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DVD Review: John A. Russo’s ‘Midnight’ (1982)

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Review by Keri O’Shea.

If it’s true that ‘the Devil has all the best tunes’, then what does that tell us about unholy forces on our cinema screens? Well, it appears that Satan not only sells, but has found himself a comfortable niche in horror and exploitation movies. The results of this can be great; I’ll admit to a real soft spot for trashy takes on the dark arts, but what do you know – I’m also picky, and so far as John Russo’s Midnight (1982) goes, I get the feeling that Old Nick was merely drafted in to add a dash of something extra to a familiar formula. Folks, this is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with horns. There’s more than that, though: Russo has effectively managed to make a film which checks nearly every exploitation box imaginable – cramming in everything from racism to murder to rape – but nonetheless tension is hard to come by here. Midnight is definitely grim, but it’s also a rather bleak trudge through its subject matter.

The opening scenes seem to be setting up a group of lunatic fundies too, rather than folk at the other end of the spectrum. A mother and her children find a girl in an animal trap but they refer to her as a ‘demon’ before knocking her out. Who is she? Who are they? We don’t know, because we’re moved along to meet a teenage girl called Nancy (Melanie Verlin). Nancy runs away from home when her drunken stepfather tries to force himself on her, and finds herself joining up with two petty criminals called Tom (John Hall) and Hank (Charles Jackson) who are road-tripping down to Florida.

Another pair of  travellers – Reverend Carrington (Bob Johnson) and his daughter – get a lift part of the way, and when Tom and Hank talk about their route onward the Reverend warns them that there’s trouble in them there woods: people going missing, racist locals, the sort of thing you’d associate with such a quantity of plaid in any given area. So much for his advice, though, because when a grocery heist (!) goes awry, the van ends up right in the place it shouldn’t.

The main problem I had with the film was that its most entertaining scenes seemed to be that way accidentally. For instance – and if you’ve seen Midnight then you may well know which scene I mean – there’s a killing fairly early on which is done so clumsily that you could believe, as per how it sounds, that it’s the victim cackling, not the murderer. For a horror movie, the quality of the action  (specifically murder) scenes here is inexcusable, totally unbelievable and ham-fisted. For some viewers this’ll all be part of the charm and if you like your grimy 80s cinema then Midnight certainly has a lot to offer, but even in the most warped internal logic of a low-brow movie I cannot see how you can kill someone by running a tap on their head…otherwise, the bulk of Midnight is somewhat jaded, plodding in pace and pretty seedy. All the male characters are bullies and perverse shits, and the teeth-clenching race references along the way really underline the film’s age. Of course this is trash cinema and I don’t therefore expect the characters to be ambassadors for good conduct, but the experience overall was more depressing than diverting. This effect was increased by the washed-out, drab colouration of the film: Arrow have, as always, done their utmost to present the film well, but I suspect the original format was this way and there ain’t much you can do about that.

It’s not my favourite of Arrow’s new batch of releases, then – though it’s by no means all bad, and the occult sequences are worth waiting for – but where this will probably sell is as a nostalgia piece for those who saw it on VHS in the 80s. There’s no substitute for revisiting films you discovered way back when; this happens not to have been one I ever persuaded my parents to rent out for me, but were this the case then I might be a lot more enthusiastic here and now. As it stands, I will say that Midnight is an iniquitous little oddity, albeit too much road movie and not enough Satan. Oh, but – hey, you might also enjoy the chance to see some early Savini SFX and an appearance by John ‘Martin’ Amplas here, as well as some in-depth ‘talking head’ extras from Amplas and Russo after the main feature.

Distributor: Arrow Video
DVD Release date: 5th September 2011
Director: John Russo
Starring: Lawrence Tierney, Melanie Verlin, John Amplas, John Hall

FrightFest 2011 Review: Deadheads

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Deadheads (2011)
Directed by: Brett Pierce, Drew T. Pierce
Starring: Michael McKiddy, Ross Kidder, Thomas Galasso, Benjamin Webster
Review by: Ben Bussey

When American twentysomething Mike (McKiddy) wakes up one day to find himself in some kind of strange incubation chamber, he doesn’t know what the hell’s going on. Stepping out into the world, he soon finds out. It’s zombie time. The walking dead are everywhere. And most alarming of all – Mike’s one of them. He may have retained his mental faculties and not developed a hunger for human flesh, but he’s good and dead, and soon realises he has been for three years. Promptly he crosses paths with Brent (Kidder), another articulate zombie. With few alternatives for company the two quickly hit it off, and ponder what to do with their undead existence. The only thing that matters to Mike is finding his long-lost girlfriend and popping the question he meant to ask three years earlier. This can only mean one thing: road trip. Along the way they pick up their own pet zombie and befriend a kindly old Vietnam veteran, with a zombie-killing survivalist and a couple of gun-crazy government operatives hot on their tail.

As the sons of Bart Pierce, special effects photographer of The Evil Dead, Brett and Drew T Pierce have a certain degree of family heritage to live up to. This is clearly not lost on them, given that they’ve found room for a scene watching Evil Dead at the drive-in, and grabbed themselves the endorsement of the mighty Bruce himself. But let’s not dismiss Deadheads as nothing more than the work of Hollywood brats coasting on the coattails of their parents Julian Lennon style. First off, if anything they’re Michigan brats. Second, and most importantly, the Pierce Brothers have done something that very few zombie films manage or even attempt; taken a genuinely fresh and unexpected approach to the subgenre. As a zom-rom-com, comparisons with Shaun of the Dead are of course inevitable, but as a zombie road trip buddy movie it’s something else entirely.

