Film Reviews by NP

Britt Nichols plays Luisa Karlstein who visits her terminally ill mother. Rather coldly, the rest of the family appears to have turned up simply to stand and watch as the ill old Baroness succumbs to death. With her dying breath, she tells her daughter of a family curse.

Even before this reveal, a number of ongoing, gruesome murders have been occurring. Nubile young women, often in a state of undress, have been spied upon and are then killed by a clearly female vampire.

As always for Jesus Franco films, such story-line as there is meanders greatly with protracted scenes of women in jeopardy, and enlivened by ongoing scenes of softcore sex – here, Karlstein reveals her lesbian tendencies in a number of scenes which have no bearing on the wafer-thin plotline. This is usual for such films, as is the stunning leading lady – Nichols continues the tradition of delights such as Lina Romay and Soledad Miranda, but doesn’t seem to attracted the same level of attention. This may be because her appearance bolsters a film that is otherwise desperately uneventful and dull.

Even the eroticism here is … odd. There is a routine in which a ‘dancer’ (prior to her murder, of course) simply rolls around on the floor in a bar. It is red lit, so she is clearly performing an act (as opposed to suffering some fit). People watch in stony silence, she rolls around some more, smiling. Then, she stands up and they applaud! Why? It is only shocking because she wasn’t escorted out of the place by an ambulance crew. Where is the exotic eroticism of ‘Vampyros Lesbos’ or ‘She Killed in Ecstasy?’ Whilst hardly polished films themselves, they did nevertheless escape the drudgery that fuels each dialogue-heavy scene here.

A constant delight with Franco films is the juxtaposition of horror set in beautifully filmed, exotic sun-kissed locations. Such visual conflict often works, but not so much here, for what panoramic views we get of Portugal (where this is filmed) are rare and the footage is often used more than once.

Back to whatever passes as a story, and it appears that the undead Count Karlstein (Franco regular Howard Vernon, robbed of dialogue here) is in fact Dracula himself. He doesn’t contribute a huge amount. In fact, his two scenes involve simply rising from his coffin, watched by a horrified Luisa, shortly before she too becomes a vampire.

What begun as an interesting idea soon became a chore for the cast and crew (and for the audience), it seems, as no effort is made to make any of the events entertaining or horrific or even particularly sexy. One point in its favour – we are treated to many brave close-ups of teeth baring fangs. Brave because, such close-ups invite scrutiny, and the fangs are very realistic – something the otherwise superior ‘exploitation’ film-maker Jean Rollin couldn’t always get right.

This story is quite simply ‘The Blair Witch Project (1999)’ featuring Bigfoot. The similarities go beyond simply ‘found footage’ – we never get to see the monster, but see evidence of its activities hanging from trees. The location is very similar to the woodland featured in Blair Witch and appears to be filmed at the same time of year (lots of crisp sunlight stretching shadows over fallen leaves).

To begin, a deer hunter is killed and taken by a huge animal in the Alabama Woods. Five years later, his son Chris (Chris Copeland), dripping with a lust revenge, determines to travel to the location and track down the animal. (“It’s something I gotta do. I need to do it for myself, so,” says Chris at one point. Why do people end sentences with ‘so?’) Lucky for him the deer his father regularly killed don’t take the deaths of their number so personally.

A handful of his friends insist on accompanying him on this hazardous trip, and soon they are interviewing locals, all of whom have stories about Bigfoot, including the manager of a guitar shop, who knows of a man who lives deep in the woods. The band of hopeful film-makers then attempt to track the man down. He’s not pleased, and doesn’t wish to be filmed, but agrees to talk with them. My favourite bit is when the man says – as he’s being filmed - ‘The camera’s off, right? Make sure it stays that way.’

One gets the impression the cast were invited to improvise as their stay in the forests becomes more fraught. It is well intentioned, this update of a film that is 15 years old, but in all honesty it just isn’t really very well acted, and not frightening. People shouting and arguing over something it becomes clear we are never going to see (apart from a blurred shape behind a tree in photographs) becomes very dull viewing.

