OK, so I’ve had some time to digest the line-up for this year’s Frightfest in London this August and I’ve managed to secure my weekend ticket! As ever, it’s an interesting line-up consisting of a wide range of movies from those I’ve been looking forward to based on their notoriety (A Serbian Movie) to interesting-sounding movies [...]
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OK, so there’s been an early announcement about this year’s Frightfest and it’s a good one! The opening and closing films have been announced as: Hatchet 2 – Adam Green is a long-time Frightfest contributor, and it’s the successful screening of the original Hatchet that really got his career under way. After not being able to attend [...] 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 NoteDeath Note[/cbc] 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. Continue reading Frightfest Glasgow 2010 – review 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 [...] 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 [...] 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 heard some 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 Gray. 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. The fourth day was an interesting one for me, largely because I hadn’t bothered with bed following the afterparty at the Phoenix bar the night before! That was the first time I’d been there after a Frightfest evening, and it was great to mingle with the regulars, along with the likes of David Hess and Joe Lynch who’d decided to go there as well. I think I’ll attempt a few more evenings there next year, though the only other night I made it there on this occasion was the insanely packed do after the final day. However, for various reasons, the night meant that I missed Dead Snow (I ended up doing other things as I wasn’t sure of my ability to stay awake among other things, as well as the fact that the DVD release was the following day), as well as starting to drop off during Black. So, bear in mind with the following reviews that the Dead Snow review is from a DVD rather than the actual screening, so my opinion may be somewhat subdued compared to if I’d been with the crowd. Also, I can’t give a 100% accurate review of Black in the interest of fairness, as I’d been awake for over 36 hours at that point and the comfortable cinema seat was working against me. It also means that my memories of any surprises are a little hazy. IIRC, this day was the one where we saw advance screening footage from Adam Green’s new movie Frozen. We mainly saw the trailer, which shows a lot of what happens in the movie – three skiers get stuck on a ski lift in mid-air after it’s shut down for the weekend, and have to escape before they freeze to death. In addition, there was another excellent Douche Brothers short from Green and Joe Lynch – all of the shorts can now be viewed online here. The other “surprise” of the night (although everyone knew about it) was a presentation of John Landis’ other horror landmark, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, along with the making of the video. The music video itself was as entertaining as ever, despite being shown on a dodgy transfer. However, the documentary really dragged. I remember enjoying this back in the day, but the editing is actually atrocious. If someone happens to mention something else from Michael Jackson’s career, we get a 2-3 minute clip, sometimes the who video or performance! It’s unnecessary and really made the evening start to drag. Movies of the day reviews after the jump – Dead Snow, Human Centipede, Coffin Rock, Night Of The Demons, Dread and Black. No Discovery screen reviews again – I didn’t see them! 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 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. 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 Wolfman 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. Annoyingly, I had started to write reviews of each day at Frightfest but my Apple iPod Touch WordPress app messed up when it tried to get online partway through writing the posts and refused to work until I was on a wifi connection. So, here we are a couple of days later and I hope I don’t miss anything! Frightfest 2009 is the third Frightfest I’ve been to, and the first I’ve attended the whole event. It’s definitely a different, much better, atmosphere when you go for the full festival, and I highly recommend it to anybody. As usual, most of the movies had some kind of added extra, be it a Q&A with the director or cast & crew, sneak previews of upcoming movies like Vincenzo (Cube) Natali’s Splice or T-shirt giveaways. There was also the return of Adam Green & Wrong Turn 2 – Dead End (Unrated) (a.k.a. The Douche Brothers) Road To Frightfest shorts, this time utilising footage from American Werewolf in London Special Edition to hilarious effect. The crowd were friendly as ever, and it’s great to be in the same seat for the whole fest, especially as you really get to know the people around you for that length of time. As with last year, there was a goodie bag given away to all weekend pass holders and it was fantastically full of decent stuff. I got 2 t-shirts (one of which I gave away as it was too small for me!), 4 DVDs (a trailer disc, B.T.K., 20th Century Boys and the Children of the Corn trilogy box set!), as well as various leaflets posters and other things. Great stuff, though the bag itself seemed of lower quality than last year I can’t really complain. The Empire was an excellent location for the movies to be shown – massive screen, and it seemed easier to movie in and out of the screenings than it was before. Thanks to the way things were scheduled, and the fact that there wasn’t anything I was massively excited about watching on the Discovery screen, I stuck to the main screen. This meant that I only missed 2 of the movies being shown, making a total of 24! The movies I missed were Dead Snow and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I should have a review of Dead Snow by the time I upload my reviews of Day Four, since it’s out on DVD now. As it’s the first day, there were only 3 movies shown (Triangle, The Hills Run Red and Infestation), along with the short film Deadwalkers. Reviews after the jump. |
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