In 2009, Ti West directed Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, a direct-to-DVD, unnecessary beat horse sequel which embodied the huge plague upon the horror genre where even original ideas are strung out into irrelevancy. Ti West disowned it, and even requested his name be swapped with an Alan Smithee. So, in that same year, West also released House of the Devil, a character driven, style-drenched, brooding paranoia picture, showing what amazing things can be still be done in a genre that’s seen it all. If West was looking for a way to be disassociated from Spring Fever, he found a way, and if horror fans were looking for a fresh new talent, they had certainly found him. As his first film since The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers is Ti West’s opportunity to show a winning streak, or at least an uncanny corridor. It also happens to be a chance for star Sara Paxton, often cast as that pretty blonde in really forgettable roles, to earn a new start, not unlike West himself.

The Yankee Pedlar is a slow hotel in a small, even slower town. On its last weekend of business, slacker part-timers Claire (Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) have one last marathon shift before moving on to whatever’s next. Luke’s brought a generous amount of beer, but Claire’s brought an excess of curiosity about the Pedlar’s rumoured haunted reputation, something they had both taken casual interest in during their employment. Luke, a proud dropout and pessimist, is confident his rusty, amateur, GeoCities-level web design will carry his future career, while Claire has literally never thought about the next step until provoked by sitcom-actress-come-spiritualist-come-inn-patron Leanne Rease-Jones (Top Gun and Stake Land’s Kelly McGillis.)

Claire begins to seek Leanne’s guidance, despite being turned off by her drinking habits and snappy tone, which pummels her self confidence but inspires her sense of adventure. Leanne warns Claire that the Pedlar’s spirits are not only real, but very dangerous. During her shifts, Claire can’t help but push her luck, sitting alone in the humming empty spaces of the hotel, trying to record the sounds of spectres as her work-hour hobby evolves into a deadly obsession.

A far more modestly produced feature than House of the Devil, The Innkeepers is much more interesting in terms of its identity. While House was lush with homage and slow-built dread, Innkeepers is a craftier, more cautious film. It is as much a horror film, as things are horrifying, as it is a character study or a drama with comedic freckles. The quirkiness that surrounds The Yankee Pedlar and the cast within it makes our heroes more likeable, though Lucas’ web flavoured cynicism edges on the stock side. The terror that lurks above Claire is less about fearing a grotesque, shocking sight ahead as it is you fearing for her safety and well being.

West is accomplished in this cinematic chemistry. There is horror and then there is comedy and they are not things that soil each other while simultaneously overlapping. The horror is never made slapstick or farce, and the humour is either dramatic folly or dopey witticisms from our two leads. Sara Paxton truly is Claire; a spunky, raspy ragdoll girl who walks into doors more than opens them. Paxton is unrecognizable from the deer in headlights in The Last House on the Left remake. Sara Paxton makes Claire likable, someone you’ll care about and want to pluck out of the calamity before it’s too late. While, like Luke, she can veer close to being a cropped concept of youthful kookiness, Paxton tampers it down with fragility, and discomfort. She plays up her attitude to compensate for her unshakable anxieties, she’s rattled by a loss of innocence and playfulness when she confirms to herself that the ghosts are real.

The Innkeepers has unconventional priorities for a horror film, using scares as a feature instead of the purpose of the movie. You can almost talk about the film without talking about ghosts at all. There’s uncertainty in the air; there may or may not be something in the dark, making you more vulnerable to attack. There’s a general unrest as the camera floats about the musty old in inn with its humble halls and muted carpets. There are times when a jumpy scare could have been cheesy in any other film, a moment when Claire gets a bedside visitor comes to mind, but because this fear is something banked off the characters that “yeah right”-ness almost plays directly into the atmosphere. There’s also a circular motion with a lot of the frights, almost like the second half of the film is haunted by very slight foreshadowing in the first. The development of these characters dictate the fear, and in turn will be what scares you.

The Innkeepers is good, eerie and frightening, but I didn’t feel frightened afterwards. I did feel another strong emotion, one that was hard to shake and one that will remain anonymous so I don’t spoil anything. To horror addicts, The Innkeepers may not gratify in the same way The House of the Devil did, as there’s a very hard line straight down the film that lets the audience decide whether there was any paranormal activity or if it is really a horror at all. To more flexible filmgoers, The Innkeepers is a strange, interesting atmosphere-driven blend that pushes through styles, tones and genres. It doesn’t astonish elegance quite as boldly as The House of the Devil, but it does strut West’s versatility within and outside of horror. Most importantly, it shows Ti West has absolutely no desire to create stale, routine horror films, the like you’ve seen in the last decade. So he can stay as long as he likes.

It isn’t uncommon to see movies at the After Dark Film Festival where you can tell others that the plot can be excused. Where the film may have lacked in substance and story, it made up for in bulk with a strong, lavish, dominating style. Monster Brawl, which aspires to be a mirror image of a televised WWE special, replaces the scary looking beefcakes with scary looking monsters (though nothing’s scarier than The Undertaker without makeup.) The film seems to have a better idea of what it wanted to be rather than how to really accomplish that. “The story didn’t matter” is a common thing to overhear at these events, but I gotta hand it to you, Monster Brawl, “I’m not really sure that was a movie” is a new one.

