Rob Wickings's Blog, page 71

Soundtrack: Satan’s Schoolgirls

Satan’s Schoolgirls has a soundtrack, and I think you’ll like it!

One of the joys of Spotify, the excellent music streaming service, is the way that you can easily build up a playlist that suits any mood from the biggest music library going. You can even create your own soundtracks to creative works. This is becoming a bit of a thing in comics circles, with writers like Keiron Gillan and Matt Fraction crafting mood-appropriate playlists for books like Hawkeye and Young Avengers.

James Moran, writer of genre-shuffling films like Tower Block and Cockneys Vs. Zombies, uses playlists to get him in the right mood for pulling the first draft of a script together. For example, here’s a chunk of the “soundtrack” he used for CvZ. Note the double-hit of Chas & Dave.

(I recommend a read of his blog post on the writing process–full of handy tips and hints!)

I’ve been a fan of the virtual soundtrack for a while: the Readership may recall I’ve put one up on Spotify for a previous short story, Cerise Sauvage: A History. I find it’s a fun way of nailing the mood and feel of the piece. If it wasn’t such a nightmare for copyright, it would be fun to include soundtracks as official backmatter for the written word. They can be had, but it’s a rarity.

With that in mind, then, I wanted to showcase the unofficial soundtrack to Satan’s Schoolgirls. It’s designed to evoke the era and setting of the book, with occasional forays into character sketches and off-the-wall commentary. I’d love to know what you think.

Warning: contains Cliff.

(Cover image comes from Bobobabushka, who creates nesting dolls with attitude. Saw the pic and just couldn’t help myself!)

The Horror, The Horror: Fright Feast On Film

As a fan of both Feast On Film and the Brainhownd film nights, a collaboration between the two was a solid lock for me.

The two North London film nights aren’t rivals. If anything, they support and encourage each other, and underground film-makers will regularly screen at both. They are drawn by the warm, inclusive atmosphere. They have slightly different feels. Brainehownd is a bit rowdier, thanks to the MC skills of stand-up comedians like David Whitney and Mike Shepherd. Feast is a little more thoughtful, as host James Rumsey directs Q&As with the evening’s contributors. Both are enormous fun, and you’re guaranteed to see some great short films.

The Brainehownd-curated night at Feast was a Halloween special–another reason to drag me in. Officially, I was there to support leading Man Clive and Simon Aitken, who were showing the teaser trailer for Habeas Corpus. Unofficially, I was there to drink beer and watch horror films.

There were some cracking shorts on display, and some genuine surprises. It was an eclectic mix, ranging from Bloody Cut Film’s Sucka Blood, a vicious little Grimm-style cautionary tale, to Molly Brown’s brilliantly rubbery CG animation The Evil Table. This mixed police procedural with monsters to hilarious effect.

In fact, the focus was strongly on humour. I’m pleased to point out that the one proper jump-scare of the night came from Habeas Corpus. Mind you, that moment made a Frightfest audience leap out of their seats. If you can freak out that bench of horror fiends, you know you’re doing something right.

There were two stand-out films of the night for me. Mike Tack’s The Domestic, a tale of suburban torture and revenge directed with real brio. It was shot entirely on an iPhone 4, and looked fine to these jaundiced old colourist’s eyes. Mike’s a real character, dry-as-a-bone funny and a real horror evangelist. A name to watch.

My favourite, though, was Bloody Cut’s second film of the night, Dead Man’s Lake. The set-up is pure 80′s slasher, with an isolated lakeside setting, two lovers and something nasty lurking in the woods. But that premise is just a ruse, and the final two minutes flip everything you’ve seen on its head. This one genuinely took me by surprise. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

Fright Feast On Film was a riot of a night, a great chance to meet old friends and make new ones. Kudos to James Rumsey and Brainehownd’s Mark Brown for putting together a gem of an event.  Mike Shepherd was a great MC, although it should be noted that you don’t really want to cross him on the subject of Latin pronunciation.

If you fancy checking out some great shorts in a friendly, relaxed setting, Brainehownd and Feast are well worth the trip on the Northern Line. Feast On Film is on the third Wednesday of the month at Moor’s Bar in Crouch End. Brainehownd takes over the Hideaway Bar in Hornsey every second Tuesday.

My All Hallow’s Read: Satan’s Schoolgirls

The nights are creeping up on you, a villain with cruel intent and an ice-cold heart.

It’s light enough in the mornings now, but by 5 o’clock it’s dark outside–and the morning reprieve won’t last.

It’s not surprising that this time of year has it’s own smoky, intense flavour. We feel the need to light fires against the darkness, then snuggle indoors with a good book. Well, you do if you’re me, anyway.

I have something for you. A creepy tale of a school in the isolated north, a place of cruelty and disorder. A place that is haunted by a ghost that is hungry for vengeance. A place where the overthrow of one regime leads to something much, much worse.

Readership, I present to you, in association with Verse Publishing, my first novel. Satan’s Schoolgirls.

It’s available at the moment through Amazon as a Kindle download and paperback, with other formats and outlets to come. Please, do pick up a copy. It’s a perfect accompaniment to a cold dark night, a big chair and a glass of something warming to keep out the chills.

Buy the Kindle version of Satan’s Schoolgirls.

Buy the paperback version of Satan’s Schoolgirls.

Oh, and if you like to listen to a little light music while you read, I’ve crafted a Spotify soundtrack to go along with the book.

Magic Everyday: X&HT Saw Beasts Of The Southern Wild

Once there was a Hushpuppy, who lived with her Daddy in The Bathtub.

