THE FACELESS MAN

Stars: Sophie Turling, Lucas Pittaway, Andy McPhee, Albert Goikhman, Brendan Bacon, Daniel reader, Daniel Facciolo, Lorin Kauffeld, Martin Astifo, Sunny S. Walia, Tom Vogel, Dirk Faller, Damian Oehme, Dave Beamish and Roger Ward.
Writer/Director: James Di Martino

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Exhibiting all the pros and cons of a truly unhinged independent film vision, writer/director James Di Martino allows his film-nerd subconscious to run wild with his first feature, The Faceless Man. If it didn’t propel forward with such a can’t-look-away energy and nightmarish sense of the macabre, you might side with one character when she ponders, direct to camera, “Is this a joke?”   

From the De Palma-esque single-take opening tracking shot (a father/daughter hospital scene that plays far more seriously than anything to follow), Di Martino ticks off references to his favourite filmmakers like he’s renting weeklies from his local video store. The most generic beats are in the establishment of his teen protagonists, five average nobodies who rent a pretty nice country homestead. Most central to the zigzag plotting is Emily (Sophie Thurling, giving her all), a cancer survivor who carries with her a darkness that manifests as the clawed, disfigured monster of the title (its reveal a jump-scare highlight of the film).

Such a premise is enough for most first-time directors, but Di Martino decides that while he has the cameras, he might as well have a crack at a stereotypical Tarantino/Ritchie criminal subplot, too. Seems the kids have purloined a case of top-tier narcotics that mobster Viktor Nov (Albert Goikhman, channelling 80s-era Steven Berkoff) wants back. He and his henchman arrive in the hamlet all guns blazing, only to find the local townspeople have their own anti-drug/pro-violence way-of-life.

It sounds nuts, and it largely is. But there’s a good deal of fun to be had in rummaging through the grab bag of references. If you look hard (hell, even if you don’t), you’ll find none-to-subtle nods to No Country for Old Men, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Scarface, Psycho, Scream, Get Out, the Elm Street films, even Home Alone; directorial styles echoed include those of Nicholas Windig Refn and giallo greats like Bava and Argento. The presence of Aussie acting giant Roger Ward instantly conjures the memory of Ozploitation classics Mad Max and Turkey Shoot and places The Faceless Man in the company of those fearless films from the Oz industry’s 10BA days.

Di Martino has been open about his battle with cancer, and it can be deduced that his love for film played a significant part in his recovery. So passionately does he homage the cult films of his generation, it is easy to forgive the often jagged scene-to-scene transitions. Tonally, the film hurtles from eccentric small town piss-takes (embodied by he-man biker ‘Barry the C**t’, played by a very funny Daniel Reader) to shocking acts of violence (a rape/murder sequence is truly disturbing). It is in Thurling’s performance that Di Martino the writer finds an ally who provides much-needed stability; her handling of his take on a survivor’s mix of anxiety and determination rings particularly true.

No doubt at all that The Faceless Man is a wildly indulgent work; the scale of Di Martino’s ambitious, convoluted vision leaves his own level of craft, that ability to keep his narrative manageable, in its wake. Yet it is that degree of unbridled daring to which the midnight-movie crowd, who gobble up such displays of all-or-nothing genre storytelling, will gravitate. The gore, giggles and film-buff fun that Di Martino delivers oozes ‘cult film’ cred from frame 1.

IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS

Featuring: Cassandra Peterson, John Carpenter, Heather Langenkamp, Keith David, Bill Moseley, Jeffery Coombs, Caroline Williams, Barbara Crampton, Alex Winter, Kane Hodder, Katie Featherston, Diana Prince, Nick Castle, Joe Dante, Kelli Maroney, Tom Holland, Greg Nicotero, Tom Atkins, Doug Bradley, Mick Garris, Stuart Gordon, Don Mancini, Sean S. Cunningham, James A. Janisse and Larry Cohen.
Writer/Director: David A. Weiner

Reviewed on Sunday October 13 at the Australian Premiere at Cinema Nova as part of Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019 | Melbourne.

