Celluloid Screams 2017

The 9^th edition of the horror film festival took up residence in Sheffield's bestest independent cinema the Showroom over the last weekend. Your correspondent forked out for a weekend pass and strapped in for two days and one evening of terror and gory violence (and that was just the Q&As etc). Here's what transpired.

Please note that the reviews of the films may contain mild spoilers. I'll not mention the endings but if you want to go in to any of them blind maybe give the below a miss.

FRIDAY

After a brief introduction from our genial hosts Rob and Polly, things kick off with the brilliant and inventive short Great Choice. A woman is trapped in a looping commercial for Red Lobster and things get pretty nasty. Funny, disturbing and starring the amazing Carrie Coon, it's a great start (9)

The first feature is The Endless, the new film from Spring directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (who provide a fun video introduction). The pair also star as brothers who return to the cult (sorry, commune) they left 10 years earlier for a quick visit. Obviously all is not as it seems in the idyllic community where people are allowed to follow their artistic muse, but the mindbending nature of what transpires is unlike anything else I've seen. Inventive, original, sinister, warm, disturbing and laugh-out-loud funny, The Endless may even surpass Spring, one of my favourite horror films of recent years (9).

The next bill gives us 3 shorts. Creswick is atmospheric and tense but the ending doesn't quite work (5). Latched, where a new mother accidentally awakens a rather nasty fairy, is beautifully shot with some creepy moments (7). Animated Spanish war story Dead Horses looks fantastic and is depressing as hell, but didn't do much for me (6).

The next feature is Ashley Thorpe's Borley Rectory, an animated documentary about the “most haunted house in England” and the involvement of paranormal investigator Harry Price. On top of this, it's a love letter to the horror films of the 30s and 40s. A mix of live action recreation, rotoscoping and digital animation, the film looks incredible. My favourite trick used throughout the film is how ghostly images sometimes emerge from the digital effects used to age the film up. A genuinely unique experience but one where I appreciated the technical achievement and oddity of the work rather than a film I actively enjoyed (7).

Unfortunately I have to give 68 Kill and the associated shorts a miss to catch the last bus home. The Interchange at that time of night is the spookiest experience of the weekend.

SATURDAY

Up bright and early to join the first of many queues in order to watch Icelandic horror film I Remember You. First though we have Swedish short Drip Drop and Australian offering The Man Who Caught a Mermaid. The former, about aquatic monsters terrorising a woman in her home is stylish enough, but is the first time I notice something many of these shorts share; the totally artistic but unnecessary close up of something (6). The latter is bleak with a great twist and anchored by a brilliant central performance (7).

Oskar Thor Axelsson's feature is a mix of crime procedural and ghost story, skilfully merging two different story lines. A couple and their friend move into a dilapidated house in the remote Westfjords, where there are no neighbours or phone signal. Meanwhile a psychiatrist haunted by unexplained disappearance of his son moves to Ísafjörður and is drawn into a homicide investigation where All Is Not As It Seems. The two stories eventually link up of course and the twist that does so isn't hard to guess. I Remember You has a melancholic atmosphere and some properly scary moments, while Iceland looks predictably gorgeous (7).

Another queue (seriously though, the amount of queueing) and it's time for Habit, which is preceded by Couples Night and Bon Appetit. Couple's Night brings the funny and piles twist upon twist to good effect (8). The latter is a slow burning cannibalism tale that aims for satire but lands on painfully obvious (5).

Director Simeon Halligan and actor Elliot James Langridge arrive to introduce Habit and do a Q&A afterwards (with producer Rachel Richardson-Jones). The film starts like a particularly good bit of it's grim in Manchester drama, before dropping in the gory horror. The two genres are skillfully merged throughout and things get pretty bleak. Helped by great performances from Langridge and the rest of the cast, Halligan has delivered a great modern British horror film (7).

After all that Scandinoir and northern gothic things pick up mood-wise with the next bill. In Your Date Is Here a mother and daughter play with an old board game with predictably horrific results. The dread builds nicely until an effective jump scare finishes things off (9). Meow is a good 80s pastiche that keeps things relatively ambiguous until the end. It's first time I notice another trend in these shorts; everyone has a record player no matter when the film is set. Cute cat too (7).

