Kirino, Natsuo: Out

A woman murders her good-for-nothing husband and enlists the help of workmates on the night shift at a fast food plant to
help her avoid detection and conviction. While that is the basic short version of the story, the interest lies in the varying reactions of the workmates, the willingness to ignore morality for financial advantage and the course that events take in the
aftermath of the murder. As with the other of her books I have read, there is a dispassionate tone with often gruesome and illegal activity presented without condemnation almost as if the entire world was alienated from itself. It did take me quite
some time to read the 500 plus pages as there is a definite density to the work though this does not prevent its being a very
readable work. I don't think it was enjoyable though this is hardly surprising considering the subject matter.

Crossways (JuJiro): Teinosuke Kinugasa

This 1928 Japanese silent is described as one of the milestones of Japanese cinema following the director's earlier 'A Page of Madness'. The story is one of a profligate young man, besotted with a whore, who thinks he has killed a rival for her wares
and takes refuge with his sister to hide from the consequences. The film reflects the German expressionism of the period and is deliberately not filmed sequentially but with a mix of the now and the then to illustrate the tortured mind of the lead.
The film was preceded by a somewhat unfluent (if there is such a word) introduction aiming to put the film in the context of
Japanese cinema at the time. I thought the film was of interest but not quite up to the level of the better German and other
films of the period and not as interesting as the earlier film.

Frightfest 2010: Day 5

The last day of the marathon opened with a documentary 'Video Nasties: Moral Panic Censorship and Videotape' directed by
Jake West which did, at times, seem very familiar though this was its world premiere. I suppose there are, talking heads apart, a limited number of clips that can be shown - and several of them appeared more than once during the hour of this film. Interesting but rather old hat.
'After.Life' has Liam Neeson as a funeral director, Christina Ricci as a frequently naked body who may or may not be dead and
Justin Long as a suffering fiance (again). Agnieska Wojtowisz-Vosloo directs this stylishly filmed effort which was not that
scary but it was quite effective.
'Bedevilled', a Korean film directed by Jang Cheol-soo, tells of a young female banker who is sent on leave and goes to the island of Moodo where she has a property left her by her grandparents. Her one-timefriend there is the only young woman on the island and is treated as a sexual toy by the men and a slave by the women. Though shocked by this, the banker will not get involved as she had not done so over the years by ignoring the many letters her friend had sent her. The death of
her daughter turns the island girl crazy which leads to an extended and very bloody denouement. Good(ish)
'Red White and Blue' directed by Simon Rumley has Noah Taylor as a veteran of the Iraq war who befriends a slut who has started work at the same plant. Despite her promiscuity both at work and elsewhere, he forms an attachment to her which
ends abruptly when one of her night-time liaisons goes wrong. He proceeds to take revenge for her death before riding off
into the sunset. So What!
Danial Sramm's 'The Last Exorcism' was the closing film which, true to form, started a good 30 minutes late so the ending was
missed. A mock documentary about a Southern Baptist preacher who has followed his father by performing exorcisms which
are all faked, exposing this being the reason for the documentary. The twist is that his last one which is to form the centre of the documentary turns out to be one of genuine possession..... at which point we made our excuses and left.
To summarise the weekend fairly is not easy - even though these reviews are nearer the event than those of last year, there is a definite blurring of memory - and one or two complete or near-complete lapses. As I said a year ago, the earlier films have
tended to be the better remembered and reviewd though this is not completely so. There was nothing this year that stood out though there were several that, one way or another, might bear a second viewing. Firstly, a few words on the rationale for choosing the Discovery Screen over the main one. The quiz, the Hooper interview and re-run of 'The Hills Have Eyes' were natural gaps in the main arena with British films 'Isle of Dogs' and 'Cherry Tree Lane' adding to the time available. As well as the late night films, the missed films were "Burning Bright' and 'Higanjima: Escape from Vampire Island' on the Discovery Screen and 'Red Hill', 'Damned by Dawn', 'The Tortured' and 'The Dead' on the main screen. The films seen ranged
from some goodish ones - 'The Clinic','F', '13 Hrs','The Pack' and 'Monsters'- through some oddities - 'Amer' and 'After.Life' - to some that were anything but good - 'Eggshells', 'We Are What We Are', and others. Nothing stood out in the way that last
year's 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' and the previous year's 'Let the Right One In' did and I amnot sure that some of those
I did like will remain so in a year or two's time. However, all in all a worthwhile experience but next year I think it will pay to
spend money on hotel accommdation and cut back on the travelling.

