Alice in Terrorland (UK 2023: Dir Richard John Taylor) While the title may suggest one of those 'oh it's in the public domain, let's make some money' literary ripoffs, and a cursory look at the structure of the film may have you nodding your head in agreement, Taylor's odd, lyrical movie owes more to Neil Jordan's 1984 adult fairytale flick The Company of Wolves than its contemporary genre mates.
Wednesday 24 April 2024
NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2023 #5: Reviews of Alice in Terrorland (UK 2023), Freddy's Fridays (UK 2023), The Mansfield Ghost (UK 2023), Power Cut (UK 2023), Alive (UK 2023) and The Elevator (UK 2023)
Tuesday 16 April 2024
All You Need is Death (Ireland 2023: Dir Paul Duane)
Set in contemporary Ireland, singer Anna (Simone Collins) and her friend Aleks (Charlie Maher) are on the search for arcane songs performed in the numerous island watering holes; Anna secretly records them, a fact which is disclosed in a funny opening scene. The pair are hoping that their discoveries will be lucrative, but so far nobody's biting, and their cultural digging is only beneficial for Anna's live sets. But they're not alone; self help guru Agnes (Catherine Siggins) presides over a whole roomful of tune searchers, all on the lookout for the one song that can be 'externally validated'.
Following a tipoff, about a song so old it's more legend than fact, the pair make the journey to Crossmaglen where they hope to find Maggie Concannon, oral keeper of one of the oldest songs in Ireland. When they arrive they discover that while Maggie has died her alcoholic granddaughter Rita (the always reliable Olwen Fouéré) has inherited the song, which is sung in a dialect that predates even the earliest Irish civilisations and passed down to women only. They also find Agnes, who seems to have beaten them to it. It is forbidden to record the song (traditionally of course that would mean writing it down, but in the intervening years more modern methods have been developed for doing this) for fear of unleashing something awful. Anna and Aleks respect the request, but Agnes is more unscrupulous; and her faux pas sets in chain a horrifying sequence of events.
There are, arguably, far too many ideas in All You Need is Death to make it a truly satisfying watch, but despite this the film succeeds on the strength of its central idea, a sort of musical version of the Monty Python sketch 'The Funniest Joke in the World'. Early scenes evoke the uneasy blend of humour and horror that benefitted the 1973 film The Wicker Man (a movie which - shoot me now - I don't like that much), and the climax takes us into similar territory explored in the 2016 Liam Gavin movie A Dark Song.
Olwen Fouéré as Rita in All You Need is Death |
Folklorists may twitch a little at the sensationalising of the oral song tradition, but there's no doubting that a fair few traditional Irish standards have rather strange origins. I could have done with some of the quirkier cul de sac narrative elements being excised - the central premise is a strong one and didn't need to be diluted - and some of the performances are more accomplished than others, but this is a creepy piece of filmmaking aided by an unsettling score from Ian Lynch, whose own band Lankum are worth checking out.
Duane is an experienced documentary filmmaker, and it's a mark of the quality of his transition to scripted features that I initially scoffed at the seemingly clumsily punned title of the thing, while gradually realising its thematic aptness; it's that kind of film.
All You Need Is Death is in UK cinemas from 19 April.
Thursday 28 March 2024
NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2024 #2: Reviews of Out of Darkness (UK 2024), Dagr (UK 2024), Gods of the Deep (UK 2024), Stopmotion (UK 2024), Ship of the Damned (UK 2024) and Frankenstein: Legacy (UK 2024)
Out of Darkness (UK 2024: Dir Andrew Cumming) The Scottish Tourist Board may advertise the wilds of the Highlands as a romantic holiday destination, but 45,000 years ago – the period in which this film is set and location for Out of Darkness – it was a rather different proposition.
The first shot of Andrew Cumming’s debut feature is impressive; a spot on a black screen increases in size, resolving itself into a campfire, around which sits the film’s Stone Age ‘family’, with young Heron (Luna Mwezi) asking to hear a bedtime story. The account that’s given is the family’s history of how they came to occupy the “old and dark” land, an inhospitable spot full of nighttime terrors.
