"Homemade & Heartburnt" - new Buck Theorem EP

Here is my new EP, "Homemade & Heartburnt", written for and made to coincide with the session I wrote for the Homebrew Electronica podcast. It was very, very nice to be invited by Kev [the Homebrew host] to contribute a session, so I wrote some new stuff.

Rock-n-roll electro-horror. Some anxiety oversensitivity dancing. A Soma Pipe version of an older track, a fake soundtrack instrumental and a straight-up ambient track. Oh, and a Godley & Creme cover.

And here's the link to the whole Homebrew show (I start at around 40 minutes in). It's always stuffed with good and varied stuff, spanning the breadth of what electronic music is and can do.

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.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Director – John Newland

Writer – Nigel McKeand

1973 - USA

Stars – Kim Darby, Jim Hutton, Barbara Anderson

 

From the opening musical sting and the freeze-frame black cat credits, you know you’re in the Seventies. This is the TV movie whose legend has persisted through a certain generation as a minor classic. A kindertrauma of renown; indeed, “one of the scariest made-for-TV horror filmsof the 20th century.” (I’ll reserve the accolade for “the most” to ‘Salem’sLot’.) And this datedness is part of the appeal, from the casting and acting and set design, etc.

 

Kim Darby gives a somewhat underwhelming performance as the housewife who’s starting to feel second place to her husband’s ambition. Typically, she’ll go shopping with friends and gripe about their husbands. However, Darby’s lethargy does convey a neglected woman whose discontent manifests as homunculi in the sealed-up chimney she insists upon opening, whispering her name. There’s lots of comic book colouring amongst the shadows – greens and purples – sinister muttering, some male condescension, and the little creatures come across as predecessors for ‘The Gate’. The monsters are like malevolent pranksters whose stony visages have their own ability to inscribe on the imagination in a way that more realistic creatures couldn’t. And they have that “something in the house is out to get me” vibe that, admittedly, is abetted by the characters’ inefficiency with light switches.

 

It has a lot of retro-appeal, a little Seventies Gothicism and spookiness and a surprisingly downbeat ending in that the discontent ultimately triumphs, despite her husband realising too late that he needs to pay attention. In this way, like ‘Something Evil’, it’s a creepy minor and memorable horror about supernatural manifestations of a woman’s unhappy stagnation in a traditional second fiddle housewife role. And therefore a little more subversive than its TV movie context and simple surface scares might imply.

Frightfest 2022 day 5: "Piggy", "Terrifier 2", "Burial", "Barbarian", "Fall"

Piggy

Director: Carlota Pereda.

With: Claudia Salas, Pilar Castro, Carmen Machi, Fernando Delgado-Hierro.

Spain 2022. 90 mins.

The blood-drenched poster, although true to the film, perhaps implies a straightforward revenge-of-the-bullied flick, and although it's that too, 'Piggy' comes more from the long heritage of touching, rambling and empathic bildungsroman. Laura Galán’s performance is compelling as our bullied and put-upon heroine finds her Id unleashed in the form of a serial killer that takes a shine to her. There's then her moral dilemma of if she allows vengeance by proxy, thereby investigating the very revenge sub-genre we are in. If it ultimately doesn't challenge too much, it's a strong, self-aware drama whose move into genre shocks aren't necessarily celebratory and certainly not exploitative.

Terrifier 2

Director: Damien Leone.

With: Lauren LaVera, Owen Myre,

David Howard Thornton, Sarah Voight.

USA 2022. 140 mins.

Probably what non-horror fans think horror is: over two hours of sadism and outrageous gore with a magic sword get-out clause.

Burial

Director: Ben Parker.

With: Harriet Walter, Tom Felton,

Charlotte Vega, Bill Milner.

UK 2022. 95 mins.

A fine World War II that I expected to be a vampire flick, maybe, for a moment, but isn't. Rather, it's a solid wartime drama set in a horror landscape - coffin, woods, shadow-monster and isolated taverns. The tone is suitably austere but not drab and desperate, the performances good, the action decent too if occasionally lost in the shadows.

Barbarian

Director: Zach Cregger.

With: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Kurt Braunohler.

USA 2022. 102 mins.

As this film is especially best served cold, I will just leave it at: it’s good and brilliantly gamed.

(I'll probably write about it properly later...)

Fall

Director: Scott Mann.

