NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022 #4: Reviews of The Lair (UK 2022), Demonic Christmas Tree (UK 2022), Hayfever (UK 2022), Blank (UK 2022), Mandrake (UK 2022) and Wrath of Van Helsing (UK 2022)

If you're looking for the third bumper round up of 2022 films, you can find it in the third hard copy edition of DEoL the fanzine - see my last post. 

The Lair (UK 2022: Dir Neil Marshall) Marshall's movies can be hit or miss affairs, and even after his last, 2020's decidedly poor The Reckoning, this is really no improvement.

Makeup perfect Lt Kate Sinclair (Charlotte Kirk, the film's co-writer and Marshall's partner - and it's worth you looking up that story when you have a moment) is shot down while flying over Afghanistan. After crash landing, she's chased, ending up in an underground bunker where she unwittingly lets loose some caged creatures, who she manages to outwit. Sinclair runs into a bunch of soldiers (featuring some terrible British regional accents) who are initially disbelieving of her monster tales. But when the monsters turn up, it's soldier v. beast.

Marshall admitted in a Q&A accompanying the screening I attended that he wanted to make a movie where he basically got "to blow shit up", and when you're starting from that premise, it's perhaps not really fair to look for hidden meanings. While horror fans might look to his past for influences - The Lair has something of the ramshackle feel of Marshall's 2002 debut feature Dog Soldiers, with its dissolute gang of anti establishment military, and also some of the claustrophobic fear of his The Descent (although that movie's in a different league) - this is more recognisable as something from the hand of the director of 2019's Hellboy. The Lair also reminded me of Renny Harlin's 2013 monsters and science romp The Dyatlov Pass Incident, although that's not much of a recommendation; this movie's a bit of a mess and rather forgettable, and acts best as a calling card for Kirk, although my advice to her is not to add The Reckoning to her show reel. 

Demonic Christmas Tree aka The Killing Tree (UK 2022: Dir Rhys Frake-Waterfield) My initial thought when faced with the premise of Demonic Christmas Tree was 'what terrible nonsense is this?' Also that it must be an affectionate nod to one of my favourite trash flicks of the 1950s, the possessed tree movie From Hell It Came (with a little bit of Child's Play thrown in).

The actual movie is something else; a parody which takes the often ridiculous premise of many indie Brit fright flicks, and then takes things two - ok four - steps further. It's no coincidence that many of the films I had in mind as the basis for Frake-Waterfield's send up had been directed or produced by Scott Jeffrey. And readers, guess who produced this one?

So we have a old lady, Morrigan (Judy Tcherniak). She was one half of a serial killer duo, whose partner in crime, Clayton Slayter, was caught, tried and executed. Morrigan attempts a spell to bring him back to life, but it backfires, trapping his returning soul in...a Christmas tree. Yep, with baubles and lights; and the ability to move. 

Slayter, in tree form, escapes (via a nifty bit of CGI) and sets off on a mission; to seek revenge on Faith (Sarah Alexandra Marks, also in Wrath of Van Helsing, covered below), a young woman whose parents were his last victims and who was responsible for his arrest and eventual death. Handily Faith is having a party in the family house in which she still lives, with a bunch of friends, who predictably get picked off one by one until it's just Faith and the tree.

Once you get over the movie's ridiculous premise there really is a lot to like about Demonic Christmas Tree. In flashbacks to his life on earth, Slayter is a shades wearing, Alice Cooper-alike (Marcus Massey); as a resurrected tree, he's basically a mumbling, bauble dangling shambles, who kills by means of branches/tentacles which can skewer, rend and pull his victims apart like a Christmas cracker (again via rather clever  - for the budget - effects). To be fair there's not much that's particularly Christmassy about the film beyond the tree (or trees - there's a rather bizarre MCU type climax), and the last half hour gives itself over to the inevitable running about. But as a further subversion of the titles helmed by Jeffrey and his clan it's a hoot, and there are some beautiful shot night scenes as well. Silly but more fun than expected.

Hayfever (UK 2022: Dir Henry Richardson) After 2021's rather good The Secluded, Richardson brings us two further features for 2022; Lurking and this one, Hayfever. Hayfever is "a micro budget, 70s style splatter horror movie made for £2000"; you better believe it! Filtered in blissed out Kodachrome tones, three youths - Shawn (Richardson) and his two slacker mates, Scotty (Oren Kemsley-Roberts) and vape addicted Paddy (Ryan Skates) - set off for a camping trip into the countryside while the nation suffers as the result of a fearfully high pollen count. 

But the pollen carries spores that can infect the living, as we've already seen in a prologue where a hapless photographer falls foul of it. The morning after the guys' first night under the stars they first find the camera and then the infected guy. Chaos ensures.

Hayfever, by the director's own end credits admission, was inspired by Eli Roth's Cabin Fever and Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. For a movie a little over an hour long with a 'three guys messing around in the woods' set up, it's actually pretty good. Our leads are authentically matey and the descent into pollen induced mayhem is handled well, with some great editing work and an atmospheric woodlands location. Richardson's liberal plundering of recorded TV news and incidental music (I'm sure Ray Davies gave him permission to use the Kinks track 'Hayfever' over the end credits) ensures that the film probably won't screen any wider than its current YouTube location, but it's a valiant effort and there's some talent at work here.