In a fog drenched graveyard, where Dave Foley is pinned as “Buzz Chambers” and Art Hindle as, apparently, a Sasquatch, await to ring the bell for eight different, generic monsters as they throw down to the death. A cyclops, a vampire (Lady Vampire), a mummy, a zombie, a werewolf, a swamp monster, Frankenstein’s Monster and a witch cleverly named “Witch Bitch” all take to the ring, two-by-two to trade blows and slowly, oh so slowly, finish each other off. There isn’t really a threading of plot, even if Monster Brawl acts as if one exists. Doom soothing done by the Cyclops and a skunky gravedigger never amount to much (the Cyclops just vanishes altogether) and drama pitted between the fighters rushes in mere moments before the fight.

Monster Brawl is rigidly structured. Before each fight two introduction videos give you some backstory on, say, what a mummy is or why vampires suck blood and live in mansions. These story segments are a drag, without wit and starved of creativity, the only one with any genuine cleverness abound is Swamp Gut’s, which larks on Planet Earth with an Attenborough impersonator guiding the footage of Swamp Gut killing the same hick twice. But in general they were wasted airtime, a missed opportunity that drags though a movie that already shimmies at a mere 90-minutes.

I haven’t seen Scarce, director Jesse T. Cook’s last film, but now I have a morbid curiosity. Things seems barely directed, on a kind of awkward auto-pilot. Fights are stale and flavourless, just bumps and slams to-and-fro until some brief gory finish, and the actors sway about and let the lines drip from their mouths without much conviction. The only time there seemed to be any gusto was when Dave Foley says “I’ve always hated mummies,” in a kind of dry, facetious Kids in the Hall tone, like a little voice angel decided to stop by and fire a flare for help. None of these ill words apply to Jimmy Hart, who plays himself, a bouncing ball of shrieking energy who would actually have to be directed to stop being animated. Lance Henriksen’s voice pops in and out as a barely-there narrator, who at most blurts out awkward, left-field Unreal Tournament-like victory/bloodbath blurbs that aren’t much cleverer than anything else in the movie. The makeup is sound, but the costuming rarely goes beyond a shirt with pants.

It is not as if this concept film couldn’t have worked. If things were mixed in a more dramatic fashion, if the intros were weaved together into a blended prologue, if we had some sort of backstage shenanigans, events of pathos or at least more gravity than the promise of gravity. Even if it just stuck to the facade of a WWE fiasco, the glitter and glamour, all the flair and finesse Monster Brawl starves to taste. It even ends on a cliffhanger that, very suddenly, seems to indicate you have now decided to give a shit about these characters. Nice try, Monster Brawl, you ain’t no winner, you ain’t no champ. Yer a chump, punk, and I will see you in Netflix hell.

Well okay, let’s not be mean. The fonts are nice.

What makes animation so galvanizing is how, for so many of its creations, one weaker or void aspect can still be lifted to great heights by the others. Ghibili films usually have no trouble finding fascinating and inspiring tales, and Akira’s density is made up for by rich atmosphere. But animated films can be about nothing and everything, because of the message in their beauty. And, some films can be about nothing and nothing, but deliver everything. Redline isn’t about nothing, but it isn’t about much. Nothing stops Redline from hitting goals. Nothing stops Redline from victory. Redline is so ferocious and unwieldy that it’s too dangerous to be bound in your hands, it’s too fast for the qualms of plot or logic. It can’t slow down. The wonderful thing about animation is that it’s a world from scratch, created only by the pen instead of constructs of likelihood. Redline is its own universe, and it rockets through it so fast you’ll miss planets if you blink.

“Sweet” JP is a racer, and while in this fantastical, lawless future race vehicles can be made to look like mecha beetles and sexy superheroes, JP is an odd traditionalist who prefers to blast through the finish line in a monstrous Camaro. JP earned the nickname “Sweet” due to his resistance to using weaponry, though his slate’s been scarred from a history of game fixing; a mob reeking debt that haunts him and his collected partner, Frisbee, to this day. The good news is, while losing the qualifying race, a popularity vote propels JP into the main event, the Redline, the end-all be-all of intergalactic races. The bad news is the reason space became available is due to other racers getting cold feet over the controversial location: Roboworld, a totalitarian planet of cyborgs who use their self-given title of peacekeepers as an excuse to secretly develop planet-busting weaponry, and a government that despises the Redline and the media presence it would bring. Now JP has just one defining race to hold off the competition, the militia of Roboworld, his mob woes and, worst of all, an infatuation with his rival: “Cherry Boy Hunter” Sonoshee McLaren, who drives an amphibious crab.

Seven years in the making and written by Katsuhito Ishii, who made Funky Forest (though Redline is nowhere near as surreal), Redline glows with radioactive colours and alien beings who seem like cut-outs from foreign magazines and comics that define the term “culture shock.” Even with a subject so machine heavy, the cars are organic beings, that pulse and thump and flip out when provoked and stretch when pushed past logically capable speeds. Redline is seven years of detail. While the film is two races with a slower, “off time” chapter in between, the pace is kept up with visions of livid living creatures.

Then there are the races, which are both comparable to the redeeming, euphoric final bout of 2008’s Speed Racer. Antes are constantly upped to degrees that would make Dragon Ball Z feel dizzy, with new speed boosters and disastrous weaponry rabidly spewing one-upmanship. Nitro capsules, claustrophobic cockpits with switches and gears crammed in around leather seats, and mad calamity, especially during the Roboworld siege. Everything and the nuclear kitchen sink is thrown at the competitors, and the competitors throwing everything back.