Rating: ★ ★ ★

The daunting four-hour fan-doc In Search of Darkness plays more like an introduction to the era when horror ruled than an academic deep-dive into the VHS vaults of yesteryear some may have hoped for. Director David A. Weiner’s epic effort is the factual film equivalent of a non-stop tour-bus ride, hurtling past monuments of the genre’s 80s heyday (“Look everyone! The Howling! And over there, Childs Play”), with many worthy of mention getting lost along the way.  

The mixed bag of contributors include period-appropriate talking heads, recalling their biggest hits; the gorehound minds behind Fangoria, Cinemassacre, et al; and, (mostly) irony-free millennial types who oversee horror sites, fanzines and podcasts. For the hardcore fans who can rattle off their favourite Freddy kills or Vorhees eviscerations, the collective banter and steady stream of clips will be fun but a tad too familiar; those just beginning their love affair with the likes of Brian Yuzna, Sean S. Cunningham and Stuart Gordon will likely derive the most joy.

The first in the director’s planned series of ‘In Search of…’ retrospectives (next, an ‘action heroes’ reverse-angle), …Darkness works through the 1980s year-by-year, with the occasional detour into subsets that touch on such defining influences as Reaganomics, the home-video boom, the MTV/HBO influence and AIDS. Also spotlighted are such genre trends as 3D gimmickry, ‘holiday horror’ and the effects industry coming-of-age.

Each ‘year’ offers up a grab bag of title profiles, and Wiener brings some freshness to his analysis of true cult items such as Basket Case, Night of The Comet, Chopping Mall and My Bloody Valentine. But he spends a big chunk of the 260 minutes going over inferior sequels, the Stephen King oeuvre and works already microscoped ad infinitum (we love Gremlins, of course, but even Joe Dante must be struggling for new angles to explore).

Wiener has worn many caps as a player in the LA scene, notably as the executive editor of the iconic Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Clearly the role afforded him contact with many of the great personalities of 80s horror, so it comes as somewhat of a letdown that his roster of on-screen talent are such always-up-for-a-chat types as Mick Garris, Kane Hodder, Cassandra Peterson, Lloyd Kaufman, Bill Moseley and commentator Joe Bob Briggs. Each is always a compelling orator, but they have all orated a lot in recent years; when Mark Hartley reinvigorated the retro-doc format a decade ago with the inside-Ozploitation classic Not Quite Hollywood, the podcast wave had yet to mine and re-mine the quality talent pool.  

There are certainly highlights and insights – acknowledgement of the turning point for the genre that Kubrick’s The Shining represented; a cranky John Carpenter relating how he lost the Firestarter gig; a delightful Barbara Crampton recalling that moment from Re-Animator; BTS-giants Mark Shostrom (make-up on Evil Dead II and ...Elm Street’s 2 & 3) and Graham Humphreys (legendary poster artist); and, the final filmed interviews with late genre greats Tom Atkins and Larry Cohen. But Wiener might have cast a wider net, or eased up on fringe horror names like Alex Winter (a bit player in The Lost Boys) or 90s name Katie Featherston (Paranormal Activity).

That said, it was a blast to see the films that brought many teenage years into sharp focus getting fresh dues up on the big-screen. Once, B-movie gems like Pumpkinhead or From Beyond or Hellbound: Hellraiser II would have faded away. Like many of the films he profiles, perhaps Weiner’s mammoth undertaking will reveal its true worth in years to come, when 80s horror will need to be re-introduced to new generations. Despite its flaws, it is the work of a true fan, geared towards the like-minded. 

TWO HEADS CREEK

Stars: Jordan Waller, Kathryn Wilder, Helen Dallimore, Gary Sweet, Kevin Harrington, Stephen Hunter, Don Bridges, Madelaine Nunn, Kent Lee, David Adlam and Kerry Armstrong.
Writer: Jordan Waller
Director: Jesse O’Brien

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE: Saturday October 12 at Cinema Nova as part of Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019 | Melbourne.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Under the guise of a raucous, bloody horror-comedy, writer/star Jordan Waller and director Jesse O’Brien nail some timely social commentary in their wildly entertaining collaboration, Two Heads Creek. A risky rumble with the Ocker archetype, the likes of which have fallen hard in the past (remember Welcome to Woop Woop?), this U.K./Australian co-production instead rips into racial stereotypes as incisively as it does muscle and bone.  

