NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #19: Reviews of Haunted 4: Demons (UK 2020), Unit Eleven (UK 2020), Paracide (UK 2020) Glia (UK 2020), Humanus (UK 2020), The World We Knew (UK 2020), People in Landscape (UK 2020) and Ascension Chronicles (UK 2020)

Haunted 4: Demons (UK 2020: Dir Steven M. Smith) I've found Smith's 'fiction' fantastic movies pretty hard going, but the prospect of having to sit through one of a number of the director's Most Haunted style reportage features too is a real test of the requirements of the British Fantastic Film project.

My predecessor on this venture, MJ Simpson (who comprehensively covered British Fantastic Films from 2000 to 2019) had to sit through the first three of Smith's Haunted series, concluding, by instalment 3, that "it's difficult to see who could possibly enjoy this evaporated nothing of a film". 

Harsh but arguably fair. Where MJ had the edge on me is that the first three films of the series clocked in at around 80 minutes each; Haunted 4: Demons is over two punishing hours long.

For those not acquainted with these works, the Haunted series follows the format of most 'real life' ghost hunting programmes, gathering a team of 'experts' in a location reputed to be a locus for supernatural activity; in 4's case it's a unprepossessing 1950's semi detached house, supposedly haunted by the ghost of a little girl called Lily. Some of the 'experts' in Smith's film are actors, so it's a sort of 'dramamentary', with lots of scientific stuff thrown in to make things more exciting - they don't. Consistent throughout the series is actor Jon-Paul Gates playing, er, Jon-Paul (credited as 'The Medium') who, with his spirit guide Frank (!) is the conduit through which the spooky goings on in the episodes are explained.

Also returning is Chris Bell, playing series presenter Andrew Robinson. Bell's Essex brogue, combined with the po-faced bobbins coming out of his mouth at regular intervals, makes him sound like a less funny Garth Marenghi. At some point he will have his fortune read and will be told he is destined for great things, which clearly came true as he went on to appear in four Steve Lawson movies and made his own - The Heiress - all much better than this nonsense.

"This is really feeling like a negative vortex now" says The Medium at one point, and he'd be right. There really is only so much of this that one person can take. But the movie has notched up nearly 4.5K views on YouTube to date, so what do I know?

Unit Eleven (UK 2020: Dir Theo Cane Garvey) It's 2035 and the country has gone thruppenny bits up; now a lawless society, the government and the police have retreated, and the UK has been segregated into heavily defended zones, run by gangs with names like Trojans and the Hackenthorpe Klash Force (one of a number of locational references to Sheffield, the City in which the film was shot). Money remains the currency of trade, used for the purchase of food and drugs.

Meanwhile David Maeson (the late Carl Kendall, who passed away in 2018, which gives some indication as to how long the film has been in gestation) has been keeping his wife Diane alive (ish) with regular injections of the drug called Riconium. But he needs more and in the latest batch realises that someone has also nicked a vial of Unit Eleven, containing a superformula which can bond with living tissue. The government want it back and are prepared to pay handsomely for its return; but Maeson has other ideas.

Garvey's incredibly fast paced feature debut - the director also edited and did an amazing job - is an almost non stop barrage of blokes fighting and yelling at each other. The number of photographers involved with the project again hints at the period of time taken to put the thing together, but one thing's for certain; Sheffield has enough grim points of interest to make for a convincing doom future backdrop. Unit Eleven is best seen as a South Yorkshire version of one of those 1980s Italian post apocalypse movies. It's not really my sort of thing but you can't help appreciate the effort that's gone into putting it together.

Paracide (UK 2020: Dir Paul Heron) I was commenting in another review that the concept of the multiverse is a gift for low budget filmmakers. Heron's single feature (to date) is the perfect example of this in operation.

Simon (Joe Davis) and his mates are off to a sci fi convention; the trouble is, they never make it, as the vehicle in which they're travelling is involved in a car crash.

But when Simon comes to, he's in a suburban bedroom which he's never seen before, in the middle of a swingers' party. And if that's not confusing enough, when he returns home his friends who were in the crash are just sitting there with no knowledge of what happened; he also finds out that he's been sacked from his work for 'lewd behaviour', with no knowledge of this happening.

From this point Simon gradually understands, courtesy of his guide and protector U (Helen Lewis), that the car crash has plunged him into a series of alternate dimensions, and also the mystery of a sphere which popped up in his garden and which the bad guys seem to want. U, who works for the 'Multiverse Investigation Agency', helps him navigate his new world, a place which includes The Naughty Pants Spa, complete with fake ads, ghostly Psi-fish and in house seer Stasi (Kat Majewska), and a convent comprising nuns with a cucumber fetish; oh and a bloke in a werewolf mask.

Paracide won the 'Best British Feature' award at the 2020 London Independent Film Awards and it would be a cruel person to pass comment that competition couldn't have been stiff that year. Heron's film tries so hard, but ultimately it's attention deficit filmmaking which was probably more fun to make than watch. If you can get through nearly two hours of almost constant atonal synth soundtrack (Heron himself channeling, and losing contact with, the spirit of 1970s era BBC Radiophonic Workshop) and Davis, a likeable chap but whose overuse, either naked or dressed in women's clothes or as a nun, quickly makes him outstay his welcome, you'll be doing very well. I shouldn't be hard on this jumble of Douglas Adamsisms, but it really is a chore to sit through.

Glia (UK 2020: Dir Richard Faria) A film you have to access via an app and watch on your phone, you say? I've long rallied against the viewing of movies on mobile devices, and I'm not used to film companies, however independent, mining my data just for the opportunity to view their output, but for the sake of the BFF project I did just that.

And I'm really pleased I did. Glia is a really well made, ambitious (but not overly so) sci fi which does a lot with its meagre resources. Set in the very near future, Alex (Arnas Fedaravicius) is a poorly paid, entry level grunt, employed by a Cambridge based biotech company. When he complains about his conditions of service, the company boss reminds Alex that there are no rules, and his employment is a golden opportunity to "get something started".

And so he does. Recognising the opportunity to manufacture a cheap copy of a well known, and very expensive neuroenhancer called 'Modafinil', he ropes in fellow students Satish (Fady Elsayed) and Gunther (Bobby Lockwood) and launches into production, with the aid of some loaned robots. But Alex's desire for success means that he sidesteps the inevitable animal testing of the prototype and takes it himself. The ingested drug has an almost instant effect, turning Alex into a hyper aware, super intelligent version of himself. But his process shortcuts have an unfortunate side effect; the instability of the tablets makes them transmittable by touch, and very quickly Alex and his friends draw the attention of the military, who are keen to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.

