…london horror comic…

Comic Book Heroes and Zeroes

London 2010 Photos

CLiNT #1 Launch: Mark Millar and Jonathan Ross Signing at London Victoria

The first issue of Mark Millar’s CLiNT comic magazine hit general retail today in the UK with mainstream stockists such as WHSmith and Tesco supermarkets selling copies.

This is big news for the UK comics scene as it potentially provides an accessible means for the general public to access new comics work without the associated stigma of walking into a comic shop or buying a comic.

CLiNT #1 is a mixture of features, articles and interviews as well as comics. The non-comics content is the sort of thing you’d find in magazines like Bizzare, Nuts and FHM. The actual comics content makes up 68 of the 98 pages and draws in big names like comedian Frankie Boyle and BBC talk show host Jonathan Ross, as well as Millar himself who handles duties on Nemesis and Kick Ass 2.

mark millar, jp kamath and jonathan ross @ CLiNT 1 Launch

It’s going to be interesting to see how this develops. Super hero movies are big right now and are going about increasing public awareness of super heroes and comics in general. Until now though there hasn’t really been a mainstream access point where the general public can converge and delve a little bit deeper into original material.

Here’s hoping CLiNT #1 goes the distance.

Who am I?

My name’s John-Paul Kamath, I’m the writer and editor of the critically-acclaimed London Horror Comic, a UK anthology of horror stories.

You can preview three separate stories from each of issue of the London Horror Comic for free online and you can also buy printed copies of each issue here.

You can also read reviews of the London Horror Comic here which includes praise from BBC comedian Stewart Lee, director of the award-winning musical, Jerry Springer: The Opera and Garth Ennis, Writer of Preacher and Punisher.

You can also listen to an interview I did about horror comics on BBC Radio 4.

I can be reached at:

FrightFest 2010 Wrap Up

Five days of watching horror films goes quickly, but it is enough time to sample what’s out there and upcoming and where horror films are heading in the next six months.

Full marks go the movie F, which was a successful horror and suspense film, made in the style of John Carpenter.

Loads of past British films screened at the FrgihtFest have attempted to copy Carpenter’s minimalist style, but have failed to provide any story. Kudos goes to writer-director Johannes Roberts for fulfilling both his duties.

The performances by the actors were top notch. Lead actor David Schofield moves between being depressed, angry and genuinely scared and remains convincing throughout.

Rodrigo Cortés’ Buried was proof positive that all you need is a good idea, a good script and a good actor to make an amazing picture.

The claustrophobic tale of one man trapped in a coffin the entire film may sound boring after the first 20 minutes, but rest assured you will remain gripped. Buried turned the tables on many of the independent films here at the FrightFest 2010.

Many independent films on show here had clearly spent money on special effects and posh locations but failed miserably to deliver anything compelling.

A special mention has to go to Primal. If you can get through the first standard 20 minutes, it actually becomes this wry Australian comedy with some really good scares.

Also, the short film Rise of the Appliances was one of the best things of the FrightFest 2010 – the trailer is at the end of this post.

Sadly, there was nothing that really blew me away. In previous years, films like The Orphanage delivered something genuinely new, delivered a good scare and made you think.

Although the jewel at FrightFest 2010, A Serbian Film, was pulled at the last minute, I was surprised that no other film really attempted to do something different.

Films like F and Buried were excellent, but F is ultimately Assault on Precinct 13 and Buried is the ending of the Vanishing played out over 90 minutes.

There was a higher than average ratio of bad-to-good films, too. In previous years it’s been 50-50, this year I felt it was more 75-25.

Given that it takes a year or two to produce a feature, it’s certainly possible that the credit crunch has hit film production and that maybe more ambitious films have taken a back seat to cash cow franchisees such as Saw and US homogenised horror crap.

This would normally not be a bad thing if funding was then pumped back in to searching and supporting new horror development, but I suspect it isn’t.

Overall, there was a feeling of having seen it all before with the films on show. This is a shame because I think when approached properly, the horror genre is the most fertile ground for seeing new ideas placed on screen.

Anyway, the sun is shining in London and I’m freed from the responsibility of sitting in a darkened cinema for 12 plus hours. Time for some much needed feet stretching. Below are the reviews for the FrightFest 2010.

