After a bit of kip I returned to the Carriageworks Theatre for the next instalment of the Horror Weekend. Equipped with a pillow and a bottle of water I settled in for four more films.

Isolation (UK / Ireland, 2005) 5*

The fact that this was director Billy O'Brien's first film made it all the more impressive and while it wasn't my personal favourite film of the weekend it seemed fitting that it won the Silver Melee competition.

Each year a handful of genre shorts and features from the Fanomenon section of the fest vie for the Silver Melee Award. The winners then go into the international Golden Melee comp.

Anyway if this year‘s fest tells us anything about film making it seems to be that less is more. Here we find a cast totalling six on a small and very muddy Irish farm.

Somehow however, by the opening credits alone set an incredibly dark tone, establishing a tension that O’Brien amazingly manages to maintain throughout the film.

We discover that some high powered scientist has paid the struggling farmer, (who bares a striking resemblance to Greg Mulholland, MP for North West Leeds weirdly enough,) to experiemtn on his livestock.

It’s not long before we realise that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

The whole thing gave a subtle nod to ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, I felt, with the isolation of the rural setting and the uncomfortable focus on animal slaughter.

When one of the freak calves is finally born and the vet botches the merciful execution, the inhuman squealing made me squirm way more than any glitzy Hollywood gore fest.

The fact that we never fully see the monster that ends up on the loose, and the claustrophobic interiors used resurrected the classis ‘Alien’ vibe for me too.

These echoes of horror classics, (and yes Alien was horror set in space, not sci fi,) did not detract in the slightest however from what was a great, original modern horror film.

A feeling I took from it, which gave it a more contemporary and original feel, was one of a world in decay and despair.

Everything’s old and dirty. The farm is clearly knackered and the money from the scientist is a last ditch attempt to keep the family farm going.

Also, the couple who turn up in a filthy caravan are on the run from their respective families, driven out into the cold.

This feeling of a world falling apart, of people being driven into dark and unnatural places, was uncomfortably familiar and gave an extra dimension of power to the film by linking it so subtly to the real world outside the cinema.

A brilliant piece of work.

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (USA, 2005) 5*

I loved the concept of this film. In fact I loved it so much that I ended up giving the film 5* despite the fact that the concept was delivered via the medium of lame American cheese.

We follow a documentary team, two camera men and a female presenter as they meet Leslie Vernon, self proclaimed serial killer to be.

In this world Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kreuger and Michael Myers were all real killers and Leslie Vernon shows us, step by step, how he intends to follow in their footsteps.

Initially hilarious, we see the charming Vernon explaining his back story and working out. As he explains he will have to do, “that thing where they‘re running away and you just look like you‘re walking but you keep up with them.”

This painstaking dissection of every element of the slasher horror film makes ‘Scream’ look like the piece of ignorant crap it is.

The tone starts to darken slightly when the crew follow Vernon as he starts to stalk his “survivor girl”. The crew, who are by this point becoming close friends with the killer-to-be, are increasingly caught up in the thrill of the ‘work’ and even start helping out.

I was instantly reminded of a BBCN24 bit I saw recently where they filmed a new recruit to the Royal Marines having one last meal with his family before he sets off to the middle east.

BBCN24 are going to follow his progress and update us etc to give a unique perspective on the conflict. I couldn’t help thinking at the time how good it would be for the BBC if this guy died.

Now that would be some compelling television right there and don’t tell me no-one at the Beeb has thought the same.

Anyway things continue to darken as the night of mass slaughter approaches and the crew’s resolve starts to waver.

SPOILER! SKIP AHEAD IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.

As the night begins to unfold exactly according to every tiny detail we’ve spent the last hour or so becoming familiar with, the female reporter decides that Vernon must be stopped.

Once the crew start to interfere however they find that the plan is shifting under their feet, things are not happening as expected.

We finally realise that the crew, and the audience, have all been duped. The whole documentary has in fact been part of Vernon’s plan and his “survivor girl” is none other than the reporter herself.

The crew are finally sucked into the horror, becoming victims rather than observers and playing out exactly the scenes that they had set out to parody.

A beautiful little touch comes during the credits, after everyone’s been killed except for the reporter who crushed Vernon’s head in a vice and set him on fire.

he credits roll over a CCTV scene of an autopsy room where some doctor is preparing to examine Vernon’s charred corpse and, of course, while his back is turned the corpse, very slowly, sits up!

I am all about blurring the lines man, I love this stuff!

Gruesome (USA, 2006) 5*

Without a doubt my favourite film of the fest so far. Not only truly disturbing but brilliantly written.

