So, another Frightfest is over, all too soon. This was my first Glasgow event, and although it did seem very truncated compared to the London event (2 days instead of 5), I had a great time. there were plenty of friendly people, freebie (mostly leftovers from the London event last year, though I managed to get free DVDs of Death Note and Fragile), and some decent movies. I even had time to check out The Wolfman, which I’ll review after the jump along with all the Frightfest movies.
There were also some nice guest Q&As and special previews. Sadly, previously announced guests Christa Campbell, Vincenzo Natali and Adam Green couldn’t make it (the latter ironically prevented from promoting Frozen by snow & ice). However, some other guests made it. As well as the directors of Amer & 2001 Maniacs, there were a few previews from Frightfest regulars. Chris Smith showed a scene from his upcoming Black Death, which looked OK but not particularly spectacular. Neil Marshall showed the opening of his Roman actioner Centurion, while Jake West premiered the deleted footage from Doghouse. Both of these were pretty good, hope that there’s a director’s cut of Doghouse in the near future and Marshall may have a hit on his hands…
The atmosphere, as ever, was incredible and mostly enjoyable. There was a strange moment during Stag Night, where fight broke out (apparently due to an armrest dispute!), but other than that it was no different to the London event apart from the size of the cinema itself.
So, before normal service is resumed – and since I finally managed to get a ticket & accommodation booked – I thought I’d give my thoughts on the upcoming Frightfest Glasgow event at the end of February. This will be my first Glasgow event, and my first non-August Frightfest as well as my first ever trip to Scotland! So, lots to look forward to, but here’s the movies playing:
Frozen – the new movie from Adam Green, Frightfest regular and director of Hatchet. He’s actually taking a break from filming Hatchet 2 in order to promote this film, which should be fun. The film itself follows a group of people who wind up stranded on a ski lift when the resort shuts down with them still suspended in the air. Looks pretty good, though I have a few doubts about the actions of the characters during the short trailer we saw in August – hopefully it’ll be much better in context.
2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams – Tim Sullivan directs this sequel to his remake of H.G. Lewis’ Two Thousands Maniacs!, with Bill Moseley taking over from Robert Englund as the leader of a group of ghostly hicks looking for revenge over the civil war. The original 2001 Maniacs was gory, silly fun so I expect this to be more of the same. Should go down well with a hardcore crowd.
Stag Night – I don’t know too much about this, other than that the plot synopsis (people trapped in a subway being chased by underground killers) sounds a LOT like either Creep or 70s classic Death Line. Hopefully, it’ll be fun.
A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin – For some reason, despite the being a lot of hype surrounding recent DVD restorations, I’ve never gotten around to watching this 1971 Lucio Fulci giallo. It’s well respected and I’ve been watching quite a lot of giallo recently, so it should be good.
Amer – Again, one I’ve not heard too much about other than the fact that it’s supposedly a new French take on the classic 1970s Italian giallo style. I’ve enjoyed most of the major recent French genre movies, so hopefully this will be equally fun.
[REC] 2 – YES! I managed to miss this at the cinema despite living in Spain (I was in the US during its release :S ) so this will be a great watch on the big screen. Not sure what else to say other than I’m still excited about it despite having seen the trailer and the original many times and this should be the best way to see it.
Splice – Another movie I was glad to see announced, this is the new movie from Vincenzo Natali, the director of Cube. We saw a scene back in August that looked pretty good, and the CGI’s really respectable despite the low budget he normally works with. I’m hoping for another intelligent and complex plot surrounding the genetics themed storyline and hopefully a better performance from Adrien Brody than Dario Argento got last year!
Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre – the closer for the festival is this cheesy sounding slasher with two major selling points. The first is that it features Gunnar Hanssen, a.k.a. Leatherface from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The second is that it’s the first ever horror movie from Iceland! Should be a laugh if nothing else, and I’m sure we’ll down a few lagers or whatever either way…
While working through a few new posts for this year (more reviews coming soon!), I decided to change up the theme I’m using in Wordpress. This is going to be one of a few changes happening while I’m working on a few new things in the background. Why the change? Well, while I enjoyed the theme I was using, I couldn’t help noticing that it looked rather clunky and hard to read compared to other blogs I’m reading. Hopefully you like the new theme’s clean and easy format…
Disregard the header image for now, I’m working on a new customer image to replace it. Until then, comments are always welcome as ever.
