Day three of Frightfest kicked off with Paul Andrew Williams’ Cherry Tree Lane, a single location British home invasion film. Christine and Mike are the victims of the home invasion which is perpetrated by a group of teenagers (you could probably describe them loosely as hoodies) and the group upset the couple’s miserable middle class existence and comment on class differences in the process. Unfortunately the social commentary that the film so often falls back on is incredibly heavy handed and the teenagers generally sound like puppets repeating the writer’s dialogue rather than natural characters. As a thriller the film is also lacking in many places and despite its short running time making through to the end was a bit of trial.
Next up was The Tortured, a film directed by Robert Lieberman and starring Jesse Metcalfe as Craig and Erika Christensen as Elise. Craig and Elise are a couple whose son is kidnapped and totured before dying at the hands of a disturbed and sadistic serial killer. Feeling that the US justice system is not doing enough the pair decide to carry out their own retribution against the killer. What follows is a reasonably slick and twisty thriller/horror with a few grisley torture scenes that will undoubtedly result in a lot of cries of ‘torture porn’. The film touches briefly on a lot of subjects that could have been fascinating to dig deeper into but it sadly never does. Overall though The Tortured is a pretty taut little horror if a little over melodramatic at times. Watch out for a couple of hilariously bad lines of dialogue from the character Craig too.
‘Werewolves’ next with British horror 13 Hrs as a country house is attacked by a werewolf, trapping a group of youngsters inside. Under the stress of the situation relationships begin to crumble and secrets start to come out but with a couple of weak performances and clunky dialogue the character interactions never feel true enough. Sarah Tyler is very good though in the role of Isabella. Horror wise there may be a few things here that will disappoint fans as the film relies on a pretty dodgy ‘werewolf cam’ and the twists in the plot are too heavily signposted to surprise anyone. Clearly working under heavy constraints director Jonathan Glendening obviously had his work cut out and unfortunately this also shows in the finished film.
I Spit on Your Grave followed 13 Hrs and following the news that the BBFC had cut the film I was expecting what remained (only 43 seconds were removed) to still be something quite shocking. This film is incredibly different to the original though and the disturbing nature of that film is all but lost here. Where the original made you feel deeply uncomfortable watching it and like you needed to take a shower afterwards, the remake is a more polished and conventional modern horror. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this and I would argue it is one of the better modern horror remakes we’ve seen but ultimately the film is a little shallow and perhaps too much of an easy watch.
Gareth Edwards’ Monsters, probably the most hyped film of the festival, was next and it played to a packed out cinema. Monsters is a really solid relationship drama and one that I am looking forward to revisiting. Those looking for the bombastic delights of an explosive monster movie will not find it here but hopefully will get sucked into what is quite a touching and actually quite small and subtle story. Martyn reviewed Monsters at the Edinburgh film festival and you can find his full review here.
The final film of Day three was Hong Kong film Dream Home and any Frightfesters that left early to get to bed missed out here. Jostling with Red Hill for my number one spot of the festival so far Dream Home is a film that I loved. A well crafted film that blends many genres and weaves a fascinating and engrossing story. Touching on the handover, property markets, the economic crisis, female empowerment and gender roles Dream Home is an intelligent and thoughtful film. It is also very sick and twisted in its set pieces. Jumping from a funny and touching scene between two children to scenes of gory violence Dream Home expects the audience to keep up and if they do they will find a rewarding and fascinating film.
Over on the Discovery screen one of the highlights of the day was the UK premiere of Fanboys. You can find my full review of Fanboys here.
Further sneak peeks hit the main screen during the day including a photo slideshow from the set of The Human Centipede sequel. Tom Six was also on stage to tease the sequel, which is currently filming in London. Anxious not to give too much away Six didn’t reveal anything about the plot but did announce that the film will play Sundance next year.
We were also treated to a preview of Stakeland, Jim Mickle’s new vampire film, starring Danielle Harris. The clips shown throw you straight into the action without too much explanation and although the action looked pretty good there wasn’t enough in the clips to give a clear sense of how good Stake Land might (or might not) be.
Speculation was also rife today about what might replace A Serbian Film after it was pulled. After going through a variety of options throughout the day (including being convinced for a while that it was going to be Life and Death of a Porno Gang) I’m now pretty sure it’s going to be Buried which seems to be backed up by the replacement description – A ‘Spanish’ Horror Film. I will be reporting back as soon as I know for sure.
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Embedded below are a three trailers from from the three very different films shown today.
FANBOYS
I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE
MONSTERS
