Review Category: Movie

ANOTHER PLAN FROM OUTER SPACE

ANOTHER PLAN FROM OUTER SPACE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: LANCE POLLARD / STARRING: JESSICA MORRIS, AUGIE DUKE, ELIZABETH SAINT / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Making an ultra-low-budget sci-fi movie and calling it Another Plan from Outer Space is a bit of bold move. The original Plan 9 from Outer Space has gone down in history as a classic stinker, a film so bad that it’s used to judge the standard of movies so abysmally put together that they ascend to a different level.

Ironically, Another Plan from Outer Space is far too competently directed and put together to reach the depths of Ed Wood’s classic. This black and white movie has the following things going for it: the (digital) print is clean, the audio is good, and the acting is adequate. After that, it’s all downhill. It has nothing at all to do with the original Plan 9 movie, except for the fact that it’s monochrome.

The movie opens quite well; we have very well rendered titles and then some stock footage of various American Presidents talking about a space programme. We then cut to an American spacecraft crashing into the desert. The crew have mostly survived but have no idea where they are, though it becomes swiftly obvious that they’ve landed on Earth. These trained pilots have a total lack of survival training (for reasons never explained) and one them has a broken watch. This watch becomes a plot point at the very end. This is all covered in the first ten minutes or so, and it’s about as good as the movie gets.

We then get just over an hour of pretty much nothing, as the actors walk slowly round the desert talking about nothing and getting themselves more and more lost. What’s clear here is that the actors, the director, and the rest of the crew are having a great time making a movie. Unfortunately, there’s not enough script or solid direction to turn that fun into something the viewer could enjoy watching. It has more padding than an over-stuffed sofa. Though the sofa is way more interesting and useful.

Towards the end of the feature, some plot arrives and something actually happens. It’s not a terribly interesting or original something and it’s the sort of thing that should have happened closer to the start of the movie. Without giving away spoilers, the film ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. We neither know nor care if the story will be resolved. Probably not.

Another Plan from Outer Space is not so bad it’s good, it’s just bad and dull. It feels like a very well done test piece for various technical skills, but as it’s presented as movie, it has to be judged on those terms. Another Plan from Outer Space is boring and should only ever be used if you are truly desperate to go to sleep.

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE BLOOD

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE BLOOD / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ANTHONY CATANESE / STARRING: GIGI GUSTIN, BETTINA SKYE, CRAIG KELLY, ILENE SULLIVAN, DAVID M. SIBON / RELEASE DATE: TBC

If you’re a fan of cheesy low-budget eighties horror movies that focus on bad taste and ridiculous situations over actual story, then good news; they still make them. Girls Just Wanna Have Blood is very much one of those terrible movies that also happens to be quite entertaining.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around three ancient vampires who just happen to look like teenage girls. They recruit a new member into their sisterhood and they begin to chow down on the local neighbourhood lowlifes. The first half of this movie does exactly what it says on the tin; Girls just want to have blood. These four girls cut a literally bloody swathe through the town. Though as this a low budget movie, they mostly hang around in one location and let the food come to them.

The other half is the inevitable response from the local scum and some sort of attempt at redemption. Or to put it another way, it’s an eighties-style vampire movie. The cast is a great mix of people and the main characters are visually striking and memorable. The acting is about as good as you’re going to get in this sort of thing. It’s not brilliant but it is enthusiastic. The special effects are terrible and the vampire fangs impede people’s ability to actually speak. And yet underneath it all, there’s a decent movie desperate to get out.

Girls Just Wanna Have Blood suffers mostly from a lack of pacing caused by such a low budget. The movie’s main draw should be the girls going on a murder spree but obvious shortcuts have been made through out. The result is something that looks a lot grimier than it needs to be.

This is primarily a horror comedy, and most of the focus is on one liners and the odd physical gag. There’s a fine-line between gutter humour and being crass. Girls Just Wanna Have Blood doesn’t really care were the line is. When the jokes land, they land well. Some of them are real clunkers while others are pretty quotable. It’s almost cute but it’s definitely very, very dumb.

As such, it’s perfect for drunken movie nights and the like. The plot is ropey, the dialogue silly and the action and the gore border on the almost comedic. Despite all of this, it’s simply fun to watch. We’d love to see what would happen if this director and his crew were given an actual budget.

