njs-55801 Reviews

Deliver Us from Evil (I) (2014)

One of the better horror films recently

[8/10 · 7 August 2015]

Eric Bana and Edgar Ramirez star in a supernatural story using the life of NYPD sergeant turned demonologist Ralph Sarchie to create a tale of possession and exorcism in a darkened and rain-drenched New York. Bana plays Sarchie and Ramirez plays a charismatic priest, Joe Mendoza, who introduces Sarchie to the fight against evil. Both men have a brooding, dark and handsome persona, both men are unclean – Ramirez personally, Sarchie professionally – and, since it's more interesting to see the fight between good and evil being played out inside a character than outside, they make a well-matched and intriguing pair of demon-fighters.

Deliver Us from Evil has an individuality derived from a strong aesthetic that combines a Gothic visual style – New York looks particularly Gotham-like – with a sound design that textures the film with the aural equivalent of film grain: static, buzzing, echoes and old voices, creaks, and shuddering old buildings, as well as a soundtrack from The Doors placed in a sinister context as demonic forces attempt to break through into Sarchie himself.

The film is dominated by its locations and weather as much as by its actors and plot. Everything takes place in the rain, driving, heavy rain, always a great metaphor for the extremes of the human condition, and in the dark. Dark alleys, houses, cellars, dirty stairwells, a zoo at night; a city at night is the natural location for a horror film about humans and the things that prey on them. Where else should a film about demonic possession take place? On a sandy beach in the summer? Unless we've all been wrong for a very long time, Satan doesn't like sunshine.

The direction and cinematography use these settings to create the story of humans in the midst of darkness. Only the characters' faces are lit in interior scenes; outside, the camera floats above the city, and it stays close to the actors when they are inside. The director, Scott Derrickson, is fast becoming a horror veteran and his experience and control are evident throughout scene by scene and also in the way he opens up the story and pushes it forward at a strong pace – this is not a horror film where nothing happens until the last 10 minutes! Ultimately a film about possession stands or falls on its exorcism scene. It also rests on the commitment of the actors, and this has to be strongest in the exorcism sequence. Sean Harris plays the demoniac and he excels not just in the physical acting needed to portray possession but in his sheer creepiness earlier in the film and, in the end, his terror and shock when exorcised. He looks like a hostage who's been buried underground or locked up in a box and his release ends a great exorcism scene which has just enough gruesomeness and religious fervour but doesn't go over the top, although shattering glass, pouring rain and the Doors playing over the ritual comes close.

Watching Eric Bana give a strong performance, brooding his way through a fairly Gothic city, given direction and, finally, release by Edgar Ramirez as the cool and spiritually committed Jesuit, it raises a question about him that might not have occurred before: Bana for Batman, anyone?

Judas Ghost (2013)

low budget horror wins again

[6/10 · 25 June 2015]

JUDAS GHOST Simon R Green writes his first film script and director Simon Pearce makes a rare move into feature-length films to direct a low budget horror that's confident and comfortable in its genre.

The plot is derived from Simon R Green's Ghostfinder novels about the paranormal investigations of the Carnacki Institute; a small team is sent by the Institute to a non-descript church hall that has seen some ghastly goings-on and they record events to use as a training film for the Institute's new recruits.

Judas Ghost benefits from a sharp, witty script, strong acting and direction that maintains a cinematic quality despite the single location and few actors – it never looks like a stage play. The film has won several awards for direction and acting at festivals and even the special effects look pretty good for the low budget.

The central drama is of a nameless horror shrouded in a creeping darkness that advances on the team, picking them off until vanquished by a heroic sacrifice. One criticism is that this is not the most sophisticated set-up, the film comes across as a light run-through of a horror tale and there is the feeling that it could have gone to a deeper level. Having the characters hold hands and chant the magic words to repel the darkness just seemed trite.

Overall, any criticisms should only be mentioned in passing. So many horror films are instantly forgettable or so sub-genre that you know what's going to happen almost as soon as the film starts. Judas Ghost has enough attractions to avoid that, not least the ghoulish Judas Ghost itself, well played by Graham Fox. It also has the name of Carnacki, and anything that keeps Carnacki the Ghost Finder and his creator, the great ghost writer William Hope Hodgson, before the public must be a good thing.

Run All Night (2015)

Liam Neeson and Jaume Collet-Serrado it again, better than before

[8/10 · 23 May 2015]

Liam Neeson makes his third film with Jaume Collet-Serra, and again produces a superior action thriller with quality acting throughout, memorable cinematography, and fast, hard action. Amongst all this, there's the occasional dip in plot logic but, with the action spread out smoothly across the movie, nothing takes away from the spectacle of Neeson fighting his way through the city at night, in best noir fashion.

Liam Neeson plays Jimmy Conlon, a washed-up hit-man we first see lying shot up in a wood and reflecting on death, failure and regrets. It's a good, conflicted role for Neeson as an old man who gets his purpose back in protecting his son and retains the muscle memory to shoot everyone in sight. Ed Harris is the old-school mob boss with a greedy, reckless son. Vincent D'Onofrio is the cop on Jimmy's tail who doesn't want to prick Jimmy's conscience so much as stab it right through and watch it bleed; Joel Kinnaman plays Jimmy's son, Mike, who hates his father but, in time-honoured fashion, slowly reconciles with him and gives the film a poignant resolution.

