NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2023 #5: Reviews of Alice in Terrorland (UK 2023), Freddy's Fridays (UK 2023), The Mansfield Ghost (UK 2023), Power Cut (UK 2023), Alive (UK 2023) and The Elevator (UK 2023)

Alice in Terrorland (UK 2023: Dir Richard John Taylor) While the title may suggest one of those 'oh it's in the public domain, let's make some money' literary ripoffs, and a cursory look at the structure of the film may have you nodding your head in agreement, Taylor's odd, lyrical movie owes more to Neil Jordan's 1984 adult fairytale flick The Company of Wolves than its contemporary genre mates.

Alice Aciman (Lizzy Willis, who in addition to being an actor is also a trained intensive care nurse, British Army Officer and former Miss England contestant, don'cha know?) comes to stay with her grandmother, Beth (Rula Lenska, on excellent form) after the death of both of her parents in a house fire. Beth's house is called 'Wonderland' and was reputed to have been lived in by one Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, although its wonder has a limit: Alice is warned to stay away from the woods which surround the place.

It's not long before Alice, still grieving the loss of her parents, falls ill and becomes almost bedbound. Beth's ministrations of various potions, together with her reading chapters of Carroll's books to her woozy granddaughter, do their work; in a series of what must be visions (mustn't they?) Alice meets key characters from both novels, all of whom are distinctly more nightmarish than their literary counterparts.

As an idea this really shouldn't work (like Rhys Frake-Waterfield's Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey shouldn't have - and, sorry, didn't). But what Alice in Terrorland has going for it is a pronounced sense of mystery, some very creditable performances, and stunning cinematography. My reference to The Company of Wolves wasn't an idle one; Rula Lenska occupies the same territory as Angela Lansbury did in Jordan's film, and if Willis doesn't quite capture the childlike wonder of Sarah Patterson's Rosaleen in that movie, she's still a convincing Alice. The film's greatest achievement is a seamless transition from the pastoral to the horrific and back again. Most of the terrors in the film are barely glimpsed, and the overall mystery of the piece is quite the achievement from a director whose previous genre offerings have tended towards run of the mill UK DIY horror movies.

Freddy's Fridays (UK 2023: Dir Ben J. Williams) Another example of a cash in title - Five Nights at Freddy's anyone? - which masks unexpected quality, Ben J. Williams's debut solo directed feature may have the guiding hands of DIY horror stalwarts Scott Jeffrey, Rhys Frake-Waterfield and Tyler James on production duties, but it's better than a lot of movies helmed by them.

Anastasia (Jeffrey regular Chrissie Wunna, in a rare blink and you'll miss her performance; see also The Elevator later in this round up) is the latest of a number of female escorts to go missing under mysterious circumstances; except that we know what's really happened to her (and presumably the others). She's been picked up by sleazy stockbroker bloke Todd (Jase Rivers), taken to an abandoned basement where she's made to read some Latin from a human skin bound book and then sacrificed to a group of demonic creatures headed up by chief demon in a dog suit named Freddy (Abu Barry).

Looking into the disappearances is police person Lily Mallett (Danielle Scott, another Jeffrey regular who divides her time between horror stuff like this and 50 Shades of Gray inspired erotic dramas) who, having identified the common link between all the disappearances - ie sleazy Todd - asks her mate Connie (Alexandra DeCaluwe) to stalk him on social media. Thinking that trapping him will be a cinch, Lily's investigations take her into the circle of kinky clubs and, eventually, to the demons themselves.

This may be 'business as usual' DIY horror, but there's much more gore than is expected of films like this (you didn't need the CGI additions folks!) and it's less loosely edited than many offerings from these filmmakers. As others have noted, some of the demon's costumes have been borrowed from the 

Jagged Edge company wardrobe, and there are also a few in jokes contained within the Necronomicon style book (whose cover features a blinking eye, its movement seeming to escape notice when presented to the police). Look I liked this, and maybe you will too.

The Mansfield Ghost (UK 2023: Dir Richard Mansfield) People familiar with Mansfield's earlier work - a series of London based haunted house flicks - will be delighted that, following a move to Nottingham some years ago, the director has found a new spring in his step.

Following on from 2020's The House in Sherwood, which had a slightly similar setup, Lily Morgan (Kelly Goudie) is a rather desperate social media 'personality' (is there any other kind in a film like this?) searching for more followers and the ability to monetise situations. Looking for the latest initiative to push up likes and subscribers, Lily manages to secure, via a contact, a purportedly haunted house, in which she plans to stay in the days leading up to Halloween. And what's more, the owner will pay her for the privilege of staying there. Smell a rat?

So, with cameras hooked up around the house, controlled by her friend Michael (Chris Sims) and with fellow influencer Tania (Itasha James) along for the ride, Lily moves in, and almost immediately a shadowy figure is picked up on the live feed, which may be the ghost of Edward Mansfield, a former occupant who murdered his wife. As Halloween approaches Lily becomes increasingly spooked and Edward begins to make his presence felt more strongly.

The Mansfield Ghost borrows respectively from 1992's Ghostwatch (the unravelling history of the house, revealed in part by those watching the livestream) and any number of films which integrate multiple screens (and live messaging) to tell their story (a trend which kicked off via 2014 movie Unfriended). But while most of those offerings had a considerably larger budget than Mansfield's, the director is to be congratulated for achieving a lot of these effects on not much at all. As Lily slowly falls apart, we witness the endless stream of comments from subscribers, including the obligatory cries of 'Fake!', the haters and those who genuinely care about what Lily is subjecting herself to. The movie builds to a satisfying and reasonably tense climax, in which - of course - a social media star reaps what she sows in terms of on line ambition; I couldn't help feeling that Mansfield was taking a pop at this aspect of culture, from brand building to the reaction video, surely the most narcissistic innovation in social media broadcasting.

You can watch The Mansfield Ghost here:

Power Cut (UK 2023: Dir Mark Spayne) Spayne's gonzo feature is an anthology movie with a wraparound story involving three friends - Rebecca (Becky Lindsay), her boyfriend Josh (Kushan Bhardwaj) and pizza bringing gooseberry Melissa (Sarah Bulmer) who pops round just as the two lovers are about to get it on - getting stuck in a power cut and deciding to tell each other ghost stories. 

The four tales (Josh gets two goes because his first is so lame) comprise: 'Get Off My Land' featuring two brothers, attacked when their car breaks down, one of whom reveals a secret identity; 'Sophie', in which a mentally unstable girl is preyed on by a masked interloper; 'Rewind', a sort of Groundhog Day featuring a camera wielding killer and his put upon girlfriend who live the same day again and again; and finally 'The Curse of Eddie Bishop', the longest and most bonkers of all the stories, featuring lesbian cannibals, time travel and bickering girl campers.

Power Cut is exactly what I love about independent British filmmaking; filmed in the north east of England with an authentic regional cast, the film refuses to play by any rules, logically or temporally, and is thus a riot from start to finish. It's half affectionate homage to a number of movie genres, half people making it up as they go along like a group of kids creating games with each other, all made for the cost of a round in a (London) pub. Excellent! 

