Out of Darkness

Out of Darkness

Director ~ Andrew Cumming

Writers ~ Ruth Greenberg, Andrew Cumming, Oliver Kassman

2022, United Kingdom

Stars ~ Iola Evans, Arno Lüning, Rosebud Melarkey

 

Horror tropes in a Stone Age setting makes for a freshening of familiar material. There are deep shadows, conflicts in the group, noises in the dark and a pit of bones and remains. The mood is dour and desperate with the wide-open spaces just as threatening as the claustrophobia of the dense forest. Its most impressive and distinguishing feature is the invented language that the characters/actors speak – called “Tola”, invented by Daniel Andersson and based on Arabic and Basque, a defining highlight that is akin to the linguistic attention and ambition of Robert Eggers. It certainly sounds meticulous and convincing. But this conceit doesn’t crimp the pace as Ruth Greenberg’s script and Oliver Kassman directs to tear through the familiarities and with the accent on characterisation. 

 

This is a group not of familial bonds but one brought together by despair and necessity. They are not the usual two-dimensional characters that this kind of scenario can coast on, although the script is clear to make clear how their identities are subsumed by hierarchy and their designated status in the social unit. They are recognisably layered outcasts, defined by the roles they must play and the conflict this has with their deeper personalities. This is then the point, an attempt at a realistic rendition of the brutality needed to survive and at the basis of civilisation.  

 

In this way, it makes this tale of a burgeoning civilisation an introspective, pensive, and credible one. ‘Out of Darkness’ emerges from its use of tropes to make a commentary on the brutality inherent in the survival and brutality of civilisation, developing as a headier excursion than it seems to superficially begin. It’s this that elevates it more than just its entertaining allusions to horror.  If not quite exceptional, a little bit of a minor gem.

 

Dillinger

Dillinger

Writer & Director – John Milius

1973, USA

Stars – Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillip, Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Dreyfuss

 

Tipping its hat gratefully to ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ as it speeds past, John Milius’ ‘Dillinger’ reels headlong into a particular ‘70s style of brutality. From the moment Warren Oates opens with his monologue to those he’s robbing that they treat this moment as something they should treat as a golden moment in their lives to go on  to tell, there’s the charm that makes him an anti-hero. This spell is quickly broken when he essentially rapes his soon-to-be-beloved – or maybe they just like it rough with that particularly ‘70s misogyny? Apparently, Milius was the kind of director that took guns on set, but he’s fully aware of the aforementioned conflict: he’s as much enamoured with as appalled by Dillinger: “You’re going to like him, in fact, you’re going to like him a lot, you’re going to wish he doesn’t get filled full of holes – but he still deserves it.”*

 

Playing fast and loose with the facts of “Public Enemy No. 1”, (for example, apparently Dillinger didn’t pull his gun outside the cinema; see IMDB trivia for starters, etc) and despite it’s more measured tones, the exploitation angle is in no doubt. This is not for historians. Come for the cheap thrills, indulgence in and a little deconstruction of the myth. Dillinger’s crew features Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson, the kind of monikers that would go down in history and influence the nicknaming of criminals to come. The familiar faces in the cast – like Dean Stanton, Dreyfuss and John P. Ryan – help to root narrative, which is always jumping around, a cut-and-paste of vignettes of the gangsters’ career. There’s a lot of potential charisma in the legend but we only see them in sparse midwestern stark rooms and landscapes, and there’s not much glamour here. This may be down to budget, but it’s nevertheless effective. 

 

 

Dillinger’s crew take on a kind of folk hero status, speeding around in death-trap cars robbing banks during the Great Depression Midwest; Sticking It To The Man. It runs on petrol, limitless bullets and machismo, with a decidedly ‘70s vibe. The FBI agent in pursuit is Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson), the other protagonist who chomps cigars and has one of his men fit gloves on him before he goes in, guns blazing, in a decidedly feminine dressing-for-show, lady-in-waiting manner. And folk heroes they may become, but Milius doesn’t soft-soap the clumsiness and crudity of the violence, as brutally gun-totingly exciting as it may be, so we are in no doubt these are bad men. "Decent folk don't live that good."

 

It’s these ambiguous touches, an underlying atmosphere of poverty and a seeming paucity of imagination from the characters spotlighted that means that, however much it enjoys the thrill of violence-action, the film is as much interested in social context. Just throwing up a facsimile makes the point. And however much we might be entertained by Dillinger’s bravado in escaping jail with a fake gun, we are always reminded of his egotism and narcissism. It all reaches a peak with the excellent farmhouse shoot-out set-piece, and it does seem that ‘Dillinger’ is a somewhat under-acknowledged exploitation gem, drenched in Depression-era ambience and a still surprisingly brutal edge.