We follow Claire, a young American living in a small town, working nights at a convenience store. The whole thing is so flat and dull that the illusion of boring reality is utterly compelling.

Claire herself is absolutely gorgeous but not in a traditional movie starlet way. She still looks life someone who would meet on the street, her and the rest of the cast genuinely feel like a real people.

This flat, everyday background then also serves to bring the horrendous violence into sharp relief.

Basically Claire leaves work one morning to find a stranger waiting for her in her boyfriend’s car. Unsure, she lets him give her a lift home and seems to get in and safe ok until she finds the back door open.

He drags her into the cellar before torturing and murdering her with a particularly vicious looking little knife.

The violence is incredibly disturbing possibly because you don’t really see it. Almost everything is implied and left to your own imagination.

The fact that a friend of mine from work has the same name and bares a striking resemblance to the lead character made this even more uncomfortable for me and somehow I found the brutal punches to the face worse than anything else.

Anyway, the scene now set, Claire awakes to find herself at work, again.

Now no description of this film would be complete without a reference to “Groundhog Day”. This is the basic setup, Claire is apparently doomed to relive her brutal murder over and over.

As the film progresses her grip on reality is gradually loosened by a combination of disorientation and abject terror. Fighting hard however she strives to discover what is happening to her and why.

Another aspect of this film which I loved was the respect shown to the audience. Particularly rare for an American film, things are not shoved in your face, but rather the journey is a gradual one, with information subtly drip fed to build up a picture.

Little things like the fact that the killer was shot dead by police weeks earlier, that she can never get a signal on her mobile and that the priest is nowhere to be found hint upon hint to the truth of the situation.

I was loving this film anyway but the end blew my mind!

SPOILER! SKIP AHEAD IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.

Towards the grand finale we realise that Claire is in actually hell.

Wherever she turns for help she cannot escape horrific murder. With each repetition we are shown a little more, turns out he beats her and cuts the skin off her face before killing her and burying her out in the fields.

Running to her best friend for help she thinks she may be safe only to hear her friend letting the killer in and asking if she can watch while he does his thing.

In the final scene her own mother lures her down to the dreaded basement and actually holds her down while the killer towers over her.

At this point you feel like you’ve got the twist but don’t understand it. OK so she’s dead and doesn’t know it ala “Sixth Sense” but why is she in hell?

As the blade gleams in the gloom she asks this very question for us. I had no clue as to where this was going, just an overwhelming feeling of outrage that this innocent was being so horrendously punished and betrayed over and over.

Why me? she pleads, what have I done? I’m the victim!

But no, she’s not.

Claire is not Claire.

Claire is dead.

As the camera snaps back to the figure kneeling under the knife we see for the first time that we have not been following Claire through her last day, but in fact it is the killer who is forced to walk in Claire’s shoes for all eternity.

The shock of this last minute revelation drew something out of me: relief.

The instant I realised what had happened all I could think was, “oh thank fuck, it’s him not her, that‘s ok then.”

The very next instant, as the film closed, I was sat there thinking, “whoah, hang on, IS that ok?”

That degree of suffering, so relentless and utterly awful, just shouldn’t happen to anyone. Retribution has no value and violence is always wrong.

I know these things to be true and yet this film showed me a part of myself that was ready willing and able to accept those horrific acts as being not only acceptable but even deserved!

An absolutely brilliant film on every conceivable level.

Meatball Machine (Japan 2005) 3*

There are certain phrases that I like so much I try to save them for those special occasions when they are truly apt so as not to wear them out.

Walking out of the cinema at around 7am after watching “Meatball Machine” I found myself able to use one such phrase, taken from the brilliant “Modern Toss” magazine and later TV show.

“What the jeeping fuck?”

My notes for this film read as follows:

?!!

To be fair I did start to nod a little during this one but I’m not sure I would have really got what was happening had I been fully awake.

So basically there are these little alien things that use machines called necroborgs to take over human bodies and turn them into fighting machines. The aliens then pilot the subsequent bizarre result, half man, half vacuum cleaner, with huge blades and drills for good measure, in fights to the death.

OTT gore and quite insane fight scenes, I felt this film wash over me but couldn’t get a handle on it.

Over the past few years I’ve looked abroad, and particularly to the far east, for art that was fresh and different. I’ve come across some really great and valuable cinema, animation and literature but this was Japanese mentalism to the extreme.

At this point I walked back up the hill from the city to my home. I sat on the loo and smoked a joint in a bit of a daze before grabbing another few hours in bed. The final mile lay ahead with just five more films to go.