[SPOILER] One interesting moment occurs mid-way through the end credits where we see Copeland ringing a bell to attract the local Bigfoots to the dead bodies, explaining how he’s managed to survive his isolated existence in such deadly woodland for so long.

Sound effects technician Gilderoy travels to Italy to work on what appears to be a horror film. Revered producer Giancarlo Santini (Antonio Mancino) waves a dismissive hand at the term: “It isn’t a horror film, it is a Santini film.” Although the credit titles to this unspecified film actually form what appear to be the titles to ‘Berberian Sound Studio’, we never really know how the lurid sound effects are used.

There are plenty of close-ups on ravaged vegetables, cut, splattered and sliced to emulate brutal sounds. Toby Jones’ sensitive and insular Gilderoy is subject to increasing rudeness as the film progresses, from just about everyone around him. He speaks softly. He writes and received affectionate letters to his mother back home.

Silvia (the terrific Fatma Mohamed) warns Gilderoy about Santini, who has apparently molested her. His missives to his mother become less affectionate, the body of the text concentrating on local mishaps and animal killings rather than loving pleasantries. Strangest of all, relentlessly seeking a ticket refund for his flight to Italy from disinterested staff, Gilderoy is told that the flight never really existed.

Music (and some of the sonic effects, I imagine) is by Birmingham band Broadcast, who have added the soundtrack to this stylised film to their growing discography. Vocalist Trish Keenan sadly died suddenly whilst working on the album.

Towards the end, the film seems to wilfully impenetrable, projecting weirdness for the sake of it - possibly echoing Gilderoy’s addled mind, who knows? And to be honest, who cares? ‘Berberian Sound Studio’ starts off in an unorthodox way, which is promising, and seems to be going in an assured direction – but just ends up getting more strange, promising to deliver something, but never actually doing so. Only the relentless bullying of Jones’ well-played character makes any real impact, because he is (mostly) so impassive and the perpetrators of such ill-manners are so complacent in their behaviour. Other than that, as Gilderoy becomes more integrated in what is going on around him, we lose any connection with him. And then the film ends, leaving the audience wondering what they have just watched, despite the obvious talent on display.

In this Peruvian horror, a group of students (don’t fret – they are quite a likeable bunch) decide to film ‘reaction videos’ as they watch a legendary old film located in the archive room of an old cemetery. Emerging as a kind of cross between ‘The Ring’ and The Blair Witch series, their viewing releases a curse that causes all kinds of carnage.

This would have been so much more effective if the makers had resisted the temptation to abandon subtlety in their otherwise interesting scares. The shrieks and wails are turned up high, the scars are deep and the blood runs plentifully, and sadly, when possessed characters rise up and float around, the result is an unsteady mix of the ‘exorcist-style’ and the blatantly absurd.

The performances are never less than very good, with Mario Gaviria’s mischievous Benjamin emerging as possibly the most memorable (certainly the most playful), although Daniella Mendoza certainly makes the most of Carla, who as a character, is someone to keep a careful eye on.

The familiar shaky cam is used to good effect here, and the locations are dark and sombre, with only occasional moments (like the CGI moving statues) lapsing into cartoon incredulity (again, more subtle techniques may well have been less intrusive). A very interesting, if flawed addition to the found footage genre.

Borrowing themes from other sources has never been a problem for me; ‘Darkest Day’ is clearly influenced by British 2002 zombie classic ’28 Days Later’.

The first thing that struck me about this, after its fast-paced, gruesome opening, is the very flat acting on display from most of the cast. Although one gets used to the stilted delivery, it is still a stumbling block – and sadly, two of the main players Dan (Dan Rickard) and Sam (Chris Wandell) are the worst offenders. Most of the other characters are reduced to merely a few words here and there, which may or may not be a good thing. The exception is Samantha Bolter’s Kate, who is excellent, believable and far more ‘there’ than her somewhat two-dimensional colleagues.