With: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Grace Fulton, Virginia Gardner,

Mason Gooding.

USA 2022. 107 mins.

Aside from the dopiness of the character behaviour (don't tell anyone where you're going? maybe don't climb when it's so rusty?) and the predictability of the drama, its vertiginous thrills are entertaining.

____________

And so it was nice to be back in person at the festival. I made new friends. I realise that most/many of the audience were probably podcasters/bloggers/journalists. Horror-fantasy-science fiction  brings with it the most devoted crowd... nothing quite bonds people like genre films. 

I bumped into the guy outside dressed like The Terrifier, apologised and said "Don't kill me!" (but I don't think he heard me). This was just after I had seen a small cocky boy walk by and shout at The Terrifier "You're not a very scary clown!" And I thought "You haven't seen the film, kid!" 

I came to the conclusion that horror and arthouse fans are probably the most cine-literate and savvy.

I was bowled over when Neil Hannon turned up (I am a fan) and discussed with my neighbour how alternative reality films really reinterpret pop-culture via music in that way. This was regarding 'Lola', which was just as heady and stuffed full of ideas as 'Something in the Dirt'.

As usual, the films I expected least from turned out to be gems. The opening of "the Traveller from the Future" had everyone laughing. And "Deathstream" turned out to be my particular unexpected favourite in that it was so funny and well-written and genuinely unnerved me all at the same time. I look forward to seeing it again to catch the one-liners and onsceen social media comments that I missed fist time round. "Candy Land" impressed. I gleefully enjoyed the revelations of "Barbarian". 

Then I left two vinyl albums behind (Kate Bush's 'The Hounds of Love' and Portishead's 'Dummy', which I already have but seemed to need on vinyl) and had to return to the Empire only to find the cinema was closed up because of a 'Rings of Power' premier. So I had to wait a couple of hours before security would let me speak to someone to retrieve my goodies.

Anyway, again, day after day where all you are required to do is watch films and dash to find something to eat... I'll be back next year.

Frightfest 2022 day 4: "Mastemah", "Incredible but True", "H4Z4RD", "The Ghost Writer," "The Price We Pay"

Mastemah

Director: Didier D. Daarwin.

With: Camille Razat, Olivier Barthelemy, Feodor Atkine, Bruno Debrandt.

France 2022. 100 mins.

After tragedy, a psychiatrist moves and starts a practice in a small town. But tragedy seems to follow and the presence of a threat in a troubled patient. 

A questioning of psychiatry succumbs to the supernatural. There’s a point where all the style and formal tricks become overkill whilst waiting for the answers. It is nicely made and performed but a shorter runtime would have minimised the treading water which leaves the ideas and potential stranded. By the end, it is a bit too standard, for all its visual flare and/or excess.

Incredible but True

Director: Quentin Dupieux.
With: Alain Chabat, Léa Drucker,
Benoît Magimel, Anaïs Demoustier.

France 2022. 74 mins

Accessible Duprieux comes in a satire of magic realism that doesn’t feel the need to go further than a limited time portal in your house and an iDick to illustrate human absurdity. In this case, how people will go to extraordinary lengths and delusions to keep up gender constructs of youth and desirability. Light, easy and surreal, this is not quite the divisive film I anticipated as it's fun with a little cruelty to spice things up. 

H4Z4RD

Director: Jonas Govaerts.
With: Tom Vermeir, Jennifer Heylen,
Frank Lammars, Dimitri ‘Vegas’ Thivaios,

Tim Mielants.

Belgium 2022. 88 mins.

Filmed totally from within a car, this is a fun and furious thriller that is perhaps ultimately not a quite as goofy as expected from the first half. One of those “One Bad Day” plots where the bad luck just piles on for our petty-crime adjacent protagonist. He and his car must take punishment upon humiliation until he learns his lesson (well,we can assume he does). 

The formal fun and pounding soundtrack and some off-colour gags make this entertaining, a memorable entry in the lowlife farce sub genre.