You can watch Hayfever here.

Blank (UK 2022: Dir Natalie Kennedy) Successful writer Claire Rivers (Rachel Shelley) has a problem; writer's block. She's overdue on her next book, and both her agent and her creditors are getting restless. The solution? An author's retreat, and a chance for Claire to recharge her batteries and knuckle down to meet her deadline. But this is a getaway with a difference; the facility is run by AI in the form of a virtual manager who Claire names 'Henry' (Wayne Brady) and a rather old school robotic factotum called Rita (Heida Reed), who exists to serve her guest's needs and dispense largely unwanted lifestyle advice.

Of course anyone who has seen any sci fi movies in which the AI has control knows that there will soon be trouble in paradise. Claire learns quickly that while most of her wishes can be catered for, the one to leave the hermetic facility is constantly denied until she finishes writing the book (there's a great scene early on where she submits her first draft for approval only to have it rejected for plagiarism by Rita; Claire has basically recycled Dumas' 'The Count of Monte Christo' to get the job done). Adding insult to injury, a power outage within the building glitches up the setup. An increasingly wayward Rita holds Claire prisoner, and the author's only way out is to break her block and complete her novel.

The story behind how this is achieved, mixed wuth Claire's efforts to outwit the AI and escape her cyber captors, makes for the heart of this rather arid but well executed film. The key elements - single set, small cast - render the whole thing rather stagey, and there's a mid point sag which tests the patience a little. Shelley is serviceable but decidedly one note as the imprisoned Claire, and the drama of the piece is rather stretched with a too long running time. But Blank looks very good and its time unspecific setting adds to the film's mystery, although the sci fi elements feel a little tacked on; it finally finds its heart towards the end but that feels like a rather drawn out journey, if not without some intrigue.

Mandrake (UK 2022: Dir Lynne Davison) Cathy Madden (Deirdre Mullins) is a probation officer in Northern Ireland, who volunteers for a job that no-one else in her team wants: the rehabilitation of a notorious killer, 'Bloody' Mary Laidlaw (Derbhle Crotty), following a 20 year prison sentence for the murder of her husband. 'Bloody' Mary's reputation has passed into local legend, a reputation which ensures that she's not going to have an easy time on release.

Mary's provided new home is a couple of steps up from a squat; Cathy promises to get 'human resources' to look into it and Mary's disgusted repetition of the phrase suggests a woman out of tune with the modern world. Cathy and Mary, for entirely different reasons, are outsider characters, and Cathy's humanity and willingness to give her the benefit of the doubt makes us see Mary in a different light. But when two local children go missing near to Mary's new home, and the worst happens, Cathy realises that she has completely underestimated her charge. 

Mandrake is a film that never seems to see daylight. It's oppressive, inconclusive and very, very murky. I wasn't as enamoured with the movie as some other critics although as a first feature Lynne Davison conjures up great atmosphere, even if it remains rather inconclusive. But Mullins and Crotty are both excellent in their roles, the economy of characterisation drawing from the director's experience on short films and TV.

Wrath of Van Helsing aka Van Helsing aka Van Helsing, Hunter of the Damned (UK 2022: Dir Soner Metin) Researches show that this is Soner Metin's first feature as sole director, but IMDb and the credits list strongly suggest  - ok, spell out - that one Scott Jeffrey is behind this one. And having seen a LOT of SJ movies, this is definitely one of his lesser ones, even if he's clearly aiming for a franchise.

Four ill dressed Urbexers (ill dressed unless they were heading to the local disco, that is) named Ellie (Antonia Whillans), Shauna (Sarah Alexandra Marks), Bryn (Elspeth Foster) and Alex (Beatrice Fletcher), head off for some scouting in the woods; their destination, a desolate area previously used for nuclear dumping which is the site of a number of underground, reputedly haunted tunnels. All four actresses are now veterans of fantastic micro budget movies, and look like they could do this sort of thing in their sleep.

No sooner have the explorers reached their destination, than they are attacked by demons and vampires. Or mutants. Or Cenobites. Or something. The parents of Ellie call on the services of Van Helsing (Michael Hoad, Blood in the Water, Exorcist Vengeance etc) who, with his trusty sidekick Igor (Darrell Griggs, Reign of Terror, Pterodactyl etc) does battle with the creatures for the return of Ellie, the only one of the four who looks like they're going to make it out alive - or at least not undead.

I'm guessing, in true exploitation movie style, that someone happened upon the rather useful tunnel location and then worried about scripting a movie to make use of it. Perhaps that's why writer Tom Jolliffe, contributing his sixth (!) script of 2022, has eschewed the usual domestic drama character back story associated with these things in favour of running around, screaming and emoting. The Van Helsing character is clearly being set up for sequels as most of the time is spent developing his story arc; Hoad plays Van Helsing as a man, unable to age, who has a thirst for the drink, a depressive personality and a penchant for speaking with. Shatnerseque. Pauses. 

