horror

The Shallows

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra (2016) BBFC cert: 15

A personal crisis turns becomes a fight for survival in this exhilarating thriller.

Attacked by a shark while surfing from a secluded Mexican beach, Texan tourist Nancy is stranded on a rock as the deadly killer circles her.

As her hopes ebb and flow, the resourceful med student also has to contend with sunstroke, dehydration, exhaustion and a serious wound.

Hindering her escape attempts are aggressive seagulls, stinging coral, crabs, jelly fish, riptides and razor edged rocks.

A far better surfer than I am, Blake Lively anchors the storming action. She gives a terrific, fiercely physical performance with a deep emotional undercurrent.

Best known as the star of TV’s Gossip Girl, this should put her firmly on the Hollywood map.

The streamlined script keep us hanging on by our fingertips and the tremendous cinematography captures the dangerous energy of the surf. And the shark is awesome.

Gnarly.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

The Neon Demon

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn (2016) BBFC cert. 18

Catwalk models will kill to keep their place at the top of the fashion food chain in this boldly provocative and pale skinned horror show.

Taut performances combine with an uncompromising visual style which is underpinned by a techno score. The recurring presence of big cats and the slow glide of the camera create a sense of a victim being stalked.

There are images of bondage and an emphasis on reducing people to sinew, muscle, bone, hair and lipgloss.

Elle Fanning stars as ambitious model Jesse who arrives on the bitchy and backstabbing  LA fashion scene. She lives in a cheap motel whose seedy motel owner Hank is played by a brilliantly seedy Keanu Reeves.

Christina Hendricks previously appeared in Refn’s Drive (2011) is here as a modelling agent who archly dispenses euphemistic career advice. Abbey Lee and Bella Heathcote are conspiratorial and competitive fellow models.

In order to succeed Jesse chooses to immerse herself in the exploitative world of photographers, agents and make-up artists.

She adopts an emotional mask for protection from recurrent threats of rejection and rape. But this also creates a barrier to our sympathies and engagement.

Glossy and reflective surfaces reflects the empty narcissism of the LA inhabitants and the pristine environs suggest the sci-fi world of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The short shelf life of a models career recalls the limited timespan of the living mannequins of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), as well as the youth obsessed society of Logan’s Run (1976).

Similar to its blank eyed protagonists, The Neon Demon obsesses over its own sleekly manicured surfaces, making it a film hard to get to grips with.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Tale Of Tales

Director: Matteo Garrone (2016)

Full of deliciously dark deeds and black comic moments, this fabulously grotesque fairytale is definitely not one for the kids.

In the grand tradition of European folk stories it’s a moral foray through a murky forest of avarice, gluttony, madness, magic and death.

With a minimal of dialogue its entwining stories are expertly twisted together by a marvellous mix of strong performances, stunning costume design, incredible locations and beautiful cinematography.

The loosely connected stories of three medieval monarchs begin with Salma Hayek’s Queen who is longing for a child.

A cloaked figure guarantees her a child but warns of a potentially lethal price. The Queen’s husband must kill a sea monster and its heart must be cooked by a virgin and then eaten by the Queen.

Dishonesty causes repercussions which pass down the years.

Meanwhile Vincent Cassel’s debauched king courts a singing maiden without having seen her face. Toby Jones is a wonderfully distracted king who organises a tournament to find a prince to marry his daughter.

Ogres, giant fleas, leeches,  jugglers, fire eaters, dwarves and a fat lady add flavour to this witches brew of story telling. A circus troupe adds a layer of theatricality and make believe to the mythic environment.

Roccascalegna castle is one of several perfectly chosen examples of Italian architecture which anchor the extraordinary events in our imagination.

None of the royal plans ends in the way they or us expect as they discover lies and self interest have severe and deserved consequences.

The final shot is a breathtakingly beautiful comment on the frailty and difficulty of life, offering a degree of compassion to those who have suffered through their own weakness.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

Green Room

Director: Jeremy Saulnier (2016)

Plastered with gob, guts, groupies and guns, a punk band are torn apart by more than creative differences in this excoriating neo nazi thriller.

Suitably nihilist in attitude and stripped back in construction, it’s a visceral mosh pit of strip lighting, stanley knifes, and shotguns.

The Ain’t Rights are a penniless four piece band who have run out of money and luck. So they accept a gig in a nightclub in rural Portland where the clientele is described as boot and braces. The decor is confederate flags and swastikas.

When the band witness a crime they barricade themselves inside the Green Room backstage hospitality area, a grim concrete box with only one exit.