The minor cast and their tropes aren’t as gimmicky as the Wacky Races posse, aside from perhaps an over-sexualized pair from fantasy land and a duo of spandex-costumed bounty hunters, but there’s no Dick Dastardly among them switching the signs to throw rivals on cruel detours. Perhaps to make these racers feel believable, even in an unbelievable world, they aren’t out for each other’s blood, they’re a communal, sporting bunch. Missiles are thrown, but only in the name of sabotage. Even the grand champion, a blocky monolithic car-hybrid with an ego known as Machinehead, anticipates the idea of being bettered, and would rather out-do his foes than kill them. The same can not be said for Roboworld, their armadas, generals and freakishly grotesque top secret bio-weapon, Funky Boy, who looks like Tetsuo’s booger.

There is no great storytelling ambition for Redline, it’s guts-and-glory underdog story doesn’t quake the same heartstrings as other anime greats. Those with with a Grave of the Fireflies shrine won’t so much as shrug, but it does get the blood pumping, as jet stream missiles launch ad nausuem and screaming becomes the new dictation standard. Few gestures are done twice, and every bit of architecture and machinery will bust new valves and gaskets to function or go faster. JP’s destructive devotion tears down his car, his safety and your face. But his pompadour is invincible.

Pulp Fiction lit a fuse that blew up sometime around Grindhouse. Bouncing from the ma-cheese-mo of the 80’s flavoured Expendables, to the pure red 70’s marinated Hobo with a Shotgun and Super 8 somewhere in between, we’re getting riffs, recreations, reflections and deconstructions of film era underbellies, slowly creeping up to the present day. Now, with Manborg, we’re right up somewhere ‘round 1998, presented with what is meant to recreate that VHS tape you found misplaced in the corner concert film section of a pawn shop. In a world being rapidly flooded with these rehashed nostalgia bombs, Manborg is challenged to represent a new era/aesthetic of re-re-re-rehash, and to be more entertaining than many of the other films in the running.

Thankfully for Manborg, it is half man, half cyborg, all Manborg.

In the future, mankind is has been desolated by an army of nazi-robot-vampires. One soldier watched his brother die at the hands of Draculon, master of this evil armada. This soldier, killed to the point of death, eventually wakes up in the crazy-techno future, discovering that his body is now… look, listen, okay people, this film is called Manborg. I don’t really know why I’m explaining this plot to you. I didn’t see it for the plot. You aren’t going to see it for the plot. Me describing the plot isn’t going to change whether or not you will ever see the film. It’s a non-factor.

So here are the factor-factors that I’ll let rain.

First off, the word “shenanigrams” is used twice in the film. Specifically, it is used by “Justice”, a jean-vested, war-painted gunslinger with an incredibly fake Aussie accent and an inability not to crap-boogie dance while killing things. He lives within an entirely green-screened world where all the humans look like unlockable Mortal Kombat skins and all the monsters look like Napalm Death t-shirts. Steven Kostanski, make-up and effects artist on most Astron 6 films and director of Manborg, said his main inspiration were those corny FMV cutscenes found in old 3DO, PS1 and PC games. While Steel Harbinger may have been what he was going for, I would say the end product is more in-tune with those feature films GWAR released for their fans. Trashier than gross, cornier than grotesque, but revelling in garbage like so many smiling synchronized swimmers in a glamorous Hollywood soundstage pool.

Laser noises are relentless, and individual characters seem to carry their own ridiculous aura of tropes, like Mina’s Ninja Scroll-like action gestures or #1 Man, a Liu Kang-looking fighter overdubbed by Dragon Ball Z narrator Kyle Hebert, and The Baron, who is a Cenobite looking fellow who’s more preoccupied with a secret crush than speaking without syntax like the rest of the cast. Manborg does not give up, and its schlock is of a flavour that has yet to be exploited in the bulk (but oh, I bet it will be soon.)

All that said, Manborg isn’t a perfect recreation of the poopy pastiche. It’s more like a mixtape, highlighting elements of crap like sleazy synth, muddy action and crude TOOL-esque claymation, instead of just becoming it. It’s too tongue-in-cheek, too self-aware and even dare I say it, too smart, but unlike so many other films in this recent post-post-modern subgenre, not simple self-gratification. The only time the veil of crud really obscures enjoyment is when some lines become inaudible over the warped fuzz, which may be a joke within itself, but is one of the rare flat ones if the case.

In 2008, Kostanski directed the short Lazer Ghost 2: Return to Lazer Coast, which, with the exception of going without green screen, is exactly what should be expected from the more-than-trailer film, Manborg. If you felt Lazer Ghost made its ten minutes worthwhile, then there’s good reason to suit up in some used hockey gear and strap it down with duct tape, because Manborg is only six times longer.

In 2009, Ti West directed Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, a direct-to-DVD, unnecessary beat horse sequel which embodied the huge plague upon the horror genre where even original ideas are strung out into irrelevancy. Ti West disowned it, and even requested his name be swapped with an Alan Smithee. So, in that same year, West also released House of the Devil, a character driven, style-drenched, brooding paranoia picture, showing what amazing things can be still be done in a genre that’s seen it all. If West was looking for a way to be disassociated from Spring Fever, he found a way, and if horror fans were looking for a fresh new talent, they had certainly found him. As his first film since The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers is Ti West’s opportunity to show a winning streak, or at least an uncanny corridor. It also happens to be a chance for star Sara Paxton, often cast as that pretty blonde in really forgettable roles, to earn a new start, not unlike West himself.