Like so many indie genre films, the action is more talked about than done, but in this case care has been taken with the production values, and the robotic scenes - courtesy of the Global Robots company in Bedford, look both fabulous and believable. Glia opts for a rather oblique ending (although the film website offers the opportunity of a different one too) but the whole thing is a joy to watch, even if my only option was on a tiny screen; I'd have loved to have seen it on a bigger one.

You can access Glia here.

Humanus (UK 2020: Dir Steve Mitchell) Here's something very unusual; Mitchell is writer, producer and director of this horror musical, and is also the boss of Back 2 Front films, a company whose projects star people with physical and learning disabilities. The majority of the cast of Humanus therefore comprises people with disabilities, which makes the film refreshingly different and surprisingly honest as a creature feature.

When young Molly's boyfriend goes missing, rather than alerting the police she enlists the services of a psychic, Madame Belle (Melanie Morgan) to track him down. The good news is that MB is successful in making contact with the boyfriend; the bad news (for Molly) is that the success means he's dead, the latest victim of a killer who has been murdering (and in some cases beheading) the locals. And as the bodies pile up, so does the reception area of limbo presided over by two women who guard the entrances to heaven and hell.

So what's going on? Well a less than generous answer would be 'who knows?' but it seems to have something to do with the creation of a lab created drink which, when consumed, has terrible side effects; the bodies procured are in connection with the potion, and the whole thing is the brainchild of the other worldly Princess Lamia (Robyn Horne). It's probably best not to think too deeply about all this, and to appreciate the film for what it is; an anarchic and often very funny showcase for people who don't normally get the chance to perform in front of the camera. So we get some primitive gore, fabulous songs (courtesy of Mitchell), a few dance numbers and an awful lot of inventive larking about. Rather good, actually.

The World We Knew (UK 2020: Dir Matthew Benjamin Jones, Luke Skinner) After a bungled heist which has left a policeman dead and one of their number severely injured, a gang of six robbers hole up in a large house to lie low. And that's where the trouble starts.

I confess I'm not a huge fan of this type of setup, and Jones and Skinner's debut feature didn't convince me otherwise. For some bizarre reason the criminals are named after (male) horror alumni - Barker, Gordon, Carpenter, Stoker, HP etc - which suggests that we might get to see 'the horror' after all rather than a bunch of bickering, sweary blokes gradually losing their shit and imagining things.

TWWK is clearly designed to evoke mood rather than offer us something narratively interesting, but the pace is slow and the setup somewhat of a cliche. Struan Rodger as veteran crim Barker (who'd been here before in the admirable Kill List) gets to tell some stories by the campfire, as it were, and Johann Myers, as Gordon, effectively loses his marbles (although he's the only black actor in the group and the first to the marching powder...hmmm). But overall this was inconclusive stuff which kept me waiting for a payoff that never happened.

People in Landscape (UK 2020: Dir Benjamin Rider) The sixth title of 2020's 'Fantastic' films that I've classified as 'Esoteric', and as usual when covering films like this, it's difficult to know where to begin, because any summary of 'plot' really isn't going to help you.

Sandra and her husband David are coming to the end of their marriage; well at least that's David's position. Sandra may have suggested divorce out loud in the middle of a dream, but David is taking her up on it, dismissing all their planning for the future - including having kids - as belonging to a different time. Sandra, despairing, thinks that the news will 'bring about the end of the world'.

And she may be right. In a series of vignettes, the world is clearly not right. Sandra, packing to move out of the marital home, records a number of advisory blogs to help others, all delivered with a manic energy. 

Elsewhere a guy called Alex is having an affair, with a woman also named Alex. He's having second thoughts, but when he finds his lover dead, via an accidental bathtub drowning, he must dispose of her body. Missing Alex triggers concerns with her mother Jodi, and the discovery of a woman's body at the foot of some cliffs confirms mum's worst fears. Other couples fall out and make up, including another Alex, where the bone of contention between him and his partner is the reappearance of a childhood imaginary friend, a lizard called Velez (voiced by Eric Roberts...yes the Eric Roberts). At the end of a movie, a talking wig mannequin (Gina Gershon...yes the Gina Gershon) will attempt to explain things.

PiaL is as odd as it sounds, but is extremely well put together. You may not understand what's going on all the time, but there is an overall themes of identity, control and chaos warring against each other which works really well, assisted by some great if bizarre performances and a score which pilfers naughtily but effectively. Not for everyone, but a real curio.

Ascension Chronicles (UK 2020: Dir Danny Cotton) Cotton's hour and a bit armchair sci fi movie, filmed in the first wave of COVID lockdown, charts the spread of a seismic event, named 'The Burn'.

Initially experienced as a bright flash in the sky to which those directly exposed become infected and start to turn angry, the authorities instruct the populace to stay inside until the spread can be contained. Sound familiar?

AC documents things via a number of people recording direct to phone/camera. There's anxious Maxine (Francesca Louise White, Walking Against the Rain, Ship of the Damned) who provides the narrative on what's happening; two guys, separated from each other (Ryan Bennett and Richard Collins); and the stockpiling conspiracy theorist of the piece, Eran Wade (Peter Long) whose written on card pontifications to his home security camera (accurately) suggest that the whole thing is a front for an alien invasion.

What Cotton's film lacks in spectacle it sort of makes up for with good characterisation and a sense of desperation and loneliness. I suspect that, with the whole thing being filmed during lockdown (no two actors are filmed next to each other) it wasn't hard to dig deep for the necessary mood; White's transition as one of the infected from angry and snarling to beatific and serene is satisfyingly creepy, and the movie manages to stay involving despite the paucity of resources and the constraints of filming.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #18: Reviews of A Helical (UK 2020), Black Box (UK 2020), Dark Web: Mystery Box (UK 2020), Fearfully Made (UK 2020), Goodbye Mary (UK 2020) and House of the Laughing Cuckoo Clocks (UK 2020)

A Helical (UK 2020: Dir Marcus McMahon) Stephen Richardson's glacial synth score and some impressive visuals kick off McMahon's impressive, puzzling and ultimately inscrutable 30 minute sci fi short. A man, the helical of the title, appears on an Earth like planet, confronting first a vision of his, or at least a mother, and then three antagonistic blinking men, as he walks through the subways and spaces of this strange environment, until he eventually reaches what could be a stargate: oh and there's a Zardoz like head which dispenses sage if baffling advice.

