NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2021 #20: Reviews of The Haunted Hotel (UK 2020), The House on the Cliff (UK 2021), Torture (UK 2021), Darkness in Mind (UK 2021), J1S (UK 2021) and Captain Callum Explores the Universe (UK 2021)

The Haunted Hotel (UK 2020: Dir Various) This portmanteau oddity, produced in 2020 but not released until a year later - presumably for Pandemic reasons - was put together by Film Suffolk, a not for profit organisation supporting local filmmakers. The hotel in question used as the film's only location was, and is, the Grade II listed Great White House in Ipswich; it's a place with a history. Dating back to 1518, the impressive hotel was mentioned in Charles Dickens's 'Pickwick Papers' (and none too favourably) and, at the time of filming, was shut down, which explains why much of the decor looks rather shabby.

However the short films which make up the feature compensate for the drab interiors by being, for the most part, a lot of fun; the budget was apparently £10,000, most of which, I would guess, was spent on costumes. The individual stories, which apart from using the hotel as their base - and having generally supernatural subject matter - don't have anything in common, is a plus as it's the variety of shorts on offer that makes The Haunted Hotel zip along nicely.

Travelling between the 1940s and the present day, the portmanteau highlights include: a hotel regular enjoying one last dance with the ghost of his late wife; a horror writer having a breakdown and encountering local beastly legend Black Shuck; a 'Horror Hotel' whose ghostly staff members are incompetent; and a helpful spirit who comes to the aid of a young girl about to be taken advantage of. 

As a postscript, since the film was made the hotel has re-opened, although sadly it seems that little has been spent on redecorating. If you look the place up on Trip Advisor the customer reviews are scarier than anything in The Haunted Hotel, and some of the visitors' photos show rooms in much the same state as when filming took place. 

The House on the Cliff aka Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff (UK 2021: Dir Sam Bhattacharjee) Director Bhattacharjee is also a VFX supervisor, and one look at the extraordinary THotC convinces you that he's happy to combine his skills with a 'kitchen sink' approach to his first Fantastic feature.

It's the 1970s and parapsychologist Barun Rai (Priyanshu Chatterjee) has been summoned to Corvid's Head, an American town that looks very like the UK (that's because it is). The reason for his presence is a rash of deaths, with various menfolk taking their lives by jumping off a cliff. 

Meanwhile two newlyweds have just bought a house on the same  cliff. Harmesh (Sid Makkar) and his wife Soumili (Nyra Banerjee) instantly fall in love with their impressive new home, but it's not long before Soumili finds an old book in the basement and there are signs that the house may be haunted. A visiting priest tends to agree when he's attacked by a swarm of bees (yeah I know). Rai and his investigating assistant Sukhbir (Aakash Shukal, wearing an oversized wig that has to be seen to be believed - and please forgive me Mr Shukal if that was your own hair) uncover the reason behind the haunting; a jilted fiancée (genre regular Ayvianna Snow) who swears vengeance on all men from beyond the grave. Can they exorcise the spirit before more men's lives are sacrificed?

Apparently the original running time of the movie was two and a half hours, apparently designed to be shown on Indian TV in 20 minute bursts. The resulting digest is a still overlong 120 minutes, but in its mix of loopy plot twists and batshit visuals (think a sort of Bollywood Garth Marenghi's Darkplace) you're unlikely to be bored; just confused. As Rai, Chatterjee is a laconic, cigar chewing chap with no discerning sense of humour, a quality much needed when dealing with the nonsense he encounters. The story might be hoary but you'll stay for the VFX which are over the top, often unnecessary, and quite wonderful. The end credits of the movie (and just look at the size of the technical cast, including an 'Insect developer') tell us that Barun Rai will return; quickly please, Mr Bhattacharjee!

Torture (UK 2021: Dir Jason Wright) Wright's 2019 debut feature, Dead Party, saw a bunch of ravers trapped in a warehouse and besieged by scientifically created zombies.

Two years later Wright returned with an (overly) ambitious movie, also with science out of control at its core. Deep in the country a number of disappearances are leaving the authorities, and local news channels, baffled; the discovery of bodies suggests an end to the mystery, but things are just hotting up.

