Keri O'Shea

The Queen of Black Magic (2019)

Posted on January 27, 2021September 15, 2022 by Keri O'Shea

The Indonesian genre cinema which I know best is decades old now, but it certainly tends toward the unforgettable; during the country’s 1980s cinema boom, its genre film was clearly in love with the opportunities afforded by SFX (however rudimentary), leading to some incredibly lurid, overblown pieces of work, heavy with folkloric influences. In some ways, the reimagined Queen of Black Magic is a continuation of that early work, not least through its new spin on the classic 1981 title – even if its plot deviates quite a long way from the original and even if the newer film is mostly a wholly more slick, polished affair – more New French Extremity than old-school Indonesian. That being said, as the newer film ratchets up the action, it definitely shakes hands with its predecessor in a few places. It’s a visually-strong, very modern looking film which builds on familiar horror story elements to unleash something both grotesque and – on several levels – disturbing.

I said the film makes use of familiar horror elements: there are no surprises, then, when we begin with a car trip to a place which apparently doesn’t feature in any maps, or have any phone signal. The reason for this family outing is that Hanif (Ario Bayu) wishes to revisit the orphanage where he was raised. The man who was instrumental in his upbringing, one Mr Bandi (Yayu A.W. Unru) is ill and likely close to death. This trip also brings up the fact that not everyone has a regular family upbringing, something which Hanif wants to bring out into the open with his wife Nadya (Hannah Al Rashid) and their kids. This is a plausible family group, by the by, and kudos to all concerned parties that the kids themselves aren’t immediately unlikeable offspring. It really helps. Moving on, after that somewhat tropey journey to their destination, the family arrives: Hanif is meeting up with some other old friends from their orphanage days, themselves accompanied by their wives. Also present is Maman (Ade Firman Hakim) and his wife Siti (Sheila Dara Aisha), who made the decision to stay on at the orphanage as workers.

They all visit Mr. Bandi; it seems to be an affectionate reunion at first, but the old man soon afterwards seems to grow distressed – ostensibly at the appearance of Nadya, though it’s not clear. He’s non-verbal, and unable to explain his fears. The ex-inmates of this place are a little perturbed by now, and it isn’t too long before reminders of a troubling episode in their childhoods makes its way into conversation, albeit via one of the teenage resident’s scary stories. But in this house, scary stories have a backbone of fact. Tensions, incrementally at first, begin to rise. Hanif begins to wonder if the event which waylaid his household on the way to the orphanage was all that it seems, and wants to go back, take another look. Bad idea. As the past of this place erupts into the present, every clue makes these returners confront it, before it finally confronts them. People isolating themselves from the group is one of the first things which bring the real horrors onward.

And yet, the first thirty minutes or so of this film are very low-key, give or take. The Queen of Black Magic sidesteps the tendency to make the location creepy in a formulaic way; the orphanage is a little threadbare, but not dismal; likewise, the small number of older children still living there are not deliberately scary Others, but just kids contending with the double whammy of poverty and being orphaned, or abandoned. The visiting adults are initially pleased to be back too, even if it’s a little bittersweet. But this steady development of ease and calm is all the readier to be suddenly hacked away; if the film feels somehow like it’s on the verge of breaking out, then – oh, boy. The shift from uneasy restraint to overblown macabre is handled very nicely. Any divisions between magic, ghosts, curses and demons feels very arbitrary here; likewise, the term ‘black magic’ covers a seemingly very different range of phenomena than a Western audience might expect…

On its own terms as a horror film, The Queen of Black Magic works perfectly well but – in one of its significant shifts away from the 1981 version, it chooses to explore a few ideas which add subtext (rather than starting with a subtext and then adding a film, which is emphatically not the best way to tell a story). Wealth, class and the effects of modernisation are all touched upon here; a potential shift in the orphanage’s use is highlighted, bringing concerns about gentrification and its impact on the most impoverished, whilst we see a conversation between one child who doesn’t know what a VCR is and a girl who has never heard of streaming. More poignantly, the film deals with the subject of being orphaned and the vulnerability of children with no family, with a few conversations quite subtly introducing this; this in itself links specifically to the treatment of girls and women, be they utterly expendable, exploited, ignored – or seeking agency. It’s never a sermon; it does, however, weave through the horror itself and makes some unpalatable links to a world beyond the fantasy, even if the fantasy definitely takes over towards the film’s conclusion.

The Queen of Black Magic looks very recognisable in its earlier scenes, and it clearly has an awareness of Western horror which it adds to its Indonesian elements. (You’ll recognise some Eastern tropes, too, to be fair). You may, in the early parts of the film, have a few guesses as to where it’s all going, and you may be right. However, as it moves on, the film moves much closer to the action-heavy, even grandiose style which its Indonesian genre film predecessors typically went for. It manages a fairly effective twist, too, without sacrificing the direction it’s heading in or its grisly set pieces. All in all, this is an effective blend of styles and supernatural beliefs which makes for an entertaining, ‘familiar-different’ horror. Director Kimo Stamboel keeps things visually pleasing (if unpleasant) throughout.

The Queen of Black Magic comes exclusively to Shudder on 28th January 2021.

Possessor (2020)

Posted on January 24, 2021January 24, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

It’s already been eight years, give or take, since Brandon Cronenberg’s first film, Antiviral (2012): a cold, unflinching and decidedly grotesque satire on celebrity culture, explored via the body horror genre which his father David helped to establish. Possessor (2020) picks up the questions of personhood which Antiviral posed and takes them still further, delivering an even more accomplished film which retains that artistic Cronenberg Jr. flair for presenting the horrors of disassociation.

And we’re straight in with the body horror: a young woman called Holly (Gabrielle Graham) slots a cable into a port on her head: as she moves a dial on the piece of kit to which the cable is attached, it seems to whirl her through the whole gamut of human emotions. Thus adjusted and purged of them – like a hi-tech version of catharsis – she goes to work as a hostess in a hotel club, where she is suitably compos mentis to walk calmly up to a patron, stabbing him to death. She then dithers on committing suicide by pistol, before instead committing suicide by cop.

This is an ending, but not the ending: it’s all been possible via mind-control technology, through which hitwoman Tas (Andrea Riseborough) has taken over Holly’s mind and actions, using her to assassinate a target and escaping punishment by conveniently ending the life of the stooge who did the deed. Terminal for Holly; suitably arduous for Tasya, for whom it takes time to re-ground herself afterwards. These scenes are reminiscent of Blade Runner 2049 (2017), with its own ‘recalibrations’ for its lead character. The shady company in charge of all of this needs to be sure that she’s back to herself again before she takes on the next job; the answer is not a resounding ‘yes’. But, agreeing to take a short break, Tas goes to visit her estranged husband Michael (Rossif Sutherland) and young son Ira (Gage Graham-Arbuthnot). The name ‘Ira’ means ‘watchful one’ in Hebrew; this nicely sums up a little boy who seems old beyond his years, whilst his relationship with his mother is remote enough that she seems surprised by his interests and aptitudes. It’s clear she has divided loyalties. On one hand, there’s her work life – a technically-abetted lie, as she commits murder with no direct comeuppance. On the other hand, her roles as wife and mother are clearly compromised, increasingly impinged upon by the horrors of her job.

Before long, Tas wants to get back to work. We see her preparing for the experience, spying, studying the character of the man she is going to inhabit before the sync takes place. Her target this time is called Colin Tait (the incredible Christopher Abbott). Tait would be almost beneath contempt, were he not in a relationship with Ava Parse (the incredibly-named Tuppence Middleton). Ava’s father is the owner of a vast data-mining corporation which, as we see, observes its quarry to an absurd level of detail. John Parse (Sean Bean) has given Tait a job, essentially as a way of lording it over the shmuck who is dating his daughter, but this is good news for Tas’s employers: Tait can get close. Very close. If they can take out Parse, they can facilitate getting hold of an awful lot of money and power.

