelle finds it impossible to refuse.
The film therefore sets out its stall very early on: unhappy younger woman finds herself stuck in the home of an older woman with apparent issues. Linda seems to be stuck in the time period where she was at her happiest and most optimistic (which of course is the late eighties/early nineties; how else are you going to fix the camera on the now indie-film staple of a VHS recorder?) and, in the here and now, she seems to have buried herself in a mire of motivational quotes and fridge-magnet philosophy about sisters doing it for themselves. Outside of that, she reveals that she’s been unlucky in love herself, and takes a keen interest in Michelle’s own situation, imposing upon her unwitting guest by trying to opt in as her best friend, demanding heart-to-hearts and so on. Some of the lighter-touch dialogue in the early acts of the film showcase the script at its best and most observant, though I did find Linda’s overblown body language and eye contact a little too cartoonish, and it felt as though the film could have gone in one of two directions – fully cartoonish, or increasingly serious. Actually, though, it does largely try to do both for the most part, splicing a few increasingly violent scenes with downtime which ups the dialogue, even if doing this to add in a few twists and turns. Still, Alex Essoe, probably best known to the likes of people who read this website as ‘her out of Starry Eyes’ gets put through the wringer here, too, but she does have form for being put through an ordeal in order to discover her authentic self, and this aspect of the film works best of all for me. Also, where the film pauses to focus on the interaction between Michelle and Linda, the characterisation improves overall, becoming more intimate.
Homewrecker certainly has its moments, though it is hamstrung by budgetary constraints and its tendency to skate the line between humour and serious point/content – to the extent that, if it ever did purport to really say something about female relationships, or loneliness, or love, then it doesn’t quite get there, and relies on a few reductive assumptions of its own, too. The final act is a sink or swim decision for the whole film; I felt that it just about held together, but its patchwork approach wasn’t overall to my liking and it reverts to tried-and-tested fare at its close which may smack of overfamiliarity.
Homewrecker (2018) is available now on VOD via 101 Films.
A couple of selected quotes about the nature of vengeance set us up for I Am Lisa (2020), and foreground the overall tone rather well. For a film which at times features bloody gore and violence, it takes a surprisingly sober approach to its storytelling overall, even if it quickly establishes that it’s a story which will feature lycanthropy. There have been a few werewolf horrors in past years which have used this theme to explore very human preoccupations and vulnerabilities: Late Phases, Bloodthirsty – here, werewolves aren’t often simple, straightforward monsters. Similarly, I Am Lisa is a struggle for autonomy and self-worth, just one which is shot through with a new variant on lycanthropy folklore.
After we’d made privy to a pursuit in the woods by moonlight and the shooting of a part-transformed girl by the local sheriff (Manon Halliburton), we know all is not as it seems in this small town. And, when the shy, nervous Lisa (Kristen Vaganos) returns to the same town to take care of her late grandmother’s bookstore business, her shyness and relative isolation are very quickly used against her by the local mean girls, seemingly as soon as they realise she’s back. The worst offender, Jessica (Carmen Anello) has harboured a grudge against Lisa since high school; the other girls are more hangers-on, or even only in it for a quiet life. Not that this helps Lisa. After one confrontation Jessica returns, seemingly to make friendly overtures, but this quickly morphs into a sexual assault and a threat.
After discussing her predicament with her best friend Samantha (Jennifer Seward), Lisa makes the desperate decision to report Jessica’s actions to the police. It’s a desperate decision because Jessica is part of the sprawling Huckins clan, and the matriarch of the bunch? The sheriff herself. Lisa’s attempts to file the report are inevitably incendiary, drawing the full wrath of the family down upon her; they take her out to the woods to ‘finish the lesson’, leaving her out there where – they hope – the wolves will eat what’s left of her. Needless to say perhaps, but things turn out a little differently. Some of the elements which follow are instantly recognisable; Lisa begins to change, healing rapidly, craving meat…but where the film begins to deviate from that familiarity is in its world-building. As she develops, Lisa begins to get closer to the secrets and strange phenomena associated with this place, and the role of the Huckins family in all of this.
I Am Lisa shifts from some pretty heavy signposting and referencing – a key scene from Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth, the Arbor Demon poster clearly visible in a shot – to significantly more low-key elements and developments. The characterisation of Lisa is very subtle, with quiet hints at a back story or her motivations which do just enough. We don’t get everything spelled out in this respect, and it works. Similarly, even with an archetypal bitch like Jessica (as clearly denoted by her heavy tattoos and piercings) there are hints of more, particularly in how others gravitate towards her, but make it clear they’d rather not do so. There’s more to it, I think, than just her family’s influential and instrumental power. There are definite allusions here to the whole idea of evil flourishing when good men do nothing; there’s more to unpack about the mentality of bullies, too, and the film’s grisly and very cruel in parts; this is made more gruelling by the close focus on Lisa’s face as all of this unfolds, and what it doesn’t show is significant. Events in the film, particularly in the first twenty minutes or so, escalate very quickly before settling into a more consistent, slow-burn approach; it is quite a shift, but it makes sense overall. Only very slowly does Lisa gain a true sense of agency, overcoming her own doubts, but this is satisfying to see. In terms of plot developments, whilst I Am Lisa is more soberly-done than either of them, there is an acknowledged element of I Spit On Your Ginger Snaps to the film – it’s a vengeance flick with supernatural overtones – and even though this might sound a little mad, it feels like a Western in some places too; kinda like Hang ‘Em High (1968) only with, you know, werewolves.
I Am Lisa is a thoughtful, well-handled horror film with plenty of the 80s-homage soundtrack and practical SFX beloved of indie horror fans (though its inclusion of the beautiful acoustic version of Type O Negative’s Wolf Moon, as performed by a band called Beezlefeast, was a huge plus for me and a welcome new addition to my music library). Also, given its original spin on the werewolf mythos, there’s more than enough here for another chapter – something which I gather is a distinct possibility.
I Am Lisa (2020) is widely available to stream now.
Brian Emond is, or was, a ‘content producer’ from Brooklyn who always badly wanted to rise up through the ranks to real journalism. And, as he tells us early on, journalists are always looking for their exclusive – but don’t always end up telling the story they expected to tell. It’s a premise which guides us through a deeply funny, often considerate and heartfelt mockumentary, one which manages to balance its humour against a worthwhile skewering of the kind of content producers who appear in the film. There’s a certain amount of self-deprecating humour here which plays well against the other strands of humour; perhaps you have to know what you’re sending up to do it well, as well as to meld it with other themes, friendship turning out to be one of them.
