"Stuck
in the loveless marriage of the title, a divorcing Russian couple must
try to put aside their hatred of each other when their neglected son
suddenly goes missing. As if just living with your ex isn't bad enough,
Boris (Alexei Rozin) and Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) are forced to cooperate
not just with the police and volunteers, but also with each other..."
Richard Linklater's new film Last Flag Flying is in UK cinemas from 26th January 2018. I caught it at London Film Festival and reviewed it for Starburst Magazine. Here's a snippet of my review:
"Richard Linklater delivers his most mature film to date in Last Flag Flaying,
starring a trio of acting heavyweights; Bryan Cranston, Steve Carrell
and Laurence Fishburne. After offering some of the greatest films about
boyhood, high school parties, college days and finding young love while
travelling, Last Flag Flying sees the director on melancholic form with a film about war, death and growing old (not so) gracefully..."
After winning Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Actress for Frances McDormand, Best Supporting Actor for Sam Rockwell, and Best Screenplay for writer/director Martin McDonagh at the Golden Globes last week, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is released in the UK on Friday 12th January.
This is a film I can't wait to see again and I recommend you get down to a cinema to see it asap.
Here's a snippet:
'Seven
months after the rape and murder of her daughter, Mildred Hayes
(McDormand) has had enough of the inertia of the police investigation.
Seven months with no answers and no arrests. With the police having
given up, Mildred decides to pay for a series of messages to be
plastered high on three disused billboards outside her home. This most
public of provocations, and the personal prodding of the town’s Chief
Willougby begins a feud between Mildred and the police department, not
helped by Mildred’s foul mouth and stubborn, but righteous refusal to
accept that the cops could give up on catching her daughter’s killer...'
Blade of the Immortal is out now in UK cinemas and I was lucky enough to catch it earlier this year at the London Film Festival. It seems to be getting a pretty wide release so you should not have any problems finding the film at a cinema near you. My full review of Blade of the Immortal is at Starburst Magazine here. But for the time being, here's a taster of what you can expect...
Takashi Miike's 100th film Blade of the Immortal
reveals a director in no danger of slowing down, and certainly not
easing off on the bloodshed. Based on the manga series by Hiroaki
Samura, this is even bigger, bloodier and better than Miike's recent 13 Assassins.
The body
count in the opening five minutes is enough to make Tarantino blush as
samurai Manji fails to save his little sister from being sliced to death
at the hands of a gaggle of wrong'uns. That's not to say Manji doesn't
make them all pay for their crimes, leaving the ground strewn with
corpses not for the last time in the film. However, Manji is mortally
wounded and saved by a witch with sacred bloodworms that render Manji
immortal and unable to die even after decapitations....
Read the rest of my review here. And while you're here, how good is that poster above?
And here's a little taster of what you can expect from the film, and my review:
Happy End follows three generations of a successful construction dynasty,
but Haneke’s characters are frustrated, bitter and broken right from the
first frames of the film. Anne
(Isabelle Huppert) oversees the business and deals with the fallout from
a construction site accident. Her doctor brother Thomas (Mathieu
Kassovitz) is reconnecting with his teenage daughter, who has come to
live with the family after Thomas’ ex-wife overdoses. Anne’s aging
father Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) has stepped away from the
business as his health is starting to fail. Anne’s son is drinking too
much and appears to be crying out for attention.
It’s a
plot full of major events that mostly happen off screen. A car crash, an
overdose, a suicide attempt and more are involved but Haneke’s focus is
on the quieter moments of relationship drama, including some
surprisingly tender moments of inter-generational mutual understanding
as well as inevitable conflict.
Still in cinemas around the UK are some more films that I saw at the London Film Festival including Psycho documentary 78/52, Scandi-sort-of-horror Thelma and Sean Baker's Tangerine follow-up The Florida Project.
