Highlights from Brooklyn Film Festival
by Eric M. McClanahan
The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival celebrated its eighth annual outing from October 17th to the 24th, with premieres, legacy screenings, and filmmaker Q&As aplenty. Showcasing the finest genre films from around the world, the festival always has something for horror hounds, thriller enthusiasts, and film lovers. We were able to screen four films from the large catalog.
House of Ashes (pictured above)
There’s a better film within this film, which falls short I think only in terms of budgetary constraints and a few performance missteps. The movie has garnered the support of some horror legends, and the story is as timely as it is timeless. Like the witch trials of colonial America, our protagonist is persecuted for the crime of being female in a land governed and policed by men.
Izzy Lee breaks up the monotony of the house arrest with some fun camera angles and tricks, but ultimately the restraints make the film feel smaller than the conversations it should generate.
Psychonaunt
Written and directed by Thijs Meuwese, the film stars Julie Batelaan, Fiona Dourif, and Yasmine Blake. Imagine running through memories, a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while being pursued by a manifestation of the injury that endangered you. While not a traditional horror film, and very little in the way of gore or terror, this thriller is revealed as a tender examination of the moments that make us unique to ourselves.
The Last Sacrifice
It also inadvertently spawned the genre of “folk horror,” exemplified by such films as The Wicker Man, Midsommar, Mandy, and Men. Cobbled together from newsreels, historical footage, old films, and tabloid headlines, the movie highlights this startling true story, its effect on popular culture, and even ends with a curious connection to the Teletubbies… likely the scariest element of all.
Black-Eyed Susan
Shot on 16mm with a score by Fabio Frizzi, Black-Eyed Susan tells the story of down-on-his-luck Derek who runs into an old friend who offers him a job testing the latest state-of-the-art sex doll, which bleeds, bruises, and uses adaptive AI to provoke or titillate its user, named Susan.
This film is meant to shock, from the fact that star Yvonne Emilie Thälker is nude for the entire run time to the pornographic dialogue that they utter deadpan throughout, and while it is shocking, I think the film suffers from trying to do too much. It says surprisingly little about domestic violence, and a tonal shift toward the middle of the film seems to humanize the Susan character and focus more on the adaptive AI than the shocking subject matter. When it course-corrects in its third act, it does so with such a wild swing that one ends up more confused than confronted, and the difficult conversations give way to disappointment.
Keep your eyes out for these films as they seek distribution and entry into your homes. We always welcome the opportunity to review selections from this diverse festival and we’ll be sure to share our thoughts with the lineup when it comes back around next year.
Originally published at http://behindtherabbitproductions.wordpress.com on October 30, 2024.