FANTASY ISLAND

DIRECTOR: JEFF WADLOW | SCREENPLAY: JEFF WADLOW, CHRIS ROACH, JILLIAN JACOBS | STARRING: MICHAEL PEÑA, MAGGIE Q, LUCY HALE, RYAN HANSEN, MICHAEL ROOKER | RELEASE DATE: JUNE 1ST

Director Jeff Wadlow’s adaptation of the ’70s television series, Fantasy Island, for Blumhouse Productions, is just one of many feature film versions of fondly-remembered small screen entertainment. While most big-screen takes on television series go for a comedic or ironic touch – The Brady Bunch Movie, Charlie’s Angels, 21 Jump Street, et al – or straightforward take – The Addams Family, Star Trek, Maverick, and so on – it’s rare to see a darker take on the original iteration.

Thus, Fantasy Island‘s dark and twisted Twilight Zone-esque interpretation of the 1977 Ricardo Montalbán and Hervé Villechaize-starring drama is a rather unique film, in theory. While we’ve seen so many dark-and-gritty reboots on TV, it’s certainly an intriguing proposition to take a four-decade-old property and turn it into something creepy for the big screen.

Despite all this hullabaloo, the picture is basically fine. It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly nowhere near as interesting as the premise makes it out to be. First and foremost, with the exception of Maggie Q’s Gwen Olsen, none of the characters exists as anything but broad sketches. Props to giving the film Jimmy O. Yang as Brax Weaver, an Asian character who is also gay, and also treating his desires and fantasies with just as much validity as those of his brother, J.D. (Hansen), but given that Hansen is essentially playing his Dick Casablancas character from Veronica Mars, that’s not much of a grand stroke for LGBTQ rights.

Overall, Fantasy Island plays out like an overlong version of a television pilot. It’s definitely a quarter of an hour minutes too long, with far more time given to most of the various characters’ fantasies than is resolutely necessary for the film as a whole, but not nearly enough time for anyone watching it to really care about anyone, outside of the J.D. and Brax or Gwen storylines. The Patrick Sullivan (Stowell) fantasy of being a soldier is particularly trite, and the story of Melanie Stole (Hale) is such a mess that the various red herrings only serve to make the ending an absolute wreck.

The less said of the magical stone at the root of everything, the better. While the film certainly manages to entertain, with some effective action sequences, Fantasy Island is just too bloated and circumscribed to ever land within the realm of creepy or hilarious. At best, it’s a diverting Cabin in the Woods knock-off, and at worst, it’s the horror version of Starsky & Hutch – a ’70s adaptation no one asked for, and no one wanted.

MORTAL KOMBAT LEGENDS: SCORPION’S REVENGE

MORTAL KOMBAT LEGENDS: SCORPION’S REVENGE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ETHAN SPAULDING / SCREENPLAY: JEREMY ADAMS / STARRING: PATRICK SEITZ, STEVE BLUM, JENNIFER CARPENTER, DARIN DE PAUL, JOEL MCHALE / RELEASE DATE: APRIL 27TH

While movies, webseries, comics, and a whole host of video games have been present and accounted for in the subsequent years, it’s a little crazy to think that we’ve not had any form of animated Mortal Kombat offering since 1996. Now though, Warner Bros. has moved to rectify that with the hotly anticipated Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge. Is this animated return for the franchise a welcome one, or is this picture as welcoming as a hug from the multi-armed mega-bastard Goro? Let’s find out.

Starting things off with a bang, Scorpion’s Revenge opens with personal tragedy hitting Hanzo Hasashi (Seitz). Having been ambushed in gloriously clinical fashion by the Lin Kuei clan, Hasashi is chillingly killed at the hands of Sub-Zero (Blum). Fear not, though, for death isn’t exactly a permanent arrangement here, and instead Hasashi finds himself resurrected in the murky depths of the Netherrealm. After that, revenge is on his mind – which means entering a big ol’ fighting tournament and taking on the moniker of Scorpion, with Sub-Zero in his crosshairs.

