A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[5 of 13]

A DARK SONG

(July 2016)

"This is a serious undertakin'. It's not fuckin’ astral projection or runes. This is real stuff we’re playin’ with.

“Real angels, real demons.”

Writer/director Liam Gavin’s feature debut, A Dark Song, is a vastly impressive piece that sees Sophia (Dark Touch’s Catherine Walker) hire Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram from TV’s Glue and The Living and the Dead) to help her with a heavy-duty occult ritual.

Isolated along with the pair in a house in the Welsh countryside, we watch as they gradually move through the varying stages of the ritual, moving inexorably towards its culmination.

“Science describes the least of things. The least of what something is.

“Religion, magick… bows to the endless in everything. The mystery.”

This isn’t some Dr. Strange fancy-hand-gestures-with-spinning-CGI-sparklers-as-background magic, mind.

This is the exacting, torturous world of ritual magick we’ve stepped into, where tiny and seemingly innocuous signs are meant to be interpreted as supernatural portents of massive weight and undeniable gravity, manifestations of the divine (or the infernal).

A world where everything comes at a steep price.

And Gavin places us right in the middle of this occult crucible, compelled to watch as Sophia suffers the rite’s rigors, as she burns with the righteous flame of her personal desire.

“This is the price of our rage. Embrace it, don’t fear it. It’s you and it’s me.

“Poor us.”

(A Dark Song OS’ courtesy of comingsoon.net & screenanarchy.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

The Preliminaries

So yeah, you know the drill: another October, another ¡Qué horror! rundown.

I think the most notable thing about this year’s crop is, for the first time in a while, there is no TV entry, which is not to say that there was no good small screen horror in the past 12 months, but rather, that the film entries were simply much more clearly “horror” than the TV Candidates.

Now, while I just did not find the time to give these shows their own Candidate posts (apologies to all involved), I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention them here, so, without further ado, please consider these ¡Qué horror! 2016 Candidates #19 through 21…

LES REVENANTS (THE RETURNED)

Season 2

(October 2015)

There was nearly a 3 year gap (!) between the initial airing of the final episode of Les Revenants’ first season, and the premiere of its second season, and though its sophomore run did answer some of the lingering questions, it also had its own fair share of mysteries and ambiguity, all cloaked in the dreary and somber atmosphere the show has always sported.

And though it did seem to wrap the main narrative up, the second season also left certain questions unanswered. But as to whether there’ll be a third season, that would be anyone’s guess at this point.

Perhaps we need to wait another 3 years to find out…

PENNY DREADFUL

Season 3

(May 2016)

The fact that this third season also wound up being its final one was, perhaps, the biggest surprise for the show’s audience.

It was sad, and certainly sudden, to see that end title card, but those were the narrative choices made, and if the show did have to end, at least it ended on its own terms.

It was also a bummer to have the always welcome Simon Russell Beale downgraded from his Season 2 regular status to two (!) brief appearances.

That loss was partially alleviated with the upgrading of Patti LuPone to regular status, in what was also a cheeky bit of Starbucking.

And then there was Billie Piper, who continued her blazing performance as Lily, giving Eva Green a run for her money.

Sniff.

Penny D, ye shall be missed…

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

Season 1

(June 2016)

“We talked a lot in pre-production about what this was going to be and I was really keen that it wouldn’t be horror. The word we used was eerie.”

It was this quality--summed up by series creator Ashley Pharoah in the above quote--that initially made me waffle on the show’s inclusion here. This wasn’t just “quiet horror” for most of the narrative; more mute or silent horror.

In the end though, the overall tone and mood throughout its half-dozen episodes, the intriguing angles from which the idea of ghosts are approached, plus some key moments where you think, “Oh, well, things will be fine now, won’t they?” when horribly, things don’t turn out fine at all, won the day, and here The Living and the Dead is.

Plus, anything that gets the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser back in the recording studio needs to be celebrated! (Fraser does the vocals on “She Moves Through the Fair” from episode 1, and “The Lover’s Ghost” from the episode 4 end credits.)

Though I’ve no word on the possibility of a second season, this one ends on an incredulous “Well, they can’t leave it like that now, can they?!” note.

“I was thinking a lot about what hauntings actually are. Are they echoes from the past or something else?”

--Ashley Pharoah

(Les Revenants & Penny Dreadful OS’ courtesy of impawards.com; The Living and the Dead DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk.)