 I asked the Pierce Brothers in the Q&A if they were prepared for the potential backlash this film could attract for its distinctly atypical zombie behaviour. After all, plenty of fans get angry enough when zombies are able to run; such purists are unlikely to be happy about zombies who still walk, talk and think as they did in life, and don’t even need to feed on the living. Nor is any explanation ever ventured as to why Mike and Brent are this way while the rest are classic shuffling flesh-eaters, which may further rile some. My advice is to take the film in the spirit it is intended, and none of this need be a problem. It’s clear from the beginning that Deadheads is not exactly the most serious zombie film ever made. This is not to say it’s entirely light-hearted; there are some fairly dark and shocking moments including onscreen child deaths, and there are also more than a few moments of genuine poignancy. As much as I’m loathe to make further comparisons to Shaun of the Dead (when approaching horror comedy it seems pretty much impossible not to these days), it’s an appropriate point of reference in this regard; much like Shaun, Deadheads manages to successfully balance humour, horror and drama, and this is one of its great strengths.

However, overall the emphasis is very much on the laughs; and oh yes, there really are plenty of laughs to be had. Not unlike Fanboys last year or indeed Tucker and Dale Versus Evil this year, FrightFest is a great location for Deadheads as this is geek comedy central, bulging with film references and clever wordplay. There is tremendous buddy chemistry between McKiddy and Kidder (wow, there is a lot of kidding going on… sorry), with Kidder’s Brent very much the goofball to McKiddy’s straight man Mike. Not all the jokes entirely work – one particular debate as to whether a werewolf could be killed by a sandwich falls completely flat – but when it’s on form, it’s hilarious. Of particular note is Benjamin Webster’s Agent McDinkle, a gravel-throated macho asshole supreme with a handlebar moustache, a zero tolerance attitude to lawbreakers, and a fair portion of the best lines in the movie. Indeed, he delivers my single favourite line from any film at FrightFest 2011; all I’ll say is it’s a variation on a famous lyric from a fairy tale.

Coming in the midst of so many downbeat films full of pain, despair and pessimism (well, it is a horror film festival after all), Deadheads made for a most refreshing change of pace. If you like good guys and happy endings as much as you like walking corpses and brain-smashing violence, then Deadheads should be very much your cup of tea. Funny how many of us gorehounds are really just sentimental bastards at heart, isn’t it…?

 

FrightFest 2011 Review: Kill List

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Kill List (2011)
Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Starring: Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, MyAnna Buring
Review by: Ben Bussey

Contract killer Jay (Maskell) hasn’t worked in months. He lives comfortably with his wife (Buring) and their son, but the debts are starting to pile up, not to mention the marital tensions. Anxious to avoid taking on a job after a bad experience on his last one, Jay resists any offers until the problems at home reach breaking point. Seeing no alternative, he accepts an offer from his best friend and business partner Gal (Smiley). The client is enigmatic; the contract is for three deaths. But it soon transpires that this is not the sort of job Jay and Gal are used to, which threatens to push them way beyond their comfort zone and into some very dark and dangerous places indeed, both figuratively and literally.

Kill List premiered on Sunday 28th August at FrightFest; i.e. almost 48 hours before this review came online. During the festival I’ve been doing my best to get reviews of the most notable films up as soon as possible, but in this instance I’ve held back just a little, and there’s a reason for this. When writing up a film within hours of seeing it, there’s always the danger of rushing out a gut reaction that isn’t necessarily the most level-headed response, and I think if I’d rushed this one out straight away that’s what you’d be reading now. See, here’s the thing; the problem I’ve had with Kill List isn’t so much to do with the film itself as the way it was sold to us at FrightFest. As the weekend’s sole Total Film-sponsored screening it was clearly marked out as a festival highlight, and given a gushing introduction from Total Film’s Jamie Graham, promising something which would rock us to the core. However, by the time the end credits rolled, I for one was distinctly underwhelmed. This gave way to annoyance. I’ve already gone and expressed that annoyance on Twitter, and I gather (in turn) I’ve rather annoyed director Ben Wheatley in doing so. I hardly think that should weigh too heavily on Wheatley’s mind right now, however, given the huge amount of praise the film is gathering elsewhere. Many are declaring Kill List not only the best film of FrightFest 2011, but also the best British film of recent years.

And here, once more, is the thing: Kill List deserves praise, as does Wheatley, and his cast. It is a very well made film indeed, boasting powerful performances, and a brilliantly realised naturalistic atmosphere that shifts organically from humour to melancholy to aggression to dread and beyond. It should almost certainly mark out Ben Wheatley as one of Britain’s most notable genre directors, and hopefully bodes well for the future of actors Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley and MyAnna Buring as well.

But is it the next British horror masterpiece? In this writer’s humble opinion, no.

One of Kill List’s key strengths, as others have rightly argued, is that it makes a pointed effort to break with convention. To hear the premise – world-weary hit man takes on one last job that goes wrong – you’d be forgiven for anticipating something a bit corny, but nothing could be further from the truth. Shooting in an almost guerilla, fly-on-the-wall style, Wheatley shows the world of these assassins in as realistic a fashion as possible, which naturally includes an emphasis on the mundane; signing in and out of hotels and the like. The cast are credited as contributing additional dialogue, and in the Q&A they confirmed that while the script was followed closely there was a fair amount of improv involved, which comes as little surprise. Maskell, Smiley and Buring all give phenomenal performances, entirely convincing as people who share history, and this goes some way to selling the overall premise as real. Dead Man’s Shoes is a good point of reference to the kind of vibe we get.

However, this verisimilitude is stretched pretty thin by the final reel. I’m not about to give spoilers, but the narrative goes to some bizarre places that might not be anticipated; then again, a straight hit man movie wouldn’t be too likely a candidate for FrightFest. It would seem the intent is for the overlying naturalism to be maintained once things go off the map, but to my mind this was not the case. I respect that this is a film striving to surprise and confound, but I couldn’t help but feel this ultimate outlandishness only served to undermine that which had gone before.

