Film Reviews by NP

Well, this is a load of impressive looking nonsense. Style over substance just about covers it. In this Western horror effort, Wesley Snipes plays Aman who leaves the girl he loves alone one day whilst selling animal skins. During that time, she is gang-raped by a motley crew who leave her with-child. When he discovers this, he is heart-broken about what happened during his absence. To make himself feel better, he leaves her again, this time for five years, only to return to find she died giving birth. This improbable story is told entirely in flashback by Aman and is incredible in its illogical and inept oddness. The reason such a revelation is condensed in such a fashion seems to be that the rest of the running time can then be left to consist of non-eventful scenes that are massively over-choreographed, and while they are visually impressive, there is no naturalness to them whatsoever. Neither to the cast of alleged characters, who aren’t introduced, aren’t explained, but to make them ‘interesting’, speak in gruff-voiced cliché throughout.

The idea of Snipes playing a loner out for revenge against a horde of zombies in the unforgiving heat of the desert is a very appealing one. The trailer, whilst very stylised, seemed to promise much. And yet ‘Gallowwalkers’ flounders, and what story there is is laborious and crippled by constant flashbacks, bad wigs, posturing and overtly dramatic line delivery. It’s a curiously lifeless exercise – there’s a handsome budget on display and some stunning cinematography, but there are no characters to relate to, no emotion and no trace of tension or scares or … anything, really. In fact, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the best of the film. My one personal highlight was noticing, quite unexpectedly, 70’s children’s television entertainer Derek Griffiths briefly as a heavily made-up peripheral character Mosca.

Snipes had several problems throughout, due to tax problems and subsequent arrest. Perhaps the delays this caused threw the production schedule into disarray and accounts for the choppy tone of events (and for the many close-ups of Mr Snipes – many long-shots seem to feature a body double). But as to the po-faced dullness, the lack of anything for the audience to invest in, the non-existent story, incompetent lip-syncing, the absence of thrills … who can possibly say? Perhaps the fact that the film was released (straight to DVD) eight years after production commenced tells its own story, which is more than ‘Gallowwalkers’ does. A gruelling experience.

Ealing films, the warm and cosy home of lovingly crafted British comedies, branched out into slightly more unnerving territory with this early anthology. At a country house, in an age where, following communal afternoon tea, the local doctor likes to offer round the cigarettes, Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) turns up and recognises the ensemble (none of whom he has ever met) from his recurring dreams.

In this world, where everyone speaks in the clipped tones of racing horse commentators, (“I can’t leave. This is Mr Craig and I’m a character in his dream.” “Oh how do you do? Such fun, charades!”) the anecdotal stories everyone tells merely confirm Craig’s suspicions. He can see their future: he knows what is going to happen.

I cannot knock a 72 year old production for being dated, so I won’t. But it is. The extreme politeness and styles are often difficult to get past, even harder to take seriously. To begin with, such chills as there are are very tame and wholesome. The segment featuring the malevolent mirror is where things pick up, giving the impression ‘Dead of Night’ is unveiling its frights in a measured way. Until the following dreadful golfing farce sequence lets things down. “Totally incredible and decidedly improper,” to quote Mrs Foley (Mary Merrall).

If you can sit through that segment, the best and most widely remembered is saved till last. Maxwell Frere (Michael Redgrave) is a ventriloquist, performing and popular with packed audiences every night. So when it becomes apparent that the dummy Hugo appears to be the controlling element of the partnership, initially amusing music-hall scenes become genuinely tense. This is partly due to the writing, in which Hugo’s comedy jibes to his partner become increasingly spiteful, and Redgrave’s performance, in which the showbiz charade slips and he becomes edgy whilst still continuing with the act.

The Director for this final segment is Alberto Cavalcanti, who eschews the brightly lit jollity of the other stories and coaxes an intense performance from Redgrave. To say this finale is the best of the bunch is understating things. In its way, it is a masterpiece.

In case Walter Craig’s plight has been forgotten in all this, the twist ending gives the film’s climactic moments a nice sense of closure.

This is a film that definitely deserves more than one viewing. Shideh (Narges Rashidi), husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) and daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) live amid the chaos of the Iran-Iraq war. Shideh’s studies and livelihood are in ruins, patient and tolerant Iraj has been posted away and Dorsa is behaving very oddly. My only problem with this story, as in a lot of similar situations, is that Shideh resolutely refuses to move from the family home, despite her less Westernised neighbours fleeing and advising her to do the same, and every waking hour living in fear of the latest shelling.

