The Cleansing Hour (USA 2019: Dir Damien LeVeck)

The horror movie genre is generally pretty unkind and morally censorious when it comes to practitioners of social media meddling with the unknown, whether it's the ill starred modern day Ouija dabblers of the Friend Request or Unfriended movies, or the haunted vlogger of last year's Deadcon.

The Cleansing Hour is no exception. Father Max (Ryan Guzman) is a - sort of - actual priest who performs live streaming exorcisms on his channel 'The Cleansing Hour,' and as we meet him Max is doing just that, in real time, in front of his thousands of worldwide followers. Except that it's all fake: the subject of the exorcism is an actor and the whole thing is rigged up for maximum ratings and to take viewers to the merch page. "Better than Netflix any day" is one of the constant stream of (often very funny) comments that scroll down the screen during programme transmission.

But Max has a problem: with little time remaining until his next broadcast, his exorcism actor has taken a powder. So at the last minute show producer Drew (Kyle Gallner) convinces his fiancee Lane (Alix Angelis) to step in as 'Sabrina.' Lane agrees on the basis that Drew upgrades the quality of their intended honeymoon destination, and straps herself into the set's exorcism chair as 'Sabrina' to prepare for her performance. And she's really good - no REALLY good, mainly because Lane actually becomes possessed - by a demon later identified as Aamon (via a bit of sleuthing utilising on line demon identification software) - and the possessor of her body is hell bent on taking over the show and exposing Max for the fraud he truly is.

The Cleansing Hour was developed from a short film of the same name by LeVeck back in 2016, but unlike some feature adaptations of shorts, this feels like a fully rounded film: it's not subtle, but it's inventive, and while the script could be smarter, Lane, as the demon, gets the best lines: "You fight with the bull, you eventually get the horns!" she offers up at one point. The movie scores a double whammy in its send up of internet culture - surely a bit of a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel choice which will date incredibly quickly - and lampooning fake psychics: Max is to all intents and purposes a cinematic update of those dodgy holy roller healers from any number of 'dustbowl' movies.

Aamon's ruse to get Max to confess his confidence trick live on air feels like a rather prosaic outcome for a demon who could have the world at their feet, and of course it does mask its true ambition. But it's fun watching the technical team get theirs via hallucinations and set malfunctions, and the struggle with Lane for the occupation of her body and soul. The one room set doesn't feel limiting and there's a good mix of practical and CGI effects on hand - particularly in the gloopy final stages - when things threaten to get a bit too talky. Not brilliant - and certainly not particularly original - but quite fun while it lasts.

The Cleansing Hour screens at Glasgow FrightFest on Friday 6th March 2020.

Films from FrightFest 2019 #7: Reviews of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ( USA/Canada 2019), Deadcon (USA 2019), Freaks (Canada 2018), The Black String (USA 2019), The Banana Splits Movie (USA 2019) and Here Comes Hell (UK 2019)

Well I'm still trapped in FrightFest. The popcorn's all gone and I'm pretty pleased that I'm on my own in the back of the stalls as anyone near me might start looking like dinner round about now. But the films keep playing...

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (USA/Canada 2019: Dir André Øvredal) It's such a shame that Øvredal's movie was landed with a 15 certificate because it's YA through and through, and will have to wait until its home release, where no-one gives two hoots about observing classification systems, to find its true audience.

As a 13 or 14 year old, I would doubtless have loved this film. Actually as a 58 year old I really liked it, although any suggestion via the plot that this is in any way a 'portmanteau' movie should be dispelled. it's a combo creature feature with a strong emo/life lessons theme.

