Leo Owen reviews the downright terrible and occasionally excellent line-up from Leeds' annual blood-spattered pyjama party...

In its tenth year, The Leeds Film Festival’s “Night Of The Dead” disappointingly lacked its normal predictable balance of a teen slasher, the downright nasty, a zombie movie and Japanese gore, but lived up to its eye-rotting highly entertaining reputation with an extended 12-hour programme running from 10pm to 10 am in its usual home, The Hyde Park Picture House. The Red Bulls were out, cushions were in place, pyjamas worn, the shockingly terrible bad film amnesty was back, a surprise showing of an old favourite made an appearance (Dellamorte Dellamore) and ten rather exciting shorts were shown.

The Silent House (La Casa Muda)

Dir: Gustavo Hernandez
Country: Uruguay
Running Time: 85 mins
Language: Spanish

Uruguayan thriller, The Silent House, was shot in a single take using a Canon digital camera earning itself some much needed respect. Unfortunately, aside from appreciation of this methodology there is little to admire.

Laura and her father, Wilson, are hired to tidy up the gardens of an old friend’s family home before he puts the house on the market. When Laura hears strange noises coming from above, a quick reassuring investigation indicates there are blood-thirsty intruders living upstairs.

Superficial comparisons based solely on the look and feel of The Silent House unsurprisingly pit it against The Blair Witch Project. But it’s not just the style of the film that is similar but also its irritating lead female and frustrating conclusion.

For much of the film we watch Laura stumbling blindly around the boarded up somewhat abandoned remote house by the light of candles, lanterns, torches and even a Polaroid camera flash. She cries and screams incessantly; fails to answer any questions she’s asked helpfully and decides to carry out detective work somewhere she really shouldn’t.

The first half-hour of the film creates an effectively tense atmosphere with thumping, dragging and screaming noises heard through the floor boards. Doors are locked and flashes of mysterious figures shown. Teddy-bears appear in unexpected places. Angelic sounding children sing in rather eerie accompanying music and mirror reflections are overused.

As time passes, it’s difficult not to lose patience with these drawn-out repetitive techniques and laugh when an increasingly blood-drenched Laura is once again predictably told: “Stay Here!”. By purely focusing on atmospheric devices, director Gustavo Hernandez, leaves little time for characterisation, making it difficult to care about his already infuriating lead.

There are certainly a few moments in The Silent House that’ll make you jump, but when such a short film drags, it can’t be a good thing. If you’re already groaning at the ridiculous under-explained and slightly confusing ending, it’s advisable to avoid the extra ten minutes of footage after the credits that’ll only further blacken your mood.

The Loved Ones

Dir: Sean Byrne
Country: Australia
Running Time: 84 mins
Language: English

Recently released on DVD, Aussie teen-slasher, The Loved Ones, was the highlight of Night Of The Dead, cleverly weaving a series of character plots while creating a likeable hero and getting plenty of well-earned laughs.

Still recovering from the car crash that killed his father six months earlier, Metallica fan Brent is emotionally “retarded”, unable to open up to girlfriend, Holly, as he blames himself for the accident. When he unthinkingly refuses to be his classmate, Lola’s, date at the end of year Prom, Brent discovers how far someone will go to win the person they love.

One of the greatest strengths of The Loved Ones is its creation of a suitably vile insane comic-tragic villain pairing. Collecting road kill, Lola’s “daddy” will do anything for her, describing her as “pretty as a picture”. Their relationship is somewhat repulsive, with a hint of incest as “daddy” goes to any lengths to keep his little girl happy, including drilling and making his wife, Bright Eyes, brain dead.

Lola is presented as completely deranged, clutching a scrapbook of victims going back to primary school days. Her desire to be loved, the approach she takes, her nickname as “princess” and her catchy signature tune “Am I not pretty enough?” all make her a tragic figure.

When Brent wakes up in a room decorated like the Prom hall, complete with a “Happy End Of School” dance banner, a glitter ball, lights and balloons, Lola proudly shows him her scrapbook, telling him stories of “Duncan Fletcher {who} wet himself” and the more optimistic “Timmy Valentine – the one that got away”.

In true horror style, The Loved Ones has that dysfunctional family trap-door, and eccentric characters written mainly for laughs. One of the funniest scenes involves Brent’s best friend, Jamie, who goes to the dance with a moody Goth girl. As is to be expected, other humour is created by Lola’s deranged remarks and acts – she aeroplanes food towards Brent asking “Is it finger licking good?” and matter-of-factly confesses to him “you’re my first drilling. The trick is not to go too far – just enough to break through the skull,” while clutching yet another terrifying tool.

A pleaser from start to exceedingly satisfying finish, The Loved Ones, has the perfect balance of gore and comical interludes. Brent fights so hard for survival, it’s impossible not to root for this deserving hero.

