CS - Sunday: The Burning, Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl, The House of the Devil & Grace

The Burning

Year: 1981
Director: Tony Maylam
Writers: Peter Lawrence, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Tony Maylam & Brad Grey
Starring: Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Jason Alexander & Fisher Stevens

A bit of a cult-classic slasher film from the early days of the genre, The Burning was placed on the Video Nasties list in the 80's. Watching it now, despite a couple of gory scenes, it's hard to see why, but I still had fun with the film.

It's plot is clearly ripped off Friday the 13th (released the year before); a nasty, alcoholic groundsman who was burned in an horrific accident exacts his revenge by stalking a bunch of teenagers at a summer camp with a pair of garden shears. From then on you know the drill; teenagers get naked, do stupid stuff and crazed killer hacks them to pieces.

As I said at the start though, despite it's over-familiarity I still found myself rather enjoying the film. I think one thing that helped was the fairly realistic and amusing banter between the characters. The film's 'hero' Todd (Brian Matthews) is bland and uninteresting but the supporting cast including future stars Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter are mostly quite likeable and I actually found myself feeling disappointed when some of them got killed.

The gore is well handled too by the master Tom Savini. It's not his finest work, but Savini on a bad day is still impressive and inventive. A massacre set on a raft (deleted from some censored versions of the film) is particularly brutal and is the centrepiece of the film, still shocking to watch today.

It's obviously not a perfect film though, as mentioned before some of the lead performances are pretty weak and plain annoying at times. There's also a ridiculous amount of nudity and sexual content in it. I've got nothing against it generally, and I'd never turn my nose up to a bit of T 'n A now and again, but it does start to get pretty silly.

So if you're in the mood for an old-style slasher that doesn't offer much new, but is fun and mindless you'd do worse than dig this out from the archives.

6/10


Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl

Year: 2009
Directors: Yoshihiro Nishimura & Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Writers: Naoyuki Tomomatsu & Shungiku Uchida
Starring: Yukie Kawamura, Eri Otoguru & Takumi Saito

Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl, what can I say? It's from the people behind Tokyo Gore Police, Stacy and Machine Girl, so if you've seen any of those films you'll know what to expect. If you haven't seen any of those films, you're in for a treat!

Plot? Er ok, when a new girl (Yukie Kawamura) comes into school and falls for the class hunk, popular girl Keiko (Eri Otoguru) isn't happy and the two become worst enemies. So far so textbook yeah? Did I mention the new girl is a vampire, and somewhere along the way Keiko is murdered and her father reanimates her corpse using various bodyparts to turn her into 'Frankenstein Girl'? Oh and it's set in a high school where students are mainly segregated into groups such as the Wrist Cutting Club and the Ganguro Girls, girls who idolise African Americans and try to dress, talk and look like them - all the way down to colouring their skin.

If you haven't guessed already (the title is a giveaway), Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl is as mad as a bag of squirrels. Most of what occurs in the film is utterly ludicrous and that, added to an insane amount of gore and bloodletting are what sells this film. Basically, take the maddest Japanese film you've ever seen, add in the goriest horror film you've ever seen, multiply it by ten and then you have Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl. It's got everything from a character using her own severed limbs to turn herself into a helicopter, song-and-dance numbers utilising a ribcage as a guitar, to a wrist slitting competition where one girl ends up slashing through her entire arm. It's all done with it's tongue firmly in it's cheek of course and with a makeshift low budget style that means the effects don't look particularly realistic. This works to it's advantage though, as if they did I think it would be much harder to stomach.

It's clearly not for everyone of course - if any of the scenes described above don't appeal to you then you won't like the film. It's crude, offensive, utterly crazy and there's enough blood in the film to fill the Great Lakes; it's not an art piece and it's not safe family entertainment put it that way. Personally I really enjoyed it, it's a hell of a lot of fun and it's insanity knows no bounds, which to me is a bonus. However, being a big fan of Machine Girl which has a similar style and appeal, I don't think this is quite as successful. Quite a few scenes are stretched out a little too far and could have been trimmed. Also, I found the Ganguro Girl's a little too offensive at times and not in the right way. I understand it's poking fun at teenage stereotypes, but it just came across as being a bit racist to me.

Fans of ultra-gory Japanese madness like Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police will lap this up, and if you like your films to be truly extreme without getting serious in any way then this should not be missed.

8/10


The House of the Devil

Year: 2009
Director: Ti West
Writer: Ti West
Starring: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan & Mary Woronov

The House of the Devil is an affectionately accurate homage to horror films from the late 70's and early 80's, and one that works very effectively.

The film has a simple story; a college student who is hard up for cash takes on a babysitting job on the night of a lunar eclipse. When she realises that the couple who hire her don't actually have a child, things start to get a little distressing.

