ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2021

Drawing to a temporary close last weekend, the 50th edition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival (better known as IFFR) switched up its format for these pandemic stricken times, mirroring most of the other big-hitter festivals by shifting online, but rather than offering a reduced festival Rotterdam is setting itself apart by expanding and splitting in two - a February programme and another, more optimistic instalment scheduled for June that aims to incorporate outdoor screenings an in-cinema events across The Netherlands that will highlight the festival's rich history and reputation of championing emerging filmmakers from around the globe.

Incorporating different areas of competition - the Tiger Competition, the Big Screen Competition and the Tiger Shorts Competition -  that comprised 30 features and nearly the same amount of shorts, the winners were announced as part of the closing night celebrations, that also honoured director Kelly Reichardt with the second annual Robby Müller Award for her work in film. With so many films on offer it's simply impossible to take them all in - I missed out on the new Mads Mikkelsen film Riders of Justice that I was hoping to see - but along with the switch to a virtual format there's a newfound joy in going into screenings (at home) blind with no pre-conceived ideas or word of mouth buzz that you'd expect at old-fashioned "physical" festivals, apart from the occasional mention on Twitter that's not always a sure-fire benchmark of quality.

Directed by Félix Dufour-Laperrière, French animation Archipelago/Archipel creates an almost trance-like world of imagery and poetry, using natural landscapes and archive film as part of their palette to aide the animation of the imagined islands of the title. Using a variety of techniques from simple line drawings to rotoscoping, my personal favourite element was the inverse silhouettes it employed that draw the eye like the keyhole of a door to another world. It's a technique used before, perhaps most notably in the Pixar short Night and Day, but accompanying the dialogue that's delivered as if it's a confessional diary entry written by a warring couple ("You don't exist", "You're wrong"), there's a deeper emotional weight to it. I'll be honest that it's the visuals that make Archipelago a compelling experience, and even if you do check out from the continuing narrative as you're entranced by a rotoscoped swimmer or old film brought to new life with some animated enhancements, the cyclical nature of the film is forgiving.

Drawing way too much inspiration from Todd Phillips' Joker, The Cemil Show follows a shopping mall security guard (Ozan Çelik) as he lives out his fantasy of being a movie star by studying and copying the performance of his idol, Turgay Goral, the villain in a series of films in the 1960s. By chance, Cemil's co-worker Burcu (Nesrin Cavadzade) happens to be Goral's daughter, giving Cemil access to a VHS archive of his past performances that will push the already unhinged wannabe actor over the edge of insanity. As his delusion becomes a psychotic desire to become Goral's villain for real, Cemil puts the lives of Burcu and the original film's director in serious danger.

It's a sad, joyless film with a thoroughly unclear message that's drastically and un-ironically hampered by its own desire to ape Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar winning turn as Arthur Fleck in Joker, not helped at all by budgetary limitations that mean a large proportion of scenes are shot on the empty level of a multi-storey car park. There's some surprisingly effective character work by Cavadzade, as Burcu becomes increasingly fed up with her lot in life, but the performance of Çelik as an average Joe turned homicidal madman just isn't convincing.

Dutch director David Verbeek's Dead and Beautiful follows the nocturnal activities of a group of young, wealthy urbanites as they explore the benefits of their newfound blood lust on the streets of Taiwan. Waking up after a spiritual cleansing with fangs, they retreat to the empty luxury penthouse owned by one of their billionaire fathers and plot how best to make the most of life as a vampire. Equal parts socio-political and sociopathic, Dead and Beautiful taps into the 80's yuppie excess of Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys and Flatliners. It's a pleasingly inventive update on the genre that treats vampirism like a designer drug, starring a group of characters that are blinded by their immense privilege and contempt for everyone else.

Nodding heavily towards Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Alice Lowe's Prevenge and Abel Ferrara's The Addiction, Black Medusa stars Nour Hajri as Nada, a near mute young woman who picks up random men in the nightclubs of Tunis in order to violently and sadistically murder them. When her workmate Noura extends an offer of friendship, Nada rejects her, until a dangerous turn of events sees her calling on her in her time of need.

Presented as a 'Tale in Nine Nights', it's a mystery as to why Nada is doing this, although the sexual humiliation she inflicts on these men (such as penetrating them with a broom handle) hints towards her motivation. Shot over 12 days with a small crew, it's a gorgeous black and white that features a number of outdoor day-lit scenes that show off the vibrancy and beauty of Tunis. Despite being almost entirely mute and carrying a blank, numb expression, Hajri's a compelling presence on screen and manages to convey a lot with a simple stare. A troubling look at a woman taking action against the repulsive side of life in her city, Black Medusa is a dark, catharsis-free revenge fantasy. 

More than 50 years after competing at the Tokyo Olympics, the surviving members of the Nichibo Kaizuka volleyball team are brought back together to reminisce about their worldwide success that lead to them being dubbed the Witches of the Orient, and the rigorous training they were put through by their head coach, Hirofumi 'The Demon' Daimatsu. Using some of the vintage volleyball anime that became prevalent after their success on the world stage and footage from their training sessions, director Julian Faraut has crafted a truly fascinating documentary on the young lives of these women, and the pressure they were under to succeed.

