Arrival (USA 2016: Dir Denis Villeneuve)

A while back I was complaining to a friend about the all embracing spread of emo-driven advertising at the cinema to sell anything from booze to banking. Well the trend has seeped into the sci fi genre as well. Swelling string sections and trembling bottom lips have recently found their way into metaphysical sci-fi outings like Interstellar and Midnight Special. Denis Villeneuve's ponderous Arrival also has metaphysics and emotion in spades, and sadly isn't the better for it.

Amy Adams, in a bravura performance, plays Dr Louise Banks, a lecturer in linguistics with a tragic past - a teenage daughter who died from cancer - called upon to assist when a series of huge oval spacecraft suddenly appear, hovering above a number of towns and cities around the world.

The authorities, in the shape of Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker, whose age and acting style have finally found harmony) persuade Banks to join a small team of experts to travel to Montana, where one of the craft is located, and help decode the first messages from the aliens inside (the UK also have one, in Devon of all places, but we don't get to see that story). Also assisting is scientist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner, smarmy as always) representing the yin of fact to Banks's yan of belief.

Much of the film is devoted to the pair's growing understanding of the language of the Cthulhu-like aliens, named heptapods (as well as a discordant moaning they write their messages in what looks like a cross between smoke and squid ink), while other members of the team monitor the reactions from Governments around the world to the arrival of the strange craft in the other visited countries - predictably China are first to turn from tolerance to aggression.

This is a fine setup - taking the germ of the last few minutes of Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and making a whole movie out of it - but a rather thin one, and in its rush, or rather gentle trot, to replace content with emotion Arrival becomes rather laboured. By the end, Jóhann Jóhannsson's sweeping orchestral score had become so overpowering I wasn't sure whether I was still watching the movie or just more adverts. As an aside, Jóhannsson used to be a much more interesting composer (just listen to his score for The Miners' Hymns - it's on YouTube - and tell me if it isn't the most powerful soundtrack you've ever heard) but seems to have blanded out recently, possibly tantalised by the promise of more Oscar nominations.

The first part of the movie is the most successful. Villeneuve, a skilled director who gave us one of my favourite films of last year, Sicario, delays showing the spacecraft, cutting away from news items and reflecting the wonder of the alien vision via the reactions of his actors. And the final unveiling of the craft, about twenty minutes in, is a woozy mix of aerial and tilt shift photography that depicts the military activity around the craft as the aliens would see them, small and insignificant dots in the Montana landscape - it's a great scene. The craft's interior is simply designed, with its own gravity system (which provides the film's most obviously exciting moment) and as mentioned the tentacled heptapods are distinctly Lovecraftian.

But as the film progresses the promise of the first half subsides. The analysis of the alien language may be interesting but doesn't make great cinema, and Villeneuve's decision to show the world's varying reactions to the alien presence - from fervent prayer to looting and violence - via TV screens is clearly a deliberate attempt to tell a 'first contact' story from the point of view of one character rather than through spectacle. But in so doing it reduces the film to a rather one dimensional, almost soap-operaesque drama. I also couldn't help but notice that, once again, the only country to make the communication breakthrough was the Americans.

Arrival is based on a short story called 'Story of Your Life' by Ted Chiang, who also contributed to this movie's script. The story's themes of language, time and memory are arguably more suited to the printed page than the cinema screen. Here the awkward melding of aliens and sentiment just didn't work for me. I found Arrival at times very clumsy and forced, and if it wasn't for the casting of Amy Adams (a central character in some ways similar to Emily Blunt's flawed heroine in Sicario) it would scarcely be worth bothering with at all.

The Neon Demon (US 2016: Dir Nicolas Winding Refn)

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's spellbinding new film is a movie in love with its own reference points, in thrall to the image and cinema's ability to deliver a fantasy with one foot in the real world. Arguably more abstract than his previous movies (and certainly more focused than 2012's Only God Forgives), strangely despite all of the cinematic touch points presented to us throughout the movie (of which more later) it was the novels and short stories of Bret Easton Ellis that I was reminded of most strongly. With his cast of burnt out vapid young people standing in for the author's pessimistic outlook on the culture of celebrity and facile surface glamour, watching the cast of The Neon Demon was like seeing Easton Ellis's more extreme characters come to life.

Jesse (played sensitively and carefully by Elle Fanning) is a 16 year old who moves to LA to get into modelling. She is clearly different to the glacial, and rather more jaded girls with whom she works, but because of her fresh facedness is seen as something new and different - the 'vampire' motif is used again and again in this film as we see artists and agents feeding off each other. Jesse's rundown LA accommodation (complete with scuzzy landlord convincingly played by Keanu Reeves) couldn't be more different from the hallucinatory world of the models, where on photo shoots and in clubs the girls are illuminated by neons and primary colours. And it's into this world that Jesse gets pulled, gaining in self confidence as her model colleagues become less and less tolerant of her artlessness and the attention she generates, and finally resolving to do something about this ingenue in their midst.

