Directed by: Jack Sholder
Written by: David Chaskin
Music by: Christopher Young

Starring: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Robert Englund

Taglines: “The first name in terror returns…”

“Someone is coming back to Elm Street!”


SYNOPSIS

Following the events of the first film, Nancy and her family have left Springwood. Their house is bought by a new family, whose son Jesse starts to have strange dreams about Freddy Krueger, who wants to use Jesse to return to the real world.

OPINION

With the original Elm Street being a phenomenal success, the sequels would seem to be inevitable. So it was, although original creator Wes Craven wanted nothing to do with it at this point. New Line upped the budget slightly and brought in Jack Sholder to take over directorial regins. While not as legendary as Craven, Sholder is a decent director with a few good movies later under his belt (including The Hidden and 12:01 although later descended into DTV hell) and a well-received debut (Alone In The Dark, not related to the games or Uwe Boll atrocity of the same name).

However, the script later brought the film some notoriety in ways that Sholder and producer Robert Shaye claim to be unaware of (although Robert Englund claims to have been fully aware) – writer
David Chaskin’s script is chock full of homoerotic subtexts. I can kind of believe their ignorance, if only because when I first watched the movie I was only about 13 years old and too young to grasp the subtexts. Now, especially armed with the knowledge that they’re there, it’s very difficult to avoid them!

The most obvious of these are the central theme of the movie. For whatever reason, Chaskin had decided to jettison the central themes familiar from the original (and later movies) – it seems to be the house rather than Freddy’s desire for revenge that allows his return. Latching on to Jesse, he essentially appears as a split part to Jesse’s personality, with Jesse himself not knowing if Freddy is killing those around him in dreams he happens to share, or if he’s actually committing the murders. With Jesse trying to repress that part of him that’s connected to Freddy and the idea that Freddy wants to “come out” into the world, it’s not hard to pick up on the subtext.

There’s many other things that suggest this – the almost homoerotic relationship between Jesse and his best friend, the leather bar he has an encounter with his gym teacher (and the later whipping the teacher gets), the fact that he seems to relate so much more to the male rather than female characters, the stupid dancing in his room scene (to the original version of Touch Me (All Night Long), no less!). With the knowledge it’s there, the subtext is hard to avoid, but I could imagine a less clued-in director could miss those themes in the script, especially in the mid-80s.

But, enough of that, what about the movie as a horror film? Overall, it’s not bad. It’s certainly one of the weaker films in the series (though I would still class part 5 as the worst by a long shot). Part of the problem is that we’re already heading away from the pure surrealism of Craven’s original into something more conventional. I have read that there were meant to be a lot more weird moments, but that the money started to run out and compromises had to be made. Some moments are actually more funny than anything (the exploding parrot!). Even so, Freddy is in the film for a disappointingly short amount of time. When he’s there, it’s great – he rips part of his head off to reveal his brains (“You’ve got the body, I’ve got the brains!”). The shower sequence is pretty horrific, and the scene where (spoiler!) Freddy actually comes out of Jesse’s body and starts slaughtering pool party attendees is fantastic.

But, there’s really not enough here. The script meanders, it deviates so far from the central mythos that it’s almost a parallel universe story than a legitimate sequel, and it’s not that interesting for the most part. After a slight peak with the pool party sequence, the script again becomes muddled with a particularly weak ending. Had this not been an Elm Street movie, it might have been interesting with another villain, but it almost has to disappoint when compared with most other films in the franchise. It’s worth a look if you’ve already seen the better movies in the series, but I’d definitely recommend watch almost any of the others before this one.

AVAILABILITY

There’s numerous releases of this film, sadly all pretty much barebones. The US Blu-Ray is a barebones release containing parts 2 &3, while the film is available either separately or as part of a box set with a feature set outside of the US. Worth a buy, if only for the superior part 3, which I’ll get to soon!

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Director: Michael A. Simpson
Written by: Fritz Gordon and Robert Hiltzik
Starring: Pamela Springsteen, Renée Estevez, Tony Higgins, Sean Whitmore, Valerie Hartman, Brian Patrick Clarke, Walter Gotell, Susan Marie Snyder, Terry Hobbs

Taglines: “When you go camping just take the essentials”

STORY

Years after the original film, Angela is little more than a legend used to scare kids around the campfire. Unfortunately for the kids at Camp Rolling Hills, their new councillor happens to be Angela. She’s not only real but as ready to kill as ever.

SYNOPSIS

Actually my favourite of the original Sleepaway Camp films (I still haven’t seen the apparently disappointing Return To Sleepaway Camp), this sequel takes a turn away from the serious tone of the original. Now that the action isn’t being played for suspense (the killer’s identity is obvious, of course), director Simpson chooses instead to play the action mostly for knowing laughs.

It’s an approach that mostly works. The film has a good time playing with the usual conventions, playing up the more puritanical motivations often associated with the genre. Anyone who gets naked (and they do, there’s a lot of nudity, topless at least!), stoned or just doesn’t act politely enough is soon dispatched in various ways.

Springsteen (yep, Bruce’s sister) does a good job as Angela, ranging from far too “good” in some scenes with a ’50s-ish sweetness, to psycho killer in the next. There’s plenty of nice little nods to her character, such as a scene where she decides to off one girl and spends her time trying out various possible murder implements.