Tasya achieves the sync, but something is wrong: the job seems precarious from the outset, and she struggles to keep it together. The ad libs which caused her trouble in the first sync we saw are resolutely more harmful here, and it becomes less clear who is in the ascendancy. It’s far more clear things are going to take a disastrous turn: how the film achieves this, and the experience this gives the viewer is certainly not predictable, or an easy watch.

This battle for autonomy is a more sombre, sober kind of vision than David Cronenberg ever brought to the screen; as such it very much feels like a stylistic continuation of Antiviral, with the same fantastic eye for cinematography: the interiors, the lighting, the colour palettes and the composition of shots are a joy to look at. It’s also a very tactile film. Synced bodies linger over the details – blood, fabric, skin, hair – whilst Tasya ‘proves’ her personhood by examining mementos, simple objects with elevated significances. I also adored the use of distance and silence in the film: people are dwarfed by expanses of dark space around them, dialogue is rendered more expressive by long periods of quiet – or else, you find yourself noticing what characters don’t say, as much as what they do. Accordingly, given all this calm and quiet, the film’s moments of violence seem all the more vivid; that being said, there’s no film in which these scenes wouldn’t be shocking. They punctuate the film, brief moments of rage and desperation against a backdrop of minimal exposition. It’s important that they’re there.

Despite this backdrop, the film does extraordinary things with its characterisation – the more extraordinary, given we essentially have people hidden inside other bodies here. The shifts in the power balance between these people are cleverly achieved and remain plausible throughout. To successfully enact all of this requires great skill, and as such Abbott really steals the second act of this film, as much as Riseborough retains presence throughout, an increasingly cornered, harried character, sympathetic if unlikeable. There are highly imaginative sequences which explore what happens to selfhood during the processes suggested, doing more with the idea of dreams or hallucinations than we might have seen elsewhere lately; on the flip side, Possessor throws in a version of reality which maybe feels too close for comfort, especially its vision of internet privacy gone to hell.

As all certainties dissolve, Possessor cements itself as a bleak, sad, discomfiting experience. It’s definitely a film which will reward a rewatch, though – given its almighty impact – this may not be for a while, all considered. Brandon Cronenberg may not be churning out the features, but if they’re as good as this, then so be it. We’ll wait.

Possessor is on digital HD 1 February and Blu-ray & DVD 8 February from Signature Entertainment.

Interview: George Popov, Director of The Droving (2020)

Posted on January 23, 2021January 23, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

Having added The Droving (2020) as one of my favourite films of the year, it was great to catch up with Droving director George Popov for a chat about his career to date, priorities, future plans and the importance of working together to support film in these troubled times…

WP – So you have made two feature films to date: Hex (2017), which you co-directed, and The Droving (2020), which you wrote and directed yourself. Your career doesn’t seem to have followed the usual pattern of working in supporting roles, then maybe making some short films etc. Tell us about how you came to filmmaking.

Well there’s a lot of career paths that can be taken when you want to become a filmmaker. I mean, I’ve been interested in being a director for a long time. And I think, mainly, because a lot of my interest came from different arts. My father is a painter, my grandfather was a theatre director, my mother is an actress. As a kid, I understood that I needed to pursue the one role which combined all these different little passions that I had; eventually it became clear to me. The more I did my own writing and wrote stories, to be told in a specific fashion the way I wanted them to be, it became clear that the role of director was one I had to take. I decided to go the film school: I was itching to tell some stories, and I just really wanted to see how people – just general audiences and critics – will react to these stories in different ways. Short films are definitely a way to do that, but I don’t think I’m that great at short form storytelling anyway. You know, I tend to overdo stuff a little bit. For a lot of people, short films are the way that they hone their skills or send their work out to the festivals, hoping to rise up from that. I knew it would be a very difficult task to just make a feature film. But once you’ve done that, you have a bigger chance to get spotted. I was able to find like minded people like Jonathan, when we started our company Rubicon Films, and then from there, we put everything into making our first film, Hex.

WP – Both The Hex and The Droving play with what we could probably loosely call ‘folk horror’, though you definitely put your own spin on it. What draws you to this kind of storytelling?

To be honest, I don’t think myself or Jonathan were really thinking about the term ‘folk horror’ when we started working on on Hex. I think Jonathan was more familiar with the sub genre as a whole though, because I think he’s watched more movies in that area. I’ve seen a bunch of the staples – Wicker Man, Witchfinder General – though I watched that in reference to the story we wanted to bring to Hex, so it’s hard to think we necessarily set out to make a folk horror film. But, I was happy when people were calling Hex a folk horror because they were getting excited about the genre. And it seemed that Hex came out at a time where, just a few years ago, this folk horror genre now started having this resurrection. Films like The Witch had some mainstream intention and that really, really pushed it forward. Then with The Droving later on, I think that the folk elements came mainly from taking inspiration specifically from stories and from legends we’re both interested in. We gravitate towards the darker stories. For me personally, I always been interested in dark fairy tale structures. I read a lot of Brothers Grimm when I was a kid: sure, you may encounter them when you’re five, six years old, but they’re all pretty dark – horrific stuff happens in these kids’ stories. So now, I like telling tales which have that same fatalistic structure that they have. These kinds of tales are great because you can juxtapose the real world horror with the fictional.

WP -What are your own cinematic influences, and in what ways have these impacted upon your own filmmaking so far?

There are probably so many that I can’t even consciously register many of them – probably 90% of them! The ones that I do register and I know are always there at the back of my mind; I think I must have seen Alien at an irresponsibly young age, for which I’m thoroughly grateful: it’s amazing. And I think it was very hard to think about filmmaking being done with any lesser attention than that film. Everything about it, to this day, still absolutely consumes me. As a slightly older child, the Lord of the Rings trilogy mesmerised me too. Apocalypse Now; pretty much everything by David Fincher. I regard him as belonging to the highest class of filmmaker; likewise, Martin Scorsese and how his films tackle subject matters in which, you know, usually there’s no easy answers, and there are no easy people to read.

WP – You seem to make a point of offering an ending which both generates shock, and disrupts the story which has come before. Is this kind of ending important to you? Do you always have this kind of ending in mind when you write?

I mean, it’s one of the most human things: that we are all chasing some sort of meeting and some sort of closure in what we experience or do. It’s no different in films that you can have a great film, but if the ending’s kind of weak, the influence on you is never as good as it should have been. And vice versa. I mean, there’s definitely films that I love that in the first twenty minutes, I was kind of like, okay, where is this going? It really stays with you. In my career, in terms of the shock of the endings of both films, we weren’t looking to shock necessarily, but I wanted to make sure that the ending does stay with you. I do like endings that in some degree also recontextualize the way that maybe you’ll see the film again. I think you have a huge responsibility as a filmmaker, when you’ve held people’s attention for that time. Either you’re presenting some sort of meaning or an answer, or you’re just posing a question that you’re leaving for the audience to answer: for that, you require a strong case about either what you’re trying to say, or what we’re talking about more broadly. It’s a great, great thing to hear when people say, ‘hey, look, I love that ending’, ‘I can’t forget that ending’, or ‘That made ending made me watch the film like a few more times’ because to some degree, the ending is the story: it’s that moment that stays with you, and makes you think about everything before that.

WP – Tell us about the significance of landscape and setting in your films.