Of course we're not supposed to take any of this seriously, particularly with exchanges like "Are you trained in combat?" "You should meet the mother-in-law". But really this is pretty poor stuff; here's hoping that Van Helsing gets something meatier to deal with than a couple of guys in masks for the next one.

You can watch Wrath of Van Helsing here. 

Dark Eyes of London - the Magazine #3!

I have been remiss in letting everyone here know that the third edition of my hard copy fanzine version of this blog is now available to buy, price £3 inc P&P within the UK (a bit more for anywhere outside). 32 pages of reviews, director interviews and coverage of  'fantastic' films and music. If you want a copy, email me at darkeyesoflondon666@gmail.com for details of how to order. And don't forget, no content from the hard copy goes into this blog, so if you're looking to keep up with my coverage of British Fantastic Film this decade you're gonna need to buy it!

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2023: Enys Men (UK 2022: Dir Mark Jenkin)

I'm one of the few reviewers who didn't ladle praise on Jenkin's first feature, 2019's Bait. Impressive though his debut was, there was something lacking for me, a well made if minor film that had somehow been remastered to make it palatable for a wider viewing public. For his second directorial outing Jenkin eschews the more or less linear narrative of his first movie for something which comes across like a meditation on time and trauma, framed, similar to Bait, like a horror movie, using many of that genre's touchpoints but shying away from being in any way a straightforward fright flick.

An unnamed woman, credited as 'the volunteer' (Jenkin's partner Mary Woodvine, returning from Bait) lives on a remote island carrying out a series of environmental tests; her precise job is unclear, although Jenkin has suggested that she's a Wildlife Trust voluntary worker. The woman's isolated daily routine, shown in a succession of repetitive shots, involves her taking soil temperature samples, assessing water levels by throwing stones down a well, and observing the behaviour of a group of seven strange plants which grow, also in isolation, on the island's barren terrain (the number seven will become a recurring motif in the film).

Assisted only by supplies of food and fuel ferried over by a chap from the mainland - providing her only human contact - the volunteer's lonely but seemingly contented existence continues quietly for the first part of the film as she takes her regular island walks, navigating the island's inhospitable terrain (including a massive, terrifying central standing stone which seems to change position according to perspective). But into her ordered existence intrudes images and visitations which suggest an earlier trauma for the central character and her becoming the focal point for a haunting; figures, possibly the victims of a shipwreck which occurred a hundred years before the setting of the film - 1973 - begin to appear, as do brief glimpses of local people dancing and a priest presiding over a long ago service (John Woodvine, veteran TV actor and father of Mary). As contemporary time moves toward the anniversary of the shipwreck - 1 May - the changes on the island increasingly impact both mentally and physically on the volunteer, as the 'haunting' takes hold.

There is no denying the vision of Jenkin's work; as photographer, editor, sound designer and director he's in total control of all that we see and hear in Enys Men (the title - 'Stone Island' in Cornish - refers to the place where the volunteer lives). This intensity is compounded by being filmed on grainy 16mm film with and post synced sound. The film was also shot in the area in which Jenkin grew up, an environment rich in myth and legend, and some of the story of Enys Men draws on source material culled from local stories, references which remain fairly impenetrable unless they're explained to the viewing audience. 

And this is the heart of where the movie falls down; everything we see is too oblique to be satisfying. It's not enough for the movie to stand on a succession of beautiful shots of wild nature, random visions and Woodvine's distantly pained expressions (her performance is almost dialogue free, perhaps understandable considering her isolated position). And Jenkin's well publicised influences inspiring the film play out almost literally; there's the red coat from 1973's Don't Look Now and the f*lk horror trimmings direct from The Wicker Man, there the incongruous rural imagery from the 1974 TV drama Penda's Fen. Enys Men at times feels like a movie tailor made for the dead format obsessed Ghostbox/hauntological generation, even down to the scuffed film stock and the soundtrack's drones and local songs. I'm quite prepared to be the dissenting voice here but I'm just not convinced that Enys Men, for all its stylistic touches, is all it's cracked up to be (to use a 1970s saying). Picture me disappointed.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2021 #13: Reviews of The Artist (UK 2021), Dark Ditties Presents 'Dad' (UK 2021), In the Earth (UK 2021), The Secluded (UK 2021), The Ultimate Sacrifice (UK 2021) and Hellkat (UK 2021)

The Artist (UK 2021: Dir Sebastian Li) Pedro Henrique Valladao plays Peter, a struggling artist (is there any other type?) whose self portrait work is unpopular, but remains disdainful of others' efforts. His friend (Peter Seungchan No) acts as a kind of agent in the face of disinterested gallery owners. Peter's cynicism with the state of the art world extends to copying the styles of others, much to the delight of his cash strapped friend, and then sabotaging the work because it has "no soul".

Peter's world is increasingly closed off and his frustration with the lack of interest in his art is compounded by his refusal to compromise. This situation reaches a head when Peter realises that blood seeping from a mysterious wound is key to his creative, and possibly commercial success.

