VIFF 2013: A Field In England

Five men, a hole and some hallucinogens. The latest creation from the mind of Ben Wheatley, known best for Kill List and Sightseers, A Field In England is a period piece with very authentic costume design from what I could tell. The men actually looked grubby, as if they didn't own very much clothing in the first place. The movie grabs your interest from the very beginning with a battle leading to violence and gore within the first ten minutes.

"This is so much fun!" Yes, following what appears to be a possessed person on a leash is always fun!

The film truly illustrates the things people will do for beer. The plot starts with men abandoning the battle to escape to a tavern. Except for our protagonist, the rest of the motley crew are very crude men especially in their rude form of humour. That just adds to the feeling of accuracy the film has. The plot can be rather confusing at points, with alchemists and buried treasure and what not.

Please, please, just one pint good sir.

A few times a rather artsy technique was used where the actors held still as if they were the people in a painting. Just when I thought that that looked cool things really got into the artsy trippy realm. There was actually a disclaimer before the movie telling people to not watch the film if they might suffer from seizures. Good thing they had that disclaimer, it really did get that trippy. For a while I just thought the movie was weird for the sake of being weird, but then I remembered, most of the characters are high on a certain type of a hallucinogen that you might find in a field in england. If you enjoy strange movies, definitely check this out, less confusing than Eraserhead and with some great comedic moments.

VIFF 2013: Willow Creek

Now here is the case of me buying a ticket for something that I really had no idea what it was about except for one word "Sasquatch" and yes I call it Sasquatch not Bigfoot because I'm Canadian yo. When I sat down in the theatre I had forgotten that it was a found footage film which was an unpleasant surprise until the film actually started, but I'll get into that later. Even the director's identity eluded me, Bobcat Goldthwait, I wasn't sure if he was who I thought he was or not. Turned out it was.

This is the role I know him the best for, I feel less bad about my lack of certainty.

Turned out Willow Creek focussed on a couple first exploring the Bigfoot-centric community of Willow Creek, then heading to the sight of the Patterson-Gimli "Bigfoot" footage. Of course they ignore the warnings of locals and as the classic adage goes, bad things happen to good people, well, stupid good people. The chemistry between the two leads felt honest and I was happy to see my second favourite officer from Death Valley get some more work. As well in the beginning of the film it seemed that they were actually using real locals to play the locals rather than actors who may have judged the characters. For instance did you know that there are more songs about Bigfoot than just the one by Tenacious D? I certainly didn't.

I used to be worried about aliens when camping, now I have to worry about Sasquatch too?

Watching this film felt very reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project, except this time I actually cared about what happened to the characters. They took the original found footage movie, learned from it and improved on it. In his introduction Bobcat was very proud of the limited amount of edits they used in the film and when it gets to the tent sequence it pays off. The tension in that scene was enough to put even a horror hound such as myself on the edge of my seat. I can honestly say that this is one of the best found footage movies I've seen, so if it comes to your town I would highly recommend getting yourself a ticket.