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Edinburgh International Film Festival – Timestalker

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EIFF 2024 – Timestalker,
Directed by Alice Lowe
Starring Alice Lowe, Aneurin Barnard, Jacob Anderson, Nick Frost, Kate Dickie, Tanya Reynolds

Written, directed by and starring Alice Lowe (no mean achievement in itself), Timestalker turned out to be a total delight of a film, mixing science fiction, romance and a lot of humour (often very dark), as you may expect from the woman who brought us the brilliant comedy-horror-slasher Prevenge, which featured a pregnant woman sure her unborn child is telling her to deal violently with the people in her life, and her co-writing credit and role in the brilliant dark comedy-horror Sightseers.

We meet Agnes (Lowe) spinning yarn in a small croft, the spinning reel of thread perhaps a nod to the Fates of Classical myth, and if it is such a metaphor, it probably doesn’t bode well when the dog grabs the ball of yarn and runs off with it. It’s the late 1600s in Scotland, near Edinburgh, a time of great religious strife and upheaval. Agnes attends a secret religious meeting by an enigmatic young preacher, given as they often were in that period, in the countryside, because the crown had branded such preachers heretics.

Unfortunately they have been betrayed, and the preacher is captured by a local militia, and scheduled to be executed in public. Joining some woman friends at the town cross, there to see the execution (the others are delighted – this is entertainment!), she is horrified, not least because on gazing into the eyes of the preacher, Alex (Aneurin Barnard) she is besotted, and on trying to intervene Agnes accidentally falls against the scaffold, directly onto the sharp pike of one of the militia, killing her, while Alex, seeing his chance, makes off while the crowd is distracted.

This starts a pattern through the film – Agnes is reincarnated again and again in different periods. Each time , even if she has a comfortable position in her new existence, she has an ache, a longing for something, something missing from her life, but she doesn’t know what… Until she spies Alex again, also reincarnated, and suddenly it comes back to her, the memories of the previous lives, and the gruesome ends she comes to each time (“it hurts” she comments at one point on describing dying repeatedly).

We skip through historical periods, including a particularly memorable segment set in the more recent past – the 1980s – which allows for a lot of fun. Princess Di hairstyles, big shoulder pads, aerobics, people talking about “therapy”. In this era Alex is now a vacuous rock star, shining in the new MTV age (which allows for some delightful parodies of the music video styles of that period).

As she goes from life to life, and death to death, Agnes is convinced that her destiny is to be with Alex, why else would Fate keep bringing them back together each lifetime? But how does she get to be with him without, you know, having her head removed or otherwise brutally killed each and every time? The character of Scipio (Jacob Anderson, underplaying brilliantly (and almost stealing the show when he does so) also recurs repeatedly (as do her female friends from the 1600s), and offers advice; it seems as if he has some knowledge of what is going on, but can he help her? Will he, even if he can? And will love-blinded Agnes listen to him anyway? Imagine Aronofsky’s The Fountain, but with much more dark humour and a tongue often firmly in its cheek.

To say anymore would be to spoil it, but suffice to say while this has elements of a time-hopping Romeo and Juliet with reincarnation, it isn’t just as it appears (as Agnes herself will need to learn), and while it has great fun playing with the periods and the ideas of pursuing unrequited love across the centuries, the film is also taking a cheeky, humorous look at life and love, how we think it is (or should be), how it often actually is, about being blinded sometimes to what we should see because we’re too busy seeing what we think we want.

Given the very stringent budget limitations on this Indy film, it does amazingly well with the period pieces (we all know how expensive those are to create), wisely giving us glimpses of some periods to give us the idea quickly, and then concentrating mostly on a couple of periods, a good use of limited film-making resources which also, I think, helps the structure of the narrative (necessity really is the mother of invention, especially for Indy creators in any medium).