From the moment Daffy Duck is brutalised during the usual Warner Bros. Animation logo, you know you’re in for something a little different here. And different, Scorpion’s Revenge most certainly is. This is a movie that is as intense and inventive with its violence and bloodshed as anything we’ve seen in recent memory. As in, so much of what we see in this film just would not be possible to achieve in a live-action setting. But then that’s kind of always been Mortal Kombat’s M.O. going back to the early days of that first 1992 video game – that this was a franchise that looked to set itself apart from its rivals by its sheer gore and extremism. While Street Fighter II was busy serving up Hadoukens, Mortal Kombat was about pulling an opponent’s spinal column out of their body. And that spirit and the fantasy landscape of this long-established series is fully championed in Scorpion’s Revenge.

For those long-time Mortal Kombat fans who were fearing that this tale may merely be all about Scorpion and, to a lesser extent, Sub-Zero, there’s nothing to worry about here. While Hanzo Hasashi is the anchor of the film, so many other franchise favourites – such as Jennifer Carpenter’s Sonya Blade, Jordan Rodrigues’ Liu Kang, Joel McHale’s Johnny Cage, and Dave B. Mitchell’s Raiden – are included and utilised brilliantly in a way that feels oddly natural for the property. After all, the more recent Mortal Kombat games have long since left behind any real tether to realism and logic, with the series instead one of fantasy, magic, and otherworldly shenanigans.

Scorpion’s Revenge is everything that a Mortal Kombat fan would want from an animated feature. Brimming with jaw-dropping brutality, the slickest of slick stunning animation, a solid and engaging driving narrative, a brisk 80-minute runtime, and a smidge of knowing cheese and camp, this truly feels like the Mortal Kombat movie that people have for so long been clamouring for.

THE ONANIA CLUB

THE ONANIA CLUB / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: TOM SIX / STARRING: JESSICA MORRIS, FLO LAWRENCE, DARCY DEMOS, DEBORAH TWISS, KAREN STRASSMAN, AD VAN KEMPEN, JOHN T. WOODS / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Finding pleasure in others’ suffering isn’t something we see much of publically – particularly at the moment as the world has been suffering in the wake of a pandemic – but it’s just that sort of taboo that writer/director Tom Six relishes. The creator of one of the biggest cause célèbre franchises in recent history, The Human Centipede, revels in shock and thrives on controversy so it’s no surprise that his latest opus, The Onania Club delivers those aspects in spades. Surprisingly, though, there’s also an engaging story being told in between the outrageousness.

A while back, Hanna (Morris) noticed something strange about herself. Her care and attention to her husband, suffering from MS, has disappeared. Instead, she has a tingle of pleasure at his discomfort; his struggling; his pain. Things have come to a head and she is seeking forgiveness of a priest (Kempen). During her confessional, she recounts her sordid entry into a group of middle-aged women (played by various actors from cult films) who call themselves the Onania Club. They spend their meetings relishing the badness and the suffering in the world, while pleasuring themselves. Hanna seems to have found people who understand her bizarre peccadillo.

When the teaser trailers for The Onania Club appeared well over a year ago, there was genuine outrage from many quarters and many people have made their mind up about the movie long before they will get the chance to see it. They’ll be surprised, then, to find that the film has many layers and while certainly shocking and unquestionably tasteless, it’s actually a remarkable piece of art, albeit not for everyone.

Presented in black and white, Six (who even manages his own Alfred Hitchcock-type cameo) treats his story as a neo-noir – complete with a gorgeous jazz score – unpicking pieces of Hanna’s repugnant fantasies and sexual needs. Her, and the other members of the club, obsessions can never really be satiated, they need to always go further. Parallels to paedophile rings are easy to be made, particularly as she has chosen to retreat to a Catholic church to reveal how depraved these meetings have gone. We’ve all been guilty of some measure of schadenfreude in our lives, although hopefully not to the level depicted here, but as we’re bombarded by so much death and evil in the world, at what point do we become desensitised to it all?

The Onania Club is not an easy film to recommend – the real footage, in particular, is hard to stomach – but it’s not one that should be dismissed as, like the director’s other films, its pitch-black humour alone makes it worth your time.

SWEETHEART

As Blumhouse’s Sweetheart, from Sleight director J. D. Dillard comes to our shores, it brings with it a wave of enthusiastic festival responses and some exciting opinions from its showings Stateside. Aquatic horror is already making a strong comeback (after the excellent Underwater and Sea Fever) and in Dillard’s film something terrific this way comes.

