Sci-Fi Bulletin co-founding editor Brian J. Robb provides a round up of the (mostly horror-based) genre presence at this year’s festival…

Thanks to the internet and the collapse of region-specific film releases and the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and MUBI, film festivals are not what they used to be. There was a time, not that far in the recent past, when audiences would be exposed to a movie in a film festival setting that would never resurface anywhere else. Now, as was the case of several SF, fantasy or horror related films at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, so many of the films showcased have already had releases in the US (or elsewhere) or are imminently about to hit UK screens anyway. Although early exposure to movies is great, it somewhat undermines the unique appeal of a film festival’s presentation if its wares are easily accessible in this way. In some ways that increased rapid access to films is a great boon, but it does mean events like EIFF lose something of their lustre, so putting a greater emphasis on live events (filmmaker interviews, open air or live orchestra screenings) than on the films themselves.

As an example, Andrew Hulme’s meditative The Devil Outside was released wide across the UK on Friday 22 June, mere days after its festival screening. Although not strictly horror, the film follows a teenager brought up in a restricted Christian evangelical family, a type of horror in itself. At first, the lack of iPhones and technology (such as no wind turbines in the landscape shots) and the derelict mine workings that are central to the story makes it appear The Devil Outside is set in the 1980s. It soon becomes clear that it is in fact contemporary, despite all appearances to the contrary. Mark Stobbart is the disruptive groovy, barefoot preacher who insinuates himself into the family as part of his crusade to revive religion in a declining northern town. Influenced by this, teenager Robert (Noah Carson) believes he has been sent a sign when he discovers a dead tramp in the woods; the tramp’s long hair and beard convince the confused youngster that he’s found the dead body of Christ. The Devil Outside is a slow burn that comes to a less-than-definite conclusion, but is well worth a watch, and it is packed with TV faces such as Keeley Fosyth as Robert’s buttoned-down mother and Alex Lowe as his doubting father. 7/10

Far more straightforwardly genre is Blood Fest (released in the US last March, with no UK release date apparent), a hilariously entertaining celebration of horror movie culture, like Wes Craven’s post-modern Scream (1996) recreated for the millennial generation. Having lost his mother to a deranged, horror film influenced intruder as a child (on Halloween night, no less), teen Dax (Robbie Kay) is now an unapologetic horror fan (working in a video shop), even though his father (Tate Donovan) is an anti-horror movie psychologist who objects to his attendance at the upcoming Blood Fest, a Glastonbury-type event celebrating gore laden movies. Dax and his friends manage to attend the event, only to find it’s a trap—they’re all locked into the park location when real horror (of the chainsaw variety) breaks out. The gore here is deliriously funny and over-the-top rather than objectionable, more Evil Dead or DeadAlive than anything else. In a knowing twist, the whole event is being filmed by co-organiser Anthony Walsh, a disaffected horror movie director (played by Blood Fest’s actual writer-director, the flamboyant Owen Egerton). As with Scream, knowing the ‘rules’ of horror movies might help with survival, and there are several call outs in scenes and dialogue to horror greats of the past (and some more recent, like Get Out). There’s also a bizarre, somewhat pointless cameo by Chuck star Zachary Levi as himself. Blood Fest is funny disposable stuff, but unlikely to have the staying power of Scream. 7/10

Equally disposable, but far less accomplished is thriller In Darkness (out in the UK on 3 July), co-written by star Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones), who plays a blind musician caught up in an international conspiracy after she overhears the murder of her upstairs neighbour, the daughter of a Serbian warlord. This starts out conventionally enough, but quickly becomes overly complicated and does not play fair with the audience in terms of the secrets it withholds (the final twist is a downright cheat). It’s a glossy, generic product co-written and directed by Dormer’s fiancé Anthony Byrne with too many implausible twists and events such that the suspension of disbelief is itself rapidly suspended. Co-stars include Joely Richardson (the worst actor in the Richardson clan), Ed Skrein, and James Cosmo (making it a Game of Thrones reunion for them with Dormer), and Neil Maskell, who is always good value even if the material he is working with is less than captivating. 3/10

Out in the UK from 6 July, Mary Shelley is a standard literary biopic of a far from standard writer, with none of the panache of Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986) or even the interest of the opening scene of Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Elle Fanning does a creditable job as the young would-be writer, with Douglas Booth filling all the clichés as her husband-to-be Percy Shelley. The story is told as a heritage costume drama, although some events are combined and time scales foreshortened for dramatic purposes. Shelly is given a cod-Dickensian milieu to inhabit, one that will immediately reassure the more conservative viewer. The one visualization of Shelley’s creation of Frankenstein comes in a nightmare dream sequence, where a more interesting visual approach might have resulted in a far more lively movie. Director Haifaa Al-Mansour handles this as if aiming straight for Sunday night television, and at two hours it overstays its welcome. 5/10

