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Glasgow Film Festival · 2020

Glasgow Film Festival 2020

Frightfest

Programme

14 films · 10 reviews

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Butt Boy

Review preview for Butt Boy

Whatever else you think of it, it’s clearly a labour of love.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
After a child goes missing, a newly sober detective comes to suspect that his sponsor has a super power that makes animals, objects, and humans disappear up his backside.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Tyler Cornack; Writer: Tyler Cornack, Ryan Koch; Stars: Angela Jones, Rhoda Pell, Kristina Clifford, Brad Potts, Tyler Dryden)

Full review See: Interview with Tyler Cornack about Butt Boy

The Cleansing Hour

Review preview for The Cleansing Hour

LeVeck has more story ideas than are initially apparent and saves the best till last.

Jennie Kermode · 2.5 out of 5
Millennial entrepreneurs, Drew and Max, run a webcast that streams live exorcisms that are, in fact, elaborately staged hoaxes. They get their comeuppance when today's actress becomes mysteriously possessed by a real demon that holds the crew hostage.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Damien LeVeck; Writer: Damien LeVeck, Aaron Horwitz; Stars: Kyle Gallner, Ryan Guzman, Joanna David, Emma Holzer, Alix Angelis)

Full review

Darkness Falls (Anderson Falls)

Review preview for Darkness Falls

The trouble is that for all its visual elegance, Anderson Falls features some clichéd dialogue and leaden delivery.

Jennie Kermode · 2.5 out of 5
A detective convinced that his wife didn't die by suicide but was murdered hunts obsessively for the truth and finds something worse than he imagined.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2020; Director: Julian Seri; Writer: Giles Daoust; Stars: Shawn Ashmore, Lin Shaye, Sonya Walger, Gary Cole, Stefania Spampinato, Daniella Alonso, Richard Harmon, Vahina Giocante, Marlon Young, David Gianopoulos, Judah Mackey, Tanner Thomason, Melissa Papel, Aliza Pearl, Arsi Nami)

Full review

Death Of A Vlogger

A mockumentary following YouTuber Graham as he investigates the darker supernatural side of the web, dealing with the effects of being famous on the internet

(Country: UK; Year: 2019; Director: Graham Hughes; Stars: Graham Hughes, Annabel Logan, Paddy Kondracki, Joma West)

A Ghost Waits

Review preview for A Ghost Waits

There's a melancholy undercurrent to the tale throughout, but that only makes its upbeat moments more delightful.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A man's job requires him to clean a house, which turns out to be haunted. In the course of trying to exorcise the ghost, he falls in love with her.

(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Adam Stovall; Writer: Adam Stovall; Stars: MacLeod Andrews, Natalie Walker, Sydney Vollmer, Amanda Miller)

Full review

In The Quarry (En El Poso)

Review preview for In The Quarry

In the quarry, just beneath the surface of the world as we normally see it, primitive impulses are never far away.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A summer afternoon, an abandoned quarry, four friends. An interpellative thriller about gender violence.

(Country: Uruguay; Year: 2019; Director: Bernardo Antonaccio, Rafael Antonaccio; Writer: Bernardo Antonaccio, Rafael Antonaccio; Stars: Rafael Beltrán, Augusto Gordillo, Luis Pazos, Paula Silva, Natalia Tarmezzano)

Full review

Live Forever

A musical love letter and tribute to the victims in horror film history. In an anthemic song the dead unite across genres and time.

(Country: Sweden; Year: 2019; Director: Gustav Egerstedt; Writer: Gustav Egerstedt)

The Mortuary Collection

Review preview for The Mortuary Collection

Brown gives the film the kind of iconic weight of past masters like Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
Sam inquires about a Help Wanted sign outside a funeral home and in her interview with owner Montgomery Dark, four gruesomely disturbing stories are told.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Ryan Spindell; Writer: Ryan Spindell; Stars: Clancy Brown, Caitlin Custer, Christine Kilmer)

Full review See: Interview with Ryan Spindell about The Mortuary Collection , Interview with Ryan Spindell about The Mortuary Collection

A Night Of Horror: Nightmare Radio

When a radio DJ who hosts a popular horror-themed show receives alarming calls from a child, things start to feel off.

(Country: Argentina, New Zealand, UK; Year: 2019; Director: Jason Bognacki, AJ Briones, Joshua Long, Sergio Morcillo, Adam O'Brien, Luciano Onetti, Nicolás Onetti, Pablo S Pastor, Matthew Richards; Writer: Mauro Croche, Michael L Fawcett, Michael Kraetzer, Guillermo Lockhart, Matthew Richards, Santiago Taboada; Stars: Ian Costello, Michelle Costello, Clara Kovacic, Kera O'Bryon, James Wright)

The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale (Zombie For Sale)

Review preview for The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale

Korean comedies are known for their quirkiness and The Odd Family combines this with a set of principal characters so wilfully obnoxious that it would be difficult not to like them.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
When a pharmaceutical company's illegal experiments inadvertently create a zombie, the strange Park family finds it and tries to profit from its unexpected viagra-like effect.

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2019; Director: Lee Min-jae; Writer: Lee Min-jae; Stars: Jeong Jae-yeong, Jung Ga-ram, Kim Nam-gil)

Full review

Saint Maud

A mysterious nurse becomes dangerously obsessed with saving the soul of her dying patient.

(Country: UK; Year: 2019; Director: Rose Glass; Writer: Rose Glass; Stars: Jennifer Ehle, Morfydd Clark, Turlough Convery, Lily Frazer, Lily Knight, Rosie Sansom, Marcus Hutton, Carl Prekopp, Noa Bodner, Jel Djelal, Faith Edwards, Sona Vyas, Susanne Schraps, Linda E Greenwood, Evo Payne)

Sea Fever

Review preview for Sea Fever

When someone dies, there’s grief that feels real, as disorientating as any fever.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
The crew of a West of Ireland trawler, marooned at sea, struggle for their lives against a growing parasite in their water supply.

(Country: Ireland, US, UK, Sweden, Belgium; Year: 2019; Director: Neasa Hardiman; Writer: Neasa Hardiman; Stars: Connie Nielsen, Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott, Jack Hickey)

Full review

Synchronic

Review preview for Synchronic

Synchronic is science fiction thinking about itself.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A pair of paramedics find their friendship put to the test after a series of deaths are linked to a drug.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead; Writer: Justin Benson; Stars: Jamie Dornan, Anthony Mackie, Katie Aselton, Ally Ioannides, Bill Oberst Jr., Betsy Holt, Aaron Groben, Shane Brady, Martin Bats Bradford, Devyn A. Tyler, Natasha Tina Liu, Lawrence Turner, Kate Adair, Carl Palmer, Rhonda Johnson Dents)

Full review

VFW

Review preview for VFW

Full of gruesome violence but with a lot of heart, VFW is best watched as part of an audience, or at least with a group of friends and a good quantity of drink.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
A group of war veterans must defend their local VFW post and an innocent teenager against a deranged drug dealer and his relentless army of punk mutants.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Joe Begos; Writer: Max Brallier, Matthew McArdle; Stars: Martin Kove, Stephen Lang, William Sadler, Sierra McCormick)

Full review