Film4 FrightFest 2011 - Day 1 and 2

Another August Bank Holiday and another FilmFour FrightFest, with more ticket demands than ever before!

It also had a truly impressive selection of movies on offer, from UK Premieres to European Premieres to World Premieres – shown on the main screen and also on the ‘Discovery Screen’. As ever, the cinema was buzzing with horror fans and special guests alike during the festival’s five-day run.
Naturally, there is no way that every single movie shown can be discussed in a review. What am I saying, it’s not even possible to watch every single movie shown at a festival anyway. So let’s focus on the highlights instead.

“Jeepers Creepers, where’d ya get them peepers” never seemed as appropriate as at this year’s FrightFest), what’s with some of the movies screened in 3D. More about that later. Organizers and hosts Greg Day, Alan Jones, Paul McEvoy and Ian Rattray welcomed a packed Empire and wished everyone a bloody brilliant time!

The prelude, so to speak, was a wonderfully witty ‘homage’ to John Carpenter’s 1981 Escape From New York directed by Jake West, titled Escape From London:
Due to the attendance of Frightfest 2011 rising 400%, the West End of London has been turned into a walled maximum-security prison to contain genre fans, and is now under the command of the self appointed Mayor of London. He in turn has captured the PR-President of Frightfest (Greg Day) who holds the only guest passes left to the event. Miss S. Plissken (Lucy Clements – SEE INTERVIEW) has been sent on a deadly mission to obtain one of the precious guest passes... and this feisty Snake is will need to kick some major ass, especially when she comes up against Harold ‘Brain’ Helman in a fight to the death!
It’s only a short but it really made such an impact, as did Lucy Clements as a female Snake Plissken! The audience had great fun watching this and compliments must go to Jake West for thinking up such an original and witty festival opener!

Then it went on to the real opening gala, which this year was graced with the UK-premiere of Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, directed by Troy Nixey and with Guillermo del Toro as producer and co-writer. This remake from 1973 has it (almost) all: an impressive cast that counts Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes amongst the leads and 12-year old Bailee Madison who, quite frankly, steals the show! When young Sally (B. Madison) moves to live in a 19th century mansion in Rhode Island with her architect father Alex (G. Pearce) and his new girlfriend Kim (K. Holmes), things don’t turn out as grandiose as the building looks. Something lurking within the mansion caused the destruction of artist Emerson Blackwood’s entire household a century before. While Alex seems preoccupied with restoration work on the old house and Kim is trying hard to make friends wit Sally, it’s the little girl who senses threat and looming terror. When no one believes her stories about hearing strange voices and noises from the bolted ash pit, she ‘investigates’ herself. Not a good idea, as she unwittingly unleashes creatures so unthinkably scary, her and everyone else’s life is put in grave danger.
Part haunted-house movie, part creature-feature – the film is skilfully directed and the leads are excellent. It also looks terrific and yes, it’s eerie and scary. However, it would have been better to let the creatures appear as late as possible instead of halfway into the film, for it takes edge and tension away.

Next came the first 3D offering of the festival, Final Destination 5. Fans of the horror franchise will be familiar with the plot, those who aren’t… Well, death is present in every corner, building, city, vehicle etc. Those who try to cheat death won’t escape, not for long anyway – meeting truly horrific ends. However, in this fifth (and hopefully final) instalment death has become that little more horrific thanks to 3D technology, what’s with blood and guts and objects flying towards you. Personally I don’t get this new craze for 3D at all, in fact, I haven’t met a single person at FrightFest who was in favour of this technology! Not only does it make the film look darker and they still haven’t got that perspective thing right either. No, the special glasses handed to you are darn uncomfortable and you just end up with a headache because your eyes need to get adjusted to a different distance every few seconds. This is the fourth movie I’ve now seen in 3D (in my duty as a reviewer, not by choice!) and I’m still not convinced.

Also eagerly expected was the European premiere of The Theatre Bizarre, an anthology film featuring six segments directed by six different directors: Richard Stanley (‘The Mother Of Toads’), Tom Savini (‘Wet Dreams’), Douglas Buck (‘The Accident’), Karim Hussain (‘Vision Stains’), Buddy Giovinazzo (‘I Love You’), and David Gregory (‘Sweets’). The framing segments are directed by Jeremy Kasten.
As with all anthology films, there are stories within a story. A young woman, Enola Penny (Virginia Newcomb), is obsessed with a seemingly long-abandoned Grand Guignol theatre down a seedy street in her neighbourhood. One night, she sees the door slightly open and sneaks in. Inside the dim-lit venue, its host, the eerie human puppet Peg Poett (Udo Kier), introduces her to six tales of the weird and the macabre.

Richard Stanley’s segment is, as you may have guessed, deeply steeped in the occult but also light years away from his earlier works such as ‘Hardware’ or ‘Dust Devil’. With a nod to Lovecraft and Lucio Fulci (and starring Italian horror icon Catriona McColl), the story concerns a young couple’s encounter with a shape-shifting witch while travelling through the French Pyrenees.

The segment ‘I Love You’ by B. Giovinazzo is set in an apartment in Berlin. This tale about the end of a marriage – with the wife revealing her infidelities to her husband who’s still in love with he – is bleakly told in an almost sterile manner. Susan Anbeh and André Hennicke quarrel till the bitter end.