More interesting when it comes to Gothic mysteries is The Secret of Marrowbone (out 11 July in the UK), from Spanish director Sergio G. Sanchez (writer of The Orphanage). Although set in the late-1960s, the family who flee from Europe to the United States and take the name ‘Marrowbone’ has something of the 1930s about them, as if from a Steinbeck novel. After the death of their mother, Jack (George MacKay, from Stephen King TV show 11.22.63) struggles to keep the family together, bound as they are by a deadly secret, and trying to hide out from their reprehensible father. Stranger Things star Charlie Heaton plays the hot-headed brother Billy, with A Cure for Wellness’s Mia Goth as sister Jane, and Matthew Stagg as the young Sam. Joining the family from outside is the local Allie, played by rising star Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch). There’s a narrative gap of six months where the audience know something significant must have happened, but it is not until late in the film that a definitive answer is given. That’s not enough, as like In Darkness, the creators of The Secret of Marrowbone attempt to pile twist upon twist (some already overly familiar from a spate of recent horror films). However, this succeeds where In Darkness fails in that The Secret of Marrowbone holds the viewer’s interest throughout, even though attentive viewers might figure out much of what’s going on long before the end credits roll. 6/10

A sole astronaut is stranded in an escape capsule heading for the sun in low budget British movie Solis (no release date yet). The Walking Dead’s Steven Ogg stars as an asteroid miner who escapes an accident in space by launching himself off in a decrepit escape capsule—Ogg is the only person on screen throughout the gripping 90 minutes of Solis, and he holds the viewer’s attention easily. His only human contact is the voice of his would-be rescuer over radio, voiced by Alice Lowe (Prevenge). This had the potential to be dull, yet there is enough exciting incident to keep things moving, even though everything takes place within (and, briefly, outside) the escape capsule. The movie is exactly what it claims to be, nothing more and nothing less. There’s no hidden secrets or subtext here, it’s not a dream or a virtual reality experience as savvy viewers might be expecting. In fact, it could almost be a radio drama, although the Red Dwarf level visual effects suffice given the obvious financial constraints operating on writer-director Carl Strathie. It might stretch its premise to breaking point, but Ogg’s charismatic presence just about holds Solis together. 8/10

Completely different is French period drama The Most Assassinated Woman in the World, a movie produced by Netflix (so it should turn up on that service in the near future). Anna Mouglalis features as Paula Maxa, the smoky-voiced star of the gruesome Grand Guinol theatre in 1930s Paris. As a journalist investigates the horror theatre, which is the subject of noisy street protests, the veil between fantasy and reality begins to blur as conspiracies unfold and the past returns to haunt the present. It’s atmospheric, and under the direction of acclaimed French genre filmmaker Frank Ribiere (Livid) the film plays with the mixed attractions of sex and death, but without becoming particularly sleazy. As with so many genre films these days (and as alluded to earlier), The Most Assassinated Woman in the World also falls into the trap of piling on perhaps unneeded complicating twists. It makes a nice contrast to the likes of the science fiction of Solis or the comedy gore of Blood Fest to see a French movie that takes its imaginative subjects deadly seriously and does so in a stylish manner. 8/10

Budget limitations are all too obvious in the otherwise successful Terminal (out 6 July in the UK). Margot Robbie, of undoubted movie star credentials, co-produces and stars in this fantasy set in a comic book coloured city. She is a waitress with a strange connection to late night café customer Bill (Simon Pegg), a former schoolteacher now somewhat adrift in the strange city of Terminal. Mix in a pair of Guy Ritchie style assassins in Dexter Fletcher and Max Irons, a caretaker who might be more than he seems, incongruously played by Mike Myers, and a mysterious backstory that eventually provides the film’s climatic twists, Terminal has all the ingredients for a primary coloured fantasy noir. It’s fine as far as it goes (again, perhaps with one twist too many), but the rather empty city of Terminal and the film’s limited locations and low number of characters gives the game away in terms of its low budget nature. Despite that, it just about works—Terminal is no classic, but adequately passes 90 minutes or so. 6/10

