Supermarket Sweep #22: Reviews of Shortcut (Italy/Germany 2020), Central Park (USA 2017), Ten Minutes to Midnight (USA 2020), The Resort (USA 2021), No Such Thing As Monsters (Australia 2019) and The Curse of Dracula (Slovenia 2019)

Shortcut (Italy/Germany 2020: Dir Alessio Liguori) Director Alessio Liguori’s follow up to 2019’s overwrought In the Trap is a YA monster movie in all but rating (it secured an ‘R’ in the US because of language, and slightly less troubled the BBFC, who have given it a ‘15’ certificate).

Anyhow, a small group of English schoolkids are on a bus travelling across the Italian countryside (they're the only passengers, which seems weird), the driver being avuncular Joe (American actor Terence Anderson). The kids include the usual stereotypes: bookish Queenie, or IQ to her friends (Molly Dew); hard nut but probably not really Reg (Zak Sutcliffe); pretty boy Nolan (Jack Kane); and fat kid Karl (Zander Emlano).

A blocked road forces the bus onto a side route, and vehicular failure forces them to stop, at which point escaped prisoner Pedro Minghella (David Keyes) bursts onto the scene and holds the bus occupants at gunpoint. But there’s a bigger threat out there: a large beast roams the tunnels of a nearby disused military facility, and after taking out both Joe and Pedro (the two adults) it looks like the kids are next!

As mentioned, apart from odd F-bomb and some mild gore, this is basically a movie aimed at teenagers; it’s bookended by some thoughts voiced by Nolan along the lines of “Little did we know about what was to come… and this is what we learned as a group,” which aims to give the story more heft than actually exists. There is the obligatory third reel ‘finding out’ sequences so beloved of YA targeted movies, which only serves to make the adults involved look like a bunch of bunglers; it’s the kids who know how to vanquish the beast!

Praise should be given for the practical effects rather than the CGI usually found in films like this, but that’s a rare positive in a movie which doesn’t make a lot of sense and, while well photographed, squanders its slim running time with faintly drawn characters and much WTFery. Not very good.

This review was originally published in www.bloody-flicks.co.uk 

Central Park (USA 2017: Dir Justin Reinsilber) As the rather unimaginative title of Reinsilber's debut feature suggests, a killer stalks New York City's biggest outdoor space. We're introduced to a group of high school kids, central among them being Harold Smith (Justin A. Davis), whose father has just been arrested for a Madoff style Ponzi scheme, and whose mother has taken her life, connected with the crime. There's also feisty Felix (Guillermo Arribas) and Mikey (Deema Aitken), a bright boy with a difficult home life who's failing at school and smoking way too much. In their spare time the group hang out in the Park with their girlfriends, playing Truth or Dare, while a psycho with a disguise created out of a face from a magazine and sellotape sneaks around watching them and picking them off one by one.

In terms of red herrings as to the killer's identity, Mr Shaw the English teacher (Michael Lombardi) is about the only fish in the park; but although he suspiciously decides to go for a late night bike ride, putting him in the danger zone, he then becomes an early victim. But it's assumed that the killer is linked to the Ponzi scheme otherwise it would be rather odd to include it in the narrative.

The movie's well acted (I really liked Aitken as the awkward Mikey) and photographed, but utterly pointless, and after establishing its first half competently it descends into a formulaic stalk and slash movie, which the world doesn't need now, and arguably didn't in 2017 when the thing was made. Look, I like Central Park; why I was only there a few years ago, it's a beautiful spot and seeing it made me feel a bit wistful. But I didn't like Central Park. Next!

Ten Minutes to Midnight (USA 2020: Dir Erik Bloomquist) While a storm rages outside, inside radio DJ Amy Marlowe (scream queen Caroline Williams), arriving for her show 'Ten Minutes to Midnight', is similarly seething: first she was bitten by a bat on the way into work, and secondly she quickly realises that she's being replaced by a younger model, Sienna Walker (Naomi Kang) courtesy of her sleazy boss Robert (William Youmans) who invites Sienna to sit in on Amy's broadcast.

As Amy realises that this might be the last edition of her show, she has a meltdown, bites Sienna's hand and, after retiring to the bathroom, chows down on a used tampon. 