Setting is crucial to me, absolutely. All the choices on setting, and exploring that to the fullest, just gives me a chance to craft and explore my atmosphere, which is something I really care about. It’s something that I’ve paid a lot of attention to so far, and I want to do even better in the future; I want to explore it more. Getting the atmosphere right makes the viewer so much more susceptible to your content. If you have crafted that setting, that atmosphere, it’s the equivalent of having decorated your house and invited the guests and got the right music: you get your audience where you want them to be, and all of a sudden they live in your world. With the first two films, that definitely has been the case. Landscape is a huge part of them. I get very excited about locations and trying to find ‘golden nuggets’ of places that other people might not have perceived earlier, and really make the most out of them – maybe look at them with it with a bit of a different lens.

WP – What would be the ultimate compliment which could be paid to your work to date?

I don’t know what I’d regard as the ultimate compliment: in a way, I don’t want to, because once you’re only going to be satisfied by a certain compliment someone gives, you’re starting to chase that compliment and beg for it in some ways with your movies – and you always sell yourself short that way. So I try to do the best I can and do what I want, in terms of what the films are to be; if there are compliments, then great. The moment you see that you’ve reached people with something that you’re doing, even if they just enjoyed it, and having people that say that the film’s meant a lot to them and made them somehow think in a different way, or had a personal impact. Those stick with me: more so maybe than the more generalised feedback you get from film critics on things like great atmosphere, great visuals, good storytelling, good dialogue, great acting, you know, all of that. I don’t want to put that down, because it’s incredibly important. But when you have someone send you a message or a tweet or saying how personally, those films meant something to them – that’s powerful.

WP – Finally, the situation with Covid-19 has no doubt impacted upon plans for 2021, but that being understood – what are you hoping to do next in your career?

I mean, in terms of 2020 we were lucky that we had The Droving done and ready to go. I definitely appreciate how tough it has been for filmmakers generally. But yeah, I mean, there has been an impact: development stages for some projects have been slower, especially some of the bigger ones. Still, we have Rubicon Films, we have a few projects that we are developing and which we hope to realise as soon as possible. And so far, so good. There are different budgetary levels and a different scope to all of them: these are more ambitious than the films we’ve done before: we really want to expand and explore and show more what we’re capable of. We have plans for different genres as well, some some dark fantasy on a bit of a bigger scale, some some horror thriller films, and some other more weird stuff as well in there. We’ve already invoked some really, really quality, interesting people, producers and filmmakers on some of those projects.

8 – Is there anything else which you would like to add?

Well, I just want to add something that’s probably a continuation of the previous question. I just want to say to all to all our other filmmakers: I know that, because of the situation, things have been tough, and we don’t know how long that will continue. I just want to say to that we need to stay strong and, help each other and especially here in the UK with regards to indie films, certain genres; we could be helping one another out more. So if anyone needs anything, contact us: let’s talk and see if we can help in any way. And in general: keep a positive mindset. Yes, changes are still taking place and there have been so many changes to cinemas, theatres – but we’re going to survive, and we’re going to be stronger than before, whatever happens. People watch a lot of content, much more so than before. There’s so many platforms, there’s so many ways of getting your film out there. And we have to keep trying, doing the best we can. To some degree, because of this COVID-19 situation, just as with society on a larger scale, we can’t socialise as much: I don’t want that to happen to filmmakers as well. For us, that is a lifeline. If we’re not doing the usual things – guild parties, screenings or festivals or any of that, then our collaborative spirit needs some direction to keep going forward. No matter if it’s if it’s just filmmakers, or journalists like yourself or festivals, or critics, or whoever: it means everyone who is in some way involved with the industry. We should try to really keep that alive, collaborate more with each other and talk to each other.

So thank you to everyone who’s doing that already. We’re stronger together. We can always come up with something, as long as we have the passion and drive. We’ll find the audience. It’s out there, and people need that as well. And so they’ll keep supporting. We just need to support ourselves.

Thanks to George and Jonathan at Rubicon Films. You can find out more here.

The Horrors of Anonymity: American Psycho (2000)

Posted on January 20, 2021January 20, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

American Psycho (1991), third novel of self-styled enfant terrible Bret Easton Ellis, was one of those books whose notoriety preceded it and swept it along. Becoming a kind of double-dare-you read in the same way that many films have become rites of passage, it no doubt found a sizable audience that quite simply wanted to experience its shocks first-hand. Alongside its feted brutality, it was also a novel which had acquired the rep for being ‘unadaptable’ for film – too busy, too repetitive, too grotesque. However, it turns out it could make a good film, thanks to the hard work of director Mary Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner – who transformed the novel and, along the way, vastly improved it.

By focusing closely on the character of Bateman himself, they were able to refine the novel’s key, if sprawling emphasis on the cavalier lifestyles of the Wall Street wealthy in the 1980s. Bateman becomes a kind of yuppie Everyman, a scion for his ‘kind’, but whilst we’re invited to witness the array of petty obsessions and easy money which surrounds him, he remains an aloof, unknowable character – perhaps, as Bateman (Christian Bale) himself suggests, he ‘simply is not there’. It is this non-person status which, for me, is the bedrock of the film’s true horror. Bateman represents everyone around him, but he is no one. He openly recognises this, and the film’s initial rising tension stems from his early acknowledgement of, and exploitation of this anonymous state. Bateman artfully flits from one identity to another, committing (or fantasising) his worst crimes under the names of other people. This cannot be sustained forever, though, and by the end of the film, his missing identity is the source of his greatest, inescapable misery. In effect, his character has travelled no distance, and his rebellion has been an appalling fantasy.

The world which Patrick Bateman inhabits is a strange one, and the film takes pains to showcase its odd fixations and competitiveness. This competitiveness is not based on the usual things: doing well at work, showing due diligence, putting in the hours. It’s made abundantly clear, by Bateman’s early feet-on-desk work pose, that a work ethic is not part of the deal here. What seems more important – beyond the sheer luck which seems to bestow prestigious accounts on one man and not on another – is the display of doing well: you play the game by looking the part, wearing the right suits and being able to book the right tables at the best restaurants. In one of the film’s finest comic elements, a restaurant called Dorsia attains Waiting for Godot-levels of significance – the place everyone wants to go to but, at least within the confines of the film’s narrative, never does. That is, except for a suit named Paul Allen (Jared Leto). Well, so he says. For Bateman, Allen is the embodiment of ‘making it’. He can get a table at Dorsia. That’s it. Add to that his handling of a sought-after account and Bateman’s enmity knows no bounds.

“The world just opens up and swallows them…”

It is in this Mecca of disaffected and wealthy men that Bateman develops a plan. When Allen mistakes Bateman for yet another financial sector worker called Marcus Halberstam – which, as Bateman admits, is a pretty easy mistake to make – Bateman decides to keep up the ruse. Answering Allen as if he were Halberstam, Bateman decides to use this as an opportunity, committing a crime under this false name and making damn sure that Allen believes that he is Halberstam, reinforcing it time and again before taking an axe to the competition, citing Allen’s friendly terms with the Dorsia as he does so. To complete the display, Bateman lets himself into Allen’s apartment, fakes a trip to London (no one apparently recognising his voice when he impersonates Allen on his answerphone) and then, when the disappearance is investigated, Bateman doubles down on his rootlessness, his forgettability. Had he seen Allen? He’s not sure, as he explains to Detective Kimball (Willem Dafoe). He evades his questions by listing names and venues, possible sightings, and giving obfuscation after obfuscation: in effect, he uses his lifestyle as a shield, and Kimball is not able to get past it in any meaningful way. So far, so good.

