FrightFest Diary 2019: Days 1 and 2
The summer is waning, autumn is finally, FINALLY, on the horizon, which means only one thing for many U.K horror fans: FRIGHTFEST!
Yes, once again the chief masters of the depraved; Alan Jones, Paul McEvoy, Ian Rattray, and Greg Day, turn London’s Leicester Square into unhallowed ground for all who delight in terror, gore, and all things twisted.
So me, then.
But this was no ordinary FrightFest, not that it’s ever ordinary, this year was the festival’s 20th anniversary. It has come a long way from its beginnings, and has seen the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Dario Argento, Danny Boyle, Rob Zombie, Park Chan-wook, and many others as guests.
I myself have been attending the festival since 2014 where I saw a few single films (The Last Showing, The Babadook, Life After Beth) and since 2015 I’ve been a full weekend pass holder. It’s five straight days of nonstop movies some of them not always good, it’s tiring, and oftentimes it’s cramped to the point of my anxiety playing up. And I love every minute of it.
So what was this year’s journey like? What were the highs? The lows? Did I finally find that one horror movie that would reduce me to childlike terror and sleeping with the lights on? Well, let’s see.
Thursday
Opening day it’s always a good idea to arrive early, and I almost never do. I picked up my goodies bag for pass holders, and this year it was pretty decent. An issue of Starburst magazine, a t-shirt for a film called The Cunning Man, and the following DVDs:
Landmine Goes Click (not seen, heard good things) Blade of the Immortal (don’t love it but it’s watchable) Electric Boogaloo: The wild untold story of Cannon Films (documentary, not seen, could be interesting) Incident in a Ghostland (wasn’t a fan, will probably give it away) Road Games (been meaning to see) And the real piece du resistance, and Arrow Video special edition of George Romero’s vampire movie Martin. These are not exactly easy to get a hold of. A few lucky ones got special editions of Dawn of the Dead from Arrow, which are even rarer.
I also got a promotional mirror from the movie RINGS. Now I hated that movie, but surprisingly I already own one of these mirrors from a pack of promotional items I got at a movie fair a few years back.
But let’s not talk about past movies, let’s hear about the news ones.
COME TO DADDY
More thriller than horror, but certainly an interesting one. Elijah Wood, who is a massive advocate for indie horror, plays a man visiting his estranged father in the middle of nowhere and things start to take a strange turn. Mysterious noises, breakdowns, Elijah Wood yelling at a corpse, it’s all really weird and that all happens BEFORE Michael Smiley turns up. It takes twists and turns and whilst a tad overlong towards the end, I genuinely didn’t know where it was going and I enjoyed it’s adult coming of age vibe mixed with pitch black humour.
3/5
CRAWL
This movie is exactly what you expect it to be, and that is exactly what you want. A young woman tries to retrieve her father from their old home in the middle of a hurricane, but unfortunately the pair (and their dog) are blocked in their escape by a pretty pissed off alligator. This is a proper thrill ride and induced cheers, screams, and winces from the audience. A creature feature story of survival in its purest form and a real crowd pleaser.
4/5
Now I skipped out on SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, even though it was probably my most anticipated film when it was announced as showing at the festival. The reason for this is because I’d seen it a few days beforehand at a special media screening and, whilst I enjoyed the film a lot and appreciated the way it made for a kid focussed horror that really pushed its visuals, I wanted to wait before seeing it again.
You can read my full 4/5 review HERE
Friday
I’m told that one has got to get down on Friday, so that’s exactly what I did.
THE WIND
One thing about me that rarely comes up is I am a sucker for Westerns. There’s just something about the storytelling potential in that time and place that interests me. So this story about an isolated homestead and the things that may, or may not, lurk outside in the dark was very much my thing. It’s moody and atmospheric and it plays that fine balance between definitely being supernatural, or it all being in the character’s head.
4/5
IMPOSSIBLE CRIMES
Supernatural police procedure with a possibly demonically possessed nun and discussions of faith and belief? Yes please! This film about a police detective, who has lost most of his family through various tragedies, investigating a series of deaths that can’t be possible lead him to a nun who believes that she is committing the murders under an evil influence. It’s a setup that sounds interesting, and reminiscent of a film from Scott Derrickson, and whilst the main performances were pretty good, the unfolding mystery was a little weak and I figured it all out pretty early on. My final feeling was one of it being pretty okay, but never great.
3/5
KNIVES AND SKIN
To be frank, I’m not entirely sure why this was playing at FrightFest. The premise is of a girl’s disappearance and the knock-on effect that it has on various other people and students in town. Except, it isn’t. Apart from the girl’s possibly already unstable mother and the boy who inadvertently lead to her disappearance, nothing in the film has anything to do with that to the point where you could remove that and very little would be different. Nothing in the film really has anything to do with anything else that happens really, and a moment that seems to be making a statement of three particular girls being united against the crap going on in their lives doesn’t feel earned and seems tacked on. You can tell the director has worked mainly in short films as it feels more like a series of vignettes than a feature narrative. Still, it is well made and has a creative use of music.
2/5
BLISS
I watched this because I couldn’t get into the film I initially wanted to try and see, FREAKS starring Emile Hirsch which was by all accounts a huge hit at FrightFest Glasgow, but I’m glad I did see this. The premise didn’t thrill me, a blocked artist falls into a haze of drugs and blood after a fateful encounter with vampires, but something about watching a film shot on 16mm film on a giant IMAX screen felt delightfully perverse so I thought it’d give it a go. What I got was a trippy visual spiral into sex, drugs, and rock n roll that was a bit of an overload of the senses. Dora Madison in the main role was raw and effective in her descent into bloodlust and madness. The visuals were crazy, and the painting that she’s working on looks like a gorgeous nightmare that I would totally hang on my wall, although I’d never be able to invite my Nan round for tea again.
4/5
That's part one, stay tuned for the rest of my FrightFest movie adventures.
Happy watching