Four friends take part in a horror-themed excursion to Scotland, settling down by the campfire to share scary stories. Overseen by creepy guide Darwin (Richard Brake), the pals tell tales of invisible monsters, malicious demons and…uh, Rufus Hound.
The British comedian plays skeeve Steve in one of this anthology movie’s more memorable entries – a particularly gory take on folk horror tropes. Elsewhere, a young ne’er do well (Andrew Lee Potts) takes shelter from gangsters in a shadowy warehouse. Then, annoying cinemagoers are stalked to their death by a disgruntled employee. There are other constituent parts to this portmanteau film, some more ridiculous than others, none of them dull.
It’s to genre mainstay Richard Brake’s credit that he manages to keep a straight face throughout all of this. The Rob Zombie favourite is typically menacing as the kind-of Crypt Keeper figure, even if he isn’t particularly well served by the quality of the stories being told. Indeed, there’s a huge distance between Brake’s solemn speechifying, which follows every tale’s end and the absurd twenty minutes preceding. Lore doesn’t deserve him, but he’s here anyway and is far and away its strongest asset.
Still, the direction by James Bushe, Patrick Michael Ryder, and Greig Johnson is competent, and the film maintains a sense of coherency through its short stories and bookends. ‘Mixed bag’ is a cliché in itself, used to describe many an anthology horror film; a mixed bag it may be, but its contents are far from cliché.
LORE will be available on ICON Film Channel from August 26th.