‘Under the Shadow’ reminds me of Japanese horror, particularly ‘Dark Water (2002)’, with an errant child, and an aberration on the ceiling that may or may not be malevolent. It has been compared to ‘The Babadook (2014)’ (which I found wholly inferior to this). That said, this is hugely original in its presentation of a mysterious, ghostly horror. First whispered about by other children in the apartments, and then corroborated by the other fleeing parents, the audience is left impatiently awaiting their own first glimpse of the ‘djinn’.

With this level of relentless man-made and demonic aggravation, it’s a big relief when Shideh decides to leave after all, but events suggest she may not be entirely free of the shadow.

A lot of this film’s success rests with young Manshadi as the little girl who is required to display increasingly erratic behaviour. Any awfulness Dorsa might exude is saved by Manshadi’s mainly cherubic performance. Hardly ever does she merely sink into petulance or ‘brattism’ as a lesser performer would. Our sympathies are mostly with her, but also with her stubborn mother, who behaves in a way that doesn’t always invite our consideration, but again is brilliantly played. Babak Anvari’s gloomy, measured writing and his solid, sometimes spectacular direction ensure the mood is sustained wonderfully throughout. A terrific co-production between Qatar, Jordan, and the United Kingdom, this is strongly recommended.

After an argument with her boyfriend, Virginia White (María Elena Arpón) flounces off on her own and in no time, deeply regrets her tantrum. Spending a foolhardy night in a crypt with nothing but cigarettes, pyjamas, a book and a transistor radio, it isn’t long before grave stones start shuddering, the earth starts shifting and spindly, twig-like fingers emerge from within their tombs. The Blind Dead, or Templar Knights, move slowly. Very slowly. As they ride through the decaying waste-grounds, even their horses move at half speed. Decaying, rotting and accompanied by Antón García Abril’s magnificently gothic, chanting soundtrack, they are hugely impressive, even now. Except for those flimsy digits, which never look capable of anything, certainly not making a grab for the heroine. And yet, Virginia has a terrible time, because for all their flaws, the Blind Dead are relentless pursuers. Arpón looks stunning at all times however, even in the most precarious situations, often bathed in some completely unconvincing day-for-night shots.

As this is the first of Director Ossario’s ‘Blind Dead’ series, perhaps we should accept this production’s version of the titular villains’ history. Although seemingly contradicted later in the series, here the Templar Knights are killed and hung for their nefarious blood-letting and sacrifices, and their eyes are pecked out by crows.

At 100 minutes this is probably too long, but the running time is filled with incident, including echoes of zombies and vampirism. The remaining heroes, poser Roger (César Burner) and Betty (Lone Fleming) don’t have the presence of Arpón. There are only a certain amount of times you can marvel at how many poses Burner can adopt without removing his hands from his hips – however, there are some gruesome set-pieces and some briefly gory effects (especially at the end). The Knights are used more sparingly than they would be for the three sequels: you really have to wait to see them, which heightens the anticipation (although much of their footage is used more than once). This film, more than any other, makes much of the blindness of the creatures, who only locate their various victims when they scream, which under the circumstances, is an entirely understandable reaction. This remains my favourite entry in the series.

Despite her best and increasingly desperate efforts to attract attention, little Nami is starved of affection, or indeed acknowledgement, from her parents. As she grows into an attractive teen (Kumi Takiuchi), she inherits great wealth, listens to appalling rock music and becomes increasingly possessive of her lonesomeness. She calls herself a Solitarian, She spends her time seeking out other Solitarians, the most extreme case being an elderly man who lived an isolated life before dying whilst watching pornography. Before reporting the incident anonymously, she takes a smiling selfie with his calcified corpse on the floor of his rubbish-strewn living room.

Mr Shiomi (Takashi Sasano) is her next solitary obsession. Glorifying in observing his isolated life, Nami is then appalled that this heart-broken, faded man finds love and acceptance from his family and vows to punish him for taking away her ‘property’.

