Review: Dark Harvest - A Night of Short Folk Horror Films

Dark Harvest:
A Night Of Short Folk Horror Films
Cert: 15 / 120 mins / Event Trailer

This special evening of independent shorts in Reading’s Biscuit Factory cinema was a sold-out screening, which is always a delight in this day and age. Although it soon became apparent this was may have been because the cast/crew from a number of the films were present (fair play though, who doesn’t want to see their work on the big screen?). Not only did this mean Polite Applause™ after every short (fair play, still), it also meant pre-screening speeches from the front of the auditorium from people who - quite ironically - seemed not to realise that they were speaking at a normal conversational volume in a room scientifically designed to deaden all sound that’s not coming out of the auditorium speakers*¹. In short, I have no idea what you lovely people were saying, but you looked delighted to be there and that’s what’s important...

Black Samphire
14 mins, 2023, Dir. Alexander Vanegas.

Set in the present day as two young women check into an Airbnb in the fenlands, this is a fairly minimalist take on forgotten folklore reaching across the centuries through a forbidden herb, mixed with an environmental awareness mesage. Enthusiastically produced and solidly performed, it’s nevertheless a little too abstract to get the most out of its short runtime.


The Corpse Road
12 mins, 2023, Dir. Joseph Daly.

A 16th century story of a peasant dragging the body of his mother-in-law across hills and fells so that she can be buried in consecrated ground, this is a truncated study of obligation, guilt and madness which suffers from barely-intelligible, shouted dialogue (and in middle-english with heavy northern accents, to boot) and black humour being trowelled on before the audience has had any chance to warm to the main character. Oh, and watching this on a cinema-sized screen, you can clearly see the ‘corpse’ breathing. The rest of the audience appreciated it more than I did, to be fair.


Silvanus Park
1 min, 2021, Dir. Laura E. Hall.

A very compact retooling of the found-footage genre, presented as a 60-second Instagram story complete with flash-cuts, on-screen captions and the portrait-mode aspect ratio. Zippy and to-the-point, what the film lacks in suspense if more than makes up for in style.


The Estrogen Gospel
16 mins, 2024, Dir. Robyn Adams.

Ah. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to say this was Dark Harvest’s very own horrific elephant in the room. Looking like it’s been filmed on smartphones from a decade ago, The Estrogen Gospel features no non-ambient lighting, a script which feels like it was written by one person in a 2am insomnia haze then not re-read in daylight, delivered by non-actors apparently seeing the lines for the first time, that audio recorded on the phones’ in-built microphones, and so many shots out-of-focus to varying degrees that it cannot possibly be deliberate. Considering this is actually the title which had me attending the event to begin with and how much I wanted to be on-side with it, it’s evidently unwatchable to the point where it was hands-down the entry of the night where the most people decided to have a toilet-break within its duration. While the aforementioned applause did still occur over the credits, the previously enthusiastic patron to my right just sat and firmly shook her head.*².


My Dreams Have Been Dark Of Late
3 mins, 2023, Dir. Joshua Warren.

A short and faintly comedic story of guilt and regret, this is nonetheless a fascinating effects-piece as a medieval knight is slowly crushed by his own imploding armour. Interesting to watch play out, but ultimately its brief runtime means the film doesn’t leave the viewer with much to dwell upon…


Blackthorn
18 mins, 2023, Dir. Chris Ratcliff.

A present-day study of the anxieties of moving into an already close-knit neighbourhood and the paranoia behind drawn curtains, Blackthorn skips along well enough, but mumbled dialogue with a single-mic setup often works against its effectiveness. The film wants to feel like an episode of Inside No. 9, but ultimately comes off more like the ‘new neighbours’ sketch from Fist Of Fun. That said, it’s well paced, entertaining and builds its atmosphere deftly.


The Blighted Crown
2 mins, 2023, Dir. Bianca Diana Ines Olingheru.

This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fairytale parody is an object lesson in rescuing a faintly drab set with superb post-production design. However, this is a wry effects-reel and little else.


The Sin-Eater
17 mins, 2023, Dir. Kelly Holmes.

Essentially the headline feature of the evening, this tale of a young 19th century mother in rural Wales trying to absolve the soul of her baby who’s died before he could be baptised has immaculate performance and production, as well as flawless dual-lingual scripting, with fully measured commitment from its very first frame. When the effects-work finally comes into play, it’s complex but comparatively unobtrusive. Everyone involved in The Sin-Eater should be incredibly proud.


