Here for Blood (Canada 2022: Dir Daniel Turres)

Facing the prospect of a looming exam, student Phoebe (Joelle Farrow) decides to foist her forthcoming lucrative babysitting gig onto her boyfriend Tom (Shawn Roberts) so she can cram. A reluctant Tom agrees. The charge he's sitting for is little Grace (Maya Misaljevic) who lives with her parents in a creepy house on the edge of town.

But when Tom and Grace are left alone after Grace's parents depart for the evening, the house comes under siege from a group of demon worshipping miscreants aiming to kidnap the little girl as part of an elaborate ritual. Tom and Grace, plus Phoebe and some friends who arrive at the house later, must do battle with the gang to save themselves and prevent a looming apocalypse.

I have deliberately written the above without disclosing that Here for Blood is actually a wild, violent and frequently hilarious horror comedy. Think the wild ride of Chelsea Stardust's 2019 movie Satanic Panic crossed with a bloodier episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Plus point number one is the casting of Roberts as the nice but dim beefcake boyfriend Tom. In real life Roberts is, for those who don't know - and ok that included me - a professional wrestler, and director Turres makes great use of his physique and grappling skills in the scenes where he duffs up the bad guys; there's also a nod to those Schwarzenegger movies where Arnie acts against cute little kids in a setup where the burly Tom has to interact with the diminutive Grace. Misaljevic is excellent as the quick witted and resourceful moppet in peril, up against a bunch of hapless bad guys who really didn't plan for the armed response they receive when trying to snatch the little girl. And finally; the violence. This ain't subtle stuff, but once it gets going faces get toasted on hot plates, heads are pulled off, throats are slashed...well you get the idea. Oh and did I mention that bloody demanding disembodied head voiced by Dee Snider from the band 'Twisted Sister'? Here for Blood is largely a comedy of incident rather than script (although there are a few sotto voce moments that made me laugh) but its gore soaked home alone horror, which shifts to an agreeably supernatural level about half way through, never lets up. It's a little overlong but I'll forgive that for the overall exuberance of direction and the fine cast's willingness to give themselves heart and soul (literally on occasion) to the project. 

Here for Blood screened at London's FrightFest on 25 August 2023.

The Sinners (Canada 2020: Dir Courtney Paige)

"My name is Aubrey Miller and this is how my body ended up at the bottom of a lake." So opens Paige's feature debut, a movie chock full of unreliable narrators and religious oppression.

Miller (Brenna Llewellyn) is a somewhat reluctant member of 'The Sins', a group of schoolgirls surviving under the yoke of stern religious tutelage who have decided to quietly rebel against the Christian teachings both scholastically and at home ("there is no church vs state because church already won," comments Miller of the town). Ostensibly led by Grace Carver (Kaitlyn Bernard), whose father is the town pastor, each of the members of 'The Sins' has taken on, as the title suggests, one of the seven deadly sins as their gang name: Miller is 'pride' (she is the most devout of the group, and owns two bibles, one for home and one for school) and Grace is 'lust,' a complex appelation as she is a virgin. 

The other members of the 'The Sins' are Grace's best frend Tori (Brenna Coates), with whom Grace started the gang, and whose anger management issues dub her 'wrath', Katie (Keilani Elizabeth Rose) as 'greed', Stacey (Jasmine Randhawa) as 'envy', Robyn (Natalie Malaika) as 'sloth' and Molly (Carly Fawcett) as 'gluttony.' 

The gang are rumbled when Miller confesses their existence to Grace's dad, Pastor Dean (Tahmoh Penikett). The Pastor is already deeply suspicious of Grace's behaviour, not least that she's been hanging round with slacker loser Kit (Dylan Playfair). 'The Sins' steal Grace's journal and read her disclosure about the confession; deciding to teach her a lesson the group kidnap Aubrey with a view to scaring her into keeping her mouth shut, but she manages to escape after being taken to the woods. Now missing, the town focuses on the search for Miller, but it's not long before members of 'the Sins' start turning up dead, one deadly sin after the other.

