Report: Bram Stoker International Film Festival 2010 (Part 1)
by Keri O’Shea
There’s been a real proliferation of horror film festivals in the UK over the past five years or so, particularly during the autumn months: in October and November, there are now at least ten weekend or full-day horror events which genre fans can attend, many of those less than five years old. This means that fans in a relatively small country like the UK now find themselves with a wealth of festivals to choose from; it also means that a certain level of competitiveness is inevitable, especially as many of these fests take place within a few short weeks of one another or even overlap. As UK horror fans, we are living in interesting times…
One of the most intriguing new festivals is the Bram Stoker International Film Festival, which runs in the historical port town of Whitby (a town forever linked, of course, to Stoker’s Dracula novel). Run by a father and son team (both called Mike McCarthy), Mike Senior in particular makes no bones about his huge ambitions for the festival on the European, rather than just the UK circuit. Having attended for both Bram Stoker fests so far, I can certainly testify to it being one of the more diverting festivals out there. It’s set in a great location, not just in terms of the North Yorkshire coast but the Whitby Pavilion itself, which has a sizeable screening room, a café area and access to a huge function room. This has meant that over the course of both years so far the festival has offered events as well as screenings, often vampire-themed as a nod to the festival’s classic horror legacy. Last year there was a Vampire Walk and a horror-tinged burlesque show, and this year there was the Hammer artwork exhibition, a Vampire Ball, and signing sessions. Running these sorts of events as well as films provides overlap with another of Whitby’s famous festivals – the Whitby Goth Weekend – and as next year’s festival will replace WGW in its usual Halloween spot for the first time in seventeen years (they already use the same venue) then I think it’s fair to say that fur will fly in 2011.
In keeping with Whitby’s links to classic horror, there was something of a Hammer theme this year. The festival was one of a tiny number of British venues so far able to secure the Hammer exhibition – a collection of artefacts, original posters and documents from the golden days of the studio. This was fun, although without annotations to go alongside the letters and sketches, I didn’t always get the full significance of what I was looking at. As well as showings of classic films (Doctor Jekyll & Sister Hyde, Dracula Price of Darkness, Captain Cronos: Vampire Hunter and The Devil Rides Out) Hammer stars Shane Briant, Caroline Munro, Martine Beswick and Vera Day were there as guests to introduce their films and also to give signings in the main hall (though sadly, ill-health forced Ingrid Pitt to pull out for the second consecutive year).
As to the films themselves, the Bram Stoker Fest really packs its schedules. As I was on the voting panel I saw everything on the bill minus a couple of the Hammers and a film called UMBRAGE I’d seen previously (hey, a girl’s got to eat some time) but overall there were 17 feature-length movies and 18 short films timetabled over four days – though three of the shorts had to be pulled due to screening difficulties (more on this anon). Of these, 28 were either world or UK premieres, which is a credit to the McCarthys’ powers of persuasion as well as to the panache of the place itself…
THURSDAY
The first two films on the bill were the weakest however. First up was Frank Robak’s STATISTICS, a study in human risk and loss which was undermined by a weak framing device and a plethora of flimsy dialogue and characterisation. A man whose family were nearly killed in a domestic fire rails against the injustice of life and death via his day job – as a radio presenter – whilst loosely-connected stories of people who are about to become the day’s sad statistics unfold elsewhere. Rather too many sets of characters are introduced, and a mass of dialogue occurs before any action does – meaning I had despaired of empathising with these people long before their fates caught up with them. If the intention here is to humanise statistics, then believable characters are a must; this was not helped by the way the film constantly cut back to the ranting radio presenter self-consciously swearing about how unfair life is, quitting his job on that account, then reinstating himself and carrying on with his diatribe once more.
This film was followed by an oddball spin on the zombie genre in THE DEFILED, or – DAWN OF THE DAD, as several audience members preferred. In a post-apocalyptic scenario (naturally), zombies form family units and have children, so, when his expectant partner and family die after consuming a biohazardous corpse, the male of the group flees with the zombaby. Along the way, he rescues a human woman from a pair of less family-minded zombies, and together they seek a safe haven whilst trying to avoid zombie-unfriendly military mercenaries. This is a peculiarity of a film shot in black and white with absolutely no dialogue so it’s at times a testing viewing experience, though this is tempered by some good locations and an interesting, though underdeveloped central premise: that zombies (or ‘the infected’ as they now wish to be known) can retain their humanity. THE DEFILED is definitely flawed but not without worth, at least in terms of wondering where it was all going. As with countless indie horrors however, it needed a damn good edit to bring it down in length, and it could even have worked better as a short.