This is a rather simplistic summary of the plot, whose nuances run much deeper than my description. But hey, you can read about the plot anywhere - I also need to tell you that it's a horror film without in any way being a horror film, just to confuse things further.

The Neon Demon uses a glacial directorial gaze to dissect, fetishise and ultimately indict the contemporary fashion industry (a theme deployed in Easton Ellis's 1999 novel Glamorama). It's an artificial world and Winding Refn glorifies in showing this - he has been quoted on more than one occasion that this is a film about 'the insanity of beauty'. There's an intriguing scene, set in an office with a cameo from Christina Hendricks as an agent, who with her fuller figure seems oddly grotesque next to the pallid, wan forms of the other girls, but quite natural next to Jesse. As she explains to her young star to be that Jesse will make a great model, a street scene with slowly moving traffic is shown in the background through the office windows, which I'm fairly certain is either animated or the result of some skillful model work. In a similarly jarring moment, later in the movie one of the cast members removes her sunglasses and it's impossible to tell whether she's real or a model (rather than a catwalk model, if you see what I mean), so vacant are her eyes.

The style-over-substance subtext deploys for many of its visual reference points films from the 1970s and 1980s; the youthful beauty and violence mix recalls Brian de Palma's Carrie (1976), the shots of the models together has the unreality of the dancers in Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977). I was also reminded of the detached style of the early films of Peter Greenaway (specifically 1985's A Zed and Two Noughts), and in the photographing of LA, the Zoetrope movies of Francis Ford Coppola, such as One From the Heart (1981). Artifice is at the heart of The Neon Demon, and the opening shot is rather typical. A girl (Jesse) lies immobile, possibly dead, on a sofa in a decorated room, covered in blood. The camera draws slowly back and we realise this isn't a murder scene but a set, and when it moves further still the whole living room effect is encased in black framed in vivid red neon - it's as if one level of unreality isn't enough; apparently Winding Refn is colour blind, so the lack of contrasts in the movie's colour scheme comes straight from the eye of the director. His use of mirrors, geometric shapes and even arcane symbolism occludes reality further.

The 'NWR' stamp at the beginning of the film announces Nicolas Winding Refn as a brand, like perfume or a fashion range. Maybe this is a joke on himself. After all he's no stranger to a bit of the old self reflexiveness, having been the central figure in two documentaries, 2006's Gambler, covering the period of his extensive financial difficulties, and the 2014 movie My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. I think he knows he's made a great film and it's for everyone else to catch up. In interviews Winding Refn is big on his no compromise policy, which has seen him fall out with stars, directors and famously walk off the set of the planned remake of The Equaliser three months before shooting began. Audiences have been as split over The Neon Demon as they were for Only God Forgives, but I'd rather have him make uncompromising films than Drive 2, that's for sure.

Lilith's Awakening (US 2016: Dir Monica Demes)

Lucy is a bored and distracted girl, working at a service station in the wilds of sleepy mid America. Her husband Jonathan is more worried about a forthcoming dinner with his boss Renfield than his increasingly distant wife. Lucy has a guy on the side, Arthur, who is clearly more sexually involved with Lucy than she is with Jonathan. But Lucy doesn’t seem particularly interested in either man, and when she chooses not to show up for a midnight tryst with Arthur he instead falls victim to a strange kohl-eyed guitar-wielding exotic woman who sucks his blood. This mysterious vampire, Lilith, has previously appeared in Lucy’s dreams, triggering her period (a rare splash of colour in this otherwise monochrome film), but it’s only when Lucy tries to locate the missing Arthur and sees a drawing of the vampire in his trailer that she starts to believe Lilith might be more than a figment of her imagination. “I saw her in my dreams, and now she’s coming for me” she says. And she’s right.

The stunning black and white palette and strikingly haunting visuals of Lilith Awakens announces the latest in a small sub-genre of stylishly made films concerning contemporary female vampires, which include Michael Almereyda’s 1994 part toy camera filmed Nadja and Abel Ferrara’s gritty 1995 movie The Addiction. More recently Ana Lily Amirpour’s splendid 2014 film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night featured an Iranian female vampire on the lookout for lowlife victims in a Hopper-esque Californian landscape, and it is to this last film that Lilith’s Awakening owes a significant stylistic debt. Intriguingly Monica Demes, the movie’s Brazilian born writer/producer/director, developed this film within the David Lynch MFA film program, so as you’d expect the movie also looks to his inspiration for many of its visual touches.

