FrightFest

8/10 - Solid opener. Although that car was really jarring... way too nice for the movie.

Really liked the film, but the car did strike me as odd.

"I'm just a single mom strippin' to make ends meet, maybe I shouldn't have spent Chess' college fund on the heavily modded dodge challenger in the drive..."

The story was fairly simple often a bit silly, but things were saved by unusual poetic direction and strange humour that ran through the film. Things like the cross-fades into fire, altering the saturation and hue of the film, images of Cronos and Holofernes, etc. Sometimes they'd seem to be a bit random or trying too hard, and the aforementioned humour sometimes led to a mismatched tone (the only time I really thought there was a big mistake was in cutting to the jokey exercise video during the rape). Sean Brosnan did a great job of capturing the seedy but beautiful atmosphere of the Deep South, and Gary Stretch made an impressive villain.

The indulgence, the pretension, the weirdness, the strange shift in tones, I can see these things putting a lot of people off, but these things made the film quite interesting to me. Sean Brosnan is definitely one to watch, especially as he refines his directing skills with future films.

Wasn't really my cup of tea, however it did stay with me for some time afterwards.
It was certainly very well made and watching the movie that followed, made you realise how good it really was!

Enjoyable, but had an uneven tone - sometimes silly or absurd, at other times it seemed to be aiming for brutal and gritty, occasionally all at the same time as has already been pointed out!

Entertaining with never a dull moment, but the tonal variations and occasional slips into slapstick pastiche will be offputting for some, even if that was the director's point. 7.5 / 10

Apart from the 'I love you' line and the stumbling towards each other after being shot 5 or 6 times - great film and great performances.
One of the best so far for me.

Solid (if a tad grim) opening film. Definitely one up on last year's opener. With this and his villain in Dead Mans Shoes I wonder why Gary Stretch hasn't been offered better films as "the bad guy" - certainly better than Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus anyway.

Good film and the bad guy played it to perfection. Highly recommended

Happy this was the opening film, gave hope for the rest of the festival.

Nothing massively memorable but well acted and well put together.

I did rather enjoy this film. Very grim very gritty. I loved the idea of his inner monologue being in the childs voice as he had never heard his voice as an adult. Thought adding the crunching sound effect when he attacked his father the first time was a bit of a cheat and very misleading. But overall enjoyed the movie even though it almost ruined the whole thing with that macho bullshit ending.

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