In these dark days BritFlicks takes you to the dark heart of film.
In these dark days BritFlicks takes you to the dark heart of film with 23 horror movies & thrillers that have screened at FrightFest, and are now FREE to view with Amazon prime.
31 (2016) Rob Zombie
The horrific story of five carnival workers who are kidnapped the night before Halloween and held hostage in a large compound. At the mercy of their captors, they are forced to play a twisted game of life or death called 31. For the next 12 hours they must fight for their lives against an endless parade of homicidal maniacs.
BAD MATCH (2017) David Chirchirillo
An Internet-dating playboy's life spirals out of control after meeting a woman online in a darkly funny, yet disturbing horror suspense thriller. A look at modern dating techniques and the way people use the Internet to inform and often needlessly complicate their lives. From director David Chirchirillo, the writer of CHEAP THRILLS, a postmodern FATAL ATTRACTION for the Tinder Generation, which builds upon expectations, and then completely shatters them. No one is who they seem, nothing plays out the way one thinks it will, and by the shocking end, one is left questioning their own lives as a result.
BAD MATCH ►https://amzn.to/2vyCjZq
DIRECTOR'S CUT (2016) Adam Rifkin
Herbert Blount aspires to replace the real director of a movie and make it his own by capturing the lead actress and inflicting much horror upon her in his version.
DIRECTOR'S CUT ►https://amzn.to/2xcnOLe
EAT LOCALS (2017) Jason Flemyng
Contained to a remote farm an assembly of eight elite vampires – headed up by the Duke (Vincent Regan) - are together for one of their twice a century meet ups. They’ve a new member to consider and a modern day dilemma to resolve – killing people in a technological/DNA age is making it hard to cover up their crimes. Tony Curran (the psycho killer in 2015’s Awaiting) stands out as the disgruntled one looking to seize power from The Duke. It is his obstinacy that ultimately lands them in a stand-off with a platoon of soldiers who want to capture them for more than just national security reasons.
EAT LOCALS ►https://amzn.to/3dclpkl
FREEHOLD (2017) Dominic Bridges
Hussein is a wannabe ruthless, but ultimately naive estate agent. His bachelor flat is a slovenly shrine to his cash rich, time poor lifestyle. His cupboards are bare, and he’s on first name terms with his local pizza delivery service. Problem is his girlfriend, Mel, is moving in and curtailing this young buck's idyllic man cave existence. If only that was his sole concern. There's someone else living in the apartment, but neither Hussein nor Mel invited him to stay. Orlan (Javier Botet,) is a tall, painfully skinny Spanish man secretly living in a wall space behind the wardrobe or sometimes right under the bed. Botet's dark jester's performance is as eerie, as it is fascinating. He rarely speaks and when he does it appears to delineate from the narrative of the movie. But you know, whether it was at the hand of Hussein or not, this is some kind of revenge on the estate agents for a shitty deal turned family tragedy. Read More
FREEHOLD ► https://amzn.to/2IXfFx2
FRIGHTFEST: BENEATH THE DARK HEART OF CINEMA (2018) Chris Collier
The organisers and fans chart the history of the festival and discuss the key films and events that have helped shape the event since its inception in 2000, and attempt to explain what’s been behind the festival's ever growing success.
A host of filmmakers including Adam Green (HATCHET), Joe Lynch (MAYHEM) and Dominic Brunt (ATTACK OF THE ADULT BABIES) also talk about their relationship with the festival and the impact it’s had on their careers. Also features Gareth Edwards,
FRIGHTFEST: BENEATH THE DARK HEART OF CINEMA ► https://amzn.to/2Qs8lxl
GIANT KILLER ANTS (2017) Ron Carlson
From FrightFest Presents. TREMORS meets SPINAL TAP in this excel-ant monster movie with bite…. Stranger Things and The Goonies favourite Sean Astin and Tom Arnold star in this giant killer ant movie that will leave you rocking out with your glock out! The 1989 ‘one-hit-wonder’ glam-metal band Sonic Grave embark on a trip to the No-chella rock festival with their long-suffering manager in the hopes of a comeback. Making a detour to Joshua Tree to score some peyote, their carefree psychedelic pit stop soon upsets the balance of desert nature and they find themselves fighting an army of flesh-eating ants. Worse the antsy bugs keep increasing in size as the band hurtles towards their last desperate gig as they realise they must “rock” themselves out of harms way.
