INTERVIEW | Dean Midas Maynard

Dean Midas Maynard | Film Producer | Horror 

The entertainment industry, like every other industry, has taken a real beating from Covid and lockdown; whether it’s shoots being postponed, Trolls World Tour almost disrupting the entire exhibition industry (no really, look it up) or everyone getting just a little sick of films about zoom calls.  So not only is it a small miracle that anyone is able to continue creating anything at all, but especially when it is a small British guerrilla film project that has reached nearly 80,000 views on Facebook!

I spoke with Dean Midas Maynard, a North-East based film producer who has made a name for himself within the independent horror film scene for his slasher creation Rag Dolly, and spin off nemesis Eve Valentine:  “Rag dolly is the silent, unbeatable, Michael Myers type” says Midas, “while Eve is a complete psychopath and a bit merciless.”  Inspired by an ominous note he saw saying on a spade on a Scottish beach “borrow, but please return…” Midas began production on the first of his franchise in 2019 with a group of enthusiastic volunteers, and is due to release the fifth instalment next month.

We discussed the reception the series has received, whether that is acclaim from the eight international film festivals, or responses from keen fans eager for the next instalment:  “People love rag dolly - we were surprised at the response - there are people who have watched since the first one who are really interested in the upcoming films, even all the way in America!”   It’s apparent that these films have really connected with people, and in such dark (and frankly boring) times, it is more important than ever to be making media that people escape with.  Having said that, it has not been easy to do so: “Even short films take a lot of work, but especially with the restrictions.  The second Rag Dolly film should have been done in March, but that was in lockdown, so we had to film it in July / August.  We kept everything safe - but so long as we’re within guidelines, we can make these films. It has been hard, but on the other side of the coin it has kept me sane! Making these films has  been a massive relief because it has kept me occupied and focussed, and keeping that creative process. I have made a point not to mention Covid in the films, the only change is perhaps the killings have become a bit more creative!!”

“We were lucky enough to have Dolly V Eve at our local Odeon Luxe just before the November lockdown - and that was an amazing experience! But you see these beautiful cinemas, lights off, doors shut, and its soul destroying. It’s been a really tough time - a lot of my friends in the entertainment industry just haven’t worked in nearly a year.”

Film fans everywhere are in limbo right now; missing our local multiplexes and Indie cinemas - but if anyone is looking for new horror films inspired by the classic slasher films of the 80s with a Northern twist, the Rag Dolly & Eve Valentine films would be perfect to slot in amongst the jigsaw puzzles, banana bread, and other lockdown projects!

Valentines Eve 2 is released online on 13th February 2021. http://www.dollyveve.co.uk/

- Lucy Smith-Jones

REVIEW | The Shape Of Water

2017 | 2hr 3mins | Drama, Fantasy | Rated 15 | Dir. Guillermo del Toro

It has been three years since Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017) emerged onto cinema’s screens and three years until I finally chose to watch this ‘acclaimed’ Golden Lion winning masterpiece. What took me so long, is a question that plagues me even as I write this, for del Toro had created a spectacle of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale and what emerges is a film that has defied any categorisation by genre. Instead, we are swept into a land of paradoxes. 

This motif has followed del Toro across his filmography, because he blends realism with fantasy. It is through this sleight of hand, done with subtly, that we barely notice the city of Baltimore, USA, set somewhere in the 1960s, is not a true depiction of the post-war American experience that it first seems.

The Shape of Water has a layering of a romance, thriller, drama and fantasy which should have been stifling for a viewer to watch yet, del Toro turns each of these tropes on its head. So, by splattering in the violence that thriller’s offer and combining this with love, sex and, monsters what emerges is a violent love story. However, when we dive deeper, we begin to understand that del Toro’s portrayal of a ‘monster’ and a woman falling in love is in actual fact a tangled exploration of what it means to live in a world which denies you a place and, more importantly, a voice.