We're back in 1968 in the fictional town of Mill Valley, Pennsylvania. Nixon is running to be the 36th President of the United States, and the draft teams are in town recruiting young men to do battle in Vietnam. Stella (Zoe Colletti, excellent) is a young nerdy girl of divorced parents who spends a lot of time in her room writing short stories, surrounded by monster movie paraphernalia. She communicates with her friends Auggie (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Sajur) by walkie talkie, and it's not long before they're exploring a local house, the property of the Bellows family. Reputed to be haunted, Stella finds a book of handwritten stories, written by Sarah, the Bellows's acromegalic suffering daughter who met a nasty end back in the day. But Sarah isn't finished writing her tales yet, and as new stories mysteriously appear on the book's pages people that Stella knows are written in to the text, all meeting terrible ends at the hands of some very odd monsters - "You don't read the book, the book reads you!" concludes Stella, who with her new friend, draft dodging Ramon (Michael Garza) must return the book to its rightful owner and put Sarah's soul to rest.

While the trailer for SStTitD makes the creatures the thing, the assembled cast of broken scarecrows, bloated girls and toeless phantoms only really make fleeting appearances. This is basically an old fashioned Stephen King-esque story of friendship and vanished childhood, with a heavy 'Nancy Drew' vibe.' And while watching this obviously younger person targeted movie, it occurred to me just how many of the crop of recent PG-13 horror movies include 'finding out' sequences, whether to bond the cast or provide i dotting and t crossing and often rather prosaic solutions to whatever horror has been unearthed. Which is the case here, but doesn't stop the movie being a lot of fun along the way.

Deadcon (USA 2019: Dir Caryn Waechter) Here's a rather strange - and not particularly effective - ghost story/comment on the youth of today which is surprisingly conservative in its underlying message. Deadcon puts us in the world of the internet celebrity, more specifically Viewcon, a convention for vloggers and their pre/pubescent fans. At the centre of this is reality superstar AKA Ashley (Lauren Elizabeth) who is already internally withdrawing from the relentless requirements of the fans to be continuously upbeat. She may also be paying a little too much attention to the bottle, much to the annoyance of her friend/manager, pushy Kara (Mimi Gianopulos), who is responsible for ensuring that Ashley remains super chipper while keeping all her engagements.

A mixup in the hotel bookings means that Ashley ends up in Room 2210a, the last one left available; the only problem is that it's the locus for a haunting. Back in 1984 the room was occupied by John Althus, an IT guru whose revolutionary and innovative virtual chatroom 'Link RabBIT' was pulled by its sponsor. But its fate is spared by the arrival of 'Bobby,' a ghost in the machine, who persuades John to provide him with 'friends' in return for which he will supply chat room subscribers. A Faustian deal is struck, but the ghost of 'Bobby' is still active within the hotel, and his sights are set on Ashley and her vlogging friends.

I'm not really sure where to start with this one. In the flashbacks to 1984, where we see Althus and his social network progenitor application, we are clearly meant to infer that 'Link RabBIT' became very successful - at a human cost - and is ultimately responsible for the hotel full of rampaging, unsupervised children and adolescents charging up and down the corridors trying to track down their favourite media icon. While the continuity of history is a smart touch, there's a definite feeling of the director suggesting that the vengeful ghost is there to punish youth for its vanity. Indeed the hotel manager, who allocates the room to Ashley knowing full well its violent history, does so out of spite to punish Ashley and her bossy manager.

Audiences way younger than me may sympathise with AKA Ashley character but to me she and her hangers on are appalling ciphers for the fame hungry self obsessed culture of the 21st century. I'm fairly sanguine about this: I wouldn't want to spend any time with them, but each generation grows up wanting to ridicule the one below them. However Deadcon doesn't work because the spooky elements of the film battle against the human horrors on display: I was left thinking that the aim of the movie was for the audience to vicariously enjoy punishment being meted out to the young cast, but the movie isn't clever enough for that to feel anything but just plain nasty.

Freaks (Canada 2018: Dir Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein) Directors Lipovsky and Stein are still in their infancy director-wise, but you wouldn't know it on the basis of this tense, taut actioner.

