Keri O'Shea

DVD Review: What’s Left of Us (2013)

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

The influence of the zombie – formerly, the ghoul – continues to rise and rise; we now see zombies in the upper eschelons of pop culture, in such various places as a vastly-popular TV franchise and even…in a teen romance film. Yep, the risen dead are clearly here to stay. But what if, as the zombies march onward, they completely forget to appear in the very films where you’d expect them to be integral?

That’s about the size of it in What’s Left of Us, a film where an outbreak of zombies is by and large merely the context for creating an impressively claustrophobic and uneasy human situation. Charming in places, dreary in others, the film shows us its rationale for having these people trapped in a house and then goes on to develop an unexpected and brooding character study, jettisoning the more obvious sources of horror altogether. If you can forgive them that, then there is a lot to like here, actually.

Three survivors of an unspecified zombie apocalypse – the vivacious but temperamental Ana (Victoria Almeida), the outgoing Jonathan (William Prociuk) and the introverted Axel (Lautaro Delgado) – have become trapped inside a ramshackle, but fortunately well-defended house. They’re frustrated with their lot, of course, so they mutually decide on letting off steam by recording their private thoughts on video, before locking them away forever, never to be seen again. It’s a kind of pauper’s therapy, I guess. We don’t know how long they’ve been doing this exactly, but there are a hell of a lot of tapes locked away in that box. The flashpoint in this already tense situation comes when Axel, who it seems has a quiet obsession with Ana, begins to cheat: he unlocks the container, and he begins to watch the tapes, where what he sees only fuels his ardour (whilst he begins to avoid speaking to Ana in real life altogether, preferring to encounter the two-dimensional version). It’s the sort of situation in which you’d assume something has got to give: extreme isolation, simmering, unhealthy sexual rivalry, and (we presume) a shitload of the walking dead at the very door. A recipe for something explosive, right?

Well…no. Not quite. Not how you’d expect. The path chosen by director Christophe Behl in this, his first feature film, can feel frustrating in places; it’s really more of an art house movie than a horror, and choosing the frame which has been used here is clearly something of a risk, but for me, once I’d accepted the film’s unconventional use of an all-too-familiar backdrop, I rather liked it.

The film has a strange, unconventional feel to it at all times, creating a good sense of the loss of the relevance of time as we know it, whilst the actors involved enact the tedium of being holed up very well indeed. The pettiness, the boredom, the irrational tics (such as Axel gradually getting himself plastered in tiny tattoos of insects as the film progresses, promising everyone that he’ll leave the house once he’s fully covered) – it all stands up very well. Simple devices, too, such as the constant buzzing of flies which the film uses as a kind of impromptu soundtrack, really help to create a stifling, unsanitary atmosphere. Forget the walking dead outside, or even the solitary zombie ‘pet’ which Axel and Jonathan decide to bring indoors out of sheer dumb curiosity: the living that are left seem just as sickly. Glowering, unwholesome and grimy, Axel’s unrequited and rather warped love for Ana manifests itself as physical sickness; he looks terrible, though that said, all of the other, limited cast of characters take their turn at looking almost inhuman, they’re so far removed from vigour and sanity. The film chooses for its colour scheme that popular, washed-out and often blueish tone beloved of a lot of new-wave horror cinema, which may be a little obvious, but it does work here, particularly alongside the abundance of (unbearably) close shots of the inmates. It’s a stylish film, without necessarily being easy viewing.

Ultimately, the perspective taken by the film is an interesting, bold one. Little touches like the threadbare nature of Ana’s clothes; the growing tattoo; the treatment of the zombie as a kind of ‘pet’ and an art project; well, these are all effective in their way, but really the main focus of the film is on treating the outside world as an alien country. This places a particular strain on the three survivors, and keeps the focus on them, not on some grand scheme to escape, or even to save anyone else. Most films which invoke the whole zombie apocalypse and its human survivors can’t help but give us gratuitous shots of the walking dead which have caused the situation; What’s Left of Us keeps this deliberately low in the mix, providing us instead with a slow burn, unseemly but in its own way catastrophic love triangle, which plays itself out in extraordinary circumstances. The focus is very much on the human; so much so, and with such gravitas, that being undead doesn’t seem like it’s so bad after all.

A well-realised oddity, it would be a supreme and an unfortunate misfire if this film was marketed at fans of the more headshot-orientated kind of zombie flick. However, as a film which doesn’t rest very comfortably in any genre, this could be a risk for What’s Left of Us – hopefully though, more pragmatic viewers will soon find their way to this rather ambitious, atmospheric little feature.

What’s Left of Us will be released by Peccadillo Pictures on May 11th, 2015.

Blu-ray Review: Blood and Black Lace (1964)

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

The ‘neo-giallo’ has become something of a hot filming style in recent years, and although not yet numbering as many films as the faux grindhouse trend has given us, a fair few young directors have tried to turn their hand to the heavily-stylised, aesthetically-minded ultraviolence of the giallo – with a range of outcomes; some good, some not so much. It’s certainly high time for us to get this new, painstakingly-restored version of Blood on Black Lace anyway, the film which effectively cemented the genre in the first place. Years of watching films of a similar ilk may have blinded us to the sheer ingenuity of Bava’s originality and verve here, but it shouldn’t be so: happily, this version is so bloody glorious that it ought to be able to restore any viewer’s faith, even if you come to it hardwired to see through the film’s plot twists and turns.

The film is set in and around the Cristiana Haute Couture fashion house in Italy, where the glamorous girls who work there are presided over by the equally glamorous Contessa Cristina (Eva Bartok) and her partner. One night, one of the girls, Isabella, is brutally murdered by a masked killer in the grounds of the house. The smooth Inspector Silvestre is assigned to the case, but no sooner has he begun to investigate life at Cristiana, than there’s another killing. Could it be linked to the discovery of Isabella’s diary, which seems to have rattled a few cages? Soon, an atmosphere of paranoia and unease pervades the house – and the body count continues to increase.