She was happy. She had her own house, and her animals, and she had friends and a life in the bayou. She was sad sometimes, because her Momma had left. But for the most part, she smiled. And she knew that there was nowhere as good as The Bathtub, and that she never wanted to leave.

And then a storm came, a big one with a cruel woman’s name, and it turned out that Hushpuppy’s life was about to change forever.

Benh Zeitlin’s ragged and lovely piece of magical realism takes elements of post-apocalpse fiction, Southern Gothic and mythology and mashes them together with hot sauce and plenty of spice to produce a rich and satisfying stew. All the focus has been on Quvenzhané Wallis and her brave, open performance as Hushpuppy. But there’s a lot to nourish you in Beasts Of The Southern Wild apart from that.

Ben Richardson’s luminous, fluid photography shows the world of The Bathtub in all its grimy, shabby beauty. His constantly roving camera picks out details, grabs fleeting moments of joy, horror and despair. There’s grain and grit in the images that he shoots. It’s a documentary aesthetic, a grab-and-go ethos that’s a universe away from the sterile, over-CGed pictures of most contemporary fantasy cinema.

Fantastic fiction is, at heart, a commentary on the times in which it was created. The film addresses big issues and contemporary concerns, of climate change, of the povertyquake that is devastating America. It’s telling that the strangest and most alien environment we see is a hospital and crisis centre on the wrong side of the levee from The Bathtub. Hushpuppy’s home is a place apart, and it’s the forceful reunion of this naive paradise with harsh reality that is the driving force behind the film.

Hurricane Katrina is the true monster that haunts Beasts Of The Southern Wild, even more so than the porcine aurochs that thunder towards a final confrontation with Hushpuppy (after, appropriately, breaking out of crumbling icebergs). Both as signal and agent of change, as villain and plot device, Katrina forces Hushpuppy to face an uncertain future–but one she will approach with the same fearlessness with which she stares down the aurochs. She remains Hushpuppy, and the Bathtub, however much it has been changed, remains her home.

Brave, funny, lovely and fearless, Beasts Of The Southern Wild illuminates the magic in the everyday. As allegory, fantasy and comment on an America reeling before forces that it struggles to understand, Hushpuppy’s story is an unalloyed delight.

Why I’m Not Doing Nanowrimo This Year

For the second year running, I am not joining the magnificent, brave and crazy people that give up their Novembers in the pursuit of a novel. I love Nanowrimo, and even now the notion of not sitting down on November 1st and banging out that first 1667 words rips at me. Some very good friends of mine are doing it this year, and I hate the idea that I can’t join them.

Last year, I made the excuse that I simply had too much else to write. That was true then, and it’s even more true now. It has been an intense year for me. I have finally got off my butt and started getting my writing out into the real world, and it has brought me opportunities and put me into contact with people that I wouldn’t have thought possible nine months ago. That momentum has to be kept up.

The main reason for not doing Nanowrimo in 2012?

This year, I’m not writing a novel. I’m publishing one.

In conjunction with new start-up Verse Publishing, the people behind The Dead Files anthologies, I’m releasing Satan’s Schoolgirls, the first book I ever wrote through Nanowrimo. It’s been extensively proofed and edited, and has an eye-popping new cover by a talented new discovery, Stella Sampson. It seems appropriate that I should be doing this now, for a couple of reasons. It closes the loop on Nanowrimo. No-one should write a book and just leave it on their hard drive. Get it out there. Nowadays, there’s no excuse not to at least try.

And of course, what better time to release a horror title than Halloween? That was Leading Man Clive’s idea, and it’s a little bit of marketing genius. Remarkably, we’re on schedule and will be ready to go before the 31st.

So, I really felt that I needed to focus some time and energy on Satan’s Schoolgirls, and give it the push it needs. It’s a work that I’m incredibly proud of, a sleazy, nasty grubby chunk of exploitational horror that I’ve always pitched as Quentin Tarantino’s Belles Of St. Trinian’s.

Keep an eye open for further announcements early next week. And prepare yourselves for the ride.

The FrightFest Files: Ten Horror Films To Watch – Part 2

Clive’s Best Of FrightFest continues with his Top Five. Brace yerself. There’s some shockers in here. 

5: ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY (Germany 2012) – Dir. Eron Sheean

Driven by personal tragedy, Canadian scientist Dr. Geoff Burton (Michael Eklund) arrives to take up his new position in a research institute in Germany.  Determined to continue his pioneering research into embryonic mutations, he finds himself embroiled in both a burgeoning romance with co-worker Dr. Rebekka Fielder (Karoline Herfurth) and a sinister conspiracy.

Shown on the smaller Discovery screen, the delightfully titled ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY is one of those oddities that almost fall between genre stools.  Despite containing elements of body horror and disease outbreak horror, this is a sci-fi movie.  But where sci-fi on the big screen is usually either superheroes or westerns in tin foil hats, this is a SCI-FI DRAMA – heavy on the science, heavy on the drama.

Almost a companion piece to Vincenzo Natali’s endearingly batty SPLICE, ERRORS similarly begins with romantically involved scientists involved in genetic research, but steers clear of its forbear’s lurch into gothic melodrama.  Instead, ERRORS keeps things small and human.  That means we get less genre ‘juice’, but it also means the resulting drama is genuinely moving.

The film asks the question: what is it that makes us human?  How much is our sense of our own humanity dependant on our own external appearance?  What happens to that sense of self when flesh is changed?  Sci-fi buffs will recognise some of this as territory covered in the likes of THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and king of body-horror David Cronenberg’s THE FLY and VIDEODROME.  However, unlike either of those films, ERRORS retains a refreshing pro-science stance on genetic research.