Blight
24 mins, 2022, Dir. Craig Sinclair.

And to finish, the overtly comic story of a Middle Ages subsistence farmer who’s cursed with hiccups by a witch in the woods. Every bit as silly as that sounds, the careful pacing and deadpan delivery make for a darkly intriguing watch. Blight is effectively a drawn-out sketch, the likes of which would have peppered one episode of a half-hour sketch show on BBC2 or Channel 4 in the early 2000s. Presented as this one-piece it’s slightly too long, although once suspects that’s also part of the joke.

And there we have it. A thoroughly enjoyable evening, and it's great to see short independent films accessible to people not attending a dedicated festival, in the environment which they were meant to be viewed: the cinema. Thanks and congratulations to all who organised Dark Harvest and to all whose work was exhibited (yes, even if that work Wasn't For Me). See you for the next showcase!

*¹ Hand on heart, the sound setup at the Reading Biscuit Factory is not ideal, with speakers situated solely behind the screen and apparently no complementary surrounds. This means for the whole room to hear, the volume has to be cranked up to the point where individual dialogue becomes almost unintelligible (and as much as I complain about clarity for at least one of the films here, the Biscuit Factory's arrangement is really not anything that the production's sound designer or mixer can take into advance account). And while I’d normally think this might be a by-product of the independent nature of the evening’s programming, the bottom line is that Timestalker suffered from exactly the same problem earlier that day, and in a different screen. I dread to think what a noisy blockbuster would sound like in there… ^{[ BACK ]}

*² You’re absolutely right of course, The Estrogen Gospel is still quantifiably better than the *zero* films I’ve made. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Timestalker

TIMESTALKER
Cert: 15 / 90 mins / Dir. Alice Lowe / Trailer

Nigh-on impossible to track down on the multiplex circuit comes Alice Lowe's Timestalker, a surreal anti-romcom where the central character of Agnes (Lowe)*¹ is a hapless romantic who falls head over heels for precisely the wrong man (Alex, Aneurin Barnard), while being unhappily married to definitely the wrong man (Nick Frost), to the exasperated support of her best friend Meg (Tanya Reynolds). The problem is that she does this in the Scottish highlands in the 1680s, the English home counties in the 1790s and New York in the 1980s (plus more, besides). The pair are destined to never be together, and reincarnation it seems is just a chance to make the same mistakes, only better.

A British, independent film about memory, fatalism and crushing ennui is either the last thing we need in 2024, or the only thing. And since Alice Lowe’s lightness of touch means that Timestalker never wallows - even in its most introspective moments - I’ll go for the latter...

CHARMING

Laugh-out-loud funny, charming and never less than completely watchable, it’s a shame then that the final product feels so uneven. Mainstream sensibility would dictate that each of the film’s timeframes be given roughly equal, episodic, screen time, and from there the rhythm of Agnes’ inbuilt neuroses and repeated follies would be methodically built-up, like a meeting point somewhere between Blackadder and Groundhog Day if you will. Timestalker is far from mainstream, however, and takes no small amount of pleasure foxing audience expectations in having some era-segments play for over half an hour, while others last for less than five minutes. In fairness, this is narratively due to the fact that in some lives Agnes fixates over Alex for months/years, while in others she sees him mere moments before her own death, but the arrhythmic presentation can feel off-putting when all the viewer wants to do is root for our heroine.

It also gives way to the repeated suspicion that outside of the 90-minute runtime there’s about another hour which was filmed and never made the edit, and that there’s at least another two hours which were written but never filmed. On a structural level, the story seems more suited to six half-hour sitcom episodes, each fully presenting their own era with flashbacks (/forwards) to the others. Because ultimately, Agnes’ story is certainly something I want to see more of.

AND THE NEW POWER GENERATION

The scripted gags and cast interplay are superb and Lowe doesn't under-write any of the parts, but the slightly ponderous nature of the film’s pacing means these are more like interludes than the driving force of the plot. That said, Ryan Eddleston’s cinematography means the piece works perfectly as visual storytelling anyway, supported as he is by a wonderfully expressive cast. Especially notable is the 1980s ephemera which envelops the longest segment of Timestalker and almost acts as a companion piece to Lowe’s short story Carnival. This is certainly the timeframe which feels the most fully realised here, and bodes well for future projects from the creator.

But ultimately the film ends up feeling faintly unsatisfying, although I readily admit this is more down to my own hopes, expectations and presumptuous baggage than anything lacking in what was (beautifully) presented.

