The best of FrightFest, monsters of the male psyche and Noah 2
OH, MOTHER...
What do you get if you cross an exceptionally talented auteur director, the hottest acting talent available, a decent budget, gorgeous production design and a script that feels like it was written by an A-level Theatre Studies student? Mother! (reviewed on p96). If you’ve not seen and don’t want to be spoiled, move along, but this is the one of the clumsiest masterpieces ever. Jennifer Lawrence plays Mother Earth/ the (not virgin) Mary, with Javier Bardem as God. It’s a biblical and environmental allegory so heavily hammered home it even features Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, John the Baptist, Moses, Eden, the Flood and a plague of one frog. Many theories of what
Mother! is truly about have been circulating the internet, but even Darren Aronofsky has been kind enough to clarify: think what you like, but Mother! is definitely a biblical parable. It’s about what it’s very clearly about. I liked the film for its visuals, performances and its atmosphere, but this is literally a movie based on bits of the Bible that really isn’t as outrageous as it thinks it is.
LADS’ NIGHT OUT
The Ritual, on the other hand, is a movie I’m perfectly happy to heap a load of my own subtext onto. A funny and effective British monster movie with bits of The
Hangover and lots of Blair Witch, it sees four mates head off on a hiking trip in Sweden to honour a dead friend, who stray into the woods and encounter unspeakable horrors. Excellent creature effects, snappy dialogue and likeable characters make this a massively enjoyable movie just taken on face value, but to me this is a film about male depression and anxiety. About how difficult it is for men to face or discuss mental health even with their closest friends and how damaging that can be. It’s directed by David Bruckner who made the “Amateur Night” segment of V/H/S and as far as I can tell, not being one, it nails British male group dynamics perfectly.
BEST OF THE FEST
Another year, another FrightFest and as ever there were a handful of absolute corkers.
Tragedy Girls is a funny, sharp critique of social media obsession which reminded me of Heathers and Detention, and stars Brianna Hildebrand from Deadpool. Lowlife is a Pulp
Fiction-esque crime caper portmanteau that treads a very fine line between funny and tasteless but manages to stay on the right side of it thanks to a likeable ex-convict with a massive swastika tattooed on his face. Freehold is a single location indie gem about how evil estate agents in London are – it’s a nightmare starring Javier Botet as a man secretly living in the walls of a realtor. Simon Rumley’s
Fashionista is a slow-burn character study of a clothes fetishist with a very distinct look – love or hate him, he’s one of the strongest voices in British horror. And then there was Attack Of
The Adult Babies, which is grimly funny but genuinely didn’t have enough adult babies for
my liking.
CHRISTMAS PRESENT
My absolute favourite of FrightFest was Better Watch Out, a twisted Christmas story that starts out as one thing and about half an hour in becomes something completely different. The set-up: 12-year-old Luke is left at home with the babysitter Ashley when his parents go to a Christmas party, but noises outside suggest they may have to deal with an intruder, Home Alone style. This is a glossy studio movie with a decent budget that’s going to get a theatrical release, but please, don’t watch the trailer. It’s very much a movie best watched cold. It’s darkly funny, it’s nasty and violent, the performances are excellent (specially Pan’s Levi Miller as Luke, who’s going to be a big star) and much as it looks like an ’80s throwback, I promise it isn’t. The perfect antidote to Christmas hell.