The Endless (USA 2017: Dir Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead)

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s follow up to their excellent 2014 romance-with-tentacles movie Spring is a real melon twister of the highest order.

Benson and Moorhead both star (casting themselves using their own first names) as brothers, who ten years previously had escaped from a woodland deity worshipping cult. The group had adopted the pair from infancy, rescuing them from a car crash near the commune which killed their mother.

But returning to normal life has clearly been difficult. When we first meet them, Justin and Aaron are both stuck in menial cleaning jobs, living a real second gear existence. But a strange package delivered to their home, containing an old video tape featuring one of the cult - Anna - seeming to address them personally, sets off a desire (by Aaron at least) to return to the commune. Grudgingly Justin agrees to accompany him. 

When the brothers arrive at the so called ‘Camp Arcadia’ they find the cult members no older than when they last saw them. The group are also preparing for an ‘Ascension’ which presumably will find the commune members reborn. Justin remains sceptical but Aaron is quickly seduced back into the cult's strange ways and rituals, forming an attachment with Anna, now broadly the same age, who raised him from a baby.

As usual to tell more of the plot would be to spoil the fun, suffice it to say that we’re in Triangle, Time Crimes and Primer territory here. And while all those films are good in their own ways, what makes The Endless such a terrific movie is the balance of ‘oh wow’ moments with a rich vein of dry humour which not only adds to the suspension of disbelief needed to accept the movie’s plot, but makes Benson (who wrote the script) and Moorhead (also Director of Photography on the flick) a really enjoyable duo to spend time with.

Other supporting characters are also well-defined, particularly the inscrutable cult leader Hal (Tate Ellington) and there's a fine turn from James Jordan as the brilliantly named and creatively angry Shitty Carl - intriguingly some of these characters return from Benson and Morehead's debut feature, 2012's Resolution, suggesting that the cycles in which the cast of this movie operate may exceed the confines of the film. The Endless builds quietly from its linear opening, and tells its story with some care while opening out the drama, resisting the urge to be overly tricksy and maintaining wit and humanity: the ending packs such a punch because the preceding hour and a half has been structured so well.

One of my favourite films of the year so far. See it.

Exquisite Corpse (USA 2010 Dir: Scott David Russell)

Despite the DVD distribution company rather clumsily re-dressing this movie as House of Death and pretending it dates from 2014, Exquisite Corpse was actually made back in 2010 (not to be confused with 2012's The Exquisite Corpse Project or an adaptation of the 1996 Poppy Z Brite novel of the same name), and is a bizarre retelling of Re-Animator but with a squeaky-clean cast that seem to have strayed in from old One Tree Hill episodes.

Steve Sandvoss plays Nicholas, a bright med student who is obsessed with bringing an end to death. His experiments on lab mice have so far resulted in precisely the opposite - and has a box of expired rodents to prove it - but when he accidentally sends a charge through one of them, the results, combined with a serum previously applied to the late mouse (extracted from humans at various points including orgasm and childbirth), produces the effect he was hoping for. This medical breakthrough proves extremely useful when his new girlfriend, rather pretentious artist Sophia (helium voiced Nicole Vicius) accidentally drowns while on a weekend break with Nicholas and two friends. Administering the serum Sophia is brought back to life, but it's not long before the only things she wants to eat in the refrigerator are the bags of blood that Nicholas has brought home from the lab.

Things get pretty gruesome in Exquisite Corpse but the whole thing is served up with a sheen worthy of high quality TV drama. There are some unintentionally funny sequences (Nicholas and his jock friend spouting medico-babble, and particularly Sophia's first death scene which intercuts between her thrashing in the water, Nicholas grinding coffee grounds and said jock friend and squeeze getting jiggy with it). There are attempts to classic up the dialogue, with frequent references to the state of orgasm in French (la petite mort) and not to be trusted course supervisor Dr Waldman (this film's version of Re-Animator's Dr Carl Hill) alluding to Greek drama, likening Nicholas to Orpheus and Sophia to Euridyce.

Silly as it is I found Exquisite Corpse to be far more entertaining than I was expecting. More than likely to turn up at charity shop near you sometime soon, it'll be worth at least 99 pence of your hard earneds.

