FrightFest: Be afraid

One of the top horror film festivals in the world, London's FrightFest runs each year over the August bank holiday weekend. This 26th festival kicked off on Thursday with the UK premiere of James DeMonaco's The Home, and the scary fun continues through Monday night at the grand Odeon Luxe in Leicester Square. Here are four highlights from the first two days... 

The Home
dir James DeMonaco; with Pete Davidson, John Glover 25/US **
In a rare serious role for comic Pete Davidson, he plays an aimless slacker caught up in a mind-spinningly nasty situation. Director-cowriter James DeMonaco (The Purge) tightly maintains his perspective, which pulls the audience into the nutty story before things cut loose into Get Out-style horror. Indeed, the imagery, sound mix and narrative include so many elements from genre classics that nothing feels original. Or particularly scary.

Night of Violence
dir Illya Konstantin; with Kit Lang, Russ Russo 25/US **
Mixing dark violence with a broad Big Pharma satire, this offbeat low-budget horror has some fun with its depiction of office workers before things turn nasty. Director Illya Konstantin creates a home-made vibe that plays up the awkwardness between colleagues before sending them into a blood-soaked nightmare. Tonal shifts are uneven, pacing is somewhat underpowered, and the plot closely follows the bare bones of the brutal invasion genre.

Don’t Let the Cat Out
dir Tim Cruz; with Anthony Del Negro, Cerina Vincent 25/US **.
Atmospheric and extremely tactile, this freak-out thriller traces a night that spirals into bizarre nastiness. Director Tim Cruz, who wrote the script with actor-producer Anthony Del Negro, cranks up the tension from the start, keeping the audience as disoriented as the lead character because everything feels so random and inexplicable. So while none of this makes much sense, there are enjoyably yucky moments scattered through the narrative.

The Degenerate:
The Life and Films of Andy Milligan
dir Josh Johnson, Grayson Tyler Johnson; with Gerald Jacuzzo, Jimmy McDonough 25/US ***.
Tracing the career of a notorious filmmaker who mixed experimental sensibilities with excessive schlock, this documentary tells the story of Andy Milligan, whose ethos was to just get out there and make a movie. As a scrappy artist, his work was inventive and influential, with distinctive themes and camera tricks, yet modern audiences have seen very little of it. So it's time for cinema scholars to rediscover him.

Full reviews will be linked at Shadows' FRIGHTFEST PAGE >

Critical Week: Driving me crazy

Screenings continue to be a bit less frequent this time of year, although I somehow found plenty of movies to watch this week. Eddie Murphy is back in action-comedy mode, starring in The Pickup alongside Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer. Their banter is enjoyable even if the plot is almost ridiculously simplistic. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back for Freakier Friday, a hugely enjoyable 20-years-later body-swap comedy sequel. And there were two astonishingly grisly horror movies: Together stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple that's growing eerily close, while Weapons stars Julia Garner as a teacher whose students have mysteriously vanished. Both are stomach-churningly yucky in all the best ways, and both have serious subtext that holds the interest.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Young Hearts • Weapons
Stans • Freakier Friday
ALL REVIEWS >

In addition, there was the family adventure Sketch, about a teen whose drawings come to life and menace a small town. It's well-made and engaging. There were two films from France: The Musicians is an engaging and warmly understated comedy about a group of egotistic artists who form a historic quartet. And Bambi: A Tale of Life in the Woods is a nature documentary adaptation of the classic novel about a young deer growing up. It's beautifully shot, and openly emotive. I also watched Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical (arrives on Apple TV on 15th August), which I thoroughly enjoyed. As a lifelong Peanuts fan, the line-art animation was particularly nice. And the catchy songs were fun too. I also attended a live performance of new absurdist comedy Lost Watches at Park Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching Jacob Elordi in On Swift Horses, Bob Odenkirk in Nobody 2, Orlando Bloom in The Cut, Matilda Lutz as Red Sonja, the animated comedy Fixed and the Chinese remake of Richard Linklater's Tape.

