Tales From The Lodge (2019)

The general idea of Tales From The Lodge is a good one. It’s a comedy horror anthology that makes the framing device just as enjoyable as any of the main tales, and also has a lot of fun with the horror genre tropes. Mind you, it is another movie co-starting Johnny Vegas and Mackenzie Crook. The last time I recall seeing them onscreen together was in Sex Lives Of The Potato Men. I’ve not been brave enough to revisit that, but the scar is still on my psyche. 

A group of friends gather to scatter the ashes one of their number, Jones, who committed suicide in a lake very close to the titular lodge. There’s Martha (Laura Fraser) and Joe (Crook), a couple battling on as Joe waits for a new heart. There’s Emma (Sophie Thompson) and Russell (Vegas), a couple happy to get away from their kids for a while. Last, but by no means least, is Paul (Dustin Demri-Burns), a womaniser who has unwisely decided to bring along his latest girlfriend, Mickey (Kelly Wenham). Things soon get a bit tense and emotional, and everyone has a turn of telling a dark and twisted tale.

Written and directed by Abigail Blackmore, making her feature debut, Tales From The Lodge is a strange beast. It is sometimes fun, sometimes quirky and entertaining, but always never too far away from one sour note to undo any good work. As a sweetener for the cast, I’m sure, each participant gets to direct their own tale, but nobody brings any unique voice to the proceedings. That isn’t necessarily bad, in a way, as it allows the film to flow as one piece made up of the interconnecting parts, but it also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. 

The cast all do well enough in their roles, although some fare better than others at the hands of the script. Fraser comes off the worst, a pretty unrelentingly horrible and moody person (for a reason, but it doesn’t make her any easier to enjoy while onscreen), but Wenham and Demri-Burns are also required to twist themselves in some knots to sell their stories, which becomes even more difficult to buy into during the climax of the proceedings.

And that climax. To say it is problematic is putting it mildly. The more I think about it, and having been more aware than ever before of certain issues that the ending here brings to mind, the more horribly misjudged, at best, and ignorant it seems. It’s undoubtedly one of the worst I can think of in recent years, although there’s also a part of me thinking it may well be playing into some of the ridiculously wild endings of some of the schlocky horrors of yesteryear. If the rest of the film had been in the spirit of a throwback slasher then that would be easier to accept. As it stands, not so much.

Ending aside, although I know many who will not be able to see past that (and rightly so), this is a film that keeps skirting close to being good, without ever fully reaching that standard. Blackmore needs to learn some lessons from this, and hopefully do better next time.

5/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: Dark Encounter (2019)

The second feature film from writer-director Carl Strathie, with both Alice Lowe and Sid Phoenix returning to work with him, Dark Encounter has good intentions. It's just a shame that it is horribly dull, and leads to a third act that Strathie clearly thinks rewards viewers for their patience. It's not half as good as he thinks it is, and many may end up as disappointed as I was.

It is 1982 in America, and a young girl (Maisie) goes missing. Her family are understandably distraught. When people gather together one year later for a memorial, strange phenomena are witnessed in the local area. Are alien abductors returning to look for more potential abductees, or is there another reason for things?

Technically competent, and there are some nice shots here and there that give off a nice vibe evoking both The X-Files and a number of '80s sci-fi movies, the biggest problem with Dark Encounter comes from the unnecessary choices made that don't seem to help the film in any way. Why is it set in 1982, for example, when it doesn't seem to affect the plot? Maybe I missed, or have already forgotten, something that wouldn't work if the film was set in the present, but it seems that the only reason for the time setting is a vein of nostalgia it doesn't even mine. And as for setting it in America, with the largely (fully?) British cast all adopting decent accents for their roles, I am also at a loss as to what that adds to anything onscreen. I understand it may have helped to sell the movie in other territories, maybe, but it just seems to be too obvious throughout in the way it refuses to show any more exterior views than a few establishing shots, or anonymous wooded areas.

None of the cast do a bad job, they're just left to suffer at the hands of a weak script unworthy of their talents. Laura Fraser is the central figure, Olivia, the mother in mourning who wants to know what happened to her daughter, but Mel Raido, Sid Phoenix, and Grant Masters all do just fine. Alice Lowe and Vincent Regan aren't onscreen for long enough, especially the former (someone I always enjoy seeing in any role she takes on), and nobody else is given the chance to make a strong impression.

Now let me just get back to that third act. This is a drama marketed as a sci-fi horror movie, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just worth bearing that in mind if you're after something more at ease with the standard genre tropes and thrills. What stops this from working is how badly executed the material is. Strathie doesn't set things up well at all, taking viewers in one direction and then hastily pulling them another way when he deems it the right time for a rug pull. It also doesn't help that it's a very interesting plot development that feels completely mishandled.

Not recommended, although I would still be interested in seeing what Strathie might do next, especially if he ever decides to just base things in the UK, in the present, without seeming slightly embarrassed about working with certain genre standards.

3/10

You can buy a disc here.
Americans can buy a disc here.

Beats (2019)

Ahhhhh the '90s. Although I consider myself a child of the 1980s, as I was born in the mid-70s, I tended to develop most of my own taste, as dubious as it is, in the 1990s. I was finding my own TV shows, I was enjoying the grunge music scene, I was obviously an absolute whirlwind of hormones, and I also got into rave music. Yes, some of it is annoying and rubbish, but there are a lot of tunes from that time (and I may regret admitting this) that are still in rotation in my playlists, whether for the gym or just for general liveliness.

Everyone associates rave culture with garish clothing and lots of pill-popping. I never popped pills. I was high on life. And I never wore garish clothing. Okay, that's a lie. I enjoyed the comfort of some Bermuda shorts, and I had one hypercolour t-shirt that was my favourite thing ever. But that's not too bad, considering the variety of t-shirts, shirts, and onesies I have in my wardrobe nowadays.

My one regret was not getting to one of the big raves, with the biggest of the main events, Rezerection, taking place just on the outskirts of my home city. To compensate, I picked up all the cassette tapes I could, from the live shows (featuring sets from DJ Ratty, UltraSonic, all the way to Carl Cox, etc) to the TTF albums, from The Prodigy to standard, slick mainstream packages that compiled hits from the likes of Altern-8, Praga Khan, Utah Saints, and Messiah.

Beats opens with THE classic track from UltraSonic, Annihilating Rhythm, which will prove immediately comforting to anyone thinking this is a film from people who don't know what they're doing. Everything about the film feels authentic, all the way to a bittersweet coda that reveals the future lives of most of the main characters, and that is what elevates it to a low-key kind of greatness.

Cristian Ortega is Johnno, being willingly led astray by his mate, Lorn Macdonald (playing Spanner), and the two do a great job in the lead roles, very natural and believable throughout. Johnno has his mother (Laura Fraser) and potential wannabe-stepfather/policeman (Brian Ferguson) trying to keep him on a better path through life, while Spanner just has his older brother (Fido, played by Neil Leiper) giving him hassle at every opportunity. Ross Mann is a DJ, D-Man, and Cat, Wendy, and Laura are three young women who make the idea of risking major punishment for having a wild night out seem a lot more appealling, and they are played respectively by Amy Manson, Rachel Jackson, and Gemma McElhinney.

Based on a play by Kieran Hurley, who co-wrote the screen adaptation with director Brian Welsh, this is something that needs to conjure up all the right memories and feelings to work, and it absolutely does. The soundtrack choices are spot on, the black and white cinematography allows for a burst of colour to open out your reception to the good vibes at just the right times, and there's a perfect distillation of the feelings you can have for what you view as that one, somehow hugely important, big night out. Some people used to head out every weekend, even every other night if they knew enough people having enough different smaller parties, but there would always be one night that would see you a different person watching the sunrise from how you were as you'd watched the sunset.

I look forward to whatever comes next from director Welsh (and also need to see The Rack Pack, a film he directed about the rivalry between snooker players Alex Higgins and Steve Davis), I am already a big fan of Hurley (having also been lucky enough to see his play, "Square Go", here in Edinburgh last year), and I hope to see both Ortega and Macdonald in some more movies.

In case it wasn't obvious, I loved Beats. Loved it. I was transported to the early-to-mid-nineties, I could recognise so many familiar moments (even that horrible moment when you're hanging with people who have come along accompanied by an antagonistic asshole), and it's a perfect celebration of the positivity of the rave scene, and the beauty of even the most seemingly-mismatched friendships.

9/10

You can buy the movie here.

April Fools: Kevin & Perry Go Large (2000)

The character of Kevin the stroppy teenager was very funny when he first appeared. One of many creations from famous UK TV comedian Harry Enfield, he was an amusing exaggeration of the worst aspects of those turbulent teenage years. Unfortunately, he wasn't as funny by the turn of the century, and this attempt to take the thin gag and stretch it further, into a full movie, stands up now as nothing more than a bit of an embarrassment.

Enfield is Kevin, of course, and Kathy Burke plays his mate, Perry. The two obsess over girls and getting a sex life, and they look to have the best chance ever to impress some lovely young ladies when they're allowed to go on holiday to Ibiza. Unfortunately, Kevin's parents (James Fleet and Louisa Rix) are also along for the holiday. Will Kevin and Perry get to make their dreams come true? Will they get to make out with some young ladies (mainly the two played by Tabitha Wady and Laura Fraser)? And will they somehow manage to convince people that they have the potential to be superstar DJs, just like Eyeball Paul (Rhys Ifans)?

Kevin & Perry Go Large has a pretty good soundtrack, so there's that. But there's really nothing else, with the exception of a brilliant turn from Ifans as the uncaring DJ who strings the lads along while promising to play their song at his club. Director Ed Bye has a career full of TV work (including Red Dwarf, which may hold up as the best thing that he's worked on) but he proves able to take this small-screen work and bulk it up enough for the cinema screen. It's just a shame that he can't do anything to detract from the sheer awfulness of the script.

Remember in Caddyshack when someone dropped a chocolate bar in the swimming pool and everyone thought that it was a floating piece of human waste? Well, this movie has a similiar scene, except there's no chocolate bar involved. It's just a piece of shit (which is a fitting summation of the entire film). Yes, that's the level of the script, written by Enfield and Dave Cummings.

Enfield is almost consistently annoying, Burke is a bit more fun, and I already mentioned how good Ifans is, but there just isn't anyone onscreen that viewers will enjoy spending time with. Fleet and Rix are the most pleasant, but maybe teenagers will disagree with me on that point. Paul Whitehouse has a fun cameo, and Steven O'Donnell gets a couple of good moments as Big Baz, but that's really all of the minor pleasures of the movie covered.

I'm sure there are people who still enjoy this. I am not one of them, however, and recommend avoiding it completely.

3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kevin-Perry-Go-Large-DVD/dp/B001AMMAHS/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1394127421&sr=1-1&keywords=kevin+and+perry+go+large