A young bride to be is kidnapped on the day of her wedding. Elsewhere a single mother, alcoholic because of abuse from her father, has her baby taken from her by shadowy figures. Two male friends are having a blokey getaway, their destination a bondage festival called 'Sick Club'. Another parent becomes distraught when both her daughters go missing at a playground.

What links these characters isn't clear, but may have something to do with an old man called Doctor Jones, an operations room which is directing the action, and a historic series of experiments during the Cold War, involving children being subjected to protein modification tests.

The film is called Torture for good reason; a number of the indignities foisted on the captured people are pretty unpleasant. Sadly the word can also be used to describe some of the performances in the movie; it's a messy old film, with narrative strands all over the place and only a partial explanation offered. This may well be what Wright was aiming for (there's a definite nihilistic nod to Romero's 1973 movie The Crazies here) but it makes the whole thing very disjointed, and there wasn't enough style in the thing to create tension or, it has to be mentioned, sustain real interest.

Darkness in Mind (UK 2021: Dir Steve Jolley) there's an item in the 'Watford Observer' from November 2011 in which Jolley names this project as a feature film. At some point between then and 2021 it had shrunk down to a 46 minute featurette. I'm still trying to track down with the director the year of its release; Jolley seems to consider it unfinished (it's not on his IMDb page) but it's worth mentioning here as a genuine oddity.

Five unrelated people, each with their own traumata, sign up for a weekend retreat at the home of a Hypnotist (David France) with an excellent reputation. Triggered by a trance state induced by their host, we witness their phobias one by one. Andy (Justin Courtney) has entomophobia, a fear of insects (a particularly disturbing scene in which a large number of cockroaches - and spiders - crawl across his naked torso). Nicole (Julia Florimo) has prigophobia; a fear of choking. Wesley (Paul Law Beaumont) has agrizoophobia; a fear of teddy bears. Amy (Nansi Nsue) has masklophobia (as the word suggests, a fear of masks). And finally Mickey (Christopher Miles) has trauma stemming from being an abused child who narrowly escaped death; this is depicted via a very weird scene showing adult Mickey's head on a child's body, emoting in a crib.

Nothing else in the film really matches these scenes in terms of horror; the rest is taken up with the increasingly controlling behaviour of the Hypnotist, who gradually reveals his real motive as some kind of collector of souls, while at the same time forcing the five to confront the basis for their fears. DiM is an at times very creepy extended short, claustrophobically directed and with convincing performances from all concerned.

You can watch Darkness in Mind here.

J1S (UK 2021: Dir Jay Cunningham) Cunningham's debut feature is set in a present day Liverpool, although not quite; 'a different now' in fact, where J1S aka 'Jones' (Jack Bohdi), an AI being created by Dr Novak (Carl Wharton) is being slowly integrated into real life. 

An imminent and unscheduled visit from China's emperor, who has heard of and is interested in the project, forces Novak to rush the rest of Jones's development, installing an upgrade which has an unfortunate side effect; instead of simply updating the AI's operating system it sits alongside it, creating two minds, one benevolent, one malevolent.

Elsewhere in the city's Red District - a sort of Philip K. Dick futuristic sleazepark - Suza (Jade Bulmer), another robot, is trying to give her pimp boss Ivan (Keith Hyland) the slip. It's inevitable that Jones and Suza will come into contact with each other as they navigate the Merseyside mean streets.

'No Droids Allowed' reads a sign on a cafe; not only are our robots in conflict with each other but there's a world of AI mistrust out there (seems things haven't changed then). Cunningham's movie has more than a whiff of paranoia about it. Developed from a 4 minute short film into a feature, this one so nearly didn't make completion (you can read about Cunningham's many and varied struggles here) but I'm really pleased it did. Look, J1S isn't particularly original but the sheer passion involved in creating a world which is familiar but different has paid off. There are elements of Blade Runner, The Terminator and Manga in the film, but there's a very human side to things too. Bohdi and Bulmer are both great and there's real pace to the editing. I liked this a lot.