But just when you think this is going to go the way of vampire movies, with Sienna and Amy both infected and causing chaos, Bloomquist turns his movie into something far less obvious; Amy's infection causes temporal and identity shifts, her colleagues swapping personas; and the 'ten minutes to midnight' now serves as both the show title and a point in time that Amy gets to live over and over again.

The central performance here is that of Williams who, at 64, is still building up an impressive CV, quite in contrast to her character DJ Amy, who everyone is queuing up to add to the scrapheap (and indeed Amy is a knowing update of Williams' role as DJ 'Stretch' in 1986's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). I wasn't expecting, in a movie that starts and finishes with vampiric themes, to find in the middle such an unusual meditation on age and the value of life. Ten Minutes to Midnight packs a lot of emotional punch into its 70 minutes and Williams turns in an angry, physical performance that has her grappling with fate and her own advancing years. Some great turns too from the late Nicholas Tucci as know all security guard Ernie and Kang as Sienna. A very good film, aand all the better for being quite unexpectedly so.

The Resort (USA 2021: Dir Taylor Chien) Lex (Bianca Haase) is a writer and researcher of the supernatural, who has been given a birthday present of a trip to a Hawaiian island, for a part fun, part literary break, and to provide material for her latest book. Their destination is Kilahuna island and its massive, now abandoned tourist resort complex, which has been shut down for two years following a spate of hauntings, including sightings of a mythical 'half faced girl'; all the activity seems to be focused on Room 306 within the resort. Once on the island, Lex and her friends, beefy Chris (Brock O'Hurn), Istagram obssessed Bree (Michelle Randolph) and goofball Sam (Michael Vlamis), witter on about religion, ghosts and sleep paralysis to build up atmosphere.

It's no surpise that things don't go well: horror films about and for the social media generation usually end with a nasty fate for the cast; plus in this case the group's plight is signposted by intercutting with scenes of a hospitalised Lex, rescued from the island and supposedly the only one of the four to return. 

In its favour the first part of the film looks lovely, with some spectacular aerial shots of coastline and forest. However it soon turns into a "quick! Come on! Run!" style chase movie with some murky supernatural stuff, shoddy effects and the usual dumb ending trotted out by filmmakers who think that if it's scary it won't matter if it doesn't makes sense; well it isn't and it doesn't. Terrible nonsense.

No Such Thing as Monsters (Australia 2019: Dir Stuart Stanton) There's something uniquely nasty about the Australian depiction of its backwoods underclass in film, and Stanton's movie is certainly no exception; and you just know that the title is a play on the old 'the-real-monsters-are-human' truism.

Young couple David (Matthew Clarke) and his American girlfriend Mary (Angel Giuffria), who is hoping to get pregnant, embark on a long weekend camping trip, although Mary, with her fear of confined spaces (and a lot more besides) slightly blanches at the thought of a weekend in a tiny caravan.

After they've set up camp, they're slightly concerned when another party pitch tent next to them. Turns out the group are all related; their number includes Amy (Georgia Crisfield Smith), decked out in a white dress, mask and carrying a doll, who apparently suffers from a skin condition (Amy, not the doll)..

Accepting an invitation to join the second party for drinks, David and Mary become separated. When Mary wakes up the following morning, David is missing and she's been chained up inside the caravan. Her captors are, of course, the group who camped next to them, led by the seriously unhinged Becca (Rebecca Fortuna); and the family have mayhem on their mind.

The creepy and rather nihilistic feel of Stanton's film is enhanced by the fact that the attackers have no motive apart from mayhem and, in the case of party member Elmer (Jacob Fyfe) to procreate, irrespective of whether the recipient of his seed is within or without his family. No Such Thing as Monsters is bleak, relentless and bloody, but it's also rather pointless. The mad, bad and dangerous to know shtick has been done much better before (the two movies quoted on the DVD cover for a start); perhaps its only interesting point is that the film doesn't hugely concentrate on Guiffra's disability (she was born without the lower half of one of her arms) preferring to make her issues mental rather than physical; it's definitely a positive step for actors with disabilities, although she deserved better than this luke warm Aussie number.

