Dead by Dawn 2015 Review - Ava's Possessions (2015)

Genre:
Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller
Distributor: TBC
Screened:
2015 Dead By Dawn (UK)
Release Date: TBC
Rating: 15
Director:
Jordan Galland
Cast:
Carol Kane, Dan Fogler, Jemima Kirke, Lou Taylor Pucci

The exorcism sub-genre has successfully stood its ground time and time again in every mode of the horror genre, so it’s a tough place to make your voice heard. Even then, Jordan Galland’s Ava’s Possessions is an absolute treat, not least because there seems to be a lack of post-exorcism films. Ava (Louisa Krause) is a young and beautiful girl who’s just been exorcised after a month of demon-fuelled mayhem. Agreeing to sign on with a support group for other people like her, Ava sets about atoning for her digressions, coming to terms with her benign other half, and unravelling the mystery of what happened to her.

Once the film starts, Galland quickly gets us on board, mixing his demonic PTS with staunch referencing, vibrant colouring, and a wicked sense of humour. The result is a Day-Glo package of horror goodies that might be camp as Christmas, but still has the balls to bite. Krause makes a splendid lead keeping a tight rein on Ava’s fluctuating personality and dark dark turns. Imagine Linda Blair going full-Cage for a demonic Bad Lieutenant and you’re getting closer to Ava’s Possessions. It’s a truly remarkable experiment in horror.

As with any experiment in horror, there might not be enough spooks and shade to keep genre-racists at bay, Ava’s Possessions is its own beast and doesn’t take kindly to shoehorning. Galland is an obvious fan of horror films, but he has no interest in recreating the gloomy nihilism of classic possession stories. Instead he exploits every facet of his script visually to ensure it’s a magnificent spectacle for any audience: a piece of possession pop art dripping with colour and an awareness of what its audience has seen and wants to see.

Like any great story, the film starts with the pieces scattered and shattered, confusingly, ominously out of reach. Like 13 Sins last year, Dead by Dawn 2015 has its twisting adventure: a moral sink-hole where characters and audience swirl until liberated by the crushing tide of familial secrets and spiritual danger. But the facts of the plot aren’t the only nostalgic endeavours. A fantastic, varied, and magnetic cast of genre regulars, and outright watchables, (William Saddler and Deborah Rush) pins Ava to the board of credibility in a rabid attempt at ensuring our engagement.

Whether or not Galland is a horror fan is totally irrelevant since the genre will only survive in the hands of people who have the audacity to change it, rather than releasing films that, though void of originals, are still really just remakes. Ava’s Possessions is a fresh-faced triumph and one of the most vibrant genre experiences you’ll have this year.

★★★★
Scott Clark

Ava's Possessions (2015) Official Teaser Trailer from Jordan Galland on Vimeo.

Dead by Dawn 2015 - Amnesia

Genre:
Thriller
Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015
Rating:15
Director:
Nini Bull Robsahm
Cast:
Pia Tjelta, Christian Rubeck
Amnesia, the second directing credit from Norwegian filmmaker Nini Bull Robsahm, is a slow but often jolting consideration of domestic abuse. A couple travel to their beautiful remote island getaway for a week of writing and romance. Both are authors, but Kathrine (Pia Tjelta) is perfecting her first novel in the hope she can become as successful as her domineering partner, Thomas (Christian Rubeck). After a fight leaves Thomas with serious memory loss, Katherine jumps on the opportunity to live with the man she really loves.

It’s a great idea for a horror film, but Robsahm seems ultra-cautious of letting her film become just that. Placid colouring and wide shots take a dark seedy story and try to pull its trousers up. If this had been grimier, it could have been a Nordic exploitation film, instead, its an emotionally troubling but visually dull attempt at reconciling with the aggressive male superego. Even with a run time of 80 minutes, Amnesia feels tired and somewhat irritating by its finale: a lack of drive in any real direction keeps the film from ever really impressing or- worse- finishing comfortably. But then that is, perhaps, the point: dreamy fatigued visuals project the purgatory of Kathrine’s constant struggle, whilst the lack of catharsis seems oddly fitting in a film plagued by disastrous moments of aggression.

