Goldbeater

The award for Best Director from San Sebastian is not a surprise, Pedro Martín Calero knows how to take his time building up the atmosphere, only to come back with a solid shock. And then again. And then again. The unconventional construction of the plot is something you have to get used to, but as a ghost concept it works very well and in the final act it makes a very refreshing and novel impression. And the casting director should get an Oscar next year for his choice of the trio of lead actresses.

A Kafkaesque story about a man trapped in the labyrinthine corridors of a hotel. There is probably no need to add more to this. What surprised me, however, was both how fine Crispin Glover is at the age of sixty, and more importantly, that I can't actually think of another film where he's been given the lead role. What a shame. The man has the chops, give him more opportunities!

A celebration of womanhood and the free spirit of girls set in a story about a mysterious monster in the woods. Spirit in the Blood actually has a number of very interesting ideas, parallels to witch hunts and the condemnation of religious patriarchy, but it doesn't feel very focused in its story, and much prefers to take many detours rather than dwell on the believability of the characters' motivations and behaviour. The fact that they manage to trap a murderous monster using such a futile and ill-thought-out plan cannot have been seriously intended; it practically acts as a screenwriting crutch to give the film some kind of powerful crisis. I can probably imagine that it suits a lot of people far more than it suited me, but it just didn't work too well for me.

Imagine an over-the-top sitcom that turns into a bloodbath. The English-language debut of Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil, the Dutch guys who brought us New Kids Turbo, was described online after its early festival screening as the year's most offensive carnage. I wouldn't reach for such strong statements, but it's true that certain groups of viewers will be greatly outraged by some of the images in this film. Those who have seen some of the earlier work of these two Dutch nutters, though, will probably know what to expect. It's a bit of a shame that the film abandons its initial concept as the minutes pass, but the crazy action at the end balances it out very well, and it's fun to watch the sitcom setting gradually turn into carnage.

Shortly after the end of World War II, an Italian young man moves to the American Midwest to write a novel, but when he discovers that his neighbor is the mother of a missing girl who once caught his eye in Italy, he embarks on a sinister odyssey across both continents to find out what happened to her. Pupi Avati has always worked with a very gradual pace, during which he mainly builds a mystery around a detective plot that doesn't necessarily see a satisfying resolution. Which may or may not be the case here. Its washed-out scenery is visually very impressive and the film has a very dense atmosphere of post-war confusion and disillusionment. There are very few horror elements and I probably wouldn't be able to recommend it to many due to the very slow pace, but it's still a very interesting piece of work.

A film that does the Swedish nation a similar service as Hostel did to the Slovaks. Nick Frost is not only the lead actor, but also the writer and producer, and the fact that he pushed this story into production shows that he probably has some hidden grudge against the Swedes. In any case, Get Away is a rather wild and raunchy horror comedy whose tone is perhaps even problematic and offensive, but that's probably something I'd kind of expect from the irrepressible Steffen Haars from New Kids. In any case, Eero Milonoff is the highlight of the film.

An Estonian comedy musical about love, family and chainsaws. Within low budget waters, this very well made and really funny film comes up with a lot of very good directorial ideas and entertains very well most of the time. The biggest problem is that it's too sprawling in several directions when it should rather be condensed into just the necessary. In short, the film bogs down slightly into unnecessary plot digressions and dead ends, especially after the first half hour, which is also why it's a truly exorbitant two hours and not, say, a polished 90 minutes. It's a shame, the ideas are great and the execution is very funny at times.

It has my sympathy in how it tries to be a throwback to the 90s direct-to-video bizarreness of Full Moon Entertainment and the like, Frankie Freako definitely falls into those realms. The giant problem, however, is that the attempts at comedy don't work at all. The only fairly solid joke is the one involving Adam Brooks' character and the shredding of his documents, because the film repeats it so vehemently that it's actually funny. Unfortunately, the fantasy-adventure storyline isn't all that dazzling either, and moreover, with the final revelation, it's clear how the whole thing doesn't make sense in principle. I didn't tune in. Unfortunately.

I have no doubt that Boutique: To Preserve and Collect was made with the best of creative intent and that it really wants to be a celebration of physical media and the boutique companies that release them and lovingly remaster forgotten images, but in this form this documentary may be doing them a bit of a disservice. This poorly put together film gropes around for what form it actually wants to take to discuss its subject matter, and so at times jumps into completely nonsensical digressions and topics that they seemed to want to somehow pick up on without quite fitting in. On top of that, it has a really tragically recorded and edited audio track, quite ear-splitting, and even factual errors in the clips from the selected films. It's a shame, this subject matter would otherwise really deserve a really good, well made and engaging documentary.

As he did with Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson a couple of years back, David Gregory combines a biographical documentary about one of horror cinema's obscure figures with a bizarre, almost thriller-like true-crime storyline, and once again it works beautifully for the audience. It really does go in directions you wouldn't expect at the start. I got a lot of new information not only about the mysterious person of Suzzanna, but straight up about the nature of Indonesian cinema in general. Gregory is simply reliable, and I really enjoy his choice of themes and personal stories of horror filmmakers.