The Ones Who Greive is about to premiere in Austin, Texas at this years edition of Fantastic Fest.
Writer & Director Quarxx had a conversation with Robert Aaron Mitchell about the filmmaking process to realize his latest film. Here is that conversation:
Here is the the teaser trailer for Robert Arron Mitchell's new movie, Coyote Teeth. The movie is currebtly being submitted to film festivals.
DIRECTOR STATEMENT
My name is Robert Aaron Mitchell, and for the past year, I have been crafting this cinematic experience. First and foremost, the movie should speak for itself, or I have failed as a filmmaker. That being said, perhaps a little context is not a bad thing.
I live in Dilley, Texas, which is a small town in South Texas that is the location of one of the largest detention centers in the United States of America. Its primary purpose is to incarcerate families. As of this writing on June 13, 2026, over five hundred babies have been imprisoned here. This place is run by the for-profit corporation Core Civic. The Orwellian name of this place is the South Texas Family Residential Center. In actuality, it is a concentration camp to enrich shareholders. I live next door to this monstrosity.
I think a lot about evil. I also think about a phrase that is uttered many times, “This is not us.” These four words negate a 250-year history of the United States of America. This is us. We live, operate, and benefit from the machine and systems of cruelty of this country.
My motivation in crafting this cinematic experience was my attempt to stay sane so I can assist people who are being devastated by the United States of America, so I can continue to decolonize my mind as well as continue the work of dismantling the systems of cruelty I live in. I am a lifelong student of Midnight Movies, and with all earnestness, I have done my best to craft a film worthy to be called weird. The movie is ultimately about complicity.
There is nothing like Toronto in September. The Toronto International Film Festival arrives and brings such a great energy and vibe to Canada's largest metropolitan area.The energy of the city gets amped up even more than any regular day. The cinematic world descends upon the downtown streets. Red carpets are rolled out. Doors of tinted windows are opened. Actors and filmmakers from Argentina to Tokyo and everywhere else step onto the streets. Crowds gather eager for a glimpse, a selfie or a hastily scrawled signature on a blu-ray or a glossy photo or a restaurant receipt. There is nothing like Toronto in September. Except for me, all of the above is true, except there is nothing like a Midnight Madness premiere in Toronto in September.
Curator Peter Kuplowsky tirelessly searches for the ten films of cinematic genre note. The Midnight Madness programme has such a storied history. It is a film festival within a film festival. Many have noted the audiences of TIFF. Those audiences by 11:59 p.m. are still up, amped and ready. Beach balls are hit and smacked around the venue. Peter's selected playlist - curated for each of the ten movies - is playing loud.
As the Royal Alexandria aka The RAT fills up so to does the din of the buzz of the crowd anticipated what genre delights will soon unfold. Will it be an intense, look at the screen through fingers covering your eyes horror film. An action film where the sound of effects of bone-crunching kicks rattles the ear drums of the over thousand people in attendance, will the movie be a gross out funny genre destroying cinematic opus you may only see once?
I will preface the following with this...I am anticipated all of the 2025 Midnight Madness movies. If I had to pick three these are the three I will pick today...tomorrow, well that maybe a different story.
I have been following the movies of Matt Johnson and his motley crew of filmmakers since The Dirties (2013) This extremely talented group crosses genres, tones and film making techniques with ease. I cannot wait to see their latest film.
KARMADONNA
Just look at at just one of the publicity stills which was released to the media. I have been covering film festivals since 2007. I cannot recall such in your face publicity photos. This comes as no surprise as the director of Karmadonna Aleksander Radivojevic also directed a film entitled A Serbian Film by many accounts, mine included one of the most intense films ever made, I was at the international premiere of A Serbian Film at SXSW in 2010. That film still haunts me. Good luck Toronto.
THE FURIOUS
I cannot wait to see this movie! Kenji Tanigaki action choreographer SPL, Flash Point and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In helms his own action movie. Get ye to the theater as fast as humanly possible!
Robert Aaron Mitchell deep in South Texas filming a rattlesnake for his next film. (Do not attempt this at home)
"I am making something vastly different than The Bobby Diamonds Story) I am an American living during this time in America. I have a lot of rage inside because of the fascism this country has become. As I say this another mass shooting has taken place. This time in Minneapolis. Year after year after year these tragedies occur and nothing positive has been done. Gun laws have gotten more lax as time goes on. This country is entering a period of severe instability. The civil war never truly ended. It has remained as embers of hate all these years later. We are entering another period of civil war. While this film I am currently mired in does not directly address these issues the film is serving as a primal scream and it would be naive to think my environment is not playing a role in my artistic endeavors. At the end of the day during the production and post-production phases on my new work I am striving to make a scary fucking movie."
Here is a first look teaser trailer:
The first Saturday is very special during the Toronto International Film Festival. King street is closed for festival street. There are a lot of food trucks, film related vendors, music fills the air. The hot humid late Toronto summer gives way to a brisk evening. The sun sets, the city glows and around The Royal Alexandria the buzz of the audience making their way to midnight movie can be heard. This year the buzz was palpable as Joseph Kahn returned to the Midnight Madness programme with his latest film, Ick. A creature feature, much different then his underground hip hop battle movie, Bodied - which was a huge hit in 2017 at tiff. Joseph assured me that the audience would have a different yet equal amazing film experience. At the red carpet world premiere I was able to talk with actor Zeke Jones who plays Griffin in the movie Ick. Here is our conversation.
