THE SUBSTANCE - Although I came to this slightly worried that it was already a victim of overhype, it's undeniably a striking film in many ways. The full throttle prosthetic blowout that everybody talks about is clearly in evidence by the end and delivers on the base level of graphic horror, notwithstanding that the more interesting thing about 'The Substance' is Demi Moore's Brundle-esque performance. The film's handling of hot themes around internalised body shame, social marginalisation and intergenerational dynamics is really on the nose and the fantastic / sci-fi aspects, particularly the age reversal process at the heart of the film, are all ludicrous, but still I quite liked this multi-level bluntness, it's all so obnoxiously in-yer-face; 'The Substance' has the loudness of a big statement film and director Fargeat really drives it all home with her relentless hyper-stylisation (her previous 'Revenge' showed a similar preference for aggressive visuals). Another of last year's best and all the better for being so shrill.
THE MASK OF SATAN - No, not that one, the other one, the late eighties one that not many knew about till Severin rescued it for blu ray. It's by the other Bava as well, son Lamberto, and it swaps the gothic eeriness of the classic for a ski trip full of turquoise jumpsuits, which is kind of the opposite really. There's no Barbara Steele around to dignify things, but if you're a fan of late period Italian horror you'll have very little to complain about; personally, I love to watch endless scenes of stilted dialogue as wooden actors wander candle-lit grottos and suddenly there's monster. I'm not being flippant, I do. If it can't lay claim to the kind of crowd-pleasing gore that made the likes of 'Demons' a hit with more mainstream horror audiences, then there's enough of an atmosphere of lingering weirdness to keep me happy - slap on a load of filtered lighting and a Boswell score and it's thumbs up from me, particularly if I'm rat-arsed when viewing, which, in this case, I was.
THE GUARDIAN - I quite like it when big directors slum it a bit. 'The Guardian' isn't really slumming it, but I don't suppose all that many were expecting William Friedkin to make an evil babysitter flick with druids and tree monsters. On the strength of this, I kind of wish he'd done more schlock. It's all really well done though, there's plenty of stylistic panache in evidence, all pivoting around a star turn by the great Jenny Seagrove. Bad babysitter was such a nineties trope, wasn't it? The druid thing, the tree thing, well, I don't really think there was much of that in the air back when this was made, so we have to congratulate Friedkin on some strange choices. I've only seen 'The Guardian' a couple of times over the years but I enjoy it more with every viewing.
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