FrightFest: It's showtime

London's 26th FrightFest continues through the weekend with movies that are designed to entertain us by scaring, unsettling and grossing us out. As always, these films are somewhat hit and miss. Many are made on very small budgets, proving that pretty much anyone with a camera and some up-for-it friends can make a movie. Although it also quickly becomes clear whether the idea, narrative and characters are strong enough to hold the interest. Of course, I need to watch everything all the way to the end, and I always give the movie the benefit of the doubt. So it's great when a movie surprises me. Here are five more highlights...

Your Host
dir DW Medoff; with Jackie Earle Haley, Ella-Rae Smith 25/It ***.
pening with gleeful grisliness, this horror thriller quickly sets up characters before launching them into a freak-out situation. Taking inspiration from the Saw movies, director DW Medoff and writer Joey Miller clearly enjoy devising the most sadistic nastiness they can think of while keeping everything both jaunty and sharply pointed. But the grubby production design is a bit tired and, even with comical asides, it's almost overwhelmingly hideous.

Pig Hill
dir Kevin Lewis; with Rainey Qualley, Shane West 25/US **.
Punctuated with sudden violence and freak-out images of people wearing pig heads, this horror thriller is fairly relentless in its dark approach. Scenes play out with super-high intensity, as director Kevin Lewis ramps everything up exponentially, including camerawork, performances, music and gore. And as the narrative travels through oddly spurious sequences on its way to the horrible truth, it never seems to be daytime in this small town.

Where Is Juan Moctezuma?
dir-scr Alaric S Rocha; with Alaric S Rocha, Erin Hughes 25/US ***
Diving into the mystery surrounding an iconic 1970s Mexican horror auteur, this lively movie embraces the cheesy sensibility of filmmaker Juan F Moctezuma II. Appearing on-screen to narrate the story, filmmaker Alaric S Rocha has fun with colourful period movies and comments from his extra-sparky interviewees. So there's plenty of ramshackle energy, mixing a wide range of hilariously outrageous material. But it could have been even funnier than this.

Sane Inside Sanity
dir-scr Andreas Zerr; with Jim Sharman, Richard Hartley 25/Ger ***.
Celebrating 50 years of a camp classic, this documentary explores "the phenomenon of Rocky Horror", the offbeat play-turned-movie musical that went viral long before that was a thing. German filmmaker Andreas Zerr carefully traces the development of the show and film, then dives deeply into the fan experience that has evolved exponentially over the decades. It's a brisk, knowing trip into a quirky corner of film history.

Malpertuis
dir Harry Kumel; with Orson Welles, Susan Hampshire 73/Bel ***.
An eerie mix of horror, comedy and lustiness infuses this wonderfully offbeat 1971 Belgian thriller, which has been digitally restored to maximise the impact of Harry Kumel's visceral direction and Gerry Fisher's vibrant cinematography. This is a rich-hued, lavishly designed and very bawdy film with a cheeky sense of humour and insinuating moods stretching from burgeoning sexuality to existential angst. And astonishing freak-out moments punctuate the meandering plot.

Full reviews will be linked at Shadows' FRIGHTFEST PAGE >

Raindance: Hang on tight

As usual with film festivals, I came to the end of the 33rd Raindance with a backlog of movies to watch and write about. But here's my post from the festival, which wrapped up last night with a screening of The Academy followed by a party - neither of which I was invited to, but that was fine. I needed the rest. I managed to catch 12 films at this year's Raindance, and the quality was uniformly strong. Here are the final four...

The Lonely Musketeer
dir-scr Nicolai Schumann; with Edward Hogg, Richard Glover 24/UK ***.
Featuring a single person in a small room, this experimental drama is shot in black and white and edited with restless energy that keeps the pace moving. Writer-director Nicolai Schumann relies heavily on the exceptional skills of audacious actor Edward Hogg to bring the surreal set-up to vivid life, creating a riveting one-man show. As the narrative unpicks the mystery, the film becomes increasingly murky and darkly disturbing.

Breakwater
dir-scr Max Morgan; with Daniel McNamee, Shaun Paul McGrath 25/UK ***
From the start, this British drama evokes a tone that hints at intrigue with tiny glances and brief cutaways. Writer-director Max Morgan uses eye-catching widescreen cinematography to create a strong sense of the settings and characters. Although these people speak in hesitant fragments, as if they're always hiding something. So while everything seems to move at a maddeningly underpowered pace the subtle performances bring out deeper feelings.

Beam Me Up Sulu
dir Timour Gregory, Sasha Schneider; with Stan Woo, George Takei 25/US ***.
Briskly traces the production of a Star Trek fan movie, this scrappy documentary uses terrific behind-the-scenes footage and extensive clips and interviews, plus some witty animation. Warm-hearted and engaging, it's a lovely depiction of one man's passion alongside remarkable explorations of US cultural history. Yes, the film goes down several sideroads, not all of them relevant. But everything feeds into a strongly entertaining portrait of a dedicated fanbase.

The Dark Fantastic
dir-scr Lg White; with Simon Boswell, Alejandro Jodorowsky 25/UK ****
Tracing the career of British film composer Simon Boswell, this punchy documentary deploys a flurry of split-screen and overlapping imagery to mix clips and interviews alongside a thunderous rock-n-roll sound mix. Filmmaker Lg White's whizzy editing style may play colourfully with images and text, but the focus remains tightly on the music. It's a sharply well-made movie that beautifully depicts the career of an inventive and prolific artist.

Full reviews of festival films will be linked here in due course: SHADOWS @ RAINDANCE >