NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022 #6: Reviews of Amityville Hex (UK 2022), Hounded (UK 2022), The Area 51 Incident (UK 2022), The Beast of Bodmin Moor (UK 2022), Killahurtz (UK 2022) and Reign of Chaos (UK 2022)

Amityville Hex (UK 2021: Dir Tony Newton) "I ask the dead, I call upon thee, let the Amityville Hex consume me; I offer you my soul, please take, Amityville Hex consume me now, make no mistake. I call out the number 666 three times and do so now; 666; 666; 666! May this hex take over me." 

This is the text of a viral curse, a 'creepypasta' that has been taking over the world wide web. The guy to blame seems to be 'Coolduder' (Shawn C Phillips), a perky vlogger who encourages a group of friends to recite the curse via a Zoom call; big mistake. Each of the people on the call and other social media personalities who follow in their footsteps are gradually taken over by the 'Amityville Hex' and go seriously off the rails, leading them to take their own lives, the lives of others or, in one case, die by getting run over by a possessed lawnmower, in successive scenes of cut price gore.

Director Newton appears as one of the haunted vloggers, and who unfortunately seems to have a problem pronouncing the word 'Amityville' correctly. Oh and sidebar; apart from the word, there's nothing to connect this film to the 'Amityville' franchise except from a brief reference via a fake news item (the newsreader being Ouijageist's John R. Walker). Probably the most surprising thing here is Phillips's performance; the normally perky gracer of many a low budget horror flick here presents a different side of himself, ever present baseball cap removed to show thinning hair, his topless rants about horror fans and the niche in which he's become stuck rather unnerving. 

Hounded aka Haunted (UK 2022: Dir Tommy Boulding) Four young people based in London - Leon (Nobuse Junior), his brother, college student Chaz (Malachi Pullar-Latchman), Vix (Hannah Traylen) and immigrant worker Tod (Ross Coles) - are looking to break out of their urban existence by making some money. Courtesy of a bent antiques dealer, the four land tipoffs as to where the posh keep their valuables, break in to their houses and liberate the goods, in return for some hard cash.

The four land their biggest challenge to date; purloin an antique dagger from a huge country pile whose occupants are out for the evening. But their plans go seriously awry when they are caught in the act by the owners, old money rural stock, including Katherine (Samantha Bond), her brother Hugo (James Lance) and old retainer Mallory (Nick Moran) who decide that the London guttersnipes should be hunted down like foxes; but they haven't reckoned on the resourceful foursome.

Boulding's debut rather unsubtly exposes the contrasts between the 'haves' and the 'have nots but are happy to help themselves', but does well to recover the audience's initial antipathy towards a bunch of thieving urchins by having the rich being far more objectionable. Some of the class war lines land better than others, like Vix's "There are more guns on my estate than yours" and "The aristocracy; they fear what they don't understand." But the movie retains a good pace despite its slender elements; at its heart it's a modern rework of The Most Dangerous Game (1932) but an entertaining one nonetheless.

The Area 51 Incident (UK 2022: Dir Rhys Frake-Waterfield) Two young graduate students, hard working Jenny (Megan Purvis) and son of someone in charge Trent (Scott Jeffrey, the movie's producer, taking a rare casting credit using his 'technical' rather than 'acting' name of Scott Chambers) are given a tour round the Area 51 facility courtesy of Trent's dad. Now you and I know that this historic site is located in part of Nevada, USA, so quite what a car with a British license plate is doing there is a puzzle (he wrote, a little sarcastically).

The boffins at the facility have discovered a wormhole connecting to the planet Keppler B, 640 light-years from earth; sensors sent into the portal have largely disappeared, but one has made contact. And now the occupants of the distant world have decided to visit. 

It doesn't take long before all of this exposition is jettisoned to make way for some CGI monsters stalking the cast in a bunker (somewhere in Wales I believe), a cast which now includes two women, previously seen pickpocketing soldiers in the facility's bar (Sian Altman and Heather Jackson, both Chambers/Jeffrey regulars) and some gung ho soldiers. The corridor running is largely kept to a minimum and there's an interesting side story in that the creatures are able to possess the dead, bringing them back to life to do their bidding (scenes which are the movie's most effective sequences).

The Scott Jeffrey house of monsters is getting more impressive in terms of overall production values, but the overall problem of getting everyone into a single (small) location and then having them strategise their way out while crying and shouting is getting a little tired; these films aren't tongue in cheek - the cast take it all very seriously - but in contrast while the CGI seems to be evolving past the 1990s PC game quality  - including an impressive last reel lightshow - the limitations of the budget still show.

The Beast of Bodmin Moor (UK 2022: Dir Adam Starks) The sixth (!) feature from 25 year old director Starks is an ambitious 19th century period adventure. 

Nicholas Felt (Starks) is an "author and investigator of the supernatural" who, with the assistance of ex policeman Jacob Crimsby (Joshua Copeland) has travelled to Bodmin to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances. The only clue to the mystery is the discovery of human bones, and locals believe the cause to be a mythical four footed beast.

Felt and Crimsby, who both have their own secrets, suspect that the truth is less fantastic than described, even after an encounter the seemingly helpful Beedlewood (Richard Linton) who supports the wild animal theory. But Beedlewood knows more than he's saying, and before long our investigators come face to face with the beast and a mysterious ghostly woman. What can it all mean?

TBoBM does extremely well to create a historic atmosphere - including a working steam train - and a nifty creature. Unfortunately the pace of the film is, to put it kindly, sedate, and neither Starks nor Copeland make for particularly engaging leads. The film is crisply photographed with some lovely countryside scenes, but isn't a jot scary; it's closer in tone to a 1970s BBC costume drama, but needs more script work. A valiant effort but not an entirely successful one.

Killahurtz (UK 2022: Dir Al Carretta) "How do you OD on headphones?" Pretty odd question, huh? Well when you watch Killahurtz it's probably the least odd thing in the movie.