Though brutally realistic and unrelenting in its studied portrait of abuse, Amnesia seems content to show us high-tension confrontations, but skimps on much of the between-space. Considering the film covers a week, and it’s a pretty interesting week, Amnesia can be identified by its long stretches of nothing before its few staunch moments of anguish. Though, Rubeck makes a terrifying psychopath, an amalgam of nightmarish men; controlling, cold, fierce, and, arguably worst, entitled. His performance consistently punches out from the drabness to keep the film on course.

Sadly, Amnesia is rarely gripping and infuriatingly anti-cathartic. It is however, a sincere look at what people really are and what we would like them to be.

★★
Scott Clark

Dead by Dawn 2015 - Musaranas (2015)

Genre:
Horror, Thriller
Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015
Rating: 15
Director:
Juanfer Andrés, Esteban Roel
Cast:
Macarena Gómez, Hugo Silva, Luis Tosar ,Tomás del Estal
Winning the audience award for best feature at Dead by Dawn is no small feat. The Edinburgh horror festival has a tight group of in-depth genre fanatics who know their stuff and get exposed to the newest and best once a year. Juanfer Andres and Esteban Roel’s Musaranas (AKA Shrew’s Nest) is a beautiful powerhouse of dysfunctional family gothic not to be missed.

Montse (Macarena Gomez) is an agoraphobic dressmaker, confined to the cosy but isolated dwellings of her childhood home many years after her parents’ deaths. Hermana (Nadia de Santiago), Montse’s beautiful younger sister, has just turned 18 and is beginning to take her first steps into adult life. After finding a man unconscious with a broken leg in her stairwell, Montse makes a decision that sees her delicate world begin to unravel.

Sure Musaranas shares its lonely spinster story with Misery, but that’s about the only parallel. Andres and Roel have, impressively, left all vestiges of similar thematic endeavours out in the cold by making sure Musaranas is 100% its own beast. Everything about the story, characters, events, and even locations is distinctly infused with clean-cut insanity and dilute garishness. Misery is winter gothic, bound to the isolation of the Colorado Mountains, where Musaranas is equally reliant on the vibrant social atmosphere of its small town.

Musaranas is wise not to operate beyond its brief. It doesn’t push itself so far that the weight of its finely tuned black humour crushes the horror aspect, or vice versa. Andres and Roel know exactly when they want us to laugh, cover our eyes, and sit right on the precipice of our seats just waiting to see where this domestic nightmare will turn next.

Macarena Gomez steals the show, there’s no way around it. Her particular brand of matriarchal madness is an absolutely arresting delight. Thankfully Gomez understands that insanity is a difficult sell: often silly when handled incorrectly. But in Musaranas her portrayal of the delicate Montse is somewhere between prim and perverted, a pitch-perfect horror character with as much depth and heart as any of the genre’s best villains. Luis Tosar (Sleep Tight) appears as the girls’ fierce father, every bit the bad guy but touchingly subject to his own foul demons. It’s a hard thing to pull off a guy like this whilst enabling the audience some window into his mind, but its executed wonderfully.

An incredible piece of work for a debut feature; tightly edited and written, expertly cast, and sporting a slew of finely tuned comic, horror, and family themes in such a concise way it’s impossible not to enjoy. Musaranas is a perfect vignette, a peek into the bubbling hive of anxiety that is family.

★★★★
Scott Clark

Dead by Dawn 2015 - What You Make It

Every year, Dead by Dawn wows with its collection of feature premiers, but it also lays a sturdy framework for the showcasing of varied horror-related shorts in its What You Make It programme. 2015 was as intriguing a collection as ever.

