Minore & The Weird Kidz (Frightfest 2023) (Review)

MINORE

The poster for Minore promises a ‘new Greek monster movie’, and while that’s exactly what this film is, it is perhaps more interesting in its build up to the arrival of said monsters. The movie follows a sailor on shore-leave who visits a small Greek coastal town looking for a missing father figure. There, he befriends a local barmaid and the pair find themselves drawn into a coming apocalyptic event.

Director Konstantinos Koutsoliotas’ film is a tonally complicated piece, with heartfelt conversations sitting right alongside broad humour. It’s something that works best in its deliberately paced first act but becomes a disadvantage during the messy third act as, when the monsters do arrive, there’s a clear struggle to balance the horror and comedy. The film has a strong Lovecraftian vibe, particularly in its eerie second act, but as the comedy takes over and, thanks to a busy finale, it feels like something has been lost.

This may be due to the time it takes to reveal the central threat, or it may be the film’s inability to quite grasp the sweep and scope offered by its concept – there are even some fun and distinctive creature designs that appear to be more monstrous than they actually are. The horror here can be gory, atmospheric and surreal, but there are perhaps too many ideas here as Minore can crawl under your skin, but will undo this as it works towards another punchline. Cinematographer Dimitris Stabolis captures the look and feel of the world and Minore has surprisingly strong effects work, and even an increasing dependence on otherworldly monsters can’t hide some good practical effects work and a few “fun” deaths.

Perhaps I wanted Minore to take itself a bit more seriously as the drama is compelling and the characters’
motivations are genuinely interesting, but these factors mostly slip away as it becomes the much-promised monster movie.

Russell Bailey

THE WEIRD KIDZ

The Weird Kidz is one of the real elephants in the room that is Frightfest, and the reason for that is because it’s an animated movie. I’m reminded of an interview I did with Don Coscarelli during the press cycle for John Dies at the End, where he talked about a very grotesque sequence and said that if it wasn’t hand drawn, then there’d be no way the movie would’ve been made.

The Weird Kidz is the same – animation allows a movie with such a big imagination to live, but I think it fair to say that this is not of a quality comparable to the House of Mouse. For most people their first association with the animated form is that company or anime, and anything lesser is seen by many as unworthy. If you widen your gaze a little you’ll find it’s perfectly animated, and the distaste many have for this movie sees the art direction that draw ire rather than the quality of the animation. For me, the crude look gives off an ’80s home-made, punkish-zine aesthetic and charm.

As for what it is, The Weird Kidz sees Wyatt, Fatt, Dug, and Mel (and his amazing pet dog), head out into the desert with Mary to drink booze, let off some explosives, and the eldest teenager among them might even be lucky enough to get laid. Unfortunately, they picked a strip of land home to something the locals call the ‘Night Child’ – a creature with a refined taste for human flesh. More than just a creature feature, the folk horror vibes start off strong with a shop assistant at a petrol station along the way (voiced by Angela Bettis), giving a strangely complete vision of what the Kidz may experience later that night. They very quickly learn the truth of that “foretelling” when a giant ant creature attacks Dug, drugging him and dragging him back to its network of caves before returning for Wyatt, and it’s then that the folk horror conspiracy begins to close in on the Kidz.

There might be a crude smattering of sex scenes (which is one of many reasons why this couldn’t be live-action), dog humpings and testicles bruised by pellet guns, but underneath all that bluster is a sweetheart of a movie. Most of this creature-feature folk horror revolves around the characterisation of the group, from their camaraderie to how all the guys fall in love with Mary. In the antagonistic cult there’s a naivete and innocence, and even the monster, outside of the grotesque violence that sees an arm chewed off and a head caved in, is never depicted as a violent agent of chaos but simply as a parent caring for its brood.

Although the art direction is purposefully crude and the story plays out exactly as you’d expect with no huge surprises, if you look beneath that you’ll find a heart of gold. These teenage boys might be obsessed with boobs and booze (save Dug, arcade games are his thing), but their camaraderie and the way they look out for each other are the big payoffs of this movie – to the extent that you may recognise youself in one of these Kidz.

Zach Passero’s first outing as a director rather than an editor is a lesson in never judging things by how they look, and if you get on its wavelength you might just fall for these little weirdos too.

Rob Simpson

Russell’s Archive – Minore

Rob’s Archive – The Weird Kidz