The Yankee Pedlar is a slow hotel in a small, even slower town. On its last weekend of business, slacker part-timers Claire (Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) have one last marathon shift before moving on to whatever’s next. Luke’s brought a generous amount of beer, but Claire’s brought an excess of curiosity about the Pedlar’s rumoured haunted reputation, something they had both taken casual interest in during their employment. Luke, a proud dropout and pessimist, is confident his rusty, amateur, GeoCities-level web design will carry his future career, while Claire has literally never thought about the next step until provoked by sitcom-actress-come-spiritualist-come-inn-patron Leanne Rease-Jones (Top Gun and Stake Land’s Kelly McGillis.)

Claire begins to seek Leanne’s guidance, despite being turned off by her drinking habits and snappy tone, which pummels her self confidence but inspires her sense of adventure. Leanne warns Claire that the Pedlar’s spirits are not only real, but very dangerous. During her shifts, Claire can’t help but push her luck, sitting alone in the humming empty spaces of the hotel, trying to record the sounds of spectres as her work-hour hobby evolves into a deadly obsession.

A far more modestly produced feature than House of the Devil, The Innkeepers is much more interesting in terms of its identity. While House was lush with homage and slow-built dread, Innkeepers is a craftier, more cautious film. It is as much a horror film, as things are horrifying, as it is a character study or a drama with comedic freckles. The quirkiness that surrounds The Yankee Pedlar and the cast within it makes our heroes more likeable, though Lucas’ web flavoured cynicism edges on the stock side. The terror that lurks above Claire is less about fearing a grotesque, shocking sight ahead as it is you fearing for her safety and well being.

West is accomplished in this cinematic chemistry. There is horror and then there is comedy and they are not things that soil each other while simultaneously overlapping. The horror is never made slapstick or farce, and the humour is either dramatic folly or dopey witticisms from our two leads. Sara Paxton truly is Claire; a spunky, raspy ragdoll girl who walks into doors more than opens them. Paxton is unrecognizable from the deer in headlights in The Last House on the Left remake. Sara Paxton makes Claire likable, someone you’ll care about and want to pluck out of the calamity before it’s too late. While, like Luke, she can veer close to being a cropped concept of youthful kookiness, Paxton tampers it down with fragility, and discomfort. She plays up her attitude to compensate for her unshakable anxieties, she’s rattled by a loss of innocence and playfulness when she confirms to herself that the ghosts are real.

The Innkeepers has unconventional priorities for a horror film, using scares as a feature instead of the purpose of the movie. You can almost talk about the film without talking about ghosts at all. There’s uncertainty in the air; there may or may not be something in the dark, making you more vulnerable to attack. There’s a general unrest as the camera floats about the musty old in inn with its humble halls and muted carpets. There are times when a jumpy scare could have been cheesy in any other film, a moment when Claire gets a bedside visitor comes to mind, but because this fear is something banked off the characters that “yeah right”-ness almost plays directly into the atmosphere. There’s also a circular motion with a lot of the frights, almost like the second half of the film is haunted by very slight foreshadowing in the first. The development of these characters dictate the fear, and in turn will be what scares you.

The Innkeepers is good, eerie and frightening, but I didn’t feel frightened afterwards. I did feel another strong emotion, one that was hard to shake and one that will remain anonymous so I don’t spoil anything. To horror addicts, The Innkeepers may not gratify in the same way The House of the Devil did, as there’s a very hard line straight down the film that lets the audience decide whether there was any paranormal activity or if it is really a horror at all. To more flexible filmgoers, The Innkeepers is a strange, interesting atmosphere-driven blend that pushes through styles, tones and genres. It doesn’t astonish elegance quite as boldly as The House of the Devil, but it does strut West’s versatility within and outside of horror. Most importantly, it shows Ti West has absolutely no desire to create stale, routine horror films, the like you’ve seen in the last decade. So he can stay as long as he likes.

There’s a moment when Curtis (Michael Shannon), chaperoning his sleeping family across the dark flooded highways, pulls over and steps out of his car. Off in the distance, crackles of lightning tear apart the sky, pounding the earth below it in fury. Looking around while cars behind him continue to drive by and his family rests undisturbed, he asks aloud, to the world, if he’s the only one seeing this apocalyptic sight. Jeff Nichols’ second feature Take Shelter has been conjuring its own storm on the festival circuit, a study of a humble man who suffers against an behemoth enemy only he can see.

Michael Shannon is Curtis, a modest Midwesterner who works construction, loves his wife (new fest circuit star, Jessica Chastain) and child, participates in the small community and is loved back respectably for each of those things. The year ahead seems bountiful for the family, their vacation fund is peaking and their insurance holders manage to arrange a procedure to fix their young daughter’s hearing. But there is something growing in the recesses of Curtis’ mind, a terror that begins in the fringes of his vision which quickly swells into full-blown paranoia.

Curtis suffers from dreams and visions of what appears to be his sleepy home terrorized by awesome storms, droplets of oily brown liquid from the sky, flocks of birds that took some moves from Hitchcock, torrents of deadly winds and suddenly even other people, close people, turning against Curtis. This anguish manifests itself into a storm shelter Curtis devotes himself to building in the backyard, one that will strain his relationship with everything around him.

