FEATURE: Shocktober '15 - The Loved Ones

Over the course of October, I shall be watching one horror movie a day and reviewing it right here for your reading pleasure. I haven't seen any of the films I'll be watching before and you can find the full list here.

Xavier Samuel stars as Brent Mitchell, a teen who has become a full stoner burnout since the death of his father in a car accident, in which Brent was driving, six months earlier. When Lola Stone (Robin McLeavy) asks to be his date to the end of school dance, he politely refuses, saying that he is going with girlfriend Holly (Victoria Thaine), the one bright spot in his life at the moment. Lola, however, has other ideas, working with her father to kidnap Brent and put him through a prom night experience he isn't likely to get over quickly. 

The Loved Ones is the directorial debut of Sean Byrne and operates with the kind of no-holds-barred attitude that first time directors often bring to their work, free from the pressure of expectation. He weaves together a film that successfully spins the usual teen format into a witty, tongue-in-cheek horror marvel that's both riotously entertaining, bloodcurdling and extremely funny. It also has at its heart a family tragedy, one which at times feels plucked from another film entirely. It's a heady mix and occasionally, the film's wacky tone threatens to get in the way of everything else going on, but Byrne navigates it with a sure hand, never quite letting it go too far.

All the hallmarks of a good teen movie are there; the girly outsider who just wants the perfect prom, the moody guy she falls in love with, the comedy sidekick and his very own romantic subplot. There just also happens to be torture, maiming and a basement full of emaciated kidnap victims. Lola is Andy from Pretty in Pink taken to the extreme, her scrapbook of former torture victims as treasured as the clothes Andy makes herself. She also quite the close relationship with her father, but John Brumpton is miles creepier than Harry Dean Stanton. So yeah, it's John Hughes... but with drill bits.

Samuel gets the most grounded role in The Loved Ones and provides a strong core, navigating Brent's guilt over his father's death, the difficult relationship with his mother as well as his suicidal and self-harm tendencies. Brent is someone who has repeatedly wished for death, only to fight back accordingly when the actual possibility is presented to him. The film does, however, belong to McLeavy's deliciously wicked Lola, all teen innocence in a pink cocktail dress and impractical heels. She throws herself into the sheer absurdity of it, playing Lola as that teen heroine in her own twisted prom story. "This is my first drilling," she says coyly, with all the shy excitement of a girl out with her boyfriend for the first time. It's brilliant.

For people like me who are fans of both teen horrors and teen comedies, the blend of the two in The Loved Ones is very nearly perfect, finding that line where laughing in horrified glee becomes the norm.

- Becky

You can find my other Shocktober '15 reviews here.

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BOOK REVIEW: Life Moves Pretty Fast - Hadley Freeman

There are certain films which leave an indelible impression on the memory after you watch them for the first time. Back in the days when Sky+ boxes were a thing of the future and the only way to record things on the TV was to wind up the VHS Player, I set a shiny new blank tape up to record a film. That film was Wing Commander because I was very much going through a Freddie Prinze Jr phase (shush).

The brilliance of the VHS recording system, something that has since been lost with the more precise recording equipment of this century, was that sometimes you ended up with whatever came after your initial choice too. In this case, it was The Breakfast Club. I got to the end of another enjoyable viewing of Wing Commander (shush again, I like it and revel in its naffness) and, hearing the nice BBC announcer say that The Breakfast Club was due next, I settled back down for a film that sounded like it might involve pancakes. And I like pancakes. 

Instead, what I got was the John Hughes masterpiece that didn't involve pancakes, but sushi, Barry Manilow's wardrobe and a collection of misfits who I adore to this day. It was one of the first films I'd seen in my awkward teenage years that actually spoke to me about the difficulties of trying to be cool and 15 at the same time. I fell in love with Bender because who doesn't love a brash yet sensitive burnout who wears plaid and a grotesque amount of demin? I empathised with Bryan and the comments about his deeply uncool desire to get good grades because I too was an insufferable swot. And then there's Allison who remains to this day the kind of social outcast I always wanted to be, but was never quite cool or confident enough to become. 

These were my people. Those characters coupled with an endlessly quotable script saw the film enter my favourites list immediately, even with the lack of actual pancakes. John Hughes would also go on to become one of my favourite directors. 

When I cracked open Hadley Freeman's ode to 80s cinema, Life Moves Pretty Fast, I knew immediately that I was in the company of a kindred spirit and settled down to read what turned out to be a pleasant surprise of a book. The subtitle, "The lessons we learned from eighties movies (and why we don't learn from the movies anymore)" may create an initial trepidation regarding rose-tinted nostalgia, but the result is that the book is a fairly well-balanced mix of that nostalgic fondness mixed with genuine insight and interesting analyses. 

It does of course help that a fair few of my favourite movies are featured within the book. Dedicating a chapter to The Princess Bride is always a swift way to get me on side (because it's obviously the best film ever made - unlike many films, I don't remember seeing it for the first time because I'm fairly certain I've been watching it since birth), not to mention another on When Harry Met Sally (because it's obviously the second best film ever made). 

Yet it's not just the content, but the way it is written that makes Life Moves Pretty Fast such an entertaining read. Freeman's easygoing prose feels more like you're having a conversation over a pint with a friend rather than burying yourself in some weighty tome, especially the fun Top 10 lists at the end of each chapter. I found myself nodding gleefully at several parts in the book, not least of which the moment in which young Dan Aykroyd is declared to be sexy (he was Elwood Blues; of course he's sexy). Given that the best place to have highly enthusiastic, all-gesticulation conversations about film is in the pub, this is definitely to the book's advantage. It's pretty much a film geek's dream.

Freeman is also not afraid to tackle some more weighty issues in her analyses either. The feminist focus of the book arrives at a particularly interesting time when it comes to representation of female characters on screen, given the recent debates surrounding Avengers: Age of Ultron (oddly enough, Freeman's analysis of modern superhero blockbusters is the one section I don't really agree with). Whilst there are examples of bigger blockbusters getting better, it's not hard to disagree that we have gone backwards since Sally had her deli moment or Andie refused to change one iota to get Blane to continue dating her. 

The book allows us to celebrate those characters, many of them now iconic in popular culture. Freeman's analysis of Dirty Dancing as a surreptitiously major feminist work in cotton candy clothing and her conversations with the film's screenwriter, the great Eleanor Bergstein, are a particular highlight, demonstrating the power of letting women tell their own stories behind the scenes. The feminist focus may run through the book, but a wide variety of topics are tackled also from the way in which race is represented on screen, the decline of mid-budget films and issues of masculinity in cinema. There's even a list of 80s films that Freeman regretted not mentioning. My heart soared at the albeit too brief inclusion of St. Elmo's Fire.

In a world where cynicism reigns supreme, particularly in the film world when snark is seemingly more regularly dealt out than praise, Freeman's book storms in like a breath of gleefully positive air. It's hard not to get swept up in the sheer amount of love within these pages, but it's grounded in carefully thought out analysis that keeps it both conscientious and relevant. I can pretty much guarantee that the first thing you'll want to do upon finishing Life Moves Pretty Fast is finally get round to seeing or rewatching the films mentioned. As for me, I've got a glorious Reiner/Hughes marathon planned. 

And for anyone else with fond memories of VHS days, I really do recommend picking up the paperback edition rather than the ebook (see above). It's gorgeous.

- Becky

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