KANDISHA – Maury and Bustillo are back with what feels like a culturally translocated re-jig of ‘The Candyman’. A girl in a graffitied-up high-rise summons a man-thrashing demon with a taste for lame boyfriends and sex pests… cue obvious subtext. There’s a bit of urban strife-type reportage to fuel the drama, but ‘Kandisha’, despite good performances and some atmosphere, only really comes into its own during a few key nightmarish scenes – the bit in the sauna, for example, is savage, surreal and riveting. It’s a shame these moments are like windows into a different film. Overall, ‘Kandisha’ is pretty good, it’s definitely worth a watch, but it’s no ‘Livide’ and it’s a long way from ‘Inside’.
HOST – Zoom-based found footage flick in which an internet séance goes wrong and invokes a really pissed off spook. I thought this would be a bit of a yawn to be honest, but I watched it anyway, thinking that if I could switch it on I could at least switch it back off. I was pleasantly surprised; ‘Host’ is a really effective no-budgeter that uses its video-call split-screen format to creepy and distracting effect, allowing some genuine atmosphere to take hold between the jump scares and crass bits. Give it a go, and let it confound and confuse that raised eyebrow of yours (if you raised it in the first place, that is).
THE SCARE OF SIXTY FIRST – Two flatmates find that their new pad is the focus of an Epstein-based supernatural conspiracy in Dasha Nekrasova’s bizarre directorial debut. Maybe I’m revealing my lack of sophistication here, but I found it quite difficult to decide whether I was watching an art flick playing it sloppy or just a straight up bad horror film. Either way, the moments of disconnect are too numerous to have originated in anything other than a stiflingly unhinged work, one that you can almost sense leering at the baffled looks of its estranged audience. That’s what I liked about it. There’s a really screechy ‘avant-garde performance’ aspect to it that I loved – people in goo-goo ga-ga mode wanking in rooms covered in torn-up photos of the royal family etc – yeah, I remember art school. But just the vague insanity of the fact that it’s this sub-Lynchean / Polanskian New York grimfest that at the same time has this obsessive focus on Prince Andrew, as a stalker’s toy as much as a satirical device, was enough to pique my interest. I can imagine a lot of people hating it, but it’s worth a shot if you like slightly feverish cinema that offers no clues.
FOR THE SAKE OF VICIOUS – A brutally efficient little thriller that offers up a tried and tested home-invasion scenario and then pretty much pulverises it into oblivion before our very eyes. ‘For The Sake Of Vicious’ (what a title) is not pushing the conceptual envelope with its set-up, in which a classical ‘wronged man’ kidnaps the wretch he believes raped his daughter with a view to some post-court case DIY retribution; these bare narrative bones are almost pleasantries, because the film’s main purpose seems to be unremitting gore. I actually preferred the slow burn of the first half, where the accent was on suspense – after that you get the masked thugs breaking in and a tsunami of unlikely bloodshed. Or maybe not even that much gore, I’ve seen far worse, I guess the point I’m trying to make is, it was enough of a grand guignol switchover to take me by surprise and transform the film from meat-and-potatoes thriller into splatterfest. Which is interesting in itself. Definitely one to check out.
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