The Curse of Dracula aka The Curse of Valburga (Slovenia 2019: Dir Tomaz Gorkic) Meet Marjan (Jurij Drevensek) and his brother Bojan (Marko Mandic), down on their luck and looking for ways to make money without them slipping back into their old drug dealing ways. With the help of their friend Ferdo (Ziga Födransperg) they come up with a cash generating scheme: Ferdo provides security services for an empty chateau, castle Valburga, previously a psychiatric institution. Using their friend's exclusive access to the facility, Marjan and Bojan concoct a fake legend - of a previous occupant of the castle, the evil Count Valburga, supposed cousin of Count Dracula, who still lurks within - and proceed to organise cash upfront tours. 

Their first tour group includes a sleazy photographer with a pair of attention seeking models, some goths looking to raise the devil, and a drunk husband and wife with a seemingly endless supply of beer. Oh and thuggish Sven (Niklas Kvarforth), who knows a bit about castle Valburga, and has his own reasons for being there. 

The Curse of Dracula is as broad as you like, fitfully funny, and sweary as hell. There's some glorious bits of comedic violence, and a lot of crass characterisation. The film's approach to women combines ball busting barflies and self absorbed wannabe porn stars who think that saying 'anal' over and over again will just get funnier and funnier. It's pretty inventive stuff and zips along but it's without one iota of subtlety, which gets wearing after a while. But there's a final scene that suggests that a sequel may be on the cards. You're welcome.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #17: Reviews of The Last Bite (UK 2020), Kindred (UK 2020), Amulet (UK 2020), Clownface (UK 2020), G-Loc (UK 2020) and District Nurse (UK 2020)

The Last Bite (UK 2020: Dir Sebastino Pupino) Filmmaker Pupino's first 70 minute feature takes us into the world of artist Carlos (Carlos Carvalho) who not only feels creatively hemmed in (he's dealing with a self obsessed producer who's too busy taking phone calls to listen to Carlos's ideas) but disappointed by the distance he feels from everyone, including his best friend who just stares into his phone when they meet for coffee. Carlos has dreams of paralysis, of feeling like he's dead; we see him sitting in a restaurant alone eating (a scene that in its banal length rivals - and exceeds - the Rooney Mara pie eating scene from 2017's A Ghost Story). 

Romance seems to be off the cards for the lonely artist ("I'll be alone, I'll die alone, and it will be just like before I was born" he concludes) as witnessed by an awkward scene between Carlos and a woman, where he confesses to being obsessed with 'The Porcupine Principle' (a theory about the challenges of human intimacy) and his date pulls away when there's 'something' throbbing on his neck. But his later meeting with the ethereal but friendly Veronica (Laura Jean Marsh) is a turning point. Veronica not only listens to but understands his dilemma; and she has the metaphysical answers to his feelings of isolation.

The Last Bite is an abstract film which is light on narrative but heavy on the symbolism. Don't watch this if you're expecting a movie with a beginning, middle and end (although I was suprised that the denouement does offer some explanation). Many of the images in the film are manipulated to reflect the artist's refraction of personality, and various seemingly random characters offer facets of Carlos's personality. The soundtrack, by the enigmatically titled F.M., is a thing of great beauty, and the film's climactic images are, for the obviously slim budget, pretty mind boggling; the acknowledgement to Carl Sagan in the end credits explains a lot. I liked this; many will not, but it's bold stuff and well worth checking out.

Kindred (UK 2020: Dir Joe Marcantonio) Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) and her vet partner Ben (Edward Holcroft) have decided that they're moving to Australia; in part the decision is based on Ben's need to leave behind his controlling mother Margaret (Fiona Shaw), who lives in a huge, tumbledown mansion with Ben's half brother Thomas (Jack Lowden). Charlotte discovers that she's pregnant via Ben's family's GP Dr Richards (Anton Lesser), although she maintains that she's been taking the pill, and clearly doesn't want to keep it, partly because of her mother's mental health problems and the fear that this disorder might be genetic.

