Fantastic Films Weekend
@ National Museum of Photography, Film & Television
Bradford, UK 22 – 23 May 2004

Mid-May in Bradford, during one of the best weekends of the year thus far, was perhaps not the ideal backdrop for the third annual Fantastic Films Weekend at the National Musuem of Film, Photography and Television.

Forgoing the eclectic nature of most programs, the festival instead opted for a few threads – classic Hammer horror, Japanese horror/fantasy, Douglas Adams, and The Lord of the Rings. Cramming even that into just two days was difficult enough. Without the bustle of a traditional convention set-up, communication with other fans, nerds and the like is vastly reduced. With the heavy reliance on screenings of films (no bad thing I might add), any appraisal of the festival itself, is by its nature, essentially a series of reflections on the films screened. I reserve my more general thoughts until their natural place in the telling.

Arriving in Bradford on the Friday morning, we had decided that there would be too much to take in during the weekend, for us to attend everything - not helped by clashes in schedules. In order to gain full appraisal, we didn’t bother with the Lord of the Rings screenings. These were split over the two days, owing to scheduling difficulties. The conclusion being saved for the Sunday. Having sat through a midnight screening of all three when the final part of the trilogy was released in December, and the extended cut of The Two Towers waiting for me to sit down to at home, I felt another excursion into Middle Earth, unnecessary at this time. The screenings were well attended all the same - and for those who remain uninitiated, the trilogy deserves at least one viewing in a cinema arena.

The festival also incorporated a number of IMAX films into the schedule. This is no doubt because the NMFPT has one of the oldest IMAX cinemas in the UK - a vast room (as they all are), with its five-story-high screen. No special films were being brought into the festival, but for those with weekend passes, the chance to witness the phenomenon should be seized. With a bustling schedule ahead of us, we opted to catch a screening of James Cameron’s Ghosts of the Abyss on Friday night as representative of the IMAX film culture.

The 60 minute documentary takes us on a voyage alongside the director of Titanic, as he goes to the wreck of the legendary boat, imortalised in his own works. Whilst at first, the 3D glasses are given much to do, with carefully chosen perspective shots and a vast ocean environment, the hustle and bustle of the crew on the water dies down, and we head reverently to the wreck. Its corpse lies in the sand, with its decaying remains lit dramatically by two tiny robots - Jake and Elwood. The feel, is rather light and fun for the most, with all too little of the actual Titanic footage. When it comes up in 3D it is a sight to behold - brought to life with immaculately superimposed reenactments of costumed actors running about. These are the Ghosts. The eerie 3-Dimensional work is left for shots outside the boat, whilst much of the interiors is in 2D, layered in multi-screens over rather bland 3D images of the expedition crew in their own surface boat.

With the exception of one shot, early on in the film, which brings the objects right to your nose, the layering is subtle. As an ambassador of IMAX - the film is flawed. Better results are to be found in the 3D work in the Terminator ride in Universal Studios, and even Creature From the Black Lagoon is more convinced in its own techniques. With a selection of insect movies, and CGI’d material, also on display over the weekend, we may have made a poor choice, but subtly weaned our way into the realms of the fantastic - with scale, cost, and pure eerieness. I guess the very idea of IMAX is film fantastic.

SATURDAY

The day of the festival has arrived, and late out of bed as per usual, we wander the five minutes walk from the hotel to the venue. Having looked around the venue yesterday, it is a bright, welcoming building, full of interactive exhibits which lend some appreciation to the crafts behind the films we are about to see unfold. With a few too many of the interactive exhibitions faulty or simply not working when we were there, we were left a little disappointed. However, nil desperandum… To the Broccoli…

For the next two days, we will take our home in the little Cubby Broccoli cinema on the first floor of the Museum. Along a little corridor adorned with James Bond posters, into a well-furnished room, with a healthily sized screen (none of your postage-stamp-sized screens, that seem to litter the West End of London).

