Father of Flies

Fairly well made movie. As far as indies go it was above average in technical stuff and acting. Couldn't understand anything about characters or story.

A father tries to hold his family together when their estranged mother comes knocking.

Stylish psychic horror, but hard to figure out its shape. There's an in/out dynamic, with the mother outside the house and the mistress inside, the mistress switching in and out of wearing a mask, the daughter only having a life when she goes outside, and the father always going out or coming in. But there's above/below as well, used in a couple of scenes with the boy's bed, and in the use of the basement.

I also had trouble figuring out whose story this is. In the end, it's all on the father, and the most effective sequence is his dream, which ends on the adrenalin buzz of a jump scare. But the story-arcs of the other characters go their own way, and the intriguing reveal doesn't really bring them together - at least, not to my satisfaction.

The cinematography is very good, using one impressive swivel-pan as the mistress sits up on the couch, and the shades of brown and grey are elegant. The score is subtle, and the couple of needle-drops are effective, particularly in a dance scene, when the uncanny quality of the masked mistress shifts the sense of unease into dread. There is some problem with dubbing - I thought it might be down to the sound of passing traffic, but it also occurs in one scene in the boy's bedroom.

The performances are very good too, the standout being the true delivery of the boy's expressions of fear. But for all that, I didn't quite get the role of the mistress, so am at a loss to understand what it meant for the father to lose his family. The role of the witchy neighbour is poorly integrated, and the significance of the TV clown unclear, so it seems the story couldn't make up its mind over the divide between the real and the other world. The director/writer has said the story is a working out of his own experience, but I'm not sure he's given enough for us to crack the code. Another thing is that the opening scene puts a lot of emphasis on communications technology, but that theme isn't played out.

As for the frights, the jump scare at 35 mins is the high-point, and otherwise the effect is of brooding menace building to hysteria.

Overall: Unique style to deliver an obscure message.

The story is a little mixed up for the first part of the movie but all becomes clearer in a sudden unexpected way. I don't watch much horror so I found the whole movie very creepy. For a low budget indie it's better than many and I found myself revisiting the story and untangling some of the initial confusion in my mind after I watched it. I jumped a few times and the latter part had me feeling very uncomfortable for all the right reasons. For the most part it's well shot, the score haunting and on the whole the limitations of budget don't spoil the plot albeit it's thread is a little hard to follow at first. Worth a watch.

I'm a bit confused by the overall low rating.

"Father of Flies" is creepy and unusual. Let's call it horror-noir with its monochrome tones and Hitchcockian camera angles. It also keeps you off balance because it seems to take place in an indeterminate 20th-century decade ... until you notice the smart phones. So that's discomfiting.

It has a sort of Jim Jarmusch meets M. Night Shyamalan vibe.

It's thick with menace and the acting is more than competent. (Kudos to young actor, Keaton Tetlo).

I liked it (translation: was creeped out) enough to give it eight stars.

Don't expect the usual jump scares and gore and you won't be disappointed. It's more about the vibe.

You'll feel dread.

After finding For Roger (2021-also reviewed) to be a disappointing opening title at the online GRIMM Film Festival,I decided to get ready to catch the second movie in the line-up,by following the flies.

View on the film:

Standing outside the family home with the forced out mother, co-writer (with Nadia Doherty) / director Ben Charles Edwards & cinematographer John Bretherton unveil the troubled roots of the family tree with a surrealist mood piece atmosphere, which fleetingly shines in all too brief glimpses, as a masked woman dressed in ghostly white dances in the family home to The Cure song Lullaby.

Placing all the importance on weaving a mood to wash over the viewer as the screenplay remains in a hazy, dreamy state, Edwards takes the fleeting moments of getting into a surrealist Horror groove, and drives them all into the ground, via grinding,repetitive panning shots and zoom-ins which run over each sequence again and again until all mystique has faded with the father.