Two zombie-themed shorts indeed followed: first up was the ripping yarn AXED, a pacy, well-made and affectionate homage to zombie cinema made by self-professed diehard fans. A family celebration is cut short by a viral outbreak which immediately overpowers the heavy-handed military containment attempt: soon this small Australian town is overwhelmed by both the Infected (fast-running zombies) and the Dead (the deceased Infected, who become old-school shambling zombies). AXED knows exactly what it is – it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, and just has some grisly fun with familiar elements of zombie horror, though combining slow and fast zombies in one easy plot device is an inspired move. Visually the film looks great: it’s very gory, with vivid reds alone picked out against an otherwise muted, sepia palate. Next came Norwegian film OPSTANDELSEN; a family funeral is taking place in a gorgeous, unusual Norwegian church in what at first seems to be a Gothic-styled horror. The stylistics of the church, churchyard and scattered red roses then give way to something much more visceral and unexpected – at least, unexpected by the mourners. In a moment, the church is under siege and the surviving family members must try to negotiate the church vault and passageways to escape. Nicely-shot and interesting to look at, OPSTANDELSEN’s greatest asset is its setting: and otherwise, this is a competent REC-style romp.
The next feature was TRIPPIN’, directrix Devi Snively’s latest completed work (Devi brought her short film DEATH IN CHARGE to the festival last year). The film directly references Troma at the start and it shares Troma’s sense of campy, irreverent humour from the outset; thanks to a well-written screenplay, TRIPPIN’ is a fun, black comedy update to that classic horror premise, a group of bright young things heading to a cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway. Any expectations the audience had for a by-numbers slasher flick were soon dissipated by a self-knowing, well-constructed genre pastiche. Devi was concerned that the humour of the film would be ‘too American’ but it wasn’t really a concern. Although there are strong elements of jock humour here all the jokes landed, and one of the main characters, stoner dude Zed Wilson (as himself) seemed very popular with the audience. Full of gore, scares and sex, this film balances the absurd with the smart in an engaging way which makes it good for group viewing.
Two more shorts followed – KLAGGER, a competent though unremarkable vignette in which a malign entity stalks a worker in a disused factory, followed by THE RECOLLECTION. In this film, a man awakes in a shallow grave; presumably about to be killed by his attacker…as he recovers his senses he spots his attacker making his way inside the nearby house, and pursues him. There he finds a badly-mutilated young woman, and vows to help her escape. A gruesome, efficient horror postcard ensues, and although you will probably spot the twist from a long way away, this is still a well-paced short which makes great use of its flashback scenes.
One of my most eagerly-awaited films followed in the form of AMER. There has been a great deal of positive hype surrounding this film: it has been variously described as an Argento love-letter, a visual treat, and a return to artistic horror. Certainly, the first twenty minutes of this film had me utterly hooked. A resilient, self-sufficient little girl called Ana is pinioned between a distant-mannered mother and the machinations of a demented widow grandmother, who seems hell-bent on exerting a malign influence over the household, and over her young granddaughter in particular. Shades of SUSPIRIA are abundant here – a warped matriarch and the shadow of the occult; aesthetically-striking colours and macro shots; evocative and well-shot interiors; a sensation of creeping menace. However, after setting up this delicious atmosphere, the film falls flat on its face. All of the nicely-growing tension is swapped for the flaccid mid-section of the film, where vivid horror stylings are replaced by an aimless survey of Ana’s adolescence (with her burgeoning sexuality largely expressed by her skirt blowing up in the wind). Nothing is added to the plot here – very little happens – and with no reference to the plot which came before, the film then moves into its final section – Ana’s womanhood. After careering past Argento into art-house, the film ends with an inexplicable foray into giallo, although to be fair to that genre, there is usually plot exposition at the end – however unlikely that exposition may be. Ana, now grown, returns to her childhood home as its owner. Although the jealous mother and a wicked grandmother are no longer there, Ana is still not safe – but beyond the sexualised female suffering so apparent in much French and Belgian horror cinema these days, things fragment yet further and matter still less. If I’m being unduly hard on the film, it’s because the promise and competence of the first section of the film shows just what the filmmakers are capable of; the cinematography is quite something, and the plot is intriguing. To allow this sterling work to unravel into something by turns tawdry and confusing is unforgivable. AMER starts with style, then disposes with its substance.