GIANT KILLER ANTS ► https://amzn.to/3aarTOW
KILLING GROUND (2016) Damien Power
Australian survivalist horror Killing Ground follows a smitten young couple on a camping trip to a remote woodland spot by a river. It’s picture postcard perfect apart from the 4x4, family tent, chairs and long burnt out fire that greets them. But where are the occupants? The answer to that question and the brutality that befell them is given to the audience before our heroes Sam and Ian find out for themselves. Read More
KILLING GROUND ►https://amzn.to/33wzuEM
Listen below to directer Damien Power talking on the BritFlicks Podcast
KNUCKLEBONES (2016) Mitch Wilson
An ancient ritual. An un-killable demon. When a group of friends stumble across an ancient dice game, their first instinct is to roll them bones. Their second instinct is to run for their lives when the demon they summon by playing the game starts killing them off one by one.
KNUCKLEBONES ►https://amzn.to/33u7amD
LANDMINE GOES CLICK (2015) Levan Bakhia
Three American tourists are crossing the desolate mountains in the formerly war-torn republic of Georgia. Daniel has just proposed to Alicia and has asked Chris to be his best man, so they stop to take a celebration photograph. Chris steps to the right, the step goes click and he finds himself standing on a landmine. From that moment on Chris cannot move or he’s dead. But then secrets are revealed, dark motives uncovered, an outside threat appears and the real nightmare unfolds. For what happens on that terrifying afternoon will become a harbinger of doom for all lost innocence.
LANDMINE GOES CLICK ► https://amzn.to/2U4vFDN
Director Levan Bakhia talks LANDMINE GOES CLICK on the BritFlicks Podcast
LAST GIRL STANDING (2015) Benjamin R. Moody
She survived a brutal massacre, but lost her life. What happens to the final girl once the credits have rolled? Five years ago, a masked killer brutally murdered a group of friends. Since then, Camryn, the lone survivor, has tried to make sense of the homicidal events and struggled to reclaim her shattered life. Wracked with guilt and paranoia, can Camryn ever have a normal existence again or is she destined to cope alone forever? Benjamin R. Moody’s debut feature takes a captivating look at what happens to the remaining true victim of every horror movie. Stars Akasha Villalobos, Danielle Evon Ploeger, Brian Villalobos, JD Carrera and Ryan Hamilton.
LAST GIRL STANDING ► https://amzn.to/2J0jtxl
LAST GIRL STANDING director Benjamin R. Moody talks on the BritFlicks Podcast
LET HER OUT (2016) Cody Calahan
Director Cody Calahan (Antisocial 1 & 2) opens Let Her Out with an unwanted pregnancy and failed, but crude suicide/infanticide attempt. Flash forward 23 years and the surviving baby is bike courier Helen (Alanna LeVierge). She is hit by a car and quickly finds out the impact has knocked more than her bones out of whack. As she heals, she begins to experience surreal blackouts, sleeping walking and obtuse hallucinations haunt her waking hours – clues from her sub-conscious of where she’s been. An MRI scan finds what looks like a tumour, but is the remnants of what the doctor calls a vanishing twin. Helen elects to have it removed, but before that can happen, the dormant entity within splinters Helen’s fragile mind to such a degree she is unable to subdue newfound macabre compulsions. LeVierge expertly flits between the Jekyll and Hyde demands of a role that needs her to be innocent bystander, looking for answers one minute, and menacing transgressor the next. Hold onto your stomachs though because this tense, fast-paced psychological thriller transforms, quite literally, into full on body horror during the spectacular, skin peeling, bone crunching finale.
