Edinburgh International Film Festival 2013: the best horrors
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The Conjuring, Frankenstein's Army and Outpost 3 among our best bets for horror at EIFF 2013
The Conjuring
Having reconfigured the modern horror template with Saw back in 2004, James Wan turned his attention to ghost stories, first with the less-than-perfect Dead Silence, then with the more successful (but still a bit iffy) Insidious. The Conjuring looks to deliver on the promise of Wan's increasing returns, as Insidious star Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga's paranormal investigators poke around their most fearsome case to date - the haunting of the Perron family. Intriguingly, this one's inspired by a case take on by real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, whose work was also the inspiration for 2009's The Haunting in Connecticut.
Filmhouse, Thu 27 & Sat 29 Jun.
The Complex
Another horror from a modern master in the genre, The Complex comes to us from the hands of Hideo Nakata - the J-horror pioneer behind Ring and Dark Water. The Complex doubles down on the latter's decrepit apartment block with a whole series of sinister dwellings, inhabited by at least one creepy child and god knows what else. Our Japanese is a little rusty, so the trailer we've so far have been less than fully informative, but based on the visual element, we'll be sleeping with the lights on for a while yet.
Cineworld, Sat 22 & Tue 25 Jun.
Frankenstein's Army
'Only the Nazis would think of something like this - sewing dead people together... and giving them knives for hands!' After the serious, psychological scares offered in The Conjuring and The Complex, we're glad to see something as riotously silly as Frankenstein's Army on the programme (although admittedly, it looks like it'll have its far share of shocks built in). In 1945, a Soviet regiment seek refuge from the battlefield, but end up encountering something much worse...
Filmhouse, Fri 28 Jun and Cineworld, Sat 29 Jun.
Outpost 3
Another in the growing 'undead Nazis' subgenre, this third instalment is the first to be directed by series producer Kieran Parker, who also has production credits on the short Zombie Musical and, bizarrely, Sunshine on Leith. Like the aforementioned Frankenstein's Army, this too sees Russian WWII troops in battle with reanimated Nazi corpses - but if anybody's cut out for that fight, it's the deadly Soviet Spetsnaz.
Filmhouse, Thu 27 Jun and Cineworld, Sat 29 Jun.