Grimmfest Online 2025

Well, I often bemoaned that many online festivals had stopped after Covid. Even the London Film Festival continued to offer a few titles online for a while. So I was glad to see that Grimmfest were still doing this. It was a bonus film holiday but at home. There is the panic of trying to fit as many as you can in the time you are given (especially as I had double-booked the first night), but it all turned out fine and to be most enjoyable.

 

THE TREE HOUSE - LA CASA EN EL ÁRBOL

Writer & Director ~ Luis Calderón

Cast ~ Sandra Escacena, Claudio Portalo, Kandido Uranga

2025, Spain

Histrionic and daft, it starts with the setting on “melodrama” and doesn’t let up. There are enough clues and ellipses to keep the intrigue, and for the final revelation to make a little sense of the inconsistencies or at least to wave them off. There’s enough deliberation in the confusions to make this entertaining, but not enough nailed-down camp-cleverness (e.g. Pedro Almodavar) to go beyond exploitation. You may be tired out by the erratic nature of the unreliable narrator and plot holes, although she warns you at the beginning, and the reveal may verge on bad taste, the kind that you'll dismiss either as silly, distasteful or as verification - and you’ll be grateful for big font credits.

WHERE DARKNESS DWELLS

Director ~ Michael May

Writers ~ Michael May, Alexandra Grunberg

Cast ~    Tara Perry, Katie Parker, Kenna Wright

2025, USA

Starting with unpleasantly self-centred media types and potentially slasher vibes, Trish Bostwick – coming from the feistily-breakin’-the-rules-for-the-story school of journalism – sets out on a missing persons case, hoping to make it a bit more than a listicle. Not to say too much because there are enough twists and genre play to keep this alert and intriguing throughout, even if some sequences last too long. It throws in a lot; messes around and then gets out before it gets too serious. It lingers as fun.

 

DON’T HANG UP

Writer & Director ~ Alex Herron

Cast ~ Claire McPartland, Siri Black Ndiaye, Sanho Kang, Brett Curtis

2025, USA

Despite characters and performances that are more convincing for not being overplayed to the point of superficial, and although it knows to dial up with each supernatural occurrence, this is ultimately an average supernatural excursion. Inevitably, there’s a lot of running up and down stairs with a guy in the corner of the screen watching, but there is also intelligent use of space. Glowing eyes in the shadows is its best creepiness. And this comes from the stable of ghosts that are malevolent until they are talked down and reasoned with, which I am inclined means things result in a damp squib.

 

SHADOWS OF WILLOW CABIN

Writer & Directors ~ Joe Fria

Cast ~ Bryan Bellomo, John Brodsky

2025, USA

And indie chamber piece with big feeling and supernatural trimmings. Bryan Bellomo and John Brodsky are excellent, flirty and convincing in an LGBTQ confessional that that besieges repressed homosexuality with a supernatural malevolence that can only partially be reasoned with. As the film is so very strong on two troubled people getting to know each other, the ghostly stuff is lesser meat. Firmly in the gay-is-suffering cabin, but there’s a wealth of empathy and experience here.

 

 

ADORABLE HUMANS ~ Yndige Mennesker

Writers ~ Hans Christian Andersen, Anders Jon, Kasper Juhl,

Michael Kunov, Michael Panduro

Cast ~ Karim Theilgaard, Niels Bender, Frederik Carlsen

2025, Denmark
 

“Adorable Humans. Preferably miserable.”  Four Danish directors update and re-imagine Hans Christian Anderson. An anthology in which unfortunate protagonists have grievous encounters with Faith, Grief, witchcraft, body horror, sex, and the intrusion of unfathomable malevolent forces. Both downbeat and hallucinogenic, bawdy and given to tonal shifts that you don’t quite notice as the Danish sensibility and black humour gives all the tales a cohesiveness. The abstract and unsolvable elements feel akin more to psychological illness than supernatural failure-of-reality, and often an amalgamation of both. Full of striking imagery and the inexplicable, it is an intriguing and fascinating horror that feels like a perversion of the usual fun portmanteau model. 

THE DRIFTLESS

Writer & Director ~ Tim Connery

Cast ~ Ira Amyх, Torrey Hanson, Justin Marxen

2025, USA

If the first tale of this anthology doesn’t lead to too much, the second is dourest and shows that the storytelling is going to take its time with a character to get to its point, which pays off for the third. The first story, although spiced up with a couple’s bickering love, it is also the more flippant and obvious. Like the final episode of ‘Adorable Humans’, the second story here is also about a music maker’s writer’s block and supernatural suffering, and both are weirdly, perversely positive. It hints that there’s more weight to this than just fun-and-frolics horror anthology with a nice location.  The final pool story is like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode for a protagonist unable to get its message, and probably the one that will stay in the memory to be pondered over. It’s the highlight of a bright, fun, surprisingly substantial selection with a satisfying overarching tale with Antique Al.