Then it's time for Tyler MacIntyre's Tragedy Girls. Two teenage girls seek to learn “the trade” from a serial killer, start bumping off people in their small town then use the ensuing social media meltdowns to rise to fame. A smart, hilarious satire that skewers both teenage and adult attitudes to social media, complete with brilliant turns from Brianna Hildebrand and Alexandra Tripp as the narcissitic BFFs, Tragedy Girls is like a 21^st century update of Heathers (8).

After the longest queue yet it's time for Inside No. 9 with writers/known geniuses Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton providing an introduction to each of the three episodes. We're given “The Harrowing”, spookiest episode “Seance Time” and (eliciting the biggest cheer of the festival) are treated to brand new episode “Tempting Fate”. All three are brilliant episodes of TV and a treat to watch on the big screen. A lively and interesting Q&A follows (9 obviously).

A trio of shorts follow before the secret film. Crave (introduced by the director) is a smart update of an old horror story (saying which will ruin it) and one of the best shorts of the festival (9). I am ashamed to say I don't remember Third Wheel (it was a loooooooong weekend). Teddy Bears Picnic is grim and suffers from unnecessary close up syndrome (5).

The secret film turns out to be Ryuhei Kitamura's Downrange. A bunch of generically attractive carpooling 20-somethings are stranded in the wilderness when their giant SUV breaks down. Turns out the tyre was shot out by a sniper, who proceeds to pick our protagonists off one by one. This is a great premise, worthy of a gritty 70s thriller, but the director's aim is way off. Though mercilessly violent and incredibly gory, the dialogue creaks and people make incredibly stupid decisions. It's probably the film that raises the most unintended laughs of the entire festival. It'll pass a Saturday night in if you get good and intoxicated beforehand (5).

With that I decide to skip Suspiria and head home to get up bright and early for the 10am start on Sunday.

SUNDAY

Proceeding bleary eyed to the Showroom, I need something relatively gentle to ease me back into proceedings. Instead we get Japanese WTF-fest Tag. Errrrrrrk.

First up though we have Eldritch Code, a neat Lovecraftian story about a corporate IT guy chasing a particularly nasty bit of malware. Doing a genuinely fresh take on Lovecraft is difficult these days, but Eldritch Code nearly pulls it off (7). This is followed by It Began Without Warning, a fairly meh alien invasion/evil kids tale (5).

So to Sion Sono's Tag, which is an odd one even by J-horror standards. It has the most astonishing opening 10 minutes of any film of the festival, when a malevolent wind massacres two coach loads of school girls (I am not making this up). Things get weirder from there as the main character starts to shift through different realities. There are a few great (and gory) moments, though none which match the opening for sheer jaw dropping audaciousness. However, the film doesn't stick the landing, while the pervy letching over school girls and other young women leaves a sour taste (6).

The next bill goes a lot better. It opens with Swedish sleep paralysis short Paralys, which is especially fun for those of us who do suffer from said ailment (8). Next up is Tickle Monster, which manages to be funny, creepy and deliver possibly the best jump scare of the entire festival (9). The final short is Ear Worm, the title of which is basically a spoiler and features a genuinely catchy song which has been stuck in my head since I saw it (8).

The feature is Mayhem by Joe Lynch, a big, loud, dumbass violent action flick with another killer concept. A virus emerges which removes people's inhibitions, allowing them to act out their (usually deadly) impulses. The virus strikes the building where our hero (Walking Dead alumnus Stephen Yeun) works on the day he is unfairly dismissed, and as any killings undertaken while ill are not considered murder he decides to take revenge. Funny, gory, intense and cathartic for us office drones, this is another great Saturday night film and easier to recommend than Downrange. Plus it's refreshing to see a non-white actor star in such a film (8).

Next, we have Short Cut and Undress Me. The former is a fairly good excuse for a nasty pun (7), while the latter is a dreary body horror story which feels twice as long as it's 14 minute run time (3).