This 58 minute film is a strange beast, an art film in more ways than one. Various unrelated characters sustain wounds on their bodies which, suggests Li, might be their inner truth leaking out. Or something; whatever else it might mean, there are some similarities with Jo Begos's 2019 movie Bliss, which dealt with the crossover between art and blood. For a movie with a low budget it looks pretty good, and there's a fine score by William Choo to give it some class. Abstract and impenetrable it might be, but The Artist is visually arresting.

You can watch The Artist here.

Dark Ditties Present 'Dad' (UK 2021: Dir Adam Evans) The 'Dark Ditties' series is the brainchild of the Cult Screenings company, who have been turning out episodes of their web films since 2017; the fifth episode is ostensibly a zombie flick which is actually more interesting than that premise.

In the film’s prologue two opposing men of faith – one Christian, the other a follower of the late Father Tyberius Crane – argue their points on live TV before the latter transforms into one of the infected, triggering a zombie outbreak.

18 months later, after the infection has spread and the non infected have marshalled their forces, we meet David (Corin Silva) and his dementia-stricken dad Terry (Ian Gelder), to whom David is primary carer. Distracted by an approaching zombie, who David kills while sustaining a scratch, Terry is abducted by three uninfected men living in the woods, displaced and deeply suspicious of anyone they meet. They are Jerry (ex Coronation Street actor Bruce Jones), Keith (Simon Bamford, the ‘Butterball’ Cenobite from 1987’s Hellraiser) and Steve (Neil Cole).

After a forest attack David, Terry and Keith take refuge in a nearby mansion, occupied by the barnstorming pugilistic Reverend Alistair O'Brian (Mark Wingett, with on/off Irish accent) and his daughter Elizabeth (Wingett’s real life daughter Jamila, who at the age of 7 and a half appeared on an episode of This is Your Life dedicated to her dad, and told Michael Aspel that ‘she wanted to be an actress’; there's still time Jamila). They’re soon after re-joined by Jerry and Steve, and while zombies gather outside the fortress, inside things turn equally dark as Jerry begins to show how unhinged he is.

Dad has its fair share of harrowing scenes, but they’re emotionally rather than physically charged. David harbours a dark secret about his past which plays on his mind as much as his grief at losing the soul of his father; and there’s a similar tension between Jerry and Elizabeth, all of which creates an atmosphere which puts the zombie threat very much on the back burner.

This is a clever and well-acted take on the traditional ‘infected’ narrative, and it’s perhaps a shame that it’s been hidden away within the webisode format of the ‘Dark Ditties’ series; it’s worth checking out.

In the Earth (UK 2021: Dir Ben Wheatley)  The joint spectres of cult writer Nigel Kneale and the recent pandemic hover over Wheatley's bio horror sci fi pic. Shot on a low budget, this is basically a four hander concentrating on scientist Martin (Joel Fry) who ventures into some woodland hoping to reconnect with his researcher friend (and possibly lover) Olivia (Hayley Squires). The journey to find her is long and arduous, so he's accompanied by a ranger, Alma (Ellora Torchia) to help navigate the way. But en route the pair encounter danger from an unspecified, possibly floral source, finding assistance from a woodland denizen, Zach (Reece Sheersmith). The four eventually converge, discovering that an ancient entity deep in the woods is alive and well and demanding sacrifice.

In the Earth throws a lot of stuff in the mix, from mythology to deep ecology and psychedelics. Wheatley isn't too bothered about whether it means much to the viewer; he's happy to leave the elements to commingle. We're left with a group of characters stitching together their collective understanding of science and nature and struggling to apply it to the lore of the land. Some have argued that, in its harmony of ritual and chemically assisted psychosis, In the Earth is a follow up to the dirctor's earlier A Field in England, which featured a similarly bemused set of souls cast off the beaten path to battle unseen forces (or maybe just themselves). It's a slight movie that despite its occasionally comic set up takes itself seriously but resists overt interpretation.

The Secluded aka Monkton Lane (UK 2021: Dir Henry Richardson) Richardson's debut feature (although IMDb states that it isn't), made for £2,000, is a low low budget slasher movie shot on location in the Buckinghamshire woods (the aka title refers to a local area in Marlow).

A 1986 prologue, set in the radiation infested Sector 13 deep in the forest, has a killer taking out a hazmat suited guy, killing him and nicking his protective gas mask. Flash forward to the present day and we meet Michael (Richardson, who also edited, produced, wrote the movie) who has escaped from a correctional facility; he's been wrongfully implicated in a robbery and wants revenge. 

As he makes his way through the woods he bumps into a social media chappie, Miles (Malachai Hall) who's making a documentary on the radiation scarred area which used to be a nuclear test site. Both lads then encounter three authentically provincial sounding blokes whose car has conked out on the way to a music festival. But their luck is about to worsen when they meet axe wielding Michael, who has mayhem on his mind.

