DO NOT DISTURB, INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE - CULT OF VHS - H4Z4RD - THE GHOST WRITER - HOLY SHIT! - WOLF MANOR and FOLLOW HER.
TORN HEARTS, DO NOT DISTURB, INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE, CULT OF VHS, H4Z4RD, THE GHOST WRITER, HOLY SHIT!, WOLF MANOR and FOLLOW HER.
Our man on the ground Stuart Wright reports back from Day Four at FrightFest with a look at TORN HEARTS, DO NOT DISTURB, INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE, CULT OF VHS, H4Z4RD, THE GHOST WRITER, HOLY SHIT!, WOLF MANOR and FOLLOW HER.
TORN HEARTS
Directed by Brea Grant
Written by Rachel Koller Croft
Jordan (Abby Quinn) and Leigh (Alexxis Lemire) are TORN HEARTS, an aspiring country duo in desperate need of a bump up to the next level. When a prime support slot falls through, they’re left with just their hopes, dreams and no good sleazy manager still demanding a lot from them. They look to their heroes – The Duchess Sisters - for inspiration and naively decide to pay a visit to the surviving member of that 90s duo and ask her to perform a song with her. Ignoring their manager’s wishes to be in the studio, and his calls, they drive over Harper Dutch’s (Katey Sagal) place on a whim. This is the house that time forgot - think GREY GARDENS (1975). Harper is spiky with the young women at first. It’s mighty presumptuous to impose themselves on a recluse like that, but spotting an opportunity she relents and lets them in.
It’s pretty clear that while Jordan admires Harper, Leigh is a devotee to The Duchess Sisters rhinestone covered legacy. Their first face to face exchange with their hero spotlights this perfectly. Jordan says: “Miss Dutch, we so appreciate you letting us into your house like this”. However, starstruck Leigh says: “You look amazing.” Harper sees this right away and uses the two very different personalities to divide and conquer her visitors. At first, it seems like a test of their metal; their desire to be a country music star, but her words and intent get more pointed and crueller by the minute.
Harper is a drinker. There’s barely a frame where she’s without a bourbon or gin. She encourages her proteges to join in a libation and drinks Jordan and Leigh under the table. When they come to the next day, they’re dressed head to toe in The Duchess Sisters merch. It's a weird and unsettling sequence that serves to segue to a more mentally deranged Harper. Attention turns to the similarities between Torn Hearts and The Duchess Sisters in terms of band dynamics. Harper seeing a lot of herself in Jordan and a lot of her sister, Hope, in Leigh. Their manager (and Leigh’s boyfriend) Richie Rowley Jones (Joshua Leonard) shows up and agrees it would be great idea for both parties if they were to sing together. Harper plays along with this notion until she’s alone with Richie and kills him. It’s a surprise, but not a shock. Enough is revealed in Harper’s crazy museum to the faded star, drinking herself into an early grave to make you believe something sinister was on the cards. Pretty soon Harper has chipped away at all the innocence Torn Hearts possess. Turns out the duo is not Leigh’s first rodeo and Jordan wasn’t so much the best choice as it was her only choice. It’s a ruthlessness to Leigh she’d hidden well behind fluttering eyelashes and a pretty face. Jordan is devastated and so begins Torn Hearts downfall.
The film demonstrates perfectly how rock’n’roll preys on naivety and insecurities. It’s undemocratic and the meritocracy myth will blind the most talented and sincere of individuals into making the dumbest decisions. Those starting from scratch, like Torn Hearts, need someone (anyone) to believe in them, which usually leads to short term exploitation until there’s nothing left but tear stains, disillusionment and an empty bank account. Whereas Harper has been there, done – all of – that. It’s a cruel twist of fate that you’re probably most ready for a career in music after the industry has chewed you up and spat you out.
Sagal amazes as the enigmatic, musical matriarch. She has Jordan and Leigh wrapped around her finger. To them, she is both a sage and the gateway to success. When it is clear to the audience, she is neither. Like Michael Winderbottom did in 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (2002) Brea Grant films real musical performances in TORN HEARTS, and has cast actors who can genuinely sing. Wilder is a singer/songwriter as well as an actor. Whereas Sagal started out life in show business as one of Gene Simmons’ backing singers. This attention to detail lends the film a vitality and authenticity that keeps you in the world of the film and believing in the characters. Inevitably, once Richie is murdered, it is a sure fire sign that more deaths will follow, but not before all the characters are revealed to be as cynical, manipulative and anti-heroic as each other. A chaotic game of cat and mouse heralds the demise of everyone as TORN HEARTS resolves itself to be what Britflicks is calling a ‘Nashville Noir’ with shades of PSYCHO (1960) and SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950). The bloody and bittersweet ending calls back a mantra that is repeated throughout Rachel Koller Croft’s script that ‘your’ story is a key facet of your journey as an artist, but in this case someone else gets to benefit wholesale from Torn Hearts tragedy. Ain’t that a shame - as Fats Domino used to croon.