Cut together to create a collage of animation, old footage and a new propulsive soundtrack, Witches of the Orient (or to give it its original French title, Les Sorcières de l'Orient) resembles something akin to a Spike Jonze music video montage, but with a deeper emotional journey served with its use of the present day interviews with the women, now in their seventies. As the film sets into the final showdown against the team from The Soviet Union, the reveal of the restoration work is incredible, making it a gripping, joyous experience to watch. Inventively presented and compelling, Witches of the Orient is a fantastic achievement in documentary filmmaking.

In Karen Cinorre's dreamlike Mayday, Grace Van Patten stars as Ana, a waitress at a wedding who in the middle of a storm warning is transported into a new world where soldiers are falling from the sky and the world she knew is out of order. Teaming up with a troop of young women lead by Mia Goth's Marsha, they listed to radio signals from their beached submarine and fend off the danger posed by the continuing appearance of new soldiers around them.

A 'girl's own adventure' with a World War II meets Wizard of Oz slant to it, Mayday throws a lot of creativity at the screen and not all of it sticks. The world they're in is a befuddling one, and although unexpected dance routines and synchronised swimming might make for charming interludes, it's hard to see what relevance they have to the story. Van Patten, an absolute star on the rise after solid performances in Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories and Dolly Wells' Good Posture, serves the script well and has a great interplay with Mia Goth, but there's not enough substance to make this feel more than just a flight of fancy.

The final feature I was able to see and one of the absolute delights of the festival was Ana Katz's The Dog Who Wouldn't Be Quiet/El Perro Que No Calla, following a young man, Sebastian (Daniel Katz), as he tries to placate his neighbours and his workplace when his dog suffers immense loneliness when he's not there and cries out until he returns. The deserved winner of the Big Screen Competition prize, it's a fascinating and completely unpredictable story that jumps ahead to key moments in Sebastian's life as it takes a number of unforeseen turns, including a segment that sees characters forced to wear breathing helmets and obey a strict protocol to stay below 4ft. Science fiction that's utterly feasibly given the 2020 we just had, it's a film that continually shifts what you think it is, giving lovely, sweet moments of unexpected comedy to balance the rigours of Sebastian's life.

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WILLY'S WONDERLAND review

When a silent, perma-snarling drifter (Nicolas Cage) sustains tyre damage to his car when travelling through small-town Hayesville, he finds himself saddled with a $1000 bill for the repairs and no way to pay it. Agreeing to work off his debt by spending the night cleaning Willy's Wonderland, a run-down family restaurant populated by animatronic characters, he faces more than he bargained for when the machines start to violently attack him, all while a group of vengeful teens are trying to burn the place down.

With no disrespect to the man, there's something of an expectation in recent Nicolas Cage movies that's now being milked for all it's worth by film marketing departments. Writ large on many Cage film posters from the last few years is the promise that this is his most "extreme", most "crazy" appearance yet - a reputation that simply can't be sustained, not even by Nicolas Cage. And so for fans of his regular output (and it is certainly that, with 18 feature films completed in the last three years and a Joe Exotic mini-series still to come) there's an omni-present feeling that his films don't live up to the hype, despite the best efforts of Cage to one-up himself, appeasing his fans with wild outbursts and oddball line-readings that create these buzz worthy moments.

With Willy's Wonderland he's trying something a bit different. Also on board as a producer, Cage's drifter (an un-named man known only as The Janitor) rolls into town not looking for trouble but inevitably finding some, facing off against a group of raggedy-looking, psychotic animatronic puppets, all whilst not saying a single word. Yes, the actor famous for some of the most gloriously insane lines of dialogue in film history, the stuff of YouTube compilation dreams, plays a character who remains completely mute throughout the film, even when he's taking on Ozzy Ostrich armed only with a mop or Gus Gorilla with a toilet plunger. There's no mistaking that this is a choice of the character to not engage with other people's bullshit rather than any physical impairment, and although I haven't gone back to check the original script to check, it wouldn't surprise me one iota to discover that this was a character choice made by Cage on the first day of filming in order to flex his acting muscles whilst also subverting the audience expectation of him.

The premise of Willy's Wonderland is pretty basic, really, riffing on the old 'spend one night in a haunted mansion' trope and adding in an admirably cheeky amount of the cult video game, Five Nights at Freddy's. Whereas the game sees a security guard have to spend consecutive nights fending off Freddy Fazbear and his psychotic animatronic friends in a dark, moody, family restaurant, Willy's Wonderland sees a JANITOR spend ONE night fending off WILLY WEASEL and his psychotic animatronic friends in a dark, moody, family restaurant. Actually, what am I saying? They're completely different premises and are LEGALLY NOT THE SAME THING. To be fair to the writer of Willy's Wonderland, despite the obvious similarities, the intellectual property rights must have been looked at and cleared beforehand (attempts to make an official FNaF film adaptation have repeatedly fallen through), and the brazenness of it all goes towards the tongue in cheek attitude that works in the film's favour.

