CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Frightfest 2025
By David and Tara Court
It’s that August Bank Holiday time of year again in Leicester Square, when t-shirt styles shift to a darker hue bearing a variety of obscure and not-so-obscure film titles – when the horror obsessives begin to gather around the Odeon for five days and nights of premieres, debut films and remasters.
For those unfamiliar with Frightfest, it takes over several Odeon screens for five days and nights. The Odeon Luxe is the main area, while the nearby screens tend to show the shorter films, documentaries, and directorial debuts. Your £250 festival pass gets you a guaranteed seat in the main screen (and the same seat for each film, so make friends with your neighbours for the next five days), where there’s a first-come-first-served allotment for the others.
I’m a huge fan of the Short Film Showcases at Frightfest but this year my tardiness and bad luck meant I couldn’t obtain any tickets for any of the other screens – but luckily there are unsold tickets available on the day. I mention this because after reading these reviews you’ll see I only got to the final two Short Film Showcases – that’s why!
Those familiar with the previous Frightfest reviews that Tara and I have done (2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024) will notice that this year we’re not giving any scores out of 10. Because of the nature of a few of the films, we found it difficult – and unfair on said films – to reduce a review to just a mere number, so we’ve decided not to.
For those attending early, there’s a quiz held before the festival in the bowels of the nearby Phoenix theatre on the Wednesday night. Always well attended, this year’s host was Nicholas Vince (Hellraiser’s Chatterer Cenobite). Last year there were three of us, this year there were five – but regardless of the increased head count, Team Velocimax were not victorious (but at least we didn’t come last). As you’d expect from a festival for horror obsessives, the questions were tough.
Undaunted though, onward with the 26th (and our 5th) Frightfest!
THURSDAY
THE HOME
Last year’s BROKEN BIRD (still sadly unreleased) broke the curse of Frightfest openers (with Neil Blomkamp’s risible DEMONIC, Neil Marshall’s laughably bad LAIR and Lynch’s dull SUITABLE FLESH). This year’s opener was THE HOME starring SNL stalwart Pete Davidson, directed by James DeMonaco. DeMonaco is the creator of the PURGE franchise, and in this psychological horror thriller he turns his gaze from a crime-rampant America to something potentially even more terrifying – old age.
Davidson is perfectly cast as likeable bad lad Max who goes off the rails after the suicide of his foster brother. Landing in big trouble, he’s given a choice between incarceration and a criminal record or working it off as community service as a janitor at a retirement home.
Given some simple instructions (including the not-at-all-suspicious warning to stay away from the fourth floor where the residents require “special care”), he sets about his daily duties, ingratiating himself with the elderly residents (including a particularly good John Glover as bohemian actor Lou).
Of course, there is more to the home that meets the eye (and there’s a more than intentional pun there if you’ve seen it). Some chilling evening encounters and an eventual visit to the forbidden storey reveal a sinister underbelly to the facility, and Max finds himself desperate to uncover the truth.
It moves at a formidable pace, and Davidson is both likeable and sympathetic. It begins to feed muddled towards the middle act as the confusing conspiracy begins to bubble and surface but rescues itself neatly with some genuine scares and a reveal that ultimately makes more sense than it first appeared. For a film about terrors in a retirement home, it’s hard to beat 2024’s THE RULE OF JENNY PEN but The Home culminates in a bloody and hyper-manic final act that both feels like it’s from a different film entirely (and that isn’t a criticism) and will have you thumping the air.
A warning though – there’s probably more distress caused to ommetaphobes in this film than in Fulci’s ZOMBI 2 (1979) and UN CHIEN ANDALOU {1929) combined, so if you don’t find vitreous humour funny, you’ll spend a great deal of this movie looking away and wincing. Overall, an impressive start to the festival. (DC)
COGNAITIVE
Forty years ago, the combined worries of nuclear Armageddon and rampant Artificial Intelligence perfectly coalesced in Cameron’s THE TERMINATOR (1984), at a time when commonplace commercial internet use was still a while away. Now, four decades on, the threat of the latter (and the former to some extent) is emerging again, with real life A.I. beginning to interfere with every aspect of modern life, with a Skynet equivalent in every modern mobile phone.
Perhaps it’s becoming the prevalent theme in so many films because of the very personal and significant threat that A.I. poses to creators of all kinds, and we saw two films based on the theme at the festival. Friday’s APPOFENIACS in the more interesting of the two – citing the real danger as humankind with the morally dubious things they’ll do with A.I, whereas Tommy Savas’s COGNAITIVE commits itself to the less interesting yet more familiar “AI = EVIL” route.
