Anthology films are notoriously hard to pull off but, though it starts shakily, this low-budget British portmanteau has an ace in the hole: horror stalwart Richard Brake, whose grimy leer is normally a kitemark of something at least halfway chilling. (Hopefully his dental hygiene is better in real life.) In Lore, he is a Cryptkeeper-style host for four hikers out for an “immersive” experience in the wilds; informing them that they have pitched their tents above the site of some ancient evil, this campfire compere bids them bring forth their most blood-chilling yarns.
The boys, Mark (Dean Bone) and Dan (Miles Mitchell), think basic: the former trots out a warehouse runaround with gang fugitive Daniel (Andrew-Lee Potts) encountering a saw-toothed monster and a last-gasp psychological twist. Dan offers a boilerplate piece of gothic haunted house, in which a revenant ballerina (who has seen a few too many J-horror films) torments a mother and son. The horror mechanics in the latter, especially, are competently executed, but for a film called Lore there’s a basic lack of backstory or mystery in either.
Thankfully, the girls up the ante – and the comedy. Donna (Sally Collett) dreams up a hotel-set revenge story, with a lecherous husband (Rufus Hound) dragging his reluctant wife (Katie Sheridan) to a swingers’ night. It winds up like Ari Aster meets Alan Partridge, with a satisfyingly punitive gore policy. Lastly, Sally (Samantha Neal) steers the night down a meta path, with a giallo-style rampage kicking off in a multiplex where Gareth, the colossus who mans the concessions stand, gets his P45. Peppy and purposeful, both bits have a wry knack of putting daily mundanities to extreme use: suffocation in the popcorn bin is a new one.
Brake does his baleful best tying it all up, but the film drive things further into the meta woods in a garbled coda that uncertainly mashes reality and fiction. It feels cobbled together, but there’s just about enough attitude here to appease the horror hordes.
• Lore is on Icon Film Channel from 26 August and in UK cinemas on 27 September.