As events drift away from one level of bizarreness to another, and then another and another, not only does it lose track of its initial premise, but becomes little more than a series of darkly comic moments of violence and incident. The whole thing appears designed purely so the audience can scratch their collective heads and wonder what they are watching – which is exactly what happens, at least in my case. As a lesson in not ignoring your children, it’s obscured by how … obscure it is. As a drama, or a comedy, or a horror, it’s too fragmented to succeed. On its own terms, however, it is a film you won’t forget in a hurry. There is an attempt in the last scene to marry up events with the perils of ignoring your children, which is pretty pointless considering that things have by this time run away with themselves to such an extent they cannot possibly be reasoned with – which seems to be the point, if there is one.

It isn’t often a villain immediately invites the vitriol of the audience than a child murderer, or even more importantly, a sex offender. Director Fritz Lang intended this film as a stark warning against child neglect (as the very last few lines underline). The very lengthy meetings and discussions as to how the murderer be apprehended are enlivened somewhat by the challenge that characters have of actually seeing one another amidst the fog of all pervading cigar and pipe smoke. The acting is solid throughout, if theatrical in a manner typical of this period of film making. Talking pictures were very much in their infancy here and so the style of acting is highly visual – this is no complaint: the extravagant gestures enhance the atmosphere much as they did in the early sound Universal pictures. It has to be said that the performances here are even slightly restrained (if that is the right word) compared to others of this era.

And yet Peter Lorre, in his first major role, creates a true presence amongst all this, which is vital to the effectiveness of the story after the weight of expectation placed upon his character Hans Beckert. His reputation is discussed at length, and the first few glimpses we get of him are silent. Wide eyed and unassuming, this little man seems far from the monster we have been lead to believe he is. His mannerisms of jumpy neurosis and excitement upon spying children – especially young girls – going about their business are bravely portrayed given the subject matter, and in no time, we believe in him thoroughly.

Fritz Lang names this as his favourite of all his films, and it is easy to see why. The direction is inventive and almost surreal in places, inviting us fleetingly in to Beckert’s world: a parade of photographs of his victims snatched away from our view to reveal the sea of scowling faces of Beckert’s unelected jury; the revelation of the balloon Beckert bought for one of his young victims taking centre stage as he backs fearfully away from the incriminating toy; unusual viewpoints and distant camera work during the chase towards the end. Finally, Beckert’s crumbling admission and cries of ‘I can’t help it!’ A broken man guilty of the most heinous crime, viewed by a band of vigilantes impassively observing his meltdown. It is strong stuff of course, and caused the expected controversy at the time and since, but we take a long time to get to this point. A lot of time – rather too much for my enjoyment – is spent with other, lesser characters and their endless plans to capture the miscreant. At nearly two hours, it is too long – hardly surprising that an edited version (running at 98 minutes) was released in 1960. Yet what we have here is nevertheless a ground-breaking film, stunningly directed with a flourish that would prove inspirational for years to come, and a barnstorming central performance so strong that Lorre had cause to resent the subsequent type-casting that resulted.

A film with this title is unlikely to be traditional in its telling. And this is as unique as you can get. For a film to be involving, there usually needs to be an even slightly linear storyline, or identifiable characters, or some kind of plot thread. ‘The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears’ possesses none of these things.

Deliberately obfuscating the usual elements of storytelling, this milieu of stark architecture, close-ups on various body parts, teased gore and muddled sex appears to concentrate upon Dan (Klaus Tange) and his search for his missing wife. Tange has a slight look of Klaus Kinski about him, and his journey through 102 minutes of apparently giallo-influenced imagery is incomprehensible. But it looks splendid. Rather like ‘Don’t Look Now (1973)’, the colour red is used to great effect – some scenes are visually tinged with red, others are framed by it. There is a striking woman whose crisp, violent red clothes are at contrast with the magnificently ornate architecture around her.

The highly experimental project is a Belgian, French and Luxembourgian collaboration, and is technically stunning. The running time is too long to sustain such discernible logic and the attention is firmly focussed on the visual imagery once it becomes apparent there is no storyline to engage an audience. The soundtrack (my favourite aspect of this project) has been lifted mainly from various 60s and 70s European horror films and works very well in bringing to life the confounding events.

This film is frustrating to me because there is no progression, no reason to continue watching once it is clear there is no real story. Beautiful imagery and occasional moments of sex and violence don’t sustain. Things start off strangely and remain so until … well there isn’t really an ending. Things just stop.

Baffling, ponderous but relentless.