The brainchild of Al Carretta (who pretty much does everything behind the scenes on this, including the soundtrack, and casts himself as a beat poet style DJ), this is clearly a lockdown influenced movie which makes sense if you know that it was originally planned back in 2020 under the title 'Earwigger'. The story, as far as I can make out, is that kids in the USA, in a bid to find new ways to ingest the popular drug Fentanyl, have started putting it in their headphones so that they get high when the beats release it.

Somehow a trial supply of a new type of headphones, sent to the UK and sent out to various influencers, has become infected; whether it's because they were manufactured with the COVID virus mistakenly packaged inside, or something more sinister, isn't made clear. Around this 'drama' a number of characters circulate, whose brains may already have been altered by exposure to the narcotic. 

Killahurtz received its first screening at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe, and it's most likely in an arts setting that this film would be most effective. It looks slick but narratively it's willfully confusing, as if Carretta's aim was to unseat its audience. Well it worked; at an hour and a quarter it's still a slog to get through and its opaque approach, coupled with a rather flimsy central idea, alienates rather than absorbs.

Reign of Chaos (UK 2022: Dir Rebecca Matthews) Another from the 'all-quantity-and-sometimes-quality' team of Matthews, producer Scott Jeffrey and writer Tom Jolliffe, this bargain basement fantasy film knows its limits and doesn't take itself too seriously.

In a mumbled prologue we learn that an ancient force, Chaos (embodied here by Mark Sears), has caused the world as we know it to break down via a virus or plague, which has turned many into ravening zombies. But hope is at hand; the descendants of a race of goddesses have acted as a balance to Chaos and his minions, although their numbers have dwindled. One remains, and her name is Nicole (Rebecca Finch). 

Nicole is unaware of her powers until she meets a kind of hero wrangler, Rhodri (Peter Cosgrove) who introduces her to two toughnut fighting women, Alina (Rita Di Tuccio) and Lindsay (Georgia Wood). Rhodri puts the women through their paces, leading to the final confrontation with Chaos, which Nicole must win, to stop the world collapsing into total darkness,

Reign of Chaos was filmed on the mean London streets of Redbridge and Camden; the budget didn't provide for zombie hordes - or indeed any extras - so the places the trio of avengers walk are strangely empty. The script would suggest some kind of superhero extravaganza but with resources being tight there's a quite a lot of chat instead, interspersed between the occasional bouts of chop socky. Some light relief is provided by a pub landlord (Du’aine Samuels) and his wife, and there's an extended montage of Rocky style training scenes as the women toughen up. There's also a really good electronic score by Rachel Shuttleworth to add a gloss to the proceedings. Short and sweet, I kind of like this, and a sequel is hinted at.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022 #5: Reviews of Cannibal Cabin (UK 2022), The Winter Witch (UK 2022), Among the Living (UK 2022), The Rise of the Beast (UK 2022), Are We Monsters (UK 2022) and Senseless (UK 2022)

Cannibal Cabin (aka Cannibal Lake) (UK 2022: Dir Louisa Warren) OK so in the past I've been critical of the films of Ms Warren and her ilk for including large amounts of extraneous exposition to pad them out to feature length. Here Warren decides to ditch any real attempt to establish character, motive etc in favour of what she would probably pitch as non stop action and violence, but what the casual viewer would conclude is interminable walking about in a dingy lock up.

Said lock up - and surroundings - has been kindly donated by the Lagoona Water Park in downtown, er, Reading, and despite the prominent trumpeting of their sponsorship in the credits, I'm not sure that the company may have seen the final version of the movie, otherwise they might think about removing their association with this travesty.

After an extended prologue, set in 2002 wherein three friends (including one who is heavily pregnant) are attacked by some mask wearing throwbacks for having the temerity to enjoy a spot of jet skiing, we're plunged headlong into the present day and a vanload of twenty somethings in search of a music festival (er, they're in Reading, how hard can it be to locate this?). The tipoff about the event has come from one of their number, Faye (Mia Lacostena, a new inductee to the Warren fold), a strange loner who may be sheltering a secret about her past. 

En route to the festival the music lovers get lost and stumble across some buildings, hoping to get directions from the occupiers. But instead of a warm welcome, the facility is home to the same masked throwbacks we saw in the prologue, who begin their flimsy reign of terror, triggering lots of running around and hiding.

Warren's films can be a bit hit and miss, but Cannibal Cabin is an absolute dud. Having grown up watching the fright flicks of the late 1970s/1980s it's perhaps no surprise that this one attempts a The Hills Have Eyes feel with a bit of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre thrown in, with the cannibal freaks, who all seem to be part of the same family, constantly complaining about city types as they mete out their vengeance. Warren has added a (royalty free I assume) cheesy FM rock soundtrack to add verisimilitude, which at times threatens to drown out the dialogue in its overapplication; thank heavens for small mercies.

The Winter Witch (UK 2022: Dir Richard John Taylor) I'm going to start with a positive. Some of the camerawork on this film was lovely; initially I was going to write this element off with some comment about good use of stock photography, but with an 8 strong camera crew and a drone operator I think the majority of footage was captured by the crew. So well done! And now for the rest of it...

A few years ago there was a small rash - more like a blister - of films based on or incorporating the Austrian/German originated myth of Frau Perchta, the Christmas Witch, including James Klass's 2017 Mother Krampus.

The idea of Frau Perchta as a recurring character in films didn't really take off, but some years later this hasn't deterred Richard John Taylor (otherwise known as British filmmaker, author and restaurateur Meredith Alfred Lytton) from putting together a film whose alternative titles have included 'The Curse of Frau Perchta' and 'Baba Yaga'.

