Three Films Make A Post: This Dogg's got a bone to pick.

Amusement (2008): This sort of slasher by John Simpson is rather irritating. It looks really fantastic, it is slickly directed, and Katheryn Winnick is a fine final girl, but the script (by Jake Wade Wall, apparently otherwise one of the go to guys for pointless remakes) is one of those efforts that tries to be a clever twisty thriller but ignores even the mildest bit of plausibility. Its central killer and abductor (Keir O’Donnell) – apparently going by “The Laugh” – prefers plans ripped from creepypasta which aren’t just absurd and only work when everyone involved is an idiot but could only work in a universe with an interventionist god who has taken quite a shine to the killer, so based on mere chance are they; characters don’t just act like idiots but like idiots following a script dumber than them; there’s a backstory between the killer and his victims that is so underdeveloped your random late 80s slasher has more depth. And so on, and so forth, the people involved clearly believing that there’s no need to put any effort into anything about a horror film or thriller beyond a slick look.

Shojo Tsubaki aka The Camellia Girl (2016): Torico’s adaptation of the Suehiro Maruo manga with Risa Nakamura in the title role is a pretty incredible mix of candy colours, proper kitsch, twisted kitsch, cruelty, feminism, perversion, anti-feminism, star cult critique, pathos and just plain weird shit, and ends with the sort of meta blast that just might make you interpret what you’ve just seen completely differently from what you thought three minutes earlier, or it might confuse you completely; probably – and rightfully so – both. It is pretty mind-blowing, in any case.

Visually, Torico delivers a particularly fine example of classic Weird Japan that uses artificiality in a way like Hausu did in the olden times (and looks great and aesthetically stringent); in sensibility, its use of kitsch and irony without loathing or posturing feels close to Anna Biller’s grand The Love Witch – just with a very Japanese sensibility.


American Friends (1991): Last but not least, this romance (with some comedic elements) about an Oxford don (played by Michael Palin who also co-wrote the script based on the travel diaries of his great-grandfather) who finds love – or really life – through a young American woman (Trini Alvarado) – who very much finds in him what she needs too – doesn’t look or sound like terribly much. Tristram Powell’s direction is a bit conservative at times – though it is neither cheap nor stupid – but the stars here are the acting - with Palin, Alvarado and Connie Booth as Alvarado’s adoptive mother/aunt putting turning out moving performances without histrionics – and a script that understands the past and its people and their respective flaws and mostly treats them with mild irony, a degree of sadness and much love; it looks upon our common humanity and treats these people gently, with the understanding that everyone looks like a fool (or worse) seen from the future (that eternal know-it-all).

In short: Remember Me (2014)

From a German perspective, it’s pretty easy to be jealous of the quality of British TV. Sure, it’s as full of the “reality” TV curse as ours around here, but there’s still room for something like this, a TV three part ghost story that is utterly earnest and utterly unapologetic about what it is. And while, if you know your supernatural tales, it won’t exactly surprise you with anything you haven’t seen before, Gwyneth Hughes’s script knows quite well how to use some of the ghost story’s more well-worn tropes, how to fuse them in interesting ways, and how to let careful characterisation and a fine acting ensemble (with Jodie Comer, Mark Addy and Michael Palin in a rare serious role all doing excellent work).

Not all of the film’s supernatural attacks are quite as effective as I would have wished for, sometimes falling into the obvious jump scare trap, but the ones that do work – and there are more of the good moments here than of the bad – are really fine work even if you know where the film is going with them early on in a scene. The same goes for the direction – a few scenes aren’t realized as subtly as they should be, but the show is moody and creepy more often than it is not, and the missteps are never so major as to become a problem.

Plus, how often do you see a ghost story on your TV that has as much time and patience for its characters as this one – and includes a ghost-laying version of “Scarborough Fair”?

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