FrightFest First Blood feature, Healing Andy, is a wickedly funny found footage movie that genuinely feels authentic, one where we care about the reason for the boys’ disappearance and root for them, even when their decision-making is stuck in teenage boy mode. So pack your bags, grab your phone, put on your bucket hat and flip flops and get ready for a lads’ holiday like no other.
FrightFest First Blood offers a platform for emerging filmmakers to showcase their debut features, with a focus on supporting UK talent.
It’s widely accepted that men take significantly longer to mature than women. Even as we men reach our mid-twenties, a part of us remains stuck at thirteen or fourteen; in fact, some would argue that part of us never vanishes! And at the heart of the teenage boy locked away in our adult body is the desire to be free, frivolous, and to have fun, no matter what’s going on around us.
Filmed entirely on phones and handheld cameras, the FrightFest First Blood film Healing Andy, written and directed by Villablanca, is about the battle between the teenage boy within and the man we are attempting to become as our thirties come into view. It’s a movie about the power of male friendship, the vacuous nature of online blogging, the love men can show toward each other, and the abject horror of realising that things can never be the same as they once were.
I know what you’re thinking, “This doesn’t sound like the typical FrightFest fare.” Well, you are both right and wrong, as Villablanca’s film ticks all the boxes of the classic found footage movie while cleverly weaving in perfectly timed comedy, fantasy, outstanding performances, pop culture references and a whole lot of heart, in a film that is bound to divide opinion among the FrightFest audience.
As Healing Andy opens, we are informed that four British boys who headed to Italy on holiday later disappeared, never to be seen again. Years later, their phones and footage were found, with the contents now being shown for the first time.
A Zoom call introduces us to down-on-his-luck Andy, played by Matthew Kay and his three best mates: Holger, a well-known Instagram blogger played by Frederick Lysegaard, Malcolm, played by Samuel Nunes de Souza and Maverick, played by Elliott Eason. As the call starts, Andy doesn’t want to show his face, his eyes full of tears, as he sits in his onesie in the back garden. His fiancée has left him, he has been kicked out of his home, his honeymoon to Italy is redundant, and life generally sucks! At least he has his mates, and Holger has a plan. He has decided the planned honeymoon will go ahead, minus the girl, with the boys stepping in to create a healing journey. Additionally, Holger will broadcast the holiday on Instagram and film additional footage for his subscribers; it’s a mission called ‘Healing Andy,’ and according to Holger, it’s going to be epic. In truth, even if Andy doesn’t want to go, he really hasn’t got a choice.
What follows is a mash-up of phone footage, handheld camera work, and Instagram Live reels documenting the boys’ escape to Italy, their luxurious Italian pad, and their meeting with a girl named Ginger, brilliantly played by Gemma Acosta, who may not be as sweet and innocent as she first appears.
The less said about the discovered footage, the better, but from delightful nods to Home Alone, to a dastardly and dangerous ‘Bogeyman’ who wants to add to his jar of severed pickled penises, and an ancient stone said to usher in a deadly higher power (nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark), the boys holiday is a wild, wicked and always witty adventure that will see them vanish from sight.
Performance is everything in this twisty tale of twenty-somethings in peril, and every single actor rises to the occasion. From the outset, you genuinely believe that this is a group of loving friends established in boyhood, with Kay, Lysegaard, Nunes de Souza, and Eason effortlessly bouncing off one another, savouring every line of Villablanca’s screenplay while having the utmost fun with the madcap horror and humour surrounding them. This is only enhanced by the handheld footage, from the boys shopping for ‘Home Alone‘ style weaponry to protect their holiday pad in a local hardware store, among actual shoppers, to a drug and alcohol fuelled night with Ginger and her friends, where you can almost smell the testosterone, Limoncello, Campari and Aperol as dancing turns to disaster.
The result is a wickedly funny found footage feature that genuinely feels authentic, one where we care about the reason for the boys’ disappearance and root for them, even when their decision-making is stuck in teenage boy mode.
I am not about to offer spoilers regarding the fate of our boys, but once again, Villablanca joyously subverts audience expectations in a finale that is both tender, tense, off-the-wall, and unconventional within the found footage format. Does the boys’ trip achieve its simple social media title, Healing Andy? That’s for you to find out, but one thing is for sure: boys will nervously attempt to become men, and nothing will ever be the same again. So pack your bags, grab your phone, put on your bucket hat and flip flops and get ready for a lads’ holiday like no other.
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