FrightFest 2023

Frightfest 2023 – Opening night (Thursday) minireviews

SUITABLE FLESH

This Lovecraftian tale was billed as a lowing homage to Stuart Gordon and Brian DePalma. And it kind of was – but in the schlockiest traditions of both those directors. It’s got a surprisingly good cast, but in terms of production value this is a pure b-movie. Sordid and horny, but not quite gonzo enough when it comes to the gore and makeup effects. I enjoyed it, but it’s pretty stupid and trashy.

THE DIVE

Something altogether more classy, this scuba survival thriller (a remake of a Swedish movie) was excellently directed, looked absolutely stunning and was anchored by a pair of female leads who gave incredible performances under what must have been unbelievably gruelling conditions. The underwater photography looked so serenely beautiful – and I had to laugh thinking how awful similar scenes looked in the last Indiana Jones movie!

CHEAT

Final film of the evening was a fairly standard “ghost curse” tale, with elements of THE RING and IT FOLLOWS. And though it wasn’t bad, it’s nowhere near as good as its influences. Still, the cast are decent, it’s well put together and the cinematography was quite gorgeous in places. Music was interesting too. I am bored of the scary little girl with black hair in a white dress trope though. Find another look guys, that one has been done to death now!

Frightfest Day 2 – Friday

I missed the opening film – IT LIVES INSIDE – I was just too knackered to make it in in time. I heard it was pretty good, but a bit generic. Anyway, my first film of the day was…

CREEPING DEATH

A bit of an awkwardly amateur affair this one, sadly. It was clearly done on almost nonexistent budget, but even so – the cinematography was horribly lacking. Most of the film takes place at night – and if you want to shoot at night you have to light it (just ask Dean Cundey!)

Half the scenes in this film – especially the crucial action ones in the second half – are so dark and underlit it’s hard to work out what the hell is going on. The direction, cast and editing are not completely terrible, but honestly – must try harder next time.

WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS

This depression-era carny oddity seemed to divide the crowd a bit. It’s a striking film with an impressive sense of artistic vision, but it’s pretty slow at the start. Feels bit like a cool music video that’s been stretched to feature length. Like something directed by a more talented version of Rob Zombie. A kind of mashup of Nightmare Alley and Carnivale. Personally, I liked it quite a lot. It’s weird, arty, some really good perfomances. And some images that really stayed with me.

NEW LIFE

This was fantastic! One of those films that works best when you go in cold, knowing nothing about it. It’s got elements of Cronenberg’s RABID in the story, but tonally it’s probably closer to 2021’s Riz Ahmed-starrer ENCOUNTER. A drama/thriller/road movie with stark horror elements, it’s an amazing directorial debut for John Rosman. Pristine cinematography, a terrific cast with not a single bad performance to be found, and a wonderful emotive soundtrack that reminded me of the work of Anthony Scott Burns AKA Pilotpriest.

FACELESS AFTER DARK

A cool feminist queer slasher/revenge parable. Yeah this was pretty damn good. It wasn’t what I expected. Good direction and a committed (haha) perfomance by writer/star Jenna Kanell. I’m not entirely sure it made quite enough of its premise ultimately, but this was a solid entry for Frightfest.

THAT’S A WRAP

A meta-horror-slasher film set on a movie set? Yeah, I got some SCREAM 2 vibes too. It’s not bad though. The script was smarter than average, though the pace got a bit stodgy towards the end. It’s definitely funnier if you’ve ever had any involvement in the film industry – especially at the low end.

Frightfest day 3 – Saturday

I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed this morning in order to see the first film of the day, which was….

MONOLITH

Really glad I made the effort to see this one. It’s a mystery thriller that unfolds mesmerisingly. With a single onscreen actor, the narrative unfolds almost entirely over a series of audio conversations. It has similarities to THE VAST OF NIGHT (excellent too) and like that film, there’s something intensely gripping that comes from hearing people recalling weird events. It’s got a clever script, that rackets up the tension masterfully. And provides a denouement that I found both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. Very good!