Captain Callum Explores the Universe (UK 2021: Dir Callum Davies) Young Callum Davies may not be aware of the work of US 1960s independent director Ray Dennis Steckler, but his goofy 50 minute film harks back to Steckler's knockabout 1968 movie The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters, although here the location is the Welsh coast rather than the suburbs of Los Angeles (in truth he was probably heading more for a The Inbetweeners feel).

Anyway Callum (star of many a YouTube skit video), a listless lad who wears two pairs of glasses, has his world changed when he finds a Captain's hat in a stream, puts it on and finds renewed purpose in life as, er, Captain Callum. His slacker mate, Rifle Rob (Jay Davies), so named because he has a plastic gun, sleeps a lot.

A freak meteor storm one night zaps CC from his own world and throws him into an alternate dimension. Separated from Rob, he encounters himself, in the guise of Video Universe Callum, who has a patch over one eye, and VUC's mate Lance (Kallum Gordon). CC is keen to travel back to his own dimension, which can only be achieved with the application of magical stones, which may have been instrumental in the meteor shower. But the stones are under threat courtesy of a masked chap called The Menacer, who can only be defeated by VUC's special powers.

"Do you really have to be so self centred, dude?" CC is asked at one point. "That's kind of the point of the whole character" replies CC, and indeed a lot of CCEtU is devoted to CC worrying about himself. I really liked this funny, goofy movie, which occupies a shared universe with the daft films of Ian Austin. The word 'zany' is pretty horrible (and overused) but it's kind of appropriate here to describe this micro budget, surreal, freewheeling comedy. Excellent.

You can watch Captain Callum Explores the Universe here. 

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2021 #19: Reviews of Override (UK 2021), Alone Together (UK 2021), Damien (UK 2021), Visions of Filth (UK 2021), Them (UK 2021) and Easter Bunny Massacre (UK 2021)

Override aka R.I.A. (Reality Interface Android) (UK 2021: Dir Richard Colton) A low budget sci fi movie starring not one but two denizens of the 1980s UK music scene; what are the chances?

'A Day With RIA' is a reality show with a twist. Every day, beamed to devices across the US, 'RIA', a sophisticated domestic android, wakes up and serves her 'husband' Jack breakfast, showers and plans her day with him. The same day, over and over again, with tweaks suggested by the viewing audience who can vote to vary her routines. The twist here is that the 'Jack' she wakes up to (and goes to be bed with, although no sex until after 9pm) is a different person every day, one of a never ending parade of contestants who make their pitch to be in the latest episode of the reality show.

So far so Groundhog Day meets The Truman Show. But then the 25th Jack (Charlie Clapham), who just happens to be the son of the US vice president (Dean Cain, yes that one), encounters and, in a break from the norm, is taken hostage by RIA who has been hacked, for reasons that become increasingly menacing.

Back to those Brit music cast members; ex Bros member Luke Goss, making quite the name for himself in low budget thrillers, is the first Jack we meet. Later on it's the turn of Sinitta to don a pair of glasses and a labcoat as Dr Tonya Smithe (trivia lovers may wish to know that her screen debut at age 18 was in Jim Sharman's 1981 follow up to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shock Treatment). Elsewhere RIA, played by a very game Jessica Impiazzi, is actually quite effective as the android gone wrong, alternating between sexiness, domesticity and living product promoter (the show presumably being funded by advertising). Until the conspiracy elements of the plot kick in, and it all gets way too confusing, this is an amusing enough little comment on TV culture and the perceived role of women. Bizarre but not unlikeable, then.

Alone Together (UK 2021: Dir Luke J. Couch) Bella (Meg Olssen) is an artist and a practicing Christian; her boyfriend Damien (Kamran Mohammed) has little time for her faith or indeed anything which isn't grounded in reality. Which is why he's distinctly underwhelmed when Bella tells him that, for her next art project, she's been delving into Christian demonology.

Discovering an old book, containing the name Balam, Bella's investigations trigger a series of visions in which she's visited by demons and has her faith, and her strict chastity, called into question; understandably Damien is a little concerned, particularly when Bella becomes possessed by evil forces. 