When researching this film online, however, many of the cast are also active behind the scenes. Richard Wilkinson (James) also composed the music, Simon Drake (Will) is a second unit director and camera operator. Most prolific is Dan Rickard, who co-wrote and directed, provided digital effects and editing (as well as providing some special effects for ‘The Dead (2010)’ and ‘The Dead 2: India (2013)’).

The story features Dan, who wakes up on Brighton beach, with no memory how he got there. He soon realises the world is awash with ‘the infected’ (the word ‘zombie’ is only used in the credits at the end), and becomes reluctantly taken in by a group of young people lead by physically intimidating Sam (nick-named ‘Arnie’ at one point). These people spend their days getting endlessly drunk, going on occasional shopping sprees, and only leaving their seaside-town home once the military discover their whereabouts and take more than a passing interest. A bond almost forms between rivals Sam and Dan as the latter, who realises the military are specifically looking for him (he was infected, but appears to have been cured), volunteers to lead the soldiers away from the group, resulting in a low-key but very effective ending.

Occasionally the violently shaking camera becomes a little heady, but visually, the film looks terrifically bleak, making great use of the seafront location and economically relaying how run-down the world has become, with sparing use of overturned cars, smashed windows and forlorn streets. The Infected, although little more than bloodied performers, are persuasive in their intent; shrieking and moving at speed (and there are LOADS of them) and create the most tense scenes.

Rumoured to be budgeted at £1,000, my initial misgivings about ‘Darkest Day’ soon became overcome with admiration that the project is as good as it is.

Married writer Blake Blackman (Steve Daron) and his difficult-to-impress partner, illustrator Angelica Santoro (Guisela Moro), who are having an affair, retreat to a remote cabin in the Appalachian Mountains in order for Blake to commence work on his latest book. The location is beautifully photographed and so stunning, their dog Brandy decides to spend more and more time away from the couple, exploring.

Nights spent in the remote log cabin, with the fireside blazing and lashing of the rain outside – it all sounds idyllic. Only the occasional glimpses of ragged, ghost-like children and Blake’s looming deadline threaten to ruin things. Angelica disappears after discovering she is pregnant, kidnapped and held hostage (alongside two ‘missing’ children) by a hillbilly couple residing in the nearby run-down town. The police suspect Blackman of killing her, despite the real kidnappers being such stereotypical inbreeds. The lawmen are stubbornly lackadaisical, even when Burt Reynolds turns up as Seagrass Lambert, whose grandson has disappeared.

Despite the disappearance of a number of children, it is only after Blake harangues the inactive police force that they make any investigations at the home of the two outcasts. By this time, the imprisoned Angie is heavily pregnant and there’s a growing uncertainty regarding her safety. This tenseness comes very late on in the film. Everything takes so long – Blake’s investigations, the delayed action of the police, the lack of horrific incident all conspire to make this a pretty drawn-out experience: at almost two hours, ‘The Haunting’ long outstays its welcome. A shame, because things could have been tense if 30-45 minutes was shorn from the running time. The idea of spirits of children helping Angie is a nice one, as is the race for time toward the end – but we spend so long getting there, and indeed the finale stretches so long, that any real tension is frittered away.

Initially, I was surprised this was made as early as 1961. Its graphic content, misty Cornish locations, promotional features picturing a lurching zombie, and lurid title seemed more like a production from in early 1970’s (Sergeant Cook is played by Kenneth J. Warren, known for 70’s horror flicks ‘I, Monster’ and ‘The Creeping Flesh’). As such, I’m surprised it made such little impact.

Also surprising is the fact that the lead character is actually called Doctor Blood (Peter Blood, played by Kieron Moore). Horror veterans Hazel Court stars as Nurse Helen and Paul Hardtmuth is briefly seen as Prof. Luckman, both actors previously having starred in Hammer’s ground-breaking ‘Curse o0f Frankenstein (1957).’ One of the cameramen is no less than Nicholas Roeg, who went on to direct horror classic ‘Don’t Look Now (1971)’ amongst other things.