Frightfest 2010: Day 4

'The Pack', a Franck Richard debut feature, starts with Emilie Dequenne driving south through the French countryside with her
picking up Benjamin Biolay as a protection after a run in with three bikers. Stopping at Mama Spack's truck stop (though it
did seem rather off the road) for refreshments, she finds her companion has gone missing. Mama Spack, the incomparable
Yolande Moreau, does not help at all and she soon finds herself captive, having been the victim of a plot to lure her there.
The stop is near an old mine which has long since closed down following a major disaster and her presence is required to sate
the appetites of the dead miners who return. After many twists in the plot she survives. A dark film with an interesting plot and some nice touches.
Colm McCarthy has directed 'The Outcast' which deals with Celtic myth on a Scottish housing estate. Despite a cast of well-known British actors who acquit themselves as well as can be expected in the circumstances, this was not really involving.
We Are What We Are' is Mexican, directed by Jorge Michel Grau, about an urban cannibal family facing the problem of getting their food when their father dies in the middle of a shopping mall. Perhaps I might have enjoyed this more had it been on earlier in the weekend's showings but, apart from the opening sequence which was nicely filmed, it pressed no buttons and
certainly did not ring any bells.
'Amer' is a Franco-Belgian feature directed by Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani. Although the setting and filming were very
interesting, the story of three episodes in a woman's life starting with childhood provided an example of style without substance. An hommage to the giallos of the 1970s, it was a rather plale imitation of the best of that decade.
'Buried' was a substitute for 'A Serbian Film' which ran into censorship problems and was withdrawn. The film has a single actor playing a captured American soldier buried in a coffin somewhere in Iraq. He can communicate with outside world and
the film is a slow unfolding of the apparents efforts to find and rescue him before he dies. Wow(?)

Frightfest 2010: Day 3

Again the Discovery Screen for 'Christopher Roth' by Max Sender (Maxime Alexandre) in which the eponymous hero is a successful thriller writer who wants to change direction and takes a villa in Umbria to find the peace he needs to do so. He
and his wife find a neighbour (though not exactly next door) is a fan and they dine together at times. A series of local murders by a serial killer called The Boar because his victims have wooden tusks forced through their cheeks complicates his
life and leads to a reality as scary as anything he has written. With a non-English cast (apart from Ben Gazzara in a cameo as the writer's New York agent). this seemed rather a Euro-pudding film with, as one would expect, beautiful cinematography.
'Fanboys' sees a bunch of teenage Star Wars fans setting out to steal a copy of George Lucas's 'Episode One - The Phantom
Menace' before it is released so that they can claim to be the first to have seen it. A series of adventures on the way to the Lucas ranch make this an example of the road trip genre, mildly amusing and predictable with Kristen Bell as the feisty girl who is one of the boys but really after love. What the ... was it doing here?
'13 Hrs' sees Isabella Calthorpe return to the family mansion after some time in this Jonathan Glendening film, another World
Premiere. Cut off by a storm, she and her family less the mother who is away purportedly either for work or with her lover
depending on who is telling it, plus an ex boy friend and a current girl friend, the bounteously endowed Gemma Atkinson,
are attacked by an unseen but bloody animal which proceeds to kill them off one by one, starting with the father. There is an
unexpected explanation which is revealed only after most of them are dead as are a local policeman and animal trapper. An
interesting premise well done and, for once, set in a milieu that is neither urban nor rural slum.
Steven R Monroe has directed a remake of the classic 'I Spit On your Grave' and has followed the basic story line but added at
least one twist which did not really improve matters. The humiliation and rape of Sarah Butler, the lead, are effectively done without much prurience and the revenge sequences show a certain imagination but the expansion of the film from the original does not enhance but rather diminishes.
Gareth Edwards debut film 'Monsters' is a road movie of sorts with a sci-fi basis. Alien lifeforms from a NASA probe have led
to much of Mexico being quarantined and a large wall built along the border with the USA. A reporter in Central America is
tasked with getting his employer's adult daughter back to the USA safely in order to keep is job. The film is the tale of their
journey which is far from straightforward and which, inevitably, leads to a romantic attachment before the end. The monsters of the title are almost incidental but are necessary to provide the pitfalls which befall them until the deliberately ambiguous ending. The mix of genres may tell against the film which is well made.

Frightfest 2010: Day 2

Tobe Hooper was the star attraction this year and the first film of the day was his debut feature 'Eggshells', set in the Austin of 1969. Very much of its time, the kindest thing one can say about this is that it is a student effort which shows some promise amongst one hell of a lot of rubbish.
Switching to the Discovery Screen for the second film of the day produced 'The Clinic', another Australian effort directed by
James Rabbitts whose first film this is. Aided by a strong cast led by Tabrett Bethell, he has produced a fine effort with a
strong but simple story. Pregnant women are drugged, taken to a deserted abattoir, given a Caesarean to remove the foetus,
and then killed with the babies sold to couples who want healthy children. The horror is created by the attempts of the few
women there trying to escape, in no small part thwarted by one of their number who has been promised freedom if she is the only one of the current intake to survive. A nice twist at the end which I shall not reveal. No pyrotechnics but a solidly made
and effective film.
'Finale' directed by John Michael Elfers was also on the Discovery Screen. A mother refuses to believe her son committed suicide and investigates his death which starts to threaten both her sanity and her daughters' life. Creepy and confused but
not memorable (after the three weeks since Frightfest I had trouble recalling the film).
'Wound' directed by David Blyth was the third Discovery Screen film of the day, a shocker from New Zealand, and this was a really confusing mess of a film.
'F' helmed by Johanne Roberts had its World Premiere today in the main auditorium. Set in a 6th Form College, it deals with
the events of one evening following an opening sequence in which David Schofield, the lead, is attacked by a student whose
work has been marked F for failed. The consequences of this when the School Board do not back him (you do not fail pupils but tell them to try harder next time to avoid being sued by irate parents) are his gradual disintegration and the break-up of his marriage. On the evening in question, he has put his daughter in detention (the only false note in the film is that this is happening after 6.00pm) when the school is invaded by faceless youths who proceed to main and kill. Schofield is forced to
react to save his daughter which he does though, again, there is a final twist which leaves his efforts in question. A fine effort all round.

Frightfest 2010: Day 1

The opening film was the world premiere of "Hatchet II' directed by Frightfest favourite, Adam Green, which follows on directly from the first film. The female survivor enlists the help of Tony Todd who assembles a motley crew of hunters to kill Victor
Crowley, the killing monster, while helping the girl retrieve her relatives' remains. What follows is a series of inventive and
bloody killings as Crowley outwits his hunters until the final scene. Despite the hype, a relatively mundane example of the
genre despite the imaginative deaths - one example is a new version of losing your head over a woman!
A second world premiere, "Primal' directed by Josh Reed, followed. Set in the Australian wilds, the film follows a small party
of friends looking for Aboriginal relics which they find - but the area is infected by a primordial evil. Some are infected by this and kill others to provide food for the evil entity leaving, as so often, one female survivor. A nice touch is that she is
teased early in the film to utter the c... word but will only do so when appropriate: guess what her final word is after killing
the last 'baddie'. Am I wrong to say this was not bad for an Australian film.

Welsh, Louise: The Bullet Trick

Although a review refer to her earlier novel 'The Cutting Room', I found this rather different from my memory of that novel which was dark and Gothic in time. Another review says "reaches new depths of depravity" which makes me wonder what
the reviewer had read as, despite the seedy background of a Soho club with two girl strippers in a private performance and
a Berlin 'erotic cabaret', there is nothing shocking. The main female does appear to be something of a whore but there is
only one relatively mild incident. London in the recent past kicks the story off though this is related in backflash from a
contemporary Glasgow with the Berlin episode at the heart of the tale. The protagonist is a stage magician who is sinking
physically and mentally because he has killed the girl who assisted him in Berlin; complicating this is his possession of a photo which implicates a senior policeman in the mysterious disappearance of a criminal's wife some decades earlier.
The writing is smooth and clear with a light touch despite the rather heavy subject matter and the whole fits well - I am not
overly fond of novels which intercut between the now and the then but it works here. Even the surprise ending is not out
of place.

Camilleri, Andrea: The Paper Moon

Another chapter in the life of Inspector Montalbano with the familiar wry musings and the usual complex plot with the implied
presence of the Mafia (not that this is ever specifically named). The murder of an informer which is the name given to independent sales reps for pharmaceutical companies involves three beautiful women, the mystery of the dead man's wealth and incidental connections with dead politicians and drug trafficking. Written clearly with the musings of the Inspector well to the fore, the story keeps moving apace up to the denouement. I have seen references to the way in which the translator
has handled the speech of one of the policeman who, I assume, speaks with a heavy local accent with a tendency to malapropisms. I think this is well handled in the context. Possibly a little lighter in tone than some of the other recent Italian crime writers but not hiding the evils involved, Camilleri continues to provide a highly entertaining and satisfactory read.

Mercier, Pascal: Night Train to Lisbon

A middle-aged teacher of Latin and Greek suddenly leaves Bern and travels to Lisbon as a result of picking up an old book inPortuguese, a language he does not know. In Lisbon, he investigates the life   the dead author and meets with members of his family and friends before finally returning to Bern (though there is one brief return soon after his initial arrival, This is a beautifully written book (again, praise to the translater) in which not a lot happens either in the present day or in the relating
of the life of the dead author some decades earlier. The writings and the teacher's reactions to them in which he questions his own life provide the novel's impetus providing a slow, thoughtful, read.