The victims themselves are mostly a decent bunch as well. There’s a few stereotypes such as the stoner girls and the bitchy slut, but there’s mostly people who you don’t want to see die, but the light comedic tone ensures you won’t mind when they do. The stand out is probably Renee Estevez (sister of Emilio and Charlie Sheen) as well as camp councillor T.C. (whose mullet should probably have had a separate credit!).

For such a lighthearted film, the murder scenes are actually quite brutal, ranging from the requisite stabbings to decapitations, battery acid and even a latrine drowning. The gore’s decent if not overplayed, and the climax featuring a room full of victims is a little cliched by this point but played very well.

All in all, this is an excellent little movie, benefitting from coming so far at the end of the slasher cycle, it can afford to have a bit more fun with the well-worn cliches of the genre. Shot back-to-back with the 3rd film and targeted at the video market, it’s not going to win any awards for originality but it’s very enjoyable. If you need an example of the film’s sense of humour, there’s a scene referenced in most of the advertising, where kids dress as Freddy and Jason to try to scare Angela, but there’s soon dispatched by her… dressed as Leatherface, complete with chainsaw!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Director: Tom Holland
Written by: Tom Holland
Starring: William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowell, Chris Sarandon, Stephen Geoffreys, Amanda Bearse, Jonathan Stark, Art Evans

Taglines: “There are some very good reasons to be afraid…of the dark.”

“There are good reasons to be afraid of the dark.”

SYNOPSIS

Charley Brewster is a fairly normal high school kid with a penchant for cheesy horror movies, much to chagrin of his girlfriend Amy and the amusement of his geeky best friend “Evil Ed”. His favourite show is Fright Night, introduced by Peter Vincent, a washed-up host who stars in many of the movies. After spotting some strange activity at night next door, he starts to become convinced that his new neighbour is a vampire.

Following some altercations, he approaches Vincent for help, who is sceptical at first but willing to go along after Amy offers him money. Unfortunately, Charley’s suspicions are correct and threaten to destroy him and his friends.

OPINION

Fright Night isn’t quite a perfect film, but it’s definitely one of my favourite horror movies of the 80s to rewatch regularly. There’s two major reasons for that. First off the characterisation is extremely good, with almost all of the cast putting in fine performances. The central character of Charley is played as a likeable kid, Stephen Geoffreys puts in an excellent performance as Evil Ed (almost career defining, or it would have been had he not switched to hardcore gay porn in the 90s!), and Roddy MacDowell is perfect as the Vincent, the cynical hack who is forced to confront an inconvenient truth. The supporting players are equally great, with special note going to Sarandon as a charismatic yet despicably evil vampire.

As fitting any movie made in the mid-80s, the second thing that makes this stand out are the excellent and surprisingly explicit effects. Beyond the typical vampire effects (which have some shocking twists in and of themselves), there’s a werewolf transformation and a standout scene in which a ghoulish companion dissolves in to green goo!

Plot-wise, there’s a similar playing with conventions. Just like most 80s horror movies featuring monsters, we have the opening where one person suspects the truth but the are brushed off by sceptical authorities and friends. We have some interesting twists on typical vampire lore, from the effect of crosses and holy water (“You have to have faith!”) and the nature of the vampire’s familiar.

In many ways, there’s not much more I can say here that not repeated in my review of the recent remake or in other discussions. While not a perfect film, this is an entertaining ride full of neat moments, enjoyable characters and memorable set pieces. This is still the king in my mind of all of the three films (I’m sure I’ll share my feelings about the sequel at some point soon). Is it the king of all of 80s vampire movies, though? Watch this space…

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Director: Ray Cameron
Writers: Ray Cameron & Barry Cryer
Starring: Kenny Everett, Vincent Price, Pamela Stephenson, Gareth Hunt, John Fortune, Don Warrington, Barry Cryer

Taglines: “The movie it took a lot of guts to make!”

SYNOPSIS

A diverse group of scientists converge on Headstone Manor, which was the site of a massacre years before. However, they soon start to fall victim to the forces responsible for the original massacre. Among these is a mysterious power wielded by Vincent Price and his satanic worshipping minions.

REVIEW

When I finally got to see this movie a few years ago following its belated DVD release, I was somewhat disappointed. As a horror spoof starring some of the cream of the time’s British TV comedy talent (including Everett, one of my favourites as a kid), a cameo by Vincent Price and a wide range of targets from slasher movies to black magic cult movies, this should have been a gem of a movie. I remember seeing the video cover in my local video stores as a kid, but somehow missed it.

Sadly, the movie tends to miss the mark by quite a large margin in most of its scenes. While it’s obvious where they wanted to go with this – wildly spoofing every movie from The Haunting to Friday The 13th while spoofing every tired genre convention (e.g. the tavern scene with sceptical/fearful natives), it’s rather too broad to be funny. I had the strange feeling while watching this that while I knew where I should have been laughing, I simply wasn’t.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. Vincent Price offers his usual high class presence in what would be his final appearance in a British film. There are a few jokes that hit home quite well, such as a decapitation by a can opener in a Carrie-inspired flashback. However, for every one like that, there’s jokes that completely fall flat or actually become slightly offensive, such a the scene where a woman is raped by an invisible man, but soon enjoys it…

Then there’s the structure. The film is very messy, starting almost serious before going to a simple series of sketches by the time they reach the mansion. Entire characters are there simply as jokes, and most of these quickly outstay their welcome, from the blind man to the unambiguously gay couple.