Alive (UK 2023: Dir David Marantz) Strangely the recent pandemic largely seems to have killed off (pun of course intended) the UK zombie movie. Marantz's debut feature as director has been some time coming, and the weirdness and isolation we all recall from those odd times runs through the film, giving it a quality of humanity normally missing from the genre.

The movie focuses on several initially disparate characters who, perhaps predictably, come into contact with each other in their quest to stay alive following an infection outbreak caused by a sanitary crisis (water companies are you listening?). Central to proceedings are Helen (played by Eileen Hillman), boyfriend Kevin (Kian Pritchard) and Kevin's young brother Barney (a part shared by twins Andrew and Daniel May-Gohrey) who has already been bitten by one of the infected. 

The group have heard of a safe place on an island off the English coast; on their way they encounter two very different bands of people. The first is Dan (Neil Sheffield), whose wife Olivia (Helen Coathup) is infected but from whom her husband is unable to separate; more threatening is the rifle toting Father Albert (Stuart Matthews) and his hard as nails sidekick Lucy (genre regular Gillian Broderick, who also doubles as an uncredited TV newsreader).

Alive's pacing runs rather contradictory to its title. The infected are relegated to minor supporting parts; all the drama is concentrated on the human interaction. As such, with its washed out colour palette and elegantly staged shots, the movie feels more akin to TV drama, with only the occasional burst of action. But what sets Alive apart from its genre brethren is its subtextual plea for tolerance. The infected are given equal emotional screen time to the human and, towards the end, emerge the humanitarian victors. Marantz is clearly making a wider point here about the need for different groups of people to foster understanding, and the movie ends on an uncharacteristically upbeat note. Good stuff.

The Elevator aka Haunted Hotel aka Hellevator Hotel (UK 2023: Dir Rebecca Matthews, Tom J. Kelly) First time feature director Kelly joins with seasoned filmmaker Matthews - she of Scott Jeffrey partnership fame (who again co-produces here) - in a film which is a bit of a departure from the usual Jagged Edge/Proportion Productions roster.

Lily (Jeffrey/Matthews regular Chrissie Wunna, here in what I think is her first lead role) joins the skeletal staff of the Imperial Hotel as an overnight duty manager. In reality Lily is an undercover journalist, whose employment is a handy cover for her to do some digging into a rash of unexplained deaths in the hotel.

After being shown the ropes by the creepy manager (Alix Maxwell) Lily examines CCTV footage of the last person to have come a cropper (Danielle Scott, another company regular), at the hands of a flickering demon (Bao Tieu); all of the previous disappearances seem to have taken place in the hotel's lift. The undercover journo encounters handyman Tom (George Nettleton) with whom she shares a steamy moment after he comes to her room to fix her leak. Elsewhere two guys enter the hotel to play 'The Elevator Game' (a sort of urban myth which has clearly influenced this movie) and also successfully throw a six. 

Lily digs into the history of the hotel and finds that it was the basis for Satanic rituals and the seat of operations for one Alfred the Warlock. It's only so long (well after about 30 minutes of her roaming the hotel corridors) before Lily encounters the secret of the Imperial and realises the danger she's in.

If you've seen many movies from the Jeffrey/Matthews stable you'll recognise that The Elevator jettisons the usual extended character exposition in favour of something a little more mysterious; maybe using the true story of Elisa Lam as a source helped. Although Lily does harbour a tragic secret this isn't disclosed until the final minutes of the film; we spend most of it not knowing anything about her, although we do spend a lot of time in Wunna's company, walking the corridors of the Bradford youth hostel (do you really think they filmed in an actual hotel?), having baths and looking thoughtful in her big glasses. 

The Elevator could do with shedding a few minutes in running time, but overall this isn't a bad effort considering the budget was probably miniscule, and Wunna gives a better performance than supporting roles in other movies would have suggested.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2023 #4: Reviews of Alien Invasion (UK 2023), Punch (UK 2023), Crannog Bay (UK 2023), Artifacts of Fear (UK 2023), It Be an Evil Moon (UK 2023) and Casting Kill (UK 2023)

Alien Invasion (UK 2023: Dir Fred Searle) Another from the prolific - and then some - producers Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews, the pair offer up some sci fi this time round; however do not let the stargate opening and the words 'Lacerta - 102 light years from Earth' seduce you into thinking that you're about to watch a space opera.

The rest of Alien Invasion is resolutely earthbound: East Sussex to be precise. A group of young 'uns - ex military type and PTSD sufferer Phoenix (Benjamin Colbourne), Ursa (May Kelly), Carina (Leah Glater), bible quoting Norma (Amber Doig-Thorne) and her boyfriend Leo (Nikolai Leon) - are throwing a surprise party to cheer up Lyra (Sarah T. Cohen), a nurse, who now lives alone following the death of her parents. Next door to where they're hanging out is a very large, and heavily secured house owned by a doctor - of what, Lyra isn't sure.

Curious Phoenix manages to get round the security and break into the seemingly empty neighbour's mansion. Lyra and friends follow his lead; when inside they discover a room heated to a precise temperature, a load of lab equipment and a curious egg shaped object. The unexpected return of the doctor gives rise to the most awkwardly delivered exposition I've ever heard - where doc tells the egg (and the audience) of the object's extra terrestrial origins, and his own decision to steal it away from the authorities to a place of safety. Of course it isn't; the egg 'hatches' and the creature inside, unimaginatively named Lacerta after the planet from which it originates - which quickly grows to monstrous proportions - is free to kill. Luckily, Norma's dad (Matthew Baunsgard) - a boxer turned priest - has a church just down the road, so the group set off to take refuge for a final showdown with the beast.

Searle has a good track record - first AD on recent rather good movies Punch (reviewed below) and Midnight Peepshow - and he brings some finesse to this low on budget, high on aspiration creature feature. Lacerta is a mix of guy in a pretty nifty costume (Bao Tieu, who's kind of cornering the market in this sort of casting) and some patchy CGI that can't quite decide how big the thing is. Nods to the 'Alien' franchise abound - lots of flashing lights and "get away from her you bitch!" lines - but this feels more like a modern update of William Malone's 1980 flick Scared to Death, with Lacerta taking all its moves from that flick's 'Syngenor' creature.

Punch (UK 2023: Dir Andy Edwards) Unlike most of her friends and family, Frankie (Alina Allison) has managed to escape the dullness of her Hastings home by going to University. So when she comes back to the town to visit, things are difficult with a resentful mother, who has just taken up with a new man, and friends who think she’s got too big for her boots.

Only close friend Holly (Faye Campbell) remains loyal to her, as does her on off boyfriend Daryl aka ‘Dazzler’ (Macaulay Cooper). Both encourage Frankie to let her hair down for one night before leaving to resume her studies; but while she pursues a night of hedonism, a strange figure wearing a Punch mask, a creature descended from local legend, stalks and kills the fun loving denizens of the town.

