FrightFest Halloween 2024

FrightFest Halloween 2024

It’s funny how you slip into that film festival routine so quickly – eating improperly, snacking, recognising faces, seeing friends, etc. This year, as some of us retreat to the big screen for genre treats, outside they are turning the middle of Leicester Square into Paddington Bear Promotional Peru – and perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems especially busy.

To the films…

Sam Yates’ ‘Magpie’ is a slick, well presented anti-toxic masculinity revenge thriller, but one that doesn’t seem to think we’ve caught on long before the revelation.

 

Isaac Ezban’s ‘Parvulos’ has a similar structural flaw: it is too long and feels it because it doesn’t quite know how to place its beats. There are also tonal instabilities that throw you out a little (no zombie sex in front of the kids, please) and a little queasy quirk about vaccines. Three brothers trying to survive the apocalypse: the young actors give it all; the aesthetic is so washed out it’s often black and white; there’s some nice casual build-up, but it’s all increasingly a little bitty. You can tell it is heartfelt, which seems to make a blindspot to its deficiencies, but it meanders along long enough for the audience to notice.  The aesthetic and the central horror of potential starvation do a lot to make this memorable, but if you’re bored of zombies this won’t change your mind. 

 

Airell Anthony Hayles ‘Advent’ has an inspiration that’s more troubling than anything the film offers (The Blue Whale Challenge). It lacks the imagination to exploit its limited household claustrophobia, or to go for jump-scares, or to make the challenges surprising or disturbing, or to fill the short running time with interest.

Guido ​​Tölke’s ‘A Bitter Taste’ also suffers from being too long and tempo issues: it dives straight in and veers between beautiful visuals and the kind of over-editing that hints at desperate amateurishness. It’s not amateurish, but it is messy and lacks a focus and pace that would make this fun. It has a giallo flavouring, and the wild body-horror of the finale almost makes it worthwhile, but it’s exhausting rather than amusing.

I was probably expecting ‘Alien Country’ to be a little ‘Mars Attacks’, which it isn’t, but it’s funny and goofy. Obviously in love with its Utah Small Town Americana, it’s K.C. Clyde’s natural funnyman charm that holds it all together while peppered with small winning gags (“Chase mixtape”; “Zombies – this far North?”; cops discussing bakery). Endearing.

Yusron Fuadi ‘The Draft!’ is generically stumbling along it’s tropes, when suddenly its title makes sense and opens up a host of meta-gags. Even the score set to “overkill” and a gag reel make sense in context. Surprisingly smart and amusing.

Chris Reading’s ‘Time Travel is Dangerous’ is winningly funny from the start – two slightly daft and self-obsessed vintage shop owners use time-travel to stock their store – but gets lost in a story that takes a less interesting, more self-obsessed and less funny inter-dimensional story. It's "How did we end up here?", but in a way that squanders interest.

Any seasoned horror fan will get where this is going from the opening credits collage. Teddy Grennan’s ‘Catch a Killer’ makes for a thriller whose stylishness belies its B-genre concept, but it’s slick, entertaining, very enjoyable and hosts a great central performance from Sam Brooks. And for once, the romance feels worthwhile rather than performative. I for one appreciate the swiftness of the ending as opposed to a originally conceived protracted showdown that would have highlighted more problematic elements.

It's the slow burn of Emma Benestan’s ‘Animale’ that draws you in with Oulaya Amamra’s soft-and-tough performance riveting from the start. The slow burn allows the etching of the community and character to soak in. If it ends up being more obvious than promised, not realising that it need not be, it is nevertheless fascinating, exhibiting a sure hand and sense of place and culture in the Carmague region bull running context. And what to do with a bull running woman, eh men?

 

So it's the back-end selection that proved most rewarding.

 Performances of the festival: 

• Oulaya Amamra ~ 'Animale'
• Sam Brooks ~ 'Catch a Killer'
• K.C. Clyde ~ 'Alien Country'

 
 
 

Dr. Who - season 14

Dr. Who: Season 14

1976

 

The Mask of Mandragora

Director ~ Rodney Bennett

Writer ~ Louis Marks

 

15th century San Martino by way of Portmeirion.

 

A somewhat Gothic TARDIS control room introduced. Men in robes trying to summon forces they barely know for an attempted power-grab in subterranean shrines continues the Gothic feel.

 

The Doctor versus a sparkler effect.

 

Elisabeth Sladen’s slightly tongue-in-cheek and knowing performance does much to keep things on the keel of entertainment, despite regularly being relegated to Damssel In Distress.