DO NOT DISTURB
Written & directed by John Ainslie
Chloe and Jack are newlyweds, but their relationship is long in the tooth. They should’ve split up a long time ago but Chloe got pregnant, lost the child and Jack stuck around to do the decent thing – despite being a complete man-child to this day. Their out of season honeymoon to Miami gets off to bad start when the long wait for their room throws them together with swingers Wendy and Wayne. This older couple latch themselves onto our newlyweds and a first night orgy ends abruptly while Wendy is giving Jack head and he gets jealous of Wayne’s pawing hands all over his wife.
They spend their first proper day on the beach and have a stash of drugs foisted upon them by a very confused man. Among the narcotics is some peyote cactus. Who knows, it might help bring them closer together, whines Jack while trying to convince reluctant Chloe to take it too. Days turn to night. Nights turn to day. Memories become hazy to zero, but little trophies of their headfuck experience, such as bite marks on Jack’s shoulder and partially eaten corpses under their bed point to something far more sinister. Chloe’s strength of character becomes magnified as she begins to dominate her weak-willed husband. Kimberly Laferriere as the put-upon wife turned divine feminine Chloe revels in a role of absolute extremes. One minute she’s more or less mothering Jack into a being a grown up, the next she’s passively drifting through their time together because to fight him is more effort than it’s worth and then she’s literally devouring him like a praying mantis does her mate.
The fractured time and confusion of the central cast is handled brilliantly by John Ainslie both in the script and the edit. DO NOT DISTURB revs up nicely and adds in some neat twists and turns that evoke the enate impulses of WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (2013) crossed with a darkly twisted version of THE HANGOVER (2009) but without the laughs. It’s a struggle for Chloe to regain a semblance of control but by the end of the film she’s zen as the life she lost years ago seems to have been returned to her.
INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE
Written & directed by Quentin Dupieux
INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE is the tenth feature film for French auteur Quentin Dupieux. His third, the sentient killer tyre movie RUBBER (2010) was a surprise cross over into the genre space, and he has continued to explore obtuse fantasy/horror narratives ever since. With INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE the story revolves around two middle-aged suburban couples facing up to their own mortality in very different ways. Alain and Marie Duval, can time travel beneath their basement floor. A fact that is explained to them by their realtor when viewing their new house like he was explaining what type of boiler it has. Each time they descend into a drainage hole they re-appear in the hall of their house, 12 hours in the future, but three days younger. Alain isn’t remotely interested in utilising these magic properties under his house, but as Marie becomes obsessed with becoming young again, Alain becomes increasingly concerned for her sanity as she chases after a second youth. Their neighbour is Alain’s boss, Gerard. He is the insecure male, midlife crisis cliché - younger partner plus elongated car to ensure the whole world knows of his virility. In the Dupieux universe that’s never going to be enough. At a dinner party at the Duval’s house, Gerard proudly announces he has an electronic penis – an iPenis if you will. It has three-speeds, can get hard on demand and be steered from your smart phone.
The impact of Marie’s exploration into reversing the sands of time is not evident at first. The transformation to the younger self is gradual, but eventually, unrecognisable from the character who starts the film, the young Marie takes over like the older Marie never existed. However, the nature of the rules of the house mean the consequences to her actions are not contained to just her. While she is three days younger every time she travels through the wormhole, she is overlooking the fact that Alain is 12 hours older when she comes out the other side. She time travels so much that she’s inadvertently wishes Alain’s life away. Before you realise what is going on, he’s a much older man to her much younger woman. It’s a super clever, alarming outcome to this absurdly simple concept.