What at first appears to be a paranoia plot cracks open a whole hidden layer when it becomes apparent that Curtis’ biggest fear is the fear itself. His mother had fallout with dementia, like the dark clouds on the horizon, this fact is yet another haunt in the jumble of Curtis’ head. He’s tormented in every way, trying to build a structure he’s certain is mandatory, while also fighting that very certainty the shelter is worth it. Excuses, defenses, even offensive, the storm shelter is the only evidence that Curtis has any control over an uncertain world, and he`s bet the car that he needs it.

Nichols paces his films like he’s holding the tension in a straining closet, family and community being as friendly about Curtis’ behaviour, only putting pressure on when he’s too far gone. From here it’s a whole other kind of tornado, Curtis’ desire to protect the one he loves instead destroys the love towards him.

Nichols’ tense look into paranoia is a hard one to shake. Until a tacked-on seeming epilogue, Take Shelter doesn’t over-extend any metaphor or inject drama to the supernatural. It’s terror, terrible transfiguring terror, and it’s the unstoppable fear that grips us all. Even the humble. Even the kindest.

There are two kinds of bad films that actually feel fun to hate. One of them is the loud, shallow, flashy blockbuster breed, which will ALWAYS have its defenders and whose gripes are usually reoccurring. That species is hard to spot at festivals. The kind that does make festival appearances, however, is the shallow, vain, pretentious thing, and these come in all kinds of micro-varieties though always self-content. This is not to be confused with bad films that meant well and make you feel bad for hating, I will get to Always Brando in the future. But for today, let us talk about Australian big-deal Julia Leigh’s directorial debut, Sleeping Beauty, a film that is almost as pretty as it is completely pointless.

Moreso based on Yasunari Kawabata’s The House of the Sleeping Beauties than the popular fairy tale, Emily Browning, whose butt you may remember from Sucker Punch, is Lucy, a university student who is very comfortable with performing tasks for money. That’s not to call her a prostitute, but she’s certainly willing to let her body be exploited for reward, be it at the student research lab fishing tubes down her throat or sleeping with her manager at the campus cafe. Her revenue choices become a little more surreal when she applies to an ad in the paper, leading her to a cold-eyed madam who introduces her to the world of nude food services for the bourgeois. Eventually Lucy’s pasty, tiny body nominates her for a new service, hinted upon by the title, which requires her to be drugged asleep while older gentlemen toy with her slumbering body, though penetration is forbidden.

And that’s about it. That’s the movie.

Rich white men do weird things with their money and this lower-middle class whiter girl likes to find creative combinations of her career and libido. There is a promise of some sort of conflict or, as some know it a “story,” dangling on a string out of reach, but any sense of a tale being told is only referred to instead of hitting dead on. Without plot, the film’s real desire is to provoke you, which it’s not very skilled at either. Making you uncomfortable, yes. But light discomfort, leaning towards plain awkwardness. Like an old man fumbling around with Browning’s tiny naked body like a gorilla figuring its dead child – that kind of thing. It’s odd that “penetration” is excused from the occasion so early. It’s certainly a memorable detail and very telling of the frivolous antics of the rich-geezer class, but also very uninteresting to watch. I don’t hope for rape depictions, but in a world where fetish-heavy antics of The Human Centipede are well-known enough in the social consciousness to get a South Park riff, a wrinkly old man stroking the nude midriff of a snoozing maiden isn’t about to shield eyes. There’s no ante.

There’s an unfortunate mix to Browning herself. While her acting is precise and focused on the cold and apathetic Lucy, proving that she’s more than a pale butt, the character is so stubborn and uninteresting that there’s no tease to be turned on by. She’s got a past, but you’ll never know it, and if she has an objective then hell if we’ll ever find out. The only emotions she does project are her efforts towards being a provocative bitch. She’s a good profile on someone impatient and bored, though with all that’s on the plate you shall soon join her.

Similarly, Leigh’s work behind the camera is, at the very least, pretty. Repetition and monotony are big themes, and the way “routines” are hammered in certainly make their point. The colour use is also kind; the stale mansion and the nude models who fill it are hard to complain about. When it isn’t of the constructed world of wealthy eroticism, it’s the bland simple surroundings of the real world, which certainly stake the divide between what money can buy and what money leaves behind. But even the good efforts are a little wasted on a shallow product.

This is not an art project lost – the ideas at work at not hard to grasp. It just seems frivolous, and there’s a sensation that Leigh felt more bold of her actions than her actions are bold. It drags its feet and the world is so sterile and uninteresting it can practically put you to…

Well.

You know.

Tsui Hark’s career has only formally dipped into Western markets once or twice, his Once Upon a Time in China franchise being his biggest namesake. But on his own turf he’s double dipped Kung Fu into a buffet of subgenres: supernatural, historical, comedy, not to mention plenty of overlap. There are very few things Hark can’t squeeze some fun out of,  but Detective Dee fits into a category that’s more frequently tied to the west: massive blockbuster. Pseudo-historical, slightly spooky, but infinitely Kung Fu (with choreography by the beloved Sammo Hung) do Dee’s massive CGI set pieces and explosively absurd fight scenarios create any competition for our biggest ‘busters back home? Namely Sherlock Holmes? Which I’m saying because I guess that’s the easiest reference point for a spectacle detective story?

