Horror comes to HOME with FilmFear

Feature by Jamie Dunn | 20 Oct 2016

Pregnant serial killers, cannibalistic veterinarian students and the Spanish take on Dracula – just some of the highlights of new horror season FilmFear, from HOME and Film4

Gore-hounds, get braced for a long weekend of horror with Film Fear, a five-day film season cooked up by HOME and Film4. The finely-curated lineup is a pleasant mix of previews of mint-fresh frighteners and horror classics, some familiar, some little-seen.

It all kicks off with Alice Lowe’s blackly funny addition to the demonic pregnancy genre with the deliciously-titled Prevenge (27 Oct), presented by kickass feminist horror programmers The Final Girls. Lowe, best known for her work on the brilliant Sightseers, makes her directorial debut with this twisted comic gem about a pregnant mother who goes on a killing spree at the behest of her unborn demon seed. Reports are it’s singular and hilarious. Lowe will be at HOME to present the film and give a Q&A after the screening.

Gareth Tunley, another Ben Wheatley alumni, also heads to HOME with his directorial debut, The Ghoul (30 Oct), a psychological thriller centred on a detective investigating a double homicide. In an interview with ScreenDaily, Tunley describes it as “a dreamlike narrative full of reality shifts. It’s got some of the narrative rug pulls of a sci-fi but it’s got the visual trappings of a suburban film noir.” Sounds intriguing.


Raw

The other eye-catching preview is Raw (28 Oct). The premise is to die for: a young woman who’s a strict vegan and a freshman at veterinary school develops an insatiable hunger for flesh that no Linda McCartney sausage can satisfy. Word on the street is that this debut feature from French writer-director Julia Ducournau is pretty extreme – fainting in the aisles has been reported. According to Sight & Sound’s Chloe Roddick, however, there’s plenty going on beneath the film's gory surface: “Ducournau’s intelligent exploration of femininity gives depth to the film’s visceral, bloody celebration of the body and its appetites.”

As well as these shiny new features, there's a handful of classics in the lineup. We’re keen to see the remastered print of Don Coscarelli’s nightmarish and gore-filled Phantasm (29 Oct) on the big screen. Another film that deserves to be seen big is Nazi’s in peril horror The Keep (29 Oct), the phantasmagorical black-sheep of Michael Mann’s career (on 35mm!!). Manchester fans are also sure to get a kick out of The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue (29 Oct), in which Spanish director Jorge Grau makes great use of the English countryside to craft a zombie movie touchstone with a right-on environmental message.


Nosferatu

There’s more reputable horror in the form of F.W. Murnau’s masterpiece Nosferatu (30 Oct), which still has the power to chill 94 years after its release; HarmonieBand provide a live score. We’re also intrigued to see the Spanish language version of Dracula (31 Oct), which was filmed at night concurrently with Tod Browning’s english language version starring Bela Lugosi, using the same sets. Those in the know reckon the Spanish effort is vastly superior.

It's a pleasingly eclectic programme, giving both a snapshot of horror cinema in 2016 as well as a crash-course in how it's developed from the silent era to the modern age. "FilmFear has a truly international feel, historical and contemporary, highlighting how the horror genre has mutated whilst reflecting some of the major concerns in our society," notes Jason Wood, HOME's artistic director of film. "We show old classics in new settings, and in the case of Murnau’s Nosferatu with a new score by HarmonieBand, and also present a series of national and international previews of forthcoming shorts and highly anticipated features. The horror genre remains vibrant, and The Ghoul and Prevenge would suggest that British cinema is at the heart of it.”


FilmFear runs 27 Oct-1 Nov. For the full ten film lineup, head to homemcr.org/event/film-fear