Couch's film, shot in 2020 but not released until 2021, possibly meant a lot to the director. Unfortunately its meaning is largely lost on the viewing audience, beyond its basic themes of good vs evil, faith vs disbelief etc. There's not a lot to look at here; Bella and Damien have a series of conversations about the state of their relationship, Bella gets a bit possessed and it doesn't end happily. 

But Alone Together is a great example of the democratisation of modern filmmaking; if you have the equipment, some cast members and a lot of patience you too can make a movie. Whether it's good or not may be the point.

Damien (UK 2021: Dir Bobby Marno) In 2021 the found footage feature was, if not going strong, still 'a thing', as evidenced by this Northern Irish offering from first time director Marno.

Three curmudgeonly filmmakers have arrived to interview Damien (Damien Seed - all the actors use their real names), a "vegetarian beef farmer", in a sort of Akenfield like experiment to document what is presumably a dying way of life. The three guys, Bobby (the director), Andy (Andrew McClay) and Hammer (Robert Brown, ok not all the actors then) are interested in Damien's genealogy, which can be traced back to the Picts via William Wallace.

Damien offers to show them the cottage where he grew up; a ramshackle building covered with signs, which, after a bit of research, turn out to be repetitions of a Celtic fire symbol; red headed Damien just may have links to a flame haired god called the Dagda and his son Aed.

Anyhow before long Hammer has gone missing while the team stay overnight; only his bloody shirt remains. Then we're into the angry villager/night footage so you can't see what's going on/running and swearing part of the film. Then it ends.

Damien scores some points for its key cast members a) all looking the same (it's the beards which makes it a tad confusing) and b) not being 20 years old (although under those beards I may be mistaken). Line of the movie has to be "Have you ever seen so many ginger people in a circle?".

Visions of Filth (UK 2021: Dir Jason Impey) Lest you thought that the British Fantastic Film scene generally played it safe when it comes to content, along comes Mr Impey to do a bit of disabusing; actual in Impey's case make that 'abusing'. Along with directors like Sam Mason Bell, Impey is not afraid to luxuriate in the downward spiral of human behaviour. It's why you don't often see his films streamed in the UK, even though the guy has been making shorts and full features since 1994.

The 'visions of filth' in this movie belong to an unnamed killer, played by Martin W. Payne, an actor prepared to go there in the name of art (as anyone who has seen 2019's Lonely Hearts or the following year's Millennial Killer will attest). Payne's character is in the latter stages of what is assumed to be bowel cancer (we get a graphic display of the sickness at work; yes it's that kind of film), reflecting back on his past murders, his modus operandi a combination torture/masturbation double hander (pun intended), accompanied by a wicked laugh, a bit like a video nasty version of Tod Slaughter. He is mentally teased by one victim (Rina Julia) who reaches out from beyond the grave to exact her revenge (Impey presages his film with a Biblical quote, warning that it's God's work only to repay evil with evil).

If you do get to see Visions of Filth, beware that a cold shower will be in order after viewing. It's pretty reprehensible stuff, plot free and nihilistic in extreme (albeit with a twisted moral conclusion). It's not really my sort of thing (it's a brave person that would admit it's their sort of thing) but it's a good film to have in mind for the next pub discussion where some know-all opines that Britain doesn't do 'cinema of transgression'.

Them (UK 2021: Dir Ignacio Maiso) Maiso's last feature, 2019's Prowler, was a headscratcher of a debut; his follow up is no less of a challenge.

In an unspecified setting - it's London but it could be now or the near future - a group of beings that were once human cannot now be seen by the human race. Occasionally there is a breakthrough when an actual human 'wakes up' and can see the ancient race, like Daniel aka Keeper 1 (Sindri Swan), but mainly humans lead repetitive lives, unaware of what's happening. But there's pressure to reset things, to take the world back to where the race remain undetected but still in charge.

That's the best I can make out of this impenetrable movie. Hats off to Maiso for not conveniently explaining what's being shown; the best that can be offered is Last Year in Marienbad via The Matrix. 

