Opening this years Film4 FrightFest, The Seasoning House is the directorial debut of grand-guignol genius and seasoned FrightFest alumni Paul Hyett; and If there’s one thing Hyett knows how to do, it’s make some nasty. He’s burnt Mikey Fassbender at the stake, Salem style. He’s given us *those* damn nightmare-pervading subterranean Crawlers. He’s even made Scotland look more post-apocalyptic than Glasgow High Street circa 2012. Now, after over 10 years behind the behind-the-lens that itch to step up and hold the megaphone just got to much. Thank God for itches.
And thank god for knowing how to make some nasty. The Balkan brothel set THE SEASONING HOUSE is just as dark a nightmare as anything Hyett’s gore team has previously thrown together, but that’s not just to say it’s just some special effects guys having a glory-wank (I’m looking at you, Laid To Rest). In short, it’s stunning.
The Seasoning House is essentially a coming-of-age piece; that is, when one has to come of age in war torn Eastern Europe, prepare other girls to be good raping material & fight off the pitiless soldiers responsible for slaughtering your entirely family. Its coming-of-age drama for sure, but Diary of Adrien Mole this is not. We rather follow young Angel’s semblance at forming a new life in the wake of devastation & her veracity to survive in spite of the horrors she has seen. And horror is an understatement; The Seasoning House is just about as dark as they come. When the first 2 acts aren’t being viciously bleak, they’re being bleakly vicious. We see backchat throat slits (an incredible piece of practical effects), heroin stupors, pelvis breaking rape & some amazingly timed character offings. Be it his massive amount of experience within the genre, Paul Hyett has an amazing grasp of how, even in the midst of unrelenting nastiness, to consistently evoke gasps from the audience. Some of the kills in this are so blunt, off paced & happenstance (all compliments) that they hit you with all the surprise of a shark attack in the Sahara.
It’s not just the kills though; Hyett handles the whole step up to the director’s chair with a deft, confident hand, and an eye for both brutal realism and beautiful surrealism. Press comparisons to Pans Labyrinth are, if a tad grandiose a statement, not entirely unjustified. Hyett’s dreamlike soft focus- and frankly stunning- cinematography are perfect accompaniments to Angel’s forced dissociation from a brutal reality. Yet when it gets bleak, and boy does it, all veneer of dreaminess is masterly ethered away and we are left cringing at a ruthlessly stark picture of human atrocity.
Yet it’s when the atrocities get too much for young Angel, and she decides to break for freedom that the film really kicks up a gear. Angel’s escape [attempts?] are realistic, heart pounding and cathartically fist pumping, due in most part because of how much we care for the girl by this point in the picture. An innocent but determined girl, with an on par ruthlessness as the soldiers, Angel is the only person the audience cares for- and as such- we care for her a lot. Again, due in most part, to a show stealing, future-career-making performance from Rosie Day, who not only imbues Angel with all the qualities discussed above but also manages to do so while playing her deaf & mute. No short feat considering this is Day’s film debut. If any praise can be siphoned away from Hyett, it should be directed at Rosie Day; for she is, if not already, going to be a shining star in British cinema.
And to round out the entire movie comes, following despair, exasperation, triumph, fall, fight & just-deserts… an ending so ubiquitously unsettling it would be a travesty to divulge.
I give The Seasoning House:
8 too-broad-shoulders / 10 too-tight-airducts
An even more tantalizing prospect for you to consider once having seen The Seasoning House; Paul plans for it to be the first in his ‘War’ Trilogy, followed up by films he assures will be tenfold darker & more vicious than Seasoning House… Promises, promises, Mr Hyett.
And that’s my two cents.
MyTwoCentsFilm 