Well played by all involved (including an almost unrecognisable Rik Mayall as the head of the institute), this film ultimately succeeds because of the performances of its two leads: Eklund and Herfurth.  Director Eron Sheehan allows them time to blossom, all the while retain a tight grip on the icy cold mise-en-scene.  With this and his work as co-writer of Xavier Gens’ THE DIVIDE (a highlight from last year’s Frightfest); he marks himself as a talent to watch.  “Long live the new flesh,” indeed.

4) AMERICAN MARY (Canada 2012) – Dir. Jen & Sylvia Soskia

Medical student Mary Mason (GINGER SNAPS’ Katherine Isabelle) just wants to become a doctor.  However, the sexist old boys’ network that runs the hospital where she is studying, coupled with severe debt problems, mean that when temptation rears its head – in the form of the underground world of extreme body-modification surgery – she all too readily succumbs.

Okay, so if the last entry on the top ten flirted with body horror, this Canadian entry gives us the ‘full Cronenberg’.  Some of the resulting gore is pretty strong, and if you’ve got a thing about hospitals and operations, consider yourself duly warned.

As a fan of her work in the GINGER SNAPS trilogy, it’s great to see Katherine Isabelle back in a film worthy of her talents.  Her character is the anchor for the story, allowing all the weirdness and surreal moments to be digested by the audience.  I was (perhaps inevitably given the operations) reminded of the mad doctor movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s.  Only this time our erstwhile FRANKENSTEIN is thanked by her creations!

The tone of this movie is interesting, encompassing the deadpan wit of HEATHERS and the clinical detachment of (yes – it’s that man again!) Cronenberg’s DEAD RINGERS.  But perhaps the best comparison is with another strong horror movie with an equally strong central performance from Angel Bettis: Luck McKee’s MAY.  In short, if you liked MAY, you’ll love AMERICAN MARY.

If there’s weakness here, it’s that the Soskia sisters (who also cameo memorably) are so interested in the various outsiders they conjure up that the antagonistic forces that threaten Mary’s lucrative new practice are a little neglected.  This saps a little of the impact from the climax, but doesn’t take away from the overall achievement.  For a story which could have been a reactionary tract which recoiled in horror from the freaks and outsiders it depicted, AMERICAN MARY actually celebrates difference and should be applauded for that.

Much has been rightly made of the dearth of female voices in horror.  You can count the female filmmakers featured at this years’ Frightfest on the fingers of one body-modified hand: Jen & Sylvia Soska; Jennifer Chambers Lynch (CHAINED); and Donna Davies (NIGHTMARE FACTORY).  So it’s doubly pleasant (no pun intended – the Soskia sisters are twins) to discover a full-blooded horror movie in you really which feels like it has been authored from a female perspective (and that the story is richer for that).  But don’t think I’m including this film out of tokenism.  This is just plain good old horror – whatever the gender of its writer/directors.

3) MANIAC (France/USA 2012) – Dir. Franck Kalfoun

A remake of Bill Lustig’s 1980 stalk ’n’ slash original, MANIAC is the portrait of serial killer Frank (Elijah Wood in what was the Joe Spinell role) and the troubled life of his mind.  Photographer Anna mistakes Frank’s pathological introversion for an artist’s sensitivity and a dangerous friendship is born, as Frank’s control and his increasingly tenuous grip on reality threaten to dissolve away completely.

So: Why remake MANIAC?  The original was almost an American giallo, with a really gritty aesthetic and some very effective gore sequences from genre legend Tom Savini.  It had some powerful horror set-pieces, despite including one of the least believable romantic subplots in movie history (Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro?  Really?).  It was also an immersive wallow in dirt, blood and misogyny that left me feeling like I need a shower afterwards.

I guess you might as well say: Why remake anything?  Brand recognition within the horror community, coupled with mild controversy the casting of lovable Wood (It’s Frodo!) as scalp-collecting killer might get them?  Probably; and yet – producers Alexander Aja and Gregory Levasseur are clearly fans of the original (so much so that they included a near shot-for-shot remake of the original’s infamous toilet scene in their debut movie SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE), so perhaps there’s some love there as well.

The new MANIAC covers much the same depressing story territory as the original, but was a pleasant surprise because unlike most remakes it actually follows through on its promise: It delivers a genuinely fresh take on old material.  Where the original was gritty, this version is shiny and stylised with an equally sleek electronic score (although personally I could have done without the winking musical reference to THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS – but otherwise, great).  It’s also confident enough in its own nastiness to chuck out two of the most iconic scenes from the original.

Technically brilliant, the real departure comes with director Franck Khalfoun’s decision to shoot the whole movie from the killer’s point-of-view.  Yes – MANIAC 2012 is that rare beast – the P.O.V. movie.  But unlike previous P.O.V. movies like DARK PASSAGE and THE LADY IN THE LAKE, MANIAC doesn’t feel like such a novelty.  This is largely due to how used we are as viewers to watching P.O.V. sequences in slasher movies.  From BLACK CHRISTMAS and HALLOWEEN (both themselves remade in past decade) onwards it has become standard trope.  But while it loses out on novelty, the movie gains in its depiction of misogyny.

You might think that making you view everything through the eyes of a killer, would force you to sympathize with him.  However, due to the way P.O.V. works, paradoxically the opposite is true.  Your sympathy is firmly with the victims as they are slain and scalped.  This makes the new MANIAC a tough film to watch, but also a better, less exploitational horror film than the original.