Dashing Irish actor Kieron Moore plays Blood, a character tailor-made to be the hero of the piece, but turning out to be the crazed villain. He’s very good, especially considering he is playing against type. Also, the contrast between sunny, beautiful Cornwall and Blood’s unwholesome experiments is effectively realised.

More reminiscent of films of this period (especially the more mannered Hammer entries), however, are that the shocks are reserved strictly for the final act, where the magnitude of Blood’s delusion is given free reign. Up until then, we have an engaging enough drama, with Court in particular keeping the interest alive – sadly free of scares until the finale, which is great, but too brief.

Bad’uns, living in a run-down part of Michegan, dreaming of surfing in California – Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette) and loud-mouth Money (Daniel Zovatto) make a living from committing small time robberies. Smoking pot, using expletives and sex jokes in front of minors, including Rocky’s little sister Diddy, the three ruffians decide to improve their shambling lives by robbing a house owned by blind war veteran Norman Nordstrom (Steven Lang) with $300,000 and a big, slobbering dog.

The money is compensation he received following the death of his daughter, who was run down by wealthy Cindy Roberts (Franciska Törocsik). Nordstrom is devastated and bitter that she should be let off her crimes so lightly.

I love films that present a ‘world within a world’ - that is, an isolated utopia hidden in plain sight: Norman’s home, which he rarely leaves (as established early on), is a dark sprawling private hell personalised to his needs and advantage. Outside, the sun shines and life continues. Inside, anything can happen, and no-one may ever know. When the three would-be robbers enter this world, it isn’t long before one of them (Money, I’m glad to say) is despatched. For Rocky and Alex, trouble is only just beginning …

Scenes often begin with blurred shots or extreme close-ups that obfuscate the new perils the characters find themselves in, revealing every desperate detail with an agonising (and deliberate) slowness. Writer/Producer/Director Fede Alvarez is clearly a name to look out for. ‘Evil Dead (2013)’ composer Roque Baños’s wonderful music score is exceptional also, a collection of moody, occasionally screeching instrumentation that really sells the growing unease. The discovery of Cindy Roberts, bound, gagged and pregnant, is shocking. She took away Norman’s child, so he thinks it is only right she provides him with a new one. Except her death whilst trying to escape with Rocky, puts that idea to rest.

‘There is nothing man cannot do once he accepts the fact there is no God,’ says heavily armed Norman shortly before attempting to artificially inseminate Rocky using a turkey baster in a bid to replace once again, he hopes, his murdered child.

His plans foiled by Alex, and disorientated by the alarms, Norman fires randomly all around him, blowing a hole poignantly in a photograph of his daughter’s smiling face.

I generally prefer independent horror films, often preferring them to bigger budgeted, more diluted mainstream offerings. This is hugely enjoyable, and very tense. There are no heroes, no-one without flaws, just wronged people. Someone online described ‘Don’t Breathe’ as a heavily expanded variant of the Buffalo Bill segment of ‘Silence of the Lambs (1991)’, which is a pretty good synopsis. It is good to see this doing well in the commercial arena; I wish more managed to gain such attention.

Doug (Jody Quigley) and his beautiful fiancée (Katrina Law) have their blissful engagement party interrupted by a former boyfriend, which despite Lori’s tearful apologies, incites Doug to drive really fast and accidently kill her. It’s hard to sympathise much with such petulance, despite the audience being treated to many subsequent images of Doug struggling to continue life alone … whilst apparently being haunted. Wrong of me, isn’t it, to mention Doug is far from heart-throb material, and how lucky he is to be with Lori and that perhaps should have exercised a little more humility?

Crusty old Woody (Thomas Roy) in the hardware store warns of vengeful spirits residing where Doug is living. Certainly Doug’s dreams are persuasively creepy. And yet his waking hours are cheered slightly by the affectionate neighbour Jamie (Lili Bordán), herself suffering the repercussions of a troubled past – and inevitably, sex is had, with Lori barely cold in her grave.