Unethically, Dr Richards tells Ben's mum about the pregnancy, so Ben finds out before Charlotte gets to tell him gets to tell him. Margaret is opposed to Charlotte's plans for the termination; "you're not stealing my own flesh and blood", she says. Ben, also keen to keep the child but also to make the new start in Australia, receives a fatal blow to the head while tending a horse. After the funeral Charlotte, who cannot leave Ben's family home because of a complication which has resulted in Ben's own home being repossessed, is trapped, pregnant and afraid, as the rest of the family make arrangements for the new arrival.

One of the issues I always had with Roman Polanski's 1968 film Rosemary's Baby is in sustaining the disbelief that Rosemary was effectivelt trapped in her own apartment. Sadly the same plot contrivance makes Kindred even more implausible than the film whose plot it broadly echoes; as Charlotte Tamara Lawrance initially appears tough and no nonsense, but quickly slips into resigned compliance once the family start hatching their plan. The movie feels more like an extended retread of the kind of 1970s teleplay where a pregnant woman is helpless in the face of a family who may or may not have satanic connections, and where no-one believes her story (which the audience knows is actually the truth).

While the cast perform their roles well, and Margaret's house is convincingly run down, this all feels so hackneyed and unnecessary that it's difficult to sympathise, or indeed care about the heroine's plight. Perhaps this might be more effective for a viewer who hadn't seen this overfamiliar story in other guises over the years, but, for me, Kindred strained both credbility and patience.

Amulet (UK 2020: Dir Romola Garai) Tomas (Alec Secareanu) has escaped from a country at war; he has been a soldier who has avoided bloodshed, staffing a remote outpost, his only drama to help a fleeing woman, Miriam (Angeliki Papoulia), who appeals to him for help. Tomas discovers an amulet, in the shape of a woman seemingly with folded wings, in the forest and offers it to Miriam. Some time later, and having made the passage to the UK, Tomas does manual jobs for cash, but after being attacked in the street and robbed of his money, he's rescued by a nun, Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton). "Forward is not the only way" she tells him, enigmatically, and finds Tomas accommodation in an imposing and run down house in the south of the capital.

It's a house without electricity, whose only other occupants are  oppressed Magda (Carla Juri) and her bedridden mother (Anah Ruddin) who lives on the top floor, for whom her daughter is her sole carer. "The Lord will take her soon," says Claire, who doesn't want to charge Tomas for the roof over his head; he just has to help out a bit around the house.

And boy does the house need work. The ceiling seems to be covered in an organic, active mould, and when Tomas, doing his bit to help out, finds the body of a large albino bat/rat hybrid tucked into the U-bend of the toilet, things start to get very strange. In the bathroom Magda exposes a bite mark on her arm. Is this from her mother who has violent tendencies? Or something more sinister? 

Although explanations are eventually forthcoming in Amulet, the overall mood of the piece remains oblique; themes of female isolation and familial repression are explored but remain tantalisingly unfocused, as if Garai is afraid to make an overly forthright horror movie. Which is a shame as the production design is superb - a creaking, groaning house full of shadows and surprising elements - and there are some set pieces which recall Luca Guadagnino's 2018 revision of Suspiria. It's just that overall this is far too ponderous and portentous to satisfy.

Clownface (UK 2020: Dir Alex Bourne) Jenna (Hannah Douglas) has just returned to her home town after a traumatic incident. Some months previously she returned to her apartment to find her BDSM favouring flatmate Zoe (Dani Tonks) missing, and Zoe's boyfriend Rick (Thomas Loone) dead on the floor.

Jenna's now living with her dad. Her friend Amy (Abigail Wisdom) has managed to get her a job at Amy's parents' cafe, and, to get her back into the swing of things, has invited her to a party thrown by one of their mutual friends.

Meanwhile a rather odd chap, Owen (Richard Buck) has also moved into the area to rent a room. His suitcase incldes a pistol and press cuttings about the odd goings on in the town, and he's keen to find out more details from the locals.

All these people's lives are about to coalesce courtesy of Clownface, the abducter of Zoe, killer of Rick and scarer of Owen ten years previously (hence the lad's obsessive behaviour). Jenna, who still harbours guilt for not being around to protect Zoe - not helped by constant goading from former friend, jealous Charlotte (Leah Solmaz) - is about to find out that she is Clownface's latest victim; but he's going to toy with those around her first.

