Last Night in Soho

 Last Night in Soho

Director – Edgar Wright

Writers – Edgar Wright (story by) & Krysty Wilson-Cairns (screenplay by)

2021, UK

Stars – Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith

Starting in typical Wright music video style, ‘Last Night in Soho’ plunges headfirst into the Sixties vibe and never lets up. There will be a shedload of Swinging Sixties hits, with the obviousness and delights of The Searcher’s ‘Don’t Throw Your Love Away’ and Sandie Shaw’s ‘Puppet on a String’ (not even trying to be subtext) not the least; the film is giddy with them, and if you are suckered in immediately by the vertiginous melodramas of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich’s eponymous track, or ‘Downtown’, then that’s sure to set the film’s place in your affections.  Indeed, it takes a moment to realise that this is set in the modern world because our protagonist Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) is obsessed with the Swinging Sixties (it was the I don’t think Wimpy’s exist anymore line that clued me in). There’s even Rita Tushingham present and correct.

It’s a fine piece of entertainment due to style, even if I suspect its full-blown Sixties homage masks the fact that it’s longer than its horror content warrants. There’s lot of razzle-dazzle here, a lot of fun if you frequent London and find yourself trying to recognise side streets – but. 

From the start it’s an obvious confection, almost cartoonish in its broad strokes and veneer with giallo’s passing glance at realism. No matter how effectively Thomasin Mackenzie emotes for sympathy and Ana Taylor-Joy vamps, and Matt Smith delights with his groove onto the dancefloor, there’s no escaping the dents of bad writing. Don’t expect a realistic portrayal of fashion school life, or romance, for example. Wannabe love interest Michael Ajao’s John has no other character but to fawn after Eloise (Mackenzie), even when dangerous hysteria and assault enter the equation. Diana Rigg, in her final role, and Terence Stamp give poise and gravitas while the youngsters are giving all the flare.

It's proven divisive with audiences, leaving some giddy with joyous horror delights and others totally unimpressed, even hateful. I feel I want to abstain: while it was in full flow, I was curious and admittedly entertained, and surely seeing it on the big screen with a loaded amount of goodwill made all the difference, yet I never felt fully swallowed up. Almost… I find the crucial flaws in retrospective consideration undeniable, and shrugging ensues. Wright does a lot right – the mirror play; the soundtrack; the atmosphere – so there are a lot of surface pleasures. It’s joyful in the manner of musicals, which is emblematic of Eloise’s naïve worldview; but this may conflict with the viewer’s taste in horror, and the horror is standard (I did start to wonder how it earned its 18 rating), despite some nice enough twists (not that you wouldn’t anticipate… and rather there’s satisfaction in retroactively realising how the twists have been set up). 

So, if a joyful cartoon of a giallo horror is something to win you over, where illogic and dodgy dialogue abound; if you don’t mind the occasional plot hole (not convinced a fatal car accident on that side street; an unaddressed assault; John’s ever-dwindling character), then the style and homage might hit your buttons.

FrightFest Online night #3: 'Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes' & 'Sweetie, You Won't Believe It'

 Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes

Director -Kevin Kopacka

Writers - Kevin Kopacka & Lili Villányi

Stars - Anna Platen, Jeff Wilbusch, Frederik von Lüttichau

2021, Germany

And here’s the giallo one. Expert recreations of the subgenre are the norm now, and Kopacka’s film is no slouch. The title font is a dead giveaway that this will be a pastiche of retro-styles; both story and cinematic nature will be period pieces. There is great set design and plenty of atmosphere as a couple come to the castle she’s inherited and weirdness ensues. He’s a dick, barely capable of speaking without negativity or condescension; she’s a bit of a selfish ice maiden. And then there’s a sharp turn into a shock-scene and meta. A ghost story? A disturbed tale of a couple? The difference to old giallo to recent neo-giallo is that the latter is more playful where the former can often feels like cut-and-paste held together by great aesthetic: ‘Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes’ goes all kind of places, fakes out this way, piles on layers and gothic restlessness, and probably demands more than one watch to work out. It's almost like a melding of 'Knife + Heart' and the work of Cattet and Foranzi. There’s plenty to delve into here.

Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It

Zhanym, ty ne poverish

Director - Yernar Nurgaliyev

Writers - Zhandos Aibassov, Yernar Nurgaliyev & Daniyar Soltanbayev

Stars - Daniar Alshinov, Yerkebulan Daiyrov & Asel Kaliyeva

Kazakhstan, 2020

To get away from his harridan, pregnant wife, Dastan hastily takes a fishing trip with his two friends at the same time bumbling gangsters who have upset a one-eyed super-killer are out putting the pressure on a victim. And that’s not quite everything. It’s a very blokey-bro affair, with the main dynamics being the squabbling and bonding of the male groups, but the fun is in the piling on of elements and spiralling out of control. The humour is broad but mostly hits (there is always a loss of nuance from verbal gags with subtitles, of course) but there is plenty of energy, slapstick, absurdity and gore to keep this funny and entertaining, and the guilelessness of the main characters negates any real mean-spiritedness. It's crowd-pleasing aspirations are worn clearly on its sleeve and it certainly does that.

Glasgow FrightFest: 'The Woman with Leopard Shoes', 'The Old Ways', 'Run Hide Fight'

 The Woman with Leopard Shoes

Writer & Director: Alexis Bruchon

2020, France

There’s the gialloesque title, a crime plan set-up and a jazz-spy music that raises expectations of a playful crime-film homage. But what we have is more of an Escape Room scenario: he’s stuck in the room with a dead body so how does he avoid detection and get out using just cell phones and letters that he finds?

The black-and-white helps up the stylishness, and it’s fun just watching the burglar figuring things out. Clues are clearly laid out with other people conveyed only by voice, texts and footwear. It follows films like ‘Bait’ and ‘Sator’ in its wholly homemade quality – it’s a family affair with brother Paul Bruchon as the burglar and filmed in parent’s house, etc, and just look at the credits: mostly just Alexis Bruchon, including the music. Another triumph of vision and good writing over resources. Normally this would be short film stuff, but at 80 minutes, ‘The Woman with Leopard Shoes’ stays fun and engrossing throughout. There's fun in watching obvious talent play out.

The Old Ways

Christopher Alender

Writer: Mrcos Gabreil

2020, USA

It starts with a decent shocker and then we’re with a seemingly kidnapped woman who reacts to her situation as if she’s pissed off that she hasn’t been given the right coffee order, as if everything is an affront to her American privilege. And this is our protagonist And she will be way until she goes native and appropriates the Mexican demon-fighting powers. And no matter what ravages she undergoes, she always looks pretty. It's a chamber piece where they are trying to exorcise her of a demon, which surely offers great potential, but aside from being nicely filmed and a decent demon design, there’s not enough here to elevate it above the obvious and predictable.  

RUN HIDE FIGHT

Writer & Director: Kyle Rankin

2020, USA

Zoe (Isabel May) is a troubled teenager, angry and combative after her mother’s death from cancer. All she needs to exorcise her demons and anger is a school shooting where she can vent and use her all-American hunting skills.  

Again, I went into this not having read anything, but the opening scene had all the cues that this was going to be an action-revenge story and that she was going to kick ass. And it was, although far less crude than that. And because I didn’t know what events were leading to, perhaps I got the full benefit of the patient build-up and clues being laid. As soon as the guy dropped the bag in reception, then I knew it was going to be a high school massacre scenario.

In his Q&A, director Kyle Rankin takes a deliberate potshot at Gus Van Sant’s ‘Elephant’, not understanding why that “arty” perspective would be better than this approach, following a young gal trying to fight back. Understandably, he seems a little ticked at the negative responses, but that was always going to happen with this subject. My answer is that ‘Run Hide Fight’ follows movie logic, follows the expected trajectory once all the pieces are in place and is more along the lines of wish-fulfilment. It has a verbose lead bad guy, typical of movie villains, for example, a dig at social media, etc. Van Sant’s approach is far more troubling for being ethereal and objective: they go in, they kill, it disturbs and feels truthful. It’s about the unfathomableness of the event.

