I’d often do a top ten here, but it’s been a slightly truncated year – my initial intention was to round off the series this year, but with lockdown kicking in here in the UK and other places around the world we had something of a ‘quarantine revival’! With that said, the few months break from the series earlier this year has proved really restorative, and the aim right now is to push the series on into 2021 with the usual weekly review on a Thursday.

So, without any further ado, here are the top 5 movies watched and reviewed for Film Gutter this year!

5) DIS (Dir. Adrian Corona, 2018)
RATED – 8/10

Sometimes when you give a rating you slightly come to regret it, because your views on films can – and probably should – change over time. While this would strictly on ratings be seventh on the list for 2020, of all this year’s movies Dis is the one that has probably stayed with me the most. Adrian Corona’s movie is a fascinating creation, slight and deft but with surprising layers and definitely leaving many questions for the viewer to pick out after the closing credits. It’s a relatively short watch, but was certainly a rewarding one, and an experience I intend to repeat.

4) VIBROBOY (Dir. Jan Kounen, 1994)
RATED – 9.5/10

I’ve always been a fan of a short film, and Jan Kounen’s Vibroboy is just a gloriously manic ball of energy that rolls along for 28 of the strangest and loudest minutes of your life. The performances are great, the idea is bonkers and the whole thing is delivered with such enthusiasm and panache I find it impossible not to warm to it. Just great, bizarre entertainment. It might well be in the ‘not for everyone’ camp, but this one was certainly for me. It was super, super close between the top four, because there were three movies I rated 9.5 this year! Which leads us to…

3) TETSUO: THE IRON MAN (Dir. Shin’ya Tsukamoto, 1989)
RATED – 9.5/10

There remain a few gaps in my cult cinema knowledge, and this wild Japanese offering was among them – but what an experience. This black and white nightmare is a dark tale of augmentation and mechanisation, pretty much unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The effects still look surprisingly great given this one is now 30 years old, and the whole thing still feels super-fresh. Even more amazing is the slim budget this was delivered on – well deserving of its place as a serious underground favourite.

2) BUTT BOY (Dir. Tyler Cornack, 2019)
RATED – 9.5/10

The most recent offering on the list, and still available on a number of streaming platforms right now – and well worth your time and rental money. This strange tale of an ordinary Joe who has the capacity to insert anything into his butt, and the broken detective chasing him, is just a remarkable effort. It’s funny, it’s dark, it’s entertaining and it keeps you guessing constantly throughout. There are some fantastic acting performances also, which definitely elevates this one to another level. It’s a withering look at regular American life wrapped up in an utterly insane concept, and I loved every minute.

1) MARQUIS (Dir. Henri Xhonneux, 1989)
RATED – 10/10

How had I never seen – or even heard – of this movie before? This French/Belgian production was put together by acclaimed children’s TV director (!!) Henri Xhonneux, who produced something rather different with this extravagant take on the Marquis de Sade. The fact that the characters are all presented as puppetry-style animals, and de Sade’s penis is a talking puppet in and of itself, makes this a unique offering. It’s just one to sit back with your jaw on the floor and witness – totally weird, darkly hilarious and really utterly mind-blowing. I struggle to think of a film I’ve enjoyed more in all the years of Film Gutter to date.

What did I just watch? I suppose that maybe that’s not such an uncommon question around these parts, but Mecanix is a movie that has certainly left me scratching my head – and I don’t mean that as a negative.

This Canadian offering – presented in French – is a sort of bleak fairytale, set in a nightmarish future land inhabited by strange creatures that have enslaved humanity. These beings seem to be part mechanical although have something of an organic look about them. The humans in the movie are tortured by their rulers, and serve their whims. The humans’ only hope of freedom – as referenced in the very opening – is the embryo of the universe, which our leads set about beginning to find…

What is so strikingly different about this one is its visual style – I don’t fully know what to compare it to, although there are a few leap to mind. If you call to mind maybe the likes of Begotten or Flowers, perhaps even a dash of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, you may have something close, although it’s something else again from those. There are numerous elements of what looks like stop motion, bits of what appear to puppetry and potentially even some Claymation for the bizarre species that has overtaken humanity. There are even a few sections where things are drawn and animated, which adds more to the curious mix.

The vast majority of the movie is presented in a very dark sepia, with only the odd cut away from that. That makes it fascinating to look at but – if I was going to criticise – does make it a little bit hard to tell what’s going on at times. Ultimately I didn’t mind too much, because it’s really the look, feel and soundscape of this one that make it most interesting. Like Begotten, the plot can be pretty hard to get at, but that didn’t make me dislike it or lessen my interest any. Half of my summary above was ultimately cribbed from IMDB, which helps it to make some more sense post-fact!

There are some criticisms besides the plot being hard to follow – some shots are ultimately repeated without it being clear what they really add, the voice acting maybe isn’t always what it could have been and you might be able to argue even at a mere 69 minutes it’s a bit long. The main criticism I could see people throwing at it would be that it’s pretty pretentious – and perhaps it is, but I’ve never been averse to a bit of pretension in movies. You could also call that aiming high, and thinking differently about cinema, and this feature does both of those things.

Ultimately Mecanix is a fairly short watch and probably one to – in a positive way – just let wash over you! Breathe it in, absorb every frame and take from it what you will – you might grab the storyline, you might not, but this remains an impressively shadowy and surrealist offering either way. If you treat it more as a visual experience than as a movie you might find that’s a better approach to take to get the most out of it.

RATING: 8/10. I expect this is a movie I’ll be rattling round in my head for a while, and it’ll be interesting to see whether this one is improved or diminished by more time and perspective. I certainly liked what I saw, and it’s clear the director has gone in with a vision unlike much else out there, and I think has been pretty successful in creating it. There are criticisms, sure, and some might write this off as ‘fancying itself’ a bit too much, but I don’t think it fully crosses that line into nonsensical navel-gazing. It’s not a simple watch, and doesn’t spoon-feed a narrative whatsoever, but it’s really something else to look at and a movie that did warm me to it in numerous ways. Regular readers here will know just how much I prize originality, and that’s something Mecanix certainly has in spades. So I’m happy to award this one a very sharp 8/10.

You can rent or buy Mecanix at the Unearthed Films Vimeo channel, along with a wide range of other extreme horror movies. Check it out at Unearthed Films Extreme Horror Channel on Vimeo

I’m always very much up for exploring new climes in horror, and I can’t think that I’ve often been quite as far east in Europe as Romania. In fact, this was a film that had appeared on my radar a number of times since its release, so when this one popped up (fully legally licenced!) on the Kings of Horror YouTube channel I pressed play pretty quickly. I knew a little of the central premise of this one, which had always interested me, so would it live up to my expectations in the end?

Be My Cat is a found footage film – Romania’s first, if you take in the movie’s tagline – following director Adrian as he sets out to make a sort of ‘promo reel’ designed to make his ultimate dream come true. That dream? To have Anne Hathaway come to Romania to make a film with him, which would be called Be My Cat. Meta enough for you so far? Good, because it’s going to get more so.

As a director Adrian is extremely method, and sets the three actresses he hires – all of whom believe they are acting in a real film rather than a test piece – difficult challenges before things take an even darker turn. I sort of can’t say too much more than that, so I’ll move on to some of the other points I wanted to make about the movie.

First up – director Adrian Tofei takes the lead role himself in this piece, and I personally feel like he smashes it. There is some debate on his merits, if you read the reviews and comments, and you may know within ten minutes if this is for you because you’ll sense roughly how you feel about his performance. There’s also something fascinating about a director making a film in which he also acts, playing a director who is also an actor… wait a second, my head is spinning… see, I warned you it would get even more meta! The whole time he has this manic energy and enthusiasm, and can jump from seemingly innocuous and disarming to dangerous in a matter of heartbeats. I was really fascinated with the line that Adrian (the on-screen performer!) was confused about between actor and character, and blaming some of the more heinous acts in the film on being ‘in character’, so it wasn’t him per se. It’s a really interesting trip if you can get into the zone with this movie.

It does remain a found footage movie, and if that is something that turns you cold this likely will too – though admittedly I’m not always dead keen, I’d argue this is one of the better examples of the subgenre. It’s hard to know exactly how to feel as the movie comes to an end, and it does prod and poke at various interesting questions en route. I’d also have to say that for the real gorehounds out there, this one is much more about suggestion than it is the real hard stuff – you’ll probably find other movies out there to better suit you. The acting is generally decent, and while some say Tofei’s performance is too jittery and unfocused, I think those are the qualities that make it – this is a man obsessed by a single goal whilst battling his inner demons to try to desperately achieve it.

Overall, as a bleak, psychological character study I thought this was an effective effort done on a low budget, and goes for me towards the top of my list of top found footage movies. I certainly hope there are some further movies in the offing from this director.

RATING: 8/10. This is certainly quirky, and feels really quite different to a lot of what I’ve seen. It drew to mind bits of things like Tabloid Vivant or Eat or Starry Eyes, with their dark take on the process of making film and art, but still offered a meta version I’d not encountered before. It is chilling, and grimly fascinating, but I couldn’t call it the most extreme offering of all time. I couldn’t call it entertaining precisely, but it sure held my attention rapt throughout, with plenty of uncomfortably moments, so happy to give this a very solid 8/10.

Now, I wonder if Anne Hathaway has watched this one yet…?