It's Christmas (not that you'd know it apart from a few bursts of Hawes's 'Carol of the Bells' on the soundtrack), and troubled Ingrid (Rose Hakki) is about to take a trip with her daughter Eleanor (Evie Hughes) back to the home where she grew up, the scene of a deadly tragedy from childhood which seems to have repeated itself. Ingrid is a journalist, and her boss encourages the trip because he feels her coverage of the story will be good for his newspaper's circulation. On the other hand Ingrid's estranged husband Frank (Jimmy 'The Bee' Bennett) is against it, fearing that his wife and child will be in danger.

Ingrid's grandmother, or Oma (Rula Lenska) still lives in the village where it all happened, and the arrival of her granddaughter and great granddaughter upsets the locals, who fear that the tragedy that claimed Ingrid's mother and sister Hannah is being rekindled by her return. There is no further direct discussion about the recent murders, which it assumed as being perpetrated once again by Frau Perchta. There is an awful lot of hand wringing as various characters work out their personal crises; with about fifteen minutes to spare the Frau herself very briefly pops up and is quickly despatched.

Anyone hoping for some demonic visitations, a bit of gore or indeed anything beyond characters shouting and pointing at each other for an hour and a bit is in for some real disappointment. The Winter Witch is all close ups, portentous music and little else. 'The Curse is real' suggests the publicity - so, my friends, is the tedium.

Among the Living (UK 2022: Dir Rob Worsey) Anyone who saw the TV show The Last of Us before Worsey's debut feature may feel a little short changed (the dynamics and themes of both are very similar, the budgets aren't) which would be a shame as Among the Living has a lot to offer.

Filmed in North Yorkshire, with stunning rural photography by Jordan Lee, we follow Harry (Dean Michael Gregory) and his younger sister Lily (Melissa Worsey) as they travel cross country from their home in search of their father. Although the details aren't made clear, the nation has been overrun with a pandemic which has turned the infected into blood drinkers, who can sniff out the red stuff at quite a distance; hence any cuts must be covered up instantly to avoid detection.

On their journey they encounter other disparate souls, including the initially taciturn Karl (George Newton) and his 'son' Tom (Leon Worsey); but the spirit of the age is that no-one trusts anybody else,  civilisation being in danger of complete collapse.

If this set up sounds a little like the A Quiet Place movies you'd be right; but it's more a jumping off point than a ripoff. Among the Living - the title comes from a line in one of the soundtrack songs by US band 'The Rinaldis' - concerns itself with ordinary people trying to stay sane in the face of an unprecedented crisis. Here it's all about the performances; low budget movies can be a little shaky in this department but the cast create a believable sense of isolation, fear and confusion, particularly the children Lily and Tom (played by the director's siblings). The lush score by Mitch Gardener heightens the mood of despair perfectly; this is a well directed, well acted movie that rises above its unoriginal premise.

The Rise of the Beast aka Devolution (UK 2022: Dir Jack Ayers) Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews, a 21st Century home counties equivalent of US budget schlock producers Nicholson and Arkoff, are back (again) with their by now rather formulaic approach to sci fi horror.

Damien Smith (Andrew Rolfe) is the head of Darrow, a company involved in the murky world of genetic experimentation; their hotshit lead scientist John (Arthur Boan) is in reality a mole who actually leads a group of saboteurs, including his girlfriend Elena (the ever dependable Sarah T. Cohen), keen on exposing to the world the seamy goings on in the company.

To do this they need to break into Darrow's facility and document the testing, as well as uncovering the mystery of the recent disappearance of a number of people in the vicinity of the lab. But there's a problem; before the group can get anywhere near their destination they're attacked by a giant gorilla (in reality this is Kira, a former prostitute from Brighton, who like the other mispers has been genetically modified) who manages to take a bite out of Elena. Taking sanctuary nearby, they encounter Dr Kafka (Heather Jackson), an addled scientist with a bloodstained lab coat and a messiah complex who seems to be the brains behind the experiments, and a gung ho group of solders. As the assembled cast get slowly picked off, Elena begins to fear that her bite might have infected her more seriously than first thought, when her thoughts turn to human lunch.

To be fair the Jeffrey/Matthews template, which remains remarkably consistent irrespective of the person directing, has undergone some massive improvements since the early days of their filmmaking (that would be 2020 then). There are now sufficient narrative left and right turns to keep things interesting, the wandering around in corridors element has sensibly been reduced, and the Kira creature is a reasonably good looking bit of CGI although the budget doesn't yet stretch to interaction with the human cast (it does however provide for some improved locations). On the downside there is still a persistence in requiring some of the cast to adopt variously successful US accents (Cohen is, as ever, the most convincing) and there are still some draggy bits even despite a 75 minute run time.

Are We Monsters (UK 2022: Dir Seb Cox) A lycanthropy movie with a difference; don't come looking for shaggy coats and dripping fangs here! In fact, don't come expecting a werewolf flick in any of the usual senses of the term. 

Everett (John Black) and Connor (Stefan Chanyeam) are brothers, the last of a long line of werewolf hunters, now operating under their own auspices having watched their father die at the, well, hands of a strange entity, whose rubbery torso and extended neck (and lack of hair) mark it out as no wolfman - or woman - you've ever seen before.

With only two of the original silver bullets left, the pair are considering their position, when they encounter Maya (Charlotte Olivia) and her awkward friend Luke (Jathis Sivanesan) while on patrol. Maya realises that there is something wrong with her and that she has monthly 'urges'. Sickly Luke definitely has something wrong with him, although his condition is more identifiable; Maya hopes that her friend's knowledge of folklore will aid her understanding. But an uneasy non alliance with the wolf hunting brothers bizarrely provides her with the information she requires; Everett even feels protective towards her, but Connor reminds him of the brothers' mission, and as the next full moon approaches allegiances and divisions among the four will be fully tested.