"Director Alexandre O. Philippe takes the approach of honing in on one famous sequence; the Psycho
shower scene. Hitchcock’s most famous set piece is put under the
microscope, subjected to rigorous analysis, and (excuse the pun)
showered with praise by a gaggle of talking heads including critics,
directors, actors, editors and professors.Philippe has assembled an impressive
list of some of the master of suspense’s biggest fans and all are eager
to pore over the minute details of the sequence that has 78 cuts and 52
camera setups (hence the title)."
"The titular character is a young woman who has arrived in the city to
study biology at university, for the first time living away from her
rural-living religious parents. While Thelma makes friends and enjoys
her new found independence, her strict parents are frequently phoning to
check up on her. When Thelma meets classmate Anya, something awakens in
her that is not just about her sexuality, but might also be
supernatural."
Finally, The Florida Project is also out at the moment and though I have not reviewed this elsewhere, I have to highly recommend it now. The film mainly follows a child that lives in a motel down the road from Florida's Disneyworld theme park. She lives in poverty with her weed-smoking, foul-mouthed and irresponsible mother.
I found this film incredibly depressing. What interests me is that many critics have gone on about the joy of the film. Seeing the story through the eyes of this young carefree girl makes it all seem so much more innocent and magical than it really is. What The Florida Project really deals with is inequality on a terrible scale, but also the way that some people fail to help themselves time and again.
It angered me. It made me think of some old friends of mine. Friends that can barely make ends meet, but still manage to take drugs even though they now have children. People that I find it hard to call friends now even though I know damn well how hard their lives are.
I think The Florida Project is a brilliant film and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it pretty much everyday since I saw it two weeks ago. I found it very hard not to judge some characters and by the end, it left me thinking even more about someone close to me who works in social services. It's definitely not a barrel of laughs and I found it hard to see the joy that so many others saw in it. But it is brilliant, and strangely beautiful, with some of the best performances of the year across the board and a perfectly tragic open ending. See it if you can.
Strangled is a Hungarian film based on the true story of a serial killer known as the 'Monster of Martfu'. I caught this at the London Film Festival earlier this year and it's now getting some kind of a cinema release in the UK. It might be difficult to find a cinema that's actually playing it, but it is supposedly being released on November 17th 2017.
"In 1957, a woman leaving work at the
Martfu shoe factory is raped and murdered and her body is dumped in a
river. The man who was last seen with her, Reti Akos is arrested and
eventually admits to the murder despite his sister’s vehement protests
of his innocence. Seven years later, a killer strikes again murdering,
mutilating and dumping women’s bodies in similar ways to the previous
crime. But with Reti still doing his 25 years in jail, the detectives
and prosecutors begin to investigate the new crimes and question if they
got the wrong man."
I know that its tempting to go and see Batman vs Superman 2 or whatever its called, but please rethink your life and go see Ingrid Goes West or Good Time instead. My review of Ingrid Goes West is up at Starburst Magazine here. In a nutshell, it's hilarious, insightful, awkward and tragic. It probably sends out a very dangerous message so I wouldn't let your depressed teenage kids near it. But if, like me, you spend a lot of time on Instagram or Twitter sharing every thought or moment of your life with friends and strangers, then you need to see it. Here's a snippet about the story from my review:
"Ingrid's life is a mess. Her mother has
died leaving her a fat inheritance, but she's left in a psychiatric ward
after a meltdown at an old friend's wedding. Obsessed with Instagram,
hashtags about perfection and happiness and the perfect emoji to use
when commenting, she's desperate for a friend, and for someone to notice
her (and more importantly ‘like’ her pictures). Discovering the
seemingly perfect life of social media sensation Taylor Sloane
(Elizabeth Olsen) in a magazine, she moves to LA to needle her way into
Taylor's life, no matter what the cost."
If Ingrid Goes West doesn't take your fancy, but neither does another all-star superhero team-up, then why not try Good Time. I haven't actually reviewed this film, but it absolutely blew me away. I knew Robert Pattinson was good, and has been making some interesting choices since finishing up with Twilight, but this film is next-level good.
