GFF09: ONE EYED MONSTER

Isn't it just typical? You spend your life waiting for a film about a psychopathic, dismembered phallus going on a killing spree and then two of them appear at once.

Hot on the heels of Frank Henenlotter's BAD BIOLOGY comes this low budget horror comedy in which a group of youngsters head off to a remote cabin to film an adult movie only for an alien to turn Ron Jeremy's fame into a crazed monster.

You can't make a film like this and not have it be tasteless, but as far as it goes this film is a lot less crass and misogynistic than BAD BIOLOGY. Many of the gags are genuinely smart rather than just relying on the obscene ridiculousness of the situation and the cast look like they're having a blast making it.

It's just as stupid and cheap looking as Henenlotter's effort but by dropping some of the nastiness in favour of some characterisation, ONE EYED MONSTER just edges it in the battle of the killer... nope, sorry, I just can't believe I'm even writing this.

GFF09: THE UNBORN

If you've been to the cinema recently, you may have noticed a large poster for this horror film (produced by Michael Bay... sigh) featuring an attractive young lady in a pair of ill-fitting panties. It would be all too easy for me to suggest that this was done because this by-the-numbers slick-but-empty badly-acted piece of crap is not going to be remembered by most of its target audience for anything else except that young lady in her underwear.

So easy, in fact that this is exactly what I'm going to do.

Gary Oldman, you were in THE DARK KNIGHT for God's sake... can you really be this desperate for a quick buck?

GFF09: GRACE

In this indie horror flick, a woman's pregnancy turns nasty when her baby, having apparently been stillborn, suddenly comes back to life and... well, you know it's not going to be good.

The horror genre is not exactly light on films about kids going bad, from THE OMEN to JOSHUA to... actually, now that I mention it, I notice that JOSHUA came out on DVD recently and it's been retitled THE DEVIL'S CHILD, with a wee banner saying "aka JOSHUA" underneath it. AKA? AKA? It's not AKA anything, that's the film's sodding name. One of the best things about JOSHUA was its subtle approach to the material, something echoed in the name of the film. Why not just go the full way and call it something like THE REALLY EVIL CHILD WHO WANTS TO MURDER DADDY or some such crap?

Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, familiar territory, etc. GRACE tries to bring something new to the table here but unfortunately that something new is just taking the usual story and making it more unpleasant. Some of you might think this is a good thing - after all, a lot of horror has gone off in this direction of late - but for me it's a cheap trick which adds nothing and ends up doing more harm than good.

Granted, I'll admit that as much as I like gory, nasty horror there are some things I don't like seeing and one of them is violence involving pregnant women. GRACE, with its combination of this and baby-based horror just left an unpleasant taste.

The film, which was made for a low budget, is very slickly done and that disappoints me even more. I'd love to see the director Paul Solet work on a better script because he's clearly blessed with both a love of horror and a lot of talent but sadly GRACE is just plain unpleasant, and not in a good way. His abilities and those of the lovely and talented Jordan Ladd are sadly wasted here.

GFF09: I SELL THE DEAD

It's directed by Dubliner Glenn McQuaid and it seems to be maybe, possibly set in Ireland (Ron Perlman even sports an Irish accent) so I feel justified in attaching the Irish film label to this one, even though it's really an American one. The time the film is set in is equally vague, but it looks kind of Middle Ages like.

Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden play a couple of grave robbers who spot a way to make a bit more money but, as you'll have guessed by the fact that this was part of Glasgow Film Festival's day-long Frightfest event, things go horribly awry.

The old favourite of having a man on death row (Monaghan) telling his incredible story to a priest (Perlman) has been done before but there's something grim about it that always lends a bit of weight to a horror film. Sadly a bit more weight is what this film could have done with.

There are some good gags in the script and the leading duo have some chemistry, but by and large the film doesn't sustain the gag ratio successfully enough for what is essentially a comedy film with horror trappings.

The budgetary restrictions also leak through in many parts of the film. Clearly made for little money, the film feels too claustrophobic in places. I don't mean that in a good way either, I just mean that all too often it feels far too much like the film has been made on a tiny soundstage - even when it's on location.

Credit to McQuaid though, he does do a grand job of getting a lot of the moody lighting and smoke-draped countryside just right, creating a perfect homage to the old Hammer films and sundry other British imitators of the '70s. It's a shame then that the US location work eventually overwhelms the mood of the piece, with a beach-set showdown involving some zombie-like creatures destroying the atmosphere that McQuaid worked so hard to generate. For most of the running time it's an effective Hammer tribute but the beach scenes just make it feel like another American made-for-DVD cheapo.