This is all about the mood; don't go looking for answers, you've come to the wrong place. A Helical is a master class in lighting, stunningly clear photography, a chilling score and enigmatic dialogue. McMahon's choice of locations, such as the south London subways of Crystal Palace, impressively renders earthbound places strange and unusual.

In its beautiful inaccessibility it reminded me of the equally impenetrable films of John Harrigan. "You are born into a pattern. You are a pattern" we are told. I'm sure you are old chap.

You can watch A Helical here. 

Black Box (UK 202: Dir Angel Delgado) Tyco Silver 7 is a space pod containing a lone man who awakes in the drifting vessel unsure who he is or how he got there. Said man is Marcus (Garry Graham-Smith) and by a process of mental reconstruction he works out that he's the sole survivor of an accident in space; his task is now to journey home with the black box that holds the key to the disaster. He's also injured and not exactly in peak condition, so the odds are rather stacked against him.

He's assisted in his endeavour by Sarah (Kelly Ely), a remote intern who helps him reassemble his thoughts and, as a non astronaut, to make sense of the switches and dials in front of him. There's also engineer Ray Getty (Simon Parker), whose lack of people skills is the last thing Marcus needs.

As another pod moves into view, potentially containing another survivor of the crash, Marcus's objectives are split; rendezvous with the other craft or sit tight and deliver both him and the black box safely?

Black Box's setup - one guy and a series of disembodied voices - rather stretches the patience over the course of 90 minutes. Each crisis is dealt with slowly and the movie struggles to build much dramatic tension. Some external scenes are added in to break up the monotony (in one you'll believe a man can travel in space with little more than gaffer tape over his gob) but this is really all down to Graham-Smith's performance, which thankfully keeps the attention. Add in some regional accents of the other staff, and a reference to Swindon Space Control, and you have a home counties Gravity without the emotional heft. Would probably have worked better as a radio play, and only very marginally a 'Fantastic' film.

Dark Web: Mystery Box (UK 2020: Dir Tony Newton, Josh Schultz) The Creepypasta legend of the cursed or haunted tape comes to life in this Tony Newton scripted, shot in lockdown movie. 

Newton is a British director who's found some success locating his product Stateside. Here he's teamed up with two low low budget US directors to make a kind of extended horror version of a YouTube unboxing video. 

A number of social media vloggers receive strange packages, presumably sent via mail from the dark web. The receivers include ubiquitous DVD obsessive Shawn C. Phillips, online astrologer Brandywine (low budget horror star Julia Anne Prescott), Sarah and Josh Shultz as 'The Haunted Honeymooners', JordanIntoMystery (Dane Keil), Tonez (Newton) and Nicole (Rheanon Nicole).

The contents of each 'horror box' contains different, and usually icky things - a bloody pentagram, rusty razorblade, human hair, coffin nails etc. Nearly all of the boxes also contain an unmarked video cassette. The vloggers' reactions to these boxes range from the intrigued to the disgusted, but all eventually manage to find VCRs to play the tape, which we fleetingly see and which contains masked figures and a possible sacrifice. And of course after watching the tape, each person becomes cursed; some are offed by a shadowy figure.

Dark Web: Mystery Box is actually a lot more watchable than some movies filmed as a result of the Pandemic. It's a bit long but there's a lot of variety and it's good to see the horror community having a good time.

You can watch Dark Web: Mystery Box here. 

Fearfully Made (UK 2020: Dir Jamie Foreman) Foreman's 20 minute sci fi short (and therefore just nudging into this project, length wise) did quite a lot of festival business in 2020 and then promptly disappeared until its recent online resurgence. This is good news as it's a very poignant, well made tale of the possibilities of AI care for the elderly in the future.

Maggie (Alex Povah) lives with her husband Arthur (John Arthur). When Maggie has a fall, necessitating her being sent to a nursing home, their daughter Laura (Kate Hampson) has a dilemma: who's going to look after dad? Laura decides, following her father's discharge from hospital, to employ Aria (Jessica Blake) an AI care assistant.

On the face of things it's a good plan; Aria can provide for Arthur's every need; but she becomes too attentive, ultimately making the old man a prisoner in his own home.

Desperate to escape Aria's tender clutches and see his wife, he hatches a plan to escape, but it turns out that Aria's motives were more benevolent than first thought.

On the basis of Fearfully Made (the title is from a well known quote from Psalms) I'd like to see more work from Foreman; his short is elegantly produced and within its slim running time asks some interesting questions about what it is to be human and robot.

You can watch Fearfully Made here.

Goodbye Mary (UK 2020: Dir Eva María Fernández) This movie seems to have originated in 2018 -  judging by some of the cast's CV pages - as a 90 minute movie, but was released in October 2020 (it eventually turned up on YouTube with Spanish subs a year or so ago at an inflated 113 minutes). Fragile Jane (Zoe Cunningham) is a woman hosting a wake following the funeral of best friend, party loving Mary, who died in a drink-drive accident. A small gathering of mutual friends have reunited at Jane's, mostly women, and waste no time laying into each other, prompted by recollections of their departed 'friend'. It's a tense scene. Jane's partner George (Rob Kirtley) one of two men at the wake, has some history with flirty Sally (Helen-Rose Hampton) whose partner Amit is away at a conference. Also in the group is bossy Rebeca (Fernández), sculptress Anne (Claire Louise Amias)  - who once photocopied her tits in a drunken prank - and Isabel (Eugenia Low) whose sexual orientation is just one source of gossip. 

Jane, keen to escape the difficult scene below, retreats to her room. Maybe it's her medication, but she starts to have visions of the dead Mary, who encourages her to think less of the people downstairs, who are busy trading secrets and lies. Like a middle class dinner party version of a Jane Arden film, Goodbye Mary goes on and on for a bum numbing near two hours. Fernandez gets a lot of dialogue but sadly is the weakest of the cast (but I guess it was her prerogative) and as the writer of this tedium is really not doing any of the women any favours by defining them as a bunch of bickerers. Apart from the visits of Mary you'll have to wait until the last couple of minutes of the film for anything vaguely horrific to happen. Pretty awful. 

You can watch Goodbye Mary (and brush up on your Spanish) here.

House of the Laughing Cuckoo Clocks (UK 2020: Dir Michael Fenton Crenshaw) You like the esoteric? Well pull up a magic mushroom and feast your eyes on this!

Michael Fenton Crenshaw, originally south London based, set up Demogorgon Productions to publicise his very odd films. The Left Hand trilogy, of which House of the Laughing Cuckoo Clocks is the second instalment, commenced with The Left Hand Path back in 2017. Don't worry if you didn't catch this one; it won't really help you understand HotLCC, which is best seen as an extended (2 hour!) musing on belief, cosmology and magick. 

