FrightFest: Scary monsters

The 23rd FrightFest is running this weekend in central London, scaring the life out of happy moviegoers. I tend to only catch a handful of films each year, and here's my selection this time round, starting with one of the best films I've seen all year...

Piggy [Cerdita]
dir-scr Carlota Pereda; with Laura Galan, Richard Holmes 22/Sp ****.
Bright, sunny and blackly humorous, this small-town Spanish drama takes an unblinking look at bullying and the complex emotions it evokes. Even more than a fiendishly clever approach to a serious topic, the film is an audacious genre mashup, mixing a high school comedy with a tense horror movie. Writer-director Carlota Pereda has a terrific eye for detail, and notable skill as a storyteller who cares about her characters.

Fall
dir Scott Mann; with Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner 22/US ***.
Shamelessly playing on its vertiginous premise, this adventure thriller keeps us in a state of nerve-wracking suspense right from the start. We're so frazzled that we never mind that many of the scares are gratuitous, the filmmaking is painfully obvious, and the continuity is more than a little iffy. This is a nonstop exercise in the most basic fear, and it's feels almost exhilarating when we survive it... REVIEW >

Burial
dir-scr Ben Parker; with Charlotte Vega, Tom Felton 22/UK ***
Set at the end of WWII, this mystery thriller generates a sense of secrecy at every step. It's packed with skirmishes that are nasty but not always easy to follow, while the story structure moves from one incident to the next without much overall momentum. It's sharp enough to hold the interest, but it lacks a compelling point of view, relying on intrigue rather than any human element.

Hypochondriac
dir-scr Addison Heimann; with Zach Villa, Devon Graye 22/US ****
Opening with a caption noting that it's "based on a real breakdown", this psychological horror immediately gets under the skin. Writer-director Addison Heimann creates a superbly subjective perspective, using inventive camerawork, editing and effects to explore the central character's thoughts. It's a terrific approach to internalised terror, which continually grounds mind-based delusions in earthy authenticity. This adds emotional angles that make the movie both gripping and bleakly moving... REVIEW >

Incredible But True [Incroyable Mais Vrai]
dir-scr Quentin Dupieux; with Alain Chabat, Lea Drucker 22/Fr ***.
French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux delights in telling wildly bonkers stories with a straight face. This lightly farcical tale involves time travel but delights in never quite explaining it. But while the premise is blatantly silly, with several riotously funny scenes along the way, the film has a warm heart that brings its characters to life. So while the central point feels somewhat simplistic, it's an engaging little romp.

Deep Fear
dir Gregory Beghin; with Sofia Lesaffre, Victor Meutelet 22/Fr ***
Earthy and confident, this French thriller maintains a lightly comical tone while layering in the usual hints that something horrific is brewing. This includes a standard randomly violent opening scene and a freak-out dream before the plot even begins, sending four young people on a day out that looks intriguing, fun and of course more than a little harrowing. It's a sharply well-made movie with a seriously vicious streak.

The Leech
dir-scr Eric Pennycoff; with Graham Skipper, Jeremy Gardner 22/US **.
There's a deranged sense of humour in this black comedy, which places an upstanding priest on a slippery slope to hell. Writer-director Eric Pennycoff encourages the cast to go for heightened performances that play up the in-your-face characters and dialog. As the story continues, it gets relentlessly darker, spiralling through swirly dream sequences before revealing some bleak truths about people who aren't particularly easy to empathise with.

Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin
dir-scr Dima Ballin, Kat Ellinger; with Veronique D-Travers, Brigitte Lahaie 22/US ****
Brisk and packed with detail, this documentary traces the life of a little-known filmmaker who told poetic stories about dreams and memory, often using horror and sex. Critics dismissed his work as exploitation, but scholars now see his roots in the art world and his important contribution to the French New Wave. Even if it's overlong, this is an essential doc about a rarely explored side of cinematic history.

These and other full reviews will be linked at Shadows FRIGHTFEST page >

Critical Week: Super Sly!

For some reason, August has been one of my busiest months this year, with barely a free moment between all of the movies I need to watch. And yes, it feels like work! At least, to balance the heavy arthouse fare, there were two loud masculine thrillers this week. Sylvester Stallone gets to play an ageing superhero in Samaritan, an unusually violent movie that seems made for kids. Its writing and direction are simplistic, but Sly is great, as is Pilou Asbaek as the villain. Meanwhile, Idris Elba takes on an angry lion in Beast, an entertaining but simplistic thriller with some terrific action moments. Its family angles have a bit more texture.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Private Desert • Funny Pages
Official Competition • The Good Boss
PERHAPS AVOID:
Samaritan
ALL REVIEWS >

The British post-WWII thriller Burial stars Tom Felten and Charlotte Vega (with a boost from Harriet Walter) in a dark tale about a Soviet mission. It's  messy, but atmospheric. The British thriller Black Mail is slick and watchable, but the filmmakers' inexperience shows in its lack of originality. And I also watched six films for the forthcoming FrightFest in London (coverage is coming this weekend) and just started working through my advance list of films that will be shown at the 79th Venice Film Festival (coverage starts next week).

This coming weekend is FrightFest in London, and then next week I'm heading to the 79th Venice Film Festival. I have 13 films to watch before I go (yikes!), then need to find time to write about them before seeing even more movies in Venice. Watch this space for updates...

Critical Week: Queens of the jungle

A few big Hollywood movies screened for the London press over the past week, including Snatched, the mother-daughter kidnapping romp starring Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer. It's silly enough to be a guilty pleasure, but could have been a lot more. Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron lead the charge in the goofy action-comedy movie version of the iconic TV series Baywatch. And Charlie Hunnam takes the lead in Guy Ritchie's entertaining and somewhat rushed approach to King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.

Meanwhile, Dominic Cooper struggles to elevate the terrorism thriller Stratton above B-movie status. Much better were a couple of foreign movies: from China, I Am Not Madame Bovary is a fiendishly clever exploration of social connection and darker motivations, while Machines is a riveting, relevant, gorgeously shot documentary about workers in an Indian fabric factory.

Coming up this next week, while many London-based critics have decamped to the South of France for the Cannes Film Festival, we will catch up with Johnny Depp's fifth turn as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge (aka Dead Men Tell No Tales), Chris Evans' drama Gifted, the Scottish biopic Tommy's Honour, the animated adventure Monster Island, the Mexican rom-com Wild Awakening and the shorts compilation Boys on Film 16: Possession.