FrightFest 2024: ‘Fright’ emerges as among the festival’s best features

Magic happens when a filmmaker capably transports you to another time and place. It’s no easy feat to build such an expertly crafted and immersive world that the audience forgets where they are for 90 or so minutes. In Fright, writer/director Warren Dudley magnificently ferries the viewer back into the 1930s. From the dialogue and setting to the theatrical score, Dudley’s latest offering feels like a long-lost film that we’re only just now discovering. Existing in the realm of The Uninvited and The Haunting, Fright takes cues from the 1940s and ’50s horror in such a way that feels authentic to the time. It’s appropriately classic, timeless even, in how it unravels the story and invites the audience into its spooky web.

Emily (Gwyneth Evans) struggles with a severe case of agoraphobia. It’s crippling to such a degree she can’t even fathom opening the front door. She spends her days reading and writing in her diary, expressing deep angst for and dreams of the outside world. She wants to be like any other 18-year-old girl. But she harbors a fear of monsters that she believes await her just outside. While caring and empathetic, her mother (Jill Priest) keeps a firm hand in her life. Emily longs to break free, but the anxiety pulsing in her ribs won’t let her move more than a few feet toward the door.

Inside the vast estate, shadows dance on the walls and candles flicker their golden torches. Boards creak, and the whipping wind does little to assuage Emily’s dread. All is not well in the home. Dark, slender fingers wrap their claws around the door frames and seek to stretch over her face. The sinister presence grows closer, leaving Emily bereft and even more incapacitated. With her father out of the picture, she labors over his absence and longs to reconnect with the past. But her mother refuses her this much – causing Emily even more pain. Long-buried secrets soon unravel in the crisp clarity of the daylight hours. It becomes evident Emily’s mother, falling ill, has her own past sins from which she’s running.

With its limited cast and one location, Fright makes great use of its resources and relies on the strength of its actors. Evans and Priest work well together, commanding the screen in each of their scenes together. There’s a melodrama to their work that fits snuggly into the period but still feels rooted to the ground. As the story heightens and tensions boil over, the two leads elevate the material with nuance. Their understanding of the frailty and desperation of human nature oozes from the screen, making for exemplary performances and among the best out of the festival.

Shot in black and white, the film exudes unshakable spookiness, as though the viewer wanders through a haunted house late at night with no escape in sight. Cinematographers Josu Vaquerizo and Matt Cotton bring a sense of mood and atmosphere that rattles you to the core. From lighting to the use of shadows, their collective approach serves the material quite well and allows Dudley freedom to play in his direction. It’s hyper-stylized to fit the filmmaking era, but there emerges a distinct, fresh, and contemporary eye.

Fright makes you scan the corners for figures lurking in the corners. The darkest recesses overflow with chilling possibilities. Warren Dudley packs in such heart-pounding suspense that you get the sense that Emily’s monster could very well pop out of the screen. There’s always the anticipation, that guttural feeling that something could be watching you from the fringes of each frame. It’s a real old-school fright-fest that will surely delight classic horror fans.

Fright made its world premiere at this summer’s FrightFest.

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