I dug out this piece on Leeds Film Festival's NIGHT OF THE DEAD V that I wrote for a proposed fanzine. In the absence of anything new, I thought it was worthwhile sticking it on here.
Every year Leeds International Film Festival hosts this event which celebrates all things horror, and combines movies, drinks and free Nando’s chicken for an all-in price of £15. Event organizers Adam and Gyp introduce the films and maintain a fun atmosphere from midnight until kicking out time at around 9.30am the next morning.
The first film of the evening was short THE FRENCH DOORS which I’d already seen at DEAD BY DAWN 2005. A simple tale of a man installing a set of antique doors onto his house takes a disturbing turn when they turn out to have a rather unpleasant secret attached to them. I won’t spoil it but let’s just say that it gave the audience its first shock of the evening. You can check it out online at http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/french_doors
LOFT, the new film by Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, was something of an event as his previous films have exhibited a thoughtful and original vision that set him apart from the formulaic J-Horror that has become so fashionable in recent years. The fact that Kurosawa directed CURE, a masterpiece by anyone’s standards, makes LOFT all the more disappointing.
A confusing story involving a young female novelist who moves to a remote house to finish her book and encounters ghosts of the house’s previous occupants along with a man who has retrieved a mummified corpse from a nearby lake, sadly LOFT felt like the work of a lesser director. The film’s tone shifts wildly from creepy set pieces to sentimental romance, and neither were effectively executed. Kurosawa’s films can often be viewed as a little obtuse, and initially I put the audience’s howling laughter down to the film being misplaced in the evening’s programming. I suppose I was reluctant to admit how dreary, by-the-numbers and downright corny this movie was.
The second feature of the evening was BOY EATS GIRL, the second Irish zombie film I’ve had the pleasure of viewing recently. Although not on a par with Conor McMahon’s DEAD MEAT (reviewed in this issue), BOY EATS GIRL offers some genuine comic moments in a story in which a high school boy is turned into a zombie after being brought back from the dead by his mother. Much carnage ensues as the school and community succumb to the zombie plague. The presence of Samantha Mumba generated a small ripple of applause, and it was pleasantly entertaining, but for a truly jaw-dropping high-school zombie experience I recommend NIGHT OF THE LIVING DORKS, a German zombie comedy directed by Matthias Dinter.
When a movie has a pulpy schlock title you expect serious issues to be fairly low on the agenda, but on this occasion you’d be mistaken.
ZOMBIE HONEYMOON is a serious exploration of a newlyweds struggle to deal with one half’s hunger for human flesh. The story concerns a honeymooning couple who whilst relaxing on the beach encounter a mysterious figure coming out of the sea. The figure attacks the groom, spewing up a tar-like substance over his face, and pretty soon his pulse is non-existent and he’s hankering for biting a chunk out of passers by. Even writing it down makes it sound kind of funny, but the wholly serious tone gives the film a leaden pace. The director (who was in attendance) was at least trying to do something original, but ultimately the film fell flat.
Strangely the closing movie HELLEVATOR sent me to sleep at exactly the same point during this viewing as I did the first time I saw it so I can't really elaborate on that one.
So, after a long night of movies, we step out into the morning sunshine. Although some of the movies were a bit dubious the momentum of the evening was kept up by the interval banter from the organizers so hats off to them. And come to think of it, where else can you see Samantha Mumba driving a tractor whilst decimating a horde of high-school zombies with a gigantic hedge trimmer?
Roll on NIGHT OF THE DEAD VI…