2) SLEEP TIGHT (Spain 2011) – Dir. Jaume Balaguero

Janitor Cesar (Luis Tosar) looks after his apartment building, chatting with the residents and attending to the building’s upkeep.  However, there’s more to Cesar than meets the eye and new tenant Clara’s (Marta Etura) perpetual optimism and general cheeriness provoke something deep within him – something very dark indeed.

Welcome to the Spanish corner of Hitchcock country.  It may be helmed by one half of the filmmaking team that brought us the scary REC, but Jaume Balaguero is very clearly following in the suspenseful footsteps of Leystonstone’s most famous son with this accomplished chiller.

Hitchcock may have (with a few exceptions) stuck to the thriller genre, but his movies could (and did) go into some very dark psychological areas.  Indeed, the movie which currently sits atop Sight & Sound’s Greatest Movies of All Time Poll – VERTIGO – is a case in point.  That tale of an obsessed stalker whose obsession destroys the very thing he loves the most, is a clear touchstone for SLEEP TIGHT.

However, the main lesson Balaguero takes from Hitchcock is that the mechanics of suspense are neutral.  It doesn’t matter whether the person in danger (the object of the suspense) is a good person or a bad person – we, the audience will root for them to get out of danger regardless.  Hitchcock knew this all too well and relished the subversive tactic of putting the audience in the villain’s shoes.  STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and FRENZY both employ this ‘dirty’ trick.

SLEEP TIGHT is much more than mere Hitchcock pastiche though.  Balaguero has a few dirty tricks of his own, and isn’t afraid to use them.  Chief among them is the miserly way he doles out exposition.  The opening twenty minutes is a masterclass in how to use mystery to hook an audience, and also how to sucker them into sympathizing with a protagonist who is much more than we first believe him to be.  This is especially apparent if you compare it with a recent movie that had superficially similar story: the disappointment that was Hammer’s THE RESIDENT.

Luis Tosar (so impressive in Michael Mann’s MIAMI VICE) gives a masterful performance as the janitor Cesar.  Utterly compelling, I have no hesitation in making him my Best Actor of Frightfest 2012.

Finally, SLEEP TIGHT has that rare thing – a villain with a truly unique and memorable motivation and psychology.   It may not scare you in a conventional horror movie way, but this film will disturb and chill you.  Good luck ‘sleeping tight’ after this one.

1) SINISTER (US 2012) – Dir. Scott Derrickson

 

Desperate to hit True Crime gold, writer Ellison Oswald (Ethan Hawke) moves his family into a house where the previous inhabitants died in mysterious circumstances.  He discovers a box in the attic filled with Super8 home movies.  Home movies that hold the key to not just the deaths he’s investigating, but to a series of occult-inspired grisly murders stretching back years.  Like Pandora, Oswald is about to discover than some boxes should never be opened…

Every Frightfest (and this was my 11th), there always seems to an overarching theme or visual motif linking a number of the films.  I don’t think this is intentional on Iain, Paul, Alan or Greg’s part.  Perhaps it’s just a natural consequence of grouping together any films that were made around the same time (Re-Discovery Screen oldies excepted).  In past years we’ve had the ‘J-horror festival, ‘zombie’ festival and the ‘torture-porn’ festival.  Similarly, one year it seemed like every film featured an act of genital mutilation (I spent most of that one with my legs crossed).

This year unfortunately, that linking strand seemed to be: rape.  Sometimes the rape was treated soberly as part of horrors of war: THE SEASONING HOUSE.  Sometimes the crime itself was off-screen or the camera fixed firmly on the victim’s face: CHAINED & AMERICAN MARY (significantly I think – both by women filmmakers).  But overall the tone that reigned was one of exploitation and misogyny.  There was sense that in trying to out-shock what had come before certain filmmakers had gone for easy button pushing.

Horror is a broad church, but ultimately, it’s easy to make an upsetting film, and if we keep going down that road ultimately you lose all but the most hard-core gorehounds.  If a horror movie is upsetting, depressing and humourless – well, where’s the fun in that?  It’s much harder to make a genuinely scary movie, which is where I get off my soapbox and onto my number one choice.

SINISTER is a genuinely scary movie.

If you’re a horror fan, that should be all the enticement you need to head down your local Cineplex or add it to the top of your video-on-demand queue.  If competent horror movies are rare (as I mentioned earlier in my review of OUTPOST: BLACK SUN), genuinely scary movies seem to turn up less frequently than England World Cup wins or Halley’s Comet.  Okay – I exaggerate – but the likes of THE DESCENT, REC, and THE ORPHANAGE stick out because they actually succeed in scaring us.

So why continue the review?  Well, largely because I realise I’m not writing this in a vacuum.  SINISTER has had its UK cinema bow, and it has been sold in trailers and adverts to be a certain kind of movie.  Also, the (professional) critics have spoken and they’ve not all been kind.  Many, including some surprising usually genre-friendly writers have just not got it.  SINISTER may not be a little indie film, but I think it deserves championing nonetheless. So I’m going to look at some of the nay-sayers arguments and explain why I think this movie is a must-see.

1) It’s generic Hollywood product – nothing more.

SINISTER does have a very generic title – that’s true.  But then, so did SCREAM, and look how that turned out.  It is a Hollywood movie, but to dismiss it as generic is to overlook how it takes stale horror ingredients: family moves into a haunted house/ ‘true’ snuff movies / a demon that can possess you – and spin it into something new and fresh.  If you only look at the glossy packaging, you might think this was no different from something like THE POSSESSION (which also showed at Frightfest).  But where THE POSSESSION really does follow the generic rules with depressing predictability – SINISTER transcends its studio roots.

