FrightFest

Latest reviews

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  Protein

  Review preview for Protein

  There’s a deep vein of black comedy running through what might otherwise be a relentlessly grim film, and yet one never feels that Burke lacks sympathy with the people of this benighted Welsh town.

  A traumatised ex-squaddie and serial killer returns to South Wales to escape his demons. There he becomes workout and gym-obsessed and eats a local drug dealer for their protein. Compelled to kill again, he sends shockwaves through the local criminal underworld.
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  A Desert

  Review preview for A Desert

  There’s a fantastically unhinged performance in here which it would be a spoiler to say too much about. Everyone is good at what they do.

  A photographer on a road trip meets a carefree young couple and finds himself in danger.
• 
  Time Travel Is Dangerous

  Review preview for Time Travel Is Dangerous

  A very effective piece of low budget storytelling.

  Best friends Ruth and Megan run a vintage shop in Muswell Hill. Stumbling across a time machine, they embark on trips to the past to stock their shop, with no idea of the irreparable damage they're causing to the fabric of the universe.
• 
  Alien Country

  Review preview for Alien Country

  An irreverent, warm-hearted comedy in the tradition of Tremors.

  Reeling from the news of an unexpected pregnancy, Jimmy and Everly unknowingly release an alien invasion in their small town and learn to work together in order to save each other, their town and evidently, the entire galaxy.
• 
  Magpie

  Review preview for Magpie

  Yates recognises Ridley’s skill with interiorised emotion and makes the most of it.

  When Ben and Anette's daughter is cast in a film alongside glamorous movie star Alicia, Ben is quickly drawn into Alicia's world. Anette is left at home with the baby, pushed to her emotional limits and psychologically on the brink.
• 
  The Bitter Taste

  Review preview for The Bitter Taste

  Those with a taste for B-movie excess may stay the course.

  A former pentathlete stuck in a small forest village while her car is being fixed finds her self drawn into a mystery surrounding the inhabitants of the local castle, a strange competition, and an ancient manuscript which people are willing to kill for.
• 
  Animale

  Review preview for Animale

  Emma Benestan’s poetic take on gender, power and corporeality is a deeply animal experience.

  Surrounded by men, 22-year-old Nejma trains hard to fulfill her dream of winning the upcoming annual bull race, but news of a rogue and violent bull on the loose terrifies the community. Young men are being murdered everywhere, and the beast is nowhere to be seen.
• 
  Advent

  Review preview for Advent

  It can be difficult to keep viewers rooting for a naïve character, and Alexander does a decent job of this.

  A young woman acquires a cursed advent calendar and plays a game against the devil in the run up to Christmas.
• 
  Azrael

  Review preview for Azrael

  We get demonstrations of skill, from the weaving of a bracelet to the use of herbs to treat a wound, and these elements reinforce the idea that this is a real society which has developed organically over time.

  Many years following the apocalypse, a devout cult of mute zealots hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment.
• 
  Things Will Be Different

  Review preview for Things Will Be Different

  Where other such tales have become overly enmeshed in their own structural entanglements, Felker has the good sense to focus on character.

  In order to escape police after a robbery, two estranged siblings lay low in a metaphysical farmhouse that hides them away in a different time. There they reckon with a mysterious force that pushes their familial bonds to unnatural breaking points.

A–Z of FrightFest 2024 reviews →

Features

• Holy avenger
  Mitzi Peirone on the religiously inspired imagery of Saint Clare
• Valleys of the shadow of death
  Craig Russell and Tony Burke on Welshness, masculinity and Protein
• Puzzle boxes
  Star Rosencrans on editing The Dead Thing and A Desert
• In dialogue with time
  Bookworm director Ant Timpson on the changing landscape of cinema
• Shaping the cut
  Valerie Krulfeifer and Mickey Keating on their unreleasable past work and Invader
• Clocking in
  Michael Felker on how he learned to time travel and Things Will Be Different
• Small town problems
  Boston McConnaughey and Renny Grames on Utah, demolition derbies and Alien Country
• The endless highway
  Robert Harmon on Rutger Hauer, C Thomas Howell and making The Hitcher
• A piece of cake
  Yasuda Jun’ichi on sweetness and keeping it real in A Samurai In Time
• An assault on the senses
  JT Mollner and Giovanni Ribisi on colour, chemistry and creativity in Strange Darling
• True colours
  Aurélia Mengin on depicting schizophrenia in Scarlet Blue
• True to herself
  Joanne Mitchell on damaged people and Broken Bird
• Style and substance: the best of Frightfest 2024
  Strange Darling, Children Of The Wicker Man, The Dead Thing, Scared Shitless and Scarlet Blue
• Family forever
  Isaac Ezban on exploring a troubled world through children's eyes in Parvulos
• Los Angeles after dark
  Elric Kane on the nocturnal city and The Dead Thing
• A whale of a time
  Cutter Hodierne on cryptocurrency, character creation and Cold Wallet