Grimmfest 2018: Alive

Rob Grant’s meta-documentary Fake Blood was an unmitigated standout of Grimmfest 2017. In 2018, Grant returns to more traditional filming methods for Alive, a torture-filled survival story which requires patience and extreme levels of disbelief suspension for a worthwhile payoff.

A severely injured man and woman awake in an abandoned sanitarium only to discover that a sadistic caretaker holds the keys to their freedom and the horrific answers as to their real identity.

Alive will keep you in the dark for longer than you expect. The answers will not come until the final moments and, at times, it can feel like a little frustrating in its frequently distressing journey. It may seem unfocused or narratively lost, but trust me – it does eventually make sense. The enjoyment of Alive will come from whether you can stomach lengthy sequences of human misery, the type Hostel and Saw are well known for.

Bloodcurling screams of pain, surgery sequences and unflinching gore are par for the course in Alive and given it’s happening seemingly without reason it can feel gratuitous. Director Rob Grant and writers Chuck McCue and Jules Vincent leave enough blood drops throughout to backtrack on so that when the wholly unforeseeable conclusion is revealed, you’ll kick yourself for not seeing it sooner.

It remains entirely watchable until this point though largely thanks to its perversely charismatic lead in the well-spoken Angus Macfadyen. For a great deal of time, I wasn’t entirely sure whether his motives were as nefarious as it first seems. Macfadyen’s Caretaker is clearly tending to the couple, feeding and bathing them, but as I said we aren’t told why they’re there. Is he responsible for their grave injuries too, or did he find them in their wounded state? And what is the pairs relationship to each other? The reveals flip back and forth from being slightly disappointing to pleasantly surprising but Alive is certainly never dull.

When it’s not meddling in the macabre, Alive engages in a dangerous game of cat, mouse and lion between the trio. Most of the verbal interactions happen between Girl and Caretaker in a perilously curious relationship. The majority of the Caretaker’s actions against the Man appear to be undertaken to appease the Girl, but the truth is infinitely more disturbing.

It does suffer from excessively loud bangs and audio cues for its few jolts, something which it genuinely didn’t need. The mystery surrounding the events are chilling enough and the jumpscares slightly cheapen what is otherwise an intimidating and puzzling thriller.

Amidst all the mayhem, there’s a level dark humour running through Alive. Whether it’s the gleefully manic nature of the Caretaker or his uncanny ability to be virtually unkillable, there’s no doubt that Grant is having as much fun with making the film as the Caretaker is with inflicting pain on the duo.

Alive‘s calculated, disciplined and gruesome approach to horror will not be for everyone. But give it the attention it demands and you’ll be rewarded with a relentlessly brutal tale which champions the tenacity of the human spirit and a reveal which will unquestionably have you want to experience it again to catch all the clues.