Aside from the sweary dialogue, this is a YA movie at heart, and heart is its chief selling point, As Maya Olivia is authentically awkward, and her early will-they-won't-they scenes with Luke have more than a ring of truth. The back story to the whole thing, told in fits and starts, is rendered in crude but effective animation; it's a technique also used to scrappy but keen effect at the movie's schismatic climax. Are We Monsters is low on budget but high on genuine feels; it may lope along (sorry) a bit but its heart is definitely in the right place, and as a coming of age allegory it's very effective.

Senseless (UK 2022: Dir Sam Mason-Bell) "You are nothing but dirt, and to dirt you will return". There really is no one out there in the UK making films quite like Sam Mason-Bell. One of eight (!) projects made and/or released in 2022, this one follows Home is Where I Lay and is similarly claustrophobic and possibly autobiographical.

Best seen as a journey into a form of hell from which redemption is eventually but uneasily attained, nothing much, and yet everything, happens in Senseless. Jason (Ryan Carter) is a tortured soul; when we first meet him, he is, like Dante in his 'Inferno', lost and wandering alone into a dense forest with nothing to his name apart from the clothes on his back and a box of roll ups. 

Through fractured voices echoing in his head we know that he has separated from his partner Diane (Ella Palmer) who rains down hateful abuse about Jason's worth and value to her and society generally; it's "like a stench has gone" as she describes life without him. Later on there's a suggestion that Diane may have died at Jason's hand. As he progresses, again Dante like, he meets ghosts and shadows that taunt him but who also warn him to go back; voices he ignores as he pushes on. The assailants become more physical and, as the film enters into abstraction, Jason is literally pulled part (a simple but effective piece of animation) before his eventual reconciliation at the end of the night.

Mason-Bell's film puzzles, bores and excites in kind of equal amounts; it's carried by a beautiful score by Craigus Barry (one of the most talented people working in British independent film today) which picks up and drops musical styles, perhaps echoing Jason's fractured soul. Impressively edited, Senseless is really something out of nothing, but in Mason-Bell's hands becomes an enigmatic and powerful piece.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022 #4: Reviews of The Lair (UK 2022), Demonic Christmas Tree (UK 2022), Hayfever (UK 2022), Blank (UK 2022), Mandrake (UK 2022) and Wrath of Van Helsing (UK 2022)

If you're looking for the third bumper round up of 2022 films, you can find it in the third hard copy edition of DEoL the fanzine - see my last post. 

The Lair (UK 2022: Dir Neil Marshall) Marshall's movies can be hit or miss affairs, and even after his last, 2020's decidedly poor The Reckoning, this is really no improvement.

Makeup perfect Lt Kate Sinclair (Charlotte Kirk, the film's co-writer and Marshall's partner - and it's worth you looking up that story when you have a moment) is shot down while flying over Afghanistan. After crash landing, she's chased, ending up in an underground bunker where she unwittingly lets loose some caged creatures, who she manages to outwit. Sinclair runs into a bunch of soldiers (featuring some terrible British regional accents) who are initially disbelieving of her monster tales. But when the monsters turn up, it's soldier v. beast.

Marshall admitted in a Q&A accompanying the screening I attended that he wanted to make a movie where he basically got "to blow shit up", and when you're starting from that premise, it's perhaps not really fair to look for hidden meanings. While horror fans might look to his past for influences - The Lair has something of the ramshackle feel of Marshall's 2002 debut feature Dog Soldiers, with its dissolute gang of anti establishment military, and also some of the claustrophobic fear of his The Descent (although that movie's in a different league) - this is more recognisable as something from the hand of the director of 2019's Hellboy. The Lair also reminded me of Renny Harlin's 2013 monsters and science romp The Dyatlov Pass Incident, although that's not much of a recommendation; this movie's a bit of a mess and rather forgettable, and acts best as a calling card for Kirk, although my advice to her is not to add The Reckoning to her show reel. 

Demonic Christmas Tree aka The Killing Tree (UK 2022: Dir Rhys Frake-Waterfield) My initial thought when faced with the premise of Demonic Christmas Tree was 'what terrible nonsense is this?' Also that it must be an affectionate nod to one of my favourite trash flicks of the 1950s, the possessed tree movie From Hell It Came (with a little bit of Child's Play thrown in).

The actual movie is something else; a parody which takes the often ridiculous premise of many indie Brit fright flicks, and then takes things two - ok four - steps further. It's no coincidence that many of the films I had in mind as the basis for Frake-Waterfield's send up had been directed or produced by Scott Jeffrey. And readers, guess who produced this one?

So we have a old lady, Morrigan (Judy Tcherniak). She was one half of a serial killer duo, whose partner in crime, Clayton Slayter, was caught, tried and executed. Morrigan attempts a spell to bring him back to life, but it backfires, trapping his returning soul in...a Christmas tree. Yep, with baubles and lights; and the ability to move. 

Slayter, in tree form, escapes (via a nifty bit of CGI) and sets off on a mission; to seek revenge on Faith (Sarah Alexandra Marks, also in Wrath of Van Helsing, covered below), a young woman whose parents were his last victims and who was responsible for his arrest and eventual death. Handily Faith is having a party in the family house in which she still lives, with a bunch of friends, who predictably get picked off one by one until it's just Faith and the tree.

Once you get over the movie's ridiculous premise there really is a lot to like about Demonic Christmas Tree. In flashbacks to his life on earth, Slayter is a shades wearing, Alice Cooper-alike (Marcus Massey); as a resurrected tree, he's basically a mumbling, bauble dangling shambles, who kills by means of branches/tentacles which can skewer, rend and pull his victims apart like a Christmas cracker (again via rather clever  - for the budget - effects). To be fair there's not much that's particularly Christmassy about the film beyond the tree (or trees - there's a rather bizarre MCU type climax), and the last half hour gives itself over to the inevitable running about. But as a further subversion of the titles helmed by Jeffrey and his clan it's a hoot, and there are some beautiful shot night scenes as well. Silly but more fun than expected.