Lilith Awakens is a slow burning mood piece of a film. Every shot is exquisitely framed, and the bleakness of the Iowa landscape recalls the bleached Texan environment of Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 film The Last Picture Show. As you may have picked up, Demes uses a number of character names from the Bram Stoker novel Dracula (Lucy’s boss is even called Abe Helsing) and while this may initially seem a little clumsy, the ultimate effect is to weave this inspiration into the strangeness of the events on screen. The other standout is the soundtrack, which mixes Brazilian musician David Feldman’s brooding score with a wash of environmental sounds – fox cries have never sounded so scary, believe me – to great effect. Strong performances from newcomers Sophia Woodward and Barbara Eugenia as, respectively, Lucy and Lilith, keep the film from feeling like an exercise in cinematography. This is an enigmatic, enthralling and occasionally very unsettling debut from Demes, which will hopefully get a big screen run in the UK – it’s where it should be seen.

Poltergeist (1982) vs Poltergeist (2015)

When the original Poltergeist hit UK cinemas in 1982, it was quite a big deal. Back then big budget haunted house movies at the cinema were, if not non-existent, then few and far between - 1979’s The Amityville Horror, The Changeling and The Shining from the following year being other notable exceptions.

Watching the original Poltergeist now it all seems rather quaint, with some very dated effects which were obviously state of the art at the time. Arguably it was a movie that hadn’t quite decided what it wanted to be, a fright flick or a family movie. This may have been attributable to the dual directorship, with Tobe (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Hooper’s reportedly rather laid back role in the chair gradually being supplanted by Steven Spielberg’s more hands on and family-friendly approach. The resultant X certificate from the BBFC (since downgraded to a 15) showed that the censor considered it a movie for adults – it was given a PG in the US on appeal. But the homeliness of the opening scenes, and the overall sense of wonder and wide-eyed awe suggested by the movie’s grand special effects set pieces, point to it being at heart a family film, albeit one with some grotesque touches.

For the two of you unfamiliar with the plot, the story involves the Freeling family and their three perky kids who live in the newly built suburb of Cuesta Verde. Dad Steve is employed by the real estate company who built the homes and stay at home mum Diane completes the wholesome American family. Youngest child Carol Anne starts hearing voices in the TV set, the beginning of a series of supernatural happenings which culminate in Carol Anne being snatched away into a kind of spiritual ether – she’s not dead but we can’t see her, only hear her voice.

A team of largely winging it parapsychologists are called in, but they have to resort to the heavy duty if minutely packaged talents of psychic Tangina, who understands what the spirits want and is finally successful in getting Carol Anne back. But the spooks are angered further by the little girl’s return, for they are the souls of the dead on whom the Freeling’s house is built (parts of the estate were constructed on the site of a cemetery), and who, in return for having their real life plaything taken from them and their resting place disturbed, exact a housebuilding in reverse revenge.

1982 Poltergeist hasn’t aged that well, but the acting is solid and the tone light and very family focused. The arrival of Zelda Rubenstein as Tangina is still a surprise, an awkward almost freakish woman invading the cookie cutter world of the Freelings. It may be mawkish but there are some great scenes - Diane discovering the supernatural powers in the kitchen, and Tangina’s other-worldly speech about spectral forces, for example - all underscored by Jerry Goldsmith’s heart-tugging music. But this film is all about parents protecting their children, allowing them to remain as kids unsullied by the events that happen to them.

No such fuss greeted the arrival of the 2014 remake of Poltergeist. Well, except for the armies of critics who queued up to bemoan the need for a remake at all and exercise high dudgeon at the injustice of it all. Most of these critics were probably too young to have seen the 1982 version at the cinemas and were busy defending their VHS memories. And let’s pause for a moment – there’s something in that. The original was made 33 years before the remake, so consider this:  if the 1982 movie had been a remake following the same time pattern that would make it an update of a 1949 movie – would critics have baulked at this? No, but because with the availability of film via an increasing variety of formats time has sped up, so thirty years now seems like just a remote click away – also the spread of ‘geekdom’ (and I’m not using that word pejoratively) means that there are a lot more people around who have an opinion on remakes these days, particularly on the potential bastardisation of one of their sacred cows.

Gil Kenan, director of the 2015 remake, was five when the 1982 Poltergeist was released. So he was probably one of the legion who saw the movie for the first time at home. His 2006 animated flick Monster House caught a little of the frenetic activity and childish wonder of the film he was about to remake, and 2008’s City of Ember cemented his reputation as a young person’s movie director. Which is exactly where the remake of Poltergeist establishes itself – it’s a young adult film, granted a 15 certificate in the UK (but a more accessible PG-13 in the US – once again showing that the American certification system understood the target audience, and was alive to the additional dollars that a wider certificate would bring). So it’s likely that the UK target audience for this film wouldn’t get to see it until it arrived, in whatever form, on their home TV set.