Viewers first notice this absence of a voice through its leading heroine Elisa (played by Sally Hawkins). Elisa is a mute, communicating via sign-language, her speech shown on the screen through vivid yellow subtitles. Her reality is filled with people, their noise and the space they occupy within her world. But, she is lonely. It is through this loneliness that the need for her to feel accepted by someone other than her peers becomes recognisable. She is desperate for connection and as the film progresses, for love too. This is why the relationship between the ‘monster’ (Creature) and Elisa is paramount to the understanding of del Toro’s masterpiece. The relationship grows by intrigue first. Elisa initially notices the Creature in passing. She and her best friend and colleague Zelda (Octavia Spencer) are completing their routine cleaning of the secret scientific facility they work at. It is inside one of the laboratories that Elisa first notices the Creature. Much like Elisa, a viewer is intrigued due to the way del Toro has filmed the scene. The camera moves almost like a body through water, always shooting from below or in the centre of the screen – never from above. As the Creature is brought into the science lab, we notice the way the camera circles around all cast members, gliding between them and focusing on the face of the laboratory’s head of security, who is attempting to command the room with his voice. As we watch, the camera tracks the movements of those individuals important to the scene: Fleming (David Hewlett), Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), Elisa and Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon). However, the camera is always moving much like a body, a creature, would if they were swimming through the sea.

Nevertheless, as the scene continues Elisa is swept up by her intrigue. As she approaches the Creature, she hovers her hand across the tank he is imprisoned in and listens to his muffled cries. Not only does this leave a viewer deeply empathetic towards the Creature it also echoes the sentiment of entrapment both he and Elisa feel in their respective circumstances. This sense of entrapment is then made overtly apparent to a viewer when she touches the tank. When Elisa presses her hand against the glass the Creature’s cries increase and fill the laboratory. This alerts the lab staff who promptly remove her and Zelda from the room. Despite this, Elisa is then left with the echoes of the creature’s fear. Much like him, Elisa longs to cry out. She is isolated in a world of noise because she cannot communicate through sound, only movement. It is this difference that makes her appear weak to those who populate her world but, Del Toro teaches us that there is strength in difference. We merely need to look.

Overall, The Shape of Water feels like a film of indulgence. It is a delicious ride into something forbidden and haunting but, ultimately, beautiful. Once again, del Toro has triumphed in his vision to combine the fantastical with what is real, leaving a viewer with heightened emotions of longing and compassion because we are made to realise what is left unspoken, in the silence, is just as powerful as the noise that surrounds our daily lives. All we need is to be still in the silence to understand the beauty that the world offers.

- Megan Brady

FOCUS | We Need To Talk About Kevin

2011 | 1hr 52mins | Drama, Thriller | Rated 15 | Dir. Lynne Ramsay

Flushed with uncertainty, dread and often confusion; 2020 has given us a plethora of emotions to fixate on. As we enter the most festive of months, during which the colour red is spotted almost everywhere; let's take a look back on a piece of cinema also gushing with this primal of colours.

‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ speaks for itself and invites any audience to be forced to have at least once conversation about it afterwards. My partner, quite understandably, didn’t really have the words to express his feelings at the end of the films. Me, on the other hand, could not stop talking about it.

All of the action is to the point, much like Kevin’s weapon of choice used throughout most of the film and finally ‘showcased’ at the finish. Every action shown on screen is building the dread I spoke of at the beginning, that something awful is going to happen. Yet, the minimal dialogue is just as punchy, ruthless and a testament to the heart wrenching emotion behind the pivotal characters of Kevin and his mother Eva, despite their seemingly being no emotion behind their eyes whatsoever. The way the director hints at the tragic and disturbing crescendo to come by throwing (very literally at one point) the colour red in our faces is often. Yet, as you’re concentrating so hard to decrypt the relationship between mother and son, you may miss it.