There's some gloriously stupid shenanigans as to why this family restaurant ended up housing a group of homicidal maniacs - involving a suicide ritual, a dark secret that implicates the entire town, and Beth "Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion" Grant's local Sheriff - but the film moves by quickly enough that you don't pay more attention than is necessary to the plot, instead delivering you set-piece after set-piece of a blood-spattered Cage taking on Willy and his animal friends as they sing their super-catchy birthday song with murderous intent. These confrontations do become a bit 'samey' after a while and are more reliant on being bloody than they are scary. Even after the film introduces the group of cliche-driven, stereotypically annoying teens (lead by best of the bunch, Emily Tosta) to the mix and they become fodder for the furry freaks, a near re-setting of the same scene kicks in (you might say, almost like a video game) as Cage's janitor cleans a room, picks off an enemy, leaves them in a trash bag by the door for the morning and then has to start back at square one again, cleaning up the bloody mess he's just made.

Having Cage vocalise the madness going on around him might have been a hat on a hat, but it's a pity Willy's Wonderland won't get included among those numerous YouTube compilations as it's enjoyably daft fun that can be ranked high in Cage's recent filmography. His janitor is a cool, calm, Snake Plissken-esque bad-ass who takes the attacks from the 7-foot furries with fury in his stride, hoping to get through the night with his supply of energy drinks and a few games of pinball. It's even more of a pity that Willy's Wonderland was deprived of its planned theatrical release back in October, as it's a film that would benefit a great deal from the presence of a crowd - this would have gone down a storm at Frightfest with its Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama/Waxwork vibe - but watching from your sofa it still delivers plenty of ridiculous, over the top "Cage Rage" moments, even if it's hard not to miss those one-liners.

Verdict

3.5/5

Signature Entertainment Presents Willy’s Wonderland Home Premiere on Digital Platforms 12th February

RAMS review

In the Southern Australian valley of Mount Barker, the Grimurson brothers haven't spoken to each other for 40 years, despite living side by side on what once their family sheep farm, now split down the middle. When a bacterial infection forces them and all the local farmers to slaughter all their livestock, Colin (Sam Neill) secretly hides his prize ram and a few of his favourite ewes in his house, going to great lengths to avoid their discovery by his elder brother Les (Michael Caton) or the town veterinarian, Kat (Miranda Richardson) knowing that the Department of Agriculture could take his farm from him if they find out.

A remake of the 2015 Icelandic film, Hrutar (Rams in English), Rams transports the story to Southern Australia and casts Antipodean acting legends Sam Neill & Michael Caton as the warring Grimurson brothers. Separated by nothing more than stubbornness, a wire fence and a bitter feud that goes back decades, when Colin detects signs of Ovine Johne's Disease (OJD) in one of Les's prize-winning Rams, he has to report it to vet, Kat (Richardson). When the bureaucrats from the Department for Agriculture get involved, they order all local farms to relinquish their livestock to be destroyed to keep the OJD localised to their valley. Unwilling to let them take his flock away from the land they were raised on to be slaughtered, Colin does the sad deed himself, secretly storing the best of his animals in his home in the hope he can save the rare breed once the crisis is over.

There's a lot to be said for the appeal of a grizzled Sam Neill in a thick knit jumper, and although Colin isn't quite as socially awkward as Hec in Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople, he's on fine 'grumpy old bastard' form. Even so, he's able to carry on friendships with the local farmers, unlike his reclusive, alcoholic and extremely cantankerous elder brother who keeps himself to himself and only communicates with his brother via messages delivered by the farm's trusty sheepdog. Both victims of foolish pride, there's great performances from Neill and Caton - acting opposite each other for the first time since the 70's - and the film is at its best when they're sharing the screen, even if they're not sharing dialogue. The back and forth between them sees Les shooting Colin's boots with his rifle and Colin delivering his drunkard brother to hospital in the bucket of his digger, all without a shared word. 

There's much to enjoy in this sweet, charming romp, even if at 2 hours it's far longer than it needs to be. Time is taken to appreciate the sprawling Australian vistas for all their beauty, and the landscapes unforgiving nature as characters have to join forces and battle the threat of bush fires taking out the town. As a potential love interest for Colin, Miranda Richardson's Kat is sadly under utilised, and Leon Ford's Department of Agriculture agent stops just short of being a pantomime villain of William Atherton in Ghostbusters proportions, but when Colin and Les inevitably face off against each other and (fair enough, I'll say the obvious) lock horns, the film does switch up a gear and hits all the right tragic-comic notes to make Rams a bit of a beaut. 

A film about family and caring for one's own flock, it's genuinely touching to see Colin talk to his sheep to remind them "you are beautiful, you are beautiful, but you're best". There's a farcical, Wallace and Gromit-esque charm to seeing Sam Neill shepherd his flock around his tiny cabin, using his bathtub as a trough and a grate in the floor to secretly dispose of the mounds of sheep dung, and it's surprising how much comedy can be mined from a charming pair of low hanging sheep testicles. With delightfully curmudgeonly performances from Caton and Neill, Rams is as heart-warming as a thickly knit woollen jumper.

Verdict

4/5

Signature Entertainment Presents Rams on Digital Platforms 5th February, and is available on iTunes.