Who's Watching Oliver (Thailand/USA 2017: Dir Richie Moore)

The Oliver of the title in Richie Moore's pitch black trangressive movie is a strange, lumbering loner of a man. Possessed of a voice that is half Keith from UK TV show The Office and half Michael Caine, this troubled character appears, in the film's opening scenes, newly relocated to Thailand, accompanied by little else other than some threadbare clothes, a set of rusty knives and a laptop, which he uses to Skype and receive instructions from his domineering and clearly very addled dipsomaniac mother.

From here on in Oliver does what he has presumably done in other countries. At his mother's bidding he procures girls in bars, takes them home, rapes and kills them (rather like 'Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner' in Warren Zevon's 1978 song of the same name) then dismembers and disposes of the bodies. Oliver is clearly torn between the life he wants and the murderous desires of mama, which he tries and fails to resist. His worst excesses (!) kept in check by regular medication, Oliver's life is turned round when he meets the beautiful and beguiling Sophia (Sara Malakul Lane) in an amusement park. Sophia sees beneath Oliver's strange exterior, a romance of sorts blossoms, but it gradually becomes obvious that his new beau has some dark secrets of her own. Will her love for Oliver be enough to halt his life of murder and allow him to defy his own mother?

Richie Moore's debut feature is a very strange beast indeed. Tonally it tries to have its (bloody) cake and eat it, which means it never really settles between dark romance, torture porn and psycho biography. The recent crop of Ozploitation flicks  - from Wolf Creek to The Snowtown Murders via 1993's Bad Boy Bubby are obvious jumping off points (and this film is at times as difficult as all those put together) - but there was also something of Hywel Bennett's Martin/Georgie character all the way back in 1968's Twisted Nerve. I kept wondering whether Russell Geoffrey Banks (playing the titular character with a rawness seldom seen in independent pictures these days) was going to break character - and thus the fourth wall - direct to camera. It's to his credit that he didn't, but it makes Who's Watching Oliver a more relentless watch. 

If there is a criticism it's that the combined exuberance of Banks as Oliver and Margaret Roche as his mother are too sustainedly over the top to keep the lid on the movie's tension. At times it felt like early Peter Jackson gore movies - frenetic but with diminishing returns for the viewer - and I could have done with more light and shade in the performances. Also the relationship between Oliver and Sophia rather strained the 'opposites attract' concept and thus was never quite believable.

But there is an intensity in this film which was quite unexpected for this viewer, helped by a splendidly awkward soundtrack, which veered between jazz standards juxtaposing the onscreen, er, action, and pleasingly edgy electronic pieces underscoring Oliver's conflicting states. And even if his performance is occasionally uneven, you'll not see a more committed embodiment of the tortured serial killer in the shape of Russell Geoffrey Banks for quite some time. Go easy there traveller, but worth a watch.

Child of Satan (USA 2016: Dir Mitesh Kumar Patel, Sam Son)

A quick toddle around the internet will tell you two things about Child of Satan: firstly its distribution history. This 2016 movie was originally marketed with Rosemary's Baby in mind (including telltale baby carriage on the cover), but was then repackaged under the alternative name Neron, with the tagline 'Knowledge leads to extinction' - no, me neither. In the latest release the pram is now back, as is the original title, but with the Neron strapline. No, still none the wiser.

The second thing the world wide web will tell you is that no-one, but no-one has a good word to say about the movie in either of its guises.

Director Patel's previous feature, 2011's The Man in the Maze, seems to have been beset by the same problems encountered in Child of Satan: well photographed but shoddily edited, incomprehensible plot, and with a script not so much written as fought over by committee. But five years is a long time not to learn from the errors in your first movie.