Piper Curda plays Kaya, the type of street-savvy, punkish, sassy and tousle-haired coder that you tend to only find in movies – see Lisbeth Salander from the Millenium Series and Angelina Jolie’s Kate “Acid Burn” Libby from HACKERS (1995). She and her team have been working on a product release for a new Artificial Intelligence Lifestyle assistant – the Cognaitive of the title – and their loathsome tech-bro boss Ethan (Noel Fisher) is prompting for an advance release of the still-not-fully-tested technology. What can go wrong, right?
An interesting premise settles down into traditional slasher territory, with the disparate gang of quirky programmers and middle management employees offed in a variety of interesting ways. There’s some weird pacing that almost made me think the film had skipped a scene, a twist towards the end makes little logical sense, and the staff members are almost so uniformly dislikable it’s hard to care about anybody except for our genuinely likeable heroine – but it’s good throwaway fun. It’s not half as clever as it thinks it is but is certainly watchable.
As a related aside, I work in software development have done so for about the past three decades. Film-makers; if you’re going to show chunks of code as part of your movie, run it by somebody who knows how to program – grabbing some random code and plastering it on screen will win you no favours with certain members of your audience 😊(DC)
FRIDAY
APPOFENIACS
Director/writer Chris Marrs Piliero comes from a music video background, but here he’s ably turned his talents to the movies. An odd title, that I presume refers to Apophenia – defined as the tendency to perceive meaningful patterns or connections between unrelated and random things, which would make sense given the vignette nature of much of the movie.
It’s another film about Artificial Intelligence, but one with a far more serious and realistic approach than COGNAITIVE (what is it about A.I. films and weirdly spelled titles?).
The film opens with Aaron Holliday’s slacker Duke extolling the virtues of weaponizing readily available technology but then follows with a series of separate yet unrelated tales about the impact of that tech on the assorted characters. It’s clearly heavily influenced by Tarantino in the dialogue – and arguably Robert Altman’s SHORT CUTS (1993) in the structure – and sometimes this is effective, less so when it becomes an obvious homage.
Each of the stories is entertaining, with sympathetic characters – and a satisfying pay off that’s well worth your time. One of the more enjoyable and rewarding films of the festival, this one. Somewhat of a coup in that they’ve got the presumably stupidly busy Sean Gunn in a major role too, as cosplay prop designer Clinto Binto (!).
The scariest thing about it all is the utter mundanity and banality of the evil at play here; Duke isn’t a particularly malicious soul, just a slightly self-obsessed one. He has no idea of the impact his little deepfakes are having on the lives of those he decides to invade, just a vacant apathy. It’s far more existential a threat than a slasher or a horror demon – Duke can ruin your life with ease, he just doesn’t care and will never think about you again.
WHAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW
Directed by Juan Pablo Arias Munoz and written by Sarah Howard and Terry Castle, WHAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW focuses on a group of three close friends, Indy (Siena Agudong), Brynn (Jessica Belkin) and Jordan (Conor Husting). Having all just finished high school they’re all presently in the limbo of deciding what to do with their lives, with Brynn blissfully unaware that her best friend Indy has already decided to leave for pastures new.
They’re all staying at Brynn’s family house, a lavish mansion clearly belonging to the family with money. And to make matters worse, there’s a serial killer on the loose – the Genesis Killer, so named because of his penchant for the works of Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford of his gimmick of removing a single rib from his victims (that’s why we have spares, badum-tisch).
All the classic elements are in place for a traditional slasher; a serial killer at large with a nifty trick, 3 could-be victims, an isolated large maze of a building, a secret that could rip open the group dynamic – but then sadly it fails to exploit any of that, resulting in a laboured and contrivance-heavy plot which fails to excite.
An unexpected appearance by Denise Richards (for once not in perma-smile mode) livens things up but does little to affect the dynamic in any way. The climax is of more interest, but it’s too little too late – and by then a major twist has occurred, which any savvy audience would have seen coming a mile off.
There’s a final act which feels helicoptered in from another movie, heightening a supernatural element which has been barely explored. I really wanted to enjoy this – the characters are, for the most part, likeable – but ultimately it brought nothing new to the table.
Co-writer Terry Castle is the daughter of cult filmmaker William Castle, known for his gimmicks and showmanship. If they’d stuck an electric buzzer under my chair – a’ la TINGLER (1959) – the film may have held my interest longer. (DC)
A SERBIAN DOCUMENTARY
15 years ago, A SERBIAN FILM was due to be shown at FrightFest, but Westminster council pulled it at the last minute (replaced by Ryan Reynolds in “BURIED”). The controversy that adds to the lore of this film is explored here in “A SERBIAN DOCUMENTARY” by Stephen Biro.
Biro had access to over 162 hours of behind-the-scenes footage gifted to him by the film’s director Srdjan Spasojevic. This documentary is clearly a labour of love and does very well at explaining the film to those who refused to watch it the first time around, in fact, I overheard a few people say that they might give it a watch following seeing this.
