Supermarket Sweep #12 - Reviews of The Amityville Murders (USA 2018), The Cleansing (UK 2019), Candy Corn (USA 2019), The Isle (UK 2018), Doll Cemetery (UK 2019) and The Curse of Halloween Jack (UK 2019)

The Amityville Murders (USA 2018: Dir Daniel Farrands) This was the movie Farrands made prior to the execrable The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019) and continues his obsession of making a living (if indeed he does) from ‘real life’ horror stories.

So what we know is that, yes, in 1974 Butch deFeo murdered his entire family at their home in 112 Ocean Drive, Amityville, Long Island. The house’s name was ‘High Hopes’ which might equally apply to the drug addicted Butch, whose moments of lucidity gradually diminished to the point where he took a shotgun to the rest of the deFeos. Butch has spent most of his incarceration making up different stories about what really happened, not helped by the exploitation of the history for reputational gain by the Lutz family when they moved into the property in 1976.

The real back story to the murders, compete with added incest, had already been told in the otherwise quite amusing 1982 flick Amityville II: The Possession. So quite why Farrands felt that it was worth retelling it in 2019, in that the original account was a load of porky pies, is anyone’s business.

But although these days few if any believe that there was anything supernatural motivating Butch's killing spree, nevertheless Farrands doesn’t let that fact get in the way of telling his story. The director sets the scene of 1974 as clumsily as you like for a guy who was 5 years old at the time. There are references to ‘The Exorcist,’ a copy of the book 'Helter Skleter' lying on a coffee table, and footage of Richard Nixon’s resignation on the TV.

An early scene has Butch attending a party where one girl indulges in a version of the hidden writing game 'consequences' where, after the papers is handled round for completion in secret, the results read “Butch deFeo is going to murder you after going insane in the red room." Subtle. Also Ferrands sows the seeds of supernatural motivations by saying that the house was built in an area reputed to hold a portal where the dead can contact the living.

Butch’s relationship with dad Ronnie is not good. Ronnie is a guy who thinks with his fists, landing one on both Butch and his wife on regular occasions. Butch tells his sister that the only way to deal with dad is if he were 'gone for good.’ Ronnie also has mob connections, as evidenced in a scene where he takes money from some shady guys and hides it in a safe. Butch, clearly on the edge from the get go, has a vision of a man with a gun inside the house while in the car outside making out with his girlfriend. Mother finds drug paraphernalia in Butch’s room, some drawings in a book which further hint at her son’s state of mind, and a letter from Syracuse University rejecting Butch’s joining application. So far, so Farrands: some suggestions of what's to come, and a strong sense of the inevitability of fate.

But the real trouble begins when Dawn holds a séance to invoke spirits. Soon after noises are heard, a bird flies into one of the house’s windows, and the word ‘Pig’ is found written on a mirror in lipstick. Dawn tries another ritual to reverse what she’s done but it just makes things worse. Dawn’s bedclothes are mysteriously whisked away from her: shadowy figures follow Butch around the house, doors open and close of their own accord, and he hears voices telling him what he must do, until eventually he take up the shotgun and does it.

Quite what all this is supposed to mean, either as a movie or an addition to the Amityville canon, is for better minds than mine to navigate. The Amityville Murders isn’t a badly made film, just a totally pointless one, but the director seems to have found his niche in making these true life with a weird twist kind of movies, so I guess we should expect many more of them.

The Cleansing (UK 2019: Dir Antony Smith) The Cleansing's director clearly likes a period romp: his last two excitably titled features were 2014's Viking: The Berserkers and King Arthur: Excalibur Rising from 2017. For this one it's to 14th century Wales we go, and a plague ridden country at that.

Young Alice is doing her best to care for her disease ridden mother, but a group of villagers, led by the hooded 'Cleanser', obey the edict of the region that all carriers of the plague should be despatched and burned. Stunned into mute silence following her mother's death, that Alice also remains unaffected causes the villagers to gossip. Village leader and priest Tom offers to shelter and support her, although Alice rejects his advances because she knows that his real intentions are carnal rather than honourable. In response Tom accuses her of being a witch and tries her as such, first asking her to recite the Lord's prayer - she refuses - then ducking her in water, asking her to hold a hot stone, and finally stringing Alice up on a cross, until her only friend Mary releases her.

Through all these trials Alice remains silent but resolute, and when she makes her escape and is subsequently drugged and abducted, we fear the worst. But her abductor is James, a man of the forest, who knows of the uses of herbs, a sort of woodland chemist. It seems they are both immune to the plague. He encourages her to eat the root of a powerful plant to expand her unconscious mind. But in so doing, we're asked to consider whether Alice as innocent as she seems?

Smith aims for and achieves a slow burn, folky vibe with his third feature; there's not much going on but he convinces with his leafy setup. As the largely silent heroine of the story Rebecca Acock is serviceable as Alice, but she doesn't get much to do except suffer and look annoyed until the last reel (well not 'reel' but well, you know...). Rhys Meredith and Simon Pengelly are both suitably enigmatic as Tom and James respectively, but The Cleansing is really all atmosphere and little consequence. Still it's good to see a director working confidently within the restrictions of a limited budget.

Candy Corn (USA 2019: Dir Josh Hasty) Hasty's last feature was the Halloween set Honeyspider back in 2014. It's to the holiday season we return with Candy Corn, a mix of slasher, drama and police procedural, which builds up a great atmosphere but doesn't quite deliver.

A group of bullies, led by the awful Mike (Jimothy Beckholt) are up to 'their usual Halloween hazing.' This means giving local oddball Jacob (Nate Chaney) a hard time, something they do every year. But this time Jacob fights back, which leads Mike and his gang - Bobby (Caleb Thomas) and Steve (Cy Creamer), together with Steve's unwilling girlfriend Carol (Madison Russ) and sleazy hanger on Gus (Sky Elobar) - to kick him to death.

Luckily - or unluckily, depending on how you look at it - the circus is in town, and leader of the local freakshow Dr Death aka Lester (Pancho Moler) applies some voodoo to Jacob's corpse, along with a repulsive mask, and before you know it the oddball is back, 'Toxic Avenger' style, to 'rise and obey' and avenge his death at Lester's bidding: local non gun carrying Sheriff Sam Bradford (Courtney Gains) takes a long time to work out what might be going on, even though he's ringleader Mike's dad.

Candy Corn's strength is in its look and feel. It's set in a mid West town before mobile phones, all flat one level homes and big autumn skies, where even the police precinct has Halloween decorations. Some crisp photography by Ryan Lewis shows off the colour palette - mainly browns and oranges - to great effect, and nearly all the cast look scuffed and downtrodden.

Hasty aims for a slow burn feel to his movie, but at times it's nearer to no burn. It's clear that he wants his murderous set pieces to stand out, but the kills, although gory (including spine ripping and tongue severing - we're almost in Herschell Gordon Lewis territory here) - lack the punch he was looking for.

Cast wise the young gang are perhaps not as young as the story suggests, although Beckholt has a hissable meanness. Better are Pancho Moler as the diminutive freakshow owner and voodoo master Lester, who convinces in his smeared carnival makeup and ill concealed hostility to those around him (although his 'freaks' don't seem to be particularly odd, unless you think being a bit on the large side is odd), and former The Greasy Strangler star Elobar as grubby, lank haired Gus, pretty much reprises the same role from his earlier movie. PJ Soles - of original Halloween (and Carrie) fame, lands a support role as a member of the police team, and genre standby Tony (Candyman) Todd is one of Lester's grumbling carnies.

At only 85 minutes long, Candy Corn still manages to drag in places. It's a pity because the movie has bags of atmosphere, but it's let down by a meandering pace and story points which remain underdeveloped (for example Lester had clearly done the whole resurrection shtick before, and at one point declares "I will never die" suggesting something otherworldly, but these are never explored). Shame, but still worth a look.

The Isle (UK 2018: Dir Matthew Butler-Hart) Here's a strange, atmospheric little movie, set in the mid 19th century, concerning three merchant seamen who are the only survivors of a capsized ship bound for New York. They are captain Oliver Gosling (Alex Hassall) and crew members Cailean Ferris (Fisayo Akinade) and Jim Bickley (Graham Butler). Adrift in their lifeboat and hopelessly lost somewhere off the coast of Scotland, the sailors spy an island which is not mentioned on their maps and charts.

