FrightFest review – Five (2025)
Director Dani Barker (writer of Follow Me) co-wrote Five with Erin Boyes and Mike Hassan – and appears in a significant, funny small role. It’s a simple story told unconventionally. Melody Palmer (Teagan Vincze), a big movie star coming off a megabudget flop called Sparkle, is reduced to taking the lead in Renovated Romance, an all-too-credible cable TV movie of the week about a big city girl who dumps her fiance to get together with a small town handyman.
The shoot is troubled by everyone’s issues. Melody is just out of rehab and her overambitious sober companion Lala (Donna Benedicto) has had to be given a role in the film though she consistently screws up her dialogue. Leading man Mark (Sean Depner) is a constantly-tippling drunk asshole and smug abuser of every woman ins sight, including the extremely overstressed director (Lauren McGibbon). Regina (Georgia Bradner) is supposed to be getting behind-the-scenes b-roll but is really on the lookout for embarrassing footage which will make a better story. That would probably be enough to scupper any production, but there’s also a haunted shed – connected with a smallpox epidemic and (by a stretch) the seven demons who possessed Mary Magdalene and were cast out by Jesus – and a demon who self-identifies as Five possesses Melody, giving rise to black comedy as her behaviour as a demon witch is hardly more difficult for her enablers and co-workers to cope with as her average screen diva mood swings and sudden demands. Regina researches the curse via a paranormal youtube channel and calls in Dr Crown (Karen Holness), who has history with the shed and possessions.
It’s funny and gossipy, but still runs to shocks and scares. When the frame expands and the colour palette changes, it delivers an excruciatingly on-the-nail parody of those Lifetime-Hallmark romances. The key cast all get acting workouts as they play their offscreen selves (all of whom are two-faced), onscreen parts (with proper ropey dialogue) and their regular selves well out of their comfort zones when assailed by Aramaic-chanting demonic forces. Barker and Amelia Burstyn play the overexcitable hosts of Parawormhole.
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