FrightFest 2026 - Day 3

 FrightFest Day 3 

 

Labyrinth

Ryûhei Kitamura, 2026, USA 

 ‘Saw’ style horror with crowd-pleasing ultra-gore, weak script, dodgy performances, and tedious vigilante-coz-the-system-is-broken endorsement. Busy camerawork and pacing keeps things entertaining but it is routine, tired stuff. By the time it goes Fulci 'The Beyond', it's gone full supernatural-fascist.

 

Dead Reset 

Stewart Sparke, 2026, UK

Starts strong enough - time loop; broad villain; practical effects and decent production design - but, having never played the game it is based upon although exposition dumps are expected, I wonder if it too stops the monster rampage for unconvincing romance and surgery? Made with evident love but only diverting.

 

Ithaqua

Casey Walker, 2026, Canada

Benefits hugely from its snow-and-blood palette; less so from insisting on hokey villainous pronouncements, which is a shame as it takes time to avoid outright stereotypes elsewhere. Nevertheless enjoyable, ambitious and interesting, if a little muddled. The background of starvation, culture and class war in an unforgiving landscape give this strong thematic foundations, often looks impressive and Kevin Durand’s hulking performance stands out.

Grind

Ed Doughtery, Brea Grant, Chelsea Stardust, 2026, USA

A highly entertaining anthology with many good lines and a surrealistic bent. Just the right side of zany. Perhaps the delivery guy story ends up the most disturbing and strongest with its anger most targeted at layers of exploitation. However surreal it gets, and however bright and off-the-wall its veneer, these cannot quite distract from its outrage at the manipulations and humiliations of modern work life.

The Nameless Ballad

Federico Zampaglione, 2026 Italy

Tortured genius haunted by a possessive piano tune. Mental health and romantic issues ensue, mostly relying on dream sequences and loud stings to get its point across, even throwing in toad p.o.v. at one point. But otherwise nothing new. Nice house, cute dog, but a film whose lack of imagination is exceeded only by its dullness.

Ghost in the Cell

Joko Anwar, 2026, Indonesia 

Bloody, silly, and often very funny (even characters stop a mass fight at one moment to be confused at the splatter). It is as interested in making its inmates dance as it is in Indonesian political corruption. It also has the most amusingly randomly scored and edited shower scene. Crowd pleasing comedy for gorehounds. 

 

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.