For horror fans up and down the UK, the highlight of the calendar is Frightfest and since its first-ever event back in 2000, it has gone down as one of our best-known film festivals, with a reputation that extends beyond our tiny little island and deep into the American heartland. Genre favourite Guillermo Del Toro described it as the “Woodstock of Gore”. For their 2018 festival, they are presenting a selection of titles under the banner “the best of the fest on the small screen”. Movies that include The Dark, Secret Santa, Lifechanger, Boar, Pimped, and, Fright Fest.
Today we are rolling our last two into one article. First, we have the full circle of Ante Novakovic’s Fright Fest (A.K.A. American Fright Fest). Following that, we have another Australian exploitation movie – this time of the rape-revenge kind with David Barker’s Pimped.
Recently Arrow Video released a lost-slasher, a movie that even those who follow all things hack and slash hadn’t heard of – Doom Asylum. A dire, justifiably forgotten affair – although it has its defenders. That said, it made great use of its location in an abandoned and decrepit asylum. I bring this up as Fright Fest (weird that this should be playing at Frightfest) takes place in a similarly abandoned locale.
In Novakovic’s movie, the scuzzy no-rate horror director – whose best days are far behind him – Spencer Crowe (Dylan Walsh) teams up with a local politician who wants to put a fright fest on at the local abandoned asylum to win over younger voters. Crowe is to put on said event in the hope it’ll keep the mayor in office and bring Crowe back from oblivion. Meanwhile, on the road near this dilapidated gothic building is a bus transporting dangerous murderers from one prison to another. Guess what happens? The incompetent Crowe causes the bus to crash, killing everyone save for two people. One a horrific mass murderer and someone wrongly implicated in the murder of his parents. With the fright fest event a massive success, the murderous escapee heads for the lights and crowds and proceeds to kill everyone.
I may not be a slasher fan, but I appreciate why they are so beloved: the glee derived from the utterly over-the-top violence is a common thing people love in horror, and it is most concentrated in the slasher. Another aspect is their use of the villain as the main character, with each franchise having a big bad that is unique and identifiable as a mascot. None of this is true of (American) Fright Fest. Its roaming killer is just a guy in a cheap rubber mask, and probably worse for the slasher fan – none of the kills stands out. The only kill I remember is the scene in which Pancho Moler (Finkle), the stealth best character on the merit of him being somewhat memorable for reasons beyond his diminutive stature, is killed off. And that is memorable for who is killed rather than how they are killed.
Ironic that a movie with the same name as the festival is nothing more than a series of dulled, faded-out tropes. The film does have some ideas obscured in a bad edit. If Novakovic highlighted the more interesting facets rather than relying on unfulfilled details, cliche and that ill-advised score, I would have been more positive about Fright Fest. Still, there is nothing final about a festival cut – so who knows what the future holds for (American) Fright Fest, a very optimistic maybe there.
FRIGHT FEST WILL BE RECEIVING A HOME VIDEO RELEASE IN EARLY 2019 VIA FRIGHTFEST PRESENTS
New movies from Australia and New Zealand are rare in this part of the world, so any new release in the UK is a bit of a coup for us woefully underserved fans. Unfortunately, this one comes under the rape-revenge banner, a genre at its most prominent in the 70s and 80s. This subgenre subjected women to torturous misogyny only to give them five or ten minutes of bloody retribution. Some movies are a little more cunning with the genre – this year’s Revenge and the Korean horror from a few years back, Bedevilled, are two such examples. Hoping to join that company is David Barker’s Pimped. In which two devious housemates, Lewis (Benedict Samuel) and Kenneth (Robin Goldsworthy), lure a mentally unbalanced woman, Sarah (Ella Scott Lynch), into a mean-spirited sexual trap. Following that, blood is spilt, which leaves the victim and perpetrator in close contact for an extended time – for convoluted reasons. During this, the movie becomes a platform for Lewis’s nihilistic and misogynistic views.
To call out a rape-revenge movie for being unpleasant is like a pot calling the kettle black: it’s why these movies are often notorious. Credit is due then that the specific type of pointed unpleasantness in Pimped comes from the beliefs argued with a committed performance by Benedict Samuel. What he is saying is bitter, cynical, anti-social and nihilistic. Instead, this is divisive on a visual and tonal level. Barker’s movie could partner up with Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon to make a pretty good, if massively cynical, double bill. Pimped is rife with neon, red lighting, and heavy contrast. Where Refn presented a massive stylistic overload, Barker is slower, quieter and more deliberate. Outside of the excellently shot opening party, this is a two-hander with just Sarah and Lewis talking for much of it. Other characters come into focus, and there are kills throughout – even so, this is a thoughtful affair. Perhaps Barker is giving these beliefs and ideas credibility; the presentation sets its characters up as isolated, overlooked, forgotten and lonely. Nothing is celebratory here – even the eventual revenge provides no answers or moment of glory. Pimped is a willfully ugly film by design.
FIND OUT ABOUT MORE MOVIES FROM THE FRIGHTFEST PRESENTS LINE – HERE