In total contrast stands ‘Wet Dreams’ in which director Tom Savini also co-stars. Predictably enough, this one has lots of SFX-effects in it, but it doesn’t save the marriage. Yes, this one is also about a marriage going to pieces (quite literally) with each spouse dreaming (and wishing) the worst outcome for each other. Shocking and gory yes, but we know it’s only a dream.

‘The Accident’ is different in so far that a mother (Lena Kleine) tries to explain the concept of death to her little daughter (Mélodie Simard). A short time later, on the road, the two witness a crash during which not only people die but a badly hit deer (it’s an animatronic one) is the trigger of the accident. Here, death is seen through the eyes of the little girl, in a very ethereal and realistic way – and this segment is one of the strongest, probably because it’s realistic tone makes it so haunting.

The antidote to it is ‘Vision Stains’ by Karim Hussain. It is without doubt the most Grand Guignol segment of them all, and deeply disturbing – but also brilliant. A mysterious young woman (Kaniehtiio Horn, daughter of 60’s Mohawk political activist and fashion model Kahn-Tineta Horn) preys on junkies and the homeless and killing them, but not for the sake of just killing them, oh no. She’s a writer and is convinced that by injecting a hypodermic needle into her victim’s eyeballs to extract vitreous fluid – which she then injects into her own eye – she can experience life through her victim’s eyes. By doing so, it will inspire her to pen stories in diary form. But ultimately, every addiction has an overdose factor to it, and this one sees the main protagonist suffer a truly grim consequence in this ultra-gritty urban tale of terror.

The last segment is ‘Sweets’ but nothing too sweet about that one either. It has a rather colourful and bright Willy Wonka look to it, but really is a tale about the fetish of feeders (who like to combine sex with food) and plays on the excesses of modern society. Bon appetite!
Of course, the final framing segment has its own twisted ending, but we won’t give that away here. You need to enter the Theatre Bizarre yourself in order to find out…

Thus the opening night of FrightFest 2011 had come to an end, but not literally, what’s with night owls making their way to the Phoenix Bar for some late night drinks and passionate discussions.

DAY 2 (FRIDAY 26th):

There wasn’t much time for sleep as the second day kicked off bright and early with the European premiere of ‘Rogue River’ by Jourdan McClure, followed with the world premiere of a new British suspense thriller by Susan Jacobson called ‘The Holding’. After a breather that allowed for a brief lunch break, it was on to the first onstage interview with indie-director Larry Fessenden (‘Wendigo’, ‘The Last Winter’).
And yes, another UK premiere followed with the German film ‘Urban Explorers’ by Andy Fetscher. Set in Berlin, four spelunkers – lead by hired local guy Kris – set out to explore the dark and dank maze of the city’s subterranean escape tunnels in the hope to find old Nazi war rooms and hidden Third Reich chambers. During the exploration, Kris suffers a bad fall and its then when things start to go very wrong, for example, by encountering a bunch of Neo-Nazis! But worse it yet to come. Suddenly, Armin (Klaus Stiglmeier), a former East German border guard, sharpshooter and fighter in the Red Army, creeps out of the shadows. He has made this unchartered territory his very own kingdom and now offers the little group to lead them to safety. They agree, and soon realize that by doing so they made the biggest mistake of their life!
Let’s face it; a German film with an ‘evil Nazis’ theme will always go down well for one reason or another. At FrightFest, it went down well because it is as chillingly atmospheric as it is terrifying and disturbing, with Stiglmeier’s crazed performance putting the movie on a very different level from the usual torture and slasher fare.

This was followed by the World premiere of ‘The Glass Man’ – a British psychological thriller which, strictly speaking, is not a horror film but nonetheless was one of the best movies of the festival. Directed by Christian Solimeno and starring Andy Nyman in a tour-de-force performance, the movie chronicles the mental collapse of Martin Pyrite (A. Newman), who has lost his high-flying job but is too scared to tell his wife (Neve Campbell in a rather nondescript part). Instead, he continues with his work routine (going for coffees instead) and sinks ever deeper in debts due to keeping up an elaborate lifestyle, not to mention a luxury pad. Until one day, when all his credit cards get refused and Martin is on the brink of financial despair. Suddenly, late one night, a sinister debt collector knocks on his door with a dubious offer: if Martin helps him carry out an important task, he’ll wipe the financial slate clean. But the mysterious stranger refuses to say what the assignment is about and his desperation, Martin agrees. Soon he finds himself embarking on a journey into his own private hell where he’s forced to confront his worst fears and his own demons. And no, I really didn’t see the twist towards the end coming at all, most didn’t. Utterly compelling, this one is a mind-f*** in the truest sense of the word!

Things eased up again with the hilarious horror-n-slasher comedy ‘Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil’ by Eli Craig, described as a cult-classic-in-the-making. And it will become a cult classic, mark my words! In this totally over the top send-up that parodies everything from ‘Wrong Turn’ to ‘Friday The 13th’ to ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and more, best hillbilly buddies Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) head to their ramshackle vacation cabin in the wild mountains of West Virginia. But when they have a nasty run-in with some snooty and biased college kids out on a camping weekend, a series of deranged misunderstandings soon leads to a rising body count and sets in motion the goriest of shock deaths. Tudyk and Labine bring the house down as a pair of bewildered country bumpkins who are pretty clueless about the carnage they accidentally instigate.

A great ending to Day 2 of the festival!