We first meet Emond and his producer/cameraman Zach (who play themselves) attempting to get an interview with a hip-hop musician who just loves to cancel, regularly, on journos. But they finally get him to talk to them; this helps them onwards with their career at Compound TV (very clearly a pitch-perfect pastiche of Vice) but they grow disenchanted with the material: a guy who makes artisanal antibiotics; a feature on the craft beer scene in war-torn Ukraine (and as someone who would probably quite happily watch that, I felt seen.) Brian and Zach set about getting a new gig – which turns out to be travelling to Georgia to investigate the ‘Bigfoot Community’, and just maybe to look into any truth behind the claims that the sasquatch is real. So off they go to begin their research, meeting a range of colourful characters ahead of a surprise – to them – field expedition.
To get their story, and to know what to do in the middle of the Georgia woods. they need the help of a guide: Jeff Stephenson (again played by himself) is another content creator and the host of a YouTube channel all about cryptids; he’s an Eagle Scout too, as he keeps on telling them. Jeff’s an eccentric to say the least, and as the trip progresses, Zach and Brian begin to wonder if Jeff may be becoming the de facto subject of the film. But that’s just the start, and their film heads off in a series of quite unexpected directions, taking them with it.
With the exception of a very minor lull around the fifty minute mark, this is a well-paced film and very well-observed throughout, right down to the ‘listicle’ title. Not only does it poke fun at the internet generation and the kind of content which has emerged, providing a low-key but pithy comment on our times, it also presents a range of very well-drawn characters which are a pleasure to watch. Many of the segments and the scenes are genuinely laugh-out-loud and Brian, who is usually on-screen, provides just the right balance of deadpan ennui and mild confusion about what the hell is going on. His weary demeanour is perfect. Another solid decision is to suggest that this is an edited, completed piece of documentary filmmaking, because it fully excuses and allows for the neatly-edited, well-made film, something which has always dogged the verisimilitude of ‘found footage’. 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Bigfoot is very polished, and this is completely plausible; the voiceover works really well, too.
In some respects, as the plot thickens, this mockumentary emulates many of the features of a horror movie with its beautiful landscapes, the ‘getting lost’ shtick, the evidence of something savage in the woods and so on: however, by coming at it with a different perspective, it allows the film to dodge a few of the worst of the horror tropes in favour of just the right balance between action, humour and pathos. This is a succinct, cleverly written and worthwhile indie film: it’s certainly new terrain for director, writer and star Zach Lamplugh given his career to date, but he clearly has skills working as a humourist across a feature-length project and we need directors who can do this – right up until the clever tying-up of loose ends at the end.
15 Things You Didn’t Know About Bigfoot releases to VOD on 7th May 2021.
Whilst Warped Perspective is fortunate to work with (note: not for) a number of promotion companies who readily furnish the site with screeners and provide information whenever asked, I can’t help but note that the simple act of reviewing films is becoming more and more of a strangely competitive, restrictive environment in many ways; this has become more noticeable over the past couple of years, but interestingly, the Great Shutdown which prevented film festivals taking place in any usual sense (thanks to a certain pandemic) hasn’t in any ways led to a reassessment of this new working practice. If anything, with an audience so often wedded to Netflix and less open to some of the low-budget oddities which are still filtering their way through, things have become even more oddly strident. And, I’d contest that, slowly but surely, some of these working practices are leading to a breakdown, or certainly a disconnect between companies and fans.
Here’s the thing: Warped Perspective is not a money-making venture. With the exception of the Buy Me a Coffee app, which has paid for the hosting for another year (and thank you to those few people for contributing) WP keeps going because I pay to keep it going. What was once a team of people has slowly eroded to being just me; that’s fine, it is what it is, but I am well aware that Warped Perspective isn’t in the big league and has a very modest following. And why wouldn’t it? It’s a fan site, written by a fan – these days, by just one fan. This is a hobby, something I enjoy; I have a demanding day job which pays the bills, so I write about films in my ever-limited spare time, because I still like doing it. There are thousands of people like me, a few of whom are my friends, and I’m sure their reasoning is exactly the same. As for a number of distribution and promotional companies – in their case, I’m not so sure they are even aware of the difference between sites like mine and the huge, pull-quote generating money-making sites; or, if they’re aware, then they don’t particularly care, and so address us all as if we all co-exist to generate profits for them.
Of course, if I enjoy a film, then I’m more than happy if that pushes a modicum of publicity its way, and it’s great when a director gets in touch to show some appreciation – that really is special, and it matters. But I’m not here to make money for middlemen. That’s not what my site is for. Recently, I have started receiving numerous ready-made articles – puff pieces, written by publicists, with an attached message saying they’d be ‘grateful’ if I’d run it, verbatim, on my site. In effect, I’m being asked to publicise a film without question, with no input, and at my own expense. Where is my incentive for providing not only free press, but press which costs me money to run? I run a fan site because I like writing: why, then, would I then opt out of the writing bit on some stranger’s behalf? I enjoy writing, so much so that it is still worthwhile even when I’ve hit a run of not-so-great films; when you discover a real gem, all of that dissolves into nothing. I’m not here as an unpaid intern for a company that often forgets to even amend the header and as such, addresses me by the wrong name (and by the way, ‘Josh’, if you’re out there, I think I might be getting a lot of your mail…)
And there’s more. Embargoes. Ah, embargoes. These used to be fairly rare as well, and usually attached to brand-new films which had no existing press, though if you ask me, these sometimes look awfully like votes of no confidence in the project, and attempts to curtail negative press until it’s past the point of no return for a paying audience; embargoes also have the effect of generating cynicism it seems. But let’s assume they are simply, in such an instance, a means of organising press coverage and perhaps generating a level of excitement, avoiding spoiler-heavy coverage, and so on. Perhaps wrongheaded, but still somehow logical. Of course, I also understand the perils of piracy for new films, even whilst I cannot understand why anyone given the benefit of an unseen film would behave in such an appalling way; if having my email address and name emblazoned across my screener is the only straightforward remedy for the asshole behaviour of the few, then so be it. Still, though, we routinely get slapped with embargoes when a film has been out for months, has a healthy existing number of reviews, and an even bigger number of Twitter (et al) posts all happily discussing the film at hand. For whom is this embargo? Is it just a piracy issue? In an online world, press doesn’t work like it used to. If someone wants to see a review, regardless of whether its release date is imminent or weeks away, then they can usually find that coverage – and, for me, I feel highly unlikely to give time over to a screener which warns me that I can’t write anything for six weeks, because – and here’s that thing again – I rather like writing. Scheduling posts is all well and good, but it’s quite frustrating for my site to sit fallow for weeks when I have embargoed coverage sitting there for little good reason that I can see. I now get embargoes on short films which will, sad as it is, probably never get seen again outside of a handful of festivals. I’ve even had embargoed press releases, which to me is nothing short of barmy. Where on earth is this coming from? And who does it benefit? Not to mention the behaviour of some companies, should you dare to write a less than positive review; you can often stand to get unceremoniously removed from distribution lists. According to some of these, you don’t get to see films if you’re honest about what you think of them. There’s that expectation of free, positive press again.
