Exit

The best film at last week's Horror-on-Sea festival in Southend was Michael Fausti's EXIT, though it got a very divided response from the crowd (perhaps fittingly, given that Michael intended it as a satire on Britain leaving the EU). It's a genuinely David Lynch-like affair, even down to having a Sheryl Lee lookalike/act-alike in one of the major roles. Two young couples seeking property in London are double-booked by a dodgy landlord to spend the night in one of his on-the-market flats - tensions, sex, booze, drugs, and violence ensue, all watched over from afar by Fausti himself (playing the property owner's assistant) while we get Lynch style cutaways to the landlord (a character who is probably a Lynchian God/devil/manipulator rather than a human being), bathed in yellow light, cackling and grimacing hideously whenever anything nasty occurs. I've become good pals with Michael over recent months but this feature is a really confident step up from his shorts THE INGRESS TAPES and DEAD CELEBRITIES. They were very good - EXIT is something else, and the first British horror classic of the decade.