Good Vibrations (2012: UK/Ireland Dir Lisa Barros D'Sa, Glen Leyburn)

Good Vibrations is the supposedly warts 'n' all story of the indomitable Terri Hooley, a record shop owner in Northern Ireland who started up the 'Good Vibrations' label to bring the music of broke but talented Irish new wave bands to a wider audience. His greatest commercial achievement was the discovery of Derry boys The Undertones, releasing their 'Teenage Kicks' anthem to international acclaim, but losing out on the big bucks by letting the band sign to US label Sire. Along the way Hooley's wayward lifestyle sees both his health and his marriage suffer, but all is reconciled at the end via the now infamous Ulster Hall gig which, history records, rather than recouping the funds to get Hooley's finances back on track, ran at a loss because half the capacity audience had been let in free by Terri himself.

Hooley's story is an inspiring if frustrating one, and in the right hands could have offered an interesting study of one person's commitment to cut through the political divides of his country  using music and sheer bloody mindedness (bands on the Good Vibrations label often comprised both Catholics and Protestants). The directors of Good Vibrations unfortunately blow the opportunity with a film which, despite a terrific turn from Richard Dormer as Hooley, is pretty shallow and uninvolving. In fact Dormer's performance feels like it's strayed in from an altogether more serious film, and the decision to centre stage Hooley by rendering the other adult characters sketchy at best is a real problem. The use of real music and news footage blended with recreated band performances takes its cue from Michael Winterbottom's Tony Wilson biopic 24 Hour Party People (2002) although that movie had a lightness of touch which blended history and fiction rather more effectively. Clumsy as Good Vibrations is, I did like the scene where Hooley gets his epiphanic moment hearing 'Teenage Kicks' on the headphones in the studio, while The Undertones look on.

While there are certain similarities between Tony Wilson's and Terri Hooley's just-do-it-and-bugger-the-consequences approach to music promotion and business, Wilson's grasp of semiotics (and arguably more interesting band roster) provides better visual subject matter. A hundred odd minutes in the company of a muttering boozehound who manages to ostracize nearly all his colleagues, set in the gloomy beiges and sepias of 1970s Belfast and without the benefit of a decent script to elevate the proceedings past a few good one liners, makes Good Vibrations, if not a boring watch, an unsatisfying one. And as for the uncredited actor who appears as John Peel towards the end of the film...you should be ashamed, sir.

In Memorium (US 2005: Dir Amanda Gusack)

Now that the 'Found Footage' genre has pretty much disappeared up its own aperture, one almost looks back fondly to the days before FF became shorthand for tiresome people running around an empty building screaming their heads off, and when some of the early exemplars - The Blair Witch Project (1999), the rich-kid-trying-not-to-be a-moneybags Cloverfield (2008) and the first couple of Paranormal Activity outings - showed true innovation. One addition to the canon that deserves to be included in the 'pioneers' list is In Memorium, a film hampered by such a limited distribution that very few people have seen it. Which is a great shame as it's a terrific movie.

In Memorium focuses on Dennis and Lily, a likeable couple who have rented a house in Los Angeles. Dennis has been diagnosed with an inoperable cancer and has, in a slightly far fetched plot device, decided to rig up the house with security cameras and microphones to record his imminent decline for possible future use as a documentary. Once set up, the rather mundane existence of the couple begins to be underscored by glimpses of shapes caught on camera, and unidentifable sounds on the audio. Dennis and Lily become increasingly convinced that they are not alone in their new home, and that the presence which has joined them may be destructive and malevolent.

There are very few other characters in the film apart from Dennis's slacker brother Frank and a woman who rents the house to the couple, which focuses things tightly over In Memorium's brief 70 minutes. The claustrophobic surroundings (actually filmed in the Director's own house) are emphasised by the static underlit look of the film, most of the shots being generated from the closed circuit cameras.  Although I felt Lily's rather passive acceptance of her boyfriend's condition a little bewildering, the partnership between the two leads is otherwise convincing and their increasing fear very persuasive.