 

DEATH CYCLE

Director ~ Gabriel Carrer

Writer ~ Dave McLeod

Cast ~ Matthew Ninaber, Justin Bott, Kristen Kaster

2025, USA

Although a promising veneer of a leatherclad killer biker, there’s probably ultimately a little too much concentration on plot and not enough giallo absurdity/excess. Some nice kills, though.

 

IT NEEDS EYES

Writers & Directors ~ Zack Ogle, Aaron Pagniano

Cast ~ Raquel Lebish, Isadora Leiva, Lydia Fiore

2025, USA

Powered by a scenic location and a fantastic performance by Raquel Lebish, once the provocation of the title seems to be about the insatiable hunger of our screens and the darker side of the virtual world, this comes on like it may be something like a Jane Schoenbrun affair (‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’, ‘I Saw the TV Glow’). It’s that too but has more traditional horror intent as well. Coming-of-age scenarios are ripe for the supernatural-horror, and Ogle and Pagniano move deftly between making their points about growing pains and falling down rabbit-hole obsessions before delivering an almost Lynchian conclusion: Is that what you wanted? Impressively and satisfyingly realised. 

 

FRANKIE, MANIAC WOMAN

Director ~ Pierre Tsigaridis

Writers ~ Dina Silva, Pierre Tsigaridis

Cast ~ Dina Silva

2025, USA

Finally delivering on the promise of ‘Two Witches’ and ‘Traumatika’, Pierre Tsigaridis’ serial killer is obviously a descendent of ‘Maniac’, grindhouse (I mean, look at that poster), Eighties satirical horrors and feminist rethinking before heading off into more sun-drenched, quasi-cultish areas. This is mostly due to the focus and outrage Dina Silva brings: hers is a punk, fearless, funny, musical, frightening performance. The songs and disgust at the music business and beauty standards are hers and yet in no way are we invited to think of her as anything other than deliriously, hilariously unhinged. “I’ve killed a fucking fan!” The gore is often too ripe to be funny, but there’s as much outrage as tongue in the cheek, and as full-on as it comes on, there’s a plan here. For example, one of the best gags, knowing what we know, is Frankie ending up with a troupe of gorgeous women. There’s disgusting, outrageous fun to be had even as something more heartfelt eats away at the edges.

 

BAD HAIRCUT

Writer & Director ~ Kyle Misak

Cast ~ Spencer Harrison Levin, Frankie Ray and Nora Freetly

2025, USA

Starting with the obnoxious tropes of Eighties High School comedies, where you know that the loveable loser will learn the error of his goofiness, get a good haircut and conform. John Hughes’ legacy has much to answer for, for example. But where Frankie Ray comes on strong, the flamboyance is never quite homophobic, the eccentricity is just as scary as it is whacky, and the unpredictable performance proves the film’s saving grace. It’s both in-your-face and carefully attuned. Levin is a good straightman, Freetly gives good side-eye, Martin Klebba as the inexplicable “Wimp” is the unsung treasure, and Beau Minniear and R.J. Beaubrun give good popular buddies (Beaubrun is often very funny). Despite its pretence to being as dodgy as those old Eighties flicks where unrealistic dramatics lead to our picked-on protagonist getting the girl, there’s a lot of careful calibration so that it doesn’t fall into the distasteful. But it’s Ray’s show.

Performances:

Bryan Bellomo & John Brodsky (The Shadow of Willow Cabin)

Dina Silva (Frankie, Maniac Woman)

Raquel Lebish (It Needs Eyes)

Frankie Ray (Bad Haircut)

 

Ick!!

Big Teeth hallucination, corpse mouth & eating the mirror – Adorable Humans

Runover Neck – Death Cycle

Breast hack – Frankie, Maniac Woman

 

I ended up finding ‘Frankie, Maniac Woman’ the surprise hit, ‘Bad Haircut’ more entertaining than I predicted (or wanted), ‘Death Cycle’ a disappointment; ‘It Needs Eyes’ had the most resonance, ‘Adorable Humans’ the more unsettling, ‘Driftless’ the most fruitfully entertaining; ‘Where Darkness Dwells’ unexpectedly winning, ‘Shadows of Willow Cabin’ the one I was happiest just to hang out with, and ‘The Tree House’ the most What?

And several of the ones I opted out of, considering this was at at-home-online festival, were ones centred on social media platforms that meant you would have to sit through a lot of people being insufferable, or minutes of texting with keyboard clicking, and I thought that if I wanted to hear that, I would just go on public transport. It proved a prejudice, but I did not feel the need to sit through all that preamble of media platform mimicry to wait for it to potentially get good when I had limited watching time and the server kept not loading and/or lagging with demand. Hey, these are titles I will probably give proper due in the future.