With Allen out of the picture, Bateman is free to colonise his identity, too. On one hand, this furthers his assertion that Paul Allen is still alive and well and still ‘part of that Yale thing’; on the other hand, it shows Bateman having fun with his non-persona, able to commit acts of aggression and sexual violence under another new name – Paul Allen’s. Reinforcing his new persona of Paul Allen by carefully repeating his name to anyone he needs to listen, Bateman hoodwinks a young prostitute – herself given a fake name for the proceedings which follow – and harms her with impunity, now treating what had been expedient as personal entertainment. At this stage in the film, ‘Patrick Bateman’ is liberating as it is simply a tabula rasa, ready to adapt and adopt whatever useful identity comes his way. With this new agency and awareness of what can be done, Bateman’s crimes escalate rapidly. Interestingly, it is only the women in his life who seem to really see him as Patrick Bateman; his closest friends throw wisecracks at him, but seem to not see even his most self-evident crises. Evelyn, his fiancée (Reese Witherspoon) and Courtney, his lover (Samantha Mathis) always address him personally, which is a step above other interactions he has, even if they, too, are part and parcel of an anonymous web of people who value women even less than men. But at the points in the narrative where they appear and seem to care, Bateman is in the ascendant. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to be tied down, and certainly doesn’t want to be tied down to his own identity in any quantifiable way.

“I’m not here…”

Little by little, however, Bateman’s agency is eroded by inconvenient encounters with real life. Kimball’s attentions are key here: not only do his questions force Bateman to address the quantifiable – the dates, the times which attach to the names and the venues – but they reveal something else entirely. In effect, the certainties which Bateman was willing to hang on to are not certainties at all. Kimball points out that, on a contested date which Bateman believed required an alibi, he already had one. He was with Paul Allen. Was he? This may or may not be correct, but the initial relief Bateman feels when it seems he is, finally, off the hook, quickly turns into a raging disappointment. His rootlessness is now the province of others, allotted by them, and as such controlled by them. It now becomes his priority to reclaim his own identity, which, now that it is being doled out by other people, feels less and less like it truly belongs to him. When he visits Paul Allen’s apartment to check on the place – which he has apparently been using as a dumping ground for bodies – it is pristine, redecorated and waiting for a new owner. He tries and fails to masquerade as an interested party with an appointment to look over the place, but the realtor in attendance is unconvinced. Bateman’s powers of disguise are on the wane.

As the film’s final acts of ultraviolence take place, we see a Patrick Bateman now desperate to get caught – as Patrick Bateman. After a final killing spree he runs away at first, presumably by impulse, but almost immediately he decides to take the credit for the crimes – as shown in that tragicomic late night phonecall to his lawyer. Now, he names himself over and over. He finally feels that it’s time to claim ownership, but not only that; he seems to crave a way out of the lifestyle which has now shown that it’s bigger than him, even dwarfs him. Desperate, he confesses to the killings, leaving nothing out (other than where his memory is challenged) and, by all accounts, he seems to expect a way out. He heads out to lunch the following day, and is relieved to see his lawyer is there. Expectantly, he approaches him.

In a supreme moment of irony, Bateman’s escape is denied; it is denied on the same grounds which Bateman earlier exploited to his benefit. His lawyer doesn’t recognise him, and thinks he is someone else, ‘Davis’; he thanks him for the phone prank, but tells him there was one glaring error in the joke: Patrick Bateman would never, ever do something so outlandish. He is “such a boring, spineless lightweight.” Angry and frustrated, Bateman tries to convince him that it wasn’t all a joke and that he is, in fact, Pat Bateman. This is never acknowledged or accepted; instead, still addressing him as Davis, Carnes tells him that the joke is no longer funny anymore. As for his assertions about killing Paul Allen? Impossible. He had dinner with him just ten days previously.

“Something illusory…”

Did he? Who really knows. American Psycho swarms with names, interchangeable people who seem to have no remarkable features or identities. Not for nothing does the film make much of the business cards which, to an untrained eye, all look largely identical. The names embossed on the cards may differ, but for all intents and purposes, the cards display how identikit each of these men are. Bateman, realising this, at first takes advantage of the liberty this affords. If no one knows him, then he can be anyone, and he can indulge his darkest fantasies accordingly. And yet, this isn’t a true escape either: it’s only fun when he seems to be in control. Once he comes to crave that old anchor point of self, he sees – too late – that he is as much a victim of his anonymity as he is empowered by it. Having no real internal life, the ‘abstraction’ that is Patrick Bateman will never really be able to creep out of his two-dimensional existence. Whilst it’s a story which takes place before the internet age, there’s certainly something recognisable in our modern ability to design online personae which may seem liberating but, ultimately, allow perishingly few people to make real changes. Bateman seeks escape; this eludes him. It’s an existential nightmare, one where – pleasingly – the film returns to the book to show us its infamous final line, on the wall behind Bateman as he finds he has to rejoin the group, despite his best efforts: ‘this is not an exit’. This confession has meant nothing.

Hunted (2020)

Posted on January 13, 2021January 13, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

Hunted is a film not shy about signposting where it’s planning on going. That being said, it’s an impressively nasty film, showing a deft touch in terms of its structure and successfully keeping two different elements in check: on one hand it’s a deeply unpleasant game of cat and mouse through the woods, and on the other, it’s a folkloric tale about the otherworldly qualities of the forest. These eventually come together in a series of very watchable, grisly, excessive ways, all ready for a pretty jaw-dropping final act.

We start with an unusual, part-animated introduction; a little boy is introduced to the ‘song of the forest’ at the fireside, and his mother tells him a redemptive tale about a young girl whose prayers stir the forest to protect her against those who would harm her. Cue our next introduction: Eve (Lucie Debay) is a property developer, overseeing a project somewhere in a curiously cosmopolitan corner of Europe, which seems largely populated by Irish and Americans. Her project has missed a deadline, much to the ire of her boss, and she has a persistent boyfriend to contend with (ever notice mobile phones buzz just like flies?) At the end of a long day, she decides to head to a local bar, where she has the requisite one minute’s grace before an unwanted male turns up and talks at her. She’s saved by a seemingly-decent guy and his brother – oh, you know where this one is going, you’ve seen films like this before – but she’s grateful for his help, and she finally feels able to let her hair down, having a good night.

Things of course take a nasty turn. Before she knows it, she’s in a speeding car heading along the back roads to godknowswhere, the misogyny of The Guy (Arieh Worthalter) and ‘Andy’ (Ciaran O’Brien) now out in the open in rather overt form. One bizarre accident later, she take the opportunity to escape from the vehicle, but this is short-lived and both men pursue her, unwilling to let her escape because she could potentially identify them. Yet, as she runs from what is almost certainly a death sentence, the power dynamic begins to shift, aided and abetted by the forest around her.

Some of the early plot developments in Hunted will be no revelation to horror fans: as an aside, IMDb lists this as an ‘Action/Thriller’, a decision I’d like to know more about as to me this is pure modern horror, with a slew of the hallmarks of same. Maybe anyone selecting this on the basis that it’s an action film may be less well-versed in what to expect. That said, even during its more predictable phase, Hunted does what it does very well. The casual entitlement of both men as they discuss their quarry is well-written, with a particularly nasty pep talk taking place in the car. It gets more interesting when we’re invited to look again at the relationship between both of these men; this is probably the first real moment where the film begins to deviate from type, steadily adding more unexpected developments into the mix from this point forward. There are still frustrating moments – stemming from Eve’s initial behaviour, mainly – but overall, Hunted does a good job of hooking the viewer by slowly disrupting expectations, without losing track of the main plot thread.

Some of the more physical scenes (and this is a very physical film) are very well done indeed, and some of the injuries – with their excellent supporting sound effects – are without doubt repellent to look at and to listen to, even if pushing the boundaries of probability. The whole film straddles the boundary between realism and fantasy as many of these pursuit horrors do, except that at around the hour mark Hunted makes it far clearer that there is more at play here than simply a woman finding superheroic reserves of strength – itself more fantasy than reality, of course, but usually the whole extent of the fantasy. The symbolism is punched in pretty hard, but the addition of dark fairytale aspects is engaging. In some respects its nightmarish setting and its folkloric inserts reminded me of Koko-di Koko-da (2019) whilst some aspects of the man vs woman in the wilderness called to mind Broken (2006), although the relationship between Eve and The Guy isn’t as complex.