Only marginally categorisable as a 'Fantastic Film', HotLCC is split into five sections; the only consistent theme running through them is a devil faced amulet, which causes no end of psychic trouble for those who come into contact with it. In the first section, 'Solve Coagula' (the title refers to a principle in alchemy), a priest in possession of the amulet (literally) pisses on the Bible and later (off screen) takes his own life. Other men of the cloth urinate, fart and expose themselves. In 'Bacalou Junction' (a reference to a saint of the Gnostic church), two girls kill hikers in the woods and drink both blood and bottles of morphine. In 'The Blade of Kalfu' (the knife an element of Haitian belief) we witness a fire ritual. In 'XV1' the 'action' veers between London and the USA - apparently some scenes were filmed at what's left of the once infamous Spahn ranch, as snippets of Manson's "I'll Never Say Never to Always" play and a violinist interprets the theme to John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. And finally, in 'Aptal 5' (five being the numerical value of Aptal in Pythagorean Numerology, don'cha know?) the amulet is returned to its original location via a couple of goths, only to be picked up by a punky looking girl who starts off a new chain of possession.

HotLCC is the kind of thing that you might find playing in an art gallery and is best appreciated as a set of images rather than a narrative whole; if you have the patience. Beware though, that Demogorgon Productions' strapline is "The British new wave avant-garde where nonsense makes sense" so any interpretation is clearly up to the viewer.

You can watch HotLCC and all of Crenshaw's works at the Demogorgon site here.

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 2020 #16: Reviews of They Came from the Sky, I Saw Them (UK 2020), Paranormal Activity: Origin of Toby (UK 2020), Unfriended: Proxy (UK 2020), Tawn-19 (UK 2020), Sacrilege (UK 2020) and Crawl to me Darling (UK 2020)

They Came from the Sky, I Saw Them (UK 2020: Dir Matt Shaw) An amiable but daft short (running at 46 minutes) this low low budget sci fi movie is stuffed with ideas and slightly surreal rudeness.

Illicit couple Donna (Dani Thompson) and Rudy (Shaw) have both made a pact to tell their respective partners that their relationships are over, but haven't delivered; complications ensue when Donna tells Rudy she's pregnant. As they ponder their next steps they're taken over by visiting aliens.

Back home at their respective domiciles, Rudy lives in a weird 1950s black and white setup with his stay at home wife Diane (Maria Lee Metherington) who has her own bit on the side, Caleb (Jonathan Butcher). Donna on the other hand has to contend with her thuggish husband Steve (Rod Glenn), who has tied her to a chair to extract a confession. But Rudy and Donna's alien selves soon show themselves, much to the surprise of their still human partners.

There's a definite Plan 9 From Outer Space feel to this, complete with Criswell style narrator (Justin Park), man in black (Ben John Jewell), inappropriate policemen, terrible sets and dodgy effects. I'm also guessing that Shaw is a big fan of the surrealistic humour of The Young Ones. Silly dialogue, comedy rumpy pumpy scenes and some genuinely funny moments (a Tarantino interlude and brilliant mock rock opera finale) make this a very entertaining three quarters of an hour, and shows what can be done with lots of imagination and a game cast. Excellent. 

Paranormal Activity: Origin of Toby (UK 2020: Dir Matthew Landford) The second of three of Landford's short films released onto the internet in 2020, PA:OoT's setup has a young guy (Edward Hudec), left alone in his parents' house shortly after a robbery occurs, and deciding to install CCTV around the home for additional protection and personal safety. His friends think that the increased surveillance might be unhealthy for his already jittery state of mind, but how wrong they are; the house is definitely haunted.

Taking its cue from the series of films of the same name, PA:OoT tells its story largely from the assemblage of camera and phone footage, both night and day modes (of course), as the ghost ramps up the frights, from pushing the guy out of bed, to a series of increasingly loud knocks and, ultimately, a physical manifestation. The spirit also has the ability to move the cameras and mess with its time codes, at one point spelling out 'TO:BY' and thus giving itself a name. 

OK none of this treads any particularly new ground, but the camerawork is very good, creating a real sense of tension. Effective use is made of the toggling between day and night cameras and there's some eerie creaks and groans sound design from Mick Powell. 30 minutes is all that's needed to deliver the scares required, easily besting the likes of similar bigger budgeted productions.

You can watch PA:OoT on YouTube here.

Unfriended: Proxy (UK 2020: Dir Matthew Landford) Somebody on imDb asked whether U:P was an 'Unfriended Fan-Made movie?' and the answer, from one of the cast who uploaded the thing, was a resounding 'No.' But that hasn't stopped that site's users from thinking that this is some kind of low low budget sequel to Unfriended, which it most certainly isn't, even though it draws inspiration from that franchise.

Sammy (Sam Grant) and Ed (Edward Hudec) have a Zoom chat about nothing in particular, just two friends shooting the breeze about food, chores and technology (Sam has a new HD webcam, possibly to compensate breaking up with his girlfriend). An unknown user joins the chat, messaging "You have something...I want back." The 'something' is the webcam, which Sam actually stole, and the anonymous person begins to play deadly games with the pair of them.

U:P feels like a dry run for the infinitely better Zoom, also filmed in 2020. The problem is that, for most of the film's 24 minutes, it's just one guy reading a load of messages on screen. There's some good use of sound, and the idea of structuring a fright flick, even at this length, online takes some doing. But unlike Zoom, which also modelled itself on Unfriended, this feels like an exercise which should have just been kept between friends.

You can watch Unfriended: Proxy on YouTube here.

Tawn-19 (UK 2020: Dir Tim Bryn Smith) Devised by the Actors Workshop Online, Tawn-19 has 94 characters, all filmed on their own equipment under lockdown conditions, and is quite a feat of editing to make such a coherent, watchable (and prescient) hour of sharp satire.

News Alley is a successful TV news network reporting on the development of a virus sweeping the world. Top epidemiologist and all round pisshead Everett Pickering (Matthew Thomason) lets slip to the viewing public that Tawn-19 is actually a man made virus. Leaked footage of Professor Reznor Strong (Jade Moore) played on the channel confirms that she's been a prisoner working on the virus, which has been designed to wipe out most of the world's population. 