Predator: Badlands

Predator: Badlands

Director ~ Dan Trachtenberg

Writers ~ Patrick Aison, Dan Trachtenberg, Jim Thomas

2025,  United States-Australia-New Zealand-Canada-Germany

Stars ~ Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Ravi Narayan

Surely, we all came away from ‘Prey’ (2022) set in the 18th-century Great Plains saying, “If only the franchise was the Predator facing off against opponents across different eras!” – but it seems that that was exactly Dan Trachtenberg’s vision all along. Updated for modern concerns with a Ladies-Are-Badass-Too focus – the perpetual insistence on this instead of letting it be organic being the film’s weakness, depriving its protagonist of further depth – ‘Prey’s stripped-down gender-flip-the-original proved fun and satisfying. It felt taken back from the disappointments the franchise had taken with the action-toys-mashed-together trajectory merging with the Xenomorphs. And it shouldn’t be undervalued that Trachtenberg centred it on a Native American woman in the 1700s.

‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ (2025) proved an even greater a step forward: if nothing else, Trachtenberg is certainly trying to push what is a limited narrative starting point as much as he can. Having reinvigorated the premise with ‘Prey’, he offered an animated anthology utilising the exoticism of different eras. And again, it made sure the Women Warriors are represented. There was a lot of impressive animation – the World War 2 airplane-versus-spaceship battle being a highlight – although the introduction of time travel is maybe an unnecessary addition. It continued from Nimród Antal’s sufficient ‘Predators’ (2010) in taking things off world and broadening the range.

Having exhausted the Predator Throughout History angle with ‘Killer of Killers’, Trachtenberg obviously had the plan to explore the alien hunter culture. After all, the problem with its predecessor was that it was an anthology of the killer of killers getting beaten every time.

So, we open ‘Badlands’ with Predators talking to one another, but as it is all rooted in masculine Brother and Daddy Issues (shades especially of the first ‘Killer of Killers’ segment), there is nothing challenging, nothing unfamiliar to us. Rather, Dek’s mission to prove himself becomes increasingly convincing so that when he lands on a perilous planet to go hunting, it promised perhaps a silent odyssey of his killing and surviving his way across the planet. It would actually be a shame if humans turned up, I was thinking, so that I was disappointed when indeed a human face appeared. Even more disappointed that it was Elle Fanning as a perpetually irritating synthetic motormouth character, undermining any gravatas already built-up. It does the Odd Couple Funnies thing, and by the time a cutesy-but-lethal alien joined the odyssey, it was essentially ‘Shrek’ for ‘Predator’ fans.

Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi brings the necessary physicality to Dek, and the alien face effects are great and unsettling, however much they try to make him a relatable anti-hero – but it is Elle Fanning that gets top billing. Predators with daddy issues – didn’t see that coming.  And a rote Find Your Own Family message was not an angle expected of Trachtenberg to take the franchise either, for both good and bad. One has to commend Trachtenberg trying to stretch the franchise parameters, although one might argue that putting that particular narrative cupcake in this action playpen is ill-fitting: the sister stuff is distracting, often irritating, and drags the enterprise away from its focus. But then again, this film is not a bloodbath expected of the franchise as everyone is a synthetic, proposing even crossover appeal (in the screening I attended, there were preteens). Yet the limitations of the franchise do feel usurped, first by blowing them all on an animated go-for-broke and then expanding and changing the emphasis. That there’s apparently a long-game of interest being carried out is laudable and still fascinating for fans (the females next, it seems).

The Holy Mountain

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
Writer & Director ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky
1973, Mexico
Stars ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky, Horacio Salinas, Zamira Saunders

A kaleidoscope of symbolism, symmetry, creativity, misogyny, intentional and unintentional humour, dodgy dubbing and random animals. Jodorowsky gets by on intermediate narrative but a wealth of social and spiritual commentary and prescience: rituals, algorithms, false idols, counterculture outrage, consumerism, selling wars to children via games, etc., and – which got the second biggest laugh from the full audience – religiously themed firearms (the biggest laugh was “My chauffeur is not good at sex”). Meanwhile the soundtrack veers between spiritual chants, jazz, throat singing, to glam and electro. So singular is Jodorowsky’s stream-of-consciousness vision and cut-up carnivalesque narrative that it is impossible to predict what is coming next.

 

 

Jodorowsy fled Mexico during filming because of government threats due to his portrayal of soldiers massacring civilians; John Lennon partly financed it. Gregory J. Smalley writes, 

“The Holy Mountain is meant as a Symbolist work, not as unconscious nonsense; but the end user, unable to decipher the film, experiences it as Surrealism.”  