The other members of the group include leader and Heron’s father Adem (Chuku Modu), his brother Geirr (Kit Young), Adem’s pregnant mate Ave (Iola Evans), elder Odal (Arno Lüning) and young Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green), a ‘stray’ recently adopted by the others, whose value to the group as an additional child bearer is secured when she menstruates for the first time, particularly after Ave loses the child.
As if wilderness survival isn’t tough enough, there’s a ‘something’ stalking the land; whatever it is, it’s big enough to leave piles of bloodied bones in its wake and cause harm to members of the family. Ultimately it’s Beyah who becomes the hero of the piece (not least for persuading the others to eat one of their fallen family in order to survive), but as the movie progresses, the question is (silently) asked as to where the line is drawn between human and animal in this prehistoric world.
Out of Darkness does a lot with not much. If one can ignore the rather tidy haircuts and well-fed faces of the cast, a lot of work has been done to establish these characters as 'other', down to the guttural ‘Tola’ language spoken; the whole movie is subtitled. The plight of the family is supported by crisp photography and natural lighting (what there is of it).
This isn’t a horror film as such, but Cumming mounts the scares and the tense moments just like your favourite fright flick. Ultimately the real horror here is the desolate existence carved out by a civilisation who may have left the caves but have yet to acquire the skills to stave off starvation and external threat.
A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site.
Dagr (UK 2024: Dir Matthew Butler-Hart) Ellie Ducles and Riz Moritz play, respectively, the notorious Thea (definitely not Thelma) and Louise, a pair of YouTubers whose show, ‘They Deserve it’, sees the pair rob from the rich and entitled and redistribute to the poor and needy. Emboldened by their popularity, Thea and Louise egg each other on to bolder and bolder adventures.
As we join them they’re off to a country pile in deepest Wales, where a high end fashion advert is being filmed; their challenge is to break into the house, liberate the clothes being modelled, and scarper. But when Thea and Louise finally locate the seemingly deserted place, all is clearly not well. By reviewing production film on a discarded laptop, they witness an awful incident that is the prelude to the awakening of an ancient, dark force. And it’s only thanks to the police, who re-assembled events from available recovered footage, that we get to understand the horror that unfolded.
I can’t give too much away about the plot of this British found footage movie, except to mention that a lot of its appeal lies in the change of tone from its wittier, lighter first half – where a lot of the fun is witnessing the urban YouTubers getting to grips with the countryside - to a darker second act, and in the meshing of the two storylines. Along with the other cast members Ducles and Moritz largely improvise their shtick and it’s a relief that this works perfectly; you might actually want to watch ‘They Deserve it’.
Director Matthew Butler-Hart’s choice of location - Abercynrig House in Brecon – is perfect for the hand held shenanigans one expects from a FF experience, and while Dagr does descend into running around and screaming for the last 30 of its brief 77 minutes, the whole thing is handled with a panache that injects new life into a sub genre that everyone – me included – thought had breathed its last.
A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site.
Gods of the Deep (UK 2024: Dir Charlie Steeds) It's astounding that just eight years ago Steeds made his first full length movie, the Mad Maxesque Deadman Apocalypse, filmed in a large storage container with little more than chicken wire and shopping trolleys to dress it. Gods of the Deep is the director's thirteenth feature, and how far we've come. You can read about that journey here.
In thrall to 'vintage' aquatic creature features like 1989's Leviathan and Deep Star Six, GoDP takes place on a 'deep diving submersible' called Providence 3, capable of negotiating depths formerly unheard of; which is handy because the sponsors of the vessel, the Pickman Corp, have recently discovered what looks like an ancient portal deep beneath the ocean. The Corp have assembled a crack team to pilot the craft to the depths, including James Peters (Derek Nelson), Miskatonic University marine research expert (you've probably guessed by now from the references; like Steeds's previous feature, Freeze, we're in Lovecraft territory), marine biologist Christine Harris (Makenna Guyler), and a shadowy member of the Pickman family (Chris Lines).