The inauguration of the first Empress of China, Wu Zetian (Carina Lau), is mere days away, her grandest opportunity to show off her empire to the world. But just as the construction of a massive statue is finishing up outside her palace, two workers spontaneously combust into flames, sending paranoia throughout the people that there’s a dire curse looming over them. Desperate to find the culprit behind these bizarre crimes, Zetian turns to Detective Dee (Andy Lau), one of her biggest dissidents and harshest critics, released from prison for the purpose of solving this case. Teaming up with the Empress’ right hand woman (Li Bingbing) and a young albino official (Chao Deng), Dee embarks on a journey to find out how, why and who is causing folks to burn up from the inside, and just how inside that culprit may be.

One thing that has always irked me about the new Sherlock Holmes film was how anti-engaging the mystery side was. Certainly Guy Ritchie lets you accompany the antics along the way to the solution, but there was nothing really to follow, as in the end all the answers lay in magical Macguffin. Dee possesses quite a large Macguffin, but it isn’t the lifeline, and it reveals that card fairly early on to shift attention to other pressing revelations. When a movie is both action and mystery, it’s only natural that the aggressive Mr. Action will often overpower, robbing the mystery of its time and lunch money. That’s what was pretty grievous about Holmes, how Holmes was much more of a goofy smooth talker/brawler externally, where mystery solving seemed a more exclusive, internal process. Dee goes a slightly different route. Action definitely takes precedence in the matter, but the way the mystery lives out is a bit more fluid and open. It’s unlikely you’ll have put everything together by the end, but the movie is ambitious in shaking you up, laying out a world where lead players may have sinister secrets that don’t necessarily make them the culprit. The mystery is never inactive, even when the screen is full of punches and ninjas.

But enough talk, how about that action? One thing about Sammo Hung’s action style that audiences love is how playful it can be. From Ip Man to Kung Fu Hustle, Hung takes pleasure out of shuffling up fight scene variables, combining unconventional set pieces with even more unusual fight conditions. Because Dee is floating foot first into the realm of CGI, the skies became fairly unlimited. You’ll see our heroes fight puppet ninjas, roll-dodge away from arrow onslaughts, Dee takes on a troupe of magical deer and you can bet your buttons there’s a dramatic throw down inside that massive statue. The action is dedicated to keeping a pulse, keeping them moving and doing something different. My favourite sequence probably being the underground, over water, black market bout with a ninja ambush, where one by one we learn just how many absurd illusions and techniques these assailants have mastered, and how Dee, in all his wisdom, plans to deal with it.

Detective Dee has dreams of fighting with the best and biggest of summer hitters, and as for how it stacks up it certainly, no question, floors a lot of the biggest Western offerings. But it isn’t perfect, not by a long shot. There’s a queasiness to the pacing. While there are twists and turns in the story, there are also weird swan dives in the tone, and Dee often dances to-and-fro from a light-hearted shit disturber to a disturbed, remorseful witness of terrible acts. The effects are also inconsistent, mostly they’re as good as massive CGI things look in this day and age, but from time to time they appear to dip closer to Doctor Who circa five years ago. However, all that doesn’t scratch the good intentions. If you saw the poster, trailer, or even just felt flirted by the title Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, it’s a safe deduction you’ll get exactly the answers you’re hunting for.

NOTE: This review is based on the screening on Sunday, September 11th. Aware that the film may be remixed and interactive at other showings my experience may not reflect your own. To be clear, the interactive features were not in play during this screening.

Let’s clear the air and say the obvious: Francis Ford Coppola made The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation in less than a decade. The ‘80s had some gems like Rumble Fish, but the ‘90s, oy, those ‘90s. His 2000s, on the other hand, can certainly be best described as weird. Choosing to do modest, “underground” films, it seems that each new gesture was unpredictable at best, which brings us to Twixt. Twixt is not a blockbuster, but it is certainly a genre piece; a dream-inspired, Dan Deacon scored, Poe-themed vampire ghost murder story genre piece. It is a weird stand out even for the Coppola portfolio. Early footage and strange high-concept ambitions have had some folks worried that this gloomy gallop would be an awkward slouch. But let me tell you now, internet, it’s definitely nowhere near Apocalypse Now, it’s not even Rumble Fish, but Twixt, for all of its uneasy flaws, is incredibly fun to watch.

Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) isn’t happy with his writing career at the moment. Once biting at the heels of Stephen King, a creative losing streak following his daughter’s death has him stuck in a schlock-witchcraft circuit that is not inspiring readers or himself. Possible inspiration comes to him in the strangest of places, a tiny Californian town that is sleepy in size but full of oddities, like a kooky sheriff (a scenery chewing Bruce Dern) who builds bat houses, a clock tower with seven faces (none with the correct time) and a clan of goth teens on a lake led by a dark-glam biker known only as Flamingo (Alden Ehrenreich). But among all the strange sights, what’s got him inspired for a new story is the grisly murder of a young girl, a steak driven through her heart indicates whoever killed her was convinced she was of vampiric intent. The fixation is finalized when Baltimore begins to dream of a darker side of the town, where the girl, Virginia (Elle Fanning), can still communicate with him and even curiouser is that Edgar Allen Poe (Ben Chaplin) serves as his sullen guide.

It’s hard to recognize at first, because there are a lot of hurdles of absurdity to get over, but this tale is telling more about tale-tellers. The inclusion of Poe, his advice and warnings place this odd story as a frame on how to tell a story at all. The tribute to Poe is more than just a sudden fascination, it’s pragmatic, as Coppola’s homed in on the roots of his grim, personal storytelling method and not afraid of it digging into his own, literally alluding to the death of his son Gian-Carlo Coppola. There are constant clues to the murderer, one that basically gives it away, but by that point it no longer feels like story is about confirming who the perpetrator is. Journeying into this colour-bleached world of the dreams is a means of telling a story to entertain others.