Father/Son by Bryan Reisberg 2012

A young man brings his girlfriend on a hunter trip to introduce her to his father. Its simple but not laden with the kinds of anxious frivolity you’d expect, there’s a definite edge to proceedings, a palpable doom on the air. A lack of scoring leaves much of the film feeling like an exposé, which it is, in a boisterous kind of way. In 11 minutes, Reisberg manages to succinctly address a tight group of themes in a few perfect images, proving a succinct distaste for the traditional view of male/female relationships. Yul Vazquez is an immense source of charm and creepiness in equal measure, playing on a set of nightmares reserved for the male subconscious.

Narratively the film pulls a neat, fitting, and truly barbarous twist after a seemingly long and uncomfortable stretch of cross-generational grooming. Father/Son is nothing if not a warning against patriarchal structures but it’s also a serenely played mockumentary on what happens under them. A truly graceful turn in grotesquery from Reisberg.

My Shadow Mocks Me by Jack McGinity 2014

Amidst a long list of editorial credits lies My Shadow Mocks Me, the sole directorial duty of Jack McGinity. It’s a pretty perfect little macabre story about a dog seemingly pushing a child to do awful things. It’s not situational though, the story is told through long exposure to eerie images, the crushing waves of the sea, a desolate beach, paw prints in the sand, everything is evoked through the nice marriage of narration, image, and Andy Stewart’s uncomfortable void sounds.

McGinity’s choice of images are ominous in an old-fashioned way but totally menacing. Old portraits and stark black and white landscapes tell much of the story, whilst the child’s voiceover ramps up the creepiness. Kudos to McGinity for being bold and getting an infant to say ‘gorge on our innards’, but some of this is perhaps trying too hard to be creepy. Even then, some of the images and dialogue are so uncomfortably funny that they manage a chill nonetheless.

Out of Order by David Renton 2014

The only animated film to be found wandering outside the 2D & Deranged Short Animation Programme, Out of Order is a likeable venture into odd psychotropic surrealism. A bearded man returns to his home with the week’s food shopping, only to be confronted by the vestiges of last week’s treats.

Obviously, Dead by Dawn has a long, colourful, and varied relationship with horror and death. Out of Order isn’t exactly a horror piece, but it’s definitely got a strange alienating vibe, one that leaves us uncomfortable as much as it has us smirking at its silliness. Starting off in crisp playful black and white, the film takes a nose-dive into crazy-territory that proves a vibrant feast. The bright schizophrenic colouring, along with Naz Malik’s decrepit sound makes an arresting spectacle from the monotony of food-storage. Renton deserves some kind of trophy for his vengeful Pure Imagination-warbling moustachioed bagel, an equally arresting piece of cabaret in and of itself. Silliness isn’t necessarily bad, especially in horror where the visuals and themes are often so densely macabre that a break in tension is a must-need. Renton’s Out of Order is a short, imaginative, funny, and sickly treat.

In Passing by Alan Miller 2013

A man jumps from a very high building only to meet the love of his life on the way down. It’s some feat, a short film that follows two people on their way down the side of a romantically lit skyscraper. Miller deserves some recognition not just for the technically impressive scope of his short, but the effortless way he manages to pull off the suicide tale without an ounce of horror, grotesquery, or gore.

If anything, Miller’s film is as hopeful, romantic, and endearing a horror short as one could hope to see, but I can’t help feeling a splat would have been lovely. Ignoring the inevitable end of this innately violent venture is wise and daring because it genuinely tries to look for love in the least expected places. It’s a genuinely charming and oddly optimistic tale. Add that this is Miller’s Graduate Thesis Film and you can see why he’s talent to look out for.

Interior. Familia. By Gerard Quinto, Esteve Soler, David Torras, written by Esteve Soler 2014

A mother and father wake their son urgently in the night to confess some long held truths. Quinto, Soler, and Torras deliver a cathartic (for parents) nightmare from the twisted logic of family honesty, love, and truth. Francesc Orella and Rosa Cadafalch, seem to be having a hoot terrorizing their son with their icky and vaguely aggressive admissions. Blatant honesty is orchestrated with all the heart and subtly of a news report: being told you are the product of a failed ‘coitus interuptus’ can’t be easy, especially when it’s being said so blasé. Shit. That’s some horrific and brain melting stuff to hear at half four in the morning from your aging parents.

