FrightFest 2021: ‘When the Screaming Starts,’ ‘Knocking,’ ‘Night Drive,’ and ‘Killer Concept’

U.K.’s biggest horror film festival, FrightFest came and went. But then again, time is absolutely meaningless these days. B-Sides & Badlands didn’t get to cover nearly everything we wanted to; in fact, we only were able to view a select four films out of the huge batch this year. That said, the slate was as good, if not better, than the 2020 fall lineup. From seat-clenching commentary on ride-sharing to flipping the script on slasher films, and everything in between, the roster was sure to please everyone.

Below, B-Sides & Badlands lassoes up capsule reviews for the features we were able to consume ⏤ not as many as we would have liked, but there are some gems to discover.

When the Screaming Starts

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon leaves a terribly long shadow. With its lifting of the veil around a burgeoning serial killer’s process to retooling found footage elements, the 2006 film was a landmark release in many ways, even if it never caught fire with the general public. 15 years later, Conor Boru’s When the Screaming Starts, co-written with lead actor Ed Hartland, attempts to pick up the mantel with a similar conceit but displays a wildly different, cheekier, and campier tone. The story follows Aidan (Hartland), who’s dreamt about becoming “a serial killer everyday” of his waking life. Alongside his far-more-disturbed girlfriend Claire (Kaitlin Reynell), the two hatch a plan to create their own Manson Family, after its proven Aidan might not have the guts to do any killing himself. Documentarian Norman (Jared Rogers) and his film crew are on deck, of course, to catch every stage of the endeavor, from capturing reality TV-style auditions to a savage midnight bloodbath. It’s never quite a serious affair, which allows the viewer to find immense joy amid the disturbing sequence of events. Grisly violence and wonderfully twisted humor abound, and as the film vaults to its third act, there’s a twist that makes the feature a surefire delight.

Knocking

Psychological disturbances detonate like trip wires throughout Frida Kempff’s Knocking. When a woman named Molly (Cecilia Milocco) is discharged from a mental ward, she steps back into the real world and must rebuild her entire life. Pieced together through brief flashes, the viewer gets a glimpse into her pain and a kind of unimaginable tragedy which sent her spiraling out of control to begin with, requiring a year-long stay in a local hospital. As Molly settles into a low income apartment, seemingly all is well at first and a brand new life stretches out before her. However, she soon begins hearing mysterious knocks coming from somewhere in the building above her head. When she confronts her upstairs neighbors, no one has a clue what she is talking about. It’s within such a premise that Kempff, off a script written by Emma Broström, who based the story on a Johan Theorin novel, plays around with even the viewer’s perception of reality. Molly’s descent into madness is a sorrowful, uncomfortable one, and you’re never supposed to know if she’s simply playing the role of unreliable narrator or what she’s experiencing is happening right before your eyes. The psychological warfare stems from not only Milocco’s emotionally-charged performance but the camera work, often feeling like a deleted reel from Requiem for a Dream. Knocking is a soul-crushing piece of cinema that may even have you questioning your own sanity.

Night Drive

Playing with genre and audience expectations will always earn you extra points. In Night Drive, co-directed by script writer Meghan Leon and Brad Baruh, the story follows ride-share driver Russell (AJ Bowen), a seemingly nice guy who has just gone through a painful divorce. One ill-fated evening, he is sucked into a sticky web of lies by a passenger named Charlotte (Sophie Dalah), who plays both charming and suspect in her plan to steal back a small suitcase harboring a deep, dark secret. Throughout the ride, as Charlotte coerces Russell into making numerous random stops, including at a local watering hole for a drink, the two talk life, love, and ambition. Yet there’s something always percolating right below the surface. When they pass through a Christmas light display, Russell accidentally hits a man with his car, and it’s off to the races from there. It’s your classic hit ‘n run style thriller… at first — before erupting into a sci-fi time travel epic, setting up a world that simply begs to be explored further. That’s perhaps the downfall of Night Drive. It saves such grand prospects for the third act, and you’re left hungering for a genre-flip in line with The Butterfly Effect. There’s plenty of mayhem and laughs to be had, as Russell and Charlotte bumble along trying to figure out what to do with a possibly dead body, and it’s just enough to keep you intrigued.

Killer Concept

It’s almost a challenge these days to take the darkly humorous conceits of Scream and strike gold again. Glenn Payne’s Killer Concept, written by Casey Dillard, retools the self-aware convention to explore our collective obsession with serial killers. Three creatives Mark (Payne), Holly (Dillard), and Seth (Coley Bryant) are in the middle of writing a new screenplay, based on the grisly murders that are currently ripping through their small town. Both fascinated and sickened by recent events, the writing team find themselves stuck in the middle of a moral dilemma, as they struggle to remain respectful of the victims and create a horror film that’s exciting and bloody. “This sounds like a very generic slasher film,” Holly knocks down one of Seth’s many stale ideas. It’s been four months since the unnamed, uncaught killer last murdered, but soon, reality and fiction entangle and suck Holly, Mark, and Seth right into the eye of the storm. Alluring and stylish cinematography wraps snugly around a fairly captivating script — and what’s as impressive is the $900 budget to make the film. Killer Concept doesn’t reinvent the slasher wheel, but it does supply a helluva good time.

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