Andy Edwards, who previously collaborated on 2022’s Midnight Peepshow, to some extent follows the well-trodden narrative arc of many a Brit low-budget horror: soapy domestic intrigue to establish the characters; some mid movie carnage; and a final girl who spends the last third of the film trying to outwit a murderer. 

But within this tried and tested formula Edwards is doing something rather different. Firstly there’s a fabulous sense of seaside ennui established by shots of closed entertainment, gaudy pubs and arcades, and the supporting cast of youths who effectively summarise the boredom of living in a largely employment-free area, where anyone seeking to better themselves is seen as ‘other’. As Frankie Allison is very effective as a young woman caught between the worlds of her past, containing the friendships that she has clearly missed, and a possible future.

The Punch character himself is pretty eerie, sporting a squeaky voice, uttering a series of sotto voce one-liners like a more embarrassed Freddy Kreuger. In some ways, Punch acts as a kind of animated spirit of the violence that lies vaguely hidden beneath the surface of the town, which is underlined in the film’s rather unexpected ‘twist’ ending.

The end credits announce that Mr. Punch will return, and I for one would be interested to see how Edwards develops his themes in future movies. That is, indeed, the way to do it then.

(a version of this review originally appeared on the Bloody Flicks site)

Crannog Bay (UK 2023: Dir Doug Kyle) I wrote a longish piece on Kyle in the third issue of my short lived 'Dark Eyes of London' hard copy fanzine, in which he mentioned that he was just finishing Crannog Bay, a continuation of themes of bringing Scottish island folklore to life.

While Crannog Bay as a location is fictitious, one of the great things about Kyle's short films is their sense of location. For this one (filmed in 2021 but not released until 2023) he deploys some very effective drone photography which perfectly captures the beautiful - and threatening - terrain.

Mixing song, Celtic folklore and, yes, monsters, Crannog Bay is the story of Chris (Josh Currie), a native of the area taken away at a young age by parents keen to help him overcome recurrent nightmares about attacking mer-men. Now an adult, Chris has been drawn back to the Bay, the nightmares having returned. He tries to make sense of what's going on, first by attending meetings of the 'True Believers' support group, and then, courtesy of group member Russel (Doug's brother Andrew, like many in the cast a regular in Doug's films) and a psychic (Jane Fullerton). But try as he might to rationalise what's happening to him, Chris is being steered inexorably towards the denizens of the Bay and his own fate.

Although only running for about 40 minutes, Crannog Bay manages to combine creature feature, local drama and rumination about what it means to be, as one character puts it, "a true local." Chris feels the pull of his birthplace but also the awkwardness of someone returning home after a long spell away. The 'true locals' in this case have made peace with the occupants of the sea (a very 70s Doctor Who creation, put together as usual by Kyle and Claire Martin - see his other films for more of this sort of thing), turning a blind eye to the islanders who regularly go missing. I love Kyle's films; you can keep your faux 'folk horror', this is the real deal.

You can watch Crannog Bay here.

Artifacts of Fear (UK 2023: Dir Rusty Apper) This is Apper's first real feature, although the director has turned his hand to most behind the scenes functions in his movie career. It's therefore perhaps unsurprising that he wrote, edited, scored and directed AoF, and refreshing to report that it's actually pretty bloody good.

AoF is a portmanteau movie, which lets each of its three stories - and indeed its wraparound section - breathe rather than, as is more usual with these things, simply rushing to the next bit for fear of boring the audience. This would explain the movie's near two hour running time, but don't let that put you off; Apper knows what he's doing.

Alex (Luke Morgan) and Nathan (Cameron Patmore) are two lads on a mission; they've been tasked with finding something with a bit of 'wow' factor for a Halloween party, and have been tipped off that there's a curio shop nearby where they might pick up just what they need.

Run by proprietor Jack Korminski (Laurence R Harvey in a role which embraces the oddball shopkeepers from the heyday of the 'portmanteau' film) the boys are shown into the basement, where the piece de resistance is a strange, talking radio contraption - Tales from the Haunted Radio - which, for the cost of a ticket, will narrate tales of terror.

In the first, Apper's homage to the giallo movie, a police woman (Isabella Moore Richardson) investigating video evidence relating to a string of disappearances finds herself at the mercy of a masked killer; in the second the screaming skull of a convicted witch is passed through the generations until it comes to the attention of Rick (Nathan Head), an enthusiast who's not quite what he seems; and in the last Mike (Mark Porter), one of two brothers dealing with the estate of their recently deceased father, realises that dad was a Satanist whose beliefs may have the power to reach from beyond the grave.

One of the standout elements of AoF is the quality of the performances. No-one overacts or treats the short film format lightheartedly, and as the shopkeeper holding the wraparound story together Harvey gets the balance of quirk and sinister just right. Apper's film is both a love letter to the late 20th century portmanteau films of Amicus and a great movie in its own right. Tightly budgeted for sure, but Apper's control of all the elements (including an impressive score) allows for some serious wigout moments, Crowleyesque touches and even historical 'back in time' scenes that makes you think you're watching something considerably better resourced than it actually was. Superb.

It Be an Evil Moon (UK 2023: Dir Ben Etchells) Poor Freddy Campbell (Ian Ray-White). Sacked from his job as a scientist, he now lives at home in Scotland with his demanding mother Gladice (Sue Moore) and, when he's not catering to her needs, divides his time between taxi driving services for ungrateful customers and manufacturing street drugs to be sold by equally ungrateful local gangs.

Dabbling in his home laboratory, Freddy prepares a serum to prevent hair loss, incorporating wolfbane (as you do). He tests it on Henry, his pet guinea pig, with positive results, then decides to spike mum's morning tea, possibly to bump her off (which it doesn't) before finally experimenting on himself. The serum is successful - too successful, turning him into a hairy werewolf, giving him enough strength to get even with the gang members but forcing him to flee to the Highlands when the drug kingpin comes after him.

122 years ago the Scottish filmmaker James Williamson created a comedy short called The Marvellous Hair Restorer which warned of the dangers of overapplying the product, there's something rather sweet about first time director Etchells using the same subject matter for his debut feature. Described as a comedy horror, IBaEM isn't really either (well a wig on a guinea pig provoked mirth), but acts more as a rather dark, but ultimately redemptive allegory about the outsider and the state of society; I was reminded of those dramatisations of Alan Bennett's writings that were on TV a few years back, where the author learned to live with his awkwardness (although I don't recall Bennett ever having to comb his face).

Ray-White is excellent in this, but he's ably supported by some fine supporting work from Sue Moore and Rod Glenn in two 'bastard' roles, one horrendous and the other even worse. If you approach this as a werewolf flick you'll probably be disappointed; as social drama it's really rather ace.

Casting Kill (UK 2023: Dir James Smith) I really liked Smith's 2021 film Surveilled. He and his writing/producing partner Caroline Spence make a great team.

This time round they're turning their hands to all things giallo. Arthur Capstone (Rob Laird, looking a little like Chris Morris's sleazy boss in The IT Crowd) is a top US casting director; he's brash, he knows what he wants, and he's carrying out auditions for his latest project.