More hilarious than Orella’s subtle discomfort at some of his wife’s admissions is Adria Diaz’ utter shock, horror, and ultimate sorrow at his parents indifferent affections. The second parent-related horror of What You Make It, Interior. Familia. is laugh-out-loud horror from a situation you never want to find yourself in.

Rat Pack Rat by Todd Rohal 2014

Winning the Special Jury Prize for ‘Originality of Vision’ at Sundance 2014, Rat Pack Rat also won the audience award for Best Short at Dead by Dawn 2015. Rohal is an inconsistent talent, conceptually ambitious and worrying visions, paired with often lame humour, make him an odd but interesting talent. His entry for ABC’s of Death 2, P-P-P-P Scary! was easily the worst of the bunch, showing little consideration or tact in a warbled mess of stuttering japes and silly execution. But here, Rohal proves a far more consistent writer/director.

In Rat Pack Rat, a Sammy Davis Jr. impersonator is hired to perform for a bedridden Rat Pack fan, but the performance turns into one of the least glamourous of his career. Basically, if you want to watch Rohal vent some kind of deep-seated issue with impersonators through a gross lens, then this is your film. 19 minutes of sickly Milky Way oddity, heart-maggots, prostitution, and genuinely charming vocal performance leave Rat Pack Rat an odd, distasteful, but totally watchable little nightmare. Rat Pack Rat has that blatant lack of taste in P-P-P-P Scary, but in a more directed way. It feels like pseudo John Waters with less tact, there’s a slice of Lynch in there somewhere too, but overall it’s a unique experience in the realm of shock well-worth a look. 

Scott Clark

Dead by Dawn 2015 - Cub

Genre:
Horror
Distributor:
Altitude Film Distribution
Rating: 18
Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015
DVD Release Date:
July/August 2015 (UK)
Director:
Jonas Govaerts
Cast:
Maurice Luijten, Evelien Bosmans, Titus De Voogdt
At the screening of Jonas Govaerts’ Cub, Dead by Dawn festival director Adele Hartley voiced her belief that the Belgians are making some of the most fucked up films out there. Cub isn't exactly an argument against that. Where De Poel took a quietly-mounting thriller route, Cub takes the camping sub-genre on a comparatively bombastic journey of adventurous violence, proving that the woods are not quite done as a horror locale.

In it, a group of young scouts are taken deep into the woods by their three adolescent councilors. A lonely boy named Sam (Maurice Luijten) does his best to join in but finds the mystery of Kai, a local monster, far more intriguing.

After a sharp and excellently played intro the film goes on to tell one of the most enjoyable and inventive woods-related horrors in years. Cub stands out because it exploits a growing trend of violence towards children, making the violence far weightier but ensuring the children are more substantial characters. An interesting network of power plays between adults and children enforce the disturbing notion of cyclical violence to an often horrific finale.

Another key strength in the film is its eye for great images, the giant wicker wasps’ nest Kai calls home is an incredible sight, as is the filthy underground network of tunnels which come into play for the finale. Cub is a film about forgotten children and it makes its point with equally forgotten places. The dense underground is clearly an adult’s den, where the dream-like hive is almost defiantly a child’s. The camp has its own dangerous boundaries, ones that spell doom for those who cross them, but also those who live by them.

Jon Watts Clown surprised me with its graphic violence towards children, but Cub reserves its right until the perfect moment, when Govaerts orchestrates a moment of horror so casually you wonder if you missed something. But that’s the case with much of the film: information is drip-fed so that the audience is left to join up some of the dots, a rare trick in contemporary slashers, but a welcome one nonetheless. Sure the film wobbles in its last act, seemingly just to prove a labored point, but there’s enough treats here to make it worth your while.