In Child of Satan a heavily pregnant Allison (played by the UK's own Kacey Grange Hill Clarke) almost miscarries at her baby shower, which may have something to do with an eclipse taking place at the same time, deemed as an ill omen. The baby is born premature if healthy, but exerts a strange demonic influence on those looking after it - calling it Neron probably didn't help. The cause of the diabolic kerfuffle may be traced back to the father, Kevin, being involved in some voodoo business in Mexico five years previously (and who is still up to his old tricks carrying on with Allison's best friend Tara (Caite Upton, formerly Miss South Carolina Teen USA 2007) behind her back. As the baby grows in strength a string of fatalities occurs, but the evil bambino resurrects the fallen as zombie slaves to realise its grand plan - whatever that is. An increasingly disturbed Allison does not know where to turn, until she encounters a priest who may or may not be of this earth (a rather bored looking Eric Roberts) and who offers her Christian salvation in the form of a very big knife.

Patel and Son's film feels like it was rescued in the editing studio, and with no fewer than nine producers on board, it's kind of a surprise it got made at all. It's unfair to say that the movie makes no sense although several plot strands do kind of disappear and the whole thing feels like it's been held together by a wing and a prayer. And on that subject, initially I thought that because of the pronounced good vs evil plot it may have been church funded (although the uttered line "Fuck off you homewrecking cunt!" suggests not). The SFX are a triumph of lo fi-ness, and it's a shame there aren't more of them as, basic though they are, they are intriguing (depicting blood spray by animating it onto the lens of the camera filming the action anyone?). But all round this was very hard work even for a genre completist like me.

Hangman (USA 2017: Dir Johnny Martin)

Hangman feels like a movie beamed in from another decade, with its blue/grey colour palette, grizzled anti heroes and the unnecessary plot intricacy of, say, David Fincher (Se7en and Zodiac are obvious reference points).

Al Pacino gives a rather insouciant performance as Ray Archer, retired and much loved cop brought back for one last case when his ex partner, brick outhouse-shaped Detective Will Ruiney (Karl Urban) needs assistance in catching a serial killer. Pacino's performance is all quirks and tics - he relaxes by completing puzzle books, but in Latin because, well, once an altar boy always an altar boy. "Most people go fishing when they retire," someone observes of Archer in one of the film's many script cliches (also on offer is an observation from one cop to the other that the "donut shop's open," but my favourite is the evergreen "...if the media gets hold of this they'll go into a frenzy."). Also along for the catch-a-killer ride is plucky Pulitzer nominated journalist Christi Davies (Brittany Bushwick Snow),who has inexplicably been given an access all areas pass to accompany the policemen on the job - including crime scenes - in the interests of writing an article aiming to restore the reputation of the police in the eyes of the public.

What saves Hangman from being a complete travesty is that for the most part it's a well paced, good looking thriller. It may have Blackwall Tunnel sized plot holes but Pacino, Urban and Snow are a likeable trio (it goes without saying that it's the journalist who spots the key clue that both cops have been too close to the case to notice), and if you don't exactly care about them, you don't wish them ill. The same does not go for the scriptwriter, who as well as the clunky dialogue sets up a killer whose modus operandi is so overly complicated - and yes it does involve a game of 'Hangman' with each murder providing another letter - that you want to help out just to move the film along a bit.

As a stunt arranger by trade director Johnny Martin knows how to build the action and rustles up a number of good set pieces, although an early scene, where Pacino's car gets dinged by a drive by and he gives chase, is sloppily edited, and a couple of on foot pursuit scenes go on a little too long.

Hangman is reasonably diverting but no more. Pacino can do this sort of thing in his sleep and looks like he does just that in some of his scenes. But for the most part it's a fun ride which only occasionally  prompts one to question why it was necessary to offer the world another downbeat-dysfunctional-cops-on-the-trail-of-a-serial-killer movie.

Ghost House (Thailand/USA 2017: Dir Rich Ragsdale)

Scout Taylor-Compton (Laurie Strode in Rob Zombie's Halloween reboot movies) is Julie, who is about to have a very bad number of days when she and boyfriend Jim (James Landry Hébert) tour the Bangkok area of Thailand. Hoodwinked by a couple of Brits into investigating ornate shrines deep in the woods, the young couple are caught up in a nightmare when Julie becomes haunted by a frightening figure who can only be seen by her. Jim faces a race against time to find a cure for Julie's deepening psychosis before he loses his wife to irreversible insanity.