7 year old Chloe (an astounding performance from Lexy Kolker) lives with her dad Henry (Emile Hirsch) in a suburban house sealed off from the outside world. Dad's protection of his daughter verges on the insane, but there's a reason for his concerns. Chloe is a 'freak,' a person with special powers. She's not alone - Henry and Chloe's estranged mum Mary (Amanda Crew) also have them as do a number of other citizens. It's not clear how the situation has occurred (news footage on TV refers to '10 years since the attack') but what is apparent is that the authorities want to round up all the freaks and isolate them.

Luckily the local ice cream man (Bruce Dern), who lures Chloe into his truck on one of her rare forays outside, is also her grandfather. He too has powers and is aware that Chloe's 'gifts' are powerful - whereas dad wants to keep her hidden - and has done ever since she was born. G-dad feels that she should embrace her talents and face up to her would be captors and Chloe, who's been told that her mother is dead, believes the opposite (her powers have let her contact mum). The stage is set for a family reunion and a fight to the death with her would be oppressors.

The sci fi on a low budget approach of Freaks brings to mid the TV show Heroes (2006-2010) in its mix of mundanity and downbeat superhero antics. The movie scores extra points by positioning itself from a child's (ie Chloe's) perspective, meaning that for much of the movie we're as confused as she is by the application of her powers (the connection with her presumed dead mother and scenes where she teleports into her next door neighbour's daughter's bedroom and slumber party). Lipovsky and Stein keep the FX minimal (and mostly effective) and manage a decently staged last reel face off which benefits from not being overblown.

As Chloe Lexy Kolker, who already has some form with appearances in US TV shows, is a revelation as the gifted kid who is protected and shunned in equal measures: she reminded me of Drew Barrymore in Firestarter (1985). Bruce Dern shows that at 82 he can still do action roles, and Emile Hirsch is great as the dad who wants nothing more than to protect his little girl from the outside world, something most dads have in their DNA.

The Black String (USA 2018: Dir Brian Hanson) Pity poor Jonathan (Frankie Muniz): he's a nobody in a nobody town, who works at the local Stop 'n' Shop, and whose only entertainment seems to be his friend and co-worker Eric (Blake Webb) who dispenses endless advice about girls.

Problem is, Jonathan is girlfriendless. To overcome this he signs up for a phone sex line, and ends up securing a date with one of the girls, Dena (Chelsea Edmundson). After a night of torrid (but unseen) sex, Jonathan wakes up alone, and with a rather odd rash on his torso. And from then on things go from bad to worse. An increasingly unhinged Jonathan tries in vain to track Dena down - did she ever exist? - and ends up badly beating Eric, an act for which he's banged up. He's then released into the care of his parents who, it seems, have been bailing their son out for a while to avoid him becoming homeless, and have kept his room just as he left it, obviously expecting something like this to happen.

Jonathan consults a psychic, Melinda (Mary K. Vault) who provides him with a 'Spiritual Defense Safety Kit - Level 3' and encourages him to rid himself of the dark tendrils of gloop growing underneath his rash - the 'black string' of the title. But Jonathan is spiralling out of control, and feels that he's a marked man, pursued by unknown forces; is he bonkers or telling the truth?

The problem here is that I sort of didn't care one way or the other. The is-he-mad-or-is-it-really-happening? story is a well worn one, and its success lies in the sympathy the audience has with the central character. And while Muniz may have come a long was from his Malcolm in the Middle TV show days, and remains terribly convincing as the disturbed Jonathan, he's just too OTT and the film kind of putters out in the wake of his mania. It's a shame because Hanson's debut is not without its positives - it looks suitably grungy and Blake Webb is good for a few chuckles - but it's pretty unfocused, far too frantic, and I didn't really like it much at all.

