The fourth day of FrightFest welcomed the UK premiere of the new Ti “House of the Devil” West’s THE INNKEEPERS, the new brutal british flick KILL LIST, directed by Ben Wheatley, and the John-Hughes-meets-Wes-Craven flick DETENTION.
After having played with the devil in his previous effort, Ti West comes back to FrightFest with a ghost story that after a slow and mounting start it takes off and scares the s**t out of everybody. To put it with the director’s words, THE INNKEEPERS
is a sincere ghost story, with remarkable performances by the two leads, Sara Paxton and Pat Healy, and by a rough-but-convincing Kelly McGillis who – according to Ti West – didn’t care too much showing an unconventional image of herself, older, smoker and grumpier. What begins as a slacker comedy with the two last employees of the almost empty hotel Yankee Pedlar trying to find evidence of ghostly presences, becomes a scary trip inside the mind of the young protagonist Claire. After reality-movies like Paranormal Activity or esoteric flicks like Insidious, THE INNKEEPERS stick with old-school scares and they are indeed very effective.
One of the most expected movies of the festival was KILL LIST, directed by Ben Wheatley and starring Neil Maskell, Myanna Buring and Michael Smiley. Brutal and shocking, KILL LIST follows the story of hit-man Jay who accepts an assignment out of need, but it will turn out to be a bad call. He will be sucked in a downward spiral to hell where it will be impossible to come out of.
The night ended with the UK premiere of the teen slasher-horror DETENTION. Probably due to the hype and expectations, it ends up delivering less than what it promised, showing off a mix of references and homages to other movies – Breakfast Club, Prom Night, Heathers etc – but video director Joseph Kahn managed to create a believable story – despite the aliens and the time machine. High School has not been that scary in a while…yes, Scre4m does not count.
Monday 29th was the last day of the Festival and the highlights of the evening were INBRED, by Alex Chandon, and the closing movie A LONELY PLACE TO DIE, by Julian Bilbey.
INBRED is probably the most gory, splatter, gruesome and extremely violent movie I have seen in the last years. And what makes it even more so is the fact that everything happens in camera. Every head, arm, leg that is chopped off is right there, every shot in the face or in any part of the body is right there. The visually disturbing images are balanced by the black and nasty humor that permeates the movie from the beginning to the end. When four kids and two social workers decide to spend a few days in the countryside, they are completely unaware that they are going to face a bunch of creepy and deformed villagers who enjoy having foreigners to torture and make them part of their sick shows. Humor at its darkest and gore at its bloodest.
A LONELY PLACE TO DIE closed another great edition of FrightFest. Starring Melissa George, Ed Speleers and Kate Magowan, and directed by Julian Gilbey, ALPTD is a tense and nail-biting movie set on the Scottish Highlands that thanks to convincing and remarkable performances and an effective touch by the director, never lets you go until the credits roll and the lights are turned on. When five climbers find a girl buried into the ground, a spiral of events starts to unfold, questions need answers, and the highlands become part of the movie giving it an original flavor. Melissa George is not new to horror and thriller movies (Triangle, Amityvill, 30 Days of Night), whereas Ed Speleers said it was a great chance for him to get out of the blondish kid character everybody saw in Eragon.
Already looking forward to the next edition….
Already looking forward to the next edition….