The Sinners is almost two separate films; the first half is a very David Lynchian assessment of small town life, full of quirky characters like the guy who runs a craft shop from his Airstream, and the town sherriff, Fred Middleton (Aleks Paunovic) whose seemingly oversexed wife is merely trying to get pregnant. These roles are no more more vital to the story than a requirement to provide 'local colour.' Paige soundtracks her film with breathy singer/songwriters and while 'The Sins' subtext may suggest something more devilish, the mood of the film for the most part avoids a dark path. 

It's only in the second part of the movie, where the murders commence, that it starts to feel a little shaky. Someone has etched the seven deadly sins on a desk at school and is mysteriously crossing them out after each corresponding death; it's a pretty clumsy idea, which has you questioning the logistics of being able to get away with doing it, rather than it suggesting anything more mysterious. There's the usual red herring suspects, and two of Middleton's past colleagues turn up and start ragging on him for no particular reason. 

The omnipresent voice of Aubrey Miller, hovering over the proceedings and commenting on the action, is a nice idea (if not particularly original) but is later found to be a faulty narrative device, and it's this muddled thought and lack of character clarity which ultimately brings the film down. The Sinners looks good but its uneven tone and lack of cohesion count against it. Shame.

Signature Entertainment releases What Lies Below on Digital Platforms from 22 February.

Butchers (Canada 2020: Dir Adrian Langley)

It's getting on for fifty years since Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre introduced audiences to the then innovative depiction of a rural cannibalistic household; as well as a very loose adaptation of the life and work of real life killer Ed Gein, the movie's murderous family were themselves a warped stereotypical re-definition of the archetypal American crime family.

And now in yet another version of the 'family that slays together, degenerates together' cinematic motif, Butchers' brutal prologue introduces brothers Owen (Simon Phillips) and Oswald (Michael Swatton), who've recently lost their mother (as we meet them they've just buried her in what looks like a makeshift cemetery). Opportunity presents itself when a young couple's car breaks down on a snowy road near their broken down home. The male of the couple is killed but the female is held captive and, eventually, impregnated. By who, it is unclear: the voluble Owen, his considerably regressed brother Oswald, or maybe even the strange misshapen third sibling Oxford (Jonathan Largy), heard rather than seen, lumbering around their shack? 

Flash forward slightly to 1998, and four young friends are out on the road when their car breaks down, possibly in much the same spot. Chris (Frederik Storm) and Jenna (Julie Mainville) wait by the car, while Jenna's boyfriend Mike (James Hicks) and Taylor (Anne-Carolyne Binette) head off to find help. Jenna uses 'the facilities' and trips a wire attached to a bell which alerts Owen and Oswald to company. She sees a bloody handprint on a tree, which is odd, because, she concludes, "it's not hunting season." Yet.

Meanwhile Mike and Taylor get a little romantically sidetracked; yes they've been having a thing, even though Taylor is supposedly Jenna's best friend. They eventually find a garage, managed by Owen, who arranges for a tow truck to come and collect their car (this will be driven by family member Willard (Nick Allan), who, one won't be surprised, is more adjusted than the rest of his kin). Chris and Jenna, still waiting by the automobile, spy a character in the woods, watching them and taking Polaroids (a TCM reference). Things are about to get very unpleasant for all four of the unsuspecting youngsters.

While Langley's Canadian filmed and located feature (and oh it so desperately wants to give off a small town US feel, despite in part being filmed in an Ottowa Heritage Village) tries to do something a little different with a very familiar setup, Butchers feels like a movie out of time (mind you I thought the 'Wrong Turn' franchise had pretty much worn out the theme, and even that movie series has been re-booted this year). The director wants us to draw parallels between Mike's lustful leanings - Jenna, who's clearly aware what's going on, feels that men just can't help themselves - and the urges of Oswald and his clan (although the cannibalistic side seems to be reserved for Oxford). He also shows the brothers as an exercise in degeneration: Oswald is cultured and urbane (ok, that's a relative term here), whereas drooling debased Owen represents the next rung down (there's a scene in which he's learning to read, using 'Hamlet' as his chosen text, which Oswald clearly knows word for word), and Oxford is the geek locked up except for special occasions.

