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Old 11th August 2018, 09:30 AM
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Frankie Teardrop Frankie Teardrop is offline
Cultist on the Rampage
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Leeds, UK
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THE ENDLESS – ‘Resolution’ follow-up in which two brothers reconnect with the isolated cult they left years before – something weird simmers in the background, and, as with ‘Resolution’ (if I remember correctly), time-loops play a role. ‘The Endless’ does well with atmospherics, and most of the film is a slow-burn that charts steadily building paranoia as the brothers try to navigate the cloistered community they find themselves in… the sense of layers of reality shifting and peeling back is evoked really well, and has as much to do with the performances as anything else (the directors play the leads). There are hints of cosmic Lovecraftiana that never quite crystallise out before an ending that seems a bit rushed, but ‘The Endless’ is definitely a recommend.

THE LOST – Adaption of a Jack Ketchum novel, which follows a small-town psychopath as he boils up to a murder spree. Said murderer, Ray Pye, looks like a slightly gothy Ray Liotta and is a consummate slimeball – the film opens with him killing a couple of campers for the laugh. He gets away with that one, and the focus becomes the constant manipulation, exploitation and treachery that characterises his day-to-day life years after. He dips into a bit of vulnerability when he strikes up a relationship with a would-be femme-fatale, but a series of set-backs and humiliations puts him back on the track to violence in the hard-to-watch conclusion. Pretty excellent flick, and underexposed – I hadn’t heard of it till recently. A hazy, slightly dream-like vision of an anachronistic suburban hell, and worth tracking down for certain.

ISOLATION – I’ve seen ‘Isolation’ a couple of times over the years and have come to really like it. It’s a bit slight in a sense (ie plot, story, ideas are nothing new), but heavy on atmosphere and vibes. A lot of reviews pretty much sum it up as ‘Alien on an Irish farm’ – that’s accurate in more ways than one. An experiment in genetically enhanced livestock has gone wrong and the resulting mutant is on the loose, leaving down-on-his-luck farmer John Lynch and a couple of travellers to face the strange. Pretty basic as far as happenings go, but director Billy O’Brien conjures a really downbeat, bleak environment full of rusty dilapidation and incessant rain, one that’s as stygian as The Nostromo at the same time as it’s mundane. The film plays out in the same way – it has its share of action and monstrous bits, but these are secondary to the dour (in a good way) performances and the power of the setting. Excellent stuff and highly recommended.

DER POEL – One that I picked up after reading Dem’s recent review – hadn’t heard of it before, and quite liked the sound of it. It’s about two Dutch families and their slightly off-grid camping trip. The dominant dad of the group seems to want them all to pitch next to a pool in a forest that has a shadowy reputation. Small wonder when weird stuff starts going down – food rotting, fingers going septic – all connected with the mysterious pool and its increasingly supernatural-seeming properties. Eventually, we end up in a kind of cabin-fever type scenario with people going homicidal and attempts to escape leading back to their points of departure. ‘Der Poel’ is another slow-burn, and is great at building downbeat storm-clouds of menace. Although it indulges in some obvious genre tropes (misty ‘hallucination’ sequences, soundtrack manoeuvres such as ‘creepy’ whispering, sudden jolts) it actually manages to generate an atmosphere of unease, which is no easy thing. The horror pay-off is pretty nasty too in some ways. I’m never one for big explanations as to why things happen in movies like this, and ‘Der Poel’ wisely avoids making anything clear, although it might be a kind of playing out of a Kelpie / Dutch folkloric equivalent type scenario. I thought it was really good – another one to check out if you haven’t seen it.
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