At the beginning of this story, we see red being used as a symbol of life as Eva takes part in ‘La Tomatina’ festival in Spain. The sheer mess and unclean nature of this festival may prove to be the biggest first clue of the mess to come later on in her life, but you cannot deny the colour red representing sheer joy and passion for Eva’s previous life. This festival also marks the time when she meets Kevin’s father, Franklin which means that the red hue plastered on our screens during this meeting could represent the start of creating a life for a woman; a life that fills Eva with burden and struggle.

As soon as Kevin’s character enters his quietly turbulent teenage years and Ezra Miller’s eerie and captivating performance is upon us, you can’t help but feel uncomfortable and nervous watching him. With behaviour so erratic and manipulative on a good day, even a simple task of making a jam sandwich becomes entrancing for us. Of all the sandwich fillings to use, I suspect that jam was not chosen on a whim. Such a trait of innocence, reminding us that Kevin is still just a child as he splatters the sweet spread on his bread. Some viewers might connect this innocent action as lazy, however as we’ve watched Kevin grow up throughout the film, we have come face to face with his overwhelming sense of curiosity and the consequences that follow. Making this sandwich may be just a simple task of nourishment for you and I, but for Kevin it is an opportunity to play with patterns, push past the normal protocols in life. Arguably, you could say that he has been doing this quite successfully since his early years and his main motive has been to antagonise his mother, Eva. However, the one thing I loved about the jam sandwich scene is that I was witnessing a moment with just Kevin and his mind. He has no audience, it is just him, his motor skills and his imagination; a combination that proves unstoppable and dangerous in the scenes to come. 

At this point, I feel like if I continue, I should include the disclaimer ‘Symbolic Spoilers Ahead!’. Instead, I urge you to watch this piece of cinema and try and spot any tell tale clues that may translate into something more than just a prop, costume choice or location. This is the thing I love most about films of this nature and this genre. Everything has meaning, you just have to be willing to look for it.

- Melissa Swain

REFLECTION | For Sama

2019 | 1hr 40mins | Documentary | Rated 18 | Dir. Waad al-Kateab & Edward Watts

I put off watching For Sama for far too long. A documentary that I knew contained horrors of the Syrian conflict that would no doubt shock, disturb and upset me as I watched it. Of course, I was right. Just one of the countless indicators of my privilege as a white, British, middle-class male that this film frankly illuminates; simply choosing not to engage with something that will make me sad. Continuing to live in peaceful ignorance. For this, I am ashamed.

However, my personal feelings are abhorrently irrelevant compared to the events of For Sama. The footage is solely captured by the film’s creator Waad al-Kateab, a journalist based in Aleppo, and is structured as a message to her daughter: Sama. Beginning with her days at university, documenting the peaceful protests that would eventually escalate to the full Aleppo uprising against the militant Syrian government (led by Bashar al-Assad), Russian airstrikes and Islamic Extremists. Caught in the middle of this mortifying, seemingly never-ending conflict were the rebels and inhabitants of Aleppo – refusing to flee and give up their city as it crumbled around them, as so many others understandably chose to do. Waad was at the heart of it. Relentlessly filming everything she could, knowing all too well the significance of raw, unedited footage. Led by her doctor friend Hamza, her small group constructed a makeshift hospital and devoted themselves to saving lives and protecting the injured. In the absence of a government that has even the slightest inclination to protect its people, Hamza, Waad and their friends became the last hope of salvation for the people of Aleppo.

Let me be clear, some of the imagery Waad records at the hospital is some of the most harrowing and heart-breaking imagery I’ve ever seen on film. The camera does not shy away from the numerous dead children – nor does it neglect the tears of grieving mothers nor the cries of young boys mourning their brother lying dead in their arms. And so it shouldn’t. This is not entertainment. This is life in the modern day. No number of news reports or statistics can give you even a shred of empathy compared to overwhelmingly visceral experience that For Sama provides. Yet still, for all the tears you may spill and for all the aching your heart can handle, it is still incomparable to the real thing. Watching this film, I personally believe, is the least you can do.