It's about a criminal (Pattinson) with a mentally challenged brother. After a robbery goes wrong, Pattinson's vulnerable brother ends up in jail. Pattinson has to figure out a way to get his brother out before something terrible happens to him.
Good Time is constantly going in unexpected directions, it pulsates with a brilliant score and it moves at a breakneck pace. What I loved most about it though, is its final scene. I won't spoil that here, but it's incredible how it makes you see the entire rest of the film in a different light. Well it did for me anyway. Undoubtedly one of my favourites of the year, I highly recommend a visit to the big screen for this one.
The Handmaiden is on its way into UK cinemas right now. It seems to be getting a great deal of attention and a decent marketing push so hopefully if you're interested in seeing it, you should be able to find it in a cinema near you.
Here's a snippet of my review...
Erotic, emotionally charged and unsurprisingly laced with a splatter of torture, The Handmaiden
is a return to both Chan-wook’s thematic preoccupations and native
Korean language after his English language debut, the wonderfully eerie Stoker. Told in three parts, The Handmaiden
is no step back for the auteur, even if it not only repeats itself in
its own internal structure, but also traverses similar territory to his
previous films. The three parts are central to the twists in the story
as Korean thief Sookee is employed to be the handmaiden of Japanese
heiress Hideko in part one. Sookee is actually in the employ of a fake
Count who is keen to swindle Hideko out of her fortune by seducing and
marrying her and then having the poor woman driven mad and locked up in
an asylum. Sookee’s job is to convince Hideko that she really does love
the Count, and in return Sookee will receive a portion of the fortune.
But when Hideko and Sookee start to feel a growing lust and affection
for each other, allegiances are tested...
A Dark Song seems to be floating around the place recently with a limited release. If you want to see Steve Oram as you've never seen him before, give it a chance.
Here's the gist of it:
Sophia
(Catherine Walker) lost her son three years ago and is now determined
to make contact with him by hiring alcoholic occultist Joseph Solomon
(Steve Oram). When we meet Sophia, she is forking out a large amount of
cash for a secluded old house in the Welsh countryside and asking the
letting agent for privacy. Soon, Mr Solomon (as he is strictly to be
called) arrives and the torturous process of invocation can begin.
Sophia has been prepped for the difficulties that lie ahead, but is
fully committed to submitting to Mr Solomon’s authority and abuse as he
has assured her that she will be able to speak to her son again.
One of my favourite films of the London Film Festival 2016 is released in UK cinemas this weekend. Here's a snippet of my review of Trespass Against Us which stars Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson.
With
its frequent references to Christianity, it's unsurprising to find a holy
trinity of perfect performances at the heart of Trespass Against Us. A towering
Brendan Gleeson plays domineering father to reluctant criminal Chad (Michael
Fassbender), who is hoping for a better life for his own son Tyson (Georgie
Smith). As three generations of the Cutler family, Gleeson, Fassbender and
Smith are a force to be reckoned with in this exceptional crime drama.
The caravan-dwelling Cutlers commit
robberies and clash with the police constantly, led by Rory Kinnear’s P.C.
Lovage. Chad and his wife Kelly (Lyndsey Marshal, also excellent) want out of
the criminal life, attempting to get a secure home and keep their two children
in school. But Gleeson’s ‘Pa’ Cole has other ideas, pushing Chad into a heist
that will bring down the full force of the law upon them all. Like the doomed
kids of American ghetto movies, Chad finds himself torn between the life he has
been born and raised into where criminality is an everyday occurrence, and
another life where he may only find disappointment and prejudice...
Director Xavier Dolan's latest film It's Only the End of the World is currently in cinemas and despite a very mixed reaction from critics, I was very impressed with it. But then, to be fair, I'll watch anything with Vincent Cassell in it! Here's a snippet of my review from the London Film Festival:
Xavier
Dolan becomes the Roland Emmerich of melodrama with his apocalyptic family
reunion in It’s Only the End of the World. Not even a single plate gets smashed
as a French family collide over a single day, but the emotional devastation is
worth more than a thousand alien spaceships smashing their way into the planet.