While it does feel the need to do that Hollywood thing of having a jump-scare, director Scott Derickson deserves credit for not just serving up the same old tired clichés.  So no ‘cat leaping out’, no ‘something walks in front of camera accompanied with loud noise’ and no ‘mirror scares’.  Sure, it’s still essentially: quiet/LOUD – but these jump-scares work.  The overall sound design is brilliant and the use of Doom Metal on the soundtrack adds to a soundscape that is anything but traditional.

2) It starts off creepy, but then devolves into the same old tropes.

Some kinder critics did pick up on the unusually restrained and creepy slow-build at the beginning, but missed out on just how fully the film commits to a) its own rules and b) its mission to scare the pants off you.  The opening thirty minutes are very effective in setting up an atmosphere of unease.  Perhaps the reason why some critics didn’t respond as well to the rest of the film – is that they didn’t see it with an audience.  This is a film that gains immeasurably from being shared with others.  Being scared – all jumping out of your seat at the same time – is a communal experience.

3) It’s a ‘found footage’ movie.

Okay, Mark Kermode may not have meant this to be a criticism, but despite bright-spots like CHRONICLE and TROLL HUNTER, this particular sub-genre has a terrible reputation.  Headache-inducing camerawork coupled with poor scripts and often little justification for why the cameraperson is still filming with all that’s going on or why they don’t seem to be able to hold the camera still for two seconds.  Yep, this is not a good label to tar SINISTER with – a movie which shares none of the above traits.

Mr. Kermode rightly points out that Ethan Hawke’s character, “does find some footage.”  However, that isn’t enough to make it a ‘found footage’ film in my book.  The ‘found footage’ elements make up less that 10% of the running time.  And while the found films are running, half the time Derickson cuts away to Hawke’s reaction.  This breaks all the rules of ‘found footage’ which gain their effect from the idea that we’re seeing unedited and uncensored material.

A better comparison would be with two films starring George C. Scott: HARDCORE and THE CHANGELING.  Indeed the scenes where Ethan Hawke views the home movies are edited in a very similar way.  Both movies wisely believe that what you don’t see is worse than anything they could show you.  SINISTER still finds room for some pretty disturbing imagery, but as often it’s the sound that does the heavy lifting.

4) The villain just looks like THE CROW or the lead singer in a Metal band.

Yeah – guilty on that one.   But unlike the trailers you may have seen, the movie itself takes the JAWS approach to its monster.  We only ever get glimpses of the big villain and he’s all the scarier for it.  I actually think the monster design is surprisingly effective in its simplicity.  The only misstep I thought the film made, was in the look they gave to ‘the children’, which I thought was a bit naff.

5) No horror auteur behind this movie.

Last one – I promise!  This criticism is largely unspoken, but I can’t help thinking that this movie would have been more lauded if it came from a ‘master of horror’.  Whether that be an established writer/director name like Wes Craven or John Carpenter, or a new horror auteur like Ti West or Lucky McKee.

Director Scott Derickson previously made THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE which I haven’t seen, but I think I would have heard if it had become a major horror film.  So SINISTER is a step up into the big leagues for Derrickson, but before we get too sucked into the cult of the auteur theory, it should be acknowledged that this movie has a great script written by C. Robert Cargill (together with Derrickson).  It’s the two of them, together with star Hawke that make this movie the success it is.

I saw this film with two friends – both hardened horror fans – who were unable to get to sleep after watching this film.  Me?  I slept fine, but certain sequences have really stayed with me including the terrifying ending.  Maybe it’s ultimately too conventional to be classed as great, but it’s good enough to be my number one.  Recommended – go see it.

In conclusion, a few acknowledgements:  Thanks to Rob for being such a generous host.  (De nada – R.) Thanks to the Frightfest team [Iain, Paul, Alan, Greg and all their many helpers] for organising another great festival.  Thanks to the staff of the Empire Leicester Square [and particularly to the projection team].  Lastly, thanks to Simon, Stuart and all the rest of Frightfest weekend pass-holders.  See you all next year…  Oh, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!   Pleasant nightmares…

The FrightFest Files: Ten Horror Films To Watch – Part 1

We have a couple of weeks to go to Halloween, so in the spirit of the season I thought I’d talk horror films. Or rather, as I am a lazy, lazy writer, let someone else do it for me. Fortunately, there is a man. A man who knows his horror and is prepared to write about it at length. A man that writes with skill, alacrity and humour. A leading man.

Readership, I am more than delighted to turn the keys of the house over to Leading Man Clive Ashenden for the next couple of posts, as he runs down his top ten films from Frightfest, and picks out the ones for which you should be keeping an eye out as we move into the dark end of the year. Pay attention. LMC knows his stuff.

Go preach, homeboy.

It’s that time of year again; the time for all UK Fright-fans to stock up on their horror Blu-Rays, DVDs and downloads in preparation for Halloween.  Therefore, it seems a particularly appropriate time to report on the horrific happenings from this year’s Frightfest (particularly since many key films are now available to rent, stream, buy, or watch at your local cinema).

Yes, Gentle Reader, I was there at the Empire Leicester Square throughout the August Bank Holiday weekend, and let me tell you, I have seen… horrible things… things which cannot be unseen.  So, having spent a month locked in a dark room recovering from the psychic shock of watching 23 horror movies in less than 5 days – I thought I’d tell you all about them.