Bolstered by high-profile Oz acting talent not usually associated with this type of splattery romp, Waller and O’Brien expose the pink underbelly of systemic bigotry through broad satire, taking to it with all manner of barbed tools, literally and figuratively. At a time when the thinly disguised politics of hatred has infiltrated the mainstream, films that take the perpetrators down a peg or two are more important than ever.

In a remarkably assured left turn from his plummy work in the TV series Victoria, Waller stars as Norman, the sole remaining proprietor of a family-owned British butcher shop facing its final days. Despite his toffee Brit blonde-ness, Norman cops constant verbal and occasionally faecal abuse from his pro-Brexit working-class community (he’s Polish, it seems). When the opportunity presents itself to head Down Under and reconnect with his birth mother, he follows the spirited guidance of his fiery sister Annabelle (the terrific Kathryn Wilder, sharing convincing sibling chemistry with her co-star) and is soon in transit to the titular township.

Arriving in the rotting remnants of a once thriving rural life along with the ubiquitous Asian tour group, Annabelle and Norman soon become acquainted with the residents - boisterous blonde Apple (Helen Dallimore); her under-the-thumb hubby Noah (Kevin Harrington); displaced German aristocrat Hans (Gary Sweet); cranky old racist Uncle Morris (Don Bridges); and, effeminate publican Eric (David Adlam). The townsfolk represent the ugly elements of old Australia, an Anglo-European enclave of entitlement and inflated self-worth, ignorant of their life collapsing around them.

With only the highbrow sci-fi Arrowhead (2016) on his feature resume, O’Brien proves a naturally gifted director of anarchic yet pointed storytelling and the perfect conduit for Waller’s fish-out-of-water protagonist. By the time the third act kicks in, and thematic subtext of ugly racism meets the gory narrative trajectory of small-town cannibalism, O’Brien and Waller’s pacing and delivery is skilfully syncopated.

A smart, yet deliriously insane take on our dangerously ridiculous modern society, Two Heads Creek plays like a Monty Python-meets-Peter ‘Braindead’ Jackson reworking of Wake in Fright; a journey into the dark heart of ugly Australian culture by way of Sideshow Alley. The redemptive ray of light at the end of the horror tunnel is the notion that prejudice and intolerance can’t win and that, ultimately, ugly racism will eat itself.

THE BANANA SPLITS MOVIE

Stars: Dani Kind, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, Romeo Carere, Steve Lund, Maria Nash, Naledi Majola, Richard White, Sara Canning, Celina Martin, Lia Sachs, Keeno Lee Hector, Kiroshan Naidoo and Lionel Newton.
Writers: Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas
Director: Danishka Esterhazy

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Fifty years after they made the furry, nonsensical, slapsticky debut as part of NBC’s Saturday morning roster, The Banana Splits return…in a splattery horror romp that’s about as far from the spirit of the old TV show as you can get. Not a bad approach, per se; little about the silliness of their dated, pseudo-psychedelic antics holds any sway today, no matter what ironic millenials and ageing Gen-Xers offer up as evidence of The Splits’ enduring appeal. So if a reboot of the property was going to happen it might as well be in this all-or-nothing mutated form. Just that…well, maybe director Danishka Esterhazy and scripters Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas didn’t go hard enough.

Perky tot Harley (Finlay Woitak-Hissong) may be the only fan of The Banana Splits under 40, but a fan he is and a devoted one at that. When his mom Beth (Dani Kind) scores family tickets to a taping of the show, birthday-boy Harley envisions a life-altering meeting with his hero, Snorky, and the other Splits - Drooper, Fleegle and Bingo. But a new network regime decides to cancel the show; Harley’s birthday outing will be the final episode.