Essentially a whodunnit, the original Italian title of the film even lets you in on how many casualties to expect but for all that, you genuinely still want to get to the bottom of the mystery. This is quite something, in and of itself. However, for me the real pleasure of Blood and Black Lace lies in the journey, not the destination. It’s hard to understate just how creative Mario Bava shows himself to be with his work on this film: innovative camera work, long takes, a painterly eye for scene composition, superb lighting and soundscape and sumptuous sets, it’s a thing of beauty, a truly immersive piece of cinema. So what if you guess who the culprit is – you’ll have a blast anyway.

All of this comment on how good the film looks and sounds, though, shouldn’t detract from the fact that it still – all these decades after it was made – packs a punch. I’d only ever seen one (terrible quality) version of the film, about ten years ago, and perhaps the poor quality of the print took away from the brutality of the murders, but having revisited it, I’m still pretty taken aback by how unsettling the murders actually are. In bold, crisp Eastmancolour, it’s a protracted and nasty affair, all told. Much has been said about the relationship between sex and violence in the giallo genre, and perhaps it’d be too much of an aside to go into it fully here, but you can’t escape the fact that the girls getting variously throttled, slashed and burned in Blood and Black Lace show sex appeal and terror being married together; although the murders don’t turn out to be sexual in motivation, Silvestre assumes that they are, and perhaps we do, too. Indeed the states of undress which the victims end up in could easily be seen in these terms, and sexuality runs through the film like a current. Similarly, even when being terrorized, the beautiful female victims look incredibly elegant. This is a film choc-full of good looking types.

But then, they’re being offed by someone who has a certain level of style, too. The assassin – in a simple white face covering – is a very effective villain, creepy and evocative. They’re a plausible threat who doesn’t sacrifice on the aesthetic aspect. There’s plenty more to admire about them, also. At some points they seem omnipotent, in the vein of a slasher villain from the decades which followed, but then again, they seem clumsy and fallible in other respects. It’s an interesting blend which allows for engaging viewing and some great scenes – and you can chalk up the sheer number of other, later films which have clearly been influenced by this assassin.

A heady, lurid blend of sex, drugs, lies and murder, Blood and Black Lace set the bar for the giallo genre and this definitive release by Arrow finally gives the film the reverential treatment it deserves. It absolutely rewards the great pains they’ve taken with it to get it looking as good as it does – and I utterly recommend that you buy it, then bask in one of the most enjoyably grisly time capsules you’ll ever have the pleasure to experience.

Not enough for you? Arrow have, as always, thrown in a raft of decent extras with this release, everything from the obligatory movie trailer through to a ‘visual essay’ about gender and giallo, an episode of The Sinister Image, a panel discussing Bava and his work, a feature-length documentary on the film, and even a copy of Yellow, the recent neo-giallo which made waves on the indie horror movie scene.

Blood and Black Lace is available to buy now.

Book Review: The Skintaker by Frazer Lee

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

The idea of a presence – something powerful and knowing hidden in the darkness of the woods – is undoubtedly hardwired into us on a primal level; for thousands upon thousands upon years before human culture spawned the horror genre, it was an instinctual fear which allowed our DNA to survive, and it’s stayed with us ever since, though perhaps becoming convoluted and complicated, a source of unease and terror which often borders on the supernatural. What horror author Frazer Lee has done with his newest novel The Skintaker is to take that fear and play with its setting and its time-frame; going back to the early twentieth century, and into the Amazon rainforest with his new book’s host of characters. The result is rather a slow-burn offering in the first instance, but gives way to a finale so elaborate with gore-swathed occultism that it would be worthy of any horror movie.

The story runs thus: a young woman called Rosie, once orphaned by a house fire, now lives with her guardians, the devout, prim Aunt Francesca and her Uncle Gregory, a pastor. Although now a woman of nineteen she is still their dependent, and as such she is summoned to go with them to the Amazon, where her Uncle hopes to convert the ‘heathen’ tribespeople to Christianity as he continues the work started by generations of past religious migrants. Although initially daunted by the prospect, Rosie soon begins to see the trek into unknown terrain as liberating, particularly when she finds friendship in the sparky, knowledgeable Professor Cecil, a man who is also travelling to the Amazon – in his case, to document and record all he can about the flora, fauna and peoples there. However, the trials of the remote location and isolation from other Europeans is not the only thing which has the power to trouble Rosie, when they finally arrive at their destination of the Mission House. Her dreams are becoming more and more uneasy, and in them, she begins to see a dark, statuesque figure, whose eyes are shielded with obsidian. A figment of her imagination? Or is there something there in the jungle, watching them?

I must say that the early phases of this book are rather slower to take hold of the imagination than The Jack in the Green, the last of Lee’s books which I reviewed. Rosie, our central character, at first comes across as repressed to the point of two-dimensionality, hemmed in on all sides as she is by the rather turgid Gregory & Francesca; it takes a while to begin to see Rosie as something more than this. The good thing here is that when she really begins to blossom as a character, which (no doubt intentionally) happens the further the travelling party gets away from home, the easier and easier it becomes to invest something in her until, when she has been completely removed from the structures and rules which governed her upbringing, she really is a fascinating prospect, who develops into something wholly (and literally) unexpected.

All of this is due to the unfolding story of the ‘Skintaker’ which gives us our title. Lee operates a fairly complex structure in order to do this: firstly, with something of a prologue, taking us into the lives of a tribe who know all too well what the ‘Skintaker’ is and can do, then on occasion into the internal monologue of the creature/man itself (and the ambiguity here about how physical or how metaphysical the creature/man is, well, that is used to full effect as the story moves towards its close.) The intermeshing of Rosie’s story with the events which enfold her become increasingly evocative and repellent by turns, and accordingly what we get in the Skintaker is an interesting and bold villainous being, because there is space for interpretation in how you read him/it.

