The second day of Frightfest was the first full day of the festival – starting at 11am and going well past 1.30am the next morning! As ever, the crowd was friendly, with lots going on. I managed to chat with a few of the people I’ve seen there in previous years including the Mondo Movie guys Ben and Dan, It was also a great time to get to know everybody sitting around me (hi, Sarah!) as well as to develop some in-jokes and camaraderie with the crowd in general – for example, the digitally projected warning to turn off mobile phones often had an image of the mouse cursor left on the screen. People would try to guess where it would appear next, and there was a hilariously audible groan whenever it failed to make an appearance!
There were a few interesting extras to the proceedings on this day. The most notable was Vincenzo (Cube) Natali introducing an exclusive clip of his upcoming new movie Splice, starring Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody. The movie seems to be about scientists working on creating brand new forms of life through genetic experimentation, but getting too emotionally involved with the results. The scene played showed a newly formed specimen escaping from an incubator, and Polley and Brody disagreeing on whether to treat it as hostile while stopping its attempts to escape from the lab. The CGI on the creature was very good (and unusual, given that Natali has made his name with minimalistic movies), and reminded me a little of the escape scene from Species – though admittedly much better.
On top of that, we had another hilarious in-jokey Douche Brothers clip from Adam Green and Joe Lynch, the brand new trailer for Universal’s remake of The Wolf Man with Benicio Del Toro (which looks good, though the constant delays are a concern) and a trailer for Charlie (The Fast Show) Higson’s new horror novel The Enemy.
Now, the problem with this year’s fest is that for the first time there were 2 screens. The main screen was massive, but the “Discovery Screen” was only able to hold a fraction of even the weekend pass holders. On top of that, movies often clashed – some discovery showing clashed with two main screen showings! Given that this was my first full weekend at Frightfest, and given the fact that there really wasn’t anything I was absolutely hyped to see at the second screen (and the fact that nothing looked utterly terrible upfront on the main screen), I decided not to bother. Rather than risk choosing the wrong movie, I decided to treat it as though the second screen didn’t exist.
So, no reviews of the Discovery Screen showing here, though I may edit these reports when those movies appear on DVD. Reviews of the movies played in the main screen follow after the jump: The Horseman, Beware The Moon, An American Werewolf In London, Shadow, The Horde and Macabre, as well as the short movie Paris By Night Of The Living Dead.
The Horseman
Christian is a loving and devoted father whose daughter is found dead, with alcohol, cocaine and heroin in her system. Shortly afterwards, he’s sent a video showing her participation in a porn movie, shot on the night she died. Christian decides to track down those responsible, and take revenge in the most brutal ways possible. On the way, he gives a ride to a young runaway, and along with her manages to find some perspective to his quest.
On one hand, this Australian revenge thriller from début director Steven Kastrissos is a fairly standard piece of work – it’s clearly derivative of everything from Death Wish onwards. However, this brutal movie tops the lot. We’re placed straight in the middle of the action, and it never really lets up until the closing credits. The sequences involving testicle trauma (one involving a bicycle pump, the other a length of fishing line and hooks) are truly wince-inducing, but the focus of the movie is certainly not on such disturbing imagery. Most of the violence is implied, and the film is carried mainly by its central performances and a rock-solid script. Although shot on location in Brisbane with a cast of mostly inexperienced actors and a low budget, the movie manages to be both emotionally engaging and viscerally exciting – even one of which can be a rare commodity in today’s cinema landscape.
Rating: 
Beware The Moon
This independent documentary, written and directed by Paul Davis has an interesting history. Davis essentially set off to record stories from members of the cast and crew of An American Werewolf In London off his own back, without any prior permission or rights from Universal to use any footage from the movie itself. This dangerous and interesting approach has led to an interesting documentary that has not only been championed by John Landis himself, but also has been accepted onto the newly restored release of the movie itself.
It’s about as comprehensive as a modern documentary can be, seemingly interviewing everybody involved who isn’t dead, from Landis and Rick Baker to the actors in the porn movie See You next Wednesday that appears in one scene. It’s great to hear their recollections, although I felt there wasn’t a huge amount of extra information I hadn’t already heard from interviews and audio commentaries over the years. This is definitely a recommendation for fans of the movie though.
Rating: 
An American Werewolf In London
The screening of this classic 1981 movie was actually the world première of the newly remastered print that will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray over the next few weeks. You can see my opinion of the actual movie here, and it definitely still holds up despite us having seen most of the highlights during the preceding documentary! Director John Landis was in attendance, interesting and charismatic as ever, and stuck around for most of the festival afterwards, swapping banter across the cinema with Joe Lynch during the Q&As.
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Shadow
An American soldier who has recently returned from Iraq decides to take a mountain biking trip in a region of France nicknamed The Shadow, mainly because an old comrade had a photograph of it that he fell in love with. While there, he rescues a girl from a couple of lecherous hunters, then find themselves chased into the heart of The Shadow. Someone is there, however, and doesn’t take kindly to strangers…
Italian rock star Federico Zampaglione makes his horror movie début with this interesting but ultimately fatally flawed movie. The movie took too long to get going by my reckoning, and by the time it did my interest was broken somewhat by the giggling coming from the next seat once the Aphex Twin/Richard O’Brien hybrid killer first appeared! The main problem with the movie is that it seems to revolve around a final twist that’s simply a sub-par rip-off of Jacob’s Ladder, with few of the subtle pointers that the Adrian Lyne film had toward its conclusion.
That said, this was hyped as a return to form for Italian horror, and I mostly agree. It was certainly light years ahead of Giallo, the terrible new Dario Argento movie I’ll review next time, and if it takes a musician like Zampaglione to bring Italy back to the horror spotlight then so be it. There’s a number of decent gore moments, and the effects during a scene where a character’s eyelid is removed are disgustingly flawless.
Rating:
The Horde
A review will follow here shortly. I saw the movie and enjoyed it, but we were warned of a review embargo before the world première. That’s right, this was a “special sneak preview” shown before the première! One of the many reasons I love this festival.
Paris By Night Of The Living Dead
A couple in the middle of their wedding ceremony are interrupted by an attack by the living dead, who have overtaken the whole of Paris. They take off on their motorbikes, honouring their vows, which happened to include not only fighting zombies but also killing one another if tragedy occurs…
The second short movie of the festival is a great-looking French short with some fantastic jokes and visuals. It’s a little strange coming from a fully-fledged movie like The Horde to come up against a similarly-themed short, but it’s an entertaining watch from the start till the “Tokyo By Night Of The Living Dead” capping segment.
Rating:
Macabre
A group of friends get into a fight just before driving back to their home in Jakarta. Just before setting off, a young woman asks for them to take her home on their way, just before a large rainstorm. They’re apprehensive, but one of their number, heavily pregnant, agrees. They take her home, stop in for a short meal, and discover the secret behind the long lives of the family within…
I must admit I was somewhat disappointed in a way with this movie, but nothing that’s the film-makers’ fault. Billed as the bloodiest movie ever shown at Frightfest, I was a little underwhelmed – partly because last year’s Tokyo Gore Police broke all records for ridiculous gore and partly because the French movie Inside, which contains a few similarities, was much more of a hardcore gore movie (albeit not one I believe was shown at Frightfest).
However, it’s still a decent movie. The characters are likeable, and they do seem to be put through a lot of extreme situations that escalate logically. There’s a few too many “oh he/she’s not really dead” moments, and some aspects of the movie (especially the set-up) seem tiresome by this point. But, it’s unique enough to hold attention (how many Indonesia/Singapore co-productions have you seen recently?), and there’s enough blood toward the end to keep any gore fan happy.
Rating:
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