M.F.A. by Natalia Leite is next and it's a tough one. Art student Noelle (an incredible performance by Francesca Eastwood) is sexually assaulted at a party. When the school authorities prove to be useless she takes matters into her own hands, the descent into darkness fuelling (and massively improving) her art. A brutal evisceration of rape culture on campus (and by extension in society as a whole), M.F.A. is more powerful and thoughtful than the dubious films usually filed under the rape/revenge category. The rape scenes were most difficult things to watch all weekend, while the violence that follows isn't glorified either. A timely film and one which will haunt the viewer for some time afterwards (9).

After a bit of walk to catch breath and clear heads, it's time to back to some good ol' fashioned demonic horror. We Summoned A Demon is from the same people as a short I saw last year called Death Metal (I still use the exclamation “Shit on my fuck!” on occasion) and is in a similar dumbasses vs Satan vein. Funny and violent, someone let Chris McInroy do a feature soon please (8).

So to the 30^th anniversary of Hellraiser, showing in a new print. I've not seen it for some time so was looking forward to see how well it holds up. Like so many 80s films that you saw when you were too young, the sad answer “not very”. The dialogue, from the human characters at least, groans with cliches, while most of the performances leave a lot to be desired. Most of the effects have dated badly too. However, the Cenobites still look great and have iconic lines, while the story and Clive Barker's hugely original concept are winners (7). There's an informative Q&A with actor Nicholas Vine and make up artist Geoff Portass afterwards.

Next we have Flow, an amusing tale of two women soldiers who wipe out their enemies despite running out of tampons (7). Caravan is a dark and atmospheric Aussie chiller with a horrifying denouement (7).

The longest queue of them all is for the final film I see all weekend is Creep 2, which is a shame as it's a bit rubbish. A found footage film with pretensions to being more than the jump scare filled serial killer film it so clearly is, any points it tries to make about “art” or “journalism” or whatever gets lost in the meandering monologues. Both central performances are decent and there a few wry chuckles raised, but the film long outstays it's welcome (3).

Unable to justify the expense of another taxi home and a bit bleary eyed I sadly decide to miss closing film You Better Watch Out and go home to watch cartoons for a week.

Many thanks to the guys at Celluloid Screams for a great festival. Can't way for next year already!

Two recent(ish) films offer new takes on a standard horror plot

Contains spoilers for Ava's Possessions and February (aka The Blackcoat's Daughter)

Demonic possession is one of the big horror plots. It's not quite up there with haunted houses or vampires or (yawn) zombies, but there are quite a few out there. And they almost all rip off the foul language and green bile spewing mother of them all, The Exorcist.

It's easy to see why. William Friedkin's film was unlike anything which came before and possesses (heh!) thematic depths which reward repeat viewing. It's beautifully written and brilliantly acted, leading it to be the first horror film to nominated for several Academy awards. Despite several key scenes being parodied into memetic status and some cheap looking effects shots, it still casts a chilly spell over the viewer and remains a masterpiece. (As a side note, I watched it again recently and this time I was taken by how bloody tense and unnerving the opening scenes in Iraq are).

Demonic possession films can also be relatively cheap to make, only needing a bit of make up on your victim and have them snarl, talk in Latin or use a glut of salty language. If you have a bit more budget then you can go for the levitating, head twisting, spider walking and projectile vomiting. Dress someone as a priest and get them to make with the holy water and the “the power of Christ compels you” stuff and you have yourself a film.

Very probably a rubbish film. A lot of possession flicks are just basic Exorcist rip offs with very little to recommend them. They bring nothing new to the table (unless you just make it a found footage film and forget to add an actual ending. Oh hi The Devil Inside) and forget the things that still make Friedkin's film so memorable.

Which is why Ava's Possessions and February are such nice, refreshing surprises. They are very different films, with one being significantly better than the other, but both do something new with the formula.

