Cast: Luke Hobson, Georgie Smibert, Chris Kaye, Bryn Hodgen, Nicholas Chambers, Susan Lee Burton, Neil Summerville, Eve Kathryn Oliver, Rudy Barrow and Richard Summers-Calvert
Cast: Ed Westwick, Tom Wisdom, Pawel Delag, Gary Grant, Daniel Jillings, Scott Haining, Vladmimir Epifantsev, Kirill Plentnyov with Corey Johnson and John Hannah
Corey Johnson: Radioactive, Devs (TV), A Private War, Hunter Killer, The Titan, Blood Moon, Kingsman – The Secret Service, Captain Phillips, How I Live Now, Pimp, The Fourth Kind, Black Gold, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Legacy, Universal Soldier 3 – Regeneration
John Hannah:Genesis, Overboard (2018), Agents of SHIELD (TV), The Marker, Another Mother’s Son, Alleycats, Shooting For Socrates, Angel (2015), The Christmas Candle, The Wee Man, The Mummy 3 – The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Before You Go, Rebus (TV), The Mummy 2 – The Mummy Returns, The Last Legion, Circus, The Hurricane, McCallum (TV), Resurrection Man, Sliding Doors, The Mummy, The James Gang, The Innocent Sleep, Madagascar Skin, Four Weddings and a Funeral
Cast: Antonio Aakeel, Jack Carroll, Asim Chaudhry, Nitin Ganatra, Vicki Pepperdine, Kevin Eldon, Sarah Hoare, Darshan Jariwala, Stephanie Fayerman, Hayley Tamaddon, Natalie Davies with Tom Binns and Johnny Vegas
Asim Chaudhry: Black Mirror – Bandersnatch, People Just Do Nothing (TV), Happy New Year Colin Burstead, Chubby Funny, Hoff The Record (TV)
Nitin Ganatra: Hellboy (2019), Eastenders (TV), Shifty, The Mistress of the Spices, Bride & Prejudice, Picaddilly Jim, Holby City (TV), Pure, Shooters, Guru in Seven
Vicki Pepperdine:Johnny English 3 – Strikes Again, The Windsors (TV), Goodbye Christopher Robin, A Young Doctor’s Notebook & Other Stories (TV)
Hayley Tamaddon: Coronation Street (TV), Emmerdale (TV)
Natalie Davies: Coronation Street (TV), Doctors (TV)
Tom Binns: The IT Crowd (TV), Fist of Fun (TV)
Johnny Vegas: The Wombles, Good Omens (TV), Tulip Fever, We Still Open All Hours (TV), Early Man (voice), Red Dwarf (TV), Benidorm (TV), Moone Boy (TV), Grimsby,The Harry Hill Movie (voice), Ideal (TV), Bleak House (TV), The Libertine, Sex Lives of The Potato Men, Blackball
Dominic Cooper: Mamma Mia 2 – Here We Go Again, Preacher (TV), Stratton, Warcraft, Agent Carter (TV), The Lady In The Van, Miss You Already, Agents of SHIELD (TV), Dracula Untold, Need For Speed, Fleming (TV), Summer In February, My Week With Marilyn, Abraham Lincoln – Vampire Slayer, The Devil’s Double, Captain America, Tamara Drewe, An Education, The Duchess, Mamma Mia!, The Escapist, The History Boys, Starter For 10
Jalil Lespert: Tell No One
Frances Barber: Trick or Treat, Blue Iguana, The Bookshop, Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool, Mr Holmes, Silk (TV), May I Kill U?, We’ll Take Manhattan, Doctor Who (TV), Goal 2, Goal, Suzie Gold, Shiner, Photographing Fairies, Soft Top Hard Shoulder, Secret Friends, Young Soul Rebels, We Think The World Of You, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Prick Up Your Ears, A Zed and Two Noughts, White City
Marthe Keller: After Love, Hereafter, Bobby Deerfield, Marathon Man
At last, a film for the older filmmaker with a little bit of an edge. The only thing that dulls the impact of this thoughtfull and beguilingly complex little winner is a bombastic soundtrack that tries to tell you how to emote and when… It seems to shout, “Be happy now!” or “Be sad now!” Admittedly, that’s a strange aspect to single out but it frustates and almost strangles the life out of a film which is about a person looking for an escape from everything. If only we’d been allowed to hear the sounds of the Scottish Highlands instead of being bashed over the head by with a biscuit tin lid.
Edie (SHEILA HANCOCK – CARRY ON CLEO) is a widower who aims to put some very personal ghosts to rest by climbing Mount Suilven. On arriving in Lochinver she encounters the doltish yet obliging Jonny (KEVIN GUTHRIE – FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM) who helps and hinders her by training her up in bush crafts and basic survival and camping skills. They bond and fall out over the course of the 90 minute running time, as well as scaling some hard to face personal truths and one hard bastard of a mountain to climb.
