Live Review

Film4 FrightFest 2010 – Empire Cinema, Leicester Square, London

• 2nd Sep 2010

THURSDAY

London’s Film4 FrightFest 2010 finally came about over a long weekend stretching Thursday evening right through to the Monday Bank holiday night. From that time this reviewer was subjected to some visions of terror, beauty, majestic quality and depravity on a regular basis that only people on the fetish scene would dream about.

But like any festivals – many things can go right, as well as wrong – and this year was no less difficult for the organisers on their 11th year of FrightFest in a weekend that was not just full to the brim with blood but also a lot of controversy.

The setting of the scene is the Empire cinema Leicester Square where the festival is now housed for its second year. They have taken over the large Screen one as well as the little Discovery Screen for some of the smaller films they wanted to give exposure to.

Festival goers have either been buying singular, daily or weekend tickets ranging from £11 to £150. The Main Empire Screen listed 25 films as well as a quiz, main interview and many small surprise featurettes in-between. The discovery Screen showed 10 films (each screened twice over the weekend).

The weekend was kicked off with long-time FrightFest affiliate Adam Green’s sequel to his own slasher film, Hatchet II. Green along with fellow director Joe Lynch have also bandied together for a third year to make what is called “The Road To FrightFest” which is a series of shorts that they show at random moments of the festival of the two trying to make it to the festival. Funny and gamely out together they act as co-host to the festival alongside the four founding members.

In attendance for hatchet II along with Green were the three principal cast members Danielle Harris (from the Halloween series), Kane Hodder (best known to some as Jason Voorhees from the latter end of the original 10 films) and Tony Todd (Candyman). Watching Harris stand next to a couple of really tall and big guys at the press wall only makes the film seem more impressively shot as she in no way looks as small on screen as she is in real life. But then that’s what this reviewer thought when he saw the female cast of The Descent part 2 at the close of last year’s festival.

The film itself is an unapologetic, yet vastly improved on the first, slasher picture with a group of disposable characters out to get a swamp dwelling mutant by the name of Victor Crowley. Of course things don’t go quite that simply as Crowley makes all sorts of different meat pates out of the group.

FrightFest is the place to be if you want to hear a lively crowd cheering and laughing at every kill on screen. And Hatchet II was the perfect model for such united thrills.
Being an international festival, the next film on the bill was Primal all the way from Australia. And then we came back home for the close of the opening night with the UK’s Dead Cert.

FRIDAY

Friday the 27th was the first full on day and also served to highlight the big star director name to be interviewed on stage which was Tobe Hooper. There was a screening of his first early film Eggshells followed after by the infamous The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hooper was then brought on stage after for an elongated Q&A session by co-sponsor Total Film.

Perhaps Hooper’s memory is a bit hazy or he just wasn’t being asked the right sorts of questions, but despite being an affable personality on stage, he was fairly restraint in his answers. Last year they had John Landis who has no problem with talking, laughing, telling anecdotes. Hooper seems to be the opposite of that needing a little more guidance and often offering acknowledgement of comments as opposed to in-depth incite.

After this came the UK’s Isle of Dogs which was early contender for a film that really stands out. The tale of a love triangle that turns very gangster and then slasher style violent isn’t much on the page – but the direction in places was very assured and even reminiscent of Argento in the opening shot. Aiding this was a very loud score that recalled some of the best work by the likes of “This Mortal Coil”. Twanging guitar in places, and beautifully ethereal in other places.

The problem with the film is that it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be serious or a black comedy. If it was full on serious then the film would have suffered from lack of sympathetic characters. Every main character has some serious problems and sins to deal with. Even the leading female character stuck in the middle is a complete bitch in her free time as evidenced by her spoilt brat behaviour towards the house help. So it is hard to sympathise with her when everyone seems to want to kill her. But what does shine through in the serious view of this film is the early violent scenes and also the almost montage like quieter moments of the film giving some much needed pathos.

If the film was a full on black comedy this problem would have gone away as you would have cared less about anyone being unsympathetic – but the danger with black comedy is that the violence committed would lose it’s hard edge and become laughable.

Isle of Dogs sadly is a bit of a coward in that it doesn’t define itself properly. There are moments of harsh violence in this film, but then there are moments of whimsical nutty violence too as the film descends into a laughable mess in its blood filled climax.

Gaining a much better reputation was another UK release F which left many festival goers talking about it afterwards. Another Australian release followed this, Red Hill, and then Friday closed its main screen with Japan’s Alien vs. Ninja

SATURDAY

Saturday opened with the UK’s Cherry tree Lane (taken from Mary Poppins of all places) for a bit of home invasion terror. This was followed by the Tortured which had similar themes of revenge.