No self-respecting Banana Split will give up their studio gig without a fight, no matter how decrepit and dusty the venue appears (and it often appears more like a silent-era horror-film laboratory than even the most rundown backlot space). With their circuitry rewired (to paraphrase Yaphet Kotto, the Splits are goddamn robots), the four wacky friends up tools, including an oversized, colourful hammer and the iconic ‘Banana Buggy’, and begin the bludgeoning. Standing in the way momentarily are dickish stepfather Mitch (Steve Lund), entitled internet creep Thadd (Kiroshan Naidoo) and pushy stage dad Jonathan (Keeno Lee Hector), whose determined to turn his daughter (Lia Sachs) into the next Sour Grapes Bunch starlet.

The Banana Splits Movie is essentially a silly riff on Michael Chricton’s 1973 theme-park-gone-bad thriller Westworld or, perhaps more accurately, The Simpsons parody episode, ‘Itchy & Scratchy Land’. When the Splits go off-program, their eyes glow red, just as the robot-mouse and robot-cat did in that Season 6 Episode 4 classic. Having shown her skill as a stylish storyteller with the dystopian sci-fier Level 16 (2018), Canadian Esterhazy nails the mood and staging of some solid kills, but isn’t given much to play with in terms of character or narrative by Elinoff and Thomas.

One senses there is a bit more sly commentary to be made about the modern entertainment industry and its regressive reliance on pop-culture brands, or how clinging to the idols of our childhood is not the healthiest of traits. The Banana Splits Movie toys with those themes but doesn’t dive deep. Which is fine, given this is a film about 60s kids-TV characters on a killing spree, a goal it achieves admirably. But it would have been more heartening if the resurrection of The Banana Splits had been in the service of some slightly more resonant establishment cage-rattling, the kind synonymous with the group’s hippy culture origins.

I STILL SEE YOU

Stars: Bella Thorne, Richard Harmon, Louis Herthum, Dermot Mulroney, Amy Price-Francis, Hugh Dillon, Shaun Benson, Dave Brown, Sara Thompson and Thomas Elms.
Writers: Jason Fuchs; based on the novel ‘Break My Heart 1,000 Times’ by Daniel Waters.
Director: Scott Speers

Rating:★★★

There are still faint signs of life in the YA-adaption genre if the ironically titled I Still See You is any indication. Set in the wake of an ill-defined 'energy-pulse' disaster called ‘The Event’ that has left ghostly locals on every street corner, director Scott Speer’s reworking of the bestseller ‘Break My Heart 1,000 Times’ by Daniel Waters hits most of the creepy atmosphere, twisty mystery and teen romantic beats required to hold the target audience’s attention long enough – not always easy to do in the PG-rated supernatural-thriller game.

Continuing her ascent from Disney TV fame to big screen stardom, Bella Thorne (pictured, top) convinces as moody heroine Veronica, whose life starts to transform when visions of people past start to encroach on her real world. Known to the survivors as ‘Remnants’, the ethereal figures appear solid but soon drift away after re-experiencing their pre-ordained ‘loop’ – an echo of the final moments of their lives before ‘the incident’ doomed them.

Ronnie is visited in the shower by a hunky remnant we learn to be Brian (Thomas Elms), who leaves the word ‘RUN’ on her steamed-up mirror (both Thorne and Elms are captured by Speer's slightly leery lens in all their physical perfection). Engaging with equally moody, remnant-obsessed new student Kirk (Richard Harmon) to help her solve the mystery of the new vision in her life, secrets and lies begin to fold in on themselves in a narrative involving a series of unsolved murders that becomes increasingly convoluted. Along for the ride is Dermot Mulroney (pictured, below), bringing the credibility and integrity required of his paycheck presence as the teacher with his own secret, Mr Bitner.

The film is a polished visual spectacle given its snowbound middle-class suburban setting, with credit going to DOP Simon Dennis (The Sweeney, 2012; The Girl With All The Gifts, 2016) and his lighting team. Highlights include a visit to the disaster’s ‘ground zero’, which positively teems with remnants wandering the big city ghost town landscape; a series of spectral visits that haunt Ronnie during a high-school basketball game; and, a black-light bathroom sequence that unleashes the first of the films effectively staged jump-scares.