As is becoming tradition, I’m going to run down my top ten movies of the festival.  But first, some honourable mentions and one near-miss:

NIGHTBREED: THE CABAL CUT (UK/USA Restoration 2012) – Dir. Clive Barker (Restoration Dir. Russell Cherrington)

Clive Barker’s 1990 tale of a secret underworld of Gods and Monsters was brutally cut down from his original director’s vision to make the critically savaged theatrical version.  Now it is at last receiving a little love…

I almost included this in my top ten, but ultimately, the work-in-progress nature of the project made me decide to leave it out.  Projecting what was at least partly VHS quality material on one of the biggest cinema screens in the country was a bold move by Frightfest, and it was to the film’s credit that I was able to follow the fairy tale story through the murk.  I’m convinced that there is a great lost horror movie in the remains of Nightbreed – but I don’t think they’ve found it yet.  NIGHTBREED is a film of beauty, darkness and a sprinkling of fun genre cheesiness – it deserves a full restoration.  Do your part online at www.occupymidian.com.

HIM INDOORS (UK 2012) – Dir. Paul Davis [Short]

This crowd-funded (full disclosure: yes, I put some money in, and yes, Paul is a mate – but I receive no share of any profits) (ditto: Rob) short horror film starring Reese Shearsmith (LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN) and Pollyanna McIntosh (THE WOMAN), about an agoraphobic serial killer was warmly received by the Frightfest crowd.  The first fiction film from the director of AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON documentary BEWARE THE MOON, it’s on the festival circuit now – so look out for it.

With three screens running simultaneously on some days it was physically impossible to see everything.  The following are films which I didn’t have a chance to see myself, but which got good word-of-mouth at Frightfest:

[REC]3 GENESIS (Spain 2012) – Dir. Paco Plaza

STITCHES (Ireland 2012) – Dir. Conor McMahon

THE THOMPSONS (USA 2012) – Dir. The Butcher Brothers

KILL ZOMBIE! (Netherlands 2012) – Dir. Marjin Smits & Erwin van den Eshof

BEFORE DAWN (UK 2012) – Dir. Dominic Brunt

Okay, now you’re warmed up, here are my top ten: the best of the fest.  Gaffer tape yourself in – it’s going to be a bumpy ride and there may be MILD SPOILERS, but hopefully no worse than you’d get from watching the trailers.

10: TOWER BLOCK (UK, 2012) – Dir. James Nunn & Ronnie Thompson

In a set up that echoes that of teen slashers like PROM NIGHT and I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, the residents of the top floor of the eponymous TOWER BLOCK, witness the brutal beating of a teenage boy who subsequently dies.  But fearing for their lives they say nothing to the investigating police.  Life moves on, and the residents are about to be re-homed when they find themselves besieged by a lone gunman intent on revenge.

In at number ten is the first of two films in the countdown from SEVERANCE writer James Moran.  But unlike his previous scripts, this offers straight-faced suspense rather than comedic horror.

Although it takes a while to get going, and the character subplots often veer into Eastenders territory, this is a neat little thriller.  After the slasher-esque beginning it settles into a tense game of cat and mouse, with Sheridan Smith proving a spunky lead presence.  There is a definite early John Carpenter vibe, with both the story and score echoing ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, and that’s no bad thing.  Worth a rental.

9: GRABBERS (UK/Ireland 2012) – Dir. Jon Wright

A small fishing community in Ireland gets a close encounter of the bloodsucking alien tentacled kind.  The invader’s only weakness?  An allergy to alcohol.  The only way to fight them?  Get royally drunk!

Horror/comedy or comedy/horror?  The balancing act when these two genres meet is a difficult one to get right.  A movie that is both scary and horrifying in equal measure?  Only giants of the subgenre like AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and TREMORS successfully scale both peaks.  So how does GRABBERS stack up?  Well, it has good monsters, likeable leads, and it doesn’t skimp on the scary stuff.  Where it comes up a little short is on the comedy side of the equation.

Not to say it’s unfunny, it’s just too low key and it leans too heavily on Irish stereotypes that wouldn’t have been out of place in THE QUIET MAN.  I got smiles and chuckles, when the high-concept TREMORS meets WHISKEY GALORE! premise should have delivered belly laughs.  In one scene, there seems to be a clear homage to the bar scene from GREMLINS, and GRABBERS could have used some more GREMLINS or EVIL DEAD – style anarchic energy.

Still, having said all that, there’s a lot to like here.  This is a charming film directed with visual intelligence and features some fine drunk acting.  Cheers!

8: COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES (UK 2012) – Dir. Mattias Hoene

A zombie plague is unleashed in the East End of London, as a half-baked robbery plot unravels.  Ground zero is a retirement home, where Alan Ford, Honor Blackman and Richard Briers are besieged by the undead.  But the bank robbing younger generation are coming to the rescue.

A zombie-comedy mash-up with Cockney gangster movies of the LOCK STOCK & 2 SMOKING BARRELS ilk, this material is very much in the comfort zone of SEVERANCE writer James Moran. Like SEVERANCE, it’s also laugh out loud funny in places.

As with most comedic zombie tales from the last decade, COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES treads very heavily in the (now well-stomped) footsteps of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s SHAUN OF THE DEAD.  Like SHAUN OF THE DEAD, Matthias Hoene’s film is content to trot out the usual Romero rules: slow-moving zombies who can only be destroyed with a head shot etc. No questioning of tropes or visual inventiveness like you find in ZOMBIELAND, or even some minor genre entries like DANCE OF THE DEAD.  However, to the film’s credit, it does find room for the Romero-ism that modern films normally bin first: satire.  It’s a little heavy-handed, but it’s there in scenes like the meeting of the two ‘firms’.

COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES is at times very funny and boasts a hilarious scene with Richard Briers which is the equal of any of the humorous set-pieces in SHAUN OF THE DEAD.   Where it falls down is in the final third.  James Moran clearly loves his characters, and where SHAUN OF THE DEAD is tough enough to follow through on the consequences of zombie attacks on its characters, COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES isn’t.  To use its own vernacular, Moran is guilty of being a ‘soppy tart’, but it’s difficult to take against a film so intent on making sure its audience is ‘’avin’ a bubble’.

7: OUTPOST: BLACK SUN (UK 2012) – Dir. Steve Barker

Nazi zombies attack… again.  Modern mercenaries die… again.  But this time a modern day Nazi-hunter is on the trail of the Frankenstein who created these particular monsters.

The original OUTPOST was a hit on DVD/Blu-ray, being an effective sober take on the Nazi zombie sub-genre with nice character turns from the likes of Michael Smiley.  It was a pleasant surprise, thankfully taking more cues from the underrated gem that is THE BUNKER, than schlock like SHOCKWAVES or ZOMBIE LAKE.  So how does the sequel compare?  Will it reign for a thousand years or be forgotten in as many seconds?

This film is a model of competence.  Steve Barker’s competent direction, competent acting from Richard Coyle (second appearance from him in the top ten), Catherine Steadman and (the ever reliable) Clive Russell, an effective score and an efficient script.  Only the subtle cinematography of Darran Tiernan, who gives each room in the underground complex it’s very own monochromatic shade, ups the game.  However, as any seasoned genre fan knows, competence is a much rarer quality in horror than we would like.  Competence in sequels?  Rarer still.

Much anticipated sequels to British horror successes, have not rewarded fans in recent years, with THE DESCENT 2 and THE WICKER TREE both disappointing.  I found myself questioning whether my largely positive reaction to this film was due to going in with lowered expectations because of that.  I don’t think so.  Ultimately, the best thing one can say about OUTPOST: BLACK SUN, is that it makes you look forward to OUTPOST 3.

6: THE ARRIVAL OF WANG (Italy 2011) – Dir. The Manetti Bros.

An interpreter (Francesca Cuttica) gets embroiled into a government conspiracy when she is blindfolded and taken to a secret underground location to aid in the interrogation of a mysterious foreign national.

My review of THE ARRIVAL OF WANG in two sentences:

I love this movie.  I hate this movie.

How do I explain that radical dichotomy?  Not since I saw Bill Paxton’s FRAILTY or Alexander Aja and Gregory Levasseur’s SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE have I had such an up/down experience with a movie.  A movie where I loved the main body of the story and hated the ending.  Now, when I say hate, I mean – bury it up to its jam smeared head in the desert and watch while fire-ants eat its eyeballs – hate (and I’ve calmed down since I watched it).

A good twist ending, is one that in retrospect seems inevitable.  That makes you replay the whole movie in your head and see with new eyes those clues the filmmakers had cunningly hidden in plain sight.  When it works – a good twist ending elevates the whole movie.

A bad twist ending has the opposite effect.  It’s like a really bad punchline to a joke.  It leaves you wincing, and angry that the joke-teller has wasted your time.  Sometimes it destroys the whole logic of the story, other times it just flips characterisations and story themes on their head.  In case you’ve not picked up the hint – sadly THE ARRIVAL OF WANG falls heavily into this second category.

So why am I still (with a very heavy caveat) recommending it?  Because two-thirds of the movie is an intelligent sci-fi trip into the TWILIGHT ZONE, examining our attitudes to immigration and to the interrogation of suspected terrorists.

Unfortunately the ending undermines all of that, and grossly insults its lead protagonist to boot.  However, even if the final arrival is a huge betrayal, the journey of WANG up until that point is a worthwhile one.  Approach with caution though…

Coming Up: Clive’s Top 5, and a surprise at number 1! Don’t miss it, fear fans.

Mean Streets: X&HT Saw End Of Watch

David Ayer’s gritty cop drama puts us right at the heart of the action, and delivers an innovative new take on the old cliches.

On the face of it, there’s nothing particularly clever about the set-up of End Of Watch. It’s a fly-on-the-wall doco-style movie that follows two cops as they go about their duties in the blighted South Central region of Los Angeles. There are a few laughs, some drama, some gunfights, some tragedy.

The art of the film is in the way Ayer integrates mini-cam, dash-cam and Handycam footage into the film. It’s not exclusively shot that way, thank gawd. This is not a tiresome found-footage film. Ayer doesn’t sweat his central conceit–that hero cop Brian Taylor, played with bluff, alpha-male charm by Jake Gyllenhaal, is making a film about his experiences on the streets of South Central. It blends hi-def video with a wide range of lower-res sources to piece together a nuanced and frequently lovely view of the City Of Angels. He drops in footage from covert night vision stake-outs and material from the gangs that come to dog Taylor’s every move. Everyone is surveilling everyone else. There’s no need to be a fly on the wall anymore, because all the walls are made of glass.

Privacy has become a fluid and frequently pointless luxury in Taylor’s world. He’s happy to shove a camera in his colleague’s faces despite their obvious discomfort. But his life is subject to the same sort of unconscious openness. His girlfriend Janet (a lovely, unaffected Anna Kendrick) cheerfully goes through his wallet, removing his booty call list with a blithe “You won’t be needing that anymore.” The gang-bangers that target him for termination seem to have no problem in finding out where he and his partner are patrolling. In End Of Watch, secrets are almost redundant.

The relationship at the heart of the film is that between Taylor and his partner, Mike Zavala, a robust and sharply funny Michael Peña. The declarations of brotherhood, of the way that they swear to look after each other’s families if anything should happen are, to be honest, laid on so thickly that it gets a bit tiresome. The improvised scenes of the two cruising the streets and bullshitting make their devotion perfectly clear. These are, to my mind, the standout moments of the film, and Oscar rumours are already, deservedly, circling around the pair. The two of them have a future in stand-up comedy if they ever get tired with the acting gig.