That may well be the case too, since I don't see it troubling a cinema any time soon. If you're getting friends round for a late night film romp, you could certainly do a lot worse than this likeable little movie but in the end it's a film that never quite overcomes its humble resources.

GFF09: DOROTHY

DOROTHY, or rather DOROTHY MILLS if you want to give it the name it seems to have been released under in other territories is an Irish/French co-production. I mention this not just because of my enthusiasm for Irish cinema but because it perhaps sums up what a mixed bag this film is.

In the lead, we have Carice van Houten. Now I thought she was terrific in Paul Verhoeven's BLACK BOOK - not only did she did she manage the impressive feat of still looking sexy while covered in excrement, she turned in a terrific lead performance which carried the whole film. Having not watched anything she's done since, I was glad of the opportunity to catch her in some rather different material.

So, a Dutch lead actress, playing an Irish woman. Okay, interesting. In the supporting cast we have the wonderful Scottish actor Gary Lewis, again playing Irish. Van Houten ends up sounding like a curious Irish/American kind of thing while Lewis sports a kind of Ulster/Scottish hybrid accent. Both good performances, mind you, just a little odd.

That's in keeping with the film though. The story isn't terribly new (woman turns up in small town, weird things happen, hostile locals, dark secret from the past, etc.) but it's an enjoyable mash-up of horror staples. Again it contributes to the mixed up feel of the film - at times it wants to be Hollywood teen horror, at other times it's more in keeping with the traditional WICKER MAN style of story. You know the one, outsider stumbles across weird rural community who do things differently.

Good use is made of the sparse Irish landscape, the cast is solid enough and director Agnes Merlet manages to get some good tense scares out the material. As much as the film is a passable way to spend the time however, the real reason for watching it is Dorothy herself.

I must confess that when young Jenn Murray was nominated at the IFTAs for her performance it passed me by. I'd never heard of her, never heard of the film and my attention was focussed on some of the more well known material. Shame on me. As the teen girl haunted/possessed/whatever by the spirits of, well, loads of people, Murray packs as much emotion and versatility into the role as it can possibly allow. It's thanks to her incredible efforts that an otherwise fairly average horror film becomes extremely engaging indeed.

The downside is that the film suffers whenever she's not around, although van Houten and friends manage a reasonable job of keeping things ticking over. But the star of DOROTHY is Dorothy.

GFF09: NOSFERATU

David Allison, who recently played the GFT with his ST KILDA TAPES project, returned as part of the Glasgow Film Festival with his live score performance of the classic silent German vampire movie.

Using predominantly guitar the performer gradually layered other sounds on top of it and added the voiceover of a young Scottish lady (it makes sense in context, trust me) and created a very atmospheric soundscape against which the tale of Dracula (okay, Orlok) unfolded.

It's not the first time I've seen this version of the Dracula tale with live accompaniment but it's certainly the best.

GFF09: THE DUNGEON MOOR KILLINGS

Jim Hickey, who previously gave us FINDING BOB MCARTHUR, returns to Glasgow with another extremely low budget offering about the misadventures of a group of young Scots out in the Dumfries wilds who come across some rather sinister goings on.

Once again the budgetary constraints are obvious and the acting competent but hardly top notch, however that's not really what the film's about. This is all about getting out there and getting a film made rather than spending years getting finance and in that respect the strength shouldn't really be in the film so much as in what it hopefully inspires in other filmmakers.

That said, it's not without positives. There are some genuinely creepy moments, the cheap and nasty synth score gives many scenes an 80s video nasty vibe and there are some cracking gore effects. It's hardly original (judging by the Q&A I wasn't the only one thinking BLAIR WITCH PROJECT meets WILD COUNTRY) but then horror films rarely are. The former is a particuarly relevant comparison since it was an example where the low budget look worked in the film's favour - THE DUNGEON MOOR KILLINGS doesn't quite manage that but it's not far wrong.

Above all else though, for all its faults, it deserves praise for proving that Scottish people can actually make genre films (to illustrate this point, try naming five other Scottish horror movies). Who knows what we might be able to do if we actually got given any money.

A drunken happening

Okay, I've been too lazy to write anything for a few days, so why not get someone else to do it for me?