The spirit, which appears to be Lori and screeching newborn daughter, is not happy about Jamie. The familiar conflict between what is real and what is being imagine ensues – but to the film’s great credit, it is never specifically indicated that the hauntings and violence are entirely in Doug’s mind. Although there is a great temptation to think of the film as too restrained in its horrors, it is a persuasive examination of grief and mourning. Only when (SPOILER) Doug - who has mentally tortured himself that he killed Lori - also kills Jamie, do things become intriguing on a different level. The final scene with Doug enjoying family time with the three dead people in his life, redeems some of the film’s earlier uneventfulness.

This micro-budget independent film opens with the grisly murder of a young lady, involving the removal of one of her eyes, sewing up of the mouth and the slashing of the tendons. The miscreant is one of two brothers who spend much of the running time committing similar atrocities, while wearing a variety of masks – a skull-fashioned motorcycle helmet and an elaborate welding/gas mask.

Jack Chaplin (Robert Render) continues to investigate the case despite being officially sacked from the force, aided by the sometimes incomprehensible Detective Hatcher (Dutch actor Jean-Paul Van Der Velde). The macho, New York style of tough-talking dialogue would be difficult for anyone to perform, and often sounds very unconvincing from this cast.

The masks are removed earlier than is the norm for such reveals, and the acting from the two mentally deficient young miscreants is the best seen throughout the run (the two feral brothers eventually fall out over a pretty blond. This leads to one killing the other), although they appear too well groomed to be the outcasts they are supposed to be - in fact, the police are more dishevelled. The end reveal may or may not have an explanation for that …

The reason for the killings is finally explained in a heavy stream of dialogue that reveals a twist so utterly bizarre, it is likely that no-one will expect it. Many will be unable to take it seriously, but it might explain some of the stilted line delivery of Hatcher. These scenes are classic examples of the villains taking time to explain the plot to the hero moments before the game is up. In-keeping with the difficult-to-stomach style of the film, and the mind-blowing revelation about Hatcher (which I won’t reveal), his being carted off to face justice is … going to be difficult to carry out.

‘The Blood Harvest’ is a strange mix of styles, a far from obvious way of telling a slasher story. Director, producer and writer George Clarke makes incredibly good use of the £10, 000 budget, his mix of close-ups and shaking camera movements creating a sense of pace, even when the plot simply lines up one victim after another. This is a refreshing way of presenting horror and that alone makes up for the film’s short-comings.

As evil towers go, the one featured in this film certainly earns its stripes in the opening scene. Stabbings, spiders, dismemberment, naked corpses and lots of blood ensure our attention is immediately grabbed.

So too are the familiar faces for the time – Anthony Valentine, William Lucas, Derek Fowlds and Dennis Price head a superficially impressive cast. Superficial, because the younger characters, the ‘kids’ are neither so well-known nor as compelling. Wrestling with dialogue that makes the excesses of ‘Dracula AD 1972’ positively conservative, these kids are a dull, casually randy bunch (the cod American accents don’t help). The females are especially tiresome – as part of a group sent to investigate grisly murders on Snape Island, they are only ever concerned with the sexual failure of their partners and the affairs they plan to have. Who thought Free Love could be so spite-fuelled?

One reason why the opening sequence is effective is because the island, and the waters surrounding it, are swathed in foggy darkness. Exposed to ‘daylight’, the cheapness of the sets and back-projection becomes hugely apparent. A cut-price film is no bad thing, but when the characterisations and plot is equally threadbare, attention falls away pretty quickly, despite the cackling killer-on-the-loose.

The frank attitude to sex is surprising for a British 1972 film. The feeling I get is that Director Jim O’Connolly over-spiced the dialogue with references to sex and drugs in a bid to compensate for the lacklustre budget and plot. Despite an effectively fiery ending and the reveal of a secondary killer, the 90 minutes running time seems a lot longer.