The Infoclash website, run and subscribed to by conspiracy theorists, is being stealthily but successfully taken over by anti vax reporter Pandora Kerez (Claire Waterall); she siezes on the disclosure to spread further disinformation; principally about the possibility that the two developed vaccines, one authorised and one sold by the crooked Gabe Carbon (Joe Kirton), could contain mirochips. As the vaccines head towards the rollout date, conspiracy piles on consipracy, and Kerez's real motives are revealed.

OK so this can feel like an hour of extracts from actor demo reels, and at times the story becomes almost too dense to navigate: but Tawn-19's biggest selling point isn't the fact that the directors and editors have managed to put together something eminently watchable, it's that so many of the events in the October 2020 released film, depicted satirically, have actually come to pass (witness the recent anti everything marches in major cities and the rise of increasingly unhinged conspiracy theories). The film may only marginally fit into the 'fantastic films' category, but it's a spirited project and its truthful depiction of the spread of conspiracy is sadly the least 'fantastic' thing about it.

You can watch Tawn-19 on YouTube here.

Sacrilege (UK 2020: Dir David Creed) A host of British horror regulars join the cast of this unoriginal but nevertheless enjoyable folk horror romp.

Keen to escape the city, and her violent ex-boyfriend just released from prison, Kayla (Tamaryn Payne), her sister Stacey (Naomi Willow), Kayla's ex Tricia (Emily Wyatt, Sensation) and bar owning friend Blake (Sian Abrahams) decide to spend a weekend in the country. As befits city girls out of their element there's the usual whining about lack of wi-fi and pisstaking of the local handyman (Rory Wilton, An English Haunting). On the way to the cottage they also pick up local guy Vinnie (Jon Glasgow) who tells them that the annual solstice festival is due to take place in the village.

The girls re-connect over a stash of weed found in an outhouse and a lot of booze. Vinnie turns up and takes them to the festival, which is a bit of a low rent event, involving some villagers with twigs in their hair and daubed faces praying to a budget wicker man figure (in this case a mythical goddess). The leader of the event, Father Saxon, (Ian Champion), assisted by Miss March (Emma Spurgin Hussey, The Curse of Hobbes House, A Werewolf in England), asks the girls to write down the things that they most fear - responses include dogs, bugs and, in self absorbed Stacey's case, getting old - before they lose themselves in wild dancing and strong liquor. Miss Marsh warns two of them to get out while they can.

The morning after - and following Blake's late night swim where she's bothered by a dog that seems to vanish instantly - the girls blame their collective wooziness on the previous evening's partying, but when Stacey has visions of herself as an old woman, and Tricia imagines herself covered in bugs, it looks like their worst fears have become real; the women have been marked by the goddess, and it's only a matter of time before they meet their ends.

"Who's ready for a weekend they'll never forget?" asks Blake, somewhat innacurately as far as the viewer is concerned, as the girls set off in her yellow van, nicknamed 'Sunny D,' for their doomed getaway. Blake has a flare gun in the glove compartment, which you know will come in useful later; it's that kind of movie. It's atmospherically shot in and around the Forest of Dean, with some well mounted sequences of horror, but despite its rather racy storyline - a group of girls on a hedonistic weekend, with two of the cast sexually reuniting after a period apart - it's a surprisingly chaste film. But at least the girls who want to have fun don't need blokes to do it, or ultimately to save themselves.

Crawl to Me Darling (UK 2020: Dir Adam Wilson) If the title of Wilson's debut feature sounds like a prime piece of pure exploitation, well you couldn't be more wrong. In fact CtMD is rather indefinable, which I like in a movie.

Millie (Makenna Guyler, The Curse of Hobbes House, Vampire Virus) has been on a date with a guy - whose face we don't see - who has turned rather threatening. She's so worried she phones the police; she's shaken up but otherwise unhurt, and feels silly for calling them. 

Some time later she wakes up, tied to chair, facing a man with a muslin mask over his face (Scott Whatley), who could well be last night's date from hell. In calm, measured tones, he just wants her to be nice to him, feeding her lines which, if she doesn't get right, trigger a succession of electric shocks through her body.

The man clearly wants her to be his, although seemingly not sexually. He feeds her a sedative through a tube, which Millie manages to stop entering her body by twisting it between her feet. Faking sleep, she lets the man wash her, but is surprised to hear that they're not alone. A third voice belongs to Zoe (Isabele Harnandez), a witting, indeed willing participant in the man's plans, who has been a previous partner of the man, only to see his affections transferred to Millie.

And so develops this very strange and at times frustratingly inconclusive three hander psycho-drama, in which the trio set up a kind of weird home together, the long term aim being some kind of perverse wedded bliss; little happens, but it's all incredibly tense, aided and abetted by a terrifying electronic score from brothers Sam and Owen Roberts, and some very imprssive performances by Guyler, Whatley (who both co-produced with Wilson) and Hernandez. Supposedly an allegory about power, control and relationships, it borders on the surreal in its delivery; I liked it but didn't love it, but it's certainly a bold bit of film making.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #15: Reviews of Scopophobia (UK 2020), Zoom (UK 2020), Bite Night (UK 2020), Russian Submarine (UK 2020), Eve (UK 2019) and Dune Drifter (UK 2020)

Scopophobia (UK 2020: Dir Ben Smith) Scopophobia is, apparently, defined as an excessive fear of being stared at. Clocking in at getting on for two hours, this viewer spent an awful lot of time staring at the screen waiting for something to happen. For Scopophobia is nothing if not a langorous watch.

A group of school age filmmakers are preparing to make a feature film, working title 'Among the Woods', in a nearby forest area. One of their number, Nick, goes missing; meanwhile one of the others, Inaam (Inaam Barwani) receives a mysterious package containing warning notes. As filming progresses, a mysterious knife wielding figure is seen in the woods, wearing a mask. Inaam begins to lose track of time, and some of the cast/crew (it's a small production) end up waking up in the open air. They realise that the film's script itself might be cursed, and causing the events affecting them; but the truth is even stranger than that.

Scopophobia as a project has ambitions way beyond the skills of those behind and in front of the camera, and its arse numbing length does it no favours. But underneath the zero budget look of the thing, and the variable acting skills on display, it's clear that some work has gone into the story, and there are elements within the film - the time shift scenes, the coded messages received, and the meta film-within-a film moments etc - that are genuinely intriuging. Unfortunately there's a lack of clarity in the storytelling, particularly towards the end, when the film attempts to draw its loose ends together: shorter and punchier would definitely have been better. Smith is clearly still learning his art, and there's just enough here to suggest that some attention should be paid to his next feature.

You can watch Scopophobia here.