A while back, I made a comment about M. Night Shyamalan's film THE HAPPENING in an email to a friend of mine. Alas, when he decided to respond to my email he'd just got back from a night out and was rather drunk.

That didn't stop him typing at length however, and one paragraph in particular filled me with such delight that I just had to reprint it here (yes, I did get his permission... once he'd sobered up). It's like gonzo journalism for the blogging age.

I should also state that I in no way condone the excessive use of alcohol, whether in pursuit of blogging greatness or not.

Anyway, here's that review, reprinted in its entirety, without any editing from me - because the crazy typing is where its drunken charm lies, really.

The Happening was a pile of shite, and i cant believ i actuakly wasted time watching it! Mark Whalberg, what was hw doing? Cause it wasnt acting!!! "I'm talking to a plastic plant! I'm still doing it!" WTF????? I didnt even enjoy it on a it's so bad its good kind og
f level. One of the worst films ever! M Night Symamthingy should justr give up now!!!

Brilliant. In the same email he did also write Firslty, Ghostbusters II is great! It's almost as good as the first one. It was on chanel 5 last weekend. You've just got t love the Statue of liberty 'higher and higher' bit, which is one of cinema's greatest ever moments!!! so make up your own mind as to whether that makes his opinion more or less valuable.

For what it's worth, I do recommend watching THE HAPPENING, precisely because it is so mind-bendingly awful that it is outrageously enjoyable. Evidently my drunken friend disagrees.

Best of 2008 (10-6)

Ooooh, we're in the top ten now. Are you getting excited yet?

10 WALL-E
See, every so often I do like a nice little family film, even if it is one set in a barren post-apocalyptic wasteland.

9 HUNGER
Breathtakingly arty take on the Irish hunger strikes, centred around Michael Fassbender's towering performance as Bobby Sands.

8 THE KING OF KONG
David versus Goliath tale of a quiet, unassuming family man on a quixotic quest to overthrow the villainous leader who rules over all. Despite the fact that it's a documentary about people playing arcade games.

7 TIME CRIMES
Mind-bending Spanish sci-fi horror in which a man witnesses a crime being committed... by himself. Then it gets really weird.

6 MAN ON WIRE
James Marsh's critically acclaimed documentary/heist movie about the artistic crime of the century (a high wire walk between the twin towers of the WTC) is simply stunning. It should win the Oscar this year too.

Best of 2008 (20-16)

20 WAITING FOR THE LIGHT
Ciarin Scott gives George Morrison the biography treatment - it's about time someone did. Talking of which, MISE EIRE is getting an anniversary screening at the Dublin Film Festival next month - buy a ticket now!

19 THE JOHN AKII BUA STORY: AN AFRICAN TRAGEDY
This documentary is a sad tale of what might have been, detailing the rise and fall of the legendary Ugandan athlete who conquered the world but fell foul of Idi Amin's regime.

18 A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH
This year's Wallace and Gromit special from the BBC's Christmas schedule was as impressive and funny as we've come to expect.

17 THE GIRL BY THE LAKE
Laid-back but suspenseful Italian murder mystery with beautiful location work.

16 THE ORPHANAGE
One of the best horror films in recent years, a Spanish take on THE INNOCENTS with great performances, plenty of chills and an ending that satisfies while leaving you wondering.

Best of 2008 (40-36)

40 32A
Charming coming-of-age tale set in 1970s Dublin. Clearly a film for young girls, but what the hell, I liked it. Nominated for an IFTA Best Film award too, though I don't see it winning.

39 JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY
Certainly not "just" another anything. I don't suppose that modern Danish film noir is a gigantic genre, but I bet this is still one of the best entries all the same. Terrific thriller.

38 CHANGELING
For all my complaints about Jolie's overacting, Eastwood's study of the dark side of LA's modern history is still a great film.

37 WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Bold, daring and timely animated movie from Israel that should get an Oscar nomination, even though Pixar own the actual awards. It has made the foreign language shortlist though, so watch out there. [UPDATE: I wrote this a few days ago, and the nominations have since come out - no animated nomination, which is a shock, but it is nominated for in the foreign language category]

36 DIARY OF THE DEAD
Like the previous entry, some people thought George Romero's latest zombie movie was an anticlimax and hated it. I thought it had its flaws but was still immensely enjoyable and felt that the back-to-basics approach really paid off.