A massive disappointment, and although it’s certainly worth a watch for fans of either Everett or British TV comedy of the era as a whole, don’t expect much.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

TRAILER

So, the final day! As ever this seemed to come way to fast, and we were lamenting the end already. Nothing much more to say here, though. A great experience all round! Roll on Glasgow, or next year depending on how much I can make it to in 2012!

The final John Carpenter tribute was Ben Wheatley’s Assault on Precinct 13. Now, this was probably my least favourite for the simple reason that it departed so drastically from the original (zombies instead of gang members). Still, it’s not too bad, check it out here.

A NIGHT IN THE WOODS

Three people go camping in Dartmoor, but are never heard from again. A film has been edited from their footage…

Erm, yeah. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? They say that familiarity breeds contempt, and that was certainly true in this case. While the film is well shot, decently acted and offers a few diversions from its template, the nagging feeling while watching this movie is quite simply: why in God’s name would anybody try remaking The Blair Witch Project in 2011 on Dartmoor?

There’s a few extra wrinkles that wouldn’t have been possible during the Blair Witch filming, of course – night vision, laptops & digital cameras all provide some extra bits and pieces. It even tries to subvert a few of the more annoying aspects of that film – e.g. instead of having a character freak out and lose the map, it sets up a love triangle that makes one person leave the camp following arguments. But, this raises extra questions (why would the girl bring along another guy if she doesn’t want the boyfriend to find out about them). On top of this, the underlying legends that form the supernatural elements are far less compelling and thought out than Blair Witch.

Overall, this would have been a neat little film, albeit extremely flawed, if it had come out in 1999. Now, it’s not only overly familiar but utterly pointless.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

DEADHEADS

A nerdy guy wakes up in a facility, and walks out during a zombie invasion. He soon realises two things – zombies are attacking, and somehow he’s been dead for several years but has somehow retained his intelligence and doesn’t have a hunger for human flesh. As his last memory is of proposing to his girlfriend, he decides to make a road trip to find her, soon joined by another similarly intelligent undead.

Made by The Pierce Brothers, two people lucky enough to have been on the set of the original Evil Dead as kids, this promised to be a return to the splatter comedy of that film as well as an interesting twist on the tired zombie genre as a whole. Sadly, it’s not the case. It looks good, the makeup is decent, and there’s a couple of nice nods to other zombie movies. But, on the whole, I didn’t laugh.

Maybe I’m a little too jaded, maybe I was expecting something different, I don’t know. But, overall I find this a passable timewaster with nice little nods toward Night Of The Living Dead and other classics, but nothing memorable.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

SENNENTUNTSCHI: CURSE OF THE ALPS

A local Swiss legend tells the story of Sennentuntschi. In this tale, three lonely farmers made a woman from straw and she became a real woman once the devil took pity on her and gave her life. However, the farmers raped and abused her, and so she took her revenge, skinning them and making straw dolls from their skin.

After a wraparound story set in the present day, the film flashes back to 1975, where a priest has been found hanged in his small alpine village church. During his funeral procession, a woman appears, bruised and beaten and apparently suffering from amnesia. The superstitious villagers want to get rid of her as they believe the legend of Sennentuntschi, but the local policeman insists on keeping her safe until he can work out what happened, especially as a short trip to the farm where she appears to have come from turns up nothing. Meanwhile, the farmers find a young woman right after having recreated the legend in their own house…

This movie is an interesting little gem, partly due to its unique Swiss legend as a basis, and partly due to its structure. the wraparound element gives a slight clue, but suffice to say that nothing is quite as it seems toward the latter third of the movie. Very enjoyable.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

INBRED

A group of troubled teenagers are taken to a remote village to work on a farmhouse and get a taste of country life. Unfortunately, this particular village is populated by inbreds who take great pleasure in tormenting and killing outsiders.

Of all the films I was watching this weekend, Inbred was probably the one I had the lowest expectations for. I really didn’t care for director Alex Chandon’s previous movie Cradle Of Fear, and the film promised a level of comedy on par with the likes of Jake West’s Evil Aliens, which I also didn’t particularly care for. But, it was the second to last movie on the main screen, so it could be that bad, right? Well, let’s just say my expectations were met…

Generally speaking, it’s kind of a British nod to Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Two Thousand Maniacs!, but nowhere near as entertaining as that movie’s official remake 2001 Maniacs. The humour is very British (expect lots of gags involving bodily functions and strangely sourced pork scratchings), but most of it passed me by.

Overall it’s a mediocre effort, though some with the appropriate sense of humour to honestly enjoy, say, Evil Aliens might like it.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

A LONELY PLACE TO DIE

A group of climbers on holiday in Scotland are shocked to find an underground bunker with a small Eastern European child locked inside. They free her and start to head to civilisation for help, but are soon attacked by ruthless kidnappers who want the child back at any cost.

This closing film for the festival is really more of a thriller than a true genre piece, but it is extremely tense and well-made. The opening sections are quite standard – bunch of people in the woods, a kind of low budget Cliffhanger. But,things soon change when they pick up the girl in the woods. The people chasing them are absolutely ruthless and will literally stop at nothing to get their valuable “merchandise”, even killing a couple of random hunter simply to get their weapons.