Film 4 FrightFest Day 1 Pre Start Update – 17:18
Film 4 FrightFest Day 1 Start Update
Hatchet 2 Review – FrightFest Film Festival Day 1
Primal Review – FrightFest Film Festival Day 1
Dead Cert Review FrightFest Film Festival Day 1
Tobe Hooper’s Eggshells FrightFest Day 2
FrightFest 2010 Day 1 Picture Gallery
Tobe Hooper Retrospective FrightFest 2010 Day 2
Isle of Dogs Movie Review at FrightFest 2010 Day 2
F Movie Review at FrightFest 2010 Day 2
F Movie Review at FrightFest 2010 Day 2
FrightFest 2010 Day 2 Picture Gallery
FrightFest 2010 Red Hill Review, Alien vs Ninja Review and Cherry Tree Lane Review –Day 2/ 3
FrightFest 2010 Day 3 Update
FrightFest 2010 The Tortured Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 13 HRS Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 I Spit On Your Grave 2010 Remake Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 Monsters Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 Day 4 Intro The Pack (La Meute) and Short Film Showcase
FrightFest 2010 La Meute (aka: The Pack) Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 Damned by Dawn Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 Buried to replace A Serbian Film
FrightFest 2010 Chillerama presents The Diary of Anne Frankenstein SPOILER ALERT
FrightFest 2010 We Are What We Are (aka Somos lo que hay) Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 Short Film Showcase Review
FrightFest 2010 A Serbian Film Controversy UPDATE
FrightFest 2010 Buried Movie Review
FrightFest 2010 Day 5 Blog
FrightFest 2010 The Dead Movie Review
The Last Exorcism Review FrightFest 2010 – UK Premiere
FrightFest 2010 Wrap Up

The Last Exorcism Review FrightFest 2010 – UK Premiere

The Last Exorcism is pitched as a Blair Witch style documentary meets The Exorcist. The reality is that The Last Exorcism is more the US version of The Office meets The Exorcist, in a movie that never takes itself seriously enough to be scary.

The plot revolves around a preacher who fakes exorcisms and who is called to help a girl claiming to be possessed. A documentary film crew follows the preacher as he performs the exorcism on the girl and the aftermath that follows when the preacher realises he is out of his depth.

The cast of unknowns hold the film up well with solid performances. In particular, Patrick Fabian plays the preacher with a fake confidence that charms you for the first part of the film – filmed in a documentary style – very well.

The trouble is that half way through, the realism of the documentary style switches on occasion into a standard Hollywood movie, as does the plot. Again, what begins as a free-flowing and unpredictable documentary about the preacher suddenly morphs visually and story-wise into a bog standard Hollywood movie about a possessed girl.

Because you’re used to characters winking at you, the audience, and making self-referential comments as voiceovers as events unfold during the first half of the film, you cannot then shift into a third person perspective of the film to allow it to scare you sufficiently.

Add to that a contrite and hurried ending and you get the feeling that the film makers plain chickened out of maintaining the documentary style only because they thought people wouldn’t get.

A damn squib all in all.

FrightFest 2010 The Dead Movie Review

Twenty minutes into The Dead’s opening zombie shootout sequence and you begin to wonder how this UK made zombie flick set in Africa is any different to other zombie flicks that have come before it.

Forty minutes into The Dead and you begin to wonder if there’s a compelling story lurking around the corner rather than another zombie.

Unlike George Romero’s flicks, there is no social commentary here, no subtext and certainly no original zombie effects.

The plot is quite literally a guy running across Africa shooting zombies. He walks a bit, shoots some zombies, then lathers, rinses and repeats the motions. When the action lags the directors resort to a POV shot of the character looking up and seeing slow moving zombies ambling towards him.  The actors have clearly been given little direction to help with their performances and the dialogue consists of characters narrating what’s going on in front of your eyes.

Take this scene:

A moving car begins to choke and spit until finally grunting and coming to a stop. The lead character turns to the guy in the passenger seat, who also has a full view of the dashboard, and says:

“We’ve run out of gas.”

Later on, when one of the characters approaches a refuge centre he says to the guy in charge as part of introducing himself:

“I’m trying to find my son.”

Less than 10 minutes later, the same characters are sat around a fire when the guy in charge asks the newcomer:

“Do you have a family?”

These are just a few of the many inconsistencies in a film with no story or sense of direction.

The directors made a big thing about the film being shot in a part of Africa that had never been shot in a feature film before. But as the excellent Buried movie showed, you can make an excellent film about a guy trapped in a box as long as you have the wits to do it right.