Good action films don't waste time. From Jimmy shooting his best friend's son to the gunfight at the end, the action crunches through New York City relentlessly as Jimmy and Mike evade crooked cops, mob soldiers, other hit men, lots more cops, and outraged citizens through car chases, fights, explosions, and shoot-outs until Jimmy stops running and starts hunting his pursuers. His meeting with Ed Harris, his old boss and ex-best friend, a last attempt to negotiate a way out for his son, might not be too believable but it does give Harris the chance to use his unnerving blue eyes to stare Neeson down and deliver a chilling speech. It's one of the highlights of the film.

Looking for a witness to clear Mike of murder while on the run is a perfectly decent plot line. Going to a tower block where the witness might live and knocking on every single door trying to find him stretches that line a bit too far, but it's only a device to bring on the film's big set-piece action sequence and is soon forgotten in the mayhem that follows. The lack of police surveillance on Jimmy's brother is also very convenient for him. However, these occasional weaknesses in the writing are easily superseded by the visual spectacle provided by the stunning cinematography.

The camera-work creates a depth more mundane thrillers would miss. Shots of the city at night, in the rain, the subway, commuters, housing projects, street-life all add layers of reality to set against the action. The camera swoops, dives and runs through the city connecting the film's locations and connecting the whole city together, giving a great sense of place. At the end, a beautiful, grungy graphic design in saturated primary colours recaps the story in terms of menace and fear. A dark ending for a modern film noir.

Good Kill (2014)

a solid film, an important subject

[7/10 · 17 May 2015]

In a cubicle on an air force base in the Nevada Desert, Major Tom Egan flies drones over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen as part of America's War On Terror.

Good Kill is Andrew Niccol's third collaboration with Ethan Hawke, and a long overdue study of America's drone war. This is not a full-on denunciation of drone warfare, though. The film never really answers, or asks, the question of what is it about drones that makes them morally different from bombing by conventional aircraft. Instead, a sharp script and solid acting present both sides of the argument which swirls around Egan, played by Hawke as a taciturn, frustrated pilot who just wants to get back in a jet and fly again.

Egan expresses few opinions early on about drones, or anything else, but his dissatisfaction with the new warfare, conducted via HD screens in a prefab unit while F16s are mothballed, is always visible. The arguments for and against drones are made by the rest of Egan's squad: Zoe Kravitz is the quietly conscientious objector while Dylan Kenin and Jake Abel play men absolutely convinced of America's superiority and righteousness.

Tom Egan's disillusion with the war really sets in when his squad suffers the ultimate military indignity of having to take orders from the CIA. In reality the CIA ran its own drone war starting just after 9/11 and it's unlikely they would have had to use the Air Force for missions but it's an interesting plot development which forces the squad to confront their actions even more due to the CIA's determination to kill everyone in sight.

Good Kill presents an important issue that hasn't had enough coverage in America or Britain, which has its own drone campaign running in the middle east, totally unreported by the British media. It avoids being preachy or moralistic about the subject and in fact seems unsure whether it wants to condemn drones or not. At the end Egan uses a drone strike to kill a bad man he's observed committing crimes he's never going to be prosecuted for. Is the film saying that drone strikes are okay if they're used as policing instruments? Or is this subplot just a device so that Egan can walk away from the program with his head high because he's done something good with a drone? In one understated, underused scene, Good Kill shows us something we don't often see: Egan pulls up outside a mosque in Las Vegas and sits for a moment, just watching the people talking and coming and going. It contrasts with the beautiful shots of the better-known, glamorous Vegas and raises questions about exactly which America is the War On Terror being fought for? What do American Muslims think about it? Has anyone ever asked them?

It Follows (2014)

A modern take the suburban fear of everything

[6/10 · 14 May 2015]

It Follows takes a familiar horror film storyline – suburban teen pursued by unknown evil – and delivers a new take on it through an original plot and an opening up of the teenage worldview with the roles sex, death, and fear play in the self-obsessed teenage mind. It also takes a long look back at John Carpenter's early horror movies, especially Halloween, in its music and long, slow camera moves, although the film is none the worse for it; the creeping horror slowly gaining on the central character, Jay, is effectively built up and Maika Monroe is excellent at portraying the haunted, trapped girl – trapped by her unwillingness to pass on the curse as much as by the curse itself. The film exists in an isolated, disconnected teenage world, where parents barely exist, a teacher is just a disembodied voice in a classroom, and the characters start off just sitting around doing very little then progress to running from place to place with little idea of what to do when they arrive. The film captures the aimless intensity of teenagers, the constant awareness of sex and the vague awareness of its perils, giving the film a depth most horror movies don't have. The basis of this is the plot premise of passing on a curse through sex. This can be seen as any number of allegories – sin, death, disease, guilt, and all those good things! This metaphorical dimension makes it more a semi-horror than full on horror film. Although the opening sequence ends with a gruesome image and there's a nasty incest/rape murder later on the film relies on building tension through inventive cinematography that is always looking for paranoid, claustrophobic angles and simple camera moves such as constantly closing in on Jay. Another interesting aspect of It Follows is the depiction of the suburban relation to the city. Filmed in Michigan and Detroit, the city the characters travel into is a desolate place, full of ruined housing and a ruined economy where people hang around because there's nowhere else to go. It's a reality check such a subjective film benefits from – suburban inner demons complemented by suburban fear of the city. It raises an interesting question: which is worse, a teen who sleeps with the wrong guy or the complete annihilation of American cities over the last decade?