You have to hand it to the very young Richardson; his movie might be one step up from a school project, but he presents a stripped down slasher flick which eschews the usual girls in peril storyline in favour of a cast of blokes who all look like axe fodder. The acting is more than a little self conscious, although the lads from the car do good muttering teenager, but the woodland backdrop brings a sense of atmosphere and there's some surprisingly good camerawork on display. Richardson brought out two more mirco horrors the year after; an interesting home grown talent.

You can watch The Secluded here.

The Ultimate Sacrifice (UK 2021: Dir Leon Cole) Cole's rough and ready £100 student movie shot on iphones doesn't mess about, front and centring a clutching Frankenstein monster even before the opening credits arrive. Daniel (Cole) is a would be actor and school attendee. His class is set some history homework about ancestry. He discovers via a box in his parents' loft a family tree that shows his connection to the Frankenstein family and a document about Experiment One, including a photograph of a mangled head - Experiment One was not a success. Experiment Two was successful  - named Adam - and depicted by a photo of Boris Karloff from the eponymous 1931 movie. Troubled by dreams about his unusual family tree, Daniel decides to travel to the Transylvanian castle documented in the written accounts to trace his ancestry. 

His journey to Frankenstein's castle (shot in and around Cole's parents' house and a local theatre, to which I'm guessing the director is attached) brings him into contact with the monster who is, predictably, less than friendly, and gives chase. A friend, worried about Daniel, follows him where it's revealed that the boy has been chosen to reanimate the ghost of Dr Frankenstein's creation (Experiment Two) - which places him in a moral dilemma; to raise or not raise the (already) dead?

I'm sure it was a lot of fun making this, perhaps less so watching if you're not a friend of the small cast and crew. But there's always something to salvage from even the slightest of films; in this case some deft editing, creative makeup and effects work, a well chosen soundtrack and a perky performance from the director. Oh yes, and in its later stages it's a Christmas movie with real snow!

You can watch The Ultimate Sacrifice here.

HellKat (UK 2021: Dir Scott Jeffrey, Rebecca Matthews) Well it wouldn't be a NWotBFF roundup without a Scott Jeffrey movie, now would it? This time round he and directing partner Matthews have gone for an 80s Stateside feel and a slightly different approach to subject matter, courtesy of writer/creator Michele Pacitto.

Katrina 'HellKat' Bash (Sarah T Cohen) is the former top world middleweight fighter, now fallen on hard times, and with a personal tragedy gnawing away at her. She hitches a ride with a god fearing chap who turn out to be a demon; Bash shooting him in the head only makes him annoyed, but it's all in a day's work for our troubled heroine.

Taking a toilet cleaning job in a dive bar in return for endless tequila and smokes (which she never actually smokes), Bash is eventually pursuaded (ok tricked) into utilising her chop socky skills in the ring, against a series of half man/half beast figures.

And that's it! The usual domestic drama subplots common in the films of Mr Jeffrey and his ilk have largely been jettisoned in favour of small time Americana atmosphere and, well, fighting. I don't wish to sound snobby, and I'm sure there's a market for this sort of thing, but as a seeker of British Fantastic Films I felt rather short changed by the whole setup.

For the first half hour there is at least the pleasure of seeing Jeffrey and Matthews create a US atmosphere on a budget which is pretty convincing if you can ignore left hand drive cars with UK number plates and a clearly seen muncipal bin owned by the London Borough of Croydon. The normally reliable Cohen is a bit at sea here and more than slightly unbelievable as a powerhouse of energy (a stunt Cohen takes care of the difficult bits). It's slow, it's uneventful, but I guarantee it's the only movie you'll see this year with monsters and bare knuckle fighters slugging it out in a south London gym. Or maybe I'm just seeing the wrong movies... 

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2021 #12: Reviews of Afraid of the Dark (UK 2021), You Might Get Lost (UK 2021), The Unkind (UK 2021), Something Weird, Something Strange (UK 2021), Monsters of War (UK 2021) and Little Monster (UK 2021)

It's been quite a while since I uploaded my last round up of 2021 Fantastic Films, so time to play catch up:

Afraid of the Dark (UK 2021: Dir Jonathon Green, Myles Keyland) The enjoyment of Green and Keyland's quirky and creepy little debut is considerably enhanced by the fact that hardly any of the cast and crew are old enough to have left school/university yet!

Hannah Fox (an extraordinary performance from Amy Lally) is a schoolgirl leading a dismal life in a sleepy village. Aimless and bored in a way that only teenagers can achieve, and misunderstood by her mother and her siblings, her unhappy existence is shaken up when she discovers 'something' in a box while walking in the woods.

She finds it difficult to convince the police, who consider her a time waster, but she realises, after finding a card with the words 'you've made a big mistake', that someone has witnessed her discovering the 'something' which is possibly related to the disappearance of another boy while out on a family picnic in the same area.

When her family decide to spend a few days away, Hannah is left on her own in the house, and her feelings of insecurity increase, compounded when her friend Olivia (Boo Miller) attempts to take her own life, a response to years of bullying by others in the village. Hannah realises that everything she's taken for granted about living in a quiet location has been a lie.