COBWEB

A damn fine creepy horror movie about dark family histories and twisted parenting. Elements of THE BABADOOK and MAMA, but it’s still a pretty fresh and interesting tale also extremely well told, by director Samuel Bodin, who was previously responsible for the well-regarded Netflix horror series MARIANNE. Anthony Starr and Lizzy Caplan play the unnerving parents role well. Starr in particular is every bit as unsettling here as he was playing Homelander in THE BOYS. It’s slickly made Studio horror, that does everything it set out to do most competently. And sometimes, you can’t ask for more than that!

PANDEMONIUM

This oddball French sort-of anthology is definitely a divisive one. I loved the opening setup, of two people discovering they’re dead – and what the afterlife may be. However the film doesn’t really hew to a traditional film structure – it’s the kind of pseudo-arthouse movie that wanders where it pleases. Some parts are really interesting, others get a bit tedious. However it’s pretty consistently beautiful to look at. I sort-of liked it, but god knows if it’ll find any kind of audience.

HERD

A movie about Zombies, rednecks and lesbians, but it’s actually not a trashy exploitation movie. Rather, it’s very much in the vein of THE LAST OF US. It doesn’t really add much to the genre (surprise, surprise – “humans are the real monsters”) but it’s done very well. If zombie movies are your bag, you’ll probably enjoy it.

FARANG

It’s a bit like a grittier French/Thai version of Taken, with a bit of John Wick mixed in. Some amazing fight scenes – visceral, brutal and brilliantly choreographed.

TRANSMISSION

Bonkers channel-hopping tale. Hard to describe without spoiling it, but it’s a bit like IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS by way of THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE. Fun!

Six movies in one day. Now that’s dedication! I’ll be skipping the early ones tomorrow so I can rest up and revive a bit. And get some exercise in too!

Frightfest day 4 – Sunday

After my full-on session yesterday, I decided to skip the first two movies this morning – PIPER and THE SEEDING. I heard varying things about both, so not feeling too bad about missing them. However, luckily the rest of the films that day all turned out to be corkers!

COLD MEAT

Loved this! A superbly written and directed cat-and-mouse survival-drama-thriller filled with clever, unexpected twists and a fantastic pair of central performances. There’s a Stephen King-esque vibe to the story, most notably the likes of MISERY and GERALD’S GAME. But I absolutely don’t want to spoil any of the surprises for you so I won’t say anything more than that. It’s great. Watch it!

RAGING GRACE

A film that is both a brilliant social realist piece about the life of migrants in the UK, but also a superbly tense gothic thriller. The director himself admitted the film came from a “place of rage” for him, about the plight of people in the Filipino community and the legacy of colonialism they live with. And if you don’t feel comfortable with those themes, this film will certainly be an empathy 101 for you. But more importantly, it’s simply a wonderful piece of storytelling and fantastically well directed, acted and produced.

MANCUNIAN MAN: THE LEGENDARY LIFE OF CLIFF TWEMLOW

The closing film of the evening was Jake West’s absolutely terrific documentary about a man who was a pioneering ultra low budget filmmaker of the 80s, but also so much more. The films may not have been masterpieces but the tales behind them are funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking and just plain bonkers. After the screening, many of the people who appeared in the film came an stage and the sense of love and loss, with Cliff no longer with us, felt almost overwhelming. You could tell there was a real sense of family formed around this extraordinary man.

Frightfest day 5 – Monday

Final day of the festival, so I was determined to see every movie I could!

MY MOTHER’S EYES

J-Horror meets Black Mirror in this twisted little tale by Takeshi Kushida. There’s some quite Cronenberg-y about the whole concept of this film though it’s heavily flavoured by the uniquely weird (to Western eyes) culture of Japanese family culture. It’s very stylish and the performances have an icy elegance to them. I was amazed when the director revealed in the Q&A that the whole film was shot in just 8 days! I enjoyed this one, though some aspects of the central conceit were perhaps a bit silly. Still, it gets pretty dark and messed up at the end – in that way that only Japan can quite manage (though Korea comes pretty close!