Bourne's second feature, after his 2017 debut anthology movie The House of Screaming Death, takes its subject matter pretty seriously. Not for him the camp mannerisms adopted by some other low budget British Fantastic Film directors, possibly to mask the paucity of budget (and sometimes talent) on show; Bourne plays it straight, and he's aided by some seriously good photography and atmospheric set pieces.

Sadly none of the cast quite rise to the quality of the filmmaking, although this is less to do with their skills and more about the rather perfunctory script, which puts them in rather ridiculous situations and refuses to tie any of the narrative loose ends together. There isn't even a reveal of who Clownface is, despite some reddish herrings being left around. And on the subject of the killer, he doesn't actually have a 'clownface'; his mask, Ed Gein style, is constructed from stitched together human skin, which is infinitely scarier, and the guy inside the costume (Philip John Bailey) gives good serial killer. Bourne's aspirations are laudable, even if his material isn't particularly innovative. But Clownface is well constructed and at times mounts a fair bit of tension.

G-Loc (UK 2020: Dir Tom Paton) After a false start with the not particularly good Redwood back in 2017, Paton has since delivered a trio of solid, low budget sci fi movies, of which G-Loc is the latest.

Set some time in the future, earth is facing a new ice age. Luckily years previously some ancient technology arrived in the skies over the planet; 'The Gate' is a triangular portal containing a wormhole that can take those passing through it into a new solar system capable of supporting life. Following on from a mass migration to a planet called Rhea, the movement has automatically created a refugee crisis in the new world.

Widowed Bran Marshall (Stephen Moyer) made his escape from earth after the death of his family, but got blown off course. Under the suggestion of his AI guide/companion Edison (basically a holographic Alexa with a sense of hunmour, voiced by Mike Beckingham) he makes his way to a Rhean supply ship, most of the occupants of which have been killed. The only survivor is Ohsha Rainer (Tala Gouveia), a Rhean assassin. Gradually the pair realise that the craft they're on is programmed for an event which is set to wipe out all the occupants of the new world.

The intrigue between the Rheans and the Earthers (as occupants of our planet are referred to) gives an interesting dimension to the film, the new arrivals having developed a superiority complex over their originators (something to do with 18 years on Rhea passing for every one on earth). But like a lot of low budget sci fi, the context, much of which is narrated at the film's beginning in true B movie stylee, is but window dressing for a two hander - or four if you count Edison and blink and you'll miss him baddie Decker (Casper Van Dien) - drama within a confined space. Moyer is excellent as the grief stricken Marshall and Gouveia makes for a feisty combatant and while the pace of the thing could do with some picking up, and the crises facing the pair feel a little episodic, this is a well realised, competent film that doesn't overstretch itself.

District Nurse (UK 2020: Dir Rob James, Bruce McClure) Proper experimental films don't come along very often. Sure some movies might have 'freak out' scenes or maybe mess with time in their storytelling. But movies where one stuggles to get a handle on anything they're watching, to pick up one shred of a coherent narrative; well those films are as rare as hen's teeth and District Nurse, despite its prosaic title, is one of them my friend.

"A delicate faculty, the human psyche is both a beautiful and dangerous entity. With subtle manipulation from its host and external influences, it can err in either direction. What you are about to see could affect any new parent." This quote, at the beginning of the film, is as much help as anything else with which to gain an entry point into the 'narrative'. As far as I can deduce, a woman (Katie Davies Speak) who is the District Nurse of the title, believes that she and her baby have been kidnapped by a crazy old couple who plan to sacrifice them both to revive an ancient sea creature.

Any interpretations would be equally valid I suppose, but it's probably best to sit back and let the film's succession of images wash over you, which range from the prosaic (fencing) to the truly weird (a suited man attacks a toy baby viciously and then sticks a firework in its severed head). There's some US shot footage in the middle, and the suggestion of ritual runs through the piece. Don't ask me anything else: better you watch it yourself.