Look, I understand that getting films out to fans is monumentally challenging at the moment, and in common with many other fans, it’s a privilege to get to see so many new films still somehow getting completed and finding their way to me. I’d certainly advise publicity and promotions people to have a rethink about some of their current practices, though. Attempting to piggy-back unpaid fan ventures and these needless efforts to control the agenda are pouring energy the wrong way; in fact, people find it exasperating, and the last thing any of us need is encroaching ill-will.
I think I can be forgiven for assuming that Undergods (2020) was another dystopian sci-fi of a certain kind. This isn’t just due to the promo info; its opening scenes feel familiar, with shots of dilapidated buildings, abundant filth and scarce, seemingly feral people; the aesthetic is just what you’d expect from a world post-bomb, -disease or -famine – the likes of which we’ve seen elsewhere on-screen. And the first two characters we meet could quite happily belong to any such world: known only by their initials, K (Johann Myers) and Z (Géza Röhrig) make ends meet by collecting dead bodies from the streets, which they sell on as ‘meat’. It’s a job they seem reasonably happy to be doing and they seem to enjoy each other’s company – hey, gallows humour and all that. As they drive, they begin to exchange stories…and that’s as much of a framing device as you get in Undergods, which turns out to be a stylish, if distended run of fragmentary narratives, some pertaining to what seems to be the same dystopian streets and some belonging elsewhere, though all seem to have the same bleak, often gruelling meanness of spirit in common. In itself, that’s quite an accomplishment.
As K and Z chat, they begin to recount dreams and ideas they’ve had: the first of these takes us to an apartment block where, compared to life for K and Z themselves, seems fairly bearable, at least in terms of basics like food to eat and somewhere to sleep. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has a few levels on K and Z’s world here. We meet a couple, Ron (Michael Gould) and wife Ruth (Hayley Carmichael) who are disturbed at dinner by an upstairs neighbour who has, it seems, locked himself out. You could be forgiven for thinking Ruth is quite keen to have any other company than her husband, so she suggests they let him in and let him spend the night. One night turns into several; Ron goes backwards and forwards on how to dislodge this stranger from his home (something of a theme in Undergods, if we’re pressed to suggest one) and his decision leads to something which a prospective new neighbour would probably choose not to see. In one of the film’s moments of dipping out of the story, providing us with a new narrator, this new neighbour begins telling a story of his own; it’s clearly no accident that the next story foregrounds a copy of Tales of Hoffman, as the film clearly aims to emulate that author’s fragmentary use of plot markers and resolutions. There are four stories in all, taking in crooked merchants, wronged foreigners, amnesiac spouses, toxic self-help tomes and one of the most excruciating work party scenes since the last one (hey, they’re easy to get right).
This all takes place in a kind of somewhere/anywhere in the continent of Europe, though for all the world looking like the worst of the former Eastern Bloc, at least whenever we get a good look at the skyline. As a matter of fact, the film was shot in Serbia with a very cosmopolitan cast. Against this backdrop, we have a real mixture of European names, some British, some Northern European. Elsewhere, the housing is minimalistic and modern (if belonging to the wealthy) or achingly normal (if belonging to the – at first – achingly normal). This kind of timelessness and rootlessness is a common choice for filmmakers of late. Here though, it works fairly well, and doesn’t feel like it’s closed off a sense of place and time simply for the sake of it. If you like your cinema to look cold, with a palette of greys and blues which would put the New French Extremity movement to shame, then you’ll very much enjoy Undergods: the stark red of the opening title shows a clear understanding of arresting visuals and how to blend elements together, though one of the other common calling cards of today’s indie cinema – a booming electro soundtrack – is far too high in the mix, drowning out speech whenever one overlays the other, which is a minor irritation.
Undergods clearly sets out to cultivate nightmarishness and it does achieve this, cutting in its blaring audio, static shots and quick edits whilst moving in a way which makes many scenes and moments feel like non-sequiturs. It features a very few moments of interaction between its stories, but any sense of a distinct framework is soon dashed, and even in and of themselves, stories lack the expected moments of resolution; some aspects of the film are very engaging, and as an atmospheric venture this is a successful film, but the lack of narrative pay-off does feel unsatisfying – even whilst you accept that the film has made some bold choices by going its own way. If it resembles anything at all then it would be Taxidermia (2006), though again, the latter film has a clearer thread linking its own grim narratives together. Undergods is a couple of stages removed from that, but in terms of the gritty discomfort and oddness it brings, it succeeds. It’s just that its level of detachment from the conventions of tale-telling will not suit every viewer.
Undergods (2020) will be available in theatres and On Demand from May 7th.
It’s been discussed elsewhere on the site how, via successive lockdowns and the increasing role of social media, the latter has gone from steadily moving into horror cinema to hitting it at some pace. That being said, Filtered (2021) manages something a little different by taking a social media element which is usually trite and harmless, and making it pretty unsettling. The film begins with a real-time log in, which is momentarily alarming in and of itself if you’re sat at a computer; the girl whose desktop you see, Jasmine (the real name of the actress) clearly needs some down time: message threads open on her desktop show us that she’s having a tough time in work, so she opens Messenger and calls a friend for a chat.
Do people really take their phones to the bathroom? Clearly her friend Marco does, so after the usual, recognisable inane and in her words ‘cringe’ catch-up conversation, he starts playing with filters to cheer her up, and possibly to distract her. Fine. Right? Until the filters seem to take on a mind of their own…
It works well to have this come to us via natural, unscripted dialogue and the actors playing under their own names adds a level of plausibility. Filmmaker Vincenzo Nappi, who has worked exclusively in short film so far in his career, now has a knack of making the most of a very limited amount of screen time and here – as with last year’s First Bite – there’s a definite dash of black comedy, too. That being said, Filtered has a solid pay-off and does manage to make its subject matter, momentarily, very creepy. It’s a decent skit on the ‘new normal’ and a film which would make a good companion piece to a feature of similar subject matter; as time goes on, tech horror is turning into a promising subgenre and Filtered manages successfully to show something innocuous gone rogue.
Filtered premiered at the Cabane à Sang film festival on April 24th 2021.
Meet Gillian. Gillian is an aspiring filmmaker, albeit one who could use a content filter; this is clear as she explains to her friend Chase that some mutual friends paid her the unusual compliment of saying she’d ‘make a good murderer’, so she wants to explore the idea by going to his place and elaborating a fantasy of murdering his dreadful girlfriend, using this as the basis of a film project. Few people take kindly to such a notion, so it’s little surprise that Chase’s smile soon fades. Gillian attempts to rescue the situation by digging herself into a deeper hole and…three years pass. Given that this conversation takes place on film, we can only guess at what was said once Gillian finally stopped recording.