FRIDAY
More shorts kicked off the second day, starting with one which seemed to divide the audience neatly in two. I have to say, it took me a while to digest and decide on CAPRICE, a film which contains enough male-on-female violence to absolutely need a strong female lead and a good plot twist in order to dodge verdicts of misogyny. Jaded husband and father Clark likes to get away from it all, carefully hiding his wedding ring and hitting the bars with his friend Kevin. They’re always looking for the ‘right girl’, and on the night in question, they meet Caprice. It soon becomes apparent that it isn’t an affair they’re interested in, though – as things become escalatingly nasty back at her place. Yep, Clark and Kevin release tension by torturing and murdering lone women. Strangely, Caprice stays utterly calm, and even starts goading the men for their inadequacies. Is she insane? Is she alone? What could have been a desperate and nasty exercise in pointless aggression is redeemed by the actress playing Caprice (the wonderfully-named Renee Thrasher), whose calm demeanour and gentle sneers are endearing, even as you feel for her obviously horrendous situation. You may foresee a twist and you may not – or, you may not feel that this twist balances the content of the rest of the film, as many audience members did not. For me, it did work and did excuse an otherwise hackneyed torture porn motif. A complete change of pace followed with UP UNDER THE ROOF, an atmospheric ghost story which focuses on the fantastical night time existence of an isolated little boy living in (according to the director) a living museum and genuinely haunted house in which the film crew would not stay overnight. When he tries to sleep, the boy is plagued by the movements of a …something which lives in the attic – and which, inch by inch, seems to be breaking through his ceiling. This is a good, old-fashioned spooky tale with gentle intimations of threat, and which, thanks to the narration, feels a little like Jackanory (a story-reading television show) aimed at adults. It never fully shows its hand, leaving the audience with a nicely-understated, absorbing vignette. No one gets tortured and no one gets tied to a chair – this for me, is always an excellent sign.
It was back to Norway for the next feature, DARK SOULS, which probably depicts the world’s first crude-oil-generating zombies! A young woman out jogging is murdered by an industrial worker who drills a hole in her skull. Her body is later found and taken to the morgue, but she wakes up – stands up – then returns home, although she is completely incommunicative, only opening her mouth to vomit a strange black substance. Soon, more victims are being reported and, frustrated with slow police progress, the young woman’s father begins to investigate industrialised areas of Oslo where he hopes to discover his daughter’s attacker. To do this, he must go undercover as a worker. It’s not a redundant idea at all, but whatever elements here are intended as social commentary on Norway’s new-found oil wealth – and there is a suggestion of this – they degenerate into something quite stretched and silly, and there is no final explanation of why all of this is happening. Still, leading actor Morten Rudå (as Morten Ravn) works well with the material he is given, and the film does have some entertaining ideas.
More shorts followed with THE FAMILIAR, ANGUSTIA and CHARMANTE MIRA. THE FAMILIAR is a witty, knowing, vampire-themed comedy with an engaging script and good performances. Sam is a young man obsessed with the vampire mythos, so, when he’s approached by an old man who claims to work for a bloodsucker, Sam is more than a little keen to take the reins. However, working for a vampire is not all it’s cracked up to be. Vampire Simon Bolivar (Paul Hubbard) might look like a well-bred aesthete, but he’s actually an obnoxious, boorish employer. Some pithy observations about lousy jobs and a sense of ease with the vampire mythos make THE FAMILIAR a decent prospect and it shows just how self-consciously and cleverly the vampire theme can be used in these post-True Blood days. ANGUSTIA – a German film – was difficult to follow because the projectionist didn’t alter the aspect ratio, cutting off the subtitles (!) but what I could glean was this: a freak storm forces two strangers to share a hostel room on a night where an escaped murderer just happens to be loose. One of the men naturally becomes nervous when he looks into his companion’s travelling-bag and sees a clutch of cutting implements…there’s another easy-to-spot twist here, and perhaps it was a mistake to show this film purely because a number of similar twists occur in other shorts on the schedule. CHARMANTE MIRA, like THE FAMILIAR, displays its comfort with all things vampiric in a stylish little romance where two vamps (together for over 350 years) struggle to juggle their appetites with the niceties of a modern social life.
