THE ENDLESS
If it's Celluloid Screams, where's the Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead film? The opening gala, as it turned out. With their third film, Benson and Moorhead bring us the tale of brothers Justin (Benson) and Aaron (er, Moorhead) who return to the "UFO death cult" they left several years previously.
Whereas most movies of this type would have the cult members behave like nutters within seconds of being introduced and send the plot into a downward spiral of increasing, babble-heavy tedium, The Endless flatly refuses to stick to the template - hell, it refuses to stick to any kind of template whatsoever - leaving the viewer in a situation where they have no clue as to what's coming next and where the danger, if any, is coming from.
The various characters within the cult actually seem pretty reasonable people - or is that just what they're trying to project? Obviously I'm not going to answer that one and I'm also not going to give away any detail of a beautifully executed reveal about two-thirds of the way in that left me grinning like an idiot. All I'll say is that it explains a lot, if you were already waiting for an explanation.
For me, Messrs Benson and Moorhead are three for three. I loved Resolution, I loved Spring and - no real surprises here - I loved The Endless. As the leads in their own film, their performances are excellent, the supporting cast is uniformly great and there's more than enough welcome humour to complement the mind-bending strangeness even when things get "very culty".
BORLEY RECTORY
Ashley Thorpe's labour of love about the "most haunted house in England" is a beguiling mix of live action and animation wrapped up in the stylings of a 1930s chiller. A whistle stop tour of the spooky goings-on over a number of decades weaves a number of real-life characters into the mix, played by such genre luminaries as Reece Shearsmith and Nicholas Vince.
Make no mistake, there's nothing else out there like this and as a technical achievement it's stunningly impressive. However, as a piece of cinema, I ended up liking it very much when I really wanted to love it with all of my heart. Originally intended as short of around 30 minutes in length, this version clocks in at over an hour and in my opinion the optimum running time would have been somewhere between the two. On a few occasions it does wander and some tighter editing wouldn't have gone amiss.
Even so, there's plenty to enjoy and there's no doubting the passion for the project that's evident in every frame of this. It may reach a little too far in trying to cram in as many events as possible but its ambition has to be applauded. Borley Rectory sets out to be different and in the main it succeeds admirably. This has to be worth your time over a trip to the multiplex to see the latest instalment of yet another uninspired, production-line horror franchise.
68 KILL
Chip (Matthew Gray Gubler) is very much in love with Liza (AnnaLynne McCord) and would do anything for her. Which, in this case, means accompanying her on a spot of breaking and entering to bag them $68,000. Of course, things don't go according to plan leaving Chip with a serious case of second thoughts about their relationship. Provided he can actually survive the next couple of days, that is...
So is 68 Kill a movie featuring a clutch of strong, empowered, female characters who don't take shit from anyone or is it ultimately a revenge fantasy about a doormat of a guy who's finally had enough of his domineering girlfriend? Well, I guess you could make an argument for both of those but my view is that it's a shamelessly enjoyable blast of primo grindhouse scuzz which shouldn't be taken too seriously.
And yes, the plot is driven - refreshingly so - by the women of the piece. Alisha Boe is excellent as Violet, who initially appears to be a victim and then turns out to be anything but, the awesome Sheila Vand puts in a memorable turn as murderous super-Goth Monica and the aforementioned McCord is quite brilliant as Liza. Yes, she's clearly a little unhinged but at the same time it's also plain to see exactly why Chip is smitten. Hey, I would probably have been robbing rich guys' houses with her too.*
Written and directed by Cheap Thrills scribe Trent Haaga, this walks a similar line between guffaw-inducing comedy and vomit-inducing violence, only more so. Occasionally, it does threaten to tip over into the realm marked "outright disgusting" especially when Liza's brother - and his revolting hobby - is thrown into the mix but the whole enterprise is so batshit OTT it's more likely you'll be shaking your head and laughing at just how far the plot is willing to go totally off the range than rushing to the nearest bin to be sick in.
*Theoretically speaking, and within the 68 Kill universe that is. I'm not in any way condoning the theft of property from the houses of rich guys. Or any type of thievery from anyone else, for that matter.
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