There is a jolly synth score by Jon Santo that constantly echoes the silliness that this wonderfully escalating, none too subtle farce. In particular the two extended jaunty muzak pieces that start and end the film really do a lot of heavy lifting for establishing the tone of the film. Ultimately, the real strength of INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE is in the casting. The conviction and commitment to situation as perfectly normal by Alain Chabat, Léa Drucker, Benoît Magimel and Anaïs Demoustier draws you into their world of woes about the aging process. This film is, at times laugh out loud funny, other times bittersweet and sad, but it is always compelling viewing.
CULT OF VHS
Directed by Rob Preciado
In a late nineties interview with Flux Magazine David Kerekes (Headpress) speculated, jokingly, that maybe VHS could be become rarefied and collected like vinyl; that HMV would have a section dedicated to VHS enthusiasts. CULT OF VHS is about how almost all of that idle thought has come true. It would have been impossible for Kerekes to have factored in the impact of the internet and streamers on the high street at that point, but I digress.
In many ways CULT OF VHS continues the 2010’s tradition of celebrating and fetishizing the long redundant VHS tape – DVDs have been available since 1997 (a quarter of a decade ago). First there was Jake West’s VIDEO NASTIES: MORAL PANIC, CENSORSHIP & VIDEOTAPE (2010). Next there was Josh Joshson’s REWIND THIS! (2013). There was also Mark Williams’ pair of VHS FOREVER? documentaries: PSYCHONTRONIC PEOPLE (2014) and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CAMDEN (2019).
CULT OF VHS is about obsession, by obsessives. It is a sometimes considered, and often hyperbolic look at the survival of a redundant medium through the experiences of those few who love it the most – the collectors and those inspired by their own VHS love affair to go into film. Kevin Martin, owner of one of the last remaining rental stores says it best: “VHS is a cult, but it’s not the creepy, kill yourself cult. It’s the kickass and be good to each other cult because movies fucking rule.”
CULT OF VHS, much like the other titles mentioned above, largely speaks to a certain vintage of film fan. The VHS tapes they rented literally represent some of, if not all of their best film memories and crazy discoveries. Consequently, there’s plenty of nostalgia for good, bloody and plain old trash movies to get your teeth into throughout the documentary. Like all obsessions, CULT OF VHS is about being unable to let go and investing so much of your own identity into objects you accrued throughout your life. Lindsay Washburn, YouTube host, says: “[It] feels like you’re processing part of the past.”
For people aged 40 and above, there’s lots here to be dewy eyed over, and while there’s some surprisingly young collectors featured in the film, it’s hard to see how VHS is fully resurrected a la vinyl because unlike its music brethren VHS was never a good medium in the first place – a fact pointed out a few times in CULT OF VHS. Although with every film that ever existed now at your fingertips, it’s hard to imagine a documentary in 2050 featuring film fans born 1995-2000 waxing lyrical about the clumsiness of streamer user interfaces, by-passing safety settings in Netflix and the like, but again, I digress.
H4Z4RD
Written by Trent Haaga
Directed by Jonas Govaerts
H4Z4RD starts off with a super cool, high-performance car and its owner: the immaculately turned out, box fresh sneakers and tracksuit wearing Noah (world famous DJ, Dimitri Thivalois). It’s a beautiful day and the only blemish is the two euro coin sized crack on Noah’s windscreen. The imperfection irritates him, but he does nothing about it. Not even when he’s prompted by a radio ad reminding drivers that it’s best to sort these things out before you have to replace the whole window. He's late picking up his daughter, Zita, and girlfriend, Lea. Berated over the phone by Lea and stuck in traffic he sets the timer on his phone to five minutes and treats the tight streets of Antwerp like they are Monaco, as he transforms into Ryan Gosling in DRIVE (2011). It’s our first real clue to Noah’s exacting skills behind the wheel. He arrives just in time and takes Lea to work and Zita to school. He’s obsessed with keeping his vehicle spotless. Zita trots out his mantra that there’s no drinking or eating allowed. She’s the one, and only person to observe this rule. Pretty soon greasy fingers will mark up the upholstery, dead bodies will stink up the boot and bullets will put holes in the door. With nothing else to do but drive around until 3:30pm when he is due to pick up Zita, he calls in on his best friend Carlos. Only recently released from prison, he’s got a quick in and out job for them. They pick up the organiser of the robbery, Kludde, as he literally steps out of prison and head off to rob some easy money. Inevitably their simple plan turns into a nightmare when the items they steal are more precious than money to the owner. Not only is Noah light on cash he thought was coming his way, he’s late picking up Zita from school, but she’s been kidnapped by the person they robbed earlier. This dark farce is now in full effect and as Noah zooms up and down his home city, his precious car takes one hell of a beating. Thivalois is a great straight man against all the ridiculousness, characters and situations that Haaga and Govaerts throw at him, and an even better action hero. You will no doubt be seeing more of this DJ on your screens in the future.