Hayfever (UK 2022: Dir Henry Richardson) After 2021's rather good The Secluded, Richardson brings us two further features for 2022; Lurking and this one, Hayfever. Hayfever is "a micro budget, 70s style splatter horror movie made for £2000"; you better believe it! Filtered in blissed out Kodachrome tones, three youths - Shawn (Richardson) and his two slacker mates, Scotty (Oren Kemsley-Roberts) and vape addicted Paddy (Ryan Skates) - set off for a camping trip into the countryside while the nation suffers as the result of a fearfully high pollen count. 

But the pollen carries spores that can infect the living, as we've already seen in a prologue where a hapless photographer falls foul of it. The morning after the guys' first night under the stars they first find the camera and then the infected guy. Chaos ensures.

Hayfever, by the director's own end credits admission, was inspired by Eli Roth's Cabin Fever and Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. For a movie a little over an hour long with a 'three guys messing around in the woods' set up, it's actually pretty good. Our leads are authentically matey and the descent into pollen induced mayhem is handled well, with some great editing work and an atmospheric woodlands location. Richardson's liberal plundering of recorded TV news and incidental music (I'm sure Ray Davies gave him permission to use the Kinks track 'Hayfever' over the end credits) ensures that the film probably won't screen any wider than its current YouTube location, but it's a valiant effort and there's some talent at work here.

You can watch Hayfever here.

Blank (UK 2022: Dir Natalie Kennedy) Successful writer Claire Rivers (Rachel Shelley) has a problem; writer's block. She's overdue on her next book, and both her agent and her creditors are getting restless. The solution? An author's retreat, and a chance for Claire to recharge her batteries and knuckle down to meet her deadline. But this is a getaway with a difference; the facility is run by AI in the form of a virtual manager who Claire names 'Henry' (Wayne Brady) and a rather old school robotic factotum called Rita (Heida Reed), who exists to serve her guest's needs and dispense largely unwanted lifestyle advice.

Of course anyone who has seen any sci fi movies in which the AI has control knows that there will soon be trouble in paradise. Claire learns quickly that while most of her wishes can be catered for, the one to leave the hermetic facility is constantly denied until she finishes writing the book (there's a great scene early on where she submits her first draft for approval only to have it rejected for plagiarism by Rita; Claire has basically recycled Dumas' 'The Count of Monte Christo' to get the job done). Adding insult to injury, a power outage within the building glitches up the setup. An increasingly wayward Rita holds Claire prisoner, and the author's only way out is to break her block and complete her novel.

The story behind how this is achieved, mixed wuth Claire's efforts to outwit the AI and escape her cyber captors, makes for the heart of this rather arid but well executed film. The key elements - single set, small cast - render the whole thing rather stagey, and there's a mid point sag which tests the patience a little. Shelley is serviceable but decidedly one note as the imprisoned Claire, and the drama of the piece is rather stretched with a too long running time. But Blank looks very good and its time unspecific setting adds to the film's mystery, although the sci fi elements feel a little tacked on; it finally finds its heart towards the end but that feels like a rather drawn out journey, if not without some intrigue.

Mandrake (UK 2022: Dir Lynne Davison) Cathy Madden (Deirdre Mullins) is a probation officer in Northern Ireland, who volunteers for a job that no-one else in her team wants: the rehabilitation of a notorious killer, 'Bloody' Mary Laidlaw (Derbhle Crotty), following a 20 year prison sentence for the murder of her husband. 'Bloody' Mary's reputation has passed into local legend, a reputation which ensures that she's not going to have an easy time on release.

Mary's provided new home is a couple of steps up from a squat; Cathy promises to get 'human resources' to look into it and Mary's disgusted repetition of the phrase suggests a woman out of tune with the modern world. Cathy and Mary, for entirely different reasons, are outsider characters, and Cathy's humanity and willingness to give her the benefit of the doubt makes us see Mary in a different light. But when two local children go missing near to Mary's new home, and the worst happens, Cathy realises that she has completely underestimated her charge. 

Mandrake is a film that never seems to see daylight. It's oppressive, inconclusive and very, very murky. I wasn't as enamoured with the movie as some other critics although as a first feature Lynne Davison conjures up great atmosphere, even if it remains rather inconclusive. But Mullins and Crotty are both excellent in their roles, the economy of characterisation drawing from the director's experience on short films and TV.

Wrath of Van Helsing aka Van Helsing aka Van Helsing, Hunter of the Damned (UK 2022: Dir Soner Metin) Researches show that this is Soner Metin's first feature as sole director, but IMDb and the credits list strongly suggest  - ok, spell out - that one Scott Jeffrey is behind this one. And having seen a LOT of SJ movies, this is definitely one of his lesser ones, even if he's clearly aiming for a franchise.

Four ill dressed Urbexers (ill dressed unless they were heading to the local disco, that is) named Ellie (Antonia Whillans), Shauna (Sarah Alexandra Marks), Bryn (Elspeth Foster) and Alex (Beatrice Fletcher), head off for some scouting in the woods; their destination, a desolate area previously used for nuclear dumping which is the site of a number of underground, reputedly haunted tunnels. All four actresses are now veterans of fantastic micro budget movies, and look like they could do this sort of thing in their sleep.

No sooner have the explorers reached their destination, than they are attacked by demons and vampires. Or mutants. Or Cenobites. Or something. The parents of Ellie call on the services of Van Helsing (Michael Hoad, Blood in the Water, Exorcist Vengeance etc) who, with his trusty sidekick Igor (Darrell Griggs, Reign of Terror, Pterodactyl etc) does battle with the creatures for the return of Ellie, the only one of the four who looks like they're going to make it out alive - or at least not undead.

I'm guessing, in true exploitation movie style, that someone happened upon the rather useful tunnel location and then worried about scripting a movie to make use of it. Perhaps that's why writer Tom Jolliffe, contributing his sixth (!) script of 2022, has eschewed the usual domestic drama character back story associated with these things in favour of running around, screaming and emoting. The Van Helsing character is clearly being set up for sequels as most of the time is spent developing his story arc; Hoad plays Van Helsing as a man, unable to age, who has a thirst for the drink, a depressive personality and a penchant for speaking with. Shatnerseque. Pauses. 