Zoom aka Catering (UK 2020: Dir Matthew Landford) This 36 minute short starts with a Zoom conversation between three friends, Miles (Alex Brook), Roddy (Samuel Grant) and Sigmund (Harvey Smith). They're bored and have used up all their usual diversions like role play and card games. Randomly searching they come across a Twitter account belonging to 'joel8946'. They decide to access his account and, before long, they're thrown into a nightmare, where their new host warns them that they shouldn't have joined and rejoins the call even after being kicked out.

First to be threatened is Roddy's little brother, who Roddy thinks is safe downstairs. But is he? Next the omnipresent host forces his callers to admit a series of misdemeanours, the very least of which is Sigmund's confession that he once ate Roddy's goldfish. Failure to disclose their secrets will result in them being removed.

While Zoom undoubtedly borrows from Rob Savage's game changing Host (the "how did you get onto the call?" question and the subsonic rumbling announcing the presence of the sinister Joel), Brook, Grant and Smith are very convincing as three wisecracking friends whose camaraderie very swiftly breaks down in the face of a mysterious threat. Landford has made a number of short films which will be covered in this strand, and can be watched on YouTube. Recommended.

You can watch Zoom here. 

Bite Night (UK 2020: Dir Maria Lee Metheringham) There are a lot of indepedent horror films made these days whose creators talk about trying to capture a 1980s vibe. Very often (and often poorly) this is realised by a brooding synth score and a broadly colourful lighting design. Metheringham's follow up to 2018's Pumpkins doesn't aim for such a feel in its design but Bite Night conjours up memories of numerous daft 'kids-mixing-with succubii' movies of that decade in its execution.

At a nightclub a three woman band play to an enthusiastic audience; they are Zuzanna (Metheringham), Katarina (Martha Niklas) and Valice (Rachel Brownstein). Tonight, courtesy of a number of tickets randomly inserted into balloons, six lucky fans will be given the chance to accompany the girls back to their house for an exclusive after party.

The six, who include preppy Ebeneizer (George Walker) and feisty Tash (Marcella Edgecombe-Craig), get ferried by limo to the cottage, aka the 'House of Valice', where they're invited to freshen up in their allocated rooms. There's an increasingly predatory sense that the girls have something in mind for their guests apart from wall to wall partying; Valice takes a shine to Tash and seduces her, while punky Axel (Ryan Jay-James) finds one of Katarina's dresses and puts it on. Later, everyone meets in the dining room, and the girls announce their culinary inclinations by serving up a severed head and dipping a stick of celery into the blood. But just as the three girls turn all vampy/cannibal-y, there's another more terrifying figure who starts to take over the guests. Who will survive?

I use the word 'scrappy' quite a lot to describe a form of filmmaking which is rough round the edges, well intentioned but slimly budgeted; and Bite Night ticks all three of these boxes. The movie feels like it might at any point get a lot more raunchy than it does, but the cast are all good value and, considering that not much happens, things move at a fair clip. Of particular note are the songs performed by the girls (sung by the three actresses) written by 'Great Northern Hotel' and the film's incidental score by Leigh 'Scratch' Fenlon and Jerry de Borg, and some enthusiastic performances by Edgecombe-Craig and Brownstein, who have fun with the frequently camp dialogue. Bite Night's story is 'to be continued...' according to the end credits. Well ok then.

Russian Submarine (UK 2020: Dir Tommi Sorsa) This 50 minute featurette, shot in Bournemouth, opens with a Biblical quote. There isn't a reason for this and it's no more illuminating than the rest of the film.

What I think is happening is that, in a 2009 prologue, a group of young men (and one woman) hold a drinking party in a house (the name of which - the game not the house - is 'Russian Submarine', hence the title) and all die of alcohol poisoning.

Moving to the present day, a young couple rent the house, only to be haunted by the ghost of the last member standing from the original group. To deal with the unwanted supernatural visitation they bring in a team of ghostbusters, complete with resident psychic, who quickly realise that to engage with the spirits at a meaningful level they too have to play the 'Russian Submarine' game. Oh and as well as the ghost there's also an evil jester/clown character called Cletus, a figure whose spiritual ancestry may date from the medieval period of history.

I would recommend that Russian Submarine is best watched with the viewer imbibing the same amout of alcohol as the cast; you won't understand it any better but it may feel like it's over quicker. This is a film that chooses to include outtake scenes both during the movie and after it. The cast all inexplicably have American accents (and to be fair some of these are well rendered) which sits rather oddly in the setting of a Bournemouth semi. Scenes are repeated endlessly and if there's a point to this it was totally lost on me. Look I'm sure this was a lot of fun to make - many of the cast look like they're on the verge of 'corpsing' most of the time - but it sure isn't to sit through, unless you're an 'in-on-the-joke' student presumably.

You can watch Russian Submarine here. 

Eve (UK 2019: Dir Rory Kindersley) This glossy, psychological thriller aims for Nicolas Winding Refn or maybe Daren Aronofsky in its intensity, but sadly falls short through a combination of unlikeable characters and opaque plotting.

Alex Beyer (American Christine Marzano sporting a pretty good Brit accent) is an actor no longer getting the parts she wants, after being out of the business for over a year (her mental health is clearly not great). Turned down for the role of 'Eve' in a film version of a play in which she was the lead, her day gets worse when, returning to her swish London mews house with photographer boyfriend Liam (Andrew Lee Potts) which he's let out in their absence, she discovers that someone has daubed blood all over the walls. The police suspect it might be a jealous fan (the pair don't exactly fall over themselves to find out).

Alex continues to obsess both about the loss of the role and the identity of the home defacer (CCTV footage shows a woman standing outside their front door; a possible suspect?). Meanwhile her agent despairs at what to do with her, and gets the opportunity to drop her from the books when Alex assaults the actor who got the 'Eve' part when they bump into each other at an audition.Alex's downward spiral continues apace, to the point where she's not only a danger to herself, but maybe to others as well.

Eve is one of those movies where everybody is horrible, so it's difficult to care less about any of the characters; probably the most sympathetic is Liam, but even he may be having an affair with a client. I'm getting a bit sick of 'crazy lady' scenarios, where the instability of the lead means that the audience can't trust whether what they're seeing is fantasy or reality. Kindersley's movie looks good, but it's empty as hell and ultimately inconsequential; all dressed up with nowhere to go, in fact.

Dune Drifter (UK 2020: Dir Marc Price) Price has come a a long way since his £45 budgeted 2003 feature debut, the intimate zombie in the suburbs movie Colin. But maybe not thematically, as his latest, a low budget sci fi drama, quickly focuses its story on a lone survivor of battle who has to face hazardous alien elements.