Produced and directed by Hammer executive Michael Carreras, this film opens up in classic low-budget style: footage of camels tearing across a real desert fade into close-ups of blacked-up actors in a studio set, where the elderly father of drippy, fickle-hearted heroine Annette Dubois (Jeanne Roland) is killed and has his hand removed by ruffians. Carreras also wrote this under the pseudonym Henry Younger.

‘The Curse…’ has not found a huge amount of favour from fans over the years, but I really like it. Apart from the opening sequence, it looks to be an expensive production, features a first rate cast, features some gruesome moments – and features Michael Ripper as a wonderful (if unlikely) wide-eyed Arab called Achmed.

George Pastell makes an appearance, the second cast member from Hammer’s original Mummy film to appear here. Fred Clarke, renowned American comic actor, plays the larger than life Alexander King (who, it seems, invented the term Turkish Delight in this film) arrogantly determined to milk as much money from the Mummy as possible, but lives (or dies) to regret it. Jack Gwillim is very good as pickled, deflated Sir Giles Dalrymple (whose demise is the film’s highpoint in my view), whilst underrated actor Terence Morgan excels as villainous and debonair Adam Beauchamp, who is more interesting than stuffy square jawed hero John Bray (Ronald Howard).

The Mummy (Dickie Owen) is a curio. He seems slight compared with the usual culprits, and has a clay-like face, giving him a Golem-like aspect. But he is directed very well, and his kills are often accompanied by nothing but the sound of his deep, rhythmical breathing, which makes up for his less than intimidating bearing.

It is true to say that the story takes a while to get going, but is a solid telling of typical Mummy revenge, and certainly livens up once the resurrected Ra-Antef begins his killing spree, and remains compelling until the exciting sewer-based finale, in which Beauchamp is also relieved of his hand.

This wonderfully directed zombie film is the sequel to 2010’s ‘The Dead’ which featured an army of the living dead making their deadly way across Africa. Here, as you might imagine, a similar cataclysm has infected India.

What I really enjoy about this is Directors Howard and Jonathan Ford’s worthy use of the incredible landscapes, and the clever way in which such sun-drenched open spaces can either be breathtakingly beautiful or deadly and remote.

The casting is very good, with Joseph Millson as the only Westerner Nicholas Burton – a refreshingly likeable, ego-free central character – and Ishani Sharma (Meenu Mishra), his pregnant girlfriend. Unsurprisingly, her condition does not please her father (Sandip Datta Gupta), who is otherwise concerned with his own infected wife (Poonam Mathur).

Where this stumbles a little is in the actual storyline, which is basically Burton and the appealing orphaned boy Javed (Anand Goyal) with whom he meets, continually attempting to escape the attentions of unthreatening, lurching zombies. Instead of a progressing narrative, certain set-pieces stand out – Ishani’s questioning of Hinduism and its teachings of reincarnation which is in direct contrast to the walking cadavers causing carnage around them, for one. Another involves a mother and daughter trapped in a car with the corpse of the husband and father, with the living dead trudging ever forward. Telling them to cover their ears whilst he shoots away the lock to the seat that traps them, Burton then shoots them both dead instead. And, although the zombies are not always the most frightening or energetic, scenes of them standing, swaying, waiting, scattered across the unforgiving landscape while Burton attempts to escape them are very effective.

From the opening credits, this could only ever be a Hammer film. James Bernard’s trademark scores, a matte paining of a castle in the distance (which makes a very effective screensaver), a young girl in distress and Peter Cushing tinkering in an ornate laboratory: formulaic such an intro may be, but it produces an instant warm glow in retrospect – which is probably the polar opposite of the effect hoped for back in 1964.

Wheeling in a fresh corpse, Nurse Hoffman (Barbara Shelley) is somewhat alarmed when the hand that falls from the stretcher breaks in half, as if it is made of stone. Pretty soon, the dead girl’s bohemian fiancé has hung himself, revealed in close-up. The warm glow becomes distinctly frosty.

