Wednesday 15 September 2021

AFTERIMAGES

CONTAINS SPOILERS, NERDY ASPECT RATIO TALK AND A PALPABLE SENSE OF RELIEF

Of the two biggest streaming services it's Amazon Prime who seem to go for quantity over quality. This is not to suggest that Netflix's pickups are always winners (Flying Monkeys got turned off after about ten minutes) but the ratio of good to bad to facepunchingly godawful skews towards the lower end of that spectrum when you're sometimes adding a dozen "new" horror films in a week. Which is why it's such a relief when a random pick off Prime turns out to be more than perfectly decent. Not a gamechanging masterpiece by any stretch, or a film that redefines the genre (how many of those come along in a year?) but still something that's more than worth your time and that exceeds expectations.

Five not-as-hateful-as-usual students in Singapore have a class holiday project to make a film the old-fashioned way, starting with a script. But when they find a complete reel of 16mm in the ashes the morning after jokingly sacrificing an old cine camera as an offering to their ancestors (part of Ghost Month tradition) and it proves to be a fully finished short film, they realise they can use this to kickstart their movie careers. But they need more, and burning up cardboard cameras magically grants them all the supernatural sting-in-the-tail material they need (in a nostalgic variety of formats). Until the last one...

A proper anthology film with the Amicus structure of a wraparound story linking all the episodes together (rather than the YouTube playlist approach of just stringing a bunch of shorts together one after the other like The ABCs Of Death and the insufferable The Field Guide To Evil), Afterimages is something of a treat. You could quibble that the full Scope format is redundant given that the 16mm and VHS sequences should be seen in the old Academy ratio of four by three and only the reel of 35mm (which the gang watch in a wonderfully huge cinema) is actually in 2.35. Against that, it's frequently beautifully shot, it manages the inevitable jump scares well, the special effects are impressive and it even manages to throw in the debate about piracy, torrenting and copyright ownership. Plus it does leave the way open for a sequel (though, seven years on, that hasn't materialised). Afterafterimages, perhaps? Absolutely worth hitting the Add To Watchlist button for this one.

****

THE RESORT

SPOILERS AND YEAH, WHATEVER

There's really very little to be said about The Resort that hasn't already been said about a hundred other straight-to-home-viewing horror quickies. Four idiot friends, two girls who look hot in bikinis and two eminently punchable dullards, decide to spend a birthday weekend traipsing round a remote Hawaiian island that's supposedly haunted by the Half-Face Girl (the allegedly vengeful spirit of a young girl who was something something the usual) and having a look inside Room 306, the epicentre of the supposed paranormal activity. Cue the dumbos being picked off one by one, a brief bit of graphic face-ripping, a little wrinkle in the timeline, the scary-faced ghost doing her Sadako impression yet again, a sort-of twist ending, 73 minutes and will that do?

No it won't. There's very little to be said about the film because there's nothing to be seen in the film: nothing original, nothing startling, nothing interesting, and as free of style as it is of content. Even the abandoned luxury resort hotel setting can't be arsed to put much effort in. On the most basic technical levels of filmmaking I guess it's competent, in that the camera is in focus and no-one fluffs their lines, but you feel kind of insulted that such a bare minimum is deemed good enough. Because it really isn't.

*

DRIVEN

SPOILERS AND STUFF (YES, IT'S GETTING MORE DIFFICULT TO THINK UP CLEVER SPOILER WARNINGS)

In the sense that it's "about" a guy on a quest to break a fourth-generation family curse by performing a ritual to banish demons, Driven does qualify as a horror film (and even ended up on a FrightFest Discovery Screen). But deep down, it's not, as the genre elements are very much in the background, behind a quirky two-handed character drama detailing the thawing antagonism between an amateur demon-hunter and the Uber driver he's hired for the night. He needs to gather certain items and perform a banishing ritual by summoning a Hero with a magic talisman, she's a wannabe standup forever practising her material in the car but never actually braving the local Open Mic circuit. Initially they grate on each other, but gradually they start to connect...

The elements of comedy aren't actually that surprising when you know that both director and writer/star are members of an improv troupe. In the end it's a light, amiable and amusing little trifle, barely leaving the inside of the car, with the demon curse stuff added it as though it's been suggested by a member of the audience. It won't suffice for the hard horror crowd more interested in the genre aspects than the character material. I quite enjoyed it, but it's unlikely I'll ever go back to it.

***