It’s funny, sometimes bawdy, sometimes swooningly romantic, but throughout each lifetime it is always dancing around the issues we all think about – why are we here, who is my soulmate, do I even need a soulmate, how do I live a good life without getting my head cut off every time? Timestalker is an absolute delight that left me leaving the festival screening with a huge smile. It is hopefully getting a general release in the autumn, so I hope more of you get a chance to enjoy it.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Edinburgh International Film Festival – The Radleys

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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 – The Radleys,
Directed by Euros Lyn,
Starring Kelly MacDonald, Damian Lewis, Harry Baxendale, Jay Lycurgo, Bo Bragason, Shaun Parkes

I was keen to see the Radleys, partly because it is based on a novel by the excellent Matt Haig, partly because I do love a good vampire flick (I am, dare I say it, a sucker for a vampire film. Yes, he went there), and partly because I was in the film festival audience some years ago when its director Euros Lyn (well known, especially to genre fans, for directing numerous Doctor Who and Torchwood episodes) brought us his first feature film, the Welsh-language Y Llyfrgell (titled The Library Suicides for the English-language market, filmed in the National Library of Wales), and I had really enjoyed that.

The premise is a fairly straightforward one – a local, everyday suburban family are actually vampires – but it allows for a lot of room to explore family dynamics and tensions, not to mention, in the case of the younger Radleys Rowan (Harry Baxendale) and his older sister Clara (Bo Bragason), also take on the issues of teenhood and coming of age, but with the added wrinkle of the family “condition”. This latter is a particular problem for the siblings, and it will essentially drive the events of the film.

Their parents Helen (Kelly MacDonald) and Peter (Damian Lewis) are abstinent vampires – it’s not just that they don’t hunt, harm or kill humans, they simply don’t drink blood, and haven’t for years. Following a vampiric version of the famous Twelve Step programme for addicts because years before they decided they wanted to have a regular life, not the nomadic, erratic, roaming, outside life of the predatory vampire, they wanted a home, they wanted to have and raise children and be part of the local neighbourhood. To this end, they have not only abstained, and implanted themselves into this lifestyle (Helen has her book group, her baking and other pastimes, all scheduled into her timetable, Peter is a local doctor), they have never told their children, now in their teens, about their unusual heritage.

Rowan especially feels like an outsider and a freak – hardly speaking to anyone at school, seen as weird, keeping his camera between him and the world (he goes old-school, working in film and developing his own work), but it is his sister who will be the catalyst for events, when a cocksure, older boy at a party tries to push himself on her repeatedly as they walk through the woods. As he gets more physical, essentially trying to assault the younger woman, she grows panicked and angry, and her bloodline kicks into gear by instinct. Suddenly Freddie (Stuart Harper) is sent flying through the air; as he lies stunned and injured, Clara feels her fangs descend, and like a cat on the hunt, pure instinct drives her, leaping onto Freddie, biting and biting.

When Helen and Peter find their daughter, they not only find themselves trying to conceal the evidence of the murder to protect her, they realise they are going to have to explain to both of their children just what happened, and why. As you can imagine, this does not go down too well with either child, Clara especially yelling back at them that they have lied to her for her entire life, while they selfishly decided to play normal family household, and that they no longer get to tell her what to do. It’s that teen rebellion thing, but here driven with some justification (just when, if ever, were they going to tell the kids about what was lurking in their nature? How far would they go to maintain their charade of normality?).

Needing help to cover everything up, Peter reluctantly reaches out to his twin brother, Will. Will (also played by Lewis) is the opposite of Peter (or at least of how Peter has become now) – he is still full vampire, indulging himself, roaming the country in an old RV, taking what and who he wants, when he wants, savouring any pleasures with little or no thought about consequences for anyone else. But, still being a blood-drinker, he has abilities they need, such as being able to mesmerise someone to convince them nothing is happening (handy when the police call), and he has practical experience in disposing of bodies, so they need him, even though you can see they know bringing him back into their lives is not the best idea, but what else can they do?

I don’t want to go much further into it for fear of spoilers, but this pretty much sets up everything that will come out later: the children now have to learn what they are and what this means for themselves and for their relationships with anyone else (their parents included), and the arrival of free-booting Will doesn’t help (the cool Uncle who is happy to let the nephew and niece sneak booze or anything else, unlike boring mum and dad, for instance). And Will’s arrival also stirs up Helen and Peter – reminding them of their past, before they tried to give up blood-drinking, and hints at a much darker history between all three.