The film mimics the style of films from the period mentioned above perfectly. It's not just a flashy gimmick used now and again as a nod and a wink, it actually does feel like you're watching an old forgotten horror film. It also shares the same slow-burning creepy quality of the better films of that era rather than just subjecting the audience to cheap jumps and unnecessary gore. Although very little happens in the first two thirds of the film, the feeling of tension is so effective you can't help but be glued to your seat to find out what will happen in the end.

Unfortunately, I found that when the climax did arrive I felt a bit let down. It's not a bad ending by any stretch, but after such a subtle and engrossing build I felt a little cheated by a more shlocky and predictable ending.

I would still recommend it though, so long as you can appreciate the slow pace and minimal plot. It's a film that's clearly been made with a lot of love and affection for the genre, and a lot of effort has been made to create a film that references the past without sinking into parody.

7/10


Grace

Year: 2009
Director: Paul Solet
Writer: Paul Solet
Starring: Jordan Ladd, Stephen Park & Gabrielle Rose

Maybe it was the fact that I'd already sat through 12 back-to-back horror films before watching this, but I felt like I wanted to like Grace more than I actually did.

It begins with a couple, Madeline and Michael Matheson, who are about to become parents and their problems in finding a way to bring it into the world in line with Madeline's natural and organic view of life against Michael's domineering mother's devoutly traditional ways. A car accident changes everything though, leaving Madeline a widow and seemingly killing the baby inside her. She still insists on delivering it though and miraculously it arrives into the world alive. Just as things seem to be going well however, Madeline learns that her child, Grace, is not quite normal.

It's a dark and disturbing film with an interesting concept, but for me nothing really settled. It's well made, looks good and is well performed, but it just felt unpleasant rather than powerful and was a little too slow-moving for my liking.

Although the 'evil baby' premise sounds ridiculous, the film takes matters very seriously, and this actually works, only one or two moments felt silly. However, it's seriousness doesn't help the fact that it's a difficult film to enjoy. On a metaphorical level too, the film wasn't quite as effective as it wanted to be, with some ideas handled very bluntly.

It's an odd film, not a bad one, but an unsatisfying and unlikeable experience. I imagine many people will get more from it than I did, but I found it to be a slightly disappointing ending to an otherwise fantastic festival.

5/10

More reviews from Celluloid Screams 2009:
Introduction
Friday
Saturday Part 1
Saturday Part 2

Celluloid Screams Film Festival

Last weekend I attended 'Celluloid Screams', a newly formed horror film festival at Sheffield's Showroom Cinema. I had a great time sitting through 13 top-class horror films, many of which were British premiere screenings, and I'd thoroughly recommend the festival to genre fans if it's repeated again next year.

Watching 13 films in one weekend is great for my film review blog of course, but that's a lot of work for someone who does this in his spare time. So, what I plan on doing is over the next few days doing some brief bulk reviews of all the films I caught at the weekend, covering a day per page (or maybe 2 for Saturday, when 7 films were screened!). So keep an eye out over the next week or so for some bumper content.

To whet your appetite, here is the full list of films that I caught at the festival:

Lake Mungo
Trick 'R Treat
Coffin Rock
Anguish
Yoroi: Samurai Zombie
I Sell the Dead
Paranormal Activity
Neighbor
Pieces
The Burning
Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl
The House of the Devil
Grace

The write-ups for each day are now available:
Introduction
Friday
Saturday Part 1
Saturday Part 2
Sunday

Help!

Year: 1965
Director: Richard Lester
Writers: Marc Behm & Charles Wood
Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison & Ringo Starr

Help! was the second Beatles film after A Hard Day's Night featuring songs from the album of the same name. It follows the boys attempts to escape from an evil cult and a pair of crazed scientists who want to get their hands on a sacrificial ring that Ringo can't get off his finger.

Now I'm a massive fan of The Beatles' music and I think the film's namesake album is incredible, but I must admit I really struggled with this. I hate to say it, being such a fan of the band, but I haven't actually seen this until now and I still haven't watched A Hard Day's Night. I always seem to keep my love of music and my love of film quite separate, and this helped cement that.


I didn't mind the fact that the plot was a bit of fluff to give us an excuse to see The Beatles acting the clown, but my main problem was the fact that the actual scenes seemed to be stuck on a loop. Pretty much the whole film is taken up with scenes of people trying to get the ring off Ringo, and it just felt annoyingly repetitive.

I am being quite harsh though as the film did have some strong qualities. Visually the film was great. The production design and photography were very well thought out and the world created on screen was vibrant, colourful and never dull. Audibly of course, the film was great too. As I mentioned earlier I love the album Help! and when the songs kicked in on screen it was a joy to see them performed (not live obviously though). The musical numbers were all very well shot and enjoyably playful. The title sequence with the band performing in black and white projected onto a screen as the villain threw colourful darts at them worked brilliantly for instance.


