UK Festival Report: Abertoir Film Festival 2010
Report by Keri O’Shea
Before I talk about my time at this gem of a UK horror festival I ought to be clear on one thing, else I get accused of nepotism: the organisers of Abertoir – Gareth, Nia, Rhys and Becky – are my friends. However, they’ve become my friends only since I started attending the festival three years ago – testament to one of the many really positive aspects of Abertoir, its easy-going atmosphere and approachable team.
The festival itself was originally created when Wicker Man director Robin Hardy was booked to visit the Aberystwyth Arts Centre – where organiser Gareth works his day job – and Gareth decided to make Hardy’s Cowboys for Christ book tour more of an event by booking additional films. Eventually, a mini-festival was born and, five years later, Abertoir has established itself as one of the most innovative UK festivals on the circuit. To date, the festival has seen a live performance by genre film score legend Claudio Simonetti’s band Daemonia, a filmmaking master-class with Herschell Gordon Lewis, a Grand Guignol performance, spoken word performances and presentations by Doug Bradley, as well as developing certain traditions – such as showing silent classics with live musical accompaniment, and Vincent Price (himself of Welsh extraction) tends to make an appearance every year too…
The location of the festival in a small coastal town in West Wales certainly provides a picturesque, if somewhat remote setting: getting to Abertoir can present a challenge from some parts of the UK and so with this in mind, the cost of festival passes has so far been kept low (less than £50 for five days). Aberystwyth itself is a pleasant, if blustery town at this time of the year, but the Arts Centre where it is held is ideal for a mixed media package as it has a screening room, a hall and a theatre (and, ahem, a bar) under the same roof. I would say that as much as dealing with mid-Wales’s ‘relaxed’ rail service can be a lengthy process, there is more than enough to reward your patience when you get there.
This year, as well as films, British punk band The Damned put on a performance (supported by Zombina and the Skeletones), occult author and journalist Gavin Baddeley gave a presentation on the very British origins of the vampire mythos and there was a theatrical performance by one Robert Lloyd Parry, whose effective candlelit retelling of two classic M R James ghost stories was a real highlight of the festival.
This year also saw the return of Robin Hardy, who provided us with a ten-minute preview of his new film The Wicker Tree, based on the self-same Cowboys for Christ novel which brought about the first Abertoir. The Wicker Tree starts out with many similar elements to The Wicker Man(1973): in it, a young born-again Christian named Beth (Brittania Nichol) and her boyfriend Steve (Henry Garrett) travel from the US to a small Scottish town called Tressock where they hope to redeem some godless Scots. They’re made welcome there, although the amount of flesh on display does little to help them assuage their own godless urges. Soon, though, Beth and Steve begin to feel as though the townsfolk have an ulterior motive for their friendliness.
Although the preview was only ten minutes long, it was easy to see both the parallels – and the differences – with The Wicker Man. The Wicker Tree seems to be a much less understated film than its predecessor; visually, there is more bawdiness and sex, and the use of humour is quite strongly demarked, rather than hinted. In the Q&A which followed, Robin Hardy explained that he wanted to give several of the elements in The Wicker Man new treatment. This he has done, as stylistically the new film looks to be rather different, and – as Hardy explained – will have a very different type of ending. To my eye it is thus far looking a little too self-aware and raw, although it will be intriguing to see what the result will be, especially since Hardy has taken such a long hiatus from film-making. Hardy himself is a fine gentleman raconteur and it was a pleasure to hear him speak.
Onto the films themselves; Abertoir always goes for a blend of new and classic horror cinema and in keeping with this, Hammer classic Countess Dracula (1971) was the festival opener. Also on the bill was schlock-maestro William Castle classic The House on Haunted Hill (1959), complete with the sort of campy visual gimmickry Hill would have been proud of (and last year’s showing of The Tingler even boasted electrified seating!) As mentioned, a silent film is always represented at Abertoir; this year 1927 ‘dark house’ thriller The Cat and the Canary. The live musical accompaniment was played on piano by festival favourite Paul Shallcross, who also composes the music himself. 
In previous years, Paul has devised and performed to Nosferatu (1922) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and it’s a real privilege to see these films exactly as they were intended to be seen.
A great deal of innovative modern horror was also shown at the festival: the full programme is available to browse on the website (www.abertoir.co.uk). But as for my own highlights: firstly I very much enjoyed the quietly dark Mexican movie We Are What We Are (2010), an unusually character-driven take on cannibalism which reminded me a great deal of a movie which did a similar thing with vampirism – The Hamiltons (2006). We Are What We Are did a fantastic job of layering on atmosphere, and with an eye for detail; brilliantly framed scenes and colouration, for example. This is a stylish film, though part of me yearned for just a dash more plot exposition despite the evident art house leanings. Dream Home (2010) is probably the first blood and guts horror which uses the Hong Kong mortgage crisis as its starting point, but this is a cleverly-constructed film, and its premise is never presented as being for the sake of farce. It balances its incredibly bloodthirsty scenes with a believable central character, and in so doing demonstrates some serious filmmaking flair. (Ed’s note – for more on the aforementioned films, see Stephanie Scaife’s reviews of We Are What We Are and Dream Home.)
A complete change of pace came with Djinns (2010), a French film set during the Algerian War. The horror here is mainly psychological: as with The Keep (1983), here we have a band of isolated soldiers forced to take refuge from an occult force known and understood only by locals. Although the djinn of Eastern folklore plays a part here however, it is in far too peripheral a sense to really be considered a creature flick; unease and breakdown are just as disruptive here, and the djinns themselves are liminal figures. The film looks amazing, taking for its setting a real desert village and featuring the real villagers – who give excellent performances alongside the equally excellent main cast themselves.
A mention must also go to Belgian mockumentary Vampires (2009), which was a fun original with a simple but hugely entertaining premise. In the Belgium of the film, a family of vampires invite a documentary film team into their home as they wish to be better understood by their human counterparts. Three filmmaking teams later, the film is finally finished! The family, it seems, share a lot of the same concerns as humans – they have family problems, different tastes, issues with housing, political opinions, sex lives – and they also hold humans in an amused disregard which leads to some laugh-out-loud, darkly comic interludes as both worlds collide.
The festival ran from Wednesday evening to Sunday evening with a packed schedule – although it always seemed possible to organise an excursion to Aberystwyth’s very own 24 hour bar at the end of a busy day of films and events (a fine ice-breaker, should one be needed). Abertoir is a labour of love which was never instituted as a means of making pots of cash and certainly never to overtake any other festivals; its sole aim is to provide Wales with an individual horror presence of its own and to bring fans together for something which recognises that horror has always spanned other media. This it does, and it’s a favourite of mine. Abertoir is one of the friendliest and most imaginative festivals in the UK and it really deserves recognition for that.