Reading between the lines, it seems that the intervening three years have been pretty tough. Being knocked back on a different project by a man who video-calls her with a static shot of his ear, almost as if he can’t even be bothered to match his indifference to the correct conversational medium, Gillian (director and writer Gillian Wallace Horvat) begins to fixate on the old project – the one which saw her falling out with Chase in the first place. She’s now calling it I, Murderer, but boyfriend Keith is soon exasperated with her enthusiasm for what he deems a terrible project which has no future. Gillian defends it; clearly, getting something – anything – completed with her name on the credits is taking on a greater significance, no doubt due to the severe lack of work out there, and with the clock ticking on her career. I, Murderer has to happen, therefore. Perhaps it’s predictable that the project begins to take over Gillian’s life, but with it comes a seismic shift in her personality. Soon, the dividing line between real life and film set begins to blend into one.
I Blame Society is by no means the first film to examine this real life/film project blend, and as such it slots in to a subgenre which counts the likes of Man Bites Dog, Resurrecting ‘The Street Walker’ and perhaps most of all, Strawberry Flavoured Plastic – though its own approach boasts some differences in style, perhaps most notably by centring Gillian throughout, remaining her project, curated only by her. It also uses a fairly acerbic style of comedy which sends itself up more than most films in the subgenre, albeit that this humour is delivered in a range of ways from deadpan to Gillian’s own, it has to be said, rather shrill and affected approach. The film is tonally a little odd in places, and Gillian’s performance is for me the most difficult aspect of the film to warm to, even if the film deserves some credit for presenting a female perspective in a way far from aspirational or uncomplicated. But to be fair, all the characters here are shown in a harsh light, with dialogue which can be funny, but also exasperating, in that it only reveals these people to be worse than they at first seemed. Given the natural emphasis on continually filming, the first half of the film does meander; you do still find yourself pondering why Gillian films absolutely everything, even whilst knowing she is doing so to get as much footage as possible which she could use. The mumblecore elements are patently not for everyone and nor have they ever been; the loose, unfocused build-up in I Blame Society can test one’s patience.
The film’s best elements relate to its treatment of new-school filmmaking practices which are electively all about ‘female perspectives’, ‘intersectionality’ and a number of other buzzwords which are meant to be linked to making filmmaking a more diverse place – represented, as they are here, in the mouths of people who don’t really understand them, and nor have they really shifted their attitudes at all. In this, some of the anger expressed by Gillian (the character) is almost certainly overlapping with Gillian (the director), and it’s the film at its most honest. Current progressive social mores haven’t swept away old favourites like nepotism and general cluelessness; the meetings with the producers not only underline that, but they make for excruciating (if very funny) viewing.
Offering stark comment in some respects and more subtle commentary in others, I Blame Society is a curious tale: a patchwork of dubious characters and motivations, it takes a while to get going, and it isn’t without its challenges along the way. But, as things escalate, it does drive towards a pretty grim finale.
Blue Finch Film released I Blame Society on Digital Download 19th April.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Redemption label opened many doors for me – and I’m sure that is the case for many other film fans, too. Were it not for mainstream retailers taking a punt on a certain very visually-arresting array of…well, VHS cassettes, if you go back a bit, then would many of us have discovered the likes of Fascination and The Living Dead Girl? The man behind the label, Nigel Wingrove, is still going strong and rather than accept defeat at the hands of the slow decay of the high street, has diversified, now offering a select streaming service which offers a diverse and growing list of films. And there is much more to come…
Nigel was kind enough to take some time to speak to Warped Perspective about his career to date, his newest ventures and his future plans. Also watch this space for some important news to follow regarding RedemptionTV. In the meantime, over to Nigel…
WP: So the first thing I’d like to ask is – how are you doing in Lockdown number 3? What sort of impact is it having on you? Obviously, this hasn’t been the year anyone could have wished for…
NW: I moved out of London at the end of 2014 and that immediately made my life more insular, although for the next two or three years I travelled back to London so often I might as well have not moved out. However, the isolation and space I found in the countryside enabled me to start working on my art, something that I’ve wanted to do all of my adult life, and was in fact part of my motivation for starting Redemption in the first place. I had naively thought that if I could make it a success financially then that would allow me the freedom to do my art, whereas in reality Redemption took up all of my time; and while my commercial ‘art’ has come to define Redemption as a brand, my personal ‘art’ has pretty much stayed locked up in my head.
So when the lockdown started I was very much ‘locked down’ anyway, I had pretty much stopped coming up to London and was essentially dividing my time between running Redemption and working on two art collections and a book. So if anything, lockdown made little or no difference to me on a personal level. On a business level, however, its initial impact was negative and damaging as the closure of HMV meant a substantial drop to our sales income, but positively, it spawned RedemptionTV.net and soon, PurgatoryTV.net.
WP: Let’s talk about some of the ongoing projects which come under the Salvation Films umbrella: for those readers who might not be fully aware, could you explain the different subdivisions on the roster – how does a Sacrament title compare to a Redemption one, for instance?
NW: The Redemption label was conceived after my short film Visions of Ecstasy was formally banned in 1990. I had, up until then, made a living designing and redesigning magazines (Skin Two, Nursing Times, Actual) and creating dark erotic images which a girlfriend suggested I should film. That spawned Axel (an 8-minute short with a soundtrack by Danielle Dax) and Visions, both of which I had, or planned to, self-release on VHS as a way of getting my budget back. The ban on Visions had scuppered that and put me at something of crossroads in my life. I could either continue working in magazines and essentially settle down or I could fight the ban on Visions and let fate decide the rest.
Fate actually decided things very quickly by sending the UK economy into a major recession, which meant that publishers cut back on new titles and cut back on redesigns etc. So I was kind of pushed out of magazines and although I continued freelancing and doing general design work, I knew that I had to do something else if I wanted to do more than just survive.
I actually have no idea what made me start a film label, but at some stage in 1990 or 1991, I decided that if I couldn’t release my own films then I could at least release films that I liked and that was it, really. I had no idea how one licensed films, no idea how they were distributed, what the process was or anything? I knew nothing!
To cut a long story short I managed to get £10K together, and asked the British Film Institute how I would license a film, and they helped me to get my first five titles; Mario Bava’s Mask of Satan and Lisa and the Devil, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore with Charlotte Rampling, Killer Nun, an old, video nasty, and what was, and still is, one of my all-time favourite films, the Naziploitation sleaze epic, Salon Kitty which I’d seen when I was at art school and never forgotten.