The most important difference between the 1982 and 2015 movies is tone. The Kenan version is very dark whereas 1982’s was quite the opposite. The remake also uses a lot of the 21st century horror movie clichés  – brooding chords on the soundtrack, a restless camera patrolling the house, and a lot of jump scares. The other thematic change is that the children are no longer the simpering offspring of the original, clinging to their parents. The kids in the remake are resourceful, plucky and smart. They are kids of the 21st century, and they make the 33 year difference between movies feel like a generational divide – which it is. Although the story and some key scenes are the same as the original, there are some important changes: the family, now the Bowens, have an aspiring writer mum and an out of work dad – far from being a successful household, they’ve suffered from the country’s recent economic downturn; the Tangina role is there but has been replaced by a TV ghost detective, Carrigan Burke - no room for strange little Zelda Rubenstein here (she died in 2010 anyway); the spirits are far more visible, shown as clutching hands behind the TV screen and then in more threatening form on the other side of the closet (yep, that rather hokey location is re-used in the remake – surely the basement would have been more in keeping with the modern feel?).

It’s perhaps the inclusion of key images from the original that weigh the remake down – the gnarled tree attack, the rope used to retrieve the daughter, the scary toy clown, event the haunted TV set itself – these were all effective in the 1982 version but appear clunky in Kenan’s film. The 2015 Poltergeist isn’t a bad film, just a bad idea. It would have been better to let the director free to make a film of his own – or maybe a live action remake of 2006’s Monster House would have been preferable – rather than restricting his talent by forcing him to remake a movie that, in my opinion, didn’t need to be re-made.

In Memorium (US 2005: Dir Amanda Gusack)

Now that the 'Found Footage' genre has pretty much disappeared up its own aperture, one almost looks back fondly to the days before FF became shorthand for tiresome people running around an empty building screaming their heads off, and when some of the early exemplars - The Blair Witch Project (1999), the rich-kid-trying-not-to-be a-moneybags Cloverfield (2008) and the first couple of Paranormal Activity outings - showed true innovation. One addition to the canon that deserves to be included in the 'pioneers' list is In Memorium, a film hampered by such a limited distribution that very few people have seen it. Which is a great shame as it's a terrific movie.

In Memorium focuses on Dennis and Lily, a likeable couple who have rented a house in Los Angeles. Dennis has been diagnosed with an inoperable cancer and has, in a slightly far fetched plot device, decided to rig up the house with security cameras and microphones to record his imminent decline for possible future use as a documentary. Once set up, the rather mundane existence of the couple begins to be underscored by glimpses of shapes caught on camera, and unidentifable sounds on the audio. Dennis and Lily become increasingly convinced that they are not alone in their new home, and that the presence which has joined them may be destructive and malevolent.

There are very few other characters in the film apart from Dennis's slacker brother Frank and a woman who rents the house to the couple, which focuses things tightly over In Memorium's brief 70 minutes. The claustrophobic surroundings (actually filmed in the Director's own house) are emphasised by the static underlit look of the film, most of the shots being generated from the closed circuit cameras.  Although I felt Lily's rather passive acceptance of her boyfriend's condition a little bewildering, the partnership between the two leads is otherwise convincing and their increasing fear very persuasive.

What makes In Memorium stand out is that, firstly, both the explanation for the visitation and the haunting itself are genuinely scary, something which is very rare in the FF movement. The tension towards the end puts the film up there with some of the great haunted house films, and makes you realise just how powerful this type of movie can be. Seondly, the film never loses sight of the essential plight of Dennis's illness which, when it becomes more pronounced, only deepens the mood.

Amanda Gusack's first full length film as a Director really is an overlooked gem. Made a couple of years before (and clearly influencing) the much more successful Paranormal Activity (2007) and perhaps taking its inspiration from the CCTV nightmare of My Little Eye (2002) In Memorium still packs a punch despite the FF saturation which has now all but extinguished the dramatic potential of this type of film making.

There's a Facebook page for the film here which is worth liking - maybe people power can trigger a DVD release of the movie.

Truth or Dare (UK 2012: Dir Robert Heath)

Watching two of the four (!) executive producers in an extra on the DVD release of Truth or Dare talking about wanting to put money into a 'teen horror' as the best way to get a return on their investment, one gets a stark reminder that movie making is a 'for profit' enterprise whatever the artistic aims espoused by a film's director. It also doesn't bode well for the film itself. That the resultant product turns out to be much much better than maybe it has a right to be is an added bonus and a pleasant surprise, for Truth or Dare rises above its clichéd premise to become something very watchable.

The plot is simple and a variation on a now familiar theme. A group of rather unpleasant twentysomethings are invited to a party by Felix, a friend of theirs who we see being summarily bullied by the group in a prologue set some months earlier. The friends turn up, there's no party and no Felix. But there is Felix's older brother Justin, and before they can say 'set up' they're all tied to chairs in a remote shack with Justin meting out revenge for the misery heaped on his younger sibling, which apparently drove him to suicide - hence no Felix at the party.

Now I grant you that this doesn't sound very interesting, but hang on, there's something different here.