But, as Casting Kill progresses, we soon find that there is another side to Capstone. He's a ruthless psychopath, who probably isn't actually who he says he is, and uses the audition process to bump off his potential stars and keep their bodies hanging around for company.

But when he offs one young auditionee, he's made the wrong choice; the following day her boyfriend Domenic (Jack Forsyth-Noble) turns up looking for her. Sensing something a bit weird, he teams up with Ruby (Rachel Chima), another aspiring actress, and together they lift the lid on Mr Capstone's, er, business practices.

As with Surveilled, Casting Kill is superbly edited, with a lush score to add to the cinematic sleight of hand that would lead you to believe you're watching something with a bigger budget than is the case. Casting Kill also, rather cheekily, only has a couple of locations - the casting offices and the stairwell outside them - but is photographed in such a way to distract from these limitations. The murderous auditions director story is a theme straight out of Soavi or Argento, and is served by a cast that convince, particularly Laird, and there's a great sotto voce turn from filmmaker Andrew Elias (whose Tales from the Great War was a 2023 highlight) as the facility's caretaker. This is excellent work, as ever, from Smith and Spence, two largely unsung but very talented people.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2023 #3: Reviews of The Mummy Resurrection (UK 2023), Older Gods (UK 2023), Doctor Jekyll (UK 2023), Haunting of the Queen Mary (UK/USA 2023), Wrath of Dracula (UK 2023) and Three Blind Mice (UK 2023)

The Mummy Resurrection (UK 2023: Dir Steve Lawson) Over on the other side of the pond Universal may have struggled with their 'reimagining' of the company's classic monsters, whereas here on planet Blighty Steve Lawson quietly gets on with the job of bringing back characters like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dracula and Van Helsing; and, er Jack the Ripper. Now, like a number of other low budget filmmakers, Lawson has turned his attention to the mummy, with a little Frankenstein thrown in for good measure.

Explorer Felix Randolph (Melvin Rawlinson) returns home to England from an expedition to the Egyptian tomb of Khenmetptah; he's one assistant down, due to a curse attached to the sarcophagus, but one coffin (and contents) up.

Back home Randolph's wayward relative Everett, in hock to dastardly moneylender Sykes (Carl Wharton), has one eye on inheritance - including the valuable sarcophagus - to solve his financial woes. In contrast Felix's other cousin, the attentive and virtuous Archie (Rafe Bird), cares only for the troubled health of his uncle and the latter's ability to continue experimenting with bringing dead bodies back to life.

Following Randolph's death and the bequeathing of his house and contents to Archie, who would now be free to marry Felix's maid Iris (Dawn Butler) with whom he is in love, the stage is set for a battle for the coffin, and the possibility of continuing Felix's experiments with the long dead body of Khenmetptah (Raven Lee).

Like pretty much all of Lawson's latter 'costume' horrors, the actual 'horror' in The Mummy Resurrection is rather restrained (and in this case almost restricted to the last few minutes). Budget rather than artistic intent may have driven the director, in the words of Churchill, to have his characters 'jaw, jaw' rather than 'war, war' but he's getting increasingly good at the sleight of hand that makes you eventually realise you've been watching a bunch of people in a room talk about what's going to happen rather than showing it. The cast are all on fine form, although Lawson regular Chris Bell is especially unctuous as the conniving Everett. It's a handsome looking piece with enough narrative twists and turns to keep it interesting; a possible hinted follow up would be quite welcome.

Older Gods (UK 2023: Dir David A. Roberts) This one’s been a few years in the making. I originally picked up the title back in 2020, but like a lot of productions kickstarted in that year a certain pandemic slowed down operations; Roberts’s movie finally saw the light of day this year.

Chris Rivers (Rory Wilson) has rented a cottage somewhere in Wales. He looks haunted and jumpy and with good reason; he’s just jumped ship on his family and heavily pregnant girlfriend, leaving them all the way over in Denver, Colorado with less than two weeks to go until the baby’s arrival.

Chris is in mourning for his close friend Billy (Ieuan Coombs) who, along with Billy’s partner Paula (Lindsay Bennett-Thompson), have both taken their lives in mysterious circumstances. Billy and Paula had been researching a phenomenon summarised in an article entitled ‘The Primordial Fear’ which dealt with the psychological state into which people can fall as a result of feeling an overwhelming ennui at the futility of life and their being a speck in it.

The pair have travelled the world, finding numerous incidences of people who have experienced this, and who sought comfort in a deity they have named ‘The Origin’, feeling that the only hope for the world was the awakening of this god and the destruction of everything as a result (a very Lovecraftian idea). The pair had focused their research in a corner of Wales where they felt that ‘the sleeper’ may be located; the same place at which Chris has arrived.

Using a package of evidence left for Chris by Billy, including audio and video interviews, Rivers pieces together his friend’s researches; but as he does so, he feels that the very presences that hunted Billy down (ie members of the sect), may have arrived to see that Chris suffers a similar fate.

As unfocused as Roberts’s film can feel at times, as well as the dramatic limits created by a cast that is largely one person slowly going out of their gourd, there’s no denying that Older Gods is a powerful piece of filmmaking. Apparently the inspiration came from Roberts losing a friend during the pandemic, and there’s a strong sense of grief running through this production. As Rivers, Wilson does very good ‘persecuted’ and his descent into the emotional abyss is well supported by some great camerawork and a moody score by Gerald Buckfield. Not perfect then, but a triumph of overcoming cinematic adversity, and a worthy addition to the Lovecraft film canon.

Doctor Jekyll (UK 2023: Dir Joe Stephenson) Like the corpses in some of the company’s movies, Doctor Jekyll represents Hammer Films’ latest return from the industry grave at the helm of new CEO, British theatre mogul (it says here) John Gore.

Lest we forget, the last time Hammer revived its fortunes under the captaincy of Simon Oakes, back in 2011, their debut offering was the dull The Resident. Luckily this time the resurrected company’s first output is a whole lot livelier, even if it does leave you with a feeling that you’ve just watched a Ken Russell movie minus all of the naughty bits.

Larger than life figure Eddie Izzard plays Dr Nina Jekyll, a pharmaceutical billionaire who now lives in stately isolation in a big house in the country, assisted only by Poole (Lindsay Duncan), Jekyll’s factotum. Newly released from prison, Rob (Scott Chambers, the acting name of the prolific producer/director known as Scott Jeffrey) is successful in applying for the job as carer to the mysteriously infirm Jekyll, against Poole’s wishes; Rob is spectacularly unskilled for the job. But Jekyll has faith in him, even going so far as to give him the code to the house’s security system.

Meanwhile Rob’s past catches up with him in the shape of an ex who wants him to come in on a plan to burgle Jekyll’s pile; but Rob needs to keep on the straight and narrow if he’s to have a chance of seeing his sick daughter again. He’s also a bit confused about Jekyll and a nighttime character called Hyde, whose appearance is heralded by the green glow of a cigarette.

As you’ve probably guessed this is a modern-day update of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, the sort where the names of the story’s characters are ported over (go on, guess what Rob’s surname is?) and with the added thrill that Izzard gets to play Jekyll and Hyde.