Lee is at his best in two key respects here which serve the book overall very well. Firstly, the author has evident glee in the defence of pagan beliefs, happily pointing out the relatively short tenure of Christianity and throughout the book revelling in the internal balance, even if bloody, enjoyed by non-Christian peoples. He’s a friend to the ‘old gods’, and there’s a real robust energy to his words when he’s speaking in their interests. Furthermore, although we’d call it ‘jungle’ rather than ‘woodland’ here, when Lee’s writing gets into the description of the sylvan, it evidences real reverence and pleasure. That in turn is passed on to the readership. I’d say that Lee is broadly far less comfortable with writing about the tribes and practices of the Amazon – and there are some mistakes (Amazonians using peyote?) – but credit where credit’s due, one can’t always stick to one’s comfort zones, and it’s certainly all readable and enjoyable. The upshot of this setting eventually boils down to the intricacies of belief in any case, and so the story still sustains the ideas of fate, risk, and (unconventional) redemption which are integral to this author’s work.

I have a couple of gripes with the book however which, happily, aren’t my overarching impression now that I’ve finished reading: in some places though, the use of cliche risks derailing the author’s efforts (such as the rope bridge which of course breaks during crossing) and the overuse of simile can be distracting. There are usually several on every page, and I found it distracting at times, mainly because I started to count them! Sometimes, less is more. That said, my love for the body-horror-meets-altered-states conclusion of The Skintaker gives the lie to that statement. Perhaps it’s all about measures and degrees. Still, we have here an ending which seems to leave the way open for more chapters, and that would certainly be welcome, as the book improves and improves as it drives towards its close.

An overall engaging and innovative slab of pagan horror, The Skintaker is available from Samhain Publishing here.

Comic Review: Archie vs. Predator

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Svetlana Fedotov

For anyone who has ever read a comic in the past sixty years, the name Archie is synonymous with goofy teenage antics, love triangles, and cheesy quips that were never-really-that-funny-now-that-I-think-about-it. And, like any work that’s been around for as long as the graphic word itself, Archie and Co. have crossed paths with some strange characters. Punisher, KISS, and Glee are but a small selection of crossovers used to keep the Riverdale gang relevant to the ever changing generations. Thanks to Archie Comics Co. recent addition of a darker Archie universe a la zombie hordes, fans are clamoring for more mature works from the puberty ridden characters. Enter the Predator! Thanks to Dark Horse and Archie Comics Co., we are treated to an alternate world where the Predator not only landed on Archie’s earth, but is hunting the entire gang down.

The first issue is fairly low key despite the implied promise of watching these never-aging teenagers be picked off one by one like flies in a spider’s web. In fact, the issue starts off pretty lighthearted. Centered around the kids as they make their way down to a Costa Rican resort, the reader is treated to a lot of the same silly humor and Betty and Veronica jealousies that are so prevalent in the younger aged comics. But, as the issue progresses, the humor, surprisingly, gets a little dirty and the jealousies soon start to turn pretty serious, which helps set up the story for the Predator. Crashing down into the jungle for purposes that are not yet ours to know, the Predator quickly gets to work hunting down his prey. This time though, it’s not some lost soldiers or Giger aliens, but our very own sunny group of degenerates. Whilst he quietly and carefully maneuvers under the shadows of the trees, questions arise. Why is he here? What does he want? And what does it have to do with the ancient sword that Betty accidentally picked up at an old temple?

As stated, despite the initial opening pages of gag-humor and stacked Jughead sandwiches, Archie vs Predator gets pretty dark. It’s an interesting transition between the silly world of Archie and the horror filled universe where something like the Predator could exist. Though it’s a solid attempt at bringing these two opposites together, the first issue will most likely appeal to fans of Archie than fans of Predator. That’s not to say that the Predator isn’t a strong presence in the comic, but as far as first issues go, this was a lot more about setting up the follow-up issues and since the Predator is the ‘villain,’ there’s just not a lot of him in it yet. Personally, I’m excited to see the Predator make a stronger appearance, mostly so I can see the Riverdale lot stare into the eyes of death and reflect on the meaningless of their lives as their spines are ripped out of their bodies. I mean, who doesn’t?

Writing duties for Archie vs Predator have been delegated to Alex de Campi, who is a regular contributing writer on Dark Horses comics. She has added her love for camp and horror and expertly mixed them onto the paper for what is essentially, campy horror. While I still wish there was a bit more Predator, a little less Archie gang, I’m willing to wait and see if he becomes a more prominent fixture. Current Betty and Veronica illustrator Fernando Ruiz, illustrates the work with his already practiced hand from drawing the Riverdale kids on and off for several years. His take on the Predator is clean and well dedicated, showing not only is he not limited to the Archie art style but is, in fact, one hell of a comic artist. On point angles and smooth panel-to-panel transitions make this an easy-on-the-eyes read. Grab yours on the 15th!

Review: Misogynist (2013)

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

When we were approached by Michael Matteo Rossi, the director of Misogynist, he introduced the film by saying that it’s been getting a lot of attention “as the indie antidote to the Fifty Shades craze”; now, I haven’t seen Fifty Shades of Grey, but neither have I been living in a bubble – so the reference was intriguing enough for me to offer to cover Misogynist, even if only to see how, exactly, it related. Certainly, judging by the cover art, Misogynist looks like it’s firmly in Fifty Shades territory, with a prone young woman and a besuited man all looking eerily familiar – though whether it looked like this before the bigger-budget film made waves earlier this year, I couldn’t say. What I can say is that any further links to Fifty Shades are null and void; there simply isn’t anything else there to compare, and anyone expecting similarities would be disappointed here. There’s no romance, no love, and contradictory to the nudity on the cover, no sex (save for one very unpleasant aside towards the film’s close). There’s also no real female characterisation, which to be fair to Fifty Shades does figure fairly importantly, with the story coming as it does from a woman’s perspective. Misogynist is instead an attempt to be provocative which quickly descends into self-parody. If it’s trying to challenge the views about women which it represents, then that gets lost in the mix – with such limited depth and development, it even seems to perpetrate rather than to question.