In the case of Jordan Galland's Ava's Possessions, the difference is entirely in the plot. The film starts with the titular heroine being exorcised, then follows her as she tries to put her life back together in the aftermath. She has (or believes that she has) committed a lot of terrible things while under the influence of her demon, causing emotional and physical damage to those around her. She is also facing potential jail time for her actions, unless she attends a rehabilitation group for formally possessed people. Also her family are acting a bit odd and there's a shit ton of blood in her apartment, implying that she killed someone.

Things get convoluted and the plot unravels a little towards the end. There's also a pretty major plot hole. If demonic possession is an accepted thing and as common in this universe as implied, then why is Ava being held responsible for her actions to the extent that she might go to jail? The obvious metaphor for drug addiction is a bit overdone, but it makes a change for usual metaphor, which usually about puberty (the Exorcist again) or sexuality. However, it's a nicely acted, fresh take on the usual tropes with a couple of nice scares and some laughs to be had.

Much better is Oz Perkins' February, which hits a lot of the usual plot beats but deviates from the norm in terms of form and technique. In this it is similar to the director's subsequent film I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House, which seriously messed around with the haunted house story. While February isn't as odd as that film, it is definitely better.

We follow two plot strands and I'm probably not shocking anyone by revealing that they eventually intertwine. In one, two pupils of a Catholic boarding school (Kat and Rose) are forced to stay for the start of vacation when their parents fail to pick them up. In another, a mysterious young woman (Joan) accepts a lift with a couple who are driving to the town where said boarding school is based. The husband frequently tells Joan that she reminds him of their daughter, some she seems to find amusing.

One of these young woman is possessed. You can tell by the weird way she contorts her body, worships the boiler in the school basement and drops a major C-bomb. Oh and her habit of stabbing people right up. The possession goes along the usual horror film lines, with one difference: she very much wishes to remain possessed and is visibly distraught to be left on her own again (actually a plot point it shares with a side character in Ava's Possessions, though again that was about drug addiction while this is about loneliness and alienation).

So yeah, standard “the devil made me do it” stuff, but it's lifted by Perkins' brilliant direction. This is a film where everything seems a little bit “off” somehow. All of the characters act in a strange way, even the ones who don't have a supernatural back seat driver. He does my current favourite horror trick of holding shots longer than necessary to create unease. The normal narrative connective tissue is trimmed away and chronology is played with, leading to disorientation (he did this to great effect in ...Pretty Thing... but this is in service of a better film). It's utterly chilling, and not just because of the loving shots of abandoned, wintry places.

I watched February a couple of weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it. With this and his divisive (to say the least) sophomore effort, Perkins is showing himself to be the most exciting new director in horror, at least for those of us like it a bit more thoughtful. For me, he has made the only demonic possession film that is anywhere near to matching the profane glory of The Exorcist, though Ava's Possessions also gives me hope that other way of telling this story can be found.

Prevenge and emotion and ambiguity in horror films

Spoilers for Prevenge abound further down

I went to Sheffield's bestest indie cinema the Showroom to watch Alice Lowe's debut feature Prevenge last night. I don't want this to be a review as such, but suffice it to say it's gory, bleakly hilarious and shot through with surprising melancholy. Lowe, who wrote, directed and acts the shit out it has crafted a great film which is destined for cult classic status. I'll give it a 9/10

This was a preview and there was a Q&A with Lowe afterwards. A couple of things she said got me thinking about the type of horror films I tend to love (if Prevenge can strictly speaking be called a horror film, which I think it can. Lowe said she was influenced by horror films so yeah, I'm going with horror film).

Lowe mentioned that she deliberately added an emotional and psychological element to the horror and the comedy, feeling that comedy-horror had been a pretty well-mined seam since Sean of the Dead. She's certainly succeeded. Spoilers from here on in.

The main character Ruth is heavily pregnant, lonely and grieving. Her partner died in a climbing accident a few months ago and she is driven to kill the others from the party who she holds responsible for his death. Many horror films have a psychological element of course, but I think it is the emotional depths which elevate Prevenge. Some scenes are genuinely heartbreaking, such as when Ruth presses up against the wall of her bedroom beyond which her neighbours are having noisy, energetic sex. Though she found it annoying earlier by this point in the film she is so desperate for any human contact which doesn't involve a midwife or murdering someone she wants to get as close as possible.