It’s patchily funny – an ongoing sort of gag around crunchy nut cornflakes gets some laughs - and Chambers and Izzard are both very good in their roles. Which is a blessing, as the viewer spends a lot of time in their company. Unfortunately Doctor Jekyll is all rather polite; I kept hoping that things would go a bit crazy, but restraint is the order of the day for the most part, and it’s such a well worn story that I needed more than the gimmick of Izzard to sustain me.

Haunting of the Queen Mary (UK/USA 2023: Dir Gary Shore, Rebecca Harris) Oh good god. So the thing to mention upfront before we get into the problems in this UK/US movie is that the Queen Mary, permanently moored off the Californian coast as a tourist attraction, and on which the film is set and partly shot, has recently undergone a commercial makeover following its pandemic closure. One of the key visitor features has traditionally been a haunted walk; following the revamp, there are now no less than four separate such tours, so the owners of the Queen Mary are clearly hoping that the supernatural history of the ship (once included in a list of ‘Top 10 Haunted Places’ and boasting over 150 separate spooks) will boost visitor numbers.

What better way to assist this than basing an entire movie around that very same history? Told in two increasingly confusing timelines – 1938 and the present day – the first strand concerns the QM in its deco heyday, with a story involving working class passengers attempting to pass themselves off as posh, the dad of that family doing a Jack Torrance and going loco with an axe, and an unlucky member of the crew whose death is connected with the fate of the vessel.

The present day story revolves around a writer, Anne (Alice Eve) pitching to the ship’s head honcho a new book on the history of the QM, accompanied by her nine year old son Lukas (Lenny Rush) and estranged husband Patrick (Joel Fry). A sequence of events finds the family alone on the ship, while Lukas, off exploring, discovers the QM’s ghosts who refuse to lie quietly.

Add in some rather ‘didn’t-see-THAT-coming’ gore, a few black and white sequences, some animation and an increasingly annoying toggle between the two timelines and you get…well, a mess. But because it’s shot on the QM it’s a gorgeous looking one, which manages to confuse and confound the longer the viewer is exposed to its two hour running time. And in terms of my earlier reference to the potentially commercial application of the film, consider that it includes three of the spirits supposed to haunt the ship; a guy trapped in the engine room, a little girl called Jackie and a ‘White Lady’, here glimpsed frustratingly playing the piano.

There are, I understand, two sequels planned and if the whole thing has a whiff of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie/attraction crossover about it, well I would have to agree, as I would with the critic who commented that the whole thing was very well shot and then edited by primitive unsupervised AI. Bizarre.                                                                                                                                                            

Wrath of Dracula (UK 2023: Dir Steve Lawson) The second Lawson production for this round up and it's another of his verbose treatments of classic horror characters. 

Here he returns to Dracula, sort of picking up where his last vampire movie, Bram Stoker's Van Helsing, left off. He again uses Mark Topping as a very serviceable Van Helsing, but while his previous film concentrated on the character of Lucy Westenra, this one devotes its time to feisty, independent Mina Harker (Hannaj Bang Bendz), whose fiancé Jonathan (Dean Marshall) has been imprisoned in Castle Dracula.

Van Helsing realises that impetuous Mina wants to travel to Transylvania to free Jonathan, although the vampire hunter feels it might already be too late for her intended. But to give his young charge the best fighting chance, he teaches her martial arts as a back up to the usual silver bullets/crucifix combo; skills which come in handy when she encounters Dracula’s brides on arrival. Unlike the previous film Dracula actually turns up in this one (played by Sean Cronin) although largely played in shadow: as it should be.

In true Lawson style this is ponderous but handsome looking stuff, mixing real locations, the director's cramped Creativ Studios interiors and stock shots, with a faux orchestral score to keep things classy; oh and a surprisingly ambitious beheading too. The odd line raises a smile – “Taste the blood of Dracula!” cries the Count as he almost successfully persuades Mina to drink of his life force – but it’s all a bit am dram and the director’s agonising pace makes me shudder that, based on his current output, we’ll have another five or six films to go before we reach the end of his 'Dracula' adaptation. Still, there's no one else doing this sort of stuff at the moment; is Lawson a home counties Andy Milligan with a better temper?

Three Blind Mice (UK 2023: Dir Pierre B) Another film from the ridiculously prolific Scott Jeffrey production roster, this one’s been directed by a French guy named Pierre B, and is co-produced by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey fame.

Abi (May Kelly) is a drug addict whose family have staged an intervention to help her kick the habit. Facilitated by counsellor Cara (Helen Fullerton), the whole bunch relocate to a remote woodland cabin. There they surrender phones and individual choices as they work on getting Abi clean.

Did they pick the wrong location! Nearby to the cabin is a seemingly disused lab, and it’s from here that three mutated humans, blind maybe but looking precious little like mice, forage for human flesh. Also in on the action is a pack of actual sized, equally murderous (CGI) mice who swarm over their victims. The whole family come under siege from rodents large and small and must battle to stay alive!

While most (not all to be fair) projects with Scott Jeffrey’s name on them are rather turgid affairs, Three Blind Mice is actually pretty good. The human sized killers might just be people in slightly dodgy latex masks but they’re served up quite creepily, and there’s also a rather sad backstory to their creation. Kelly is fabulous as the tortured Abi who goes from victim to victor. She radiates genuine feelings of panic, shock and anger as her family are picked off and, unlike many movies of this ilk, Mr B creates a sense of real dread towards the end. This remains a low budget flick, of course, but its resourcefulness – and the cinematography - reminded me of the movies of Charlie Steeds. Not bad at all.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2023 #2 - FrightFest special: Reviews of Werewolf Santa (UK 2023), Lore (UK 2023), The Glenarma Tapes (UK 2023), Haunted Ulster Live (UK 2023), To Fire You Come at Last (UK 2023) and Hostile Dimensions (UK 2023)

Werewolf Santa (UK 2023: Dir Airell Anthony Hayles) Indie Brit directors seem to love making horror comedy films about werewolves. Maybe it’s the country’s love of our furry friends, or possibly the essential melancholy of the creature with the ability to send up some of the population’s anachronisms. A more likely reason is that you can get away with a lot for not much if you make a movie featuring someone wearing a werewolf mask.

Anyway in this one we’re introduced to Lucy Gray (Katherine Rodden), host of the globetrotting ‘Monster Hunters’ YouTube show, who has been slowly using up all her money searching for thus far non-existent creatures. On her uppers, she returns to Hastings to stay with her mum, Carol (Emily Booth; and if Ms Booth is now being cast in ‘mother’ roles I must be getting old). Accompanying her is trusty cameraperson and fuckbuddy Dustin (Charlie Preston).

As mentioned in the prologue, Lucy could have saved her money and stayed in Blighty, as cave dwelling werewolves have been active in the area since at least the end of the 18th Century; and guess what, they’re still around today. While out filming in the woods on Christmas Eve, also accompanied by Lucy’s old friend, monster expert Rupert (Cian Lorcan), they come across Santa Claus, having a waz break during the annual delivery of presents.