What makes In Memorium stand out is that, firstly, both the explanation for the visitation and the haunting itself are genuinely scary, something which is very rare in the FF movement. The tension towards the end puts the film up there with some of the great haunted house films, and makes you realise just how powerful this type of movie can be. Seondly, the film never loses sight of the essential plight of Dennis's illness which, when it becomes more pronounced, only deepens the mood.

Amanda Gusack's first full length film as a Director really is an overlooked gem. Made a couple of years before (and clearly influencing) the much more successful Paranormal Activity (2007) and perhaps taking its inspiration from the CCTV nightmare of My Little Eye (2002) In Memorium still packs a punch despite the FF saturation which has now all but extinguished the dramatic potential of this type of film making.

There's a Facebook page for the film here which is worth liking - maybe people power can trigger a DVD release of the movie.

Outpost 11 (UK 2012: Dir Anthony Woodley)

There are so many elements involved in making a film that, when pulled together as a finished product, can mean the difference between success and tragedy, sometimes just by a small margin. Films can have a great story with uninteresting visuals, or be badly acted but great to look at, or filmed in locations which almost but don’t quite compensate for the lack of depth or emotion in the script. But when a film’s basis is three people trapped in a small drab room quietly (and not so quietly) going bonkers for 91 minutes, all the elements have to work very hard to compensate for such a thin premise.

Outpost 11 locates itself in alternative 1955 in the midst of a new Hundred Years War, where a small team of soldiers occupies a remote listening post intercepting military messages, and looking after a large wheezing contraption called The Omega Machine. If I have made this sound in any way interesting, then forgive me. The soldiers bicker and fuss in a strictly Waiting for Godot manner, and gradually begin to lose their grip on reality after possible exposure to a psychotropic drug released by the enemy, hallucinating some joke shop rubber beasts and an astonishingly primitive stop frame animated spider.

Rarely have I seen a film that gets everything so wrong. The script is clichéd and leaden, the almost one room set depressing and totally uninteresting, and the acting flat and completely uninvolving. Any desire of the director to make something cinematically different is defeated by realising that you’ve seen the various elements deployed more successfully in any number of other films – the most obvious and consistent visual reference seemed to be David Cronenberg’s film The Naked Lunch, a movie which is itself problematic in terms of bizarre visuals coupled with impenetrable narrative. Outpost 11 drags itself agonisingly to the end of its hour and a half with no satisfying resolution, or chin stroking final shot that would at least cause the viewer to rethink what they’ve seen (a popular ploy when making movies whose meaning is hard to fathom).

Outpost 11 is a truly hideous film. I detected no spark of talent in Anthony Woodley’s direction that would make me seek out any of his subsequent output. Please avoid this movie unless you are a steampunk completist or thought that the animation of Morph in Tony Hart’s TV shows was brain warping.

Devoured (US 2012: Dir Greg Olliver)

There's something of the night about documentary maker Greg Olliver's second 'fiction' film. Actually make that Night, as in M. Night Shyamalan. For this is a film WITH A TWIST, and by the saints does it spend the whole film letting you know that.

Lourdes is a Spanish woman working behind the scenes at a New York bar and restaurant, clearly with few employment prospects judging by her endurance of the abuse meted out to her by her female employer. As we watch her daily routines, often working into the night after all the guests have departed, we learn that she is in the US to earn enough money for her son's much needed operation back in Spain. We also learn that there are other shadowy presences in the resatuarant, just out of sight of Lourdes as she makes her rounds, which lead her (and us) to think that the place is haunted. Clearly struggling to build up some cash, she accepts the opportunity to increase her savings by going down on one of the diners who is looking for a quick thrill. Disgusted with her predicament, she nevertheless seems to repeat this service for other lone males as it appears lucrative. The shadowy figures become gradually more corporeal however, as Lourdes's predicament becomes ever more desperate.