Let Her Out uses the emotionally violent drama of a woman losing her mind to beautifully set up a gut wrenching finale. Stuart Wright
LET HER OUT ►https://amzn.to/3a4ZE3P
MANSFIELD 66/67 (2017) P. David Ebersole & Todd Hughes
The blonde bombshell of her day and a rival to Marilyn Monroe she constantly courted publicity. From ‘The Girl Can’t Help It’ to her final cameo role in Gene Kelly’s ‘A Guide to the Married Men’ she was adored by the public and press, however, her personal life impacted on her career as she sought solace in drink, drugs and Anton LaVey, the charismatic leader of the Church of Satan. Her fatal car crash in 1967 led to many conspiracy theories.
The film features interviews with John Waters, Kenneth Anger, Cheryl Dunne, UK pop star Marilyn, actresses Tippi Hedren and Mamie Van Doren, drag queen Peaches Christ, alongside notable academics. Combining archive film footage and new drag routines specially created for the film,MANSFIELD 66/67 is a gloriously entertaining exploration of the lasting impact of myth, the rise of the Feminist movement of the 1960s and a celebration of ‘the first reality TV star’.
MANSFIELD 66/67 ►https://amzn.to/3dcnUmI
MEATBALL MACHINE KODOKU (2017) Yoshihiro Nishimura
This is the long awaited sequel to the end of the century cyberpunk, splatter-action horror Meatball Machine (70 minutes version in 1999 and 90 minute version in 2005). It’s been a mad ol’ weekend of films – Attack Of The Adult Babies springs to mind - but none of them scaled the nutso heights of this psychotic piece of trash. In a search for something resembling answers or an explanation, this reviewer turned to Richard Tunaley - a UK born friend who has lived in Japan for over 20 years.
He said: “For all Meatball Machine Kodoku’s explicit portrayal of some of humanities failings, war for example, rape, and its moralising tone, it is - as Philip K. Dick said - sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane (by the looks of it).
Best that I concluded as a question was: Are the aliens giving the now passive (forced to be, beaten in WWII, controlled by GHQ) "warrior people of Japan” their fantasies? An honourable ending through taking individuals over en-masse and fighting them to the death? Or is it just a midnight eye feast for people off their tits? There are lots of general themes from Japanese pop-culture running through, and I don’t think much sense is to be made of it other than that… You?”
I’ll buy your theories for a dollar. My film brain is now mush. Stuart Wright
MEATBALL MACHINE KODOKU ►https://amzn.to/3a5QtAm
PSYCHOPATHS (2017) Mickey Keating
The paths of multiple serial killers cross over one single, blood soaked night. Which psychopath will survive through to morning? Follow the soul of a recently executed serial killer as he descends back to earth and possesses his many followers beneath the full moon. There’s Alice, an escaped mental patient who thinks she’s living in the 1950s glamour world, Blondie, a beautiful seductress who lures men down into her suburban basement, the Midnight Strangler, first seen claiming a victim in a seedy hotel, and an enigmatic masked contract killer who stalks the city with his own deadly agenda.
PSYCHOPATHS ►https://amzn.to/33wwPLi
PSYCHOPATHS director Mickey Keating talks on the BritFlicks Podcast.
REDWOOD (2017) Tom Paton
After some bad news back at home, musician Josh and his girlfriend Beth head out to a secluded national park in search of some clarity on the situation they’ll face when they return. The couple get more than they bargained for when they ignore the advice of Park Rangers and venture off the trail, coming face to face with The Redwood’s legendary wildlife…
REDWOOD brings a fresh spin to a well-worn mythology to create an edge of your seat horror movie that will shred your nerves and have you thinking twice about going camping again.