The Woman in Black (2012)

clever choice by Hammer, good career move by Daniel Radcliffe

[7/10 · 6 May 2015]

Hammer consolidates its return to horror film production and Daniel Radcliffe begins his post-Harry Potter career with this finely-crafted adaptation of Susan Hill's 1983 Gothic horror novel The Woman in Black. A cast of strong character actors, careful direction, beautiful cinematography and genuine scares come together to produce a subtle and satisfying film. Daniel Radcliffe stars as Arthur Kipps, haunted by a woman in white as well as a woman in black, a man empty inside since his wife's death until a routine solicitors job in the village of Crythin Gifford brings Kipps into contact with a vicious spirit whose undead rage ultimately gives him back everything he has lost.

The first ten minutes establishes much of the story to come and creates the anticipation that is part of the pleasure of watching a good ghost story. The opening scene is an eerie, wordless study of three little girls breaking off their dolls tea party to throw themselves out of a window; a light, ghostly quality is created by the colour scheme, mainly white, no primary colours, and the close-ups of the delicate dolls and teacups and the girls' paleness. It seems that someone else was in the room, by the way the girls all look up at the same spot and then look at the window. Something supernatural is present. When Arthur Kipps travels to Crythin Gifford we can anticipate the questions of what will happen to him there and will he survive.

Daniel Radcliffe gives a strong and convincing performance as Arthur Kipps, deep in mourning over the death of his wife in childbirth several years ago. Kipps is emotionally shut down, almost suicidal and haunted by visions of his wife, who is always dressed in white. This is a major change in story from the novel and the previous BBC movie and separates this version enough to give it a distinctive identity and make it more than a mere remake. It aligns the gloom within Kipps to the gloom he will soon encounter in Crythin Gifford; the presence of one ghostly woman, a woman he desperately wants, will soon be matched and opposed by another ghostly woman he does not want, providing a nice symmetry throughout the film and a resolution at the end when the one reunites him with the other.

Radcliffe plays a man under pressure from the start. As well as being severely depressed Kipps has unpaid bills and the threat of the sack hanging over him. His trip to Crythin Gifford is his last chance to save his job and the determination he shows in coping with events there gives a solidity and believability to Radcliffe's performance.

On the train to Crythin Gifford Kipps meets Sam Daily, played by Ciaran Hinds, in a solid support role. His part here as the older, wealthy local man set apart from the villagers not just by his status but also by his refusal to accept their superstitions makes him Kipps' ally, as the story needs at least one local on Arthur's side if he is to get anywhere; Hinds acts with certainty and seriousness, supporting Arthur throughout the story and trying to keep him sane. Sam Daily also has a ghost: a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost which will play its part in unravelling the mystery.

It soon becomes clear that something is very wrong in the village and that it concerns the children. The local people are frightened and hostile and want to get rid of Kipps as soon as possible. Children are locked away after one little girl dies and Kipps seems to be blamed for this and possibly more. The film begins to take on the feel and tone of classic Hammer movies: the village with its dark secret, the old dark house/castle, the outsider who, joined by the local priest/older authority figure, has to fight the evil.

The significant ghostly action takes place when Kipps visits the house of his late client, Mrs Drablow, and begins to piece together her story. Mrs Drablow's unmarried sister had a son which the Drablows adopted and who died in marshland. The boy's natural mother, Jennet, went mad and hanged herself, blaming her sister for the boy's death. It is her spirit which haunts Eel Marsh House, taking the village children in revenge for her loss. Alarmingly, Kipps is bringing his own small son to the village in a few days and so the plot turns into a race against time as Kipps has to resolve the mystery and placate the spirit before his son falls victim.

The scenes with Kipps at the house are classic haunted house fare but very well done. Weird noises in the empty house, doors locked then unlocked, spectral faces and things glimpsed, the creepiness of old children's toys and visions of past victims all push Kipps to the edge but also towards a resolution. Daniel Radcliffe is great in these long scenes with no dialogue and he holds the attention through expressing Kipps' uncertainty in exploring the old dark house, his isolation and mounting terror as the spirits reveal themselves.