The Banana Splits Movie (USA 2019: Dir Danishka Esterhazy) The slightly baffling premise to this movie sees an alternative reality where the BS (ahem) never stopped recording shows or being a 'thing.' We join a group of adults and their kids as they look forward to attending the recording of the anthropomorphic funsters' latest programme. Focusing on BS mad young Harley (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong), he's rather more excited about the prospect of seeing the Splits in the fur, as it were, than his disinterested old brother Austin (Romeo Carere) and tag-a-long friend Zoe (Maria Nash). Mum Beth (Dani Kind) and stepdad, the unfaithful Mitch (Steve Lund) make up the posse: the line for the show also includes a couple of non youthful social media bloggers and a pushy dad intent on introducing his daughter to the show's producers.

But inside the studio things are not going well, for the station owners have pulled the plug on the Splits: this will be their last show. Taking this news particularly badly are the BS's human stooge Stevie (Richard White) who disappears into a bottle, and the guy behind the Splits' animatronics (did I mention they're robots these days?) who may or may not have intentionally stuffed up their latest upgrade, turning the lovable beasts into killing machines.

The recording itself goes off ok apart from an increasingly sloshed Stevie, but it's when a select group of kids are invited backstage, Willie Wonka style, to meet the Splits, that the trouble begins: the BS gang turn on their captive humans and it's a race to stay alive.

The target audience for this nonsense will be forty/fifty somethings who remember the Splits from their childhood (they always used to freak me out, so I had a head start here) but anyone younger will probably be scratching their heads: incidentally that includes the director and scriptwriter, so quite why this particular revival was seen as a good idea heaven only knows. Anyhow this is pretty tawdry stuff: it's not particularly violent not remotely scary and very little is done to use the show's quirkiness to direct the shape of the action - it's kind of stalk and slash with outsize animal suits. As the final girl - ok woman - Dani Kind is effective as Split-bashing Beth, but she'd be better off in a different movie; I did quite like the soundtrack though, which includes some great minor chord riffs on the BS theme tune. Filmed in Cape Town, South Africa apparently, in a location that was presumably as cheap as the rest of the production.

Here Comes Hell (UK 2019: Dir Jack McHenry) ...and here comes a wonderfully inventive low low budget mashup of Andrew Leman's DIY Lovecraft adaptations and, er Evil Dead II. After an introductory warning to the audience a la Edward Van Sloan in Frankenstein, we meet George Walker, son of oil tycoon George Walker ("don't call me Jr!") on his way by train to visit old friend, feckless Victor Hall (Charlie Robb) who has just inherited a small fortune, including the dilapidated Westwood Manor. Courtesy of Walker's travelling companion (Robert Llewellyn), George learns the dark history of the house, previously owned by Ichabod Quinn, a master of magic and the occult, and that the pile has been empty for many years...until now.

Arriving at the manor, Walker is surprised that he's not the only guest: secretary and spook story writer Elizabeth (Jessica Webber) and her husband, failed tennis player Freddie (Timothy Renouf) also arrive as does Victor's sister Christine (Margaret Clunie). Victor is keen to hold a seance to communicate with Ichabod, and has invited Madame Bellrose (Maureen Bennett) for the purpose. As M. Bellrose falls into a trance, a portal opens into the spirit world, and Ichabod makes his presence felt - with murderous results.

Here Comes Hell is an absolute hoot. Shot for around £20,000 the movie is a triumph of ingenuity. It's also very funny, helped by a spirited cast who play up the 1930s country house character cliches without lapsing into irony. Sure most of the horror elements are rather shamelessly filched from other movies (including, most obviously, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films), but it doesn't really matter as everyone seems to be having a great time, the practical effects are a wonder on the budget, and the black and white photography adds a touch of class.