Two couples head to a remote area of Suffolk for a brief holiday. At first they seem a tolerable ‘group of young people’, but as we get to know them, hidden tensions rise to the surface. Scott is sardonic and takes his joking too far, James has a short temper but manages to conceal the fact, Emma is studious and a little naive, while Lynne is flirty and not terribly bright (James is described as looking like Ringo Starr’s testicle, which amused me). Actors Matt Stokoe, Sam Stockman, Emily Plumtree and Jessica Ellerby are very naturalistic in their roles and almost completely convincing as ‘real people’ (as the opening caption assures us they are).

In this British rural horror, there are plenty of ghost stories spun, many of them focus around an old and gnarled hollowed out tree that stands in the middle of a field (Emma has memories of being frightened by the tree when younger). There are a lot of unanswered questions, which is presumably deliberate, inviting us to imagine that the tree has triggered all kinds of conflicting legends.

The power it wields appears to be to mess with the minds of those who show too much interest in it. Rather than scare us, we are treated instead to the dreaded ‘relationships failing’ routine which becomes stultifying and sails close to ‘Hollyoaks’ (UK teen soap) territory. What frights there are are nicely conveyed: low-key, they use night-time visions of the tree, the branches creaking in the breeze as it casts its spell over the squabbling youngsters.

(SPOILERS) There are several interpretations as to what happens toward the end. In ‘Blair Witch’ style, one character (James) disappears and is heard screaming into the night. My logical theory is that it was James behind events that lead to the final, having faked his vanishing. A suggestion of anything more supernatural is equally valid.

Interestingly, the cliffs nearby are named Dunwich Cliffs, an HP Lovecraft connection. ‘Hollow’ is unlikely to terrify, possibly not even scare although there are a few frights. For a rural horror, this is flawed, but fairly enjoyable.

A bus full of travellers is heading for the town of Bojoni when the driver suffers a fatal heart attack, and the group is forced to stay in the deserted Tolnio village overnight. This and many other films begins with a similar premise.

The first element of note is that this features one of the worst horror film music soundtracks I have ever heard. For example, a scene of a little girl exploring ruined buildings with a small boy who may or may not be a ghost, has every ounce of atmosphere drained completely by this often tuneless jazzy music. It sounds like a pornography soundtrack and does its best, for the most part, to kill all the efforts of Diector León Klimovsky and his team stone dead. Many of the moments uninfected by this rotten score are very effective – although there are no orgies to speak of, the various vampire activities are pretty sinister when not swamped by inappropriate melodies.

Sadly, the whole project suffers because of this. It would otherwise be a fairly effective variation on the ‘Night of the Living Dead’ theme, with vampires replacing zombies. There are some good moments – the female vampire decomposing in the back of the car as Luis (Jack Taylor) and Alma (Dyanik Zurokowska) drive into the sun-set, and the afore-mentioned disappearing ghost-boy who accompanies young Violeta (Sarita Gill), for example. The locations are also very good, as films from this period often are – genuinely dilapidated buildings making haunting, ghostly panoramas proving to be very isolated backdrops.

As part of the BBC’s ‘Omnibus’ strand, this ‘television movie’ had an introductive voice-over from the man who adapted the story, Jonathan Miller.

Beginning with two unsmiling maids making up a pair of beds in a hotel somewhere on the East Coast, all filmed in crisp black and white. Then we are introduced to the terrific Michael Hordern playing Professor Parkin, a scholarly isolationist making his way toward the building. He is confronted with the mighty Proprietor (the excellent George Woodbridge, veteran of many early Hammer horrors). Stilted and awkward their opening pleasantries are, the Proprietor’s words become mangled and incomprehensible when pointing out the amenities. Oddness is immediately confirmed from these two, lending the proceedings a disjointed quality all of their own often exemplified by Parkin’s separation from the other guests, who are all otherwise gracious enough. Parkin’s world acknowledges them, but is content to remain apart.

During his ‘trudge’ across the windswept beaches, Parkin happens across a whistle made of bone obscured by sand. He is intrigued, keeps it, and begins to feel the presence of ‘another.’