There are few horror films which go for emotions other than, y'know, fear (or revulsion). Even some of my favourites are a bit lacking in this area. As much as I love It Follows, it's mostly down to the puzzle it creates, how the concept is used for symbolic depth and how amazingly put together it is as a film. Same with Kairo, which I admire as a formal exercise in masterful atmosphere and genuine inventiveness. The Exorcist is a great film about religion, again beautifully crafted, but little in the way of emotional investment.

I've tried to think of horror films I love which have the same emotional depth as Prevenge. I reckon The Babadook counts, though it feels lazy to say it what with it also having a female writer/director. It's also a film about grief and motherhood, though these themes are much more to the fore in Jennifer Kent's film. The emotional investment comes from the relationship between Amelia and Samuel. The Witch may also count, where the disintegration of family is one of the keystones of the film.

Speaking of The Witch, when I wrote about that (sorta) recently I mentioned how one of the things I like about it is the lack of ambiguity. One of the things I like about Prevenge is the ambiguity. Again, this is something Lowe touched on in her Q&A. She says that she was very much thinking about “likeability” when she was writing the film, and how lead female characters are supposed to be likeable.

Ruth can switch being sympathetic and unsympathetic throughout the film, often in the course of a single scene. After committing probably the most wince inducing murder in the film (if you own a pair of testicles it is anyway), she immediately starts taking care of her victim's elderly, senile relative, doing the washing and putting her to bed. It's incredibly sweet, which makes it even more unnerving after the horrible act she's just committed. Even the biggest dickheads among her targets have their moments that serve to show they're just normal human beings.

Ruth is of course extremely mentally unwell. Her unborn child is not talking to her demanding that she go on a murder splurge. Grief, loneliness and the surreal horror of being pregnant have made her crazy (though Lowe lays in some hints that Ruth was perhaps a bit “interesting” before any of this happened). The ambiguity I'm getting a bit tired of (as talked about in the The Witch entry) is the whole “is it supernatural or all in their heads” thing. The ambiguity in Prevenge is about whether Ruth is the protagonist or antagonist in her own story.

So what do these suggest to me about the horror films I like? As much as I love a well made splatter fest or jump scare factory I do appreciate a bit more depth in my favourite genre. Alice Lowe has shown that she is more than capable of bringing that depth. I can't wait for to see what she does next.

What two very different horror films tell us about a modern horror cliche (or not)

It can be hard to say when tropes tip over into clichés. Tropes are a useful and probably essential part of writing stories, whether films, tv, books, comics or games. But if they start getting used too much do they become over familiar and y'know, boring?

Or is it how well they are used that are important? I watched two horror films this week that both used what for me is the biggest of modern horror movie staples to wildly varying effect. Spoilers for both films follow.

The films in question are Babek Anvari's amazing debut “Under The Shadow” and the infinitely less amazing “The Woman In Black: Angel of Death” directed by Tom Harper btw. Quick reviews/synopsis follow.

The former is a genuinely odd blend of low key family drama, set in Tehran during the Iran/Iraq war shortly after the revolution. A young mother decides to remain in the city with her daughter after her doctor husband is sent to an area of heavy fighting by the military. Refusing to go to her in-laws on the basis that they are apparently absolute bellends, this start to go pretty weird after a missile hits the building they live in and an allegedly mute orphan starts telling the little girl about the djinn which haunt the war torn city. Shot in a mostly hand-held style and bolstered by a great performance from the luminous Narges Rashidi (“luminous” is a posh word writers use when they really fancy the actor involved), it also benefits from shots or mordant humour, genuinely freaky imagery and a unique setting. “Under The Shadow” is up there with the best of the recent art house horror crop – 9/10