It’s a film of a number of surprise moments. Some characters die well before normal in this kind of film, while the climbers end up being almost as ruthless as their attackers when it’s time to turn the tide. On top of that, the film takes a real turn during the final third, when the action crosses from mountain to a rural town.

It’s nothing amazingly groundbreaking, but very enjoyable and well worth a watch.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Day 4 and as ever I was starting to flag a little bit, although nowhere near as badly as other years! Again, I just managed to fit in 4 films today, as I decided to skip the short films/quiz section and ticket for the Israeli movie Rabies being hard to come by (so much so that it had an extra screening arranged for the Monday night). I also skipped the late film Detention, as although that was getting plenty of buzz it seems to be a movie that will be coming up fairly soon. No release date planned, but I can’t see a movie with that much advance notice getting ignored. So, a relatively short day but one that still held up very well, quality-wise.

The John Carpenter tribute was Marc Price’s tribute to They Live, a nicely done tongue-in-cheek recreation of the alley brawl from the movie, refitted as a reference to 3D movies.

You can find it here.

THE DIVIDE

As fire rains down on New York from the skies, a group of people race to the basement of their apartment building, where the maintenance guy has created a kind of makeshift bunker. Unsure of what caused the catastrophe, they start to realise that escape may be difficult if not impossible, and that they may be stuck together for longer than they planned.

This was one of the surprises of the festival for me, not least because I’d somehow gotten the impression that it was more sci-fi oriented. While sci-fi certainly is part of the opening and a threat they face later down the road, this is definitely more of a siege drama, largely a study of different personalities cracking under the strain of being trapped underground with strangers for an indeterminate length of time. The cast is excellent, including Michael Biehn as the caretaker and Rosanna Arquette as a mother whose situation gets very bad, very quickly.

The direction of French director Xavier Gens is assured and masterful, while the script is tight. I’m not totally sure about the highly ambiguous way of dealing with the nature of the catastrophe, as there’s definitely some questions I would have liked answering during a certain sequence that I felt would have taken the film in a more interesting direction had it been explored. Despite that, this is a solid thriller that keeps you guessing for most of its
running time.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

THE INNKEEPERS

As the hotel they’re working in approaches its closing weekend, the two bored twentysomethings working there struggle to pass the time. In between catering to handful of remaining guests, one way they do this is to try and record evidence of a local legend of a woman who died in the hotel years previously. However, she doesn’t seem to be taking kindly to being disturbed.

In this spiritual follow-up to House Of The Devil, Ti West creates a similar atmosphere but with a slightly heavier focus on humour. The two leads are excellent, while a supporting turn from Kelly McGillis as an actress-turned-psychic is also great (though she does look scarily old nowadays!). The ending is a little ambiguous, and there’s questions raised about how much going on is fantasy and how much reality.Like House Of The Devil, it may also be a little slow for some tastes. Either way, I loved it.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

SAINT

On a snowy 5th December, The Netherlands prepares for its annual St. Nicholas festival, their version of Christmas. However, unknown to them, the saint was actually a murderous pirate who was burned to death by an angry mob and now returns every time there’s a full moon on the 5th December to avenge his death by killing as many as possible.

It’s not often you get to see a film that focusses on a different interpretation of Christmas, especially not one that as deliberately subversive as this. This is probably one of the things that raises this Dutch treat above the level of your typical slasher, as well as the comical nature of a lot of the proceedings. The story mostly follows 2 sets of people – a young man whose friends are being killed off by the demonic saint, and a police officer whose obsession with the creature has made him a pariah who must battle him alone.

I’ve not seen any of director Dick Maas’ previous movies such as Amsterdamned, though this definitely made me interested to do so. It won’t win any awards for breaking new ground, but it’s a refreshingly enjoyable movie nonetheless.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

SHIFTER

The last of only 2 shorts I managed to catch this year, this was a fairly mediocre and confused effort. The basic story seemed to be that a woman with the ability to teleport is being chased by a man with time travel abilities to do something in order to save her father’s life. I didn’t really catch much more than that, but in reality this seems to be just a way to throw a bunch of Matrix and other sci-fi references into the mix. Not particularly offensive, but not particularly original or engaging either, IMHO.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

KILL LIST

A hitman who’s been out of work for months is having a bad time of late. He’s arguing a lot with his wife and struggling to keep them together. Following a visit from an old army friend, he decides to get back into the game and together they run through a list of targets. He soon starts to realise that he’s getting in a little too deep, and that the list has strange connections to his home life that lead to a shocking conclusion.

Kill List was probably the most hyped movie of the festival, getting mainstream press attention leading up to this UK première. It’s a strange mix of genres that really keeps you guessing, starting as a domestic drama, then a thriller and finally delving into more traditionally horrific material. It hinges on some fantastic central performances, and is rather slow moving up until the climax. The ending fell a little flat for me in some ways, but only due to superficial similarities to 2 other movies (The Wicker Man and A Serbian Film). I was getting tired by this point though, so maybe I just need to go back when I’m more refreshed.