Adler (Phoebe Sparrow) is the gunner in a small two person spaceship, part of the Dune squadron, who enter an intergalactic fracas with a race called the Drekks on instructions to do little more than make up the numbers. But the opposition have the upper hand: ill-equipped for battle, one by one the squadron craft are picked off, with Adler and her ship's pilot Yaren (Daisy Aitkens) crash landing on an alien planet. Left on her own after Yaren dies from injuries sustained during the crash, and with the remainder of her fleet having abandoned her, assuming that she has perished, Adler's outlook, and indeed her life support duration, seem critical. But worse is to come; there's another crashed ship on the planet containing some armed Drekks, who stand between her and any hope of returning to earth.

Filmed in the inhospitable volcanic wastes of Iceland, Dune Drifter certainly manages to be bleak. Its stripped down story, with no character detail or extraneous plot information, gives us half an hour of not particularly convincing space battle, then dumps its human survivor in the middle of nowhere and throws things at her. There's some wry humour at work here - some gaseous attacking rocks seem to have strolled in from an episode of Star Trek and one of Adler's many adversities is a stray lock of hair in her eyes (which, being inside a pressurised helmet, she can do nothing about). This is a brave hour and a half and Dune Drifter remains watchable largely for Sparrow's convincing performance as the soldier who just wants to get home. It doesn't hold a candle to bigger budgeted space sagas (and will doubtless be criticised as a result of that unfair comparsion) but Dune Drifter is a watchable and at times tense sci fi flick.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2020 #14: Reviews of COVID 25 - The Virus Has Mutated! (UK 2020), A Little More Flesh (UK 2020), From the Ground (UK 2020), Iso-pocalyptis (UK 2020), The Young Cannibals (UK 2020) and A Very 2020 Christmas Carol (UK 2020)

COVID 25 - The Virus Has Mutated! (UK 2020: Dir Tim Goodfellow) When I had a look on IMDB to confirm some details for this film, I was staggered to see the amount of titles listed, whether or not actually filmed, with 'COVID' in the title. So well done to Tim for actually getting something in the can despite the restrictions placed on filmmakers at the moment. 

Based on current events, the film's premise is that, rather than the second wave of the pandemic being brought under control, it has mutated into COVID-20, transforming the infected into 'violent, rage filled monsters known as cronos.' A team of soldiers from the Anti Virus Squad (AVS) have been despatched to test a new vaccine, but all but one have been killed by the cronos.

The last of the squad (Goodfellow) holes up in an empty house, with the infected lurking outside and possibly inside. He radios in to HQ using a toy model of the Green Goblin (no, me neither) and accounts for the failure of his mission to administer the virus antidote. He finds out that there's been further mutations into COVID-21s, but he has worse news; one of his group tried to use the failed anti virus vaccine on himself and mutated to an extreme strain - COVID 25 - and wiped out nearly everyone else. He now has to survive for 3 to 4 hours in the house to await extraction, a place full of severed limbs and hidden terrors.

The rest of the film details the soldier's fight to stay alive, which would be rather patience testing except for the range of visual and audio tricks that get thrown our way. Saturated colours, black and white footage, some quite terrifying audio sequences, random old school computer generated images, stock news footage, an occasional Hi NRG soundtrack and a garage full of power tools are paraded to dizzying and disjointed effect. 

This is the cinematic equivalent of a a fanzine put together with a John Bull printing set and Copydex, but its guerilla credentials count in its favour. Goodfellow, who's clearly having some fun here ("Goddam cronos - they're almost as bad as SJWs" he says at one point) has created his film as part of a wider media project including spinoff films and, the director tells me, a graphic novel. As someone who grew up embracing punk filmmaking in all its guises, I liked this ragged but entertaining movie a lot, and you can watch both the movie and one of its episodic offshoots here. Good luck!

A Little More Flesh (UK 2020: Dir Sam Ashurst) Writer/director/producer Ashurst is both a media journalist and a regular on the Arrow Video podcasts, a guy who knows his genre movies, so it's unsurprising that he should take on, as the subject matter for his second feature (his first was the excellent Frankenstein's Creature from 2018) a faux audio commentary.

We're in the company of sleazy Stanley Durall (voiced by the director) providing a commentary for his first, banned film 'God's Lonely Woman' dating back to the 1970s (a great opening sequence by Olly Gibbs sets the scene); the print we're watching also combines some behind the scenes footage from the accompanying documentary 'God's Lonely God.' Durall tells us that he wanted to make an "erotic drama that didn't compromise on emotion" and that perhaps he "was a little too successful." He also drops several hints that there's an infamous final scene to the movie, to which he urges viewers not to fast forward.

It's obvious from the get go that Durall is one of that breed of directors highlighted by the #metoo movement. 'God's Lonely Woman' is, on the face of it, a rather tedious arthouse exercise, like a minor Rollin film, although (to the director's chagrin) unleavened by nudity. GLM's lead is Isabella Dotterson (Elf Lyons, who also produced the film) and it is clear that Dotterson was an actress unprepared for any misogynistic nonsense, which immediately sets Durall up against her. The director's frustration that Isabella and her co-star Candice (Hazel Townsend) are unprepared to get it on in the name of art gives rise to Durall's rising enmity toward both actresses.

Candice's later suicide on set is treated as a minor annoyance, as is his prurient attitude to an extended sequence where Isabella remains 'frigid' despite being dosed with LSD for a wigout scene. Swanton's note perfect depiction of the amoral self absorbed director oscillates between cringeworthy and laugh out loud funny, with lines like "lovely legs there, despite the attitude problem" and, of his own talent, "I do like actors who don't take attention away from the director," and "I'm a cineaste, which is a fancy term for people with taste as good as mine."

Of course no good can come of this, and as the film progresses Durall finds himself locked in his editing suite and hearing unexplained noises. The denoument is a gloriously meta moment in which the director is trapped on film at the mercy of his late lamented lead, with a particularly leg crossing special effect provided by Dan Martin. Powerful stuff.

From the Ground (UK 2020: Dir Luke King Abbott) It's 1990 and the Hughes family are in mourning: Caroline (Emily Carding) and Dennis (Jason Collins) have discovered that their daughter, Jazmin (Jaz Paris Collins), who had gone missing fifteen years previously, is dead; she was murdered (the viewer has already witnesseed her death by hanging, a rather shocking scene). Jasmine's brother Joe, who was born after his sister's disappearance, so never knew her, has visions of a dead girl; it's Jazmin, and the spirit that appears to Joe has the marks of strangulation round her neck. They communicate via Joe's 'Etch a Sketch' (a nice touch) and Jaz tells him that she wants to be at rest. 