The Lighthouse (Canada/USA 2019: Dir Robert Eggers)

In Eggers's monochromatic, deeply symbolic follow up to 2015's The VVitch, two men arrive on an inhospitable tiny rocky island off the coast of Maine in the 1890s (actually Nova Scotia), to start a four week shift operating and maintaining a lighthouse and its outbuildings. Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) is the elder of the two, an experienced 'wickie' who takes no time in establishing his authority over the younger Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson). Winslow is assigned the heavy day to day manual work, including roof repairs and cleaning out the cistern, whereas Wake does all the cooking, reserving the duties of maintaining the light for himself ("The light is mine!" he tells Winslow). The pair forge an uneasy alliance as they wait out their month of duty, with Wake, a hard drinker, chiding Winslow at every step of the way for slacking in his duties. Winslow, refusing to drink alcohol because of his sense of responsibility on the job and because he doesn't want to risk his pay being docked, suffers greatly, but in silence.

Winslow's mind, bothered by a past guilt and fleeting visions of a mermaid on the beach, as well as something strange in the lighthouse tower, is also increasingly overcome by anger at his treatment. Things come to a head on the day before the pair are to be relieved of their shift and picked up by boat. Bothered by the constant pecking of one of the gulls visiting the island, Winslow kills it, bashing its head and body on the rocks until little remains of the bird. It's a disturbing scene, more so because in one of Wake's salty homilies Winslow has been warned that to harm the gulls will bring bad luck. Sure enough that night a storm breaks: at the same time because he thinks it's his last night at the lighthouse Winslow relaxes his decision not to drink, and the pair become hopelessly drunk, passing out on the floor. The morning after they are met with the realisation that the rescue ship has not arrived, either because they had missed it in their drunken state, or because of the severity of the storm. The 'wickies' then face an uncertain and ultimately hallucinatory wait for recovery amidst dwindling supplies, Wake's continual goading of his co-worker, and Winslow's increasingly fragile mental state driven by the need to confront his past.

I've now seen The Lighthouse twice. On first view I confess that I didn't take to it. It's an unpleasant and cold film, its dialogue impenetrable and scenario bleak and unappealing (despite the stunning black and white photography from Jarin Blaschke, who was also responsible for the equally breathtaking work on Eggers's previous feature). The movie's tight box framing, pushing the unappealing characters of Winslow and Wake closely together, turn it into a sustained two-hander claustrophobic nightmare.

But viewed a second time it emerged as a much more powerful and human work, and strangely I found the elements that put me off the first time to be its strengths. Eggers surrounds his film in the vernacular of the time which gives the film a parabolic feel. The script, co-written with the director and his brother Max, borrows heavily from 19th century literature and other textual sources, including journals of lighthouse keepers, and with references to the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville, the albatross killing from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic 1798 poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and the Greek myths of Proteus and Prometheus. The almost mythic mood of the film is enhanced by the strange jarring imagery of the piece, inspired by, amongst others, the Blake-influenced work of the early 20th century German painter Sacha Schneider, and the films of early expressionist directors.

Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are outstanding as the 'wikies'. Dafoe in particular, his face a creased map of grizzled experience, gives an extraordinarily physical performance, and it's a testament to both actors that, from their initial exposure to the camera at the beginning of the movie, where Wake and Winslow both face the audience as if posing for a photograph, as The Lighthouse progresses the two characters become increasingly alike in age and stature, and gradually merge with their surroundings. It's been reported that the whole shoot was extremely difficult, with a combination of elemental challenges and the actors' ability to cope both with those conditions and their own characters. The results of this are clearly apparent on screen, but that only adds to the intensity of the piece, backed by an incredible soundscape punctuated by moaning, echoing foghorns and Mark Korven's dramatic, menacing score.

Like Ari Aster, whose two movies, Hereditary and Midsommar, have established him as a fresh face on the horror scene, the still thirty-something Robert Eggars's second film is as mesmerising as his first, making him an equally important newcomer to the genre. The Lighthouse is certainly not an easy watch, but it's a fascinating one, and I'm really looking forward to see where he's going to go next.