We begin our story with a young man, Harrison (Jonathan Bennett) receiving some bad news in the form of a letter. A passer-by stops to see what’s up with him, asking if it’s to do with a woman (and evidently, it is). This well-wisher is a bloke called Trevor (Jon Briddell) and he hands Harrison his card, telling him that he can help him fix his woman issues by showing him how to control women. Not put off by this frankly barking mad conversation, Harrison clearly agrees to meet him for drinks – as we’re then taken three years on, and these two seem to be running some sort of finishing school for twats. Men come to these seminars literally in their twos and threes to hear Trevor’s words of wisdom, which mainly consist of platitudes like ‘all women want to be controlled’, peppered with self-conscious, awkward swearing – the kind of swearing that teenagers do when they’ve only just adopted the new words and don’t quite know where they ought to go, exactly. From time to time, the men exchange blows. And that’s it.

The first thing that struck me during these seminar scenes is that, perhaps aware that little is actually happening, drama and tension are supplied by copious shouting. It’s overacting, plain and simple, and it seems no one can have even a slightly challenging thought without screeching it at the tops of their lungs. Alongside the swearing and the vitriol, things soon begin to feel a bit silly. One of these classes takes up the greater share of the film, too, which makes for challenging viewing to say the least. It’s not so much that the anti-woman diatribes we hear over and over again are particularly effective or chilling or anything of the sort (I laughed out loud at the fact that Trevor uses a PowerPoint slide to display the words ‘fucked’ and ‘hurt’ for the benefit of his multi-media savvy acolytes) but that where the film would ordinarily be getting on with the plot, it simply stagnates. We the audience are made to participate in the world’s worst extra credit class. When the men threaten to quit, which they do continuously, I really want them to, because I want to get the hell out of there too. And when the film does eventually move on from here, it has limited space and time to do much more, so that Harrison and Trevor’s back stories feel like afterthoughts, unconvincing and under-explored.

But perhaps the film’s biggest sin is that it trots out its anti-woman rhetoric for over an hour, but doesn’t seem to do anything with this other than parroting it over and over; whilst I’m not for a moment going to suggest that the director or anyone involved actually holds these views, of course not, when it’s all you’re getting over and over from male characters who are borderline cartoonish in their spitefulness, then the film isn’t doing much there to make us consider any of this, or question it, or challenge it. It’s difficult to identify how self-aware the film is, ultimately, and although it tries to flesh out its characters towards the end, in so doing it still relies on a narrative which sees women as needy, irrational victims. It’s all too little, too late, and the ‘inspired by real events’ element which is crowbarred in there at the end is pretty insulting stuff.

Whilst an attractively shot film, Misogynist sadly lacks the bite or the plot impetus to really get under the skin of the woman-hating which gives it its title. Yes, there are people out there who think like our main characters; that is something truly scary, but the opportunity to explore this here has been passed up in favour of bluster and two-dimensionality.

Misogynist is available now on DVD from Midnight Releasing.

DVD Review – Night of the Wolf: Late Phases (2014)

Posted on April 2, 2015July 7, 2017 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

Look, I was going to try to play coy on the source of the horror in this film, but seeing as ‘Night of the Wolf’ has been added to the title (sigh), and that to avoid any residual ambiguity there’s a massive savage wolf on the cover art, there’s little point really. With that out of the bag, I’ll get straight to the point: it always seems strange that there are so few successful werewolf movies being made these days, for all sorts of reasons. Aside from the fact that werewolves are folk demons par excellence, able to lend themselves to a variety of interpretations from monster flicks to psychological studies, their presence in horror films is intrinsically linked to the development of the genre in the first place. It was Universal’s spin on that folklore which was responsible for entrenching and embellishing it, putting werewolf horror on the silver screen, then providing us with the legend of the silver bullets which could put things right. Well, whatever the reasons for the wolf’s relatively quiet few years, we can at least be thankful for the existence of Late Phases, one of the best-crafted werewolf movies of recent decades.

Crescent Bay is one of those dreadfully euphemistic ‘retirement communities’: warm, sunny, cosy, and conveniently remote from grown children who have their lives to live, preferably with clear consciences. Crescent Bay is also the new home of Ambrose McKinley (Nick Damici), ex-Army, who – in the wake of a family bereavement – arrives at the new place with the help of his son, Will (Ethan Embry) and moves in. Ambrose finds a few odd original features in his new house before the movers even get there, and it seems all is not well in his complex; both he and his neighbour Dolores are attacked that night. Given the circumstances, no one sees the assailant, but when Ambrose can finally get out of the house, he learns that these sorts of attacks are relatively commonplace. This may be enough for many of the residents, and indeed the police (who seem to feel that the attacks are collateral and not all that much to grieve over) but Ambrose won’t accept it. He wants to know more, and the discoveries he makes act like a touch-paper for a series of horrific events.

I was instantly engaged by this story: for starters, it looks beautiful, is fantastically well shot and lit, and it has a superb cast who have been chosen because they can act and tell a story, not because they have some debatable, anodyne Hollywood saleability. Seeing Nick Damici’s name attached to any project always makes my heart sing, and – although we could quibble over the fact that he is rather young for the role of a retired man – he is superb here. He’s made a hero out of a deeply flawed man; Ambrose is gruff, curt, and possessed of that bone-deep cold demeanour beloved of older generations, particularly military folk. He’s also eminently likeable, balancing his grave stoicism with vulnerability. As his son Will observes of him after he survives the attack at his house, “His ‘okay’ and his ‘not okay’ both look the same”. Ambrose is also a lynchpin of something else the film does incredibly well – a sense of humour which doesn’t feel insincere. Some of his one-liners absolutely cracked me up. The film is capable of sustaining the odd visual nod here, the odd knowing reference there (see: Crescent Moon Retirement Community, as one example) and having Ambrose deliver some pitch-perfect sneers only makes me warm to his predicament. He can be comical, but he’s certainly not a comic character. The supporting cast are great too and each bring something to the table. Via their interplay, the film handles its plot reveals seamlessly; subtle and purposeful, writers could take some great cues from Eric Stolze’s work here. You don’t have to yell everything into camera. Trust your audience to work things out.

