Lawson’s version of the famous Robert Louis Stevenson
novella dances in and out of the original text. As the film opens Henry Jekyll
(Michael McKell, who gets to sing a power ballad over the end credits) draws up a will with family friend
and solicitor Gabriel Utterson (Tom Hendryk); in the event of Jekyll’s demise, the
whole of his estate is assigned to a Mr Hyde. The morning after, Jekyll is chased
back to his laboratory by the police, in the shape of Inspector Newcombe (Mark
Topping) who have accused him of murder; on gaining entry they find that
Jekyll, who has also been implicated in a number of other murders, has shot
himself dead.
Most of the rest of the movie is told in flashback via a
long letter from Jekyll delivered to Utterson, which describes his experiments,
the existence of Mr Hyde and the trail of violence that follows. Convinced of Jekyll’s
innocence in the face of almost incontrovertible evidence Utterson turns
amateur sleuth; but the truth is stranger than anybody expects.
Lawson’s micro budget adaptation relies, for the most part,
on accounts and descriptions of the action, rather than the action itself
(although the final reel generates some excitement which is pretty amazing
considering the paucity of the sets). There’s some rather ill-advised comedy in
the form of the Enfield character (David Lenik) who has some entanglements with
ladies of the night, but Sarah Utterson (Helen Crevel) is arguably the best
thing in this, handy with her fists but looking the part as the normally demure
solicitor’s wife. Slight, but not without appeal.
Radio host Linda Buxton (Nicola Wright), who runs a show
devoted to the unexplained, is losing ratings fast, and vows to her station
manager Shauna (Kate Sandison) that things will improve. Her daughters, heavily
pregnant Belle (Chelsea Greenwood) and girl from the military Lucy (Sarah
Alexandra Marks) rally round mum suggesting that she needs something new and exciting
to enliven the show. And Lucy has the answer: an investigation into what
happened to Dr Zizerman.
Linda, Belle and Lucy break into the scientist’s house and
eventually find the good doctor, dead and cocooned in his bedroom, and one of
the mutant spiders (actually they look more like a cross between a spider, a
scorpion and the ‘facehugger’ from Alien); Belle’s boyfriend Dan (Clint Gordon)
turns up, seemingly only to bicker and whinge with his partner, and they also come
across Shauna, who’s been checking up on Linda, together with assistant Lorena
(Danielle Scott). Whereas anyone else would do the sensible thing and exit
stage right, Linda senses a story and suggests that everyone hangs around to
get the scoop: big mistake.
Spider in the Attic is a little formulaic: like many micro
horrors I’ve reviewed the horror is interspersed with scenes of domestic intrigue and
of course the old B movie standby of wandering round an empty house. Jeffrey
deserves credit for casting, instead of the usual YouTube teen, an older actor
(Wright) who brings some gravitas to the role, and an all woman climax: and
while some of the spider CGI looks a little hokey, in their smaller
incarnations the creatures look quite scary, scuttling up walls or across beds.
The movie’s last half hour does mount some tension – despite
the abrupt end – improved by Andrew Fosberry’s atmospheric soundtrack, in
contrast to the rather talky first two thirds; Spider in the Attic isn’t great
but, like a lot of Jeffrey’s movies, it has its heart in the right place and is
definitely worth a watch.
Megan Purvis, sporting the by now obligatory but largely
redundant American accent required for at least one character in these things,
is Jessie Harper, a woman grieving her father (grief is often a narrative device in micro horrors I've noticed), a potholer who came across a
certain something in some local caves and died as a result (Purvis can do good ‘moody’
and is a natural for parts like this). Jake Watkins is Sam Harper, also sporting
a US accent (and who is possibly Jessie’s brother, or half-brother; it isn’t
that clear), and together they’re on a journey to reclaim dad’s honour; he died
a laughing stock, full of stories about underground monsters. In their
revisit of the same caves that took his life they’re accompanied by their
English friends Joanna (Georgie Grace) and Marty (Tom Taplin), the latter of
whom has a past with Jessie. Dad left behind a comprehensive handwritten
journal of his sightings, which the English pair dismiss as nonsense although
recognising the potential for profiteering, furthering rattling Jessie’s cage;
she wanted to travel alone.