It might not really be the end of the world, but for these characters, there
may never be another chance for them to express their heightened emotions.
For writer Louis (Gaspard Ulliel) however,
time is most definitely running out. With his terminal illness weighing heavily
on his mind, Louis returns to his family home after a twelve year absence to
tell his mother, brother and sister that he is dying. His older brother Antoine
(Vincent Cassel) is filled with resentment for everyone around him, younger
sister Suzanne (Lea Seydoux) barely knows the brother who left when she was
only a child and Antoine’s wife Catherine (Marion Cotillard) is meeting Louis
for the first time. As tensions boil between the siblings, Louis must find the
right time to deliver his devastating news.
Prevenge is out in cinemas as we speak. No doubt it will be available in other formats very soon as I don't think it is getting a very wide release. If you're thinking about watching it in a London cinema this week, or you are reading this at some undisclosed point in the future and considering watching the DVD, then check out my review below from the London Film Festival...
Alice Lowe writes, directs and stars as the
pregnant Ruth, mourning the man who got her knocked up and hell bent on taking
some revenge on the people she considers responsible for her lover’s death. While
the baby girl inside her eggs her on by talking to Ruth and urging her to kill,
Ruth must balance the ordinary challenges of pregnancy, while simultaneously ticking
off names on her kill list and taking out anyone who gets in her way.
Prevenge plays on every mother’s fears of
bringing a baby into the world. While Lowe was really pregnant as she took on
the lead role, she might have poured out her major concerns about the world around
her, but she still maintains a wicked sense of humour. Prevenge is a slasher
film with a pitch black sense of humour, finding the mirth in murder and
undercutting expectations of what society expects of a pregnant woman at every
opportunity.
Getting 2017 off to a great start, here is my review of A Monster Calls, a film that I was lucky enough to see at the London Film Festival last year. Bring tissues. Connor
is an artistic young boy struggling to come to terms with the terminal
illness of his young mother (Felicity Jones). Bullied at school, left to
run the home, and plagued by a recurring nightmare, he is soon visited
in his dreams by the hulking great cross between a Transformer and an
Ent. This ‘monster’ forces Connor to listen to three tales about kings,
queens, pastors, and an invisible man. As Connor’s Mum’s illness
worsens, Connor’s behaviour becomes more destructive, especially when
his estranged father (Toby Kebbell) arrives from L.A. and Connor is
forced to live with his uptight grandmother (Sigourney Weaver).
With a script by Patrick Ness, based on his own Y.A. book, A Monster Calls
is a very mature affair. It’s dealing with death, fractured families
and honest feelings of hopelessness, despair and worse make it
refreshing even as it slides into melodrama. The characters around young
Connor are not perfect, and though some are two-dimensional, it doesn’t
detract from the emotionally-charged exchanges between Connor and his
bullies, parents and grandmother...
Did I ever tell you about the time I followed Paul Schrader from a cinema he'd just given a Q and A in, back to his hotel across Leicester Square? No I didn't, because it's a strange thing to do and this story has a totally unsatisfactory ending. Basically, at LFF this year, I saw Schrader's new film Dog Eat Dog and then the director participated in a Q and A. Afterwards, I saw him walking from the cinema and decided I'd go and shake his hand. For some reason, I didn't just stroll up and shake his hand immediately and instead thought it fascinating that a man as famous (to movie lovers anyway) as Schrader could walk around the centre of London unnoticed. So I followed him, slightly in awe that he was just casually walking around the Square. I thought I'd go and shake his hand in a minute and let him enjoy not being bothered by film fans. Alas, twas not to be as Mr Schrader then walked inside a hotel and disappeared from my life forever.