The excitement was very present the first Saturday of Midnight Madness at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. As present as the mysterious substance that is everywhere in Joseph Kahn's new creature feature, ICK. The ick is around doing not much, until it is doing something...trying to consume everyone in it's path. Leading the stellar cast is Brandon Routh. Brandon plays Hank a guy who had it all, quarterback, the girl Staci (Mena Suvari) and then it's all gone like a Mellencamp song. He starts working at the high school as a janitor and becomes a science teacher. He is still in contact with Staci and her husband Peter (Ted Kim) As the ick begins to threaten the town Brandon leads the town in a heroic charge against the mysterious substance. In person, Brandon is a delight, charming, charismatic and possessing great sense of humor. Here is our conversation.
The Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival has long been a showcase for the boldest, innovative, scariest, terrifying, look through your hands, blood-curdling horror of any given year. When Evil Lurks from writer and director Demián Rugna continues this tradition.
Strange happenings begin to happen in a rural village. Two brothers come across a very disfigured, bloated, infected man in one of the houses. They decide to load him up in a pickup and drive him away from town. Somewhere along the way the body falls out of the truck. "Should we go back and load him up again?" "No, we gone far enough" Or have they?
What sets When Evil Lurks is the brutality and banality of the violence. The violence is unexplainable. People are going mad. They then cause extreme violence to one another as well as the livestock of the village. Under Rugna's direction is shot selection is assured. He does not need to resort to shaky cameras or intense filters. The scenarios of horror and dread speak for themselves.
There are many cliches when it comes to writing about horror films. What is seen cannot be unseen. The images will stay with you a long time after the end credits. Cliche as it is, with this film these sentiments are true. I hope no one gets possessed in your town.
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| The Outwaters. Photo Courtesy of Cinedigm |
Writer and director Robbie Banfitch has said with The Outwaters, "... if I’ve done my job well, it should raise hairs and evoke chills, even from die-hard horror fans. I aimed for a naturalistic, slow-burn experience that will take its audience to a place they've never been, and then beyond. I aimed for something lovely, dark and deep."
People go out to the desert for a myriad of reasons. To find themselves, to lose themselves, to connect, to disconnect. The four friends in The Outwaters are going out to create a music video for Michelle (Michelle August) as a way of helping elevate her music and connect with her mom who has passed away. The video will be shot by Robbie (Robbie Banfitch) who is accompanied by his brother Scott (Scott Schamell) also joining them is Angela (Angela Basolis). These four actors have pulled off something that can be difficult to do in the genre world of micro budget filmmaking. Creating a group of characters that an audience can enjoy spending time with. They are excited to head out on an adventure into the Mojave Desert. As Angela - who has never been out to the desert - remarks, "The desert seems beautiful and magical"
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| Michelle May in The Outwaters. Photo Courtesy of Cinedigm |
Along with the excitement there is a sense of loss. Michelle has lost her mother and it is remarked a couple of times how much she looks like her mom. Michelle's music is rooted in her mom singing to her. The Zagorac brothers have lost their father. Robbie gifts Scott a backpack, a journal for Scott's short stories as well as their dad's bandana.
There are also vibrations are all around. Literally. An Earthquake rattles the apartment the friends are hanging out in as they prepare to head to the Mojave Desert. Several aftershocks rattle the place and the nerves. Innocuous events take on ominous qualities. Someone blows out a birthday cake laden with candles. The candles flicker and get extinguished. Little red embers remain. The embers resemble little red eyes. The red lights are swallowed up by the dark. A chandelier is filmed as a hand moves the dangling crystal accents. The light catches them and flickers in dazzling and hypnotic ways. Once out into the desert there are loud, inexplicable sounds. The vibe moves from fun, easy-going to strange and weird to....
Cinema for me is largely an emotional endeavor. However a film elicits it's intended response doesn't matter as long as it gets there. Comedy is of course is looking for laughs; a romantic film looks for the wonder and magic of meeting someone and perhaps the sadness of losing that someone. Filmmakers crafting a horror film are trying to make one uneasy and uncomfortable, make the viewer squirm in their seat, make the hairs standup on your arm. Perhaps cup their hand over their eyes and look at the film through the slight spaces one opens between your fingers. Make one audible exclaim, "what the fuck?!?!?!?!" and just down right scream. The Outwaters achieved it's goals. The hairs were standing up on my arms, as I cupped a hand over my eyes and screamed, "what the fuck!?!?!?!?!" I have watched some of the most hardcore, transgressive, dangerous cinema ever crafted. Kudos to the entire team of The Outwaters for setting out to make a scary movie and achieving their goal.
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| Michelle May in The Outwaters. Photo Courtesy of Cinedigm |
The Outwaters is a found footage film and one is either going to be on board with that or not. The impetus of the characters making the trek to the desert for a music video eliminates the shaky cam often found in this genre. Having Robbie looking for cool shots lends itself to a wonderful visual flair. There is a great shot of Michelle's sunglasses reflecting the sky. "Your eyes are the sky" The structure of the film is ingenious. The footage is on three memory cards that is now evidence of the Mojave Police. If you are going to take away or severely limit one of your audiences components to engage with your movie, in the case of The Outwaters, visually, with the use of a flashlight as the only way to see what is happening at night or complete darkness as the visual, then the other cinematic tools better be amped up. Indeed they are, the sound design of the film is incredible. I shall mention the entire credited team here. Robbie Banfitch, sound design. Monkeyland Audio, Trip Brock, Itai Levy and additional sound effects by Matt Shivers (an apt last name), Melody Elwell Romancito and Pete Barry. As in any micro-budget, independent film many hats have to be worn by a few amount of people. Robbie Banfitch also handles the special effects. This is no easy feat. Creating effects that are believable and effective is a difficult task. He pulls of the effects with great affect. Another great aspect of crafting a found footage film is really leaning into it and breaking the forth wall. As much as we the audiences are recoiling in terror we are drawn into what is happening in front of us because the characters are making eye contact with us. They are crying out for help. We, the audience sit in the dark unable to aid those in distress, creating another layer of fear and anguish upon the audience.