To be fair, Afraid of the Dark's narrative doesn't always hold together and the conclusion is slightly disappointing. But there's so much to like about the film that those flaws are balanced out. There's a real sense of teenage angst here, of parents and children politely warring with each other (although Hannah's potty mouth rather tests the idea of the 'little girl who should be seen and not heard'). Equally importantly there's a real sense of dislocation; Hannah's internal angst, a counterpoint to the external fury of Olivia, is ably supported by some fine close up photography from Tim Marsh and an ominous soundtrack by Keyland and Aaron Cilia. If I'd known the ages of those involved before watching I'd have been tempted to write this off as an end of year project, but it's so much more.

You Might Get Lost (UK 2021: Dir James Eaves) Filmed in a rather drab Southampton (where the director is based), this low budget timey wimey movie features Corinne Wicks as Arlene; she's wife, mother, drunk and office flirt with sleazy colleague Steve, and her life is going seriously off the rails. One evening she leaves some post work drinks to belatedly pick up her son William (Harrison Trent) from school in the car; the inevitable happens and Arlene is involved in a side on crash which spares her but kills William.

Separated from her husband, Arlene rents a room on her own and ponders her life decisions and, wracked with grief, her future. But bizarrely help is at hand in the guise of a shadowy organisation called the Endeavour Institute. For a price they can offer Arlene the option of moving forward or backward in time; fairly obviously she's interested in the latter option and a chance to reset events, get her son back and repair her marriage. But although the procedure is successful Arlene finds that it's more difficult to escape from past events than she thought.

As usual with this type of film there are lots of "what if...?" ideas which only work if you don't think too deeply about them. I suspect that the script may have been edited down because some things are just left hanging (for example, Arlene pays for her treatment by placing money on the horses when she goes back in time, on the basis that she would already have known the result, but as she's shown no interest in the sport up to then, is this advice given to her by the clinic?).

Wicks is adequate as Arlene, but I had hoped her rather dispassionate portrayal would have unravelled a little more as the movie progressed; considering the quandary she finds herself in and her subsequent actions, I would have expected a more on the edge performance. The rest of the performances are in service to Wicks, the character around whom the film revolves (Colin Baker cameos as Arlene's abusive dad). There are some neat little ideas about time and memory, but despite its narrative You Might Get Lost doesn't really take off either as a sci fi movie or a moral tale.

The Unkind (UK 2021: Dir Luca Gabriele Rossetti) The Unkind doesn't really act like a UK fantastic film. Directed by an Italian - his first feature, adapted from his own story - it's more like one of those ploddy running-around-in-the-forest-chased-by-a-demonic-presence movies of the 1990s; hell it even looks like one. 

After an 1898 prologue, in which a snaggle toothed witch/demon slays the Domintrescu family, asleep in their Italian mansion (with the exception of dad who wrestles the creature to the ground, nails it in place and then burns it), we flash forward to the same country in 2008, and a group of New York students on a holiday trip. Their destination? Why the very same mansion featured in the prologue; seems that it's in the family of one of their number, Chris (Andrea Fornale, an Italian actor who, like most of the rest of the cast is dubbed; on this occasion by Corey T. Stewart). The group also includes Goth lite Ashley (Arianna Monguzzi, voiced by Taylor Skeens) who's a bit psychic on top of all the other indicators of the outsider; she wears black lipstick, draws, has a bad tattoo and is on medication. Oh and "I'm bisexual so it hasn't been easy", she admits.

Discoveries are made of an old book and, after a good deal of wandering round, the site where the witch/demon was staked and torched. Jodie (Claudia Perrotta) one of the discoverers, cuts her hand, which has the effect of awakening the demon whose murderous impulses come to the fore once again, threatening the lives of the whole group.

Some really bad dubbing makes The Unkind (and what is that title all about?) rather stilted, hampered by a sluggish script and lacklustre performances. As well as ripping off scenes from various movies, including Ju-On:The Grudge, Ghost Story and The Woman in Black, Rossetti chucks in laughing ghostly children, a toybox, old photos found in cupboards, radios that turn on by themselves, limbless window dummies, a menacing woman in black (told you) without any sense of logic. The Unkind is truly excruciating; if you don't believe me, you can watch it here. 

Something Weird, Something Strange (UK 2021: Dir Geoff Woodbridge) Woodbridge, who attracted some interest with his 2018 drama Some Girls Wander, returns with a movie that on the surface is only borderline BFF. Comprising a number of monologues, written by Woodbridge and performed by a young cast, it's the themes of the stories that have secured its inclusion.

The direct to camera pieces range in quality (and delivery). A couple of the sci fi sections don't really work (particularly when the narrator is doing so from their bedroom) and several of the participants are overly actorly in their delivery.

Where Something Weird, Something Strange works best is a combination of intimate content and subdued performance. Standout contributions include: Christopher Sherwood narrating 'A Closed Door', a very strange story about hypnotic, possibly time travelling footage, once glimpsed never forgotten (with a slight nod to Videodrome); 'Waiting for the Girl' with Jonathan Brandt, in which an absinthe soaked aesthete reflects on the allure of a lost, possibly non existent woman (the green eyed girl - or is it just the drink talking?); and possibly best of all, the affecting 'The Guest', with Ting Fung telling a very personal ghost story.