FOUNDER’S DAY

A damn fine SCREAM-style modern mystery-slasher movie. I quite enjoyed the director’s previous film SHE CAME FROM THE WOODS, shown at last year’s Frightfest. It was a solid – if unoriginal – slasher. This one was better and I had a lot of fun with it. There was an amusing political theme to the whole film, riffing on the state of polarised hyper-partisan politics that seems to be tearing apart the world right now. The kills were done gruesomely well and the ending went somewhere I didn’t quite expect – in a good way.

HOME SWEET HOME: EVIL LIVES INSIDE

A German horror movie with a pretty naff (or certainly overlong) English title, which is a shame – as it’s a damn fine film that deserves to be seen. The first thing that stands out about this film is it was (for real) shot all in one take. Which is an amazing achievement in its own right, but what’s even more amazing is it’s also an extremely good film with a great lead performance and a good script. Being shot in one take – with the film starting as the sun is just setting then slowly becoming night by the end – is a brilliant natural way to amp up the tension. Sehr Gut!!

THE EXORCIST (50th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING)

There’s no point me reviewing this – we’ve all seen it (surely?) But amazingly, I hadn’t seen the newer, longer cut that William Friedkin released in 2000. On balance I think I still prefer the original cut of the film, but seeing the added stuff is certainly quite interesting. Though the weirdly over-drawn ending feels like a hot mess compared to the brutal simplicity of the original cut. Regardless which version you see, it’s still an incredibly powerful and disturbing film, even by modern standards, and I’m so glad I got to watch it on the big screen (a very big IMAX screen in fact!)
Mark Kermode did a terrific Q&A about it afterwards too.

Should I even give this a rating out of 10? Probably not, but you want to know how I rate it in comparison to other movies I saw at Frightfest (disregarding its place in movie history), then…. 8/10 I guess (ducks!) For the record, I think the theatrical cut of the film is a 9/10.

THE SACRIFICE GAME

The closing film of the festival, directed by Jenn Wexler. She previously did THE RANGER, which I saw way back in 2018 (opening that year’s Frightfest!) I didn’t love THE RANGER – it had potential, but I felt like the components didn’t quite add up and the ending was disappointing. But I’m pleased to say that this film was a considerable improvement – well directed, good cast and a storyline that kept my attention occupied nicely. The Satanic gang at the centre of the story were memorably painted villains with a fun sense of dynamics between them. And they bounced off well from the heroes-in-distress main characters. There’s nothing groundbreaking about this movie, but as horror entertainment it did its job well and it certainly worked well as a crowd-pleasing final movie for what’s been a great Frightfest.

So, that’s it! As always, I had an amazing time. I’m sure I’ll be back there next year. So until then…. um…. Stay Spooky, Folks!!! 🙂

Frightfest 2023 roundup

Another fantastic year, with some outstanding films and no real duds! 🙂 I ended up seeing 22 films over the 4-and-a-half days it took place.

Now the dust has settled and I’ve had a bit of time to let them wash over me, here’s my (loose) ranking of everything I saw over that epic bank holiday weekend, in order of my personal faves. I’ve excluded THE EXORCIST anniversary screening from here as it doesn’t feel like it belongs in this kind of list.

1. New Life
2. Cold Meat
3. Monolith
4. Raging Grace
5. Cobweb
6. Home Sweet Home: Evil Lives Inside
7. Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life Of Cliff Twemlow
8. The Dive
9. Founder’s Day
10. Transmission
11. Herd
12. The Sacrifice Game
13. Farang
14. Faceless After Dark
15. Suitable Flesh
16. Where The Devil Roams
17. My Mother’s Eyes
18. Cheat
19. That’s a Wrap!
20. Pandemonium
21. Creeping Death

It’s not an absolute thing, obviously. RAGING GRACE really crept up the list for me in the days after I saw it. It’s a film that stays with you – and makes you ask hard questions. The top 3 were all brilliant films – all reasonable contenders for “Film of the year” for me. But as I said, nothing I saw that weekend was actually out-and-out bad. Even SUITABLE FLESH grew on me in hindsight, in all its trashy silliness!