 

Although the mash-up of genres and tropes is what ‘Dr. Who’ excels at – TV-style  historical recreation, Gothic horror, science-fiction – this one is a little average. The ending is also both underwhelming and alarming: the Doctor does a little play-acting and leads the worshipers to fry themselves.

 

The Hand of Fear

Director ~ Lennie Mayne

Writers ~ Bob Baker & Dave Martin

 

The one with the creeping hand. And it doesn't top that moment.

 

How can they tell the difference between a quarry and an alien planet (a nice in-joke)?

 

Episode two is mostly filler (must make most of that nuclear plant or whatever: let's run around!). Episode three ends on a quite unexpected cliffhanger, as far as these things go.

 

Eldrad is a villain with some substance, Judith Paris conveying the confusion, until reincarnated as Stephen Thorne who just thunders around in pantomime mode.

 

And it's true that this season already has a lot of mind-control and possession of Sarah-Jane, so it's no wonder she left with a rather nice end note.

 

Enjoyable enough if perhaps not reaching its potential.

 

 

The Deadly Assassin

Director ~ David Maloney

Writer ~ Robert Holmes

 

The one with the truly nightmarish manifestation of The Master.

 

Tom Baker gleefully mugging "I don't need a companion!" at the camera.

 

The other Time Lords revealed as Elitest snobs and doddery old men. Holmes’ script deepens and sets the Time Lord mythos in motion.

 

A whole episode of that particular Seventies style "In A Nightmare!!" scenario (bombed in a quarry! stumbling through faux-jungle! pursued by semi-faceless hunter! almost crushed by a ... miniature train?). There is something appealingly dated about this – ‘Sapphire and Steel’ mastered the form and feeling.

 

The train makes for one of the most wet blanket of cliffhangers whereas the Doctor being drowned is the one that set apparently Mary Whitehouse all fiery and out to destroy Dr Who (and arguably, with some success: opinions on a postcard).

 

And The Master shrinking his victims always seemed uniquely horrible to me.

 

 

The Face Of Evil

Director – Pennant Roberts

Writer – Chris Boucher

 

The one with Mount Doctor Baker.

 

Hello Leela. One for the dads. Maybe, and even if Baker didn’t like her character (probably thought he didn’t need a sidekick - and didn’t I read he even suggested a cabbage as a companion?) she actually complements him well, however unlikely this may seem. Louise Jameson’s plays dead straight and resourceful rather than just savage-and-stupid.

 

Is Leela the only woman in the tribe…?

 

There’s substance to what looks like a dodgy tribe enactment being that way for good pulpy sci-fi reasons as there is to The Doctor realising his do-gooding has consequences that might lead to invisible monsters resembling a nod to ‘Forbidden Planet’. This and a computer driven mad by The Doctor’s input, forcing him to confront his hubris a little fun.

 

Some decent facing-off-in-a-corridor work.

 

The Doctor screaming at himself is quite memorable.

 

The Robots of Death

Director ~ Michael E. Briant

Writer ~ Chris Boucher

 

Special effects by toys and some superior corridors. And there’s no avoiding that, even as Seventies kids, we all knew those red eyes were made with bicycle reflectors. But these are typical shortcomings for old ‘Who’ and doesn’t distract at how memorable and great the robot designs are.

 

The robot designs hint at pretences of elegance and plushness, but it is of course an early warning against AI and the influence of Asimov’s Law of Robotics always lurks in the background of such things. Certainly, the robot’s uncanny valley unnerved me as a boy.

 

There is also a little social commentary, the kind that vintage ‘Dr. Who’ has always been good at, has always had in its DNA: the managerial crew of the mining ship are just barely useful layabouts, letting the robots do the work. There’s some nice set design by Kenneth Sharp that makes the ship resemble a plush hotel rather than a workspace.

 

 

Talons of Weng-Chiang

Director ~ David Mahoney

Writer ~ Robert Holmes

 

For me, Dr Who at its zenith. The mash-up of all that Victorian pulp creates a delightful concoction: vaudeville, Sherlock Holmes, Fu-Manchu, opium dens, Jack the Ripper, Eliza Doolittle, even a little Phantom of the Opera are all namechecked. The giant rat is an unfortunately lacking effect (best to turn on the new effects option) but Mr Sin remains creepy and arguably even additionally disgusting when we know its origin.