Once ashore, and initially believing the place to be deserted, they encounter a small community of islanders who offer assistance and medical help - Gosling sustained an injury in the shipwreck - but are guarded and unfriendly. The head of the island, Douglas Innis (Conleth Hall) and his wife Lanthi (Tori Butler-Hart, the director's wife) do their best to discourage the men to explore the inhospitable land mass, and at night, while the winds rage around the house in which they're staying, they seem to hear the ghostly voice of a woman singing. Finally, with no offer of a boat back to the mainland and fearing that their lives may be in danger if they remain, the seamen plan their escape. But the island, or something on it, clearly has other ideas.

In its slow pace and atmospheric use of the island's isolated location, The Isle at times feels in execution like a good old BBC 'Ghost Story for Christmas.' All the performances remain understated, the mood sombre and foreboding, and, in keeping with those classic TV dramas, little actually happens for most of the film. But it's the increasing sense of unease which makes this successful, in part due to the movie's rural setting but also a small cast of actors whose muted performances keep things tense if for the most part unexplained (although the film's final reveal does well to shift its mood without sacrificing the sombre pall that The Isle exerts on the audience). The Isle seems to have been rather overlooked as a fine example of a British horror flick and also a good entry in the f*lk h*orror genre: it deserves a wider audience. Recommended.

Doll Cemetery (UK 2019: Dir Steven M. Smith) After the superior thrills of our last movie, we're back to the staple of the Supermarket Sweep strand of this blog: yep, the micro budget British horror film. This one does at least try and break free of the usual narrative conventions associated with this type of flick. so let's not be too hard, eh?

Brendan (Jon-Paul Gates, a Smith regular who has a hairdo you can't take your eyes off of) is a writer whose current dry period, triggered by separation from his wife and a drink problem, is causing his literary agent Arthur (Matt Rogers) some concern. Arthur decides to send Brendan to a remote country retreat, free of WiFi and any other distractions, so that he can complete the book he's contracted to provide. En route to the property he bumps into a seductress (Kit Pascoe, and no I'm not being sexist, that's how she's credited) who's all over him like a rash, so he feels his sojourn might not be all that bad, particularly as she invites herself over, complete with a couple of bottles of best petrol station wine, to flirt some more.

In a prologue, we've seen a woman, who we later learn is also a writer who has missed a deadline, receive a large parcel that turns out to contain a murderous doll who hammers her to death. So it's perhaps no surprise when Brendan takes delivery of a similar large box, which contains the same boy sized inanimate doll, complete with red smoking jacket. The author props the doll up on a chair, but it's not long before the mannequin starts moving about (it's never where Brendan last left it), eventually coming to life with murderous intentions. But is this really happening, or is this just Brendan's imagination bringing the words of his latest novel to life?

Who knows, really? Doll Cemetery is one confusing mess, ably unassisted by some ropy acting and a crummy rural location with one of the most unappealing holiday rentals I've seen for quite some time (apols if this was the director's house). Where the film does score on the fright front is the doll, also called 'Arthur' (and yes there is a link with the agent), who during the course of the movie grows in size while still wearing a tiny face mask that makes all the contours of his body look wrong. It's a shame that this rather striking figure could not have been deployed in a more effective movie. Oh and there isn't a cemetery in sight.

The Curse of Halloween Jack (UK 2019: Dir Andrew Jones) I swore I'd never go back...never see a film by that director again. Well I relented reader, and you shall read the results. Which, and I'm quite surprised I'm writing this, aren't too bad.

Set just two years after the murders documented in the first film of this, er, franchise, The Legend of Halloween Jack, the town of Dunwich struggles to deal with the aftermath of the slayings which cut a swathe through the village at the hands of the scarecrow killer. Put upon Mayor Lou Boyle (Phillip Roy) has banned the celebration of Halloween, much to the chagrin of Detective Earl Rockwell (Patrick O'Donnell), but that's the least of his problems: the local Cult of Samhain (a group of pan sticked troublemakers) are intent on causing trouble and are taken out by trigger happy cops as they invoke a ritual on the site where Halloween Jack was interred at the end of the first movie.

The blood of one of the slain coven leaks into Jack's resting place and before you know it the behatted creature with the glowing face is alive - or undead, more accurately - again, and terrorising the locals. His attentions turn to a party of, ahem, teens who have gathered to defy the Halloween ban and party like it's October 31st. Which it is. One of the party guests is Danielle (Tiffani Ceri, a regular in Mr Jones's movies) who is the Mayor's daughter and a specific target for Halloween Jack - and with good reason (no spoilers here but if I mention Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween - well hopefully you get the picture). The scene is set for a final showdown between the kids, the police and a bizarre Snake Plissken character called Dennison (Lex Lamprey).

Jones is still doing that thing of trying to make his movies look and sound American, despite the right hand drive cars, UK vehicle license plates and the obvious Welsh village locations. But this time nearly everyone seems to have given up the ghost accent wise - the only characters that didn't get the 'leave off the US drawl' memo were Lamprey and Neil-Finn-a-like O'Donnell: and there's an unintentionally funny scene where Lou advances his daughter some money in US dollars.

But Jones actually manages some excitement in this movie, as well as some intentional laughs (the scenes between partygoers Glen (David Lenik, who was so good in this year's An English Haunting) and Tom (Alastair Armstrong) are very funny indeed. I've always maintained that he employs good technical staff and for the most part credible actors, but seems to have no idea how to direct a film. Well I'm pleased to report that either he's finally learning his craft, or someone has taken over the creative controls. For most armchair critics the response to The Curse of Halloween Jack will still revolve around not being able to get back 75 minutes of their life, but this has slightly restored my faith in this previously fairly maligned director.

Supermarket Sweep #11 Christmas Special! Reviews of Krampus: The Reckoning (USA 2015), Krampus Unleashed (USA 2016), Christmas Slay (UK 2015), Mrs Claus (USA 2018), Dead by Christmas (USA 2018) and Christmas Apparition (USA 2016)

Krampus: The Reckoning (USA 2015: Dir Robert Conway) Here's a low budget movie that really bit off more than it could chew concept wise.

Zoe (Amelia Haberman) is a young girl whose foster parents, a particularly nasty couple called Katie and Teddy, end up burned to a crisp when Krampus comes a calling. The creature here is a spectacularly cheap looking bit of CGI that bears very little resemblance to the folkloric Krampus creature, and, presumably because of the technical limitations, doesn't ctualy come into contact with his victims.

Dr Rachel Stewart (Monica Engesser), a clinical psychologist attached to the police, is called in to interview the decidedly tight lipped Zoe, whose only friend in the world seems to be a Krampus doll from whom she doesn't like to be parted. Aided by down on his luck police detective Miles O'Connor (James Ray), whose job in a small town city in Arizona is made difficult by the fact that charred corpses keep turning up, Rachel interviews the taciturn Zoe and finally discovers her link to the Krampus creature, but also Rachel's connection to the little girl and the Christmas demon.

Krampus: The Reckoning was the first of two movies directed by Conway to feature the Christmas Devil. And 2015 was a busy year for the creature, who featured in Krampus, A Christmas Horror Story and Deep in the Wood. K:TR is the weakest of these seasonal offerings, but it has a damned good try. Part police procedural, part psychodrama, it's let down by some flat performances and pedestrian direction. Oh and a terrible Krampus that looks like an inanimate superhero with horns. On the plus side Amelia Haberman is spitefully good as Zoe, the girl with a dark secret, and unlike other Krampus movies we'll be visiting in on this page, the story is way more than a guy in a monster suit killing people. It's pretty lame as a Christmas movie though; a few fairy lights and a sparsely decorated Christmas tree do not exactly fill the viewer with the yuletide spirit.

Krampus Unleashed (USA 2016: Dir Robert Conway) So Conway must have carried out some post K:TR focus groups and realised the errors of his previous Krampus movie, because this one, made just a year later, not only has a real (ie not CGI) demon but a tighter running time and a bigger commitment to making it a proper Christmas movie: it's still not good though.

KU has the obligatory prologue, set in 1898, involving a German outlaw, a group of prospectors and the discovering of a dark lump of rock called a 'summoning stone' which when exposed to flame brings forth the legendary Krampus.