There are other tales of sea monsters, cannibalism, serial killers, rituals and more ghosts, and like most anthology movies it doesn't all work, but it is surprisingly captivating. I could have done with fewer, longer stories, but that was Woodbridge's choice. you can check the film out here.

Monsters of War aka War of the Monsters (UK 2021: Dir Jack Peter Mundy) Another Mundy film, written by Scottt Jeffrey, and the usual bunch of cast members have been assembled (Chelsea Grimwood, Chrissie Wunna, Kate Sandison, Sofia Lacey, Aimee Marie Higham, Antonia Johnstone and Stephen Staley), together with a by now overfamiliar plot.

A massive earth movement, ostensibly an earthquake, turns out to be an eruption from underground which disgorges a load of previously thought extinct dinosaurs onto the land; the UK is on standby and May (Wunna) grabs her kids (Wunna's own - see my review of Dinosaur Hotel for more on that, a film which could have been shot back to back with this one) and heads for granny's place; she's diverted by a trio of monsters who force the family into a cave along with two potholers caught up in the chaos, who swiftly get theirs.

May and kids escape the cave and wind up at Jeffrey's/Munday's favourite youth hostel (an oft used location which at least is called a hostel in this one) run by Lyn (Sandison) and her hothead son Mark; there's a bunch of other survivors also holed up including Brenda, a doomy nun (Johnstone), a game goth (Lacey) and a snivelling wreck (Higham): and they're soon joined by a pair of soldiers, Mel and Ryan (Grimwood - who always gets to do at least one scene where she emotionally falls apart - and Staley). Then, as tends to be the way with these things, things slow way down for some domestic intrigue, health related drama and a missing child. Wunna pulls a series of exasperated long faces and says things like "it's ok to show people how you really feel", there's some more crying, and then the CGI dinosaurs turn up for the last reel, which sets itself up for a sequel which to date hasn't materialised.

As usual with this school of filmmaking, the 'action' scenes are far more interesting than the soapy dramatics. Wunna's kids get way too much to do in the film (and the little moppets are also called upon to have a go at American accents) and the whole thing feels pretty lazy. Obviously this, and the other 'Dinosaur' movies produced and directed by Mundy, Jeffrey et al are attempting to emulate the cheap and cheerful SyFy offerings and pick up a few quid via streaming and supermarket sales. In fifty years time these may attain the same status as Roger Corman's 1950s sci fi quickies, but I'm unlikely to be alive to find out.

You can watch Monsters of War here (well you could when I published this).

Little Monster (UK 2018/2021: Dir James Plumb) It's a bit of a cheat listing this film as a 2021 movie; Little Monster was filmed in 2017 and it had its premiere screening in 2018. A collector’s edition DVD was released in early 2019 and it was streamed on Amazon Prime later the same year. The film was uploaded on YouTube in 2021. which is where I come in.

In suburban Wales, distracted dad Gareth (Martyn Stallard) is too busy looking at his phone to notice a dishevelled man approaching the playground where his daughter Ana (Isobelle Plumb, the director's daughter) is having a good time. While the other parents move their kids out of the way, Ana is bitten by the interloper. In return Gareth kills the stranger. But later it's discovered that the attacker had died some time previously; Gareth is exonerated of any charge of murder, and Ana is discharged from hospital, much to the relief of Gareth and his wife Jen (Stacey Daly).

But back home things don't go so well. Ana is clearly still unwell, and the parents' attempts to elicit help from a resource strapped hospital come to nothing. Faced with the awful prospect of caring for their increasingly sick child, Gareth and Jen discover that Ana's infection means she can only survive by drinking blood; and after a while, with their own plasma donations making them both physically weak, they realise that the only option is to source fresh supplies from the Welsh streets.

Little Monster taps into elements of the suburban tensions of the films of Andrew Parkinson and also early Dominic Brunt, while the later scenes evoke the searches of the alien female in Jonathan Glazer's 2013 movie Under the Skin. "Killing him...it was easy" says a distraught Gareth, recalling how he despatched Ana's attacker; an insight that will explain his later actions. Later Jen will say, of her daughter who is now no longer her daughter, "I miss her": Little Monster revolves around the levels to which parents will rise/fall to protect their children, and the dangers of those parents taking opposing views of what is best. Sure the events of Little Monster take place with no seeming knowledge of the popular culture of the zombie, but that's made more believable by the world into which Ana's parents slip, faced with the impossible task of caring for a child for whom their assistance is never enough. Excellent work, and at times very affecting.

You can watch Little Monster here. 

Tom and His Zombie Wife (UK 2020: Dir Kevin Short) NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM

Kevin Short is a rather unsung British maverick. A regular on the south coast arts and festival scene, his first claim to fame, way back in 1978, was as the front person in the parody punk band 'Kevin Short and the Privates'. The group were signed to EMI, and while their only single 'Punk Strut' didn't trouble the charts, Short's continuing life and times on the music scene, together with other ageing punk mates, informed his second feature, Punk Strut: The Movie (a bit of a contrast to his debut, 2016's Speed Love, about dating for the over 50s, starring Elaine Paige). He even put the band back together 30 years later to record an album, songs from which pepper all his subsequent features. 