 

 

Grimmfest Easter Horror Nights: 'The Night', 'The Barcelona Vampiress', 'Imaginary Portrait', ''Echthaar'

 THE NIGHT

Director: Kourosh Ahari

Writers: Kourosh Ahari, Milad Jarmooz

2020, USA-Iran

‘The Night’ opens with an excellent set-up with a party of friends, effortlessly conveying relationships that are obviously long-term and no inclined to punctuation for the audience; these are people who have known each other a while, are perfectly aware of one other’s foibles. And this continues when the focus narrows to the couple Babek (Shahab Hosseini) and Neda (Nioushi Noor), and Iranian couple living in the USA. Their marriage feels lived-in, no room for niceties, the underlying love taken as a given, the selfish traits and admonishments casual rather than argumentative. He, a little boorish; she a little needling. In this way they feel real. And of course, they have secrets, albeit ones that are well telegraphed. 

So when they decide to stay in a hotel to resolve a marital disagreement, they are prime material for supernatural forces to exploit their human weakness. A hotel at night is always going to be evocative: pretty but impersonal. There’s a lot to enjoy in the slow-burn and perhaps ‘The Night’ is less riveting and more conventional when the situation is revealed, but the mundane fall-out of secrets and trauma are more convincing here for being organic as opposed to high dramatics. And there is enough creeping dread and surrealistic touches to keep this intriguing. 

[Spoiler alert:] However, the final note that you can never escape purgatory unless you face yourself is elegantly rendered and speaks of horror of a deeper, personal nature: one where you can’t escape your self-denial. 

THE BARCELONA VAMPIRESS

La Vamipra da Barcelona

Director: Lluís Danés

Writers: Lluís Arcarazo, María Jaén

2020, Spain

IMDB says “In early 20th century Barcelona, little Teresa goes missing shocking the country. When police start investigating Enriqueta Martí, the "Vampiress of Raval", they cover a much more sinister affair.” But that isn’t quite the plot. This is the story of a troubled but apparently gifted journalist Sebastià Comas (Roger Casamajor) mired in the case of Enriqueta Martí, motivated by personal guilt at the death of his sister. But, like Alan Moore’s ‘From Hell’, and films such as ‘The Limestone Golem’ or Lang's ‘M’, Arcarazo and Jaén’s script is more interested in cultural context, commentary and corruption. Comas’ journalism is soon mutilated to fit an agenda and he crumbles even as he tries to cling to a truth he is told no one wants. The people want the “morbid”. 

With strong themes and despair established, Danés goes out to play with aesthetic: black-and-white and vintage cinema quirks launching into colour for the nightmarish, or red dresses; there are real sets and cut-out sets. Sometimes sets drop into Derek Jarman minimalism even as the affectations of Guy Madden comes to mind. But this is not to compensate for a lack of script and plot, which is always intriguing even if Comas’ doesn’t see the depth of corruption that the audience has long guessed. In fact, on first watch, the post-modern visuals may distract from how solid the characterisation and thriller elements are. It’s premise that unreliable narrators and biased storytelling and corruption make the truth an almost impossibility to reach is timeless.

It’s a fascinating film where all the artifice isn’t allowed to get in the way of a solid, sad tale of scapegoating.

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The advantage of short films is that coherence is not necessarily as predominant a requirement as with long-form. Felipe Martinez Carbonell’s ‘Imaginary Portrait’ and ‘Echthaar’ by Dominic Kubisch and Christopher Palm both capitalise on the nightmare logic that short horror films can excel in. Both are often gorgeous to look at and a little open-ended that will not frustrate a briefer tale.

‘Imaginary Portrait’ is a picture of a girl trapped at home under the oppression of her father and grandfather. It’s often elegantly presented but not afraid of a monstrous figure walking in the background. It easily conjures outrage and creepiness. 

'Echthaar’ has gorgeous monochrome photograph and some vintage pop songs to distinguish it. It packs a Fifties setting, hairdressing and the eeriness of display dummies and jukeboxes into a tale that doesn’t have to make sense, simply beguile. It has a little of that dark, surreal humour that reminds of ‘In Fabric’. 