Then there is what I consider (and I know I am not alone in this) Kill List’s biggest problem of all; the climax. Once again I’m not about to give anything away, suffice to say that the ending of Kill List is borderline identical to that of a certain other notorious horror film of recent years. I gather from comments made since that the similarity is entirely accidental, and that Wheatley has not even seen the film in question. Now, I appreciate that filmmakers have budgets and deadlines to adhere to, and understand that such unconscious coincidences can occur, but – as the saying goes – ignorance is not an excuse. Kill List is screening at FrightFest. The film in question is most certainly not unknown to the FrightFest crew. FrightFest themselves have been doing plenty to help promote the film in recent months, as have Total Film. I find it very hard to believe that in all that time no-one involved with Kill List on any level has failed to notice the similarity, which is immediately apparent. If your film is intended to subvert expectations you need to know what those expectations are, and if you’re aiming it at genre afficionados you’d better make damn sure you’re up to speed on the genre yourself. All this considered, I find it very odd indeed that it seems to be the ending which is garnering Kill List the most praise, with many declaring it utterly unexpected and devestating. It might have been so, had it not already been done elsewhere.

Still, none of this should be taken to imply that Kill List is not a film worth seeing. It is not the greatest British film in years; it is not an utterly unpredictable, genre-twisting masterpiece. But it is without question a very good film, and that should be more than enough; it’s a great deal more than most.

 

FrightFest 2011 Review: The Woman

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The Woman (2011)
Directed by: Lucky McKee
Starring: Pollyanna McIntosh, Sean Bridgers, Angela Bettis
Review by: Ben Bussey

Within a suprisingly short distance of one another exist what would appear to be two polar opposites of human life. The Cleek family live an affluent and comfortable existence in their beautiful ranch home, whilst in the woods nearby a feral woman (McIntosh) exists day-by-day as a scavenger. Out hunting one morning, family patriach Chris Cleek (Bridgers) finds the woman in his sights and decides to take her home. He captures her, chains her up in the fruit cellar, and informs his family that it is their duty to teach this woman how to be civilised. Whether Chris Cleek is in any position to demonstrate the real nature of a civilised human being is, of course, another matter entirely. 
 
At the time of its announcement, I felt very conflicted about The Woman. On the one hand it was a collaboration between Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee, and involved Angela Bettis: this was a cause for great personal excitement, given that I regard Ketchum far and away the greatest horror novelist of our time – indeed, one of the great American writers full stop – and that McKee and Bettis’s May is one of my absolute favourite films of this century. On the other hand, this is ostensibly a follow-up to Offspring, Andrew van den Houten’s somewhat lacklustre screen adaption of what is easily Ketchum’s weakest novel. The idea of McKee and Ketchum working together on a story about wild cannibal people did not sit well, given that both artists seem at their best when dealing with very real human concerns in a realistic context. Happily (well, perhaps that isn’t the word I should be using), The Woman is certainly not just a cannibal movie. Nor should it really be regarded a sequel to van den Houten’s film; aside from the presence of Pollyanna McIntosh in the same role, this is very much a stand-alone film requiring no prior knowledge of Ketchum’s Off Season/Offspring universe (which is presumably why the title was shortened from Offspring: The Woman as originally planned). With distinct echoes of McKee and Ketchum’s respective masterworks, the aforementioned May and The Girl Next Door, this is an intensely atmospheric, intelligent, character-based tale of abuse, intimidation and inhumanity.
 
And let us just state this for the record: anyone who would consider this film misogynistic is, in no uncertain terms, an idiot. Yes, that means you, guy from Sundance. Though, as McKee wryly remarked in the Q&A, you can’t buy the kind of publicity that man has given them. (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, click here.)
 
To give a little personal perspective, as a husband and father I do worry from time to time that I might not be as strong a male role model as my children need. The great thing about The Woman is, it makes me step back and realise that my approach to parenting really isn’t that bad. After spending an untold portion of our lives watching tales of good guys and bad guys unfold on screens before us, we may from time to time become complacent, and feel like nothing can really shock or sicken us anymore. Then along comes a character like Chris Cleek; a smiling, outwardly friendly, seemingly ordinary man with such jaw-dropping cruelty within him. Intelligently, the film for most part shows not his abusive behaviour, but rather its reprecussions. From the first scene, we do not see Chris so much as shoot an angry look at his wife or children. Clearly, he does not need to. His wife (the ever-brilliant Bettis) remains softly spoken, obedient, and clearly terrified at all times. Their eldest daughter (Lauren Ashley Carter) keeps her distance and escapes into her iPod at every opportunity, whilst the youngest daughter is too little to see what’s going on. Then there’s the middle child, his son. Young actor Zach Rand was a particularly great find here, handling the difficult material with great maturity, conveying such cold, emotionless detachment; he’s almost like Christina Ricci’s Wednesday Addams, except not in the least bit funny. It’s a tremendous performance, almost as chilling as that of Sean Bridgers.
 
Then of course we have Pollyanna McIntosh as the woman herself. I’d be lying if I said her performance in Offspring made much impact; in the context of a cannibal children film, she rather blurred into the general savagery of proceedings. Here, as the wild woman taken out of her natural habitat, she is under a considerably tighter spotlight, and her performance is nothing less than a revelation. While there is no mistaking that the film’s sympathies lie with her and the family, it does not negate the brutality of which she too is capable. She endures much needless suffering, but she certainly inflicts her fair share of it as well, not all of which may we might deem justified.
 
This is absolutely a film which deals with cruelty and exploitation, but this of course does not mean that the film itself is cruel or exploitative, with onscreen violence for the most part kept to a minimum. Given the subject matter and content, it might be a surprise to some that the only element of the film I had any real objection to was the soundtrack. Not unlike May, there is a heavy emphasis on guitar and vocal-based indie rock, in this case mostly original songs from Sean Spillane. In terms of personal music taste I have objection to these songs whatsoever; there are some really nice tunes in there. What I’m less sure of is how appropriate they are in the context of this film. Oftentimes the songs and their lyrics feel very obtrusive and at odds with the images we are seeing. However, from more remarks of McKee’s after the screening, I get the impression this may well have been the point; further efforts made to challenge convention. God knows I’m glad not to have another shock-horror soundtrack full of corny jump scare noises, or another mournful piano-based score, so perhaps in time I may come to regard The Woman’s score a blessing.
 