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| Robbie Banfitch in The Outwaters. Photo Courtesy of Cinedigm. |
It is a privilege to be able to see a film prior to it being completely unleashed to the world and write about is trying to thread a needle. You are writing about a film in sweeping, vague notions, trying to convey your experience without giving away too much, if anything away. I'll say this, my experience watching The Outwaters was a hypnotic, hallucinatory, disorienting, blood soaked, terrifying, mesmerizing, chilling and shocking.
The Outwaters is a truly a triumph of micro-budget cinematic storytelling. A film like this is truly willed into existence. The desert is indeed lovely, dark and deep.
Hypothermia is a medical emergency when your body loses heat faster than it can produce it. As your body temperature drops, your heart, brain, and internal organs cannot function. Without aggressive resuscitation and rapid rewarming, you will ultimately not survive. Hypothermia can begin in five minutes if exposed to cold temperatures.
Families can be complicated. Abby (Devanny Pinn) is driving to see her father Grant (Vernon Wells). She has not seen or spoken to Grant in five years. Abby is also pregnant. She arrives to his house high in the mountains and surrounded by an immense forest. They have dinner and the conversation is light and then turns into a strained, awkward conversation.
Quite sometime ago the father and daughter lost the matriarch of the family in a horrendous and unexpected way. Grant self medicates with alcohol and has taken to a near hermit lifestyle, fishing and hunting to make ends meet.
The next morning Grant is off to fish. He invites Abby along to relive the old days when they would embark on fishing excursions together. A set of innocuous small events leads to disaster. Grant requests that Abby leave her phone at the house. Abby asks her father to drive. Grant loses control of the car and crashes into the heavily forested mountainside.
A thriller operates on the astringent action continually rising. The film succeeds in creating viable moments of tension that is true to the world the film exists in. In the thriller genre there is always the next problem, then the next hardship and the next obstacle. The filmmakers have crafted a film where these elements are well executed. They have also handled the tone of the film very well. A movie like this can very quickly go into "eye-rolling" territory. Frost resonates and is highly effective because the film does not wavier in it's survival story timbre.
Devanny Pinn is outstanding in Frost. This is indeed her film. The audience is with her all the way as she navigates the crash scene and as she tries and survive
the elements. A huge amount of praise must also be bestowed upon the special effects team of Frost. For this film to work the special effects must be incredibly and credibly constructed. They succeed and the film succeeds because of their hard work.
Frost is unrelenting as the story unfolds into extremities of survival. How intrinsically ingrained is the survival instinct in human beings? Few films have made me physically ill. I have seen many of the most intense horror films ever crafted. Frost made feel quite queasy. Frost took me to something I have never seen before.
V/H/S/99 a reflection by Robert Aaron Mitchell
The year 1999 has been on my mind a lot recently. I watched Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage and began thinking of the year that was. Culturally turbulent. I remember quite distinctly the buildup, panic and fear surrounding Y2K. The paranoia was very real that computers would not recognize the year 2000 and thereby crash the entire system. Banks where running out of cash. Grocery stores were running out food.
1999 was actually pretty chaotic beyond the millennium scare. It was a year that saw riots at the WTO Seattle of what became known as the battle for Seattle. On June 1st Napster was launched completely changing how we consume culture and entertainment. The Columbine school shooting tragedy occurred. As previously mentioned, Woodstock 99 concert took place. A corporate music festival billed as an anti-commercial love fest which turned into a nightmare, as riots, fires and numerous sexual assaults happened. If you were a teenager in 1999 it was also a time of restless energy, pranks, skateboarding and nights wandering around Blockbuster looking for a videotape to rent.
This bring me to V/H/S/99. Alongside the sequel, the found footage concept is another staple of the horror genre, the anthology film. Creepshow (1980) Southbound (2015) XX (2017) Trilogy of Terror (1975), The ABCs of Death. The V/H/S movies combine found footage as well as the anthology structure. V/H/S/99 premiered at the 2022 Midnight Madness program. The fifth film in the series. I have always had a fondness for VHS tapes and camcorders. I spent the 1990s making ninja fight scenes with my friends. Graduating to more complex gangster and art house movies shot around my hometown. There was indeed a thrill to put in a blank tape with nothing written on the label to see what was on the videotape.
A staple to the structure of the anthology film is the wraparound story. In the case of V/H/S/99 it is less a story than something that begins the VHS tape and is then buried under many other recordings and resurfaces in the midst of tracking lines and static. It is highly imaginative and funny as hell. Little green army men in a stop motion movie with great voice overs. These army men segments are the work of Tyler MacIntyre who also directed a longer segment in the film. Which reminds me in the backyard of a townhouse in Mississauga, Ontario near the Meadowvale Mall are several G.I. Joes I buried alive that never made it back to the base. I have been meaning for quite sometime to return to that townhouse on a mission of archeological importance.