So, here we are for the best movies of the decade. It’s not been a bad decade, despite what some people might have you believe. Critics will often point toward the seemingly endless and pointless run of remakes, from 2 year old Asian movies to 20 year old American movies. However, just as the 80s had a lot more to offer than the low-grade slasher movies that some people always compain about, so this deacde had given us some of the most impressive and extreme horror of all time.
There were a few trends, ranging from the bloodless PG-13 horror market that’s run from The Ring through to Twilight, to the so-called “torture porn” that gotten so many tabloids foaming at the mouth. Mostly, this decade has been about breaking barriers, from independently produced movies like Cabin Fever and Paranormal Activity that clean up at the box office to the sheer extremities of the French new wave.
So, in looking forward to what the next decade can bring us in the genre, here are my picks for the top 10 movies of the decade:
OK, so here we are at the end of 2009, and to break my unfortunate silence recently, I’ve decided to list some thoughts on what I consider to be the best and worst movies of the decade. Since it would be wrong to to leave the year on a downer, here’s my picks for the worst of the decade (after the jump). I admit I haven’t seen some of these movies since they came out, but these were probably the biggest disappointments I’ve had all decade:
Directed by: Ruggero Deodato Written by: Gianfranco Clerici & Vincenzo Mannino Music by: Riz Ortolani Starring: David Hess, John Morghan (Giovanni Lombardo Radice), Annie Belle, Christian Borromeo, Marie Claude Joseph, Gabriele Di Giulio, Brigitte Petronio
Taglines:“Delivers Shocks To The Maximum … Pushes The Limits Of Acceptability”
“David Hess … star of “Last House on the Left” is loose again … DON’T GO IN THE PARK!”
As I mentioned in my review of day 2 of Frightfest, we were shown a “special sneak preview” of the French zombie movie The Horde. This meant that it was actually shown to us before the official world première, and as such there was a review embargo placed upon the movie. Now that it’s November and a US release date is set, I’m assuming that the date for the end of the embargo has well and truly passed, so here’s a quick review…
The story of The Horde concerns a derelict apartment building near Paris. It’s in a bad part of town, and controlled by drug gangs who have turned the building into a fortress impenetrable by police. A group of undercover cops storm the building, only to find themselves locked into a battle against the living dead, who rise during the siege.
From here on, the film progresses as you’d expect it to, but with a number of twists. The main thing to note is that the second half of the movie is pretty brutal. You’d have to expect this, given the high level of gore shown in recent French productions such as Inside, High Tension/Switchblade Romance, Frontieres and Martyrs. Here, the tension and gore really ramp up with some impressive sequences of devastation.
The general feeling I was left with was a decent movie with a great 3rd act, which most reminded me of a live action version of the video game Left4Dead, albeit without the different zombie mutant strains. Recommended.
Well, time flies… Following my Frightfest 2009 reports, I fully intended to update the blog with a few new reviews before I go away for a couple of weeks. Alas, I didn’t get time, so anybody looking forward to a review will have to wait!
Ah, the final, sad day of the festival. Despite having sat down to 24 movies over the 5 days by the end of the night, I was still raring to go and wanted more! A testament to the fantastic organisation of Alan Jones, Paul McEvoy, Ian Rattray and Greg Day, I think, as well as the welcoming atmosphere generated by both the Empire cinema and the rest of the audience. Though I’ve heardsome issues people had with certain members of the audience, I have absolutely no complaints and had a great time among everyone involved. I seriously cannot wait till next year, though I’m hoping to make the Glasgow event to tide me over (and gutted that I can’t make the Halloween ICA event).
My memory is a little hazy, but I don’t believe we had much in the way of surprise extras on this final day, which only had 5 films in the main screen before the traditional carnage at the Phoenix. We had a screening of the “making of” DVD extra from the British movie Tormented (plus Q&A with the cast & crew), and I believe it was on this day that we had an exclusive clip from the new version of Dorian Grey. Both look OK, if unspectacular.
Reviews after the jump of the main screen movies (no discovery screen again) – Zombie Women Of Satan, The House Of The Devil, Case 39, Heartless and The Descent 2.