The Guy himself is, for me, the weakest link here, a character who has the potential to hamstring the film completely, as – whilst I’ve no doubt Worthalter is doing exactly what he was asked for – he is so two-dimensional, so cartoonishly awful that it’s difficult to take him seriously. He comes off at first as a kind of infallible men’s rights seminar speaker. I’ve no doubt these people are out there in various dilutions, but it sure is tough – more so in the first couple of acts – to accept him. Happily, the film begins to dandle some plot markers which you know, or hope will bear fruit. There are some clever ideas here, some good links to earlier scenes and, overall, evidence of joined-up thinking in the writing. A lot of high action is held back for the last fifteen minutes or so and oh my, the sheer dementedness of this part of the film would surely divert anyone.

I’m not sure how you go from Persepolis (2007) to this, but that definitely shows some of the flexibility which finds its way into Hunted. This is an interesting, often grisly but exhilarating splice of fairy story and ordeal horror. It works.

Hunted (2020) comes exclusively to Shudder on 14th January 2021.

TV: The Serpent (2021)

Posted on January 10, 2021January 10, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

It seems as though there has never been a stronger appetite for dramatisations of true crime. The fascination with serial killers has long been there, but in the last few years, the quality and the focus of dramatic retellings of same has definitely shifted; with The Serpent, we get a cleverly-constructed and very engaging series all about a serial murderer whom I never before knew existed.

We begin in 1970s Bangkok, a city at the heart of what came to be known as the ‘hippie trail’. This was a generation that wished to do things very differently to their parents’ generation. Keen to travel as far afield as possible, young people routinely made their way through Europe to Asia, often stopping at Bangkok, which became a hub for this kind of alternative tourism. Young, often inexperienced and naïve, travelling far from home when only the postal service and landline telephones connected them to their loved ones, they were ripe for exploitation. ‘Alain Gautier’, a slightly older man, offered shelter, drinks and company to these travellers which they often gladly took. Money was always tight, and he and his wife Monique seemed friendly and considerate. All good, except the audience is already privy to Alain’s modus operandi: drugging them, robbing them and stealing their identities by tampering with their passports. Very early in the series, we see identity being presented as something wholly mutable, easy to change, steal and discard. Right down to names themselves, which come and go as required.

And speaking of which, this is not in fact the story of Alain Gautier and his wife. It is the story of serial murderer Charles Sobhraj and his accomplice Marie-Andrée Leclerc, a pair of confidence tricksters and thieves who added to their coffers by disposing of the Western tourists whom they gulled along the way. Sobhraj is believed to have killed between twelve and twenty-four people in the 60s and 70s; because these people were by nature wanderers, and because Sobhraj was a plausible, personable man who looked the part, he got away with his crimes for decades before being convicted in India and in Nepal and given a life sentence in each. (He returned to Paris in-between times and basked in the infamy he had developed; perhaps Sobhraj was one of the first serial killers to really understand their celebrity, but like many celebrities, he then developed a sense of his own untouchability which really came back to bite him. The exploration of this in the series is nicely done.)

The series does an excellent job of building a sense of a transient, idealistic but vulnerable travelling population, with no real handle on where they are or how things work there. It also makes it clear that Gautier (who also moonlights as a gem salesman, thus duping people on a whole different wealth level) is an expert manipulator, well-placed in terms of having a spacious apartment, good local knowledge, and thanks to a relationship with a local Thai girl, a friendly face at the local police. However, this seemingly untouchable status is very steadily eroded by the introduction of other characters. When a young Dutch couple go missing (in a series of scenes which are cumulatively genuinely upsetting) this attracts the attention of a Dutch diplomat, Herman Knippenberg, who begins to investigate. Little by little, this leads him closer to Gautier, Gautier’s faithful assistant Ajay and Monique, but given these three are very clearly guided by Alain’s knowledge and guile, and – given Knippenberg is not being employed as a detective – the process is often agonising. Always on the move, Gautier and his entourage flit from place to place using the various passports at their disposal. Using stock footage of some of the cities involved which melds impeccably into the series itself is a clever move, and the clothes, music, sociolect and other details are meticulously realised. The almost-continual smoking of cigarettes begins to feel a little OTT in places, but give a filmmaker legitimate excuse to showcase a habit which is now considered too hot for TV and my word, will they run with it.

The episodes are very carefully constructed, pieced together out of a series of different timelines which do not move in a linear fashion – anyone who struggles with this kind of structure needs to be aware that the series jumps around, sometimes within single days, but sometimes over a period of several years. For the most part, at least in the earlier episodes, a moment glimpsed in one light will later be re-played from a new perspective, or else we catch up to that moment having been elsewhere first, which brings to bear new information on a previously-seen moment. When in other films or series this is done poorly, it feels like filler; here, it does add depth to the story and it also offers context for characters, such as Monique, who might otherwise seem like little more than two-dimensional players. And, as the series runs over eight episodes, it doesn’t need to simply prioritise the main characters. It also takes ample time to humanise Gautier’s victims; each of these people gets a back story, each of them is turned into a character in their own right which then suffers horribly. It’s deeply uncomfortable, but it is part of the avowed motivation of Ripper Street writers Toby Finlay and Richard Warlow and director Tom Shankland to commemorate those that died – an uncomfortably large number of people, here made into more than a statistic with a degree of detail which I can’t recall seeing anywhere else. This really does mark The Serpent out as not simply humanising the villains of the piece and their pursuants, which other series have done phenomenally well, though perhaps at the expense of the victims themselves.

Even so, it is still not as simple as all that. Jenna Coleman (who learned French for the role) is far more than simply some femme fatale figure: her own story makes clear why she thought a relationship with this man was a good antidote to a humdrum life in Quebec. Steadily, it becomes clear that she was, in effect, groomed to play a part; it’s a part she grows increasingly disenchanted with and Coleman strikes a great balance between Monique’s complicity and Marie-Andrée’s quietly-building rebellion. She is sympathetic, in a way which Tahar Rahim isn’t – but his own back story is an interesting one. The series paints a picture of what happens when the free-and-easy milieu of the day accidentally enables a psychopath, and carefully reveals the limits of his power. Oh-so steadily his decision-making processes erode and Rahim does a superb job revealing the extent of the man’s narcissism – which is again, borne out by the facts in the case.

Something else which the series does remarkably well – after the case on which it is based – is display the teeth-grating inefficiency of bureaucracy. The series is rife with it: missed opportunities, a lack of joined-up policy, prioritisation being given to all the wrong things, clueless officials. The sheer frustration at how the case existed for years longer than it needed is amply provided; you can sense the dismay of the series-makers at this, and it’s contagious. It also, perhaps accidentally, gives us parallels to the current day where inefficient practice and endless paper-trails still exist, in a world which may be ostensibly ‘paper free’ and interconnected, but still suffers from the same issues because it’s still run by people with their own agendas and personal weaknesses. Again, because the series has an ample run time, the great powerlessness which Knippenberg feels as he tries to juggle his own career in the bureaucracy is able to really flourish. The eventual pay-off of this series, with its links to the real life story, gives an impression of a remarkable group of people in an extraordinary set of circumstances.

I’m not known for my great enjoyment of BBC dramas – just a year ago I was railing against one – but I was pleasantly surprised by The Serpent, a series which metes out the details of a horrendous real-life story in a way which is gripping, but never glorifying. Every mean-spirited trait is balanced against a positive one in a way which offers complex characters and a well-turned story. It’s an aesthetic and aural treat along the way, too.