Whilst it may by now be clear in which direction the film goes, the truly excellent work which Late Phases does, for me, is in how it depicts the treatment of the elderly. Here, we have a community of people – people who have raised families, worked all their lives – shown to be sidelined, exposed and expendable. So someone kills an old lady? Shame, but it’s not a tragedy; snide asides from the younger generations employed to help them, or brusque phonecalls from families all spell out in surprisingly poignant language that these people are seen as spent. Ambrose spits that Crescent Bay is “not a place to live, it’s a place to die”, and it’s indeed shown as a place where people die; the film pushes it to its extreme, sure, but ultimately this is because of how isolated and helpless they are. Having older characters as central characters is still in itself unusual. Without necessarily moralising, Late Phases merely uses their isolation to contextualise its story, one which can still muster some wonderful moments of vindication.

Of course, in terms of those moments, one of the biggest risks in making a film of this genre is deciding how much of the predator we need to see. I’ve talked about humour in the film; well, the wrong creature effects can derail an entire film, and it seems to be an especial problem with this genre. Directors have to juggle the expectation with the pay-off. I don’t envy them. Personally, I’d have gone with the whole ‘less is more’ approach, and shown even less on screen. What we see in Late Phases is by far and away not awful, and care has clearly gone into the design, but seeing this clearly on screen did feel like a tonal shift, one which necessitated some splattery elements which weren’t the film’s finest scenes. That said, we needed a conclusion to all this, and by the time the credits rolled, not only was I back on side – I was genuinely moved. That is a thing surprisingly rare, and – yeah, I’ll say it – precious.

An original entrant in the werewolf movie genre which nonetheless manages to pay its respects to films such as American Werewolf and The Beast Must Die, Late Phases is a complete – and welcome – surprise.

Late Phases will come to DVD and Blu-ray on 20th April 2015.

Horror in Short: Slit (2015)

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

A night out, somewhere in the US: two young women turn their noses up at male attention to head home, drink J&B and get it on. But someone, somewhere, has been watching them – and their assailant isn’t too happy with what they’re doing…

That is the basic premise behind Slit, the seventh short film by writer and director Colin Clarke: wearing its heart on its sleeve, it’s very much one of the new wave of giallo-a-likes, a recent phenomenon which, I have to say, surprises me to a degree. I’m not sure how many of the filmmakers adding black leather gloves and bottles of whisky to their movies are long-term fans of the genre, or how many have simply identified a recognisable, visually-strong shooting style which can be done in a relatively straightforward way (ignoring the fact that feature-length gialli typically go through so many ludicrous plot twists that you’ve no idea who did what, come the finale.) Whatever the case may be, in eleven minutes, Slit does indeed reference a fair few of the expected tropes, never straying too far from these – even into the end credits. Take a look and see what you think…

First things first, the film is clearly all about the visuals, and given the usual constraints an indie filmmaker has to work with, the end product looks reasonably good. My main complaint here would be that in some respects it feels torn between 70s and 80s, incorporating a number of (admittedly stylish) earlier giallo-style shots, but also with regards the colour and strength of the prominent lighting, as well as the appearance of the girls and their location, it also feels much later. This detracts a little from the atmosphere, as it doesn’t always feel clear what this style is in homage to exactly. There are also a few moments I’d happily do without (the CGI, in a nutshell) but – with the stylish music and a number of skillful shots, there is good visual and soundtrack work here.

I suppose, though, my main issue with the film is in its basic message (and that title can be read pretty crudely, too, which is something that could have been a bit of a misfire). Perhaps I’m not the main target audience here, not being particularly interested in the lion’s share of this film, which is a girl-on-girl sex scene. In fact, considering one of my key thoughts during this was ‘she’s wearing that underwear with that dress? Hello VPL!’ I’d say the ‘erotic’ angle here didn’t do anything for me.

Moving on from that though, the film pares down its sex and its horror to such a degree that it all comes across feeling rather negative; bearing in mind the title and the fate of the characters here, Slit takes the aspects of gialli which could be seen as negative on women – and runs with them, giving us three female characters who exist only to kill or be killed. The thing is, though, gialli had an hour and a half to play with, and so even at their most scathing or denigratory, and let’s face it – some of them were – they could still characterise their women in an interesting way. There was more to get to grips with. Things are rendered down so much here for the short-film version that it feels a little unsavoury and a little flat to me.

Lacking surprises, then, but still with shooting skill intact, Slit is perhaps best thought of as a visual calling card, because the visual approach is the priority here. I’ll certainly readily take a look at the other films in the Daredevil Films canon, and it would be good to see different styles and other ideas being represented.

Film Review: Hangman (2015)

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

Feeling secure in one’s home is, for most people, absolutely essential – particularly, I’d imagine, if you have a family, and need to feel that you have a safe space for them, somewhere they can rely on as intrinsically secure, intrinsically theirs. This feeling of security is also a source of anxiety, an anxiety which is frequently explored in film and has led to some superb movies down through the years. However, broadly speaking, it is the horror genre which has picked up on the idea of ‘home invasion’, and the type of home invasion explored in these films has tended towards the more overt – of masked intruders, tricking or breaking their way into someone’s home, then subjecting its residents to, more often than not, torment and torture. This is the realm of The Strangers, Cherry Tree Lane and the brutal Secuestrados (‘Kidnapped’) – but these films might make us forget that there’s another level to the premise of home invasion. It may be far scarier if (as has been actually recorded in recent years) someone just got into your home, holed up there – and waited…

This brings us to the latest Adam Mason movie, Hangman: this is a film which in many ways is a departure from what has come before in his career. Although punctuated by characteristic moments of bloody, unflinching violence, Hangman is for the most part a much quieter affair than past films, a slow-building story, tightening its hold on the viewer oh-so carefully. However, speaking as someone who has seen all of Mason’s work to date, I will categorically say that this is the first of his films which has genuinely scared me.

The film commences with a black screen, which focuses our attention on an agonised call to 911; we hear a woman, terrified, claiming that there’s an intruder in her house. So far, so familiar – but via the point-of-view camera of some other resident there, it’s fair to say that chaos has reigned – and recently. Is the cameraman the intruder? We get our answer presently, and then no sooner are we trying to piece together the events which brought about this conclusion, but we’re taken elsewhere – maybe before, or maybe after the events we have just seen.