While the footage was as painful as I expected, it is not what makes For Sama a 5-star watching experience. For at the heart of all this death and desolation is Sama. Having proposed in their makeshift hospital, Hamza and Waad get married. Their wedding is small and improvised; at one point they jokingly suggest to keep the music loud to drown out the exploding shells coming from the streets outside. Soon, Waad falls pregnant. Despite her internal moral struggle with the notion of raising a child in a warzone, nine months later she gives birth to a baby girl: Sama. For Sama, as it titularly suggests, is a letter from Waad to her daughter – at points begging her forgiveness for keeping and raising her in such an inhospitable environment. Waad speaks directly to her daughter’s future self, explaining how the sense of duty felt by her and Hamza to help, protect and serve the people of Aleppo was too strong to ignore.

The bravery of Waad, Hamza and their friends cannot be overstated, nor can the content of their character or the strength of their spirits. In a crumbling city, covered in blood and ash, they refused to run away. Somehow, they continue to laugh and smile while the walls shake around them. As food and supplies become sparse, Waad’s best friend is overjoyed when her husband surprises her with a persimmon, before joking that the siege can continue as planned now that she has her fruit. She also runs an underground school so that the local children can still access some form of education. In an effort to create a sense of community, her husband buys some art supplies and organises an art session in which the children paint an old bus. When asked what happened to the bus, his five-year-old daughter replies that it was ‘hit by a cluster bomb’. No matter how much paint or fruit the adults can throw at their situation, even the youngest members of their community know all too well the tragic reality.

This is the balance of For Sama. Adversity in the face of despair. Sheltering and nurturing life while surrounded by death. Sama herself is not only the offspring of two ferociously devoted and wholeheartedly endearing parents, but a beacon of hope. One piece of footage shows Hamza, Waad and Sama sneaking back into Aleppo to help their friends. When they arrive, Waad remarks how, most of all, her friends were happiest to see Sama; her smiling face welcome respite to the constant terror they faced. The girl born in hellfire, living to see another day.

- Ewan Cadwallader

LOVE LETTER | Odeon Silver Cinema Screenings

Odeon | Over 55's Screenings

Before the pandemic hit, I would visit my local cinema perhaps twice or three times a week. It didn’t really matter what was on; for me, the cinematic experience is compelling enough in itself that actually liking what is on the screen is a bonus. Sitting in a cinema allows you to pause your thoughts and life for a time, and step outside of the everyday. It is addictive. I miss the cinema. The weekly Odeon Silver Cinema screenings held at my local Odeon, have always been a highlight of my visits. Whenever my work pattern allowed it, I would make sure to be there. While the Odeon website details that these screenings are for ‘our guests who are over-55’, I am a good few years younger than this, and have always managed to get in (which might actually say something about how old I look!). The films shown at these screenings are a few months behind the contemporary release schedule, but at only £3, or £3.50 for a premier seat, with a cup of tea or coffee and biscuits, they are a real bargain.

There are two cinemas local to me, the Odeon, and a Vue. Both of these show a consistent schedule of mainstream Hollywood movies, which are generally satisfying, but sometimes I crave something a bit different to watch on the big screen as well. The Odeon Silver Cinema screenings offer a sort of multiplex cheat-code for a regional cineaste like me. Despite being a few months behind, the films shown by this program offer more variety than the up to date schedule. It was Silver Cinema visits that meant I could catch films like If Beale Street Could Talk, and Carol, on the big screen, when neither film had been shown locally on its initial release.

The Odeon is usually quiet, with screenings sometimes feeling like a bespoke service put on just for me. The decadence of having a whole cinema screen to myself is certainly preferable to sharing it with a row of people on their phones, chatting and not paying attention to the screen. But I would always exchange the solitude to share a cinema with a Silver Screening audience. Whatever is showing, the screening rooms are always buzzing and packed. It is only Marvel or Star Wars movie midnight showings that fill the cinema up to the same levels. Each film is introduced by one of the members of staff, who the regulars gently heckle. When they finish and the film begins, the real joy of these events becomes evident. Like a crowd watching fireworks, they make collective appreciative noises as every plot nuance is revealed. I do not think I will ever forget hearing 120 people ’oooooh’ like intrigued school children, as Emily Blunt and Matt Damon kissed in The Adjustment Bureau. If a film is less than good, and begins to lose the audience, a comedic pseudo-directors commentary begins as the crowd try to make sense of what is going on, on the screen. I have had to stifle many giggles, as the audience around me make a mediocre film memorable with their insight.

