A Gun For George

Matthew Holness is a comedian and an ace pasticheur, but 'A Gun For George' has a horror at its heart that transcends mere parody and goes somewhere altogether darker. Holness recognises that the best pulp fiction often originates from the worst places in people - the scared, bigoted, angry, anguished, dangerous parts - which is perhaps why they appeal so much to us, presenting violent wish fulfilment fantasies where the characters behave exactly how they like. You want money? Rob it. A woman? Grab her. Has someone crossed you? Kill him, and his friends, and his fucking dog. All on a diet of Bells Whisky and sixty Rothmans a day. Seriously, how funny is that?

Watch the whole film here, then visit this excellent and brilliantly observed website which seems to have been building up to something for a while without ever getting there. I'd like to see some more whenever you're ready, please, Mr. Holness, you have a very special skill set.. 

Nowhere To Hide

For about half its running time 'A Lonely Place To Die' is fantastic: weird, unexpected, exciting. It slowly becomes more of a conventional action thriller, however, and although it never becomes boring, it can't sustain the disquieting mystery of its beginning.

Filmed in the beautiful wild parts of Scottish Highlands around Inverness,it begins with a dizzying near fatal mountaineering accident, then takes a strange turn when the climbing group discover a pipe buried in a remote part of the woods. The pipe leads to a large wooden box and the box, horribly, to an imprisoned ten year old girl. The girl can't speak English, so she is unable to tell them how she got there, but it is clear that she's not playing hide and seek. It's also fairly obvious that the people behind her interment didn't want her to be found - oh, and they must be completely amoral, ruthless and extemely dangerous bastards.

The rest of the film details the group's desperate attempts to get back to civilisation, all the while pursued by two thwarted kidnappers who will stop at nothing to get back their 'property', including killing everybody they come across. 

Genuinely thrilling in places, the narrative doesn't run out of steam so much as slowly drift off the beaten track and find itself on the main road and heading towards a relatively straightforward destination. It has style, though, and much else to recommend it. It's also more likely to be on a telly near you soon than our usual fare, so you can check it out for yourself although, please note, I do not rewrite stuff if you don't agree with me.

A Lonely Place To Die

Morris On

Some stills from the 2011 documentary 'Way Of The Morris', about the folk dance tradition of Addebury, Oxfordshire (from the distant past to 1914; revived in 1975 and still thriving).

Nicely shot and put together, the film is very interesting when sticking to the point but slowly drifts into becoming more about the presenter and co-director than the dance, eventually degenerating into a shot of him wandering thoughtfully through the long grass with a Morris stick over his shoulder, like an outtake from a David Soul video.  

Hit List

I'm not going to say too much about 'Kill List' simply because I'm still trying to work it out and, most importantly, because I think you should see it (if you have a strong stomach - it's very violent) and experience what I did. I mean, I watch a couple of hundred horror films a year for fun and although 'Kill List' isn't perfect, it achieved something I no longer thought possible: it made me feel frightened.

Here's the trailer. It won't tell you much.

Kill List

They're Back

'Wake Wood' is heralded as a Hammer Production on the poster, although the print I saw didn't have any reference to the revitalised studio whatsoever. It's not a deal breaker, however, as 'Wake Wood' is an interesting film regardless of its lineage and, if Hammer say they're back, then I'm very glad to hear it.

It tells of a married couple who move to a remote Irish village to try and recover from their horrible death of their only child. Wake Wood is, however, no ordinary place and, after a while, the village patriach / magus (Tim Spall) offers the couple an extraordinary deal: he can perform a ritual that will give them their daughter back - but only for three days.

'Wake Wood' doesn't offer any surprises - in fact, it all goes pretty much as you would expect, i.e. badly - and its influences are sometimes too brazenly evoked (yes, we get it, it's a bit like 'Don't Look Now') but there is something about its oblique editing and the beautiful but desolate long held shots of flocks of birds, telegraph wires and the incessantly churning wind turbines that creates an atmosphere of foreboding that keeps the viewer slightly off balance throughout (wind turbines are something of a new UK horror signifier, on the way to cliche). It's also really creepy, a term that's used more and more but seemingly understood less and less. Most of all, it's the sort of film that the UK industry should be making: it's what we're good at, after all, and it's a welcome late addition to the canon.

Wake Wood

Coming Soon...

You might not be aware of it from reading this blog, but the UK does still make horror films. Occasionally, it makes halfway decent ones. In 2011, it made two good ones, so it makes sense to say a few words about them. Be here at midnight for the first instalment.

As If By Magic...

...another luvverly and timely Piper Gates Design appeared, in a very limited edition.

Disco Verite

I don't always agree with Adam Curtis, but I'll watch anything he makes. 'All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace' has been a fascinating trip, although I have occasionally shouted at the telly. I've no wish to trivialise his work, but I particularly enjoyed the archive footage of various disco dancers he used to illustrate the last film in the series, so here are some snapshots.

Just like me, Adam has his own blog which he sometimes uses as a testing ground for new projects; unlike me, Curtis is not that interested in disco.