After their boat sinks in a fierce storm, Jenn (Kersey Clemons) and her wounded friend Brad (Benedict Samuel) wash up on the shores of a tropical island. As Jenn seeks out the tools to survive, bigger problems lie out at sea, and when night falls something in the ocean continues to come ashore…and it’s hungry.

Sweetheart is a fiercely suspenseful survival tale, which takes its time to develop its lead character, its simple but superb story, and to unveil its water-dwelling menace. If you were to mesh Creature From the Black Lagoon with Predator it gives you an inkling what to expect from this absolute gem, that is a treasure in this genre that we urge you to discover. Dillard’s film is atmospheric in its build up and superbly crafted, but is made even better by the humanity at its heart, emanating from an outstanding lead Kersey Clemons.

As Jenn, Clemons is put through an absolute ordeal but her physical grit-filled performance is one that immediately strikes you. The resilient and resourceful nature of Jenn makes all the difference, as she encounters the unrestrained malevolence of nature and the deepest darkest depths of the sea but makes logical decisions and refreshingly wise ones. As this story progresses at a fantastically methodical pace, like the lapping waves on the shore of this paradise-turned-nightmare, we find more out about Jenn. As her past is hinted at and the story takes on a more personal turn, this is really her moment to finally stand up and fight the darkness that has threatened to takeover her life.

Dillard’s feature has teeth in so many respects but none more so than in how it respects its creature. Sure there are flashes of shock throughout (including one of the best jump scares in recent memory) but this is mostly a film reliant on slow reveals of its original and hugely impressive creature. Behind the masterful (mostly) practical and part CG FX, Andrew Crawford as the creature gives this predator an imposing and spectacular film presence. One that shakes you and compels you in equal measure.

It takes some time for the monsters full and rightfully proud reveal but the first flare-lit night time glimpse of this monster is a chilling piece of horror filmmaking and one of many moments of engrossing cinematography by Stefan Duscio. The island setting is the perfect backdrop, and as the mythos of the creature builds through hints, you feel up to your waist in the film’s atmosphere and the score by Charles Scott IV only assists in this feeling.

Boldly dialogue free for long stretches and all the better for this approach, when a development later on requires more speech, there is admittedly a clunky line or two but Sweetheart never sinks and continues to swim all the way up to its big finale. A finale that does come together that bit quicker, and the part ambiguous finish could have been a touch more dastardly but there is a lingering point here that you make up your own mind on the later events, as Dillard caps his story confidently and powerfully and leaves the rest up to fate and nature.

Sweetheart is an absolute must see. A beautifully shot and made aquatic monster horror that is short yet taut and achieves that ultimate accolade all films of this kind hope for, having a fantastic character facing an amazing monster. A future classic of its kind.

SWEETHEART / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: J. D. DILLARD / SCREENPLAY: J. D. DILLARD, ALEX HYNER, ALEX THEURER / STARRING: KERSEY CLEMONS, ANDREW CRAWFORD, EMORY COHEN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (SKY STORE)

THE ISOLATION HORRORS [Short]

THE ISOLATION HORRORS / DIRECTORS, SCREENPLAY & STARRING: M. W. DANIELS, EMMA DARK, NICOLAI KORNUM, RICHARD MARKWORTH, JOHN WHITAKER / RELEASE DATE: APRIL 24TH (YOUTUBE)

It’s fair to say we’re going through a rough time at the moment. With many people stuck at home, the more creative are finding ways to fill the time. This short anthology uses our understandable fears to muster a selection of brief but entertaining terror-filled tales all shot independently on the phones.

The continuity for the collection is provided by producer Nicolai Kornum’s The Bloody Face Mask, in which Kornum finds the offending item (which contains much more ickiness than just blood) in the street and rings around his friends, concerned for their health. Now, most people wouldn’t pick up such an item let alone bring it home, but let’s not nit-pick. Calling each filmmaker one by one, we’re drawn into their world.

Emma Dark’s Japanese horror-inspired Goryō plays on the cursed video trope and is beautifully shot. Richard Markworth’s contribution Across the Landing takes the form of a patriotic video diary that descends into paranoia and desperation. John Whitaker’s short Anomalous has toilet rolls at its heart; probably something talked about most at the start of the lockdown. Martin Daniels’ Ghosting Isolation covers his natural fear for his father, with Daniels Senior playing the part perfectly.