Anyway, the film Dog Eat Dog is released in UK cinemas on Friday 18th November so here's a snippet of my review:
Based on the novel by real-life criminal Eddie Bunker, Dog
Eat Dog is the tale of three jailbirds fresh out of the joint, who while
looking to make some fast money, become embroiled in a plot to steal a baby
from a rival gangster. With so much stupidity and psychopathic tendencies on
display from the central trio, it's not a surprise that nothing goes to plan.
Opening with a talk show interviewee
spouting some nonsense about making the world safer by having more people
carrying guns, Dog Eat Dog feels like it’s perhaps going to be a contemporary
crime thriller with something interesting to say. No such luck. Stuck in the
typical gangster milieu of strip clubs and sleazy bars, with its grizzled old
ex-cons spouting casually racist lines and engaging in bad taste ‘comedy’
killing scenes, this feels like Schrader trying to emulate Tarantino and all
the hip young filmmakers who probably grew up adoring Schrader’s early output
with Scorsese at the helm.
Trolls was the Family Gala film at the 2016 London Film Festival and was released in UK cinemas in October. Surprisingly, it's not as bad as it sounds. Read my full Trolls review at Starburst Magazine here. Here's the synopsis:
Justin Timberlake’s Branch is the only Troll with an understandable sense of
unease that dreaded monsters the Bergens are desperate to find the
eye-poppingly bright community of trolls living blissfully carefree in
the woods. Twenty years earlier, the Trolls escaped the clutches of the
Bergens, who are such a bunch of miserable creatures that they can only
find happiness when they eat the multicoloured-haired Trolls. Branch
warns his fellow trolls not to have parties full of loud singing and
glittery fireworks, but will the irrepressible Princess Poppy and the
other trolls listen?
No, they bloody won't, the annoying little buggers. No wonder Branch
is miserable and hiding in a hole in the ground. So when the Bergen head
chef finds the trolls and carries some off to Bergen town to turn into
tasty treats, Poppy must enlist Branch to help her in rescuing her
friends so that they don't miss out on anymore scheduled hug times,
singing, dancing, and lest we forget... scrapbooking.
American Honey played at the 2016 London Film Festival and was released into UK cinemas in October. My full review of American Honey is at Starburst Magazine here. Here's the synopsis: The film follows Star
who first jumps into a minibus full of carefree scruffy white kids who
love nothing more than blasting out hip hop, having a good time, and
making some money selling magazine subscriptions. Entrepreneur Krystal
runs the show keeping her crew of kids working hard, along with her
sidekick and best seller Jake (Shia Labeouf). Star jumps at the chance
to get in on the action, living the wild life on the road and falling
for Jake along the way.
American Honey’s
motley crew roll around the affluent neighbourhoods of America,
attempting to sell their wares by any means necessary, but the focus is
always on Star and Jake as he trains her in the art of the hard sell.
It's an episodic structure with no real goal in sight. It's telling that
two characters are asked what their dreams are and both reply that they
have never been asked that question before. These kids don't get to
have dreams. Their minibus is a cocoon of angry hip hop, where they all
get to spout repetitive brain-washing capitalist messages about getting
rich. Their chemistry comes from sing-alongs and snatches of clearly
improvised dialogue. Their single-minded little community lives only to
make enough money to buy food, drink and drugs.
Blue Ruin came out in 2013 was easily one of my favourite films of the year. This review was originally posted at Filmoria.
Jeremy
Saulnier is a name you better get used to. Writer, director and photographer of
the brilliant indie revenge thriller Blue Ruin, he will need to watch his back
if he carries on like this. Everyone will be after him and his considerable
talent and there are bound to be a few directors jealous enough of his skills
to try and take him out themselves. For that matter, the magnificently bearded
lead Macon Blair is also a serious talent to watch.