Sheila Hancock was in her early 80s when she scaled Suilven for her part as Edie. This in itself is an astonishing accomplishment and it’s her performance that bolsters the strange power this film has. Putting in a career best performance, what could easily have been ‘Climbing Miss Daisy’ is instead a deep tale of redemption, and earning self-respect in the face of adverse opposition and loneliness. Kevin Guthrie fails to match her in a role which is a cipher and little else. It’s disappointing that he’s been given such a slight role that makes him come across as sexist and spoilt. He’s also meant to be tortured and soulful, but instead we see him put in the shade by his more successful girlfriend and getting sour grapes There’s some light comedy to be had as well, but it’s of the basic ‘fish-out-water’ sort. However, once Edie has gotten all the cliches and prattish gags out of its system it gets to the flex its dramatic muscles and in Hancock, this film has a massive asset. This leaves films like Hampstead and the Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in the dust, as it’s emotions are real and it’s plot convincing. Well-worth seeking out.
6 out of 10 – Splendid actor from TV veteran Sheila Hancock, this is the best ‘grey-pound’ grabber in a long time. Stunning cinematography and a career best performance elavate standard materials.
WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?
Sheila Hancock: New Tricks (TV), The Boy In Striped Pyjamas, Yes, Love & Death on long Island, A Business Affair, 3 Men and a Little Lady, Doctor Who (TV), Buster, The Wildcats of St Trinians, Carry On Cleo
Director: Nick Park (A Matter of Loaf and Death / The Curse of the Were-Rabbit / Chicken Run / A Close Shave / The Wrong Trousers / A Grand Day Out)
Voice cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Miriam Margoyles, Nick Park, Johnny Vegas, Mark Williams, Gina Yashere, Kayvan Novak, Simon Greenall, Selina Griffiths, Luke Walton with Richard Ayoade and Rob Brydon
Writer: Mark Burton, James Higginson and Nick Park
How do you review a film that is work of art as entertainment? The sheer craftsmanship, skill and detail that the makers have applied to Early Man is staggering. I confess that I don’t closely follow developments at Aardman Film Studios like a diligent fan but I am always in awe of their work. Claymation as its called is an amazing form of animation giving the illusion of life and character to characters and objects made purely from plasticine. I grew up watching and loving Morph & Chas fight on Take Hart, and I still get a kick out of the sheer invention. That Nick Park and his merry band of artists now have been enjoying budgets large enough to spin their craft into feature length cinema films has long been a cause for celebration. So here we are with Nick Park’s first film as director since the short A Matter of Loaf and Death and his first feature since Curse of the Were Rabbit! Is it any cop? I’d say so!
Early Man begins with a bunch of cavemen accidentally inventing the game of football by kicking around a bit of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs! (guffaw)! Forward wind a few ages to just the Bronze Age to find that IQ levels haven’t gone up all that much. The film centres around one of the last caveman tribes, who live in a deep forested crater. One day a Bronze Age tribe come and kick them out in order to harvest the area for ore – “Or what?” To get the land back, cheerful caveman Dug (EDDIE REDMAYNE – LIKE MINDS) challenges the leader, the ridiculous French oaf, Nooth (TOM HIDDLESTON – THOR), to a football game. If they lose they will volunteer to go into enslavement down his mines? So far so unimaginative for the plot but that’s not why we love Aardman is it? The joy is found in the wordplay, the visual gags and the dopey, loveable cast voice by a great cast – so recognisable like Johnny Vegas (IDEAL), Timothy Spall (VANILLA SKY) and Mark Williams (THE FAST SHOW), whilst others put on hilariously daft voices like Rob Brydon (GAVIN & STACEY), Redmayne and Hiddleston to fun effect. So whilst the story can be waved off as a distraction that barely needs any attention, enjoy the stupidity on offer like the hilarious message bird, the dog-matic hog, a goofy rabbit, a fearsome duck and other great additions.
7 out of 10 – A real hoot for fans of Aardman. Family entertainment which makes an effort to effortlessly include the young, old and jaded. Great fun!