But disaster strikes when Santa is bitten by a werewolf while in his vulnerable state, and it’s not long before he becomes WereSanta. Not only are the residents of Hastings now in danger, but it looks unlikely that anyone’s going to get their presents. The only solution is to take out the head werewolf that started the infestation in the first place, to restore all the bitten to their former selves.

Director Airell Anthony Hayles was heavily involved as co-writer and director of last years’ excellent and rather slick portmanteau movie Midnight Peepshow. But Werewolf Santa rather echoes the scrappiness of his previous feature 2020’s They’re Outside. This isn’t a criticism, more an observation on style. Like TO before it, WS adopts the found footage approach as befitting Gray’s role, and tells its story in decidedly (excuse the slight pun) shaggy dog style, including crap seaside ghost trains, bickering families and a werewolf attack in a known dogging spot.

Booth, Rodden, Preston and Lorcan make a reasonably fun group to spend an hour or so with, and Hayles at least tries to conjure up a seasonal atmosphere, even roping in genre legend Joe Bob Briggs to voice an animated version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (although I’m not sure why). Apparently this is the first of a planned Christmas themed three movie horror cycle, and while Hayles is by no means the most polished director working in the genre at the moment, I quite like his have a go movies, soapsud snowflakes and all.

Lore (UK 2023: Dir James Bushe, Patrick Michael Ryder, Greig Johnson) The rise in short film making has seen a similar increase in ‘portmanteau’ films, many of which settle on gathering, often randomly, a set of premade shorts and knitting them together with a link story which sadly is often little more than an afterthought. Which is why it's such a delight that Lore, although also a portmanteau film, comprises short tales scripted and filmed specifically for, and as part of this feature.

Four intrepid thrill seekers (Miles Mitchell, Dean Bone, Sally Collett and Samantha Neale) head out to the country in search of an advertised ‘once in a lifetime’ immersive experience which turns out to be just them, their tents and an organiser named Darwin (Richard Brake, Barbarian). The camping area, they are told, was the site of a mass grave and the location of an ancient evil, and the four are encouraged to each tell a story as a means of establishing contact with the forces in the soil.

The four tales, two straight, two comedic, owe a consistency of look and feel to being lensed by the same photographer, Scott Coulter, which makes the veritable cinematic silk purse out of what is probably a very low budget. In ‘Shadows’ a guy fleeing from a gang demanding money ends up in a disused warehouse, empty save for a skulking monster; in ‘The Hidden Woman’ a mother and her young son take on more than they bargained for when they settle in to their late relative’s house; ‘Cross Your Heart’ has an obnoxious husband setting up a swingers party, the outcome of which he would never have predicted; and in ‘The Key Chain Man’ a disgruntled cinema employee embarks on a orgy of violence at a sparsely attended midnight screening.

Directors Patrick, Ryder and Johnson know the ‘lore’ (sorry) of the portmanteau film; keep it light, keep it tight and keep it moving. Only ‘The Hidden Woman’ is genuinely creepy but all the segments are well put together, occasionally gory (the first and last stories) and, importantly, don’t outstay their welcome. The link story is a little messy but the end coda, suggesting that story telling is a never ending process, works well. Good stuff.

The Glenarma Tapes (UK 2023: Dir Tony Devlin) It may be nearly 25 years since the release of The Blair Witch Project, but here's Northern Irish director Tony Devlin to show that there's some life in the found footage genre yet.

Friends Gordy, or Gordon to his teachers (Warren McCook) and Jimmy (Rían Early) are students at Mid Ulster College of Art. Jimmy is filming a 'fly on the wall' project following Gordy around. The latter is both flattered and annoyed by the attention; he's a principled soul who's happy to slap a classmate for badmouthing a fellow student, and has a troubled home life. But he's intelligent enough to read his domestic situation into a class about 'Romeo and Juliet', much to the surprise of his teacher, Miss Mallon (Collette Lennon Dougal); he also has a star cross'd thing with fellow classmate Eleanor (Sophie Hill). 

When Jimmy films a secret conversation between Mallon and newly married teacher Mr Holmes (Declan Rodgers) in which they arrange a clandestine assignation in the nearby (ish) Glenarma woods, the students, along with Eleanor's friend, prickly Clare (Emily Lamey) decide to tag along and film the secret get together for shits and giggles and the potentially lucrative power of a sex tape.

Rather unprepared for the whole venture, the four make it to the woods via a bus and some stolen pushbikes but realise as soon as they get there that a) the forest is vast and b) there is no obvious way back. But forging on they eventually come across the errant teachers; but not in a setup they could ever have foreseen.

Filmmaking technology has improved tremendously since the days of trying to locate the Blair Witch, and Devlin exploits this by providing a range of filming techniques - GoPro headcam, 4K etc - that makes The Glenarma Tapes look infinitely better than many of its found footage predecessors. Event wise though, the film follows the FF template - establish characters, introduce the setup, have the cast get lost and then let the night time shenanigans begin - although Devlin mixes it up by having the whole thing go a bit Kill List and then adding a survivor coda which sort of kills the film's 'reality' buzz. It's way more watchable than 90% of this type of film though, and the forest looks authentically dangerous. 

Haunted Ulster Live (UK 2023: Dir Dominic O'Neill) There’s an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Dominic O’Neill’s debut feature is a fine example of this; an homage to/update of BBC TV’s 1992 production Ghostwatch, with events transposed from north London to Northern Ireland.

We join a film crew as they set up a live broadcast for Northern Ireland Television on 31st October 1998 (six years to the day after the events in Ghostwatch). Hosts Gerry Burns and Michelle Kelly (Mark Claney and Aimee Richardson, taking on the Michael Parkinson and Sarah Greene roles respectively, and both excellent) are broadcasting from a reputedly haunted house in the north of Belfast, where a series of mysterious incidents have been terrorising the property’s occupants, the McKillen family.

Meanwhile up in the McKillen’s attic local radio personality DJ Declan (Dan Leith, playing the Craig Charles lovable geezer role) is spinning the tunes and raising money for Irish victim support via a phone in (the events are set just after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and references to ‘the troubles’ echo throughout the ‘programme’).

Things play out much as they did in the 1992 classic: the story of the house – containing a notorious spirit - is gradually unveiled via a pair of psychics and members of the local community who gather outside; mysterious events begin to occur inside and there’s the usual VT playback to analyse them; and the McKillen’s daughter Rose (Libby McBride) eventually becomes the locus of supernatural activity.

There’s nothing as creepy as Ghostwatch happening here, but what is interesting, and not seen in the BBC production, are the ‘off camera’ moments when the presenters show their true disdain for the production, the family, and even the producer who is about to pull the curtain down on the whole thing, until increasing viewer numbers require that he keep the feed open.

Of course a long time has passed since 1993, and the world is considerably more culturally ‘hauntological’ than it used to be. Thus we have a very Ghostbox inspired degraded look for the footage and titles, some timey wimey subject matter and a soundtrack (by the director) that’s very au courant. But I liked this a lot and run wise it knows not to outstay its welcome.