That's about all I can tell you given the no spoiler policy of this blog. What I can mention is that Lourdes is found dead in the restaurant at the beginning of the movie, making Devoured a 'whydunit' instead of a 'whodunit'. Now the thing about a plot device like this is that the rest of the film has to be strong enough to make you forget the point where you started from, so that when the movie returns to the opening shot there's a renewed surprise and a sense of a satisfying ending. The problem with Devoured is that because the whole film is predicated upon THE TWIST it's presented in both a confusing and mundane way which is uninvolving - something which dogs many of Mr Shyamalan's films - so you never forget that Lourdes ends up dead.

I also found the central character of Lourdes similarly unengaging. Again, this is in service to THE TWIST (OK, I'll stop that now) but as she's in every scene in a film which is already flat and lifeless it made for a pretty tiresome watch. I may be in a minority here - many other reviewers have gone for this in a big way, mainly because of its 'indie' approach, similar to other recent films like The Pact and Lovely Molly. But despite its funky New York setting and some vaguely interesting camerawork, I found Devoured rather shallow and manipulative and not half as good as it obviously thinks it is.

Excision (US 2012: Dir Richard Bates Jr)

When trashmeister John Waters appears in a cameo role in Excision, it's not exactly a surprise. For Richard Bates's first feature, with its quirky characters, suburban settings and dubious taste, is clearly so heavily influenced by the later works of Baltimore's finest, like Polyester or Serial Mom, that it feels like a Waters film by default. But Excision is far better than just a Waters homage.

Pauline is a high school student whose world view is decidedly warped. She's a social outcast with an incisive mind and an aspiration to be something in medicine, plus a penchant for fantasies combining sex, blood and evisceration. Her sister Grace is seriously ill with Cystic Fibrosis, and in need of a lung transplant, which places a massive strain on her parents. Pauline's father is a classically 'put upon' husband who remains largely bemused at his daughter's wayward behaviour. His wife attempts to hold the whole family together with a 1950s style approach to motherhood and housewifery (including wine at lunch). As the family becomes more and more dysfunctional, Pauline's studies of medical texts in the local library lead her to think that she may be able to aid her sister's health condition while finding favour with her mother, and gaining some all important practical medical experience.

The character of Pauline is beguiling and central to the succcess of Excision. She's smart, funny, deadpan and quite round the bend, but also very sexy. The casting against type here of AnnaLynne McCord is a stroke of genius. McCord, a glamorous star of TV shows like 90210, is presented with ratty hair and complex skin, but is a force of nature and it's difficult to take your eyes off her. Traci Lords, playing her mother Phyllis, is also outstanding, barely holding it together as she loses battle after battle with her rebellious daughter whom she neither understands nor seemingly loves.

Quite how Richard Bates has surrounded himself with such a cast on his first feature is beyond me, but Excision also features great walk on performances from Malcolm McDowell, Marlee Matlin and Ray Wise, all clearly enjoying themselves. The full feature has been developed from a short film of the same name made back in 2008 (so it's obviously taken a while to get this movie together), and Bates has taken the opportunity to add a lot more gallows humour in this version - there are some great laugh out loud one liners - and slicker production values which add class to what could otherwise be a quirky gore movie. 

Only when Excision takes its almost inevitable dark turn into pure horror towards the end does it unravel a bit, but for the most part this is a great, smart and funny film which is worth ninety minutes of anyone's time. Well, maybe not anyone's.

Upstream Color (US 2013: Dir Shane Carruth)

James Joyce once wrote, of the complexities of his most famous novel Ulysses, that "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant." I've always liked this quote, and it's one which popped into my head after watching Shane Carruth's latest headscratcher Upstream Color.

So what is Upstream Color about? Essentially it's a film featuring a young couple who have separately had their identities wiped (and their money stolen, at least in one case) as the result of a powerful organic drug administered unwillingly by a character called The Thief. The couple, while getting to know each other and recovering their lost memories, discover that they've both been through the same experience and attempt to ascertain what happened to them. The audience knows more than they do as we've seen how the drug is harvested and processed and also the shadowy figures behind the whole operation. That's all I'm prepared to disclose because that's about all of the plot that is discernible without guesswork and conjecture.