The Ghost Writer

Director: Paul Wilkins

Stars: Luke Mably, Laura Ashcroft, Andrea Deck

2022, UK

A malcontent writer goes to his late father’s cottage to find his muse. She turns out to be one of those constantly/annoyingly vamping femme fatales with a violent boyfriend and a murder mystery. There’s much mileage to be gained from Mably’s antisocial character, and the scenery, but there’s nothing that spooky to this haunting. And it doesn’t help that the muse is just made of regular stock types, indicating that this writer works from staid tropes. There could have been a commentary on his the tropes speak to deeper complexity, but the writing that is meant to be so great, which we hear in narration, isn’t very good. But it does gather decent isolated cottage atmosphere.

The Price We Pay

Director: Ryuhei Kitamura.

With: Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff,

Vernon Wells, Gigi Zumbado.

USA 2022. 85 mins.

Another tale from Kitamura of characters that think they're in a crime thriller but then discover they are actually in the splatter genre. And even the typical screw-loose member of the botched robbery team isn't safe. Such mash-ups aren't to everyone's taste, but I like a little sleight-of-hand. Doesn't waste time on much backstory, but just gets on with the criming, a little set-up and then the gore. It kind of lets the side down by pausing for a little villain exposition, but mostly it just speeds along. With some death scenes designed to get the horror crowd laughing and applauding, this is fun for those with strong stomachs.

Frightfest 2022 Day 3: 'Something in the Dirt', 'She Came from the Woods', 'LOLA', 'Dark Glasses', Candy Land', 'Deadstream'

Something in the Dirt

Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead.

With: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead,

Sarah Adina Smith, Ariel Vida.

USA 2022. 116 mins.

Another wonderfully heady offering from the Moorhead & Benson duo. What starts seemingly as a couple of guys find incredible phenomena in their LA apartment, which thy then intend to document/exploit, unfolds into full-scale conspiracy theorising and increasing sadness. Filmed by the duo and producer during lockdown, again it’s the stacking up of ideas that engross (morse code in fruit!), but their evocation of male relationships are always excellent. As an vocation of thinking you have something wold-shattering that you can't quite reach so head into conspiracies and delusion, it stands as a striking analogy. 

From the first flush of friendship to the moment where the more you know of someone, the more you can hit your target hen you criticise, they excel at providing deep characterisation so that even their arguing during mid-phenomena doesn’t strain credibility.

She Came Frrom The Woods

Director: Erik Bloomquist.

With: Cara Buono, Clare Foley, William Sadler, Spencer List.

USA 2022. 101 mins.

Summer camp. Kim Wilde's ‘The Kids in America’. Yep, it’s the 80s homage. The turning point from coming-of-age to horror is the high point, coming as a surprise, and from there on it’s a well-done homage of things you’ve seen before, but enjoyable as horror comfort food. With acting  a cut above average and a somewhat uninteresting spook.

LOLA

Director: Andrew Legge.

With: Emma Appleton, Stefanie Martini,

Rory Fleck Byrne, Aaron Monaghan,

Hugh O’Conor.

UK 2022. 76 mins.

Hugely impressive and inventive alternative history filmed with a Bolex camera and vivid imagination, blended with reimaged historical footage. A highlight is the music by Neil Hannon, reinventing popular songs for this alternative reality. It's all thoroughly convincing. The scope the film is able to achieve is wide, with the skill to hand to make it work while formally playing with the medium. Quietly stunning, provocative and a festival highlight.

Dark Glasses

Director: Dario Argento.
With: Ilenia Pastorelli, Asia Argento,
Andrea Gherpelli, Mario Pirrello.

Italy 2022. 86 mins.

We are at the stage where there are not any set-pieces to offset the daftness. Admittedly, I find Argento films unintentional comedies, and this is no different (excepting ‘Suspiria’, which I love). Dodgy “blind” acting; dodgy police procedure; “Let’s hide in the reeds!” and the water snake attack with the following road fight, is notably comedy gold. Unconvincing. But funny.

Candy Land 

Director John Swab.

With: William Baldwin, Eden Brolin, Olivia Luccardi,

Sam Quartin.

USA 2022. 90 mins

And here’s the grindhouse homage. But even though you feel you might catch some some very nasty germs or a STD just by watching it, and even though it’s explicit, it never quite feels sleazy. But it IS gory and a shocker. One of those films that IS the era rather than just pastiche, but with a modern sensibility. Well played and effortlessly engrossing, it’s got its subversive side in that it’s not the blasphemous sex workers that are the unhinged.

Deadstream

Directors: Joseph Winter, Vanessa Winter.

With: Joseph Winter, Melanie Stone,

Jason K. Wixom, Pat Barnett.