On the Road: Use your head

I'm in Southern California for a couple of weeks, mainly to celebrate my mother's birthday, but also to visit with family and friends and hopefully get some nice weather this time of year. Although the rainy storminess hasn't started off very promisingly. I'm also going to completely miss this weekend's Baftas - the British Academy Awards - and will just have to read about the winners online. Meanwhile, on the flight over here I caught up with three films from last year that I'd missed...

Dumb Money
dir Craig Gillespie; with Paul Dano, Pete Davidson 23/US ***.
The story of the GameStop stock market mayhem is made thoroughly entertaining by lively direction from Craig Gillespie that concentrates on character quirks rather than the dull financial details. That said, some of these details begin to make sense as a group of amateur traders take on the big hedge funds. The terrific over-packed ensemble includes Paul Dano, Nick Offerman, Seth Rogen, America Ferrera, Pete Davidson, Sebastian Stan and Shailene Woodley. Some plot threads get lost along the way. But it's consistently entertaining and occasionally engaging too.

She Came to Me
dir-scr Rebecca Miller; with Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway 23/US ***
Writer-director Rebecca Miller creates an intricate, intelligent multistrand narrative using light and nicely offhanded performances and jagged interaction. But the plot never quite grabs hold, as it centres around a blocked opera composer (Peter Dinklage) and a scrappy tugboat pilot (Marisa Tomei) who becomes his muse, while his obsessive wife (Anne Hathaway) spirals. Subplots involve their teen son, his girlfriend, her parents and lots of tangled feelings, bad decisions and messy behaviour. It's all a bit corny, and aside from the general economic realities it's difficult to connect with a central theme. So even with the wonderfully nuanced acting, it ends up feeling cute and a bit simplistic.

Strays
dir Josh Greenbaum; voices Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx ***
The central joke here is that a sweet movie about cute dogs is bursting with profane dialog and outrageously adult jokes. That concept feels stale within minutes, but thankfully the script is loaded with genuinely hilarious humour aimed squarely at grown-up dog lovers. The plot is very simple, as an abandoned pup realises that his owner mistreated him, so vows revenge with a group of fellow strays. Wacky adventures ensue, often involving humping things. So if the general tone is belaboured as it tries desperately to push things rudely over the top, the furry characters win us over, ably voiced by a first-rate cast.

While I'm out here I'm planning to catch up with a few films that are in cinemas here but not yet out in the UK, like Drive-Away Dolls and Lisa Frankenstein, and I'm on the lookout for press screenings of Dune: Part Two and Kung Fu Panda 4. Otherwise, I'm enjoying time with family and friends and not thinking about movies.

Critical Week: Wine o'clock

Heading into the summer, the movies are an eclectic bunch, a surreal swirl of effects-based blockbusters, crowd-pleasing comedies, offbeat independent films and rather a lot of documentaries. At least this keeps us critics on our toes, and the main challenge is to watch all these films and still find time to enjoy the sunny weather. But it does help that so many of these films are things we're looking forward to (and bracing ourselves for disappointment). So the occasional unexpected gem is extremely welcome. This week I caught up with Catherine Hardwicke's Mafia Mamma, starring Toni Collette and Monica Bellucci in a silly comedy with a more serious drama lurking inside it. Out on digital this week in the US, it still doesn't have a UK release date. And the Bumblebee sequel Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was a very pleasant surprise: a big action movie that's actually a lot of fun, with strong characters and deeper ideas that grab the interest.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Medusa Deluxe • Blue Jean
Squaring the Circle
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
ALL REVIEWS >

Further afield, the web series Bridesman has been edited into a feature, and is much stronger. It's still silly and queeny, but has more bite now. From Canada, You Can Live Forever is a very nicely made low-key romantic drama about two girls who fall in love in their religious community. From Australia, Talk to Me is a particularly nasty and very effective horror movie about a demonic hand. And the engaging documentary All Man: The International Male Story traces the rise and fall of a fashion catalog that changed the way men dress themselves. I also attended the experimental film double bill Motion Picture at Sadler's Wells, which was fascinating and very beautiful. And once again, I thoroughly enjoyed attending the Critics' Circle National Dance Awards along with a terrific range of nominees, winners and, yes, critics.