Matinee - monster kids special appreciation club

1993, USA

Screenplay: Charles S Haas

This era of Joe Dante is golden. Its mixture of coming-of-age, easy humour and genre motifs and spoofery hits my sweet spot, achieved in a balance that only Dante was doing. It’s a miracle and a joy that we got that gleeful oddity ‘Eerie, Indiana’, for example.

Ten minutes in to ‘Matinee’ and you could almost miss that it’s stuffed with so much due to its deceptively light and bright manner. It has affectionate and funny homage to Fifties Atomic monster films and huckesterism, and clearly aligns this to a kaleidoscope of fear: real, imagined, personal and political. Right down to a TV prank about female fears (the joke’s on you). This gives way to announcements on the Cuban Missile Crisis – it’s 1962 – and the close-up on the mother’s dread moves to incorporate her eldest son. Gene (a charming Simon Fenton) is an army brat, resigned to a friendliness because of that which surely contributes to his maturity and his closeness to his younger brother (“Yeah: disgusting,” says young Dennis, taking his older brother’s cue). And the opening is rounded off with The Tokens’ ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ on the radio as a storm thunders outside. This whole world is defined by latent, real and projected, natural and manufactured. It’s a personal favourite opening.

It's true that the song use is a little too on-the-nose (The Angels’ ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ plays briefly with the appearance of Starkweather, just in case you didn’t guess) and John William’s score keeps out must subtlety (I wish The Tokens were allowed to linger longer so the mood of the song really set in; and something akin to Thomas Newman scoring would have been more to my taste). But Dante happily shoves subtext forward. There’s no doubting the themes here, long before Woolsey’s caveman-and-mammoth explanation is animated on a wall. It’s Charles Haas’ script but the tonal balance is distinctively Dante.

There’s a comic book gloss, the kind that sold the USA as the empire of dreams and plenty; the adults maybe a little on the hysterical side, but it’s grounded with the casually warm interplay between the youths. That’s a consistent jibe throughout Dante’s work. This grounding is in details like the jaded indifference of Woolsey’s (John Goodman – Stogie-chomping his way through a William Castle character) actress-partner Ruth (a wonderfully dry Cathy Moriarty) and the barely suppressed worry of Gene’s mother. It’s in Stan’s (the instantaneously likeable Omri Katz, who will always be immortal as ‘Eerie, Indiana’s’ Marshall Teller) male bravado being easily punctured by a far more confident girl, or Gene resigned to loneliness because he’s always moving. It’s heightened reality rather than just movie-reality (for comparison: John Hughes’ youth films don’t have such warmth or realism). It’s a film made on memorable detail: for example, there’s a nice little skit on the UN saying “Hell”, and plenty of mileage out of a former delinquent boyfriend called Starkweather and his hilariously bad poetry (“No skin off my ass-phalt,” has always been a favourite). There’s even a gag-homage to Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’.

Dante doesn’t really take sides on the matter of real, manufactured or imagined fears, although his nostalgia for this era of cinema-going is palpable. Rather, ‘Matinee’ posits that all forms of fear will thrive and exist in one hotbed of anxiety, in peaks and troughs. There is the moment where Gene’s mother nurtures and tempers her worry and possible pending grief by watching old family films of her husband, and Gene leaves her to this private moment of balming her feelings with film. We could criticise him for not going forward and consoling her, or maybe he just innately understands that uniquely private and emotional relationship between viewer and film. And then later in the film, as the kids are upstairs happily throwing popcorn and taken in by the fireworks accompanying ‘Mant’, the cinema owner is in the bunker in the basement, eating popcorn and watching the news. The medium consoles and it inflames, depended upon your preference.

And the movie-within-a-movie, ‘Mant’, is hilarious. These are the patches in the film where satire gives way to gleeful, unapologetic spoof. And it’s always been evident that Dante knows this stuff inside-out: the terrible ‘Mant’ dialogue is belly-laugh funny, it’s so spot-on. Dante’s particularly artistry is in satirising genre while never forfeiting its power. The film ends on hope… the “coming attractions”… but its final image is of war toys in close-up, obscuring the Happy Movie Ending. There’s always grit in the candyfloss with Dante. (And it does short-change The Tokens twice.)

It may have been misunderstood and sunk at the time, but the film has a loyal cult following because ‘Matinee’ is a true Monster Kid happy place. Like Dante’s ‘Explorers’, it leaves me with a goofy-happiness with its Sun-drenched mixture of fear, friendship and film. It’s a hugely entertaining, earnest in its silliness, admirably straightest as a bildungsroman, concluding that, most of all, fear needs an audience.