It has the director, writer, producer and stars of the film in it and it goes on to show what they did next, in fact the films main character played by actor and musician Srdjan Zika Todorovic went on to become a judge on JA IMAM TALENAT! aka SERBIA’S GOT TALENT.
The controversy around the involvement of children in the film (not necessarily that scene) was eased for me a little by seeing the behind-the-scenes footage of them working with a children’s director, showing that Spasojevic is not the monster everyone must have thought he was because of the kind of film he made.
It’s interesting, it’s funny and it could change your mind about watching A Serbian Film. (TC)
THE TOXIC AVENGER
Completed in 2023, yet it encountered trouble when trying to secure a distributor. Cineverse acquired distribution rights in 2025 and here it finally is, several years in the making. Was it worth the wait?
A reboot of the original which spawned 4 films between 1984 and 2000, a cartoon series (TOXIC CRUSADERS, 1991), and a 2008 Musical (!), it again sees a hapless awkward coward in a violent city exposed to toxic radiation and left for dead, rising from the glowing ooze as a super-powered monstrosity. In this case, the to-be-irradiated dweeb is Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) who is having problems with his son Jacob Tremblay.
The 1984 original had a distinctive cruel streak that not only established it as a Troma film but gave it a comedic mischievousness – that cruel streak is gone here, replaced by some average gags and gross-out violence.
It all just reeks very much of trying too hard, the jokes even extending as far as the names in the credits. Star Peter Dinklage isn’t in the Toxie suit itself, that responsibility given to actor Luisa Guerrairo who introduced the screening – she does a phenomenal job, imbuing the Toxic Avenger with more character than his human counterpart.
It’s not a patch on the original, and kind of limps along to an inevitable boss fight climax. If you’re not going to say anything new in a reboot/reimaging, why bother? It’d be a great beer and pizza film but achieves little else of note. It’s also a shame that for a film with such local talent that it was so poorly attended by cast and crew. (DC)
SATURDAY
THE RED MASK
The Red Mask (not to be confused with The Masque of the Red Death) is a successful horror franchise from the nineteen eighties – some lovely dated clips of it show it as a pseudo-Friday the 13th or Halloween style slasher horror, all gratuitous nudity and gore – and writer Allina Green (Helena Hoard) has been invited to reboot it. Trouble is, she’s a Black lesbian – a fact which has the franchise fans up in arms, convinced the series will go broke through woke.
With the alternative (and preferable, in my opinion) title of “Rough Draft”, we initially see her faced with a conundrum – to keep the fans happy with a straight warts, machete and all reboot, or to elevate it and bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Holed up in a woodland cabin, Allina and her fiancée Deetz (Inanna Sarkis) roleplay through murderous slasher scenarios to find a new edge (sorry) to the film until they’re interrupted by unexpected visitors Ryan (Jake Abel) and Claire (Kelli Garner) who – wouldn’t you just know it – have double-booked the same cabin for the same weekend.
(I do hope Airbnb are taking note – along with Sunday’s BONE LAKE, this is the first of two double-bookings, and they always end horribly).
It transpires that – after the typical awkwardness of the two couples trying to sort out who is staying where – that Ryan and Claire are huge horror fans, and fans of the Red Mask franchise in particular – having their own ideas about the direction for the franchise (clue: It’s not moving it forward) and recommend joining in with the girls’ pretend murderous games.
It’ll of course come as no surprise that Ryan and Claire are not exactly what they seem, and the playful murder games take a far more sinister turn. For a film whose central premise is the elevation of horror, THE RED MASK is a surprisingly old-fashioned slasher. It’s Meta and not ashamed to let you know it, and in a franchise known for its resilient Terminator Teflon-coated bad guys has refreshingly vulnerable – and human – antagonists.
Oh, and the final death probably got one of the biggest cheers of the weekend. (DC)
MARSHMALLOW
Morgan experiences an horrific incident at home right before he goes away to
summer camp. Based on that, he doesn’t want to go to summer camp, but his parents insist and send him anyway. Upon arriving, he’s forced to share a cabin with CJ who he has previously had run-ins with – CJ is a bully and makes sure he lets Morgan know who’s boss. Shy Morgan is also befriended by a girl called Pilar and some other boys, Dirk and Raj. Around the campfire one night, one of the camp counsellors tells the old story of a sinister Doctor who takes children who don’t stay in their bunks to a basement to experiment on – the usual hokey scary tale to scare the kids.
Now you might think that this is just your average summer camp slasher film and to a
degree, you’d be right, but there’s more to it than that. Morgan dips out of his cabin
one night and sees a strange flashing light coming from another cabin – and that’s where his trouble begins.