It’s nicely played – it largely sticks to many of the vampire genre tropes and pokes a little fun at others (Peter has the father-son talk at one point, explaining that the no reflections in mirrors thing is just in the films and books, but yes, the garlic thing is true, and so are some of the powers gained when drinking blood, Peter also has to invite his brother Will into their home when he first arrives). This is more about the nature of families than fangs, however – everything that happens, other than the biting and killing, is the material we all know, the love-hate, the desperate desire to understand who you are, why you are that way, how you can be different for the younger Radleys, about trying to fit into what society expects the suburban parents to be for the older Radleys, and the fact that reality is rarely the same as what all our societal norms tell us we are meant to be. There are also nods to the genre in there too for vamp fans – coastal shots of Yorkshire (Whitby being the heart of British vamp-fandom, of course), even a scene with Rowan desperately licking spilled blood from the floor echoes a scene from Del Toro’s Cronos.

The script was adapted from Haig’s novel by Tabitha Stevenson and comedian Jo Brand, and they bring a lot of humour into this. Yes, there is some genuinely heartfelt musing about being the outsider (especially for Rowan, developing feelings for another boy – Jay Lycurgo’s Evan) and with no idea how he should proceed, even before finding out about his vampiric heritage), there is a lot of drama in the tensions simmering between Peter, Will and Helen as we see the “normal” patterns of behaviour they have forced themselves to inhabit start to break down in the face of events, while having Lewis play both (attempting to be) straight-arrow dad Peter and the debauched Uncle Will allows him to explore the different paths those siblings chose. And while that is well-handled and compelling, driving a lot of the narrative, the humour runs through the film, lightening it. A genuinely enjoyable entry in the vampire genre.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 – The Substance

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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 – The Substance
Directed by Coralie Fargeat,
Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid

This was another of the revived Midnight Madness strand of late night flicks a the Edinburgh Film Festival this August, arriving with quite a reputation ahead of it, partly from the reputation director Coralie Fargeat garnered with her previous film (Revenge) and the win at Cannes (The Substance won Best Screenplay), partly from having such a major Hollywood star as Demi Moore tackling this kind of film. And yes, it is a doozy! Loud and very much not subtle about some of the points it is hammering in, and yes, Fargeat’s love for the likes of Carpenter and Cronenberg is very, very much on show here.

The premise is fairly simple at first, and deals with a subject that is all-too-real (in contrast with the film’s more fantastical elements): the way the media, especially in Tinsel Town, chews up talent, especially women, creating stars, but only as long as they remain beautiful, young – perfect. When that idealised version on the screen can’t quite be achieved anymore (wrinkles, grey hairs, how dare a star – especially a female star – dare to grow old, grow imperfect). Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has been at the top of her game for years, her morning workout show a huge hit. But now she’s getting older, and this is a kind of show that doesn’t really sell exercise and healthy living, it sells a sanitised, idealised, and unattainable version of perfection. They don’t call it the Dream Factory for nothing…

Let go from her previously huge show, Elisabeth is furious, and her treatment by Harvey (Dennis Quaid), the incredibly sleazy, amoral boss just increases the sting. On a downward spiral, she gets involved in an accident, and it is at the ER for treatment that an incredibly handsome young doctor tells her she is a “good candidate”, slipping something into her pocket. This turns out to be a USB drive with a phone number and a hand-written note saying “it changed my life”. When she finally feels driven to try this, she has to follow mysterious instructions which take her to an unusual location, where a package is waiting for her, and the promise of a better, more perfect version of her being attainable.

I don’t want to go too much further into the narrative here, because this is a film that is best experienced knowing only the bare bones of the desire that pushes this story. That’s how I went into it, knowing it was something to do with a big star hitting her 50s, finding she’s no longer seen as desirable, and that there was some mysterious method to recapture or recreate her more youthful glory (Moore herself said this was one of the reasons she agreed to the film, because she’s had first-hand experience of this very common, not to mention sexist and ageist, problem). But there were so many ways I could imagine that idea being developed – is it a serum? The kind with a price? Is is illegal cloning of some sort? Genetic manipulation? Magical elixir like Death Becomes Her? Go down the Portrait of Dorian Gray route?