District Nurse can be viewed here.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2021 #4: Reviews of Black Lake (UK 2020), Happy Little Bunnies (UK 2020), Benny Loves You (UK 2020), The Yird Swine (UK 2020), Shadowland (UK 2021) and The Reckoning (UK 2020)

Black Lake (UK 2020: Dir K/XI) Black Lake opens with a quote from Carl Jung ('No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven, unless its roots reach down to hell') and ends with a dedication to Jyoti Singh, the 23 year old Delhi student gang raped, tortured (and who later died) in 2012. And between these two references lies the heart of Pervaiz's beautifully shot, intense magic realist drama. 

Artist Aarya (K/XI aka Komal Pervaiz) rents a house from a friend located in the wilds of Scotland. She's here to get her head together and escape tensions never fully made clear. Her Aunt Ayaneh (Aditi Bajpai) sends her, by post, a beatuful gold trimmed red scarf, which triggers a stream of Proustian, where she was formerly resident, connecting her with the landscape of the house and her own sense of being.

But the scarf has a terrible history; unknown to her Aunt, it originally belonged to a woman who was raped and murdered in a Pakistan village. The scarf brings with it the Churail (Ayvianna Snow from The Lockdown Hauntings in a blink and you'll miss her performance) a demonic tree spirit ubiquitous in Indian legend, who returns to seek revenge for the suffering of another. Aarya experiences increasingly vivid dreams/visions, as the Churail takes over and forces her to relive the fate of the scarf's original owner.

Black Lake scores highly in the lush photography of both Scotland and Pakistan; Parvaiz, for once, refuses to submerge footage of the latter in filters, rendering the different landscapes more similar than one would expect. There also a sumptuous score by Burning Tapes that mixes natural sounds with harsh electronica, at times enlivening footage that is, it has to be said, very slow; nothing is rushed here, and for the most part this works.

What lets this down, and I really don't like to rain on such a committed and ambitious production, is Pervaiz herself as Aarya. For such a small cast this needed an actress with more focus than she delivered; a lot of the time her performance felt self conscious or just too studied; it's a raw piece, but for me that didn't come across, even accepting that the movie was either filmed or completed in a lockdown situation, and that Pervaiz herself hadled the photography; quite a feat. With Black Lake it's the film's images that stay with you: a strand of black hair, evidence of the creature's arrival; water on rocks threatening to show something shimmering underneath; and a billowing red scarf contrasting with the harsh elements of two different countries.

Happy Little Bunnies (UK 2020: Dir Patrick McConnell) "What is fucking normal?" asks psychotherapist Carl (an amazing performance from Simon Manley) as he attempts to understand, cajole and outright threaten his client John (Jon Scott-Clark) in McConnell's witty, uncomfortable and often plain misanthropic three hander psychodrama.

John is an unhappy man full of sick thoughts and suicidal tensions; he answers an ad in a local paper for a therapist who he thinks can help deal with his disgusting inner urges. But Carl may not be quite who's he looking for; in an early attempt to win John's trust, Carl confesses an incident from his past involving a drunk homeless woman and an empty wine bottle. Continuing to upset the accepted professionalism of the doctor/patient relationship, John is offered both wine and a cigarette by his shrink. Much of Happy Little Bunnies plays out this increasingly unhinged session, as Carl quizzes John on everything from pornography to his deepest desires (and the link between the two). Finally, as if to test John's mettle, Carl introduces a third (female) subject into the session. Will John's fantasies become reality?

As a backdrop to this, a killer in a bunny mask is prowling the area, killing off those town dwellers already living the life that John creates in his head, including a guy who gets his 'old chap' hacked off after sticking it through a glory hole, and a massacre in a seedy S&M club. The link between the two stories is only revealed at the end but the obvious culprit seems to be Carl himself; scenes from his childhood play out during the movie, including a violent, domineering father, a more gifted older brother who hangs himself, and a disastrous early relationship. It's textbook Freud; no good could come of this upbringing, and it explains his unique method of plying his medical trade.

