The 3rd day of the fest was a memorable day for various reasons. Some of these were personal (such as a friend coming over for the day for his first Frightfest, which eventually turned into a drinking session at the Phoenix and zero sleep). Some were part of the festival itself (such as the crowd reaction to Giallo and David Hess’ live blues playing on stage after the first movie).
But, the movies were the important thing, of course. I not only missed all of the movies at the smaller Discovery screen (a deliberate decision for the whole event as I mentioned yesterday), but also missed the main screen movie Millennium: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I’ve heard good things about this movie, but at 150 minutes it was just too long for my state of mind at that point in time, so I went for a few pints instead! I’ll track it down and review below whenever I get chance to see it.
Other than that, there were a few surprises but nothing spectacular. George A. Romero recorded a special message including an exclusive clip from his new movie Survival Of The Dead. It looks OK, certainly miles ahead of Diary Of The Dead, but we’ll reserve judgement. The clip showed a guy fishing, the twist being that it turns out he’s fishing for zombies rather than fish. I liked the reveal, and I’m guardedly anticipating the full movie. Other than that, I don’t remember there being any other exclusives shown, but my notes went missing and my memory’s fuzzy!
Reviews of the movies after the jump. These were: Smash Cut, Hierro, Giallo, Trick ‘r Treat, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and the final short of the weekend, Sad Case.
Smash Cut
Able Whitman is a prolific hack director of low budget movies whose latest film is laughed off the screen, largely due to the fakeness of the effects he uses.. Drowning his sorrows one night, he drives a stripper back home only to crash the car, killing the stripper. Working the next day with her body still in the boot, he realises that he can use real body parts to make a convincing movie. After the test footage is well received, he decides to take care of his critics and enemies to make his masterpiece of a movie, but the stripper’s sister and a private detective are on his trail.
I was apprehensive going into this movie for two reasons. First is that Lee Demabre’s previous movie, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, was terrible in my opinion. The second is that the movie was billed as a homage to the works of Herschell Gordon Lewis (such as Blood Feast, The Wizard Of Gore and Two Thousand Maniacs!). Now, Lewis’ work is historically important as the first true gore movies, but I find most of them unbearably dull.
So, I’m happy to say that while no classic, Smash Cut is actually quite enjoyable.The allusions to Lewis’ films are very obvious, from the ridiculous characters to the strange 60s-style clothing worn by many of the characters. The movie includes a number of good performances, including leads David Hess and porn star Sasha Grey (who doesn’t get her kit off – sorry). there’s also amusing cameos from the likes of Michael Berryman (in an amusing wig that got a chuckle every time he was on screen) and Herschell Gordon Lewis himself.
Overall, the movie does sag in places, but there’s some interesting gore, a few very funny lines (including a hilarious suicide note) and it never outstays its welcome.
Rating: 
Hierro
Maria takes her young son on a ferry trip to the island of El Hierro, the furthest of the Canary Islands from the African coast. After she falls asleep for a moment, the young boy disappears and no sign of him is found on the ferry. Months later, she is called back to the island, to identify a body that has been found in the sea. While there, she is convinced she sees her son roaming the island, but not everything is as it seems.
Hierro is a movie that both benefits from its director’s vision and suffers from familiarity with the genre. Compared to recent Spanish movies along the lines of The Orphanage, the plotline is quite predictable and plodding for the most part. It’s saved to some degree by the excellent visuals of director Gabe Ibáñez, a former animator, but the plot really revolves around a couple of twists that I though were telegraphed way too far in advance. The more interesting visual sequences also seem somewhat out-of-place among the high level of realism contained in the visuals during the rest of the movie.
That said, it’s an interesting movie with a great amount of mood and character, and it was nice to see a more subtle movie in among the Smash Cuts and Dead Snows of the weekend.
Rating:
Millennium: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
As mentioned above, I missed this screening, but a review will follow here once I catch up with it.
Giallo
A Turin cop investigates the disappearance of a woman, aided by her sister. The case may have something to do with a killer known as Giallo, due to his yellow, jaundiced skin.
Oh dear. I must admit that Giallo was one of the movies I was most guardedly looking forward to. As a fan of previous triumphs like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and Suspiria, I’m always on the lookout for a return to form for Dario Argento. Unfortunately, he constantly disappoints, with his last movie having been Mother Of Tears – a movie that plays like a Lucio Fulci fanfilm rather than one from a former giallo master.