Much like Trent Haaga’s 68 KILL script, the drama is heightened, humour is black and the violence is unflinching. Director Jonas Govaerts paints a bloody, high-octane picture across the city of Antwerp with his camera – the film is breathless. Made all the more intense by camera’s POV never leaving the interior of Noah’s car. Govearts even dares to take the vehicle where no car has ever been before – St Anna’s tunnel, a pedestrian tunnel that runs under the Scheldt River.
There’s a shocking scene, straight after the heist gone wrong featuring a Security Guard on the site of a demolished cinema. His autoerotic sex act is like TITANE crossed with the comedy value of Cameron Diaz’s windscreen slide in THE COUNSELLOR. In the words of the director: “this is the litmus test as to whether people are going to dig this movie.” It’s pitch black hilarious to watch two grown men – Noah and Carlos – sit perfectly still in the car, bouncing occasionally from the suspension, while this guy fucks it, literally.
H4Z4RD is a cautionary tale of a what can go wrong, will go wrong tale. Had Noah gone and got his windscreen sorted at the start of the film, you can believe none of what followed would have happened – at least on that day. It’s the antithesis of the gangster heist movies – nothing is ever cool about our desperadoes. It is also unafraid of not taking itself too seriously, while at the same, like 2006’s CRANK, it lives confidently within its own film universe and always plays the most ridiculous moments with a straight face. You will believe for the 12 hours or so, Noah is having one hell of a bad day. In a weird twist of fate, the damaged windscreen will eventually come to represent the difference between life and death. A lovely pay off to end this taut action, comedy thriller.
THE GHOST WRITER
Directed by Paul Wilkins
Written by Guy Fee and Paul Wilkins
A struggling author Gilliger Grahan (Luke Mably) moves back into the old family cottage as a last ditch attempt to get his writing mojo back. Only the presence of his late-father, a much more successful writer, and authoritative parent, weighs heavy on him. We see this best in flashbacks to young Gilliger walking in on his highly strung father burning pages he’d spent hours on because writing is meant to be hard. These thoughts are parked when a four AM knock at the door introduces him to Jane (Andrea Deck); and by daybreak adds Patrick (Brendan Patricks) to the creepy tale. He mistakes them for opportunists trying to rob him or get a compromising photo for the tabloids. They want neither, but what do they want? From here on in Gilliger’s fragile mind comes crashing down around him as reality and unreality blur. It’s a very fractured film, in a good way, and director Paul Wilkins takes his time unpacking the incoherent nature of Gilliger’s memories (and insecurities) as the roles of Jane and Patrick deviate from real people, imagined characters from his father’s manuscript that he’s plagiarising and/or ghosts associated with his father’s death. It’s a slowburn film that relies heavily on Mably’s performance. He’s marvellous at both the rational and irrational moments, waking nightmares and vivid dreams. Who’d want to be a writer if this is what you have to put up with?
HOLY SHIT! (aka ACH DU SCHEISSE)
Written & directed by Lukas Rinker
HOLY SHIT is a single location horror like BURIED (2010) in the sense that it’s one person waking up and being in immediate peril, but like PHONE BOOTH (2002) in the sense that there’s other cast making an appearance alongside the person fixed to a single point. In HOLY SHIT architect Frank comes to, wedged into the corner of an upside porta potty. What’s worse is that Frank’s arm is impaled on a steel reinforcement rod. His limited range of movement and any attempt to improve his situation is met with pulverising agony. For that aspect, there’s a nod to 127 HOURS (2010) and you do wonder, like Frank, whether severing your own arm is the best way to escape because on top of the mystery of how did he end up here, the location of the porta potty also happens to be at the epicentre of a huge controlled explosion to make way for a new housing development. Frank needs to get out of there quick. The tightness of the space means that plenty is within arm or leg reach. With some clever use of a laser measurer, extendable ruler and whatever he lays his hands on with some ingenuity he makes a good fist of getting free.