Happy Little Bunnies is a bleak watch, that's for sure;  in its combination of wretchedness, frank dialogue and sly humour, it brought to mind a home counties version of the films of master miserablist Jörg Buttgereit and, in its economy of nastiness, Michael Fausti's recent Exit. The star here - if indeed that's an appropriate phrase - is Manley, his clipped north east tones emphasising his air of nihilism; it's a terrifying performance in a movie which excels in atmosphere, with a low budget that keeps things spare but nasty. Oh and there's some fourth wall breaking with the director himself appearing, directing a version of that pie scene from A Ghost Story which arguably meant more to him than me.

Benny Loves You (UK 2019: Dir Karl Holt) It's kind of hard to be overly critical of Holt's first feature, an entry in the 'demon toys' sub genre which, although scrappy, benefits from some great gags - verbal and sight - and a pervading sense of low level anarchy and silliness.

As a child down on his luck toy designer Jack (Holt) was the owner of a stuffed bear (although it looks like one of the more indeterminable Muppets) called Benny. On his 35th birthday things go decidedly pear shaped for him, losing both his parents (with whom he still lives) in quick succession courtesy of domestic accidents.

Faced with the difficulty of keeping the house (and mortage payments) going, his troubles continue when he's due to be laid off at work, the knife being dug in by his co-designer, sleazy Richard (George Collie) and unsympathetic boss Ron (James Parsons). With the house on the market, as Jack makes arrangements to downsize he comes across Benny, the bear with a life of its own. Unbothered about decades of being discarded, Benny worms his way back into Jack's heart by being his playful self; Benny also murders those that have been giving Jack a hard time, paving the way for Benny's owner to reinstate himself in work's good books and acquire a sort of girlfriend in Dawn (Clare Cartwright). But as Jack once again thinks of putting away childish things, Benny clearly has other ideas.

A number of people have been very excited about this one - it went down extremely well at its 2020 FrightFest screening - and while it's undeniably creative and at times very funny, it's still as limited as other similar films such as the Child's Play franchise and the Puppet Master series. Holt is a rather unengaging lead and Cartwright doesn't have much to do, so it's left to the set pieces which mostly take place within Jack's house. It's fitfully amusing but I found it outstayed its welcome rather quickly, and some of the support characters seem to have stepped out of BBC sitcoms, the type that don't get recommissioned after one series.

The Yird Swine (UK 2020: Dir Douglas Kyle) To introduce Kyle's Aberdeen set folk-horror movie, the director announces that his project was entirely financed by the cast, and filmed in their spare time. That it was also filmed just before lockdown, and presumably edited only with what he managed to shoot, is a testament to indie film making.

Archie (Niall MacKay) and apprentice Jack (Josh Currie) are two government employees sent to examine some biological irregularities in the forest outside the Scottish town of Tarn-Na-hay (town motto "Love the land and what comes from it"). More mysteriously, the local church's graveyard has been plundered of its coffins, which have turned up, minus bodies, randomly around the woods.

While many feel that these occurences have a natural explanation, local hunter Munro (Kyle) feels that there is a more supernatural reason, particularly when two bird watchers go missing in the same wooded area, and he manages to snap a blurry phot of something large that looks bear like. Of course Munro is right, despite holding a minority opinion; the forest is the home to the 'Yird Swine', a creature from Scottish folklore who takes the form of a subterranean pig-like being. As the beast rises to seek its victims it's drawn to the local church hall, where the village is holding a fundraiser. Can Munro convince Tarn-Na-hay of the danger they all face?

Local colour abounds in this ragged but amiable 68 minute feature, to the point where some of the characters' accents are nigh on impenetrable (to this sassenach anyhow). A cast of non professional actors share the load of characters ranging from disbelieving authority figures, hapless bureaucrats, to a couple of women keen on exploiting events to maximise tourism opportunities. The beast itself is basically a giant shaggy pig that walks on its hind legs (a rather 1970s Dr Who type creation from Claire Martin) that's more mop than monster, but where the movie scores, in its own rough and ready way, is some great action sequences, tight editing and an atmospheric soundtrack designed by Danny Morrison and Sean Jones.

You can watch The Yird Swine here. 

Shadowland (UK 2021: Dir Simon Kay) Another film set in the Highlands and its '19,000 acres of dense ancient woodland', Kay's debut feature nicks its opening title style from Alien and then robs from a variety of genres to produce one confused, over-ambitious film.