And yes, I do think time is a consideration here. This I have no doubt is a film we will still be watching and talking about in years to come, and after a little time in the directorial trenches this should put Lucky McKee well and truly back on the radar of the greatest filmmakers working in horror today. It’s his finest film since May, the finest film of Jack Ketchum’s work yet, and though at the time of writing there are two days of films left I strongly suspect it will turn out to be the finest film of FrightFest 2011. In other words, make damn sure you don’t miss it.
 

FrightFest 2011 Review: Chillerama

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Chillerama (2011)
Directed by: Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan, Adam Green, Joe Lynch
Starring: Joel David Moore, Ray Wise, Lin Shaye, Richard Riehle
Review by: Ben Bussey

The drive-in is about to close down. The locals pile in by the car load, and owner Cecil Kaufman (Riehle) plans to give them a final night to remember, with a quadruple bill of the most obscure and outlandish movies he has in his possession. However, little does he or the patrons know that something very peculiar and dangerous has found its way into the concessions stand, and before the final reel of the final movie things may get even weirder offscreen than on.

It was no accident that this collaborative anthology movie made its British premiere at FrightFest in the midnight slot on Saturday night. That attending directors Green and Lynch expressed a hope that the audience had already been drinking and suggested that more drinking be done should underline further the kind of movie this is. Clearly, Chillerama is not a film intended to be discussed at length over coffee, with much pontification on themes and stroking of beards involved. Rather, this is movie which invites the audience to pour as much beer as possible down its throat, then some more over its head, and urges all and sundry to scream “YEAH!” and laugh like rabid hyenas. It’s an entirely self-conscious exercise in low brow and bad taste, and at the same time a love letter to several relatively neglected cult subgenres, and as Lynch in particular has repeatedly emphasised it’s a eulogy of sorts to what he calls the “dying art form” that is drive-in culture.

This at least is the intent, and I don’t doubt that all four writer-directors are sincere in this. As to whether or not Chillerama delivers; whether it is the hilarious, irreverent, wip-smart lampoon/homage it wants to be… well, there’s a bit of a question mark hanging over that one. For a movie that aims for fast and funny, it’s pretty long and slow with some really quite dull stretches, and a lot of gags which just fall flat. And I say that as someone who did indeed consume a bit of alcohol at showtime.

Each movie-within-the-movie has an amusing premise, and boasts their share of belly laugh moments (mostly of the gross-out variety), but without exception they all outstay their welcome and rather hammer the joke into the ground by the end. Adam Rifkin’s Wadzilla is probably the lightest offender in this regard; starting out as a relatively down to earth evocation of 50s New York (think Mad Men on a microbudget), it escalates into a monster movie as an atomically enlarged sperm goes on the rampage. It boasts a few fan-pleasing cameos, plenty of innuendo-strewn dialogue and a most memorable use of the Statue of Liberty, building toward a somewhat messy climax if you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do. All good fun, and probably the highlight of the film.

Tim Sullivan’s I Was a Teenage Werebear comes next, and is probably the hardest sell so far as many horror fans are concerned given that is an explicitly homoerotic take on 60s beach party films, centring on a star high school athlete who finds himself strangely drawn to the new leather-clad bad boys in town. Oh, and it’s a musical to boot. Loaded with absurd performances, chintzy tunes and terrible singing (all self-consciously so of course), it starts out amusing but ultimately outstays its welcome somewhat, carrying on regardless once it’s pretty much said and done all it has to say and do.

 Adam Green’s The Diary of Anne Frankenstein is much the same. An Ed Wood-ish black and white Nazi melodrama/Univeral horror homage, it centres on Hitler building a Jewish Frankenstein monster. It goes without saying that this is a provactive premise, but it’s again so knowingly and deliberately silly that it’s hard to imagine it offending anyone but the most obsessive stickler for political correctness. Unfortunately, it just isn’t that damn funny either. This segment was previewed in its entirety at FrightFest 2010 when Green and Lynch first publicly announced that Chillerama was in production, and while it has been trimmed and fine-tuned a little (Hitler’s big musical number has been relocated to the end credits, presumably under the reasonable assumption that the audience would be suffering from showtune exhaustion after Sullivan’s entry), it still runs out of steam long before the end.

 Joe Lynch is left with perhaps the biggest responsibility; not only does he provide the final, though significantly shorter drive-in movie (which I won’t go into detail on, in the hope of preserving some element of surprise), but he also provides the bridging scenes between the shorts. Unfortunately, these are perhaps the most ill-concieved moments of all. It goes without saying that an anthology movie already has a lot going on, but not content with this Lynch gives us lengthy dialogue scenes between numerous characters, building toward a finale that sees the drive-in go pretty much straight to hell in a handbasket; that his segment is dubbed Zom-B-Movie should tell you all you need to know. The biggest problem is that these segments by and large eschew the lampoonish tone of the shorts in favour of a fairly straight contemporary horror comedy aesthetic, with dialogue that’s bursting at the seams with film geek quotes. Yes, Chillerama is aiming for deliberate excess, but sometimes too much really is too much. Matters are not helped by a distinctly smug and self-congratulatory final scene which leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

It’s fitfully amusing, and perhaps having a bit of the running time shaved off would boost its charm, but ultimately Chillerama falls short of its goals. While it may have been concieved as a cast-iron crowd-pleaser, when all is said and done it’s overlong, isn’t funny enough, and smacks of having too high an opinion of itself. A shame. 