Fifteen years later Joe is a grown man (Joe Evans); his dad, still wracked with remorse over his daughter's death, seems unable to come to terms with the world. Joe's mother has just died but on the the day of her funeral Dennis can't face going; he retains a bitterness about Jaz appearing to Joe all those years ago and holds it against him. But for Joe, who's in therapy for social anxiety issues and trying to lead a 'normal' life, all that's in the past, particularly when he befriends Faith (Jemma Carlin-Wells), the woman who lives in the next door flat. But when Joe starts to see visions of Jaz again, he's anything but comforted, and her appearance triggers a relapse of his mental health issues. 

From the Ground is an ambitious (for the budget), heartlfelt look at grief and the harm that families can do to each other. The developing bond of friendship between Jaz and young Joe, one forged psychically without them having ever met, is very poignant, in contrast to the effect on adult Joe once his dead sister reappears years later. The film plays with the links between the supernatural, grief and guilt, and is careful not to come down clearly on one side or the other. The acting might be a little tentative (although Joe Evans impresses as young Joe and Collins is suitably enigmatic as the ghost girl - both tough roles for young actors) but the mood of the piece is impressive and Abbott's directorial hand remains confident.

Iso-pocalyptis (UK 2020: Dir J D Roth-round) In JD Roth-round's debut feature, filmed for £1000 in lockdown, Daniel (Roth-round) returns home to find his house in the middle of building works and his partner Maz and daughter Casey both dead. Quickly descending into an alcoholic haze as a result of the trauma Daniel, unwilling to accept the death of his family, oscillates between mundane household activity and increasingly frenzied drunken outbursts (including pulling out his own teeth), before achieving a final act to unite himself with his departed partner.

It's a slight shame that the house chosen as the single location for Iso-pocalyptis should be some form of hostel (multiple extinguishers on the walls, clearly labelled fire doors etc.) because it slightly detracts from the otherwise authentic and involving story of one man's descent into personal hell. Bit part actor turned director Roth-round made this during the pandemic and it's pretty much a one role movie, but the guy's no holds barred performance is of the variety that people used to call 'brave'. 

Roth-round punctuates the restless movements of his camera, and footage of his more primal urges, with some poignant moments, like finding his dead daughter's hair stuck in her hairbrush, or discovering a present she'd bought in anticipation of his birthday tucked away in a drawer. While Dan Williams' instrumental soundtrack elements are very effective, there are occasionally some free music archive derived, thuddingly inappropriate songs, which flatten, rather than enhance the sombre mood of the piece. A rather clever twist ending points back to the very beginning of the movie as a clue to what this is all about. Good effort JD!

The Young Cannibals (UK 2020: Dir Kris Carr, Sam Fowler) In René Cardona's 1976 movie Survive! (the true story of the Uruguayan rugby team, whose plane crashed in the Andes and who were forced to stay alive by eating their dead fellow passengers), the director spends a good fifty minutes or so building to the inevitable chow down. Carr and Fowler's debut feature gets to the meat, if you'll forgive the phrase, right away, in a snowy prologue featuring two blokes noshing on the remains of a third.

Sadly that's all of the (overt) cannibalism that you get here, which feels a bit of a swizz considering the title (it was originally named 'Eaten Alive'). Instead we have the story of Nat (Megan Purvis, Don't Knock Twice) who's been sectioned following a suicide attempt after the death of her mother. Her friend Ethan (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni) springs her from hospital so she can rejoin her friends for a birthday camping trip. 

Two of the group manage to obtain some burgers made by Blackwood (David Patrick Stucky), the owner of a nearby house. What they don't know is that a) the burgers are actually made from human flesh and b) the bloke who made them is one of the cannibals we saw in the prologue. As the chums happily consume the burgers, they fulfil a handed down curse; as newly defined cannibals they're about to be stalked and killed by an evil entity (ok a guy in a monster suit) who's after anyone who has deprived him of human meat.

What follows is an hour plus of the group walking around some admittedly attractively lit woods trying, and failing in the case of most of the characters, to escape the clutches of the beast, followed by a marginally more exciting final reel chase sequence. A thinner premise for walking around aimlessly I haven't met since the last time I saw a film where the cast fumbled about in darkened woodland. 

The product of a group of Bournemouth based filmmakers and actors, The Young Cannibals is that to be feared thing: a well made movie punching above its budget visually, with some credible acting but a paper thin plot and, despite its technical merits, overlong and with very little atmosphere, despite the night shooting and some grungy practical effects. One standout is American composer Gabe Castro's electronic music, which is a very fine thing indeed; a bit of Simonetti here, some Carpenter there, a pounding relentless score that frankly should be soundtracking a much better movie.

A Very 2020 Christmas Carol (UK 2020: Dir Ian Austin) It was Austin, you may recall, who made the rather challenging to sit through Barbatachthian. Well here's his second feature for 2020, a loose adaptation of the Dickens novella, filmed again during lockdown (or 'the monkey disease from Outbreak' as he refers to it).

Austin plays uncle Scrooge (Ian with a hat on) and his cousin Fred (at least he knows his characters); they're having an argument about Scrooge being mean and not giving Fred's mum a break with the rent on the house he owns and in which she lives. 

That night Jacob Marley appears to Scrooge (Ian with - I think and hope - chocolate sauce down his arm and on his face) as does Bob Cratchit (Ian in another hat) whose wife is angry about his long hours of work and the lack of NHS support for Tiny Tim. Thereafter the three ghosts of Christmas appear, the first of which is voiced by Holly Schelkens (the only other person to be involved in this apart from someone called 'Stuart' as Tiny Tim), leading to Scrooge's extended breakdown.

Watching Ian at work is like observing a child making up an adventure in their own head; at once excitable and incomprehensible, it's difficult to dislike this guy; his sheer unwillingness to create anything resembling a watchable film, complete with terrible (and terribly odd) special effects, weird ad breaks, and a newsflash banging on about The Memorial Murderer, which draws in the cast of Barbatachthian. Footage (and sound) is slowed down for no reason, images become superimposed, and it's all very difficult to follow. I'll wager that you've never seen an adaptation of  'A Christmas Carol' featuring Thor and Odin ("You're not Odin, you're a teddy bear"). I'd understand it more if Austin appeared to be some stoned aesthete or full on visual anarchist; but he just looks like someone who works in local government and gets by on nothing stronger than Typhoo tea and jaffa cakes. Bewildering.