Unfortunately, the music wasn't enough to save it for me, and to be honest those scenes, although great, were poorly insterted into the narrative. I really wouldn't have minded any flaws like this if it were funny enough, but even the humour on a whole fell flat on it's face. Maybe it's just too dated now, but as silly as the film was, it never really made me laugh.

I feel a bit bad ripping into a Beatles film but I just really struggled to enjoy it as much as I'd have liked. It's worth watching for the music and for some great visuals, but the rest of it doesn't quite manage to engage or entertain any more.

4/10

Julie & Julia

Year: 2009
Director: Nora Ephron
Writers: Nora Ephron, Julie Powell, Julia Child & Alex Prud'homme
Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci & Chris Messina

I approached this film expecting the worst. It looked and sounded like a typical 'chick-flick', an opinion not helped by the fact that it was written and directed by Norah Ephron, the genre's Queen. It also claimed to be based on 'two true stories'; one's bad enough for me as I'm of the opinion that Hollywood tackling real life rarely succeeds in awkwardly balancing truth, drama and inoffensiveness. And finally, I turned up to see the film early on a Sunday morning with a sore and uncomfortable hangover. In fact, the only reason I was going to see the film was because I got free tickets and I kind of thought this would be an excuse to really lay into something on my newly resurrected website.

Well, I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I was proved wrong. OK, it's not a brilliant film, but it was much better than I expected.

Julie & Julia sets the stories of two women side by side, one the trials of famous chef Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) as she works to write and publish her phenomenally successful first cook-book, and the other the story of Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a hard-up office worker who decides to write a blog charting her mission to cook every recipe in Child's book (a hefty 500-odd recipes) in one year.


It doesn't sound like much of a premise for a film, but somehow it works. It's helped largely by some impressive performances. Streep is flamboyantly over the top in capturing Child's mannerisms and personality, yet avoids caricature by using these to create an incredibly likeable and surprisingly funny character. Adams on the other hand draws a warm and believable performance that is less flashy, but helps ground the film when needed.


That said, the film does have it's problems. For me, the film just didn't have enough drama to fully engage for it's two hour running time. It's an incredibly light film with conflicts you rarely feel can't be easily resolved. Everyone involved is always so nice and cheerful it often seems a little too much sometimes. Schmaltz is generally avoided as much as possible though despite the nature of the film and the sort of cringe-worthy scenes I expected never reared their ugly heads. Only one scene bothered me, a piece of character development featuring Julie's more successful friends that is painfully obvious and clumsily handled.

All in all, Julie & Julia is very likeable and gently entertaining, but far too light to be overly memorable.

6/10

In the Loop

Year: 2009
Director: Armando Iannucci
Writers: Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche & Ian Martin
Starring: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini & Chris Addison

In the Loop sees the critically acclaimed TV series The Thick of It remoulded into a feature film. And what a film it is. I haven't seen British satire this biting, exhilarating or downright hilarious for a long time, at least not at the cinema. It's great to see the British sense of humour put to good use on film after suffering years of Full Monty rip-offs and other such laboured cash-ins.

Written by a group of British TV's finest comedy writers including the film's director Armando Iannucci, In the Loop follows the events that unfurl after the absent minded British Secretary of State for International Development makes an off-hand comment on national radio about the possible threat of a (fictional and undisclosed) war being 'unforeseeable'. After further slips of the tongue, he becomes 'meat' for both the US and UK governments, the leaders of which actually do want to go war. Chaos reigns as the various spin doctors and politicians use every dirty trick imaginable to get what they want and the clueless Secretary and his aide are left blowing in the wind as they make mistake after mistake.


The key factor that makes this film so good is the dialogue. The witicisms are fired out at a machine-gun pace and pretty much always hit their target. The finest of these generally come in the form of incredibly offensive yet sharply witty put-downs from the film's stand-out performer Peter Capaldi, who plays spin doctor Malcom Tucker. In my screening his scenes never failed to draw fits of laughter from the audience as he brutally tore apart everyone he met with great relish. He's a commanding presence on screen, yet the rest of the cast hold their own, adding flesh to the bones of the large selection of characters.


The quickfire dialogue alongside pseudo-documentary style camerawork help give the film a frantic and lightning-fast pace and it came as a great shock when the screening I was attending suddenly came to a halt for an interval. Everything plays through thick and fast, and although the political processes were shown to be chaotic and messy, the film never feels confusing or over-complicated. It's all very cleverly executed and only a few scenes involving one of the character's relationship issues felt a little bit misplaced for me, but not badly so.

In the Loop is a brilliant film that helped restore my faith in British cinema, which in my opinion hasn't been as strong as it used to and should be. It also goes to show that the transition from small screen to big can work if done as intelligently and entertainingly as this.

9/10