"Homemade & Heartburnt" - new Buck Theorem EP

Here is my new EP, "Homemade & Heartburnt", written for and made to coincide with the session I wrote for the Homebrew Electronica podcast. It was very, very nice to be invited by Kev [the Homebrew host] to contribute a session, so I wrote some new stuff.

Rock-n-roll electro-horror. Some anxiety oversensitivity dancing. A Soma Pipe version of an older track, a fake soundtrack instrumental and a straight-up ambient track. Oh, and a Godley & Creme cover.

And here's the link to the whole Homebrew show (I start at around 40 minutes in). It's always stuffed with good and varied stuff, spanning the breadth of what electronic music is and can do.

The House

The House

Writers/directors:

Emma De Swaef (segment I: And Heard Within a Lie Is Spun)

Paloma Baeza (segment III: Listen Again and Seek the Sun)

Niki Lindroth von Bahr (segment II: Then Lost Is Truth That Can't Be Won)

2022 – UK, USA

Stars/voices – Mia Goth, Matthew Goode, Claudie Blakley, Jarvis Cocker

 

A fascinating trilogy of animated oddities taking place in the same house, but independent of one another. The ominous forces at work in the first tale are not those in the others, for example. But thematically, they are bonded by the fact that the house and the stories are propelled by money angst.

 

Firstly, the house in the past is the plaything of a feudal omnipresent power that takes everything you have and turns you into your work. There is genuine, gleeful Gothic eeriness here and the kind of absurdism that only animation can get away with.

 

Secondly, the house that promises yuppie opportunity can’t quite hide its flaws, or lonliness. The world now seems to be owned by anthropomorphic rats, and protagonist rat is one with financial ambitions for the house. It’s going to make him a heap of money when he sells it. But something more ominous has other plans. The object of your greed will move in and consume you and you’ll barely be in control. Perhaps the most abstract episode of the trilogy and moving from Gothic horror to the horror of discomfort and failing.

 

Thirdly, the house is the last refuge in a flooded post-disaster world. The cats have taken over now and, despite a ravaged world where they no longer know if anything is out there, our cat protagonist insists on living on the old ways, of playing the part of a determined landlord and aiming to get more money to fix up the place. The lesson she must learn is to let go of her money-based worries and take a chance on the unknown. If it’s message of achieving independence is congenial, it’s method of reaching this via self-help caricatures may not be so convincing. Of the trilogy, this is the most obvious entry, but relies on and has plenty of bright, low-key charm.

 

The segment titles imply a thought-out premise holding it all together. the exploitation of the worker; the delusion of personal aspiration; the need to move onto something unknown but genuinely freeing.

 

There is a consistently agreeable oddness throughout the shifts in tone between segments, so that it does feel like a whole meal and not just differing treats. The attention to detail, amazing set-designs and craftmanship are often stunning, as you might expect from a stop-motion endeavour that is obviously a labour of love (the fish tank was a particular highlight for me). But it was how the whole enterprise was phenomenally lit that constantly took my breath away. An uncanny delight that keeps a hold of its mysteries.

 

And Jarvis Cocker too.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Director – John Newland

Writer – Nigel McKeand

1973 - USA

Stars – Kim Darby, Jim Hutton, Barbara Anderson

 

From the opening musical sting and the freeze-frame black cat credits, you know you’re in the Seventies. This is the TV movie whose legend has persisted through a certain generation as a minor classic. A kindertrauma of renown; indeed, “one of the scariest made-for-TV horror filmsof the 20th century.” (I’ll reserve the accolade for “the most” to ‘Salem’sLot’.) And this datedness is part of the appeal, from the casting and acting and set design, etc.

 

Kim Darby gives a somewhat underwhelming performance as the housewife who’s starting to feel second place to her husband’s ambition. Typically, she’ll go shopping with friends and gripe about their husbands. However, Darby’s lethargy does convey a neglected woman whose discontent manifests as homunculi in the sealed-up chimney she insists upon opening, whispering her name. There’s lots of comic book colouring amongst the shadows – greens and purples – sinister muttering, some male condescension, and the little creatures come across as predecessors for ‘The Gate’. The monsters are like malevolent pranksters whose stony visages have their own ability to inscribe on the imagination in a way that more realistic creatures couldn’t. And they have that “something in the house is out to get me” vibe that, admittedly, is abetted by the characters’ inefficiency with light switches.

