Film4 Frightfest - Vile Review

 

And so Midnight Movie number 2: Vile. Directed by Taylor Sheridan, Vile managed to create one of the most uncomfortable atmospheres of the festival. Truly nasty, grim, violent and draining, the film for most of its running time shapes up to be something really quite special but, unfortunately, loses any credibility thanks to a dire ending. It may sound like the fate of most entries in the rapidly dying torture porn genre but in the case of Vile, this really is genuinely more of a shame than it sounds.

The film opens as a group of friends are targeted by a perfume selling older woman who in actual fact is something of an Avon service from the bowels of Hell. Before they have time to say thanks but no thanks, she has donned a gas mask and sent them all into a deep sleep. Waking up in a strange warehouse full of other strangers, the ground find themselves tied to chairs with vials (geddit) surgically attached to the back of their heads. A video then tells them that they have 22 hours to fill the vials with a chemical that is released from the brain when a person experiences pain.

So there we go. What follows, as can be expected, is an hour of self inflicted organised pain as the group take it in turns to reach the 100% mark that will unlock the doors and free them all. Vile almost immediately makes itself more interesting than just a film with a sick premise in its handling of personalities. There is a fantastic early discussion as to whether the men should only take part which provoked laughs and passionate ‘gender roles’ arguments from both the men on screen and the entire Frightfest audience.

Surprisingly dark humour also comes from the refreshingly organised manner that the cast get themselves together. The women don’t run around screaming, the men don’t break down and punch walls and the group avoid predictably breaking off into opposing factions. Instead, they pull their heads together and decide to each take a slice of the pain, the whole group attacking one member, then another, then another in a disturbingly calm manner. But as you can imagine, any moments of humour in Vile are soon quashed: this is a grim picture. Tweezers, boiling water, irons and a whole host of nasty rusty tools are used to create a solid hour of wincing.

From the flames of this nasty film arrived the most evil character seen at Frightfest. Kelly (Stefanie Braboza) (and yes I did have to look up the name as after an hour of group mutilation, faces and names tend to blur into one another) establishes herself as enemy number one early on by suggesting the ‘Men only’ policy but further makes herself hard to love by going way overboard in the first group beating by breaking a pair of legs. In fact, a clear indication of how effective Kelly is, is that when it was her turn to be hurt, in a film of solemn, brutal, pain-induced awkward silences, Frightfesters across the cinema passionately cheered.

Unfortunately, for all the good, interesting things that Vile does, in the end all the violence and nastiness just doesn’t have a point. There is a hint all the goings on in the film are to help with some form of medication, but rather than push the idea into a clear message, it remains only a hint and coupled with the fact that there really is no pay off, consequently it’s hard not to think ‘what’s the point?’. If the film was brave enough to follow a film like Martyrs (2008) in having a bold, damning resolution that had something to say, the violence in the film would have at least had some form of wider context to help make the bitter pill easier to swallow. Instead, we are left with an hour and a half of people beating each other up. Nothing more, nothing less.

As it is, the lack of point leave Vile a despicable, pointless near-miss that’s near impossible to recommend. Paul took to the stage prior to the screening and said that he hopes Vile will be torture porn’s final bow. If it is (and I’m sure most agree with Paul), it is something of a shame that the much despised sub-genre will go out with a nasty whimper rather than leaving with something to say.

Film4 Frightfest - Tucker and Dale Vs Evil Review

In what was one of the most heavily anticipated screenings of the festival, Eli Craig’s Tucker and Dale Vs Evil arrived on Friday night and immediately became a favourite of almost everyone who saw it. Playing with hillbilly horror conventions established by classics like Deliverance (1972), Tucker and Dale Vs Evil proved to be a true crowd pleaser and arguably the best horror-comedy since Shaun of the Dead (2004).

The story revolves around Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), two well meaning hillbillies who are looking forward to a peaceful vacation in their new holiday home. Unfortunately for them, a group of horror-cinema savvy teens are also camping in the nearby woods, scaring themselves with tales that play like deleted scenes from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

When Alison (Katrina Bowden), one of the teens, falls into the nearby lake, Tucker and Dale lend a helping hand but their innocent cries of ‘We’ve got your friend’ start off a chain of deadly misunderstandings that leave the group thinking the harmless hillbillies are actually the kind of backwards folk they see hacking teens to bits on the big screen every weekend.