For what it’s worth, ‘Run Hunt Fight’ is the least upsetting school shooting film that I’ve seen. Alan Jones calls it “ ‘Die Hard’ in a high school”, and this flippancy is far more on the ball. Of course, there’s room for both Van Sant’s and Rankin’s approach, and that which resonates more will depend on the individual’s taste. Although Kyle Rankin hopes ‘Run Hunt Fight’ opens up conversation on the subject, there is nothing in it that questions firearm laws or mental health treatment, although these are touched upon. In fact, it comes close to the argument that only a good firearm owner can stop a bad shooter. It’s Zoe’s story, which leaves other victims somewhat cannon fodder for her self-actualisation. If you were looking for something a little less arty but no less troubling, there is Mikael Håfström’s ‘Evil’; if you’re looking for exploitation than there’s Miike ‘Lesson in Evil’.

What ‘Run Hide Fight’ does have is an excellent central performance from Isabel May, some nice relationship interplay, a decent portrayal of its school geography, and consistent tension. It’s well paced, performed and entertaining. It makes good use of surrealist touches like a fight in room full of balloons and a slippery corridor and it’s a shame there isn’t more of this cleverness. As it is, this highly inflammatory and emotive subject is given as a backdrop for one girl’s coming-of-age and resolved with a punchline that was set up in the first act, for which apparently there will be no consequences.

Piercing

PIERCING

Nicolas Pesce, 2018, USA

Nicolas Pesce’s follow up to ‘The Eyes of my Mother’ is another oddball affair and likely to prove unequivocally divisive. But if it’s one thing that seems clear just from these two features is that Pesce is following his own agenda and doesn’t mind being an acquired taste. His explorations into horror are the ingrowing kind, thoroughly opposed to the mainstream. 

“Can we eat first?”

‘Piercing’ begins with a striking montage of building miniatures. Like the Onetti brothers’ ‘Abrakadabra’, its aesthetic is clearly a homage to the ‘70s giallo, another growing genre trend after the wealth of ‘80s reverences. This means it also reuses music from ‘The Red Queen Kills Seven Times’ and ‘Tenebrae’: I guess that maybe we can thank Quentin Tarantino for making reusing the soundtracks from other films a trend – sometimes incongruously.* 

And then it becomes instantly queasy arthouse horror with a twitchy man hovering over a toddler with a knife. He doesn’t do it, but the urge is strong, so he rents a hotel room with the intention of murdering a prostitute. Like performance art, he mimes the murder for practise.  But then Mia Wasikowska turns up at the door and… things don’t go as planned. 

Christopher Abbot seems about to deliver a consummate performance of the meek-seeming killer, but Wasikowska then introduces something more playful and equally dangerous. If not dangerous, then unpredictable. The actors relish turning the tables on one-another within Naomi Munro’s sumptuous, slightly unreal art design. And all the time, the tone of Seventies giallo frames it all, the bold colours, the simultaneous perversion and flippancy.

Based on Ryū Murakami’s novel, ‘Piercing’ plays with assumptions until the audience is in the submissive role of wondering just who’s in charge. Rarely has S&M been played so openly and brazenly with the viewer as Pesce artfully removes one block after another from underneath until we are left as uncertain as can be. This is sly, adult material and very stylish. Steve Abrams is frustrated by 'Piercing' and that's as it should be, surely.  Of course, the ending will be the decider in dividing opinion, but it is completely in keeping with the S&M agenda and leaves the audience teetering on the edge of satisfaction. 

• Yes, I am aware that Cattet and Forzani’s ‘Amer’ utilises the music of other films but that feels more in the service of giallo mash-up that ‘Amer’ is and not in the service of their vinyl collection.