None of it will seem fresh to anyone over 20; revisit M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, obviously, and also Robert Zemeckis’ 2000 mystery What Lies Beneath for a big-budget studio spin on similar terrain. But the presence of the very appealing (and slightly too old for the part) Thorne, a bevy of chills that don’t rely on gore and a sentimental thematic thread that takes in paternal bonds and the power of memory, and I Still See You is an ideal early foray into the horror genre for the modern teenage girl and her slumber party pals.

SUSPIRIA

Stars: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Lutz Ebersdorf, Angela Winkler, Ingrid Caven, Elena Fokina, Sylvie Testud, Renée Soutendijk, Chloë Grace Moretz and Jessica Harper.
Writer: David Kajganich.
Director: Luca Guadagnino

Rating: ★★ ½

When is a horror movie not a horror movie? When does a remake like Suspiria, a new spin on the defining film of the ‘giallo’ horror sub-genre, forego the right to label itself a ‘horror remake’?  Technically it is, of course (or more precisely a ‘homage’, in the words of director Luca Guadagnino), but it is a horror film that doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in being a ‘horror’ film at all.

Released in 1977, Italian filmmaker Dario Argento's surreal original employed primary hues and arch melodrama to tell the tale of an American ballet dancer (Jessica Harper, stunt cameo-ing in the remake) who lands a prized spot at a German ballet school, only to discover it’s a front for a witch’s coven. It is rated highly by 70s Euro-horror buffs for it’s florid palette, painterly composition and gruesome deaths; a film that, if not quite the masterpiece of psychological terror its lavish praising suggests, is certainly a work rich in it’s own sense of style, builds and maintains a disconcerting sense of bewilderment, and delivers some legitimate frights.

Luca Guadagnino’s version is set in 1977, providing the director with a historical and political backdrop for him to return to for no discernable reason, involving the Baader Meinhoff terrorism group’s seizing of an airliner. The American ballet dancer, Susie Bannion, is reimagined as Dakota Johnson, playing younger than the young woman she played in the first Fifty Shades of Grey film nearly four years ago; she’s miscast and not entirely convincing as a dancer (a double is used with little regard for continuity), but she is relatable most of the time as the audience conduit.

Overseeing the German dance studio is Madame Blanc, played by Tilda Swinton, a woman (and actress, one senses) who inspires awe and fear amongst the young dance troupe and faculty alike. She warms to Susie, occasionally at the expense of classmates who are prone to unexplained absences or worst (the film’s first big character demise is a showstopper), and is soon grooming her for more than just lead leggie in a preposterous end-of-year modern-dance spectacle. Swinton has a ball, probably; she gets to also play the film’s primary male character, a psychiatrist named ‘Josef Klemperer’, and a putrid, evil enchantress, both under pounds of prosthetic make-up.

In 2017, Guadagnino directed one of the year’s most beautiful films, Call Me By Your Name; in 2018, he’s directed one of the ugliest. Drawing upon the grim aesthetics of 70s German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the Italian bathes his angular beauties in at least fifty different shades of grey, a swell as muted browns and purples. It may be deliberate, in that it allows for some nightmarish flourishes of colour at all-too-rare intervals, but it bogs down with a dour drabness a narrative that is already ponderous.

There is satisfaction to be had in watching Guadagnino work gender-specific dynamics with his all-female cast (which includes a terrific Mia Goth and a barely-registering Chloe Grace Moretz); matriarchal dominance, the shifting of a generational hierarchy, maternal legacy and alpha-female predatory tactics make for drama that occasionally compels. One scene sums up the film's attitude to men and what constitutes manhood; a bewitched detective is stripped and humiliated, with Susie looking on covertly. 

However, the director (working from David Kajganich screenplay, adapted from the original’s script) never finds an ounce of menace, a modicum of foreboding; there is ultimately fountains of blood, but it will all seem too little too late for even the most patient horror hound. Guadagnino’s intent may have been to pay homage, and there is skill and ambition to burn, yet all that emerges is an admirable if ultimately unnecessary horror remake.