The film’s poster though does look like a rip off of the poster from THE THING but that’s
where the similarity ends.
I enjoyed this, it was fun, and didn’t go in the direction I was expecting
it to. It’s helped enormously by the cast of kids who all bounce off each other
brilliantly – all of their performances incredibly naturalistic. I managed to speak briefly to the director, Daniel DelPurgatorio and mentioned how great the kids were, and he said that they were so lucky to have that cast of kids, and that they all became best pals during the shoot. (TC)
SELF-HELP
The Bloomquist’s last film FOUNDERS DAY aired at FrightFest in 2023, and it was a genuine surprise – a fun slasher, with some clever twists and great characterisation, although there remains genuine concern that the horror community will run out of days to make horror films about; (Blumhouse presents ‘National Calligraphy Day”).
After Olivia’s mother becomes involved with the charismatic leader of a self-help group, she and her friend Sophie tag along to a meeting. It’ll come as no surprise to any self-respecting horror fan that Olivia learns that the group – and it’s enigmatic leader – are not all that they appear.
Landry Bender and Madison Lintz are excellent as Olivia and Sophie respectively, and the familiar face of reliable British actor Jake Weber as group leader Curtis assures you the movie is in good hands. Like with FOUNDER’S DAY, Bloomquist does a neat little line in subverting expectations – it never quite goes in the direction you suspect it’s going to, and gorehounds will be nicely satisfied with some of the grue on display.
Towards the end it settles down into more familiar slasher tropes – with a signposted twist that’ll surprise nobody – but I found it thoroughly enjoyable. It’s a barbed little vicious and thoughtful satire about the cult of personality and those willing to exploit the vulnerable, but it’s nothing that’ll blow you away. That said, it’s more proof of Bloomquist as a solid and dependable set of hands with yet another solid genre piece.
CRUSHED
I’m a big fan of Steve Oram – he was terrific in Wheatley’s SIGHTSEERS (2012) and I’ll often grab random people off the street to just scream into their faces that they need to watch A DARK SONG (2016). His latest film – CRUSHED (by Simon Rumley) received its English Premiere at Frightfest.
Based on his segment “P is for Pressure” from the mostly excellent THE ABCS OF DEATH (2012) it focuses on a particularly seedy and revolting corner from the Dark Web, the phenomena of animal crushing videos – where people take delight from watching cute creatures get stomped on. I have no idea if this is real, but my cynical and pessimistic view on life infers that it probably is. I have no urge to look it up, because – as a horror writer – my search engine history is incriminating enough.
Oram plays Father Daniel, a quiet and humble man working in Thailand in the Bangkok suburbs. When his daughter Olivia witnesses video footage of the aforementioned animal cruelty and their own kitten goes missing, both the Priest and his wife May will be pulled from their tranquil lives into a seedy underbelly that will challenge both their faith and sensibilities.
It’s an effective tale of both corrupted innocence and tested faith, with some powerful imagery that will stick with longer after the last shot has faded. That said, the drained colour palette doesn’t allow for any contrast between the happier and more contented scenes at the start, and the impending grimness darkness that follows. Oram is adequate, but sadly not great here – I was never fully invested in his struggles, with him never ever seemingly affected by some of the more traumatic things he and his family are forced to endure.
To be honest with you, it’s this very film (and the next one) that caused us to stop using a scoring system for this year. Traditionally, this would have received a low score, but I have to consider – did I enjoy it? No. Is it an important film? Yes. Have I been able to stop thinking about it since watching it? No – and perhaps that’s what cinema is all about. (DC)
JIMMY AND STIGGS
The COVID-19 virus lockdown has one of two effects on creatives; either causing an unprecedented artistic block or prompting them to make the most of what limited makeshift resources they’re forced to compromise with. The lockdown material may be introspective and thought-provoking – see Bo Burnham’s INSIDE (2021) and Moorhead & Benson’s SOMETHING IN THE DIRT (2022) – or it may be ultra-low-budget guerilla-style, which leads us neatly onto Joe Begos’s JIMMY AND STIGGS.
Directors are often at their most ingenious and canny when forced to work with low budgets or resources, and there’s an undeniable level of ambition in filming an alien invasion drama within a shoestring budget and the confines of a single location – in this case, Begos’s actual apartment. After all, if Peter Jackson could do an invasion from the stars for next to nothing in BAD TASTE (1987), how hard can it be?
Begos himself plays filmmaker Jimmy Lang, and we join him at the start of a downward drink and drugs spiral in the confines of his neon drenched apartment. Soon his flat is invaded by aliens (naturally), and he’s forced to put aside differences with his estranged friend Stiggs Randolph (Matt Mercer) to potentially save humanity.