First, everyone can act, not just the leads. The film manages a rather clever trick of getting you to care for a group of people that we've seen capable of nasty bullying, and for that to work you need good performances. David Oakes (an actor whose previous work has included some high calibre TV appearances) as Justin is particularly strong, getting the balance between psychosis and shrewd, calculating meanness just right. Also Jennie Jacques as feisty complex Eleanor, leader of the twentysomethings in peril, turns in a really clever performance that confounds expectations.

Secondly, it's really well made. Impressively shot and tightly edited, Truth or Dare becomes increasingly claustrophobic and tense, although there's not that much going on and most of the action takes place in one small room. Third, the script isn't a string of tired clichés. OK it's not Pinter but it doesn't draw attention to itself thus ruining the atmosphere, and doesn't fall apart in the final third which is an increasing rarity these days.

Truth or Dare is definitely recommended. Robert Heath isn't a prolific film maker, but his previous full length output - the race and police drama Sus from 2010, and 2005's heist comedy Out on a Limb - are equally strong movies and are well worth catching.

Assignment (UK 2013: Dir Paul Easter)

Paul Easter is one of this country's more unusual low/no budget directors. He has a manifesto - simply to beat the studio bigwigs at their own game, and to get product out there which costs very little to make and achieves a return on investment sufficient to allow him to create more films. Probably the biggest cost he incurs in the whole process is the payment required to submit his work to the BBFC, as Easter wants all his films legally classified, so they can be put on the shelf in supermarkets awaiting that breed of weekend shopper who wants to take a chance on a film they've never heard of as potential Saturday night entertainment. By the time they've paid their money and loaded the film in the DVD player, well... Paul's onto his next film.

Easter's films seem to fall into two categories: randomly shot pieces showing the director and his mates messing around setting up car stunts (in films like the cynically titled U Mugs and Collateral Consequences); and more story based films like Thumb n It and the earlier Black Shuck, where Easter himself takes centre stage, often as a softly spoken stalker/killer, and always accompanied by his beloved dog Shuck.

I've always had a soft spot for this East Anglian chancer, dating back to my first exposure to his work via Black Shuck. Packaged as a creature feature of sorts, in reality it's an hour or so of Paul wandering the lowlands of Suffolk, accompanied by his dog, lazily stalking women and talking to camera in a voice which, depending on your age, could equally be described as sounding like Bernie Winters or Roland Rat. It really is a test of endurance, but at the same time I detected a spark of mad genius in the film that drove me to write a positive review for Lovefilm. This review sat rather awkwardly amidst a volley of vitriolic half/one star responses from punters who'd felt duped, ripped off, and generally seen coming. I thought they'd missed the point a bit.

I wouldn't normally put finger to keyboard about all this, except that Easter's latest, Assignment, dropped onto the mat the other day. I watched it fearing diminishing returns for this type of film making. But for the next 45 minutes I forgot all that had gone before - for with Assignment, Easter has hit paydirt.

In Assignment Easter plays Richard, an entrepreneurial sort who intercepts drug drops, picks up the stashes and cash and makes off with the booty feeling quite pleased with himself, while the dealer community turns on itself as they realise they have been consistently ripped off.

That's it for story. But Assignment is presented in a strange cut up way that is truly odd. Snippets of scenes flicker by, whole scenes are repeated from different angles, the soundtrack cuts in and out, and the story is gradually told through a succession of sequences that leave you quite disorientated, reminiscent of a bargain bin Nicolas Roeg, or perhaps more appropriately 60s indie/nudie director Doris Wishman. At one point Richard seems to turn into a Terminator figure, complete with POV computer screens for eyes shots. I don't know why. The same girl fight is shown about ten times. I don't know why either. What is Easter trying to tell us? Is this by accident or design? Who knows. I don't, but I did think in its quirky, bonkers way that Assignment was rather good. It's certainly Paul Easter's best film to date. He makes no pretensions that his films are anything but one guy showing how easy and cheap it is to make movies - a hark back to the DIY indie music scene of the late 1970s - but I think Assignment transcends those ambitions - even if Easter didn't mean to.

Woodfalls (UK 2013: Dir David Campion)

Elsewhere on this site I reviewed Ben Simpson and David Campion's micro budget film Patrol Men. Campion has just finished a new film, Woodfalls, on which he has sole directing credit having parted ways with Simpson (although the ex-director still retains an original story credit). The film isn't officially released yet. but I got a look at it.

Woodfalls is the story of the Marrs, a travelling family comprising mother, son and daughter, who pitch their caravan on the outskirts of a generic English town, but have difficulty being accepted by its occupants. Billy Marr is nominally the head of the fatherless family, and is torn between his traveller roots - staunchly defended by his mother - and responsibilities, and a need to form friendships with young people of his own age, despite this often leading to confrontations. His sister Beccy is younger but just as innocent as her brother. Billy is gradually introduced to the townsfolk via Bradley, who as a black man shares some of the discrimination Billy faces, but this integration predictably causes tensions with Billy's mother, and arouses the attentions of Becca - who is as keen as her brother to meet other people - with disastrous consequences.

