Sting

 

Sting

Writer & Director ~ Kiah Roache-Turner

2023, Australia-US

Stars ~ Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Noni Hazlehurst, Jermaine Fowler

 

The trailers gave away too much instead of capturing the true mood, that of a likeable but unchallenging creature feature. With a whacky-adjacent credits opening, broadly drawn secondary characters living in the infested apartment block, the vibe is more ‘Troll’ or ‘Critters’ than the recent ‘Infested’. Yet the family trouble feels very contemporary, what with a bratcocious girl and her beleaguered, belittled artist stepdad. Both Alyla Browne and the film play Charlotte (!) as one of those kids that has grown up the end result of a particularly cloying promotion of self-determination, which thoroughly works for her in ‘Furiosa: a Mad Max saga’ but is more annoying here. Ryan Corr plays Ethan the stepdad as from a more earnest family drama. It’s their story, Sting the spider growing as a manifestation of Charlotte’s unruliness and underlying anger and of Ethan’s sense of the small world around him as constantly antagonistic.

 

It's a average domestic dysfunctional dramatics and all it takes in the spider invasion to put things right. There’s a lot of scuttling through surprisingly clean air ducts by both girl and spider but surprisingly little creepiness or scares. Rather, the scene stealer is grandma with the memory loss (Noni Hazlehurst), and the most achieved dark humoured moment belongs to her at the very beginning. There’s a comic book feel, some decent WETA effects, but ultimately feels undercooked.

 

 It’s undemanding and underachieving, unpretentious and mostly just diverting.

Gamera, the Giant Monster

Gamera, the giant monster

Director ~ Noriaki Yuasa

Writer ~ Niisan Takahashi

1966, Japan

Stars ~ Eiji Funakoshi, Harumi Kiritachi, Junichiro Yamashita

 

The ‘Godzilla’ template with a … giant turtle? Well okay. And this time with a sappy kid that can stop a military nuclear strike just by whining, and whose turtle fixation is near psychopathic. But anyway: Gamorah is fascinating and awkward as only a man-in-a-kaiju-suit can be, plus he cashes in with the UFO craze – I mean who anticipated a jet-propelled shell? (and how does that work??) – the black-and-white photography is vivid, especially as this is mostly a dark film, and the miniature work is often impressive as it is appealingly clunky. Despite the kid element, ‘Gamera’ mostly follows in ‘Godzilla’s footsteps as a wannabe serious evocation of post-nuclear bomb devastation, as an analogy for Japanese fear of an unstoppable force. Yet it is as blasé as American Atomic monsters as the initial nuclear explosion that wakes this kaiju doesn’t have any effect on the locals, who surely aren’t nearly far enough to be safe.

 

But consistency isn’t a thing to concern Daiei studio’s giant monster cash-in. A turtle, with tusks, fire-breathing, with aspiration of being a UFO? Typically, there was an American version with added scenes called ‘Gamera the Invincible’, but I watched the original Japanese subtitled release. Most of the dialogue is hilarious; at times, characters seem to be in different conversations, or at least out-of-synch. For example, during the opening sequence, people are talking about how nuclear testing could affect the Earth’s axis, and/or cause typhoons, where just moments before the scientist told everyone that “At this distance, we should be safe from the fallout.”

 

The film tries to have it both ways with Gamera touted as good by little, annoying Toshio (Yoshiro Uchida) even as the monster fries a club of ignorant teenagers (which is all “Hey daddy-o! Don’t try stop our party with all your giant monster destroying the cit– arggghhh!”). It makes no sense at all, etc. There is a lot of unintentional humour here, perfunctory characterisation, tonally uncertain, crisp black-and-white photography by Director of Photography Nobuo Munekawa which gives it the air of seriousness, and at times almost nightmarish. Although he’s indiscriminately destructive and murderous, no matter what Toshio protests, Gamera isn’t really so frightening as curious. Yet for all this, its very goofiness dressed up in serious aesthetic is entertaining.

 

But I couldn’t stomach ‘Gamera: Super Monster’ for more than ten minutes.

 

Murder Me, Monster

 

Murder Me, Monster

Muere, monstruo, muere

Writer & Director ~ Alejandro Fadel

2018, Argentina-France-Chile

Stars ~ Víctor LópezEsteban BigliardiTania Casciani

A glorious oddity that is more aligned with (so-called) slow arthouse cinema than the exploitation or the fun monster movies promised by its title. It veers between awe-inspiring bright vistas of the Andes Mountains* but becomes increasingly nocturnal – those flares-in-the-night scenes are gorgeous. My initial impression was that this was like the ‘Once Upon a Time in Antonia’ of monster films. It is gruesome and ikky, but Fadel’s interest is in the machismo of such an isolated location rather than monster shocks. The true assets are Víctor López’s craggy face and quasi-elegant dancing, not to mention his troubling subservience to his melancholy but surely unstable Capitán (Jorge Pado). The feel is dirty and sad, of people going through the motions, a forgotten community. The sudden spate of headless corpses that appears in this remote town seems only to generate more melancholy, self-doubt and existential male confusion.The only considered suspect insists that a legendary monster is responsible.