REDWOOD ►https://amzn.to/2U3yzst
REDWOOD director Tom Paton talks on the BritFlicks Podcast
SOME KIND OF HATE (2015) Adam Egypt Mortimer
This supernatural slasher stars Ronen Rubinstein as Lincoln - the perpetual teenage victim. Over a rumbling death metal opening track we are thrown into our hero’s dilemma. His drunk father offers nothing more than shouts and slaps. At school there’s no escape from violence and intimidation either. During lunch Lincoln snaps and stabs his attacker in the face with his fork. Cut to Mind’s Eye Academy – a new age reform school in the middle of the desert. And despite Lincoln’s attempt to keep his head down, the bullies of MEA soon find him. Frustrated, he confides in his roomie: “I want to live in a world where assholes get what they deserve.” Regardless he is forced to fight back and gets a severe beating. His empty cries of: “I wish they would all die” find the ears of Moira – a lost bullied spirit manifest in physical form from beyond the grave. She wants his pain and channels it into offing everyone – starting with those who tormented Lincoln most. Right there the film flips from being a mumblecore drama into a fully-fledged, unapologetic horror.
From this dramatic set up and genre bending SOME KIND OF HATE emerges as a grungy new take on the slasher. In so much that the killer is in service to our hero and the drama comes from Lincoln’s realisation that his aggressors do not deserve to die. Rejecting the killer’s help is ignored and Moira reveals her own tragic issues that are born out of a fatal stay at the MEA. Ultimately, it’s a tale rooted in the notion of be careful what you wish for combined with an unwittingly agreed Faustian pact. While Cabin In The Woods or the Scream franchise were knowing, meta-horrors, SOME KIND OF HATE brings a new perspective. For example the evolution of the American teen in horror films couldn't be starker: from the eighties bright-eyed, get loaded, strip off and shag generation to SOME KIND OF HATE’s introspective, earnest and self harming bunch of no hopers. Maybe in Moira co-writers Adam Egypt Mortimer and Brian DeLeeuw have unearthed the first emo horror icon. Stuart Wright
SOME KIND OF HATE ► https://amzn.to/2whl7bs
THE CREATURE BELOW (2016) Stewart Sparke
During a traumatic accident on a deep-sea dive, Olive, a gifted, young marine-biologist discovers an unearthly creature. Losing her dream job, Olive smuggles the creature home, intent on studying it in secret, unbeknownst to her devoted boyfriend Matt and estranged sister Ellie.
Plagued by gruesome nightmares, her fractured memories of what happened during the accident in the depths of the ocean begin to unravel, revealing her symbiotic bond with an eldritch horror far older and malevolent than she could possibly imagine, one which drives her to carry out its sinister will, with deadly results for those around her”.
THE CREATURE BELOW ► https://amzn.to/2xQFYCE
THE CREATURE BELOW director Stewart Sparke talks on the BritFlicks Podcast
THE REZORT (2015) Steve Barker
Outpost (2008) originator Steve Barker is back with a high concept zombie movie. In this near dystopian future, it’s post apocalypse and the surviving human’s who won are rebuilding for the future. .
A low number of walking dead are contained to one island. Thanks to the opportunism of hardnosed Wilton (Claire Goose) it has been transformed into a shooting gallery resort for gun totting tourists. “Sand, sun, sea and slaughter,” she proudly announces to the latest arrivals. Bubbling away in the backstory is an allegory for our times. There’s a humanitarian crisis from mass migration to the developed world and a groundswell of opinion that if we treat the dead like meat then the living will be next.
Like all good theme parks where danger is but a fence away, a computer virus takes out the security and sets the undead free. What should have been harmless pot shots from a safe vantage point turns into a race to get off the island, not just before the zombies infect them, but before they become collateral damage to the military drone strike that will bomb the place out of existence.