Hordern is excellent throughout, his private irritation at the stubborn haddock on his fork, or the sand that clings to the whistle as he tries to examine it, convey a man completely relaxed and comfortable with his complete lack of social interaction. His brief conversations are interesting because he could quite easily be eulogising with himself rather than with whomever he is sharing a scene. His terror is equally private, which allows us the possibility that it exists in his mind alone. And yet, when we are allowed glimpses of it, it is fittingly obscure and well-realised and quite unnerving.

Parkin’s strangled, guttural half-cries at the climactic moments are successfully reminiscent of the noises we sometimes make when emerging from a nightmare. His terror is palpable and disturbing.

Matt Sadler (Steve Garry) wakes up in a field. He doesn’t have any memory of how he got there. As his wearied girlfriend reminds him, this isn’t the first time this has happened. He has been missing for ten days. She decides to leave him. Apart from anything else, she strongly suspects he is seeing someone else – which turns out to be true. Within moments, his second girlfriend decides she’s had enough too. Within minutes, we know Sadler is devious, but we also have a certain empathy for his memory loss, and we don’t blame him when he tries to find out what is happening.

His uncertain searching leads him to the isolated farmhouse of Calham (Michael Dacre). The minimalistic soundtrack makes it apparent Calham is a bad egg. When he calls the surrounding ground ‘real fertile’, the words have an ominous ring. The direction is very effective here; Calham appears to be approaching the cameras and therefore the audience, Sadler seems to be backing away from it. And he is right too. Shortly, Sadler is chained and naked apart from a sack cloth over his head. This is how he has apparently been spending his time during his blackouts, aiding the stocky farmer in his gruesome ‘work’ – work which has clearly effected his mind.

Calham’s subsequent kidnaps and torture are carried out with slow deliberation. Too slow sometimes, as this rural horror stretches the thin but gruesome plot rather too much. The intensity between the main two characters is impressively played, but perhaps not quite interesting enough to take up so much of the 100 minutes running time. This is a slow burning horror that manages to hold the attention if not exactly excite it.

It is an odd decision to have this film open up with scenes of how the Knights Templar became known as The Blind Dead, and then some way into the running time, have those scenes repeated as flashbacks as someone (in this case, ‘village idiot’ Murdo, played by José Canalejas) is relaying the story of their origin.

However, this second film in the Blind Dead series sees Director Amando De Ossario once again making the titular creatures as revolting as cowled, decomposing skeletal zombies can be – although their withered, twig-like hands rarely look anything other than gnarled gardening forks held by the actors beneath the rotting robes and look particularly ineffective when trying to grab various victims. In fact, the cadaverous knights can be astonishingly inept here: usually their agonising slowness adds to their menace – here, a whole group of them completely fail to capture the terrified, screaming Monica (Loretta Tovar). It might be their most ineffectual scene and reduces their effect greatly. Later on, however, a horde of the Knights Templar storming the village present a far more persuasive presentation of their powers.

This is another enjoyable instalment in the series. Each entry manages to be more than ‘just another episode’, however, due to Ossario’s inspiring passion for the subject, and ‘Return of the Evil Dead’ is a substantial project in its own right. It perhaps lacks the atmospheric chill of ‘Ghost Galleon’ and ‘Night of the Seagulls’, but the Knights’ relentless, statuesque vigil throughout the night awaiting the emergence of the last few survivors makes for a morbidly enthralling scenario.

This proved to be the last in Spanish Director Amando de Ossorio's four-part Blind Dead series.

The set-up is far less contrived than in the previous ‘Ghost Galleon’ (1974); instead of an ill-advised publicity stunt gone wrong, here we have the simple premise of a Doctor (Stein, no less, played by Victor Petit) and his wife (Maria Kosty) moving to an isolated fishing village. Although, why he insists on staying here to take up his post when everyone is either openly hostile, or completely ignores him, is typically baffling. And yet, without such wilfulness, where would horror plots be?

Only local Lucy (Sandra Mozarosky, who tragically died not long after filming was completed at the age of 18) and José Antonio Calvo’s village idiot Teddy show any friendship towards the couple.

There is no denying Ossorio’s skill at evoking a creepy atmosphere. Many familiar staples are here – misty graveyards, creaking doors, wonderfully isolated locations and decaying-looking sets. Every effort seems to have been made to make the seaport a closed, sinister, uninviting place. And pretty soon, the Knights Templar are emerging from their foul tombs with agonising slowness, their spindly clawed hands looking as if they could barely give you a tame stroke without turning to dust (perhaps it would have been better to dress the actors’ hands, rather than provide separate twig-like appendages).