You surely do not need to be told that once submerged a) the crew do indeed find something and bring it back to the craft, b) it starts to misbehave and c) at least one of the crew unveils their ulterior motive for the whole mission. With Steeds's by now familiar low budget limitations, don't expect any massive F/X set pieces here (although there's a nifty end scene which makes effective use of CGI). Most of the director's practical effects are limited to some tentacular action, the discovery itself (which looks like it was assembled from items found in the local garden centre) and a rather impressive Cthulhu sized aquatic creature.
An on point 80s score from Matt (Vampire Virus) Aker and the usual high Steeds production values make this an impressive, if at times empty watch. But there is no denying the director's 'quart from a pint pot' talents; there's a lot of fun to be had here, even if all you get from it is a quick round of 80s monster movie bingo.
Stopmotion (UK 2024: Dir Robert Morgan) "Don't you want to make your own films? Have your own voice?" asks Tom (Tom York) of his girlfriend Ella Blake (Aisling Franciosi). "I don't have my own voice," she responds, which may be true; but what Ella does have, in spades, is vision.
Ella lives in the shadow of her mother, Suzanne (Stella Gonet), a famous animator. Suffering from arthritis, mum is no longer able to manipulate the armature inside the models she uses for her stop frame movies, so Ella helps her. Ella, also an animator, struggles to develop original ideas so ends up helping her mother finish hers: but when Suzanne has a massive stroke, ending up in a coma, her daughter has to move into an empty flat in a deserted block to complete the film.
But after meeting a young girl (Caoilinn Springall) in the supposedly empty building, Suzanne is encouraged to change the characters in the animation to tell a much darker story.
Morgan's debut feature is a woozy mix of animation and live action, which - of course - calls forth memories of the films of Jan Švankmajer and, in Ella's isolation and dislocated mental state, Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanski's 1965 movie Repulsion and maybe poor Henry in David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977); it's not as successful as either of these films by the way. Although impressive, this functions more as a mood piece than a structured drama. But it's Franciosi's film; she's a slight but increasingly terrifying - and sympathetic - presence, evoking that of Niamh Algar in Prano Bailey-Bond's 2021 movie Censor. But the whole thing feels like a number of loosely connected set pieces, and the fairy tale elements feel muddled.
Ship of the Damned (UK 2024: Dir Steve Lawson) After a prologue set in 1622, Lawson's latest fright flick takes us into the 21st Century, in contrast to the historical setting of his last few movies.
Monday 4 March 2024
NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2021 #18: Reviews of Bad Blood (UK 2021), Nightlens (UK 2021), What You Can't Promise (UK 2021), Huey (UK 2021), Overtime (UK 2021) and The Leprechaun's Curse (UK 2021)
Bad Blood aka Boy #5 (UK 2021: Dir Eric Steele) Originally titled Boy #5 (for its screening at London's FrightFest in 2021), this 'Mancunian vampire film' (according to the director) is the story of Nathan (Lennon Leckey), a homeless young boy picked up off the streets after being discovered drinking the blood of a dead dog, and delivered into the care of social worker Marjorie Dawson (Laura Montgomery Bennett).
Marjorie is in crisis, following the death of one of her previous cases, Curt, who took his own life while under her charge. Refusing any offers of counselling, and of increasing concern to her superiors ("You can't save everybody," she's warned), Marjorie takes the distinctly odd Nathan under her wing, turning a blind eye - and eventually becoming complicit - when she learns that he drinks only human blood, regular supplies of which are needed to sustain him. "For blood is the life!" he quotes at her; a quick internet search tells her most of what she needs to know on the subject, with a visit to a Manchester goth club filling in the blanks.