My local Odeon has been closed since March, following lockdown 1. It is incredibly sad to walk past it on my daily route to work. With the future of cinemas uncertain, and the target Silver Cinema audience most at risk from the virus, it is hard to know when one of these screenings might take place again. Though with news of vaccines comes a glimmer of hope; I can already smell the free cup of coffee held in the arm rest drinks holder of my seat, and hear the hushed chatter as the screening room begins to go dark for the Odeon Silver Cinema to start again.

- Oliver Carey

REVIEW | Happiest Season

2020 | 1hr 42mins | Romance, Comedy, Drama | Rated 12 | Dir. Clea DuVall

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a queer gal in possession of good taste must be in want of more films with lesbians in them.

Anyone who knows me will confirm that I have been excited for this film for almost two years: Clea Duvall, directing Kristen Stewart, in a lesbian Christmas movie! That’s right ladies, we now have TWO whole Christmas lesbian Christmas movies! And unlike Carol, this one seems cute and funny and not a sombre reflection on- wait…

So let’s backtrack:  The film is about Abby (Kristen Stewart) who is invited to spend Christmas at her girlfriend Harper’s (McKenzie Davies) family home, where Abby plans to propose.  The catch? Harper is not out to her high strung traditional family yet…   Now here that the film diverts from expectation:  The majority of the marketing made it out to be a cute romp with Dan Levy at peak Dan Levy, awkward misunderstandings, sneaking shenanigans and Alison Brie shoving people - a sort of queer National Lampoon.  Though the film does feature all the fun stuff, there are a lot of painful moments as well.  For every silly scene of Abby ducking into linen closets, there will be a scene of Harper distancing herself from Abby, leaving her neglected and lonely. 

The film has received criticism for being a bit of a bait and switch: expect cute lesbians, get PTSD from your own coming out trauma.  Which I cannot really argue against, there are some really heart-wrenching moments, especially from Aubrey Plaza, who plays the towns black sheep as the only out lesbian, and Harpers ex…. Plaza is a personal highlight in this film however, this character could easily take on a villain role given her electric chemistry with Stewart, but she manages to blend her classic Daria energy with a sincerity and emotionality that makes this a really wonderful performance.

Kristen Stewart was probably born for this role: awkward lesbian.  She has great chemistry with Davies and Levy and works well as the emotional heart of the film - I spent the majority of it wanting to give her a hug whenever she stands awkwardly alone at parties abandoned by the woman she loves.  This film isn’t all cheery happy fun, and I do think people should go into it with that knowledge - WLW ladies: you will have Vietnam war style flashbacks to your own awkward coming out experiences, be prepared.

BUT.  Just because this film isn’t Elf levels of whimsy it should not be dismissed, after all if you don’t watch the second half of It’s A Wonderful Life wouldn’t you say that actually “It’s a sucky life!!” like Phoebe in Friends?  Though there are some moments that feel a little too real - the film makes a point of reminding you that this is a real issue and “everyones coming out story is different, but they all deserve to be told.”

So while it may not be the silly joy filled ride you were expecting, it is a wonderful film with actually a second scene where Alison Brie shoves people!  I found myself laughing more or less as often as I did wanting to tell Abby everything’s okay.

My main criticisms would be that there are some clunky gaffs and we spend too much time with Harpers stuffy parents and not enough time with the central couple or Dan Levy; for a queer film, the LGBT characters do not hold enough screen time.  Having said that, this is a wonderful addition to the queer Christmas catalogue.  Now if we can just remake Die Hard with Beanie Feldstein…

- Lucy Smith-Jones