If this meta-tale sounds a bit pretentious, any arching pretense is constantly defused by how whimsically carefree Coppola is treating the material. No matter how grisly the acts on screen are, either their dreamy depiction or the highly stylized moon-lit colour scheme, they maintain a charming wonder. All is comfortably pulpy, perhaps a respect to the career of the protagonist or just a kind excuse to be silly. The character pieces that fill this town range from the dopey deputy, the suspenders wearing young spunky twirp with glasses to the motorcycling, poetic rebel Flamingo, who looks like Diamond Rings with a skin condition. It maintains this 1995 point and click FMV PC game vibe, real sense of an adventure, opening doors, meeting strange faces and only solving the problems that keep the story alive.

Now, there may be another reason Twixt feels like a 1995 FMV PC game. Whether or not Twixt will see any distribution is debatable, if only because being “self-produced” has side-effects aside creative freedom. While some scenes, even 3D ones (which are signaled to the audience in the most delightful way) have adequate effects, others couldn’t hold a match to those from an Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode.

There is a short, wonderful scene where Baltimore idea jams drunk in an empty motel room which left the audience howling. It was a great moment to be in a packed theatre and a giggling tone-setter for the entire feature. Though others would suggest a Tom Waits narrated opening soliloquy was a stronger establishment. After the “bulletproof” ending comes and goes, you’ll briefly sort the meanings in your head and just where the shears of the “story” and “reality” blended. I’m also aware there are things I haven’t seen, some footage and cards probably held for alternative paths (the demonic clock tower and Flamingo were not explored despite certain hype) but I suppose those are journeys for other audiences to relay back to me. Dan Deacon’s electro-hoppy but whispering bloops sound like girly ghosts trapped in the computer and keep a footstep pulse as you and Hall Baltimore descend further into the dreams of Coppola. Coppola described Twixt’s muse as a nightmare he had in Istanbul, but this chaotic quest is certainly as magical to those awake.

Sarah Palin, remember her? She’s the ex-Alaskan Governor/Ex-McCain running mate that may have cost the Republicans the last Presidential election, assuming it wasn’t because of how badly Bush left the country or that people may have legitimately wanted to see Obama take office… in case you needed a refresher. Anyways, in case you didn’t know there was once a scenario where she could have been in the White House, which British documentarian Nick Broomfield would like you to know would have been catastrophic. In Sarah Palin – You Betcha! he and his tiny team cozy up in Wasilla, Alaska to get opinions and footage from her friends, colleagues and even Palin herself. Two thirds of those goals do not go very well at all, and for some bizarre reason Broomfield lets you in on every production misfortune.

From Kurt and Courtney to Biggie & Tupac, it has always been Broomfield’s style to let you in on every moment, but in Sarah Palin, in which Nick takes on a subject with the highest barricade to clamber over, it seems all the more deflated. Things go okay at first, getting into the antler packed household of Palin’s parents, though his material with them is gentle at best. From there Broomfield begins an odyssey of people he can and cannot talk to. Old friends of Sarah’s: Depends. Members of the current Palin household: No. Levi: Can’t afford it. Palin herself: No, but Nick is sure naive about it. Old colleagues with an axe to grind: Very yes.

There is definitely something to be said about the new Wasilla dynamic, a heavily Evangelical town of single-digit-thousands now with an even line drawn through it of pro-Palin’s and anti-Palins. Some talking heads certainly have some interesting, if not enlightening things to say about the pitbull with lipstick, like a gay-supporting priest who describes Palin in the way Dr. Loomis describes Michael Myers. Otherwise, even the most close-knit ex-Palin pals get around to the conclusion you may already know: Palin is aggressive, misguided, misinformed, anti-intellectual, stubborn, scary, and very thankfully not in the White House. Which kind of brings about the most groan worthy point.

What is the point of doing a Palin doc at this point in time? Certainly her name carries a lot of news hype, but is there any actual relevance? She doesn’t seem to have any intentions to run in the 2012 election, and even if she did it’s overwhelmingly doubtful that she’d actually succeed. But, people still like to talk about her. On the streets you wouldn’t turn your head if you overheard her name pop up in passing conversation. She’s raised the bar on the political freakshow, and even if she isn’t the freakiest in the circus, she’s still the feature attraction. Nothing in You Betcha! will reveal any juicy new details or revelations about the Palin and her clan.

Even beyond Palin’s irrelevance, You Betcha! isn’t well made. Broomfield constantly looks like a wiener or a creeper, and never on top of the situation even the three-to-five times he manages to crack out witty joke. There’s a scene where he tried to crash an Evangelical congregation where Palin was speaking. Upon failing to get in contact with her, he then settles for speaking over a megaphone to get people’s attention as the flock leaves, which they do, because the echo and speaker music drowns out his mega-speaker to a whimper. And you see that. You also see, twice, the car-driving-up-and-introduction beginnings of an interview shoot forty minutes after you’ve seen extensive material from said interview. Broomfield also zooms in to the face of all of his subjects, letting you see every pore and makeup flake on the big screen. One time he zooms in on a picture of Palin hanging on a wall so close the lens clunks against it. That was the best part of the film.