Well, again, I’m not saying, except to note that it unfolded in a manner I really wasn’t expecting. A method that was visceral and disgusting and gruesome (oh, the things we do for youth and beauty and fame!), far more so than I had anticipated. In fact I’d say some scenes in The Substance are up there with the disturbing yet compelling body horror of earlier Cronenberg, or The Thing-era Carpenter.

This is not a subtle film – right from the start it really makes its points in a heavy manner, from the time-lapse of Sparkle’s star being created on the iconic Walk of Fame, photographed, admired, slowly forgotten as years pass, to those giant L.A. Billboards (including one right outside the window of Sparkle’s apartment), or flashing up the heavy, block lettering of the instructions on each stage of her package being thrown up massively on the screen, all to pounding, thumping music (the soundscape is as relentless as the visuals). It doesn’t just make a point, it hammers the viewer over the head with it, repeatedly, aurally and visually.

I’m really in two minds about that approach – one part of me really admires and enjoyed it, and loved Fargeat for such an all-out, no-holds-barred, fearless approach, while at the same time there were moments where I found myself too much, too often. Which is it, ultimately? Both, I think! Yes, sorry, that is a bit of a cop-out, but it really did leave me impressed and taken aback but at the same time feeling battered and bruised by its relentless, OTT approach too. Although set in the present (judging by the tech, like the phones), the visual flair and style really put me far more in mind of that pumped-up 1980s vibe (think Jane Fonda’s workout era), and as with the intense, almost breathless approach, I suspect that too was deliberate, being a decade remarkable for excess and that “be all you can be” ethos taken to the max, not to mention when Moore herself was first starting her rise to fame.

Moore and Qualley give their all, even when it comes to scenes involving a lot of practical effects and make-up (all credit to them, I mean they really go the distance and then some with this -you’ll see what I mean if you watch it!), while Quaid seems to be revelling in playing an absolute sleaze bag of a Hollywood suit, cocksure, leering at the female talent (as long as they are still young and perfect), seeing them just as something to use, consume, mould, discard and onto the Next Big Star when the first crow’s feet appear, disgusting in his habits, uncaring. Everything here isn’t just dialled up to 11, it goes far beyond.

As I said, it both wore me out with this relentless visual and aural assault, and at the same time it impressed the hell out of me, the way it took a real-world problem and blew it into all sorts of new shapes (often disgusting shapes!), with some incredible and frequently stomach-churning visuals and effects (and I say this as someone who loves The Thing and Society and the Cronenberg oeuvre). A remarkable, highly unusual, full-throttle, OTT but in the best way; horror that has to be experienced.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Edinburgh International Film Festival – Short Film Competition

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I always find the live action and the animated short film section of the festival to be a fascinating one. The short work is often where you find new or different talent, starting to spread their wings, and that’s something any art form needs to encourage (I also find it heartening that that film festival has a number of these mostly-new film-makers present to talk about their works, which are often very personal). All of the works in this strand were in competition for The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence, named for the acclaimed, Oscar and BATA winning editor, renown for her collaborations with Martin Scorsese. As with any collection of short works, it’s a varied mixture. Some will connect more with one viewer, others with a different viewer, but regardless of who wins, hopefully exposure at this sort of festival event helps boost the creator’s signal and get them noticed in the wider media sphere (and perhaps even help in opening other doors further down the line, always a constant struggle for any artist in any artform).

There was a pleasing diversity on offer here – one audience member who stood at the end of the Q&A with the creators summed it up nicely when he thanked them for making us cry and laugh. We moved from friends creating music and celebrating a birthday (Argentinian entry Shoal) to a special anniversary for an elderly couple, the wife in the grips of dementia, her erratic memories bursting forth in the form of animation created using napkins (Wilma Smith’s The Jubilee), to a monochrome homage to the golden age of silver screen monster movies in a world where werewolves are real (Manny Wolfe), to exploring family memories and exploding houses (Liberty Smith’s My Exploding House) , father and son relationships (My Dad and the Volcano by Scottish creator Gavin Reid, who, it turned out, once worked in the Cameo Cinema where the films were being shown, and Lisa Clarkson’s Paternal Advice, adapted from a story by noted Scots author Janice Galloway), mother and daughter relationships and living on the breadline (Jamie Di Spirito’s Homework), and gender identity (Max Olson’s Nico). It really was a satisfying and diverse selection, from home and abroad. There isn’t time or space to cover each entry – I thought they were all strong in their own ways, but I can’t cover everything, so here are just a few thoughts on some that particularly touched me:

Trevor Neuhof’s Manny Wolfe tickled me in all the right ways – as you may guess from the title, this was the werewolf short film. Lovingly shot in black and white, with that silvery sheen characteristic of those 1940s and 50s horror films, it is also poking gentle fun at Tinsel Town (Manny works as a waiter, but explains he is an actor – a director dining in his restaurant just nods wearily, you and every other waiter in this town, kid). In this world werewolves are real, but they are just people, not bloodthirsty monsters, and while the horror flicks may seem made for him, Manny keeps losing out at auditions because he wants to be a serious actor, not just a howling wolfman. It’s funny and touching, both to fans of classic horror, and also to the struggle everyone who has worked in Hollywood has gone through to make it, that anyone who loves the film medium will be aware of.

Manny Wolfe Teaser from Trevor Neuhoff on Vimeo.

Max Olson’s Nico was a beautifully crafted piece, following a young trans man (Rene Leech); we see them shaving off their longer hair to a buzz cut, breasts bound, a gentleman’s overcoat, but the disappointment on their face when a nightclub doorman refers to them as a woman, and realising that these changes haven’t altered the way many others see them. The actor plays this with such vulnerability and quietness, head always down, not making eye contact, usually on their own in a dark city, alone even in the crowd of the dance floor of the club.

There’s such a fragile beauty to it and vulnerability of someone trying to be who they want to be that you almost want to hug them and tell them if will be alright. The elderly widow in the next apartment sees them in the man’s coat and tells them they look like her late husband, leading to an incredibly touching shared moment between two souls struggling with where life has taken them; ultimately this beautiful short film is about the fact each of us has our own pains and needs, and it is only those precious connections to one another than can really anchor us.

Wilma Smith’s The Jubilee was a mix of live-action and animation, most of the latter created, hand-drawn on table napkins and tissues (the objects themselves, rather cleverly, can become animated too, moving, rolling up to evoke emotions of loss, grief, anger and fear). On those napkins we see a woman, then a dashing man in a suit, who she at first thinks is her father, before realising it is her beloved husband. A cacophony of voices can be heard in the background, commenting about her condition, about her not having one of her good days, and to any of us (far too damned many of us) who have had loved ones slowly consumed by it, we will recognise this quickly as someone with dementia.

The Jubilee (2024) Trailer from Wilma Smith – Film Director on Vimeo.

Smith uses this simple animation medium (all done in her garden shed, cold in winter, roasting in summer) to great emotional effect; the feelings of disorientation, of knowing something is wrong, something is missing, but not knowing what or why, and the panic it brings, then the sudden bursts of memories that do remain, suddenly vivid for a brief spell. The final moments are live action, a family gathering for a special wedding anniversary, the live footage the real world we see, the animation the interior life of a mind and memory failing itself and trying to find the thread through an impossible labyrinth.

I think the thing that struck me with all of the works here isn’t just how well-crafted they were, it is also how wonderfully personal they clearly are to the filmmakers. Yes, of course, you can have a lot of personal elements in a feature film as a writer, director, actor, but I think perhaps with the short form it is more concentrated, you can feel the emotion in it, and that always enriches your viewing experience. From the short Q&A with the creators after the screening in the Cameo Cinema, it seemed even clearer that each of them had indeed brought a project that was very dear to them emotionally, and for my money that’s a good thing – any artistic endeavour that doesn’t elicit an empathic or sympathetic emotional response isn’t working for me, and these all touched me in different ways.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Edinburgh International Film Festival – Mongrel

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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 – Mongrel
Directed by Wei Liang Chiang and You Qiao Yin,
Starring Atchara Suwan, Hong Yu-hong, Kuo Shu-wei, Lu Yi-ching, Wanlop Rungkumjad

This Taiwanese film arrives at the Edinburgh festival hot from the prestigious Director’s Fortnight at Cannes. Mongrel explores a subject which may be set in Taiwan, but sadly covers a subject which is all too common all around the globe: the trafficking and exploitation of undocumented migrant workers. In this case the gangmasters are in the mountain areas of the country, and using their workers (more like serfs) as care-givers for families who need them, but perhaps can’t afford the official care services, so this black market operation steps in to fill a need (for a price).