Jonas Govaerts manages to craft a sharp and original take on the woods-slasher in his impressive debut feature. Great kills, power plays, and a terrific performance from Luijten keep Cub on edge from start to finish.

★★★★
Scott Clark

Dead by Dawn 2015 review - De Poel

Genre:
Horror
Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015
Rating:15
Director:
Chris W.Mitchell
Cast:
Katja Herbers, Alex Hendrickx, Gijs Scholten van Aschat,

Easily one of Dead by Dawn 2015’s stand-out films, De Poel is a finely tuned masterclass in mounting tension. Director Chris W. Mitchell’s debut feature is an impressive piece of work on all counts, engaging Horror’s age-old love affair with woodland terror in a consistently intriguing objectiveness.

The story is simple: two families set up camp next to a beautiful pond only to fall prey to its sadistic memories. Horror has a long history of haunted places rubbing off on innocent people, pulling their discretions to the forefront and charging them individually for a lifetime of sin. If When Animals Dream is this year’s abstract monster story, then Chris W. Mitchell’s De Poel is by all means an abstract witch story. Yet, films like De Poel are instantly suffused with intrigue because they don’t care about the how and why, relegating the possible witch-drowning origin to a brief flashback. Instead, Mitchell focuses on the slowly growing animosity in the two holidaying families; picking out flirtations, old disputes, and underlying anxiety to exploit further down the line.

                De Poel is about family first and foremost, about expectation and trust so, naturally, it leads to madness and murder. An excellent cast support the film, but Carine Crutzen and Gijs Sholten van Aschat steal the show as a middle aged couple finally pushed to confront their crumbling marriage. Aschat proves an incredible force in the feature propelling it forward with his tactile portrait of a man in the throes of sinister forces, his writing credit on the film can only have helped. Mitchell’s tight scripting is performed to perfection so that it feels like we’re watching a gothic holiday drama gone to hell as opposed to an out-and-out horror film.  There’s something vaguely transcendent about De Poel, in genre terms.

Make no mistake though, there is plenty to be scared of. With apparent ease De Poel achieves an eeriness often skipped in contemporary horror films, ramping up the tension to nightmarish degrees. Careful investigation leant Mitchel’s script a great collection of folk fairy tale iconography. Organic manipulation of the intimate scenario leaves room for plenty great horror images. Rotting food, peripheral glimpses, visitors in the night, it all reeks of death and quickly becomes a distressing atmosphere possessed of dread. De Poel is a diabolic entity, unrelenting and merciless, its idyllic origins made murky by proximity to human evil, its finale proves a surprising but bold transformation from other like films.

A concise and organic horror film that feels fresh and, most importantly, unsettling. Chris W Mitchell’s debut feature is a joyous celebration of horror without getting caught up in dull iconography. Fantastic filmmaking.

★★★★
Scott Clark

Dead by Dawn 2015 Review - When Animals Dream(2014)

Genre:
Drama, Horror
Distributor:
Altitude Film Distribution
Rating:18
DVD Release Date:
1st June 2015 (UK)
Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015
Director:
Jonas Alexander Arnby
Cast:
Lars Mikkelsen, Sonia Suhl, Sonja Richter
One of the most interesting aspects of being a horror fan is getting to see the continual resurrection of classic monsters. It feels like an offense to call Jonas Alexander Arnby’s When Animals Dream a monster film, but it’s essentially an abstract version of a classic story; fresh and clean, with a great sense of subtle iconography.

Small town ignorance, conservative values, puberty, death, and sins of the mother prove a potent but studied group of interests for the odd stoicism of Arnby’s vision. Sonja Suhl is terrific, channelling the innocence and charm of a beautiful outsider, only to prove she has no qualms getting Carrie-nasty for “quiet girl” vengeance. Importantly, Arnby makes the film more about the promise of violence from the community than the inevitable transformation in Marie. From the start Marie seems to be undergoing some kind of social gauntlet, dealing with the stigma of her mother’s mysterious illness whilst surviving the copious male aggression in her small sea-side town. As with many puberty-related horror films, the dangers of her condition are consistently outmatched and amplified by the world around her. It’s an interesting parallel to Paul Wright’s For Those in Peril, an equally pessimistic film about sea-side communities and destructive superstition.