After that, and the opening theme, a truly horrible out of tune version of the classic 'Let it Snow,' we're in 21st Century Arizona, where we meet a family en route to spend Christmas with the folks. Mum and dad, kids Fiona and Tommy arrive at the grandparents' ranch in the middle of nowhere, and are joined by brother and sister in law and their horrible son Troy. Prompted by the sight of granddad's prize nugget of gold, the men and boys of the family decided to go down to the creek to do a little prospecting of their own, running into local girl Bonnie on the way. But when Tommy finds a big black rock in the water, that looks suspiciously like the summoning stone we saw in the prologue, it's not long before Krampus is back on the prowl, the stone coming into contact with Troy's discarded cigarette.

In no way a sequel to Conway's 2015 movie, KU isn't that impressive but what it does have is some great local flavour in a town full of good ol' boys. We're in prime Trump territory here - everyone carries guns and hunting is the main passion in the area (the grandparents even have a decoration on their Christmas tree that reads 'Born to Hunt'). The Krampus figure doesn't look too bad, and benefits from being a real guy in a creature suit, and there's some impressive gore too: a disembowelment that we get so see a lot (Conway was clearly pleased with this effect); limbs lopped off and entrails pulled out, that kind of thing. Most of the acting is so so, but Taylor Buckley as Troy is worth singling out: he's such a loathsome teenager, one has the urge to smack him - good work, Taylor!

Christmas Slay (UK 2015: Dir Steve Davis) Davis is a micro budget director working within the Kent Independent Film network. Christmas Slay - slightly awkward title - was his first film (he's since made another seasonal outing, 2017's Christmas Presence, which doesn't seem to have seen the light of day yet), and isn't half bad for a debut feature, although as I've mentioned before with this type of movie, a certain amount of expectation adjusting is required.

It's Christmas Eve and a bad santa has broken into the home of a family. Not only does he scoff all the chocs in the advent calendar and have a go at the Christmas cake, he also kills both mum and dad, leaving the murder weapon in the hands of their daughter. But the police (call sign Sierra Lima Alpha Yankee - geddit?) are quick to arrive and before you know it he's whisked off to a maximum security hospital in Scotland, from which he effects an escape with some of the other inmates.

Three girls, Becky, Sarah and Emma, have journeyed to Scotland (although the exteriors were filmed in Bulgaria) to spend a get away from it all weekend in a ski lodge; a mini break of hot tubs, wine and most importantly no men. Emma has just split up with her bloke Ryan after he was caught out with Emma's best friend Chloe, only for the girls to find that Chloe has made the journey north to explain to her friend that nothing had happened between her and Ryan. Chloe makes herself useful by going into the nearby forest to get wood for the stove. But guess what? Our killer from the prologue, Simon, now on the run, has donned a Father Christmas outfit and is on the rampage, the ski lodge being conveniently near the hospital. As the girlfriends' guys turn up, the body count rises - who will be left?

Well it's pretty obvious that the 'final girl' in this one will be sensible Emma, although this sense does not extend to wearing much more than her skimpies while running about in the snow. The filming location looks genuinely cold and it's to the actors' credit that it doesn't always show on their faces (lots of quick takes I suspect). Christmas Slay is a definite throwback to 1980s slashers, although any promised hot tub sauciness fails to materialise - the movie isn't quite sleazy enough, although as Simon Frank Jakeman gives good axe. And well done to Davis for skirting the rights issues involved in procuring proper Christmas songs, and instead giving us some specially composed seasonal tunes by Matt Collins. Not bad at all if very rough round the edges.

Mrs Claus (USA 2018: Dir Troy Escamilla) More low low budget indie fare, this time a movie in thrall to the slasher boom of the 1980s.

In a prologue, wicked Amber, self appointed head of the Alpha Sigma Sigma sorority, mercilessly bullies sweet Angela with increasingly mean hazing rituals until the girl can't take it any more, murders Amber in her bed and then hangs herself.

Ten years later Angela's sister Danielle enrols at the same sorority house where her sister took her own life, a move which is not viewed well by the other pledgers, Kayla, Grant, Madison, Hannah, Monica and frat house cynic, podcasting Tyler, nor Amber's mother, who arrives at the house unexpectedly and starts shouting the odds; like mother, like daughter it seems. Danielle starts receiving threatening Christmas themed emails but things get really difficult when Grant's fuck buddy Sophie gets garotted in her car by someone dressed up as Santa Claus wearing a fright mask. From then on the bodies pile up as the suspects get reduced (in a nice touch after each pledger murder there's a shot of their Christmas stocking hanging on the mantelpiece) until the final girl - Danielle of course - goes head to head with the killer, who turns out to be...

I rather liked this film. Yes there's a lot of chatter - most of the movie involves the sorority house occupants sitting round talking - and the pacing is rather pedestrian, but the practical gore effects - including a beheading and that perennial favourite 'two on a spike' - are competent, and Escamilla spends quite a bit of time establishing the characters, who work well as an ensemble.

Dead by Christmas (USA 2018: Dir Armand Petri) For those of you who moan that movies should be able to deliver the goods within 90 minutes, rather than the two hours plus length of some features, along comes Armand Petri and shows how to sew the whole thing up in just under an hour (although relatively this is a rather bloated offering considering that his other 2018 film, Cajun Mystery, weighed in at just three quarters of an hour).

This one takes the questionable topic of church abuse - Spotlight this is not - when a group of former orphans return to the institution in which they were housed - and abused - as kids by the sinister Father Le Doux, who they in turn forced to kill himself.

Sister Mary Nicholas, who cared for the kids back in the day and who has remained at the St Jerome care home since its closure some years back, invites the now grown up former orphans for one last reunion. But one of their number, Sam, has died, reportedly taking his own life by gouging his eyes out. Not the usual means of ending it all then. Except that we know he didn't. He was visited at home by a freaky looking Santa Claus figure who did the gouging. And that same figure is about to make its appearance at the orphanage, with murder on his mind.

Dead by Christmas is nothing if not ambitious. It packs psychobabble, gore scenes, and self help homilies into its slender running time, and I liked its mix of social commentary and slasher antics. It also uses flashbacks well to piece together the story of what really happened at the orphanage, and wisely steers clear of any of the abuse details, concentrating instead on its impact on the assembled young people. It certainly doesn't outstay its welcome, and remains inventive and involving throughout, despite its micro budget and a range of acting styles.

Christmas Apparition (USA 2016: Dir Colleen Griffen) Griffen's second feature is actually also her first: originally released in 2013 as The Cold and the Quiet, it has since been repackaged under the slightly more genre title Christmas Apparition. Neither title really does justice to a film that for most of its running time is a rather creepy little thriller.

It's the end of term at college and student Emma (Katie O. Jones) hopes that, as usual, she can continue to stay on in her dormitory over the Christmas holidays. No such luck, as the college is replacing the heating system. It's telegraphed fairly early on that Emma is a girl with some issues, evidenced by an OCDness and a jar of pills at the side of the bed.

A chance meeting with a woman called Trish (Ellen Lancaster) in a cafe provides a possible solution to her accommodation issues: Trish has been let down at the last minute in her attempts to secure her usual babysitter so that she can get away from her kids for the holiday weekend. Emma, somewhat surprised, accepts the offer to look after Trish's kids (and Ralph the dog). After all it's her only option, based on a quick rejection by Emma's sister of her request to stay there, and a tense conversation with her mother which hints strongly that a return to the maternal home is not on the table.

A strange setup is made odder by the fact that when Emma arrives at Trish's house, the kids' mother has already left, leaving a bundle of cash and some emergency numbers on the table. Emma is left to meet the kids on her own: they are 17 year old Chrissy, a talented musician come wild child who needs no assistance in taking care of herself, and her silent, withdrawn brother William, who expresses himself via drawings and listening to classical music. A welcome present of a dead rat in her room should perhaps send Emma running for the hills, but she's determined to befriend the odd pair, and so begins a strange time of attempting to be surrogate mother for the weekend. But all the while her mental health threatens to make an already stranger situation more difficult to deal with, and William's drawings suggest the story of the real reason why their dad is no longer on the scene. While Christmas Apparition gets terribly muddled towards the end, for the most part this is a strange, alienating movie that really gets under the skin, aided by some terrific sound design by Joe Rabig and a great central performance by Katie O Jones.

Top 10 Films of 2019

In no particular order, here are my big screen picks of the year...

1. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (USA: Dir Marielle Heller) Superb performances by Melissa McCarthy as the clever but ultimately artless forger Lee Israel and Richard E. Grant as her brittle confidante Jack Hock are just two of the reasons to watch this film; as an evocation of the now (almost) lost Manhattan bookstore community, it's a feature as sad as it is funny. Heller's first film after her excellent 2015 debut The Diary of a Teenage Girl, her talent in making bittersweet movies makes me look forward to her next, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, which opens early in 2020.