Woodfalls is a definite progression from the ambitious but cash strapped Patrol Men. In focussing its action on a tighter story it succeeds in rising above its slender budget rather than being exposed because of it. The acting is stronger than Campion's previous film too, which allows the viewer to be drawn in to the lives of the Marrs and the town occupants. At little over an hour in running time there's inevitably a compromise in just how much the characters can be developed, but I felt involved enough to care what happened to them.

The film is not without its problems. The character of Wozza, a drug dealer who is all Manc swagger and speed twitchiness, seems to have strayed in from a Shane Meadows film and jars against the more restrained acting of the other cast. I also had some difficulty with the plausibility of the film's nihilistic final scenes.

Matthew Ferdenzi, as Billy, gives a great understated performance as the child/man struggling to integrate into a way of life that he barely understands - Michelle Crane as Becca is even better, exuding a nascent sexuality while at the same time remaining believably teenage, particularly in the scenes where she sneaks out of the caravan to experience club life in the town. The supporting cast are for the most part equally credible, but the real star of the film is Louis Corallo's blissed out photography, which endows both the ubiquitous kebab shacks and chain pubs of the town centre, and the bucolic countryside surrounding it, with a hazy beauty. I was strongly reminded of the films of Andrea Arnold and Lynne Ramsay.

I hope more people get to see Woodfalls. It's a good drama, very slightly let down by an incongruous ending, but which for most of its running time is tense, involving and beautifully shot. It also has a great twitchy dubstep soundtrack which works really well against the visuals.

A Field in England (UK 2013: Dir Ben Wheatley)

Rather like the ragged troupe in A Field in England who walk away from the smoke and skirmishes of the Civil War in search of safer and quieter climes, I've been hiding away waiting for the critical dust to settle following the film's multi platform release before venturing to commit my opinion of it into cyberspace.

And that critical dust has settled broadly into two heaps. One sees the film as visionary, lysergic, woozy and brave. The other heap cries "Emperor's New Clothes!" and derides it as wilfully obscure, pointless and meandering.

It's certainly the case that compared to Wheatley's previous films A Field in England is decidedly non linear in structure, and a more demanding watch. The director has a reputation for playing with genre and creating new from old - crime and witchcraft in Kill List; the characters of a Mike Leigh play remaking The Honeymoon Killers in Sightseers - but this film resists any easy categorisation. It's a giddy mix of Onibaba, Winstanley, Withnail & I, Witchfinder General, and also recalls the increasingly deconstructed narrative of Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio, a film which also offers something complex from an ostensibly simple story.

If you're reading this, chances are you know the story anyway - and if you don't you can read it here. Having watched it three times now, the confusion that greets first viewing about who's who and what they're up to is largely dispelled with familiarity (a friend of mine commented that one of the initial problems is that you're never quite sure how many characters are actually in it, so blurred do their characterisations appear to be). What becomes stronger on subsequent viewings is Amy Jump's script, having a rhythm and cadence which in itself is quite hypnotic, and the strength of the acting. Many have commented on the standout performance of Reece Sheersmith as the whining alchemist's assistant Whitehead, but all the characters are beautifully portrayed, particularly Richard Glover's understated and vulnerable turn as Friend, and the chillingly calculating O'Neill, played by Michael Smiley.

To be honest, I wasn't sure about A Field in England on first viewing. But it really does repay a second visit, although it doesn't become less strange, just more, well, coherent and beautiful - as if you're watching something familiar yet terribly unfamiliar at the same time. If anything, I now find the closest comparison isn't another film, but the artists who record for the Ghost Box record label. Their collective ambition seems to be to musically recast the customs and institutions of this country into something new and strange and to find some magic in the everyday, which is a fairly good summary of why I now love A Field in England.

Hitchcock (US 2012: Dir Sacha Gervasi)

I confess that apart from Anvil: The Story of Anvil I haven't seen any of the films on Sacha Gervasi's admittedly rather slim CV, nor have I seen the BBC production The Girl, about Alfred Hitchock's relationship with 'Tippi' Hedren, which came out about the same time and with which Hitchcock has been compared. I may well rectify the second viewing gap at some point but on the basis of the inert, flaccid Hitchcock I'm unlikely to do anything about the first one.

Based on Stephen Rebello's book 'Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho', Hitchcock comprises three interwoven stories: the director's attempts to get the film Psycho made against the wishes of his studio executives; the strain on Hitch's relationship with his wife and collaborator Alma Revell during the making of the film (and fuelled by his obsession with his latest blonde, Janet Leigh); and the spectre of Ed Gein, the infamous Wisconsin killer who provided the source inspiration for Robert Bloch's novel on which Psycho was based, and who acts as a kind of shadowy (tor)mentor to Hitchock while making his movie.