The ending brings the story of Arthur Kipps to a meaningful conclusion. Death at the hands of Jennet is not the triumph of her curse but the beginning of a new life with his woman in white. He is reunited with his wife and finally finds the fulfilment lacking in his mortal life. The scene avoids sentimentality by keeping it brief and understated: there's a smile and they walk off into the mist, proving that, handled properly, there's nothing wrong with a happy ending. The woman in black remains locked up in Eel Marsh House. Her rage is unabated, her desire for revenge continues – because she is dead it can never end.

The Innkeepers (2011)

part horror, part indie slacker drama, great actors and a sense of humour.

[8/10 · 6 May 2015]

The Innkeepers mixes indie charm with horror film through confident direction from Ti West and attractive performances from Sara Paxton Pat Healy and Kelly McGillis. The film embraces horror clichés, dropping them in and out of the story in a natural and sometimes light-hearted way. It also mixes the acting styles of Sara Paxton and Pat Healy on one hand and Kelly McGillis on the other. See it for an intelligent and playful combining of genres that has fun with conventions yet still delivers genuine scares along the way.

The venerable Yankee Pedlar Inn is about to close for good and the last two employees, Clare and Luke, decide to do something productive over the Inn's last weekend and look for the truth about the ghostly legend of Madeline O' Malley. Luke wants to jump on the paranormal bandwagon with a website about spectral activity at the Inn, Clare wants to because she really has nothing better to do.

Director Ti West directs a pared down movie of essentially a single location and just a few characters, and produces the classic horror film sensation that something in this place isn't right. There's a creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere throughout, leavened with some laugh out loud moments. This is the sort of film that knows mood and atmosphere are more important in a fright film than cgi.

Much of the film is taken up with the interplay of the two leads, Sara Paxton and Pat Healy. They make a good double-act. Their characters are on the same level and it's easy to see them coming from the same background and working at the Yankee Pedlar for much the same reasons. Clare is bored and frustrated in that way people in their early twenties often are while Luke is a slightly older slacker, an intelligent low achiever who's too insecure to reveal that his feelings for Clare might just be more than platonic. The other main actor in the Innkeepers is Kelly McGillis, playing Leanne Rees-Jones, an actress turned faith healer and mystic. With grey hair, no make-up and an alcohol problem Leanne is down to earth as well as up in the clouds. She is as articulate and focused in her beliefs as Luke and Clare are not and she provides the film with a sharp contrast to them with her brusque manner and world-weariness.

Watching her act next to Sara Paxton and Pat Healy is also to watch a real contrast in styles. McGillis is precise and quite tight in her movements and speech as opposed to the naturalistic chat and looser movement of Healey and Paxton. Kelly McGillis has real screen presence, in the scene where she lays out her spiritual beliefs to Clare and encourages her to contact the spirits in the hotel she holds the attention by speaking with authority, the voice of experience pushing Clare forward. She reveals to Clare that there are three spirits at the Inn, Madeline O'Malley and two others. Later in the film she also reveals that her mystic gifts include seeing or sensing things that have not yet occurred. It is easy to miss a connection between these two revelations: the other two spirits have not yet arrived or perhaps are not yet spirits. We find out the truth before the end, in the film's most frightening scene, executed perfectly and developed out of one of the horror genres most familiar clichés.

Mixing up genres is best achieved through playfulness. Director Ti West moves between humour, horror, and indie character study effortlessly, through the light touch of the actors to sudden spooky camera positions such as the one from low down on the basement stairs when Clare and Luke go to hold a séance. The séance is really creepy, the flashlights lighting their faces from below, the light on Pat Healy's face is particularly scary with the shadows from his glasses giving him what look like horrible black streaks across his face; this, and his terrified look, builds up the tension really quickly until he suddenly panics and flees the hotel, leaving Clare to run to Leanne for answers so initiating the final act.

One more horror character arrives late on: the deathly visitor. In this case an old man turns up for one last night at the hotel where he spent his honeymoon and it's immediately clear that this will be his last night on earth. He represents the arrival of death at the Inn but he also plays a role in the plot. He is the second of the three spirits Leanne earlier revealed to Clare.

In any horror film when one character says to another "Don't move, stay where you are, I'll be back in a minute" it is guaranteed that that character will not stay where they are, and neither does Clare. They will hear a noise at the far end of a dark alley or corridor and will go off to investigate and never be seen alive again, and so does Clare. This is a great horror film cliché and using it here works not just as a plot device but also as a stylistic choice that suggests Clare is now part of something pre-ordained, that classic horror film feeling that a character is being manipulated by something dark and malevolent.

Clare's final scene is truly frightening. From her slow walk along the corridor and her hesitancy at the top of the basement stairs the camera is still, making the scene slow and tense. The appearance of the old man's spirit behind her sends her falling down in an unexpected release of action that speeds up as she is chased along the dark corridors of the basement by the phantom until she reaches the end of her journey where, hysterical and terrified, trapped and confronted by the ghost of Madeline O'Malley, Clare becomes the third spirit of the Yankee Pedlar Inn.