TRUTH OR DARE

Stars: Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Sophia Ali, Landon Liboiron, Nolan Gerard Funk, Sam Lerner, Brady Smith, Hayden Szeto, Morgan Lindholm, Aurora Perrineau and Tom Choi.
Writer: Jillian Jacobs, Michael Reisz, Christopher Roach and Jeff Wadlow
Director: Jeff Wadlow.

Rating: 2/5

A far more more ambitious narrative and punchy directorial approach was needed to carry off the high-concept horror tropes of the deadly dull thriller Truth or Dare, a college-kids-vs-malevolent-curse bore that clearly wants to be this generation’s Final Destination (or, at least, the better episodes of that hit-miss 00’s franchise).

Directed with professional indifference by journeyman Jeff Wadlow (Cry Wolf, 2005; Kick-Ass 2, 2013), Truth or Dare posits the notion, ‘What if the titular children’s game had real stakes?’, a potentially interesting premise that is then left in the hands of an insipid posse of one-dimensional characters to mull over.

The first half-hour of the film is Teen Horror 101; a group of demographically pleasing early 20-somethings (the do-gooder; the troubled party-girl; the hunky nice-guy; the jerk; the gay guy; the creep) head for a spring break in Mexico. Just how uninteresting are these kids? A boozy night at a beach dance party leads not to wildly unbridled hedonism, but instead a game of ‘truth or dare’, led by a handsome stranger who has latched on to the group.

After a moment of ‘what-just-happened?’ oddness, the group have resumed their well-off middle-class lives in College Town, USA. Our heroine, Olivia (an ok Lucy Hale, perkiness personified) begins to note the phrase ‘Truth or Dare’ everywhere she looks, until she responds in an embarrassingly public way, outing her friend Markie (Violett Beane) for being unfaithful to Lucas (Tyler Posey).

In the order in which they played the game in Mexico, each of the friends must face the challenge put to them by a temporarily possessed passer-by or acquaintance, whose wide-eyed, broadly grinning appearance resembles little more than that which can be accomplished by about a thousand different in-phone apps nowadays. Soon, it becomes clear that to defy the question means a painful death with the inevitability of everyone’s demise all but assured. Not that anyone’s passing seems to have any consequence at all on their friends or the community in which they live; nobody reacts with long-term grief or crippling shock at the string of deaths, even when video of one icky demise does the social media rounds.

The undoing of Truth or Dare as with many looked-good-on-paper concepts, is that it ultimately strays from its own logic and careens into preposterousness. Initially, Olivia gets three shots over the course of a day to answer the question, while other’s meet there doom within minutes; ‘the curse’ controls what you see and hear (even dabbling in street art to get its message across), yet at one point our heroine bounces between a dealing with the demon and chatting with her friends.

Wadlow kicks off Act 3 with an interminable scene involving a tongue-less ex-nun (don’t ask) and a bucketload of explanatory exposition that shuts down the story’s already meagre momentum. The ending, an underlit and shoddy sequence set in a dusty old Mexican convent, looks low-rent; the twist in the final reel proves to be both no twist at all and utterly indecipherable.

A propensity for characters to incessantly text and check Facebook may play believably with phone-gazing teens, but the device only serves to undercut the scares; ultimately, there are none. An adherence to PG-horror boundaries further hogties the chills, meaning the best that can be said for Truth or Dare is that the concept may transition into a passable SyFy/CW slot-filler. The only ones who convincingly suffer through a cursed existence are the paying audience members.

THE CANNIBAL CLUB

Stars: Ana Luiza Rios, Tavinho Teixera, Ze Maria, Pedro Domingues, Rodrigo Capistrano and Galba Noguera.
Writer/Director: Guto Parente.

Reviewed at Pathé 4 Cinema, Sunday January 28 as part of the Rotterdämmerung section at the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)

Rating: 4/5

A South American genre film about cannibalism lands world cinema’s sharpest counter punch to wealthy global privilege in auteur Guto Parente’s seventh and arguably best feature, The Cannibal Club. Set against the golden sun and sparkling sand of the gated-community and private-beach life of upscale Brazil, the prolific 34 year-old filmmaker envisions a modern but no less decadent and disturbed version of Caligula’s court, with added people-eating.

