FrightFest — A–Z of films

McDonald is excellent.

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

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

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

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.

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

Fisher and Wood achieve a great rapport, and there’s some entertaining supporting work even though much of our time is spent in the middle of nowhere.

Levey’s enthusiasm for his subject is infectious.

Broken Bird is primarily a character study, and Calder is its greatest asset.

Mackay succeeds where [others] have failed partly because there is a deep vein of sincerity beneath the playful surface of her work.

There’s too much reliance here on pre-existing audience emotions about certain topics, and not enough effort made to forge direct connections.

The popular concept of genius is thoroughly subverted here.

Hodierne handles the blend of styles within the film with a laid back confidence that makes it easy to lower one’s guard at the wrong moments.

The Daemon has been billed as Lovecraftian Horror. This turns out to be less in the existentially sublime way than in the slime coming out of people’s faces way.

Everything here looks grimy, as if the film itself had been lying around in poor conditions for years, and colours and patterns are artfully mismatched.

A grim picture of a nocturnal city where everything feels temporary.

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.

Dudley has a deep understanding of the visual language of the genre, and viewers who know the period well will be delighted by some of the images he presents.

For all that the Hitcher is an ambiguous horror film it is also a spectacular piece of Eighties action cinema.

It’s inventive throughout, well worked out in terms of effects, and equipped with characters we can really get to know, with some great work even in the smallest roles.

Compelling in its depiction of feudal anachronism surviving into the industrial age.

Unfortunately, despite a highly capable cast, this adaptation just doesn’t have much wind in its sails.

Director Jon Spira does a surprisingly thorough job, and although he isn’t able to go into depth with much of the material, this is a solid start for those interested in exploring further.

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

This is the kind of film that could easily be a disaster, but despite obvious budgetary limitations it acquits itself well.

Heavy on ominous music from the outset, the film too often comes across like it’s trying to tell us what to feel rather than letting it happen naturally.

A Nightmare On Elm Street remains an atmospheric and genuinely unsettling film with a chilling, universally relatable central motif: sleep gets everyone in the end.

Ezban does not let us look away.

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.

It’s a busy story but it flows smoothly in the hands of director Mitzi Peirone, who uses the visual language of nostalgic coming-of-age movies to tell the main part of the tale, intermittently veering off into much more experimental techniques.

Two things elevate it. One is Yasuda’s commitment to looking in depth at the culture of the Edo period, rather than just cribbing from past jidaigeki and trying to distract us with swordplay. The other is seasoned jidaigeki actor Yamaguchi’s wonderfully sensitive and sincere performance.

This may present itself as a B-movie but it’s very well crafted, at every level from the dramatic to the cinematographic.

In order to explore the mystery, viewers need to courage to engage with Alter’s visions and the maze they lead into, with Mengin using surrealist techniques and colour coding to map out this journey.

A beautifully made but otherwise problematic film.

Stuckmann and co-writer Sam Liz keep it all under tight control, even when the imagery suggests chaos or excess.

A gorgeous piece of work.

Brutal, bloody and enriched with a specific dark humour.

One of those films that’s always going to be at its best when watched in a group, this really packs in the action, with Dequenne’s intensely physical performance and Nicolas Errèra’s energetic score ensuring that it keeps its grip throughout.

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

A very effective piece of low budget storytelling.

It is at its most effective when honing in on the psychological and the social, looking at how easy it is for children – and adults – to find themselves in trouble.

When the film isn’t being didactic, there’s some good dialogue here.