The third film was the much publicised 13 Hrs – a sort of werewolf indie featuring a bright young cast including Harry potters own Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) in a role so small it is a real insult to the public to have his name plastered high up on the poster. Still what we get is a low budget horror of a small group of family and friends attacked by a beast at their rather large mansion out in the middle of nowhere. It’s off to the attic they go where minds and limbs start to fall apart in their desperate struggle to survive.

Problem with this is that it is so low budget they couldn’t afford any decent effects. In fact most deaths happen off camera (although we are usually treated to the odd aftermath shot). But many of the deaths are also sign posted and then badly edited so that in the case of one shot gun wielding defender you barely have time to see what happened to them. There wasn’t much else to hand to this film except that it is perhaps meant to be a stepping stone for the cast and crew involved in the hope that they will be picked up for future projects, and then duly forget about this one as most audience members are likely to.

But Saturday was filled with highlights and open of them came in the form of the remake of “I Spit On Your Grave.” The film simply put is divided into two halves. First we have a young woman in a remote location to work on her book having her privacy invaded by some locals when the n proceed to viscously play her first her mind and then her body. After being repeatedly raped the woman manages to drop off a bridge into a river and disappear. Thinking she is dead the men involved head back to their normal lives. The second half of the film is watching her get her revenge on each of them in very gruesome manner. So it isn’t a happy tale, but it’s an important one in cinema, and especially horror cinema to tell.

Although we were warned the first half was tough to get through, I honestly thought it was going to be a whole lot worse than it actually was. That is not to say that what you will see is in anyway tame, I was probably under the impression that after the rape of the woman that she was then to be physically beaten and cut on top of that. So it is actually with some relief that this is not an action that follows. But be minded that the attack she does suffer is still never pleasant. What is pleasant is the guilt free attack she unleashes in the second half of the film. It will raise laughs, and cringe worthy groans as pain is inflicted in very different ways upon her attackers. You wouldn’t think this sort of film would have a large female audience due to the first half of the film, but the second half shows you why that will probably be a fact for this film. I’ll say no more.

The much anticipated and hyped Monsters was on show next. Gareth Edwards made this film on a tony budget and is probably set to astound and amaze the world over with his beautifully shot film. We find out that in a near future a space probe brought back the titular creatures with them and they have since been roaming free in what has now become an infected zone directly south of the United States border. Our male and female protagonists are then brought together to safely traverse this zone to safety. Him a photo journalist, her The Boss’s Daughter.

It’s a touching if at times hollow tale. Edwards doesn’t force the feelings the characters have out in words thankfully, but too often we are mean to believe that in such a short period of time through one disaster after another that the two will naturally come together with very little dialogue between the two. Perhaps I was in a cynical mood after “I Spit On Your Grave”, but although it wasn’t impossible to think of this couple and all that was going on around them, but it felt as if some element was slightly off key there. But this is like pointing out that even cinema greats like Citizen Kane and the Godfather have their mistakes. Monsters is a tremendous film and looks set to launch the career of a man who may well bring us some of the best cinema we have yet to see.

Dream house closed business on the Saturday and the crowd not quite zombified yet shuffled off and then back again for Sunday.

SUNDAY

Sunday’s opening film the Pack. We slept in for that one so made it in only to discover the screen was full for the film on the agenda, so instead sat through Andy Nyman’s Quiz From hell and gave a half hearted attempted to write down a few answers. After this frankly embarrassing attempt on Filmwerk’s behalf to be all knowledgeable about horror films the Short Film Showcase started which hosted 14 films of varying quality. It opened with a quite effective by ear piercingly loud La Madre from Spain. Among the horror was plenty of comedy mixed in. Highlights there included Papa Wrestling (Probably the most hilarious, and for anyone who was ever bullied at school) and Dead Hungry (a humorous take on night of the living dead). Less effective were Bon Appétit which wasn’t nearly as funny as it thinks it is (more mildly amusing in a dated way) and Red balloon which sadly doesn’t amount to much by its end which happens all too abruptly. Part of the problem is the over stylized (hello David Fincher fan) way it was shot. But perhaps the biggest response was for one of the weirdest being Nelly and Lio which I can’t even begin to describe. But it’s in French and it is barmy fun!

Taking a break from the big screen, I headed to the Discovery screen (or Disco screen as it is affectionately known) to catch a New Zealand flick called Wound. Suffice to say I was a different person when I walked back out. If you love real head game cinema with elements of horror and the grotesque mixed in with smaller elements of the fairytale then this is for you. Never an easy watch and not making a heck of a lot of sense, but there is still something quite wonderful in the way that director David Blyth works.