Opting out of the first of the Japanese films (Save the Green Planet), we head instead for the first of three Hammer-related billings of the day. As a sometimes-billed Hammer "expert", I feel obliged to attend all the Hammer screenings at least. Tomahawk’s world premier of their documentary Greasepaint and Gore - The Hammer Monsters of Phil Leakey.

Their documentaries have been promised for years, I found a reference to them in a 1994 issue of Little Shoppe of Horrors. By then Phil Leakey and his successor Roy Ashton had died which gives you some idea of how long we have waited. As new documentaries go, this proved a promising start to the weekend. Archive footage, specially shot with Leakey for this film is the keystone to the work - he talks frankly and fondly of his days with Hammer, from subtle work on the early Exclusives, through the sci-fi work of Quatermass, up to the ground-breaking make-up on Christopher Lee in Curse of Frankenstein. And whilst the usual talking heads (Val Guest, Jimmy Sangster, Hazel Court, and Christopher Lee in his best on-screen interview in ages) provide support, it is the footage of Phil at work which captured the audience’s attention and would provide a talking point of the following afternoon. After watching him apply the calodian, wool, and make-up to an arm, representing a fleshy burn, the crowd audibly and visibly balked as they watched him pick at it with a wooden tool. Testament to the man’s skill indeed.

The documentary itself was screened digitally - suffering from high-frequency noises during the Leakey interviews, and some poorly chose blue-screen work. (1st August 2004: Bruce Sachs informs me that the source for the screening was in fact from the master-tape. However, the sound problems were caused by the equipment at the cinema. Checking out the dvd version, I can confirm that the dvd does not suffer these sound problems). These quibbles aside, a valuable piece of oral history captured on film, and a very special chance to see the master at work (he also demonstrates his construction of the Creature make-up), which is worth the admission alone.

Barely had we time to rest than the next film was on. And here it became evident that there was a problem. With a simple series of screenings, and limited space (the café shut early, and I didn’t mange to find the meagerly-stocked bar until the following afternoon!), there was little scope for interaction with other attendees. So whilst you were getting fired up and ready to talk, any interactivity seemed forced. There was little time for food or drink in between.

Settling back, the afternoon sees an ultra-rare screening of Brides of Dracula and Devil Rides Out, in honour of Terence Fisher’s 100^th birthday. The director, frequently cited as a mere hack and journeyman, by chance helped ring in the changes in horror and fantasy cinema. The screenings on offer give a rounded glimpse of the director at his height.

Brides sees Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing return to fight the cult of the undead, headed by David Peel’s Count Meinster. Cushing’s version of the character in infinitely more believable than Hugh Jackman’s recent cinematic outing. The restrictions of budget, offer a tighter script, real tension in claustrophobic settings, and an urgency that is lacking in the faster, frantic 2004 effort. Andree Melly’s gorgeous face engages our attention, and provides one of the last real European leading ladies from the Hammer stable, that could act. 85 minutes of screaming, incestuous analogies, raw sensuality, and succeeding where Dracula failed in biting Van Helsing, the film’s fire-cleansing climax at the windmill provides the let-down with its absurd usage of the cross-motif.

Half an hour later and we’re off again. This time, in the curious adaptation of Dennis Wheatley’s classic narrative of the dark arts. Patrick Mower (more familiar to contemporary audiences as a member of the cast of Emmerdale) is the rather foolish convert to the Satanic coven, headed by the charming Mocata (Charles Gray). Christopher Lee sides with the powers of good, and with the powers of facial hair, as the Duc de Richleau. There follows a ripping good yarn set in the early 20^th century, with old cars chasing through the English countryside, chickens, and the devil incarnate. Some dodgy effects aside, the script is well-oiled, and tension is nicely built to a double climax. The cinematography is nowhere as vivid as Brides, but Terence Fisher makes a hero out of Lee, and charms the audience throughout.