As for creating a label, that, like everything else was an organic decision, as whilst I knew next to nothing about distribution I did know about design and the power of the visual image. I also collected things and having walked around the, then huge, video sections in HMV, Virgin and Tower Records saw that aside from the anime label Manga which had its own section, that films were essentially listed alphabetically or occasionally by genre. There was nothing like Penguin Books’ distinctive green or orange spines or anything to really distinguish one label from another.
So, given that I had no money for advertising, and in 1992 no internet as such, I fell back on what I knew: magazines and more specifically, fanzines. I had produced two zines, one called Stains devoted to punk when I was at art school, and the other, a more professional looking publication called Homage in the early eighties, which was centred around the then-emerging New Romantic scene. I had seen that there were literally dozens of self-produced horror zines available in stores like Forbidden Planet, and decided that I should produce one to tie in with my label.
So in the summer of 1992, I created The Redeemer and decided on a name for my video label: Redemption. With the Redeemer I decided to combine most of what I loved; horror, sex, exploitation and fashion, plus anything else that seemed to fit in. For Redemption, I wanted a look that was completely different to any other labels and used a mock-up I’d created for a new French magazine called Gloria. My design hadn’t been used in the end so I utilised elements of it for Redemption, namely a uniform black, red and white type style combined with specially created black and white cover photographs. I decided on shooting my own covers once I’d seen how poor the stills were that the licensors supplied, and knew that if I relied on them that my videos would look no different from any of the others on the shelves.
I was lucky in that the distinctive sleeves worked as a range and HMV and Virgin (the two main retailers) racked those first five releases together creating mini Redemption sections on the shelves. After about six months I’d been able to license films by Jess Franco and Jean Rollin and the head buyer at HMV decided to take a chance with Redemption and asked me to create dedicated Redemption header boards for their stores, posters and so on and they launched a campaign giving Redemption big displays in their main stores. Looking back, it was fantastic!
In 1994 I launched a sister label to Redemption called Jezebel, which specialised in sexploitation films, many of which had been made by directors like Rollin and Franco who were also represented on the Redemption label. Jezebel was at least as successful as the Redemption label and retailers displayed the two labels together to create even bigger sections within their main stores.
I followed with two more labels: Purgatory in 1996, which was devoted to strong adult erotica, essentially picking up where the Jezebel label left off, and Sacrament, which champions Japanese Pink Cinema, which followed in 2004. The only other label I have currently is the Satanic Sluts which kind of happened, like so many of my projects, organically. Basically, after the brouhaha surrounding the BBC/Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs and the Satanic Sluts died down it became difficult to control events in real life (I used to run a monthly nightclub called Black Mass centred around the Satanic Sluts which was sanctioned by the Church of Satan) and I decided to make films with key girls from the group instead. We’ve made six films so far, so it’s a mini-label, but a label nevertheless.
WP: One burning question I have, given the range of titles you currently carry, is – where on earth do you source them? Many of these titles seem to originate in a hidden world! Even your more contemporary horror titles are often wonderfully unknown quantities.
NW: In terms of the films we release, It varies: when I first started Redemption no one wanted these type of films; there were no other labels after the same films and even the producers who owned them seemed uninterested in them, so for me, I was limited by money, not the availability of content. Now it’s very different as there are lots of labels and companies, many with much deeper pockets all after an ever-decreasing number of films, so I’ve sort of allowed our content to evolve, as always with me, organically.
Much as I love the films of the sixties and seventies it was forty to fifty years ago and I don’t want Redemption to be like all the other companies essentially restoring and releasing the same films again and again. Exploitation cinema has an energy about it, and when a lot of the directors and producers were making these films they were either cashing in on the popularity of a particular genre which had become fashionable through a successful mainstream film, or they were exploiting sex and violence to make a quick buck. Films were made quickly and cheaply, some were crap, some were OK and some were brilliant and it’s the same now.
There are a lot of young and new filmmakers working at the moment and as before some are bad, some are good and some are brilliant and while physical media made it financially too risky to take chances with unknown films and directors, streaming is perfect because the costs are relatively low. RedemptionTV has enabled us to screen new films every week and that in turn makes it easier to pick successfully streamed titles and release them on physical media later on. And because RedemptionTV streams worldwide, we’re getting sent new material from all over the world and some of these films are really, really good.
WP: You are currently running a streaming service – Redemption TV – where the films we’ve just been discussing can now be viewed online. Tell us a little more about this project and how it’s going: how do you think it stacks up against the likes of Shudder, and Arrow, who have just launched their own TV service?
NW: RedemptionTV.net came about because of the lockdown, as simple as that. In March HMV and other retailers closed and our income dropped and I knew that if I just sat in lockdown waiting for the shops to open that we could go under: having kept Redemption going for nearly thirty years, I was damned if I was to be put out of business by some stupid bug! RedemptionTV was formed in April 2020 and was live and online by May.
We launched with about 50 films and now have 150 or so titles available with more added every week. We made Saturday our new film day and have consistently added two new titles every Saturday since we began, something I’m very proud of, especially as we’re a team of three and have to cover websites, social media and physical releases, both in the UK and US, as well.
I knew that RedemptionTV.net would take time, as you have to get people to go to a specific website and then when they’re there get them to pay money to stream a movie and that’s difficult. That said, our monthly streams are slowly building up and as we add even more titles we plan to move to subscriptions over individual PPV, and also get a presence on Prime / Roku etc . I’m also keen to start producing our own product and expanding our culture section to cover alternative art, fashion, music and, possibly, more radical areas… While the original Satanic Sluts have moved on, we now get contacted by a new generation of girls that have grown up online and who have very different ideas as to how they want to be presented, what they want to do and be called. They’re actually pretty radical and creatively dangerous, so expect fireworks – We just have to wait for the right moment to light the fuse…
WP: What are your own personal favourites on the Salvation imprint at present?
My personal fave genre films are Tinto Brass’s Salon Kitty and Caligula, The Other Hell by Bruno Mattei, Immoral Tales and Behind Convent Walls by Borowczyk, and the exploitation masterpiece Deported Women of the SS Special Section, which was directed by Rino Di Silvestro, who, alongside Bruno Mattei, is a true Michelangelo of sleaze. I also love Gialli films. Sadly though, I don’t currently represent any of these cultural gems. However, we do represent some great titles at the moment, including Violent Delights which I just really like. It’s Mexican, is a bit confusing in places, but looks great and has a lot of blood and sex, so works for me.
Other personal likes, aside from Jean Rollin of course, are Renato Polselli’s Black Magic Rites and Luigi Batzella’s Nude for Satan, two of the most fabulously insane films ever made that I’m so proud to own. I also really like Grant McPhee’s Far from the Apple Tree which for some reason made me think of the TV adaptation of The Owl Service when I first saw it.