The tape goes through infomercials, BMX stunts, more static, "The Video Journal of Neurosurgery"...and settles into something quite akin to my 1999 experience, videotaping skateboarding at the local skate park and a garage band. This segment is Shredding written and directed by Maggie Levin. Way before YouTube and TikTok the original "content creators" were 90s kids running around with LP videotapes as is the case with this group of friends in a band. Local legend has it that a band called Bitch Cat played a show to very catastrophic results. The kids are going to the place where the show happened to see what they can find. Perhaps some new gear for their band and most definitely some more stuff for them to shoot on their camcorder. The fun of this segment is watching and vibing the transition of kids mugging for the camera, juvenile hi-jinks to suspense and horror in a very quick amount of time.
The unique pressures of conformity when heading to university. It leads some to take on great risks so that the next four years of their life are filled with friends, parties and maybe find a boyfriend or girlfriend. The tape settles on what is Suicide Bid written and directed by Johannes Roberts. Lily has found a sorority that she has fallen in love with and wishes to pledge to. She is so taken with the sorority and afraid of spending her university days alone that she decides to pledge only to them which means that if she doesn't get in, that's it, no sorority, social suicide aka the suicide bid. She meets up with girls form the sorority in a graveyard where she will be placed in a coffin and buried alive. There are safe guards in place. The lengths someone will go to become popular are indeed downright scary.
Ah, the Nickelodeon kids game shows of the 1990s. Competition is fierce and broadcast across the nation. You could lose and be humiliated on national television It could very well be a nightmare scenario. Losing far more than the competition is where Ozzy's Dungeon directed by Flying Lotus and written by Zoe Cooper and Flying Lotus takes us. The lengths that a Mom will go to right the wrongs for their children is at the heart of this segment. It is also a segment that asks the question, "What would you do for a Sega Dreamcast?"
Another great aspect of the 1990s was the prank. It could be done in person, at a sleepover. For my friends and I, our favorite was the prank was the telephone call. Today's kids will never know the simple pleasure of being complete dickheads and phoning complete strangers in the middle of the night.
It turns out the little green army men were being filmed by Brady the little brother of Dylan the protagonist of The Gawkers written by Chris Lee Hill and Tyler MacIntyre. Directed by Tyler MacIntyre. The big brother promptly snatches the camcorder back from Brady and begins filming himself flexing in the mirror and prank after prank with his buddies. The extremely hormonal teenagers then focus their camcorder lens on Sandra the girl next door. Turns out that Brady while being a genius stop-motion storyteller also has mad computer skills. Once again we see someone sellout morals for the sake of acceptance.
The tape of V/H/S/99 winds up in a logical place, New Years Eve 1999. All those fears of the Y2K bug and the new millennium take a back seat in Joseph and Vanessa Winters' To Hell and Back. A group of documentary filmmakers are shooting a documentary with a bunch of people anticipating what the last night of 1999 will bring. "You're in for one hell of a trip" one of the people say to the camera. We can all hope to run into Mabel if our journeys do not take us exactly where we thought we might go. Great creature effects and humor close out the anthology on high note.
The fun of V/H/S/99 are the stories within stories that propel the characters forward in their segments. A doomed band, a tale of a sorority pledge gone horribly array, a horrific appearance on a kids game show. Another completely engrossing and entertaining aspect of the film is being propelled by the imaginations of the storytellers as they take their segments to places you had no idea where they were going to wind up. Watching the filmmakers play within the context of VHS camcorder is also one of the great aspects of the V/H/S anthology films. The end credits arrive with Danzig's "Long Way Back from Hell" blasting. Pitch perfect. 1999 what a fucking year. Don't be a dweeb, rewind the tape for the next person who finds this tape.
Pearl was the surprise movie that was announced after X premiered at the South by Southwest Festival. Not only was the film announced as an origin story to Pearl who appears in X, it was already completed. As the story goes X was filmed in New Zealand at the height of the pandemic and Covid restrictions. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired set, house, barn and a guesthouse was already built. Having an already built full-on set was the origin for this origin story. In a two week hotel quarantine stay West came up with the story and script for Pearl. Once again A24 came onboard to make the film.
The film begins as a camera passes through a barn. The barn doors open revealing an idyllic farm pastoral. The music composed by Tyler Bates and Tim Williams is full of wonder and splendor. We see Pearl in her room surrounded by dolls. She is made up, her lips a rich hue of red. She stands. She is Judy Garland. As we learned in X Pearl was/is a dancer. The lights dim in her mind's eye, a spotlight hits her and reflects off of the mirror she stand before. The door opens and the illusion is shattered. It is back to life on the farm. However dreams do not fade, a pitchfork makes a great dancing partner. The cows are a rapt audience.
Pearl maybe look like an innocent farm girl. This is also the Pearl from X. A goose wanders into the barn. The goose is carried out of the barn impaled on Pearl's pitchfork. She carries the goose out to the dock overlooking the lake where Pearl will first spy on Maxine many decades later.
On a side note on the interesting dynamics of film festivals. I watched All Quiet on the Western Front and later Pearl. Both on the same day. Both films take place in 1918. Both films are horrific in their own right. It is an extremely interesting condition of seeing so many films in quick succession. There are emotions, notions and observations that carry over int different pieces you are writing about films on any given festival day.