I’m a fan of Begos and his work – 2019’s BLISS and VFW in particular – and it’s reassuring to see that he’s a perfectly decent actor, especially with such a prominent role. The opening of the movie is shot in a POV first person perspective style but luckily, as soon as that starts to grate, it shifts to a more conventional style. It’s loud, raucous, and seems to be one of the more divisive movies, with audiences either rating it as one of their favourite films of the festival or outright loathing it.
For what it’s worth, I enjoyed it – it gave me a headache that took a day to shift – and there’s a smarter film hidden in there somewhere about whether the alien invasion is real or a product of the over-addled consciousness of perpetually drunk and stoned Jimmy – but I was never bored. It’s very much a one-note film, but if you like that note, you’ll enjoy the ride. (DC)
SUNDAY
SHORT FILM SHOWCASE 3
The team at Frightfest do a fantastic job in championing short film makers, wading through hundreds of hours of submissions to curate them into manageable blocks to show in the deep recesses of the Discovery screen (two escalators deep beneath Leicester Square). It’s a cliché to say, but these are the talents of the future – where a well-earned festival laurel can get them further work. Sadly, the first two showcases were completely sold out within seconds of being available, so I could only see the last two.
The two-hour slot featured 10 short films from a variety of talents from around the world – it must be very special to see your labour of love on a screen of such size at such a prestigious event. The forms in the third showcase were THE LEOPARD (WAAGH), WHITCH, CLICK, DIY, THORNS, CRUZ (THE KOOK COOK), PIMPLE, IT LOVES ME SO, PRAYING MANTIS and HAMMER.
The quality control gets better every year – not a duff film amongst them – but there were some highlights.
WHITCH by writer/director Hoku Uchiyama sees an unexpected Halloween visitor to the home of a mother and her daughter, and had the audience in hysterics moments in. Fair play to the lead actor in throwing herself into the role with such abandon – it was
an absolute hoot.
DIY (Tony Gardiner) was another laugh-out loud segment, with a powerful message – if you’re drilling through a wall, make sure you know what is on the other side.
PIMPLE (Fernando Alle) was the standard gross-out segment of the bunch, up on a par with MEAT FRIEND and GUTS. When the unsightly pimple of a bullied schoolchild bursts, all hell breaks loose on his tormenters.
Watch out for them on YouTube – ALTER do a very good job in picking them up post-festival and showing them for free. I’ve rewatched many of the shorts I’ve seen at Frightfest – and some I’ve missed – on that platform. (DC)
TOMB WATCHER
No, it’s not a Tomb Raider knock off before you ask! In this spooky Thai ghost story,
Lunthom, an extremely wealthy businesswoman, is married to Cheev, in which looks like a fairytale relationship.
Then one day, Lunthom collapses and falls into a coma. Cheev visits every day, but Lunthom dies leaving Cheev seemingly distraught. But Cheev has a secret mistress, Rossukhon. He is set to inherit his late wife’s estate but there’s a catch, he must spend 100 days with her body in a glass tomb. If he makes it through, he’ll inherit the lot.
So Cheev and Ros relocate to his former home, along with the corpse of Lunthom.
Things start getting spooky and weird (with one scene making me gasp out loud) and
Ros suspects that it’s Lunthom haunting them. Through flashbacks, we see how Cheev and Ros’s relationship began, we see Cheev was unhappy in his marriage and rarely spent any time with his wife.
It’s a film about relationships, secrets, and why you should never wrong a woman,
essentially. We were lucky enough to have the director Vatanyu Ingkaviat there to introduce the film, also informing us that it is based on a soap opera that her grandma wrote years ago.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, which is rare as I tend to not like ghost stories, but this one
was funny and spooky in equal measure. (TC)
THE DESCENT
Given a super 4k restoration just in time for the 20th anniversary, Neil Marshall’s claustrophobic caving-goes-wrong horror has never looked or sounded better. As a massive claustrophobe myself I avoided this at the cinema but have subsequently watched it so many times I think I owed myself to see it in the best quality whatsoever.
For those of you who have been living under a rock (or are a blind anaemic troglodyte living in an Appalachian cave network, only emerging at night to hunt), THE DESCENT tells the tale of Sarah, a woman mourning the loss of her husband and daughter. Sometime later, her group of thrill-addicted close friends get together to reminisce and go caving. What they’re told is a cave network for beginners turns out to be anything but, and the friends find themselves in a desperate struggle for survival – realising that they are far from alone in the dark.
The size of the Luxe screen in the Odeon is unforgiving – any flaws or camera issues are magnified a hundredfold, and I was concerned that the fake caves of this movie (there isn’t a genuine cave in shot) wouldn’t hold up. I needn’t have worried – like last year’s remastering of THE HITCHER, it stands up wonderfully.
