DEAD BY DAWN 2016: A ROUND -UP BY STEWART HORN

It’s that time again. This is my third visit to Scotland’s longest-running horror film festival: the first time I dipped my toes in the murky water with Spawn of Dawn, the Saturday all-nighter that shows about eight hours of festival highlights; last year I did Friday night to Sunday morning, and this year I stayed a bit longer. Having to work means I’ll probably never manage the whole thing so I still missed a few films.
The new features I missed are:
GREEN ROOM
K-SHOP
WE GO ON, which won the audience award for best film, so I'm gutted I missed it.
MEN AND CHICKEN.

​For those of you who don’t know, the festival runs from Thursday night to Sunday night, showing a mix of features and shorts from noon till the small hours. It’s run by the indomitable Adele Hartley, who introduces each film or set of shorts.

I only have experience of two horror film festivals, and Dead By Dawn is my favourite. Compared to the one I won't mention (because it's also good I don't want to bad-mouth it) the quality of the films here is higher, and the content is more varied. The short films are a delight, breaking up the experience, and there is always a mixture of heavy horror and more fun or whimsical pieces.  it seems more lovingly curated and has its own character. I don't understand why it isn't always sold out like the other one.

Next year I'm going to try harder to persuade more friends to come.

Here is a round-up of everything I saw...

NEW FEATURES:

Yr Ymadawiad (Wales 2015, Gareth Bryn)
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A young couple crash their car in a remote part of Wales and are rescued by a stranger. I won’t tell you anything else, but the plot emerges inevitably from the characters and their interaction.

This is a beautifully shot art-house movie with lots of stunning, unhurried shots of damp Welsh countryside and expert use of natural light. Almost incidentally it’s also a pastoral ghost story and a tense, psycho-sexual thriller with an ending I didn’t see coming.

It’s gentle pace might put off fans of frantic horror  who expect jump-scares every ten minutes but it’s very classy and well worth a watch.
It's also, as far as I can recall, my first ever Welsh language film.

DECAY (USA 2015, Joseph Wartnerchaney)
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Jonathan has survived a traumatic childhood with his deranged mother and carries the emotional scars in the forms of social anxiety and OCD, using ritual to help him cope. It’s also implied that he has autism.

When he suddenly has a dead girl in his basement he has no idea what to do and decides to keep her as a friend. It’s kind of sweet at first.

As the corpse begins to decay, so does his cosy life: he ups his medication until he’s hallucinating, and the police keep turning up at the door. By the end we can’t tell what’s actually happening and what is only inside Jonathan’s mind.

Despite all the close-up shots of maggots and rotting flesh this is quite a beautiful film, as well as a study of a disturbed individual coping with his own demons. Rob Zabrecky’s turn as the tortured hero would earn him an Oscar nomination if this wasn’t a horror movie.
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While there’s more than a nod to Psycho, it’s still an original idea and a new way of exploring a character’s inner workings, and it’s not all grim – there are giggles along the way.
Possibly my film of the year so far.

ASTRAEA (USA, 2015, Kristjan Thor)

There is an event called The Drop, whereby everybody suddenly drops dead. No warning, no drama, no zombies (Yaayy!), just millions of dead people. “Only dogs and flies” as one character describes it.
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The drama centres on four survivors: teenage Astraea and her older brother Matthew; and a pair of cousins they meet on the road. There is a macho stand-off with guns until Callie, the only adult woman in the group, tells them to stop being such dicks. The cousins take in Matthew and Astraea and the relationships between the four drive the story.

Ex-teacher Theo is defensive from the start having worked so hard to secure their place, Astraea is on a quest to travel to Nova Scotia because she believes her grandmother and little cousin are still alive, but Matthew and Callie fall in love and ruin everything.

The jealousies and group dynamics are thrown into relief by the situation: they might be the last four people in the world which could mean the old rules don’t matter, or it could mean the opposite. Maybe this bland love story is the most important romance in human history, involving 50% of the world’s known population.

Theo takes it on himself to educate Astraea by introducing her to King Lear and they act out scenes, creating another layer of meaning. Theo can be seen as the deposed king who falls into despair, only to find solace at the end in an adopted daughter figure.

Behind all the complexity of the drama is some beautiful film-making. New England blanketed in snow is stunning, and there are lingering scenic shots that might have annoyed me in another kind of film, but this story needs space to breathe – it would be too intense otherwise. The pacing is spot on.
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A slow-moving but gorgeous exploration of relationships in extreme circumstances.

THE CORPSE OF ANNA FRITZ (Spain 2015 Hector Hernandes Vicens)
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A hospital orderly has a penchant for taking photos of corpses and sharing them with his friends. When a famously beautiful actress lands on his trolley he invited them round to see her in the flesh.

This is a film that establishes a dark mood in the first minute and doesn’t let up. The plot details are predictably icky and uncomfortable to watch, but it’s the none-too-subtle subtext that gives the film its kick. It takes the misogyny that is one of our beloved genre’s worst aspects and pushes it just a little further. Not in a tie-a-girl-to-a-chair-and-get-my-toolkit sort of way – there is little graphic violence and nothing titillating (unless you’re actually that perverse). But the way the men talk and treat the body makes us realise that they don’t see live women very differently from meat on a slab, to be used and discarded.
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It’s a thought-provoking piece that packs a punch: maybe not a bundle of laughs but necessary viewing for horror fans, and for anyone who might want to make a horror movie.

CREATURE DESIGNERS (France 2015 Gilles Penso, Alexandre Poncet)
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I don’t always enjoy documentaries about films, and have in the past accused festival directors of using them as filler. In my experience they are often cheap, rushed, self-congratulatory, dull and lacking in information that isn’t already common knowledge among genre fans.

But I loved this. It’s obviously been made by proper film-makers on quality equipment, and they’ve taken care to light, compose and shoot each scene as well as they can. Some of the shots of the artwork are beautiful, and are obviously the work of artists who care about what they do.

While it’s nominally a history of make-up and special effects in movies, the best bits are when the legends of the industry are talking like excited wee boys about their toys. And they all seem like lovely people, in a very geeky sort of way. Their enthusiasm and pride is infectious and I got caught up in it.

Some of it is a little sad: Phil Tippet talking about his breakdown after his stop-motion work on Jurassic Park got replaced by CGI, and others bemoaning that on both that film and Terminator 2 the CGI people got all the praise when in fact most of the effects in both films were practical and equally ground-breaking.

The main point the film makes is that CGI has its place as a tool for creative artists, but it’s not as much fun as building things.

Incidentally, only one woman appeared, and only briefly, explaining how a digital skeleton works in CGI – the hands on stuff seems to be a boys’ club. This may be just this film and I’m not going to make any sweeping and potentially sexist assumptions about little boys never growing up.
A captivating celebration of creativity, and a delight to watch.
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SHE WHO MUST BURN (Canada 2015 Larry Kent)
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A family planning clinic is shut down after an abortionist is shot dead, and a nurse who worked there continues to counsel people and give out birth control advice from her home. Local Christian extremists take offence and violence ensues.

This was probably the only film at the festival that I didn’t enjoy – it even made me a bit angry. Because of the real and current issues tackled, film-makers have a duty to treat the subject with respect, and explore the various factions and their opinions. Instead of a community of misguided Christians whose attitudes and motivations could be explored, we got a handful of fanatics: a bullying megalomaniac followed by one violent schizophrenic and a few sheep. There was no attempt to engage with them – they may as well have been the mutants from The Hills Have Eyes. Christians as default baddies is already an overused idea. 

I can forgive a film dropping the ball on issues if it still tells a good story but it didn’t even do that – there was no logic, no depth of characterisation and no suspense.  I could break down each character and plot point and tell you what’s wrong, but why bother? There was a character whose sole function was to throw eggs, another who had to act crazy and kill people and one who only seemed to be there to explain the subtext in case we missed it. I kept thinking why did they do that? That made no sense. And only the heroine had blonde hair – all the baddies had dark hair. Fuck’s sake.

Perhaps there will be a film that explores the fear and hate that drives organisations like Westboro Baptist Church and Isis, and that film will be banned as heretical and force people to think about the issues and maybe change some intransigent minds. This is not that film.
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Having said all that, some of it was pretty. I liked the time lapse footage of clouds. The rest of it was shite.

SORGENFRI (WHAT WE BECOME) (Denmark 2015 Bo Mikkelson)
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You can’t have a horror festival without a zombie film, and this was a good one. It wasn’t terribly original and there were some clunky plot points, but it worked well at the character level. Nobody gets attacked or eaten on screen for at least the first hour while we just get to know everybody and see some creepy foreshadowing of the horrors to come.  Once it all kicks off the characters’ personal journeys are given more attention that the situation outside. The subtitle What We Become sounds as though it means we all die and become zombies, but the film explores how we all change under extreme circumstances: some improve, most don’t.
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A well-made attempt at a serious movie, one that would probably have been better without zombies. ​

SHORT FILMS:


FROZEN BLOOD TEST (2 mins USA 2015 Lee Hardcastle)
A classic scene from a horror movie is recast in stop motion with characters from Disney’s Frozen. Hilarity guaranteed.


MUTE ( 4 mins Netherlands 2013 Marieke Blaauw, Joris Osprins, Job Roggeveen)
In a world in which mouths haven’t been invented everything is difficult. Then there’s a gruesome accident and everything changes for the better. Light-hearted cartoon fun.


ALT-TAB (2 mins Australia Dave Carter)
A series of very short (2-10 seconds) animations edited into a frenzy of nasty and entertaining jokes


FRANCIS (8 mins USA Richard Kickey)
A spooky and very well-made 3d animation recounts a campfire ghost story with a Lovecraftian twist. I haven’t decided if it would have been better without the narration – perhaps not.


OTHER LILY (5 mins USA David Romero)
An urban legend told in what looks like hand-drawn stop motion.  A well told tale with genuinely spooky visuals.


LA SÉANCE (13mins France Edouard de La Poze)
A macabre photoshoot makes for an atmospheric and romantic little tale. Very nicely shot and acted.


THE NEST (9 mins USA David Cronenberg)
Very simply made with one static camera, Cronenberg manages to tell a subtly nasty story about psychiatric disorder and a suspect surgeon.


THE HOUSE IS INNOCENT (31m USA Nicholas Coles)
A couple buy a murder house and turn it into a tourist attraction. Presented so convincingly that even now I’m not sure if it’s a genuine, if clichéd, documentary or a clever pastiche. Very entertaining either way.


HOW DEEP CAN I GO? (6 MINS Australia Kai Smythe)
A soul song by an artist who really will do anything for love, including that. Gruesome, funny and typically Australian.


DEATH IN BLOOM (12 mins Australia Dael Oates)
A woman with very high standards will not accept any common death. Her exit must be fabulous and meet expectation. Somehow realistic despite the inherent silliness.


BONIATO (23 mins USA 2015 Eric Mainade, Andres Meze-Valdes, Diego Meza-Valdes)
Professionally made and well-acted, but somewhat lacking in logic or narrative structure. Fun though when the action kicks in.


THE BRIDGE PARTNER (14 MINS USA 2015 Gabriel Olson)
A brilliant and subtle satire on the petty rivalries of middle-class women in a provincial town. When one of the weaker payers is offered a new partner, the stakes escalate quickly.


L’OURS NOIR (15 MINS, Belgium/France Meryl Fortunat-Rossi, Xavier Seron)
Harmless and laugh-out-loud funny public information film with extreme cartoon-style violence.


FOXGLOVE (12 mins Ireland Briane Deene)
A man working and living on a windfarm loses his child and finds her again. A sinister little tale based on Irish folklore.


BAD THROTTLE (13 mins Singapore JD Chua)
Set up as if it’s going to be really nasty, in the style of Audition, it’s actually a sick joke ideal for Dead by Dawn. It got the biggest laugh of the weekend because of its relevance.


GRAFFITI (34 mins Spain/ Ukraine LLuis Quilez)
In a deserted post-accident town near Chernobyl a teenage boy survives as well as he can. Then he discovers he might not be as alone as he thought. When rescue becomes a real prospect he must make a decision.
Interesting and evocative and visually very stylish.


THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WILLIE BINGHAM (12 mins 2015 Australia Matthew Richards)
A cutting satire on commercialisation and the public demand for reality entertainment, and a discussion of what makes a monster. Multi-layered and clever, every character and every detail are important, and throwaway lines have meaning. A very intelligent film presented as a dark comic. Recommended.


MONSTERS (14 mins USA 2015 Steve Desmond)
A grim post-apocalyptic tale of a family sheltering in a basement because the land above is inhabited by monsters. For her own safety, the youngest daughter has never left the basement, but one day she finds a way out. Twists upon twists make this a more layered experience than you might expect from the clichéd opening. Excellent stuff with great performances from all concerned.


VIKING ( 23 mins UK 2015 Sam Callis)
Two middle-aged siblings reminisce about a childhood dominated by an abusive and now dead father. Cathy has never quite recovered and she will go to any lengths to find closure. It goes a bit crazy but handles a serious issue with a nice light touch.


HONOR STUDENT (9 mins USA 2015Aaron B. Koontz)
A well-presented and quite shocking tale of what neglectful parenting can lead to.


DE KLEINZOON (THE GRANDSON) (10 MINS Netherlands 2013 Jan Van Gorkum)
An elderly and slightly wandered man gets a visit from his grandson, which turns out to be quite traumatic for him and lots of fun for the audience.


BLIGHT (16 mins Ireland 2015 Brian Deene)
A young priest is called to deal with a possessed and pregnant girl in rural Ireland. Well-made and acted but a little predictable and with nothing really original to say.


BLACK EYES (11 mins USA 2015 Rick Spears)
Two children with difficult lives find a way to help each other out, with knowledge and expertise gleaned from horror movies.  Dark but rather sweet.


THE BABYSITTER MURDERS ( 22 mins USA 2015 Ryan Spindell)
Taking more than just its title from Halloween, it runs with the concept in an original and entertaining way. Violent and funny, I enjoyed this a lot.
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At the late night showings there's a stream of classics too, which I won't review because we've probably all seen them before. Several were on 35mm prints for an authentic cinema experience. This year they were:


THE HILLS HAVE EYES
JACOB'S LADDER
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE
FROM BEYOND
DEAD AND BURIED

Stewart Horn