This next week I'll be watching Pixar's new animated feature Elemental, Wes Anderson's Asteroid City, Jennifer Lawrence in No Hard Feelings and the Take That musical Greatest Days. I'm also preparing to serve on the jury at this year's Bifan in Bucheon, South Korea, at the end of the month.

Critical Week: I need a hug

I've tried to get outside more this past week, simply because after three months lockdown is doing my head in. A few days out in sunny weather were a welcome break from watching movies at home. This week also brought word that film production will begin again in the UK at the beginning of July, around the same time cinemas will be re-opening with some level of social distancing. And we also found out that awards season is being extended by two months, with the Oscars set for April.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Young Ahmed • Da 5 Bloods
On a Magical Night • The Painted Bird
WORTH A LOOK:
The King of Staten Island
7500 • Babyteeth
FULL REVIEWS >

The biggest films I watched this week included the warm and gently comical The King of Staten Island, Pete Davidson's fictionalised autobiography costarring Marisa Tomei (above). Spike Lee's powerful drama Da 5 Bloods follows four Vietnam vets back to the battleground 50 years later on a secret mission. It's staggeringly timely, hugely involving and strongly pointed. And Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried star in the horror thriller You Should Have Left, in which a family's holiday getaway becomes very darkly haunted. It's a bit thin, but sharply put together.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in the German thriller 7500, a gritty, contained drama set in the cockpit of a plane that's hijacked. It's a little contrived, but very well-made, and Gordon-Levitt is excellent. Jesse Eisenberg stars in the German drama Resistance, which traces Marcel Marceau's involvement in the French Resistance during WWII. It's a great story, even if the filmmaking is somewhat standard. The indie American comedy horror Driven follows a cab driver who picks up a demon-slayer and spends the night trying to save the world. It's silly but very entertaining. And the Dardenne brothers' Young Ahmed is another fiercely well-observed drama, low-key and unnerving as it follows a teen who has fallen under the influence of an extremist imam in Belgium.

Among the movies to watch this coming week, there's Penelope Cruz in Wasp Network, Maxine Peake in Fanny Lye Deliver'd, Teresa Palmer in Ride Like a Girl, the comedy thriller Homewrecker, the dance comedy Feel the Beat, the French thriller Lost Bullet, and the sexual assault documentary On the Record.

On the road: Bring it home

So here I sit in cold, rainy Southern California, all my plans derailed. I've seen some friends and family while I've been here, but not everyone I came out here to visit. And virtually everything has been cancelled due to covid-19, with cinemas and theatres closed, along with bars and restaurants. So as I distance myself socially, I have little to do. When not listening to music on hold, I've watched a few films. For example, out this week in the UK (perhaps!) is The Jesus Rolls, John Turturro's offbeat remake of the 1974 Les Valseuses featuring his Big Lebowski character Jesus Quintana. It's loose and perhaps too smiley.

I also watched, to review them, the engaging and creepy German arthouse thriller Darkroom, about a nice guy serial killer, and the adorable Swedish animated romance Top 3, about a guy with self-esteem issues. And exploring Netflix I found the warm Spanish film Live Twice, Love Once, an involving, very cleverly written and played drama about memory, as well as the concert video Steve Martin & Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life, which is as hilarious as you want it to be and leaves you wanting more.

I'll continue prowling around Netflix and, since cinemas are closing, I'll be covering more films released online over the next several weeks. The website will need to begin to reflect this new reality (this week's cover, right, replaces the planned one for A Quiet Place Part II). I'm still working out how this all looks, while I currently have review links for upcoming streaming movies titled: The Perfect Candidate, Hooking Up, The Other Lamb, Gold Dust, Just Sex Nothing Personal and, ahem, Butt Boy. So I have plenty to do whether I'm isolating in California or, hopefully, back home in London...