2. Diamantino (Portugal/France/Brazil: Dir Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt) A delirious mix of polymorphously perverse relationships, Cronenberg-style bio horror and championship football, "Diamantino is an explosion of genres and styles that appears camp and flimsy but betrays a more steely heart. It's both knowing and naive, its over-the-topness redolent of classic Almdovar." With its stunning sets - a med lab looking more like a camp Bond villain lair - and sheer WTFness of its plot, in less capable hands this could have been a nightmare. An assured, truly bizarre film that it's impossible to second guess or classify.

3. Rocketman (UK/Canada/USA: Dir Dexter Fletcher) As the director bussed in to (unsuccessfully) rescue the woeful Bohemian Rhapsody, hopes weren't high for Dexter Fletcher's Elton John biopic. But from its opening Ken Russell-esque formation-dancing-in-the-suburbs rendition of 'The Bitch is Back' Rocketman giddily but confidently oscillates between the strident and the vulnerable (check the scene with Elton and Renata at their dining table). Taron Egerton is absolutely superb as Elton but the rest of the sometimes eccentric casting choices provide strong support. 

4. The Souvenir (UK/USA: Dir Joanna Hogg) Hogg's fourth feature is her most narratively straightforward film and one in which she injects large autobiographical elements to tell the story of a young woman beginning her filmmaking career in faux bohemian London of the early 1980s. Honor Swinton Byrne, who stars as the stand in Hogg Julie, acting alongside her real life mother Tilda Swinton (cast as Julie's mother Rosalind in the movie for added confusion/verisimilitude), is a picture of innocence: swept up in the attentions of Anthony (Tom Burke), an upper middle class drifter with a heroin habit and little to show for his life except a classical education, Julie is hopelessly drawn in to his chaotic and increasingly dangerous life. It's not a film for everyone - Hogg's pacing remains as glacial as ever - but it remains an entrancing study of people that we may not like but nevertheless end up caring about.

5. Midsommar (USA: Dir Ari Aster) Many have criticised Aster's follow up to the audience dividing Hereditary as being too lacking in tension and overly in thrall to its influences, namely The Wicker Man. Although its bum numbing length (2 hrs 27 mins, even longer in the recently released 'Director's cut' Blu Ray version) may have seemed offputting, for those that 'got it' (and I'm not being snobby about this, I promise you) Midsommar was a perfect length to languidly explore the customs and culture of the Swedish rural village preparing to celebrate the height of summer. The eternal sunlight of the region and the blissed out villagers masking an increasing sense of dread creates a stunning atmosphere of implied violence. Yes it's potentially silly, but I also found it bold, alienating and, yes, incredibly tense.

6. Knives and Skin (USA: Dir Jennifer Reeder) Not to be confused with this year's similarly titled faux giallo movie Knives + Heart, Reeder's film was one of my highlights at this year's FrightFest (it was also one which inspired a large number of walkouts at the Festival, many of the audience being suspicious of films which were 'arty' or 'pretentious,' a disappointing but commonly held view which is unlikely to see me revisiting the Festival in future years). In its dreamlike plotting and pace, it recalled the 1986 movie River's Edge, Twin Peaks and even Rian Johnson's Brick (2005): the story of the discovery of a dead schoolgirl causes tensions in class, among the faculty and local parents, with secrets coming to light during attempts to identify the killer. With a superb soundtrack (including haunting acapella versions of songs which appear on mixtapes discovered during the film) Knives and Skin was powerful, tragic and a genuine surprise.

7. Satanic Panic (USA: Dir Chelsea Stardust) Another FrightFest standout, this, together with choice number 8, delivered two of the best comedy horrors of the year (sorry Zombieland: Double Tap, you didn't quite make the grade) or indeed the last ten years." A genuinely funny, occasionally scary and definitely very subversive take on witchcraft movies of the 1970s, with a lot to say about class divisions in suburban USA," is how I described it, with standout performances from Hayley Griffith as Sam, a pizza delivery girl who gets more than she bargained for when she barges in on a posh social gathering looking for her tip, and Rebecca Romijn as the cult leader. With a great script by the excellent Grady Hendrix, this one never let up.

8. Ready or Not (Canada/USA: Dir Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett) My last pick from FrightFest "is an arch and sumptuously mounted horror comedy which is, at its roots, an amusing update of Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack's classic chase thriller The Most Dangerous Game (1932)." Like Choice number 7, a resolutely anti Trumpean movie about the haves and the have nots, As well as the whip smart script and well paced action, the interiors of the groom's family's house in which new bride Grace (Samara Weaving) finds herself fighting for her life are truly sumptuous, Great fun with a very nasty edge.

9. Sator (USA: Dir Jordan Graham) Of all the films in my Top 10 this one, screened at the small but perfectly formed Soho Horror Film Festival, was the biggest surprise of all. It's pretty much a one person labour of love, and very abstract too (although when I spoke to the director after the screening he said that each and every shot was meticulously planned). Mood wise, although the movie is contemporary, it has the feel of The VVitch in its folk-horror intensity. It's about memory and grief, specifically the death of the director's grandmother who in the latter years of her life began spirit writing, including the name Sator in her scribblings. Real life footage of his late relative during her writing sessions is included in the film, and woven into a fictional narrative. In truth it's one of the strangest things I've seen on screen since my first exposure to David Lynch's Eraserhead nearly 40 years ago. Apparently Graham has struck a deal with the Shudder channel to screen it, so watch out.

10. Little Joe (UK: Dir Jessica Hausner) Chronologically the most recently seen of my Top 10 (and due out in the UK in February next year), Little Joe’s title refers to a genetically modified plant, a variant of a previous experiment developed to allow growths to be more durable, so that they don’t have to be watered as regularly as normal ones. The side effect of the last strain was the lack of scent from the flowers, but a new modification has not only rectified that but also developed a curious by-product: if carefully looked after and kept at the ideal temperature, the scent produced by the blooms will make people happy - but there's a further and more worrying side effect. Hausner's film nods to Invasion of the Body Snatchers but is as cool and detached as Cronenberg's early student films. An understated cast and veteran composer Teiji Ito’s jarring, discordant soundtrack make this an extraordinary, strange but compelling film.

Honorable mentions for Bait, Tucked, The Nightingale, Fanny Lye Deliver'd, Girl, Zombieland: Double Tap, Attack of the Demons, Jellyfish, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood and The Irishman.

Invasion Planet Earth (UK 2019: Dir Simon Cox)

Imagine. You're a filmmaker, maybe not in the first flush of youth. You've had one not very well publicised feature made years ago, but you have a project within you so ambitious in scope that it becomes an all consuming passion. But you have little resources, financially or technically, at your disposal, to realise the vision. So what do you do?

If you're Simon Cox, you crowdfund, you find some willing investors, and you learn how to achieve the effects you want onscreen yourself. And you exercise patience. A lot of patience. But boy was it worth it.

In the movie's 1980s prologue, a young boy, Tom, is glued to a TV show called 'Kaleidoscope Man' (the original title of the film, dropped when the director thought it might be too confusing). He dreams of being a superhero and saving the world - hold that thought.

Flash forward to now; Tom is all grown up (Simon Haycock) and things aren't going so well for him. He's still getting over his father's death, and Tom and his wife Mandy (Lucy Drive) also recently lost a child. Their heartbreak is slightly relieved when Mandy, a teacher, tells Tom that she's pregnant. "This is our new start," she tells him optimistically. So you know things aren't going to go well.

Later that day Tom, Mandy and various others in the town, including the local priest, are subject to the same weird hallucination; of apocalyptic scenes, explosions and burning cities. The vision is over as quickly as it began, but leaves all the witnesses shocked. At school Mandy tells the children the story of Noah and the ark. Tom is a doctor who works at a care home, managed by Claire Dove (Toyah Willcox, who gets to sing the end theme song too), which provides support for people with a range of mental health problems, and which is facing closure by the Council. Among the patients are Harriet, an angry woman with a narcissistic personality disorder (Julie Hoult), Floyd, a paranoid schizophrenic (Danny Steele) and manic depressive artist Samantha (Sophie Anderson) whose wild paintings include a representation of a mushroom cloud, part of the same hallucination experienced by Tom and the others.