His third feature, A Reel Life from 2018, was a dark and surreal comedy drama about a screenwriter who cannot distinguish fact from fiction, reality from unreality, who finds his life slowly becoming a film; it was shot on the mean streets of Bognor, West Sussex.

But we're here for Tom and His Zombie Wife, a kind of zombie tragicomedy subtitled 'A Love to Kill For'. Orignally shot in 2020, it did the rounds of the festivals in 2021, with some success, and as a result is now being marketed by Bayview Entertainment for release in the UK later this year.

At first glance it's maybe difficult to see what Bayview found to get excited about. Shot in black and white (there are nods to George Romero's zombie movies throughout), we meet Tom (Short) who, following an unspecified apolocalyptic event, has taken shelter in an abandoned schoolhouse with his unnamed wife (Claire Lewis). Outside the dead walk; sadly his wife was bitten by her zombified son (Jamie Lemetti) and as a result, Tom has imprisoned her in a separate room to avoid infection but to keep her near him.

It's clearly an impossible life: while Tom snacks on a seemingly endless supply of tins of cold beans (with the inevitable gaseous results) he is forced to source bodies for his wife to chow down on, hacking them up in the kitchen so he can feed her (praise here for some very disturbing limbs supplied by award winning uk company Millennium FX Ltd). All the while Tom finds it hard to believe that his wife, although still in bodily form, is no longer with him in spirit - an Alzheimer's analogy possibly - and struggles to encourage her to remember her pre zombie life.

But despite his attempts to humanise her - again a nod to the 'Bub' character in 1985's Day of the Dead - Tom realises that he still needs to procure bodies for food. And it's on one of his sorties that he runs into his zombie son.

Tom and His Zombie Wife has a bit of a 'cake-and-eat-it' thing going on. Early scenes in the movie are almost too sad to watch, a husband and wife duo who were once close but now emotionally and physically separated; in one scene Tom reviews footage of the pair filmed on video while she was still in pre zombie mode, discussing their shared anguish that Tom had to shoot their son to save his wife (neither worked), while his turned wife watches the footage, oblivious, from her makeshift cage. But then, and because this is Kevin Short, he decides to throw in some light hearted calypso based songs and even a couple of zombie dances, recalling the final scenes of Tim Burton's 1988 movie Beetlejuice. It's all rather bizarre, but I applaud Short for attempting to do something idiosyncratic that doesn't play by the rules; and for pulling an almost upbeat ending out of the hat.

All My Friends Hate Me (UK 2021: Dir Andrew Gaynord) NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022

Gaynord's TV based career (he directed the most recent season of the excellent Stath Lets Flats) has been a good grounding for his feature debut; it's a tragi-comedy - barely a 'fantastic' film at all in truth - that deals in the comedy of cringe, which is more about the characters than what's going on.

Do goody Pete (Tom Stourton), who has been working with refugees, receives an invitation to spend his birthday with some of his old Uni mates; the venue is friend George's (Joshua McGuire) dad's pile, and they'll be joined by uber posh Archie (Graham Dickson), George's girlfriend Fig (Georgina Campbell) and Claire (Antonia Clarke) with whom Pete had a relationship. Pete has some concerns about the weekend; he feels that he's grown up and is worried that his old muckers haven't. 

When he arrives, with the promise of his girlfriend Sonia (Charly Clive) joning them the day after, he finds the house empty. Unbeknownst to Pete, the group arrive later having been waiting for him in the pub; and with them is a stranger, the awful Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), whose constant needling of Pete recalls Shaun Pye's persistent winding up of Ricky Gervais in Extras (2005). From this point on there's a ratcheting up of unease as the group fails to gel, egged on by the horrible Harry, who everyone else but Pete seems to like. But Harry seems vaguely familiar to Pete, and whatever the latter says to his friends, the weekend becomes more and more awful.

As I've mentioned, with the exception of the opening scenes - Pete's journey to the manor house is punctuated by some potentially folk horror-esque encounters - All My Friends Hate Me is far more an exercise in unease than outright horror, even at its revelatory climax. Gaynord's interest is entirely in the way that a group of unlikeable people become more so the longer you spend with them. Harry is smart as a whip, but very much of country stock; he provides an interesting conduit between the actual poshness of Pete's friends and Pete's own reformed anti classness (which quickly dissolves when he shouts "pikey!" at a key point).

Sadly the narrative strands of the movie aren't that strong; the audience waits for a big payoff, then gets a couple of explanations of past behaviour which don't really justify the tension experienced. But for the most part it's a great ensemble piece, with at least a couple of moments requiring the curling of toes and a sharp intake of breath. Well set up but ulitmately unfulfilling in delivery, but worth seeing for Demri-Burns's subtly nasty Harry.