The Whistleblower (2010)

powerful story and top actors let down by uneven script

[6/10 · 6 May 2015]

The Whistleblower starts with a depiction of how girls from eastern Europe were trafficked into the Balkans for the sex industry that grew up after the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995. Tempted by the offer of a job in the West, two girls, Raya and Luba, end up in a life of sexual slavery to men working for the very institution that was there to protect civilians – the United Nations.

The early scenes with Katherine Belkovac, played by Rachel Weisz, introduce her as a police officer from Nebraska who accepts a job in Bosnia for the money and perhaps as a break from her domestic problems, employed by Democra, a corporation contracted by the UN to provide monitors for the Bosnian police.

An issue in the early scenes is the way characters appear and disappear from the story. Benedict Cumberbatch appears fleetingly, on screen for less than five minutes in the whole film. He is vaguely described as a commander, presumably working for Democra but this is not made clear and it is a weakness in the film that characters are introduced but not identified sufficiently for the audience to get a handle on them. Belkovac soon gains the attention of Madeline Rees, High Commissioner of Human Rights, warmly and effortlessly played by Vanessa Redgrave, who offers Belkovac the job of Head of Gender Affairs. At this point the film feels like it is ready to begin and the reintroduction of one of the girls from the opening scene, Raya, starts Belkovac on her journey into the underworld.

Raya's been badly beaten up, there were were no jobs in Germany for the girls, their trail west stopped at a whorehouse in Bosnia. Belkovac goes to investigate the bar where Raya worked. In a simple powerful scene she walks through the empty club and finds wads of American currency, girls' passports, polaroids of sexual abuse and in the back-room filthy mattresses, syringes and a large cage complete with manacles and leg-irons. There is no music, no other characters or dialogue are necessary. The camera follows Belkovac and the audience follows the camera. The Whistleblower is at its best in scenes like this.

The visual style of the rest of the film is also established in the bar scene. Darkness and shadow dominate from now on. As Belkovac becomes enlightened the story gets darker. At a shelter Belkovac first hears the term human trafficking and is made aware that the trafficking started after the war ended and the UN had arrived yet Belkovac still doesn't quite seem to get it; there is a tendency in the film for other characters to have to spell things out for her, maybe this gets information across to the audience but it does leave one wondering was she this naïve in real life?

The second half of the film is dominated by the futility of her work and the suffering of the girls she is trying to save. The forces that really control Bosnia reveal themselves in the increasing violence done to the girls and the backlash against Belkovac inside Democra. In the shortest and best written scene she is interviewed by a Democra official, John Blakely, a subtle, hostile performance by William Hope. Belkovac leaves the meeting realising she is alone. The use of camera focus to emphasise her loneliness and almost paranoid state of mind is very effective.

As time runs out for Belkovac she has one chance to still make a difference. She learns that Raya is being held at a bar nearby and, in the emotional climax of the film, she goes there to persuade Raya and the other girls to take a chance and leave with her. It's a powerful scene, Rachel Weisz is brilliant as her appeals fail and her impotence is finally revealed. While Raya sinks back into the shadows of the bar Belkovac staggers outside. Neither of them have anywhere left to go. The last section of the film is quiet. Belkovac has realised that her police work has failed and that she must become the whistleblower. She gets away with the evidence, makes it to London and tells her story. Rachel Weisz will get all the plaudits for her performance. She plays the honest cop in dishonest times up against odds she only slowly begins to comprehend. Her increasing horror at what she discovers is matched by her determination and commitment. Weisz plays the role with energy and strength but her performance never gets in the way of the story.

The other actors are really not on screen long enough. Vanessa Redgrave is especially underused. Her acting is real quality, delivered through her voice and eyes, her charisma adds another level to the film. Her scenes with Rachel Weisz are a fascinating contrast of styles, with Weisz a more physical actor, more expressive and although some of the dialogue is not the strongest Vanessa Redgrave never sounds like she is reading from a script at all. Roxana Condurache is especially good as Raya, she seems to physically change as she suffers and by the end she is in a permanent cringe, unwilling even to raise her head, the look on her face says she knows she's trapped.

A powerful story and a strong cast drive The Whistleblower and Larysa Kondracki directs her first feature film with style and imagination. The use of blur, focus and shadow is never overdone and effectively convey the isolation of the characters. She keeps a good balance between this subjectivism and the stark reality of the violence that underlies everything. However, the script is uneven, and some of the devices used to move the plot forward are clichéd yet the film does not let us forget that Raya is dead, the girls are still in slavery, no-one from the UN was ever prosecuted. The Whistleblower ends on a downbeat but truthful note.

Entity (2012)

Great location, good actors, intelligent direction. Genre films don't have to be original, they have to be well made.

[7/10 · 6 May 2015]

Entity is a British horror movie written and directed by Steve Stone. It's a tight, claustrophobic film that relies on good acting, special effects that are genuinely disturbing and actually help reveal the story, and an ultra-creepy location.