 

FrightFest 2011 Review: The Glass Man

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The Glass Man (2011)
Directed by: Christian Solimeno
Starring: Andy Nyman, James Cosmo, Neve Campbell, Christian Solimeno
Review by: Ben Bussey

At a glance, Martin (Nyman) would appear to be the man who has everything. He wears fine bespoke suits and an expensive watch, drives a top-of-the-range car, and lives in a well-furnished town house with his beautiful wife (Campbell). But all of it is a thin veneer, only a nudge away from shattering. Though he may go about his routine as normal, dressing for the office and driving away first thing in the morning, and indulging in the usual luxuries, the truth is that Martin has long since been fired, and his finances are dangerously in the red. Thus far his wife has been none the wiser, until an uncomfortable encounter with his former co-workers results in a message on the answering machine which leads her to suspect the worst. But late that night, once his wife is in a pharmaceutically induced slumber, Martin recieves an unexpected visitor in the form of a debt collector (Cosmo). Big, strong, and very intimidating indeed, he’s the last person you want showing up on your doorstep in the middle of the night. However, he offers Martin the faintest glimmer of hope with a proposition; if Martin assists him in an unspecified task that very night, the debt will be cancelled. Terrified, but knowing he has no choice, Martin agrees; and the night ahead will be revealing indeed.

I feel quite privileged to have seen this potentially career-defining turn from Andy Nyman in its world premiere at FrightFest. As a festival regular and host of Sunday’s Quiz From Hell, Nyman might well be called one of FrightFest’s favourite sons; to audiences at large he is probably most recognised for his turn as the arsehole TV producer in Dead Set, plus his West End stage show Ghost Stories. While he is certainly associated with horror, he has to date been a primarily comedic figure. The Glass Man may well change all that. While there is a great deal of humour in the film and in his performance, the emphasis is far more on the tragic. As both Nyman and director/co-writer/co-star Christian Solimeno remarked in the post-screening Q&A, the title symbolises much about this man: he is transparent, thus easily ignored; he is fragile, thus easily broken; but once broken, he can be very dangerous.

Set over the course of a single day with the bulk of the action occuring after nightfall when the debt collector comes calling, this is very much one of those ‘dark night of the soul’ stories; a tale in which fears are confronted, and self-discoveries made. As these revelations have a very significant impact on proceedings, it’s tricky to discuss the narrative at length without getting into spoilers, so let’s instead focus on the nuts and bolts of the film itself. First and foremost, this is a great character piece, done proud by an excellent cast. Nyman’s performance is utterly compelling and convincing, a beautiful evocation of the weakness inherent in a great many modern men which really rings true. As the mirror opposite of this, James Cosmo is similarly awe-inspiring; strong where Martin is weak, imposing where Martin is ineffectual. Burly psychos may well be ten-a-penny in horror movies (God knows we saw enough of them on this Friday at FrightFest), but this is one with some real depth and variety, for which Cosmo deserves tremendous credit. Not to mention Christian Solimeno, who not only serves his leading men well with subtle direction and a strong script, but also does sterling work in his brief but pivotal cameo role.

 That said, there are some weak links in this chain. (I was going to try some kind of glass-related metaphor there, but I just couldn’t come up with anything; what can I say, I’m on a tight deadline.) The casting of so recognisable a star as Neve Campbell may well raise a few eyebrows, particularly given that a) the role is relatively small and b) she’s playing English. Oh, how those Hollywood actresses love to do plummy English accents, and oh, how we Brits love to bitch about it. Consequently, though there is nothing especially wrong with her performance, her presence in the film can’t help being a bit distracting. Then there’s the matter of those core revelations that I just can’t go into… they’re the kind of twists that turn things so much on their head that some may be put off, for once they have occured we are left in little doubt as to how things will turn out. The net result is an ending that somewhat lacks the desired punch, particularly as the film feels a tad bit overlong.

Even so, The Glass Man is a most impressive, powerful piece of work, sure to be remembered as one of the highlights of FrightFest 2011, and almost certain to receive widespread recognition in the near future. An atmospheric slow-burn chiller, it should really put Andy Nyman on the map as an actor of considerable range and ability, and definitely marks out Christian Solimeno as a writer/director to keep an eye on.

 

DVD Review: Black Heaven

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Black Heaven (2010)
Distributor: Arrow Films
DVD Release Date: 5th September 2011
Directed by: Gilles Marchand
Starring: Louise Bourgoin, Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Pauline Etienne
Review by: Keri O’Shea

A young couple, Gaspard (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) and Marion (Pauline Etienne) are enjoying summer in the idyllic South of France when, by chance, they find a mobile phone. Their curiosity is piqued by the mysterious tone of the messages on the phone – as well as by photographs of a beautiful woman stored on it – so they decide to go along to the meeting-place of a church suggested by ‘Dragon’ (Swann Arlaud) to ‘Sam’ (Louise Bourgoin). Having got a glimpse of the couple, they decide that following them further would be an interesting afternoon’s diversion.

This doesn’t prove as easy or as enjoyable as they anticipate: things turn sinister as, when they catch up with the couple, they find them attempting to commit suicide in their car. They manage to get into the vehicle to save the girl but it’s too late for her partner and, disturbingly, Marion swears that she saw someone watching this scene unfold from the nearby woods. As shaken as they both are by these events, Gaspard’s curiosity hasn’t been abated; he cannot resist stealing a camera evidently rigged up to film the suicide attempt, and watches it when he finds himself alone – though he doesn’t get the references to the ‘Black Beach’ mentioned by the couple, nor does he know why Dragon and Sam would (with such sentimental aplomb) record their deaths.

Life for Marion and Gaspard proceeds as normal. However, when by chance Gaspard again encounters Sam – real name Audrey – whilst out scoring weed with his friends, he cannot resist telling her how he recognises her. They talk briefly, but in that time Gaspard is able to make sense of some of the information he saw in the texts. Some of the places described are to be found in an online game called Black Hole. His interest in the enigmatic Audrey leads him to enter to game to look for her alter-ego: however, in Black Hole the distance between self and avatar is complicated, and for a newbie like Gaspard this almost instantly poses problems…

The press release accompanying Black Heaven describes the film as ‘Tron meets Blue Velvet’: well, thankfully there’s very little of Tron here, but you can certainly pick up some Lynchian elements in the film’s mysterious femme fatale, its incidental music and most of all the feeling that we, like at least one of the protagonists, don’t have a grasp on what is going on, that there is a mystery to be solved. Internal states take precedence over action for much of the film and not simply because parts of the plot occur in a virtual environment; the focus is very much on what motivates our characters, particularly Gaspard, whose naïvety leads him badly astray. Nothing is immutable though, and the audience isn’t allowed to settle into any one mode of understanding. Gaspard starts out being called a ‘kid’ by others, yet the plot bestows him with a steep learning curve only to spit him back out as a ‘kid’ again. Audrey/Sam is also affected by this, apparently moving from victim to vamp and back (whilst giving the film’s best performance, whether on screen or not, virtual or not.)