Vargas, Fred: This Night's Foul Work

The ghost of a nun, butchered stags, disturbed graves, a brilliant pathologist and a new member of Adamsberg's squad who
is looking for revenge are only some of the elements of this brilliant thriller. How they come together with the rest of the
story is gradually and suspensefully laid out by a writer who must surely now rank among the very best crime writers of the
present day. Not only is there are tortuous plot which is resolved only at the end but also a depth of characterisation that is so often taken for granted in crime novels. The various elements reveal a considerable depth of, presumably, researched
knowledge of a great variety of subjects: while some of this could be omitted it does enhance rather than embellish.

Wilson, Robert: A Small Death in Lisbon

What starts as an investigation into the brutal killing of a teenage girl in Lisbon develops into a patchy history lesson which
starts in Nazi Germany in 1941 and continues to the 1990s. A factory owner is forcibly enlisted into the SS and given the task of securing an increasing amount of wolfram from Portugal for the German war machine. To do this, he uses a local
peasant leader and the two of them become rich and powerful, more so when his task is changed to receiving and hiding
bullion. The two of them set up a bank and get rid of the SS men involved in the scheme (though one escapes). By the 1950s, the peasant has become a respectable banker with the German being involved in dealing with overseas branches.
On a return to Lisbon he has sex with the peasant's wife and later boasts of this though this leads to his being convicted of
murder (of the escaped SS man) and imprisoned. Jumping forward, one of the peasant's sons is a society charmer and well-
placed to run his father's business while the younger one joins the Portuguese secret police. Later, when the Salazar regime is overthrown, the latter leaves Portugal for some years but returns under an assumed name when his father dies. He becomes involved in the bank again, eventually taking over when his brother is killed in a car crash. Almost in passing, he
is shown to have regular sexual liaisons on a Friday including, unexpectedly, the rape of a legal secretary delivering papers to
the office he uses solely for that purpose. In the course of investigating the murder, the detective in charge is transferred when he seems to be treading on important toes. The murdered girl is the daughter of the lawyer who had handled work for the bank set up with the SS gold and the detective eventually finds that she had been buggered by the younger son who is
then convicted of murder and, simultaneously, the German, now released from prison, provides evidence of the bank's origins. The twists in the tail are that the younger son had raped the fiancee of the lawyer a week before their marriage and
the murdered girl was his daughter; he was not the murderer but had been set up for this by the lawyer who had discovered the relationship but there was no way of proving this in addition to which the lawyer was well protected by the powers that be.
The above misses out a lot of sub-plots and is released not straightforwardly but in smaller sections jumping back from the
present investigation to the past with the links only becoming obvious near the end. Reasonably wel written and certainly
holding the interest despite the necessary coincidences along the way. It would possibly have been less successful without the detailed inserts from the past though reading just the parts dealing with the murder and investigation provide a satisfactory enough story on their own.

Hammesfahr, Petra: The Sinner

A young woman kills a man one sunny afternoon in full view of her family and others and is arrested and, quite naturally,
confesses. The Police Commissioner in charge refuses to close the file and starts his own investigation to find out why she
did it. The book gradually exposes her past piecing together often confusing recollections from the woman herself. Her
descent into madness is excellently teased out in this excellent novel which has reminders in its tone and content of the
work of the great Patricia Highsmith though this book is definitely more intense and disturbing.

Glauser, Friedrich: In Matto's Realm

Another Sergeant Studer story which finds him investigating in a mental hospital (Matto's Realm quoting the Italian for mad).
As with the other books of Glauser that I have read, there is not a lot of action for much of the time but a gradual unfolding of the psychological states of mind amongst the various characters. Something I had not noticed in other books, possibly as it
was not present, was the not infrequent comment on the various accents - "Jutzeler spoke with the lilting accent of the Bernese Oberland", 'thick Swiss dialect" and so on - as well as occasional deliberate misspellings to indicate, presumably, the
way of speaking. As with the earlier books, it is easy to understand why Glauser was hed in high esteem and Bitter Lemon Press are to be congratulated for reintroducing him to the English reader.

Zafon, Carlos Ruiz: The Shadow of the Wind

A complex book which partly parallels the history of Barcelona in the first sixty years of the 20th century with the city itself as
very much a character. The son of a bookseller is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books where he finds, or is found by, the eponymous title by a writer called Julian Carax. He then tries to find out what he can about the author and
his efforts to do so are, to some extent, a parallel with the writer's life though less tragically. The story unfolds episodically,
moving between the present of the young man and the present of the writer though it is quite late in the novel before there is
a relatively full version of the writer's life. The late chapters develop the Gothic nature of the novel which has earlier been noted only in smaller scenes. The writing is very clear and uncomplicated without being as terse as, for example, Hemingway. While certain aspects of the unfolding story both current and past may seem far-fetched, they fit and the possible strangeness is due to the different customs and moralities of the periods in question. A really excellent novel.