Choose

Dir: Marcus Graves
Country: USA
Running Time: 100 mins
Language: English

The second UK showing of American psychological police thriller, Choose, was met by a dismayed, groaning audience unimpressed by its exasperating plot twist.

Opening with a hooded killer giving one of his victims the choice to kill her father or mother, Choose pans out as an extension of that popular age-old hypothetical time-wasting pub game. Our mysterious serial killer preys on seemingly unrelated folk, giving them the choice to lose their fingers or hearing and looks or sight, all the while watching a blood-filled hourglass.

The merciless killer leaves no clues limiting police investigations until Sheriff Tom Wagner’s inquisitive reporter daughter, Fiona, starts digging. Pretty soon the killer is sending her clues and she’s making some pretty shocking personal discoveries.

Although Choose is built upon an interesting plot premise, investigative techniques and lines followed are laughable and something that began promisingly transforms into a ridiculous old-skool made for Channel Five film. As soon as the “Man in the Maze” symbol is explained, the Milburn Institution discovered and “Choice Therapy” explored, Choose takes a wrong-turn. When deciding to go down the plot twist path, the film’s director, Marcus Graves, would have done well to practise what he preaches in his own tagline: “Every choice has ramifications”.

Mutant Girls Squad (UK premiere)

Dir: Yoshihiro Nishimura, Noboru Iguchi, Tak Sakaguchi
Country: Japan
Running Time: 85 mins
Language: Japanese

As if their previous contributions as directors weren’t ridiculous enough, the three driving forces behind Tokyo Gore Police, The Machine Girl and Versus have united. With input from three Gore masters, the outrageous Mutant Girls Squad is laugh-out-loud preposterously absurd.

On Rin’s 16th birthday her arm starts to inexplicably hurt and begins throbbing. With an idyllic family life and deadpan parents, everything would be perfect for sickly-sweet Rin if it wasn’t for the school bullies.

When Rin meets a mysterious girl who tells her “before tomorrow make the most of who you live as a human”, Rin’s life rapidly changes. Returning home her father reveals he has two Little Shop of Horror Audrey II-like teats and a penis, recalling the day his “nipples suddenly went hard”. He also tells her she is part of a race called The Hilkos, who have lived peacefully for tens of thousands of years. Shortly afterwards, Rin’s parents are assassinated and she finds herself angry on the streets. Drawing attention to herself, she’s recruited to the Mutant Girls Squad whose mission is to “take back the earth”.

At first the squad appears to be like futuristic female Japanese Droogs - wearing their “Reinforcement Suits” they resemble a surreal cross between cricketers and puritanical Gary Glitters. Other colourful costumes come in the form of a camp electrified Viking and the police, whose uniforms are reminiscent of Big Trouble In Little China.

Aside from clothes, Mutant Girls Squad, is visually arresting and absurd as regards the powers that some of the mutants showcase - an ass-saw that is farted out; tit swords; a power fuelled by self-harming; a breast pack; rocket hands and feet and even a human hover board.

Broken up into titled chapters like “Awakening”, Mutant Girls Squad has a comic book quality about it. A beautiful grainy snow camera effect is used, blood falls like confetti, musical notes appear when two girls fight and much of the violence is done in a very tongue-in-cheek Manga style. Within the first few minutes a sword flies through someone’s head and by the end of the film heads have exploded, been sliced in every direction imaginable, been served up on a cake and even turned into a Rubik’s Cube. There’s a gruesome peek-a-boo game, some face-swapping and a brain unravelling as the victim jokingly exclaims: “Uh oh – I’m rapidly losing my memory”. The best joke-demise comes in the form of the French bread gag courtesy of two chefs with a disastrous acrobatics routine.

The script - or perhaps the translation - is peppered with amusingly dated words and jibes, such as “dunce”, “boring human pests”, “scoundrels”, “pathetic ants”, “baboon dung” and “dimwits”. Plenty of comic timing is used as characters deliver highly understated lines. Rin admits “things are extremely tense now” as she slaughters everyone in her path. A victim walks around with a knife in her head saying she’s fine and cult chanting sounds more like labour panting.

Fans of Yoshihiro Nishimura will be able to draw plenty of parallels between Mutant Girls Squad and Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl - bossy school girls, scantily clad school nurses, a cross dressing HILKO leader... Rin’s final message that “no-one should feel this way – neither human nor HILKO” exposes the female power struggle and coming of age identity story as nothing more than backdrops to more serious explorations of terrorist threats and racism in Mutant Girl Squad. Culminating in a three-part battle with a hint of lesbianism, big explosions and plenty of blood showers, despite its serious undertones, Mutant Girl Squad is played whole-heartedly for laughs and certainly doesn’t disappoint.

Also consider..

Some of these shorts made a return to the NotD at Leeds, and others are new...

The Horribly Slow Murderer With The Extremely Inefficient Weapon