The Dolby Atmos sound system transported you right into those caves, every drip and echo sounding brilliantly convincing within the cinema confines. There are a fair few jump scares that both Tara and I had forgotten, and it’s as taut and energetic a piece of filmmaking as it has ever been. You owe it to yourself to try and catch one of the two best films of Marshall’s career (2002’s DOG SOLDIERS being the other) in the best quality possible.
It’s not perfect – some of the action scenes are shot a little too hectically and feel a little disarrayed – but that’s a minor gripe in a film that has lost none of its impact in two decades and holds up to a rewatch.
And, IYKYK, the remaster has the better of the two endings that were shot for it, to my great relief. (DC)
BONE LAKE
It’s more double-booked AirBNB shenanigans in the dreadfully titled BONE LAKE, an erotic horror thriller directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan (honestly, if you want to take Frightfest as a snapshot of the issues affecting society, this year’s common fears are Artificial Intelligence and having to share rooms on holiday with strangers).
If you’re like me, the prefix ‘erotic’ in front of anything conjures up imagery of soft-focus soft-porn Channel 5 films (often with “Deadly” or “Seduction” in the title, sometimes both) and I went into this film with a certain level of apprehension, especially given the particularly on-the-nose marketing – see the poster at the start of this review for an example.
Sage and Diego are having a romantic holiday in a vast mansion on the edge of the titular lake, when two strangers turn up – Cinnamon and Will – claiming to have also booked the mansion out. Cinnamon and Will are younger, more attractive, and sexually adventurous – unlike Sage and Diego, who appear to be stuck in a rut.
The bulk of the film is very reminiscent of SPEAK NO EVIL (the 2022 original, and the surprisingly good James McAvoy starring 2024 remake) with Sage and Diego’s politeness put to the test by the surprisingly confident and forthright Cinnamon and Will.
I’m guessing that there is some deeper meaning in the character names – Sage, the herb, dull and dependable – Cinnamon, spicy and exotic. Anyway, Sage and Diego’s relationship is put to the test by the sexually charged couple, and it soon transpires that not everything is as it appears.
I was initially disappointed when the film veered off into more traditional horror territory, but needn’t have been. The whip-smart script is equally as taut during violent action scenes, and it’s very satisfying to be presented with fallible and all-too-human antagonists in a movie of this type.
Ultimately, it turned out to be one of the highlights of the festival but both us and our Frightfest going colleagues – a lovely surprise from a film I ordinarily wouldn’t have considered, being put off by the title alone. (DC)
REDUX REDUX
This film had a phenomenal amount of festival buzz – the teaser trailed reminded me of twisty thought-provoking science fiction/horrors such as TIMECRIMES (2007) and the horribly titled yet resonant CREEP BOX (2023).
The film opens to an image so powerful it’s used on the poster; a woman standing over a burning corpse tied to a chair. This is then followed with a cold-blooded murder; that same woman shooting a man. And then the same woman shooting the same man, albeit in a different setting. And then again.
Directed and written by the McManus brothers Kevin and Matthew, REDUX REDUX (alternative title FIND KILL REPEAT) sees protagonist Irene Kelly (sister Michaela McManus) travelling through parallel realities in order to bring vengeance to the man who killed her daughter. Travelling via the aid of what resembles a horizontal jury-rigged steampunk TARDIS (albeit one slightly smaller on the inside that it is on the outside) she is driven by revenge, seemingly addicted to it.
The creators admitted it was heavily influenced by the Terminator films, especially the first one – and they weren’t kidding. Composer Paul Koch drives the story with a thumping Brad Fiedel-esque score, and we’re treated to lingering shots of highways at night, multiple Sarah Connor’s presumably just over the horizon having their photographs taken.
It’s when she rescues Mia from her daughter’s killer that the destructive trajectory of Irene’s life is changed – a surrogate of sorts, she’s a glimmer of hope in the darkest of lives and the deepest of grief. There’s a wonderful frenetic pace to it, and it doesn’t make the mistake of lingering too much on the technology – the Metallic McGuffin is merely a means to an end for an interesting and provocative science fiction thriller.
It’s also an innovative look at the multiverse theory and one I haven’t seen before – rather than there being vast differences between the parallel realms (with Spiderman’s alternate made up of Lego people and Doctor Strange’s one of woollen ones) the differences are very subtle, in some cases non-existent. Keys from one reality will tend to work in another, things are in the same places, and people have the same jobs.
A final dramatic showdown is slightly let down by “How will they get out of that? Oh, they just did” but that’s just nit-picking. I didn’t love it quite as much as some of my friends – it was bit too heavily influenced by Terminator for my liking, which I found perpetually distracting – but it’s certainly one I will seek out again. (DC)
MONDAY
SHORT FILM SHOWCASE 4
Early on Monday morning – sadly the last day of the festival – and the second of the two Short Film Showcases that I managed to get tickets for. These ones were a little longer than the ones the day before, 8 films fitting in the two-hour slot as opposed to 10.