What we do know is that someone is now watching a family as they head off on vacation, and – in light of what we know already, we don’t assume this person has just a passing interest: mum Beth (British genre star Kate Ashfield) and dad Aaron (Jeremy Sisto) are happily oblivious, though, and together with their son and daughter, off they go. They’re going away, but our watcher is going ‘home’ thanks to a handy sat-nav setting, so he breaks into their home, safe in the knowledge that he can be there for a while at his leisure before they return.

When they get back, they are understandably rattled by the evidence of a break-in, especially when they find what they assume is evidence of pranksters, but the police brush it off as nothing and the family tries to go on as normal. However, their nervousness, particularly Beth’s, keeps getting rewarded. It’s the little things. Things left out of place, or moved; noises here and there – but it doesn’t end with just this, and the situation in the house soon escalates, as the unwanted house-guest ramps up his attentions…

Wow. This film comes from a deeply harsh perspective, firstly setting up some other tragedy for its context and then making us watch as an at-first distant family grows more likeable and believable; we know they’re in trouble before we really encounter them at all, and the result of this is a sense of grim inescapability, which I found actually quite upsetting in places. Hangman has a pessimistic atmosphere all of its own, and it’s pretty hefty: I couldn’t help but feel vulnerable on behalf of the family, perhaps particularly Beth, who seems to have more than her share to bear in all of this. The low-level nature of many of the disturbances is somehow more unsettling than grand gestures or actions, too, because these are often situations we’ve been in ourselves – though extended, through the ‘what if?’ and into ‘it is’. We’ve all wound up second-guessing ourselves when we’ve found something left out of place or missing; Hangman makes all of this into the source of real peril and it’s a very effective device as used here.

This brings us to the antagonist of the piece: who is he? Does he know the family, or families he is haunting? Why is he acting this way? All we can categorically be sure of (until the credits roll and hammer us into the ground that little bit more) is that he is obsessive and malicious: clues come early on, not just from his conduct towards people but via his cold-hearted, meticulous planning for everything he does. His single-mindedness is sickly, and the ways he plants the seeds of discord in the family home is somehow just as troubling as his other actions – like a kid pulling the legs off an insect, just to see what happens. Also, his close proximity to the family members at some points made me clamp my hand to my mouth in an ‘I-can’t-watch-this’ manner. That’s no mean feat, right there, and kudos to our bad guy Eric Michael Cole for achieving so much, despite typically being behind the camera, rather than in front of it.

Ah, the shooting style itself. Of course, seeing elements of ‘hand held camera’ shooting may deter some viewers, but believe me – it is all carefully handled, with lots of long, static shots too. What you certainly don’t get is the camera pinballing around and dragging the audience with it: there’s method and variety here, as well as tight edits throughout, which makes the whole film feel like it’s been shot in the best possible style for its plot.

Adam Mason, alongside his long-term writing partner Simon Boyes, intended Hangman to be his most accessible, mainstream film to date. I think that they’ve achieved this, actually, but although in many ways it’s a departure from the style of horror they’ve penned previously, it’s also a film full of horrors – horrors of the everyday, modern age, seen subtly through to a deeply disturbing crescendo. I’ll freely admit – Hangman has gotten under my skin, and I really hope that it goes on to get the attention it deserves.

Hangman received its US release on 14th March 2015. Stay tuned for further news on a European release.

DVD Review: The Sleeping Room (2014)

Posted on March 17, 2015July 7, 2017 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

I always make it a point never to read reviews of new films I’m about to review: some people may be better than I am at filtering out the opinions of others before forming one of their own, but it’s not so for me. I find it virtually impossible not to carry some weight of expectation, for good or ill, away. However, as soon as I’ve sat through said new film, I’ll then measure my opinion against other people’s…and here’s where I come to The Sleeping Room. As a very new movie (screening at last year’s Frightfest, as the promo material proudly says in its first line) there aren’t many reviews around as of yet, but when I read them, I wondered in all honesty if we’d seen the same film. Other voices declare The Sleeping Room a triumph of indie filmmaking, a bastion of atmosphere and innovation. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of that.

Let me start with the bare bones of the plot. We start in Brighton, England: indeed we’re reminded that we are in fact in Brighton multiple times, with the word ‘BRIGHTON’ up on screen for good measure on several occasions, but I digress. We start with an injured teenage girl lying on the beach – from which point we are taken back in time, to find out what has brought her to this low and bloody ebb. Turns out Blue (Leila Mimmack) is a prostitute. She works for the good-hearted but business-minded madam Cynthia (Julie Graham, chronically underused here) and by-the-by, her hard bastard boyfriend (David Sibley – again chronically underused). One day, Blue fulfils an appointment at a once grandiose but now dilapidated Victorian property in town, meeting up with a punter named Bill (Joseph Beattie), who presumably fancies a break from the renovation work he’s doing there. Bill’s a nice enough guy, albeit nervy, but whilst he doesn’t end up having sex with Blue after all, they both quickly notice that there’s something rather odd about the house – finding tucked-away rooms, two-way glass and other dodgy examples of home decor befitting of its former use as a brothel. But there’s more. A quick peek into an old Mutoscope (think ‘What The Butler Saw’) and some old photos puts Blue onto the trail of a mystery. Cue long-buried family ties, hints of murder and of incest – which trigger a haunting, putting Blue and those near her at risk.

It’s not the first time of late that I’ve seen old film reels or similar being used as the trigger for supernatural events: The Canal, which also did the rounds of a few film festivals such as Abertoir last year, uses an almost identical premise, even actually using a film archivist as the central character and having him unearth via his work the grisly past of his house – and I really do feel for films which, through no fault of their own, just happen to emerge at around the same time that a similar film does. This must be immensely galling for all concerned. However, where the well of sympathy dries up is when one of those films is just far superior to the other; I wasn’t a huge fan of The Canal, all told, but it boasts some superbly creepy sequences and a weighty build-up of dread as its vulnerable lead character comes unstuck. There were several reasons why I couldn’t feel anything like that invested in The Sleeping Room.