FrightFest 2010 Day 5 Blog

After four days of back-to-back horror movies, late nights and Pret sandwiches, I’ve final made it to Day 5 – the final day of FrightFest 2010.

The line up today is an international mix of horror, which is more in keeping with previous FrightFests I’ve attended. Here’s a breakdown:

VIDEO NASTIES: MORAL PANIC, CENSORSHIP AND VIDEOTAPE, UK – Really looking forward to this one.  What was meant to be a nostalgic look at the moral panic caused by horror films in the 80s takes on a new meaning in the light of A Serbian Film being pulled from the festival.

THE DEAD, UK – Pitched by the programme guide as Saving Private Ryan and with a poster that implies zombies in the mix too, I’m keen to see if this film takes the zombie genre to anywhere new.

BEDEVILLED, SOUTH KOREA – Reading between the lines of the programme guide, Bedevilled does sound like a cross between I Spit on Your Grave and Bewitched as a downtrodden women takes revenge against a community that treats her like a witch – (okay, so the Bewitched part is a little bit contentious, but work with me here, it’s 9am and I haven’t slept in days)

RED, WHITE AND BLUE – USA – This looks like a Leaving Las Vegas style film, though where the horror comes in I don’t know.

THE LAST EXORCISIM – USA – The Exorcist meets Blair Witch. One that I dare say the whole festival is looking forward to.

FrightFest 2010 Buried Movie Review

The ending of the 1988 film “The Vanishing” ends with arguably the scariest ending in cinema ever: a man is buried alive in a coffin and slowly proceeds to weep as he realises his inescapable predicament and as the camera dissolves to black.

As endings go, it’s a shocker. As a beginning to a film however, it’s positively gripping and is just what Ryan Reynolds awakes to at the start of Buried.

The plot is straightforward: Reynolds awakes in a pine coffin buried under several feet of earth and has to find a way out.

Watching Buried in the cinema, you can slowly feel the collar on your shirt getting tighter as you root for Ryan to find a way out of his trap. It’s claustrophobic, it’s sweaty, it’s set in real time and it’s gripping.

Director Rodrigo Cortés does an amazing job of maintaining a closed space while always varying how Reynolds is presented inside the coffin. Despite being set in a coffin, there is never a dull moment, and the plot unfolds while keeping you guessing all the time.

Buried is a superb film and one that proves you don’t need special effects or a large ensemble cast to engage the audience.  A great idea and a talented actor and BANG you’re ahead of the pack.

You will have a great time with Buried. Go seek it out.

FrightFest 2010 A Serbian Film Controversy UPDATE

Rodrigo Cortés Buried did in fact replace Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film here at the FrightFest 2010.

Before I launch into the review of Buried, it’s necessary to clear up much of the misconception about why A Serbian Film was pulled. FrightFest organiser Alan Jones said that Westminster Council queried the film’s screening with the FrightFest and that the council went on to say that it would need a BBFC certificate if it was to be shown.

After much to and fro, the film would have to be re-submitted for classification with 3 minutes and 48 seconds of cut footage, totalling over 49 cuts, with no guarantee that more cuts would be needed, said Jones.

All this behind the scenes malarkey would have to occur over the FrightFest 2010 festival dates, meaning there was no guarantee the film would be ready – even in a redacted form.

Jones said that Revolver, the film’s distributor, remains committed to releasing the film in the UK as near to the director’s original intention as possible. He went on to say the film was challenging and that talented film makers needed to bring to light difficult issues even though the end product could be controversial.

I was truly interested in seeing A Serbian Film. I have never been to Serbia. I know very little of the issues the people living in the country face or how any of its recent history impacts on the population.

At the same time, I know very little about A Serbian Film – it could be complete rubbish with graphic violence masquerading as social commentary, or it could be something which peels back my eyelids and exposes me to a real world horror I never knew existed.

The point is, is that as a consenting adult who’s paid the price of admission to view a piece of work, I have the right to make up my own mind. As a director, Srdjan Spasojevic has the right to put his arguments across with the requisite anger he feels is necessary to shock people out of their complacency. Somewhere in the middle of that arrangement between director and audience member, we reach an understanding about what the film is and whether or not it has achieved its aims.

For Westminster Council to make that judgement on my behalf is very nice of them, but I’d prefer to think for myself all the same. The film has already been shown around the world without interference and will continue to be rolled out to other countries without incident.

Just why should London be the exception?