My Mother's Eyes
Combining mad science, maternal guilt and cellos, the latest film from the director of WOMAN OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS feels like the next natural step in what is promising to become a fascinating oeuvre. A woman suffering from retinitis pigmentosa is going slowly blind. During an episode of blindness she crashes her car and renders her young daughter paralysed from the neck down. A revolutionary new contact lens allows her to see again, and linking it to a VR headset allows her daughter to live through her eyes. But the scientist has his own reasons for having created the device. Perhaps needless to say, none of this ends well, Stylish, moving and (eventually) blood drenched, this is one that's going to reward repeat viewings.
Good Boy
The old-fashioned tale of girl meets boy, girl discovers boy is millionaire, girl goes out with millionaire is given a gleefully perverse spin in GOOD BOY, another (along with THE KNOCKING) of this year's Frightfest offerings from Finland. Sigrid believes she's met the perfect man in rich, handsome young Christian, except for one thing: his dog Frank, or rather the fact that Frank is actually a man in a dog costume who, according to Christian, wants to be treated as a dog at all times. There's more going on, of course, but it's unlikely you'll guess exactly where this one is going by the decidedly kinky and over the top climax. A bit like a lengthy and especially odd episode of Inside No.9, (they could have called it Furry Shades of Grey - thanks Mrs Probert!) GOOD BOY is the kind of off-kilter, disturbing, well-made low budget horror fare that Frightfest was designed to showcase. After the end credits have rolled you'll still be wondering about the horrible possible reasons for the final shot.
GOOD BOY will be getting a release from Blue Finch films on Monday 11th September 2023
Minore
Somewhere on the coast of Greece, a small community is beset by monsters paving the way for 'The Great Devourer' after a mysterious island rises from the sea. Soon it's down to a group of disparate individuals to fight for the future of the earth with bouzouki music, but will they be able to get the amplifiers to work in time?
MINORE suffers from serious pacing problems, taking ages to get going and with a climax that's somewhat lacking in the sense of urgency that all the best giant monster movies have. That said, the effects are good, the characters are endearing, and overall the film is an enthusiastic attempt to do a Greek version of movies like TREMORS by way of Peter Jackson's early gore comedies. It doesn't really work but certainly marks director Konstantinos Koutsoliotas as a talent to watch.
Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives
An unwieldy title (presumably to help distinguish it from the plethora of other HOME SWEET HOME movies out there) for a film that turned out to be an unexpected highlight of the festival. Shot in one take, that was actually something of an unnecessary gimmick in the telling of a supremely creepy ghost story. As the sun sets a pregnant woman arrives at the remote country house of her husband's family. It's deserted and as she starts to wander round she discovers a secret room filled with African artefacts and a diary that describes a terrible event in the past. Some great scary moments as well as a gradually building atmosphere of dread and inevitability leading to a final shot that's just right all made this one a winner.
The Exorcist
A 50th anniversary screening of this on the IMAX screen, meaning we got some nice freebies and an introduction and post-film Q&A from Mark Kermode. For someone who is not THE EXORCIST's biggest fan (I personally find THE OMEN far scarier) this looked fantastic on the big screen and perhaps the greatest revelation this time around was the sound mix, a combination of supremely unnerving noises and music that added greatly to the overall effect. Oh to have been able to watch this in 1974 (when it came out in the UK) and experience all those marvellous effects when they were fresh. Mind you, they still hold up extremely well, even on a screen 60 feet high.
No comments:
Post a Comment