Blue Ruin
is the story of Dwight (Macon Blair), a homeless drifter who takes baths in
empty houses, sleeps in his car and gets food from anywhere he can. Dwight is
the silent type; his mouth seemingly lost beneath his impressively overgrown
beard. When he finds out that Wade Cleland, the man responsible for the murder
of his parents has been released from prison, Dwight immediately swings into
action, carrying out his burning desire for revenge. However, killing Wade may
only be the beginning of Dwight's one man rampage of revenge.
Because unfortunately for him, Dwight is no
Rambo. He hasn't got the skills, the savagery or the insanity to just
pick off bad guys left, right and centre. He is clumsy and clearly crap at all
this killing stuff. Though he is committed to his cause and clever enough to
carry it out with the possibility of getting away with it, he is also just an
ordinary guy. His early mishaps with a knife show his worrying lack of prowess
in the weapon-wielding department and it makes him believable, sympathetic and
impossible not to root for.
Blue Ruin starts
off like a deceptively typical indie movie; all intriguing close ups with
shallow depth of field and bereft of dialogue for most of the first half hour.
The composition of early shots are gorgeous with the camera later prowling
around the dark locations building an unbearable silent tension. The subtle
score exacerbates this, brooding in the background and anticipating the
violence. Suddenly and viciously, Blue Ruin becomes a black comedy and edge-of-your-seat thriller.
And when it
comes, the first murder is brutal, bloody and swift. The first act of the film
ends where most revenge thrillers would finish but Blue Ruin has plenty more in
store. The exact details of the murder that has spurred this mission are
deliciously drip fed through sparse bursts of dialogue, punctuating the scenes
of silent Dwight stalking. After he seems to have succeeded in his goal, it
suddenly and frantically becomes clear that what started out simple has just
become far more complex as Dwight has ignited a terrifyingly dangerous family
feud.
From
revenge thriller to home invasion movie and back again, Blue Ruin is never less
than absolutely thrilling. As Dwight rolls around in his old battered car, he
beautifully blurs the lines between victim and predator. Though he is a man of
very few words, he is impossible to take your eyes off. Macon Blair is
revelatory in the role, transforming his features so he is almost two different
characters during the story. His amateur assassin becomes reluctant protector
to his estranged family and his bravery, resourcefulness anddetermination are hilariously balanced by his
total authenticity, lack of faith in himself and deep sadness he lugs around
with him. It is a wonderful performance; at times bringing real warmth and
empathy to the character while being darkly funny as he is forced to tend his
wounds and deal in death. There clearly can't be a happy ending for poor Dwight
who never smiles and takes no pleasure in his actions. He is a man driven to do
what he simply has to do and he has no illusions that he deserves to get out
alive. However you are guaranteed to wince with him when he is hurt and cheer
him on when he takes revenge.
Helped
along the way by an old friend who warns him not to make speeches before
killing people, Blue Ruin is gripping from start to finish even when it pauses
for pitch black humour. The villains may not have much shading, but their love
of guns is enough to make them (for the most part) a mysterious and chilling
foe. Bleakly funny, tense beyond words, breathtaking and heartbreaking, Blue
Ruin is everything you could possibly want in a thriller. Dwight is undoubtedly
one of the best characters of the year and his story will keep you riveted. As
Dwight travels to another showdown, he hears a song about having no regrets on
the radio. Like Dwight after his spree, you certainly won't have any regrets
after seeing the brilliant Blue Ruin.
You've got to wonder where the parents of Heather and James
Donahue are, and what exactly they think they're doing. We didn't see them
before their daughter got lost in The Blair Witch Project and now they've only
gone and let their son James wander off in search of his sister 20 years later.
Surely one of the parents might have advised against this madness.