Of course we're not supposed to take any of this seriously, particularly with exchanges like "Are you trained in combat?" "You should meet the mother-in-law". But really this is pretty poor stuff; here's hoping that Van Helsing gets something meatier to deal with than a couple of guys in masks for the next one.

You can watch Wrath of Van Helsing here. 

All My Friends Hate Me (UK 2021: Dir Andrew Gaynord) NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022

Gaynord's TV based career (he directed the most recent season of the excellent Stath Lets Flats) has been a good grounding for his feature debut; it's a tragi-comedy - barely a 'fantastic' film at all in truth - that deals in the comedy of cringe, which is more about the characters than what's going on.

Do goody Pete (Tom Stourton), who has been working with refugees, receives an invitation to spend his birthday with some of his old Uni mates; the venue is friend George's (Joshua McGuire) dad's pile, and they'll be joined by uber posh Archie (Graham Dickson), George's girlfriend Fig (Georgina Campbell) and Claire (Antonia Clarke) with whom Pete had a relationship. Pete has some concerns about the weekend; he feels that he's grown up and is worried that his old muckers haven't. 

When he arrives, with the promise of his girlfriend Sonia (Charly Clive) joning them the day after, he finds the house empty. Unbeknownst to Pete, the group arrive later having been waiting for him in the pub; and with them is a stranger, the awful Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), whose constant needling of Pete recalls Shaun Pye's persistent winding up of Ricky Gervais in Extras (2005). From this point on there's a ratcheting up of unease as the group fails to gel, egged on by the horrible Harry, who everyone else but Pete seems to like. But Harry seems vaguely familiar to Pete, and whatever the latter says to his friends, the weekend becomes more and more awful.

As I've mentioned, with the exception of the opening scenes - Pete's journey to the manor house is punctuated by some potentially folk horror-esque encounters - All My Friends Hate Me is far more an exercise in unease than outright horror, even at its revelatory climax. Gaynord's interest is entirely in the way that a group of unlikeable people become more so the longer you spend with them. Harry is smart as a whip, but very much of country stock; he provides an interesting conduit between the actual poshness of Pete's friends and Pete's own reformed anti classness (which quickly dissolves when he shouts "pikey!" at a key point).

Sadly the narrative strands of the movie aren't that strong; the audience waits for a big payoff, then gets a couple of explanations of past behaviour which don't really justify the tension experienced. But for the most part it's a great ensemble piece, with at least a couple of moments requiring the curling of toes and a sharp intake of breath. Well set up but ulitmately unfulfilling in delivery, but worth seeing for Demri-Burns's subtly nasty Harry.

Dashcam (UK 2022: Dir Rob Savage) NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022

I'm assuming that, by swiftly relocating the action of his new movie from the USA to England, this isn't a coincidence but rather Rob Savage cheekily responding to those who wondered how the director might fare on the other side of the pond, courtesy of his lucrative three picture deal with US company Blumhouse.

Playing herself (albeit a more amped up version), Annie Hardy is a potty mouthed social media presence who runs a show called 'Bandcar', in which she cruises America's highways and byways in her vehicle while freestyling her decidedly unliberal views, and with her fans providing constant on screen responses. But with lockdown depriving her of much of the street based inspiration she needs for her rhymes, Hardy decides to relocate to the UK and stay with her ex show mate Stretch, presumably hoping that this country's attitudes to dealing with the pandemic may chime with her own mask swerving antivax views.

However it's not long before Stretch and his unforgiving girlfriend Gemma (Jemma Moore from Host) find Annie a little too much for them and ask her to leave. Our social media star decides to boost Stretch's car and resume operations, but before long the movie's narrative turning point arrives: entering a seemingly empty diner, she encounters an employee who asks, and then heavily bribes Annie to give a lift to Angela, an older woman who is apparently unwell. Pocketing a wad of notes for her trouble, Annie soon finds that Angela is both incontinent and, well, demonic. And so begins a long night of our obnoxious anti heroine protecting herself while the world turns to shit.

Watching Dashcam one longs for the more sober camerawork of his last movie. This is a full on first person shot film, stylistically in keeping with JJ Abrams' 2008 flick Cloverfield (but without the monster, well without such a big monster) and the glitch aesthetics of the 'V/H/S' movies, with the big set pieces always just out of shot. As with all such films, there's the constant question about why people are continuing to film in the face of mortal danger (answer: they have to or we don't get a movie); in Dashcam mortal danger seems to crop up almost every five minutes courtesy of yet another crashed car or blurred attacking entity.

Savage's choice of a lead is an interesting one. In real life Hardy, who in the movie is a MAGA hat wearing Libtard caller outer, is the in your face guitarist and singer in the two piece band 'Giant Drag', whose gobby stage presence isn't a million miles away from the motor mouther social media character who swears and staggers her way through Dashcam. Hardy is difficult to take seriously and a good indicator of how Savage would like audiences to view his movie (let us not forget that the genesis of Host was an online prank perpetrated by the director). It's devoid of plot and character development, but gets by on shaggy dog violent and gross out set pieces and a constant sense of rather inarticulate forward motion. It's not a movie one would rush to see more than once (even at 68 minutes plus some spoofy credits) and it's hardly breaking new ground. But Savage remains a director to watch.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022 # 2: Reviews of 60 Seconds to Live (UK 2022), Beyond Existence (UK 2022), As A Prelude to Fear (UK 2022), Homebound (UK 2022), The Haunting of Pendle Hill (UK 2022) and Exorcist Vengeance (UK 2022)

60 Seconds to Live (UK 2022: Dir Various) Tony Newton's UK Vestra Pictures have been behind the last three '60 Seconds to Die' movies and have decided to provide their latest with a more optimistic title. Never fear though, the contents are pretty much as you'd expect, drawn from the four corners of the countercultural planet. To be fair, apart from the British production team, this is only a borderline BFF as most of the micro shorts (and I do mean micro, hardly any of them scrape a minute in length) emanate from the US.