Hats off to director Lukas Rinker and his cinematographer Knut Adass. This film is beautifully shot and despite the limited location, always interesting, visually speaking. They utilise every inch of that porta potty to their advantage. Which leads on to Thomas Niehaus as Frank. He is very versatile and gives a heightened performance in terms of acting and agility. Just the continuity of the pain from the anchored arm alone must have been a real challenge in terms of this role, let alone the contortions he has to perform in order to get out of there. A sinister drama unfolds around local politics and the new housing development, but HOLY SHIT is about how does Frank free himself from the five feet or so of reinforcement steel rod. The finale is like a human buzzwire game but instead of electric shocks sounding the buzzer it’s the continual pain signals shooting around his body as his nerve endings are shredded, with only cocaine to take the edge off. HOLY SHIT is a fun and disgusting watch in equal measure.
WOLF MANOR
Written by Joel Ferrari & Pete Wild
Directed by Dominic Brunt
Emmerdale’s Dominic Brunt is back at Frightfest for fourth time – a Leicester Square record for World Premieres. At this rate he will soon be known as the horror filmmaker who appears in a UK soap opera. Previously, Brunt has given us zombies (BEFORE DAWN), revenge (BAIT) and bat shit crazy (ATTACK OF THE ADULT BABIES). WOLF MANOR is a love letter to the werewolf movie. Brunt even makes a brief appearance as the cab driver who drops off a pair of horror journos outside the ‘Blood Moon’ pub. Telling them this is as far as he goes. Our first and by no means last warning from a local that tonight is not the best night to visit the old abandoned house some quarter of a mile up the lane. A vampire movie is being shot there and our intrepid genre reporters are due for a set visit.
They pop into the pub for a libation and it’s a full on homage to the Slaughtered Lamb (from THE AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON) with Brunt’s choice to focus on a dart hitting the dartboard with our first peek inside. It’s only missing a young Rik Mayall and grumpy Brian Glover. John Henshaw plays the unwelcoming landlord and doesn’t see the funny side of the horror journos – horror film -knowing comments about sticking to roads and not straying onto the moors. Giving up these two fools, the landlord shuts up the bar before they can get a drink and our two hapless victims set off, never to reach their final destination. And so the horror comedy tone is set.
Meanwhile the crew are getting increasingly frustrated at the slow rate of pick-up shots and Dracula, played by a drunk old luvvie, ingeniously, called Oliver Laurence (James Fleet), is making life all the more difficult with each of his unhelpful ideas for the character, protracted anecdote or stumble off the wagon. It's a job and half just to keep him away from the booze as one cast or crew member after another get gored around the grounds of their film location until there is only our fearless – fake – vampire vs a real werewolf (created by VFX wizard Shaune Harrison). Fleet is excellent, overdoing the theatrically trained actor who has come to terms with a long and lucrative career carved out of low rent horror films. The gore is practical, the blood is by the bucket load and the werewolf movie in-jokes, nods to other movies come thick and fast. The ending leaves the door wide for more Wolf Manor adventures in the future and be sure to stick around for the post credit epilogue featuring the great Rula Lenska as the mysterious Maleva.
FOLLOW HER
Directed by Sylvia Caminer
Written by Dani Barker
Jess Peters, played by Dani Barker (writer of FOLLOW HER), has cornered the social media market in harmless niche kinky sex livestreaming. Only her clients don’t know they’re private fantasies are now public property. Infact, Jess’s entire waking life is unrelentingly photographed, streamed and videoed. It is all fun and games until she makes the wrong decision to keep her most popular video on her channel. The right thing to do would be to delete, but she’s too busy chasing the likes and subscribes to let ethics in the way of her success.
Later she meets up with the creepy, but handsome Tom Brady (Luke Cook) for a screenwriting gig, but all her worst social media (and in real life) nightmares and mistruths come home to roost. Where once she had all the control, she has none. Picking up the baton from the likes of CAM (2018) and SPREE (2020), mixed with the surveillance paranoia of THE CONVERSATION (1974), FOLLOW HER takes on the existential crisis and Faustian deal social media and the internet has brought into all our lives. It also has echoes of ONE CUT OF THE DEAD (2017), but instead of how a set piece viewed from different point of view can tell a different story, Barker’s terrifying vision (or is it assumption?) is that we may as well accept that everywhere we go, someone is filming us for their own ill-gotten gains.
Sylvia Caminer’s direction is confident and assured, juggling all of Jess’s media output, as well as the unfolding drama and occasional scares, into visually exciting film. You may never feel comfortable entering someone else’s home or hotel room, or public space ever again. Cameras are watching us. Always.
