At Home in The Dark: FrightFest at GFF14

The festival might be in its closing days, but this year's FrightFest line-up shows the thrills are far from over

Preview by Chris Fyvie | 27 Feb 2014

There’s an overriding air of the macabre to the festival’s final weekend this year, with Jonathan Glazer’s nightmarish vision of Glasgow, Under the Skin, closing the event on Sunday evening. Before we see an insatiable extra-terrestrial ScarJo guzzling jakeys on Sauchiehall Street, however, there’s the small matter of another FrightFest to get through. Kicking-off today, there’s a number of creepy treats awaiting those whose cinematic tastes lean to the transgressive.

A sink-or-swim opening double of Michael S. Ojeda’s Savaged and Zack Parker’s Proxy look to set an early tone; both sound particularly vicious, with their narratives hinging on women coping with the aftermath of horrific attacks. Ojeda, who cut his teeth on TV’s Deadliest Warrior before producing this feature debut, adds a mystical angle to the revenge fantasy by having his heroine possessed by an Apache spirit before stalking her assailants. Parker’s film appears the more cerebral, if no less violent effort; GFF’s programme states it to be ‘part De Palma, part Lars von Trier, part Martyrs’. If that doesn’t bloody terrify you, we just don’t know what will…

Later in the evening, John Jarret returns as everyone’s favourite murdering drongo in Greg Mclean’s second chapter of the Mick Taylor saga, Wolf Creek 2. It’ll be a bad day for backpackers as the knife-wielding, slack-jawed low-life runs amok in the stunning Aussie outback, but will this sequel have the same fraught atmosphere of the original, or be played more for laughs now that Taylor’s outrageous persona is established? Time and torment-to-wisecrack ratio will tell.

Master of slow-burn terror, Ti West, is then on-hand to introduce his eagerly anticipated The Sacrament. The second film of the day to feature the ubiquitous Joe Swanberg, who also appears in Proxy, The Sacrament sees a team of journalists head-off to visit one of their number’s sister (Upstream Colour’s Amy Seimetz) in a secluded, secretive commune in South America. Needless to say, things won’t go entirely to plan for the intrepid reporters. Found-footage schlocker Afflicted, where two chaps have their holibobs ruined by a mystery illness, brings the day to a close.

A mere ten hours later, audiences are eased into Saturday’s programme with Jake West and Marc Morris’s second documentary on censorship in the UK, Video Nasties: Draconian Days, which covers The Video Recordings Act of 1984 up to the end of James Ferman’s controversial stewardship of the BBFC in 1999. It’s soon back on the hardcore trail, though, with the faintly Cronenbergian-sounding The Scribbler, Hicksville horror Torment, then Mark Strong-starring sci-fi, Mindscape. This head-melter from Jorge Dorado (making his feature directorial debut after heading-up second units for Pedro Almodóvar) sees detectives now poking-about in the psyche of criminals for clues and motive, rather than bother with more traditional, mundane methods of deduction. Take that, CSI.

A trend towards the fantastical continues with Almost Human, an alien abduction flick said to echo early Raimi and not exactly be shy on the gore front. Very mixed reviews suggest this might not be a masterpiece, but a little bit of splatter has never been known to turn-off a FrightFest crowd willing to forgive the most heinous of celluloid crimes should the body count be right. Filling the second last spot on the schedule, this could well be a riot.

Rounding-off the programme, and arguably its biggest draw, is The Mo Brothers’ (Timo Tjahjanto & Kimo Stamboel) epic psychological shocker, Killers. Co-produced by The Raid’s Gareth Huw Evans (who collaborated with Tjahjanto on V/H/S 2's strongest segment, Safe Haven), this ultra-violent tale of two serial murderers bonding via a snuff website as they go about their respective rampages will certainly give the crowd its money’s worth with its hefty 140 minute runtime. Going down very well at Sundance, Killers will be a tough, but hopefully contemplative, end to the weekend. Buckets of blood and elegant action sequences combining with comment on the pervasive crassness of internet click-bait, while not exactly original, seems more pertinent with every passing week. The perfect coda to an event built on rewarding those with strong stomachs and open – if slightly weird – minds.

FrightFest takes place at the GFT 28 Feb – 1 Mar, with additional Best of the Fest screenings at Cineworld on 2 Mar

Weekend passes and tickets are still available

http://www.frightfest.co.uk