Private security head honcho and ex military man Cam (Keenan Ben) is leading a group of staff to protect an ambasador (David E Grimes) and his family on a trip to Scotland, deep in the Highlands. But when the car transporting them is ambushed and the Ambassador's wife (Susan Coyle) shot, the security detail escape, with the rest of the family, and take refuge in a nearby barracks, where they also take prisoner some of the ambushers, including Elaine (Amelia Eve); meanwhile wifey comes back from the dead and takes out the rest of the Ambassador's would be kidnappers..

Once inside the facility, the group come across the mysterious Kane (Tony Greengrass) who knows what's happening (as do we - sort of - courtesy of a prologue involving Kane as a young man) as he's been involved in military experiments to perfect a new weapon, the specifics of which are never described except in its dead resurrecting properties and dislike of light. Cam and the motley group must wait it out in the bunker until the sun rises five hours later.

Shadowland suffers from a surfeit of chat, much of it to little purpose (such as developing the characters, for example) and a confusing series of flashbacks that exist to distract from the fact that the present day elements of the story are pretty much a group of frightened people stuck in a series of rooms. To be fair Kay generates some tension as the group face a series of uncertainties, but as one of those is the nature of what they're up against, it''s difficult to define any real threat. The film might have seemed like a good idea on paper, and it's well cast (the box office draw here being Eve, who was recently in Mike Flanagan's The Haunting of Bly Manor, and whose fee would likely have taken the lion's share of the movie's budget) but it's terribly inconclusive and overly showy for no good reason.

The Reckoning (UK 2020: Dir Neil Marshall) Apart from 2019's not very good Hellboy, Mr Marshall has been in TV land for the last few years. Here he returns to historical content last seen with 2010's Centurion, offering up a story which is supposedly 'inspired by actual events'.

It's 1665; we're in the time of the plague, and the great unwashed blame the pestilence on the devil. It's the job of the Witchfinder General to sort the innocent from the guilty; but he's never reckoned on anyone like Grace Haverstock. 

When we first meet her Grace (Charlotte Kirk) is about to bury the body of her hanged husband Joseph (Joe Anderson), who took his own life after contracting the plague while unknowingly drinking from a cup used by a plague sufferer in a tavern. There's more to the scene that meets the eye, for the flagons are switched by the evil Squire Pendleton (Steven Waddington) ensuring that Joseph sups from the infected one.

We soon work out what's going on when Pendleton visits the widowed Grace and her daughter Abby to pay his respects and remind her that the rent on her cottage is soon due. Knowing that she's destitute and probably unable to pay, the Squire suggests an 'arrangement' in lieu of actual money. Grace rejects his advances with a swiftly applied hot poker; back in the tavern, the Squire whips up the locals and before you know it, Grace and her little baby are imprisoned on charges of witchcraft, awaiting the arrival of the Witchfinder General, John Moorcroft (Sean Pertwee) and his scarred assistant Ursula (Suzanne Magowan) to extract a confession.

In The Reckoning Marshall builds an oppressive, mysoginistic world of fear, superstition and cruelty created and meted out by both local landowners and the visiting Witchfinder; and, as the title suggests, this is a world whose structures of power are fragile enough to be shaken by just one person who can stand up to the tyranny suffered by women nationally; and Grace is that person. Much of the movie then is devoted to her torture; if Marshall often looks to source movies for his inspiration, I'm guessing that Michael Armstrong's lurid, sadistic 1970 movie Mark of the Devil may have been watched a few times.

There's some Verhoeven-like inconsistencies going on here, mainly in the form of Kirk as Grace who, when first glimpsed, seems to have stepped out of a shampoo advert; this is the cleanest 17th century movie I've ever seen. Some of the dialogue is pretty ripe too and at times unintentionally humorous; when it's confirmed that Grace has been given a bed to sleep on in prison, Moorcraft replies "you must get rid of it; you're too lenient", which felt like a line from Blackadder II.

Marshall's movies are for the most part good in parts but overall a struggle to enjoy, and The Reckoning is no exception. It's way overlong, rather monotonous, and any feminist message is lost within the poor script, random dream imagery, moustache twirling villains and 17th century villagers with perfect teeth.