The aliens strike in Simon Cox's Invasion Planet Earth

As if the hallucination was an early warning, it's not long before the real invasion comes to town. Amid the 'War of the Worlds' style devastation (the city of Birmingham, where the film was shot, mercifully survives, as does New York City, which is also toast in the film) a gigantic, three pronged spaceship dispenses hundreds of smaller harvester craft who, instead of decimating all of the population, hoover them up, transporting them into pods in which they are trapped, but still alive. Tom, Harriet, Floyd and Samantha seem to be hive mind linked, sharing each other's darkest fantasy nightmares: after the attack the group find themselves stranded on an alien planet. "This isn't home, is it?" asks one of them, and they'd be right. But their abandonment isn't random, and as the oddly assorted group slowly bond in the face of adversity, they become aware that others may be about to give them a higher purpose, particularly Tom, who may final realise his superhero dream.

Invasion Planet Earth is certainly not without its problems. Cox's idea for the movie dates back to 1999, and it was planned for production many times over the next twenty years, before finally being completed at the beginning of 2019. As a result the story lacks a little in cohesion - at times it feels like a DIY Lifeforce. Some of the effects sequences are better than others, and the big screen release it's about to get will show this up which may not go down so well with audiences used to more polished, and way bigger budgeted SFX movies.

But let's stand back a moment from those quibbles and take a look at what we have here. Cox has pulled off an amazing feat: an exciting ID4 style alien invasion movie with a real heart, and a payoff that provides hope among the onscreen carnage. He has assembled a credible cast who keep things very grounded and therefore believable, with special mention for Simon Haycock, a square jawed but fallible hero. Yes it does on occasion have the feel of a Sunday teatime TV series, but that's not a criticism: H G Wells's 'War of the Worlds' was as homespun as you like (it was the movie adaptations that removed the home-counties-in-peril atmosphere of the book) and in some ways Cox's film retains that domesticity, while adding in some very Arthur C Clarkean concepts. That's not to say that Invasion Planet Earth doesn't have spectacle: Cox reckons around 900 people were involved in the central alien attack sequence. And you have to admire a director whose tenacity had him learning special effects skills - yes the compositing on screen is mainly Cox's work - raising all the finance for the movie and even co-writing the end theme song, although praise is also due for Benjamin Symons' dramatic score. Excellent work all round.

Invasion Planet Earth is released in UK Cinemas from 5th December, Digital Download from 16th December and DVD from 30th December

London Korean Film Festival 2019: The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale (South Korea 2019: Dir Lee Min-jae)

It’s been a good year for the zom com. The movie we didn't think we needed - the excellent Zombieland follow up Double Tap - was a huge success, and now here's Korean director Lee Min-jae's debut feature, a fun and seriously sarcastic take on both the zombie movie and the perils of commodification.

The Park family are scam artists. Owners of a run down garage, in the movie's first scene we get the measure of them: a passing motorist is duped out of a load of money, forced into having his car repaired at ridiculously high prices, only to find that the family were the cause of the original vehicle failure by laying caltrops across the road. The family comprise station owner Joon-Gul (Jeong Jae-yeong), his wife, the pregnant Nam-Joon (Uhm Ji-won), failed in business brother Min-Gul (Kim Nam-gil), reluctant daughter Hye-gul (Lee Soo-kyung) and Hawaii obsessed widowed dad Man-Deok (Park In-Hwan).

At the nearby pharma company in the town of Poognsan, human experiments have been carried out to test a trial drug, and have clearly gone wrong. One of the 'experiments,' a young guy turned zombie (Jung Ga-ram) escapes the facility and wanders into the life of the Park family. Of course they remain unaware that he is a zombie - and daughter Hye-gul even takes a bit of a shine to him despite his rather ravaged appearance - until he takes a bite out of Man-Deok, which is unusual behaviour as our zombie is seemingly vegetarian, preferring cabbages to brains.

The bite triggers something rather unexpected: Man-Deok wakes up a younger, more virile version of himself. The zombie’s bite seems to have rejuvenation powers: the bitten man wastes no time in clearing out the contents of the family safe and pissing off to his beloved Hawaii.

Seizing on the potential for a bit of money making, Ming-gul rents out the walking corpse - now domesticated, named 'Jong-bie' and housed in Man-Deok's vacated mobile home - to bite locals (for a price of course), persuading the vegetarian zombie to chow down on the arms of strangers only by applying ketchup to the limb first. Before long the money's flowing in, the garage has been re- purposed, and the town's menfolk are all sprightly again. But it becomes obvious that youth is simply the first phase of infection for the bitten, and it's only a matter of time before the Park family have some new situations to deal with, and not just the fact that Nam-Joon's waters have broken.

The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale is that rare thing, a horror comedy that is actually laugh out loud funny. Sure, in true Korean style some of the comedy is quite broad, but a lot of the fun is found in the interactions of the Park family, whether coping with the undead or each other. They’re a reprehensible bunch (they reminded me of a more comic version of the family in Koreeda's 2018 film Shoplifters), but as with all such cinematic families, the more time you spend with them the more you get to like them.

Lee Min-Jae is clearly aware of the movie's genre - a clip of the 2016 Korean flick Train to Busan is used for instructional purposes, although this movie is much lighter on gore.There's also nods to Cocoon (1985) in the rejuvenative power of the zombie's bite, and Warm Bodies (2013) in the budding rom zom story between the 'Jong bie' and Hye-gul. The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale may be a knockabout movie, but it has some serious things to say about the family, the role of kinship and the perils of the pursuit of money. Apparently the director (who also co-wrote the script) didn't start out with the intention to make a comedy. Well however it happened, I've very pleased that he did.

State Like Sleep (USA/Canada 2019: Dir Meredith Danluck)

At first glance, State Like Sleep advertises itself as a rather routine thriller, with an old fashioned setup involving a woman seeking the truth behind her husband's apparent suicide.

Katherine (Katherine Waterston) is a fashion photographer whose marriage to her TV and movie star husband Stefan (Michiel Huisman) has come to an end. While alone in their former home Stefan kills himself with a bullet to the head. A year after the events Katherine is still in grief, and also has to deal with the sudden confinement of her mother to hospital. Stefan's widow feels that there are aspects to her husband's murder which have not been adequately investigated, such as the fatal wound being on the right side of his head, although he was lefthanded.

Stefan was a secretive guy with a drug and alcohol problem (possibly the reason she left him) and a matchbook at his flat leads her to a seedy club and a meeting with the owner, the shady Emile (Luke Evans). Stefan's mother Anneke (Julie Khaner) remains hostile to Katherine, being left with Stefan's debts after his death. And when Katherine, who has moved into a hotel while she investigates, meets Edward (Michael Shannon), who has the room next door, her life shows every sign that she's unravelling, and can no longer trust what's she's being told.

As mentioned, while the plot description suggests something quite generic, State Like Sleep does something very interesting, and gradually turns from a thriller to a movie far more evasive and involving. As the title suggests, the feelings encountered during the stages of grief envelop the film, conveyed mainly through an astonishing performance by Waterston as Katherine. Her father Sam is also a fine actor, and not only does his daughter bear more than a passing resemblance to dad, she often acts like him too, conveying the pain of her predicament almost entirely through her eyes and little facial tics. This is not a movie stuffed with dialogue and is all the better for it.

Mainly locating the movie in Belgium also plays against the usual smart interiors and exteriors found in slick thrillers. The unimpressive backdrop of a rainsoaked, bedraggled Brussels is perfect for the sense of deepening gloom that enfolds the film. Add in a brooding, thoughtful soundtrack by Jeff McIlwain and David Wingo, State Like Sleep is a mood piece that isn't afraid to occasionally stray into the absurd or even funny (one scene has Katherine suffering a particularly bad hair day after hooking up with a one night stand with a particular sex kink). One could argue that it's tonally restless but I liked its mix of styles and Waterston is incredibly impressive. It's a watchable, smartly intense first feature from Meredith Danluck.

State Like Sleep is available for digital download from 18 November 2019

London Korean Film Festival 2019: Ieoh Island aka Io Island aka Iodo (South Korea 1977: Dir Kim Ki-Young)

Hailed as 'the most bizarre Korean film of all time' it's kind of difficult to know where to start narratively with Kim Ki-Young's film, a comment you could indeed level at a lot of his output from the 1970s, and summed up by one of his own quotes: "I just make films by following my heart, so the analysis I leave to all of you."