Interview: Director Sophia Banks

Posted on January 6, 2021January 7, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

Sophia Banks started her career as a stylist and designer, before starting her career as a film director with Making It On Time (2017), a short film for fashion designer Christian Siriano. Her last two short films have showcased an interest in science fiction; Unregistered (2018) premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and went the extra mile, offering an immersive VR experience to viewers, whilst Proxy (2020) is a slick, intriguing vision of how we might choose to deal with our traumas and emotions in future.

Having recently reviewed Proxy, I jumped at the chance to ask Sophia a few questions about the film, as well as her other work and future plans.

[WP] Hi, thank you for talking to Warped Perspective! Firstly, you seem to be drawn to science fiction, given your last two films – but not in the sense of sci-fi on a grand scale, more in how it impacts upon human relationships. What is it which draws you to this?

[SB] I like to tell stories that get a message across to people in ways that are interesting and different. Sci-fi is such a great genre because you can create future scenarios based on the idea that this could be an eventuality, should we continue down the same path we are on today.

[WP] Tell us about how you came to make Proxy. What was the key thing which got your interest, and what did you hope to achieve with it?

[SB] I had been wanting to do something with some friends of mine – Dominick Joseph Luna and Emma Booth – for some time and Dominick, who is the writer of Proxy, brought some incredible ideas to the table. We decided to develop Proxy based on an interesting article about boutique services in Japan where they are currently providing ‘Proxies’ to people, filling in holes in their lives.

[WP] Emma Booth is phenomenal in the film as Victoria, one of the ‘Proxies’ who goes out to provide these services. Tell us about the process of finding her and working with her. How challenging was it to direct this performance?

[SB] Emma Booth is a fellow Aussie and I have always admired her incredible talent as an actress. We met some years ago, being both Australian and in LA, and knew we wanted to connect on the right project in the future. Proxy was that project and I feel fortunate to have chosen this one to be our first collaborations.

[WP] Did any other films influence Proxy? I felt perhaps there were some connections to Under the Skin (2013).

[SB] I think Proxy is so unique and interesting on its own but I will say that as a director I do pull inspiration from many places. Blade Runner was a huge inspiration for me with this one, tonally.

[WP] As a short film maker, does it surprise or sadden you that the format is frequently underappreciated and often unseen by many people who might love these films. I tend to see short films at film festivals, but rarely again after that. Do you foresee this ever changing?

[SB] That’s an interesting question and perspective on it. I have always seen short filmmaking as a way to express myself creatively without having to go through the sometimes longer process of getting a feature film made, and I’ve used short films as a stepping stone to greater things. For instance, my film Unregistered which premiered at Tribeca got a lot of attention and helped me to get in front of CAA. I was signed with them in a matter of months. I think if you can project where you want to go with your short film and use every outlet to get it into the right hands, it can be a tool to the next step in your career.

[WP] So speaking of which, please tell us what you have going on next in your career – current situation notwithstanding, of course. What are your next plans?

[SB] Currently I’m in Australia prepping to direct my first feature film Blacksite with Thunder Road (John Wick, Sicario) and Asbury Park Pictures producing. It’s an action-packed thriller and I am really honoured to join the ranks of female filmmakers to get involved in this genre. Additionally, we are working on developing several television shows with my team at Banks Films and looking forward to 2021.

[WP] All the very best of luck with these projects. Finally, do you have any other comments?

[SB] Thank you for taking the time to interview me!

Many thanks to Sophia Banks for her time. To find out more about Sophia Banks and her work to date, please visit her website here.

Go/Don’t Go (2020)

Posted on January 6, 2021January 6, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

Post-apocalyptic cinema tends to be full of sound and fury. Even if we don’t see the cataclysmic event which overthrows society, we certainly see the aftermath: ruins, road gangs, disease, deprivation. But what if the kind of deprivation shown to us was of a different kind? What if the loss incurred from such an event remained resolutely personal? This is the premise behind Go/Don’t Go, a careful and subtle examination of one man’s loneliness as he struggles to cope with a world which only has him in it.

Adam (director and writer Alex Knapp) is the last man standing in suburbia. It’s a suburbia which seems to have remained fairly comfortable too: the stores are still stocked, the lights are still on. Whatever happened to everyone else, it must have been very fast indeed. So, given this material comfort, this is no survivalist horror; Adam’s chief concern is, from what we see at first, to keep himself sane. This he does by continuing to emulate his old routines, attending work, going shopping, making phonecalls (to himself). Another facet of all this is his meticulous record-keeping. By recording whether a place or a thing still serves its purpose, he is able to determine whether it is worth returning there or not. Clearly his world is getting smaller, his sense of self is getting more and more fragile. Even in the film’s earliest scenes, Knapp is able to generate a kind of pathos for Adam, a sense of ‘what would you do?’ which is eminently relatable, because it is so everyday.

It’s made clear that Adam was a sensitive soul even at the best of times. More context for Adam’s character is added through the use of flashbacks; through these, we see that Adam always found social situations tricky, appearing nervy and awkward in company, though there’s a genuine and sweet series of moments as we see Adam’s first date and gradually-blossoming romance with K (Olivia Luccardi). His yearning for and his search for K seems to be leading him closer to her; at first, it seems as though the film is going to follow Adam to her, too, as he acts on information they had apparently shared before the unspecified event which parted them. However, nothing is as straightforward as that here. Past and present continue to meld, as the narrative focuses in on Adam’s psyche more than it does his physical moments.

Given the post-apocalyptic setting, this is an unusually intimate film, with lots of close-up shots, lots of domestic trappings and of course the domestic routines themselves. There is also a lot of (literal) ground covered as Adam roams, but it’s in the close details that Go/Don’t Go really shines. These same everyday items lose or gain significance as time moves on; the simple sound of a glass against a surface triggers a happy memory of sitting at a bar, for instance, whilst a mobile phone – with no one left to call – dies slowly, and it barely matters. Something else which stands out is the use of sound. The initial shift between (social) noise and silence is very effective in making you notice the latter. It also makes the audience, alongside Adam, jump at the familiar, humdrum sounds which drag him out of himself temporarily. As much as this film reminds me of anything, then I’d say there’s some shades of Jeremy Gardner’s work here: the isolation and wide open spaces of The Battery (2012) and the flashbacks to happier times in love of After Midnight (2019), but – given the lone protagonist – almost completely shorn of dialogue, and with flashes of something altogether more fearful. Elements of fear are doled out very carefully in Go/Don’t Go, and are all the more effective for it.

Essentially, this film is a horror of hoping. The symbolism of the steadily-failing lightbulbs seems to represent Adam’s nostalgia, and how he becomes stifled by it. Nostalgia is another key driver here, one which soon becomes utterly overwhelming, for Adam and for the audience. The end result is a pensive, very subtle piece of filmmaking with a sharp, sensitive central performance.

GO/DON’T GO will be released via Gravitas Ventures on January 12th 2021.

12 Hour Shift (2020)

Posted on January 2, 2021January 2, 2021 by Keri O'Shea

Arkansas, 1999. Mandy (Angela Bettis) is the world’s most disinterested nurse at the local hospital, and we meet her just ahead of a double shift. This isn’t the only reason she’s a little curt, though. To give her credit, her apparent disinclination for nursing is multifaceted: she’s a drug addict who enjoys hoovering up any spare medication she can get her hands on, but more pointedly, she’s also part of a hospital-wide and obviously very illegal trade in human organs. These she retrieves from patients who are on the verge of death anyway – albeit helping them along – puts them in a cooler, and sells them on to her cousin Regina (Chloe Farnworth in a film-carrying role).

