Frightfest 2023 Day Two - Friday

The J-Horror Virus

Sarah Appleton and Jasper Sharp's excellent documentary charts the rise and cultural significance of the phenomenon now known as J-Horror, the term used to describe the sub-genre that includes movies such as the RINGU and JU-ON series of films. Starting off with Japanese literary antecedents that feature elements prominent in these films (vengeful women, long black hair) and detailing the films that led up to Hideo Nakata's RINGU becoming a worldwide phenomenon, THE J-HORROR VIRUS is a thorough academic study filled with clips of the relevant films and packed with as many interviews as the directors could manage. And classic British fantasy author Arthur Machen got a namecheck in the Q&A and I didn't have to do it (it was Jasper Sharp, although I did ask the question that produced it). Excellent stuff.

The Knocking

Here's a decent folk horror piece from Finland, with some seriously creepy sequences that make up for a plot that leaves some head-scratching loose ends if you think about them too much. 

Three siblings whose father died many years ago and whose mother disappeared and has finally been declared dead meet up to sell the creepy old house in the forest where they grew up. We already know from an opening sequence that all was not well during their childhood, which seems to have included a cage the youngest of them was found in by police after the father's death. The plan is to not just sell the house but the surrounding forest as well, but as night falls it looks as if something in the woods is determined to stop them from doing that.

THE KNOCKING isn't bad at all, professionally made and acted and, as noted above, with a genuine sense of creepiness and unease, especially as the film nears its climax. Certain key elements of the plot remain curiously unresolved but even so this is an impressive piece of low budget horror cinema from co-directors Max Seeck and Joonas Pajunen. Let's hope we see more from them. 

THE KNOCKING will be released on digital platforms by Blue Finch Releasing on Monday 4th September 2023

Dr Jekyll

Eddie Izzard is Nina Jekyll, except when they're Rachel Hyde. Not that you'll be able to tell who is who and when as Izzard doesn't really possess the acting skills to play one role never mind the two required here. It did, however, make me appreciate all the more Heather Graham's performance of body-swapping antics in SUITABLE FLESG. Add in a script in which little happens for most of the running time and then spends the last ten minutes chucking a plethora of daftness at the audience in the hope that some of it will stick and what little has gone before will suddenly take on new relevance and DOCTOR JEKYLL, for all its gothic trappings and absurdly overblown score, is a dull waste of time. A candidate for worst of the festival so far.

That's A Wrap

Oh but here's the latest film from the director of BLIND. In all fairness Marcel Walz is improving as a film-maker. He's still not terribly good, but the opening of this is pretty decently executed, as is the actress who suffers at the hands of the masked lunatic who sets about a cast of pretty young things at a wrap party. Some of the murders show an energy and glee that holds the attention but dialogue and acting are still pretty basic. This is a bit like if Herschell Gordon Lewis had directed CRYSTAL EYES or the kind of movie Dario Argento might have made in the 1970s if he had no artistic flair whatsoever, which makes it all the more surprising that for all its faults IT'S A WRAP is actually exceedingly entertaining. DOCTOR JEKYLL, you're still in the number one slot for worst film at the moment.