While watching this I was reminded of the films of UK director Andrew Parkinson, whose movies often feature horrific beings located in authentically mundane settings. The world into which Nathan enters is blandly municipal, an environment of clipboards and case conferences (a desk calendar from 2019 shows that the film has had a long gestation). As Marjorie Bennett is similarly and successfully prosaic; in her first screen role (she's also in two other features by Steele which haven't yet seen the light of day) she's decidedly non actorly but very effective, and her increasing need to compensate for the guilt over Curt, including bloodying her hands to meet Nathan's needs, is very believable.
A classical score contrasts well with the drab mis en scene, and a small cast, all of whom are effective in their roles, makes this well worth a watch.
Nightlens (UK 2021: Dir David Woods) Woods's first feature since his 2011 melon twister Till Sunset, get ready for more oddness as we join Blake (Kim Hardy), a man who has split from his alcoholic partner Kate (Zoe Cunningham) after popping the question at the wrong moment, and has lived to regret it.
Keen to right the wrongs of the past, Blake enrols with Cerebrics, an unusual agency straight of out a Philip K. Dick story, who can help him. The company strapline is 'For the thoughts that count' and, under the tutelage of Torrance (Susan McCann), they can provide a link to the past so that Blake can put things right. Tapping into the company's power source, a brain in a box (I kid you not), after a painful process he is thrown back onto 'the maze' of his own cerebral cortex - The Grey Matter - to reunite with Kate and give things another go.
The only problem is that Kate had the same idea, also contacting Cerebrics to help with her alcoholism, so the pair must hook up to both achieve what they want. But there's a snag; a rogue neuron in the shape of a dark stranger (ok a bloke with black tights on his head) who threatens the safety of both.
At least, I think that's what's happening, but any viewing of Nightlens comes with a big dose of WTF. This is ambitious stuff, well put together considering the obviously tight budget and with an atmospheric score from Jamie Harper (who also scored Till Sunset) to pull it all together. This won't be for everyone - pacing is not its forte - but it's hugely intriguing. What a shame that, based on his previous output, we'll have to wait another ten years for the director's next head scratcher.
What You Can't Promise (UK 2021: Dir Richard Fysh) More 'holiday home horror', this time a two hander written, directed and 'starring' Fysh as Gareth, a chap who, grieving the death of dad (who owned the holiday let in which he is currently staying), and keen to tie up his late father's affairs.
A knock at the door announces a young woman, Ursula (Maria Tauber), who claims to have rented the cottage, and paid Gareth's dad for the privilege. Gareth is unaware of the arrangement and uncomfortable about her suggestion that, although total strangers to each other, they should stay under the same roof.
Both resolve to do this; soon Ursula's assertive ways unlock Gareth's taciturn demeanour, and he's telling her things about his personal life, his failed relationship and the passing of his father, about which he feels uncomfortable disclosing. His nocturnal visitor also seems to have a dislike of bright light, eats nothing, and takes a fond interest in Gareth's neck.
I probably won't be giving much away if I tell you that Ursula is not what she seems; and much more. Quite how you get on with this depends on how much you like the two characters, as you spend the entire 70 minutes with them. To be honest, while the setup is quite bold, neither Fysh nor Tauber are particularly accomplished actors; in fact the initial scenes, of the 'oh-no-you'll-have-to-spend-the-night' variety, feel like porn before the clothes come off. I applaud the willingness to try something a little different, but WYCP didn't work for me.
Huey (UK 2021: Dir Brenden Singh) This one took me slightly by surprise; it's not a pleasant watch but it transcends its low budget limitations, that's for sure.
Huey (a convincing performance by Bryan Moriarty) is a young (ish) man, an unpublished writer who struggles alone at his computer. He's on strong medication, and his fragile mental health means he feels isolated when with friends; sessions with his psychiatrist (Philip Ridout) are predictably fraught.
Huey feels that to kick start his book he needs to inhabit the world of his central character; presumably that character is somewhat of a psychopath, as we see the guy following women and, when he does bring a girl home with him, becoming angry and violent when he's unable to perform.