As the movie poster suggests, Hitchcock isn't a heavyweight film. Its touch is relatively light (but not deft) and I think this is the fundamental problem. The legacy of Psycho as one of the game changing films of the last century and the director's most successful film, the dark subject matter of the source material and Hitchock's own idiosyncracies sit uneasily with Gervasi's rather brisk, upbeat approach, which makes the film rather uninvolving. It's not helped by the beginning and end being bookended by some Hitch direct to camera utterances meant to evoke his TV shows, which further invites the audience to be in on the joke. If the contrast between the film and the sunny Hollywood setting is meant to be ironic, it's a pretty obvious one, but no more obvious than, say, the shots of Hitch animatedly conducting the audience's screams from the lobby at Psycho's premiere (a rather too literal interpretation of the much quoted desire of the director to play the emotions of the audience as if they were notes on an organ).

The collective talents of Anthony Hopkins as Hitch, Helen Mirren as Alma and Toni Collette as assistant Peggy Robinson are pretty much wasted (Collette has little to do but pout and look over the top of her horn - rimmed specs), although Mirren injects some weight to her role, rising above John McLaughlin's uninspiring script. And on the subject of weight, although Gervasi didn't want the Hitch character to be merely an actor doing an impression of the great man, Hopkins in his fat suit and jowly prosthetics ends up doing just that. James D'Arcy playing Anthony Perkins seems to have confused the actor with the character of Norman Bates, delivering all his lines with the twitchiness of Bates's first meeting with Marion Crane.

I had less of a problem with the Ed Gein segments than other reviewers (although I was reminded of the spirit of Humphrey Bogart stalking Woody Allen in Play it Again, Sam) but I seriously doubt whether Hitchock was that interested in/obsessed with Gein, rather than in Bloch's book, which he discovered through reading Anthony Boucher's crime column in The New York Times.

Perhaps the real crime is that Gervasi managed to make the process of making Psycho look so incredibly dull. Watching the scenes of that film being made, you wonder why anyone bothers making a film. I certainly wonder why anyone made this one. If you're at all interested in this bit of cinema history, read Rebello's fascinating book instead.

Patrol Men (UK 2010: Dir David Campion and Ben Simpson)

The democratisation of film making, triggered in recent years by the availability of cheap accessible cameras and editing tools, has arguably been the most important change to the making and distribution of movies since the initial proliferation of film producers in the silent era. That so few of today's new wave of auteurs choose to deploy the tools of their trade to create anything particularly new or innovative is disappointing. Luckily David Campion and Ben Simpson are in the minority.

Patrol Men is set on a fictional British island of Peyton, which is governed by ruthless martial law, presided over by the fruitcake Mayor Yorke, and where a sundown curfew is rigidly enforced by a gang of gas mask wearing heavies - the Patrol Men of the title. The curfew is for the islanders' sake, because there is a killer stalking at night. Plucky Alex, one of the islanders who is more questioning than most, decides to investigate the set up a little more closely after her boyfriend Jess becomes the killer's latest victim. Together with potty mouth Orlando they infiltrate the nerve centre of the island to uncover the truth.

Patrol Men isn't by any means a great film. The acting quality is variable, although Alex and Orlando (for some reason listed as Okie in the credits) as the two leads give engaging and honest performances. Alex in particular, played by Chloe van Harding, who is in almost every scene, is an unlikely but likeable heroine, being only about sixteen, very short and a bit tubby. Jonathan (Axed, The Devil's Business) Hansler puts his all into it as the very unhinged Mayor - but the rest of the cast fare less well talent wise. It's the enthusiasm of the young directors that fires this project with something that lifts it from the vast mass of barely average shot on DV releases out there. Apart from the few violent scenes, this could almost pass as one of those teatime adventure serials made on TV in the 1970s. It's quite bleak but not relentlessly so, and the story moves at a good pace. Let's hope we see more from Campion and Simpson.

Frightfest 2013 - well a day of it anyway...

So to Frightfest. Twenty five years ago if you'd have suggested to me that London could potentially host a weekend of horror, sci-fi and fantasy movies in a major West End cinema and repeat the event annually rather than as a one off financial car crash, I'd have laughed in your face and asked what was showing at the Scala. The success of Frightfest is testament both to the gradual mainstreaming of this genre of film (everyone's got some goth in them these days it seems) and some consistently bloody hard work by a fairly small group of people in making the festival work year on year.

2013 was the first time I'd actually bought a day pass - I normally tend to go to several films over the weekend and pay individually, but the increasing disappointment of early sell outs of many of the screenings I'd planned to catch at previous events drove me to upgrade this year. I had an idea that my lack of staying power couldn't justify buying a full festival pass and based on my stamina yesterday I was right. Now I'm no stranger to numbing my arse in the name of cinema, but there's something about 21st century horror at the moment that gives diminishing returns en masse. One day and five films was fine - the prospect of 25 (including the dreaded 11pm slots) was too much for me.

