Among the delights on display include: a carved pumpkin with a human head inside; a religious person strangled with her own crucifix; a couple who play a chess game to the death; a murdered Santa Claus; weird time loops; murderous dummies; dolls; killer ladies; public safety films; mad scientists; gore; boobs; killer clowns; monsters; the Grim Reaper; suicidal vampires; zombies; and cannibalism.
Prolific filmmakers Tony Newton and Sam Mason-Bell, the honchos from Trash Arts who are behind this, feature heavily as well as other UK filmmakers like Jason Impey and Martin Payne. Daniel Dikov contributes some oblique and disturbing short films. But two stand out from the crowd; the genuinely weird 'Brain in a Jar' by Martin Sonntag, and 'Eat Drink and Be Scared' by Reuben Rodriguez. It's a mixed bunch but the 60 second imposed limit generally encourages, rather than fetters creativity.
This is mostly more Jones-by-numbers filmmaking, although with some flickers of interest. As usual he wants us to believe that the events we're watching are set in America, despite the obviously UK locations and dodgy US accents offered up by the Brit cast hopefuls; a glacial pace and dull script, weighed down with exposition and weak attempts at characterisation are also par for the course. But individual performances are good, notably Meredith as the creepy List/'Bob' who cuts an odd figure (one scene has him mowing the lawn in a suit). Wood is effective as List's second wife, and Rees's tenacious Stephanie goes all Rear Window, at one point roping in a friend to break into List's empty house. There are some other nice touches; List's building of a model house, complete with people, is a shorthand for his controlling urges, and there's a good last reel reveal on a True Crime TV show.
But sadly much of this is a slog; many in the cast are very wooden in performance, and while the photography is rich and confident, production values clearly aren't. Extra verisimilitude points for a scene where a shot is reversed to make the steering wheel on a right hand drive car magically move to the left.
But Eugene's father Francie, who owns a construction company, is charged with levelling the area around the cairn to make way for a bypass. The demolition of the gravestones releases Abhartach, who unleashes his reign of terror.
Sort of. Boys From County Hell is equal parts small town social observance - Six Mile Hill is a village which offers few opportunities for its younger occupants while giving them no resources to leave - as much as it is fright flick, and the two themes don't always sit easily together, making the film feel rather fragmented. The fun here is in the director playing fast and loose with vampire mythology; clearly Stoker and all his literary and cinematic antecedents have got it wrong all these years when it comes to sunlight and methods of despatch, and Abhartach, when he finally appears (played by go to monster in a suit guy Robert Nairne), is quite impressive.
Boys From County Hell is best when it's dealing with the frustrated and often sad lives of the villagers - grief of one form or another is common, and at one point William announces to Eugene that he's leaving to find his fortune in Australia, but without telling his practical girlfriend Claire (Louisa Harland), the only one of them to have a real job, serving behind the bar at The Stoker. It's an aspiration that he'll not achieve but which is realised in a bittersweet way at the end of the movie. The film has a lot of ideas, and it's impossible not to like it, but it left me feeling a bit dissatisfied.
In true micro-budget Lawson style, the director creates a 19th Century London of small rooms, dark courtyards and stock shots of London landmarks to create a sense of place, and in fairness makes a good job of it. We're offered a kind of alternate history of the Ripper story, with names changed, but the question of Jack's identity retained as the core of the dramatic interest.
We meet detective Edmund Rees (Phil Molloy) whose attempts to get one step ahead of a succession of murders of Whitechapel prostitutes is hampered by a newspaper reporter, Stubb (Chris Bell) who seems to be in receipt of classified information, even down to receiving letters from the Ripper himself.
The list of potentials for the murders is small (it's a Lawson production after all) but interesting: what about the alcoholic medical examiner Locque (an excellently sleazy turn from genre regular Jonathan Hansler) with an intimate knowledge of local brothels, domineering wife Elizabeth (Sylvia Robson) and wise cracking assistant Dodd (Jacob Anderton); or maybe the racist upper class Lowry (Barry Shannon) who maybe protests too much as President of the clean up brigade the 'Whitechapel Vigilance Committee'? And then there's local madam Miss Levine (Dawn Butler) whose husband, she describes cagily, died of 'misbehaviour'.
I won't reveal more, except that the identity of Jack is revealed, and may surprise you. Ripper Untold is all about the performances though, realised via a solid script, handsome production design and a fine score provided by Michael Vignola. The pace may be stately and the gore sparing, but this is a well delivered piece with some great attention to detail.
Glum Morgan (Megan Purvis) is returning to her journalism course at University following the death of her father. Her Professor suggests that she should take on a project to fire her up. Her researches take her to the subject of urban legends, and an online group called Legend Hunters. The head of this outfit organises a ritual summoning at a local church to which Morgan and her chums are invited. The result of the event is the conjuring up of a wishing demon, or Djinn. All seems ok for a while afterwards, but then the demon visits them, one by one, to offer them a wish; and being the trickster of legend, the results are disastrous.
To some extent the first half of the movie follows the pattern of Jeffreys', and many of his peers' other films. There's a lot of character set up and dialogue, but in this case it's important to the plot rather than just padding the movie out; to understand Morgan's friends' choices of wishes requires knowledge of why. But once the demon (played by the other go to monster in a suit guy Bao Tieu) starts plying his trade, there's a lot of fun in seeing the wishes go wrong; friend Gina (Barbara Dabson) for example wishes she were a successful model, and is turned into a creepy living doll as a result; and Lea (Sarah T. Cohen whose appearance in films like these is almost a pre-requisite) wishes herself to be a mum, for complex reasons integral to the story, is turned into a mummy instead.
Jeffreys lays on the vintage influences with gay abandon; the Genie/Djinn/Wishmaster is straight out of a Charles Band movie (courtesy of Midnight SFX who also provided the wolf heads for Charlie Steeds' A Werewolf in England); one later scene appears to take off 1987's The Monster Squad, and the whole thing is engulfed - but in a good way - by some classic 80s synth sounds by Kieran Jenkins. There's also some great bits of demon lore thrown in to the mix to spice up the plot. Conjuring the Genie may take a while to build up a head of steam but when it does it's exciting and impressive stuff.
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