Latching onto a woman he sees in a cafe, Lucy (Daisy Boyden), he starts an (unwanted) conversation with her, having already stalked her around town and located her home address. Any idea that Huey is trying to strike up a simple friendship is quickly dashed, and Lucy senses quite quickly that she's in danger.
It's often difficult to work out what's real and what's in Huey's head in Singh's slender but tense psycho drama. Moriarty has something of the Sean Harris about him; you never know when he's going to go off the deep end. This is primarily a character study as opposed to a fully realised drama, but it's confidently filmed and conveys a real sense of mental crisis.
Overtime (UK 2021: Dir Mario Covone) Wow, this was an unexpected, dark treat which seems to have passed people by, totally undeservedly.
The Leprechaun's Curse aka Leprechaun's Rage (UK 2021: Dir Louisa Warren) It's been a while since Ms Warren's name cropped up in one of these round ups. The last time we saw the 'Leprechaun' character was in her 2020 movie The Leprechaun's Game.
When I interviewed Warren a few years back she told me that she makes two types of horror movies; 'serious' and 'wacky'. The Leprechaun's Curse is certainly in the latter camp.
Bao Tieu returns as the titular little fella (actually he's full size, but we'll let that pass) and this time he's guarding an amount of gold held in a house owned by a 'property into gold' type (Warren includes him in a fake TV ad) who the creature has drowned in the mansion's swimming pool. Sidebar: when I mention 'mansion' this looks more like a local authority owned hostel - fire doors and Covid signs galore. Anyhow the house has been passed on to the gold mogul's daughter Tilly (Sofia Lacey) who invites her mum (Chrissie Wunna) and friends down to spend a few days of luxury while she works out what to do with the place.
The leprechaun kind of hangs around the house, leaping on the unsuspecting guests when they access the gold secreted around the place, and leaving cryptic notes which has everyone blaming each other for trying to spook them out. The plot is about as incomprehensible as this short synopsis reads, and there's little to recommend it apart from a general tongue in cheek approach, some rudimentary gore and a few amusing lines of dialogue. Worst moment? The evil leprechaun faces off against the house's caretaker (Warren) at the front of the property in full view of passing unconcerned pedestrians, a bus and a police van.
Saturday 27 January 2024
NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2024 #1: Reviews of Lord of Misrule (UK/Ireland 2023), The End We Start From (UK 2023), Murder Ballads: How to Make it in Rock 'n' Roll (UK 2023), The Haunting in Rosemary Lane (UK 2023), Swiperight (UK 2021) and The Loch Ness Horror (UK 2023)
Lord of Misrule (UK/Ireland 2023: Dir William Brent Bell) Bell has an impressive CV of smart looking, unadventurous but serviceable genre flicks like The Boy (2016) and its 2020 sequel Brahms, and the sequel to Orphan, 2022’s Orphan: First Kill.
And no change here: Bell has amassed all the trappings of the folk horror movement and parcelled them up in a movie simply dripping with cliche.
Tuppence Middleton is Rebecca Holland, a priest who ten months previously located to a living in a small village, taking with her husband Henry (Matt Stokoe) and their 10 year old daughter Grace (Evie Templeton).
Rebecca might be bringing the word of the Lord, but the villagers cling to ancient beliefs, their celebration of harvest festival appearing to honour something older than Christianity. Little Grace is invited to be the festival’s ‘Harvest Angel’ but lest this be seen as something benign and charming, the village chief Jocelyn Abney (Ralph Ineson) takes it very seriously in his guise as the Lord of Misrule, going to battle with a horned satanic figure, another guy in dressup called Gallowgog, as part of the festival rituals; this devilish character has a history involving the village bestowing him with gifts in return for good fortune.
Shortly after the festival celebrations, in which the Hollands participate happily, Grace goes missing; number one suspect is the guy in the Gallowgog costume, Derry Nash (Luc Ineson, Ralph’s son), but what looks like an open and shut case gets far darker, as Abney reveals his true colours.
