The third day of the Film 4 Frightfest has come to a blood-soaked close and I've made it back safely to camp. From where I'm sitting now (slouched, in fact, and really quite exhausted from all of this sitting in the dark) this year's Frightfest is already one of the two or three best yet, and Frightfest itself has bloomed into the single most exciting genre fest in the UK. Come along next August and join in, I could use some folks to lunch with.
I want to run through all of the feature films screened in days two and three very quickly. We'll do it in chronological order, and I'll do my best to not let any one picture outstay it's welcome. If you want more basic plot or cast and crew details, the Film 4 Frightfest website is probably the best place to begin.
The Horseman - dir. Stephen Kastissios
A rather traditional and suitably grimy revenge thriller from Australia. The plot actually has two movements, two sub-lists of revenge victims. There's a feeling that we're coming to a close at the end of 'episode one' for us to then suddenly realise there's a way to go and you might be a bit miffed by this, or indeed rather relieved. Myself, it was a little of both.
Much of the film feels real and immediate in such a way that the sudden drops into the generic or overly conventional disappoint hugely. The film always recovers from these troughs, however, and fans of Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Straw Dogs or maybe even The Limey will see similar ground covered with something approaching the same level of relevance and, occasionally, prowess.
Shadow - dir. Federico Zampaglione
Even more episodic than The Horseman, this film seemed to come in three distinct movements. The first is a game of cat-and-mouse in the woods, the second implies supernatural elements and the third is rooted in the current vogue for onscreen torture and torment. Our lead characters are an Iraq vet who likes to ride his bike in the woods, his love interest, two snarly, hammy hunters and what appears to be Doug Jones doing an impersonation of Richard O'Brien but is, in fact, the quite remarkable Nuot Arquint.
Heavily debated was the film's twist climax with the majority of folk seemingly hating it and a handful swinging along. Without giving anything away, I'd compare it to the surprise resolution of Switchblade Romance in that you might consider it cliche, it definitely doesn't quite add up but it does inject a whole new level into what we have seen. Without this ending, the film would have seemed far less worthwhile, I'm convinced - but those closing scenes still played like the last fart of a dead duck. A real shame.
The Horde - dir. Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher
As this was a screening ahead of the film's official world premiere at Venice - that label must be preserved for the Venice programme booklet at all cost! - this film is under embargo and can't be reviewed. Fair enough - I don't want to waste my time writing about it anyway.
Macabre - dir. The MO Brothers
Shot in a curiously steady fashion, skewing towards so-called middlebrow realism, this was a completely outrageous work in many other respects. Two strings of victims suffer at the hands of cannibals, essentially and while the official Frightfest word is that this is the bloodiest film they've ever shown it is most definitely not the goriest - I'd like to see their distinction between blood and gore that allows them to get away with that claim.
And that ends Day 2. Be aware that I skipped mentioning Beware the Moon and An American Werewolf in London seeing as I featured them in my last post and will have a video interview with John Landis going live on the site in the coming days.
Smash Cut - dir. Lee Demabre
This was a tribute to Hershell Gordon Lewis that actually managed to meet many of his standards. And yes, I did mean that as a front-handed insult.
David Hess, here in starring as a film director who turns to real life murder, pretty much carried this film single handedly. I will credit the movie as having a good handful of great gags stirred in with the haystacks of cruddy ones, and Michael Berryman's wig finally dethrones Joe Pesci's rug from JFK as the best hairpiece in the movies, but overall, this was about watching Hess give a bizarrely seductive performance. It wasn't anything like 'good acting', as if that really means anything, but it was certainly a star turn.
Hierro - dir. Gabe Ibanez
Despite a desperately familiar set-up and any number of off-the-peg dramatic devices this was, at the time of screening, the best film of the line-up
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