 Certainly, there’s the overall sense that the true meaning of it all is all in Jodorowsy’s head, and we’re just along for the ride. With the story relegated to intermittently decipherable allegory, the audience is left hooked by the brilliance, bemusement and excess of the film-making.  
   
‘The Holy Mountain’ is all at once and in part stunning, baffling, inconsistent, erratic, dazzling, psychedelic, oblique, deeply felt and always beguiling. The quest is an illusion and the point. Film-making as a religious revelation and indulgence, art as the way to immortality, art for art’s sake.

The Curse of Frankenstein

 

The Curse of Frankenstein

Director ~ Terence Fisher

Writers ~ Jimmy Sangster

1957 ~ UK

Stars ~ Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee

Although Hammer had taken the success of ‘The Quatermass Experiment’ as a hint that they should move into horror as a moneymaker, ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ set the agenda. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, updating Universal monsters, Terence Fisher directing and Jimmy Sangster writing, sumptuous set design by Bernard Robinson, Jack Asher’s cinematography, salaciousness and a lash of gore all went to make up Bray Studio’s Hammer Horror brand. Although it sounds like a sequel, ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ is Hammer’s first Gothic Monster, the first British horror film in colour and Fisher makes sure you know it, whether it’s Cushing blue eyes, the multi-coloured liquids in the lab or a somewhat unnecessary close-up of a luxurious dressing gown. 

Mary Shelly’s novel is the landmark in the creation of the genres of horror and science-fiction, teen fiction and body horror, written when she was nineteen. Famously, it was the result of a writing competition between her, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley in the Summer of 1816. Its themes are of existential angst, societal rejection, ambition and responsibility, ego and empathy, running from parental obligation, victimhood and revenge, male ego, the patriarchy’s fear/disgust/misunderstanding of a woman’s ability to give birth (seeing it as a challenge to usurp), and others. All the earliest adaptations forgo the eloquence of the creature if not the suffering, and in this adaption, Jimmy Sangster takes full-blown liberties with Shelley’s seminal novel as others have. He makes it not about the whimpering, cruel rejection of your creation, but abusing it into sublimation, robbing it of agency, humiliating and tampering with it at your whim. Rather than an odyssey, this is a chamber piece about a narcissistic baron, his laboratory, his disapproving best friend and his unaware fiancé – in that order.

The first pairing of life-long friends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Cushing is fantastic, able to exude charm even through his selfishness and mercenariness. Cushing’s ability to treat the fantastical and tosh with sincerity cannot be undervalued. The step into confrontational colour gore is nicely declared with Cushing smearing blood on his jacket (and a find symbol for his bloody obsessive nature). Unlike his co-star Paul Krempe, Cushing thoroughly embraced this in Hammer, seeing it as a fairy-tale world. Cinematographer Jack Asher can be greatly credited with the whole look of Hammer, and certainly the precise colour from the startling close-up bright blue of Cushing’s eyes to that jacket bloodstain turning pink over time. But this is not to forget production designer Bernard Robinson, whose laboratory set is surely as iconic as Whale’s 1931 version. 

Lee’s performance is perhaps a revelation, forgoing the charisma and elegance that would later give him such presence for the clumsy, lumbering coordination of the monster. There is a pathetic uncoordinated physicality that he was not called upon to deliver or necessary after the malevolent baritone elegance of his ‘Dracula’. To avoid being prosecuted by Universal, Le’s creature make-up designed by Phil Leakey is a world away from the iconic, brilliant and cartoonish Jack Pierce designed Karloff visage: Leakey’s make-up is true to the report of being taken from a hanged man whose been ravaged by the birds. It is a performance that dominates despite its comparatively brief screentime due to that nasty make-up and Lee’s natural commanding aura.

Otherwise, Krempe gives a solid but uninspired performance as Victor’s mentor, there is a young Melvyn Hayes, a sultry Valerie Gaunt and a charming Hazel Court, exuding warmth and turning what little she has as Victor’s cousin-fiancé into a sympathetic character. It is through her that the era’s repression of female autonomy and patriarchy’s dominance come through.

Hammer’s novelty was to highlight that, make no mistake, Victor Frankenstein is the true villain with the creature the jigsaw manifestation of his ugliness, forced into life. And despite the presumed finality of the ending, it is Cushing’s Frankenstein that made for a franchise. From a reported budget of £65,000 ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ made a box office of $8 million, a success that led to Hammer’s Gothic Horror agenda and seven Frankenstein sequels. Jack Asher said that Fisher only did two takes due to Hammer’s demanding scheduling. When taken into consideration, this conveys just how punk, professional and talented this team was to produce such performances, elegance and influential horror.