The other big genres for me now are Japanese pink cinema and strong erotica and both genres include some great titles, including S&M Hunter, which is kind of appalling but so ridiculous it’s OK, Whore Angels, Whore Hospital and Sexy Battle Girls which are all sexy and very funny. My current faves are The Succulent Succubus, Milk the Maid, which everyone assumes is pervy lactation porn, whereas in reality its a sexy comedy about a maid called Milk, and Naked Desire, which centres on a young nun whose chaste world is turned upside down by the arrival of a number of sexually deranged guests.
Finally, we recently signed a new director, Cosmotropia de Xam, whose work I really like. His films are pretty experimental in style and he began as a musical collective centred around Mater Suspiria Vision (his band) in 2009. They essentially pioneered and championed a style of music known as Witch House, which is described by Wikipedia as a ‘dark, occult-themed electronic music microgenre and visual aesthetic’ influenced by the occult, witchcraft, horror movies and, apparently, the visual style of Redemption. Bands associated with it include Crystal Castles, Holy Other and White Ring.
It’s a very visually-led genre and a lot of the visuals produced to accompany the music mix newly-created images with images lifted from horror films and occult books. This is, I understand, how Cosmotropia made the transition from music to film, by making long pop videos that transitioned into videos from which a narrative emerged, and from there, into feature-length films. As I said, his work is very experimental in style and will not be to everyone’s taste, but I genuinely like them and I love the way that they have evolved creatively. He has a team or collective around him and produces and releases his films directly to his fan base. Redemption will be the first company to release them to a wider, more mainstream audience and I’m very excited about it. The first releases on both RedemptionTV.net and physical media on the Redemption label include Acid Babylon, Phantasmagoria, Diabolique and Black Mass of the Brain.
WP: Following on from that question: what do you make of the horror and exploitation cinema we’ve seen in recent years? How much does the film scene continue to engage and interest you?
NW: I’m not really part of it. I don’t say that to mean that I’m in some state of splendid isolation but rather when I started Redemption I kind of clashed with a clique that sees itself as representing horror to the outside world and I knew that Redemption couldn’t or shouldn’t be part of it. So Redemption operates on the periphery of both the horror world and the film world. Sometimes, like the Ross/Brand/Sachs scandal or my earlier blasphemy ban, I or Redemption crosses into the mainstream, but then when things calm down Redemption moves back into the shadows.
That said, Redemption has fans and we also attract interesting and innovative people and when we do, things seem to happen of their own volition: I feel that is beginning to happen at the moment. In terms of the wider horror market, I’m not sure? It’s become quite corporate and formulaic like much of music has, but like music, horror attracts mavericks and rule breakers and I think that’s its saving grace. There are certainly a number of fantastic and innovative horror titles coming through on RedemptionTV – a high percentage of our new additions are very recent features and there are clearly some directors to keep an eye on in the mix.
WP: I always associate the Redemption label with two directors in particular: the late Jess Franco, and of course Jean Rollin. In fact, my first acquaintance with both of these directors came via your label, something for which I’ll always be grateful. If you would, it would be great to know how you came to know and eventually release so many of these long-lost, or certainly underappreciated gems. Particularly in the case of Jean Rollin: am I right in saying that you own the rights to his films?
NW: When I started Redemption, or actually before I’d even acquired or released a film I immersed myself in the genre, buying up not just fanzines but writing to and meeting up with the people who wrote and produced them. I read horror film books and pored over the Aurum Horror Encyclopedia and my own collections of Film Review annuals (I have every one from 1968 to 1984) and runs of Cinema X and Films and Filming and two directors emerged, again and again: Jean Rollin and Jess Franco.
However, when I tried to watch their films I found that they weren’t available, indeed in Rollin’s case, hardly anyone had ever seen his films as, aside from some really obscure video releases in France, they had never had a commercial release. Franco was similar with core fans trading and swapping poor quality bootleg tapes. What was driving the interest were the incredible images from their films: stills from Rollin’s films, in particular, had been reproduced in books like David Pirie’s The Vampire Cinema, an essential purchase at the time, and in the Aurum Encyclopedia etc and I decided that I had to make the unseen available and set about tracking them down.
When I first met Rollin, for some reason I had assumed, given his films that he would be dressed, if not in black, then be alternative in style but he was pretty straight and conventional and lived in a very modest apartment in one of the poorer arrondissements on the outskirts of Paris. I lived and worked in Paris for two years in the eighties so knew it pretty well, and Rollin struck me as someone who lived for his work and lived for it on his own terms. That also meant that by the time Redemption came along that he was struggling financially and lost to obscurity. He had fans of course, but to my thinking, they were a double-edged sword with some commenting that if people saw Rollin’s work that they wouldn’t understand it and might laugh or mock it. In a way, they wanted to keep Rollin in a sort of private ghetto for their personal delectation. Redemption changed that.
We licensed all of Rollin’s core films and the first one we released was Requiem for a Vampire and it sold really, really well; we followed with Shiver of the Vampire and The Nude Vampire and never looked back. The decision to buy and acquire the ownership of Rollin’s films came about because of piracy. Basically, as Redemption grew so did our problems. Essentially we were pioneers as no one had done this before; we had to establish the groundwork and one of our main problems was getting producers to treat these films with even a modicum of respect. Getting them to deliver good quality masters of the full, uncut version of a film in its correct ratio was a nightmare and expensive. So when we found out that people in the US were literally using our VHS tapes as masters to release the films in the states I decided that the only way to stop it was to launch Redemption in the US.
Again, at this time, 1997, only the majors launched in the US, certainly not small indie labels. We had to get a distribution deal and an advance big enough to acquire US rights. We did both and used some of the advance to buy Rollin’s films outright and so have been able to release and promote them ever since. I wish though that Jean had lived longer, as there is so much more that he could have done and I know, as well, that he would have been delighted with the increasing attention and recognition his work is getting.
Jess Franco was a different animal and problematic for very different reasons. My first Franco title was Succubus which was our seventh release, so a very early Redemption film and it was passed uncut by the BBFC, unlike many of our later Franco submissions, which were either cut or banned outright.
I only met him once and he said “Thank God for Redemption”, not because he thought we were great but, as with Rollin, he saw interest in his films skyrocket once we released them, or in many cases, tried to release them. He also smoked more cigarettes in the two hours or so we were together than I thought was humanly possible. At one stage in my life, I smoked between 20 and 60 a day depending on how hyped up I was, so I reckon he was on at least five packs a day! Phew.
The BBFC banned outright Sadomania and Demoniac (aka The Sadist of Notre Dame) and battled us on Female Vampire, and The Awful Dr Orloff, which was incredible given it was made in 1964. The Solicitor General even described scenes from Sadomania as part of their prosecution case against me at the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg during my blasphemy trial. They hated Franco almost as much as they hated me!