The plot is slim and characterisation is kept to a minimum as a small TV crew, consisting of Kate Hansen, played by Charlotte Riley, Matt, played by Rupert Hill and David, played by Oliver Jackson, with guest psychic Ruth Peacock, played by Dervla Kirwan, travel to a remote spot in Siberia in search of a paranormal story promised them by their host, Yuri, Branko Tomovic. They soon find a deserted industrial site, and as they explore the evil within, it begins to explore them. There can only be one winner.

In a downbeat ending the ghost-hunters become ghosts and the ghosts become real in a way we've seen before in plenty of horror films yet if there's nothing startlingly original in Entity there is better than average-horror-film acting, especially from Dervla Kirwan and Charlotte Riley, a really eerie atmosphere throughout, and the disturbing reassurance that there's plenty of life left in the world of ghosts.

Sick Boy (2012)

a well constructed short-story horror movie that gets straight to the point and delivers just what a horror film should.

[6/10 · 6 May 2015]

Sick Boy Sick Boy is a horror film slashed down to the bare bones of a small cast, a basic plot that drives you straight to the gore with no diversions and an ending that suggests the horror is only just beginning. It's a short-story movie that builds quickly around the performance of Skye McCole Bartusiak who performs with experience, a light touch and humour. Sick Boy is about as straightforward as a film can get but it's well constructed with good acting and though you roughly know what's coming throughout it's still satisfying to see how it plays out and who survives.

Sick Boy's central character is Lucy, played by Sky McCole Bartusiak, a wannabe writer who floats from job to job, much to the annoyance of her fiancé, Chris, Marc Donato. Her friend Alice asks her to take her place at a babysitting job while Alice pursues her career in showbiz. Lucy arrives at the plush but sterile house of Dr Helen Gordan, played by horror legend Debbie Rochon. Helen explains that her son Jeremy is sick, very sick.

One of the likable things about Sick Boy is its brevity. After 25 minutes the story is set, we know all we need to about the characters and there have been a few subtle warnings that all is not right; a news item about a South American flu strain, the look on Dr Gordan's face as she lets Lucy in, the camera hovering over the dark downstairs all clue us in without drawing attention to themselves. Events from later in the film also play through the opening credits, which seems a bit of a spoiler or maybe it's interesting trying to work out how the clips fit into what we learn as we go along.

One of the reasons such concision is possible is the better than average acting. The story is told mainly through the eyes of Lucy and Sky McCole Bartusiak gives us Lucy's personality in the first few minutes. Unable to handle the sickening blood-drenched scene around her – her job at the dentist – Lucy goes home to whine to Chris, her unsympathetic boyfriend, well played by Marc Donato, who has to hold a steady job he hates so Lucy can keep quitting hers. She wants to be a writer but is incapable of writing anything. To watch Lucy get her laptop out, stare at the blank screen then do everything to avoid writing is funny. Sky McCole Bartusiak and Marc Donato have both been acting since childhood, Debbie Rochon is a long-time star of horror and exploitation movies and their experience lifts the film above the usual low budget badly acted horror flick. Debbie Rochon is especially watchable with her decadent eyes and cruel mouth.

Lucy soon realises something is wrong in the house. Jeremy's door is padlocked; Lucy catches a glimpse of him under the door and he's already in monster mode with blood-red eyes and black bile spilling from his mouth. At home she argues with Chris. The plot moves quickly but not hurriedly and the row with Chris provides a nice way to sum up events so far.

Part of the fun of watching films is knowing more than the characters do. It's been obvious for some time that Jeremy is a zombie, his dad turned into a zombie and Dr Gordan was keeping Jeremy locked away in the vain hope that she could cure him. Lucy and Chris clearly never watch horror films since they return to the house with no clear idea what to do beyond some vague idea of rescuing Jeremy. This launches the final fight between Lucy and Chris and the Gordan zombies, Dr Gordan having been zombified too. The extreme close-ups used throughout the film to emphasise the narrow perspectives of Lucy especially but all the characters are very effective here, these zombies are the roaring fast-moving variety and the fights are simple and well staged.

At the end only Lucy is left and in the final scene, at the hospital, a little science bit provides further explanation before we see that the undead are so-called for a reason: it only takes one bite to carry on.

Kill List (2011)

more interested in being mysterious and enigmatic and doesn't care about the audience.

[5/10 · 6 May 2015]

Kill List, director Ben Wheatley's third film, is a grim thriller that walks a line from domestic drama through gangster violence to horror film. The initial plot has a mysterious stranger hire hit men Jay and Gal to murder some unnamed men; this proves to be a pretext for a deeper story that emerges slowly and drops clues and hints about itself right to the end but explains nothing and lacks internal coherence, making Kill List seem self-conscious and artificial. The film is more organic in the violent, menacing atmosphere generated as Jay and Gal go about their work. Watching this atmosphere seep into Jay and release the savagery and violence within him is Kill List's most powerful feature and sits on top of plot deficiencies and overly schematic direction to produce an overambitious film with potential but no fulfilment.