But underneath this Butchers is still just another entry of the pain and misery porn variety, even if the gore is lighter than expected and the cast get to keep their clothes on. It's well made but rather lacking in tension, which is maybe down to the fact that I've seen this story so many times before. Not great then.

Butchers is released on Digital download from 22 February and DVD from 8 March 2021.

Level 16 (Canada 2018: Dir Danika Asterhazy)

In Asterhazy's downbeat, austere and time unspecific sci fi drama we are introduced to a group of girls who all live in a confined facility, The Vestalis Academy, composed of a number of different floor levels. The young women follow a strict code of behaviour and activity which governs their every move as they 'graduate' to successive levels under the wary eye of the uptight Miss Brixil (Sara Canning): two of their number, Sophia (Celina Martin) and Viven (Katie Douglas) have, contrary to the rules, formed a friendship which is tested when, occupying level 10, Vivien is punished for helping Sophia and stepping out of line in the nightly washing ritual as a result. The nature of this punishment is not specified but is severe enough to make Vivien colder and more ruthless, hinting at something more sinister behind the seemingly benevolent setup.

Six years later Vivien, now 16, has with a number of others been selected to move to the highest floor of the facility, appropriately level 16 - one for each year of their lives. It is here we learn that the girls will complete their moral devotions and prepare for adoption: for this is an orphanage, and the girls are being trained to take their place as dutiful 'daughters' in wealthy families and, for the first time, venture into the outside world and even 'see the sky.' On Level 16 Sophia and Vivien meet again, and gradually renew their friendship. But Sophia has a message for Vivien that all is not as it seems in the orphanage: it seems that there's a more sinister purpose behind the setup.

Anyone who has read or seen adaptations of either Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' or Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' will probably guess the dark heart of this movie quite early on: and in truth Level 16 is a movie combining elements of both. But that's not to say that within its obviously limited budget it doesn't retain interest. The setting, a grim network of grey rooms and corridors, suggests that Michael Radford's bleak 1984 adaptation of George Orwell's novel of the same name may also have been an influence.

Asterhazy wisely focuses on her cast rather than their dramatically limited surroundings, and there's a stunning central performance from Katie Douglas as Vivien, who moves from self appointed top girl status to a frightened young woman as the extent of the Academy's true purpose becomes known. The rest of the cast are affecting in their buttoned up-ness, their closed rank conformity only betrayed by their frightened eyes; there's a great moment when, on level 16, each of the girls is given a dress with their name written on a sash; Vivien hold hers up and asks "What does it say?" Knowing that the expert tuition of the girls doesn't include learning to read is a chilling moment.

Despite its influences Level 16 emerges as a credible film in its own right. Creepy, occasionally rather lyrical and at times deeply disturbing, it's an assured movie that knows its own limits and works effectively within them. Definitely worth a look.

Level 16 is available on digital platforms from 27th May 2019.

Distorted (Canada 2018: Dir Rob W. King)

King's latest movie, his first since the dystopian Nicolas Cage vehicle The Humanity Bureau back in 2017, covers similarly glum territory - cynical government forces and expendable humans - but to somewhat better effect.

Lauren Curran (Christina Ricci), a self confessed manic depressive, is looking for new surroundings to take her mind off her past troubles. Husband Russell (Brendan Fletcher) finds a luxury tower block in the middle of nowhere called The Pinnacle, boasting state of the art features but offering her the solitude she craves (a very Ballardian concept).