It’s an ambitious film that combines Crichton’s/Spielberg’s Jurassic Park with Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters. It takes a little too much time setting up the world and characters that don’t ultimately matter, but be patient because Barker’s nightmare vision of the limitless of human stupidity and arrogance coupled with our primal will to survive is there for all to see until the very last frame. Stuart Wright
THE REZORT ► https://amzn.to/33wubW2
THE REZORT director Steve Barker talks on the BritFlicks Podcast
THE SEASONING HOUSE (2012) Paul Hyett
Shocking, claustrophobic, psychological horror film ‘The Seasoning House’ is set in the war-torn Balkans. It's a grim and soulless place where young girls are bought and sold for men’s pleasure. Here we meet Angel (ROSIE DAY), a young, mute, orphaned girl enslaved by Viktor (KEVIN HOWARTH). Unbeknownst to her master, she moves between the walls and crawlspaces of the house – silently observing, learning and planning for her escape. When her closest confident is savagely killed, Angel can no longer contain her rage and sets out through both ingenuity and brutality to seek justice.
THE SEASONING HOUSE ► https://amzn.to/2U6Ub7e
THE SIREN (2019) Perry Blackshear
Tom rents a cabin on a secluded lake marked by a local legend of a lovelorn spirit who haunts the surrounding woods and drowns anyone she encounters. Drawn to her immediately, Tom knows he has found his soulmate in the seemingly human Nina, who must battle to repress her demonic instincts when she feels the same towards him. Meanwhile, a man possessed by vengeance circles the pair, getting ever closer to tracking down the monster that murdered his husband...
Part dark fairy tale and part elegant nightmare, THE SIREN is a heart-wrenching story of passion and revenge that will take hold of you and never let you go.
THE SIREN ► https://amzn.to/3dgLqz4
THE WINDMILL MASSACRE (2016) Nick Jongerius
This is a supernatural/folkloric slasher set, unsurprisingly, in the lowlands of Holland. A coach load of tourists, from as far away as Japan and Australia, breakdown in a remote outpost by a windmill. There’s no cell phone coverage and it’s soon nightfall. As impatience sets in two of them venture out to find help. This triggers a catalogue of gruesome scythe killings at the hands of Miller Hendrick. A figure of 17th century legend who was invited by the devil himself to stand guard at the gates of hell. Seems the coach they boarded and the windmill they’ve unwittingly stopped at was no accident – it was their destiny.
The set pieces for each kill are done really well. Each victim relives or sees why they must die before Hendricks scythes them down; and the finale has a lovely sting in the tail too.
There’s plenty of ambition in The Windmill Massacre: the production values are high and the acting is leagues above most other slasher fodder. In particular, Watford born Charlotte Beaumont (her first onscreen role was Jemima Drury in 2010’s Sex and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll) carries much of the action on her young shoulders as Aussie runaway Jennifer. Her guilty secret that brought her here is also the most tragic.
However, the overall storytelling is a mess and is too beholden to the constraints of the slasher formula that goes before it to claim its own place at the table. The film wastes way too much time setting up characters and telling us we’re in Holland, than it does foreshadowing why we should be scared. The first kill is genuinely out of the blue. Given the necessity of telling or showing each characters sinful backstory, The Windmill Massacre would’ve have been perfect for the anthology format a la Vault Of Horror. Stuart Wright
THE WINDMILL MASSACRE ►https://amzn.to/3b9Zc4x
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE (2015) Perry Blackshear
Two once close friends meet up in New York after ten years. Christian (Evan Dumouchel) is a hip marketer trying to increase his personal coolness. Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews) has just left his job as a nunnery gardener. Wanting to reconnect, Christian asks Wyatt to stay over. But at 4 a.m. Wyatt receives a call telling him to prepare for war, leave the city and beware of infection. Should he protect his best friend from the impending apocalypse, or from himself? Audacious, unsettling, full of tension, emotion, creative boldness and heartfelt compassion, this brilliant feature debut is a master class in independent budget filmmaking.
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE ► https://amzn.to/2UplGrr
Director Perry Blackspear talks on the BritFlicks Podcast