Rich Ragsdale's second feature (his first, 2005's The Curse of El Charro wasn't well received) is a curious thing; a well made, superbly photographed ghost story which borrows a lot of elements from other films but has enough verve and spirit to be, if not original, then certainly worth your time.

Ghost House has a very keen sense of place and its adoption of Thai belief systems is essential to the story (unlike, for example, a film like The Forest, with its rather lurid appropriation of a well known and very real suicide location in Japan). Ragsdale isn't beyond a bit of exploitation himself however, with footage of various undernourished and disabled locals thrown in for verisimilitude, and a story which on more than one occasion strays into 'superstitious villagers' territory.

While her boyfriend Tim is somewhat lethargically played by Hébert, Taylor-Compton is extremely effective as Julie. Trapped in her own private hell with the sometimes extremely frightening apparitions visible to no-one but her, it's a step up from most genre movies in that you genuinely feel for the character - clearly her role in the Halloween movies was a useful training ground. At times Ghost House resembles a more serious Drag Me to Hell - the story has its roots in MR James's story 'Casting the Runes' via its 2017 adaptation It Follows. The movie has drawn some criticism for its rather overly used shock haunting shtick, but I disagree. The menacing of Julie by the avenging spirit takes on a rather relentless feel, and the visions of the spectre (which for once isn't overly cursed by expository explanation) are genuinely unsettling.

Ghost House does well with its obviously limited budget. It may not be offering anything particularly new, but its combination of eastern myth, magic and traditional frights worked for me.

From the Archive: Reviews of 3 Dead Trick or Treaters (USA 2016), Beacon Point (USA 2016), Beyond the Grave (Brazil 2010/2015), Deep in the Wood (Italy 2015), The Dooms Chapel Horror (USA 2016) and LA Contagion (USA 2014)

A further selection of film reviews that either didn't make it 'to print' or are otherwise no longer available on line.

3 Dead Trick or Treaters (USA 2016: Dir Torin Langen) Director/producer/ writer/ cinematographer Langen specialises in ‘weird’ short films, so what better vehicle for him than to pull a number of them together as a ‘portmanteau’ movie? It’s a similar idea to his Late Night Double Feature released last year, although the angle here is that the whole film (and each of the segments within it) is completely without dialogue. It’s not silent though - there’s a music soundtrack, and the characters in each of the stories grunt, sigh and make all the usual human sounds - except speech. Admittedly this takes some getting used to. The framing device around which to wrap the stories (two of them are from Langen’s back catalogue of shorts – the rest were presumably made for the film) has a paperboy stumbling on the graves of three murdered trick or treaters; hence the rather awkward title. 

Each of the headstones has a piece of paper attached containing a short story, which leads us into the various Halloween based story segments: ‘Fondue’ featuring a young couple who trick or treat at a remote house and get more than they bargained for; ‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ where a sacrificial offering gets cold feet about his fate; ‘Stash’ which has a trick or treating gang needing more than candy to keep them going; and ‘Delivery’ where two cops are given a bung to find another use for the body at a crime scene.

The films are pretty slight, opener ‘Fondue’ being the weakest, but the film begins to pick up pace as successive segments get stronger and the viewer adjusts to the dialogue free approach.  So why no speech? It could just be a gimmick, but as most of the characters in the stories are couples or partners, I think Langen is also saying something about how people non verbally communicate.

Anyhow I quite liked 3 Dead Trick or Treaters. It’s a bold attempt to do something different, and Langen wisely keeps the movie short – about 75 minutes. My only comment would be that there’s not enough variety of locations – drab and miserable though they are – so the segments end up looking a bit indistinguishable.  Nice job though.

Beacon Point (USA 2016: Dir Eric Blue) I am, I must confess, an absolute sucker for films set in the woods. And when the forest looks as lush as the woodland featured in Beacon Point, my critical faculties are reduced further. No matter, for despite all the gorgeous foliage on display, this is a good film. Nothing particularly original happens, but it’s beautifully photographed, credibly acted, and keeps the viewer on their toes.

A group of hikers assemble at a trail point in the Appalachian mountains (although actually filmed in Georgia), all set for a 90 mile 10 day hike. Unfortunately the trail leader Drake, who was to escort them, has just been rumbled by his boss as he’s had some previous jail time, and is fired. Drake protests and in the ensuing struggle accidentally kills the boss. Drake then shuts up the office, complete with corpse, joins the hikers and makes like nothing’s happened.

