Grimmfest final day

 

Day 4 – Final Day

I was really flagging badly by this point.  The caffeine drinks were essential to my continued state of uprightness. I may need to consider factoring in the extra cost of taxis home next year.  It’s still well worth it.

A full day of films ahead again, starting with…

The Harbinger – Dir Andy Mitton, Cast – Gabby Beans, Emily Davies, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Cody Braverman

Pandemic paranoia gives way to a much more existential dread when Monique is called by an old friend to help her.  She’s been having bad dreams of a creature that wants to remove her from the world quite literally.

This was another contender for best film of the weekend.  It certainly contains the best jump scare. Films about dreams can often become irritating with characters conveniently waking (or not) from their nightmares at the behest of the plot. There’s nothing worse than a shocking character death that’s instantly rewritten.  This manages to evoke true horror from the world of nightmares and was certainly a real highlight of the weekend.

Feed Me – Dir Adam Leader,Richard Oakes -  Cast – Christopher Mulvin, Neal Ward, Hannah Al Rashid, Samantha Loxley

When a depressed guy agrees to an assisted suicide in possibly the most gruesome and drawn out manner imaginable, the scene (and table) is set for one of the maddest and least predictable films of the weekend.

I really wasn’t sure about this film for the first 15 to 20 minutes, but it grew on me pretty quickly once the plot really kicked into gear. This was funny, nightmarish, gory and gross and totally off the wall. By the end of the film my initial doubts were well and truly allayed and my biggest issue with it is that there is no meat on a finger.  If you fry it, you’re just going to get crispy skin on a bone and not a particularly tasty snack.

Vesper – Dir Kristina Buozyte, Bruno Samper – Cast – Rafaella Chapman, Eddie Marsan, Rosy McEwan

A change of pace now with a thoughtful and slow paced environmental science fiction film set in a not too distant future where all plant life has been polluted.  The rich live in domed citadels and the poor outside of the domes are forced to trade the blood of their young for seeds to feed themselves.  The seeds are engineered to only grow one crop so the demand can never change.

This was a welcome slow down from the insanity and intensity of the first two films of the day. Beautiful to look at and very well acted, particularly by the young lead.

Do not Disturb – Dir John Ainslie, Cast – Kimberly Lafferriere, Rogan Christopher, Janet Porter

Drugs are bad, kids.  Don’t do it.  Particularly not when a raving mad guy (whose tie switches position from on to off, to round his head, to loosely over one shoulder etc, depending on the camera shot) throws a bag of murder peyote at you on the beach before walking into the sea and disappearing.

The couple at the centre of this film don’t heed this advice, and are rapidly losing hours from their lives as well as finding they’ve killed and eaten potential sexual partners… 

I really enjoyed this. It’s not perfect.  You need to ignore logic at times, and forget how difficult it is to clean up blood, and how much dead bodies smell and weigh. But if you can ignore that, this is a damned entertaining piece of drug fuelled mayhem.

Dark nature – Dir – Berkley Brady – Cast – Hannah Anderson, Madison Walsh, Roseanne Supernault

A therapeutic hike into the American wilderness turns out not to be quite so relaxing as was hoped for. After escaping a violent relationship, a young woman joins her friend’s therapy group on a weekend retreat into the mountains.  As you’d expect from a horror film, they find their worst nightmares made real instead.

This was a beautiful to look at film.  The backdrops and locations are truly stunning.  The performances are solid throughout.  I’m not sure if I was dosing a bit by now and missed a bit of dialogue here and there, but there were some decisions made by the characters that didn’t quite add up. The monster looked good and wasn’t overused. Overall this was a pretty effective little movie.

The Lake – Dir Lee Thong, Cast – Wanmai Chatburirak, Palita Chueasawathee, Su Jack, Zang Jinsheng

I love a good monster movie, especially kaiju films.  I was really looking forward to this one. A Thai variation on the theme…

It started well, with the baby monster wreaking havoc in a village by a lake, killing everyone in sight. However, it went downhill after the first 40 minutes or so. It was so disappointing when the mother was on her rampage, and walked politely through the standing traffic rather than batting cars aside with every step.

The monster design seemed to change several times through the film and the human storyline was poor even by the standards of Kaiju films. If I’d seen that shot of the monster’s face through a car window one more time, I would have watched Jurassic park in the lobby instead – at least it was scary in JP.

I get that they were trying something a little different to other rampaging monster films, but it was something that’s been done before and better (and made sense in the other variations on this idea).  There were hints at a more interesting storyline that never came to fruition. This was a frustrating film.  So much potential, but ultimately wasted.

Sadly, that was the last film of the festival. However, we all decamped to the festival bar and got roundly drunk. The organisers were there and as friendly and effusive as ever.  

Grimmfest is a definite highlight of the year – and two duff films out of 21 is a damned good batting average. There were several guests across the weekend who were all interesting and good to chat to. If you could find time between films, there’s always a guest or two hanging around. 

Now that the weekend has been fully documented, normal service will resume.  I have three books to write up...