Next up was Damned By Dawn which started off promisingly enough as a more ghostly version of Evil Dead, but soon became a rather laughable effort. The effects were rather poor, the constant screaming (by a badly made up character that spends her existence screaming loudly for prolonged periods) soon grates the mind in a teeth gritting manner. Yes Damned By Dawn could well be the biggest disaster of a horror film at the festival, well it would be if we had already forgotten about 13 Hrs.

Still that was more than made up for by the inclusion of Buried starring Hollywood man of the moment Ryan (I haven’t starred in enough comic book movies yet) Reynolds. Yes 90 minutes of Ryan Reynolds in a box for all you lusty women who’d love to kidnap him yourselves and keep him that way. What impresses are two things here. One: we never leave the box. From start to finish we are in that box with him all the way, and it’s the director who manages to work this magic. Two: Reynold’s performance. I don’t know if awards bodies are looking for early contenders but we have one right here.

The day ended with the highly talked about The Loved Ones, but we had to skip that in favour of a proper night’s sleep in order to be in full attendance of the final day.

MONDAY

Monday morning came and it was an attentive morning as it started off with Jake West’s Documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape. A 60 minute look back at the Video Nasty era and how it all kicked off in the first place. The subject has been covered before but West has managed to assemble some great footage of those that deemed this list of 72 horror films to be of a threat to the nation. He has also managed to assemble many names that were either for or against the argument from back in the day (and believe us there were very few fighting against the ban at the time). This is interlaced with modern film makers talking about the relevance of these films today and also the effect they have had on them before they became film makers themselves.

It’s a very interesting topic, and made all the more relevant considering a film was pulled from the FrightFest bill this year due to it coming under the scissors. More on that in the Blog!

Next came The Dead – yet another zombie flick which while it looks good and appears on screen to have good production value at times becomes increasingly repetitive. It is another take on the zombie film which works well thematically, but literally every scene there is a zombie attack, or a zombie on screen leaving very little time for characters to talk and get to know one and other. This keeps us at arm’s length as an audience and whilst we can get swept up by the look of it all we are ultimately just being dealt another Zombie scare card.

The other thing that may harm the film is that it is coming around at a time when Zombie films are really starting to get tiresome. For the past half a decade plus we have been given a wide variety of zombie films – most of which have done something new to the sub-genre. And whilst the Dead can proudly sit amongst this pile – the appetite for such films may really start to be on the slide.

Letting the crowd sit through bedevilled whilst I did the media rounds, next on my list was Red White & Blue. Noah Taylor is a Phenomenal actor and here he could be in for a prize or two as a sociopath who takes under his wing a very lost young woman who has spent most of her life on the brink serving up her body to whomever wants to use it for their sexual pleasure; after which she leaves and goes back about her daily routine. With Taylor’s character serving up his own twisted past things take a turn for the worst when a former conquest of hers discovers a dark secret about her past and takes her hostage. Top say any more would spoil the film, but this was perhaps the most unstable narrative in terms of where we are following and the visual style presented to us in this Texas based chiller, and by that I mean it is highly unpredictable, but never stops being gripping in its second half.

The festival came to its close with the UK Premiere of The Last Exorcism, currently ripping up the US chart. And what we get is a film that is firstly a very funny docudrama on a man who has lost his faith and now performs fake exorcisms as he believes that all possessions are in the mind of those who claim it (the timing in the editing really tickles those ribs). The second half of the film takes a more serious turn when it turns out that a job they just faked has actually turned out to be the real deal. What we get then is a highly effective string of events that both creep you out and sustain suspense of just where this is all heading. And this is where the Audience is really going to have their say as the end comes at you in a direction you probably won’t be able to predict. But it’s a matter of will this ending stand up with audiences today, or years down the line, or will this rather bizarre end/Blair Witch symbioses actually make us all shake our heads in despair.

Right now it looks like the vote is going to be towards the negative as it is such a random way to go, but who knows.

FrightFest then has been a journey and a half of laughs and leaps, jumps and judders. Controversy had a look in, some great talent turned up for the event, so very special films were shown along with a few other oddities – but all seemed to have their own fans which is the great thing about the festival is the broad range of taste among the cinemagoers. If you are a FrightFest virgin, but love horror films, then it is well worth checking out next year. The price is worth it if you can put the waking hours into attending.

This article and many more are online at Glasswerk’s sister site [link]