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.