The hikers are the usual group of strangers thrown together – city type Zoe (whose strange dreams presage what’s to come), Dan, a nerdy guy who’s made a mint but lost his wife to another man, and brothers Cheese and Brian. Led by an obviously unstable Drake on a trail that he seems to be making up as he goes along, the group encounter a strange totem pole deep in the woods. This is the catalyst for odd things to start happening, and before they know it they’re being spied on by unknown, possibly alien eyes, encountering dead bodies, and mistrusting each other.

The standout performance is Rae Olivier as resourceful Zoe, a character who makes the transition from ditz to heroine of the hour pretty convincingly, but all of the cast handle their roles well, with special mention for John Briddell as crazy ranger Drake.  

Beacon Point director Eric Blue has taken the time in his first full length feature to flesh out his characters well, although the events don’t make a lot of sense – is it sci fi, is it horror, is it a psychological thriller? It’s nevertheless a tense movie which uses its woodland locations to great effect and doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

Beyond the Grave aka Porto Dos Mortos (Brazil 2010/2015 Dir Davi de Oliviera Pinheiro) “No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” Any movie that opens with a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche is probably not aiming for the drive in crowd, and Brazilian director de Oliveira Pinheiro – who also wrote and produced the film - certainly isn’t. Quite who he’s aiming to please though is the question. And beware – if you’re watching this one it’s best to arm yourself with a bit of plot beforehand, as the action on screen isn’t going to help you any. So here goes. 

There’s this taciturn officer called, er ‘Officer’ who’s on the track of a Fallen type shape shifting demon called 'The Dark Rider'. The only way that the audience knows that someone’s been taken over is a general air of meanness and rheumy glowing red eyes. Now the officer is tracking the demon across what I think is a post-apocalyptic landscape – there’s a DJ on the radio taking about ‘the final days’ – and there are also some particularly lethargic zombies hanging around too, although why they are the way they are isn’t really explained, but they’re linked to the demon. And that’s kind of it.

Beyond the Grave is best described as a Robert Rodriguez movie – say Once Upon a Time in Mexico – slowed right down to an almost funereal pace but with all the gun toting and sweatiness intact, to which is added a bit of laconic Lucio Fulci-style undead action. It’s bizarre, intense, pretty pointless, and very, very slow. Narratively it’s baffling – characters die, then come back to life (and not as zombies). After a while I sort of went with it and quite liked its sense of existential gloom.

Beyond the Grave (or to use its original Brazilian title Porto dos Mortos) was touring the festival circuits as early as 2010, but as Pinheiro funded 50% of the movie himself I guess he’s keen to recoup as much as he can for as many years as possible, hence its re-release. I think the best summary I can make of the movie is someone else’s – a ‘paranormal western.’

Deep in the Wood aka In fondo al bosco (Italy 2015: Dir Stefano Lodovichi) Despite the holiday setting and certain plot strands hinting at supernatural elements operating within the story, this Italian movie is in truth a rather dark but entirely secular thriller, atmospherically set in winter in a small village in the Dolomites, concerning the disappearance and reappearance of a small boy.

Tommi is a 4 year old who one night, in the middle of the annual Krampus celebrations (a seasonal festival where locals dress up as the legendary 'Christmas Devil’), goes missing. Five years later he is found, barely alive and with little memory of his past. The 9 year old Tommi is returned to his (now estranged) parents Linda and Manuel, but his mother Linda remains unconvinced that the boy in her care really is her son. A clearly traumatised Tommi struggles to be re-integrated with his family, while at the same time the village’s popularly held belief that the boy had actually been murdered by his alcoholic father Manuel (unconvicted following a trial but still under the shadow of suspicion) is overturned. Who then was responsible for Tommi’s disappearance, if indeed the boy in question is Tommi?