As for Black Hole itself, the world of the game looks impressive: whilst the South of France is warm, sunny and populated by the beautiful people, Black Hole is its opposite, always swathed in darkness and populated mainly by a fascinating array of grotesques. There’s always a danger, though, that what looks cutting-edge now will look ridiculously outdated within a relatively short amount of time, and if the technology carries the plot rather than the other way around this effect nearly always feels worse. Black Heaven may be spared that fate: the idea of MMORPGs is of course a modern phenomenon, but after all the game is still just an arena to explore more timeless ideas such as selfhood, identity and obsession. I’d actually have liked more of the film to take place in this virtual world, as I thought the interplay between avatar and self raised lots of intriguing points, but as it stands I hope Black Heaven will not lose its impact by virtue of its computer graphics. There’s a lot more going on here, to the point that some more explication would not have gone amiss – just a little, because I appreciate that one of the strong points here is the gently-unsettling atmosphere. Another criticism would be that Leprince-Ringuet doesn’t always communicate all the brooding emotions we know must be present in that head of his, and sometimes seems dwarfed by the strongly-delineated roles being played out around him.

For all that, I really liked Black Heaven; it’s an innovative, stylish and languid film whilst its successful elements far outweigh the less-successful. Oh, and as a David Lynch fan I can’t help but wonder if director/writer Gilles Marchand is too, not just because of the overall tone but for one scene in particular which reminded me very strongly of Mulholland Drive…

DVD Review: Umbrage: The First Vampire

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Umbrage: The First Vampire (2009)
Distributor: Left Films
DVD Release Date: 17th October 2011
Director: Drew Cullingham
Starring: Doug Bradley, Rita Ramani, Jonnie Hurn, Natalia Celino
Review by: Aaron Williams

 We open on a sweeping shot of a forest, a Jeep steadily working its way along rocky roads. Cut to inside the moving car and we focus on a young woman with dark flowing hair which covers an expression that says ‘God, life’s hard’ as a gentle bluegrass song whines over the soundtrack. This is Rachael and she’s about to be relocated to a new home with her step parents in the mountains..

As hard as this reviewer tries to steer clear of mentioning a certain tween pop phenomenon film franchise or hit HBO series whenever another vampire flick surfaces, the similarities here in the first twenty minutes are near impossible to ignore. Even the now infamous font used on all the posters with R-Patz’ gormless mug brooding out at us has been mimicked in the opening credits. So, do we have another shameless direct to DVD cash in on our hands here?

We’ve heard this premise in horror over a trillion times now – the dysfunctional family moves out to a dream home, probably running from their problems and hoping to hide from them in this new isolated dream home. Jacob (Bradley) is an antiques dealer who seems to have an unsettling relationship with his step daughter Rachael (Ramani) and it seems that things wont get any better as  they begin to bicker almost immediately after they arrive. Meanwhile, a couple of friends are out on a camping trip and run into a mysterious woman (Celino) who claims to be an ornithologist camping nearby. As things heat up back at the family cabin, a cowboy (Hurn) seems to have materialised in their barn, perhaps something to do with a ominous black mirror that Jacob has brought with him.

Once I set my eyes on the trailer and cover art for Umbrage, I couldn’t have been any more surprised how they differ from the film itself. They promise rootin’ tootin’ blood, guts, tits and ass with a side order of undead demon fun. Instead, we get a Gothic family drama and slow burn vampire yarn hybrid. If that sounds a little vague, I apologise but its pretty hard to nail what this films is trying to achieve. The oddly muddled tone will leave even the most forgiving of vampire fanatics in an unforgiving mood. As for thrill seekers, seek elsewhere as every single bit of violence occurs off-screen, probably a symptom of the film’s micro-budget roots. There’s also a misplaced sense of romanticism that for seems to stop the film dead.  It seems to have been edited by either a first time editor or someone suffering from severe narcolepsy as shots last way too long – no, not like a Gus Van Sant film- and we fade out at seemingly random moments.

 I have to constantly remind myself to remove my Hellraiser fan-boy tinted specs when watching Bradley when I see him in other films. Like Robert Englund and the rest of his ilk, they pretty much always seem to flounder like a fish out of water when appearing before the camera without their familiar costume and make up. But overall the performances are not embarrassing by any means unlike other bargain basement direct to DVD disasters.

 Despite its all too obvious flaws (and making pretty much no sense whatsoever) there is an inexplicable charm to be found in Umbrage if you have the patience. This was indeed a curious oddity amidst more blatant and shameless straight to DVD cash-ins on the vampire obsessed market that exists today.

 Any decent film script starts with a simple idea but if the execution is not there then that idea will probably get lost and the result will be muddled at best and Umbrage may have fallen to such folly. I’m sure there’s a killer blend of the old west and horrific vampire fun to be found out there somewhere but Umbrage isn’t it. Love it or hate it you’ll be pretty safe in assuming this cultural thirst for vampiric romanticism will now be recorded as one of the significant movements in horror just like the post modern slasher, the unrelenting remake frenzy or the growing ‘found footage’ trend. I’m not suggesting we all swallow this pill – though some of you may happily do so – but we can look forward to the next attempt to put the bite back.

You can catch it on DVD on the 17th of October and Lionsgate will be releasing it in the US in early 2012.