Everything in Lord of Misrule is so thoroughly unsurprising that one could only generate an ounce of fear if unaware of The Wicker Man and every similar film that followed in its wake; certainly Rebecca and Henry aren’t aware of it. Spilt into four chapters, following some murky pagan celebrations involving hair, blood and fire, your folk horror bingo card can be quickly filled as you tick off ‘scary masks’, ‘village locals knowing more than they’re telling’, ‘ancient chanted songs’, ‘satanic history lesson’ and ‘Christian soul hoodwinked by people worshipping older gods’. House!
There’s nothing wrong with Lord of Misrule; it’s elegantly photographed and the performances are all fine. But it isn’t doing anything remotely new, and I wished that the resources had been used for something more original.
(A version of this review originally appeared on the Bloody Flicks site).
The End We Start From (UK 2023: Dir Mahalia Belo) The Brits do dystopian sci fi so well. Based on Megan Hunter's sparse novella (its title a kind of riff on a quote from TS Eliot) Belo's first feature starts with an unnamed, heavily pregnant woman (played by Jodie Comer - no character in this film has a name) sitting in the bath, contemplating her baby bump. Outside it's raining, and has been for an unspecific, but clearly extended period of time, enough for water levels to reach a crisis point. The rain strains at the doors to her home and finally breaks through.
Murder Ballads: How to Make it in Rock 'n' Roll (UK 2023: Dir Mitchell Tolliday) Former child prodigy Keys (Imogen Wilde) auditions for bad boy band Stack of Corpses, whose lack of hits is in danger of getting them booted off their record label. Her rival for the job is pushy Annie (Lauren Cornelius) who, after a struggle with Keys, ends up under a car, thus reducing the competition to one.
Two of the band members hit upon the idea of stealing lyrics from the home of a successful musician, the late Richard O’Keefe (Simon Callow, whose advice to musicians bookmarks the six chapters of the film). The subsequent song goes all the way to number one, mainly because Stack of Corpses’ manager, the excitable Larry (Alyx Nazir), has paid to put it there, and now his creditors want their money back.
The stage is set for chaos as Larry is hunted down by the money men, the band fight among themselves and struggle to conceal their song theft from O’Keefe’s daughter Megan (Nicci Yin), who has turned up to interview them for a magazine piece.
Murder Ballads is frantic, gory and stuffed with crazy characters to keep the story going. As a comedy though it generally feels very flat, unless your taste is towards the slapstick. There’s a very funny scene where the band’s drinks are spiked by Stack of Corpses’ druggy vocalist Brian (Rhiann Connor) but it’s the exception; separating the film into six chapters was a good idea in principle but actually just makes the whole film feel less cohesive.
Sadly we don’t really get to hear any of the band’s songs, which would have been fun, and the soundtrack, comprising music from pretty much every genre, doesn’t give the film much of an identity (Stack of Corpses look like they should be a hardcore group but we never find out). Not for me then.
(A version of this review originally appeared on the Bloody Flicks site).
Two groups of experienced (it says here) technical personnel join forces to scout the area where the last boat went missing, but have different objectives. One group is simply fact finding, the other, headed by aggressive Ewan (Rob Kirtley), know that a certain water resident monster is responsible and want to...well it's not clear. Capture it? What no one expects is that the LNM, when located, can secrete deadly gunk which has the ability to transfer spore to unsuspecting humans, leading to the hatching of little critters, which apparently grow to great size very quickly.
The Loch Ness Horror is brought to you courtesy of co-producer Rhys Frake-Waterfield's Dark Abyss company, who have been responsible for a whole slew of recent UK creature features rivalling US counterparts The Asylum for cheap CGI derived thrills. Regular readers of these reviews will recognise the usual suspects at work here: Hirani is the acting name of Rebecca Matthews, producing partner with the ubiquitous Scott Jeffrey (not present on this project), and the cast is packed with names familiar from other Jeffrey/Matthews productions. Some, like Hirani and May Kelly as crew mate Ava, are actually pretty good; others fare less well.