Of course, the plot is eked out fairly thinly here; carting human organs around for the purposes of selling them to a local crime syndicate is one thing, but then the treatment of the organs themselves, well – I’m no medic, but I am fairly sure they’d be of no use to anyone having been slung into a carrier bag for what seems like an awfully long time. Let’s just accept that the whole premise and its delivery is cartoonish rather than anything else. Things begin to go badly wrong, when Regina manages to head off from the hospital without the kidney she was sent for. She only realises this when she gets back to the gang who is expecting her (with a blink-and-miss-it cameo by Mick Foley here). Another kidney has to be procured, pronto: Regina returns to the hospital, and when Mandy gives her short shrift she uses her ingenuity (!) to try to get one herself.

This all starts a chain of events in a ‘comedy of errors’ style, with one violent, ill-thought-out and potentially exposing act following hard upon the last. Casual slaughter, corpse mutilation, the presence of grim stereotypes such as the cop-hating serial murderer fresh from jail, a flirtatious and somewhat hapless cop, vengeful gangsters and expendable patients all figure here in a film which ticks along at a fair pace, becoming funnier as it goes along and perhaps as viewers settle into a mode, watching what is next to befall the sullen, far-from-impressed Mandy and wondering how it’ll all pan out. 12 Hour Shift was a big hit on the film festival circuit in 2020, and it’s clear to see why: it has that nifty balance of the ridiculous and the extreme which definitely serves a group watch.

There is a little more to it than that. The gritty reality of nursing is addressed in 12 Hour Shift, albeit in darkly comic fashion: suicide attempts, ODs, people sick to death with long-term illness. The film is also very disruptive of the typical idea of nurses as angels; these women are stone cold, deeply flawed, but still to some extent sympathetic, which is a credit to director and writer Brea Grant’s characterisation of them. The impression is of people underpaid and worn out by the job, whilst the presence of a certain ODer throws Mandy into even more of a spin when it’s revealed how she knows him, and what this all means. Still, life lessons are offered up as some context, but the emphasis remains on the macabre farce itself. Integral to that farce is Regina, and her importance increases and increases throughout the film, as she moves from a common-or-garden dumb blonde to a key driver of the chaos which unfolds and, finally, even looks as though she’s learned something (maybe) as she navigates her way to the end of the narrative.

So why is the film set at the end of the nineties? This is the one real quibble I would have with the film, as it felt a little pointless to me (though I would still prefer this approach to the much-imitated ‘timeless’ timeframe which deliberately tries to seem as though it belongs to no specific time at all). Aside from some analogue TVs and some mention of Beanie Babies, the setting has little bearing on the plot; sure, there’s a mention that the police had some officers at a Y2K training event, but it could have been anything keeping them away. If it’s just slightly retro for the sake of it, then it seems a fair amount of trouble to go to for little reward; that said, the lack of mobile phones here certainly allows the film’s misunderstandings to flourish, and perhaps does more for the plot than the singular Y2K reference.

All in all, though, for an as-yet inexperienced director like Brea Grant, 12 Hour Shift is a very entertaining, often creative horror film which makes you realise how grim your sense of humour can get. Some clever casting decisions really help here, and the interplay between Bettis and Farnworth is a pleasure to watch, alongside a decent supporting cast too (including David Arquette!) This is a grotty, grisly horror comedy with much to recommend it.

FrightFest Presents and Signature Entertainment present 12 Hour Shift on Digital Platforms 25th January 2021.

Violent Delights (2020)

Posted on December 29, 2020December 29, 2020 by Keri O'Shea

My experience of Mexican cinema tends towards the non-mainstream, admittedly, but even based on the little I do know, it seems that lurching straight into the strange and the bloody unreasonable is a niche national pastime. And so we come to Violent Delights a.k.a Beber de tu Sangre, which certainly starts as it means to go on, i.e. as a rather ungovernable, occasionally charming and always fairly confusing jumble of nudity and (some) horror elements. I counted four sex scenes before the title of the film appeared on screen. Now that is some pioneer spirit.

So much as we have a plot here – and I must stress, plot is not a priority – this is a break up movie, which becomes a tangled web of new relationships movie, which then stops making sense in any clear-cut way soon after that. Oh, and one of the couples is vampiric, although this doesn’t seem to confer many of the special powers we usually associate with vampirism; there’s no ‘time is an abyss’ here, but there is some pretty adventurous blood-letting (this film is very grisly when it wants to be, and doesn’t scrimp on the practical splatter effects). Other than that, the vampirism is just another vainglorious excuse to crowbar more boobs in, and I don’t really buy the script’s occasional excursions into existentialism because the boobs were too much of an utter distraction. But there we have it.

Couple number one, Lizeth and her on-off boyfriend Javier (not a pun), are trying to make a go of it after originally parting ways for some time; the fact that she’s pretty heavily pregnant with his child has rather forced the issue, and there’s a fair amount of second thoughts on his behalf (second thoughts which lead him to almost sleep with someone else during the nanosecond he left Lizeth and her friends at a bar to go to the toilet). The other woman who catches his eye is Alani, a vampire bored of her partner Gabriel after an unspecified amount of time together. All the orgies and the blood-letting just isn’t what it was.

It transpires that Alani and Gabriel are having problems for another reason: she wants a baby, and he doesn’t. This makes it even clearer to us that these are not vampires in a standard-issue kind of a way, as this would usually prohibit conception on account of being dead. Anyway, Javier wends his merry way back to Alani’s side when he gets half a chance, and so these two couples get drawn into a tangled web indeed. Gabriel fancies himself as a bit of an am-dram expert, so he invites Lizeth, Javier, and her friends Vania and Claudia to their house/theatre for dinner and a show. From here, things take a less linear turn, as for the rest of the film each individual actor seems to meander around the house, stopping to sleep with one another, quarrel, drink a bit of blood, or – if it’s Alani – talk about her maternal urges, which she now believes can be assuaged by the new love of her life, Javier; this girl is one big red flag. He seems game as well, which is particularly something given his pregnant partner is actually at this dinner with him. Things get gorier and dafter by turns as the film pushes towards its conclusion, giving the nod to a few other cult exploitation films along the way but feeling for all the world like a kind of tripped-out Coffin Joe story, with the same emphasis on getting the ‘perfect offspring’ by any means, even great sacrifice.

The main idea here – of a kind of love triangle (rectangle?) between vampires and non-vampires actually ain’t half bad. It could have been explored in a number of different ways, but the fact is that director/writer/editor Edin Alain Martinez opted to go for a sexploitation route here – by and large, at least – and that’s definitely what you get. There’s a certain scene with a certain cake which made me roar laughing; it was also an obvious ruse to emulate something rather more hardcore than might otherwise have been gotten away with! There is horror though, and there are some gory set pieces which have a bit of expertise behind them; overall, the film looks pretty crisp, with strong colouration and lighting which gives the film a nicely-stylised feel overall. The way in which the film veers from arthouse to exploitation means a mixed bag script-wise (accepting, of course, that things can get lost in translation). Some of the sexy-time dialogue is as laugh-out-loud ridiculous as the cake is; there’s definitely some knowing humour in here. At least, I bloody hope so.

Still, for all that, and it’s something I keep coming back to: at least Violent Delights tries to be different and tries to be entertaining, looks fine (some of the casting notwithstanding) and gets everything done and dusted in ninety minutes, which in itself is only polite. Mesmerisingly trashy, I’d say. And on occasion, you can’t say fairer than that.

Violent Delights is available for your education and edification via Redemption TV, a streaming service which you can find out about here.

Top 10 of 2020

Posted on December 28, 2020December 28, 2020 by Keri O'Shea

Well, that was the year that was.