As we first meet the group, they are angry at their boss, justifiably so, because they have been working hard for him for two months and seen not a single penny of the money they desperately need to earn to send back home to their families abroad. When not working illegally (and mostly unpaid) they are kept in a secure compound, the euphemistically titled “dormitory”. Being undocumented workers, they have nobody to appeal to for help – employment or safety legislation simply doesn’t cover them, and regardless, even if it did, they dare not go to anyone in authority, because they would be arrested and deported.

It’s a wretched, desperate situation of exploitation, and yet Oom (Wanlop Rungkumjad), although obviously not happy at his situation, retains his sense of compassion – he gets to know the people he has to take care of, especially and older lady and her seriously disabled son. He’s not just going through the motions, he does actually care, despite being forced into this servitude, he’s a good soul and does his best by them, while also trying to mediate between his fellow workers and the boss (who as we see is in turn under a higher boss in the gangs, all running people’s lives like a business).

The film itself is very unusual – there’s not a huge amount of dialogue, particularly not from leading man Oom. Oom keeps most of his thoughts and feelings within, only small changes in expression and body language giving us a clue to what he is feeling; it is telling, perhaps, that the most I heard him speak was to the body of a deceased member of his group. The style too is unusual – some scenes go on for what feels like far too long (right from the start – the first scene is Oom having to clean mess from a bed-ridden client, and the camera stays fixed on the scene for quite some time), until it starts to feel very uncomfortable. The shots are often very static, not moving with the characters but the camera remaining in place as a scene acts out around it, or at other times leaves a character looking directly into the lens, normally a no-no for most film-makers.

And yes, this does create quite a strange feeling – as I said it is uncomfortable, but the more I watched, the more I thought that was exactly the idea, because we should be uncomfortable at these scenes, while the often static choices of camera work make us feel like we are watching someone’s life, more like a documentary than a fictional tale, but where we have a fixed viewpoint that we cannot look away from. Having characters occasionally look directly at the lens reinforces this, especially one scene where the disabled man seems to be looking right at the viewers.

This really will not be for everyone – it is slow, it does not build up the traditional narrative (backstory, main story, character arcs), and deliberately uses camera techniques that also give the viewer a strange and not always pleasant feeling. And yet, if you stick with it, this is a slowly effective and powerful way of highlighting this modern story of international exploitation, more effectively than a more heavy handed drama might.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Edinburgh International Film Festival – Oddity

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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 – Oddity,
Directed by Damian McCarthy,
Starring Carolyn Bracken, Gwilym Lee, Tadhg Murphy, Steve Wall, Jonathan French

My first screening of this year’s 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival, and it was a welcome return to the very late night strand, which we used to enjoy in previous, pre-Covid years at the Filmhouse, when films which suit that late-night atmosphere (usually horrors) would be screened. This year, the Filmhouse still being closed (but with the fundraiser successful, currently renovating for its return, hurrah!), the equally wonderful old Art-Deco Cameo Cinema, long a part of the film fest, welcomed us into its comfy seats. The show may not have been starting until midnight, but the place was bustling, the crowd in excited, enthusiastic mood despite the lateness of the hour, and the excitement mounted as we had some of the cast and crew present for a brief talk before the showing.

Dani (Carolyn Bracken) is alone in an old, rural set of buildings she and her husband are slowly renovating, well outside of the city. Ted Timmis (Gwilym Lee) is a doctor at the local psychiatric hospital, and forced to work nights, meaning his wife is entirely alone in her isolated, large house. Dani is delighted to find that despite the remoteness, she has managed to find one spot, upstairs, in a far corner, where she can get a phone signal, and chats to her husband as she finishes some repairs, before retiring to the small tent she has set up in the ground floor area to stay in for the night (both the phone signal and the renovations will be referenced again as the film unfolds).