Films from FrightFest 2019 #6: Reviews of Red Letter Day (Canada 2019), Bloodline (USA 2018), A Serial Killer's Guide to Life (UK 2019), Harpoon (Canada 2019), Mary (USA 2019) and Stalked (UK 2019)

Help! I'm still stuck in FrightFest! The doors are bolted and the only thing to eat is popcorn, but I do at least have the benefit of not having to sit next to anyone. And I get to watch even more Festival films.

Red Letter Day (Canada 2019: Dir Cameron Macgowan) The Purge movies, or more accurately the first instalment in that franchise, is the obvious influence for this satire of small town Canadian citizenry breaking down.

Divorced mum Melanie (Dawn Van de Schoot) has just moved into Aspen Ridge, a development of new cookie cutter homes, with her son Tim (Kaeleb Zain Gartner) and late teenage daughter Madison (Hailey Foss) who is, against mum's wishes, dating an older guy, Luther (Roger Le Blanc). Someone has been delivering mysterious letters in red envelopes to the development's homes, the contents of which all identify a different person in the neighbourhood with an exhortation for the receiver to kill them.

Melanie's contains a photo of her friend Alice (Arielle Rombough), to whom she decides to pay a visit to discuss the letters, leaving her kids home alone; unbeknownst to her, Tim has sneaked a carving knife into mum's bag, just in case. While Melanie manages to assure her friend that she harbours no murderous intentions, Alice's husband Lewis (Michael Tan), already no big fan of Melanie, discovers the hidden knife and assumes the worst. A fight ensues which demonstrates the key theme of the film - that civilised society can break down incredibly swiftly - and Lewis ends up with a knife in the neck. Meanwhile Tim's pursuer has arrived at the house.

From here on in Red Letter Day ups a gear into full on Purge territory, as people act on the letters' invitations and seek out their targets; there's also some sinister social media people wearing masks who may be orchestrating things (they're not - the culprit is far more prosaic). But those movies handled a problematic premise - would people really descend into anarchy and murder that quickly? - far more believably. And despite a very credible performance from Van de Schoot and the bizarre location (a new homes community seemingly in the middle of absolutely nowhere) Macgowan's first feature tests the patience despite its slim hour and a quarter running time. The satire isn't original and falls very flat, and the set piece action is all rather clumsy.

Bloodline (USA 2018: Dir Henry Jacobson) There's more than a whiff of the TV show Dexter in this ice cool study of psychopaths who keep it in the family, which concentrates on troubled new dad Evan (Seann William Scott) struggling to do the best for his new baby and his 'delicate' wife Lauren (Mariela Garriga).

Evan has grown up in an abusive household, his father violent and his mother over controlling (there's a faint suggestion of incest here too). In the film's prologue we see a nurse being knifed to death in the showers at work. The rest of the film takes place three months earlier (this plot approach is now as familiar as the omnipresent drone shot). Evan's attendance at the 'business end' of his wife's birth triggers flashbacks of people being killed, and we see the new parents struggle with their bundle of joy, a situation not considerably assisted by the arrival on scene of Evan's clingy mother Marie (Dale Dickey). Evan's a killer alright, but we learn that he focuses his murderous tendencies only on those who 'deserve' it. In his day job as a high school counsellor all those who seek him out have a story to tell, usually involving deadbeat dads being violent towards them. Using his role to give him access to information about the parents, Evan seeks them out late at night, using an empty housing estate as his killing room, and dumping their bodies in makeshift graves.

But this concentration of his victim selection is a little shortsighted, as it's not long before the police make a connection between the deaths. And the nurse we saw in the prologue? Well she's not so innocent, being the member of staff on duty after the birth, whose caustic tongue belittles Lauren's already limited confidence as a new mother. But is Evan the only murderer in town?

While Bloodline does fall apart a little in the last third - it sort of runs out of steam and the ending does it no favours - for the most part Jacobson's debut feature is a bone dry, darkly humorous study of a killing family - is Evan a natural born killer or, wait for it, a nurtural one? Superb performances from Seann William Scott - whose grin is a very sinister thing - and Dale Dickey as Evan's quite 'off' mum make this film. It's very watchable, and at times convincingly gory. I liked it a lot.

A Serial Killer's Guide to Life (UK 2019: Dir Staten Cousins-Roe) NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH HORROR FILM 2020 Staten Cousins Roe’s debut feature is a kind of Nietzschean study of the self, filtered through Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, in which we meet eternally drab Lou (Katie Brayben), a young woman who is the unofficial carer for her domineering mother. Lou is addicted to self help books, including those by Tony Robbins-a-like Chuck Knoah (Ben Lloyd-Hughes), although there are no signs yet of any self-improvement going on: but a mood board in her bedroom tells us that Lou desires a life beyond the four walls of her home.

While watching a flared trousered motivational speaker she meets icy Val (Poppy Roe), herself a self help guru, but with a difference: Val is also a serial killer. After a brief meeting/grooming session, Lou takes the drastic step of agreeing to accompany her new life coach on a road trip to meet Chuck Knoah in person. Lou abandons her mother and the pair take off. On the way to Knoah’s country retreat they encounter a succession of dodgy therapists, including an outward bound tree hugger and a couple using sound as their way back to health, who spike their drinks and get the dildos out.

Lou is rather slow to pick up on the fact that before they move on from each therapist Val (rather bloodlessly as it happens – it’s not that kind of film) despatches them, and the pair soon become the subject of a (wo)man hunt across the south coast area, as they move closer and closer to the self-important Knoah, who it seems isn’t quite the confident self-improver he makes himself out to be.

A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life is an uncompromising film that offers laughs when you feel you shouldn't be, with some killer one liners (pun very intended); set in a world of static caravans and the quiet beauty of the south coast of England (it was filmed in the hinterlands of Brighton) it has a decidedly 'off' charm. But as in any film where content is slender, it’s all about the performances really. As Val Poppy Rose remains staunchly one note in her performance, and if the audience were expecting Lou’s caterpillar to emerge as a self-discovered butterfly, well the director isn’t about to do that. What he does is to take the spirit of Thelma & Louise in capturing the freedom and nihilism of the girls’ trip. There may only be one way out for them, but they’re enjoying the ride on the way.

Harpoon (Canada 2019: Dir Rob Grant) In Rob Grant's aquatic chamber piece we're thrown in with three friends and an unnamed (and unseen) narrator, on board a boat. Munro Chambers is Jonah, a guy who, when we meet him, is trying to make ends meet after his parents have both died penniless and in debt. Along comes Christopher Gray as Richard (that name will be important later), a chap with full on anger management issues, intent on bashing several shades out of Jonah for - as he supposes - fooling around with his girlfriend Sasha (Emily Tyra). Luckily it seems that it was all a misunderstanding, and the three head off in Richard's boat to patch it all up, together with Rich's harpoon, a present from Sasha.

But what starts out as a reasonable pleasant afternoon trip turns into a nightmare when the trio find themselves snarking at each other again, and before we know it Jonah has a harpoon sized hole in his hand, and the boat has conked out and drifted into unknown waters with few provisions on board. With no hope of recovery, and Jonah's wound beginning to infect his arm, Richard mentions the story of his namesake, Richard Parker - a young shipboy in the 19th century sacrificed as food while adrift to feed two other sailors (the lot of the unfortunate decided by the drawing of straws) - and suggests they do the same.

This largely one set three hander draws on the hopeless waterlogged scenarios of Open Water (2003) and Adrift (2018), and the claustrophobia of Knife in the Water (1962) and Dead Calm (1989). Its cross and double cross plot makes the most of a limited setup, and the 'Richard Parker' story element lends a frisson of repeating history to the proceedings. Harpoon is graced with three strong central performances (it would be fairly tedious if that wasn't the case) and the narrator's voice and inter title cards hint that the whole thing could be read as one big morality play. It's quite fun while it lasts and some of the gore scenes (surgery by broken bottle neck, anyone?) had this reviewer's toes curling.

Mary (USA 2019: Dir Michael Goi) Goi has been around for a while but most of his directorial output in the last decade has been TV based (his last feature was the controversial 2011 found footage movie Megan is Missing concerning child abduction). Mary front and centres two A list-ish stars (Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer) and dumps them into a well made but pretty trashy B movie about a haunted boat.

Oldman is David Green, a yachtsman keen to own his own rig. He's patching up his life after his wife Sarah (Mortimer) had an affair, and hopes that a boat trip with his family, which also includes teenage daughter Lindsey (Stefanie Scott) and her younger sister Mary (Chloe Perrin), will achieve this. At a boat auction Green ignores all the classier vessels in favour of a beaten up yacht. The family are appalled at the fixer upper he's purchased, but after a bit of elbow grease and the name 'Mary' applied to the craft to honour his daughter, the family, together with Lindsey's slacker boyfriend Tommy (Owen Teague) and David's first mate Mike (Manual Garcia-Rulfo) set sail; destination? The Bermuda Triangle.

Told in flashback from inside a Florida police station where Sarah and her kids are the only survivors, it's pretty obvious from the start that this is one trip nobody should have taken. and when Sarah explains to the rather incredulous agent carrying out the interview that "evil needs a body to exist, and the body was a boat", we know we're in the realms of the silly. For it appears that the craft has some history: previous crews of 'Mary' have all gone missing, and each time the boat has been chartered in the past it always ends up in the same Bermuda location, one where something awful has occurred. While Mary is full of the usual cliches (possessed crew members, watery footprints, lank haired spirits, that sort of thing) it's refreshing that the central characters are adults rather than teens for a change, and also that Mortimer's character doesn't succumb to the usual emotional distress that we're used to seeing in films like this; she's a tough cookie desparate to remain practical through the supernatural hi-jinx, and to convince her husband that she's back on track fidelity-wise. Goi should be thanked for not reducing the conclusion to a CGI fest (although he may have done if he had a bigger budget) and for only giving us glimpses of the creature haunting the boat. "The thing about boats is that there's nowhere to run" explains Mortimer at one point; but while Oldman and Mortimer give it all they've got in generating the claustrophobic tension needed, their classy turns can't disguise the essentially thinness of the whole thing. Nevertheless Mary remains a bit of a guilty pleasure.

Stalked (UK 2019: Dir Justin Edgar) A remarkably well constructed and tense thriller shot on a micro budget that conjures something out of, well, not much at all really. Stalked is the story of marine commando Sam (Rebecca Rogers); single mum with a feckless ex, landed with a sick child, she leaves the baby home alone while making a dash to the chemist. Only to find herself abducted and imprisoned in a factory that turns out to be home to Epsilon Military Solutions.

The twist here is that her abducter is wearing a stealth suit, making him invisible to her unless she catches him on CCTV or her phone. Sam isn't the first person to be kidnapped by the (near) invisible man; she runs into others who are also trying to escape, none of them very successfully.

Most of Stalked is a cat and mouse between the resourceful, ultra limber Sam ( a very visceral performance by Rogers, particularly effective when she has to act against someone invisible) and her pursuer. Oh and a drone; we haven't had many killer drones before and then two come along at once (FrightFest's other murderous drone flick being, er, The Drone). The effects are a little shonky but that's what you get on a low budget and the now you see him, now you don't appearance of the guy in the stealth suit remains rather unbelievable. But it's mastefully edited considering it's mainly one woman running around something that looks more like the packing area in your local B&Q, and mask any inconsistencies well. It's not going to bother anyone's memories of similar setups in Predator (1987) or a myriad 'Invisible Man' movies, but Stalked is effective, not overlong, and gets the job done.