End Of Watch works as both brutal, gory cop drama (Ayer doesn’t flinch away from some truly disturbing moments) and a wry, observant study into the lives of these cops on the frontline. The performances are uniformly excellent, and the story, although it ambles around some, still comes to a satisfying if devastatingly sad ending. It’s heavily telegraphed, but it’s a testament to the skill of Peña and Gyllenhaal, that you really don’t want end Of Watch to end in the tragic, inevitable way that it does. By putting us right in the middle of the action, End Of Watch puts you through the wringer in a way that few cop dramas manage these days.

End Of Watch is released in the UK on November 23rd. For further perspective, allow me to direct you to Kate’s take over on Moviebrit.

10 Years and 24 Hours

An anniversary has sneaked up on me, and I’m glad that I didn’t miss it. It was 10 years ago today that DocoDom and his Sancho Panza, Nick Porter, embarked on a Quixote-esque mission–to film continuously for 24 hours, with the intention of crafting a documentary from their experiences.

It would lead to something of a nervous breakdown for Dom, and something of a breakthrough for the pair of us. Seeing that he couldn’t cope with the huge job of crafting something coherent from the big pile of tapes, I took over the project, logging the rushes and finally cutting together a 42 minute show from the 20-odd hours of material. It would be the first time me and Dom worked together creatively, a partnership that continues happily to this day.

24 Hours In London is a curious object, a film about film-making, about the choices and the compromises you have to make when you’re on the streets with a camera. By turns philosophical, funny, surreal and moving, I think it still stands up as a document about London at a very defined point in time, and an insight into the unusual headspace that film-makers carve for themselves on location.

We were lucky enough to get it screened at the 2004 Raindance Festival, and I’m proud to present 24 Hours In London to you now.

In The Loop: X&HT Saw Looper

Looper is one of those films that’s designed to start arguments in pubs after a screening.

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It’s great to see a twisty, smart and violent SF movie in 2012 that isn’t just a cowboy or cop film in tinfoil. Time-travel and post-human ideas collide with themes of age, revenge and identity to make up a film that I’m sure will be on a lot of people’s best-of-year lists. It’s probably going to make it onto mine. But hoo boy, it’s an infuriating piece of work.

The story is a spin on the time-travelling assassin bit, only here the killers stay put and the victims come to them. In a sharply-realised, grimy and collapsing 2044, Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Joe, a guy that works for a mob from the future that send the guys they want erased back down the line to him and his blunderbuss. Apparently, it’s tough to get rid of bodies at the tail end of the 21st century. Also, time travel is only available to the mafia of the future because it’s illegal.

You see my problem? As soon as you start thinking about the plot, and its central premise, questions start popping up. Like, how come it’s so hard to dump someone down a chute into a furnace in 2088? If you can’t shoot them, couldn’t you just knock them out and dump them into the flames while they’re still alive? Why go to all the time and effort of setting up a force of assassins forty years in the past that it would be near-impossible to monitor? There has to be an easier way than using technology that’s so heavily proscribed that not even the government use it – because it’s illegal, and the government don’t ever keep stuff like that for themselves. Nu-uh. Doesn’t happen. No sir.

So, the thing about these assassins, these loopers, is that at one point they will end up shooting themselves. Their older selves, anyway, sent back in time once they’ve, I dunno, used up their usefulness or something. The bodies come with an increased pay-off, gold instead of silver, and an agreement that your shootin’ days are done. In thirty years, you’ll be bundled up, shoved down a time-hole and vanished.  Up until then, your time is your own. It’s a retirement plan with a very definite expiry date.

But… why tell the loopers in the first place? Their victims are masked and bound, and for the most part Joe and the gang don’t bother to peek. So what’s stopping the mob from simply throwing the loopers down the hole when they’ve worn out? It seems like a lot of time, money and effort, and also gives you a potential thirty-year troublemaker. Is it a way of keeping them loyal and hopefully, quiet? Are you telling me that no ex-looper has ever run out of cash and gone to the feds with a great story about what the mob are using to vanish people these days?

Looper is chock-full of moments like this, where core questions are half-explained or hand-waved away. It’s to the credit of everyone involved that the story motors along at such a manic clip that you buy into the set-up, and don’t actually get a chance to sit and think about the plot-holes until after the credits have rolled. The dialogue crackles and pops. The cast is uniformly excellent, although you will spend more time than is entirely healthy looking at Joseph Gordon Levitt’s prosthetic chin. It’s supposed to make him look like a young Bruce Willis. It makes him look like Joseph Gordon Levitt post-botched plastic surgery.

I’m still unconvinced about a film that relies so heavily on voiceover to get across the important points of the story. I’m not a fan of voiceover, full stop, to be honest. It feels like tell not show to me, a criminal act in any screenplay. Rian Johnson’s first film, Brick, was similarly voiceover-heavy. But there it served as a dry commentary, a counterpoint to the action. In Looper, if you didn’t have the voiceover you wouldn’t have a clue what was going on. That feels like a flaw to me.

All of which makes me sound like I didn’t like Looper. But I did. I really did. I was reminded time and again of the clever, ferocious SF of Alfred Bester, and that’s high praise in my book. We need more films like Looper. They may be infuriating. They may spark arguments. But at least they make you think while you’re being entertained. And that, Readership, is something that’s been sorely missing from Hollywood’s SF for a long time.