Deep in the Wood scores strongly on location and atmosphere. The claustrophobic wintry mountain village setting is perfect for reflecting the insularity of the village folk, all of who seem to live uneasily with each other. Teo Achille Caprio, as the 9 year old Tommi, delivers a creepy performance recalling Swann Nambotin as Victor in the 2012 French TV series The Returned. While overall Deep in the Wood has some gripping moments, unfortunately the story and eventual explanation strains credibility almost from the start. Would a mother, despite Linda’s obvious mental health issues, really not recognise her own son after a five year gap? From this point on I found the soap opera-esque plot machinations all rather convoluted. I also found it difficult to believe that the level of secrecy which is essential to the plot would have been sustainable in such a small community.

Perhaps more problematically, the film’s set up – the Krampus costumes, Tommi’s eerie quietness and bouts of violence - strongly suggest that the story behind the disappearance and re-appearance was to have a much less prosaic explanation than the one eventually offered up – ingenious as it is, it comes across as a disappointment and reflects poorly on the whole movie.

The Dooms Chapel Horror (USA 2016: Dir John William Holt) A great although rather exploitation-style movie title for what is quite a subtle film, although it can’t quite decide whether it wants to be a character study or creature feature.

Kyle returns to his Kentucky home town after an 11 year absence with girlfriend Mandy in tow. He left as a small boy, blamed for being neglectful of his farm duties which resulted in the death of his brother Ryan in a threshing accident. On returning he is still vilified by the locals who clearly have very long memories.

The setting for the movie is rural – rotting cars, poorly maintained housing, and swathes of long term unemployed men shooting pool and looking mean; very similar to Debra Granik’s 2010 movie Winter’s Bone or indeed last year’s Oscar hopeful Hell or High Water then. Kyle and Mandy bring their film making friend Tanner with them to document Kyle’s search for the truth. For Kyle means to protest his innocence and find out what really happened to Ryan, and hooks himself up with a body camera to film his conversations with the locals. What he uncovers (a weird cult and a strange beast in the woods) brings a change of pace from slow build up to final reel explosion of violence.

The Dooms Chapel Horror combines faux documentary footage and first person hand held filming to create a mix of styles which help to build up the story. While it’s all cleverly done, the creature elements jar somewhat, and there’s a generally laconic air to the proceedings which makes it a bit of a tedious watch at times. Hats (or should that be Stetsons) off to first time feature director John William Holt for trying something that isn’t just a load of kids running around in the woods, but ultimately this is an interesting movie rather than a very good one.

LA Contagion aka Killer Party aka The Shower (USA 2014: Dir Alex Drummond) Wow, way to go through the naming wringer! Dating back from 2013, this comedy, about a baby shower party that turns into a fight for survival against a group of ‘infected’ neighbours, is equal parts US TV show Modern Family and The Crazies.

The various couples at the party are introduced to us via title cards, and some attempt is made to establish the characters, who are mainly actors and writers in ‘the business’ (the hostess is a theatrical agent). The standouts in this motley crew are waspish party organiser Joanne (Suzanne Sena) and her put upon assistant Beth (Stephanie Tobey), a clown hired for the party (Tony Rego, who’s much funnier after he becomes ‘infected’ – I think that’s the point) and wannabe Republican candidate Zach (Paul Natonek), who speaks entirely in political platitudes.

The ‘infected’ aren’t zombies as such (in fact it’s often quite hard to tell them apart from the uninfected) and we don’t really know why they have turned, but once the carnage begins, it’s clear that director Alex Drummond  has seen Shaun of the Dead more than once or twice. Not much happens from this point on, and there’s a lot of talking. The assembled guests and their kids gradually run out of food as they continue to hole up in the house and battle the one or two ‘infected’ that make it over the threshold, necessitating a foraging trip to a neighbour’s house to plunder their cupboards. The body count is high and the gore is Pythonesque and ludicrous (an ‘infected’ little girl is clearly laughing as she’s filmed eating entrails).

This isn’t a great film. It would have made a smart short feature but too little happens and there are simply too many cast members with nothing to do, who just snark at each other. I like the suburban look of the thing though and the clown character raises some chuckles due to his ineptitude – I laughed when, after a night of action, the cast survey a garden full of badly made balloon animals, and one character remarks drolly “the clown was busy last night.”