“Angel of Death” is a sequel to the earlier adaptation of Susan Hill's famous shit 'em up novel (and play). A bunch of war evacuees, their teachers and for some reason an airman one of the teachers immediately gets all flustered over actually decide to flee a war torn city but end up in the haunted house from the first film. The resident vegenful, child murdering ghosty isn't happy, lots of people. Maybe they had the right idea in “Under the Shadow” after all. While the first film had a decent performance from Daniel Radcliffe and his awesome Victorian facial hair and was generally a well put together film. “Angel of Death” suffers from stilted acting, dialogue and an apparently endless cliché storm – 3/10

So, back to what I was saying. Think of how many recent supernatural horror films you've seen recently where this happens: the protagonist is walking slowly around somewhere dark, say their haunted apartment or the crumbling house they're holed up. They spot something weird moving in the murk and stop to peer quizzically at it. The camera shows us their perspective and watch the weird thing for a few seconds before it suddenly lurches right up into the camera for a split second, preferably moving at uncanny speeds. Cheap jump scare central. In “Angel of Death” the hideous, twisted face of the titular undead bastard does this when attacking a secondary character. It says much about the film that I can't remember if the character dies at that stage, but that isn't the usual outcome of this shot.

Instead we normally get what “Under the Shadow” does, which is the protagonist comes face to horrible face with the thingymajig for an instant then immediately wakes up in bed. The old “it-was-a-dream-but-was-it-really-though” trick. “The Forest” starring the luminous Natalie Dormer pulls the same gag, as do various no-budget straight to streaming delights I have watched of late.

What “Under the Shadow” does differently two fold. Firstly, the normal hand-held camera style has been replaced by a steadier, slower moving shot. It immediately puts you on edge that something weird is going to happen because of a simple but beautifully effective camera move Anvari pulled off earlier. Rashidi's character Shideh is laid in bed while the camera is on it's side so she is vertical in the frame. She hears a noise and wakes up and the camera tilts through 90 degrees as she does. It then smoothly follows her to the first massive jump scare of the film. Knowing that this non-hand-held style heralds the oh-shit coming increases the tension, as does the fact that the quizzical “no what actually is that shot” has the little girl in the background, which is rare as these things go.

Secondly, the whatsit in “Under the Shadow” pretty much doesn't look like any other creature you see in these things. It's basically a bed sheet ghost (patterned like a headscarf, somewhat significantly), but moves in such an uncanny and unnatural way that the sudden lurch to camera is a proper jolt. It goes to show what a little bit of imagination in creating your spooky antagonist can achieve.

The similar scene in “Angel of Death” isn't bad per se, and is probably the biggest scare in the film. It just doesn't do anything new. The Woman's face, a fairly good achievement in making a human visage look utterly malicious, zooms at you out of the darkness before the screaming starts.

There are other similar scenes, for example both films employ big old jump scares looking out of a darkened window, but we'll be hear all night. I think my point is that clichés are clichés for a reason, but if they're used effectively in a film that does the other stuff well enough they're more forgivable than in an average film. “Under the Shadow” is an extraordinary film so pulls them off with aplomb.

Word of warning: I'll probably write about “Under the Shadow” again after re-watch because I've barely scratched the surface of what makes it great.

A second viewing of The Witch proves it stands up with the best

Contains massive spoilers for The Witch. Including the ending and everything

The Witch is an extraordinary film, kind of unlike anything else out there. Sure, it has folk horror forebears, but it has a unique atmosphere that is all it's own.

Much of this is down to the now famous attention to detail, which I think does two things. Firstly it makes the world of the film more authentic and allows for suspension of disbelief. They actually built a replica of a 17^th century farm out in the Canadian (standing in for New England) wilderness. The clothing is also as historically accurate that they could make it. The levels of research are phenomenal. It all seems really real and draws the viewer in properly.

Secondly, the dialogue is mostly taken from documents such as diaries, letters and court reports from the era in which the film is set. Again, this helps the authenticity but also creates a distancing effect. This could be a bad thing, but the amazing cast sell the hell out of it. The archaic verbiage is beautiful to listen to, but also adds to the feeling of weirdness the film does so well.

The atmosphere is also enhanced by how gorgeous the film looks (especially on Blu-Ray, yeah check ME out), but also how genuinely forbidding the woods and meadows seem. The family patriarch William tells his son Caleb that they will tame this wilderness, but the sinister surroundings seem to mock him even as he says it.