Tom Hiddleston: Avengers 4 – Endgame, Avengers 3 – Infinity War, Thor 3 – Ragnarok, Kong – Skull Island, I See The Light, High-Rise, Crimson Peak, Exhibition, Muppets Most Wanted, Only Lovers Left Alive, Thor 2 – The Dark World, Avengers Assemble, The Deep Blue Sea (2011), War Horse, Midnight In Paris, Thor, Archipelago, Unrelated
Maisie Williams: X-Men – The New Mutants, Mary Shelley, iBoy, Dr Who (TV), Game of Thrones (TV), The Falling, Gold
Timothy Spall: Mrs Lowry & Son, The Corrupted, Stanley – A Man of Variety, Hatton Garden (TV), Finding Your Feet, Electric Dreams (TV), The Party,The Journey,Denial, Alice In Wonderland 2 – Through the Looking Glass (voice), Away, Mr Turner, The Love Punch, The Rise, Love Bite, Comes a Bright Day,Ginger and Rosa, The King’s Speech, Harry Potter – parts 3 – 8, Wake Wood, Reuniting The Rubins, Heartless, Alice In Wonderland (2011) (voice), Apaloosa, The Damned Utd, Sweeney Todd, Pierrepoint, Lemony Snickets Series of Unfortunate Events, The Last Samurai, Nicholas Nickleby (2002), All Or Nothing, Vanilla Sky, Rock Star, Lucky Break, Chicken Run (voice), Loves Labours Lost, Topsy Turvy, Still Crazy, Wisdom Of Crocodiles, Hamlet (1996), Secrets & Lies, Life Is Sweet, The Sheltering Sky, White Hunter Black Heart, To Kill a Priest, The Missionary, Auf Wierdesen Pet (TV), Quadrophenia
Miriam Margoyles: The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Wedding Video, Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows – part 2, How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, Happy Feet (voice), Flushed Away (voice),Harry Potter and The Chamber Of Secrets, Being Julia, Ladies In Lavender, The Life and Death Of Peter Sellers, Cats & Dogs, House! (2000), Magnolia, Babe 2 (voice), End Of Days, Mulan (voice), Romeo + Juliet (1996), James & The Giant Peach, Babe – The Sheep Pig (voice), Different For Girls, Balto (voice), Immortal Beloved, The Age Of Innocence, As You Like It (1992), The Butcher’s Wife, I Love You To Death, Morons From Outer Space, Yentl
Nick Park: A Matter of Loaf and Death (short)(dir), The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (dir), Chicken Run (dir), A Close Shave (short)(dir), The Wrong Trousers (short)(dir), A Grand Day Out (short)(dir)
Johnny Vegas: The Wombles, Good Omens (TV), Eaten by Lions,Tulip Fever, Home from Home (TV), We Still Open All Hours (TV), Benidorm (TV), Moone Boy (TV), Grimsby,The Harry Hill Movie (voice), Ideal (TV), Bleak House (TV), The Libertine, Sex Lives of The Potato Men, Blackball
Mark Williams: Father Brown (TV), Golden Years, Flutter, Albert Nobbs, Harry Potter 8 – The Deathly Hallows 2, Harry Potter 7 – The Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter 6 – The Half-Blood Prince, Stardust, Harry Potter 5 – The Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter 4 – The Goblet of Fire, A Cock and Bull Story, Harry Potter 3 – The Prisoner of Azkhaban, Agent Cody Banks 2 – Destination London, Anita & Me, Harry Potter 2 – The Chamber of Secrets, High Heels and Low Lifes, The Fast Show (TV), Whatever to Happened To Harold Smith?, Shakespeare In Love, The Borrowers, 101 Dalmatians, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer (TV), Alexei Sayle’s Stuff (TV), Red Dwarf (TV)
Kayvan Novak: The Day Shall Come, Men in Black 4 – International, What We Do In The Shadows (TV), Thunderbirds (TV) (voice), Danger Mouse (voice) (TV), Prevenge, Paddington, Sun Trap (TV), Cuban Fury, Four Lions, Facejacker (TV), Fonejacker (TV)
Richard Ayoade: The Souvenir 2, The Souvenir, Paddington 2, Danger Mouse (voice), The Double (dir), The IT Crowd (TV), The Watch, Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy (TV), Submarine (dir), Bunny and The Bull, The Mighty Boosh (TV), Nathan Barley (TV), Garth Merenghi’s Dark Place (TV), Festival
Rob Brydon: Gavin & Stacey (TV), Blinded by the Light, Holmes & Watson, Swimming With Men, The Trip To Spain (TV), The Huntsman – Winter’s War, Cinderella (2015), The Trip To Italy (TV), The Trip (TV), Little Britain (TV), A Cock & Bull Story, Mirrormask, Marion & Geoff (TV), 24 Hour Party People, Cold Lazarus (TV)
Cast: Jack Lowden, Jessica Brown-Findlay, Simone Kirby, Adam Lawrence, Jodie Comer, Vivienne Bell, Graeme Hawley, Laurie Kynaston with Katherine Pearce and Peter McDonald
Peter McDonald: Moone Boy (TV), The Stag, Wreckers, Titanic (TV), The Damned United, When Brendan Met Trudy, Festival, Some Voices, Nora, Felicia’s Journey, I Went Down
I watched some terrible films in 2017 but EXORCISM is so irredeemably poor that I genuinely believed it was possibly a prank made at my expense, a fake film devised purely to fool me into despairing at how bad films could be.