SUMMER OF '72 review

In 1972 Tuscaloosa, layabout slacker Billy (Devon Bostick) wants to spend his summer mowing lawns for a quick buck, avoiding Vietnam and hanging out with Virginia (Natalia Dyer), the wild new patient at the asylum his psychiatrist father runs. Billy's childhood best friend Nigel (Marchant Davis) runs the local BBQ shack under the watchful eye of law enforcement, simply for him being black. As Billy and Virginia's romance develops and the status of her mental health is increasingly erratic, Nigel starts to fight back against the police oppression as cracks begin to appear in his and Billy's friendship.

Based on the novel by Glasgow Phillips and released in the States under the original title of Tuscaloosa, Summer of '72 (there must now be enough Summer of ... films to populate the last century) begins with vintage '60s news reports of Governor George Wallace, who showed his dissatisfaction with the desegregation of the University of Alabama by infamously 'standing in the schoolhouse door' to block new students of colour from entering, and was the victim of a failed assassination attempt when he ran for the Democratic primary in 1972. Although this footage don't have a direct correlation with the plot of this film, it's an effective shorthand to give an idea of what sort of prejudice the Black citizens of Alabama were having to live under from some of the highest people in elected office. The correlations with modern day are pretty clear from the outset.

With his unkempt hair, sunglasses and ready supply of reefer, Billy has no idea what a charmed life he's lived so far, even with the tragic death of his mother years earlier that haunts him. The son of a successful doctor (Tate Donovan) he lies around aimlessly, doing odd jobs to keep his father off his back. This changes when Virginia - a quintessential Manic Pixie Dream Girl if ever there was one - appears on the scene to shake up his life a bit. A new patient at his father's asylum, admitted by her own father for her wild "nymphomaniac" ways, Billy is immediately drawn to the chaos she offers, even if he doesn't know if she truly lives up to the lunatic label they've given her. Responding to her pleas to get her out of there, Billy takes her fishing and to meet his best friend Nigel, and enjoys one of those 'driving with the roof down, wind blowing in your hair, making out in a field' kind of romances that's the stuff of teenage dreams and that you only see in movies. Things aren't as easy for Nigel, who has to contend with law enforcement driving by his business to intimidate him, something that doesn't sit well with his Black Panther friend Antoine (hip-hop artist YG) who plans to retaliate by attacking the station house.

Filmed in 2017, released in the US in March last year, and now reaching these shores after the death of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, there's elements of Nigel's arc in Summer of '72 that feel incredibly timely. Tired of the threat of police brutality and facing up to how much an ally his white friend Billy can really be if he's blind to the struggles Nigel has had to face all his life (his mother being Billy's maid, as well as his mother's best friend), he starts to follow the guidance of Antoine that, "if he's not part of the solution, he's part of the problem", cutting Billy out of his life. It's an interesting plot thread, and coupled with the earlier footage of Alabama history would make for a compelling narrative with Nigel as the lead, but his friendship with Billy and increasingly volatile reaction to law enforcement is very much the 'B' story of the film, taking a back seat to the love story between Billy and Virginia.

As the free-spirited Virginia, Dyer (best known for Netflix's Stranger Things, but also in last year's surprisingly subversive Catholic high school comedy, Yes, God, Yes), has got a touch of True Romance's Alabama Worley about her with her charming but unpredictable, free-spirited ways; and although Summer of '72 never ventures too far down a Bonnie & Clyde/Badlands route, it's clear as it progresses that it wants to hit some of those 'young couple on the run' sub-genre tropes along the way, with some lovely sun-drenched scenes, a good attention to period detail and a rather sweet love story, even as Billy becomes concerned about Virginia's mental state.

There's a sense that they've missed a trick in not paying more attention to Nigel's story, instead focusing on the white couple and treating the palpable racial tensions as a mere backdrop to their romance (oh, to be young, in love and clueless of the world around you), meaning that when the threads do interweave, they don't always gel too easily. There's solid support from Tate Donovan as the well respected doctor, hiding his darker side and association with the Sheriff's department from his son, and some fine performances at its core from Bostick, Dyer and Davis. Those expecting a history lesson on Alabama's race relations may feel short changed, but if you want an sweet teenage romance with a little edge, Summer of '72 provides it.

Verdict

3/5

Signature Entertainment presents Summer of ‘72 on Digital Platforms 1st February, and is available on Amazon and iTunes.

POSSESSOR review

Using high tech brain implants that place skilled operatives inside the mind of an unwitting host, a secret agency assassinates high profile targets with no way it can be traced back to them or their clients. Once the job is completed the extraction method is simple; a self-inflicted bullet to the brain to bring the mind of the agent back to their own body. As the process continues to take a toll on the mental well-being of agent Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) she assures her superiors she's ready for her next mission inhabiting the mind of Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott), but quickly loses her foothold on his body as Colin's consciousness starts to fight against her intrusion.