Visually the film is consistently haunting and serene. The harsh light of day spells danger for Marie and her family, where safety only arrives with total darkness. Fantastic shots of artificial light in the early hours always spell doom for someone, extending Arby’s cynicism towards attempts to control nature.

Though the film often rests on Suhl’s quiet performance, Lars Mikkelsen is an equally huge and important component of the piece, playing a torn and fraught figure locked between the demise of his wife and the slow submission of his daughter to the same terrible curse. Arnby is wise to tell us as little as possible start to finish, letting us enjoy the quiet but charged politics of an introverted community, whilst putting us in the same bamboozled position as Marie.

A slow but mysterious venture: When Animals Dream is a haunted film; tired at the fact it’s still dealing with an aggressive patriarchy but triumphant in its remoulding of genre mythos.

★★★★
Scott Clark

Dead by Dawn 2015 Review - Tusk

Genre:
Horror,Comedy
Distributor:
Sony Pictures HE
Rating: 15
DVD Release Date:
8th June 2015 (UK)
Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015
Director:
Kevin Smith
Cast:
Michael Parks, Justin Long, Genesis Rodriguez, Haley Joel Osment, Harley Morenstein
Buy:Tusk [DVD]

Kevin Smith is one brazen son of a gun. His first foray into horror, Tusk is a tricky sell, too silly to be scary, to nihilistic to be widely enjoyed. But screw it, this isn’t about making flavour of the month, Smith’s latest is bold as far as genre mash-ups go. Tusk mashes rural craziness with body horror, ultra-nihilism, and laugh-out-loud silliness to create a truly unique feature. It’s a searing shot of monstrous black comedy that’s made for the thicker skinned viewer.

Wallace (Justin Long) is a successful podcaster and a bit of an asshole, travelling to Canada for a tasteless interview. After the interview is cancelled, Wallace contacts Howard Howe (Michael Parks), an old recluse living in an ancient house who just wants to share the stories of his seafaring adventures. Soon, Wallace is at the whim of a madman with an unfortunate obsession with Walrus.

Michael Parks is the heart and soul of the film, committing 100% to one of modern horror’s best nutters. A close thematic relation to Dieter Laser’s terrifying Dr Heiter in The Human Centipede, Howe proves a far deeper, more gripping, and worryingly likable character. Long is actually superb as a prime caricature of American success, but as a viewer it’s impossible to deny Parks’ gravitas in the pair’s shared screen time. The preposterous narrative benefits hugely from Park’s careful and charismatic performance along with Smith’s dialogue, which is in turns barmy and touching. Without Parks’ long stretches of storytelling, Tusk could have proved a one-trick pony, and even though the story will seem increasingly tenuous, Smith’s characters prove worthy anchors for the plot.

               
There’s plenty of stuff that’s relatively off: the attempt to build a mysterious love triangle falls flat and a certain celebrity cameo pushes the Inspector Clouseau thing so far it threatens to snap the film’s integrity. There are dumb-sized plot holes that could piss you off, but it’s more bother than it’s worth to get stuck in them. Sure, legs get severed with outrageous ease, Walrus fights are daft, and the resolution may leave some exasperated, but I guess its tough shit. This is an experiment in contemporary gothic informed by a brisk and cynical look at paparazzi culture and the animosity between America and Canada. Its bombastic, shameless, stupid, and oddly beautiful. It’s a story about a crazy old man who wants to turn folk into animals via horrific mutilation, and it’s hilarious.

Tusk is unapologetically nuts, sometimes stupid, but always enjoyable. Michael Parks is utterly superb, Smith’s dialogue deserves to be quoted for years to come, and bonus points to Justin Long, whose guttural screams will haunt my dreams forever.

★★★★
Scott Clark