Not as compact as Lowe’s Sightseers, not as intense as her Prevenge, but also not as freewheelingly silly as her classmates’ Mindhorn, there’s much to be said for Timestalker, even if the final product never quite achieves its potential. But when everything else at the cinema is a sequel, remake or franchise entry, this is still a perfect example of actually getting something new onto the screen. Which is also a never-ending quest which can seem to take lifetimes…

*¹ A quick note here to say that under normal circumstances, the same person writing, directing and starring in a movie would raise more red flags than a parade in Tiananmen Square (proof, if it were needed). As a genre, comedy seems more open to this however, and Alice Lowe has previously shown her credentials to be utterly sound. While I'll go on to list some of the issues I had with Timestalker, none of them feel like the result of one person hogging control of a project; if anything, the film feels impacted by the compromise that directors have to deal with on a daily basis. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Hocus Pocus (30th Anniversary)

Hocus Pocus
Cert: PG / 96 mins / Dir. Kenny Ortega / Trailer

Taking as its starting point the classic Macbethian trio of witch sisters, Kenny Ortega's much underrated and overlooked seminal feminist 1993 horror treatise Hocus Pocus may seem like a playful romp, but is actually a tale crafted from a draft manuscript by none other than Howard Phillips Lovecraft, discovered in 1974 among the belongings of his deceased ex-wife Sonia Greene, snapped up by Buena Vista and duly transcribed to Disney's development-hell for almost two decades*¹.

All of the literary touchstones are duly homaged. The antiquated prologue is based around the New England witch trials (which which HPL was distractingly fascinated), and both it and its contemporary main-narrative occur on Samhain. Obsessed with the hidden knowledge of cats, the story is one of an ancient evil lying dormant until it's finally revived, so that the past can posses the present. This is orchestrated by a trio of brash if well-meaning innocents, unspeakably drawn to a forbidden sacred tome bound in human flesh. And just as the heroes believe they are making headway with magic for good purposes - unaware that they themselves have been drawn into a life of supernatural servitude - the three resurrected witches are unaware that the insanity of aeons has clouded their resolve, and they themselves are likewise slaves to greater forces - every bit at the mercy of the Elder Ones as the town they claim to haunt. Mass hysteria ensues while the dead rise from their graves, in a land where the sun never seems to rise and torment is eternal. Hocus Pocus is a tale of madness, witchcraft and helpless nihilism in the true Lovecraftian fashion.

And best of all, leading man Omri Katz looks like the reincarnated ancestor of Mr Spooner from Are You Being Served?. What's not to love?

*¹ You think I'm joking at this point, much like the write-up I did for The Spaceman and King Arthur, but have you stopped to ask yourself why Hocus Pocus has the same initials as Howard Phillips? Aahhh... ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The Creator

The Creator
Cert: 12A / 133 mins / Dir. Gareth Edwards / Trailer

As much as Gareth Edwards' new film is trumpeted as being from the director*¹ of Rogue One and tackling the bête du jour of AI, The Creator is at its heart a callback to the 1970s era of thought-provoking science fiction, which didn't get bogged down in being the start of A Universe™*².

Excellent lead performances from John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles and Gemma Chan blend seamlessly with strong supporting roles from Allison Janney and Ralph Ineson, as the film leans back from 'the robots are going to kill us' and asks instead what qualifies as Artificial when the Intelligence becomes truly self-aware. Much like Alex Garland's superb Ex Machina, the real enemy here isn't the behaviour of the machines but that of the humans they're reacting against. Director and co-writer Gilroy evokes sympathy without being mawkish, and showcases a beautifully gritty world and jaw-dropping effects work without getting lost in the detail. While the film has a serious point to make yet never lectures its audience, this open-ended approach to morality may seem non-committal to some, and there's certainly the feeling that The Creator is merely extremely impressive, rather than surprisingly profound.

But above all else, it's just great to see a fiction-movie in this day and age which is familiar without seeming derivative and interesting for its entire run-time. Bravo.

*¹ It's a topic for a different post admittedly, but Tony 'Andor' Gilroy deserves at least an equal amount of credit for the direction (and indeed the direction) of Rogue One. It's not that Gareth Edwards didn't put in a hell of a lot of vital work, but ultimately Gilroy is responsible for the movie we saw. But much like the Solo debacle, we'll likely never hear the full, true story behind all that. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And let's be entirely fair, Star Wars caused that. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.