Frightfest 2012 Day 5: 27.8.2012

The Soska sisters earlier film, 'Dead Hooker in a Trunk', was such that we had not intended to see their new one, 'American Mary'but decided to do so as we had seen one of the other two and the third did not appeal. A medical student is broke and not too happy with her studies. Played deadpan almost by Katharine Isabelle, she becomes involved in the world of illegal body modification which pays well. After a party at which her medical tutor rapes her (as seemingly do others there, she takes revenge on him by removing limbs while keeping him alive while making money illegally. All, of course, eventually goes wrong. Could have been better but not bad. After directed by Ryan Smith is creepy. A man and a woman survive a bus crash to find themselves trapped in their home town and completely alone while a dark fog moves closer and closer. In their efforts to escape they fall in love and finally succeed though it may not have been the terrifying reality it seemed to be at the end. Well done tosh. Chained directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch has Vincent D'Onofrio as a mad taxi driver who kidnaps a mother and her son then kills the mother and enslaves the boy who is made to clean up after further killings. He is taught from books about anatomy and other things and, in his late teens, offered freedom if he, too, becomes a killer. He is unable to complete this but does killy his captor and returns to the family home after finding lettersand cancelled cheques from his father who has remarried. The end is a bloody one. Probably well done but distasteful. The Possession directed by Ole Bornedal tells of the possession of a young girl by a dybbuk which is in an antique box purchased at a yard sale. Eventually a young rabbi does perform the relevant ceremony and the film ends with the cliche of a cliffhanger. Solid and unmemorable. Tower Block directed by James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson was the closing film having its world premiere here. Now on general release it tells of the remaining occupants of a tower block due for demolition who find the lifts booby-trapped and exits and entrances blocked while they are sitting ducks for some shooting at them from a nearby block. Their numbers are gradually whittled down to the redoubtable heroine and two others who are able to overpower the shooter who has entered the building to complete the slaughter. Quite good.