USA 2022. 87 mins.

Showcasing Joseph Winter’s brilliant comic performance, this is both hilarious and scary. The relatively new internet culture genre is truly finding its footing, and perhaps reaping more multi-layered rewards than just straight Found Footage. Certainly, our funny internet-celebrity protagonist has to face manifestations of his own fame-hungry demons.

Peppered with many great one-liners and details that reap narrative rewards later, belying its seemingly superficial veneer. The social media comments scrolling are sure to provide even more comedy upon a second watch. But, again, considering how daft this is, and no there is just something inherently creepy about empty buildings like this. I admit also to being on edge at times.

FrightFest 2022 day 2: 'Next Exit', 'The Harbringer', 'A Wounded Fawn', 'Night Sky', 'Final Cut, 'Midnight Peepshow'

Next Exit

Director: Mali Elfman.

With: Katie Parker, Rahul Kohli, Karen Gillan, Rose McIver.

USA 2022. 103 mins.

(Cool poster.) In a world where the existence of ghosts has some scientific proof, a mismatched couple head across the country with the intention of giving up their lives to further study.

Despite the supernatural backdrop (and a fine creepy opening), this is mostly a road trip of two central brilliant performances of an odd couple going through existential crisis. If it perhaps becomes a romcom for horror fans, the characters and performances convince hard, with a lot of humour and pathos on the way.

The Harbringer

Director: Andy Mitton.

With: Gabby Beans, Emily Davis, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Cody Braverman.

USA 2022. 87 mins.

Horror being the perfect genre for expressing the personal and global anxiety and terror of the pandemic. ‘The Harbinger’ starts with standard ghost/demon spooking, but as it goes on its use of dreams and despondence gets increasingly sophisticated so that it becomes apparent that the film is after deeper existential horror.

Rooted in crucially warm and believable performances, the failing reality and psychological threats are layered on to capture the dread and fear of the early pandemic years, especially the psychological toll. It proves itself something truly haunting and captures that sense of being at a loss and losing all the time which defined the early days of the pandemic.

A Wounded Fawn

Director: Travis Stevens.

With: Sarah Lind, Josh Ruben, Malin Barr,

Katie Kuang.

USA 2022. 91 mins

With some formal play, style, psychedelica, and great performances, this pumps colourful juice in the serial killer genre. It’s a kind of abstract revenge and Final Girl flick where the murderer-in-denial is tormented seemingly by a group of performance artists (embodying his obsession with myths). Trippy and artfully done and topped off with an audacious closing credits sequence.

Night Sky

Director: Jacob Gentry.

With: Brea Grant, AJ Bowen, Scott Poythress, Sandra Benton.

USA 2022. 96 mins.

Another slow-burn road movie with good central performances ('Next Exit' being the other), this one is like 'Starman' crossed with 'No Country for Old Men'; although Alan Jones namechecks road movies from the '70s. With the thriller element in play, the narrative keeps moving until the canyon and bright lights finale, and up until then its proven decent if not quite profound entertainment. Includes a decidedly nasty, pontificating hitman and Brea Grant effortlessly doing "innocent".

Final Cut

Director: Michael Hazanavicius.

With: Romain Duris, Berenice Bejo,

Finnegan Oldfield, Gregory Gadebois.

France 2022. 111 mins.

Unneeded remake of brilliant 'One Cut of the Dead'. It wisely expands on the meta by namechecking that this is indeed the French make of the Japanese original, but with very few new jokes of its own it only illuminates the strength and artfulness of that source material. When you know the gag, the first crucial long-take seems to have missed the point - the opening long-take of the original was amusing if seemingly clunky, but clearly timed its errors so that they never quite clued you in to this being "bad", never quite made you give up before its reveal. I am not sure that the timing and sensibility of this version would not have just signalled "bad" or made me suspicious from the off. When you know the original, it is likely to bore here because you know what's coming. However, so strong is the gag that when the second half kicks in, there is still a lot of hilarity still to be had.

Midnight Peepshow

Directors: Jake West, Airell Anthony Hayles, Andy Edwards, Ludovica Musumeci.

With: Chiara D’Anna, Richard Cotton,

Sarah Diamond, Roisin Browne.

