BAFTA Rising Star Award – Previous Winners and Losers

After posting my choice for the BAFTA rising star award there have been a few comments suggesting other nominees  deserve to win.  While I stand by my choice of Jack O’Connell I actually believe all the nominees are deserving to demonstrate this I thought I would run through the winners and losers from previous years. 

2006

Winner: James McAvoy

Other Nominees: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gael García Bernal, Rachel McAdams, Michelle Williams

2007

Winner: Eva Green

Other Nominees: Emily Blunt, Naomie Harris, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw

2008

Winner: Shia LaBeouf

Other Nominees: Sienna Miller, Ellen Page, Sam Riley, Tang Wei

2009

Winner: Noel Clarke

Other Nominees: Michael Cera, Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Hall, Toby Kebbell

2010

Winner: Kristen Stewart

Other Nominees: Jesse Eisenberg, Nicholas Hoult, Carey Mulligan, Tahar Rahim

2011

Winner: Tom Hardy

Other Nominees: Gemma Arterton, Andrew Garfield, Aaron Johnson, Emma Stone

2012

Winner: Adam Deacon

Other Nominees: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Chris O’Dowd, Eddie Redmayne

2013

Winner: Juno Temple

Other Nominees: Elizabeth Olsen, Andrea Riseborough, Suraj Sharma, Alicia Vikander

2014

Winner: Will Poulter

Other Nominees: Dane DeHaan, George MacKay, Lupita Nyong’o, Léa Seydoux

 

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Horror: Its When, Not What You See

I have long held a theory about scary movies; although it has always been there in the back of my mind, I hadn’t thought about for a long time or discussed for even longer. They, it all came flooding back to me recently whilst watching the culture show on BBC2. During an interview about her new movie, The Awakening Mark Kermode asked Rebecca Hall “What’s the scariest movie you ever saw?” Her response, Don’t Look Now (1973), she went on to explain why. She had seen it alone, when she was around twelve or thirteen years old. This really struck a chord with me as if asked I would say the same movie and for the same reason. I also watched the movie at around that age, probably too young! I was really disturbed by it and couldn’t get it out of my head and still to this day think of the movie whenever I see a read coat. Directed by Nicolas Roeg’s and based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier the movie is still creepy and disturbing, it will stay with you for days after you watch it (or is that just me?) but it isn’t actually scary.

This is in stark contrast to my experience of The Exorcist (1973). For those who don’t know The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin with a screenplay by William Peter Blatty based on his own novel is regarded as one of the scariest movies ever made. A huge hit at the box-office, adjusted for inflation it took more money than Avatar but this was all before I was born. In my formative years, the 1980’s it had fallen foul of Video Recordings Act 1984 and was considered a “video nasty”. The studio didn’t submit it to the BBFC for classification (it was never actually banned). The long and short of it, the movie was available not available on video after 1984 and I didn’t get to see it. That was until 1994. I was 18 years old and in my first couple of weeks at university. The movie was screened to a packed house in a small independent cinema. Was it the anticipation and reputation, or the packed auditorium that influenced my opinion? I’m not sure but one thing I can say, I enjoyed the movie finding it interesting, entertaining and thought provoking as well as been well made and well acted, but I didn’t find it frightening the way I found Don’t Look Now five years before.

As a child, I remember being scared of King Kong (1933) and later Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) in a way that no modern horror has affected me. I’m yet to have the same experience again, there have been other movies that have been creepy or a bit disturbing like The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007) but not like the other movies I have mentioned. Have I been desensitised scary movies by early exposure or is Don’t Look Now just the most frightening movie ever made? Possibly a combination of the two, whatever the reason my early experiences have cemented my love for “genre movies” as they are sometimes (unkindly) referred. By the way if you haven’t already check out The Awakening starring the brilliant Rebecca Hall.

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The Awakening

Set in the early 1920’s shortly after World War I, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) has made a career out of exposing supernatural hoax’s. She is invited to an English boarding school where a boy is reported to have been literally frightened to death, an occurrence attributed to the presence of the ghost of a boy killed there years before.

A ghost story set within a haunted house is nothing new, the inclusion of children, is also something we have seen before. With an opening scene set during as séances you may be expecting something akin to The Illusionist (2006) but as soon as the action relocates to the school we move into the more familiar territory of The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and The Orphanage (2007), that’s not to say the movie borrows from these recent classics, all three movies take the basic idea in there own direction. The plot has enough twists and turns to keep the audience guessing without confusing or alienating them.

The supporting cast includes Dominic West and Imelda Staunton, both of whom do well but the film hinges on Rebecca Hall who is virtually ever present on screen. She has impressed recently in The Town, Frost/Nixon and most notably Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but this is the first time I have seen her carry a movie, a job she does brilliantly. Writer director Nick Murphy does a great job in what is his first feature, creating tension and even more importantly making us care about the characters. He is aided by a perfect setting Manderston House in Scotland, also the location for the reality TV show The Edwardian Country House (known as Manor House in the USA), also directed by Murphy.

There probably aren’t enough scares for fans of modern horror but if like me you grew up on Hammer movies you will probably like the creepy atmospheric horror. And that is where this film will succeed or fail, living up to the expectations of the audience. With all the zombies, vampires and torture porn movies that have been filling the horror genre I welcome something different especially when it is this well made.

Four Stars out of Five

★★★★★

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