I REMEMBER YOU
In a remote part of Iceland, an elderly woman is found hanged in a church and the ensuing investigation reveals a possible connection not only to a number of other deaths in the area but to the disappearance of the 7-year-old son of Freyr, the new psychiatrist in town. And is there a further link to events across the bay, where a project to restore a run-down house is beset by supernatural happenings...
Based on Yrsa Sigurðardóttir's novel, I Remember You is certainly a slow-burner but please don't let that put you off. The gradual build-up of tension and the drip-feed of plot developments make this work so brilliantly. The police procedural, missing person drama and ghost story elements mesh perfectly and it's fun to see how the seemingly disparate events of the plot come together in a clever and satisfying way.
Not only is I Remember You confidently made, excellently written and convincingly performed, it also showcases the bleak yet beautiful landscapes of one of my favourite countries. It's also creepy as hell and although there are a couple of effective jump scares along the way it's the sense of disquiet permeating the piece which truly elevates the proceedings. This is a chiller of rare quality which also packs quite the emotional punch.
Easily one of highlights of the festival and I'm looking forward to seeing this again. Check out Yrsa's novels too.
HABIT
Unemployed Michael (Elliot James Langridge) spends most of his time in his flat, at the Job Centre or in the local pub until a chance meeting with free-spirited Lee (Jessica Barden) lands him a job on the door at Cloud 9, a massage parlour in Manchester. One night things turn disturbingly violent and Michael is given a glimpse of a netherworld to which he may be attracted more than he wants to admit...
With such a diverse selection of films at Celluloid there's usually one that, for whatever reason, just doesn't land with me and unfortunately this year it was Habit. I talked to people after the screening who genuinely loved it and to be honest I'm happy when a film polarises opinion. After all, who wants to make something that everyone thinks is just okay?
Have to be honest here, this didn't engage me. I didn't care sufficiently about most of the characters and the gore, although packing in its fair share of entrails and lopped-off parts, is staged in an oddly mannered way. If you're going to show me cannibalism, make it as gross as possible. The 80s output from our Italian friends always made this sort of thing look utterly disgusting so what happened here?
Well, having Roxanne Pallett air kiss the end of a gristly piece of bloodied bone is stylish, don't get me wrong, but that pivotal moment of the film is where I need to be caught off-guard, wondering where the hell things were going to go next, instead of not being sufficiently shocked to be propelled into the second half of the story, where all bets should have been off.
Nonetheless, the final sequence at Cloud 9 is rather effective and suspenseful and although the plot doesn't tie up all of the loose ends it doesn't feel inconclusive in any way. I liked the slightly messy ending, I just wish I'd liked the rest of the movie too but hey, other people at Celluloid loved it and I can totally see why.
Quick mention for Joanne Mitchell (Sheffield horror fest regulars may very well remember her from Before Dawn): she's brilliant and very funny in a supporting role as one of Cloud 9's employees who knows all about the business, even down to etiquette of who makes the next brew in the place.
TRAGEDY GIRLS
Small-town teenagers Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) are obsessed with three things: death, their social media presence and the number of hits received by their web show. As their online status threatens to fade, they decide that an inside track on a new wave of killings will blow their popularity through the roof and so they take things into their own hands...
Not only does Tragedy Girls make some amusing and valid points about our relationship with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al, it has a keen eye for the tropes of the slasher/serial killer genre and uses those as the bedrock for a knowing, fun romp which goes about its bloody business with gusto.
Yes, Sadie and McKayla are somewhat annoying and are basically welded to their smartphones but the performances of Hildebrand and Shipp keep their characters interesting to watch even when they're being irritatingly self-absorbed (which is a lot of the time). The supporting players are excellent, notably the ever-reliable Craig Robinson as local firefighting hero Big Al and Josh Hutcherson sending himself up something chronic as cool, ahem, "deep", motorcycle-riding dude Toby.
Tyler MacIntyre's movie is gleefully unpleasant, handling its dark material with a pleasingly light touch. It left me with a smile on my face and a renewed alertness to the potential dangers of gym equipment.
INSIDE NO. 9
For many this was the biggest draw of the festival as Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton introduced three episodes of their anthology series which has recently finished shooting its fourth season. The three episodes chosen for Celluloid Screams were The Harrowing from Season 1, Séance Time from Season 2 and a brand new episode from Season 4 called Tempting Fate (which means the picture above is inaccurate because it's from The Trial Of Elizabeth Gadge but what the hell, I'm still going with it).
For a series which has a natural home on television, these episodes played incredibly well on a big screen in front of a large audience. The Harrowing pulls out all of the Gothic stops, constantly swapping laughs and chills as its tale of the world's creepiest babysitting job unfolds. It also boasts the outstanding double act of Shearsmith and Helen McCrory as strange siblings Hector and Tabitha.