In interviews Carruth is reticent about the specifics of his films, and happier to talk about ideas. As a director who is also a mathematician and former software engineer, you'd perhaps expect a high degree of planning and structure in them that close analysis would reward, but he has hinted that Upstream Color should be seen as a metaphor, which suggests that things aren't quite as organised or focused as we'd like. Carruth also remains rather po faced about his work, so while the subtext of the Joyce quote implies that the author was rather amused at the idea of scholars reaching lots of different conclusions about the meaning of Ulysses, we have no way of knowing as to whether our digging into the real meaning of Upstream Color will ever pay off or whether the director feels that the digging is worth doing.

This inscrutability and obliqueness comes across in the film, which is both its USP and also its downfall. The great thing about film is that it can do lots of things. It can straight out entertain, it can baffle, it can inform you, and because it's primarily a visual medium, if it's put together well it can take a lot of chances and still engage an audience. Upstream Color doesn't do this. It didn't have enough narrative or visual hooks to keep this viewer interested. To me the film looked flat and lifeless, and I felt that I was constantly being wrong footed in trying to understand what was happening. There is nothing wrong in a bit of directorial wrong footing, but when the whole film is predicated on it, it just becomes tedious.

Compared to Carruth's previous film, 2004's talky but frankly rather autistic Primer (a film I also didn't like) Upstream Color has a lot more warmth, and the two leads, Amy Seimetz and Carruth himself, are engaging in a rather blissed out way. But to me the film failed, if only because, as many reviewers have mentioned, that this is a film that needs to be seen many times to reveal its true meaning, I'll not be bothering.

Mama (Spain/Canada 2013: Dir Andres Muschietti)

Two children, Lily and Victoria, are abandoned in a woodlands hut after their father goes off the rails, and 'raised' by a strange and ethereal figure - the Mama of the title, who in an early scene shows herself to have, shall we say, a fiercely overprotective attitude to her new charges. Some years later the two children are found - in a semi feral state - by their father's brother. He rehabilitates them back into the real world, moving them into his home which he shares with his girlfriend, the bass playing (and reluctant surrogate mother) Annabel.

Annabel fairly quickly realises that something's afoot and that the childrens' references to Mama having followed them from the forest may be more than simple wish fulfilment on their part. Her own eventual development of a maternal instinct towards Lily and Victoria stirs Mama's vengeful side, leading to the inevitable showdown between good and evil, the real and the unreal.

As Executive Producer, Guillermo del Toro is himself an ethereal presence guiding the directorial hand of Argentinian newboy Andres Muschietti to create a fairytale feel to the film, which disguises its rather by the numbers story of a wraith hell bent on revenge: Mama has been extended to full length from a short 2008 film of the same name, also by Muschietti, which is a whole lot creepier for its brevity.

The early scenes are the best, with the eerie presence of the spirit fleetingly shown and punctuated by some genuinely creepy sound effects, and there's a lovely scene where the giggling children are briefly glimpsed playing with Mama through a door left ajar but then furtively closed to maintain privacy. The now obligatory revealed history of the spirit robs the film of much of its potency, and actually doesn't make too much sense - why would she angry enough to survive the grave? Towards the end Mama is revealed in all her CGIness, which is where the film ultimately fails in a swirl of mist and soaring Danny Elfman-esque strings. The final veil of credibility for me was stripped by noting the wraith's more than passing resemblance to Geordie funny man Ross Noble.

Acting wise the kids are the best thing in it, particularly Megan Charpentier as older sister Victoria, who does a lot to sustain audience belief in what they're seeing against the increasing ludicrousness of the plot. I just didn't believe Jessica Chastain as a rock chick (she's far more credible when she mellows later in the movie) and someone needs to tell film makers that in these days of the ubiquitousness of tattoos, having ink on your arm is no longer visual shorthand for being 'hard'.

Mama isn't a total misfire but it does blow its last reel with a pomposity that's pure del Toro. It could have remained creepier longer if the director had shown more restraint, but the story probably wasn't strong enough to allow for that. Shame.