Utilising the Chatham docks located HMS Cavalier as the set for the film was rather a good idea; the claustrophobic interiors make a good backdrop for the running around. And as a seabound thriller it functions pretty well (although characters remain undeveloped). But the LNM element plunges the movie into familiar murky - and terribly overfamiliar - CGI territory, which is getting rather tired now.
Monday 22 January 2024
Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (USA 1979/2024: Dir Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione, Producer Thomas Negovan)
Apparently not. The version she would have viewed was 155 minutes long, and by the time it had dragged itself through the British Board of Film Censors (as it was until 1984) Caligula had been reduced by a whopping eleven minutes, the body electing to remove the "...explicit sight of real sex but also scenes of violence and sexual violence that were felt to render the film potentially illegal..." including "... a scene of castration, a disemboweling, the rape of a virgin and sight of Caligula inserting his fist into a man's anus" (quotes taken from the BBFC case study for the film which usefully details its classification history; more is available within the original movie's IMDb entry).
I was underwhelmed by my first exposure to the film. I remember it to be a meandering movie lacking any pace, with an over the top performance from Malcolm McDowell which often made Caligula feel like comedy rather than historical epic.
Full disclosure; I haven't bothered to track down any of the subsequent, more complete releases, and wouldn't be writing this except that, as part of the BFI's celebration of the much missed Scala cinema (commemorated in the documentary Scala!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits), Caligula: The Ultimate Cut screened to an unsuspecting audience as a surprise film.
The genesis of TUC is fascinating. Thomas Negovan, a film historian who looks young enough not to have been born when Caligula first graced our screens, accessed over 90 hours of footage filmed (and held by the owners of 'Penthouse' who continue to have a stake in the project), but not used in the original movie, and spent three years reassembling it using alternative takes. Why? Supposedly to present a single director cut, re-assembling the film to restore some dignity and maybe recuperate its reputation from the rather tarnished result of squabbles between writer Gore Vidal, Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione?
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the restoration/reimagining/re insert your own word here is the choice of alternative takes for the lead role. Caligula still emerges as batshit but some of the histrionics have been removed by choosing shots which demonstrate a more measured turn by McDowell. The other performance aspect - and one of the biggest changes to the original film - is Helen Mirren as Caligula's wife Caesonia. Rescued from her almost blink and you'll miss it performance in the original movie, Mirren is, thanks to Negovan, now a fully rounded character whose motivations and relationship with her husband add a depth to the character and the events onscreen.
The biggest excisions from the film are, basically, Guccione's. The violence has been reduced and the hardcore elements removed; to be honest the brothel scenes still pack a punch and the rather poorly filmed real sex sequences, filmed after hours by Bob and - some say - Brass, didn't add anything. The wedding rape scene, where Caligula deflowers a young newlywed couple, one after the other, is more explicit in this version, and provoked a few walkouts at the screening I attended. It's pretty shocking stuff, more so perhaps because the overall tone of the movie has become slightly more considered.
It is however (and literally) a film of two halves. The first part, chronicling Caligula's rise to power and culminating in the death of his sister/lover Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) is still uneven and messy. It's in the second part that things improve; there's an overall tightness of plotting and less reliance on shock, making the climactic assassination scene more powerful. Also of note is the photography of Danilo Donati's set design; relegated almost to an afterthought in the original film, Negovan has deployed unused establishing shots of the impressive sets to give the movie more of a sense of scale and grandeur; the replacement of the original soundtrack with a contemporary downtempo score also contributes to the film's arguably more serious feel.
Caligula will never be a great film, and the labour of love that produced 'The Ultimate Cut' - reportedly the result of three years' work - does raise the question 'was it worth it'? I suppose you'll have to see for yourself when it's (re) released in the next few months. Maybe for his next project, and if they still exist, Negovan could poke around the unused - and reputedly calmer - takes of Jack Nicholson playing haunted caretaker Jack Torrance in Kubrick's The Shining which, according to legend, were ditched in favour of those showing the actor's more over the top delivery. See you in 2027 then.
Thursday 18 January 2024
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.