Kill List is a high quality film, but I think I was a little too drained to fully appreciate it at the time I was watching it. It’s getting almost perfectly positive reviews however, so I do need to check it out again ASAP. For now, I’d say it’s a good movie but not one as spectacular as some have been saying, but I’ll update my review whenever I get the chance to revisit.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

So, day 3 already and I ended up watching a few less films than I’d normally watch on the Saturday and Sunday due to friends visiting me at the festival. On this Saturday I had already watched opener Troll Hunter (a decent Norwegian found footage movie with an interesting sense of humour) and Adam Green’s segment of Chillerama (the amusing Diary of Anne Frankenstein) so I didn’t miss anything too important IMHO. By this point, I’d pretty much decided I couldn’t be bothered with the Discovery screen as well – far too many people queuing far too early for my tastes! As ever, I bet I’ll catch up with all the films eventually anyway…

Today’s John Carpenter short was a take on Halloween, an amusing if slight spoof where Michael Myers is now living in England and doesn’t take kindly to noise pollution and littering… It’s worth checking out if nothing special and can be found here.

THE WICKER TREE

Robin Hardy finally returns to the screen with this adaptation of his own novel, Cowboys For Christ. Billed as a spiritual successor to his 1973 seminal classic The Wicker Man, this new story follows an evangelical Christian singer from the US south, who travels with her similarly born again boyfriend to the Scottish borders, hoping to convert some of the locals. They are initially disappointed in their efforts but are soon invited to a small community who have some more pagan-like beliefs. Unfortunately, and inevitably, it doesn’t end well for them.

Taking its cues from its predecessor, The Wicker Tree does a good job of introducing an unsettling yet darkly comic tone, with unusual focus on music to generate its atmosphere. The central cast is pretty decent with Graham McTavish especially good as the lord of the manor. However, the film does fall down slightly in a few places. Apparently due to injuries sustained on a previous shoot, Christopher Lee’s role is almost non-existant, while the incessant naivety of the leads does tend to grate after a while. I also found the central conceit regarding the pagan rituals a little lacking, especially in contrast to the bleak logic of the actions of the cultists in the original.

As a whole, this is a nice little call back to a well-regarded classic and certainly more bearable than that film’s remake (although there’s nothing to match the unintentional hilarity of that film!). It’s worth checking out but there’s not that much here that hasn’t been done before, and it’s more of a footnote in comparison rather than anything as groundbreaking as that film.

Hardy did mention that he’s planning a 3rd part to complete this as a thematic trilogy. I’ll still be looking forward to that.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

PANIC BUTTON

Four strangers meet at an airport lounge, having won an all-expenses paid trip to New York on a famous social networking site. On the flight there via a private jet, they are offered the opportunity to win even more through games played in-flight. However, the games quickly turn nasty with extremely private information about each of them being revealed. They also soon learn that not all is as it seems and that failure to participate in the game can have nasty consequences.

A world premiere at Frightfest, this British thriller is surprisingly well made and rather tense, although it seemed remarkably divisive among some at the festival. I personally found it to be an above average attempt to shoehorn some social commentary into a movie, and while the game aspect does bring to mind the Saw franchise, it’s about as far from torture porn as you can get. The cast is generally decent, and the twists keep coming while avoiding the usual trap of being particularly ludicrous.

Overall, not a bad thriller, noting world shattering but worth a look.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

FRIGHT NIGHT 3D

As I’ve mentioned before, Fright Night is one of my favourite movies of the 1980s. It manages to deliver both creepy sequences and laughs, has tons of great gore effects and manages to deliver on the living characters as well as the undead. My first reaction when a remake was announced was resigned but annoyed – why remake this one? My fears were increased by the utterly bland and unimaginitive poster – especially compared to the iconic original. The result is a surprisingly entertaining movie, though certainly more flawed than the original. It also has a weird approach to its source that I found a little jarring, perhaps because I’m a little too familiar with the source.

Perhaps two of the best examples of this are the characters of the main supporting players, Evil Ed and Peter Vincent. In the original, Ed was something of a hanger-on who helps Charley understand vampire lore. In the remake, it’s Ed who originally works out what’s going on and is already planning on taking out the vampire by the time Charley realises something unusual is happening. Also in the original, Vincent was a washed-up horror star who reluctantly helps out when a crazy fan comes calling but is far more interested in money than any desire to help. In this remake, Vincent is not only very wealthy but has a direct connection to the cause himself…

Generally speaking, this is a decent popcorn horror movie. It’s entertaining, most of the cast is OK (although Evil Ed is pretty much miscast in this version) and it moves along at a reasonable pace. No classic, but you could certainly do a lot worse.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

THE WOMAN

For some reason, despite having apparently been lauded by many people including Stephen King over the years, I hadn’t really come across the work of Jack Ketchum before The Girl Next Door screened at Frightfest a few years ago (a screening I sadly missed). The screening got a lot of buzz and since then I’d heard Ketchum’s name a lot but had never gotten around to reading any of his books. So, when this came along I looked in my book collection and realised I had a copy of Off Season, Ketchum’s debut novel and the book that this is partially a sequel to! That book, by the way, is excellent and I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t checked it out yet.

While the previous books in the series followed a family of feral people and their victims in New England, The Woman (as suggested by the title) focusses on just one such person. She is abducted by a man who says he wishes to “civilise” her, and chains her up in his basement. He does this with the full knowledge and involvement of his family, but we soon learn that there are darker things lurking beneath the facade of his own life.