Sadly, it appears it is a real film.
The story is simple: a film crew (including an obligatory irritating bloke filming behind-the-scenes stuff) (yes, it’s a found-footage film – how original) mess about at a pre-shoot party in a tiny flat then head off in a Scooby van to a haunted house to film an exorcism scene for their THE EXORCIST rip-off. But the house was once the site of a real exorcism, and the restless spirits are still restless and everyone ends up possessed, murdered, suicidal or mad, and there are a plethora of poorly mounted death scenes of comical amateurishness.
Not an original or particularly promising set-up, but not necessarily one automatically doomed to failure. Unfortunately EXORCISM is blighted by an absence of talent, money and ambition rarely seen even in the films of Steven M Smith. How to adequately convey the sheer awfulness of this enterprise? This is a film which makes fun of bad actors by getting bad actors to play bad actors. People stand around possessed by the devil for five minutes without anyone noticing. Someone spends more time complaining about a weird sound than dealing with someone who’s just cut her wrists. This is a film where a bad actor playing a bad actor playing a (probably bad) priest can (almost successfully) carry out an actual exorcism.
The film is directed by Lance Patrick who appears to believe people running for their lives will remember to carry a film camera about with them. Mr Patrick also has the original notion that turning the sound off at random points will somehow enhance the experience and not in any way irritate viewers who may be wondering if there’s something wrong with the telly.
There is nothing in EXORCISM for either general viewer or horror fan. And there is nothing for industry talent-spotters or potential investors. It’s a talent-free cavalcade of ineptitude. One further example may suffice. The bad actor playing the bad actor playing the priest has an important role, yet the film has been running well over twenty minutes before the viewer even notices him. Honestly, he’s suddenly there in the haunted house and I found myself thinking ‘Who he? Was he in the Scooby van? Or at the party?’ Did the film-makers edit him out until they had no choice but to include him? The film pays much more attention to people who aren’t part of the haunted house team (like the topless lady and the two ladies who become intimately acquainted, all of whom are just glorified extras but who, for reasons I cannot fathom at all, pique the director’s interest*.) He’s not the only bad actor. The chap playing the director is appallingly wooden, and the woman playing the make-up artist looks like she’s trying really hard not to laugh. Her death scene is a textbook example of how not to do death scenes. She clearly doesn’t trust the prop which administers her demise, the other actors present (if they are indeed actors) are rubbish, the script (if it can be so-named) doesn’t have enough dialogue to cover the action, and the pacing is so poor that they really could have got the scissors away from her if they’d wanted to.
The nearest thing we get to a half-decent actor is Aisling Knight as the film-within-the-film’s leading lady, who plays a woman possessed by the devil, and who, by an astonishingly unlucky and ironic twist of fate, ends up possessed by the devil in ‘real’ life. Knight convinces as the actress, and is convincing enough as the demon, despite her dialogue being lifted wholesale from a famous film about an exorcist**. But the later portion of the film has her running about, filming herself (despite being in mortal peril), and the film’s scrutiny reveals her weakness: after ten minutes she ends up resembling a nervous dormouse. This is unfair as it’s the director who’s at fault here, and Ms Knight towers over the rest of the cast, though that isn’t difficult.
And then there are the captions which the film uses to explain what happens in gaps in the narrative (remember this is a found-footage film). Unfortunately they are the worst captions I have ever seen. I didn’t mind too much that sometimes the beginnings and ends of sentences didn’t always fit on screen. And stuff like ‘Ten minutes later’ is quite handy. But as the film progresses they’re used more and more frequently, and, instead of coming across as urgent reports from a mysterious-found-footage-finding authority, they resemble captions for 1920s silent comedies. And sometimes the proof-reading could’ve been better. And the grammar. And punctuation.
If you want to enjoy a bad film my recommendation from 2017 is KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED. If you really have to subject yourself to the worst that is being produced, then I would suggest THE DOLL MASTER, which really should be in the running for the Worst Film I’ve Seen In 2017 Award. But that award goes instead to the mind-bogglingly eyeball-shreddingly pathetic EXORCISM. Time and again you stare at the screen wondering how anyone could have thought that any of these scenes – nay, any of these individual shots – could possibly have been deemed suitable for human consumption. At least KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED and THE DOLL MASTER had some sort of visible (if unrealised) intention behind them. But EXORCISM? Who is it for? Why does it exist? It can’t be to make money or satisfy even the most self-satisfied nincompoop’s vanity, and no-one will ever mistake it for an object of any artistic merit. I’m unreliably advised that the producer’s follow-up DARKNESS WAKES is superior – maybe relinquishing the director’s chair is one of the positives Mr Patrick has taken away from this unholy mess.
RISE OF THE ZOMBIE HOOLIGAN FILMS 