Despite nothing having happened yet, the film’s opening moments are adept at starting to build an atmosphere of unease and menace; the isolation of the location and Dani, the bare, unfinished old stone building interior, and most especially the soundscape all contribute hugely to his. The sounds throughout are vitally important in building that atmosphere in Oddity, from unsettling music to simple but incredibly effective sound effects, like the creaking of old wooden beams and floors. Sure, that could just be the sounds of an old building on a windy night, couldn’t it? I mean, surely that’s all it is…

Dani is startled on finding there is someone in the courtyard when she goes to retrieve something from her car, despite the remoteness of the building, and flees back into the building as the person knocks on the door and demands entry. She slowly slides a viewing panel back to reveal an unkempt man with wild hair, and one glass eye, who turns out to be one of her husband’s former patients. She is understandably terrified by this, but he begs her to let him in, insisting he is no threat to her – on the contrary, he believes she is in danger and that he saw someone sneak into the building when she was at her car, that person now being in there with her. Poor Dani is now double terrified – she thinks the man at the door is the threat, but what if there is really someone inside, as he is warning? The creaks and groans of the old building build this suspense to an unbearable pitch.

I’ll give out a spoiler warning here in case you don’t want to know anymore, then don’t go past this point. That said this is a mild spoiler, as most of the promotional blurb I have seen for the film all give this away in their descriptions: Dani is indeed killed, by a creepy, masked figure inside the house. We move forward a year and her bereaved husband is visiting Dani’s twin sister (also Bracken), Darcy, a blind woman who claims to have certain psychic powers, who runs the old curiosity shop their mother left to her, a place filled with disturbing items, most of which have a story attached to them.

Darcy can pick up the truth of someone from handling a personal item, like a watch, or a ring – or a glass eye. She has asked Ted to bring this item from her sister’s killer, Olin (Tadhg Murphy), who was blamed for the murder, and who himself was subsequently murdered. Through it she intends to learn the truth of her twin’s brutal death, and after a vague promise to invite her over for dinner around the anniversary of the death, Ted leaves, having unsettled Darcy by revealing that he is already living with a new girlfriend, still in the same house where Dani was murdered (the girlfriend, Yana – Caroline Menton – is, as you can imagine, less than happy about staying there, especially as Ted still works nights, leaving her alone there, and she’s sure she has glimpsed Dani’s ghost in the shadows).

I don’t want to get too much deeper into the second half as I don’t want to spoil it; suffice to say events are not all as they have been previously been explained, which is, of course, not really a surprise (I mean it wouldn’t be much of a film if it were all as they said!). Darcy makes an unexpected visit, bringing a large trunk which contains a life-sized wooden male figure that is incredibly disturbing (you’re just waiting for it to move), and sets in motion a plan to reveal what really happened on the night of Dani’s murder.

A lot of the set-up will be quite familiar to any regular horror fan, especially those of us who loved works like the old EC comics, with those killing and revenge from beyond type tales. You can often see what is coming, and while in most films that is a failing, here it isn’t – McCarthy clearly loves those old stories too, and in fact I think was revelling in them. You know roughly where it is going, and it doesn’t matter because it is so well done it’s still immensely satisfying. Even some of the scares are well-telegraphed – you can see the set-up, you know full well any moment that jump scare is coming, as McCarthy and his crew ratchet it up, and up, and up, and suddenly there’s that release. And despite knowing it was coming, I still jumped like the rest of the audience (when you’re a seasoned horror hound, plus you know it is coming, yet it still get you? That’s some good, creepy horror film making!)

Yes, you will recognise many of the beats and tropes here, and I think that is partly the point – this is made for those of us who love our horror films, books and comics, and appreciate seeing work from someone who obviously loves them too (one of us). And as I said, despite the fact that so many set-ups here are familiar, they are so damned well-done that they are very satisfying to watch play out. Making the most of its few locations (the remote, creaking old, isolated mansion, the decaying, depressing psychiatric hospital) and small cast, and with just a few well-deployed props (the life-sized wooden figure is just superbly creepy), used well, Oddity is a horror fan’s delight of murder, revenge and the supernatural, dripping creepy, unsettling atmosphere throughout. One to watch late at night.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films