Parente takes aim at the culture of the grotesquely well-off, one that affords them the luxury of having the poor to exploit. In the case of Otavio (Tavinho Teixera) and his young trophy wife Gilda (Ana Luiza Rios), this extends to the hiring, slaughtering and devouring of servants who come to their coastal mansion in the hope of steady work. In a frankly remarkable opening salvo of images both sexually frank and gruesomely detailed, the stereotypical ‘pool boy’ flirts with a willing Gilda, only to be disposed of mid-coitus by Otavio, fileted and served as the evening meal.

When Gilda witnesses the most influential flesh-eater of them all, cold-blooded capitalist/nationalist powerbroker Borges (Pedro Domingues) in a particularly compromising situation, she and Otavio soon find that their cocktail-sipping peers will willingly turn against their own kind to protect their lofty, self-entitled secret status. Parente’s rich are not the endowment-to-the-arts kind of charity patrons that western media often venerates; the wealthy of Brazil are lecherous, murderous pack animals who turn on the compromised, fearful that any weakness threatens their existence.

When not indulging in his own pleasures of the flesh, Otavio partakes of some ‘men’s only’ business as part of the titular soirée, who gather to witness acts that reinforce just how prevalent and heartless the exploitation of the poor underclass has truly become. Parente’s other prime target is the innately pathetic nature of rich society’s Alpha Male, who posture and rankle but mostly shrivel and cower when the patriarchy is threatened. In Ana Luiza Rios’ fearless performance as Gilda, the director identifies the feminine archetype that must navigate the duality of their existence; at once, feigning compliance to fragile male egos while always charting their own destiny, however bloodstained and immoral it may be.    

The Cannibal Club courses with a savagely scornful humour; if few moments prove laugh-out-loud hilarious (the general mood is too unrelentingly tense and often unpleasant for mirthful outbursts), Parente has nevertheless crafted a sly, stylish skewering of affluent disconnect. If the rich feeding wilfully off the working class is not exactly a unique notion, the theme has rarely been handled with such dark-hearted gleeful menace or strident intellect.

TARNATION

Stars: Daisy Masterman, Emma-Louise Wilson, Danae Swinburne, Blake Waldron, Jasy Holt, Joshua Diaz, Sean McIntyre, Sarah Howett and Mitchell Brotz.
Writer/Director: Daniel Armstrong.

WORLD PREMIERE: Monster Fest, Friday November 24 at 9.30pm at Melbourne's Lido Cinema. 

Rating: 3.5/5

It is easy to imagine Sam Raimi giggling with gleeful pride should he ever stumble across Daniel Armstrong’s Tarnation. Stretching a meagre budget and pushing a game cast are two of Armstrong’s great strengths as a director; another is clearly a love for the works of Michigan’s favourite filmmaking son, whose Evil Dead epics are paid the type of knowing homage only a true fan could conjure.

The unselfconsciously preposterous plot centres on wannabe singer-songwriter Oscar, played by the endearing Daisy Masterman with the same spirited abandon that Bruce Campbell displayed 36 years ago. We meet Oscar as she gets marched from her singing gig by her band’s manager (Sean McIntyre), a creepy golf-enthusiast who recommends she get some R&R at his log cabin just outside of the township of Tarnation. With BFF Rain (Danae Swinburne) and two ill-fated beau-hunks along for the ride, they are barely through the door when the spirits that possesses the property start playing up.

With its veranda awning and Tardis-like interiors, the cabin is a masterfully recreated version of Raimi’s Evil Dead cottage, and Armstrong uses every corner of the set to offer shout-outs to his favourite genre works. Like-minded fans will have a blast spotting references to such cult pics as Friday the 13^th, Night of The Creeps and Basket Case. The prolific young filmmaker is not above trumpeting his own contributions to DIY-horror, with posters for his past films From Parts Unknown (2015), Murder Drome (2013) and Sheborg Massacre (2016) pinned to the wall.

