Frightfest 2011: Day 4 (28.08.2011)

The Divide: A nuclear holocaust finds a mixed bag of survivors in a basement where Michael Biehn, the building's caretaker lives. Initally, he is in control doling out rations but his role is usurped by Milo Ventimiglia and his buddy who run the place as they choose. Rosanne Arquette plays a nymphomanic mother who is used and discarded. Not nice.
The Last Post: part of the short film programme, this stars Jean Marsh as a dying lady in hospital remembering her love who
returns to claim her as she dies - short and sweet.
The Innkeepers: the last days of a New England inn which is closing down. It has a history of paranormal activity and it is the
investigation of this and the subsequent outcome that make the film. Minor with the thrills a long time coming.
Saint; a Dutch film set at the time of the feast of Saint Nicholas who was not, it turns out, the kindly old man but a bloothirsty
pirate. He returns from Hell and sets about killing while his presence is only accepted initially by a student and a disgraced
detective. They eventually prevail after a number of adventures. Well made.
Kill List: considered the highlight of the weeked, this is a parson's egg of a film. Starting as a family drama with Neil Maskell and MyAnna Buring as a married couple quarelling about money who entertain his best friend and his girlfriend of the moment to dinner. It turns out that the two men are ex-soldiers who served together in Iraq who have become contract killers though their last assignment in the Ukraine seems to have not gone as it should have done. They are given new tasks and deal with these but Maskell is becoming unhinged at which point the film turns into a Dennis Wheatley thriller with a
black mass, the death of the friend and, finally, the death of Maskell's wife and son at his hand. End of film. It has been
well-reviewed by most national critics but undeservingly so. The first half or so are acceptably done but the incoherence that follows destroys any credibility the film might have had with the ending confirming this.