Then there's the score. The score is the reason I'm glad that I first saw the film in the cinema, because there are times when it is overwhelming. The first of these moments is when the family first enter the woods after being banished from town. It is the last time we see anyone who isn't the family or someone who isn't supernatural and malign. Their cart disappears into the dark trees and we cut to them camping in the woods on their first night. The strings and ghostly wails of the score build and build to an unholy, disorientating crescendo. For me it's the single most frightening moment in the film. The only other times the score does the same thing is at the end after everything has gone to shit (or has it) and when Caleb is seduced by the witch (the second most frightening moment in the film).

There's so much more. There's the puritanical religion of the family, so harsh it gets them kicked out of a community of Puritans. There's the allusions to actual folklore (something I know a tiny bit about so knew that freaky hare was bad news immediately). There's how the burgeoning sexuality of Caleb and oldest daughter Thomasin clashes with their religion and probably proves to be the downfall of the former. He is seduced by the witch after sneaking a glimpse down his sister's cleavage and ends up dying in mysterious, supernatural circumstances.

Then there's break out character Black Philip, the most terrifying goat in the history of cinema. By the end of the film we know he's not just a goat and that he may be Satan himself. Unlike most good modern horror films The Witch doesn't really traffic in ambiguity, but the one place it does is with the twins. The youngest members of the family after baby Sam disappears, it is fairly unclear whether they have been communicating with Black Philip or if they're just horrible little shits. They seem genuinely terrified when the crone turns up towards the end of film, but maybe they just realise they have taken things too far.

What else? There's the cuts to black, which seem to last an eternity and raise the tension. There's the eerie imagery (the apple, the witch taking flight, the raven, the posthumous visitations). There's the fact that the baby dies first.

Then there's the ending, where the Devil turns up/has been there all along and offers Thomasin a way out. There's enough to Anya Taylor-Joy's beautiful performance that suggests she may have taken deal even if everyone else wasn't dead, that family a piety was starting to suffocate her already. When that score rises again at the end and Thomasin rises with it, it sounds more ecstatic than harrowing.

 

I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House review

Just before Halloween, Netflix dropped the second film by Oz Perkins. Eager to see it based on the festival buzz for his delayed release debut “The Blackcoat's Daughter”, your correspondent jumped right in a whole week later like the totally with it person he is.

Anyway, “Pretty Thing” (as I will henceforth refer to it) is an odd beast, not quite like anything else out there. It starts with an arresting and vaguely spooky image of the film's ghost slowly walking backwards while our protagonist Lily intones a monologue about how houses where deaths occurred are only rented from the living by the dead. We are soon introduced to Lily (Ruth Wilson, excellent) who it turns out is a hospice nurse, 28 years old and (as her narration tells us while she looks directly at the viewer) will never be 29. Ulp. She is here to look after an ailing writer called Iris who has penned numerous famous horror novels in her remote home.

Our Lily is a bit of a wuss when it comes to all things horror, and Wilson effectively portrays her nervousness through the scant interactions she has with her charge and her employer. Her dialogue is halting and scarce compared to the deliberately novelistic eloquence of her narration and things going bump in the night scare the whatsit out of her. Needless to say this is a bad thing.

When things inevitably turn spook-shaped, Lily discovers that events closely match those in a novel Iris wrote involving a murdered girl called Polly. To make things more creepy, Iris consistently refers to Lily as Polly. Past, present and future, fact and fiction are soon inseparably intertwined.

“Pretty Thing” is a slow, lyrical film that lets you know from the off from that you're not in for a ghost train of jump scares. In fact, Perkins holds static camera shots featuring dark doorways and windows to lead you on. You expect a shock but he pulls away with nothing happening. The unease this creates is one of the film's greatest assets, while the scant “traditional scares” feel all the more earned for making you wait.