DVD Review: Curio

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Curio (2010)
Distributor: ISIS Ltd
DVD Release Date (UK): 12th September 2011
Directed by: Steven Nesbit
Starring: Wayne Russell, Jennifer Bryer, Sydney Wade, Richard Wood
Review by: Ben Bussey

All-American lady Lauren (Jennifer Bryer) and her half-English little girl Emily (Sydney Wade) travel to the Yorkshire moors to visit the quaint little cottage that was left to them by a recently deceased relative. No sooner do they get there before a neighbour pops by to say hello; a kindly old dear who dabbles in bakery and, er, fortune telling. However, her efforts at reading Lauren’s future yield somewhat unexpected results, inasmuch as she speaks in a demonic voice for a moment then drops dead. Soon enough a bumbling local policeman shows up and decides to take Lauren in for questioning, which she is none to happy about. Rather than co-operate, Lauren opts to headbutt the PC and run off with Emily onto the moors. Next thing she knows she’s tied up on a bed in an unfamiliar room, with a gunshot wound in her shoulder and a creepy farmer named Len (Wayne Russell) playing nursemaid, who won’t tell her where her daughter is. Yes, things are going from bad to worse.

And when I say things go from bad to worse, I don’t just mean for the protagonists. I mean for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves watching this utterly, utterly abysmal film.

Overhearing the DVD, my wife enquired as to whether I was watching The League of Gentlemen. It’s fair to say the world Steven Nesbit presents in Curio is not too far removed from that of the League’s fictional Yorkshire town of Royston Vasey, with its broad caricatures and even broader accents, and a tone so bizarre the viewer is left uncertain as to whether they should laugh or not. The key difference is that, so far as I can tell, Curio is played straight. We are meant to take what we see entirely seriously. Which, believe me, is nigh-on impossible. From start to finish, Curio aims high and fails miserably on almost every level.

Okay, so I said almost every level; seems only fair I should acknowledge that which works. Wayne Russell, whose performance here earned him the Best Actor award at the 2010 Los Angeles Movie Awards (nope, I’ve never heard of them either), does in all fairness do a pretty good job with what he’s given. A very English variation on the Norman Bates archetype, Len is a man haunted by a strict religious upbringing, on the cusp of madness thanks to years of isolation, as repulsed by ‘sinful’ behaviour as he is tempted by it. For him to suddenly have a beautiful woman captive in his own home is pretty much a dream come true, but – much like our old friend Norman – the only woman in his life is his mother. It’s not the most unique character ever created, and Nesbit’s script does him no favours, but Russell does make for a convincing backwoods psycho, even managing to make him fairly sympathetic. In other circumstances, that would be enough to keep the film from being an outright failure. Not so here, I’m afraid. 

So how, you ask, does Curio fail? Let me count the ways. Aesthetically, it’s as flat as a pancake, with utterly bland and unimaginative camerawork. The story is an absolute mess, littered with contrived plot devices, laboured dialogue and thoroughly implausible actions. The worst offender here, on the part of both writer/director Nesbit and actress Jennifer Bryer, is the character of Lauren. Firstly, there’s absolutely no reason for her to be an American, other than the obvious hope that it will help sell the film internationally. Secondly, the character is not remotely endearing or convincing at any point; don’t tell me a mother who finds herself alone in a stranger’s house would not immediately demand to see her child, or that she wouldn’t act the second she saw the opportunity to escape, which certainly occurs more than once. Thirdly – and most significantly – Jennifer Bryer, on this evidence, cannot act to save her life. I don’t want to be mean, but I have to call it like I see it. She is awful, plain and simple. I see from IMDB this is her only screen credit to date, and I truly, truly hope it stays that way.

The only other thing to note about Curio is my absolute bewilderment as to how and why Graham Coxon, formerly guitarist of Blur, came to do the musical score. He’s a fantastic musician and composer, one who I could easily see having an illustrious career in film music, so quite why he would give his services to so inauspicious a film as this I cannot fathom. It’s certainly an interesting and unusual score, with an eclectic mix of sounds and styles, and I suppose the best we can say is that it emphasises the overall weirdness of proceedings. But, as I should think I’ve made clear by now, it isn’t enough to save the film.

Please believe me when I say I wish I could tell you Curio is great. As someone born and raised in Yorkshire, it’s wonderful to see local filmmakers like Nesbitt making films here, and I really wish I could be celebratory. But if Yorkshire is to become a home for independent filmmaking it’s going to need a hell of a lot more than Curio brings to the table. It is, plainly and simply, a disaster.

UK DVD Review: Wreckage

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Wreckage (2010)
Distributor: Chelsea Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 22 August 2011
Directed by: John Mallory Asher
Starring: Mike Erwin, Aaron Paul, Scoot McNairy, Cameron Richardson, Kelly Kruger
Review by: Stephanie Scaife

Directed by John Mallory Asher, Wreckage brings the indistinguishable-victims-get-stalked-and-killed genre to a scrap yard; as the tagline so helpfully warns us, “The spare parts may be your own”. Unfortunately, Wreckage really isn’t a very good movie at all. It’s unbelievably clichéd and pans out like a paint-by-numbers slasher movie. There is nothing original at all plot wise, to the point where I wasn’t sure if the reveal of the killer at the end was actually supposed to be a twist or not, being that it had been so glaringly obvious throughout the duration of the film.

Jared (Mike Erwin) is a decent guy, an army vet with an honourable discharge after being wounded in Afghanistan, who is madly and happily in love with his fiancée Kate (Cameron Richardson). Inexplicably they are friends with Rick (Aaron Paul), a highly strung loser and his girlfriend Jessica (Kelly Kruger). I say inexplicably because I can see no reason whatsoever why these two couples would be friends with each other, as they don’t even seem to like each other very much. Having said that the actions of the characters often change mysteriously; one minute Rick is berating Jessica and insinuating that he is only with her because she got pregnant, the next they are laughing and hugging like a happy couple. So clearly character motivation is the least of our concerns.