Craig then takes extreme pleasure referencing his favourite horror movies as each hillbilly horror trope goes against the lovable duo in increasingly bloodier ways as the teens begin to accidentally kill themselves off. To go into anymore detail would be spoiling some brilliantly clever misunderstandings but suffice to say, a chainsaw is at the heart of one of the best.

Despite the first hour essentially consisting of a series of horror conventions being turned on their head, it is a real credit to Craig that the film never feels formulaic or repetitive. Each gruesome mix-up is both clever and funny but the real strength and heart of the film lies in the performances of Tudyk and Labine as the title characters. Tudyk once again brings another reliably assured performance as the straight man of the couple whilst Labine brings that strange warmth and vulnerability that seems to come naturally to bigger actors with beards.

In what are clearly outrageous circumstances, the cynical Tucker and good natured Dale convey a real friendship that is actually affecting and is sure to induce glassy eyes in parts. What makes this even more impressive is that this kind of emotionally twang is somewhat absent from most comedy-horrors, with the only other recent example coming in the latter stages of Shaun of the Dead, “I don’t think I’ve got it in me to shoot my flatmate, my mum and my girlfriend all in the same evening.”

Funny, clever, gory and sure to leave a lump in the throat, Tucker and Dale Vs Evil is one of the best horror-comedies to date. A real winner at Frightfest, it prompts the thought that maybe Leatherface and co have been gravely misrepresented all these years.

Film4 Frightfest 2011 - Blood Runs Cold Review

Following Urban Explorers was my first Discovery screen film, the Swedish (but English language) Blood Runs Cold, a slasher made on a shoestring budget with a lot of charm, a lot of a laughs, a lot of good, a lot of bad and one of best killers I’ve seen in a horror film in a long time.

Directed by Sonny Laguna, Blood Runs Cold sees Winona, a struggling musician move into a new house in her snowy hometown. After she bumps into an old flame and his loved up friends, the four of them return to the house for drinks, partying and sex only to be rudely awoken the next morning by an axe-wielding maniac.

First the bad. The acting is terrible, the gore is poor and it’s as dumb as a movie can be. However, one thing saves this film in a big way – the killer. Wearing a jacket, snow goggles and woolly ski hat, he butchers the cast in a way that would suggest he knows he’s being watched.

Here is a maniac that walks past the window, stops and points at his prey for kicks. A killer that would rather axe an unlocked door to pieces rather than just opening it. You can’t help but imagine him wearing a smirk the size of his axe underneath his bandaged face. He is, simply put, up there with Freddy and Jason - except this  classic killer has seemingly wandered into a student film and therein lies the film’s greatest strengths and fatal flaws.

The sound is dire, I’m pretty sure I saw a mic in a mirror and thanks to shoddy colour correction, parts of the film carry a strange orange glow but these all add up to giving the film a strange amateurish  charm. Couple this with a truly memorable killer and Blood Runs Cold becomes a strange, somewhat kitsch horror movie.

It may seem that a forgotten horror icon is taking his anger out on the crappiest production he can find, but when embraced, Blood Runs Cold can confidently join the brilliantly terrible movie gang alongside Top Gun (1986), Crank (2006), and my all-time favourite, the beautifully bad Shoot Em’ Up (2007).

Film4 Frightfest 2011 - Urban Explorers Review

As my intended screening Rabies sold out, late afternoon arrived and I was looking at my second unexpected film of the day, German underground thriller Urban Explorers. Directed by Andy Fetscher, the film follows a group of adventurous twenty-something who get their kicks by explorering the neglected underground world of Berlin.

As they get dangerously into increasingly,  remote Nazi themed areas, one of them has an accident and is unable to move, but getting help becomes tricky as a strange and clearly mental Former East German body guard named Armin is discovered to be living beneath the surface, stuck in something of a time warp.

Unfortunately that’s about as much as an honest review as I can give as the screening was a bit of a botched job. After having no sound for the first five minutes, it turned out that the print was without subtitles. This seemed to have two effects on the audience – some enjoyed the threatening sense of alienation at not totally understanding the ramblings of the psychotic Armin, others found it frustrating. I fell into the latter.

However, without having a clue what Armin was saying didn’t ruin what was a generally well was made, genuinely suspenseful film with one great fridge-related scare and a surprisingly brutal ending.

An extremely shocked and apologetic Fetscher took to the stage afterwards and apologised for the print, telling Frightfesters that the dialogue was important and that we unfortunately missed some great jokes. Out of respect for what could be a better film with subtitles, I will let my review rest until I get the chance to see the film as it was intended.