So it's not for everyone, and indeed the backlash has been brutal. It might be a bit too slow even for Mildly Unnerving, and Lily's endless posthumous narration can grate a little. However, if you can tune it to its strange frequency and let the chilly atmosphere seep in it does reward the patient viewer with a unique and intelligent take on the ol' haunted house mystery - 6/10

Black Mirrior Season 3

Hurray! Charlie Brooker's 10 minutes in the future sci-fi anthology-ma-jig is back! With twice as many episodes! On Netflix!

I am going to review them in order. I'm also now going to give a score out of 10 rather than 5, for “nuance” May contain spoilers.

Nosedive

Lovely Bryce Dallas Howard is obsessed with keeping up her score out of 5 in a world where everyone is rated. People beg for good reviews because the lower your score the worse a person everyone thinks you are.

I imagine it was based on almighty shit-for-brains “Yelp for people” app Peeple, but for me the giant elephant in the room is the “Meow Meow Beanz” episode of Community which mines the same concept but with more laughs, While “Nosedive” is probably a more realistic interpretation about how this bullshit would work, Community was more inventive and had a ton more fun with it.

“Nosedive” also deals in cringey, squirmy social embarrassment, something I genuinely struggle to watch these days (in comedy or drama). It ends on a hope spot but getting there was gruelling in a non-entertaining way – 6/10

Playtest

Massive bellend tourist who refuses to talk to his mum loses all his money and takes a job playtesting a new VR gaming thingy. Things predictably go massively shit shaped in horror movie style.

If you've watched as many horror movies as me it was as scary as it was surprising, which is to say not remotely. The lead was too annoying for me to really care about what was happening and I found the implied link between dementia and the unreality of the game mildly distasteful. At least a triple fake out there though which was impressive – 4/10

Shut Up and Dance

People who have done bad things are bullied into other bad things by the world's most patient internet arseholes (seriously, how many people must they have been watching and for how long to catch the handful of people we see in the episode?) I guess that there was some point to be made online vigilantism but it's hidden behind the suffocating nastiness and cheap shocks

Vaguely nightmarish in the way it escalated and the feeling of powerlessness (and the fact that it could basically be done now), but felt a bit Brooker by numbers. I've seen people reacting like it's the most horrifying then they've ever seen but I was mostly bored. - 4/10

San Junipero

The best time travelling VR romance story of the year! Genuinely heartfelt and heartwarming and showing that Black Mirror can do upbeat and nice, San Junipero is one of its best episodes to date. The way the concept is never hidden as such but still revealed gradually is masterfully done, the evolving relationship between Yorkie and Kelly is beautifully written and acted and the 80's soundtrack is on point.

Technology is never exactly the enemy in BR, it just allows us to bring out our worst instincts (JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE YEAH), but here everyone is nice to each other and everything works out! Even though people die they get to spend eternity in digital heaven reliving the youth they may never have had. Plus the relationship is a same-sex one and this is not much of a plot point, a depressing rare occurrence. 9/10

Men Against Fire

Soldiers in some unnamed future warzone (in Eastern Europe perhaps) are fighting horrible genetic mutants. They use massive guns as well as weird augmented reality implants which give then tactical info as well as reward them with explicit sex dreams when they kill the enemy.

Expect (dramatic sting) the mutants aren't the arse-ugly monsters the implants are showing them, which our protagonist realises when one of them zaps him with a...thing. Yep, turns out that the military and the government are using tech to dehumanise the enemy. Guess the point is that the shitbags in charge always try dehumanise the enemy (just look at the language that the media use about refugees right now).

Anyhow, well shot and acted, but again hugely obvious in where it was going 6/10.

Hated By The Nation

Your common-or-garden police procedural spiced up by Twitter hate mobs and robot bees. And Kelly McDonald, who is always brilliant (I want a series just based around her character tbh).

Another heavy handed moral but delivered some panache, despite thinking that a rapper would ever call themselves “Tusk”. The reveal that the celebrity hate figures weren't the real target was neat-o, but the criminal mastermind behind it all had pretty vague and undefined motivations. Given that they took half an hour longer (and was needed) to roll this one out that seems weird – 6/10

I now have no friends because they all love this series. Ah well.