The prints of both films showed signs of wear, something we were warned about before the screenings started. Brides has a fair bit of scratching, and tram-lines, but colour is vibrant, and perfectly watchable. Devil Rides Out suffered from some additional breaks, as well as the lines and scratches. The soundtrack was severely muffled and some hideous gaps of a few seconds caused some mirth from those in attendance.

I asked festival director Tony Earnshaw about the problems with screening such gems. He told me that the problem lies in accessibility. The same few prints are offered by the same collectors, and most are now falling apart. He wouldn’t dare screen Hound of the Baskervilles again, following some sever gaps in the print, noticeable on a previous occasion.

Cheekily, I wondered about digital projection methods (something praised by that other pioneer of fantasy cinema, George Lucas), and resorting to dvds for some of the more obscure screenings (as I have done for university groups). The problem, I am told, lies in the disappointment that would be felt by someone like myself, coming from Belfast, to see, essentially a dvd. Fair enough, I have digital copies of both the films screened, and yet still wanted to see 35mm projections on big screen. A previous occasion, when the film simply didn’t arrive on time, and was falling apart in the hands of the projectionists when they tried to run it, which saw a dvd screening ensured that the experiment would not be repeated, thanks to complaints.

It is of course interesting to observe that the National Museum doesn’t even have access to many of the films sought by cinema-goers.

I took my chance for a break following the Hammer triple-bill, opting for neither The Two Towers, or the screening of Battle Royale. The latter film was much praised on its debut some two years ago. A modern-day take on the Lord of the Flies scenario, with kids forced to fight each other in a violent display of guns and blood. That at time of writing I still haven’t caught the film, is somewhat surprising. Everyone I speak to loves it.

I opted to wait until I got home, and catch it on dvd (I’ve seen it in the video shop up the road that I used to work for - they owe me a rental or two). After a well-earned rest, and some dinner, we headed for Battle Royale II : Requiem - a film, still in its previews in the UK.

I missed this one a month ago when it screened at the Belfast Film Festival (an appallingly bad festival, which suffered from massive organisation problems, and a lack of enthusiasm or interest from staff - something which I could not say about the brilliant support provided at this event). I’d heard that it wasn’t very good, and that it reeked of sentimentality.

Erm. Well… I’m told that it starts more-or-less the same, as the kids (and there’s no point in trying to work out who anyone is, because after five minutes you couldn’t care less what happens to them, and by the end of the two and a quarter hours, you simply don’t want anyone to live) are taken to the BR grounds, have necklaces put around their necks, and whilst being paired off discover that those who don’t play the game die, as do their partners. Some initial blood letting whets the appetite, and the disembarking on the beach, like a modern D-Day, is more akin to the few scenes from Saving Private Ryan, that I have caught. Guns going off everywhere, in a melange of wobble-cam. One particularly obnoxious youth manages to shout his way through the film, unable to reason with anything.

The guinea-pigs are watched on live tv all the time Big Brother-style, though this is underplayed, as the idea of an Orwellian landscape where the kids kill each other tantilises. As they encroach on the dwelling of the previous film’s survivor Nanhara (Tatsuya Fujiwara), they enter a bizarre structure of scaffolding and corrugated iron, that would look more in place as the home of the lost boys in Hook.

Thereafter the film descends further and further into the mundane. If I wasn’t such a stubborn goat, I would have left. The adults come to the island, and pick off lots of the kids in a repetitively unimaginative bloodbath. Whilst violence can be provocative in excess, this was limp. Particularly with the dire juxtaposing scenes of smiling children in Afghanistan (never named - but seems fairly clear), and the political polemic of the opening (towers crumbling to the ground), and references to "That country" (read AMERICA), which has been terrorising the world for twenty years. Its crap pure and simple.

Kenta Fukasaku destroys the brilliance created by his late father, with this directorial mishap. As the Battle Royale name promises much, it is a shame this delivers so little.

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