Arriving a whole eight years after his debut feature, Antiviral, Possessor marks a turning point in the career of writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, both artistically and critically. Although Antiviral was well-received by those that saw it, it's fair to say that it didn't reach a huge audience outside genre fans drawn in by the intrigue that his family name brings. It was unavoidable that Cronenberg the younger was always going to have to work hard to spring out from behind the shadow of his father, David, particularly when working within the body horror genre that marked arguably the high point of his father's filmography with films like Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly. But it's also worth noting that those successes occurred twenty years into his career, having spent years directing for television before 1975's Shivers gave him a clear calling card. For Brandon, who has spent the years between features working on short film projects, there's clearly some shared DNA with his father in his approach to horror (and more specifically body horror) but Possessor has quite rightly been heralded as the arrival of a true visionary filmmaker.

Possessor arrives on digital and blu-ray with great word of mouth and some notoriety, thanks in part to its more extreme elements of gore and special effects. The opening scene sees a young woman enter a crowded bar and proceed to stab a man to death (and then some), who then puts a gun in her mouth but finds herself unable to pull the trigger. Shocking and gruesome, it's a bold, blood soaked introduction to what's to come. As the police guns the young woman down, the conscience of Vos (Riseborough), the agency's lead assassin, returns to her own body, mission completed but not faultless. Pale and with bleached blonde hair, Riseborough's Vos looks like a ghost or inverse shadow, maybe of her former self, maybe of someone else. As she debriefs to her superior, Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and tries to re-stabilise her mind to her own reality by describing her connection to various personal items, it becomes clear that due to the lasting after effects of her work, her family life has become strained to breaking point. Returning home to see her son, she has to rehearse what she is going to say to him in order to pass as a normal person, and not the hollow shell she sees herself as.

Assuring her superiors that she's ready, Vos takes on a new mission to assassinate wealthy businessman John Parse (Sean Bean), by inhabiting the body of his daughter's boyfriend, Colin Tate (Abbott), with only a few days to finish the job before the effects could cause lasting damage to Vos's psyche. But as Tate's host starts to fight back against the invading presence of Vos's conscience in his mind and their physical and mental worlds start to intertwine, the fight for control spills out into the real world.

If you're confused, don't worry. Possessor is certainly a film that's full to the brim with outlandish sci-fi concepts, like the dream world of Inception going on in the mind of someone who's just gone through the door behind the filing cabinet in Being John Malkovich (or maybe the other way around?), but it's a thoroughly entertaining experience. For sure, there's moments around the mid point of the film where Christopher Abbott is on screen and it might be difficult to track whether we're looking at Tate or Vos acting as Tate, but that's kind of the point. What's for certain is that as the story progresses and the film reaches its bravura psycho-sexual set-piece that gives it its most indelible image (and its poster and cover image), you'll just be happy to be along for the ride with them, no matter who may be in control.

Indelible it may be, but it's also not the only incredible piece of effects work, courtesy of British special effects master Dan Martin. A frequent collaborator or Ben Wheatley and with other notable recent credits including Richard Stanley's Colour Out of Space and Jonas Akerlund's Lords of Chaos, anyone who's seen the effects work there will be able to attest to their quality and also visceral impact. There's some truly nasty make-up effects in Possessor as Vos gets to work, and it's stomach churning in it's detail as teeth, eyeballs and fingers all find themselves on the wrong side of Vos/Tate. The inclusion of "Uncut" on Possessor's cover may call back to an era of banned films and highly compromised edits and is undoubtedly there as a marketing ploy for gorehounds, but it is a reassurance that the inclusion of these moments has been deemed necessary and not exploitative by the ratings board. And it's not all blood and guts. There's also an incredible effect that marks the start of the mission, visualising the physical melting away of Vos, only to reform as Tate that can only be described as beautiful.

It's a vividly directed film by Cronenberg, utilising bold reds to differentiate between Tate and Vos's POV and contrasting yellow flares, coupled with a blurring lens and quick cuts as things become more detached from reality between the two leads. Abbott and Riseborough are both fully committed to their roles/role, and as the story falls into what can only be described as an extended psychotic episode for the two of them. A success of their performances within what are increasingly blurred lines is that you want to heap praise on both of them, even when only one of them is on screen. There are some ideas that aren't developed or explored to their full potential, leaving some threads hanging. For example, Colin Tate's job sees him spying through people's webcams in order to document their lives and material belongings in as mundane a detail as choice of curtains. It's an intrusion that nicely mirrors Vos's own whilst also providing commentary on our own real world fears of privacy and personal data collection by multi-national conglomerates, but it's put to one side in order to focus on Vos's primary mission.

A mystery/sci-fi/horror that offers plenty of mind melting ideas that will stay with you long after, beyond the comparisons to its sci-fi, horror forebearers and the work of Brandon Cronenberg's father, Possessor is uncompromisingly it's own thing. Gloriously violent, shocking, visceral, tragic - it has to be seen by your own two eyes to truly be believed.

Verdict

4/5

Possessor is on digital HD 1 February and Blu-ray & DVD 8 February from Signature Entertainment

RELIC review

When her elderly mother is reported missing, Kay and her daughter Sam (Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote) go looking for her at the old family home, finding it empty and in a state of disarray. When Edna (Robyn Nevin) re-appears a couple of days later, seemingly fit, healthy and full of life, she can't recall where she's been or why she left home. Staying to care for her for a few days, Kay and Sam start to hear and see strange things around the house that may offer clues to what is really going on.