Along with World War One, another major event was occurring. A pandemic, the Spanish flu. In an exceptional parallel to our times. To escape the hum drum of farm life, an over bearing German mama and her ill Father, Pearl goes to the movie picture house wearing a mask. The other patrons are all masked as well. A news reel shows graphic scenes from WWI. Palace Follies begins to play. Pearl is enraptured by the singing and dancing and the morphine she is sipping on. Pearl meets the projectionist who in turn hands her a little piece of cinema. Then it's back to the corn fields.
Both Pearl and X are definitely part of which is now a trilogy with the announcement of MaXXXine rounding out the last film of the trilogy. Both films stand on their own but there is much more to be gleaned from Pearl having seen X prior. It is compelling from a film making stand point to see two vastly different cinematic styles applied to the same set. There is a great scene with Pearl and the projectionist who shows her a film "nobody has seen yet" that leads in the late 1970s in X.
As the horror in Pearl slowly builds - a Ti West trademark - it pays as much homage to Tobe Hooper as X did with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so too does Pearl pay homage to Hopper's second film Eaten Alive. Does this mean the third Mia Goth/Ti West film will be an ode to Lifeforce? Only time will tell. Or perhaps being the third film it will be Salem's Lot.
The horror is also the dread of family dynamics. Pearl lost in isolation and reverie. A husband at war who has not been heard from in months. An overbearing Mother who is trying to shelter her. A sick Father. Dreams that will not subside of somewhere faraway on stage in front of an adoring audience. It is a potential suitor turning cold.
Ti West has become much more a stylist in these films, which I dig a lot. He has also grown on me as filmmaker with these last two movies. A lot has been said about Mia Goth and all the positive accolades are very warranted. Mia goes from oh shucks to full on Psycho in the flip of a switch. These films are Pearl and Maxine's world of which Mia brings to grainy 16mm and Technicolor life. West and Goth have become each other's muses.
Mia Goth delivers one of the all time great soliloquies delivered on film. All the world's a stage and all the men and women in Pearl's way are merely victims.
Netflix Is A Joke worked with Keaton Patti to make a bot watch over 400,000 hours of horror movies and then write its own horror movie. This is what it came up with. This is destined to be a perennial horror classic. Here is the film:
At the genesis of SALOUM, there is the meeting of my partner in crime Jean-Luc Herbulot. We both had a visceral need to create works in Africa, filled with heroes and monsters. It was what we craved as kids to see coming from African film, so we created it ourselves. During a trip to the Saloum region of Senegal in 2018, we wrote the short story “The Twilight of the Hyenas” an African western... a horror film... a fantastic epic... an ode to the imaginary world in which we would like to stay and a furious artistic deliverance rather than a desire to fill an empty box.
The movie was filmed in nature, mostly in the mystical and wild region of Saloum, Senegal where my journalist father had filmed wrestling matches more than forty years ago and where my mother still lives; on an island without cars, far away from all levels of city life.
SALOUM is the first feature film from LACME STUDIOS, co-constructed with the actors and technicians, day-after-day for five straight weeks - the epic adventure of a group living outside the comfort of their respective homes, much like the hero-mercenaries of the film itself. The absence of a network, the random supply of water, the regular silting up of vehicles... blood was shed along with tears. SALOUM is the result of the talents we gathered who were kind enough to follow us on this adventure.
The production of SALOUM was a natural shifting of gears, the result of adrenaline rushes, soul encounters, inevitable pains, loves, the divine and fears of emptiness ... a birth of a bloody new-born already adored by its parents.
"When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe ..." Eric Thomas recounts in his motivational speech, explaining how an old man kept his student's head under water, thus demonstrating the true meaning of the word "motivation.” This best explains why I believed in this film, why I expected it and why I didn’t hesitate to take the risk.
It’s important for me to release African artistic madness, so universal and yet so rare on international screens.
By Carol Borden
Camille Griffin’s Silent Night (UK, 2021) was not the cozy British Christmas movie starring Keira Knightley I was expecting. Sure, it starts with a range of well-off couples singing along to a Michael Bublé Christmas song as they drive to a beautiful house in the English countryside. Tony (Rufus Jones), Sandra (Annabelle Wallis) and their daughter Kitty (Davida McKenzie), James (Ṣọpé Dìrísù) and Sophie (Lily-Rose Depp), and Bella (Lucy Punch) and Alex (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) all seem to be in good spirits as they reveal comedicaly charming little cracks in their relationships. But they are gamely trying their best for a Happy Christmas among old friends. And, sure, Nell (Keira Knightley) is madly trying to finish dinner in time for everyone’s arrival with the help of her son Art (Roman Griffin Davis) while her husband Simon (Matthew Goode) corrals their other two sons, Thomas (Gilby Griffin Davis) and Hardy (Hardy Griffin Davis), into the bath and lays down the screen time and swearing rules for the night. Of course, there are problems with dinner preparation. There are only enough potatoes for each person to have one. Nell didn’t get the sticky toffy pudding promised to Kitty this year. And Art cuts himself and bleeds on some of the carrots. And this is where little things start to accumulate. Nell is hosting a lot of people and can be hard to figure out how much food is enough for 12 people, including four tween or teen children. But why doesn’t she throw out the bled upon carrots? Why do her friends still eat the raw carrots after seeing some blood on them? And when Sandra and Nell send Simon and Tony to the store for sticky toffy pudding, why do they suggest throwing a rock through the store window?