But of course a happy life in her new home wouldn't make for a very interesting movie, so it's not long before the clearly still troubled Lauren develops paranoid feelings, mainly centred on other residents of the high rise, but made worse when she 'sees' subliminal messaging coming from the TV. Russell has been through all this before - there is a painful back story around the death of their child - and remains understanding but increasingly intolerant of her theories.

It's only when she stumbles across a journalist and dark tech expert in a chat room (real name Vernon, played by Trump baiting John Cusack) that she realises her supposed delusions are rooted in truth, and the complex in which she lives has an altogether more sinister purpose.

Distorted is refreshingly old school in its 'who can you trust?' storyline and subject matter of surveillance and mind control - although as Vernon comments, when he assures Lauren of the truth behind her suppositions, the world has finally arrived at the technological point where the wildest ravings of conspiracy theorists can now fairly easily be enacted.

Former child starlet Ricci, now approaching 40, still has the wide eyed innocent look which has probably denied her many leading roles but which suits her well as the vulnerable Lauren, and her ability to transform from scared wife to a woman of action is good to see. Her co star, John Cusack, is his insouciant best in a role requiring him to do little more than mutter tech speak and walk around in a hooded black anorak, looking like the murderous Cash Flagg persona of the late great film director Ray Dennis Steckler. And Brendan Fletcher is landed with the role of the husband who may be straight down the line or up to his neck in it, which to be fair he could do in his sleep.

At a little over an hour and a quarter, the movie zips along very nicely. It's only the last third where there's clearly been some judicious editing, which may have been done to maintain narrative pace but not without sacrificing some clarity of plot. But it's good to see an old fashioned conspiracy movie without an over reliance on hardware, favouring character over set pieces.

Distorted will be available on digital download from 4th February.

Pyewacket (Canada 2017: Dir Adam MacDonald)

The Dark Eyes of London site has been a rather singular pursuit of mine for the past five years, but I'm not immune to accepting the odd guest contribution from time to time - gives me time to go and make a cup of tea. The following has been written by Richard Halfhide, who has his own site, the extremely informative and highly commendable All Slights Deserved.

The name ‘Pyewacket’ first appeared in The Discovery of Witches, a 1647 pamphlet published by Matthew Hopkins, the infamous Witchfinder General. Described as having an appearance that “no mortal could invent”, Hopkins claimed Pyewacket was among a motley assortment of colourfully-titled familiar spirits (among them ‘Vinegar Tom’ and ‘Sacke and Sugar’) that a witch in Essex summoned forth following the witch hunters’ usual methods of persuasion, thereby earning herself a trip to the gallows for her troubles. 

Fortunately, those dabbling in witchcraft today have less to fear from Puritan reprisals, but far darker consequences may still ensue, according to the latest effort by Canadian writer/director Adam MacDonald. It’s the story of Leah (Nicole Muñoz), an angst-ridden teen whose fraught relationship with her recently widowed mother (Laurie Holden) reaches breaking point after the latter decides they should relocate to a remote house out in the sticks. Determined to be rid of her antagonist, and inspired by a recent meeting with an occult author, Leah casts a spell that inadvertently summons the titular entity.

Nicole Muñoz as Leah in Pyewacket

Unsurprisingly, what follows is very much a case of ‘be careful what you wish for.’ Pyewacket’s malign influence is first teased by a series of inexplicable incidents, leading up to more sinister occurrences. Claustrophobic camerawork does an effective job of drawing us into Leah’s darkening, increasingly introspective world. Yet there’s an annoying tendency for scenes to be a little too tight, when character development and horror alike might have benefitted from being drawn out. 

As the troubled teen, Muñoz performs ably, while Holden, best known for her appearances in The Walking Dead, has the ideal face for her ambivalent role, particularly in the latter stages. Unfortunately the script really doesn’t really give them enough to delve beneath the surface of their dynamic and the dialogue is sometimes wincingly clunky, making it difficult to feel much sympathy for either.  