Their descent into the caves is despite warnings from the
camp rangers; “Don’t go in the caves,” they advise, but Jessie’s full of
purpose. Pretty soon the party are without Marty who swiftly loses it and runs
off to the interior; somewhat inevitably he’s victim number one, and it’s not
long before the (rather impressive) beast emerges, first seen crawling along
the roof of one of the caves. Jessie and the rest of the gang become trapped in
the stony netherworld, and the rampant beast isn’t their only problem.
Despite the rather undercooked script there’s a lot to like in
It Came from Below; it really only gets going once the party descend into the
darkness, helped by some stunning photography from Dominic Ellis and Allen’s
tense direction. The creature’s pretty good value and although it doesn’t
feature in the movie that much, this is probably for the best. Domestic
disputes (another hallmark of UK low budget horror flicks) are kept to a
minimum, and Purvis makes for a convincingly terrified protagonist. I’m going
to guess from some of the exterior shots that the shoot was a cold and damp
one, which really adds to the atmosphere of dread. It’s not The Descent,
but then what is?
I’m not really giving the game away to confirm that there's a connection between the lock of hair and Leah’s strange nocturnal visitor. Actor
turned director Platt conjures up a beautifully framed, almost overly polite
ghost story, where the central tragedy is discovered clue by clue (stray
buttons, a doll, loose teeth), with Rachel and Leah at the centre of the
mystery. Things only threaten to transform to full on genre movie at its
climax; for the most part the story is happy to move slowly towards its
dramatic conclusion.
Martyr’s Lane would be a lesser thing without the twin
talents of Thompson and Sayer, the latter particularly achieving a delicate
balance of prosaic and mystical, quite a feat for someone so young. Thompson’s
Leah is a child adrift in a world of adults whose motivations remain a mystery
to her (scenes shot from her height emphasise this) and her parents’ staunch
Catholic faith runs at odds with Leah’s encounters with an increasingly strong
Rachel, who may or may not be real, but is the closest thing Leah has to a
friend. Martyr’s Lane may be a very mannered ghost story, but it’s one with a
lot of atmosphere, topped off with Erased Tapes collaborator Anne Müller’s
haunting score.
Arriving in a quiet part of the country they end up in a
small village. There’s one bar and a creepy graveyard with cages over the
graves. To keep something in, the girls muse? And they might be right; a local
woman is mauled by an unseen beast, and when the team are filming in the woods,
they’re approached by a local man (and ferret) who tells them that the area is
unsafe. As the team put their report together, things are gathering outside,
waiting for the moon to rise.
Put out by the re-energised Vipco label (which is currently giving
lifeblood to a number of recent UK fantastic titles), Bad Moon Rising is,
sadly, just bad. Hampered by some poor sound, indifferent acting and an almost
indecent lack of plot, at 75 mins this is a real chore to get through. Some of
the footage has obviously been kicking around for a while; the late Richard
Gladman, who died in 2016, plays himself as a journalist in one scene, and
internet sources make mention of filming an earlier version of the movie back in 2015.
I’m all for low
budget enthusiasm but Bad Moon Rising feels lazy, derivative and pretty
pointless. A credit for the ‘Essex Ferret Welfare Society’ is about the only
thing to commend it.
Hang on. Isn’t this the plot of M R James’s story ‘A Warning
to the Curious’? Why yes it is, and although director Tarrant does acknowledge the source text in the end credits of his 50 minute short (mistakenly
referring to it as a novel) it’s still a bit of a cheeky move. So we open with a
man digging in a coastal location for the remaining crown who gets bumped off
by a fearsome cove who tells him (altogether now) “no diggin’ ere!”. 12 years
later there’s a new treasure hunter in town: Pete Rattlebone (the oft used character name
of Australian actor Pete Tindal, 60s musician turned TV personality and
podcaster) who seeks the crown for himself, only to come across the ghostly
protector of the antique, a Mr Hagar, as opposed to the story’s ‘Ager’ (Noddy
Holder-esque Ian Kear).
Tarrant lifts stylistic chunks of Lawrence Gordon-Clark’s 1972
BBC adaptation of the story but adds a few ideas of his own, namely a female
ghost and a dream sequence in the hotel where Rattlebone stays. Jeff Crampton’s
score is sufficiently atmospheric, but there’s some ‘local’ acting which rather
lets the things down and the budget forces some awkward compromises (word processed texts inserted
into old books for example); it's ok but I would have preferred Tarrant to
create a story of his own.
A Curious Tale can be rented via Vimeo.
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