Rebecca Paul reports in on the recent horror festival within the Glasgow Film Festival.
A film festival is a fun place to be.
For most of us, a cinema outing is a weekend treat. The film pre-approved via a quick Google search and subsequently ok’d with our chosen partner. Popcorn in hand we witness the latest trailers and experience our chosen movie politely in a quiet auditorium. Entertainment needs satisfied, we leave.
Festivals are different. Emotions in the theatre are audible. Films run all day, directors and producers chat with the audience, movies may not have seen their final edit and there will be sporadic surprises like shorts or clips of those yet to be finished. Each movie is introduced by (for want of a better word) a compere who oversees the proceedings, hosting Q and As between films, giving away freebies and chatting outside while he smokes his roll-up.
Such was the scene over the weekend Glasgow Film Festival’s Frightfest. The beautiful deco GFT hosted the two-day horror show in anticipation of the biggie in Leicester Square this August. There was a good mix this year with documentary, genre mixing, found-footage, apocalypse movies as well as the usual gory horror. Sadly nothing in the way of an old-fashioned ghost story.
Suspense thriller Crawl is sleek and pristine. It boasts a comic-book exterior with gritty characters whose emotions play out silently on their lined faces. All three main characters are visually engaging and careful camera work invites the viewer to examine their thoughts throughout. There’s a very strong Coen Brothers feel and while this is cool, perhaps brothers Ben and Paul China (director and producer) rely too much on their borrowed sense of style. Shots are curious to watch but at times a little over-long to the point of losing us. Crawl feels more like an experience than a well-crafted horror flick. Poetic direction and emotive music keep the audience intrigued but there’s no real narrative and too many threads of the story are ignored.
Evidence and Tape 407 were the found-footage offerings. Both explore beyond the supernatural and, oddly enough, arrive at military intervention. The ‘monster’ is a fixture in each but there’s a need to take the plotline further, perhaps indicating the genre is becoming a bit tired.
Rites of Spring is really two films that twist and turn before finally crashing headlong into one another. On one hand, there is a kidnap and hostage situation which goes awry while on the other, there is the 70s-style horror with scantily-clad missing teenagers and a crazed maniac. Thriller and horror. Fine. Director Padraig Reynolds, a fan of From Dusk Til Dawn, tried to fuse the two together in a market he believes to be untapped. Reynolds plays with the notion of escapism as each time any of the main characters manage to free themselves from their untenable positions, they become further embroiled in the twisted plot lines themselves. This is fun to watch and the movie is well-paced as it flits from one story to another. The frustration is the lack of storyline. While the characters stumble and barrel their way through, there doesn’t seem to be any destination and by the end of the movie this is a big let-down. Rites is part one in a trilogy and while more of the story will unravel in yet-to-be-made second instalment, it doesn’t feel like we’ve been adequately fed in part one.
As with every festival, there are some unexpected surprises. This year Wang’s Arrival was perhaps the oddest film of the lot. Akin to an episode of the Twilight Zone, this Italian horror nestles comfortably in the Frightfest programme and throws up some interesting questions we should all ask ourselves. A curious and probing film.
Cassadaga fuses all manner of tried and tested horror from séance and possession to the disastrously gruesome effects of an overly-protective mother on her young son. If you can stomach it, this is one of the weekend’s treats.
2012’s Frightfest had a varied, cross-genre mix which kept the weekend fresh and interesting and while most films held their own with the audience, none really emerged as anything special. There was an obvious nod to horror classics: Jeepers Creepers, Texas Chainsaw and Wicker Man to name but a few. Of course, these ideas will continue to influence and shape future movies but it’d be nice to see more of a departure into something playful and experimental.
Visually rich and atmospheric, there could be a tendency to sacrifice plot-line and narrative for a sexy-looking horror film. An increasingly gruesome demise takes precedence over a strong story while few films manage to juggle both. The main gripe, I’m afraid, is that there’s little new with what’s being done which is exactly what audiences really crave.
Fingers crossed for August.
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