It was though Vampyros Lesbos, not me or the BBFC, that ultimately transformed Franco from an obscure exploitation director to a trendy cult hero. However, it wasn’t the film, great as it is, but the soundtrack, Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party by Crippled Dick Hot Wax which was released in 1995 to coincide with our release that just took off. It was amazing. After that, everyone wanted a bit of the Franco cake, but having made some 200 films there were plenty of slices to go around so everyone was happy, and Franco most of all.
WP: And finally – of course bearing in mind the given situation, as we roll on through this uncertain year – do you have any projects or schemes which you are hoping to work on? And anything else at all which you’d like to add: please feel free!
NW: Yes. RedemptionTV.net of course, and then PurgatoryTV.net and separately I have, amazingly, been asked to write and direct a follow-up to my nunsploitation epic, Sacred Flesh. I have to write it and everything but for once the funds are available for when I’m ready so I think realistically it’ll happen in late 2021 or early next year, which is exciting.
On the personal side, I am aiming to have completed all my ‘Believe Absolutely‘ exhibition artworks by the end of the year. There will be between 22 and 30 pieces when it’s all finished so that will be a big moment for me 🙂
A bar – it could be any bar, albeit it seems to be in a particularly bleak, remote place. It’s snowing outside. A beer bottle, not quite drained, occupies the foreground; unseen but audible, it seems a violent attack is taking place in the background. This first few minutes of coverage sums up a great deal about The Oak Room by showcasing its selected setting, its promise of violence and its resistance to neat, wrapped-up endings: it’s significant that this beer isn’t completely finished but we can still fill in the blanks as to what may be happening here, because we are hardwired to fill in those blanks.
We remain in a bar – the same bar? A different bar? You have to wait to find out, but it’s closing time, and bartender Paul (Peter Outerbridge) is just about ready to lock up for the night when a figure appears, out of the snow, and won’t take no for an answer when he’s told to go. Turns out it’s a local guy, Steve (Breaking Bad’s RJ Mitte) – well, he was local, but he moved away to college and never came back, not even for his father’s funeral. Paul, a lifelong friend of his dad, makes it quite clear that however unwelcome he was to begin with, it’s now doubly so. To compound this, it seems that Steve owes a lot of people, and as he’s here, he needs to clear the debt. Instead of simply paying up, Steve makes an offer: how about he tells a story? It takes place in a different town and a different bar, called The Oak Room, but he assures Paul that he’ll want to hear it. And so we begin: narrative frames narrative frames narrative, with humour, pathos and violence as common threads which hold these stories together.
Handling its selected structure very well and taking no easy linear routes, The Oak Room is, in its own way, an ode to the power of storytelling. Not only does Steve join the ranks of hundreds of literary figures who tried to tell a good tale as a means of getting out of a tough situation, but the film offers up something of a debate about stories themselves; I guess you could call that ‘meta’, if you liked, but in the film characters squabble about the rights and wrongs of how to tell a good yarn, what to emphasise, what to omit, how to get through the beginning, middle and end, and so on. It’s nice, too, that bars and barkeepers figure so highly. At the time of writing, bar-hopping as we know it feels like a distant memory: there’s a particular kind of storytelling in that environment – in which basic truths figure, but not as a priority – which deserves this kind of engaging, knowing tribute. As to what the stories reveal, it has an interesting effect; by drawing away from the first two characters we meet, it adds layer upon layer of circumstances which may, or may not be relevant to that initial situation. But because the stories are told so well, and mesh together so well, it winds up being a particularly rich way of developing the film’s plot – one which is closely geared towards people’s natural tendency to follow stories, and remember them. The film is based on a play and it does retain that feeling of an intimate stage setting, one which depends on guiding the audience.
I would say that the initial acting between the two leads took a little time to get used to; Paul seems rather overblown compared to Steve at first, drifting close to an 80s ‘action guy’ vibe with the sardonic, humorous dialogue to match. But either this was dialled back a little as the film progressed, or I stopped noticing it so much. In any case, it is entertaining, and the other characters who come along seem to reflect that same mismatch in turn, so it feels balanced. And the film feels variously like a game of cat and mouse and then a battle of wills, whoever is on screen: it’s no mean feat to hold the interest so well, given there are never more than two people on screen at one time (with a couple of minutes’ exception). The script jogs along, doing what it does economically enough but making you suspect each character’s motives in turn and the cast is excellent, though you could argue that RJ Mitte and Ari Millen are particularly good – and well-matched, too, despite the fact that they actually (spoiler) share no screen time. I’ve only recently become acquainted with Millen via his star turn in Vicious Fun and I have to say – he’s a force of nature, and definitely an actor to watch. Likewise, director Cody Calahan, also of Vicious Fun: to make and release two films of this calibre inside a year is quite a feat.
Woven into these unfolding tales are some big-hitting topics, as we touch upon generational conflict; past vs present; poverty; the repercussions of cruelty and human failure. I found the whole thing incredibly engrossing and appealing. Something else to note, and again, apologies for the minor spoiler: there are no women in this film. And that’s fine! Not every story, not every conversation has to contain women. The Oak Room does more than enough in grappling with bigger concerns which transcend this as an issue. This is a careful, cleverly-done film which balances the humane with the inhumane: it’s impressive and as charming as it is unsettling.
The Oak Room will available on digital download from 26th April.
I go backwards and forwards on director Ben Wheatley’s work to date, but I can never resist the promise of one of his passions – folk horror: in that respect, the opening scenes of In The Earth certainly don’t disappoint, foregrounding the promise of ancient practices and beliefs – and things going wrong, at a wild guess – almost immediately. Beneath a looming monolith, an unseen hand makes and plants a shard of flint, covering it tenderly with grass. It’s not clear when this offering is taking place, but the next scene brings us up to date with something which looks rather achingly familiar at this point: Britain, during a pandemic and lockdown situation. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) is arriving at a research facility, having himself had to undergo a lengthy isolation due to the illness. Whilst the pandemic itself doesn’t figure particularly in the film from this point onwards, it does provide us with an initial hit of an awful, recognisable now-normality, with a facility doing its best to stay open and functioning during extenuating circumstances. This makes what is now familiar look as ghastly as it is; nothing in the film is in a relaxed state, even before things really get going.
Martin is here to liaise with a former colleague, Dr Olivia Wendel (Hayley Squires), with whom he had been regularly corresponding. However, her current project has seen her isolating at a camp which is a long hike away from the lodge; to reach her, he needs the assistance of an experienced ranger, Alma (Ellora Torchia). After a brief stay, during which he discovers something of the local folklore about the ‘unusually fertile’ woodland, they proceed. They are both surprised to find another, abandoned camp way out there; there’s no sign of life, but clearly someone with children has stayed there recently, as there are toys left in the tent. A little perturbed, Martin and Alma move on and set up their own camp for that night.