Directed by indie horror favourite Lucky McKee, this is an unusual and difficult film to describe. It’s definitely a horror movie with some extreme moments, but there’s a solid thread of humour running throughout (perhaps accentuated by the lead looking very much like Will Ferrell!). Some of the plot twists are disturbing, while others are perhaps less easy to understand if you’ve not read the novels. One twist in particular involving the dog cage seemed to divide people based on their familiarity with the source.

The film inevitably hinges to some degree on the character of the woman, and she is played to perfection by Pollyanna McIntosh. The rest of the cast is decent, and while the film takes a lot of interesting twists it never got to be ridiculous for me. One special mention has to go out to the soundtrack – one of McKee’s conceits her is to give us several montages scored with indie pop music by Sean Spillane. One of the things that also seemed to divide a lot of the audience was this music, some hated it. I liked it myself.

Overall, this is a decent movie that makes me want to check out more of Ketchum’s material, but it will be divisive and is certainly not for mainstream tastes.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

So, on to the first proper full day of the festival. here were a couple of Q&As on this day (for The Holding and The Glass Man) and we finally got our hands on the goody bag. This year’s bag was a little light in content (no T-shirts ) but what we got was decent, branded with the Kill List logo. I got free copies of Fanboys and Black, both films at previous festivals, and a range of goods including a Troll Hunter survival guide. Overall for movies, a reasonable day but there’s still nothing that really stood out – Tucker & Dale was the most enjoyable experience but that was rather in many ways.

There were a few extras – the usual instalment of trailer trash, a preview of Outpost 2 (which looks OK but I wasn’t that keen on the first despite Nazi zombies). We also saw an excellent parody of The Thing, which you can view here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMwBIYx7GNM&feature=player_embedded

ROGUE RIVER

While both the program and the introduction to this movie both mentioned I Spit On Your Grave, this relatively mediocre early slot wasn’t really much of a comparison. The plot is quite simple: a woman heads off to Rogue River, a place where her and her father spent a lot of time when she was a child, with the intention of spreading his ashes there. As she’s about to do so, she is interrupted by an apparently kindly stranger who then helps her when she finds her car has been towed in the meantime. He insists on taking her to the nearest town, but also on stopping on the way to inform his wife, who in turn insists she stays the night. However, all is not as it seems.

There’s certainly some moments in this movie, which range from the deliberately bizarre to genuinely unnerving, but the overall feeling is one of pure mediocrity. For every scene where Moseley and his wife act note perfectly, there’s a sequence where truly questionable decisions are made by with the director or characters. It’s as much a frustrating film and an entertaining one, and despite Moseley’s excellent turn I can’t really recommend it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

THE HOLDING

A woman is struggling with her teenage and pre-teen daughters to run a farm following the desertion of her ex-husband. At a critical moment, a man who worked with her husband appears and helps her not only deliver a vital calf, but also help deal with locals who have designs on not only her farm but her herself. But, the man may not be all he seems.

One of those regular Frightfest movies that more properly belongs in the thriller rather than horror category, this is still a solid watch, although not particularly groundbreaking although there are some excellent performances from the cast.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

URBAN EXPLORERS

Frightfest wouldn’t be Frightfest without random technical difficulties, and this is a good example. The screening of this movie, the UK premiere, started with music but no dialogue for the first few minutes. Past that, the German dialogue was not subtitled. So, I have to review this with something of a pinch of salt as I definitely didn’t get a lot of the subtleties and humour introduced during the latter stages.

Plot-wise, it’s fairly straightforward. A group of people are brought together for urban exploration – think caving but in manmade rather than natural underground structures. They’re led by an experienced German explorer under the streets of Berlin to visit an ex-Nazi bunker that nobody has recently seen as it’s been walled off to deter neo-Nazis. During this trip there’s an inevitably unfortunate accident, which leaves them stalked by an East German soldier who doesn’t yet realise the cold war is actually over.

It’s not a bad film, with an incredible performance from the apparently newcomer playing the soldier. But, generally speaking it’s fairly standard fare outside of the central concept.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

THE GLASS MAN

This is one of those unfortunate movies that I can’t discuss at length because anything I say in depth will spoil the film. Suffice to say that the movie starts with Andy Nyman, married to kept woman Neve Campbell, unable to inform his wife that he has recently been fired and they stand to lose everything. A way out of his predicament appears in the form of James Cosmo, a gangster who has recently inherited Nyman’s debt from a “client”. He agrees to go along on an as-yet unspecified errand to enable him to clear his debt, but things soon start to go inevitably downhill.

The film is rather slow to start, as we follow Nyman’s predicament and his final confrontation with his former employers. The feeling is generally one of annoyance as we follow a spectacularly weak character struggle to stand up for himself and admit his problems to his suspicious wife. The does pay off later in the film, but for the first half hour or so, it’s only the performances by Nyman and later James Cosmo that keep the story flowing. The film stands mostly on its central twist, which has been seen many times before but is still effective.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL

A gloriously funny send-up of backwoods slasher movies, this starts with a group of college kids heading off to a woodland cabin for some fun. On the same route are Tucker & Dale, two simple country folk who have managed to secure a cabin for themselves as a holiday home. Mistakes and misunderstandings soon ensue, leading both groups to believe that the other is out to kill them (or themselves!).