Kim Ki-Young is best known for his 1960 movie The Housemaid, often cited as the finest Korean film ever made, and one which has been remade several times. Outside of Korea the director is known, if at all, as someone from the realist school of film making. Ieoh Island dates from a decade when the director's movies were increasingly surreal and surprising (a year later he made the strange and wonderful Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death) and focused on one of Kim Ki-Young's chief obsessions, namely pre-modern Korean culture and belief systems, and their relationship to contemporary existence.

Sun Wu-hyun (Kim Jeong-cheol) is an advertising executive, publicising a new hotel which has been named Iodo, after a mythical island which is known to capture the souls of dead fishermen. Sun assembles a group of journalists on a boat to celebrate the hotel, announces its name and the fact that boat has been chartered for a trip to find the mythical island. One of the assembled journalists, Cheon Nam-Seok (Choi Yun-seok) takes exception to the violation of his people's legends for commercial reasons, and after a late night drinking session between the two men to settle the argument, Cheon goes missing.

Everyone seems to assume that Sun has killed him by pushing him overboard, although the ad man protests his innocence. After losing his job, he is determined to clear his name. Finding out that Cheon came from a remote island now populated only by women (after their men had been claimed by a sea monster and their souls taken to nearby Iodo), he sets off, accompanied by Cheon’s editor, to find out the truth about Cheon.

Once he arrives at the strange, sparsely populated island Sun learns, from interviewing various women, that Cheon wasn't a very nice person at all, seducing lovers out of their savings, investing in schemes to stave off famine and pimping himself out on an island where he was often the only male. Meanwhile the island's shaman, also a woman, is using her magic to solve the island's fertility problem by attempting to summon back the dead from Iodo and using their sperm to impregnate the female islanders. And her sights are set on recovering Cheon's body, his sperm to be hotly fought over by a number of his women admirers.

Ieoh Island is a film with a notoriously graphic climax, even by today's standards (initially cut out of prints but subsequently - and no pun here - re-inserted) but for most of its running time the director handles the rather bizarre content very matter of factly and without exploitation: the flashback within flashback narrative approach may take a little time to get used to, but it makes for satisfying story telling. It's the clash of old beliefs versus modern thinking that is at the heart of the film and the key to its fascination. Kim Ki-Young includes themes of environmental destruction, fertility, superstition, and the spread of capitalism (1970s Korea experienced rapid economic growth, although governed by a right wing military dictatorship at the time). Oh and teeth pulling: Kim Ki-Young's wife, the producer of his films, was also a dentist, so one assumes the dental work close ups are the real thing.

The film that Ieoh Island is closest to thematically is probably The Wicker Man. The island backdrop, a remote location, a search among the villagers, and indeed the shamanic dances all conjure up comparisons with Robin Hardy's 1973 movie. Its stormy coastal location, shamanism and medical obsessions also brought to mind Teruo Ishii's 1969 movie Horrors of Malformed Men. But Kim Ki-Young's film is entirely its own beast. It's audacious, fascinating and more than occasionally a little troubling. It's definitely worth seeking out if you can find a copy.

Supermarket Sweep #10: Reviews of Pentagram (UK 2019), Ouija House (USA 2018), The Haunted (UK 2018), Halloween at Aunt Ethel's (USA 2019), The Curse of Lilith Ratchet (USA 2018) and Dead List (USA 2017)

Pentagram (UK 2019: Dir Steve Lawson) Lawson's second collaboration with Jonathan Sothcott (possibly the least popular person working in the horror genre today) follows on from The Exorcism of Karen Walker, released earlier this year, and represents no improvement on his last movie: it suggests that while Lawson can at least get his films financed through Sothcott's Hereford Films company, the trade off is that he has to use the producer's stories, which are both unoriginal and totally ill suited to small budget productions.

Pentagram is the slender story of four people en route to California, holding up diners to pay their way (you know, just like the couple in Pulp Fiction). They are bad boy Max, his girlfriend Lauren, Holly and her brother Luke. Holly is a drug addict and their intention is to get her into rehab in LA. Fleeing from their latest robbery and with their getaway car on the fritz, they hole up in a very un-American looking house (ok, none of it looks like the US, because it's filmed in Derbyshire). In a bedroom at the top of the house Holly, looking to rest up and beat her craving for junk, comes across a man lying on the floor in the middle of a hand drawn pentagram within a circle. The man, Oliver, pulls Holly inside the chalked design and explains that she is to be a sacrifice, which in turn will enable him to leave the pentagram without being ripped apart by a strange entity. His ruse fails, he's pushed outside the circle and a creature slices him up. It's not long before all four of the young travellers end up inside the pentagram, and have to work out how to leave and who, if anyone, should be sacrificed.

In a more experienced director's hands, and with a larger budget, this fairly simple idea may have worked, or at least managed to generate some tension. On Lawson's watch, it's sadly largely a boring mess. The laws of magic in operation are full of WTF moments, and the audience gets lots of opportunities to raise quizzical eyebrows because of the, shall we say, languid pace of the thing. Cast wise everyone attempts, and fails, to deliver US accents - really, why bother? - and like Lawson's last film, a rather faded star - in this case Nicholas (Hazell) Ball - is roped in for an afternoon's work and trumps all of the rest of the cast in the hopeless accent stakes. Probably the best thing in this is Alexis Rodney as mean old Max: he acts everyone else off the floor and deserves a much better film than this tripe. Lawson was once an interesting director. He needs to unshackle himself from Mr Sothcott and recover some of his micro budget mojo.

Ouija House (USA 2018: Dir Ben Demaree) Now this is why I haunt the supermarket shelves. Laurie is just about to complete her PhD in something supernatural ("I study paranormal phenomenas (sic) as they relate to science"). Astoundingly she has a book deal waiting for her once she finishes it - not self publishing, she's keen to point out - and the icing on the cake of her thesis would be to visit a real haunted house. How handy then that there's one in the family, although Laurie's mum Katherine won't hear it talked about, as it's associated with a side of her relatives she'd prefer to forget.

Luckily Laurie's cousin Samantha who's a bit up on the old witchcraft joins them at the house and fills in the gaps on the witch and warlock side of Laurie's ancestral family, with some choice stories about an evil git called Roka who's not averse to some baby eating. Also along for the thrills are Laurie's friends Tina and Spence, which is a bit daft because there's obviously some unresolved sexual tension between Tina and Laurie's dull BF Nick. Before you know it, a pissed Tina has turned herself into a human ouija board (in one of the more bizarre movie scenes I've witnessed this year - and there's a lot to choose from) using a pebble as a planchette. And no I don't know how the pebble traverses her underwear, best not to ask. It can't be log before the contact lenses are worn, vices growl and there's lots of running around.

The big sell on this one (and that's a relative term) is that the title is for once entirely accurate - the house they're in acts as a giant ouija board, for reasons too ludicrous to detail (but it involves the house trapping the spirit of the demonic warlock Roka). While that might be quite fun with a bit of money behind it, the concept is squandered here. But what a cast! As Samantha Mischa Barton wonders where she went wrong career wise, Dee Wallace plays Laurie's loopy mum Katherine, and go-to craggy geezer Chris Mulkey turns in a ripe performance as crazy Tomas, whose bonkersness is explained by a prologue set way back in time...1988 to be precise.

Actually Ouija House is quite fun. Pretty much every genre standby is chucked in, from the aforementioned ouija board to spooky dolls to demonic possession. And if nothing else it gives people thinking of doing a PhD something to aim for.

The Haunted (UK 2018: Dir David Holroyd) Young Emily, new to her job as care worker, is sent to an overnight shift at the home of Arthur, who is suffering with Alzheimer's. Arthur is in bed asleep when she is introduced, and Emily is left to settle herself into the house - Arthur's bed is monitored by CCTV, but he seems pretty inactive.

With little to do, Emily wanders around the house, but is frightened by occasional glimpses of a young girl. Convinced that the girl is a ghost of Arthur's daughter, as there are photographs of the two of them around the house, Emily feels increasingly isolated and afraid, particularly when Arthur wakes up and has visions too. Discovering a ouija board and and a book of spells, the young care worker begins to suspect that there is something seriously odd going on within the house.

David Holroy's background is in TV and there's certainly something very televisual about his second feature. On the plus side he builds great atmosphere from very little, aided by an effectively moody but spare soundtrack. Sophie Stevens - who also has TV credits - is convincing as out of her depth care worker Emily, and the slow build of tension works well in a movie that at just over 70 minutes doesn't outstay its welcome.

But just as the viewer is wondering where it's all going plotwise, Holroyd brings out all the genre toys and throws them in willy nilly - running about, failing lights, doors that lock themselves - and before we know it he's offered up one of those 'who-is-the-real-ghost?' type endings, which in terms of the paucity of plot and context, makes no sense at all. A missed opportunity.

Halloween at Aunt Ethel's (USA 2019: Dir Joseph Mazzaferro) Here's a limp, desperately unfunny horror 'comedy' with absolutely no redeemable features except its slender 68 minute running time (padded out to the hour and a quarter mark with a cringy fake rap video and bloopers reel.

In a small town in Florida, newcomer Melissa (Madeleine Murphy) is told by her new friends about the story of crazy Ethel, who lives alone and has a reputation for inviting people into her home every Halloween, killing them and chopping their bodies up to make human candy. It's all true of course, as confirmed when the friends decide to stake out her house, underestimating Ethel's truly nasty nature.

And that's it. There's really bad sex gags, lame pratfalls and a rancid script. All three of the main younger actresses are required to appear topless for totally spurious reasons (one of them, Ciara (Rhyssa-Kathryn Marie) promptly and inexplicably disappears from the movie after hers. The main attraction here is Ethel herself, played by Mazzaferro regular Gail Yost, who hams it up something chronic as the cannibalistic Ethel, all pinafores and fright wigs (actually she reminded me of Salvador Ugarte in the camp 1973 flick Miss Leslie's Dolls, and that's not a compliment). The make up effects are perhaps rather better than I was expecting in such a low quality film, but a few convincing severed limbs can't rescue this one.

The Curse of Lilith Ratchet aka American Poltergeist (USA 2016: Dir Eddie Lengyel) Homes of the mid West USA feature prominently in this daft, overlong but heart-in-the-right-place movie. Best friends Alice and Lauren steal a box from a new age store. The box turns out to contain a shrunken head and a poem. The head is that of Lilith Ratchet, a woman whose head was lopped off back in the day following her discovery that her husband was playing away from home, and her soul was transferred to a wicked demon. And guess what? Lilith's spirit is back and she's pretty mad.

So Alice and Lauren take the box to perky Hunter Perry who has hair like Gary Rhodes (ask your parents) and an online show called 'Beyond the Veil.' He knows about this stuff. Perry thinks he's on to something big, so takes over the Halloween bash at the local club for a live podcast in which he gets the audience to pass round the head while reading the poem: "Call her name and feel her pain." Fun, huh? Of course everyone involved in the head passing subsequently starts to get offed, including Lauren, surprisingly early in the proceedings (the only surprising thing in the film), until only Alice and Hunter are left. Will anyone survive?

Lilith Ratchet is full of new age-y nonsense, people being very dumb indeed and everyone talking and talking about what might happen next: this film is an hour and three quarters long and my stars it feels like it. Lilith herself is quite impressive in a knock off Mrs Drablow from The Woman in Black style. The problem is, the demon is so overexposed that she almost has more screen time than the leads. And the rest of our cast are unimpressive but not hopeless. I could see that in the hands of a different director and screenwriter this movie might have something going for it. But as it is, it's pretty poor.

Dead List (USA 2017: Dir Holden Andrews, Ivan Asen and Victor Mathieu) Ah the continued rise in popularity of the portmanteau movie: the V/H/S /ABCs of Death effect continues apace with Dead List, its film within a film approach being the reason for three directors.

A group of actors are all auditioning for the same part. It is, as one of them comments perhaps unnecessarily, a dog eat dog world, but eternal loser Calvin (Deane Sullivan) and his flatmate create a spell to eliminate the competition, via an old book which literally lands on Cal's car windshield. The ancient tome contains a 'dead list' which just happens to list the names of his thespian rivals, who are linked by sharing the same bodily mark as on its cover, and whose fates are the subject of the five short films making up the movie: 'Zander' features a guy who turns into a black guy and is subject to racist police action; uber confident 'Scott' loses his power of hearing when his mobile phone plays up and comes to a sticky end trying to disable it; 'Jason' and his friend Kurt pick up a crazy old lady in the road who turns out to be rather a handful; drug dealing 'Kush' gets bitten while out surfing and turns to goo in the shower; and 'Bob' features a coked up guy hanging out at his friend Jeff's swanky pad and doing battle with a killer clown.

Seriously if I'd pitched that movie to you at funding stage, would you have given it the green light? Dead List feels thrown together, and the stories are all either offensive ('Zander') or just lame (pretty much all the rest). Logan Long's FX work on the 'Kush' segment is really good, but it should have been utilised in a movie where it would have had a much greater impact. Scrappy and inconclusive, this film could more accurately have been titled 'Dead Weight.' Not good.

Films from FrightFest 2019 #5 - Reviews of Darlin' (USA 2019), Nekrotronic (Australia 2018), Satanic Panic (USA 2019), Bliss (USA 2019), Rabid (Canada 2019) and Tales From the Lodge (UK 2019)

Darlin' (USA 2019: Dir Pollyanna McIntosh) There's a certain sense of satisfaction in McIntosh helming the third instalment of the most unlikely cinema franchise ever, mainly because it's one which she has consistently imbued with life and vigour. For those not in the know, McIntosh's feral, cannibalistic 'The Woman' character first popped up in the 2009 movie Offspring. Based on the book by Jack Ketchum, Lucky McKee made a sequel of sorts, The Woman, two years later. As well as giving McIntosh's character front and centre casting position, the movie also served as a damning study of a certain type of maledom in mid America.

Darlin' is something else again, proving the franchise's flexibility. Actually the movie is lots of things, which don't always hang together that smoothly.

At the end of McKee's film 'The Woman' had walked off with some of the family who had initially captured her, including their youngest little girl. As Darlin' opens it seems that only 'The Woman' and the young girl are left. Previously a normal walking talking youngster, Darlin' (as she is now known) has become as silent and feral as her surrogate mother. But deep down Darlin' has desires to rejoin the real world, and breaks into a hospital where she is captured and farmed out to a girl's home run by nuns. Seeing the opportunity to attract necessary funding by publicising the successful taming of a feral child into young womanhood, the Bishop puts the nuns to work.

Meanwhile 'The Woman' maintains a constant search for her child, snacking on the odd passerby to keep her strength up, until she finds some temporary sanctuary with a group of homeless people roughly as convincing as Alice Cooper's bunch of down and outs in John Carpenter's 1987 flick Prince of Darkness. Back in school, Darlin' has been (re?) taught to speak and read, and is a hit both with the class and kindly Sister Jennifer (Norah-Jane Noone) who has taken the girl under her wing. But the school has a dark secret, and the truth is about to come out.

Darlin' is ambitious (perhaps overly so) and fires off in all directions. It's held together by a terrific performance from Lauryn Canny as our heroine (the grown up version) and Noone's Sister Jennifer, who finds out the awful truth behind the goings on in the school. McIntosh wisely pushes herself in the background, but also gives her character more colour this time round (a scene where she travels in a car for the first time and leans her head out of the window like a dog is pretty funny). The thing is,  I didn't like the film that much, although I admired McIntosh's directorial vision.

Nekrotronic (Australia 2018: Dir Kiah Roache-Turner) Since the dawn of time demons have been operating in the world, taking over human bodies and souls, their only opposition being the Necromancers who have a similarly long pedigree. But the demons have found a new way into their human hosts - via the internet, or more precisely a virally successful Pokemon Go like game, where the player spots ghosts (actually the demons) who then latch on to the gamer. The demon activity is master (or should that be mistress?) minded by uber evil Finnegan (Monica Bellucci, having a great time hamming it up) and the Necromancers fight a hi tech battle with the demons to stop them possessing all of the city's souls.

Howard and Rangi, a couple of sewage disposal engineers, get swept up into these events courtesy of the fact that Howard is actually a powerful Necromancer himself. Inducted into the ranks of the demon battlers, and with dim Rangi killed but returning as a spirit guide like sidekick, most of the movie consists of noisy set pieces which rapidly turn Nekrotronic into something resembling a minor entry in the Marvel universe movies.

The film also borrows from Ghostbusters with its demon trapping paraphernalia and The Matrix by way of its slightly dated 'hacking into the mainframe' plot. It's certainly a colourful and fast moving romp, but it fails to sustain interest and the script, which aims for but fails in delivering the smarts of something like Guardians of the Galaxy, would have benefitted from some better one liners. The characters of Howard (Ben O'Toole) and Rangi (Epine Bob Salva) - the latter of whom aims for gormless but comes off as offensive as the only cast member of colour in the movie - are not particularly inspiring, and are rather shown up by the Necromancer sisters Molly (Caroline Ford) and Torquel (Tess Haubrich) who both kick some serious ass. Passable by no means essential.