Every year when I write up a ‘best of’ list, I can’t help but add a preamble about how things have been, what developments there have been and so on; never has there been a year like 2020, and no preamble can really do justice to the impact of Covid on the arts – for fans and filmmakers alike. With cinemas closed, then open, then closed, and festivals by and large shifting to virtual formats during the course of the year, the experience of film-watching felt incredibly different in 2020. By some fluke, I managed to get out to two in-person film festivals this year – FrightFest Glasgow and Celluloid Screams – but this happened rather more by luck than judgement, and FrightFest beat the first lockdown by a matter of a few days. It’s been a volatile, unpredictable situation for everyone, and time will tell what’ll remain of the film industry in 2021 – it certainly won’t be an easy ride.

That all being said, people have shown themselves to be immensely resourceful throughout this whole time: existing festivals opted to go virtual, new festivals have appeared online, and great films have found their way to an audience. Here’s my Top 10 films of the year, then, posted here in the hopes that, if you’ve missed any of these thus far, you go out and support them, if you can. They are all in their own ways immensely worthwhile.

10. The Droving

An unexpected, subtle horror film which manages to weave together its own mythology, The Droving shows that you don’t need a vast budget and garish effects to tell an effective story. Taking some folk horror elements but disrupting them (Martin is no clueless innocent at the mercy of a closed, cultish community for instance) leads to a stark and involving story of loss and alienation. You can read my full review here.

9. The Invisible Man

H G Wells’ stories have come in for a complete drubbing at the hands of scriptwriters in recent years – I’m still not quite over the experience of the BBC’s War of the Worlds – but happily, Leigh Whannell’s screenplay is superb. Yes, you can modify the existing story and yes, you can update it and yet retain the almost unbearable paranoia of the original tale. Here, it is shifted to the perspective of Cecilia (the magnificent Elisabeth Moss), an escapee from an abusive relationship whose partner, apparently, takes his own life, leaving everything to her and ostensibly freeing her from his presence. Or does he? Cecilia’s growing certainty that someone is watching her is incredibly effectively-handled; the film goes from a nightmare of gaslighting to something altogether more visceral. I watched most of this film from behind my hands. There’s a full review here.

8. Vivarium

It’s a strange thing to behold that so many of the horrors I’ve enjoyed this year have coincidentally been about isolation and confinement. Maybe horror is always like that, and it’s simply more noticeable in 2020. Regardless, Vivarium really got under my skin; it’s a cruel, bizarre scenario whereby a young couple get stranded in an identikit suburbia, watched and exploited by some unseen force which uses them to ‘raise’ a child. It’s very uncomfortable viewing, surreal and sickly (with an excellent creepy child in Sennan Jennings) and a none-too-subtle critique of the trammels which people find themselves in. I review the film here.

7. The Columnist

A razor-sharp ‘what if?’ based on the pitfalls of social media, The Columnist tells the story of Femke, a journalist who is subjected to some incredibly spiteful online trolling. Never be a woman on the internet. At first electing to move away from social media altogether, Femke comes back to it again and again and, when she realises that her new neighbour is responsible for some of the comments, she takes matters into her own hands. Soon the fantasy of dealing with the trolls seems to act as a boon for her writing, but gradually, her behaviour catches up with her. It’s an interesting blend of black humour and quite profound personal breakdown. You can check out a fuller review here.

6. The Stylist

…And another profound personal breakdown, this one blending a garish horror plotline with immensely well-realised characterisation; it works, and more than that, it’s rather affecting to see Claire (Najarra Townsend) painfully losing her grasp on reality, in the pursuit of a life and a friendship which was never really hers to begin with. Claire fantasises about belonging; she emulates people who cross into her orbit in the most graphic way imaginable, by taking their scalps. When she’s approached by regular customer Olivia (Brea Grant) and when this friendly, affable young woman makes overtures of friendship to Claire, Claire begins to spin out of control – growing obsessive, paranoid and dangerous. But you can never hate Claire; she comes across as so frail and damaged, you can only feel that crushing sense of things about to go terribly wrong for her. The final act of this film is genuinely excruciating. You can check out a full review here.

5. Bleed With Me

Yet another film about female alienation? Bleed With Me is a super-subtle take on the perils of female friendships; come to think of it, there’s a few points of overlap with The Stylist, right up to the escalating sense that Rowan (Lee Marshall) is not all she seems. Invited to go along with her friend Emily to her cabin for the weekend, all seems to be well – Rowan is a little of a spare wheel given that Emily’s boyfriend is present too – but then Rowan begins to suspect that someone or something is drawing blood from her whilst she sleeps. There are mysterious wounds on her arm, spots of blood on her nightdress. She becomes paranoid and defensive; meanwhile, her relationship with Emily begins to feel very strange and discomfiting. The film deliberately keeps its secrets, never really allowing the audience the clarity of knowing what exactly is going on – is Rowan disturbed? Or is someone injuring her? It’s an incredibly uncomfortable watch which escalates into a very engaging, if distressing head trip. You can check out my review here.

4. My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To

Oh man, this was a heartbreaker. My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To is the story of a family unit in crisis. Three siblings, Dwight, Jessie and younger brother Thomas live a strange life, avoiding the outside world and – crucially – committing murders in order to ‘feed’ Thomas. Dwight, who has to shoulder the most part of this burden by finding and delivering people to the house, is clearly craving an existence beyond this, and draws closer to a prostitute – this Jessie will not tolerate, as she is wracked with fear that Dwight is going to leave her and Thomas – but all three of these people are afraid, and crave friends and connections. The collision course is clearly set – how we get there is via a quiet sort of agony with impeccable performances throughout. You can take a look at my review here.

3. A Ghost Waits

When Jack has to stay overnight in a house which he is renovating, he realises there’s something rather bizarre about this place. It seems it’s haunted – by Muriel, a ghost who has been employed for the purpose. This is her house, and she is good at her job. Thing is, Jack becomes drawn to this woman and seeks to know her better, which causes conflict with the agency; but he begins to fall for her. It’s a brilliant, gentle story which draws together its own afterlife mythology and performs a charming, sympathetic character study on both Jack and Muriel. It’s one of those rare films which shows exactly what independent film can achieve. Take a look at the full review here.

2. The Swerve

Holly (Azura Skye) is a woman whom, we quickly determine, is on the verge of a personal crisis. Papering over the cracks with medication is only providing her with so much; her dismissive husband and children don’t really seem to see her, and the only attention which she does get is from a male student, which in itself is a source of chaos and concern. When Holly takes a stand during a dreadful family gathering and drives herself, alone, back to her house, she begins to fantasise that she swerved her car into another vehicle, killing or injuring the driver. Similarly, she sees a mouse in her kitchen which she begins to obsess over, almost as if this creature’s arrival has disrupted her ability to feel secure in her own home. Watching Holly’s world begin to spiral out of control is honestly painful to watch, and Skye is incredible. The film escalates into, and I choose this word carefully, a full-blown tragedy. Please check out my review here.

1. Saint Maud

Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a nurse who gets a job looking after the terminally-ill Amanda Kohl at her home; she’s a quiet, gentle character who takes her duties seriously, as well as sheltering behind her born-again Christianity. Kohl (Jennifer Ehle) seems to genuinely take an interest in Maud, but she’s a complex character who isn’t willing to accept her illness with grace. Some of her behaviours are very troubling to Maud. Maud, in her distress, begins to feel that she has been sent to Kohl to save her soul; we also gather that Maud is not all she seems either, and has desperately been trying to close the door on a troubled past. The story which unfolds is incredibly involving and unsettling; again, despite Maud being a fallible, flawed character, we feel for her, and the more she throws herself into her faith, the more she seems to be at breaking point. Saint Maud is meticulously realised, a film which exudes its own sense of doom and loss.