THE CULT OF KIM NEWMAN
The critic and novelist selects the month’s weirdest home-ent releases
IT’S Be-careful-what-youwish-for/run-from-thespooky-curse month.
David Verbeek’s Taiwanset Dead & Beautiful is not your average vampire movie, but is your average exploration-of-the-empty-lives of-the-mega-rich movie — torn between condemning the hijinx of oligarch offspring and being in awe of how gorgeous it is (and they are). Five monied Asia-pacific scions regularly have bashes that involve cruel practical jokes — like jumping out of the cake at one’s own fake funeral. The most thoughtful of the gang (Aviis Zhong) takes them into the jungle for a spiritual experience — only they pass out and wake up to find they’ve all grown fangs. The film is glossy and witty, but it is an issue that these very pretty people are horrible from the outset, and becoming undead predators can scarcely make them much worse. The last act, however, has some surprises.
An Unquiet Grave is a two-hander about grief, sacrifice, sinister intent and dark magic. A year after a fatal car accident, grieving husband Jamie (Jacob A. Ware) persuades his dead wife’s twin sister Ava (Christine Nyland) to come on a road trip to the site of the crash and take part in a ritual to bring the dead woman back — though he conceals a key, if predictable, downside to the trick. Intensely underplayed, this works up a grim fascination in its brief running time. Nyland, who also co-wrote with director Terence Krey, is especially strong in a complicated dual — or perhaps triple — role.
In the spare, scary The Djinn , directors David Charbonier and Justin Powell (following their excellent The Boy Behind The Door) have a mute child (Ezra Dewey) find a book left by a previous tenant and follow instructions to summon a wish-granting demon. As ever, the desired result — speech and a restored family — is tempting, but the supernatural presence seems likely to do a lot of damage along the way. A familiar story, but well-told: 75 per cent of the film consists of nerve-wracking suspense as the kid is chased around the house by the djinn in various forms.
In Behind You , justorphaned siblings Olivia (Addy Miller) and Claire (Elizabeth Birkner) move in with their reclusive aunt Beth (Jan Broberg). They peel wallpaper off a bathroom mirror and release a demon with a knack for possessing little girls and framing their relatives for murder. The old, dark house design is excellent and directors Andrew Mecham and Matthew Whedon stage the first four or five somethingcreepy-in-a-mirror scares well before the trick wears thin. This may be the first film to feature peanut butter as a key exorcism tool, but that’s probably the only thing you’ll remember it for.
Simon Barrett’s Seance opens with a spiritualist session in an exclusive girls’ school, followed by a cruel prank, followed by an apparently fatal accident which opens up a place for a new student, who soon tangles with the resident nasty girl gang, raises at least two ghosts, and gets in the middle of a string of murders. This mixes mystery, slasher film and ghost story, but doesn’t manage any of its modes with particular distinction. Suki Waterhouse is deadpan funny as the prepschool answer to the Man With No Name, but the whole thing is taken a little too seriously to be as much fun as the Korean haunted-school movies it’s obviously patterned on.