To Fire You Come at Last (UK 2023: Dir Sean Hogan) Hogan is perhaps better known as an author than filmmaker, and as such it's unsurprising that, like his previous movie, 2011's The Devil's Business, To Fire You Come at Last is a decidedly talky affair, full of the fruity idioms of the 17th Century, a la A Field in England.

Weighing in at a slight 45 minutes (perhaps no coincidence that it shares a similar running time with episodes of the infamous BBC 'Ghost Story for Christmas' TV plays, since it also shares similar narrative and thematic concerns) it's the story of four men, headed by the pompous Squire Marlow (Mark Carlisle), whose job it is to transport the coffin of his recently deceased son Aldis (Stephen Smith) through the woods to a safe resting place.

The others involved are Marlow's number 2 Master Holt (Harry Roebuck), Pike (Richard Rowden), a man charged with procuring assistance from trained hands, and finally the result of that pitiful search, the in his cups Ransley (James Swanton). As the four make their way across country bearing their awful burden, secrets divulged reveal dark connections between the men and the body in the coffin.

The skeletal setup (pun intended) of Hogan's movie means that its attraction is largely dependent on how much you like to hear a group of care worn men regale each other with discursive stories; the answer from this critic is 'very much indeed'. Paul Goodwin and Jim Hinson's crisp black and white photography frames the journey from day to night with maximum atmosphere while the men bicker and cajole endlessly (Wanton's character is particularly insidious, sounding incredibly like Coronation Street's Madge Hindle at times - ask your parents/guardians). When the spook arrives, just like those BBC adaptations, it's briefly glimpsed and all the more effective for it. To Fire You Come at Last may be little more than an extended short, but it's a very good one.

Hostile Dimensions (UK 2023: Dir Graham Hughes) Anyone who has seen Graham Hughes’s last feature, Death of a Vlogger, will attest to the director’s skill in deflecting audience awareness of working with a low budget by throwing lots of great ideas at us instead. And now Hughes is back doing exactly the same thing, although this time his topic is the multiverse, an increasingly popular theme in fantastic filmmaking.

Footage of the disappearance of a graffiti artist, Emily (Josie Rogers), via a propped up door in the middle of an abandoned building, comes to the attention of filmmakers Sam (Annabel Logan) and Ash (Joma West). Sam’s previous documentary, ‘Bear Market’, dealing with the capitalist treatment of the teddy bear business, had not been a success (“You do not know existential pain unless you’ve produced a film,” says the film maker). The disappearance of Emily, however, piques her interest, and after a brief tinfoilhatty chat with the weird guy who filmed the Emily footage, Brian (Stephen Beavis), before long Sam has ‘borrowed’ the door and installed it in the living room of her apartment with a view to constructing a new doc.

Aided by Dr Innis (Paddy Kondracki), whose scientific mind is alive to this sort of thing, Sam and Ash begin to experiment by filming voyages through the door, which turn out to be varied and surprising (such as a trip to a giant panda theme park complete with tentacled bear, and a strange country featuring pyramids and floating whales). But when a heavily bedraggled Emily emerges in one of the alternate worlds, pursued by a different Brian (Hughes), things start to get very weird indeed.

Whereas in his last film Hughes front and centred himself as the haunted vlogger, here the film is carried by Logan, a likeable actor (who was also in DoaV) whose interest and ambition nearly get the better of her. Hughes wisely keeps things buzzing (the multiverse idea, if edited effectively as is the case here, is a gift for those fantastic movie makers with slender budgets) and cleverly builds his action to an exciting climax. Hostile Dimensions might be a bit smoke and mirrors when you stand back and think about it, but it’s a fun way to spend an hour and a quarter nevertheless.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2023 #1: Reviews of Consecration (UK/US 2023), Breaking Infinity (UK 2023), Wolf Garden (UK 2023), Ripper's Revenge (UK 2023), The Bystanders (UK 2023) and Little Bone Lodge (UK 2023)

Consecration (UK 2023: Dir Christopher Smith) US actor Jenna Malone, adopting a 'proper' English accent, plays Grace, a successful ophthalmologist, whose life in thrown into disarray when she receives news that her brother, ensconced in a religious order in deepest Scotland, has killed a fellow priest and taken his own life.

Travelling to the convent where her brother met his end, she's confronted with a strict order, complete with a vaguely batty Mother Superior (Janet Suzman) and a visiting priest sent from the Vatican to find out what's been happening (Danny Huston). A series of incidents leads to Grace, now clad in the vestments of the order, having an enforced stay in the convent, and gradually learning more about the its history (something about being the keeper of relics dating back to the Crusades) and the circumstance leading to her brother's murder/suicide. And of course the more she learns, the more Grace comes to understand her role in the dark history of the order.

Smith's return to Fantastic Film after the not bad 2020 movie The Banishing is nunsploitation lite, with a big hitter cast and a story that tries oh so very hard to have meaning but which descends into silliness after offering up every cloister bound cliché in the book. Malone plays Grace as a somnambulant, one note character, and although there's a reason for that it doesn't make for very enjoyable watching. As Father Romero (geddit?) Danny Huston brings the usual quietly menacing gravitas to his part (I still maintain that his performance as the vampire Marlow in 2007's 30 Days of Night was one of the most frightening in a recent fright flick) but the rest of the cast, including a wasted Janet Suzman, are just making up the numbers. As Consecration gradually unveils its narrative layers it becomes difficult to give a toss about what's happening, and any atmosphere created in the first half is blown away by a silly ending. Not very good then, although the Isle of Skye locations are impressive.

Breaking Infinity (UK 2023: Dir Marianna Dean) Low budget time travel sci fi movies can be a tricky beast. Directors have the dual problems of encouraging audiences to suspend disbelief with little funds to spare, and telling stories that by their very nature can have the capacity to confuse and alienate if not handled well. Luckily Marianna Dean’s feature debut Breaking Infinity (whose title admittedly does sound a little like an oft quoted line from Buzz Lightyear) handles both these hurdles with aplomb.

When we first meet Liam (Neil Bishop) he’s all bandaged up in an otherwise empty medical facility with little idea who he is or how he got there. But soon we’ve been introduced to Liam in a number of different scenarios and timelines, encountering Emma (Zoe Cunningham) along the way, who may be just a nurse, or something more intrinsic to the story.

As the film unfolds we learn that Liam is involved in a complex scientific experiment to achieve time travel (with the usual added pressure of the top brass demanding results, and lots of timey wimey explanations, as per with this sort of thing), which has somehow gone awry, trapping him in some kind of quantum loop, the end result of which, as evidenced by glimpses into the future, could trigger the end of the world.

Using a script by David Trotti, whose CV lists over 30 years of credits in various capacities, Breaking Infinity unveils its core story slowly but carefully, echoing the loops of time described in the narrative. Bishop and Cunningham make for a watchable and increasingly believable pair, convincingly building their roles as the audience understand more and more of what’s really going on. This is a smart first feature from Dean and a great addition to the British Fantastic Film canon.

