And so Day 2 draws to close with not a bang, but a whisper. Atleast, that is, if media and marketing are to go by. For the layman neither Stormhouse or Vile will likely instigate any Pavlovian salivation. So whats the fuss? With no instant sway, which one should is worth staying awake/out of the pub for?
Vile - Mainscreen 11.55pm
That's all we got, sorry. Trailers: zilch. Preview images: scant.*. All we know is this: its torture porn (sigh/cheer accordingly), but with a purpose. 8 strangers wake up in a room with glass vials (see what they did there?!) attached to their heads; and the only way in which they can survive or escape is to harvest a neurochemical to be used by the maniacal doctor antagonist as a future drug. Only catch? The sole way to gather this chemical is by inducing extreme pain. Cue the murder set pieces. So what we've got is a cross between Cube and a behind the scenes on the beta testing of NHS drugs. Will this directorial debut from Sons of Anarchy actor Taylor Sheridan show that torture porn (for lack of other sub-genre nom-de-plume) still has something fresh to say like the great Borderland. Or will it be just another stale slice of pizza from the Saw canon. Then again, with promises of hot branding irons, boiling water and the poster-boy pliers, even if it is a stale slice of pizza, it may carry its fair bounty of meat.
*for a few, non spoilerish, non descript, non-anything images. Check out the Vile page on Bloody Disgusting
**************Update, after serendipitous surfing on another film, I stumbled across a trailer for Vile which has thus far evaded all the main avenues of search. Find it here. ***************************************
Stormhouse - Discovery Screen 11.30
So, lets face it, some may love spending a Friday night watching undeveloped characters slowly slaughter each other in the name of survival. But for others (an increasingly growing group) torture porn was dead 5 years ago. And for those people, Fright Fest have cracked out the opposite of TP. A Roswell-esque supernatural flick about a military experiment on an imprisoned entity which, after the arrival of a psychic, begins to go horrifically awry.
Where the intensity of the movie comes from though, is paranoia. Seeing as the entity in question possesses individuals on a whim, with viewers left not knowing who to trust and who to disgust.
Another rung on the British ladder to being a true icon of horror once again? Probably not, but that doesnt mean it cant kick some ass!
So what's your midnight fancy; medically licensed torture or governmentally licensed paranormality?