Although advance word was bad, I always held out hope for some glimpse of Dario’s talent, but it’s nowhere to be found in the final movie. I’m sadly not the only one to this think – after the film dipped following a fairly respectable opening 10 minutes or so, the clunky dialogue started to get laughter from the audience. By the end, people seemed to be finding it more hilarious than most comedies.
Unfortunately, most of this laughter was deserved. Apart from Argento himself (who apparently changed the script considerably from its original form), blame has to rest on the shoulders of Adrien Brody, who not only executive produces but starts in a dual role as both the killer and the detective. His detective character is bland and fairly unlikeable, while the killer looks like Rambo ate too many carrots then sat too close to the fireplace. This dual casting is a bizarre decision, and adds nothing to the plot (there’s no real direct relationship between the killer and the detective). It just looks stupid.
There’s the tin ear for dialogue and unconventional approach to performances that we come to expect from Argento, but Giallo also suffers from the complete lack of flair that’s dogged most of Argento’s recent work. His classics suffer from the same problems of scripting, character and logic, but it was always his camerawork that saved the day. His virtuoso approach to how he shot his movies, with no regard for logical or conventional camera placements. Ironically, now that modern editing and digital techniques make such a daring approach easier than ever, Argento’s camerawork here is boring. Combined with the long dialogue sequences demanded by the script, this only helps expose the flaws.
To be fair, there are a few good sequences in Giallo, and the movie could have been quite good. But, sadly, though sequences are few and far between, and the movie will have bored the average viewer long before they happen – if they haven’t succumbed to the giggle first.
Rating: 
Trick r’ Treat
A number of people in a small town are celebrating Halloween, but ghosts and ghouls are also out in force. Sam, a mysterious figure in a pumpkin mask leads us through 5 overlapping tales covering urban legends, superstitions and what happens to people who don’t respect the rules of trick and treating.
Trick ‘r Treat is one of the saddest stories of recent horror history. After its production in 2007, it has been bounced around by the studio many times – possibly because its Halloween theme dictated a logical release period that clashes with the Saw sequels. Originally intended to be a theatrical release, it has been changed to a DVD release and back again many times, finally settling down to a straight-to-DVD schedule.
It’s a shame, as not only is this a fantastic-looking movie that looked great on the Empire’s massive screen, but it’s also a very good movie. If the synopsis above seems a little vague, it’s because I don’t want to give away too much of what happens in the movie. What we get are 5 separate stories, but the director has decided not to go the usual anthology route a la Creepshow or Tales From The Crypt of giving us separate stories with a wraparound segment to link them. Instead, this is a more Pulp Fiction-style affair, where each story has an effect on the other and occur outside of chronological order.
It’s a brave move, and one that works extremely well. The character of Sam, who appears in some capacity in each story, is a very effective character with great visual design. None of the stories go on long enough to outstay their welcome, and the integration between them makes it fun to spot the links, even when some stories are inevitably weaker than others.
This is definitely one of the better movies of this year’s Frightfest, and I actually encourage anyone to buy this on DVD when they can. Like many who have seen it over its release date limbo period, I really want to see this do as well as possible on DVD, so that not only could a sequel be produced but studios start giving some credence to great horror material that aren’t remakes or sequels.
Rating:
Sad Case
The final short movie of the festival is a bit of strange one. Not only was it the only British short chosen to be shown, but it’s also not technically horror. The story is threadbare – we follow the journey of a suitcase and its adventures as it changes owners, assimilating portions of its owners personalities and moods as it’s with them before realising that he’s just a case.
It’s well shot and edited, and while there are some horror elements (such as when the case comes into the possession of a killer), it’s rather slight. I’m looking forward to whatever else the director, Sam Rogers, manages to do but this is a kind of take it or leave it movie – in fact probably the only thing to be shown without any kind of applause. I’ll chalk that down to the tired audience rather than the quality of the short, however.
Rating:
Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl
A Japanese high school has a new student with a secret – she’s a vampire, and intends to turn the boy she fancies into a vampire as well. Meanwhile, a love rival has a father working on secret experiments and discovers that the vampire’s blood is exactly what he needs to complete his work.
This is the now-traditional nutty Asian midnight movie, and for that it’s actually more enjoyable than last year’s Tokyo Gore Police. The violence is just as over-the-top, the humour wacky and dumb (including a semi-racist running joke involving members of the ganguro subculture) and the plot fairly nonsensical. However, after a few beers this was quite an enjoyable end to the night.
Rating: