FrightFest

3/10 - Arty mess with no reason to be at FF... apart from a wandering corpse that's never explained.

Pretentious and confusing writing, loaded with politically correct representations of adolescent life ie that young black lesbians enjoy utopian experimental relationships. The crude anti-male and anti-heterosexual writing, eg the depiction of the obnoxious jock, was embarrassing.
This black female director cannot write coherent dialogue.
Give it a miss.

novotny wrote: ↑Fri Aug 23, 2019 11:27 pm This black female director cannot write coherent dialogue.

She looked very white in the Q&A....

I wanted to like this. The premise was interesting and the sci-fi type elements at the outset were intriguing but I ended up not feeling anything for any of the characters and the central mystery wasnt enough to keep me involved. TBF I left after just over an hour as I had lost the will to go on so it may have picked up after that.

novotny wrote: ↑Fri Aug 23, 2019 11:27 pm.. young black lesbians enjoy utopian experimental relationships. The crude anti-male and anti-heterosexual writing, eg the depiction of the obnoxious jock, was embarrassing.
This black female director cannot write coherent dialogue.
Give it a miss.

Just making the assumption the director is black female (Jennifer Reeder is Caucasian as someone pointed out - not that gender or race matters at all when "marking" a film) is exposing the bigotry of your comment. It's one thing to find a film crap but is your comment not just a demonstration of your struggle with LGBQT and black people? Would you complain if a white middle aged director would torture females in an exploitation flick?? I don't think so. Posting this comment and claiming reverse discrimination is just sad.

I wanted to like this more than I actually did - maybe I just didn't engage enough with any of the characters who were clearly deliberately designed to be flawed and have problems relating to others. Lots of emotional exploration around the central mystery of a missing girl, which will appeal to many, but for me it didn't quite hit the mark. Lots of positive aspects though and one for me to reflect on post the chaos of the fest to see if it stays with me for some time afterwards, which is always a sign of a good movie. 7 / 10 (for now at least!)

Do all american schools have bullies on their sports team? They always pick on nerds if they go anywhere near the lockers

It was a terrible film, as the comments suggest.
Bigots and non-bigots alike can unite in mocking it.

Walked out on this one. There is always a film at every Festival that after 15 minutes has you mentally listing all the things you would rather be doing. This was it for me, after 20 minutes I decided to go and do some of them!

I thought at first it was trying a little too hard to be weird and occasionally shocking - a bit of Todd Solondz, a bit of David Lynch perhaps - but ultimately I enjoyed it very much. The big cast of characters were all effectively fleshed-out, without the aid of backstory. It seemed a bit neat that it all worked out at the end for (nearly) everybody, but perhaps that was the point.
I could be wrong, but I think some of those who walked out early might have felt differently if they'd stuck it out.
And I really liked the singing.

I thought it had its own very solid style, some kind of personal, surreal mix between David Lynch and Sophia Coppola.
The scene where the mother starts actually sniffing the "killer" was cool.
But yeah, I walked out when the idea of a metaphorical sex scene was an overlapped close-up of two girls singing Melt With You, that was too much.

That I feel the need to comment on this film that I didn't see shows to me at least that from the write up in the programme alone I thought it would be marmite.

Loved in equal measure by a certain type as it would be loathed equally by another certain type. I'll probably catch it later and fall into the latter.

I enjoyed it tremendously... More of this kind of thing please

"You could compare this mystical, high school, girl noir with HEATHERS or MEAN GIRLS. It’s equally obvious to look at the wonderful ensemble cast and see a bleak DAZED AND CONFUSED for the 21stcentury. Then again, the brooding darkness that tickles the edges of KNIVES AND SKIN evokes the smalltown hell of Tim Hunter’s RIVER’S EDGE (1986)."

https://britflicks.rocketspark.co.uk/bl ... lm-Review/