Kill List is hard work. It's hard to get into a film that you feel is more interested in its own construction than in keeping the audience with it yet there is more to this film than its self-obsession. The strong acting of the lead characters, the sense of journey, travelling through a British landscape towards an immense darkness, the use of various genres and the feeling that there is a statement about modern Britain in here somewhere all add depth and give us something to think about. There is also interest in the giving way of the initial plot to the deeper story which, as the film progresses, looks more and more like a conspiracy aimed at one character in particular.

A film that doesn't provide a reason to suspend disbelief loses much of its impact. In the end it's hard to believe in Kill List because it seems too contrived, less concerned with telling a story than with appearing deep and mysterious.

The three lead actors are Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring and Michael Smiley. Neil Maskell has been in British film and television since the early 90s playing various roles in gangster and hooligan films as well as drama series including Casualty and The Bill. It would have been easy to play Jay as just a thug but Maskell manages to get across the feeling of someone slowly sinking as the darkness around him connects with the darkness within him. MyAnna Buring is great as Jay's tough wife, Shel, she plays an ambiguous role in a straightforward way and is really believable whether kicking her man up the backside to get his act together or toting a gun at the end. She has been in British horrors before – The Descent 1 and 2 and The Devil's Playground – and always comes across as a natural screen actor. Michael Smiley started as a stand-up comedian but has appeared in many TV and film roles since 2000 in dramas as much as comedy. His performance in Kill List is strong and natural, he's a real down to earth presence in the film, increasingly disgusted by Jay's violence yet their relationship is believable at all times and is one of the things that makes Kill List watchable.

Sleeping Beauty (2011)

Emily Browning is excellent as Lucy, whose need for money and conflicted personality lead her into the fetish world

[8/10 · 6 May 2015]

Emily Browning stars as Lucy, a young student, who enters the world of sexual fetishism under the tutelage of Clara, Rachel Blake. Lucy is drawn by the need for money, and her own character, a mix of passivity, repression and self-destructive forces. This is an absorbing and perplexing film, a character study that offers no explanations. Sleeping Beauty will get most attention for its portrayal of sex but sex is only a part of Lucy's story. The fetish scene she enters might be a fantasy but in the real world it's money that matters and the film is as much about money as about sex.

In the early scenes we watch Lucy going through the motions. A couple of dead-end jobs, a stint as a medical test subject; her social life seems limited to hanging around wine-bars being picked up by men literally on the toss of a coin. An ad brings Lucy to a job interview with Clara, a formal and business-like Madame. Clara dispenses advice along with the job description and delivers the best line in the film: "Your vagina will not be penetrated. Your vagina will be a temple!" After this reassurance Lucy is ready for her new role as a silver service waitress clad in lingerie.

Lucy does well enough to be promoted to the role of sleeping beauty and here we get to the real fetish heart of the film. We watch as Lucy, drugged to sleep, lies in bed as a series of old men climb in with her and, bearing in mind Clara's rule: "no penetration", live out their fantasies. These are disturbing scenes, although only the second man is actually abusive, unsettling too since, as in many fetish scenes, it is hard to figure out exactly what the fantasy is. None of the men seem to take any real sexual pleasure from the situation. Her passivity makes Lucy an object they can project their fantasies onto yet the fetish of watching women sleep is not wholly sexual. It is significant that only one of the men tries to play the typical sexual domineering role. The other two men carry out no sexual activity – man 1 has an agenda for Lucy which is physical but not sexual, as Lucy discovers to her horror at the end.

Lucy is led into the fetish scene by her constant need for money. From her mother phoning her at work for money through her trouble in paying the rent to her limited wardrobe to searching phone box coin slots for money it's abundantly clear that Lucy always needs money. Showing this mundane aspect of Lucy's life doesn't just explain why she enters the world of sexual service but provides an effective counterpoint to that world. It anchors the film in real life, where people wear the same clothes every day because they have nothing else to wear, can't afford a train fare let alone the rent and have to do rubbish jobs they hate because they have no choice. Sleeping Beauty shows us two worlds: Lucy's passivity and self-destructive urges are the same in both, as in the scene where she picks up a 100 dollar note and burns it.

Lucy's disconnect breaks down when she is confronted with sickness and death. The first time we see real emotion from her is when visiting her sick junkie friend Birdmann yet there's a sense that her tears are for herself as much as for him. Her relationship with him is not really explained but it does make sense, somehow, that someone like her would have a platonic friendship with someone like Birdmann, someone non-threatening, gentle and passive. The threat of that being taken away from her, of her life being unhinged is what provokes her. Maybe in the end we only ever cry for ourselves.

The final scenes leave us with two images of Lucy to ponder. Man 1 has decided to end his life, with an overdose, lying in bed next to sleeping beauty. When Lucy awakes and discovers this she reacts with hysterical, impotent rage. He's used her to complete his journey and in so doing breached her indifference by forcing her to confront the ultimate reality in life: someone else's death. Finally we see her asleep, in a scene of perfect stillness. Watching her sleeping it's easy to see this as Lucy's ideal state, a place where she can hide from the truth: hell is other people.