Satanic Panic (USA 2019: Dir Chelsea Stardust) Stardust's debut feature was one of my favourites at this year's FrightFest. A genuinely funny, occasionally scary and definitely very subversive take on witchcraft movies of the 1970s, with a lot to say about class divisions in suburban USA.

Sam (Hayley Griffith) has taken a job as a pizza delivery girl, but finds out the hard way that the tips, which is where she should be making her money, are pretty hard to find. Taking on a job to deliver food to the swanky out of town Mill Basin area, Sam's funky little scooter and black leather jacket look rather out of place among the suburb's gated community. When the recipients of the pizza order fail to tip, and with her scooter out of gas, Sam, annoyed with being snubbed, takes it on herself to enter the house and ask for the gratuity herself. But the glamorous occupants within are actually Satanists, and, bad news for sweet and innocent Sam, the coven are in need of a virgin to kick start their rites to summon Baphomet. Luckily she teams up with previous sacrificial victim turned non virgin Judy (Ruby Modine) whose mum is Danica, coven leader, and therefore knows her witchcraft stuff - "these demons have more rules than Yahtzee" she tells Sam - and the scene is set for a fight to escape the coven's devilish clutches.

"I know girls like you. You go to public school. And eat Government cheese. And get pregnant in the sixth grade." This diss to Sam is typical of the haves/have littles tension between classes in Stardust's film, which are taken to extremes by the extent of the power and wealth grabbing Satanists, who see the worth of people like our heroine only as sacrifices or incubators for demon babies."Welcome to the world behind the world," summarises Judy, a character who has grown up needing nothing but who sees through the conspicuous consumption and petty squabbling of Mill Basin's nouveau riche. That Satanic Panic works as biting satire and is hugely funny is largely down to Grady ('My Best Friend's Exorcism') Hendrix, one of the smartest writers working in the genre today. Hendrix is unafraid to mine his horror roots - 80s trash cinema (Brian Yuzna's 1989 movie Society was definitely an influence), witchcraft movies - hell there's even a vengeful bedsheet scene which must be a nod to M R James's story and its TV adaptation 'O Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad.'

As Sam Hayley Griffith shows considerable gumption and great comic timing. She's funny, not that smart, but very determined. And as sassy Judy Roby Modine gets all the best lines. Praise too for Rebecca Romijn as coven leader Danica, all cheekbones and withering looks. If there's one thing that slightly lets the movie down it's a rather muddled and abrupt last reel, but most of the movie is so good this can ultimately be forgiven. See it.

Bliss (USA 2019: Dir Joe Begos) I'm really not sure what all the fuss was about at FrightFest on this one. Begos seems to have made a sort of Gaspar Noe-like ramped up remake of Abel Ferrara's 1995 urban vampire movie/metaphor The Addiction. It's noisy, frantic, but actually not nearly as deviant as he thinks it is.

Opening with edgy, scratchy credits underscored by The Nymphs' 1991 track 'Revolt' (also used on the soundtrack to 1992's Pet Sematary II, fact fans), we meet down on her luck artist Dezzy (a performance by Dora Madison which would once have been called 'brave' mainly because she's naked a lot of the time and gets covered in blood regularly) who's late on the rent and whose agent is about to drop her because of a lack both of new product and public interest in the existing pieces: Dezzy is suffering from artist's block and her latest work, a floor to ceiling painting which looks like the entrance to hell behind the Tower of Babel, isn't progressing.

She visits her dealer who sells her a new strain of the popular 'Bliss' drug called 'Diablo,' and while he advises her to take it easy with the powder, Dezzy goes for it, hoping to unblock her creative juices. Teaming up with her friends Courtney (Tru Collins) and Ronnie (Rhys Wakefiled) the evening spirals into a hedonistic wipeout of sex and drugs. And blood. But recovering the following morning, Dezzy's artisitic inspiration may have returned, but with it has come a craving for sustenance that no normal food will satisfy. Dezzy's needs can only be met by the consumption of one thing - human blood - and that makes her a danger to all around her.

Begos deliberately keeps the link between art, drugs and vampirism loose in Bliss, inviting the audience to lose themselves in Dezzy's increasingly abstracted and angry life. One is to believe that the sacrifices Dezzy suffers are all in the name of art, but as is often the case with the expression of the creative painting urge on film - and Bliss is no different - the central piece of art which drives her urges is, well, not very good. Madison is believable as Dezzy, surrounded and increasingly annoyed by the clubflies and sleazebags that surround her. But for all the noise, blood and dizzying camerawork, this felt like rather a conservative film dressed up as something more dangerous, and left me rather cold.

Rabid (Canada 2019: Dir Jen and Sylvia Soska) The Soska sisters' latest is a love letter to Canadian horror and specifically the influence of David Cronenberg, whose 1977 feature they have chosen to re-boot. The original film was full of atmosphere but a little light on narrative coherence, and therefore ripe for re-interpretation, but Jen and Sylvia's take is, although defiantly modern, far more crass and lacking in nuance.

Laura Vandervoort, taking on the role of Rose - previously played by Marilyn Chambers in the original - is a shy fashion designer who suffers a face mangling accident, hit by a car following an angry walkout from a party. She already has imperfections in the form of facial scars, the result of being in a motor accident which killed the rest of her family. As Rose works in the fashion industry it's important to look perfect, so when she receives an email from the Burroughs Institute (just one of a number of groan inducing nods to Cronenberg during the movie) promising experimental stem cell manipulation surgery that will provide full facial recovery, she agrees, despite the warnings of side effects.

But while Rose's post op recovery seems complete she's left with cravings for blood and raw meat, and her body is clearly undergoing some form of change. Those that she attacks turn into rabid monsters, and when she returns to the Institute for help it's clear that those in charge of the procedure have a deeper motive for performing the surgery.

"True beauty lies within the things we've yet to uncover" is just one of the silly lines of dialogue that purports to elevate this trashy and very cheap looking B movie to something more than it is. While those sorts of lines worked in early Cronenberg movies because his films were oblique, the Soska sisters' take on things accentuates the literal, and the homages to their favourite director - the scarlet robes the doctors wear during Rose's op are direct steals from those in Dead Ringers, and the art on the wall of the Burroughs Institute including preparatory sketches for The Naked Lunch, for example - are just crass.

While Jen and Sylvia deserve points for trying, and despite the welter of practical effects which usually get the thumbs up from me, I really didn't like this film. I found it pointless, cold, and all surface - just like the fashion business that provides the setting. Maybe that was the point.

Tales from the Lodge (UK 2019: Dir Abigail Blackmore) If the title of this film suggests to you the portmanteau movies of the 1960s and 1970s, well you'd be right: Tales from the Lodge is a portmanteau film, except here the stories told are more of a sidebar to the central plot.

A group of friends come together to celebrate the life of a mutual chum, Jonesy, who took his life in the lake next to the lodge where they're all staying. They are Martha (Laura Fraser), her seriously ill husband Joe (Mackenzie Crook), Russell (Jonny Vegas) and Emma (Sophie Thompson) having a welcome break from their three kids, and serial womaniser Paul (Dustin Demri-Burns) who has brought along his latest girlfriend Miki (Kelly Wenham), the odd one out among the circle of close friends.

As Miki struggles to integrate, the group make an aborted attempt to scatter Jonesy's ashes (predictably the wind blows them back into Paul's face) and then retire to the lodge for drinks, reminiscing and storytelling. As the alcohol flows the tales told by each of the cast become slightly more bizarre - a ransomed car, a woman who becomes possessed with an insatiable sexual appetite, and the funniest, told by Russell, about a survivor of a zombie apocalypse played by Vegas dressed up as 80s Keifer Sutherland. Like all portmanteau movies, these segments are slight, but the real meat here is the wraparound story, which by the end of the movie shows a different side to all the otherwise likeable cast. Others have commented that the setup is rather similar to Lawrence Kasdan's 1983 movie The Big Chill, but there's something of Kenneth Branagh's 1992 flick Peter's Friends in there too. It's all terribly British (not sure what the Americans will make of it all), quite fun while it lasts, but ultimately rather slight and, with the exception of Emma's impassioned speech about the horrors of child rearing, slightly uninvolving.