Frightfest 1

For Elisa

In this Spanish film, a concert pianist recruits babysitters to be used as 'dolls' for her adult-sized, mentally-deficient daughter to torment. The potential for high camp grotesquerie in this scenario remains sadly unrealised, and we end up with the kind of feeble torture porn where victims are tied up with ribbon. An audience member commented on the excellence of the opening credit sequence, filmed inside a piano. He wasn't wrong – that was by far the best bit.

However, I went to Frightfest with Dave (Kempster), who – to my ongoing astonishment – loved this, proclaiming it to be 'intense'. So they can put that on the poster.

The Conjuring

No, this wasn't showing at Frightfest, but we took the opportunity to see it at Cineworld in the Trocadero. A nice family from the 1970's is menaced by a nasty dead witch in this highly-praised mainstream shocker, 'based on true events'. They soon call in the Warrens, freelance husband-and-wife demonologists who are like the spiritual equivalent of really good plumbers, only much less expensive – in fact, since we are assured that most manifestations turn out to be noises in the pipes, they probably are really good plumbers too. As soon as the family tell them that the unexplained knocking sounds they hear come in threes, they are quick to diagnose a demon at work: mockery of the Holy Trinity, you see. That's why you need professionals – I would have suspected a cheeky reference to Tony Orlando and Dawn's 1971 hit single Knock Three Times (On The Ceiling If You Want Me).

This has some very effective moments, but tends to chuck everything at the viewer, regardless of whether it fits. So quietly scary bits – a child insisting that someone is hiding behind the bedroom door – are in there alongside a generic witch who looks like the one in Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, and at one point vomits red stuff in Lily Taylor's mouth. Taylor is very good but even she can't make her rather abrupt possession by the witch credible because there's no psychology here – it's all about Good and Evil, and nothing in between. The exorcism seems too easy. As Vera Farmiga, playing – rather well – one of the investigators, urges our Lily to fight off the evil influence by remembering the good times (conveniently symbolised by a family photograph) you begin to doubt her demonological credentials: isn't this entry-level stuff? A not especially imaginative screenwriter could have come up with it.

Dave was as ambivalent as I about this one.

Haunter

Back at Frightfest, Vincenzo Natali's film has a Goth-y teenager (Abigail Breslin) circa 1985 complaining to her parents that every day in her life is exactly the same. Nothing new there, except in this case it's the literal truth, since the whole family seem to be living the same day over and over again (same meatloaf, same episode of Murder She Wrote), but she's the only one who's wise to it. This is such a splendid evocation of the teenage situation that it's a shame when the mystery starts to unravel, especially as it does so in a way that is often more confounding than intriguing. Nevertheless, it finally does make sense, more or less, and the family turn out to be (SPOILER ALERT) dead, and being held captive in a collection of souls kept by the equally posthumous serial killer who used to own the house. The killer has effected the death of the family by possessing the dad, and making him kill them and himself, and now he's working on the present-day tenants too. The plucky heroine foils his evil plan, consigns him to a form of Hell and winds up back with her family in a form of Heaven. And I don't begrudge them this one bit. But I heartily concur with Dave when he pronounces this film 'good' in a not very enthusiastic voice.

There is a scene where the heroine expressly absolves her Dad of any guilt over killing his family, making her an unusually forgiving teenager (if my Dad had killed me, I'd have definitely spent a few days sulking in my room). This points to a curious similiarity with The Conjuring - both films have parents who kill or attempt to kill their kids, and who, since they were possessed, are wholly blameless. Were I tempted to make wild assumptions about the American state of mind from seeing these two films in quick succession, it would go something like this: we can do all kinds of terrible things, and none of it is ever our fault. Luckily, I'm not. Both films also have clocks that stop at a certain time: 3:07 in The Conjuring, 1:14 in Haunter. Make of this what you will.