Sleeping Beauty has little narrative, not much dialogue and rather than a natural ending the film simply stops at a certain point in Lucy's life. The film's strength is its commitment to its characters and superb acting throughout. It avoids moralising about the sex industry and treats it prosaically, maintaining the realism of its characters who are brought to life entirely by the quality of the actors. We know nothing of the people in the film, their histories, even their surnames. They are presented to us in the moment. Emily Browning is extraordinary in portraying Lucy as at once shallow and deep, making a difficult character believable and fascinating. Rachel Blake as Clara has just the right mix of experience and authority and Ewen Leslie, as Birdmann, mixed charm with a wasted junkie passivity. The men in the sleeping beauty scenes deserve praise for their difficult roles. Chris Haywood as Man 2 was particularly strong, his character was a bad man with good dialogue. Man 1, elegantly played by Peter Carroll, was the only character in the film to make a substantial speech, he was engaging and rational which gave his suicide a real emotional depth.

This is director Julia Leigh's first feature film and her direction is restrained, even minimal. The focus is always on the characters and this is a mature film that treats its characters and its audience as adults.

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Great acting and beautiful production in this intelligent tale from early psychoanalysis

[8/10 · 6 May 2015]

A DANGEROUS METHOD David Cronenberg moves from body horror to mental dangers in this intelligent and handsomely mounted production of a tale from the early history of psychiatry: the relationships between Sigmund Freud, played by Viggo Mortenson, Carl Jung, played by Michael Fassbender, and two of the forgotten people of early psychoanalysis, Sabine Speilrein, Keira Knightley, and Otto Gross, Vincent Cassel.

The film imagines a love affair between Carl Jung and one of his patients, Sabine Spielrein, a woman who went on to become an important psychiatrist in her own right. Spielrein's case prompted Jung to contact Sigmund Freud in 1906 for insights into treating her, beginning the relationship between Jung and Freud which lasted until their split in 1914.

Relationships are at the centre of the movie. As well as Spielrein and Jung, there are those between Jung and Freud, between Jung and his wife, between Spielrein and Freud, and, most subtly, between Jung and Otto Gross, sent to Jung by Freud for treatment but who ends up influencing Jung into a very different world-view, one which sends him straight into the arms of Sabine Spielrein and some very unorthodox treatment.

The film begins with a burst of action as Sabine Spielrein is dumped at the Burgholzi clinic in Switzerland in 1904 and taken as a patient by the newly-qualified Dr Carl Jung. She was diagnosed by Jung as a psychotic hysteric and Keira Knightley's depiction of this state is pretty close to Jung's initial notes, using her own physicality to describe Spielrein's derangement. Her condition improves but that unstable, twitchy dimension is always there as Keira Knightley keeps her on the edge right to the end.

Michael Fassbender plays Jung as the polar opposite of Spielrein. Jung is calm, good-natured, kindly, and thoroughly decent even when he's having his affair with her or falling out with Freud. There's an attractive, genuine quality in Fassbender that makes him the stable centre of the film.

The other great relationship in the film is between Freud and Jung. Viggo Mortensen's Freud is obsessed with protecting psychoanalysis from its enemies, sizing up Jung as a potential successor yet careful to maintain his own status as head of the clan. There's a dry wit in his performance along with an honesty about Freud's less appealing side, such as his chagrin at Jung's wealthy wife that lets us see Freud as human, all too human - a great but difficult man caught up in the dilemma of looking for a crown prince then, when he finds one, driving him into exile.

The arrival of Otto Gross propels the film forward and provides Jung with the impetus, or the excuse, to start an affair with Sabine Spielrein. Gross is the chaos factor, breaking the stalemate between Spielrein's desire for Jung and Jung's staid conservatism and professionalism. Vincent Cassel plays Otto Gross as neurotic, shallow, insightful and obsessive, going through one sexual experience after another in search of Experience, permanently unhappy. He rejected Freud's idea of repression as a necessity for civilised behaviour, insisting on the immediacy of experience as negating the need for analysis, and challenging Jung at every step to do the obvious thing and have an affair with Sabine. It's an intelligent portrayal by Cassel, emphasising the mental and emotional distance between himself and Freud and Jung and condemning their inability to help him or, in his opinion, themselves. When he climbs over a wall and heads off to his tragic fate, of poverty and death, he is walking away from the possibility of psychiatry itself.

The urgency and sense of panic in his early horror classics are long gone for Cronenberg. A Dangerous Method has a slow, regular pace and some scenes have an almost painterly quality, aided by some great digital matte backgrounds. Scenes are carefully composed with soft focus around the edges of facial shots keeping our attention on the middle of the frame. Outdoor scenes have people slowly promenading in the background along riversides or in parks, adding life and motion and giving a depth to the world.

Deep inside the end credits it says "This film is based on true events, but certain scenes, especially those in the private sphere, are of a speculative nature". The mix of fact and speculation has produced a consistent story thanks to Cronenberg's tight focus on characters who are brought to life by great actors in a film of pristine production values and beautiful music. In a way this mirrors the dangerous and optimistic offer of psychoanalysis: to mix the known and unknown in consciousness and produce a better, more consistent human being.