 

Of course, much of this is undone by use of yellowface for John Bennet as Li H'sen Chang. Even so, Bennet gives Chang and almost regal dignity with a great, deluded but sympathetic send-off. And there’s a flicker of knowingness when Chang makes the retort that “I understand we all the look the same.” But there’s no getting past the yellowface and of-the-period racism, or references to “midgets”, even if it feels of-a-piece to penny dreadfuls and the Yellow Peril.

 

But Robert Homes packs it full of great dialogue for everyone, for a six-parter there’s no real padding and just when you think you have it pegged, there’s the introduction of a great Jago and Lightfoot duo. Plenty of horrible detail alluded to, assassins in laundry baskets, a bad guy defeated just by pulling out the battery…

This has always been a favourite since I was a kid, and even with its disqualifying ingredient – which isn’t even incidental – there’s so much to enjoy. A quintessential Dr. Who romp. And Mr. Sin is still unnerving. 

The Beast - La bête

The Beast

La bête

Director ~ Bertrand Bonello

Writers ~ Bertrand Bonello, Guillaume Bréaud, Benjamin Charbit

2023, France-Canada

Stars ~ Léa Seydoux, George MacKay, Guslagie Malanda

 

Intriguing with a science-fiction set-up, glitching across three timelines and genres (1910, 2014 and 2044; period romance, thriller, sci-fi). The eponymous beast is the sense of dread, of impending doom, a kind of suped-up version of the Black Dog of Depression. The scifi set-up is of an AI future that offers us the choice to purge ourselves of past trauma. Across the timelines, Gabrielle feels this “beast”, but will she continue to resist purging her experiences at the expense of painful memories of love across centuries?

 

Léa Seydoux and George Mackay are excellent, multi-lingual and multi-accented, and despite some stilted dialogue they are nothing less than compelling. It is their chemistry and skill that invests the film with continued allure. And the filmmaking and compositions are never less than fascinating.

 

But the extended running time allows time to feel its misjudgements in pacing, or how certain points come to nothing, or how the mystery turns to lack of clarity. Long running times are no obstacle when it’s clear what’s at stake, or when new stakes are introduced rather than just repetition, but when it’s always digressions and running in circles provoking impatience, there’s an issue. For all its elegance and impressive performances, it becomes evident that much of this is muddled: apparently what’s at stake and under threat from technology, somewhat inanely, is a love that reaches across time and even touches a murderous INCEL plotline (the repeated “I’ll open the door” moment was where my investment was fully reduced). There’s a lot of filler with minimal pay off, despite the screaming. And then ends with a befuddling “credits” QR code that had the audience I saw it with chortling and giggling and saying to each other “Really?”. This also somewhat hobbles the film’s intended emotional effect and its message of Technology (AI) Will Murder (pigeon) Love That Spans Across Time.

 

Peter Bradshaw talks of the film’s eroticism, but whatever tension of repressed sexuality there is evaporates with the narrative concentration on an incel and his oblivious victim. For all its rudimentary tirade against modern technology replacing humanity, the film has nothing to say about the complexities of this troubled character expressing his grievances through videos. In fact, the wide web of social media and how it facilitates such toxic entitlement is suspicious by its absence. This gives the impression that Bonello is cherry-picking. Even Bradshaw’s positive review is reduced to, “The Beast may not add up to a cogent or thoroughgoing critique of all the ideas it invokes, but it’s such a luxurious cinematic experience.” For all Gabrielle’s talk of “the beast”, doom and dread were not sensations provoked in the languid pacing.

 

 

A film like ‘The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ takes a sci-fi inflected idea of future romance to genuinely moving effect, but for all its sudden lurch to despair, ‘Beast’s emotional throughline isn’t clear or touching. The spectrum of characters in ‘Blade Runner 2029’ offers a far more thoughtful textured argument about AI in our future lives, however far-flung it may be. Wong Kar-Wai ‘2026’ conjures a more substantial and convincing drifting daydream of romance across time. Of the three timelines in ‘The Beast’, the 1910 period romance is the most satisfying, stirring up feeling. The tour of a doll factory is an enjoyable digression that ends with the fire-and-flood high point, whereas by comparison much of the 2014 stalker-thriller feels like padding, and the 2044 sci-fi just shrugs into a Lynchian homage.

 

The 2014 stalker section squanders the romantic conviction of the 1910 sequence and the 2044 section doesn’t amount to enough to redeem. It’s not the prolonged running time that makes it feel so long but the sense that any greatness is evaporating in arthouse indulgence before your very eyes.