From Screamfest 2021: Ben Charles Edwards’ FATHER OF FLIES is a nightmarish creep-out
There’s nothing quite like the rush a viewer can have when a film that was seemingly just plodding along suddenly pulls everything together, clicks into gear, and hits the gas. Whether one thinks it consciously, or feels it subliminally, that “I wasn’t sure this filmmaker knows what they’re doing, but yeah, they actually do” beat is what makes festival viewing so satisfying sometimes. It’s often unknown territory, and buried treasure is not always there to be found. But Ben Charles Edwards knows what he’s doing in Father of Flies. And that’s reenacting his own nightmares, and giving them to you instead.
At first glance, it’s easy to suspect Edwards simply got lucky with his location. That house in the middle of nowhere, the snowy tree branches, those quiet winter woods, and all the dark interiors – surely anyone with a decent eye could make them look all right? And as low-key, day-to-day events unfold, it’s just as easy to wonder if the suspense you may be feeling is something you brought to the table due to this being in a festival called Screamfest. Realistically, what are we to think will happen when a kid slowly dips his hand in bathwater? Anything more than wetness?
And then Edwards starts twisting the knife, and leaves no doubt. He’s got you. And even if you saw it coming, it’s unlikely you saw how. That’s because his script, based on a story he wrote as a child, rarely explains. Like true night terrors, it never lets the audience get a handle on exactly what the threat is, and therefore, how it can possibly be survived. Not everyone appreciates such devices – my late father, for one, would always get irritated with any movie if he couldn’t work out the logic of the antagonist’s plot after the fact. But for my money, the greatest fear is one unmoored from any rational attempt to define and name it. There’s a reason things half-seen that go bump in the night are usually scarier than a landscape in broad daylight.
The setup is simple. Single dad Richard (Nicholas Tucci) invites the maid, Coral (Camilla Rutherford), whom he’s been carrying on with to move in with him. His kids dislike the arrangement. Rebellious teen Donna (Page Ruth) flees the house as much as possible, while hearing-impaired Matthew (Keaton Tetlow) mostly draws really creepy pictures of his estranged mother. Coral dons a creepy electric massaging mask and gets progressively more obviously pregnant, while a creepy old woman across the way reads books on demonology.
And things start to go wrong. Is Coral simply evil? Is the neighbor really a witch? Is there a more Shyamalan-esque twist awaiting? I couldn’t spoil if it if I tried. Nightmare logic comes into play, with canny use of different sets to suggest young Matthew’s bedroom expanding and contracting. There’s one beat with a TV and a “Move towards the light!” line that’s a blatant Poltergeist crib, but if we assume that Matthew maybe saw Poltergeist and is having a bad dream with elements of it in there, that works. Let’s not even contemplate where his subconscious got hold of Pogo the Clown, John Wayne Gacy’s real-life alter-ego depicted here as a much slimmer TV host..
Father of Flies runs an efficient 80 minutes, but like a dream, it makes the person experiencing it feel like they’ve come through an epic wringer. The pace is so deliberate, and the threats so diverse in manifestation, it all feels like time stood still to expand the story.
