"The Lesson" - Review

Liam Sommers (Daryl McCormack) is an aspiring novelist hired to be the tutor to young Bertie Sinclair (Stephen McMillan), the son of esteemed novelist J.M Sinclair (Richard E Grant at his most Richard E Grant), of whom Liam is an enormous fan. Settling into his enormous house with Sinclair's French wife Helene (the treasure Julie Delpy) and their guarded butler Ellis (Crispin Letts), Sommers is both the pupil and mentor when it comes to how to write...

A 3 or 4 hander, very much a slow burn, it feels like a stage play were it not for Alice Troughton (known primarily for her television work, particularly with Russell T Davies) and her long, sometimes experimental shots. It largely works, and feels exceedingly 90s and European in a good way. Delpy is always welcome, and Grant is always great. I was expecting the whole thing to get gory or properly nuts, but it still kind of works.
Side note: off the back of this and "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" (which is fantastic, by the way) I am convinced that Daryl McCormack is on a mission to only do movies where he sleeps with esteemed older actresses. Based. I'm all for it.

"Cobweb" - Review

Peter (Woody Norman) is living a sheltered life with his parents (Lizzy Caplan and Anthony Starr), who are still living in the shadow of a child's disappearence years before. Bullied at school and plagued by nightmares, he starts leaping at shadows... What is a boy to do?

A slippery, tricksy, unpredictable movie, and something of a pleasant surprise in today's market. It wove itself insidiously between genres, using shadows and light to create an atmosphere of unease and dread (check out the "Nosferatu"-esque shadows on the stairs, and the very 70s stares and stark shots of certain characters. The director Samuel Bodin has a good eye for this sort of thing); whilst playing form a child's eye view leaves it so much murkier, and unpleasant. Lizzy Caplan (welcome in movies, and against type here) and Anthony Starr do well as a suburban couple with something going on behind that veneer of pleasantness. This is the first thing I've seen Anthony Starr in, and he's pretty good. Still not watching "The Boys" though.
Anyway, the film's unpredictability is done via its use of your expectations of horror: you KNOW something is wrong here, you KNOW something is going to burst out of the woodwork, it's just a case of WHAT is going to do so. And when that 3rd act rolls around? It's great.

"Mercy Falls" - Review

A group of friends set off for the Scottish highlands to find the cabin left to Rhona (Lauren Lyle) by her father. She hopes to hook up with Donnie (Joe Rising), is accompanied by her boisterous best friend Heather (Layla Kirk), and her quiet unassuming boyfriend Donnie (James Watterson), and concerned that Donnie has brought his arsehole friend Andy (Eoin Sweeney) along. But soon the group have bigger problems when they run into Carla (Nicoletta McKeown), a mysterious drifter...

It's a rather generic affair, where I was waiting for the script to pop or subvert things, with little in the way of atmosphere. Still, I can't be mad at it as it was clearly made for about 20 quid, and it's competent enough fare set to be a film on the Horror Channel.