While it is clear that Armstrong has little regard (or budget) for elements such as logic or continuity, the on-screen energy that he skilfully crafts puts him in the same league as contemporaries Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood: Road of The Dead, 2014) and Christopher Sun (Charlie’s Farm, 2014; Boar, 2017) and Ozploitation greats like Brian Trenchard-Smith (Turkey Shoot, 1982; Dead End Drive-In, 1986). His nighttime sequences achieve more with one source light and a fog machine than most would with twice the resources, while his old-school practical effects (including a possessed and rotting kangaroo whose design recalls the goat-monster from…that’s right, Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell) are top tier.

As with any independent filmmaker worth their weight, Armstrong calls in favours to realise his project. Oscar’s band is played by soundtrack contributors The Mercy Kills, who have utilised Armstrong’s vision in the past for their film clips; Tarnation reunites the director with the star of Sheborg Massacre and From Parts Unknown, actress/stuntwoman Emma-Louise Wilson, who brings some well-timed and tasteless laughs as the wheelchair-bound ‘Wheels’.

THE MARSHES

Stars: Dafna Kronental, Sam Delich, Mathew Cooper, Zac Drayson, Amanda McGregor and Eddie Baroo
Writer/Director: Roger Scott.

Reviewed ahead of the Australian Premiere at the 2017 A Night of Horror Film Festival; December 1, 2017.

Rating: 4/5

The jolly swagman of Australian folklore is not so jovial in Roger Scott’s swampy psycho-thriller, The Marshes. A nasty piece of work in which the spirit of the bushman traveller escalates his penchant for opportunistic crime from sheep stealing to stalking and stabbing, Scott’s twisty deconstruction of slasher pic tropes is as good a calling-card pic as we’ve seen from a young Aussie genre filmmaker since Damien Power’s similarly sinister Killing Ground in 2016.

The Marshes adheres to a well-trodden ‘big smoke-vs-hillbilly’ opening act, as in when eco-warrior academic Dr Pria Anan (Dafna Kronental) has some fightin’ words at a last-stop gas station with brawny pig-hunter Zac Drayson. With her offsiders Will (Sam Delich) and Ben (Matthew Cooper), she forges ahead with her research field-trip deep into remote marshlands, only to have her days filled with further pig-hunter angst and her nights disrupted by a nightmarish presence haunting her campsite.

Scott’s storytelling skills kick into high gear in Act 2, when the threat turns out to be more than a cranky shooter and the landscape of the marsh reveals otherworldly secrets dating back to wild colonial days. With the aid of some skilful lensing from DOP Giovanni Lorusso, who switches from lush, sun-dappled widescreen location work to tight, terrifying close-ups, Scott amps up the menace and revs up the gore at expertly timed intervals.

Audiences will be challenged at times to go with the film’s divergent path into the slightly surreal. Some narrative ‘dog legs’ recall the occasionally head-scratching developments in the TV hit Lost, yet the cut-and-slice thrills of classic Friday the 13^th/Texas Chainsaw Massacre-type entertainment remain ever present throughout the pic’s second-half.   

Traditionalists who view the larrikin swaggie of ‘Waltzing Matilda’-fame as some kind of Aussie hero are going to be rattled by Scott’s version of the iconic figure, brought to hulking, horrifying life by big-man actor Eddie Baroo and kitted out in period-authentic swag-and-drizabone attire by costumer Maria Papandrea. As Pria, the terrific Kronental (channelling Sigourney Weaver, circa ’79, in both looks and intensity at key moments) offers a striking and powerful version of the ‘final girl’/horror heroine.

The Marshes is technically top tier, with Jessica Mustacio’s cutting of the intense handheld camerawork a standout, Nigel Christensen’s sound design crucial to The Swagman’s ominous presence and Tristan Coelho’s atmospheric score adding immeasurably to the tension. Despite the cultural origins central to the story and some broad colloquial language, the authentic locations (which look to have made for an arduous shoot) are not typically synonymous with the Down Under setting and should help sales agents spruik The Marshes as a deserved global marketplace player.