There is, however, a foreboding atmosphere to the cinematography and Pyewacket’s first appearance, a shadowy presence in the corner of a room, is well executed. While it’s been bracketed with the new wave of Canadian cinema, the tone (visually and figuratively) put me more in mind of US indie psycho-thriller Super Dark Times. But whereas that film had the confidence to let the dread simmer into a toxic brew, Pyewacket seems to feel obliged to add further ingredients. One particular later scene featuring a Skype conversation is a serious misstep; a sop to a commercial formula that does the story no favours when it would have been better to explore Leah’s growing sense of alienation.

Ultimately, it comes across oddly like a torn-from-the-headlines TV movie, as though the story had been inspired by an actual incident, albeit with some added sensationalism. This may have been the intention, but it feels like a clumsy compromise of plot over substance. As an exploration of the relationship between a mother and daughter, Pyewacket is clearly geared towards a very different audience than Greta Gerwig’s whimsical Lady Bird, but that doesn’t mean richer characterisation is off limits.

Never Steady, Never Still (Canada 2017: Dir Kathleen Hepburn)

The bleak, inhospitable wastes of Canada's British Columbia provide the setting for Kathleen Hepburn's debut directorial feature about a year in the life of Judy, a woman in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease trying to keep her life together following the death of her husband.

The always reliable Shirley Henderson plays Judy, who has lived with the disease for the majority of her life with husband Ed. Their somewhat indolent son Jamie makes up the family, kicking around at home until Ed finds him work in the nearby oil rigs. When her husband dies suddenly, Judy must learn to fend for herself. The harshness of the landscape and her progressive disease conspire to make everyday living incredibly difficult, while Jamie, bullied at work, intensely unhappy and wrestling with issues of sexual identity, rejects the need to take his father's place in the household, favouring instead a life of hedonism and escape.

If the synopsis outlined above suggests that Never Steady, Never Still isn't an easy watch, you'd be right. Occasionally it's also an unsatisfying one. The elements are all in the right place: Norm Li's photography, with the authentic Canadian locations building up a genuine sense of place, all naked branches, vast snowy wastes and rolling seas, is often stunning; and Ben Fox's minimal synth pieces underscore the film's natural soundtrack well. Shooting on 35mm provides an organic feel to the movie, which digital arguably would have made too harsh. This is a slow film, letting the landscape do the talking; unfortunately the script and the human drama on display aren't always as impressive. Hepburn has cited the inspiration for the film from her own relationship with her mother who also lived with Parkinson's for over twenty years. This closeness to the subject matter certainly makes Never Steady, Never Still a very personal film, full of small details. But the bigger drama, and the motivations of the characters is at times rather lost.

Henderson's portrayal of Judy is impressive - she captures the crippling limitations of the disease well, and the constant tensions between her status as 'patient' and the need to remain an independent, living and loving woman are sympathetically and powerfully rendered, particularly in her relationship with the young, healthy and pregnant delivery girl Kaly, with whom she strikes up a friendship. And Theodore Pellerin as Jamie, 18 at the time of filming, captures the frustration and ungainliness of someone trapped between boy and man.

But there are some tonal and pacing issues here, perhaps symptomatic of a first feature - one scene, featuring an extended conversation with Jamie and Kaly towards the end of the film, simply goes on far too long and disrupts the flow of the movie.

Hepburn's film is never less than impressive in its depiction of characters struggling in difficult climes, and facing hardships that most of us will never experience. I would just have liked more than landscape and character.

Black Mountain Side (Canada 2014: Dir Nick Szostakiwskyj)

The creepy and beguiling Black Mountain Side has now officially achieved movie 'sleeper status'; it was made back in 2014, spent most of 2015 doing the US festival circuit, only finally getting a UK home release in the second part of 2016 (no theatrical run sadly), with the distributors mysteriously dropping 'Side' from the DVD issue, which I'm choosing to ignore. If a director as talented as the early twenty-something Nick Szostakiwskyj (who also wrote and co-produced the film) thinks Black Mountain Side's ok for a title, that's good enough for me.

