Director: Robert BeaucageRunning Time: 80 mins
Fri 20 Jun, 22:30
Filmhouse 1
The popularity of the Gothic in pop culture has been re-vamped in the last decade, and is frequently populated with non-threatening, misunderstood or simply misguided monsters just waiting to be tamed. Edward Scissorhands, Buffy's Angel and now you can add Spike (Edward Gusts) to the list. Not simply a monster, his attack on the protagonists of this tale is secretly motivated by a deep sense of longing and lost love from this prickly social misfit. Yet who knew a car full of lesbians, jocks and bimbos falling foul of a human/hedgehog hybrid could be so po-faced? Debut writer/director Robert Beaucage certainly has the visual panache; it's exceptionally well put together considering its humble budget. Deep inside beats a barbed heart of darkness, but what this fairy tale sorely lacks is true magic.
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2 comments:
Spike should have been an amazing film, the outline written by EIFF staff made it impossible to resist. But this was the first mistake, the outline bore no resemblance to the film that I saw on Friday evening. The use of the words ominous, obsessive, skulking all added up to what I though (or what should have been) an eerie and creepy experience. The creepiest part of the film was watching the woefully untalented cast chew up the clunky laughable script. There was no tension at all and very little about this film said gothic horror to me (apart from the overuse of images of roses). Was I supposed to like the character of Spike? Was I supposed to hate him or was the goal that he just bore me with his sappy, hammy one liners? This felt like a student movie at it's worst and although I think that the 'under the radar' section in the EIFF is a brilliant addition to an already fantastic festival, they made a very bad mistake to include such an awful piece of cinema. One last point, anyone who saw the film on Friday can you please explain to be the bizarre dream sequence in the car at the beginning - was I supposed to think that the lesbian partner wanted to have sex with her brother whilst covered in giant spider webs? Or did I hallucinate something interesting during my hour and a half of boredom.
I agree with the other comment. I have writen an article on it on Denofgeek.com under "Rounding Up The Dross".
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