What have you done to Solange?

Massimo Dallamano, 1972, Italy-West Germany

Italian gym teacher Enrico “Henry” Rosseni (Fabio Testi) is drifting down the Thames (apparently) and carrying on an affair with his student Elizabeth (Cristina Galbo) when she sees a murder on the embankment. But he’s too busy trying to have his way to believe her, insisting her protestations that she witnessed something is just a tactic to avoid intimacy (but he does take “No” for an answer, albeit much perturbed). Someone is killing the girls at a school run by somewhat skeevy white middle-aged men, who Elizabeth turns to after some time rather than the police. (Wait: why does she wait…?) The first thing that Inspector Barth (Joachim Fuchsberger) does is to show the school staff explicit pictures of the girl’s body with a knife in her vagina: “It’s a necessary formality,” he says (?) – and he doesn’t even seem to have spoken to the parents as yet; and when he does, he shows the x-ray of the killing to the father (!). Anyway, when Elizabeth is murdered too, Rosseni investigates the murders (as immigrant teachers are prone to do) – which includes roughing up potential leads in the style of tough-guy cops from the movies – even as he is in conflict with his frigid wife (Karina Baal). Well, actually she becomes totally sympathetic and lets her hair down when Elizabeth is killed and is told she was a virgin. And where would the police be without Rosseni turning up where dead bodies are? But he’s never under suspicion, really. And then in the third act, Solange (Camille Keaton) herself turns up in earnest and proves the key to it all - her hair long and unkempt and her finger permanently hovering at her bottom lip to signify she isn't quite all there but yet conveying some kind of broken innocence.

“Only sixteen and surrounded by secret boyfriends, petty jealousies, orgies and lesbian games,” Rosseni laments, apparently shocked and unaware that his own affair contributes to this tapestry of scandal. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were doing the drug scene too." Of course, this also reads like a checklist for a certain male fantasy. Adele of Foxspirit gives ‘Solange’ a more feminist spin: 

"Set in London, but using Italian dialogue, What Have You Done to Solange? chafes against the restraints of the typical Giallo by contrasting the conservatism of a Catholic girls’ high school with the sexually charged atmosphere of Italian cinema."

But I always found such analysis is left a little unreinforced by the text; that it doesn’t align with the mixture of silliness and salaciousness that typifies giallo. All the females here are a response to masculine priorities with their autonomy often dismissed by the generally creepy men: a little more substance to the women would have made this more a persuasive criticism of misogyny, but the all-round shallow characterisation has no gender preference. 

Mark Edward Heuck gives context for Dallamo’s “scared schoolgirls” trilogy – but not to worry if you don’t work out the mystery because Inspector Barth will helpfully explain it all in closing, even if it’s doubtful he would have worked it all out at that point as he’s been pretty clueless all along. What we get is a parade of pretty girls and a ridiculous police procedural that isn’t convincing at all as a killer goes around murdering girls in the most lurid manner. As Kyle Anderson says, these giallo films “exist in worlds where logic in narrative doesn’t mean nearly as much as shocks and salaciousness.” Giallo doesn’t exist in realism, but in an alternative realm seemingly made of adolescent horror and fantasy, grazing against nightmare logic but never usually competent enough to truly achieve this, despite the often excellent aesthetic. Of course, you have ‘Suspiria’ and ‘Footprints on the Moon’ as examples where this does work, but ‘Solange’ is more of that which is fun for the daft character outbursts and dialogue, for the sensationalism and exploitation. But it's most confrontational framing is reserved for the abortion scene and indeed it's whole tone is more like one big tut at the goings-on of the young with a bit of a lurid cautionary tale for girls to keep their legs closed. 

What this does have less of is bad dubbing which is often part of the fun: they are dubbed but the actors are speaking English so the incongruity between the soundtrack and the visuals are less likely to induce amusement. And of course the whole sordid enterprise is given oodles of credibility and atmosphere from Ennio Morricone’s dreamy score.