This intense snowbound psychological brain bender has been described as a love letter to John Carpenter's 1982 movie The Thing, which is fair; as well as sharing a wintry backdrop - Canada's British Colombia - the film also features an all male cast of archaeologists who are driven collectively crazy following the discovery of an ancient shrine in the mountains. But there are other valid comparisons - the steadicam gliding over the snow, tracking the characters as their screws start to loosen, recalls the menacing camera sweeps of 1980's The Shining, and there's a touch of Sam Raimi's 1981 splatterfest The Evil Dead in the claustrophobic wood cabin environments shared by the men.

The cast of Black Mountain Side uttering a collective "WTF?"

Black Mountain Side takes a while to set up its horror and body count. The introduction of an expert on ancient structures, brought in to the group to help solve the mystery of the shrine, is the point at which the story takes off. But as much as we do get a rather Lovecraftian explanation involving ancient bacteria and a cult of self-mutilation, we remain as confused as the rest of the team about what is real and what is hallucination, particularly when the focal point of the force - a strange elk-like creature
who may or may not have a glowing nose - is finally revealed.

Strange stuff indeed and as well as some pin-sharp acting performances the film's sound design is crucial here - there's no score, just the endless silence of deep snowfall and the ticks and creaks of the cabins, so when the sharp bursts of violence occur among the men it's all the more shocking. The director has described the shoot as very intense. He hired some out of season holiday cabins deep in the forest - undoubtedly charming in summer but bleak and inhospitable in the depths of winter - with the cast sleeping where they were filming, helping to create a hugely oppressive atmosphere. That the film refuses to deliver a happy ending is probably a given - that it manages to create a mounting sense of tension despite the increasingly unusual events on screen makes me recommend it to you wholeheartedly. A film to watch more than once, certainly.

Unspoken (Canada 2015: Dir Sheldon Wilson)

It makes a refreshing change to see a low budget spook movie that isn't the output of a director working on his (or her) first film. Indeed Unspoken's Sheldon Wilson has a reasonable CV of small scale horror quickies under his belt, albeit mostly shot for TV.

Unspoken was made in 2014 under the original and far more descriptive title The Haunting of Briar House. By the time it played at the UK's FrightFest Halloween all dayer last year the title had been changed to The Unspoken. For the 2016 DVD release the definite article has been dropped and it's just Unspoken. Huh?

Unspoken focuses on a house in the woods that, in an effective and quite frightening prologue, is shown to be the scene of a mass murder and a family abduction by unknown forces - afterwards the place gets a reputation as 'the Briar House' which no-one will go near. Seventeen years later a young woman, Ruby, and her strange mute son Adrian move into the house, knowing nothing about its history and seeking a secluded country retreat to help get over the death of Adrian's father.

Local teenager Angela, who works in a children's nursery, learns of Ruby's need for someone to help with Adrian and offers her services - she is motherless and the extra cash will come in handy as her father is unemployed. Adrian is a strange and haunted little boy (well played by Sunny Suljic, all furrowed brow and pinched face) and it's not long before Angela experiences weird things in the house; rattling doors and marbles moving of their own accord. Angela's friend Pandy, who seems more than just a friend to our childminder, also runs with the local tearaways, who give her a tough time about her sexual leanings. They rope her in to breaking into the Briar House to take back the stash of drugs and 'other things' they've stored there while the house was empty, using its reputation as a safe hideaway. The break-in unleashes a force within the house which threatens anyone in it - starting with Angela's friend - and when Pandey's wrong-side-of-the-tracks cohorts, realising that she has gone missing, follow her in to recover their booty, the house takes its revenge.

Spooky Adrian (played by Sunny Suljic)

Unspoken seems to throw pretty much everything into the mix in the hope of creating an effective haunted house movie. There's a creepy handyman, strange visions, flying objects and a million jump scares. It also delivers a final reel twist that left me almost speechless - which anyone who knows me will understand is a rare phenomenon. I'll give nothing away except to mention that if you saw, and thought the denouement of Alistair Legrand's The Diabolical hard to swallow (a film which offers an equally off the wall explanation for a haunting), you won't know where to start with this one. It's that odd.