At the centre of Relic is three excellent performances from from the three central women. Emily Mortimer, with what to my ear sounds like a pretty spot on Aussie accent, really expresses Kay's resentment towards her mother and her condition, and her own guilt for feeling it. Bella Heathcote's Sam shows a more innocent, possibly naive belief that all will be well and how it used to be when she was younger, not understanding that her grandmother is not quite the same woman as she used to be. As Edna, a fragile, sometimes cantankerous ageing matriarch, Robyn Nevin taps into the character's confusion and despair at the changing of her life, her memory switching from hazy to sharp, almost like she's looking through the different coloured panes in the stained glass window that adorns her front door. The feature debut of Natalie Erika James, this Australian chiller has its fair share of unsettling sights to see, but is also surprising in how tender and moving it can be. The recent high benchmark for disturbing familial horrors is undoubtedly Ari Aster's Hereditary, and although Relic is a very different story at heart and without the overall shock/gore factor of that film, there's a similarly foreboding tone that builds throughout until it envelopes this family and their home.

As Edna increasingly loses her foothold on her life and memories and begins muttering to herself (or someone we can't see) as she carries out her favourite pastime of candle carving (creepy AND gothic), there's a generational divide between Kay and Sam as to what the best course of action is. Whereas Sam is readying herself to upend her life and move in with Edna, Kay is researching care homes, having already put her work life on hold to come look for her. It's here that the film digs into the real human drama that audiences may be able to relate to, having to reckon with that feeling of going into a place or seeing a person you once knew, albeit now in a different state, tapping into fears of our own mortality and of how we might be cared for in our old age.

Instead of loud jump scares and grisly shock tactics to gross you out (aside from the finale which does considerably up the ante in this respect), Relic opts to create its scariest moments by using the creepy, crowded corridors of the house to its advantage, showing glimpses of objects and people in the shadows that reward repeat viewings. Horror fans expecting a Hereditary or Insidious may feel disappointed in the relative lack of truly chilling set-pieces, but this is clearly something that Natalie Erika James and co-writer Christian White were never aiming for, instead crafting a story with a deeper emotional connection to its audience.

As the three generations of women delve deeper into the increasingly rotten core of the house in the final act, the film not only provides a climactic resolution to the horror side of the story, but also a surprisingly touching reflection on ageing, dementia, loss and grief. It's in this area that the film had the potential to be heavy handed or even manipulative of its audience, but thankfully is well handled by James and gives Relic an emotional, visually beautiful and extremely effective conclusion. 

Verdict

4/5

Signature Entertainment presents Relic on Digital HD now and Blu-ray & DVD 18 January 2021.

Blu-ray and iTunes Special Features include:

- London Film Festival 2020 Q&A with Natalie Erika James and Michael Blyth

- Interviews

- Relic shoot time-lapse

- Behind the scenes - "Lost" & "Stunts"

DAWN OF THE DEAD - LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY review

Ten years after the release of George A. Romero's seminal zombie classic Night of the Living Dead, he decided to cement his reputation as the king of the zombie genre with Dawn of the Dead. Building on the racial and social allegories of the first film, Dawn added rampant consumerism to the mix, setting itself largely in the confines of a deserted shopping mall with an unconventional family unit of survivors who take on the undead as well as a violent biker gang.

For many horror fans, Dawn is the true gem in Romero's zombie filmography, expanding the universe and lore of the genre massively after the more subtle aspects of his black and white original. Here, the gore, the effects and the violence is ramped up hugely, in no small part thanks to the efforts of Romero's fellow Pittsburghian, special make-up effects legend Tom Savini (also on board as a stunt man, plus one of the lead biker invaders). Sure, the zombies all have a strange grey complexion that's unique to this film and the blood is an almost eye-scorching red giving the film a colour palette like no other, but the sheer ingenuity and complete disregard for health and safety employed in the zombie kills is the stuff of legend.  Take for example, Savini blowing the head off a zombie mannequin with a shotgun to get the explosive desired effect, all plain to see here (depending on what version of the film you watch).

I could bang on about how great and truly essential a film Dawn of the Dead is for any lover of horror, but to be honest, if you've gone looking for a review of this boxset, chances are you've already seen the film countless times and just want to see if it's worth upgrading from whatever version you have and investing in this new edition. Well, to cut a long story short, yes it is. It really is, and here's why.

The boxset, available in blu-ray and 4K UHD formats, houses 4 blu-rays and 3 audio discs and is packed full of things to sink your teeth into. There's three different cuts of the film (the theatrical cut, the Cannes cut and executive producer Dario Argento's slightly different European cut), the soundtrack by Goblin and two additional music discs, and a 160 page hardback book and a novelisation too, collecting various essays about the film. For me though, the meatiest morsel of the collection is disc 4, with a ton of NEW special features and films that cover the making of the film from all angles. You want a new hour long documentary that speaks to the actors (more accurately, Pittsburgh students and friends of Tom Savini) from most of the memorable zombie kills, plus another short documentary where Savini tells us how he did the effects behind those kills? You got it. Also included on this disc is Roy Frumkes' beloved Document of the Dead film, now with an extended cut that adds half an hour of content.

