Not working at the Leeds International Film Festival(1) for a couple of days now so yesterday I took the opportunity to get nice and stoned and go see some films for free. The festival has various international links and some of these take the form of competitions.

This year the LIFF is host to four film competitions, the Fanomenon part of the fest in particular is hosting a 'Silver M้li้s' comp as it is now part of the European Federation for Fantastic Film Festivals. This is a way to give up and coming genre film makers an opportunity to screen their works across the continent and even earn international recognition.

The feature I saw yesterday was an entry in this comp while the short shown beforehand was also entered in one of the others. Here're some thoughts on the two:

"Avow" (2004)
Dir. Tony O'Reilly (UK)

A very well made and edgy short that portrays a murderer's taunting confession to the police. Using simple text and uncomfortably abrupt and scratchy shots and sound, Avow builds an increasingly disturbing atmosphere that leaves the audience thankful to be simple voyeurs rather than the intended copper who could surely not help but be intimidated.

This was a perfect example of the genre, sharing a great strength with "Thinning the Herd" (see yesterday). Neither of these films could have worked as feature length pieces because the atmosphere they create is too powerful to be effectively sustained. Instead they are designed to deliver a couple of hours worth of experience in a single blow and, being cut back to the bone, they leave a much deeper and starker impression than longer and more complex films.

There is a great deal of potential in the genre of short film that we miss out on due to a basic lack of viewing opportunity. This is the same for short stories, only ever seen in collections either by multiple new authors or lone successful ones cashing in on their earlier works. HP Lovecraft, for example, the master of the short in my opinion, was barely published during his lifetime and then only in the odd magazine. Such traditional habit and attitude towards format means we all miss out.

"Lie Still" (2005)
Sean Hogan (UK)
www.liestill.com

This second screening was attended by writer and director Sean Hogan himself who spoke briefly before it began. It's an entirely independent British horror film with a nice concept and some good scares. John breaks up with his girlfriend and moves into a room in a large old house, creepiness ensues. His journey of discovery through the quirks and history of the house runs in parallel with the crumbling of his own mind.

An abject lack of strong alternative British cinema, ('28 Days Later' being perhaps the only recent exception,) has long since been a saddening fact of life with Richard bloody Curtis defining British film the world over. This guy shows great promise for the future and proves that there's so much more to the UK than Hugh Grant being charmingly befuddled.

I have to admit that I was not overly impressed with Mr Hogan's writing, but I'd love to see this guy direct something written by somebody else. The dialogue felt unnatural and so got in the way a bit, and the story of mental decline would have been better served if the story had started with a definite shape which could then have crumbled accordingly. As it was a sense of dizzy confusion was almost constant throughout, detracting from the feel of increasing detachment from reality.

Thankfully Mr Hogan is a much better director than he is a writer and the film was a nerve jangling joy to watch. While the camerawork was great, it was the lighting and sound that delivered an atmosphere that did, I admit, get under my skin.

At one point I quite literally jumped out of my seat, but this was not a cheap start. There's the kind of jump associated with a loud sound, your common 'Scream' :## style jump, where your body starts and thinks, 'ooh, what was that?'. These are easy to provoke and eventually just annoying for the viewer.

What I'm talking about is when something is so sudden and overwhelmingly terrifying appears that every muscle in your body clenches as if braced for impact. Your eyes bulge and all the air in your lungs is ejected in a single sharp grunt, before the instant passes and you are left gasping, and in my case usually laughing a little too.

What impressed me most of all was the success of this film in sidestepping such temptations to drop into cheese and clich้. In fact, if anything, I thought there was a slight air of experimentation about the piece, packed full as it was with lots of great little devices, as if Mr Hogan was taking the opportunity to get all his ideas seen at once on the off chance that he doesn't get to make another big film. It's in all our interests that he and those like him make lots more films.

Fuck CGI monsters and screaming teens, let Hollywood milk that cow dry. It's time for those who fund British cinema to stop being scared of making clever, subtle and interesting films. The true art of scaring people is getting under their skin and making them scare themselves, putting them back in touch with real, human, primal fear.

Definitely unsettling and definitely worth seeing, 'Lie Still' is a film that needs supporting. I honestly think that, given the opportunity to build on this, Mr Hogan and the many other struggling genre film makers in the UK could produce some truly great and utterly terrifying work, finally putting the UK back where it belongs, at the centre of the horror map. :>