Currently without a UK release dates, Piercing is a great film any retro Grindhouse addict needs to seek out. Based on the 1994 Japanese novel by Ryu Murakami (whose novel Audition was the basis for the 1999 Takashi Miike film, so you know the territory), Piercing asks the question: what happens when a man of homicidal inclination comes up against a victim prepared to give as good as she gets? Young father Reed (played by Christopher Abbot, who has a disarming similarity to Steven Strait, star of TV’s The Expanse) finds himself a danger to his new-born daughter, so decides to expunge his homicidal urges by killing a prostitute. What could go wrong? Well, just about everything if the victim to be is Mia Wasikowskia’s bonkers Jackie. When she spends a longer-than-expected time in Reed’s hotel room bathroom, he enters only to find her in an act of extreme self-harm. Things simply get weirder from there. Set in an anonymous city, which may be European or American  (and realised through wonderful Captain Scarlet-style street and building miniatures), Piercing, ably written and directed by Nicolas Pesce, explores a number of taboos. It is also scored by pleasingly-recognisable giallo movie music (some of it lifted from Goblin scores for Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso and Tenebrae, Tarantino style). It’s a chamber piece with a mere handful of characters and very limited locations, but unlike Terminal, Piercing makes a psychological virtue of this, using the claustrophobia to entrap its characters; even the film’s flashbacks to Reed’s formative sexual experiences are enclosed and troubling. As well as Abbott and Wasikowska (who has not been this good since featuring in the first season of the US version of In Treatment over a decade ago), Spanish actress Laia Costa makes a good impression as Reed’s innocent (or maybe not?) wife, Mona. Piercing is short (just over 80 minutes), but it makes an impact that recalls some of the genuine sleazy and gore-ridden Grindhouse classics of the 1970s and early-1980s, making it easily one of the best, most satisfying films screened at Edinburgh this year—it is sure to become a future cult classic, with touches of Cronenberg, DePalma (check out the split-screens), Lynch, and even Jonathan Demme’s yuppie kidnap movie Something Wild (if you can imagine a gorehound edition). 9/10

Ever wonder whatever happened to Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace creator, writer, and star Matthew Holness? Well, he’s the writer-director of the chilling Possum (no UK release date as yet), a serious psychological thriller that is about as far as you can get from the knowing comedy of his previous best-known work. Holness stays behind the camera, giving the screen over to Sean Harris (who gave an excellent performance in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, 2012) and the always-strong Alun Armstrong. Harris is Philip, a children’s puppeteer with a troubled background. This is no Dead of Night (1945) homicidal dummy movie, but instead more recalls Cronenberg’s Spider (2002). The clearly mentally troubled Philip returns to his dilapidated childhood home, hoping to destroy the puppet he named Possum, a task that proves to be fiendishly difficult to achieve. A long-legged spider-like thing with a human head (pure white, and seemingly cast from Harris himself), the puppet has an uncanny habit of reappearing no matter what Philip seemingly does to destroy it, invoking water and fire in the process. Armstrong is the building’s sole inhabitant, and his Maurice is as broken-down as the house. Although he’s a father figure to the troubled Philip, he’s not his actual father. In a weird way, their relationship is reminiscent of that between father and son in the classic bleak British comedy Steptoe and Son (which may not be an accident, as Holness knows his comedy), but twisted to a dark place—some of Armstrong’s lines sound like something Old Man Steptoe could easily have come out with. There’s a foreboding room that Philip resists entering in the house that contains the secret to his past and his true relationship to the malevolent Maurice. The film follows Philip (a brilliant, contained performance from a sweaty and sallow Harris) as he wanders through the wet and muddy countryside, into the woods, and around a abandoned Army base, dragging the puppet with him in a tan coloured hold-all (which he carries holding it out from his body as though it were something toxic). The time period is not stated, and Philip’s prominent Casio digital watch suggests the 1980s, or perhaps a hangover from that period that he is holding onto. The creation myth for Possum, related in a poem (in voice over by Harris) and illustrated in a notebook by Philip (recalling The Babadook) is dated 1978, suggesting that was when he was at school (one of the venues he haunts in his seemingly unmotivated wanderings). Possum is a dark, atmospheric work, excellently scored by the Radiophonic Workshop, formerly of the BBC and contributors to many 1970s television shows that Philip himself may have watched growing up. There are also missing children, both in the past and in the present—how much has this to do with Philip, or—for that matter—with Maurice? Are the sites where Philip attempts to dispose of Possum places where bodies or body parts have been buried or dumped? Or is something else going on? Holness keeps the viewer on edge, both visually and sonically, and certain scenes recall Gerard Johnson’s low budget off-kilter serial killer movie Tony (2009). The hidden damage done to Philip is revealed in a chilling, ultimately satisfying climax. Based on Possum, perhaps Holness has a future beyond comedy—all he needs is an American breakthrough on a Blumhouse project to establish his name wider and to relegate Garth Marenghi to the past. 8/10

 

EIFF Films to Seek Out:

Piercing 9/10

Solis 8/10

Possum 8/10

The Most Assassinated Woman in the World 8/10

 

The Rest:

The Devil Outside 7/10

Blood Fest 7/10

The Secret of Marrowbone 6/10

Terminal 6/10

Mary Shelley 5/10

In Darkness 3/10