Silent Night is not a cozy Christmas reunion in the country movie. A kind of movie that is beloved whether filmed in British Columbia for the Hallmark Channel or stars beautiful posh English people on the big screen. Silent Night is another entry into the genre of white people dinner parties--terrifying whether it’s just unpleasant interactions with awful people in many, many period pieces or the hosts are pleasantly planning terrible things, as in Adam Wingard’s You’re Next (2011), Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation (2015) or Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017). This Christmas dinner is a danse macabre or, a la Boccaccio, a plague dinner. Old school friends with two “new” tolerated partners, Alex and Sophie, gather to celebrate one last time before the end. But the plague is not a virus or bacteria. It’s a toxic storm caused by climate change and everyone who has been caught in the gases spreading over the earth has died bleeding out their eyes. The house is beautiful, the wallpaper is worthy of Louis Wain, the friends are eating and dancing together, but the carrots are bloody and the poisonous storm is coming.
The friends gather together in the name of “love and forgiveness.” They also gather to explain to their children what’s happening. Or rather, they explain once they have to. As Sophie, interloping American partner of James the oncologist says, “Posh people like to keep secrets.” And because Silent Night is a comedy, a very dark one, Nell and Simon gather their sons to tell them, “We just want you to understand as your parents, we are not to blame. This is not our choice and this is not our fault.” But none of this goes over well with the children. I think Roman Griffin Davis’ Art will rightfully get a lot of attention, as will Davida McKenzie’s powerhouse performance as the imperious Kitty. But I just want to share my love of Hardy and Gilby Griffin Davis’ delivery as the very chill twins.
Silent Night is a comedy that involves a lot about class and maintaining appearances, both personally and socially. But I think it also deliberately subverts its characters belief that everything and everyone is kind of awful underneath--especially through the character of Alex, a black Lesbian observing many of the shenanigans around her and once using a Scrabble board to comment on secrets being revealed, before remarking to Bella in private, “They’re all so mean.” Alex has seen people not like Bella’s friends even in the world of Silent Night. And many of those people are out there excluded from the British government’s plan for dealing with the toxic gases.
Silent Night was absolutely not what I was expecting. I’m glad Robert Mitchell recommended it to me without telling me why. I do hope they include director Camille Griffin’s video introduction to the film in any video release. I am not sure many people will have that same experience of going in blind, because Silent Night is not a film to suggest to people who want to see a nice, cozy movie to enjoy over the holidays. It would be traumatizing. And a lot of people who would enjoy it might be put off by a Keira Knightley cozy Christmas movie. But I am sure whoever distributes it will find a way because Silent Night is a not movie that is ruined by knowing what it’s about, without knowing too many specifics of what happens. That said, there are some jokes I’d love to repeat here--especially one about The Road (2006). But I won’t. You should probably see it for yourself.
This is how topsy-turvy the world is. My final movie at the
2021 Toronto International Film Festival is a Keira Knightley Christmas movie.
One of the great things about attending a film festival, is to walk into a movie
theater or, as is my case this year - stream a movie - you have no idea about. This movie with a premise of a midnight madness movie was a complete surprise. I loved it.
It is Christmas afternoon. Nell (Keira Knightley) and her son Art (Roman Griffin Davis) are in the kitchen preparing dinner. Michael Bublé plays. It is a beautiful afternoon in the English countryside. Perfect. Peaceful. Art is cutting carrots and cuts his finger. Blood spurts all over the carrots.
Family and friends begin to arrive. Some eat the bloody carrot bits. They either do not notice or do not mind. The kids run around the house and get in each other’s hair. This leads to a lot, a hell of a lot of children profanity. It is stupid, fucking funny.
"Tonight is all about love and forgiveness." Nell proclaims to everyone who has assembled for this Christmas celebration. Tonight will indeed be about a lot of things.
Another common thread that I have seen with the movies I have watched this year the Toronto International Film Festival is great dinner sequences. You Are Not My Mother, Saloum, Unclenching The Fists. Silent Night also contains a dinner scene, and it is amazing and the centerpiece of the entire movie.
Dinner is served. There are hints that something far greater is happening outside this family Christmas dinner. The potatoes are rationed. One potato per person. A prayer is begun. It is awkward and funny. Nell contributes to the prayer, “To love we have shared.” The word, “have” hangs in the air. One of the guests Bella (Lucy Punch) looks out the window. Her look of nervousness is at odds of the beautiful blue sky out the window. The conversation turns to the Queen’s speech. "Well she is clearly in some bunker setup", says Tony (Rufus Jones). Nell quips, "If you want to live in a hole and eat dog food..." "It's fine because she's old" Kitty (Davida McKenzie) quips.
The dinner conversation gets even better when Art brings up Greta Thunberg. Roman Griffin Davis and Davida McKenzie play exceptionally well off of one another. Sofie (Lily-Rose Depp) begins to expound upon the difficult night she had last night. The adults are trying to change the conversation but the kids want to hear more. "We had dinner, sang Celine Dion, dance to Brittney, laugh, cried..." Sophie gets out before the subject is changed.
Someone mentions, that they should be honest with the kids. Art insists that his parents have told him the truth. Kitty interjects, "The Russians want us all dead and are sending poisonous gas to kill us all. They are obsessed with world domination." Art, "Do not be ridiculous Kitty it isn't the Russians. The planet has absorbed every ones filthy rubbish, it had enough and it cannot take it anymore so it's spitting it back out as a fuck you to the world."
It is mentioned that the government of the United Kingdom cares for it's people and has provided aid and assistance to the residents of the country that will abate pain and suffering. There is a website Exit.Gov.Co.Uk that provides information on how to Die With Dignity. The government has provided other tools to alleviate the fate that awaits million and millions of people. Art points out that all of this government assistance is not available for everyone in the country and he is adamant that he will not follow along with the government instructions.