The first is in how the plot plays out. It’s all just a little too simplistic, a little sing-song. A prostitute (who never actually seems to have sex) visits a customer and immediately sees a range of glaringly obvious plot pointers that he obviously didn’t, despite being at the house on his own for a far longer period of time. Suddenly, all the little quirks and features of the house are laid bare, even vast structural things which have gone unnoticed, all because Blue turns up. Now, I get that the plot implies that she’s somehow ‘drawn’ there, but still. Episodes of Scooby Doo have played their cards closer to their chests and used more subtlety than this. This type of heavy-handed exposition goes on throughout, too; the audience isn’t really trusted to draw their own conclusions about what’s happening, and so it all gets spoken or spelled out, which is a crying shame: some of the strongest supernatural yarns play with ambiguity (and I am not counting the ending as ambiguity, by the way.) The film’s strongest visual tic is certainly in its use of the Mutoscope idea as the trigger for the ghostly goings-on, and it was really interesting to see this being used on screen, but then the version of What Blue Saw, the apparent films looked like something from a rock video (which now I look at the credits and see these sequences were directed by Jake West, is no surprise). It didn’t fulfil its promise of something truly exciting, nor is it a convincing period piece. it just felt like bits of Kill List in black and white.

I mentioned earlier that I thought Julie Graham and David Sibley should have been given more to do: I’d stand by this, as the older actors in this film really steal the show. Where it comes to lead girl Blue, though, I can’t help but think she doesn’t peg things together very well. Was she deliberately being played as restrained and monotone, to show how much she’s had to immure against a life of apparent prostitution and abandonment? Maybe. This could again be where the atmosphere I’ve seen debated just didn’t happen for me, but personally, I found Blue to be a character where there was not much suggestion of an inner life and even less nuance, even in how she faced some very odd, dangerous situations. Everything (save for a few life-threatening scenes) was met with the same flat tone and facial expression. As she is on screen more than anyone else here, you really need to believe in her and feel for her, but man, is it difficult to do so. Overall, via the plot development and the performances in it, this was a very two-dimensional film which simply didn’t achieve any scares or surprises.

There’s some serious pedigree behind The Sleeping Room: its director John Shackleton co-wrote the sparky Panic Button (2011) and another writer they have on board for this is none other than Alex Chandon, so it’s a shame to get so little enjoyment out of this first feature-length film by Shackleton. But, hey ho; judging by the London film scene love-in in the credits (I spotted Greg Day and Alan Jones as well as Messrs Chandon and West) this is a well-supported piece of indie cinema with many friends out there. I just can’t count myself amongst them.

The Sleeping Room is available On Demand from 27th April 2015 and on DVD from 11th May 2015.

Theatre Review: The Call of Cthulhu

Posted on March 11, 2015July 7, 2017 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

Last year, I had my first experience of Lovecraftian theatre at the Abertoir film festival – and let me tell you, it was something of a revelation; not a revelation along the lines of those suffered by Lovecraft’s tortured protagonists, mind, but more of a lesson in how Lovecraft’s tales can jump off the page when told in the form of dramatic monologue. The form, being more intimate than film, successfully added humanity and gravitas to a retelling of The Temple – one of HPL’s most problematic, even most easily-derided stories, for its somewhat caricatured German character and his verbose patriotism, even in the face of madness. Not so, as told by dramatist Michael Sabbaton – here, The Temple could assume its rightfully grotesque proportions, lowering over a very real, very terrified man, one who realistically seemed to have struggled with the death of his rational self.

Proof of a select skill and a rare talent, this kind of storytelling; as such, I was very excited to catch up with my second of Sabbaton’s monologues, this time based on that gateway horror story, The Call of Cthulhu. The performance took place in the kind of place which could, to my mind, only thrive so well in the city of Leeds; known for its stubborn reclamation of disused urban spaces, turning them into all things weird and wonderful, The Holbeck Underground Ballroom (or HUB) is a small theatre which shelters underneath a soot-blackened railway arch, alongside a number of other small businesses in the same area. This dimly-lit, frankly chilly venue (albeit with free blankets provided) has the sort of particular relationship with outsider drama which makes it perfect for a performance of this kind. The Call of Cthulhu was a complete sell out, with standing room only, which added a great deal to the atmosphere. I also couldn’t help but think that this kind of space outside conventional space was just perfect for Lovecraft and his beloved themes…

The Call of Cthulhu is without doubt one of Lovecraft’s most familiar stories. I can therefore keep the synopsis brief: a man, Francis Wayland Thurston, recounts the development of a sanity-crushing series of events pertaining to a mysterious, but powerful type of god. He first encountered the …deity, whose name he can barely bring himself to form, via his uncle, Professor Angell, who in his turn developed an interest in the Cthulhu creature from his in-depth work with a tortured young Rhode Island artist, Henry Wilcox, who had rendered the strange entity in clay form after experiencing fever-dreams of a mysterious, gargantuan city. The trail of references to Cthulhu didn’t stop there, stretching all the way out to a police officer in New Orleans named Legrasse, who had busted a heathen cult of Cthulhu-worshippers – and further still, to a news article from Australia, discussing the mysterious fate of the crew of The Emma, originally bound for home in Norway. The cult is clearly global, ancient and – somehow powerful. His experiences of this knowledge have left Thurston traumatised and afraid.

“The most merciful thing in the world…is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents,” says Sabbaton’s Thurston as he opens his monologue on a dark, object-scattered stage – and you believe this to be true, via the clear evidence of his fears on his face and in his voice. This is, remember, no straightforward story choice for a monologue; the chapters, the multiple points of view and descriptions of the evidence upon which Thurston bases his fears all demand leaps of imagination from the audience, and – rather than spend time restructuring the story to make it more drama-friendly, Sabbaton largely leaves it intact, picking up the hugely challenging task of enacting several of the story’s characters.