Things from here begin to escalate; that evening, as they sleep, Martin and Alma are brutally attacked and robbed, leaving them both unconscious; Martin’s shoes are taken, a small and perplexing enough thing which – in this situation – is absolutely crippling, especially when he tears his foot on a rock, and all they can do is proceed, slowly and painfully, to Dr Wendel’s camp. But it seems that someone is watching them (in the first genuinely creepy scene, to balance against the film’s moments of intense physical, grisly nastiness). They meet a man by the name of Zach (Reece Shearsmith) who says that he, too, has been recently attacked; he offers the pair help, inviting them back to his camp. Is he as benevolent as he seems? Martin and Alma’s experience moves rapidly from bizarre to threatening, and in trying to unpick their situation, they necessarily need to understand the goals which unite both Zach and Dr Wendel.
At about the midpoint of In The Earth, it seemed uncertain which direction the plot was going to take – ordeal horror, or occult horror. Come to think of it, ‘ordeal occult’ isn’t a bad label to attach to this film; it definitely balances its unflinching physical horror against something far more esoteric. But things move in a series of unexpected directions from around an hour in, escalating, taking the tropes of sylvan horror and adding a tangle of intriguing lore. One of the film’s most ambitious aspects in how it treats religious/artistic veneration, the kinds of worship and ritual which have long been with us, considering this alongside a kind of quasi-science approach, with advocates for each. It’s in the final twenty minutes or so when the film tries to at least partly clarify all of this which seemed thinnest to me, but it does come accompanied by some very heady, eerie sequences, and it has sense enough to retain a good share of ambiguousness, rather than just scientifically find itself a series of answers. It would depart all too far from folk horror if it did.
All of the actors here do very well, enacting their rising confusion and panic successfully, though most praise must go to Shearsmith, doing an impressive turn here as a kind of affable maniac. But then, there’s method in his madness – or, at least something more cogent than Martin and Alma have, at the point when they first meet. Shearsmith also furnishes the film with a few moments of peculiarly black humour, interludes almost, which are quite discomfiting in their own right given everything else going on. I know it’s a long time since The League of Gentlemen did things on screen which they’d almost certainly not be able to do now, but it does seem that his abilities to meld threat with uncomfortable laughter were honed there. Zach also holds the entire plot together, giving some moments of exposition as well as sustaining the film’s creepier scenes, appearing whenever either of those things are needed.
Most of all with In The Earth, I liked the way it effectively establishes its weird microcosm in the woods, then aims to do so much with it: memories, ritual, worship and the notion of fate come together with bizarre, but intriguing attempts to overlay modern preoccupations like research, data and theory. Ideas begin to topple into one another at the end, but even at its busiest and gaudiest, it remains eerie and intoxicating. Clint Mansell’s overbearingly odd soundtrack and artist Richard Wells’ accompanying artworks all add to the spell.
In The Earth (2021) will be in theatres (US) on April 16th 2021.
My knowledge of Mongolian cinema, or even Mongolian language cinema is slim to none, so I was interested by the premise of In The Land of Lost Angels, a crime drama which follows the story of two ethnic Mongolians, one an ex-pat, who hit on a way to make some easy money. So begins a vast number of crime dramas, right? There are a lot of familiar elements here, as well as good and not so good development points, though overall it’s an engaging watch, above all else for the ambitious way in which director and writer Bishrel Mashbat splices several genre elements together, usually very successfully.
We start with ex-pat Ankhaa (Erdenemunkh Tumursukh) phoning home, where it seems things are not going so well, with a seriously ill younger brother and parents who fear they will have to sell their house. Don’t worry about that now, Ankhaa reassures his father: I have a great job here in America, and I’ll be able to cover your debts. Uh-oh. As elsewhere in the West, immigrant populations don’t tend to get top pick of the lucrative jobs; and, in its first little bit of circularity, the film has already shown us Ankhaa with another guy, Orgil (Iveel Mashbat) both driving along voicing their fear that there are police around. Let’s just assume that Ankhaa has told his dad a lie, but that his motives are sound. Before long, we see these two clearly preparing for some sort of criminal activity, with Orgil perhaps the more prepared of the two, but they each seem very nervous. These nerves will not serve them well later.
Finally, we see what their big plan is: at some point in the recent past, they have hit upon the idea of a kidnapping, selecting the son of a wealthy man as their target. They’ve got a plan, and they get their guy, taking him to an apartment they’ve booked ahead of time. Things lag a little here as the two men wait around, hoping that Mr. Sanders makes the right decision, and agrees to their ransom demands, However, this section of the film does allow for some ‘comedy of errors’ stuff, which works in its own right, though it again shows the audience that these guys are perhaps not as prepared as they really should be. I did laugh at the exchange: “How is he?” “He’s made some noises a tied-up person would make.” But, by and by, this situation has to come to a head.
So as we’ve already said, the essence of the story here is very familiar: two guys, against the world, committing a heinous crime to get ahead but almost invariably messing up along the way. But there are lots of blends of styles here, impressive in a first feature. It’s shot in glossy black and white with lots of shadow and silhouette, whilst the driving scenes – of which there are a few – look almost noir-ish in places, the long, dark city highways looking quite timeless on screen, despite the presence of 24-hour garages and such. But then on top of that, the film opts for an informal style of dialogue which sounds partly improvised, and includes a lot of kitchen sink style realism, with lingering shots on everyday activities like staring at the TV, ambling through a forecourt, and so on. The camera appears to be handheld. There’s also the ubiquitous on-screen chapters, which I’ve said elsewhere I’m not keen on, but it just goes to show that Mashbat has thrown everything at this film, and taken pains to vary the approaches taken throughout.
The performances themselves are solid, though fairly unemotional – which may be a cultural thing to an extent; on the subject of which, although there are some references to Mongolian culture (and Mongolian is spoken for the biggest share of the film), these are usually fairly oblique. A few comments on ‘white culture’ vs. Mongolian culture, and the fact that it seems ex-pats often need to rely on other ex-pats when in trouble, but in a broader sense, Ankhaa’s and Orgil’s woes could happen to anyone. You do find yourself caring for these two, as flawed as they are; I guess that’s a testament to how they’re both written and acted. That all being said, the film decided to take an equally oblique turn in terms of how this story was all wrapped up, heading in a different direction than expected and fading away, rather than burning out. I was left with a feeling that I would have liked a more firm resolution. Other viewers may feel differently, but the style of the pay-off wasn’t for me.
Regardless of a few issues, In The Land of the Angels has much to offer and it’s a testament to Bishrel Mashbat’s aspirations that he was able to do so much with what I’m guessing was a vanishingly small budget. Fans of crime dramas, particularly crime dramas which opt out of the expected route through, will find a lot to like here and should check this film out.