Each of the entries in this dark but timely portmanteau is crafted well, with some powerful visuals that tap into our anxieties and dread at this unprecedented time. For anyone to turn around such quality under these circumstances is inspiring. It’s even more impressive that it’s a highly entertaining watch.

TROLLS WORLD TOUR

FORMAT: VOD RENTAL | DIRECTOR: WALT DOHRN | SCREENPLAY: JONATHAN AIBEL, GLENN BERGER, ELIZABETH TIPPET, MAYA FORBES, WALLACE WOLODARSKY / STARRING: ANNA KENDRICK, JUSTIN TIMBERLINE, RACHEL BLOOM, JAMES CORDEN, ANDERSON PAAK, RON FUNCHES, KELLY CLARKSON, SAM ROCKWELL | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

It isn’t being too harsh to say that the idea of a sequel to DreamWorks’ all singing all dancing Trolls was not exactly what everyone really really wanted. And yet here we are playing that funky music… and it isn’t bad. The film catches up with the trolls as optimistic Queen Poppy (Kendrick) and her friends find that their world is bigger than they ever thought. Split into different kingdoms, based around genres of music, Poppy realises this once-united world is now divided, as each realm faces the threat of invasion from Queen Barb (Bloom) of the Rock Trolls, who aims to rock them like a hurricane! But is Poppy taking this threat seriously enough?

Trolls World Tour re-covers some old ground (finding love in unexpected places, the power of music comes from within) and some lines of dialogue are seriously creaky, with the odd jokes worthy of an “oh no you didn’t”. However the film successfully widens the onscreen lore of Trolls, incorporating everything from Rock and Classical to Yodelling and K-Pop and everything in-between. Like the LSD-taking lesser cousin of Zootropolis, this one is a rather visually creative crazy train and commendably determined in the pursuit of its message’s good vibrations. World Tour’s message of embracing and celebrating our differences is obvious from the start but that doesn’t make it unimportant. The film says that we all have a heart and the sweet emotion that comes from that heart can unites us: our passions, our interests, our cultures and most crucially our identities because if we are all forced to be the same, how can we come together and harmonise?

It’s an inoffensive film and a few adults may get a kick out of the film’s ‘pop ruins everything’ sly gag. Not to sound toxic here but by the end you have had your fill of glittery relentless cheer but it keeps you watching, if for no other reason than its wild animation. The visuals are amplified by 11 from the first movie. Constantly crazy and assuredly colourful, although adults be warned: do not watch this film after partaking in lots of alcohol (or any substance – tsk tsk) because hells bells this is seriously trippy stuff, man! A glitter troll giving birth from his head, live-action newspaper clippings, intoxicated Jazz fever dreams… it’s madness.

For a film about music, some of its soundtrack is fleeting and while there are tunes here to get your toe-tapping and a few twists on classic earworms, there is not a bunch of new tracks that will rule the world. Probably won’t stop some youngsters feeling happy though.

While there are fun characters, aside from Anna Kendrick’s Poppy and Timberlake’s Branch, we can’t say that you’ll come away remembering your Biggie from your Delta Dawn but Ozzy Osbourne’s delightful self-deprecating rock bad guy dad King Thrash certainly stands out, as do some other star voices like Sam Rockwell and Jamie Dornan.

Trolls World Tour won’t win over many who are set to avoid it like the plague but in these trying times, the kids might get a kick out of this visual feast which celebrates our differences and promotes a crazy little thing called love at a point when many folks just might need a positive boost.

SYNCHRONIC [FrightFest Glasgow 2020]

SYNCHRONIC / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JUSTIN BENSON, AARON MOORHEAD / SCREENPLAY: JUSTIN BENSON / STARRING: ANTHONY MACKIE, JAMIE DORNAN, KATIE ASELTON, ALLY IOANNIDES / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Steve and Dennis, a pair of New Orleans paramedics, encounter a series of bizarre deaths involving people dying from injuries seemingly impossible for them to have sustained, all somehow linked to a new designer drug. They soon find themselves pulled into a surreal underground of altered perception, which begins an inexorable encroachment on everyday reality.

Like director duo Jason Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s previous work with Spring and The Endless, Synchronic is certainly a genre movie, but one difficult to classify simply. To attempt to do so would be something of a spoiler and ruin much of the film’s early mystery, and would also oversimplify its setup to the point of doing it a disservice. As with the pair’s other work, this is a very human tale of people who happen to get caught up in cosmic events beyond their comprehension that they are pulled into and must learn to navigate if they want to make it out the other side.