Horrorthon'08: MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (2008)

This was very disappointing.

It's been so long since I read any Clive Barker that I can't even remember if I ever read the original story or not, so I've no idea how many misgivings about the story are his fault and how many are the fault of the film. Either way, I can't remember the last time I rolled my eyes and thought "that's just stupid" as many times as I did during this one.

I don't like CGI being used for gore as it just doesn't look right, but fair play, I have to admit that the gore in this film is at least very creative and imaginative. If you're going to have CG gore then I'm at least happy to see heads exploding and eyeballs popping out in gratuitous slow motion instead of shaky-cam, hyper-edit, too-dark-to-see-anything kind of stuff. Sadly that's about all the film had going for it.

Bland characters, daft story, and despite being required to do nothing except look mean and not say anything, Vinnie Jones still fails to convince me that he's an actor.

To be fair, I quite liked the ending (but not the final scene - too laboured) but I'd have liked it a lot more if I hadn't stopped caring about an hour earlier.

And that's my Horrorthon coverage at an end!

Horrorthon'08: JAWS 2 (1978)

Directed by some guy whose name I can't even remember, this sequel certainly doesn't scale the heights of Spielberg's classic original.

Although Roy Scheider's back and as reliable as ever, the rest of the cast in this retread of the original offer nothing. Gone is the focus on Scheider, instead giving far more time to annoying kids and teen romance. It's almost a foreshadowing of the formula that would dominate 80s movies - and there's even a nasty property developer, surely the mainstay villain of all 80s films.

As if that wasn't enough of a mis-step, there's also the scenes of the shark attacks, equally botched. Spielberg knew exactly what to show and what not to show - his successor here unfortunately shows no such knowledge. We are shown far too much of the dodgy-looking shark, not enough of the hapless victims and all in all it ends up being depressingly dull for a film that should be all about sharks eating people.

A real misfire that only serves to illustrate how good the original film was.

Horrorthon'08: DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)

It's many years since I saw Romero's classic zombie film and to be honest I couldn't tell you which cut we even saw at the IFI, but it's always nice to see something like this again anyway, especially with a like-minded audience.

The first of the sequels to the seminal NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, this is the logical progression as the zombies are now overrunning the living and it's all about surviving. For one band of refugees, that means making themselves a base in the local shopping centre, allowing Romero to both spin a yarn about consumerism while also allowing Tom Savini to demonstrate some interesting ways of being killed or maimed.

The film is certainly a satisfactory outing and one of the best of the zombie genre but I'm not sure I'd elevate it to quite the same heights as many others do. I still think that parts of the film - particularly in the middle - are too slow-moving, and some scenes of dispatching zombies begin to get repetitive. After an entertaining opening, it's not really until the finale that we see Romero and his flesh-eating hoards really cut loose for all their worth once again.

It's still a classic though. You can't beat some flesh-eating zombie action, though I'm more of a Fulci man.

Horrorthon'08: PLAGUE TOWN (2008)

This Irish-set horror was actually filmed in America but to be honest it actually does actually just about pass for the Emerald Isle, one out-of-place bus aside.

Like a number of other horror films of late, both at Horrorthon and elsewhere, the film doesn't really offer anything new but at least manages it in a mostly-entertaining way. Americans run into a town of inbred crazies, nasty things happen, etc. but there are some memorable moments and the ugly locals are presented via some reasonably effective make-up effects.

I should applaud the film for trying to develop the characters first - a dysfunctional American family tracing their roots in Ireland - since many other films fail miserably to do so, but in the end this is also a flaw of the film. It's not that it slows the film down, but rather that it does almost too good a job of introducing them. The opening parts of the movie, with all the family members (plus one guest) getting at each others' throats is frequently hilarious and actually far more enjoyable than the by-the-numbers horror that follows it.

I don't see it getting a cinema release but its worth giving it a spin when it hits DVD.

Horrorthon'08: GNAW (2008)

GNAW is yet another new British indie horror and unfortunately, like the others on show this weekend, it was poor.

The tired old story concerns a group of kids straying into the country where - stop me if you've heard this - they meet a horrible fate. There's not a sympathetic character in the entire film, there seems to be a competition between them to see who can act in the most stupid way possible and despite one or two decent shocks the whole thing is just a yawn-fest. Well, apart from the bits where you're too busy laughing (and not in a good way).

Applause followed the film, but it was mainly sarcastic. Avoid.