So, time to shut up and tell you what I saw:

THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT (USA 2013: Dir Renny Harlin). BLAIR WITCH PROJECT on ice is a fair summary of the first two thirds of this faux 'found footage' movie - faux not least because at various points there's clearly no character member who either could or would be able to maintain shooting the footage we see. A group of twenty somethings (mainly UK actors sporting dodgy US accents) find themselves deep in the heart of the Ural Mountains investigating - and, yes, video documenting - the truth behind reports of a group of Russian hikers who went missing fifty odd years previously. Based on a real life and unresolved incident, which arguably makes subsequent events in rather poor taste, TDPI's awkward merging of horror and sci fi with some straight out action sequences felt decidedly clumsy, and the increasingly implausible X File-y elements in the last third reminded me of a group of kids making up a game as they go along. "and then we were stuck in the snow, and then we found a door" etc etc. I'm a sucker for any film with real snow in it, but TDPI's charms failed to thaw me.


DAYLIGHT (USA 2012: Dir David McCracken). An actual FF film this time, and a very impressive one too, although for most of its running time it's pretty difficult to work out what exactly is happening. The story involves a team of Child Protection Service workers investigating (satanic?) abuse incidents in the town of Daylight, Indiana. The early scenes detail a series of interviews which set it up as a more po faced The Last Exorcism, but as the film unfolds the hold on reality starts to loosen, and the audience isn't really sure what they're seeing, when it's supposed to be happening or who it's supposed to be happening to. The trend towards non linear narrative in genre films is very welcome but the messing with time (and space?) in Daylight combined with the glitchy wonky sound/video footage (if you close your eyes at time you'd swear it sounds like Aphex Twin in his drill 'n' bass years) left the Frightfest audience open mouthed and scratchy of head by the end. I'd love to see this again, but I'm not sure I'd understand it any better.

SADIK 2 (France 2013: Dir Robin Eintringer). "There's no Sadik 1"
announced Alan Jones at the start of this "although why becomes apparent in the film". Yes, and no danger of the audience not missing why, as Sadik 2 sets its stall out as clearly as Daylight didn't. A sort of Scream parody about a group of friends who rent a house in the country, one of whom is a horror film fan who has lined up a VCR fest (yes, the films he's brought are all on tape, ha ha, knowing mockery etc). Lots of Scream like post modern film analysis ensues, but in the basement, unbeknown to our bickering friends upstairs, is a real film crew about to make a film of their own...Clumsy and puerile with a script that raised only a few titters, I was more interested in the Director and one of the actors in the film, who were present at the première screening of their minimum opus. They kept looking around to gauge audience reaction to the 'cleverness' of Sadik 2 and the eventual rather rubbish gore, thereby missing seeing a number of the audience taking the opportunity to quietly leave mid film.

HAUNTER (USA 2013: Dir Vincenzo Natali) I really liked this old fashioned fantasy chiller. It's pretty gore/scare free (if it gets a 15 cert I'll be shocked) and as such some of the FF audience didn't like it. While it is a bit overlong, its Groundhog Day/Pan's Labyrinth/The Others/A Nightmare on Elm St. mashup  - about a young girl seemingly living the same day over and over again who gradually discovers the reason why - was beautifully handled, well acted and had real emotional impact in its closing scenes. Possibly the full force of the film was slightly dulled by a rather over complicated layering of timelines, but it's difficult to give too much of the plot away without spoiling it (something the FF guidebook seemed to have no problems with). A solid fantasy that unfolds its story very effectively. Recommended.

V/H/S 2 (USA 2013: Dir various). When the sequel to a film is described as 'ramped up' on the original, I tend to think it can only mean trouble. V/H/S 2 was a movie made for Frightfest. Gore, nudity, deafening soundtrack, suicide, micro edits, it all went down a storm, each segment getting a round of applause. And I didn't like it I'm afraid. I thought V/H/S was patchy but good, and in places very good, a clever updating of the portmanteau films of yesteryear. V/H/S 2 uses exactly the same framing device as the first movie, and the 'films' watched are arguably more focussed (no pun intended) than the first film. They're also much more extreme, particularly the Gareth Evans story "Safe Haven" which is a really hard watch. Arguably the best was the creative take on zombies, "A Ride in the Park" which had some great laugh out loud moments, but as in all portmanteau films, the total did not equal the sum of its parts, and for all the editing wizardry and general nowness of the thing, both V/H/S films are unlikely to age well or function as anything more than an advert for a decent VCR head cleaner. Press the eject and give me the tape now is my advice.

So there we are - that was my day out. A big thanks to my Festival partner Tara for making it more fun than it may have been entirely on my own. Now I'm off for a lie down.