Mayhem Film Festival 2014: Day Four - Part Two

Petyr

What We Do In The Shadows: A mockumentary about vampires living in New Zealand, written, directed and starring Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi? Yes please! If those names do not ring a bell, then the former is Jemaine in Flight of the Conchords (among other things) and the latter, also involved with a few Flight of the Conchords, and the great Eagle Vs Shark.

Set in Wellington, the mockumentary crew follow the vampires at the home and on nights out in the lead up to the annual Unholy Masquerade party. These undead flatmates are 183-year-old Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), 379-year-old Viago (Taika Waititi), 862-year-old Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), and the 8000-year-old Petyr (Ben Fransham).

The film is phenomenally hilarious. It really is, start to finish, just very very funny. They throw everything in there, except maybe anything about garlic. There are even werewolves, with the excellently cast Rhys Darby as the alpha male. They and the vampires actually have a run-in with each other on the same hill where the scenes were filmed in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the King in which Frodo and the hobbits are running and hiding from the Ring-Wraith under the roots of a tree.

As well as been funny, the film is actually really well designed, too - their costumes, the vampire house, and particularly Petyr’s Nosferatu-like make-up. The fight scenes, one like something out of Inception, are nicely choreographed as well.

What We Do In The Shadows certainly meets the hype and potential – I am even laughing about lines and scenes from it as I write this. There is, by the looks of it, a general release for the film in the UK later in the month, so if you did miss out this time, you have another chance. Harry Wilding.

Daughter of Horror

Daughter of Horror/ Dementia: After last year’s rather special treat of having 8mm Orchestra score The Unknown, I was pretty darned excited to see they had been invited back to soundtrack another classic silent movie. A more recent piece, Daughter of Horror was filmed in 1953 – a period when sound was being widely used in cinema – and is a beautiful slice of film noir with a side helping of horror and expressionism.

A shot sweeps across a city skyline and then focuses into a room in a rundown apartment block, and we see a woman in the throes of a nightmare. Upon waking, agitated, she grabs her switchblade and goes out in to the night. As she walks past a street news vendor, the headlines shout about recent mystery stabbings. She buys a paper, only to discard it, walking through the city with a sense of purpose and a cold detachment.

Encountering a number of people, she is then talked into escorting a rather wealthy looking fella in a fancy car. They go for dinner and drinks – for which 8mm deftly up the tempo of their score to match the dancing girl - yet she maintains her air of apathy. As they return to the car she slips in to a memory of her drunken, abusive father and her vain, proud mother who the father shoots. Exacting her revenge, she stabs her father with the switchblade we saw her conceal earlier.

The car pulls up to a building and she is brought back to the present, she and the gentleman enter a grand apartment building. The music has been, for the most part, quite dreamy as they ascend, but the tension is heightened when they enter the room. Switching the atmosphere to almost urgent, 8mm Orchestra’s quickened pace and jarring beats allude to badness round the proverbial corner. They obviously have the gift of foresight, because as he eats a further meal, the woman looks on, unable to conceal her distain for him. Sated, he then makes an advance upon her – not his wisest move. Resisting his advances, he taunts the woman with his fat roll of money. And...well, anymore will cause too many spoilers.

After smashing it last year, 8mm Orchestra did it again. I can’t imagine how long it takes to score an hour long film, but with the crazy, dramatic vision on offer, it was probably quite fun. They kept up with the pace, matched the scenes perfectly and it felt like they were driving the action. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the original to make comparisons – though, 8mm claim its original jazz score did not suit it one bit - but seeing Daughter of Horror with such a unique live score left me with shivers down my spine. Ali Emm.

Monsters: Dark Continent

Monster: Dark Continent: The final film of Mayhem was one with local connections - one of the starring roles of Monsters: Dark Continent is local boy Joe Dempsie, as well as Jonny Harris (who starred in This is England ‘86), and Notts editor Richard Graham - all of which were with the Irish Sam Keeley for a Q & A after the film. Their presence also lead the likes of Shanes Meadows, Vicky McClure, and Andrew Shim to the screening.

Following on from 2010’s critically acclaimed Monsters, we see the huge creatures spread worldwide. A group of school friends from the rough area of Detroit (mostly British and Irish playing Americans) are called up to service in the Middle East, where the monsters are pretty prevalent, roaming the desert without a care in the world. On arrival the boys are introduced to badass army veteran Noah, who is commander of their troupe and demands that the boys get into shape, and quickly. After a quick scout around, the men are set a mission to find a missing soldier, and sadly, seem too inexperienced to do much good. Disaster strikes when the troupe are ambushed by enemy fighters.

The budget for such an SFX, desert based war movie was tiny, coming in at around £700k. This definitely didn’t look the case, the film was beautifully shot and the special effects – described by Joe Dempsie as being done by a guy with a football on a stick - were truly magnificent; they could have easily been in a big budget Hollywood flick. It’s a shame they weren’t used more.

There was some very heavy-handed metaphor throughout the duration of the film. It’s definitely not a film about monsters, who seem to be minding their own business throughout, but the people fighting a war that destroys families, both in the Middle East and the USA.

As long as it’s promoted as a war movie and not a sci-fi, Monsters: Dark Continent will do well at the box office, thanks to its manly camaraderie hard hitting depiction of war in a Middle Eastern warzone, but definitely not for its monster movie status. Penny Reeve.

What We Do In The Shadows, Daughter of Horror, and Monsters: Dark Continent were shown as part of Mayhem Film Festival on Sunday 2 November 2014 at Broadway Cinema.