 

It has a lot of retro-appeal, a little Seventies Gothicism and spookiness and a surprisingly downbeat ending in that the discontent ultimately triumphs, despite her husband realising too late that he needs to pay attention. In this way, like ‘Something Evil’, it’s a creepy minor and memorable horror about supernatural manifestations of a woman’s unhappy stagnation in a traditional second fiddle housewife role. And therefore a little more subversive than its TV movie context and simple surface scares might imply.

Frightfest 2022 day 5: "Piggy", "Terrifier 2", "Burial", "Barbarian", "Fall"

Piggy

Director: Carlota Pereda.

With: Claudia Salas, Pilar Castro, Carmen Machi, Fernando Delgado-Hierro.

Spain 2022. 90 mins.

The blood-drenched poster, although true to the film, perhaps implies a straightforward revenge-of-the-bullied flick, and although it's that too, 'Piggy' comes more from the long heritage of touching, rambling and empathic bildungsroman. Laura Galán’s performance is compelling as our bullied and put-upon heroine finds her Id unleashed in the form of a serial killer that takes a shine to her. There's then her moral dilemma of if she allows vengeance by proxy, thereby investigating the very revenge sub-genre we are in. If it ultimately doesn't challenge too much, it's a strong, self-aware drama whose move into genre shocks aren't necessarily celebratory and certainly not exploitative.

Terrifier 2

Director: Damien Leone.

With: Lauren LaVera, Owen Myre,

David Howard Thornton, Sarah Voight.

USA 2022. 140 mins.

Probably what non-horror fans think horror is: over two hours of sadism and outrageous gore with a magic sword get-out clause.

Burial

Director: Ben Parker.

With: Harriet Walter, Tom Felton,

Charlotte Vega, Bill Milner.

UK 2022. 95 mins.

A fine World War II that I expected to be a vampire flick, maybe, for a moment, but isn't. Rather, it's a solid wartime drama set in a horror landscape - coffin, woods, shadow-monster and isolated taverns. The tone is suitably austere but not drab and desperate, the performances good, the action decent too if occasionally lost in the shadows.

Barbarian

Director: Zach Cregger.

With: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Kurt Braunohler.

USA 2022. 102 mins.

As this film is especially best served cold, I will just leave it at: it’s good and brilliantly gamed.

(I'll probably write about it properly later...)

Fall

Director: Scott Mann.

With: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Grace Fulton, Virginia Gardner,

Mason Gooding.

USA 2022. 107 mins.

Aside from the dopiness of the character behaviour (don't tell anyone where you're going? maybe don't climb when it's so rusty?) and the predictability of the drama, its vertiginous thrills are entertaining.

____________

And so it was nice to be back in person at the festival. I made new friends. I realise that most/many of the audience were probably podcasters/bloggers/journalists. Horror-fantasy-science fiction  brings with it the most devoted crowd... nothing quite bonds people like genre films. 

I bumped into the guy outside dressed like The Terrifier, apologised and said "Don't kill me!" (but I don't think he heard me). This was just after I had seen a small cocky boy walk by and shout at The Terrifier "You're not a very scary clown!" And I thought "You haven't seen the film, kid!" 

I came to the conclusion that horror and arthouse fans are probably the most cine-literate and savvy.

I was bowled over when Neil Hannon turned up (I am a fan) and discussed with my neighbour how alternative reality films really reinterpret pop-culture via music in that way. This was regarding 'Lola', which was just as heady and stuffed full of ideas as 'Something in the Dirt'.

As usual, the films I expected least from turned out to be gems. The opening of "the Traveller from the Future" had everyone laughing. And "Deathstream" turned out to be my particular unexpected favourite in that it was so funny and well-written and genuinely unnerved me all at the same time. I look forward to seeing it again to catch the one-liners and onsceen social media comments that I missed fist time round. "Candy Land" impressed. I gleefully enjoyed the revelations of "Barbarian". 

Then I left two vinyl albums behind (Kate Bush's 'The Hounds of Love' and Portishead's 'Dummy', which I already have but seemed to need on vinyl) and had to return to the Empire only to find the cinema was closed up because of a 'Rings of Power' premier. So I had to wait a couple of hours before security would let me speak to someone to retrieve my goodies.

Anyway, again, day after day where all you are required to do is watch films and dash to find something to eat... I'll be back next year.