 The English title is one that will automatically hook me, taken from the mantra in the narrative (is telepathy involved?). The original Spanish is 'Muere, monstruo, muere' meaning "Die, Monster, Die".

(And if you are intrigued, read no further for best to be on  tenterhooks about if the monster will appear or not. And don 't google.)

If the insistence on obliqueness may prove unsatisfying for some, for the mysteries will remain intact, the reveal of the outré, absurd and outrageous monster will be worth the patience for others. When it appears, all the moodiness and sexual disquiet and repression that has preceded is suddenly resolved with a WTF? This is revealed without breaking a sweat, with all the casualness and downbeat energy that has defined the film. Certainly, all its symbolism – and it’s a more overtly genital-based monster than Giger’s Alien but matches that of ‘The Strangeness’ – implies that some meaning has been achieved, but the monster’s mythological status and roots in the geometry of the landscape means its meaning is left vague. The film isn’t afraid to show this goofy-hideous monster in close-up, and it’s left as an Id of masculine depravity wandering the beautiful landscape unchallenged.

·     *   And if you want more of this, the accompanying short film (on Blu-ray) that exists within this world offers three helmeted figures arguing about “Freedom” amidst drone-electro and jaw-dropping landscapes.

FrightFest 2023: 'Monolith', 'Cobweb', 'Pandemonium', 'Herd', 'Farang', 'Transmission'

Director: Matt Vesely.
With: Lily Sullivan, Ling Cooper Tang, Ansuya Nathan, Erik Thomson.
Australia 2022. 94 mins.

Although conveyed only through telephone calls to a journalist seemingly willing to compromise herself when desperate, the mystery is riveting. Her investigation of sinister “bricks” is bizarre enough material to be gripping. Is she falling for a conspiracy or mass-delusion? Like 'Void of Night' or 'Pontypool' for example, a film that demonstrates that spoken-word genre storytelling can still work as a dominating factor is cinema. Down-the-rabbit-hole horror with an excellent Lily Tyler where all the clues do add up, there’s a little class commentary, lots of creepiness and a conclusion that, even if it goes in the direction you anticipated, still offers a few surprises to satisfy.

Director: Samuel Bodin.
With: Lizzy Caplan, Anthony Starr, Cleopatra Coleman, Woody Norman.
USA 2023. 88 mins.

Above average studio fare, there enough feints and genre-play to make horror fans laugh with recognition (oh, home invasion masks now?). The FrightFest audience also chuckled away at the scenery-chewing of Caplin and Starr as the parents who evidently neighbour ‘The People Under the Stairs’. Thoroughly entertaining. Cannier than you might expect with a genuine underlay of fairy-tale nastiness.

Director: Quarxx.
With: Hugo Dillon, Ophelia Kolb, Arben Bajraktaraj, Manon Maindivide.
France 2023. 95 mins. 

Excellent start with two guys accepting they are ghosts now, post car crash; but then it goes into twisted fairy-tale land about a bullying preteen girl whilst still seemingly referencing the first tale … and then there’s the tale of a mother not coping with the suicide of her daughter… and although always fascinating, not initially recognising this was a portmanteau meant I was mistakenly trying to find links and continuity where there was none. This also speaks to a confused conception when gluing these tales together, a lack of clarity. The first segment has a wit and promise that the rest doesn’t follow, so however interesting it may continue to be, whatever play and despair it may have with devils and damnation, it never recaptures it and a feeling of disappointment remains.

Director: Steven Pierce.
With: Ellen Adair, Mitzi Akaha, Jeremy Holm, Corbin Bernsen.
USA 2023. 96 mins.

 A gay couple just need a zombie threat to sort their issues out. Despite interesting-enough exploration of toxic masculinity in a militia context, it lets its insistence on being a mundane romance drag it into ridiculous and then redundancy - another film that doesn’t seem to realise how selfish and stupid the protagonist is, getting people killed - as long as they’re doing it for love. And when you’re screaming out in emotional pain, the zombies passing right by don’t notice.

Director: Xavier Gens.
With: Nassim Lyes, Olivier Gourmet, Loryn Nounay, Vithaya Pansringarm.
France 2023. 96 mins.

Action movie cliches perfectly intact: when you go a new city (in this case: Bangkok), find a high building, go to the rooftop and take in the panorama. There’s not the social commentary you might have expected/hoped for, and there’s probably too much ticking of tropes, but when it finally gets to the hallway and elevator fights, that’s everything. A film like Choi Jae-hoon's 'The Killer' and even 'Extraction 2' know to get on with the fights and play cursory attention to predictable, familar set-up, but 'Farang' is happy to wallow in comfort-action.  Nassim Lyles is magnetic enough presence and the fights look visceral and painful. And then it’s just silly season.

Director: Michael J. Hurst.
With: Vernon Wells, Felissa Rose, Dave Sheridan, Sadie Katz.
USA 2023. 73 mins.

Admirably ambitious in telling its tale through channel-hopping, providing a jigsaw narrative, but the core story of a filmmaker pursuing occult fascinations for apocalyptic ends is old hat and not distinctive enough. It can be hard to distinguish between the intentionally and unintentionally bad acting and the digital sheen does not suit all formats being homaged, so despite some impressive sci-fi effects, it occasionally looks unintentionally cheap.