Our bickering foursome set off to do some drag racing, but unfortunately for them Jared’s car breaks down leaving them stranded in a local scrap yard where things start to get weird after Rick accidentally shoots Kate. The local sheriff turns up with a paramedic and the least likely doctor I’ve seen since Tara Reid was cast as a genius anthropologist in Alone in the Dark, along with Frank (Scoot McNairy) the hick nephew of the scrap yard owner, and one by one they are offed by a masked killer assumed to be a madman recently escaped from the local mental hospital.

It’s actually impressive that the filmmakers made a seemingly simple plot quite so convoluted, but that they did and it makes for somewhat confusing watching. Added to this you care nothing about the characters and know even less about them or their motivations. Wrecked appears to have been made by people and for people who have never seen a horror movie in their entire lives. It’s no surprise then that it’s been sitting on a shelf somewhere for over a year before now being released straight to DVD. Also, somewhat bizarrely the picture on the cover of the DVD doesn’t appear to bear any reflection on anything that actually occurs during the movie and the characters are described in the blurb on the back of the DVD as a group of teenagers, even though they are all clearly over 30.

The only saving grace is the acting, which for a crappy low budget slasher film, is actually pretty decent. Scoot McNairy in particular gives an entirely watchable and amusing performance as Frank, the hapless redneck junkyard attendant and Aaron Paul (best known as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad) as the unstable Rick. Unfortunately, a few okay performances don’t necessarily warrant a recommendation and I’d strongly avoid watching this if at all possible.

The DVD, mercifully, comes with no special features other than a trailer and it is available August 22nd on Region 2 DVD, should you choose not to heed my advice.

DVD Review: Cowboys & Zombies

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Cowboys & Zombies (AKA The Dead and the Damned) (2010)
Distributor: Left Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 8th August 2011
Directed by: Rene Perez
Starring: David A. Lockhart, Camille Montgomery, Rick Mora
Review by: Ben Bussey

The old west. It’s the rootinist, tootinist place. You got lone gunslingers having daring shoot-outs with bad guys in the streets, collecting the bounties on their heads, then heading off in search of the next outlaw with his face on a wanted poster. One such lone gunslinger is Mortimer (Lockhart), and his intended next big payday is an injun – hey, it was the 1800’s, Native American was not yet the preferred term – who is wanted alive for rape and murder. Taking along the first pretty young whore he can find (Montgomery) as rapist bait, Mortimer heads into the hills to trap his prey. However, just as they leave town, a couple of lame-brained prospectors head into town with a strange glowing rock they just dug up, which promptly zombifies everyone nearby. Up in the hills, Mortimer comes face to face with his would-be prey (Mora), but he doesn’t seem to be quite such a cold-blooded savage as expected. Helpful really, as those two men and one woman soon have to fight side by side to quell the tide of flesh-eating fiends from hell.

Yes, this film was originally released in the US last year as The Dead and the Damned; I feel compelled to emphasise this, lest anyone take it as an Asylum-esque cash in on this summer’s Cowboys & Aliens. This, of course, doesn’t make its retitling any less of an unabashedly exploitative move. But frankly, Cowboys & Zombies is the better title. It’s direct and to the point. It lets you know exactly what to expect. And sitting down to watch it with that mindframe, I must admit that, to my great surprise, Cowboys & Zombies is actually a pretty watchable movie. It wears its low-budget, direct-to-DVD origins on its sleeve, with all the hallmarks we expect: below-bar DV photography, weak costumes and make-up FX, and a few instances of utterly gratuitous nudity. But along the way there are some pleasant surprises that help lift the movie above the standard.

It’s shot efficiently and energetically, with the opening shoot-out scene setting things off at a high pace. Sure, it’s inescapably amateurish; it looks like (and most likely was) a few friends messing around in a wild west theme park off season, and David A Lockhart hasn’t quite mastered that problem of blinking when shots are fired, plus I swear I saw sneaker footprints in the sand at one point. Even so, the camerawork and editing are relatively slick, resulting in a number of effiective action sequences. These scenes are also complemented well by the guitar-based score. I was initially wary to see the old west played out against contemporary rock music, but given that the film is a crossover of genres we don’t often see combined, it seems oddly fitting that the music be a bit out of place, if that makes any sense.

So that’s the plus side; now for the rest. Despite that blinking-while-shooting problem and a voice that is somewhat less than gravelly, David Lockhart makes for a reasonable cowboy, with a look that’s somewhere between early 80s Dennis Quaid and early 70s Graham Nash. However, both he and writer/director Rene Perez should have learned a few lessons from a few classic westerns and had him do one simple thing: shut the fuck up. I’m no western afficionado by any means, but I think I can safely say that the great screen cowboys were notably taciturn, men of action rather than words; hell, at his best Eastwood did as little as he had to of either. Lockhart just keeps talking, talking, talking, constantly giving explanations when one was neither requested nor needed. Rick Mora doesn’t fare much better; every time he opens his mouth, both the words and the delivery reek of Native American cliche, to the extent that we wouldn’t be too taken aback if he were to declare something “heap big” then dance around a campfire whooping. At least Camille Montgomery manages to come out of proceedings with a little more dignity, successfully conveying both vulnerability and inner strength in the face of the zombie horde.

Cowboys & Zombies has another fairly significant problem in that it doesn’t have an ending. Nope. None at all. There are a couple of nice, unexpected twists and turns (by which I do not mean anything remotely Shyamalanesque), then just as it looks like there’s another cool action sequence coming up it just stops. Pah. I struggle to see how anyone involved thought that would be a satisfactory way to finish things off, unless there was some vague hope of leaving things open for a sequel. But what the hell, in spite of this Cowboys & Zombies remains a reasonable bit of fun so long as your expectations aren’t too high. It’s not going to rock anyone’s socks off, but it delivers most of what you’d hope for from a microbudget bottom shelf B-movie. And from what I hear Cowboys & Aliens itself isn’t even all that good anyway, so hey, one DVD’s cheaper than a couple of cinema tickets…