There’s a new and not-necessarily awful sub-genre in thrillers these days, where the hose is stepped on for hours until the twist is unravelled and water comes a-flooding out. When it’s done right, we’ve been led down a narrow path, shadows and fog obscuring details that were right in front of us the whole time, entertained even while being distracted. When it’s done wrong, it’s your Uncle George trying aimlessly to get a joke out at the dinner table. The Cat Vanishes is a quirky Argentinean psychological thriller that asks the audience to question sanity as a whole, all the while unable to stop giggling about the card it has up its sleeve.

Luis (played by Luis Luque) is being released from psychiatric care, declared sane after an incident that left a colleague bruised and battered. His wife Beatriz (played by Beatriz Spelzini… wait a minute) is delighted to have her beloved return home, though she can’t shake the rotten feeling that he could slip again one day. This fear escalates much faster than expected when their house cat, which attacked Luis upon arrival, seemingly vanishes without a trace. Beatriz tirelessly hunts for her cat, evidence that this paranoia is just that, battling back nightmares and terrors directed at her husband. The worry for her husband’s sanity in turn creating a stronger worry for her own.

The Cat Vanishes is a game in misdirection. Director Carlos Sorin has found fun ways to cast indecision upon the audience, reframing oft used human gestures, like early morning staring into nothingness and late night cleaning fits, as possible signal flares of psychopathy. The dreams, which are limited to Beatriz’ mind, are more of a card Sorin uses to get the heartbeat going again, as a movie set mostly inside a single home can feel like a bog. However, the re-use of dreams can be a bog too.

The biggest problem with The Cat Vanishes is that it’s hard to believe it’s a feature film. This is a short story stretched out a lot longer than it can maintain. The film itself is just a slow build-up to a single gotcha moment, and by the time you’re there you’ve already started sliding down from the climax, your audience-gut knows SOMETHING must change the status quo. The Twilight Zone has forever been regarded as classics of narration and the master of the twist, and rightfully so, but if you inflated Time Enough at Last by another hour I’m not sure we’d still be celebrating to the same degree. The Cat Vanishes decides to fixate on this one conundrum simply as the means to a punchline. So there, happy, Sorin? You got us, the laughs’ on us and we were looking in the wrong place the whole time! Just hope someone watching doesn’t know where to look, because otherwise they don’t have much else to look forward to.

The wonderful thing about science fiction is that there’s no guiding rule which demands just how ahead of itself, and science, it needs to go. To call Pedro Almodóvar a master of his craft ignores a lot of obsessive drooling for a magnificent portfolio of films. When he revealed that he was working on something that could be described as sci-fi, it titillated the minds of cinephiles. What would the man’s overall approach to genre be? The Skin I Live In is a hypnotizing feat, a contemporary reflection of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die resulting in a Frankenstein tale making sweet, Spanish love to body politics. Almodóvar is gently taking us by the hand down and leading us down a trail of science gone mad, and it feels as classically minded as it does completely original.

Plastic surgeon and ingenious doctor Robert Ledgard (played by an actually acting Antonia Bandaras) has a tragic and sordid past. Fate has not been kind to him and his once gorgeous family. These dark shadows that loom over him, the love ripped from his heart fuels his drive to create a synthetic skin, one tougher and more resilient to disease. A creation that could turn his life around. The scientific community as a whole is uncertain about his methods, and they would stop him outright if they knew he was actually developing the skin by use of a captive, human test subject – the mysterious Vera (Elena Anaya), who he keeps locked up at luxurious Toledo estate. Vera and Robert’s relationship is as rocky as you’d imagine a captive/captor bond to be, though that all changes when a vile thief with sordid relations to Ledgard violates Vera in the manor, changing Robert’s perspective and obsession entirely.

There’s something unwillingly gorgeous about the film. It opens with a sunlit vista and a big, bold marquee style font that glows on the screen. Between the dramatically grandiose Spanish locations, the beautiful people and the flashback savvy narrative, the way Skin dances around feels very operatic. At first it feels like Almodóvar is telling you too much, that there isn’t any more left to tell or that this is some flag of explanation, but no, there’s always more and it always gets more twisted. But even at its most twisted, it never becomes depraved, and even at its most science fictional it still feels utterly anchored in reality. For someone who’s just stepping into genre, Almodóvar is far better at balancing these elements than many others, making Skin a film that is so inviting to be engaged with, it answers all your questions in a way that feels like you had actually asked them aloud.

It’s delightful to see Banderas act for a director who respects his talents. For years we’ve seen him subjected to Hispanic-themed action flicks and kids movies; suddenly seeing his eyes grow deep and his impressively handsome face coil up with madness makes it all the more striking. Anaya is perfectly eerie as Vera as well, playing and stretching around her quarters like the pixie trapped in a dark wizard’s glass piece. The synchronicity between Banderas’ obsession and Anaya’s aloof resilience is uncanny, and creates the frictional plates that will quake come the end.

The Skin I Live In is a film that’s provocative and intelligent without ever once becoming pretentious. All the brilliant ideas about love, sex, gender, body, science and morality are grown out of the drama embedded in the story, and not a thin outstretched device reaching out to try to prove a point. It’s a science fiction and it’s a horror, but it’s never surreal, schlocky or terrifying. The way Almodóvar faces genre is casually. His sensibilities as a filmmaker will startle you outright. It’s very rare that a genre film is made with such astounding delicacy, but that’s just the kind of skin Almodóvar is in.