Again, quality control was way up there – in fact, I preferred this one slightly more than yesterdays. The films chosen for the screening were WATCH ME BURN, THE FAIRY MOON, FRAME, OUIJA GO OUT WITH ME?, UNDERTONE, HOMECOMING, DON’T LOOK and GRANDMA IS THIRSTY.
Almost every one of these was an absolute gem, but special mentions have to go to a few. THE FAIRY MOON (directed and written by Craig Williams) was one such segment – following a mild-mannered man driven to extremes through his encounters with an odd stranger. It was nothing short of brilliant, with James Swanton seemingly channelling an even more outlandish and terrifying variant of Eric Idle’s Monty Python “Nudge nudge, wink wink” character. Swanton’s performance is so over the top that it made my sides hurt. Vivash was also predictably excellent as his hapless foil, all politeness and good manners until pushed just that little too far.
OUIJA GO OUT WITH ME? (by writer/director James Kennedy, starring Hatty Preston, Leah Brotherhead and Freddy Quinn) was a wry look at the world of online dating and how to keep a relationship alive, even after one of the people involved has passed on. Some great dark humour and laugh-out loud moments and thoroughly recommended.
GRANDMA IS THIRSTY (directed by Kris Carr) told the tale of bullied George, and his friendship with a mysterious pair of ginger twins – who promise him they can make him big and strong. Claustrophobic and unnerving (having the children share a voice that’s clearly that of an adult works wonderfully as a disturbing distraction) and possessing an excellent villain and pay-off. (DC)
MOTHER OF FLIES
A confession to make; despite having come to five Frightfests now, I’ve never seen a movie from the Adams family. I’ve heard a lot of great things about them and their movies, but they’ve always somehow evaded my radar – I suppose my subconscious was at work convincing me they’d be like the horror equivalent of those awful singing families you find on YouTube (or – shudders – the Famileigh) , convinced they’re great, but so hopelessly wrong.
Gentle reader, it was I who was wrong.
Eerie, enigmatic, and quite beautiful, the Mother of Flies is excellent. With medical science having failed her, music student Mickey (Zelda Adams) travels with her father Jake (John Adams) to a location in the Catskill Mountains – where she hopes to seek the aid of Solveig (Toby Poser) to rid her of her terminal cancer.
It’s a paper-thin plot, but it hardly matters. Scenes are interspersed with some captivating and striking imagery; a talking corpse, images of a potential past, writhing corpses, the skeletal remains of some woodland beast. Much as in the superlative A DARK SONG (2016) the magic of witchcraft is regimented, almost mundane. Exhibitions of supernatural power are throwaway, barely registered before vanishing. There’s an interesting comparison with, just like the chemotherapy that Mickey has endured, the supernatural resolution also has a high cost, and a cure will not come without pain.
If there are to be any criticisms, it’s that the (admittedly excellent) soundtrack makes some dialogue-less scenes resemble an All About Eve or Sisters of Mercy video from the late eighties/early nineties (“Hey now, hey now now”) and there’s an annoying tendency to have to cut to the face of whoever is talking in dialogue scenes, but that’s a very tiny gripe in what proves to be an excellent movie that has encouraged me to seek out their earlier work. (DC)
BAMBOO REVENGE
As titles go, BAMBOO REVENGE is way up there with SNAKES OF A PLANE in literality and non-subtlety. The original French title Mōsō is at least a little less on the nose, referring to a (real) species of Bamboo that can grow as much as forty-seven inches in a 24-hour period.
After a raucous party, protagonist Eve’s sister Iris is missing. Three potential culprits – bartender Jules and clubbers Victor and Sam – awake to find themselves tied to the ground in a remote forest, unable to move. Bamboo expert Eve has planted Mōsō beneath and around them, and it’s only a matter of time before those jagged acuminate tips burst through the ground and through malleable flesh.
There’s a fascinating TALES FROM THE UNEXPECTED vibe at work here, yet also a bizarre dichotomy. Whereas there’s a certain sense of tension and delight in watching three predatory males squirm in terror as they feel the bamboo pressing against them, it doesn’t make for particularly exciting cinema – at least when you’re watching paint dry, you can see it dry. Hidden extending bamboo doesn’t have much drama, and the film seems in a hurry to get of that stuff out of the way anyway, just as soon as it begins to get interesting.
As with APPOFENIACS, there’s an interesting non-linear narrative at work here, and there’s an element in play about whether our protagonist is taking it too far. However, a dour-faced detective is the most interesting character in this piece by far, and he’s criminally underused – and Eve’s plan all seems a little overly complex and unworkable.