Blighty is prepresented in the opening and closing shorts: 'Snuff Film Part 1' and 'Snuff Film Part 2' feature a man in a mask, tied to a chair being cut up. People being cut up or taking cut throat razors to themselves is a bit of a theme here, although a paucity of budget means a minimum of gore. 

The best part of the film is the middle section. The demon baby of 'Comfort Him', the 70s look of 'Savior', the jump scare of 'Tricks or Treats' and the animated killer pumpkins of 'Toxic Pumpking' by Davide Pesca all stand out. Pesca's strange man birth short 'R.I.P. Angel' is one of a number of abstract movies, best of which is the nightmarish soundtrack of 'The Holy Woman'. I also liked both the revenge shark coming through the TV to get his trophy killer in 'Poltershark' and Tom Gores' 'Raising the Stakes', a colourful take on The Fearless Vampire Killers which even finds time for a blooper. 

It's always difficult to review things like this because nothing stays around for long enough to leave more than a passing retinal image. Perhaps that's the point, but the older viewer here can only conclude that there's some sick puppies in this world; and someone's given them some cameras.

Beyond Existence (UK 2022: Dir Stephen Hoque) For his first feature director Stephen Hoque has traded in his usual CV of commercials and short films in favour of an ambitious subject; the potential end of mankind’s existence. And, equally boldly, he’s decided to tell this story with just three main characters and a setting of the UK countryside.

The Professor (Gary MacKay) is a once brilliant, now washed up alcoholic scientist whose Nobel Prize winning days, at the age of 23, are well behind him. The Professor is also the guardian of a couple of secrets; his own and the cube he keeps locked in a secure facility which has enormous, far-reaching powers.

On his tail is Ellen (a Tilda Swinton like Amelia Clay), a professional assassin who has been instructed to capture The Professor and bring him in. And on both their tails is The Guardian (Vincent Vermignon) who has exited from a gigantic pyramid. But once the pair compare notes they realise that there’s more sense in teaming up than being at each other’s throats, and so begins a quest for survival and the outwitting of The Guardian.

There’s a few narrative reveals in this movie that would be unfair to repeat here, suffice to mention that as each brain boggling detail is revealed, the viewer becomes ever more conscious that this is a film of people talking about science and alien worlds rather ponderously, rather than one which has the budget to show them to any great extent.

So what we have is The Prof and Ellen on an extended road trip round the UK while they get to know each other, or at least suss each other out. But the setup isn’t hugely successful in that Hoque really doesn’t develop his characters.

I liked the concept of the story, but its scope is way too epic to be successfully delivered by a couple of ordinary souls in a hatchback (McKay and Clay being little more than serviceable in their roles), and so it’s left to the Indian VFX crew ‘Wild’ to pull out some modest topped and tailed set pieces which are more impressive than anything that occurs between them. I can’t fault the director’s ambition but Beyond Existence doesn’t really work either as sci fi or drama.

As a Prelude to Fear (UK 2022: Dir Steph Du Melo) Du Melo's second film out this year, after the disappointing C.A.M. (and you can read the review of that in issue #2 of the hard copy DEoL fanzine, details elsewhere on this blog) is apparently based on real events, and some statistics before the end credits suggest that AaPtF's story is intended to be a universal one.

Classical cellist Eve Taylor (Lara Lemon) is scheduled to meet up with a man who it is hoped will give her musical tuition but about whom she knows nothing. Dropped off by her boyfriend Jamie Harris (Jamie Langlands) at a local cafe - the agreed meeting point - she gets a call to rendezvous instead at a nearby, rather dilapidated building. On arrival she's promptly captured by a big hooded man with a Jigsaw like altered voice who imprisons her in the basement.

Harris reports Eve's disappearance to the police. The person in charge of the subsequent investigation is DCS Barnbrook (Francis Magee, who older viewers may recognise as Liam from Eastenders back in the 1990s) supported by DS Dobson (Lucy Drive), and suspicion immediately falls on Mr Corcoran (the movie's co-writer Roger Wyatt), a rather odd local music teacher who Barnbrook had interviewed in connection with three previous murders; all girls, all cellists.  

Back in the basement, Eve encounters other imprisoned girls who she can hear but not see. One fills some gaps in the narrative; mainly that the kidnapper has a track record of abducting and killing girls and is a bit of a musician on the side. As Barnbrook focuses his attentions on the admittedly shifty Corcoran, Eve fears that she's about to be the next dead cellist.

While AaPtF is an improvement on the woeful C.A.M. it's still a pretty flat movie, strangely managing to generate lifeless performances from the cast's professionals (Magee and Drive) as well as the less seasoned newcomers. This movie comes across as half TV procedural, half Saw like thriller, mercifully without the torture porn. Du Melo turns in a score which works in parts but which you hope will shut up once in a while (silence is also good for drama). It's well shot and put together, but terribly uninvolving, a movie aiming but not succeeding in punching above its budgetary weight.

Homebound (UK 2022: Dir Sebastian Godwin) Godwin’s first feature (of sorts, it’s barely over an hour long) sees Holly (Aisling Loftus) travelling with her new husband Richard (Tom Goodman-Hill) to his family home in Norfolk. It’s a tense time for Holly – Richard’s first wife Nina will be there with his kids and it’s the first time she’ll be meeting teenagers Ralph (Lukas Rolph) and Lucia (Hattie Gotobed), and little Anna (Rafiella Chapman).

But when they arrive, Nina isn’t around and the kids have been left to fend for themselves. Holly immediately picks up an odd bond between the trio and Richard, something stronger than mere blood ties; a country family, she is aghast to see them catching and killing a goose for dinner, and Richard making liberal with the wine for all the family.