UK fans of this film have long been forced to traverse the minefield of importing foreign boxsets and owning a multi-region player, and that was just for DVDs (Anchor Bay put out a superb boxset over a decade ago, but this improves upon even that). Now on blu-ray and 4K UHD, with love, care and attention to detail, Second Sight have compiled what is undoubtedly the definitive compendium of Dawn of the Dead, all inside what must be one of the greatest looking boxset of all time with the original artwork put to great use. This is a collection that will inspire serious shelf envy.

At a time when the world seems a bit apocalyptic-esque and life in lockdown isn't too dissimilar to what this film's main characters are going through, let's either take comfort that we don't quite have it as bad as these guys do and/or sit and take notes in case survival skills become necessary. Enough to set the pulse racing of any true Romero fan, for a film that's recently passed its 40th anniversary, Dawn of the Dead has never looked as good as this.

Available to buy now from all good retailers, but buying directly from Second Sight will bag you some additional art cards.

Verdict

5/5

Special Features

- Zombies and Bikers - new documentary packed with interviews with the undead cast

- Memories of Monroeville - a fun tour of the Monroeville Mall how it is today

- Raising the Dead - The production logistics

- The FX of Dawn with Tom Savini

- Dummies! Dummies! - A New interview with the eye-patch wearing scientist on TV.

- The Lost Romero Dawn Interview - a newly discovered archive interview

- Super 8 Mall Footage - Behind the scenes footage by documentarian Ralph Langer

- Document of the Dead - Roy Frumkes' classic making of documentary, with optional extended cut

- The Dead Will Walk - Romero profile from 2004

- Trailers, TV & Radio Spots

- Commentaries on all versions of the film

HERSELF - London Film Festival 2020

Co-written by and starring Clare Dunne, Herself tells the story of Sandra, a mother trying to rebuild a life for herself and her children after escaping an abusive relationship. Stuck on a waiting list for housing and living in an airport hotel, she decides to take charge of the situation and build a house herself.

Set around Dublin, Sandra has to juggle part-time jobs whilst also caring for and raising her two young daughters, sharing custody with the man who subjected her to horrific physical violence and emotional manipulation. Tired of living in the temporary accommodation at the airport that won't allow her to walk through the main entrance with the other guests, Sandra finds a solution in low cost housing by building a new home in the back garden of Peggy (Harriet Walter), a woman she cleans for who was close friends with her mother. Finding help from local builder Aido (Conleth Hill) and a small army of volunteers, Sandra spends her weekends secretly constructing her new home away from the gaze of her domineering ex, Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson), and the housing authorities.

Starting off with a horrifically tense scene of domestic abuse (that only comes to an end when her eldest child runs for help, triggered by a secret codeword her mother has been forced to equip her with), what's most surprising about the journey Herself takes you on is how uplifting it becomes. Thankfully, this isn't a domestic abuse drama that lingers on physical violence, and although there's moments of gaslighting and coercive behaviour peppered throughout the film, for the most part Herself is about Sandra's journey to assert herself to those around her and slowly create a world that is safe for her and her daughters. In the lead role of Sandra, Clare Dunne might not be a name you will be instantly familiar with, but she's undoubtedly a star on the rise, having co-written the film with Malcolm Campbell and given herself a chance to show her acting range. In what's a nuanced, believable portrayal of a woman at her wits end dealing with bureaucracy of housing associations and the judgemental glares of other parents at the school gates, it's of no surprise to learn that Dunn has a stage background, including working with co-star Harriet Walter and director Phyllida Lloyd on the Donmar Warehouse's all female Shakespeare Trilogy. The supporting cast are all solid, including the two decent child performances of Sandra's daughters but the film completely belongs to Clare Dunne, who's in almost every frame and is completely magnetic on screen.

Far from a gritty, Nil by Mouth-style kitchen sink drama or misery memoir, Herself is not a film that lays it on too thick, opting for subtle beats in Dunn's behaviour to show her frustration at the system that seems keen to blame her for the situation she's in, not her husband. It also has something to say about the ridiculous logic of government welfare schemes when, in what seems to be a perfectly smart bit of reasoning that of course gains little traction, Sandra points out to the authorities that rather than spend €33,000 a year on housing her and her children, for €35,000 they could build low-cost housing for her that she could then pay rent back on. The film doesn't often go down the I, Daniel Blake route, but when it does, it makes compelling arguments for the need for changes to this system.

There's a certain amount of wish fulfilment as friends and well wishers step in to help Sandra achieve her dream, but it's hard to be too cynical about a film that embraces its sentimental edges, and the sense of community spirit it has is infectious. Herself may have a shadow of darkness to it, but at its core is a pleasing, well delivered family drama, with a stand-out performance from Clare Dunn.

