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Posted on May 26, 2019

The Perfection is Amazing – and Never What You Think

Dawn Keetley

As I am sure many people have done, I saw the preview for Richard Shepard’s The Perfection (2018) and started watching it with a certain set of expectations; I think I was imagining something along the lines of Single White Female (1992). I was wrong. Things took a turn—actually many turns—and I became completely unmoored, disoriented. The film twists violently several times, and there are at least two moments when what you think has just happened is literally overturned.

I’m not going to give anything away in this review. Everyone should just experience this crazy and disturbing film. And for those of you who, like me, may have thought The Perfection was not a “horror” film, rest assured that it unambiguously is. The fact that it is labeled “Drama, Mystery, Suspense” on the Rotten Tomatoes website is misleading. I was literally retching by around thirty minutes in and was transfixed and appalled when I was another thirty minutes in. And then was left gaping and deeply disturbed at the final scene—though it wasn’t like what came before wasn’t already plenty disturbing. Yes, The Perfection is a horror film. It’s got gore; it’s transgressive; it’s deeply unsettling; and it definitely has some social commentary, though the latter is subservient to complex storytelling, brilliant cinematography, and powerful performances.

Posted on April 28, 2019

Body at Brighton Rock – Excellent New Wilderness Horror

Dawn Keetley

Body at Brighton Rock (2019) is the first full-length feature film directed (and written) by Roxanne Benjamin, and it demonstrates that she is indeed a horror director to watch. Benjamin has also written and directed the “Don’t Fall” segment of the excellent all-female horror anthology XX (2017), which I review here. She also directed and co-wrote the “Siren” segment of Southbound (2015), reviewed here. Both of these provocative short films demonstrate what seem to be emerging themes of Benjamin’s work: a seamless blending of the supernatural and the psychological—especially when it comes to vulnerable (e.g., frightened, guilty) characters; and a preoccupation with landscape and the ways in which open, desolate land presses on characters’ weaknesses.

Posted on March 4, 2019

The Hole in the Ground: the Strangeness of What We Think We Know

Dawn Keetley

Written and directed by Lee Cronin (along with co-writer Stephen Shields), Irish horror film, The Hole in the Ground (2019) is a wonderful slow-burn film that relies on the formidable talents of its lead actors—Seána Kerslake as Sarah O’Neill and James Quinn Markey as her son Chris—as well as the beauty of the enveloping landscape. Cinematographer Tom Comerford and director Cronin make the most of their locations in Kildare and Wicklow, Ireland—and the forest, surrounding the hole at the center of the narrative—is itself as good as a character. The Hole in the Ground is an incredible entry in what seems to be a veritable renaissance in Irish horror.

The story follows Sarah as she moves with her son far from the city to begin a new life—away from the boy’s father who, as Chris put it, made her sad. (We learn very little else about Sarah’s relationship with Chris’s father, other than a large cut she has on her forehead.) One night, Chris disappears, appearing mysteriously back in the house after Sarah has searched everywhere for him. After his return, Chris seems different, alien. Sarah goes from uncertainty to certainty—finally becoming convinced that he’s an imposter. “He’s not my son,” she repeats. The film keeps us in some doubt, for a while, about whether Sarah is just imagining her son’s strangeness; she’s prescribed pills, and both her taking and then not taking them are suggestively linked to what might be her delusions. It’s also possible that Chris only seems like an imposter to her because her feelings toward him have changed: tellingly, things go wrong after Chris gets angry at Sarah for taking him away from his father.

Posted on February 8, 2019

Horror Noire Reviewed – and 6 Essential Black Horror Films

Dawn Keetley

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019) traces nothing short of a revolution. It begins with The Birth of a Nation (1915), which perfectly illustrates one of commentator Tananarive Due’s main points, “Black history is black horror.” It ends with the blowing open of restrictions on when and how African Americans become part of the horror tradition. From the most despicable of stereotypes in 1915, we’ve arrived at a moment when African American creators and actors can finally tell the horror stories they’ve long wanted to tell. This film—and where it ends—is thoroughly inspiring.

Directed by Xavier Burgin, Horror Noire is written and produced by Ashlee Blackwell, who runs the website, Graveyard Shift Sisters, and Danielle Burrows. It’s based on Robin R. Means Coleman’s 2011 book, Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present (Routledge)—and Professor Means Coleman is one of the three principal commentators who tell the story of African American horror. The other two commentators are Ashlee Blackwell herself and Tananarive Due, writer of horror and speculative fiction.

Posted on February 6, 2019

Calibre – New Folk Horror?

Dawn Keetley

Calibre is a brilliant Scottish thriller released in 2018 and directed and written by Matt Palmer, who has previously made two short horror films, The Gas Man (2014) and Island (2007). The film features two late-twenty-something men, Vaughn (Jack Lowden) and Marcus (Martin McCann) who head from Edinburgh up into the Highlands to hunt, an activity Vaughn is less than enthusiastic about. They arrive at the Highland village of Culcarran (filmed on location in Leadhills and Beatock in South Lanarkshire) and head straight out for a raucous night at the local pub, replete with enticing local girls. Vaughn, who has a pregnant fiancée, resists temptation and only talks with Iona (Kate Bracken), but Marcus does rather more with the clearly dangerous Kara (Kitty Lovett). Despite hangovers, both men head off the next morning to hunt deer, as planned, but they’re involved in a terrible accident and almost immediately lose control of the spiraling, out-of-control consequences.