Horrorthon'08: MARTYRS (2008)

French horror MARTYRS is a somewhat hot title on the festival circuit at the moment, having built up a reputation for being one of the more shocking horror films of recent years.

It's certainly unpleasant, I'll give you that, but since most modern horror films labour under the misapprehension that making something as unpleasant and tortuous as possible means it's great horror it's not exactly breaking new ground in the genre. Truth be told, once you immunise yourself to the unpleasant effects of a woman getting spectacularly beaten up, there's not much else to it.

The plot initially concerns a young woman taking revenge on a family that she claimed subjected her to horrific torture as a child. What we end up with is the first half of the film being a variation on fellow French shocker HAUTE TENSION, followed by a second half in which a woman is beaten and tortured.

The reason for all this is revealed eventually but unfortunately it's limited to a couple of throwaway lines quickly spun out to justify the gruelling torment that preceded it. It's a real shame because, despite probably being a little tasteless, the reason is an interesting one. Unfortunately the filmmakers clearly thought that further investigation of this wouldn't be as interesting as seeing a woman being beaten up some more.

I should confess however that after being left a little cold by it to begin with, it did grow on me slightly in the days following it. However, it's not the masterpiece its being heralded as and if you're a hardened gore-monger there are probably a few scenes to make you squirm but mainly a feeling of "so what".

Horrorthon'08: DRACULA (1992)

Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA seemed like an odd choice for a screening since, firstly, it's more of a romantic take than the traditional Dracula films and secondly, it's not exactly the best-reviewed version of the story either.

That said, I really enjoyed it, this being the first time I'd ever seen it. There are undoubtedly low points - Tom Waits as a lacklustre Renfield, Anthony Hopkins as a Van Helsing who can't seem to decide if he's a serious nemesis or comic relief, and of course anything involving Keanu Reeves.

Kick that lot out the way though and you're left with a decent film. Winona Ryder's surprisingly good, the various supporting men are stupid but entertaining, the score is certainly ominous and dramatic enough and the old-fashioned set design is just a work of art. On top of all that, Gary Oldman, who we already know is one of the best actors alive, is superb as the title character.

I still prefer the Hammer and Universal versions, but I was surprised by how good this film is.

Horrorthon'08: DEMONS 2 (1986)

Last year's screening of DEMONS was a highlight so it was a delight to see the sequel getting an outing this year.

Of course, it's a stupid film, and the stupidity is only amplified (as is so often the case) by the hilarious dubbing on the English language version.

Gone is the first film's cinema setting (although the original is referred to in a nonsensical sub-plot), this time replaced with a modern skyscraper. It doesn't really matter, the end result is the same: lots of people being attacked and killed by crazy zombie-demon-type-things.

Mad monsters, hilarious dubbing, gruesome deaths and a barmy plot, all wrapped up in some delightful visuals and a typically wonderful electronic score. It's exactly what you expect the film to deliver, and it's exactly what you want it to deliver. A great big stupid ninety minutes of fun.

Horrorthon'08: NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986)

Once again the new Irish horror (GHOSTWOOD) got ditched for 80s nostalgia as I went to see NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, a fondly remembered zombie-ish teen horror that was every bit as stupid and entertaining as I remember it.

Interestingly, the showing here was thought to be a premiere of sorts. The film never received a cinema release in the UK or Ireland - many people discovered the film either through video or, like me, late night BBC screenings - so this was a special occasion, particularly since it's not available on DVD yet either. It was made all the more special by the fact that the print they showed was absolutely pristine.

The plot essentially boils down to alien parasites turning people into zombies while a bunch of teenagers worry about drinking, getting laid and playing frat pranks. Hilarity ensues. Much of it is genuinely, intentionally funny while parts of it are more funny because of how dated it is. Have you ever noticed that 80s films actually seem to have dated more than most films from the 60s or 70s?

The real star of the show however is stalwart character actor Tom Atkins, who plays the police officer in charge of the case. Having lost his (unfaithful) girlfriend in an unfortunate incident involving a serial killer, an axe and a crashed UFO, he's a washed up, miserable man who gets all the best lines and delivers them with deadpan aplomb, whether he's answering the phone ("Thrill me!") or displaying a real weapons fetish.

Gore, pretty ladies, alien parasites and a bitter but hilarious cop all add up to an immensely enjoyable cinema experience. Thrill me indeed.

Horrorthon coverage to be continued soon...