Declared as ‘The most haunted house in England’, by Harry Price, who happened to be one of the earlier pioneers in paranormal research and along with that statement, The Borley Rectory has been embedded in the psyche of anyone with an interest in things that go bump in the night.
Question marks have been raised about the authenticity of Mr Price proclamation and certain suggestions have been raised about his character with some even suggesting that he was a charlatan, out for profit. Especially when he penned a series of books on the subject.
Questions aside, the history of The Borley Rectory is certainly a strange one and one can only study its background and discover that it’s an odd place where curious and unexplainable things have occurred.
So it’s little wonder that no one has really documented the history before.
Well thankfully director Ashley Thorpe had that curiosity and passion to explore the stories that have decorated The Borley Rectory over the years and transformed it into what can only be described as a masterpiece of filmmaking.
Thorpe is able to transform the mystery and suspense and present the viewer with a unique style of documentary using his own blend of animation.
The style and manner of the film not only flows with ease but could also craft a new and exciting way to present historical documentaries for the digital generation.
Guiding us along the way is the delicate tones of Julian Sands who narrates the tales and characters journeys throughout the film.
The ensemble cast too are simply amazing and deftly underplay their roles to perfection.
Nods especially go out to Jonathan Rigby as Harry Price, Reece Shearsmith (The League of Gentlemen) as V.C. Wall, and Nicholas Vince (Hellraiser) ad Rev. Smith.
The Diagnosis:
With Borley Rectory, Thorpe captures the eeriness whilst also staying informative and engaging. At times the screen feels like it is breathing with a life of its own and lifts the viewer from scene with a sense of unease.
It’s the holiday season in suburban America; snow blankets the streets, lights adorn every home, and a troublesome boy is left in the care of his babysitter while his parents step out for the night.
Sounds a bit like Home Alone, right? Well, this is Home Alone with blood, lots of blood.
Better Watch Out is a surprising addition to the horror-comedy genre from Canadian-Australian director Chris Peckover.
Despite its US setting, the film was shot in Sydney with three Australian actors in the lead, all of whom did an impressive job with a difficult script.
What starts as a home invasion thriller ends in completely different territory. Luke (Levi Miller) has a crush on his teenage babysitter Ashley (Olivia DeJonge – The Visit) and uses their time alone at home together to make his move.
Before things can get too awkward however, the phonelines are cut, a brick is thrown through a window, and a shadow lingers outside.
Rarely does a film manage to hide its secret from an audience until the big reveal, but Better Watch Out did just that.
The plot twists and turns worked a Christmas treat, and the bloodletting was just plain fun. But some of the scenes failed to pack much of a punch, and the whole thing felt like it was trying too hard to be weird.
The Diagnosis:
You’ll walk away feeling mildly uncomfortable, but it probably won’t keep you awake on Christmas night.
Musclecar is a rampage of mayhem that shifts through the gears to a new level of cult Ozploitation.
It’s an Aussie oddball film and one not to be missed if you like a bit of a laugh.
Alrighty, let me paint the picture for you. B grade film maker Bambi (Jacinta Stapleton, Neighbours) spends her last 10k on her dream car before finding out the grant for her new film has been cancelled… dun DUN DUNN.
She’s left with a shiny new big red car and no money to run it. With the help of an admirer, Randy, Bambi resorts to murdering drunken men before using their blood to run her car… an obvious alternative to picking up a few extra shifts at Coles and hitting up her local SHELL.
The film has you on edge from the get go. Perhaps it’s the inherent objectaphillia, or Bambi’s revved up ringtone, or maybe even the way she hooks up a human heart to the engine of the car… hmm.
Nevertheless, Dwayne Labbé has creepy down pat. The insanity builds throughout the 75- minute saga enough to wrap up the film with a satisfying bang.
Murderers who just kill their victims and don’t do anything weird with them is sooo last Wednesday.
Musclecar’s main fuel is the animated comic-book style panels that are used to separate or punctuate scenes. It makes me think that it could have been as effective, if not more so, if the entire film were animated.
The art really accentuates the genre and really sells its comedic layer. The absurd plot could not have survived if it didn’t stand by its funnies.
The Diagnosis:
Musclecar won’t intrinsically change you, or make you wish that your car came to life, but it makes for an entertaining hour and a bit…
The perfect fuel for a night in to drain your mind and feed your soul.
Alternate Title: I Watched This So You Don’t Have To
Amazing performances from a diverse and talented cast.
A thrilling storyline.
Terrifying creatures, made all the scarier by almost never fully seeing them.
I refer of course to the 2007 film adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror tale about a large group of terrified townspeople trapped in a grocery store by a strange, otherworldly mist. (I never tire of watching this film and in fact watched it a few times to rid myself of the bitter taste of mediocrity that was left in my mouth after watching the series.)
The 2017 television series was one of the worst things that these orbs in my face have been forced to look upon.
Lacklustre performances from an unmemorable and largely average cast (with the notable exception of Frances Conroy (the matriarch from Six Feet Under) who is tremendous despite her character being fairly annoying
Confusing and meandering plotlines, most of which go nowhere and serve no real purpose.
A mixed bag of monsters, most of which aim for Hannibal-esque special effects (I refer of course to the television series with Mads Mikkelsen and not the film), but lack their elegance, grotesque beauty and creativity.
To sum up the plot (if it can even be called much of one), the story centres around a family whose teenage daughter has been the victim of a heinous crime.
While dealing with the aftermath, they are separated from each other when an eerie mist suddenly descends upon their small Maine town.
They must deal with some not so fantastic neighbours (and the deadly mist of course which is the most likeable character in the series.)
Unlike the film which showed the good and the bad that come out in people while facing a crisis, the show only portrays seriously unlikeable characters who repeatedly do horrible, horrible things to one another.
Which brings me to the subject of the series finale (because this series was blessedly cancelled after the first season!)
I never watched Lost but I remember hearing people complaining that they had been loyal viewers for years and then were massively let down by the ending.
This was less of a letdown for me because I didn’t care about any of the characters but I still wanted some kind of payoff in terms of answers.
We dedicated ten hours of our lives to the show so the ending – abrupt and nonsensical – left me with my mouth fully agape for ten minutes. I could not believe that they chose to end the series – let alone a season – so poorly. I have never felt so cheated by a finale. I can’t say that I have fully recovered from it.
The Diagnosis:
Get you a man or woman who will endure 10 hours of terrible television to keep you company (and without complaint!) My gentleman companion earned himself so many gold stars for sitting with me to watch this series in its entirety that he gets a kidney from me if he ever needs one.
This TV series was that bad.
Straight from the offset, director Roger Scott lures you into his feature length directorial debut, The Marshes with an unsettling feeling deep within unfamiliar territory.
It’s a fantastic achievement as Scott’s attention to detail breathes new life onto the screen and in doing so awakens a fear that may have lay dormant in us all.
His ability to infuse a sense of Australian mythology and mysticism, and weave it into a thoroughly modern world allows the audience to fall deeper into a labyrinth of despair and confusion.
3 biologists who represent this ‘modern Australia’, venture out into the land, which I’m pretty sure has never been captured on screen before. A place deep inland, but instead of dry, red, desert, we are faced with lush vegetation as our setting.
But don’t get too comfortable, as something lurks within that will ensnare you and pull you apart.
The beauty of this Australian horror film is that Scott plays with your senses, clouding the characters thoughts and yours along with it, so that the very question of reality is thrown into the equation.
Speaking of characters, the cast involved, primarily the afore-mentioned biologists, allow for the atmosphere to appear more intimate and intense. Chief among them is Dafna Kronental who plays Dr Pria Ana, a woman that finds herself initially fighting for her place in the University, fighting for The Marshes, and ultimately fighting to stay alive. Kronental is incredibly believable as she goes through the motions and the tension ratchets up.
By the end of the movie, the sense of claustrophobia engulfs the viewer and your striving for the characters to find their freedom and survive their ordeal.
The Diagnosis:
With its unique vision and frightening consequences, The Marshes could well be a modern horror classic.
Back in the 90’s there were four TV series you could argue were the flagship shows of that decade.
One was an animated cartoon that (at the time of writing) is still going (although not for much longer if rumours are to be believed). Another two were 4-walled sitcoms set in New York that shared a universe via a 3rd sitcom called Mad About You.
But the 4th was something else. It was about two FBI agents “banished” to a basement chapter of the Bureau called the X-Files. In one of the episodes the male lead talks to the female lead about a real-life case called The Mad Bomber.
Long story short – from 1940 to 1956 George Metesky blew up shit at random locations in New York using homemade bombs. Catching him was next to impossible using traditional forensic techniques, so as a hail-mary cops consulted a criminal psychiatrist.
After analysing the crime scene photos and the taunting letters Metesky had sent to the authorities, the psychiatrist painted a detailed portrait of the sort of man the “Mad Bomber” was.
It encompassed his personality traits, his age, build, even his nationality. It even went so far as to say Metesky was likely a virgin, had an Oedipus complex and should they catch him: “He’ll be wearing a double-breasted suit, buttoned”.
What this psychiatrist had done was create one of the world’s first criminal profiles. And yes, it did eventually lead to Metesky’s arrest. Legend has it he answered the door in his P.J.’s, but when the cops told him to get dressed, guess what kind of outfit he put on…?
So, what does this all have to do with Netflix’s Mindhunter?
Well in the mid 90’s I found myself wandering through a bookstore on George Street when, for some reason, this thick paperback leaped out at me. It was black with silver lettering and it was titled Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. I still have it. It was about a relatively new investigative technique called forensic profiling – developed throughout the late 70’s and 80’s. Only now it was about to hit the zeitgeist, and reading about it seemed a great way to load up on what (at the very least) would be an awesome dinner party conversation starter. (This was pre-Wikipedia don’t forget).
So, I bought the book and devoured it cover-to-cover. It cites the story of Metesky and his capture (so it wasn’t just a flight of fancy from Mulder…) before detailing the career of former real-life FBI agent John E. Douglas, and his partner Robert Ressler.
In the 70’s they hit upon the idea to interview notorious and incarcerated serial killers back when the term serial killer had yet to be coined. Initially it was to try and get a sense of the senseless nature of their crimes, but in doing so they found they were unearthing patterns and “reasons of logic” that lay within the world of psychological motivation (as opposed to traditional motivation – eg: I need money, this person has money, I’m going to kill this person to get their money).
This new investigative tool was the stuff of Hollywood dreams. To be able to predict what sort of car a vicious killer drives? What sort of house he lives in? What type of watch he wears and on what wrist? It was Sherlock Holmes but sexier – more mysterious, because it was the “psychic TV detective” come to life!
And I knew about this miraculous thing before all my friends. That is…until about a year or so later when Hollywood (not for the last time) shat on my parade by releasing Millennium and Profiler – two TV series that centred around, you guessed it, a criminal profiler.
My book had gone mainstream. Nowadays the lexicon of profiling is so common, you can’t throw a letter at the various NCIS, CSI’s and SVU’s without it being raised with the general assumption that EVERYONE in the audience knows what you’re talking about.
But back then, it was magic. And the magic of Mindhunter the TV series is that it takes place at a time when profiling can be sexy again. Ie: The time of its birth.
For it is a very dramatized recreation of my black & silver book. Set in the 70’s it follows a young Special Agent Holden Ford (effectively Douglas in this universe) and an older pro Bill Tench (Ressler) as they go about conducting their earliest interviews. They do this very much on their own time amid scepticism & resistance from their fellow agents.
As a series it dips into real life cases & characters when it needs to – it’s portrayal of their very first interviewee Edmund Kemper is both chilling and chillingly accurate in regards to the person I had painted inside my head. To see Ed “come to life” after all these years is a sensation I can’t begin to describe.
Yet other elements – usually to do with the home lives of the two leads – are the stuff of typical TV drama. As a series its rhythm is hard to describe. It’s not a serial killer-of-the-week cop show by any stretch, yet it’s not a straight up dramatization of “real-life events” with all the oblique plotlines that can go with such a story.
What it certainly is, is compelling. Well set up for a 2nd season, you will be skipping the end credits big time to get to the next episode.
As a Douglas avatar, Ford – played by Jonathan Groff – will go through an interesting evolution in subsequent years (should the series go beyond 2) mainly because when profiling entered the world of popular media both Douglas and Ressler (by all accounts) had a huge falling out over credit.
Undoubtedly Mindhunter the book is a biography that very much downplays Ressler’s involvement, as it’s told through Douglas’s eyes. And by all accounts Douglas himself has no problem being Hollywood-ised in multiple ways – eg: he has been cited as the inspiration behind Silence of the Lamb’s Jack Crawford, as well as Criminals Minds’ Jason Gideon AND David Rossi.
Yet in the land of the internet – passionate advocates for both men often fall in the “either/or” category. Very much like how a lot of young Australian kids fell into “You’re either a Ford man or a Holden man. You can’t be both. One car is shit, the other is the real deal”.
It is this duality in fact that caused the producers to name Douglas’s character Holden Ford.
The series is also co-produced by Charlize Theron and David Fincher.
Also, I completely made up that bit about Holden’s name. I have no idea why they chose it.
Prognosis:
Series 2 will be just as good if not better than series 1. But it’ll jump the shark by series 3.
Hell yeah. The Duffer brothers knocked it out of the park again, at least for me.
Let me preface this by stating I’m a nerd born in 1973. I played the same games, watched the same movies and rode BMX bikes like the main characters.
So I was more than a little excited for Stranger Things S2.
I devoured it, binge watching it as much as the need for sleep and work allowed. I wasn’t disappointed.
If you haven’t watched season 1, stop reading and go watch it. I’ll try not to spoil season 2, but season one is fair game.
Stranger Things S2 picks up almost a year after Will’s rescue and the final defeat of the Demogorgon.
The boys are all back together, Steve and Nancy are still dating, and Joyce is splitting her time between work, fussing over Will and a new squeeze, played by Sean Astin.
Will is super messed up, seeing into the Upside Down as revealed in the finale of season one.
Mike is angry, missing Eleven. Dustin is showing off his new teeth and Lucas is his normal grounded self. Hopper has a secret.
And the Upside Down has not been idle.
Stranger Things S2 manages to build upon the characters, themes and mythology of the first season and build it into a bigger and more expansive story.
We see outside of the small Indiana town, the threat is larger, new characters are introduced, and we explore the backstories of some of the more interesting characters.
This season seems to pick up on the action side of things more than the first. The best analogy I can come up with is the change between Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986); the suspense is there, but the threat, and the response, is larger.
How can I review this show without talking about the one thing that made me squeal with joy throughout the first season…nostalgia? Man, I was in 80’s geek heaven with all the Easter eggs and references. Ghostbusters, Aliens, Dragons Lair and DigDug.
IMDb has a list of 51 Easter Eggs referring to classic 80s films and games, and they probably missed more.
As I said at the start, I’m pretty much the same age as the ‘party’, so this was gold to me. Paul Reiser’s inclusion really gave me echoes of Aliens, especially in one particular scene.
Yet the Duffer brothers have managed to do it in a way that is not cheesy or gratuitous.
The pacing on the show was great, the characters developed well and the action was well done.
The acting is strong again, and we see some really fantastic performances.
As usual, the CGI is on point, slickly executed and not overdone. The monsters and threats are believable and frightening, and the protagonists’ responses seem to be realistic whilst remaining heroic.
The new characters are great for the most part, but one character and his particular arc seemed to me to be such an 80’s cliché, from the car to the attitude to the music choices. Judd Nelson, no one forgot about you.
For me, the stand out character and his development is Steve Harrington, that big haired douchebag that was slated to be a stereotyped 80s bully, who developed into a deep and multi layered character that will really warm your heart in this season.
Massive props to Joe Keery who plays Steve; it was his overall likability that transformed the character.
The Diagnosis:
I had a blast watching Stranger Things S2. If you liked the first season, you will love it.
The Duffer brothers have built on what worked in the first season, and not allowed it to get stale. The cast and production are overall fantastic.
– Noel Page
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes…a bloody corpse down a well and a tin full of dark secrets in the garage.
Two of the four novellas in Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars, first published in 2010, have been adapted to film and are now available for your viewing pleasure on Netflix. Both films portray seriously dysfunctional relationships. Both may cause you to eye your significant other over the dinner table with a newfound wariness…and make an appointment with a relationship therapist just to be on the safe side.
1922 (2017) Alternate Title: Love Rats!
The expression “You reap what you sow” comes horribly true in 1922, a horror-thriller starring one rightfully vengeful corpse and waaaay too many rats (although, in my opinion, even one rat is too many rats.)
Thomas Jane (so excellent in his role as the loving but ill-fated dad in The Mist (2007), another Stephen King adaptation) plays a very different kind of husband and father. Wilfred James is a farmer in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, a sun-weathered, proud man who speaks painfully through a tightly clenched jaw. Stuck in a joyless marriage with Arlette (Molly Parker), he is more in love with his farm and the 100 acres that Arlette inherited from her father than he is with his attractive, sullen wife.
When Arlette decides that she has had enough of being a farmer’s wife and wants to sell up and move to Omaha, Wilfred tries to convince her to sell him the land and let their son remain with him. When she refuses, he decides that he won’t take no for an answer. After roping his 14-year-old son Henry into a very messy and brutal crime, he sets into motion a series of tragic events that almost (not quite, but almost) makes you feel sorry for him and his son.
There are parts of this film that are not for the faint of heart. (For example, I could have very happily gone my entire life without seeing a rat emerge from the mouth of a corpse.) It was hard to watch the scene where Arlette discovers that her marriage is definitively over. That being said, whoever’s job it was to throw the buckets of blood had a lot of spare time on set as there isn’t too much gore. My favourite part of the film was the scene in which the exes once again come face to face…very creepy. So effective.
The Diagnosis:
It wasn’t released with all that much fanfare but it is a solid film with great performances – especially the nearly unrecognisable Thomas Jane. Don’t miss this one before Netflix puts it out to pasture.
A Good Marriage (2014) Alternate Title: A Serial [Killer] Monogamist
After 25 years of marriage, Darcy Anderson (Joan Allen) thinks that she knows her husband Bob (Anthony LaPaglia) pretty well. Unlike Wilfred and Arlette James, the couple are happily married with a beautiful home, well-adjusted adult children who love their parents and still enough of a spark left that the marriage bed is never cold for too long. It is, as the title suggests, a good marriage.
From the opening scene of a woman being stalked by an unseen predator, however, the viewer knows that this isn’t a Mike Leigh film about normal happy married people approaching the twilight years of life. We suspect that Bob is not quite as affable and friendly as he seems long before his hapless wife discovers a hidden tin in the garage. Now that she sees both sides of the coin, she must decide what she does with her newfound awareness…
LaPaglia seamlessly switches between his dual (and very convincing) personas and Joan Allen is perfectly cast in her role as a loving wife and mother faced with the terrible knowledge that she has been married to an imperfect stranger for 25 years. I really enjoyed both their performances and the film.
The Diagnosis:
Stephen King has stated that the character of Bob Anderson was inspired by Dennis Rader, the infamous “BTK Killer”, whose wife was married to him for nearly 30 years and yet claimed that she had no knowledge of his crimes. It is a novel premise – what would you do if you found out something truly terrible about the person you loved? – and makes for a compelling film.