Another accomplished horror comedy followed in the form of RED VICTORIA, a film which makes just the right number of nods to genre fans. Tim (played by director Anthony Brownrigg) is a screenplay writer, but his attempts to sell ‘proper’ screenplays are failing miserably. His agent, rather unsympathetically, tells him he has to write a horror film – that’s where the easy money is. Thing is, Tim considers himself an auteur: he knows nothing about horror cinema, and couldn’t care less. His horror-obsessed friend Carl (Edward Landers)can’t help spark his creative powers either, but just as Tim is about to give up on any understanding of horror, a dead girl called Victoria (Arianne Martin) appears in his apartment and vows to give him the crash course in horror he needs – whether he likes it or not. A pleasingly-distraught and manic performance by Brownrigg lends a great deal of weight to Tim’s plight here, and the laughs are both funny and gruesome. Victoria (who appears in varying states of decomposition throughout the film) has some gruelling lessons in store, and manages to balance pure evil with the passive disinterest of a muse. As the son of a genre film director, Anthony Brownrigg initially strongly resisted making genre cinema himself, and this insider knowledge lends a pleasing veritas to the lead’s frustrations in an animated, enjoyable film which won the Bram Stoker Audience Award.
SÉANCE, a Czech short film which followed RED VICTORIA, provided a welcome excursion into dark, period horror. This may well be the first Czech horror I’ve seen, and if they were all of this high calibre then the Czech Republic could easily become leading lights in the industry. The film opens in the nineteenth century, and a young gypsy girl with the power of second sight is called to the local castle by a servant. The old countess – long rumoured to dabble in the dark arts – has died, and both her manservant and her doctor are keen that she settles her debts with them, dead or not. They are looking for a costly necklace and they force the young girl to contact the spirit of the countess. A lean, well-told story in a sumptuous setting, this is a halfway-house between the high Gothic of Hammer and the more abrupt frights of the modern horror film, and a welcome dose of something sinister.
The last-but-one feature of the day was DANS TON SOMMEIL (IN THEIR SLEEP), directed by Caroline and Éric du Potet. It was immensely satisfying to see actress Anne Parillaud back on screen for starters, and this is – as with many of the studio horror films coming out of France – a well-shot, lit, and acted film. The plot line in general may become apparent quickly (particularly if you’re familiar with a certain film called FUNNY GAMES) but the numerous, layered twists maintain tension nicely. Bereaved mother Sarah (Parillaud) has seen her marriage fracture, and her performance in her job – as a graveyard-shift nurse – has become untenable because of her depression and insomnia. One day, whilst driving home late, she hits a young man who is running along the road. He is not badly injured, but on regaining a sense of where he is, he pleads with Sarah to protect him from a pursuer, who he explains is a burglar he disturbed robbing his home. Sarah and Arthur are soon fleeing for their lives from a sinister, murderous individual – but things are by no means what they seem. The film pulls no punches in terms of its gruesomeness and the concept of villainy here is a complex one. The film layers on the anguish – and is thus not for everyone – but this is a well-constructed (sub)urban horror in the vein of INSIDE.
The last film of the night delved back into vampire territory with RENFIELD: THE UNDEAD, an (often rather ingenious) extension of the characters in Stoker’s original novel. In this film, Renfield was not in fact killed in the Sanatorium but joined the ranks of the Undead – as did Mina Harker, and her son (named Quincy). Mina and Quincy want to resurrect Dracula, and as Renfield happens to have Dracula’s skull – which is needed for the requisite ritual – they are set to clash. Cops are meanwhile seeking the ‘Bayou Butcher’ as – you’ve guessed it – corpses are turning up ex-sanguinated, and they find themselves getting involved with the vampires… Director and writer of the film Phil Nichols plays the lead character of Renfield – here closely resembling Count Orloff – and his performance is a lot of fun, very camp, madcap and entertaining: in general, the film plays out like an extended episode of Buffy, with the same good guys vs. bad guys fighting it out kung fu style, and some of the makeup effects are very similar too. This is a real love letter to the original source material though, with some recreations of scenes from Stoker’s story which are rather well observed, and a wealth of references and in-jokes relating to the novel. However what could have been a fun eighty minutes became an arduous two hours and twenty minutes, as we have here yet another director who couldn’t bear to lose any material. I gather that, based on feedback so far, the director is editing the film again but by a mere twenty minutes, meaning this will still be far too long. The film could have dispensed with several threads and about half its characters and still retained the elements which work well, because there is a great deal of extraneous plot here – probably enough for another film. The derivativeness and cartoonishness won’t be for everyone, but for those curious to see what has been done with one of the most influential vampire stories in the language, there’s certainly fun to be had here – if rather too much of it.
For details on Saturday & Sunday of BSIFF 2010, look out for Part 2 of Keri’s report soon – ed.