Bear in mind that he is a solo performer; the actor therefore does absolutely sterling work changing his demeanour and voice for each of the characters he speaks – Thurston, Angell, Wilcox, Legrasse – picking up their part of the story in turn. It’s pretty likely that most, if not all of the audience, however, were already familiar with this structure and could soon tell what was coming. As a note of caution, those who don’t know the story may well find this taxing in places, as the story is overall not as accessible nor linear as The Temple. However, Sabbaton does render the story down to an extent, cutting down on some of the original’s level of detail. This is no doubt necessary, for this format.

But it is scary? In a word, yes; this version of The Call of Cthulhu, with its modest but judicious use of sound and light, effectively evokes those beloved Lovecraftian terrors. My own particular favourite moment came with Wilcox as our speaker, describing his dream of the sunken city of R’lyeh. Via the simple device of coloured light (plunging the stage into a creepy lurid green) and of course sound, which complemented Sabbaton’s agonised spoken performance, you could really let your imagination be spoken to. It was easy to differentiate between his characters, too, and each added to the sense of foreboding, so that – although the end of the monologue didn’t encompass a great deal of the ‘Norwegian’ chapter, I felt that its final focus on Thurston’s plight was overall a thought-provoking, successful place to conclude.

I very much enjoyed The Call of Cthulhu. Speaking with consistent believability and fervour, what actor Michael Sabbaton does with the base text here is nothing short of impressive, and I’d urge fans to keep an eye out for his performances in future. The briefest compliment I can pay here is to say that Sabbaton gets Lovecraft, and it would certainly make my aeon if he’d consider doing The Shadow over Innsmouth one day…

For more information about Michael Sabbaton’s work, click here.

DVD Review: [Rec]4 – Apocalypse

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

The Rec franchise – for such it has become – must figure as one of the most successful Euro-horror exports of the past decade. In many ways very much of its time, what with the original film being one of the most famous/infamous [delete as applicable] ‘found footage’ style movies in the sub-genre, the films managed to boast a highly original element, too; not content with simply pitching its zombies as an undead horde probably driven onwards by the obligatory virus, Rec hinted tantalisingly at a possible religious or spiritual cause behind it all. It was an idea that was just genre-splicing enough to work.

What a shame, then, that Rec has lost its way so badly by the time we come to Rec 4. Whilst I don’t have anything approaching the ire for Rec 3: Genesis that many other film fans have (yes, it was a strange diversion from the first two films, but I found it fun nonetheless), it’s hard not to see the ‘final’ Rec film as something of a cop out; unable to tie up all of those interesting loose ends in a coherent or particularly enjoyable way, it rather seems not to resolve things at all – maybe even hedging bets enough to make you wonder whether this is, indeed, the last we’ll see of Rec. In lieu of clarity, originality or even a satisfactory zombie movie, Balagueró has taken the oddball decision to drown out the plot with ample shouting, poorly-written characters and gaping, maw-like plot holes. Considering what he can do, I’m baffled. Maybe other pressures were at work here, or maybe I’m just making excuses. The end result is, sadly, the same.

Rec 4 picks up at the end of the Rec plot proper, more or less ignoring the Rec 3 hiccup (though taking the decision to directly reference it as well – a somewhat clumsy please-all, which speaks volumes about the writing choices at play here). We’re back to that apartment block and that mysterious virus – and I’m not getting into a debate with myself or anyone else about whether or not its inmates are zombies or simply ‘infected’ – with a Raid style ascent through the floors by a group of armed guards, intent on setting explosive charges which will blow the place to Kingdom Come. That goes characteristically smoothly with ne’er an issue, but at least before the remaining men get out of there, they find reporter Angela (Manuela Velasco) who, traumatised but otherwise intact, accompanies them…

…onto a boat – not a well-equipped or a military boat, and via decision-making which isn’t exactly clear – where she is submitted to medical tests by a team of doctors, who are of course trying to ascertain whether or not she is carrying the ill-fated virus which offed the apartment residents. She doesn’t take too kindly to the situation and busts out of there, teaming up momentarily with some of the military personnel that rescued her. Gradually, they begin to piece together where they are and why (no one seems to remember getting there, though to be fair I’ve had voyages like that) just in time for all hell to break loose, when someone decides to release an infected monkey. As you do. Of course, had any of the high-security medical team bothered to talk to the captain and found out that it was, would you believe it, his ‘last voyage’, then they’d have read the signs and not commandeered this particular vessel, but perhaps medical personnel of this kind don’t have time for trope-spotting.

That’s the worst thing about Rec 4, really – it’s just all so bloody obvious. Sure, I was grateful that, alike with Rec 3, they have more or less disposed with the hand-held camera motif and instead made this as a straightforward, even nicely-shot film, even if the camera does whirl around a bit (more found footage stylings would have broken the camel’s back and felt derivative at this stage), but its other elements have all been done better elsewhere. It’s also hugely frustrating that there was adequate, even ample time here to do something truly engaging with the interesting plot lines, but they don’t. Instead, time is spent on filler scenes which seem only to scream, ‘I’m biding my time until someone gets bitten.’ A chef preparing a lamb dish, for what felt like minutes; several probably expensive, but needless external shots of the ship moving through the sea. However, what felt like the biggest injustice was the patchy writing for Velasco’s character: having established her as one of the most likeable and punchy heroines in modern horror during the first film, here she’s reduced to being borderline tangential in much of the film – a girl who scampers and yells – not much more, and sometimes less. Put her up against a sequence of zombies who, by nature of so many of them being military men of similar height, weight and outfit look more or less identical, and what you have here is a derivative-seeming video game.

If you’re particularly forgiving of the zombie genre and can happily sit through anything which can offer you fast action and gore, then Rec 4 may make it under your radar – as it certainly offers both of those things, and presents them reasonably stylishly. Look, given the right mood I think most of us will enjoy a mindless zombie horror, but when it has the Rec label slapped on it, then you might just expect better, especially given the way it’s been built up as The End. If it is – if it really is – then I think this is a damp squib for the franchise to go out on; Rec 4 sacrifices the mystery and intrigue which prior films built up so effectively, dancing through an array of minimal exposition prior to an oddball jokey ending, and giving us something which feels sadly rushed and scant.

Rec 4: Apocalypse is available on DVD and Blu-ray now.