Séance Time may very well be my favourite episode of Inside No. 9 to date so I was really pleased that it was showing here. This tale of a somewhat downmarket prank show is played for chuckles for most of its running time (Alice Lowe, in particular, is a disinterested, downbeat delight) but there's a sinister edge to the proceedings which really comes to the fore as the tone turns on a dime and a supremely unnerving twist is revealed.
And so to the new episode. Tempting Fate follows three council workers assigned to clearing out the property of a recently-deceased lottery winner but a discovery leads to the plot spinning off in all sorts of intriguing directions with all of the threads being tied up in a thoroughly satisfying way. If this is the standard of the new episodes - and I suspect it will be - then Season 4 is going to be a real treat.
DOWNRANGE (CELLULOID SCREAMS SECRET FILM)
Having guessed the Secret Film wrongly yet again - it wasn't Laissez Bronzer Les Cadavres, let's just face facts and agree that I will NEVER work out what the Secret Film is - I settled down to watch the latest from Ryuhei Kitamura (The Midnight Meat Train, No One Lives). Well, when I say "settled down" that isn't strictly true because within a few minutes there's flying lead, bloodshed and holes in the head as an unseen sniper tries to pick off a group of people who have stopped on a deserted road to change a tyre on their SUV.
A heady cocktail of dodgy dialogue and ferocious firepower, Downrange makes the most of its simple premise by keeping things moving at a fair old clip and not giving the audience too many opportunities to catch its breath (and hence think about any holes the plot may have). There's a few attempts to give the characters some backstory as they're pinned down by the shooter but most of the flick is concerned with various attempts to escape. Oh, and people getting bits blown off them.
This manages to just about sustain itself over its running time by introducing the potential for further carnage just as the wheels look to be coming off. As for the finale, it's nothing short of crackers as we're introduced to some of the dumbest law enforcement personnel ever to don the badge and provide target practice.
Even so, Downrange works particularly well as a pulpy thriller if you're willing to switch your brain to "off". And I mean totally "off", don't leave it in neutral or it might accidentally slip into gear and then you're suddenly thinking about what could or couldn't happen or why someone's doing something stupid. What this delivers in spades is intense, bloody havoc. If you're expecting depth, well, just don't.
I'm still undecided about the very last moment of the film though. On the one hand, it's a good, gory gag. On the other, it's maybe one excess too far.
SUSPIRIA (40TH ANNIVERSARY RESTORATION)
Ballerina Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) travels to Freiburg to enrol in a prestigious academy but from the moment she arrives the weirdness dial is turned up to the maximum - even the task of getting a taxi from the airport is a disorienting, windswept, rain-drenched ordeal - and a beautifully orchestrated dance with the supernatural ensues.
After seeing this many times (don't ask how many) on VHS and DVD this was the first time I'd experienced Dario Argento's masterpiece on the big screen and it didn't disappoint. The visuals are jaw-dropping, the baroque soundtrack is a real button-pusher (especially when it's belting out like it was here), the murder set-pieces are peerless and there are great performances from a cast whose principals are mostly female.
Jessica Harper is terrific as the lead, playing Suzy as vulnerable without ever making her seem in any way a victim, and the amazing Alida Valli towers over the film as the formidable Miss Tanner. As I mentioned previously it's a feast for the eyes with most of the piazzas, buildings, rooms and corridors filmed to look as if they've fallen straight out of a dream. Or, in Suspiria's case, a prolonged nightmare.
With some of the audience never having seen this before, I wonder how it played to them when today's horror movies are so different from this? I hope they tapped into its genuinely deep-seated scariness and that they enjoyed it as much as I still do. This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest films of all time in any genre and fans of cinema should count this as essential viewing.
After seeing this many times (don't ask how many) on VHS and DVD this was the first time I'd experienced Dario Argento's masterpiece on the big screen and it didn't disappoint. The visuals are jaw-dropping, the baroque soundtrack is a real button-pusher (especially when it's belting out like it was here), the murder set-pieces are peerless and there are great performances from a cast whose principals are mostly female.
Jessica Harper is terrific as the lead, playing Suzy as vulnerable without ever making her seem in any way a victim, and the amazing Alida Valli towers over the film as the formidable Miss Tanner. As I mentioned previously it's a feast for the eyes with most of the piazzas, buildings, rooms and corridors filmed to look as if they've fallen straight out of a dream. Or, in Suspiria's case, a prolonged nightmare.
With some of the audience never having seen this before, I wonder how it played to them when today's horror movies are so different from this? I hope they tapped into its genuinely deep-seated scariness and that they enjoyed it as much as I still do. This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest films of all time in any genre and fans of cinema should count this as essential viewing.
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