raptorville

this was the third screening of ‘a night of horror’ at dendy newtown that i attended this week, and the worst! oh it wasn’t that bad, three or four of the films were great, but the rest were pretty bad. it’s interesting - i love dodgy film, especially horror - and one of my favourite events of the year is always squatfest, which almost prides itself on showing lame films (alongside brilliant ones), but i found the quality of the films at this screening disappointingly crap. maybe i’m just lame.

maybe because they make ya pay, or maybe because i assume that there are plenty of good short horror films being made, and a lot of these were shit? i dunno.

the night included: egg ghost (dongkeun lee - kor / usa), peekers (mark steensland - usa), halloween high (tyson hauff - usa), eel girl (paul campion - nz), akai (carlos gananian – bra), fine meats (guy verge wallace - aus), red harvest (dylan griffith - usa), go ask alice (shannon lark - usa), uninvited (shaune harrison - uk), victor and the machine (carlos talamanca - esp), the lycanthrope (lucas peltonen - usa).

egg ghost was pretty boring, where a clay-mation ghost takes a girls face. peekers was cool! it was the kind of film that kat and i reckon we would make - easy, short, and funny. it won’t seem funny in words, so i won’t explain it, but you can watch some of the mark steensland’s films on his site.

halloween high started with some laughs - it was essentially a rip off of a lot of horror films- mainly scream (not that scream is a credible horror film, of course). it showed a bunch of horror stars - freddy krueger (a nightmare on elm street, and related spin offs), michael myers (halloween - the best series ever), and leatherface (texas chainsaw massacre) - fretting over a spate of murders in their town. blah, blah, blah, it was jane austen taking revenge on the stars of horror for making kids watch their films on friday nights instead of reading pride and prejudice. lame. but they snuck in a few early laughs, so all was not lost.

eel girl was entertaining, i guess - i’m glad that it was as short as it was. at least the production and effects/make up were pretty awesome.

akai was shit on so many levels. it was an over complicated, broring, sexist vampire film - do we really need to see another film in which female prostitutes/escorts get murdered? we had no sympathy for any of the characters, which would be fine if either a) it didn’t go for 21 minutes, or b) that something happened. self-indulgent, and boring.

fine meats, the only australian film of the night, was sadly badly made clay-mation, not in a good way. not even fine.

red harvest, was the coolest i reckon. it was basically children of the damned meets 28 days later, and although obviously done on the cheap, was done really well - super clever. they created true drama and suspense by using simple tricks, and just concentrated on good make up when needed.

go ask alice was atrocious - i’m not going to waste too much space talking about it, just don’t watch it. if you don’t believe me, or are intrigued, you can watch it here, but don’t say i didn’t warn you. blech! it’s part of the viscera series, which is films made by women only, which is cool, but this is just an awful film.

the next film, uninvited, was really lame. i saw what they were trying to do, but it just wasn’t good to watch, and made me a little sleepy. a writer having a car accident on christmas eve (without setting that scene at all, by the way), stopping in a local pub, and then an unscary ‘thing’ and nothing scary happening is bad enough, but then switching to him telling the story at a podium at his book launch is just embarrassing. oooooohhh, and then the not-scary ‘thing’ from the pub is in the mirror at the very end. snooorrreee.

the last two were pretty cool, although victor and the machine is not a horror film. admittedly, it could be classified as a monster film - a small child fills his recently deceased dad’s body with a motorbike motor to make him work again - but it’s not horror dudes. that’s cool though, everyone liked it from what i could tell.

the closer for the evening, the lycanthrope, was hilarious. i don’t want to ruin this one, because it will hopefully show up online soon (i can’t find it now), but it was cool, funny, and gross. the only downfall was the out-of-sync sound (that’s annoying, huh), but everyone should watch it if you can!

overall, the ‘a night of horror’ film festival was awesome - of course there will be some films that you don’t like, especially if like me you watch 24 in one week!!! - but it’s still worth checking out these things out, and the good ones are worth the wait. heaps of cities have a similar festival - go and support it!!!

FUN FACT: texas chainsaw massacre character leatherface was loosely based on real serial killer ed gein, who also influenced the characters norman bates from psycho and buffalo bill from silence of the lambs, as well as the film in the light of the moon.