The humour mostly revolves around the hapless pair’s attempts to work out what’s going on, while the remaining teens accidentally kill themselves in bizarre ways all around them while trying to save the member of the group they mistakenly believe has been kidnapped. It’s often ridiculous but very funny if you know the films from Texas Chainsaw to Deliverance that it’s sending up. The scene where a kid dives head-first into a woodchipper is priceless on its own!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

VILE

Though the “torture porn” sub-genre has pretty much run its course by now, some new movies do offer new twists. Here, the genre is combined with the Cube-style puzzle and the Saw 2-style locked house in order to give a new perspective that mostly works.

The setup is quite simple – a group of young adults on a camping trip offer to give a woman a ride back to her car since she ran out of fuel. Once there, she gasses them, and they wake up faced with a group of strangers apparently ready to kill them. They soon realise a simple objective – they have 22 hours to cause enough pain and suffering to each other to allow a specific chemical to be extracted from their brains in vials attached via tubes to their skulls.

It’s not quite as interesting as its concept, and gets very messy (both plot-wise and viscerally) toward the end. However, it’s definitely a reasonable attempt to add something new to a tired genre and mostly works.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I managed to get in to London just before time to check in as High Holborn as usual (a twin room this time, as I has guests coming for once!). Everything went nice and smoothly, so I had plenty of time for a couple of beers before going in to the Empire to start the marathon sessions! It was packed this year, perhaps seeming more so due to the Olympic construction going on in Leicester Square. Luckily, we weren’t as crowded as we could have been as special areas had been reserved for us and extra exits opened up around the cinema. I’m not sure what else to explain at this point, all the usual plusses are there – friendly crowd, lots to see and do, plenty of DVD shopping around the films themselves! I picked up some bargains, but on the first day it was really just a case of getting a few drinks and watching some films. I did have a few hectic weeks around the festival, so I was almost dropping off to sleep by the end of the last movie – not an omen of things to come, thankfully!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgTOGFeEvFc&feature=player_embedded

ESCAPE FROM NY PARODY

As per some other recent years, each day had a short, specifically produced film for the festival. Previous years included Adam Green and Joe Lynch’s excellent Road To Frightfest shorts, but this time it was over to a group of British directors adding their touch to parodies of John Carpenter’s best work. This was possibly one of the best, Jake West’s homage to Escape From New York, only now set in London with a female Snake Plissken. It worked pretty well, with some spot-on recreation of that movies’ graphics representing the city.

You can watch the full short here.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK

Introduced by Guillermo Del Toro in a specially recorded message, this is apparently a project close to his heart although he handed the directorial reins to Troy Nixey. Based on a well-regarded 1973 TV movie (which I’ve not seen myself), the movie tells the rather simple tale of a young girl who’s sent to live with her father and his new fiancee. They are renovating an large and ornate old house, but are thus far unaware of the cellar where strange voices seem to be calling to the girl. After she uncovers the cellar, she also unleashes small creatures who need to take a victim every time they awaken, and are particularly fond of the teeth of children…

This is a fairly stylish story which tends to betray its TV roots with a simplistic feel reminiscent of such movies in the 1970s. Generally speaking, the cast is pretty good with a non-annoying child actor, and Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes as the couple. The creatures are extremely well done, looking like a cross between the tiny demons in The Gate and Del Toro’s own creations in Pan’s Labyrinth. There’s a pretty strong sense of atmosphere throughout and it’s quite effectively creepy although it never really reaches the heights of Del toro’s best work.

Overall, not a bad watch and although it hardly breaks new ground, this is hardly a new thing for a remake. Well worth a watch.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES PREVIEW

As has become somewhat traditional, this year contained some surprise interludes, and this was no exception with some advance footage from the upcoming horror comedy Cockneys vs. Zombie. From the title, I honestly expected to hate this and to give it a miss but it looked rather funny from the sequences shown. There were three segments shown, starting with an ageing Honor Blackman trying to seduce a couple of young lads after they’ve been lectured by another pensioner for not having fought in a war. The final clip showed the start of a standoff between building residents and the zombies. It’s the second clip that really made me laugh, though. Richard Briars plays a pensioner who’s been asleep in a chair while the zombie apocalypse has started. The others in the building manage to wake him but he doesn’t realise what’s going on, leading to a hilarious bit where he trundles along on his zimmer frame, not realising there’s a zombie (of the slow Romero variety, of course) chasing behind him. I found this bit very funny and hopefully a taste of what’s to come.

FINAL DESTINATION 5 3D

Following on from a relatively mainstream movie was, unusually for the festival, a totally mainstream movie! Regardless, this was a film I’d been looking forward to as I do have a soft spot for this series and it’s one I thought would work well in 3D. I wasn’t wrong…

As with any series that reaches its 5th instalment, you know the drill by now. There’s a major disaster (in this case a suspension bridge collapse) where we’re introduced to a number of characters before they’re horribly killed. This turns out to be a premonition, allowing one character to freak out and save themselves and a few others from death, but death soon comes calling back.

This turns out to be a fairly strong entry in the series, better than 3 & 4 in my opinion, but still falling short of the sublime 2nd part. Tony Todd (who had filmed a special Frightfest introduction along with star Emma Bell) returns as the coroner who knows more than he should, and the kills are pretty decent. There’s a certain level of shock value, and a nice couple of twists. One involves a character who decides to deliberately try to bump his place off death’s list, and the other is a very nice call back to the first movie toward the end.

