Barbaric
Opening night film in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, this latest horror is sure to find favor with Kiwi audiences.
Like the recent version Smile shown, there’s still an appetite for the horror genre, and Barbaric arrives on these shores with a lot of buzz, as well as before Halloween.
The film’s synopsis is enough to unsettle the hardest of hearts – a young woman heading to Detroit for a job interview books a rental house. But when she arrives late at night, she discovers that the house is double-booked and that a strange man is already staying there.
International Screen says The Last Horror is an “unnerving horror movie whose biggest shock is its unpredictability”. Challenge accepted.
The newbie
A film about obsession and bizarre impulse, The newbie stars Orphan and First Orphan Murder‘s Isabelle Fuhrman as rookie Alex Dall, who finds extra-curricular interest in the college rowing team.
Driven to succeed, Alex continues to push herself further and further towards the edge of reasonableness.
Director Lauren Hadaway puts forth a stylish brilliance in her debut, but it’s Fuhrman who greatly impresses with a compelling physique throughout and an utterly unnerving ride.
More psychological than fears of jumping, The newbie shows new talent behind the camera – and shows it well.
Vespers
High-concept science fiction is all too common these days.
But Vespers is somewhat different, merging the visuals of a District 9 with a story of survival that shows a society in freefall and those scrambling to live within its limits.
Centered on a 13-year-old girl, Vesper, who struggles to survive with her paralyzed father, this indie sci-fi story has a vein of unpredictability running through its veins.
With the ever-wonderful Eddie Marsan playing a morally corrupt and vicious villain, one-character-driven Vesper shines a light on the post-apocalypse on a shoestring — and does it in a disconcerting way.
To fall
To fall represents Terror Fi Festival’s biggest bet in many ways.
Becky and Hunter are two friends in search of adrenaline. Seeking to push their limits, they climb 2,000 feet to the top of an abandoned radio tower.
But when they get stranded, it’s all about how to survive when help clearly isn’t coming.
Whether The shallows made you afraid of the water and the terrors within, To fall seems likely to prevent anyone from being tempted to scale buildings again. Perhaps dizzying on the big screen, this cinematic bedroom piece seems to be unsettling.
The cabin in the woods
Along with the chance to catch a free one-hour session of genre shorts, the Terror-Fi Festival also has a few retro screenings.
One of those lined up for 2022 is Joss Whedon The cabin in the woodsin which five friends go to a cabin in the woods and “bad things happen”.
It’s been 10 years since that release, and while much of the film’s early days was devoted to its intricacies and mysteries, seeing it again in 2022 with a crowd should prove to be a very high-energy and action-packed game. adrenaline.
The Terror-Fi Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday October 26 in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. To learn more, visit https://terrorfifest.com/#2022
