FRIGHTFEST 2002 FESTIVAL REPORT
DAY ONE: FRIDAY 23 AUGUST

Has it really been a year? It barely seems like yesterday that I was joining the queue to get inside the Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square for last year's Frightfest and yet here we are, one year on, and the third weekend long horror festival is upon us.

Catching up with a few old friends outside, I also bumped into a flustered Alan Jones, one of the hard working organisers as he fretted about getting things under way promptly. It was never going to happen of course, but he tried his best! Eventually, Alan took to the stage with his comrades in arms, Paul McEvoy and Ian Rattray [who apparently had only just become a father a few hours before!] to introduce us to director Andrew Green who, in turn, introduced us to his film Nine Lives which had apparently only been completed the day before and which had only been seen by five other people before being unveiled to the Frightfest crowd.

FrightFest has set a commendable precedent for starting the festivities with a new British film - sadly, however, Nine Lives was not going to prove as palatable as The Lighthouse [1999] [which opened the very first Frightfest in 2000] or The Bunker [2000], which opened last year's. Nine Lives is, it must be said, something of a chore to sit through - promoted as "Peter's Friends meets The Others", it was not asking too much to expect an old fashioned ghost story. Instead, we got a badly acted tale of a group of deeply unlikeable 20-somethings being possessed by a vengeful spirit in a bog-standard slasher movie. Green manages to pull off a few decent scares but is let down by a poorly paced script - the first 20 minutes or so is painfully dull - some dreadful dialogue and by truly terrible performances. Promised appearances by members of the cast never materialised, though that's probably for the best.

Green is the only one to come out of this mess looking good - his camerawork is effective and some of the suspense scenes were particularly well done. But he's not much of a scriptwriter and he really needs a more experienced and talented cast to help him out next time. It's probably worth mentioning here that none of the organisers had actually seen Nine Lives before it was shown due it's tight schedule - it was a brave decision to go ahead with it anyway, though it's a shame that it didn't really get the festival off to the flying start it needed.

Things could only get better and the next film was always going to be one of the most intriguing of the weekend. The main theme for this first night was one of directorial debuts - Bill Paxton has already established himself as an excellent and popular actor and his first outing in the canvas backed chair, Frailty [2001], looked particularly good. Thankfully, it delivered the goods in spectacular style - it's a dark, disturbing and brilliantly acted tale of a deranged father who implicates his two young sons in his divine mission to eradicate 'demons' disguised as humans. The story is told in flashback, by his oldest son Fenton, who relates to an FBI investigator how his father had been visited by an angel who had given him a list of victims and how he and his younger brother Adam had been affected by their father's crusade. But is Fenton all he claims to be, and what secrets are buried in the rose garden...?

Paxton proves himself to be every bit as good a director as he is an actor and coaxes excellent performances from his two young co-stars - he even achieves the unthinkable and gets a good showing from Matthew McConaughey! Brent Hanley's script takes a number of unexpected twists and turns that, in lesser hands, might have stretched credibility somewhat. But in Paxton's hands they work perfectly - at the end, we still don't know if Dad's crusade was based on a genuine visitation or whether he'd simply gone insane. The downbeat and sinister ending offers no clues and leaves the viewer genuinely unsettled - this is a film that's going to be hard to shake off.

Good though it undoubtedly is, Frailty was topped by the next offering, the highlight of the evening, Jom Solan's debut short Pissboy [2002], the hilarious tale of incontinence, infidelity, revenge and cross-dressing. Archibald Shanks is a vicious loan shark with an embarrassing problem - he simply can't control his bladder. And it probably wasn't the wisest desicion to start dating the Tourrets Syndrome suffering wife of the doctor who's trying to treat you - especially as he's rumbled you and has planted a particularly revolting hypnotic suggestion that will be triggered by a simple pager call... A work of genius, Pissboy is full of wonderful moments - it's worth it if only for the hysterical Doctor Who spoof! - and Solan's confident, dynamic direction marks him as a genuine talent to watch.

The first evening came to a close with the first of the weekend's Oriental offerings, The Princess Blade, here receiving its UK premiere. A huge hit in its native Japan, The Princess Blade stars Hideaki Ito as a member of the much feared Takemikazuchi clan, a band of ruthless assassins who stalk a near future Japan. Based on the excellent trailer, I had high hopes for this one - too high perhaps as it didn't quite manage to live up to them. It's certainly a stunning looking film and former scriptwriter Sato Shinsuke deserves full credit for some outstanding visuals. The briefly glimpsed future cityscapes are wonderful and contrast nicely with the beautifully shot rural scenery where most of the action takes place.

The action scenes are mostly top notch, as you'd expect from action choreographer Donnie Yen, though like far too many recent action films, it can't resist copping a few moves occassionally from The Matrix [1999]. Yumiko Shaku is fabulous in the title role, a vengeful 20 year old who flees from the Takemikazuchi when she learns that one of them murdered her mother, only to be relentlessly pursued by them, and the supporting cast all work well with the rather stereotypical roles they're given.

But the film never quite delivers what it promises. The pacing is too uneven, the love story brings the film to a grinding halt, some of the fight scenes are rather too frenetically edited for their own good and the sub-plot involving political rebels and their violent action against the government seems sketchy and ill-defined. Add to that an apparent unwillingness to explain much about what's going on or who some of the supporting characters are and you have a gorgeous looking film that doesn't quite cut the mustard. It wasn't wholly unlikeable but it could have been so much more.

It was a disappointing end to the first day of Frightfest 2002 but as the Prince Charles emptied at around 1:30 in the morning, we could console ourselves with the quality of tomorrow's line-up. I'll reserve judgment on Halloween: Resurrection - the trailer doesn't bode well I'm afraid - but as the day kicks off with the amazing Donnie Darko, continues with the highly fancied new Hong Kong / Singaporean shocker The Eye and culminates with One Hour Photo [directed by Static [1985] director Mark Romanek and the first of two films this weekend featuring Robin Williams] and another British offering, My Little Eye, it should be a good one.
KEVIN LYONS