This is a movie that’s well worth watching, though it won’t convert anyone new. If you like the series, this is worth a watch.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

HOLY MARIA

I forget the actual name of this nice little Spanish short film, but I believe it was Holy Maria. The story is quite simple – a woman is dragged out of her home by police screaming about her daughter. We then flash back and witness the religious obsession and torture that led to this event. Like many shorts, this wasn’t anything groundbreaking but it was an entertaining enough surprise.

THE THEATRE BIZARRE

Not so long a go, I was thinking the genre was somewhat starved of anthology pieces, once the lifeblood of the industry with Amicus churning out such pieces alongside TV shows built around individual stories of the macabre. Recently, the form has been making something of a comeback, with the excellent Trick ‘r Treat impressing a couple of years back. Unfortunately, the last anthology I saw at Frightfest was the occasionally memorable but generally mediocre Little Deaths at Glasgow this year. Does this anthology, with no less from 6 segments and 7 directors (including the wraparound) fare better? Well, sometimes…

The wraparound sets up a fairly flimsy connection between the stories, which despite claims to the contrary don’t seem to be really connected in any other way. We see a woman sketching the theatre across the road, something which she apparently does on a regular basis. She spots a door open, then goes in and begins to watch the show as introduced by an initially papier mache / animatronic Udo Kier, although this changes. The wraparound isn’t anything special, though I was struck by the woman’s performance, looking all the world like a Lucio Fulci secondary character…

So, the stories begin, and I’ll try to be spoiler free here, though they’re all worth mentioning. Richard Stanley’s entry is somewhat mediocre, a Lovecraftian tale of a couple who get more than they bargained for when they accept an old gypsy’s invitation to learn more about the occult. “I Love You” is an amusing but slight story about a woman leaving her overprotective and over-infatuated lover. Tom Savini’s segment is a mildly gory and sexually suggestive segment about a man’s attempts to interpret his dreams of infidelity and mutilation. The fourth segment follows a little girl’s attempts to understand death. The fifth follows a woman who has discovered that she can record the memories of others by taking their eyeball fluid at the moment of death and injecting it into her own eye. The sixth follows a man’s obsession with his lover and food.

As with all anthologies, there’s strong and weaker segments Savini’s and Karim Hussain’s segments are probably the strongest. The other segments veer between gratuitous and slight, although I found that only Stanley’s and the final segment really outstayed their welcome. Between this and other recent anthologies, I’ll probably take this over other recent anthologies except Trick ‘R Treat, but that’s not saying much.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Director: Steve Miner
Written by: Fred Dekker & Ethan Wiley
Starring: William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, Mary Stavin, Michael Ensign
Music by: Harry Manfredini

Taglines: “Ding dong, you’re dead.”

“Horror has found a new home”

“Enter at your own risk.

“You are cordially invited to spend an evening with Roger Cobb and his friends. Don’t come alone!”


STORY

Roger Cobb (Katt) is a Vietnam veteran who has made a successful career after the war writing trashy horror novels. However, he is still haunted by the war as well as the disappearance of his young son. After his aunt dies and leaves him a large old house, he decides to move their and work on a novel detailing his experiences in the war. However, there are things in the house that threaten his sanity, but may also offer closure on the things that haunt his past.

OPINION

While An American Werewolf In London usually gets the accolades as being the best modern horror/comedy hybrid, House is a very close second in my book. Like that film, House manages to tread the fine line between horror and comedy, while offering some highly imaginative sequences that go way beyond the conventional haunted house fare.

The first thing that’s striking is the fact that while the movie takes its subject matter almost totally seriously, there’s a vein of humour running throughout the proceedings. George Wendt is great as the next door neighbour, thinking his new neighbour is pretty much nuts until the end. But, the humour doesn’t just come from specifically comedic characters or situations. A lot of the laughs are to be had from the absurdity of situations – the creature that comes out of the closet, the ex-wife who goes through a hilariously unexpected transformation, the portal into the underworld through a bathroom mirror.

In fact, the imaginative situations are what separate this movie from a lot of contemporaries. While many haunted house movies revolve around the slow buildup of tension in a familiar setting, the comedic angle allows Miner to go overboard with his direction. Nothing has to make a whole lot of logical sense as something designed to scare would need to, so he can go all out with a lot of sequences. By the end when we see the resurrected Ben (a fellow soldier that Cobb refused to mercy kill, leaving his to be tortured by the Viet Cong) it’s no surprise that a zombie has been behind the events.

The performances are excellent overall, with Wendt and Katt definitely holding their own against each other. Special mention goes to Richard Moll, excellent as Ben both before and after his death. Even the child actor playing Cobb’s missing son isn’t too obnoxious. Director Miner, here just after his direction of the first 2 Friday The 13th movies, manages to balance everything in just the right way, with a number of very stylish shots among the madness.

Overall, it’s a fantastic mix of horror and comedy, one of the few that manages to get the balance totally right – the funny parts are funny, the scary parts are scary. The no holds barred feel definitely helps the proceedings – you never really know where things will go – and the rather hokey monster effects definitely hold up since they’re more goofy than trying to be realistic.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars