NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #3: Reviews of Millennial Killer (UK 2019), Don't Let Them In (UK 2020), Patients of a Saint aka Inmate Zero (UK 2019), The Candy Witch (UK 2020), Sniper Corpse (UK 2019) and Next Door (UK 2020)

Millennial Killer (UK 2020: Dir Sam Mason-Bell) As if the estate agency business didn't already have a reputational problem, here's prolific director/producer/writer Mason-Bell's latest, a sordid tale of psychopathy in the real estate trade.

To be fair to the profession, the estate agent in Millennial Killer isn't the real thing; he's a serial murderer who may - and this isn't made clear - have disposed of a sales agent and donned his clothes (certainly the jacket he wears is made for a larger person). This would explain how he's able to obtain the keys for an empty Portsmouth flat and a mobile, and arrange viewings for his victims, before dumping them in the master bedroom where, depending on his whims, he either kills them outright, keeps them alive or hacks off their limbs.

And, ladies and gentlemen, that's pretty much all the plot. The killer's shtick, as the title suggests, is that he preys on millennials, who he perceives as entitled and dismissive of the older generation; his 'trigger' is learning about an old woman recently beaten up by three youths just for kicks, although he confesses that he read the story in a newspaper, rather than witnessing the event personally. So have his murderous tendencies been set off because of a piece of hyperbolic journalism? The director's choice of lining the flat-viewing victims up by jokey titles ('The Chatty One,' 'The Pretty Boy') suggests a dark humour to the piece, but this is by no means played for laughs.

As the killer Simon Berry is appropriately sleazy. I may be wrong here but the film appears largely improvised dialogue wise, which makes for some terribly awkward scenes. In another film this would be a distraction, but here it fits with the dowdiness of the production. Berry is unshaven, rheumy eyed and clearly bonkers. The flat in question is one of those new places devoid of character, the only personalised touches being a curtain rail and a horrible and inappropriate chandelier which the killer tells his victims he installed himself (somehow I'm guessing not). The improv approach is adopted by all the characters, so everything feels stilted; one couple have an excited discussion about going to view the flat that seems to last forever.

Factor in the crude but strangely effective gore - Mason-Bell as a Hampshire Herschell Gordon Lewis - some drab Portsmouth surroundings and a low key score by Alex O'Neil, and you have yourself one unappealing, strange and downbeat movie, which I'm ashamed to say I liked a lot. Let's hear it for south coast exploitation!

Don't Let Them In (UK 2020: Dir Mike Dunkin) 'You're Next Meets The Purge' proclaims the poster. And that's pretty much on the money in this well executed but - sorry - slightly dull movie.

Child Protection officers Jenna (Michelle Luther) and wise cracking Karl (Aidan O'Neill) are finishing off another harrowing week. Driving home, Jenna lets on that she has one last visit to complete: a check up on David Pierce (Scott Suter), who has been released from prison after a long stretch for the murder of a little girl he carried out when young. Jenna has not heard from him for a while and is concerned. And perhaps we should be concerned that she's concerned.

The ride takes them deep into the country to a remote village, which seems deserted. Local police woman, Officer Ridgeway (Amanda Hunt), seems suspicious of their motives: David is obviously disliked in the community. When they find the bearded nervous ex con, holed up in his late father's abandoned pub, he's keen for them to leave as soon possible, fearing that people are out to get him. He's also armed with a rifle, which gives Jenna and Karl the jitters, but the weapon comes in handy when David's fears are realised and the building comes under attack, preceded by the arrival of the body (but not the head) of Officer Ridgeway. Let battle commence!

Don't Let Them In is a frustrating watch. It's well photographed and acted, and the country scenes provide a real sense of rural isolation. But it's all so terribly familiar, and the addition of supernatural and satanic elements feels shoehorned into a plot that may have been safer being more oblique. O'Neill's Karl is a guy whose foot rarely lets up on the levity accelerator, and while that might have been understandable bearing in mind the work he does, the gallows humour continues when the trio are under threat, which really jars; if the comic elements were in the movie to relieve the tension, then they didn't work. There are some good attack scenes though, and the individual elements of the movie are fine and look far more impressive than the £35,000 budget; it's just that the whole thing together is strangely unsatisfying, but this is Dunkin's first feature, and he's certainly a director to watch.

Patients of a Saint aka Inmate Zero (UK 2019: Dir Russell Owen) Patients of a Saint (and I SO prefer the US alternative title to the punning UK one) is Owen's second feature, a grim but classy watch, if a little over extended.

Set a few years in the future (where capital punishment has been reinstated) in St Leonards, a maximum security prison just off the coast of Ireland and named after the island on which it sits, ex Special Forces agent Stone (Jess Chanliau, terrific) is being offered a choice: the chair or participation in a drug trial, a potion formulated to cure cancer and Alzheimer's. Stone chooses to fry, preferring to face the music for the murder of a Senator she once bodyguarded rather than wind up a vegetable.

Of course it's quickly apparent that Stone is probably not guilty of the crime for which she faces execution, but that someone wants her out of the way, hence forcing her to share a cell with a psycho who lands her in the hospital wing after a fight, a position orchestrated by nasty prison guard Woodhouse (Raymond Bethley). And while waiting for medical attention she witnesses the results of the drug trial on a human - after death, they become a crazed monster, hungry for flesh and able to infect immediately with their bite. Luckily kindly prison guard Lennon (Brian McGovern) is on hand to rescue Stone. Seeking refuge, they band together with other women prisoners in Warden Crowe's (Jane Garioni) office. Crowe is the architect behind the drug, fully aware of the risks involved in taking it and the disposable nature of the people chosen to be experimented on. The group must find a way to break out of the prison without the mounting numbers of infected getting to them first.

Part women in prison movie, part zombie flick, Patients of a Saint would be a lot less interesting if it didn't have credible casting, an impressive location (partly filmed in Shepton Mallet Prison, previously the oldest working such establishment in the UK, which closed in 2013 and is now a tourist attraction), lush score and impressive cinematography. Even allowing for the reasonable budget of around £3 million, the movie feels a lot more expensive than that. There's some big set piece scenes and Owen is confident about switching between action and the personal drama of the escaping prisoners. Chanliau is excellent as Stone, her buzz haircut and androgynous looks perfect for her hard nosed character, but whose eyes reflect sadness and compassion. There are some great supports, particularly the permanently hacked off head of the medical ward, Doctor Bragg (Kate Bell) and the truly nasty pairing of Woodhouse and Stone's cell mate, the psychotic Conway (Lydia Hourihan).

I could have done with the movie being a little tighter (it's 105 minutes long and sags occasionally) but this is a film which could so easily have caused eyerolls because of its lack of originality, but succeeds because its elements work brilliantly together.

The Candy Witch (UK 2019: Dir Rebecca Matthews) The successive releasing of titles by the company Proportion Productions is fast turning them into one of horror's most successful cottage industries, a UK Blumhouse if you like. The founders, Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews, are recurrent names on the credit list of many British indie horrors, along with stablemates Louisa Warren and Scott Chambers. And the movies often share the same actors; it's good to see women - and older women at that - getting strong parts in their films.

The Candy Witch is the latest release from the company: as producer, Matthews has nine further films completed or in post production, and Jeffrey a massive twelve - he also wrote the script for this one! I mention all this because with such a busy production schedule you might expect quality to suffer, but Proportion's movies have been getting stronger all the time.

Reece (Jon Callaway, Cupid) and his American partner Kat (Abi Casson Thompson, also Cupid) are The Conjuring style ghost hunters, with a big social media following. They are asked to visit a house in Surrey which is being haunted by a spirit named 'The Candy Witch' (Kate Lush, ClownDoll, Pet Graveyard) who is always seen with a candy cane about her withered person. When they arrive they find that the family living in the house are American, but this is never referenced in the story, nor is there any recognition of US kinship between them and Kat. My first assumption was that they were simply staying at the house, but the dad of the family, Willie (Charlie Steeds regular Richard D. Myers, also in Scarecrow's Revenge) says that the house has been in the family for generations; so I'm confused.

Anyhow mum Ruth (Heather Jackson) wants rid of the spectre and hopes that Reece and Kat can do their stuff. Of course stuff means lots of exploring and talking to people, including local woman Trish (Kate Milner Evans, ClownDoll and Scarecrow's Revenge) who fills in some of the blanks. In reality the ghost was Jennifer Harper, nanny to the family but kicked out of the house because of abuse meted out to Ruth and Willie's children, Tom (Will Stanton, Silent Place) and Leah (Hannah Ponting, Cupid and Silent Place). How Jennifer came to meet her end, and the secrets held by the family, form the dramatic core of the movie.

After a slightly shaky start The Candy Witch settles into a fact find-y and occasionally scary movie. Matthews doesn't stint on the kills: death by cookie cutter and eye gouge by candy cane, anyone (and yes, like the inexplicable US accents, the presence of a delicacy that has never transferred to this side of 'the pond' in the movie feels a little weird)? The cast do their stuff very well, Lush being not only rather terrifying but also very resourceful in the death department. I liked the dramatic denouement, and also the possibility that Kat and Reece could return for another movie, although nothing is showing up on the listing sites as yet. Give it another couple of weeks.

Sniper Corpse (UK 2019: Dir Keith R. Robinson) You know when you watch a film and you can almost feel the hard graft that's gone into it? Sniper Corpse is just such a movie. Three years in the making, via snatched evenings and weekends, Robinson's film is surprising not only for what he's done with the scant resources available, but also its emotional impact.

Eleri Jones is Diane Keeley, whose husband Pete, a soldier, has gone missing, believed dead, on duty in Riga, his body snatched from a morgue. Meanwhile back at the Keeley's Sidcup home Diane's in a bad way, but her desperate enquiries to locate Pete's body finally bear fruit with a tipoff to visit a facility in the Kent woods.

When she arrives she's confronted with the sight of what looks to be the resurrected corpse of a soldier, animated and armed with a rifle, shooting at other similarly zombified soldiers. Using a handy identification device she works out that the walking corpse is the body of Michael Reese, another missing presumed dead statistic (Jordan Murphy, but voiced by Howy Bratherton). Diane attempts to communicate with the corpse, who retains some bits of its former memory, and follows it back to a laboratory where she learns, via Dr Craybrick (Tony Eccles) that the corpses are soldiers reanimated to act as combat machines. As a civilian, Diane's knowledge places her in great danger, and facility head honcho Braddock (Kit Smith) wants her dead using his super assassin 'Red Eye' (Max Staines). Can Diane escape and will Diane ever find her husband?

While there are some problems with Sniper Corpse - pacing is a bit languid and there are some repetitive elements - the overwhelming feeling I got was of pathos. The reanimated Reese is a tragic figure - conjuring up comparisons of Peter Weller re-discovering his identity in Robocop (1987) or the Bub character in Day of the Dead (1985) - and the makeup effects by David Foxley are extraordinary given the budget. Robinson is careful not to do too much, and keeps the plot simple but effective. I loved the use of home computer visuals to simulate military surveillance screens, and (I think) some rather subtle model work broke up the limitations of the setup. Sniper Corpse shows the director doing a lot with a little: I really liked it.

Next Door (UK 2020: Dir Matt Shaw) Here's a fast moving, often hilarious portmanteau film, which plays like a warped version of one of those 'A House Through Time' shows.

Based on stories from the director's own book series 'F*cked Up Shorts,' Next Door comprises ten short films, all revolving around the same house and its many occupants - there's a sort of linking 'interval' strand as well, filmed like a silent movie, with an ongoing and very funny interchange between the estate agent responsible for re-letting the property, and a neighbour who has clearly been keeping up with the comings and goings at the house, often energetically mimed.

Some of these segments are brief and don't quite get their feet under the table, while others are more satisfying. Characters and situations from one story find their way into others, so after a while the disjointed nature of the movie finds a little cohesion. As with all portmanteau films, the beauty of them is such that if you don't like the current segment, there'll be another one along in a minute, but Next Door fires far more than misfires, and they're pretty much all pleasantly twisted and dark. In one story, a father's sweet daughter turns out to be a serial killer; it's left to dad to slowly figure out that all of the deaths in the family weren't coincidences after all. What makes this even funnier is that it gives context to the previous story, 'Baby,' where the same girl despatches her boyfriend via poisoned milk because he's a chauvinistic prick. I also liked 'Handy' in which a couple's sex life takes a bad turn when, dressed as a maid, the girl mistakenly uses her bleach covered gloves for a handjob; and a couple of linked stories featuring a psychotic prostitute who finds a unique way of disposing of her johns' bodies.

Shaw is an inventive director and storyteller, who rises above the micro budget of his film to give us a movie that is clever, surprising, and at times very dark. Somebody give this guy some decent cash for his next project. But well done!

Wastelands (UK 2020: Dir Kemal Yildirim) NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020

The genesis of this extraordinary film is another made by Yildirim back in 2017 called Saudade (the title is a Portuguese noun that describes the longing for someone loved, now lost, with a knowledge they might never return). The short features just three people: Alice (Holly Rose Durham); her former boyfriend Tris (Yildirim); and Alice's father Willhelm (Sean Botha). Alice is grieving the loss of both her mother (dead) and the end of the relationship with her boyfriend; her father has now met someone else and formed a new family, and although Alice clearly longs for Tris's return, flashbacks to their time together show the extent of their dysfunction; it's a relationship that seemed to survive on abuse and frantic (and sometimes violent) coupling. The depth of Alice's depression is the meat of the film, turning the casual viewer into an unwilling voyeur; it's a very raw 20 minutes.

For his latest feature, Yildirim takes all three of the characters from Saudade and creates something that could be seen as an embellished remake or even a possible sequel. Alice returns, here played by a different actress, Natasha Linton, looking slightly older than her counterpart in the previous film. Alice is still plagued by depression and insecurities and her longing for Tris. Large parts of the movie show Alice, alone in her mother's home (which she has inherited), going through depressive cycles of sleep, eating, masturbation and self harm.

We learn that on inheriting the house, which had been occupied by Willhelm and his new partner Dolores (Nicola Wright), Alice asked them to leave, after which Willhelm fell gravely ill and spent some time in a home. But Dolores is now separating from him, and therefore Alice needs to care for her housebound father at home. Alternating between hatred for him, but also the need to provide selfless care, Alice's life briefly brightens when Tris comes back into it. But this happiness is shortlived when the toxicity between them re-ignites. And at the same time Alice learns that both her father and her mother knew all the time about their daughter's true destiny, a role which will provide 'The Open Door' and a relief to the grief and hurt that occupy her life.

Alice (Natasha Linton) going through it in Wastelands

Natasha Linton gets the unenviable task of taking the extremes of Alice's character and stretching them over 90 minutes, and she does this incredibly well. Her performance also saves the film from potentially feeling exploitative - a little like Björk's character of Selma in Lars von Trier's 2000 movie Dancer in the Dark. But I was also reminded of the films of Jane Arden, particularly her 1972 feminist tract The Other Side of the Underneath, which mixed mysticism and therapy (and a boatload of LSD) into a story about a group of women unravelling.

Because Linton seemed older than her short film predecessor, I felt the reduced age difference between father and daughter a little jarring (and while Botha's depiction of his illness is very convincing - scenes where he tries to feed himself are almost too unbearable to watch - he just didn't convince as an older man). As well as Yildirim returning as Tris, several other characters are introduced as the film progresses, but the movie always returns thematically and visually to Alice - the camera is never far from her.

And what a camera! Wastelands is beautifully photographed - every shot is perfectly placed and subtly lit, one of those films where the meagerness of the budget is clearly an inspiration for, rather than a hindrance to the production. And, unlike so many independent films, the use of soundtrack is sparing and equally inventive. This is an impressive, baffling and consciously oppressive (and expressive) work that might offer a 'last reel' reprieve, but the journey to get there is excoriating. Excellent work.

Films from FrightFest #9: Reviews of Porno (USA 2019), The Ascent aka Stairs (UK 2019) NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020, Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson (USA 2019), The Deeper You Dig (USA 2019), True Fiction (Canada 2019) and Why Don't You Just Die? (Russia 2018)

Porno (USA 2019: Dir Keola Racela) Set in a bible belt suburban cinema, Racela's feature debut has nods to anything from Lamberto Bava's Demons (1985) to 1993's Last Action Hero. Set in 1992, Mr Pike, the theatre's religious boss, promises his staff that they can watch any movie they want at the end of the week after the cinema closes - it's a tough choice between the Pauly Shore flick Encino Man (which most know as California Man) and Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own - tough choice for the team.

Said team are made up of a group of Christian students: Abe (Evan Daves), Todd (Larry Saperstein), newly appointed assistant manager Chastity aka Chaz (Jillian Mueller) and Ricky (Glenn Stott). They may be devout but they have human urges, witnessed in the first scene we see Todd and Ricky spying on a couple having sex. Completing the group is manic projectionist 'heavy metal' Jeff (Robbie Tann), who has renounced smoking in return for loving God.

An interloper in the auditorium causes the staff to give chase and they end up in a previously undiscovered basement screen, where they come across an old canister of film, title-less but marked with a strange symbol. When Jeff reluctantly threads the film, what appears on screen looks like an art movie with an Italian horror soundtrack (or "European titty movie" as the projectionist describes it). The central character is a gorgeous young woman (Katelyn Pearce) who, at the climax of the ritual in which she participates on screen, manifests in the cinema; for she is a succubus, conjured by magic, and she is hellbent on phallic destruction.

Porno is an enjoyable mess of a movie. The succubus's seduction of the innocent gives rise to some interesting character revelations, and while the film is light on gore, there's one scene that will have the men in the audience crossing their legs (this one certainly did). The title suggests something stronger than is actually shown, but the mix of sex and religion is still salacious enough to raise the odd eyebrow. But the staff are a likeable bunch and even if I didn't really get much of a sense of threat from Ms Pearce, I wanted them to escape with all their bits intact.

The Ascent aka Stairs (UK 2019: Dir Tom Paton) In Eastern Europe a crack British Special Ops team called ‘The Hell Bastards’ are on a mission; to kill the members of an outpost battalion and any prisoners, gather up all the information held in the camp, and get out. They achieve this, but only after one of the team – Kia Clarke (Samantha Schnitzler, also in Paton’s last film, Black Site) - is reluctantly forced by fanatical squad leader Will Stanton (Shane Ward) to kill the battalion’s lone live captive, an ethereal woman who it is later learned is named ‘The Prophet of Death’; before she is executed she tells the group “Don’t go down!” which at the time means nothing to them.

Back at HQ for their debrief, the six members of the squad attempt to access the lift to the top floor office, but it’s out of order. So they have to take the stairs. But after walking up innumerable flights, with no sight of the floor they need to reach, they realise something is dreadfully wrong. One of their group descends to a lower floor, just as the Prophet of Death’s final words are remembered, and lets out a scream.

Seeking exit from the floor they’re on, the group go through a door which is actually a portal back to the same outpost battalion; confused, they repeat their mission but end up on the same set of stairs. The team realise that they are stuck in a time loop, and that the only way to break it is to ensure that the Prophet of Death, whose blood drenched spirit haunts them relentlessly, does not die. Which should be easy, right? But things are way more complex than that.

As you’ll have gathered from the synopsis, The Ascent takes elements from any number of ‘time on repeat’ movies where the repetition of events gives breathing space for those stuck within them to refine their actions on each cycle (think 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow and even 1993’s Groundhog Day). But Paton plays this one for the action, not the characterisation, and so little is learned about the members of the squad as they replay the mission, although we’re left in no doubt about the sheer physicality of what they’re going through, and the cliché ‘war is futile’ takes on a new meaning.

For a film on a slim budget – the two settings are a dressed field and a flight of stairs – The Ascent remains remarkably diverting. It’s brilliantly edited, and the reference by one of the team to Back to the Future 2 shows the awareness of cinematic subtext which curiously aids the enjoyment of the film. A little shorter would have been good, but that’s a minor quibble: I think this is probably Paton’s best yet.

This review first appeared on the Bloody Flicks website.

Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson (USA 2019: Dir David Gregory) This is an infinitely more fulfilling documentary than Gregory's assessment of Dan Curtis, Master of Dark Shadows, which also played at FrightFest 2019. I think this is partly due to the diverse characters surrounding the late Mr Adamson being such interesting people, and also the rubbernecking lure of the schlock director's horrific demise.

In some ways Al Adamson's filmmaking story matches that of Ray Dennis Steckler, whose career I covered here and here (hey he even used future award winning cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond on his early pictures, as did Steckler). He never saw himself as a bigshot and was happy to make films which pleased the audience, often giving the stars of tomorrow an early break and providing much needed work to those that Hollywood had forgotten.

Adamson comes across as a generally well liked but idiosyncratic guy who realised, after his first dream of being a dancer in musicals failed because he basically couldn't dance, that what he really wanted to do was make movies. The sheer incoherence of many of his 32 features, which kicked off with the largely ignored 1960 western Half Way to Hell, is explained by an extended look at a film which started off as one thing and then became something else: Echo of Terror was a thriller starring singer turned actress Tacey Robbins, which morphed into Psycho-A-Go-Go after he decided to include some dancers, then Blood of Ghastly Horror with the addition of the Frankenstein monster, Dracula and veteran horror actor John Carradine (with all but a few scenes from Echo of Terror now excised). The director's unrequited obsession with his leading ladies is also documented (although Regina Carroll, who first appeared in BoGH, became his wife), as was his delight at anybody who would work with him without being paid, and his brief association with Charles Manson (so was Adamson depicted in Tarantino's Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood?)

The documentary takes a darker turn with the arrival on the scene of builder Fred Fulford, who moved into Adamson's ranch house to help redesign it and ended up living the director's life then killing him following an argument about money, and burying him under two feet of concrete in an area created by a hastily removed Jacuzzi. The rather predictable headlines of the time - that Adamson had suffered a fate straight out of the plot of one of his movies - was pretty cruel, and masked the fact that although the director had been painted as something of an oddball, nearly all of his films had made money and he was, by all accounts, a fairly wealthy man. While Adamson the man is not exactly brought back to life by his friends' accounts - most of the interviewees being industry men not given to letting their guard down - it's great to see so much love and respect given to someone whose movies have, until recently, been relegated to the cinematic dumpster.

The Deeper You Dig (USA 2019: Dir John Adams, Toby Poser) The opening credits proclaim that this is a production by The Adams family, and you better believe it. Married couple Adams and Poser wrote, directed, filmed and starred in this intense little oddity, Adams wrote the discordant soundtrack and their daughter Zelda is in it too. The perfect setup to allow for future film projects in a time of lockdown, then.

Poser is single mum Ivy, who lives deep in the snowy Catskills in upstate New York (actually Adams and Poser's home) with her daughter Echo (Zelda Adams). They have an unusual relationship: Ivy is a once successful medium who has lost her psychic mojo and now fleeces clients to keep the cash rolling in: Echo is an independent 14 year old, who lives a fairly free life, including taking her sled out alone at night. Elsewhere in town Kurt (Adams) is in a bar, and after a few drinks drives home. On the road he hits Echo, out on her sled. She's not dead but Kurt, instead of taking her to a hospital, kills her, takes her home and unceremoniously dumps her body in a bath, which is located in an abandoned property which he's slowly doing up. But Kurt remains troubled, not least because he's visited by Echo's ghost, but also feels that he hasn't hidden the body sufficiently (he first transfers it from the bathtub to a shallow grave in the woods).

Meanwhile Ivy, who is investigating Echo's disappearance, tries to reconnect with her psychic abilities; she's fairly sure that Echo is dead but wants to find out who's responsible. Little does she know that Kurt, who she gets to know as a result of those investigations, is the murderer.

The Deeper You Dig is not without problems. Towards the end things get very muddled, and the visual abstractions hint at a cinematic vision not quite matched by resources. But for the most part this intimate ghost story excels at the things it doesn't front and centre: the economic gloom in which the characters live their lives, and the fact that a small community can remain so distant from each other, underscore the more fantastical elements of the story. “All of our movies are about broken Americans, [they’re] not trying [to] get fixed, but just get by as good as they can,” commented Adams in a recent interview. And there's some striking imagery here too (the poster hints at one of them, which reminded me of some of the shots in Jordan Graham's 2019 movie Sator). All of the Adams family deliver powerful, understated performances, even if their motivations at times seem a little confused. Very good though and I'm keen to see more of their work.

True Fiction (Canada 2019: Dir Braden Croft) True Fiction is one of those movies that plot wise can't be described in any detail, suffice to mention that it's one twist after another, which I confess started to bore me after a while.

Its the story of Lea Michelle lookalike Avery Malone (Sara Garcia), a young writer who secures an interview for her dream job; personal assistant to her favourite writer Caleb Conrad (John Cassini). The role requires her to live in at his reclusive snowbound hideaway and, well, help him seek inspiration. Conrad is an author who feels that his best years are behind him and needs a certain inspiration to get his writing mojo back again.

And, through a series of tests, librarian Malone will be his muse, as she helps him by delving in to what makes her scared; having to offer up her mobile at the door should have been a giveaway. She's hooked up to a lie detector and asked if she's ever murdered anyone; "yes," she answers, immediately correcting herself. Later she's strapped into what can only be described as a gimp suit and subjected to sensory deprivation experiments; makes a change from dealing with overdue fees I suppose.

But Malone starts to question everything she sees and hears; Conrad has never been seen in public. So how does she know it's really the author she's with? Certainly his signature doesn't seem to match the one in the signed copy of one of his books that she holds onto almost talismanically. And Malone discovers that there wasn't much of a shortlist for the job - she was chosen."You're prone to paranoia, suspicion and doubt," Conrad tells her, which makes her the perfect candidate for his games.

True Fiction at times feels like borderline t*rture porn, and while she's often feisty, watching Malone go through it for the 'pleasure' of an older man feels a little unnecessary. But the biggest issue was that I struggled to see the point of the thing, and the succession of twists and turns in the last third felt contrived and ultimately unsatisfying. Not my thing really.

Why Don't You Just Die? (Russia 2018: Dir Kirill Sokolov) Matvey (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) comes to visit the parents of his girlfriend Olya (Evgeniya Kregzhde) carrying a hammer instead of the usual bunch of flowers. Inside there's no Olya but there is mum and dad, the appalling Andrey (Vitaliy Khaev) and his timid wife Tasha (Elena Shevchenko). Andrey's a cop and loves how that makes people nervous, but even he's a little rattled when Matvey tries to kill him, a struggle which sees half the apartment wrecked, and a shotgun blast which dislodges a shower of banknotes from a stolen stash. It's a brilliant combination of gore and slapstick, with a plundered Sergio Leone soundtrack as a musical backdrop, and it's one of the finest pre credit sequences I've seen for quite some time.

The rest of the movie doesn't quite match that opening, but as Why Don't You Die? unfolds enjoyably and quirkily, in a well told network of interconnecting stories that gradually reveal what's going on, with 'chapters' named after the key players. Most of the 'action' takes place in Andrey and Tasha's now ruined apartment, into which Andrey's work colleague and friend Yevgenich (Michael Gor) arrives to help his mate out with his human dilemmas; the pair's back story, involving the need for Yevgenich to get some ready cash to fund his wife's cancer treatment, is yet another narrative thread running through the film.

This is fast and frantic stuff, more amusing than laugh out loud funny (although some exposition regarding handcuff technology made me smile) and there's a Coen-esque feel to the thing, full of odd characters that are not without charm despite their flaws. Why Don't You Just Die? is at its heart a story of a dysfunctional family, but it's smart and well done, even if it does drag a bit towards the end, mainly down to its limited setup, rather than its persistent energy.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #2: Reviews of Hungry Joe (UK 2020), The Haunting of Molly Bannister (UK 2020), Trigger Points (UK 2020), Scarecrow's Revenge (UK 2020), Death Follows (UK 2020) and The Telling (UK 2020)

Hungry Joe (UK 2020: Dir Samuel Dawe, Paul Holbrook)  While I generally tend not to review shorts on this site, I'm happy to make an exception for this remarkable and terrifying 20 minute film.

Laura (Laura Bayston) gives birth to a boy that she and her partner Craig (Joe Sims) name Joe. But Joe isn't like other babies; he eats constantly and voraciously, much to the concern of Laura. This is obviously the source of much friction between the couple as Craig disappears from the scene, leaving Laura to manage her strange baby and convey her concerns to the health service, who are either dismissive or form the opinion that Joe's condition is the result of poor parenting: "he has a healthy appetite, and your priority should be to indulge it," she is directed by her GP, while failing to register her distress.

Growing up - Joe is shown as baby, infant and finally teenager - the boy shows no signs of stopping his constant ingestion of any food, while Laura becomes more emaciated, and at one point throws up on her dinner as a reaction to watching Joe eat. And you don't want to know what happens after she leaves the room. Also despite constant bathing, her son smells terrible all the time, leading the authorities to suggest neglect. With the relationship between mother and son destroyed, and Joe's increasingly grotesque appetite, things can only go one way.

James Oldham's photography both complements and enforces the film's tone: it's flat and unforgiving, and some of the imagery is harsh and almost impossibly darkly comic (one shot, of Laura nursing her own gnawed and oozing nipple, cuts to her mother stabbing a slice of bread into an egg yolk, and another has Joe, as a young man, noisily hoovering up the buffet at a funeral wake).

Hungry Joe is one of the most extraordinary short films I've ever seen. In its shots of food banks, a lone mother dealing with uncaring public organisations and its overall sense of defeat, it could be mistaken for a Ken Loach film. But despite the extreme nature of events, Laura's increasingly drawn face speaks volumes about motherhood, her perceptions of inadequacy, and the often twisted bond between parent and child.

The Haunting of Molly Bannister aka Bannister DollHouse (UK 2020: Dir M J Dixon) Another of British horror's prolific directors, Dixon has created a low budget cinematic universe with characters cropping up in successive movies. Take Molly Bannister (Tiana Rogers), the focus of his eighth feature. Ms Bannister originally appeared in his 2016 movie Slasher House 2, although without story context. She was also in the short film, Molly, in 2018 together with the rest of the Bannister clan, which proved to be a dry run for this film. Whew!

So this is, if you like, a Molly Bannister 'origin' story (she also pops up in Slasher House 3, currently being filmed, which is I suppose a slight spoiler). Anyway it's Christmas 2014 in the Bannister household, comprising mum Mary (Susan Lee Barton), dad Kenneth (Grant Kempster), older daughter Dotty (Emmeline Hartley), sister Sherry (Chloe Badham) and of course Molly. As everyone is opening their presents, Molly unwraps an old ceramic doll, although nobody knows who gave it to her. Molly becomes very attached to the thing, which she names 'Molly.' But before long it takes on a life of its own and stabs Sherry to death. Kenneth discovers the body and is standing over it, still holding the bloody blade, when the police enter.

Flash forward six months, and although Kenneth wasn't tried for the murder, he's left the family home, mainly because of sticking to his story about a murderous doll. The rest of the family are coming to terms with Sherri's death: Molly still has 'mini Molly,' and despite attempts to get rid of it, the doll keeps finding its way back to real Molly's room. As a result Molly is becoming more and more odd in her behaviour. Kenneth and Dotty both know the truth about the evil toy, which is gradually taking over its human guardian. Finally Dotty and dad sneak into Molly's room and douse the doll with holy water. And that's when all hell breaks loose.

When I write 'hell' I should add that subsequent events are realised within a micro budget environment - don't go expecting any last reel FX maelstrom here. But in its own sweet way The Haunting of Molly Bannister is a rather old fashioned 'moppet from hell' film, and Rogers has to be the youngest actress to be a recurrent character in a horror film. Dixon does some great things with little money: flashbacks; an impressive dream sequence; and some creepy sequences with the doll all raised this above the average. He also does well to create a claustrophobic atmosphere of suburban panic, and is aided by a capable cast, with standout performances from Barton, Hartley and of course young Tiana Rogers. Impressive stuff.

Trigger Points (UK 2020: Dir James McDonagh) Six years in the making and a true labour of love for
producer/director/writer/pretty much everything else McDonagh, this is an idiosyncratic and at times extremely confusing plea for humanity to wake up and smell the cappuccino.

In an opening scene of suburbia a man, his wife and their daughter Jessica are living in a time of viral crisis. There is a curfew in place and unrest on the streets, bankruptcy and unemployment are rife, and the government decide that all children under the age of 6 are to be evacuated into secure facilities.

Forty years in the future Jessica (Denise Meller), now a middle aged woman, is living deep underground. Her life is a fixed routine of work, food and sleep, and she receives instructions from a seemingly benevolent control voice; her given title is Operative 68. Her job, like all of the evacuated kids, is to send avatars to the surface to locate an antidote to the virus, working for someone called 'the client.' But Jessica, who lives in isolation, becomes curious about the world outside of her cubicle and work station. She starts to have nightmares. Her controllers become exasperated with her restlessness, and feel she is working sub optimally. But when she ventures wider than the extent of her confinement, she is shocked to see another person: a young girl.

Her employers give her the opportunity of working outside in the virus ridden air to control the avatars directly. Dressed in a hazmat suit the machine to which she is assigned turns out to be the same girl she saw in the complex. Rather than establish control over it, the machine wanders off and leads Jessica to a house, where she realises that her whole existence has been a series of falsehoods.

McDonagh's point here is to encourage the viewer not to take it lying down, whatever 'it' is, and to think for themselves. The strapline on the poster reads '(fear + faith) ideology = control' and the best way of viewing this film is as some sort of controlled experiment for the watcher. The problem is that the cast is made up of non actors and the pace is so incredibly slow and ponderous that it becomes an endurance test just to get through it - not helped by the fact that Jessica only speaks a few words throughout the whole movie. Add in portentous narration talking about the hazards of artificial intelligence and the eradication of death itself and you've got yourself one confusing mess. As the voice asks, "do we want this?" Um, no, not really. Nice soundtrack though, and the director's heart is clearly in the right place.

Scarecrow's Revenge (UK 2020: Dir  Louisa Warren) Warren's third 'Scarecrow' movie takes us back in time, the Summer of 810 AD to be precise, and the time of the Vikings. In a prologue the stuffed killer has taken out a landowner and his daughter, so we know of its murderous intent, but for a while that story is parked in favour of the usual sackcloth drama of a community in crisis.

All round bad 'un Hendrick (Peter Cosgrove, from 2018's The House of Violent Desire and 2019's The Curse of Halloween Jack) abducts some maidens from the village, including feisty Lisbeth (Kelly Juvilee, 2019's ClownDoll); a mistake as a) she escapes and b) she's the daughter of Malcolm (Mike Kelson, 2019's Tooth Fairy) who's mates with the head of the village Dolph (Carey Thring, from 2015's Emma Dark vehicle Seize the Night). As a result Hendrick is taken out into the fields and strapped to the scarecrow as punishment. But Hendrick does a deal with the local witch (Kate Milner Evans, 2019's ClownDoll and Pet Graveyard), who before her witch status was Dolph's wife, but went to the dark side as a result of seeking revenge for the death of their first born. The witch, in return for Hendrick's soul, transfers his body into that of the scarecrow, prompting a spree of murder and mayhem. And the only person that can stop him seems to be Dolph's daughter Greta (Sarah T Cohen, 2019's ClownDoll and 2020's Cupid) who has a few mystical tricks of her own.

While I was pleased to see Warren's beloved Scarecrow character released from the somewhat limited farm environment of her two previous movies Bride of Scarecrow and Curse of the Scarecrow (both 2018), where the budgetary limitations of the first two films were more disguised, here sadly the action looks like a village Viking war re-enactment group. To be honest - and I must ask her about this one day - I think that Warren is aware of these restrictions and wanted to make a fun romp which combined a bit of sword and sorcery with some horror business. And no-one's complaining about that, but at over 90 minutes the film did stretch the patience a bit. Milner Evans's over the top performance as the witch is quite something to see, with her free dance moves and on occasion psychedelic face, and Cosgrove's gurning Hendrick is quite lively. The rest of the cast are serviceable but a little bland, and there's a lot of strident dialogue such as "We're Vikings, not savages" to remind us we're in the 9th century, despite the modern haircuts and other contemporary trappings on display.

Death Follows (UK 2020: Dir Tony Manders) According to imdb, at around the age of 60 Mr Manders had an epiphany while on a train to York, gave up his job in the Civil Service and threw himself into films on both sides of the camera. Prior to this, his directorial debut, he had acted in 60 movies, which is, I think you'll agree, pretty impressive. That he chose, for his first feature, a police procedural based on the wild streets of Swindon and Wootton Bassett, focusing on the tracking of an identity changing psychopath, is perhaps even more noteworthy.

Am Dram actress Amy Trent (a very game turn from Vicki Price) gets the chance to step up when the actor playing the role for which she has been understudying calls in sick. Amy is a huge success, but coyly resists the urge to socialise with the other actors post performance.

But she's caught the attention of two 'fans' who hang around at the stage door for a glimpse of their idol. One of the pair, Tom Harris (Colin Jones) thinks it would be a good idea for he and his friend Dan (John Fisher) to get jobs in the theatre company so they can be nearer to Amy.

Meanwhile Amy, flush with success, has been arriving home after performances to find a red rose sticking out of her letterbox. Initially she is flattered, but subsequently comes to feel the intrusion of the act.  However after she discovers a photo sent to her phone, obviously taken in her home, with a rose sitting on her spread out underwear, at her GP sister Jill's (Helen Ackrill) insistence she calls in the police. But there's worse to come. A visit, supposedly from the gas company, ends up with a camera surreptitiously installed in her home, with footage of her naked sleeping body again sent to her phone.

Wanting a break from the madness, she meets a nice guy called David, who invites her out on a date, but bails halfway through when she starts talking disparagingly about Tom and Dan, the weirdos from the drama group, who he purports to know. David later phones to apologise, and asks her out again. When she accepts, she ends up in a trap, sprung by David, which ends up with her covered in pond water and photographed. The photos make it into the local paper and go viral on the internet. But when the police try and track David down, it's as if he never existed.

This cat and mouse game between the identity shifting stalker and his rather gullible victim, with its directorial sleights of hand and red herrings, is the stuff of 1970s giallo movies. Plot wise plausibility is stretched, and the indignities undergone by the character of Amy, who also has a few nude scenes that are pretty gratuitous, are in rather poor taste (it's an interesting point that most UK indie horror/thriller directors don't require their cast to get naked, which compounded the surprise here), even if Manders does include bloopers in the end credits to show that the actors seemed to be having a good time.

On the plus side Death Follows cleverly puts together the pieces of the jigsaw in a satisfying and enjoyable way, even if you've guessed from the outset what's going on. And the prosaic Swindon locations contrast well with the nastiness on screen, making it feel like a micro budget home counties Brian De Palma movie. That this is both Price and the killer's film debuts is rather remarkable considering what they throw into their parts. I may have found the film slightly distasteful, but there's no denying the directors' ambition.

The Telling (UK 2020: Dir Stewart Hamilton) The spectre of M R James, or at least one of his ghostly creations, stalks this short Scottish movie, directed by Stewart Hamilton who, in addition to making weird little films, also scored Charlie Steeds' 2018 flick Winterskin.

Sam Young (Clare Ross) returns to her home town on the Scottish Borders (it was filmed in Lauderdale) for a teaching position interview. Asking for directions she pops in to the local library and is surprised to see her old school friend Peter (Andy J. Noble). Having convinced herself that everyone she had gone to school with would have left the area, she is surprised to hear that Peter still lives in the house once owned by his parents, although they have since passed away.

Sam is keen to meet again and have a proper catch up, but Peter is reticent either to convene in town or for her to come over to his place. But later on Sam decides to call anyway. Reluctantly Peter lets her in, his mood defrosting somewhat as she has come armed with beer. But as the evening progresses, and their friendship rekindles, Sam asks Peter if he remembers the stories about a little boy that went missing in the town when they were kids. Peter falls silent, and confirms that the little boy was him.

There's a true Jamesean sense of dread suffusing Hamilton's movie, and those old MR characters, the foolhardy stranger who ignores warnings, and the haunted person who knows too much, are present and correct in Sam and Peter. Ross and Noble are perfect as the estranged school friends, the latter particularly striking in his outmoded 80s threads, a man who wouldn't (or couldn't) leave his home town. A first rate chiller with a heavy nod to 1970s genre TV shows in pace and feel.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #1: Reviews of Bone Breaker (UK 2020), Wolfwood (UK 2020), Clown Doll (UK 2020), The Droving (UK 2020), Skullz (UK 2020) and The Cabin Murders (UK 2020)

In an earlier post I mentioned that I had agreed to take the baton from writer MJ Simpson, who over the past 20 years has chronicled pretty much every UK horror film ever made, from big productions to £20 iphone mini epics. Simpson hung up his 'British Horror Revival' spurs at the end of 2019 in favour of other projects, and so for at least the next ten years I'm accepting the challenge. Various reviews on my site have now been tagged with the 'New Wave of the British Horror Film' label to denote their inclusion in the growing list, but this is the first (of oh so many) posts dedicated to round ups of new Brit movies.

Bone Breaker (UK 2020: Dir Nicholas Winter) Here's a pared down, brutal 75 minutes of your life, directed by someone whose previous directing credits have included three movies with the word 'Hooligan' in the title - I'd say that was a record.

Rachel (Sophie Jones) is a clean living, slightly all over the place girl who lives in a squeaky clean flat and has just got engaged to her equally squeaky clean boyfriend Stephen (James G. Nunn); she's all self help homilies and sloppy work goals, so when she does an online audition to assist a couple of YouTubers with exercise videos, she's delighted when they accept and arrange for her to meet them the following morning at a woodland location.

The social media stars are in reality quietly at each other's throats: Emily (Rachel Wright) has built up the business and has over 2 million followers, while younger partner Ruby (Lucy Aarden) feels it's only so long before Emily's supporters will see her as old and out of touch. Into this rather unhappy arrangement steps Rachel, but being Rachel she's late and has to catch her potential employers up. Her way is guided by landowning Grace (Jade Colucci) who provides all three girls with tracking devices in case they get lost. But hang on: doesn't Grace sound a little like the woman in the prologue who arranged for two soldiers to fight each other to the death and promptly killed the winner?

In case you're thinking that this is another of those films that wishes instant - or even prolonged - death to social media millennials everywhere, you'd be wrong: "I just don't like people," concludes the mallet swinging killer, as it descends to shatter another pair of legs. The film is firmly in torture p*rn territory, and while not overly gory, it's relentlessly violent.

Apart from some juicily over the top performances, apart from some opening schenes shot in Rachel and Steven's flat,most of the film was set outdoors in the Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire woods in winter. The weather was clearly atrocious, although not enough is made of the snow and sleet which slowly drenches the cast; a shame, as Winter could have used the inclemency to make the film even more bleak than it was. Bone Breaker has a slight premise and is executed (arf) with brutal simplicity. There's not much going on but it's a nasty ride, all the same.

Wolfwood (UK 2020: Dir Harry Boast) Boast is a director who appears in his own films. He's also a director keeping the spirit of 'found footage' - a sub genre now in its third decade - alive and well in this odd little microbudget effort.

Dom (Boast), his girlfriend Tasha (Mandy Rose) and cameraman chum Sam (James Bryant) are visiting Dom's childhood friend Ferall (Rhiann Williams). Ferall is, as we find out later, on the spectrum, hence her rather muted response to the arrival of the group, one of whom is documenting everything on camera.

Some years previously Ferall's father went missing, presumed dead. Ostensibly the reason was that he was running away from her mother's mental health issues, but she believes differently: and she's on a mission to go back to a place in the woods where he was last seen.

The group decide to follow, much to the annoyance of Tasha, who isn't clear exactly what the taciturn Ferall means to her boyfriend. The group camp out in the woods, having lost the location of their car. But the realisation that the current date - 13th May 2016 - is precisely 11 years since Ferall's father went missing, comes with an increasing sense of unease. Something is about to happen in the forest of Wolfwood which will endanger all their lives.

Boast's film is both frustrating and interesting in equal measures. It utilises rather tired alien abduction themes, and borrows some of its story from Predator (1987), but its execution is well done; it's one of the few 'FF' movies that didn't eventually bore me. Partly that's down to the economic 73 minute running time, and also the sheer awkwardness of what's happening. The director avoids the narrative route of using the opening scenes of his film to establish characters. Apart from the knowledge that Dom and Tasha are an item, it's completely unclear who these people are, or why they should follow a clearly unwell woman into rain sodden woods. This makes the movie disjointed, but not in a bad way; it actually becomes quite disconcerting, and any explanation as to what's going on is reserved for Wolfwood's final scenes.

The economic use of effects also works in its favour. At one point there's a suggestion of a huge alien craft, rendered via some lights and noise, which is remarkably effective; similarly sparing are the glimpses of the craft's occupants. This all works in the movie's favour. Sadly the cast are largely unremarkable, although Williams as Ferall remains suitably enigmatic. But this is a much better than expected little film which has some great ideas and is at time genuinely unsettling.

Clown Doll aka Joker Clown aka Meet Oliver (UK 2019: Dir Scott Jeffrey) Jeffrey's second feature this year, following the release of the rather good Don't Speak, is another film that's rather better than its cover and premise might suggest. Like DS it has UK people speaking with American accents, but although we never find out why they pitched up in the home counties, it is only one family, and everyone else (mercifully) gets to use their own voice.

The Americans are Lane (Sarah T Cohen), her brother John (John Scott-Clark) and mum Dee (Kate Millner Evans). Lane is acting as a surrogate for John and his partner, the ultra prissy Lisa (Kelly Juvilee) and is heavily pregnant. This might not be such a wise idea, as we learn later that Lane's mental health is a rather fragile thing, not perhaps built to handle the psychological upheaval of giving your baby away to your brother and sister-in-law. They compensate by over-doting on her and renting Lane a swish flat in a converted church for her final trimester.

One day while out antiquing with mum, Lane finds a rather hideous 4 foot high doll which the shop owner can't wait to get rid of. In a tense prologue, we've seen a couple desperate to get rid of the same toy and come a cropper at its hands. Looks like Lane is going to have the same problems. And indeed the murderous doll hides in plain sight, despatching (and stashing away) the bodies of Lane's best friend Jamie (Carmina Cordelia) and then various members of her family. When the police arrive to investigate, it's the same story with each 'misper': Lane was the last one to see them, and the suspicion seems to fall on her. Meanwhile Lane has started getting phone calls from someone identifying themselves as Oliver. Initially he sounds nice and she's rather flattered, but as the calls continue it's fairly apparent that something is rather amiss, and all roads lead back to the doll - or should we call it Oliver?

There are some really interesting touches to Jeffrey's film that lifts it above the usual 'killer clown' hokum. The psychological impact on Lane - convincingly played by Cohen - is quite plausible, and there's an almost Hitchcockian element to the persecution she suffers (I really liked the riff on the film's 'he's-phoning-from-the-extension' moment, which has the audience questioning Lane's sanity, even when we know who's responsible for the carnage. Some of the murder set pieces are also surprisingly effective and there's a great build up of tension towards the end: a rather bleak conclusion seals the deal on this one for me: 2 out of 2 for Scott Jeffrey.

The Droving (UK 2020: Dir George Popov) Popov's debut feature, 2017's Hex, made great use of countryside scenery and a small cast in its atmospheric genre mashup of A Field in England and The Witch. Popov repeats the formula with The Droving: a handful of characters, some impressive Cumbrian scenery and a story which fuses elements of The Wicker Man and Dead Man's Shoes.

This movie's Sergeant Howie is soldier Martin (Daniel Oldroyd, who was in Hex) who travels to Penrith in Cumbria, serendipitously at the time of the annual Droving festival, to find out what happened to his sister Megan (Amy Tyger) who disappeared at the previous year's gathering.

But Martin is no passive Christian interrogator. He has the inner anger of Richard in Shane Meadows' 2004 film, honed by a career extracting confessions from prisoners in the Middle East.

After meeting Megan's friend Tess (genre regular Suzie Frances Garton, who has cropped up in a few of Andrew Jones's features and was also in Hex), from whom he learns that his sister was a keen hiker, he runs into a group of young troublemakers, collectively called 'The Clan,' who have arrived in town to take part in the festival; they in turn point him towards a recluse (Jonathan Lawrence Risdon) who lives deep in the woods. The further Martin delves into the heart of the countryside, the more he learns, and the more his anger is sharpened. The truth about Megan's disappearance taps into local myth, but is also steeped in reality.

As with Hex, the location's the thing here, but while Popov's first feature was set in the past - specifically the Civil War - The Droving situates itself in contemporary Penrith during preparations for the famous Droving festival. With the High Street chain shops providing a prosaic backdrop to the fiery procession at the film's climax, all the while Martin is pushed, like Howie, inexorably into the rural heart of the area, as he discovers more about the myths surrounding the place.

In a less talented director's hands, the film's obvious influences could have overwhelmed any originality on offer. But The Droving scores highly in its interweaving of myth and reality and in particular the character of Martin, coming to terms both with the scars left by his military career and the truth about Megan's disappearance, and veering between quiet determination and bouts of unrestrained violence. Atmospheric, tense and yet strangely lyrical, The Droving is very impressive.

Skullz (UK 2020: Dir Deanna Dewey) Bit of a change of pace here. Skullz is a kids' movie, but its subject matter makes it suitable for inclusion in DEoL and under the 'NWotBHF' banner.

Scott Collins (Reid Hillwood) is a schoolboy prone to getting into trouble. On a class trip to a museum, he drifts away from his year group and, skulking around the basement, comes across a strange transparent skull; once touched it forms an instant psychic connection with him, and delivers a vision where he sees his grandmother collapsing on her motorbike and delivering a warning.

On reaching home he hears that gran has died following a heart attack - he was given a premonition of her death. Scott's mum and dad are in severe financial hardship and facing eviction, so a note through the door, offering them caretaking and nursing employment in a large family house in the New Forest, seems like an offer too good to miss, even if it is a strange one.

At the New Forest house the Collins family, mum, dad, Scott and his little sister Trish (Niamh Blandford) are introduced to Trelwaney (Henry Douthwaite), his wife (Amy Loughton) and their elderly confused 'mother' (Julia Savill) to whom they are to assist with care. But when Trelwaney shakes hands with Scott it's clear that a bond exists between them, and the skull at the museum, which Trelawney knows about and wants to liberate, holds the key to all their futures.

On an estimated budget of £100,000 Dewey and her writing partner James DeMarco have put together a story which is half a modern Children's Film Foundation movie and half a 1970s kids Sunday teatime TV mystery. It's refreshing to see a film fashioned for younger kids which remains resolutely UnAmericanised; of course the real test will be if kids take to it, although its limited release in the UK may hamper that. But Skullz is full of the kind of things I used to love as a kid: mysticism lite; comedy criminals (Tim Faraday as on the make Trevor and Judy Norman, very sprightly at 70, as the interfering Mrs Banner, are both great value); kids finding things out; and there's even a health and safety conscious car chase. Skullz is great fun and everyone involved should feel very proud of themselves.

The Cabin Murders aka The Utah Cabin Murders (UK 2020: Dir Andrew Jones) The prolific Welsh director now has 25 directing credits under his belt with a further two in production - not bad for a 36 year old. Having watched most of his movies, there's a real sense of Jones improving as a director, and learning from past issues.

The Cabin Murders is based on real life events back in 1990 in Oakley, Utah, and has a direct link to one of Jones's previous movies, Cabin 28 (2017). That film also concerned a real life event, the slaughter of a family back in 1981 in California, and the link between the two is the same investigating officer, Deputy Brad Wilkes (Jason Homewood). All names have been changed to protect the innocent, we are assured.

Wilkes, whose nagging regrets about the outcome of the 1981 investigation still haunt him, is working in the Oakley area when he becomes aware of two crimes, which may be related: the murder of a woman and subsequent theft of her car; and a holdup at a local shop where money, masks and outer clothing were stolen.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the area a family have come to stay in a lodge for Christmas, the family made up of dad Richard (Erick Hayden), mum Patricia (Anna Ruben), her mother Delyth (Lucy Aley-Parker), and Richard and Patricia's late teenage daughters Linnea (Teffany Ceri) and Tina (Jennifer Sims).

While Richard and Tina drive to town for some shopping, the rest of the family are disturbed when two masked and armed men force their way into the lodge. Ostensibly asking for cash, it's pretty clear that they have murder on their mind; proud Delyth is first to die and on dad and daughter's return the whole family is terrorised.

Like other UK indie horror directors, in the past Jones has been guilty of having his cast speak with American accents while in recognisably UK locations, something that constantly irks me. But this time he has disguised his location well. We're still in Wales (it's the same lodge - thanks Luxury Lodges - as the one used in Cabin 28) but this time there's a paucity of local colour to ruin the effect, into which is spliced some footage of an authentic US town. It might even be Oakley, Utah. And Jones' casting of actors who can hold north American accents, together with an authentic US actor (Hayden) means that belief is suspended.

Derek Nelson and particularly Lee McQueen are nastily effective as the killers Edward Deli and Von Taylor, but Jones still needs to work on pacing. He often fails to build sufficient tension, letting scenes run too long, and there's an end coda which just falls flat. As I've mentioned before, his films nearly always look good but are let down by poor content and a lack of style. But I'm pleased to report that this, along with 2019's The Curse of Halloween Jack, shows a director growing in confidence.

Exit (UK 2020: Dir Michael Fausti) plus short interview with the director NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020

If anyone tells you that it's impossible to make a gripping low budget movie, just ask them to watch Michael Fausti's debut feature. If anyone tells you that it's impossible to make a low budget movie that remains simple while also functioning on a number of levels, well repeat the instruction. The director has previously impressed with his intelligently realised short films, including The Ingress Tapes (2017) and Dead Celebrities (2018), but Exit is something else altogether.

Essex couple Michelle (Leonarda Sahani) and Steve (Billy James Machin) arrive in London to rent a flat on occasion of their third anniversary. Sleazy letting agent Russell Bone (Tony Denham) shows them round, but their idyllic holiday stalls when they find out that the rental has been double booked: a French couple, Adrienne (Charlotte Gould) and Christophe (Christophe Delesques), have also turned up. Accident or design? Bone suggests that, as it's a two bedroom apartment, the four should stay the night, and accommodation will be sorted for one of the couples the day after. But we know that the whole thing has been pre-arranged by the 'Man on the Phone' (Fausti) who bides his time until the action begins, reading Euro stroke mags and commenting "Typical continentals - she's a nymphomanic and he can't keep his hands to himself."

Slowly the two couples get to know each other. Adrienne and Christophe are witty and sophisticated. They speak a number of languages and they know their wines. Michelle is won over by the couple, but Steve remains unconvinced, feeling threatened by their 'otherness' and annoyed that Michelle doesn't side with him. But as the evening progresses, the conversation turns to sex, Christophe suggesting to Steve that they should couple swap. He's not keen - to put it mildly - but a carefully applied Mickey Finn changes that. The morning after, Steve realises what's happened to both him and his girlfriend, and things turn ugly very quickly.

Michelle (Leonarda Sahani) in Exit

Based on this description, one might argue that Exit is just another thriller. Couple seduce another couple, violence ensues, credits roll. But it's how this story is told, and what we are shown, that elevates Mathew Bayliss's story from interesting to unmissable. For Fausti manages to give us a movie which is not only exciting, seductive and horrific: it's also a statement of the times in which we live and an elliptical time travel story with hints of the supernatural; which isn't bad for what is effectively a four hander. Christophe and Adrienne represent everything that the 'leave' contingent fear; they're - and it's a word that crops up a lot in this film - 'cosmopolitan.' They're all about the sex, the fine drinking, and the worldy wiseness. As Steve, Machin has the unenviable job of being a kind of 'Leave' everyman. When offered wine he responds that he's happy with beer and when offered a glass for the beer replies that he's happy with the can. He gets angry when Michelle observes the difference between her new friends and her boyfriend, sensing that their very sophistication exists merely to show up his lack of it. Historical elements, both characters and art on the apartment walls, suggest a further subtext of history repeating itself, and the flat becomes more constrained and claustrophobic as the drama progresses.

But then 'the foreigners' play to type and become the kind of dangerous predators dreamed up in the worst of Farrage's monologues. But are they like this because they're foreign? Or are they just crazy? But in case you might be thinking that Fausti's film serves to endorse these views, Exit is shot in the varied styles of Euro cinema: Argento's colour schemes and giallo stylings (Michelle's face glimpsed through a full wine glass is a startling shot), and Noe's editing are all possible reference points, as is a subtle supernatural end coda - and did I see a nod to Baise-Moi (2000) in there as well? With some rather startling historical flashback sequences, imaginative photography and Nick Burns' stunning score (how is this his first soundtrack?) Exit is a precocious and important calling card from a director to watch.

I also got to ask director Michael Fausti a few questions about the film.

DEoL: The inspiration for the film was fairly obvious and the film clearly taps in to the 'referendum' madness. Do you see the 'Steve' character an 'everyman' for 'leave' voters, or is he more complex than that?

MF: In all the films that I make, I always look to create characters and a world that is ambiguous in its morality. People and their motivations are complex. Whilst Steve’s character can be viewed as something of an Everyman figure, I’ve always seen him as being more representative of social class and a type of masculinity. His masculinity is threatened by the house, which has a strong feminine energy about it. With Exit I never wanted to come down on one side or the other of the Brexit debate. The insular nature of the house in Exit is a space that accelerates all of the characters' insecurities, their anger and weaknesses, as well as their desires.

Michael Fausti (left) and Nick Burns scoring Exit

DEoL: Cinematic Influences abound in the film. But can you tell me about the stories behind the art choices on the apartment walls?

MF: There is significance to the paintings in the apartment and I personally framed every one of those pictures and decided where they should be hung on set! Within the mis-en-scene of Exit there are signifiers to potential readings or interpretations of the film. I’ve always enjoyed the art direction and set dressing aspect of filmmaking. However, I want audiences to draw their own conclusions around meaning and connotations within Exit. Once explained, things tend to lose their mystery...

DEoL: The historic flashbacks were very unusual. Can you tell me something about the decision to include them and what you were trying to achieve there (not suggesting you didn't achieve it, I'm just interested).

MF: I’ve always enjoyed films where a character’s seemingly irrelevant story or anecdote anticipates future narrative events. The character of Napoleon makes several appearances throughout the film if you look really closely, and not just in the flashbacks. There is a cyclical aspect to Exit, a sense that characters have been through this before. The house is also a space in which the characters find themselves in each other’s reveries, memories and fantasies. The poisoning of Napoleon does have significance but again I’ll let the audience arrive at their own conclusions.

DEoL: There are many things to love about this film, and Nick Burns' score is up there. How did you find him and what was the scoring process like?

MF: I’ve known Nick for a number of years and he’s helped with sound on some of my earlier short films. Nick is a highly accomplished musician and producer. When I approached him about scoring Exit, he was really excited about the project. He was also on set, overseeing audio during filming. So from early on Nick knew the kind of tone and atmosphere I was aiming for. I wanted to convey a sense of the house having a past and being reactive to the characters. Nick and I had many discussions around the kind of sound design and music that would best achieve this. I think the score is incredible but so too is the sound design. It’s so layered and there are some real subtleties in there, designed to slowly build atmosphere and unsettle the audience. We literally sat side by side each other in his studio, going through every aspect of the audio. Nick just got straight away what I wanted to achieve and made it happen.

DEoL: How did you cast your movie? The casting is spot on and the actors absolutely believable.

MF: The narrative of Exit is largely character driven and we really took our time to get the casting right. We planned for a seven day shoot. So we were looking for actors who’d be able to rise to the challenge of a tough shooting schedule. We posted ads on a casting platform for the characters and got a huge response. We then held auditions in North London. When casting actors, I always look to cast as a group, rather than simply for each role. I’m also looking for actors to take ownership of their characters. The relationship between director and actor should be a collaborative one. When casting you are essentially looking for people who will bring their own degree of creativity to a part. When we secured Tony Denham for the role of Russell Bone, I was confident that we had exactly the right cast to make it happen. I was familiar with Tony’s work in The Football Factory (2004) and In the Name of the Father (1994) and knew that he’d bring some authentic London grit to the role. All of our actors really went above and beyond on set with their performances and I’m really pleased with what they achieved.

DEoL: How pleased are you with the end result? 

MF: Given the inevitable restraints of time and money, I’m really happy with Exit. I never intended to make a simplistic horror genre piece but rather looked to push the boundaries of genre and linear narrative. I wanted to explore dream logic and ideas around desire, culture, history and entrapment. I feel that we achieved this with Exit, in no small part down to the incredible cast and crew that we assembled for the project.