In the sleazy side of London, Soho, men are arseholes and women are femme fatales and sirens, all manipulated by the mysterious entity "Black rabbit", a dark website for transgressive sexual fantasies. The film mostly avoids exploitation (it's mostly the men who get the worst here), but with its sinister Russian sex-abusers organisation (which apparently is only interested in the handful of cast that we see, despite a seemingly global audience), undernourished motivation, a little "A Serbian Film" imagery and nonsensical surrealism, it's not as transgressive as it thinks. Despite Richard Cotton's devoted and haunted performance and a great sleazy Soho atmosphere, it doesn't quite convince. (I am thinking 'The Beta Test' and 'The Special' did this better.)

FrightFest 2022 Day #1: 'The Lair', 'The Visitor from the Future', 'Scare Package 2: Rad Chad's Revenge'

 So this is the first time in … three years that I have attended in person, what with on thing and another. I saw stuff digitally, of course, except for last year when they did not have a digital option.  And being back in the thick of things is fun. Here we all are at the huge IMAX screen. Certainly last time, I really, really appreciate not just the size, but the all-immersive sound-system, which increased by enjoyment of the psychedelic-ambient scores of ‘Bliss’ and ‘Daniel isn’t Real’ and, especially, ‘Climax’. So maybe we can lament the days where FrightFest was held in a 1,300+ screen, but the IMAX sound size and sound-system arguably make up for that.

Anyway, great to be here again, just indulging in the insanity of doing nothing but watching films back-to-back for days.

 

The Lair

Director: Neil Marshall.

With: Charlotte Kirk, Jamie Bamber,

Jonathan Howard, Hadi Khanjanpour.

UK 2022. 90 mins.

 

Starts off with some sharp editing and vivid Middle Eastern terrain. In this desolate land, we nevertheless find ourselves in a hidden bunker full of humanoids in suspension tanks, and we know where we are. What we get are decent monsters (somewhere between Spawn and ‘Return of the Living Dead’s Tar Man, and you can’t help but be reminded of Marshall’s far superior debut, ‘The Descent’) versus hilarious Tough Talk and posturing as if the drama has been taken from an army recruitment commercial (is the tongue-in-the-check? Certainly the audience seemed to enjoy the hokey one-liners). Marshall is too good a director for this not to make the most of its low budget, but the editing does get increasingly incoherent and it’s a little to tropey to overcome its shortcomings.

 

The Visitor from the Future

Director: Francois Descraques.

With: Arnaud Ducret, Florent Dorin,

Enya Baroux, Raphael Descraques.

France 2022. 105 mins.

 

Off the mark with a hilarious pre-title opener with time-traveller trying to convince a couple of lowly workers to press the right button to stop a nuclear explosion. This start maybe implies a goofier film than what follows, but it’s consistently funny, including a number of sight-gags (a fight in the lounge conveyed through time-travel pop-ups is a highlight), doesn’t get bogged down in its paradoxes and sentiment and with even some time for zombies. Hugely enjoyable and smart in that it skims over the multi-verse and post-apocalyptic stuff with speedy explanations and vivid visuals. It’s earnest performances help sell the underlying message that the end-of-the-world is all down to human responsibility and individual flaws.

 

 

Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge

Directors: Aaron B. Koontz, Alexandra Barreto,

Anthony Cousins, Jed Shepherd, Rachele Wiggins.

With: Jeremy King, Zoe Graham,

Rich Sommer, Graham Skipper.

 

With a lot of meta going on here, this sequel takes a punch at the absurdity of horror sequels – ‘Saw’ and ‘Halloween’ come in for special treatment – so that when characters are eventually left shouting that it doesn’t even make sense at the villain’s ultimate exposition, that’s a good gag at the genre. But long before then, the gags have been missing more than hitting, with an overreliance on homages to get chuckles (‘Re-Animator’, ‘Hellraiser’, ‘The Fly’, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’, ‘Friday the 13^th’; many quotes verbatim), and the anthology only tangentially relates to the overarching tale. Each of the short films have thei merits - a "Final Girl" parody; even some spookiness to the 'Three Men and a Baby' derivd ghost story touching upon internet conspiracies and gullibility - but even for a skit-natured narrative, it falls into incoherence. The underlying commitment is obvious, but the repetition lets the shoddiness shine through so that proceedings become a chore, even with the hint that something equally celebratory and critical and interesting is trying to get through.