Verdict

3.5/5

BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS - London Film Festival 2020

As the doors open for the last time at Nevada's 'Roaring 20's Cocktail Lounge', the regulars gather to reminisce about their favourite memories of the place, hoping to make a few more before the day is out. Among them is Michael, bringing with him celebratory doughnuts and determined to be the first one in and last one out to show his allegiance, even starting his day with a shave in their public restroom as if it's his own home. Alongside a host of friends cultivated atop a barstool, they plan to celebrate, commiserate and shoot the shit until last orders is called.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a hang out movie of the highest order, as if Richard Linklater and Charles Bukowski went for a drink together in a dive bar and their collective creative mojo conjured a film into existence, filled with booze addled romanticists spouting words of wisdom and lushes bemoaning the lives they've deprived themselves of in favour of staring at the bottom of a glass. '20's', as it's known to its patrons, is not a place of particular renown or infamy, but to these people it's important, and not just as the place where they can drink away their problems, when really, they should either be at work or at home with their families.

At times an unashamedly rose-tinted ode to the old-fashioned watering hole, this film isn't afraid to also show that the euphoria of that first, second or third drink quickly fades, and delivers some home truths about how wrong they might all be by spending their lives there. Michael, who prides himself in "not becoming an alcoholic until after I became a failure", rejects his Aussie neighbour at the bar's drunken proclamation that "this is home and you're my family", cutting him off and setting him straight. It might feel that way at the time, but that is not the real truth.

For all intents and purposes this presents itself as a genuine 'barfly on the wall' documentary, capturing the real lives and cross-talking interactions of these people in the space of a day. However... like many a tall tale told at a bar, that's not the whole truth of the matter. Despite first appearances, there's an element of structured reality at play here, with many of the "regulars" actually comprised of local actors, poets and performers, brought together to create something that blurs many a line, and not just due to the effects of alcohol. That's not to say that there's a Barney Gumble or Cheers' Norm here, as although you could politely describe a number of them as 'characters', they're never caricatures. It's not often that the boundaries of documentary appear stretched, with the possible exception of bartender's son, Tra, who drifts in and out of the story with his friends, hanging out in the alley outside the bar, seemingly with an ulterior motive that adds the closest we get to a traditional narrative structure when the camera switches to follow his antics.

It's cleverly constructed by brothers Bill and Turner Ross, who direct and handle the cameras themselves, floating around to get close to the often inconsequential conversations held around the bar, catching some snippets and missing others and using the mirror behind the bar to catch the smiles and hangdog expressions of the listeners. The camera crew is never acknowledged by the clientele (there are no interviews or even glances towards the lens), so the brief reflection of a camera lens in the mirror is the only time the ethereal presence of the camera crew is broken. As to what extent this is a depiction of reality, or a possible reality, is up to you to decide. What narrative there is never encroaches on the enjoyment of eavesdropping on these incredibly diverse, interesting people, and I found there to be enough truth in their words to make Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets an occasionally sad, but equally raucous and highly entertaining documentary, right up til closing time. And if if it does ruffle some feathers by defying the conventional boundaries of its genre? Well, I say cheers to that.

Verdict

4/5

NEW ORDER/NUEVO ORDEN - London Film Festival 2020

On the day of Marian's high society wedding, local dignitaries and politicians arrive at her parents house for the ceremony, despite the civil unrest and rioting that is happening on the neighbouring streets. Further complicating things, the registrar is running late and an ex-employee, Rolando, has arrived pleading with the family for money to fund the urgent surgery his wife needs. As Marian tries to get some cash together to help him, the violence in the streets threatens to penetrate the comfortable surroundings the assembled guests are in.

New Order begins with a brief montage... a threat of what's to come... showing violence, degradation, and the sight of a naked, blood soaked Marian (Naian Gonzalez Nervind) for us to interpret as we please. It then takes us back to the morning of Marian's wedding, where wealthy, important people arrive for her wedding at the grand, high walled house of her parents, each offering a financial gift to start off married life comfortably. So far, so Parasite. What follows flips the entire structure and driving narrative of the film on its head, instead demanding its audience take part in a disturbing, hard to stomach depiction of a world on fire, figuratively and literally.

Without wanting to spoil how much a rug pull the film employs at its halfway point, I'll just say that the scenes that take place in the ten minutes after the inciting incident are some of the most violent and graphic I've seen committed to film, and even after the pace of the film and the action slows down, New Order gleefully shocks you with more disgusting acts of violence. The social and political commentary subtext is clear, and the punishments delivered will be all too familiar to some regions of the world, and all too close to becoming a reality to others. However, I find that the filmmakers have taken a misstep along the way, as although I cannot fault the performances of the core cast, nor the impact it has had, New Order is a film I find difficult to recommend.

The world we live in is increasingly on a knife edge, and although I am sure that the aim of director Michel Franco is to show that we live in a fragile society, and all people are fallible and capable of the worst things imaginable when pushed, he needed to take a stronger standpoint against the fascists to offer any sort of entertainment value, instead offering no discernible delineation between privilege, greed, and full-on nazism. This is extreme cinema that wants you to question what form of dehumanising violence is more stomach churning than the other, asking you to account for your own complicity when you change the channel if footage of war torn countries appears on the nightly news.

A powerful, troubling indictment of society's worst impulses it may be, but the despicable lack of regard for human life means New Order will stay with you like a stain on your memory. An incredibly difficult watch that you won't want to repeat again.

Verdict

2/5