Christmas must go on. Games are played. Spirits are imbibed. Presents are wrapped. In another revelation of rationing and a clue to the big story, the presents are wrapped in newsprint. Art holds a present with the headline: New York Governor Declares State Of Emergency. Burrough Of Queens death toll passes two million. As we garner subtle hints of life in this catastrophic world, watching people proceed with a high degree of normalcy we wonder what the fuck is actually happening out in the world. People surly are not playing charades, sipping on champagne.
As the tsunami of toxic gas races towards the English countryside and the moment of mortality approaches the tension and anxiety infuse the movie with such great moments. The pathos of humanity is on full display. I, the audience, sitting relatively safe in the "real world", it is all a delight. Except for the back of your brain reminding you of the ongoing pandemic and the climate change that is getting worse everyday. The entertainment of it all runs parallel to the very real - not too far from now - "real world" scenarios that could very well come to fruition.
Writer and Director Camille Griffin said in her introduction, "I believe as the world becomes more fragile, society becomes more divided between those that do and those that don't give a damn about one another. With Silent Night I wanted to investigate the world of privilege to see what might happen when catastrophe knocks at their door. No amount of money, education, good manners can save anyone from the inevitable. She wrote the script pre-Covid without any knowledge of the pandemic. Covid didn't enter the world until after shooting on the movie began. What has become clear to everyone is it is incredibly hard to protect societies in the world. We need to step up and take care of one another. How far are we prepared to go to protect the ones we love and how far are we prepared to protect the rest of the world."
I love a movie that changes tones like a whiplash. I loved
the many tones contained in this movie. There are so many great performances in this movie, to single one out feels as though to take away from the work this ensemble cast created. That being said, Roman Griffin Davis is absolutely amazing in this film. Camille Griffin's feature film debut will go up with White Christmas and It's A Wonderful Life for ever how many Christmas nights I and the rest of humanity on the planet have left.
Arsalan Amiri, Zalava (Iran, 2021)
Zalava is a small farming village. Nearby is a military outpost. The year is 1978, before the revolution in Iran. All is not well in Zalava.
The film opens with a woman hauling a large pack. She walks down cramped village paths. She comes across something. She stops dead in her tracks. She stares ahead with palpable fear. Her nose starts to bleed. Villagers arrive at the military outpost screaming there is a demon in the village. “She’s possessed!” Villagers surround her. Her fear grows. The villagers fear grows. She backs away from the mob and falls down a cliff to her death.
After this tragic death a complaint is filed towards the Sergeant of the outpost, Sergeant Massoud. (Navid Pourfaraj) He is blamed for the death of the woman because he ordered all the guns in the village to be confiscated. A young soldier Younes reads the military order that Sergeant will be effectively relieved of duty by the next morning.
As the villagers line up to receive their confiscated guns one of the people is Khalaj Zalavaei the father of the woman who fell to her death. Upon receiving his rifle he points the gun at Sergeant Massoud and pulls the trigger. The rifle, empty of bullets clicks. The Sergeant’s last night in command will be a long one. A black cat ominously wanders the military post.
The village is once again gripped in throes of fear. Another demon is attacking the village. Massoud and Younes take a jeep and drive up the windy, mountain roads to the village. A couple of dead, mutilated sheep lay on the side of the road. As they arrive villagers are in full panic mode trying to escape and save their livestock.
Way back in November 2016 here in America, people, mostly white people, began to wear safety pins as an act of solidarity with visible minorities who were rightfully concerned for their well being as a populist was elected riding a wave of nationalism and xenophobia to the White House. The underlying thought was that a person who was being threatened, say on a city bus, would spot the white person wearing a safety pin and approach knowing that they were with a “safe” person. Needlessly to say, placing the burden on the person who was already in a dangerous situation. In Zalava we also see safety pins being worn by the villagers. The thought is the demons are repelled by metal. Further, to this end we also see many scythes hanging from doorways.
A traveling exorcist by the name of Amardan (Pouria Rahimi Sam) - a true highlight of the movie – shows up to assist the village in the removal of the current demon. Amardan removes his shoes and heads up the stone steps to the house with the possessed person armed only with an empty glass pickle jar. If he is successful he will return with the demon successfully trapped inside the jar. If he does not succeed he has given firm instructions that he is to be stabbed below the waist to effectively bleed the demon out which will still keep the village safe.
Another character that should be mentioned is Doctor Maliheh. (Hoda Zeinolabedin) She works in the village collecting samples of the villager’s blood and urine to send to a government lab to ensure the villagers overall health but because of the level of anxiety in the village the samples contain far too much adrenaline and are not effective as true samples. Sergeant Mossoud is also quite smitten with her. Another matter to note is although Dr. Maliheh is very much rooted in science and medicine she does still believe that there is a possibility that demons do exist.
The film is ultimately the test of two wills. Khalija the influential villager who lost his daughter to the demon who wholeheartedly believes in the supernatural influences surrounding Zalava and the will of Massoud who believes that all the demon fears are nothing more than superstition. Interestingly, Aramand may believe or may only be riding the wave of paranoia to cash in. As was mentioned earlier Dr. Maliheh is a person of science and still retains some belief that the demons could be real.
There are some wonderful standout scenes with Dr. Maliheh and Sergeant Massoud as well as Massoud and Amaradan debating if he is actually an exorcist or just a con artist. There is also some horror troupes of a black cat, creaky doors and shadows on the wall. One of the best scenes involves the black cat and the pickle jar.