More positively I really liked the first half of this film. It's a pleasing slow burner with a promising atmospheric prologue. The camera creeps around uneasily and the cast are genuinely backwoods in look and behaviour. Things go off the rails with some random gore, which upsets the tone and remains unexplained. After which, and before that payoff, Unspoken turns into a spook movie farce, with various characters running in and out of the seemingly endless numbers of cabin doors. Thankfully trousers stay up.

Wilson's CV shows that he's not about making Oscar nominated movies, which is fine by me. However quite how this one will be remembered when the Canadian director's work is reviewed in the future I'm not so sure. A step forward from his twin 2011 disaster-movies-on-a-dollar offerings Killer Mountain and Snowmageddon? Or a step back from his 2004 movie Shallow Ground which at least made sense, and secured enough interest to manage a UK and US theatrical release, a fate unlikely to befall Unspoken.

The Dirties (Canada 2013: Dir Matt Johnson)

We truly live in meta times. Canadian movie The Dirties is the product of director/producer/co-writer Matt Johnson (who also plays the 'lead' in the film), whose inspiration seems not only to be the real life high school shooting incidents of recent times, but equally importantly cinema itself (or more precisely the process of making film, where scenes can be cued and reviewed at will for endless and isolated exploration, and key lines of dialogue can be played again and again until they assume some kind of truth). The Dirties is constructed, not seamlessly, but with the various parts knocking together, tethered by movie references, memories of Columbine style reportage, slacker comedy set scenes, and an almost random indie band soundtrack. It's a film that, like its lead character, is created and defined while we watch it being pieced together, and where the underlying truth of what we're seeing is only fully realised in the film's final few minutes.

The Dirties centres around two film obsessed high school students, Matt and Owen, who because of their 'otherness' are subjected to relentless bullying by a gang called The Dirties. Matt and Owen's physical response to the actions of the gang is for the most part completely passive, but they vent their frustration with their predicament by creating a film called 'The Dirties', which shows them seeking violent revenge on the gang, mediated almost entirely via scenes from Hollywood films like The Usual Suspects (1995) and Pulp Fiction (1994). In this there is also a direct comparison to Joshua Oppenheimer's devastating The Act of Killing (2012). That their film is pieced together within the film we're watching, showing an imagined response to bulllying contrasting with their real handling of the issue, is the heart of The Dirties, as Matt grows to realise via the film he's making, that the real way to escape his miserable situation is for life to imitate art.

The film pulls off the cinematic trick of showing the audience the human side of Matt and Owen, eliciting our sympathy with their plight and our anger at their treatment, feelings which remain with us even in the film's closing scenes. Matt in particular is a true oddball and the real bullying target. His obsession with revenge alienates him from Owen while at the same time making him an increasingly fascinating character for viewers. The film they produce and show to their disinterested class is an odd unfocused mess, if amusingly made (there's a nod to the Steve Martin vehicle Bowfinger (1999) in a moment where they surreptitiously film one of their female classmates voicing a line of dialogue that they need for a scene). The ambitions of their film show how far apart they are from the rest of the school in terms of artistic vision, but the inability of both class and teacher to understand what's on screen only seems to exacerbate the bullying.

The increasing darkness and seeming inevitability of the film's final section is brilliantly nuanced in a scene where Matt, viewed rendering the closing credit sequence of his movie (which of course become the end titles of the film we're watching), turns to the camera and explains that, because of what he's about to do, someone else will need to finish the edit - they do by the way, and the closing credits are brilliant. That Matt only finally seems strong with a gun in his hand, walking the corridors of his school with a motivation which only he and the viewing audience understand, is arguably The Dirties most meta and devastating moment.