And so Blair Witch begins with director Adam Wingard (The
Guest, You’re Next) taking us back into the haunted woods of Burkitsville as another
group of camera-carrying crazies go in search of the elusive Elly Kedward. This
time there’s six doomed younglings; James Donahue was four when Heather
disappeared, Lisa wants to make a documentary on James’ ill-advised search for
his missing sister, and their friends Peter and Ashley are just along for moral
support (and to handily up the body count and prove that in horror, black guys
are still first on the kill list). The four friends are then joined by oddballs
Lane (darknet666) and Talia who uploaded footage to YouTube that they claim
to have found on a tape in the woods. The shaky camera video appears to show a
female figure in a house just like the one at the end of Heather’s original
project. Is Heather still alive after all these years, or is the Blair Witch up
to her old tricks again?
No points if you guess the answer, but prepare for another
bumpy ride on you’re way to the climax. Blair Witch ditches much of the
ambiguity of the original film. There’s no room for any real debate over what exactly
happens to this bunch of terrified youths. Anyone still fuming that they sat
through The Blair Witch Project and never got a single shot of the Blair Witch
can rest assured that there is definitely something to see here. Thankfully,
not too much though. Wingard is smart enough to know a little goes a long way
and milks the most suspense possible from his characters’ shaky cameras and
inability to confront the Blair Witch face to face. The sound design is also
racked up a notch, sometimes a little too much as it sounds like the black
smoke monster from Lost might have found its way into the woods of Maryland.
Though the Donahue kids’ parents could have done much more
to stop at least their second child from heading into the woods, at least James
and his buddies are much more prepared for their camping trip than Heather,
Mike and Josh were back in 1994. This new crop of tech-savvy millenials have Walkie-talkies, GPS, wearable cameras, a drone camera, lots of lights, food and just more
cameras than you can shake a spooky stick-man at. Unfortunately, they obviously
didn't watch that footage filmed by Heather and Josh carefully enough as they
don't seem to realise that it's all bloody useless when faced with the power of
the Blair Witch.
And if you thought she was too passive in the original, or maybe you don't believe that there was a curse
and that everything can be explained rationally in the footage from Heather’s project,
prepare to think again. In Blair Witch, the late Elly Kedward really unleashes
her powers. She messes with their technology, messes with time and space,
magics that old house from out of nowhere again and even throws in a few new
tricks that are best left unspoiled. Wingard leaves you in no doubt that the
Blair Witch exists and she's pretty much as terrifying as she ever was.
Fans of the original have to endure a little catch-up
exposition to fill newcomers in on the legend of the Blair Witch, but at least
a little more is added to the mythology. Rustin Parr’s house is also
expanded with previously unseen elements providing one particularly claustrophobic
moment. However, it's what goes down in the house that really gives the sweat
glands a workout as familiar beats (people standing in corners, apologies,
unseen attackers) get new and thrilling updates.
For those sick to death of found footage films, this offers
little to win you over. There’s more cameras and camera technology so a
slightly more varied visual experience than many other similar films. And the
old charge of ‘why would they still be filming in this situation?’ is at least
partially answered by having the characters wear their cameras on their head
requiring them to not have to think about filming when the shit really hits the
fan in the final act. These cameras also provide Peep Show style interactions
as the characters talk to each other but gaze directly into the cameras. This
pays dividends when two characters can only see each other's torch-lit faces
while the space behind them remains in total, terrifying darkness.
So Blair Witch is scary, but it's not as ingenious and won't
be as influential as the original. It's mostly a shame that Wingard didn't use
the ‘method directing’ tactics of original directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel
Myrick. Clearly some of the scenes were unpleasant to film, but the actors in
this film got off lucky. Though there is less ambiguity in Blair Witch, there’s
a higher body count and more hysteria to make up for it. It's just a shame that
there isn't anything as iconic, moving and ‘real’ as Heather’s final apology in
the project that started it all. Still, Blair Witch fans won't be disappointed
and newbies will learn that the woods of Burkitsville can be scarier than
Crystal Lake, Elm Street and Haddonfield put together. Go
back to bed Paranormal Activity, the Blair Witch is back with a vengeance and
as terrifying as ever.