Holly initially decides to go with the flow and play along with the family’s odd lifestyle, but the longer she stays in the house the more she realises that nothing between them is quite right, including the man she’s recently married.

Homebound becomes progressively nasty as Holly struggles to understand the dynamics – and secrets – at the heart of her new family. It had the opportunity to be more unpleasant, but Godwin holds back on the shocks in favour of a growing unease, which can occasionally make the film feel a little undercooked.

The atmosphere is helped by some great performances, mainly from Richard’s three children (Gotobed in particular is subtly menacing) and Aisling Loftus is convincingly caught between love and fear; one also wonders whether this is another role for Goodman Hill which echoes his recent real life abrupt marriage walk out – he has famously said that the realities of his private life have helped him get into character for parts like these.

Homebound is helped no end by a script which avoids cliché even if the scenario is familiar, and an authentically jarring soundtrack from Jeremy Warmsley. It may be a little slight, but it certainly has its moments. And the atmospherically distressed Wiveton Hall in Norfolk is a great setting; property owner Desmond McCarthy, whose ebullient frame graced the recent BBC show Normal for Norfolk (in which he described the challenges of affording to keep a country house in order) has presumably seen the financial advantages of turning the gaff over to film crews, so expect more movies to be located there.

(A version of this review appeared on the Bloody Flicks website).

The Haunting of Pendle Hill (UK 2022: Dir Richard John Taylor) The true story of the 17th century Pendle witches from Lancashire, while not as famous as their Salem sisters, is a small but notorious part of English history. Originally novelised by William Harrison Ainsworth in 1849, and later by Robert Neill in 1951, the womens' story was televised by the BBC as a drama in 1976 and a documentary in 2011.

So now here's UK director Richard John Taylor, taking a break from his trademark gangster movies, to deliver his take on this bit of history. Mixing the real characters of the original account with a contemporary storyline, as the film opens, in 1612, John Law (James Hamer-Morton) leaves the home of Roger Nowell, JP and witchfinder (Noel Brendan Mcalley) and his daughter Maud (Lowri Watts-Joyce): encountering a mysterious figure in a cat mask in the woods, he promptly dies.

Flash forward to the present day, and Matilda, an American (also played, with a pretty good US accent, by Brit Watts-Joyce) is concerned about her father (also Mcalley). He has been in England researching a book (with the same name as the movie) concerning Nowell and the potenially supernatural events surrounding arch witch Demdike, and has gone missing. Matilda's uncle Alfred (played by Taylor regular Nicholas Ball, sporting a particularly bad American accent) fills her in on the Pendle witches and suggests she travels to the UK to look for dad; there is a suspicion that the evils of Demdike and her like may have travelled through time and put Matilda's father in danger.

On arriving in Blighty she teams up with another American, local guide Arthur (Brit Jeffrey Charles Richards) and the search is on. The movie's main shtick is moving backwards and forwards in time, with Matilda and Maud both searching for their respective fathers, and with the threat of the supernatural looming large. Taylor, who also wrote this, fiddles with history here by making the historical figures actual witches rather than subjugated working class women coming a cropper at the hands of powerful local men. 

But the director does deserve some praise for trying something a little different, and for disguising a story which combines lots of walking around in the woods while borrowing folk horror motifs from The Blair Witch Project with some interesting historical flavour and dialect (although one 17th character asking another "art thou ok?" did provoke a snort). Best line: "I'm an atheist"; "you're a millennial!"

Exorcist Vengeance (UK 2022: Dir Scott Jeffrey, Rebecca Matthews) This is the second of Jeffrey and Matthews's movies to utilise the, er, specific talents of Mr Robert Bronzi (following last year's The Gardener, which won't be covered as it falls outside the NWotBFF remit) ie that the Hungarian actor looks exactly like Charles Bronson, I'm assuming the pair got a BOGOF contract for his services.

Anyway in this one Bronzi is Father Andres Jozsef, priest, ex drug pusher, hardman, exorcist, religious pontificator, as handy with his fists as he is wielding the King James version, and mourning for his dead wife. His multi skilled talents are called into play fairly quickly, when he fells and shoots a fleeing killer on the mean streets of London town. But when an old possessed lady takes her own life, but not before transferring the demon inside to her maid Magda (Anna Liddell), Father J is appointed to the case via the Vatican in the shape of Bishop Canelo (Steven Berkoff). 

After consulting his dead wife's grave for advice, he arrives at the house, where the family remains in shock. They are grandma's children Patrick (Simon Furness) and Christine (Nicola Wright), Christine's kids Nick (Ben Parsons) and Rebecca (Sarah Alexandra Marks) who have returned from America - hence the dodgy accents - and Patrick's daughter Rose (Nicole Nabi). But Father J's talents are tested to the limit as, one by one, the family members start getting killed, presumably by the demonic entity; the same family who don't want him on the premises in the first place.

The main takeaway from Exorcist Vengeance, apart from the extraordinary casting of Bronzi as the impassive, impenetrably accented Father Jozsef, is how Jeffrey and Matthews have upped their directing game for this film. The pair's CV, as covered extensively in these pages, has tended towards slower paced, social drama centred fright flicks. But no more! EV is, for them anyway, non stop action, cleverly combining possession drama with a whodunnit subplot. As Gavin Whitaker points out in his review, this may have something to do with the presence of US producers Jeff Miller and Mark L. Lester (the latter of whom had production duties on, among others, The Funhouse (1981) and 1990's Class of 1999). 

Plot wise there's still the usual amount of bobbins associated with this sort of thing, and scenes like Chrissie Wunna's police interview, where she's dressed like a stripper cop, complete with US badge, suggest that Jeffrey and Matthews haven't lost their sense of humour. But this is huge fun and the final scene, hinting at Bronzi's return in a sequel, prompted a small round of applause from this reviewer.