Genuine fun though, with a jagged little final twist at the end, but ironically for a film about such a fast-growing grass, there just isn’t that much fertile material here. (DC)
THE ROWS
From Bamboo to Corn with THE ROWS, writer/director Seth Daly’s first feature length movie. With no introduction, we’re dropped straight into the action – young Lucy (Brindisi Capri, in her feature film debut) wakes up with a fresh head wound in a labyrinth of corn rows, lying next to a masked and armed corpse. She’s being hunted by similarly masked men, in an act that plays out – nearly – without dialogue.
It’s a brave move, stripping back the cat and mouse scenario to its bare basics. The accompanying soundtrack (Brandon Maahs) is a little more bombastic than it needs to be but provokes the appropriate driving pulse for these initial scenes. Featuring a child protagonist is an intriguing choice, with many of the shots from her lowered perspective – adding a decent level of tension to the proceedings, and Lucy proves herself a vulnerable yet capable adversary.
Some of her actions may seem a little less well thought out (for God’s sake, close that car door quietly!) but that only adds to her childish naivety. Barely audible whispers in the corn also hint at a link of a supernatural nature, something made apparent at the end of the first act.
The second act takes place directly before the first, leading neatly into it – showing the scenes of domestic life at Lucy’s house with her mother and sister. There’s palpable tension with the arrival of masked strangers, and, in my opinion, it’s the strongest act – even though with the fore (aft?) shadowing of the first act we kind of know how it’s all going to end, the strangers are sufficiently cold and malevolent to get the hackles raised.
The last act is the final confrontation between Lucy and her pursuers. Sadly, any ambiguity about the supernatural link is removed – but also never fully explained, frustratingly. In closing though, it’s a confident debut movie which hits all the right notes – and Capri proves to be a potential star in the making, exuding addictive confidence and charm in the Q&A after the screening. (DC)
INFLUENCERS
I’ll admit I was shocked when I discovered that the final film of FrightFest was a sequel, I mean would I have needed to watch the previous film (INFLUENCER) to know what was going on? As it turns out, no I didn’t, although our friend Brian did just to be a completist.
The film’s opening sees a woman slitting her throat, whilst a phone just out of reach rings. Cassandra Naud reprises her role as CW from the first film. CW is in the south of France with her girlfriend, Diane. It’s their first anniversary and they’ve booked a hotel room. They then discover that they’ve been bumped down from the hotel room for a British influencer named Charlotte. CW is not happy about this and seeks revenge.
It’s a fun throwaway film that shows the workings of influencing and social media and obviously, not all of it good. There’s a decent Andrew Tate alike in the influencing world and his ultra conservative wife who feeds him his views, all for clicks and likes.
Cassandra Naud is excellent as CW, and Emily Tennant who played Madison in Influencer returns as well. I had fun with this film, writer and director Kurtis David Harder knows what the audience wants and that’s to see bad things happen to influencers. (TC)
CONCLUSION
In conclusion – in an absolute banner year for original non-franchise horror (with 2025 seeing the release of the likes of TOGETHER, WEAPONS, and BRING HER BACK), the role of Frightfest is as important as it ever was. However, it strikes me as strange that this year there has been nothing that has blown me away – nothing matching the brilliance of, say, DERELICT (2024) or SOMETHING IN THE DIRT (2023). Mind you, compared to Frightfests of yore, there have been no absolute stinkers either. Even the dullest or most predictable of films I watched at the festival this year were still entertaining and made with love.
TARA COURT
Tara Court is a professional daydreamer and big fan of Autumn. When not writing reviews for Gingernuts of Horror, she can be found reading, singing songs to her puppy, and watching endless reruns of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA. She hosts The Killening horror film podcast and The Weekend Immune System on Noisebox Radio. Tara has also done some voice work, narrating an audiobook and acting in a forthcoming audio drama about Mozart. She likes bats, cats, dogs, white wine, and Halloween. She dislikes olives, red wine, horsefly bites and Christmas.
DAVID COURT
David is a writer, poet, playwright, journalist, radio presenter, voice actor, and silly old weasel. Jack of all trades and master of none, he is single-handedly responsible for four collections of short stories (“The Shadow Cast by the World”, “Forever and Ever, Armageddon”, “Scenes of Mild Peril” and “Contents May Unsettle”) (editor’s note this is a brilliant collection!!) and has also featured in “The Book of Coventry” released by Comma Press in September 2024. His debut poetry collection (“Little Gnome Facts”) is due out shortly, and his comics work includes “Thriceslain” and “Clerical Oversight” for Zarjaz. He can be found lurking mischievously at www.davidjcourt.co.uk.
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