The slow build-up to Lucy’s final scene on the beach is excellent, very Jean Rollin-esque. Knowing what is going to happen to her doesn’t make us optimistic of a less than grisly outcome. The ever-present shrieking birds from the title have a part to play too – according to Teddy, the pretty girls taken to sacrifice ‘become the seagulls,’ which is creepily enigmatic.

Other than a fairly standard ending, this doesn’t necessarily feel like final closure for these withered knights. The series could have continued. Perhaps it still might; there is plenty of mileage left in these memorably ethereal creatures.

The trailer for this film severely undersells it. In it, a bevy of shrieking young ladies are endlessly faced with stumbling hordes of skeletal, cowled zombies. The truth is, there is far more to the film than that.

Having said that, there are a collective of briskly-dressed girls paraded before us, rarely more so than in the opening shot of three models enduring a photo-shoot orchestrated by a woman in the most extraordinary trousers. She conducts the session whilst smoking, reminding/informing us that little takes place in the 1970s without the accompaniment of a cigarette.

Noemi (Bárbara Rey) is concerned about her missing friend, who is on an engaged in a secret publicity stunt on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Having been made aware of this, Noemi is kept prisoner in a bunker until the stunt is over, and she proves to be one of the most wonderfully uncooperative hostages ever. President of the company responsible for all this is Howard Tucker, played by Jack Taylor, who would feature the following year in Franco’s ‘Female Vampire’. And yet the story mainly concerns that friend, Lillian (Maria Perschy) who, whilst looking for her departed companion Lorena (Margarita Merino) discovers a deserted galleon in the midst of the ocean fog. The galleon is represented by the most charming model, draped in dry ice. It is easy to notice the ‘limitations’ of special effects from a film from this time, and yet despite that, there is a genuine feeling of unease as the creaking old vessel is explored in a seemingly alternative world of perpetual darkness.

Thanks to the trailers, the creatures – the Blind Dead, or Knights Templar – are hardly a surprise, and yet remain hugely effective and creepy, with their withered claws, rotting cowls and dead-eyed skulls. Resting in dusty caskets, their appearance is often enhanced by ghostly chanting on the soundtrack. Filthy, decaying cadavers, they remain unglamorous frighteners to this day – and there are loads of them! There is no escalating tension to their scenes, indeed apart from the monk-like accompaniment, there is no thumping score to accentuate their menace – instead, their relentlessly sluggish deliberation is conducted in silence, creating a very ethereal style of torture and death – if there is such a thing!

This is the third (and strangely, the least successful) of four Blind Dead films that form a loose series. Inspired in part by the success of 1968’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’, these films were part of the Spanish horror boom of the early 1970s.

Not that it matters, but I’ve found it very hard to stick with a horror film longer than 20 minutes of late. A possible mixture of over-familiarity and the relentless ‘getting-to-know-you’ set-up of characters that are difficult to care about has seen to that. ‘The Survivalist’ is thankfully entirely different.

Martin McCann plays the unnamed titular character who is seen meticulously tending to the allotment surrounding his remote shack. The world’s economy has stopped, society has imploded, and this results in a back-to-basics culture for the few remaining. Occasionally, a glimpse of an ideal world is apparent – all the trappings of modern day culture gone, The Survivalist’s solitary nature is stripped back to the bare essentials. Memories of a brother long dead, a photograph of an unspecified girl kept for masturbationary purposes – all this is shattered by the arrival of Kathrine (Olwen Fouéré) and her daughter Mia (Mia Goth). These two, despite their good deeds, are rarely entirely trustworthy, but a relationship is built – initially on Mia being a bargaining chip in exchange for food, and ultimately on something approaching mutual friendship.

This is a bleak film, but not quite as grim as it may appear. There is no soundtrack other than the beginning and end theme. We hear the irresistible crackling of fires, the plaintive tweeting of the birds, and still feelings of fear, apprehension (but never jollity) are communicated to the viewer. Perhaps those directors who smother their films with mass orchestrated musical stings and bangs and whistles designed to instil fear should take note!

The Survivalist has been nominated for, and won, a variety of awards, for Mia Goth and Director/Writer Stephen Fingleton. Well deserved. The fall and further fall of these characters is compelling viewing.