The Appointment

[MichaelB]

Full specs announced:

BFI Flipside presents release No. 044
THE APPOINTMENT
A film by Lindsey C. Vickers
Edward Woodward, Jane Merrow

BFI Blu-ray release on 11 July 2022 and on iTunes and Amazon Prime on 25 July 2022

An evil and enigmatic power throws a family into turmoil in Lindsey Vickers’ much sought-after cult horror. An unsettling journey into the world of the supernatural guaranteed to give you sleepless nights, the long-lost chiller THE APPOINTMENT is at last available on Blu-ray from BFI Flipside, sourced from the best materials yet discovered.

Among the usual raft of fantastic extras is a new audio commentary by the director and newly filmed interviews including with Lindsey Vickers and actor Jane Merrow. Other extras include an interview with assistant director Gregory Dark, Lindsey Vickers’ 1978 film The Lake (including newly recorded audio commentary) and extensive galleries featuring rare production material.

When suburban father Ian (Edward Woodward, The Wicker Man) is unable to attend his daughter’s violin recital, he and his wife Dianna (Jane Merrow, The Lion in Winter) are troubled by prophetic nightmares that seem to foresee a looming tragedy. Are dark forces about to be unleashed upon their comfortable life?

Special features
• Presented on Blu-ray in Standard Definition
• Newly recorded audio commentary by director Lindsey Vickers
• Vickers on Vickers (2021, 41 mins): the director looks back on his life and career
• Another Outing (2021, 16 mins): Jane Merrow recalls co-starring in The Appointment
• Appointments Shared (2022, 7 mins): Lindsey and Jan Vickers remember the making of the ‘haunted film’
• Framing The Appointment (2022, 19 mins): Lindsey Vickers recalls making the film
• Remembering The Appointment (2022, 10 mins): assistant director Gregory Dark shares his recollections of the film
• The Lake (1978, 33 mins): Lindsey Vickers’ eerie short finds young lovers choosing to picnic at a spot haunted by echoes of a violent event
• Newly recorded audio commentary on The Lake by Lindsey Vickers
• Splashing Around (2020, 18 mins): actor Julie Peasgood on making The Lake
• Galleries featuring annotated scripts, storyboards, images and production materials
• Newly commissioned sleeve art by Matt Needle
• ***First pressing only*** Illustrated booklet with new writing by Lindsey Vickers including a message about this release, Vic Pratt and William Fowler; biographies of Edward Woodward and Jane Merrow by Jon Dear, notes on the special features and credits


Product details
RRP: £19.99 / Cat. no. BFIB1460 / 15
UK / 1981 / colour / 89 minutes / English language with optional subtitles for the Deaf and partial hearing // original aspect ratio 1.33:1 BD50: 1080p, 24fps, PCM 2.0 mono audio (48kHz/24-bit)

[L.A.]

DVD Compare.

[Finch]

Cine Outsider

[j99]

Terrific release of a film I had never heard of, until I read a review on the BFI website. Superb extras too, especially the bonus short film, The Lake. It’s a film which should have been more widely known, but disappeared without trace. A great addition to the Flipside series.

[Orlac]

I was impressed by its eeriness - the Welsh countryside is used to brilliant effect. Not a good advert for Ford, I must say.

[L.A.]

Beaver.

[therewillbeblus]

I was impressed by its eeriness - the Welsh countryside is used to brilliant effect. Not a good advert for Ford, I must say.

I didn't like this very much- it's certainly "eerie" but it's riding one singular wavelength of deliberate eeriness that gets tired quickly. Others might feel differently, but this would make for a good short film with the score and sound design ratcheted to this level for maybe ten minutes. At nearly an hour and a half it plays like an amateurish Halloween-themed ASMR video

[Robin Davies]

I was really impressed by this.
It may well be too slow-paced for some, but the time is spent on building up the atmosphere, and lots of fine detail which pays off in other parts of the film.
Perhaps the climax is a bit over-extended but otherwise I don't see any wasted time here. Everything is necessary to build the unsettling mood of anxiety.
"Amateurish Halloween-themed ASMR video"? I don't get that at all. The film is mostly very well-crafted.

[Quote Perf Unquote]

Yes, I loved this also.

I must have seen the unforgettable famous opening shot somewhere before, though. Was it shown in the folk horror doc from Severin? It's been months since I saw that. Seems a very spoilery scene to show, if indeed it was. It lodges in the memory not just for the duration of the film, but after.

Calling this "amateurish ASMR" is really not engaging the material or form in a fair way. My viewing left me with the feeling of a 90 minute nightmare, tedious middle section and all. That section, so dark, almost incomprehensible at what's on screen, especially felt like sleep paralysis, just a terrible trapped sensation. In this aspect I think it's one of the most nightmare-like films I've seen, and almost avant-garde. I found this board in fact after searching for Mazars "Rouges Silences", mentioned favorably by users here, and other than the more conservative genre narrative structure of the Vickers film, are they really that different? This might not be as profound or deep as the best Roeg or Lynch movies, but it's a nice middle ground between art and junk that we rarely see so effectively done.

The thought that this would make a better short film also rings false to me. Vickers' "The Lake" is a third the length, and a third as much successful in my opinion. Worth watching, but not as layered or resonant as "The Appointment." More of a simple twist/scare, where the unexplained is glossed over and compartmentalized unconvincingly in the nature of a "Twilight Zone" episode and leaves this viewer feeling shortchanged. Ironically "The Lake" feels rigid and lifeless where the longer feature submerges you like a dream state for the duration.