Pat is the band’s reluctant spokesman who’s played with nervous energy by Anton Yelchin, best known as Chekov from Star Trek (2009).

He attempts to negotiate with Darcy, the owner of the club while waiting for the police to arrive. Fellow Star Trek alumnus Patrick Stewart brings gravitas to his role and projects a majestic menace while whispering assurances from behind a locked door.

It’s noticeable how well he and another Brit Imogen Poots under play their lines to great effect. She plays Amber, a bystander caught up in events.

This is a welcome return to form for an engaging talent who has made some recent poor choices in Need For Speed (2014) and A Long Way Down (2014).

A smart script makes the characters endearing enough for us to root for them and peppers the dialogue with comic pop culture references.

Discussion about expenditure and fire hazards ground the events in the real world and hints at a critique of capitalism exploiting political foot soldiers for its own ends.

The band want out and Darcy wants them dead. The music and mayhem are turned up to 11.

★★★★☆

Friend Request

Director: Simon Verhoeven (2016)

This silly horror show about internet stalking opts for cheap slasher action and ignores the very real dangers of the virtual world.

Lurking at it’s dark heart is a cabal of well worn ideas such as secret sects and black magic.

Wasps buzz angrily and the scrabbly screechy soundtrack is laden with ominous echoes.

Alycia Debnam-Carey stars as student Laura who accepts a social media friend request from classmate Marina, played by pallid Liesl Ahlers.

When the lonely goth commits suicide on camera, Laura’s social media account takes on a life of its own, publishing the video and offensive messages.

As Laura’s friends suffer violent deaths, she must turn cyber sleuth to save herself and importantly, her diminishing online popularity.

It’s difficult to work out if the pair of cops investigating the case are a signifier of satirical intent. There are numerous unintentional laughs.

Presumably  in a bid to prevent legal problems, the specific social media site is never identified and the F word is never mentioned. But I could think of a few.

★☆☆☆☆

The Witch

Director: (2016)

This assured horror story is a devil’s brew of  possession, seduction, flesh pecking gore and creeping menace.

Actors are exposed in the harsh rustic environ, there’s a calm eye for period detail and top marks go to the animal wrangler for harnessing hares, ravens, horses and a black goat to the madness.

Ralph Ineson gives one of many impassioned performances as William, a devout, dirt poor farmer in 17th century New England.

A mostly English cast are encourage to flaunt their native northern accents.

Samuel the baby is snatched, a silver chalice goes missing and the crops start dying.

Anya Taylor-Joy is excellent as William’s eldest daughter Thomasin who suffers the blame and the backlash.

Her burgeoning sexuality is a threat to power of male dominated, city based established church, a theme explored through symbolism as events unfold.

‘Thou’s and ‘thee’s scratch through the script as a screeching score soars over a torrent of confessions and accusation.

Mixing traditional fairytale tropes and contemporary accounts of witchcraft, it makes a virtue of an unsettling mood rather than relying on the vices of cheap scares.

★★★☆☆

 

 

 

 

 

The Forest

Director: Jason Zada (2016)

There’s a cabin in the woods and paranormal activity occurs in the fog, but this supernatural horror contains meagre thrills.

When American teacher Jess is presumed dead in a supposedly haunted Japanese forest, her twin sister Sara is convinced she’s alive and sets out to find her.

Natalie Dormer is great in both roles which allow her to be intelligent and resourceful, to howl like a banshee and in a brief flashback banter with herself.

She hooks up with Taylor Kinney’s expat journalist Aiden, and Yukiyoshi Ozawa’s Forest guide Michi who help her in her hunt.

Aokigahara Forest lies at the base of Mt. Fuji and is a location of ancient and mystical beauty.

Oozing atmosphere and flesh eating maggots by day, at night it’s a very crowded place indeed.

A shame the script couldn’t find something more ghoulish to populate it.

★★☆☆☆

 

 

Bone Tomahawk

Director S. Craig Zahler (2016)

Four cowboys ride out to the rescue in this brutal western horror.

Kurt Russell is a crafty and charming Sheriff, leading his misfit posse against cannibal troglodytes.

The savages have captured his deputy, a young bride and an outlaw and we’re never sure if anyone is coming back alive.

There’s a welcome element of the supernatural and the sparse music and dry humour echo the barren landscape.

With well staged gory action scenes, it’s an effective visceral thrill ride which succeeds in upsetting the stomach.

But it’s never interested in engaging the brain.

★★★☆☆