So too, are the characters we meet in this production. On seeing the Medusa, or more specifically her glare, characters become aged. That is, they appear to be sprinkled with talcum powder in a cheap looking effect that is never convincing. Christopher Lee’s Professor Karl Meister comes already doused in talc, to lend maturity to such a man of learning, pompous and aloof. Even the avuncular Cushing is starchy in this. Only Richard Pasco succeeds in injecting some naturalism into his role, the almost-hero Paul Heitz. We cry out for a Michael Ripper or a Miles Malleson cameo to lighten up the mood.

Whilst professional and polished, the production is somewhat perfunctory, and there is a damning coolness to the sporadic ‘scares’ – whereas in reality, only the finale, with Barbara Shelley’s transformation into the deadly Megaera, succeeds in providing any shivers, and the less than stellar realisation of the creature – complete with adorable plastic snakes - ensures that even the climactic scares are pretty bloodless (which, considering Hammer caused a sensation in the late 1950s with its blood red horror that in turn both repulsed and fascinated audiences, is disappointing). Like ‘Curse of the Werewolf (1960)’, the thrills are strictly confined to the last ten minutes, which is asking too much of this particular audience member.

The term exploitation has been used to lump together softcore horror films, mainly from Europe during the 1960s and 1970s, although Hammer also became bitten by the bug in its latter years. Now, we feel we have progressed so smoothly that the term isn’t used any more. And that’s because such a titillating way of teasing the audience with choreographed sexuality has become the norm. Here, we have the dreaded ‘group of friends’, one celebrating a birthday, who go looking for a beach house and instead discover The Lake House. As one character, superficially hard-to-please Stacey (India Autry) says, “A beach house needs to have a beach.” The reply, “Yeah, I got that memo.”

The friends here are the usual stylised, buff bodied, greased back, laconic, horny collection torpidly passed off as ‘normal’. Teens of indiscriminate age whose idea of a really good put-down is to say accusingly “You let me work out on my own today.” To break the perfect collective, there is a moderately over-weight guy who ‘gets by’ by constantly making apologetic weight jokes to justify his inclusion.

The story: years ago, a young boy was drowned in the lake on Clinton Road and may be haunting the Lake House. As nothing in particular happens, these forever wholesomely tattooed 24-hour party people fill the running time by having cosmetic arguments, only to later reward each other with themselves. When one of their number – Jillian (Leah Jones) - threatens to tarnish the perfect party bubble by not feeling well, a lethargy sweeps across the ensemble. After a while, they no longer even have the energy to twerk (dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance).

Away from the sporty birthday revellers, the location is, as is often the case, a blessed relief. Scenic, expansive and remote-looking enough to convince of sinister goings-on far away enough from society to be, in theory, moderately effective. You’d hope. Still, the mood slithers from high-spirited party action to posture and ponder-ment now things aren’t quite excellent anymore. When one sleek bodied seductress disappears – you know, the one who wasn’t feeling well – the reaction from the others is minimal. A manly hand-slap and they continue as before. Camaraderie for those left behind, whilst the birthday boy laments his suddenly imperfect celebrations.

“I ain’t scared of s**t. That’s white people’s s**t. Coloured people don’t do ghosts.” Pure poetry.

Without listing further non-eventful contrivances, ‘Lake House’ proves to be an excruciating and anaemic haunting effort with a little scary music interrupting the rap beats and lead-ups to sex scenes that don’t happen. A little high-speed body-distortion (owing a lot to various exorcism films) and that’s your lot as far as ‘scares’ are concerned. Suddenly, the inclusion of some uplifting music alerts us to the fact the film is ending. But wait! A post-credits sequence features desperately overlong web-cam footage of another car full (of what appear to be four twelve-year olds driving to Clinton Road, mocking the existence of any haunting. This scene seems to go on forever. For a lead-up to any threatened sequel, it spends its entire duration overstaying its welcome). It’s difficult to know how an audience is supposed to react to this film, if at all, but who cares? Horrifying, for all the wrong reasons.