In that the movie was made during the Pandemic, part of me wonders whether some of the 'great reset' conspiracy theories of the time have managed to seep into the techno neurosis of the film. It's well photographed, static, and impenetrable.

Easter Bunny Massacre (UK 2021: Dir Jack Peter Mundy) The Scott Jeffrey Jagged Edge crew are all present and correct for this one. Directed by a guy responsible for no less than 5 movies in 2021, as that number suggests his films are cheaply made, efficiently delivered, but sadly of varying quality.

EBM looks to the setup of I Know What You Did Last Summer in its story of a woodland party that goes wrong when one of their number, Heather (Anthonia Whillans, whose early exit might be explained by the sheer number of behind the scenes functions she undertakes, according to the credits) winds up dead after everyone else is so strung out that they can't remember what happened. All the college kids worry about the academic impact of being associated with a corpse, so they dump her body in the river and pretend nothing happened. What we know, and the rest of the group don't, is that Heather was killed by someone in an Easter Bunny costume.

One year on, the survivors of that evening (minus one of their number, who has taken their life in the interim because of all the stress involved in the cover up) and their plus ones are all invited to a reunion. That the person who has sent the invitations signs themselves 'Heather' doesn't put anyone off attending. As the group congregate they follow as series of clues, Easter egg hunt style, to find out what's going on; these clues include a number of tapes, seemingly recorded by Heather. As the movie progresses, the inner secrets of all are revealed in such a way as any of the attendees could have been responsible for the murder; until of course they begin to get murdered, by someone in a bunny suit, natch.

Although EBM remains resolutely cheap (the location is mainly restricted to a Somerset youth hostel, presumably keen to do an out of season deal) there's something rather good about the complexity of motives and opportunity revealed by the cast as events pan out, helped by some nifty camerawork from DOP Robin Keane. The plus ones in the group add to the red herring score, and although the upshot is rather silly it's quite fun getting there, particularly the whole Rashomon like unreliable witness stuff. Jeffrey and Mundy have both been involved with features far poorer than this one. I rather liked it.

The Damned (Ireland/UK/Iceland/Belgium 2024: Dir Thordur Palsson)

It's the early 19th Century somewhere in Iceland, and Eva (Odessa Young) is left managing a remote fishing outpost after the death of her husband Magnus. Inhospitable at the best of times, as winter bites the crew of the station, cold, isolated and starving, subsist on the fish they have caught for trade.

Witnessing a vessel sinking just off the coast the group face an agonising decision; brave the icy waters to rescue the crew and risk the possibility of their own death in the cold, or leave the vessel's occupants to a watery fate. Eva, nominally in command, chooses the latter.

But if Eva and her group thought that the cost of the decision would be restricted to a few guilty sleepless nights, cook Helga (Siobhan Finneran), a woman not short of a folk tale or two, warns that the ship's dead will come back as a draugur – a being that "has no life in it - just hate".

When the bodies of the drowned sailors are washed up on the beach, the fishing crew grant them the dignity of makeshift coffins. It's the last dignified act they do carry out, thereafter descending to bickering, fighting and worse. Suspecting that something walks among them, Eva re-opens the coffins, only two find one body missing. Has the draugur become a reality?

Watching Palsson's debut feature there's more than a whiff of John Carpenter's 1982 flick The Thing and the recent TV drama The Terror (based on Dan Simmons's novel of the same name) in its tale of snowbound folk steadily going out of their gourd. The Damned manages to carve out its own identity largely by a careful mix of Icelandic myth, underplayed performances and well deployed nightmarish imagery (squirming eels cut from the belly of a dead sailor being just one example). The authentic wintry backdrop perfectly complements the rising anxiety of the crew (although the studio set interiors looked just a little warm in contrast) and veteran composer Stephen McKeon's soundtrack compounds the sense of isolation. In a cast that mixes familiar and newcomer Young's Eva is terrific as a young woman placed in a position that she didn't want, but rising stolidly to the challenge; even if the outcome is resolutely bleak.

Well worth checking out, The Damned is in cinemas from 10 January and will no doubt be streaming soon - but see it while winter's still upon us; you'll get more out of it.