The film opens with some beautifully shot but contextually baffling scenes that take some time to take on any narrative relevance, but once they do they become an intrinsic aspect of the tapestry of chaos being woven on the streets of the ancient city.

The story largely focuses on Steve as the hectic challenges of his job make way for the surreal madness that awaits him. Terminally ill, he sleepwalks through an empty existence of anonymous sex and recreational drug use in an attempt to fill the empty black pit in the depths of his soul wherein used to reside hope for the future and the will to carry on. He gradually uncovers the mystery of the titular narcotic and how it’s connected to the disappearance of Dennis’ teenage daughter, and with his illness leaving him uniquely attuned to the drug’s capabilities that other matured minds are denied (in the process tacitly referencing Stuart Gordon’s sophomore Lovecraft take From Beyond), he decides that her rescue might be perhaps the one thing he can do that will allow his truncated life to take on some meaning.

His partner Dennis, proving that Jamie Dornan is actually capable of expressing recognisable human emotion when the material actually allows him to do so, provides a more functional perspective on life, the family struggles he undergoes being painfully relatable and refreshingly banal. Some humour interspersed between the tales of human strife and confusion – a running joke about their terrible ambulance driver being a highlight – alleviates the emotional turmoil the characters and the audience are otherwise perpetually subjected to.

Meditating on mortality, the passage of time and the cycle of life, Synchronic is a deep and meaningful experience that requires some thought to fully absorb the significance of. The message at its heart suggests that life is to be cherished as you can never be certain how much of it you will have. Even in the face of the infinite complexities of the universe, simple humanity is a gift not to be squandered, and the connections we make with one another leave a mark on the world long after we have left it.

DEATH OF A VLOGGER [FrightFest Glasgow 2020]

DEATH OF A VLOGGER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: GRAHAM HUGHES / STARRING: GRAHAM HUGHES, ANNABEL LOGAN, PADDY KONDRACKI, JOMA WEST, STEPHEN BEAVIS / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Vlogger Graham is desperate to achieve Internet fame, but gets more than he bargained for when some minor but apparently genuine poltergeist action is accidentally caught on an unrelated video. As he is catapulted into notoriety, the ensuing investigation into what’s going on soon spirals out of anybody’s ability to control, while a documentary pieces together what happened after the fact.

Sometimes when a film is made with limited resources you need to be forgiving of the associated production restrictions, which can often leave a lot to be desired regardless of the enthusiasm with which the film was made. But despite Death of a Vlogger being such a creation, such considerations aren’t required to be able to appreciate it. Not only are an assortment of flashy effects unnecessary for its compellingly simple story, had they been included they would have proved an unwelcome distraction.

Told in visual epistolary, the unusual structure takes a little while to properly establish itself, but once it does it becomes an integral aspect of what makes the film so memorable. Everything the viewer sees is presented as a recording, be it one of Graham’s videos, talking head interviewees discussing the escalating situation, recordings of meetings between various people both open and clandestine, and other online denizens offering their opinion on developing revelations.

The lo-fi ghost house antics really shouldn’t work in any kind of eerie capacity, but with the film presenting itself as straightforward reality, the viewer is able to accept any apparent supernatural activity as having no other explanation. Familiar horror movie shots abound throughout, but are crafted in such a manner that they are still disquieting, the proxy fear invoked through the lens of the host seeping through to infect the viewer with its insidious contagion. Even moments leading to a telegraphed jump scare manage to remain unsettling, since it’s not entirely clear at what point it will be thrown at you.

There is an ongoing ambiguity over whether or not the events are real or being faked, and in the proxy discussion the film also touches upon just how much it would mean to some people if concrete proof of life after death were discovered.

As the scale of the happenings begin to escalate you become genuinely concerned for Graham’s ultimate safety. It’s partly due to his lack of inclusion in any of the documentary segments, which makes you consider the decidedly finite number of possibilities that could account for his absence, and also on account of the film’s very title and the lack of available ambiguity in its interpretation.

Death of a Vlogger is a sinister and compelling tale of how perception affects the nature of an observed reality, and an example of just how gripping a moviegoing experience can be crafted out of a simple idea with enough creativity and imagination.