Wolf Garden (UK 2023: Dir Wayne David) Wolf Garden’s writer, director and lead actor originally had another movie planned for his first feature, but a certain Pandemic scuppered that project in favour of a more self contained, one location movie.

The result, described by David in a recent interview as a ‘werewolf love story’, puts us in the tortured mind of William, played by the director. William has moved to a cottage in the country, ostensibly to get his head together but also, we eventually discover, to lay low following an unspecified incident.

The forced relocation has been suggested by his supportive and ever-present girlfriend Chantelle (Sian Altman), the house belonging to one of William’s friends. But all is perhaps not as it should be: William is plagued by dreams of howling wolves, and of a certain something living in a shed attached to the house, a something which William is compelled to feed raw meat.

Told in a series of fractured scenes, don’t expect Wolf Garden to coalesce into a tidy conclusion or to be a straightforward werewolf flick; it’s all a bit confused in the telling, which was undoubtedly David’s intention. It’s really a one person piece, not too unlike an extended showreel, and I suspect that a lot was resolved in post-production; apart from David, Altman is adequate but doesn’t have much to do, and there are bit parts for a couple of other actors (including a – literally – phoned in performance from Jake Eastenders Wood).

There’s some lovely moody photography here and some impressive soundtrack work by Rupert Uzzell, but overall it’s a little too slight and perhaps overambitious given the material on display. The final credits feature a rather inappropriate power ballad entitled 'I'm Sorry', written by one Paul Griggs, who also Executive produced. Griggs has a long history in British pop music, being a founder member of 1960s band 'Octopus' (fellow band members later joining the New Zealand group 'Split Enz') and, the following decade, 'Guys n' Dolls'.

Ripper's Revenge (UK 2023: Dir Steve Lawson) Lawson's last five movies have seen him extensively raiding the dress up box in a series of period features mixing horror and adventure. After 2021's Ripper Untold, Lawson clearly feels there's more to tell about the UK's most notorious serial killer, so offers us Ripper's Revenge (and there's a gag in that title for fans of Hammer movies thinking that it might refer to a diminutive member of their stock cast finally getting his own back).

Picking up where his last Ripper movie left off, we're reintroduced to Sebastian Stubb (Chris Bell), the enterprising journalist from Ripper Untold, not beyond manipulating the facts to get the story. But now the Ripper's reign of terror is over and Stubb, shacked up with prostitute-with-with-a-heart-of lead Iris (Rachel Warren), is finding it hard to make ends meet now that he's not earning front page news bonuses.

Worse still, the paper has taken on a new journalist, Lenny (Rafe Bird) whose ambition threatens Stubbs's economic future further. So when Stubbs receives an anonymous letter, purportedly from Jack the Ripper, telling the journalist that he's back to his old tricks and leading him to a new body, it looks like the beleaguered journo has been given a reprieve. But things are about to get a lot darker.

If Ripper Untold was only nominally a horror movie, Ripper's Revenge is even less so; basically it's a costume drama with a few dead bodies chucked in. Lawson has some interesting things to say about the power of the press - which are as relevant now - and he assembles a small but capable cast to tell a story that is, at its heart, one of greed and self involvement. His cast may look rather too clean for the era in which the movie is set, and the film drags in places, but Lawson is a solid director of low budget features, and his trend for costume dramas filmed for just a few quid sees him ploughing a unique furrow.

The Bystanders (UK 2022: Dir Gabriel Foster Prior) More borderline material here: only nominally a 'fantastic' film, this breezy sci fi/comedy is very much in the spirit of the TV show Misfits. Former chess champion Peter Weir (Scott Haran) is mysteriously recruited into a new pan dimensional role; he will be inducted to the ranks of the Bystanders. It's a job in which, ghost like and unseen, he must safeguard (and quietly assist in improving the life of) a person who he is chosen to shadow. His inductor is Frank Barron (Seann Walsh) who is bystander to luckless Luke (Andi Jashy), a games fanatic living off junk food and leading a hermit like existence.

Peter's allotted person is Sarah (Georgia Mabel Clarke), living out an equally dull life working as a marketing assistant at a 'happening' record company run by a cringeworthy boss ("come in for a flatty and a chatty!" he says at one point - yeah, that kind of person). Sensing he stands more of a chance of winning the coveted 'Bystander of the Year' award if he had better raw material with which to work, he suggests to the considerably less driven Frank that they swap subjects; once achieved Peter begins his campaign of assisting in changing Luke's life, but he soon finds that any plans he had in mind are jeapordised by others' ambitions.

As a debut feature from writer/director/co-producer Prior The Bystanders runs into the usual problems associated with something TV literate and expanding it to full movie length ie pacing. But there are some great comic touches here: I particularly liked the instructional induction video shown to all new Bystanders, and the fact that, while technically the Bystanders can zap around the dimensions freely, they choose instead to go to an after hours pub in their spare time. Oh and because they aren't human any more, alcohol no longer has the devised effect; instead they get drunk on oven cleaning fluid and turpentine. 

I'd have liked the characters of Peter and Frank to have been a little more fleshed out, but their spiky working relationship carries the film and there are loads of incidental characters introduced to keep the thing going. It all rather runs out of steam towards then end, but it's good fun for most of its running time, aided by a fine score from Prior's musician father Foz (also guitarist with the band 'David Devant & His Spirit Wife').

Little Bone Lodge (UK 2023: Dir Matthias Hoene) As a fledgling director Hoene was responsible for  2008's Beyond the Rave (the movie that relaunched Hammer Films) and, four years later, the Brit veteran stuffed Cockneys Vs Zombies. Ten years later and Hoene returns with a much more sombre downbeat effort.

Mama (Joely Richardson, given a meaty role for a change) lives on a farm with her young daughter Maisy (Sadie Soverall) and a disabled, voiceless and also nameless Pa (Roger Ajogbe). From the outset there is something rather odd about the family setup, but any viewer concerns are put on the back burner following the arrival of two men in the middle of a raging storm, young Matty (Harry Cadby) and his older brother Jack (screenwriter Neil Linpow); the latter has been injured in a car crash. 

Mama shows that as well as being a self sufficient farmer she also has a range of nursing skills, managing to patch up Jack and apply her bedside manner to the troubled, bipolar Matty. But as one would expect, nothing is as it seems; the brothers have left a dead body and a stash of cash behind in the car, and some gangsters are hot on their trail. And of course Mama has her own secrets, starting with Pa who is subject to a rigorous medication regime; is that to help or render him docile? The two men will soon regret their choice of victims.

Little Bone Lodge is a pretty well executed but hardly original movie that hinges on a mid point plot twist to allow the viewer to understand what's going on. Home invasion/revenge movies like 2011's You're Next and Julius Berg's 2020 flick The Owners are useful thematic jumping off points; the movie's title suggests it's more exploitative than it actually is, but for the most point Hoene's film keeps the grand guignol to a minimum and concentrates on some good performances which cover up some WTFery in the plot, particularly Richardson as the not-all-she-seems farmer's wife.