There so many scenes that linger. Early in the film, when Woodward scolds his daughter at length, she sitting on the living room floor at his feet, her incredible unbroken penetrating gaze in response is terribly unnerving. The

SpoilerShow

photo that comes to life

not an original notion, but done so subtly it really startles. Or of course the climactic

SpoilerShow

car crash

at first annoying as Peckinpah-lite hyper editing, but seeing it stretched farther and farther I laughed out loud in delight without dispelling the visceral terror of the event.

[therewillbeblus]

The way you worded that seems like you’re arguing that someone needs to have your experience to be engaging with the film fairly. I’m glad you enjoyed it and I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and will hopefully give this another shot through your lens someday, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say that this is a film riding on an aesthetic tone of enigmatic disturbia, and such a strategy risks consequence of being interpreted as rich or empty depending on the viewer. I mean, it’s basically designed to provoke deep sensations for some or to be taken at face value by others who aren’t mesmerized by its hypnotic technique.

An analogous example: I love The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and believe it has deeper thematic and sensational merits than what’s on the surface, but I don’t think it’s unfair for those who are averse to Lanthimos’ style to feel that way because they find the exaggerated antisocial commentary to be cheap and vacuous. That film is also operating on a specific aesthetic wavelength of heightened arrhythmic sound design and absurdist social provocations, and it is quite aware of it, just like this film is. I don’t dispute that I’m not getting something potent from this film. I’m definitely not and I wish I had your experience! But I haven’t heard you offer anything I missed here, just that the exact same things I thought made it banal and disengaging and overlong elicited excitement and dread for you.

[Quote Perf Unquote]

The way you worded that seems like you’re arguing that someone needs to have your experience to be engaging with the film fairly. I’m glad you enjoyed it and I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and will hopefully give this another shot through your lens someday, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say that this is a film riding on an aesthetic tone of enigmatic disturbia, and such a strategy risks consequence of being interpreted as rich or empty depending on the viewer. I mean, it’s basically designed to provoke deep sensations for some or to be taken at face value by others who aren’t mesmerized by its hypnotic technique.

An analogous example: I love The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and believe it has deeper thematic and sensational merits than what’s on the surface, but I don’t think it’s unfair for those who are averse to Lanthimos’ style to feel that way because they find the exaggerated antisocial commentary to be cheap and vacuous. That film is also operating on a specific aesthetic wavelength of heightened arrhythmic sound design and absurdist social provocations, and it is quite aware of it, just like this film is. I don’t dispute that I’m not getting something potent from this film. I’m definitely not and I wish I had your experience! But I haven’t heard you offer anything I missed here, just that the exact same things I thought made it banal and disengaging and overlong elicited excitement and dread for you.

You mean my experience watching the film or my personal life experience? I presume the former? In which case, yes we probably just have different aesthetic expectations or preferences. Though the latter obviously matters as well. I guess both play a part in a response to film, and both change over time and repeated viewings. I've no doubt liked films more, or less, on second viewings, and often for subjective reasons I'm sure. I don't mean to discredit someone else's response for the same reasons either.

The Lanthimos you cite is good counterpoint. I dislike all of his films. The style is well-attended but also I think clearly of a self consciously art school approach. It comes across as self satisfied to me, especially joined to the "absurdist social provocations" which leaves me just wanting to go watch Bunuel instead. I won't deny that his content is in general stronger or more important than the Vickers film, but maybe Vickers straining at the genre limitations and the limits of his own talents is what attracts me here? I do like horror that average gore hounds find boring, or inversely art films with genre elements.

Anyhow I loved the film but wouldn't say it a great work of art. Maybe it's a genre piece with pretensions or just a sloppy paycheck effort for the director. I prefer this sort of uncategorizable piece, whatever its faults.

[therewillbeblus]

Right, I'm talking about this:

Calling this "amateurish ASMR" is really not engaging the material or form in a fair way. My viewing left me with the feeling of a 90 minute nightmare...

That would be like me telling you it's unfair to engage with the Lanthimos as you do because you used a curt and pejorative "art school approach" signifier to convey that you were repelled by its surface when my experience watching the movie revealed deeper themes and sensations. I compared a movie you got a lot out of to an amateurish ASMR video (admittedly also curt and pejorative), so I really don't see the difference. Feels kinda like the pot calling the kettle black, only in reverse

[Quote Perf Unquote]

Yeah, I thought I sufficiently acknowledged and admitted your point in my reply. If not, then I do so now, with apologies.

I'll also amend my reaction to your "amateurish ASMR" comment. It was primarily the "amateur" that I objected to. Though rereading my post, I see I may have contradicted myself, finding and praising the "limited" qualities of Vickers' approach valuable while criticizing your very same judgement of the technique. Your comments have helped clarify for me how easily it to have two equally valid responses to a work.

This might at the very least be evidence for others that the film is worth watching, and discussing, I hope.

[therewillbeblus]

No worries, and I agree, people should check this film out to see if its style works for them, just as they should with a Lanthimos film! It should be noted, though, that this continual comparison is as absurd as both works, and should not be indicative of what to expect

[Aunt Peg]

I really don't know what to think of it overall. Whilst it didn't work for my as a whole certain scenes were very effective and I don't even have to mention the most impressive one as anyone who has seen the film can probably guess which it is.

Certainly a keeper and something to re-visit.