I consider this one of the best films I have seen this the 2021 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival because as a demonic possession, exorcist film it is playing off the genre convention that the audience will dismiss the reality of the demon until the big third act fantastical reveal of the demon. We didn’t believe, but we knew it all along. Zalava wonderfully subverts expectations. The demons of fear and superstition were visible the entire time. We are watching a community give into fear and superstition.
For me one of the great scenes of the movie is when the mob riding on delirious fear begin arguing amongst themselves on how they should proceed, contradicting the many long held steps to demon exorcism and removal. One other thing I want to mention, is the entry point into the story is definitely through horror conventions however the film is also very much a love story.
The film takes place in a per-revolutionary Iran but parallels a lot of what I am seeing in the world right now with an invisible virus. People are eschewing science and medical fact to chase disbelief and unproven medical cures. Of which the end result is many times, very scary, tragic and deadly results.
By Carol Borden
In Arsalan Amiri’s Zalava (Iran, 2021) there is certainly a demon among the people. They are scared and capable of anything. But is that demon their own fear or is there something else cursing them?
The film is set in 1978 in Zalava, Kurdistan, a village settled by Romani one hundred years ago. The village itself is beset by djinn that can only be controlled either by capturing the djinn in a jar or bottle or by wounding a possessed person below the waist. The people of Zalavi prefer to shoot someone in the leg as it has a higher chance of survival but they also will stab or cut a person below the waist so that they “blood spurts.” This prevents the demon from possessing others. As the film opens, a young woman has been declared possessed and the villagers have summoned Sgt. Massoud Amhadi (Navid Pourfaraj) to do something about it. Massoud confiscates the villager’s rifles to prevent them from hurting the girl. He tells them, “She’s better possessed than having you mutilate her.” But after Massoud, his sidekick / underling Younes (Baset Rezaei) and the rest of the local gendarmerie return to their station outside Zalava, the girl’s father draws his knife to do what he believes must be done. Unfortunately, as she backs away from him, she falls to her death.
The local people complain to the government, blaming Massoud for her death and his illegal confiscation of their rifles. Massoud receives orders to step down and return the rifles. The day before he is to retire, he dons a very 1978 suit, goes to sign papers and turn in his badge. But the villagers return to the station demanding that he do something about the demons attacking Zalava. Instead of telling the new commander it’s his problem now, Massoud dons his uniform and returns to Zalava to discover metal implements hung in front of doors and strung across alleys to scare the demons away. Everyone is terrified. Some appear to be convulsing. And the center of the activity is a house people are certain now contains a demon. They have called a ritual specialist, Amardan (Pouria Rahimi Sam) to exorcise the demon. Amardan tells the assembled villagers to bring their rifles and all the musicians. The musicians come, but no one will bring a rifle because they believe Massoud will seize them again. Amardan tells Massoud to shoot him in the leg if he comes out empty handed. Then he asks someone to stab him in the leg if Massoud is too afraid to shoot. Amardan comes out of the house carrying a clear jar that he claims contains a djinn. The musicians play. Everyone dances. Massoud is extremely skeptical. And now the real suspense begins.
Like a lot of folk horror, Zalava relies on the fear of what people are capable of based on their beliefs and what might be happening that’s rooted in things from long ago that urban and urbanized people might no longer understand. But Zalava also reminds me of Val Lewton’s psychological horror movies at RKO in the 1940s. Though there is a lot of successful suspense built around it in the film, it doesn’t really matter if there is a demon in that jar. The demon’s presence or absence is less important than the destructive power that people themselves are capable of. It’s hard to see how one djinn is really worse than a village of people willing to shoot, stab and even kill each other in their fear that something secret is wrong with someone among them. And the accused we see before they are shot, stabbed or driven off the edge of a building don’t seem much different than anyone else. Though while embodied djinn seem initially innocuous, we do hear that Amardan can send disembodied djinn to do things like pee in dams. While watching Zalava, I couldn’t help thinking about Emir Ezwan’s Roh / Soul (Malaysia, 2019), another film with another demon setting people against each other. But as that demons says, “All we do is whisper.” In Zalava, our fear and panic is far more destructive than any demon could be by itself.
I assume there are social and political implications that aren’t immediately apparent to me in setting the film before the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, but I do appreciate setting it in that time for other reasons. Massoud’s suit and the film’s color palette certainly reflects that era in film. There are some beautiful shots of Massoud’s tan jeep driving through arid, rocky mountains. I didn’t mention Dr. Maliheh (Hoda Zeinolabedin) in my synopsis, but she is integral to the film and she has fantastic chemistry with Navid Pourfaraj’s Massoud. Pourfaraj is another actor who conveys so much with his eyes alone.
I also appreciate director Arsalan Amiri’s point in his introduction that this kind of panic can happen anywhere anytime. It’s not specific to this place. At the same time, I am not entirely comfortable in setting it among an ethnic minority, Kurdish Romani, even as I know that having some kind of other who is simultaneously outside society and involved in secret and perhaps dangerous supernatural activity is a common story the world over. I don’t know enough history about the area or of Iranian film to say more about whether the people of Zalava are even read as Kurdish or Romani. All that aside, Zalava is an excellent film. And we are wise to remember that, yes, these panics can happen anywhere and we should watch out for them not just in others, but in ourselves because they always feel righteous.
And if you are concerned about the kitten or the rabbit, they don’t die.