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
(Review)

“The germ of the idea that became The Living and The Dead comes from the trauma of having to watch my mother die of cancer. She was diagnosed in December of 2001 and by March 2002 was dead (somewhat perversely she died on Mother's Day). It came completely out of the blue and happened three months after my father died of a heart attack so it was a tough time; not least because for the first couple of months there always seemed hope that she might make a recovery. Specifically, I remember looking at my aunt who was also caring for my mum but looked severely ill as well (she had sciatica—a backbone disorder) and thinking I was the living in the home of the dead.
“In true authorial fashion I immediately thought The Living in The Home of The Dead was a great title for a film and started writing something to try to distract me from the horrific reality of my life at that point. I failed dismally to do this, lacking the concentration and the will, but almost six months after my mum's death, felt it would be a good thing to focus on and so tried writing it again. As it was, it still took me four months to complete the first draft which is way longer than anything else I've ever written, but by the end of December, I at least had a script.”
-- Simon Rumley

Donald (Roger Lloyd-Pack, who played Barty Crouch in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) is actually the Lord Brocklebank, aristocracy who’s hit upon some hard times. He lives in the massive and rambling Longleigh House on the family estate with his ill, bedridden wife Nancy (Kate Fahy) and his mentally challenged son James (Leo Bill, Pvt. Jones from 28 Days Later).
Their filial routine is one of pills and injections, as Donald tries to keep from having to sell the manor, while James constantly tries to prove himself trustworthy and capable. Things go from bad to worse though when Donald needs to take a business trip, and leaves before Nurse Mary (Sarah Ball) arrives to take over.
What follows is a harrowing cinematic experience as James settles into his self-appointed role of Man of the House, while his da is away.

Now, while that set-up makes no mention whatever of psycho slashers or vengeful contortionist ghosts, make no mistake, Simon Rumley’s The Living and The Dead is a horror movie (or at the very least, can certainly be taken as one). It just trades in the gore and the modern-day curses for the all-too real terrors of mental and physical infirmity.
It’s an 83-minute immersion into a world where the burden of caregiver is a crushing, overwhelming weight, made all the more considerable in light of Donald’s sense of pride and denial regarding his situation. Entombed in a vast, empty manor, with sheeted furniture and peeling wallpaper, the only link to the outside world, a ratty old rotary telephone, Donald goes about the day-to-day with a stoic manner that seems to be oblivious to the fact that this is an accident just waiting to happen.
And when things go wrong in this film, they just go horribly, horribly awry.

With an 18-day shooting schedule, and a weighty script that rests firmly on the shoulders of three principals, who take up some 90% of the film’s screen time, skilled and able thespians are required for the heavy lifting, and thankfully, Lloyd-Pack, Fahy, and Bill are more than up to the task.
And while Bill is undoubtedly the actor most lauded in this production, given his portrayal of the troubled James, Lloyd-Pack‘s and Fahy‘s contributions are no less significant, and just as agonizing to view.
They are the three citizens of this tortured kingdom, the audience’s companions in a land where all will end in betrayal, where nothing can be trusted or depended upon, not even your body or your mind.

If it hasn’t already become painfully obvious, The Living and The Dead is not an easy film to watch. It’s disquieting and uncomfortable, two of the things horror is supposed to be.
I could say that cinematographer Milton Kam makes the most of the single location, heightening the sense of emptiness and abandonment with just the right angles and framing. I could say that Benjamin Putland‘s editing also heightens the pervasive sense of sanity trickling away from all involved in this domestic tableau gone to hell. I could also say that writer/director Rumley has crafted a powerful tale of tragedy and madness, and is definitely a name to watch for in the future.
I could say all of that, and I wouldn’t be lying.

But I’d need to say this too, if only to make it clear just what you’re about to get into, if you do decide to brave this one.
If The Living and The Dead is to be taken as a horror movie, it’s certainly not an entertaining horror movie (and there are those, even when they have substantial and significant subtext in the midst of all the scares and the grue); I don’t think it was meant to be one.
It prickles and rankles, and doesn’t offer much in the way of grace notes. It’s also relentless. Not in the Hollywood octane action thriller sense of the word, but in a locked-in-a-house-with-a-madman-where’s-the-key-oh-no-it’s-in-his-pocket sense of the word.
And it just makes it all the worse that the madman in question isn’t some sick psycho intruder, but a family member who just wants to be normal.

So, yes, The Living and The Dead is a brilliant movie, horror or otherwise.
It’s just not for everyone.

Parting shot: The quote which kicks off this review is part of Rumley’s extensive notes for The Living and The Dead, which can be found in their entirety at his website, simonrumley.com.

(The Living and The Dead OS courtesy of imagination-llc.com; images courtesy of simonrumley.com, except image 4, courtesy of TLA Releasing and nytimes.com.)