FRIGHTFEST 2009

Leicester Square, London
August 27th-31st 2009

(Note : Full reviews of many of the movies mentioned below will be appearing on The Horror Review over the next week or so).

Festival Report By: Steven West

Photos By: Ewa Madrzynska

www.frightfest.co.uk

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PROLOGUE : TEN YEARS OF TERROR

Started at the humble Prince Charles Cinema back in 2000 as a spin-off from co-organiser Alan Jones’ old “Shock Around The Clock” London festival, Frightfest has turned into not just the UK’s pre-eminent horror movie festival, but one of the most prestigious genre events in the world. Its growing prestige was reflected this year not just by the celebration of the festival’s tenth anniversary, but also by its move to the Empire Cinema in Leicester Square. This meant that Frightfest unfolded on one of the UK’s biggest cinema screens with 56k Watt THX sound in front of approximately 1300 audience members. Sure beats watching a spotty print of ZOMBI on a 20 inch mono TV with your two best pals and some hooch.

The lush new venue – complete with much more amenable bar and lounge facilities than the festival’s previous homes – was a sure sign that Frightfest has come a long way since its modest origins. The friendly, family atmosphere – touted by organizers Jones, Paul McEvoy, Ian Rattray and Greg Day throughout the five day event – has refreshingly not been lost in the process – but the guest list has increased substantially. That’s no mean feat for a festival that has, in the past, featured Rob Zombie and Sheri Moon, Guillermo Del Toro and the main cast of HELLBOY, future THE DARK KNIGHT director Christopher Nolan and horror legends George Romero and Dario Argento.

As usual with Frightfest, non-genre celebrities could be spotted wandering around with us less glamorous horror geeks, while many directors, actors, crew members and writers of the films showing would routinely hang around the bar and outside the cinema to chat with fans about what they’d just seen. And as usual with Frightfest, the atmosphere before, during and after the unfolding movies was electric – the huge Empire’s auditorium buzzing with excited chatter, rapturous cheers during rousing gore moments and universal laughter throughout Dario Argento’s latest cinematic disappointment (more of which later).

Familiar faces like Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Neil Marshall and novelist Kim Newman mingled with a host of guests fresh for 2009 – most notably John Landis, who arrived like a whirlwind on Friday and pretty much hijacked the entire festival for the next three days to hilarious effect.

Attending Frightfest is akin to the ultimate feast for your average horror fan. If this reviewer was to be completely honest, it’s worth noting that this year’s line-up, although as diverse as its predecessors, didn’t produce anything as astonishing and unforgettable as 2008’s double-whammy of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and MARTYRS. A few of the movie choices were questionable, with one in particular being perhaps the worst in the festival’s long history. Nonetheless, at least one future classic was unleashed to glorious effect (let’s make no bones, it was TRICK ‘r TREAT), a couple of others were exceptional and a large number of the flicks were very, very entertaining.

For the first time in Frightfest’s history, fans were given the choice of movies on two separate screens. While the main screen was predictably host to all the big names and premieres, the “Discovery” screen (a 100-seat auditorium) showed some more modest offerings. This was the place to catch quirky documentaries like BEST WORST MOVIE (already beloved by TROLL 2 fans) and I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW (creepy / sad story of a Tiffany stalker), offbeat genre indies like PONTYPOOL and I SELL THE DEAD, ultra-low budget shockers such as COLIN (allegedly made for £45) and EVIL THINGS and new releases not deemed good enough to be shown on the main screen (the IT’S ALIVE remake).

For the purpose of consistency, and purely because the main action was always destined to unfold in the big auditorium, this report will focus on the movies, guests and events in the main screen. For legal reasons, this writer will not comment on the “date-rape” incident involving Joe Lynch that marred an otherwise great closing night. To think I trusted that man…

DAY ONE : Babyface, big bugs & bodyguards

“Where next, Alan, the O2?” were the opening words of director Chris Smith prior to his introduction of the opening film, TRIANGLE – in reference to the huge new venue for the ‘fest. More than most, Smith was in a position to notice the festival’s rise to prominence, having premiered his debut movie CREEP in the fest’s early days and his sophomore effort (sublime horror comedy SEVERANCE) a couple of years later. Like a lot of other filmmakers who have enjoyed a great reception at Frightfest for their early work, Smith forms part of the overall festival “family” that helps separate it from other festivals.

Also on hand for this world premiere was lead actress Melissa George, becoming something of a minor genre veteran after her strong turn in the decent AMITYVILLE HORROR remake. While nearly everyone over the weekend was easy to approach for signed DVD covers and the like, George was swiftly whisked away and, when in sight, tended to be flanked by menacing bodyguards. Still managed to snip off a lock of her hair when no one was paying much attention, for my secret “experiments” – stay tuned for updates…

Preceding TRIANGLE was the continuation of a terrific, crowd-pleasing Frightfest tradition. Last year Adam Green and Joe Lynch gave us a fan boy-centric, comedy riff on TWILIGHT ZONE THE MOVIE’s prologue for each night of the festival purely because they had enjoyed such a good Frightfest experience when premiering their movies HATCHET and WRONG TURN 2 respectively. Hugely receptive to the many fans they’d made from the comedy shorts and their actual movies, the pair were the source of the biggest cheers of Frightfest 2008.

This year, the self-styled “Douche Brothers” were the stars of an inspired five-part parody of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (largely filmed around the house of legendary movie composer Lalo Schifrin!) to celebrate its prominent Friday afternoon remastered screening. For opening night, the skit involved a cute reference to last year’s TWILIGHT ZONE running joke, plus gags about Uwe Boll and a very funny pastiche of the legendary “Slaughtered Lamb” sequence neatly incorporating original footage from the movie along with a barrage of visual and verbal gags, one involving Frightfest 2008’s AUTOPSY.

Once the laughter and applause had died down for this dynamic opening sketch, the movies proper began. TRIANGLE was hosted by a passionate Chris Smith, who spent two years writing the intricate script and described it to the press later on as a horror reworking of GROUNDHOG DAY. The writer/director’s talent is undeniable, and the movie certainly represented his slickest, most ambitious work to date – though the film’s many assets (including George’s first-class lead performance as a troubled young mother encountering several different versions of herself during one long, murder-laden ship voyage) were somewhat neutered by its strong (probably coincidental) similarities to last year’s superb Spanish thriller TIME CRIMES.

This disorientating mind-fuck, which cleverly began as a variation on GHOST SHIP before wandering into weirder DONNIE DARKO parallel-universe territory, at the very least proved to be a strong test for the Empire’s awesome sound and visuals. Key shock scenes rumbled every chair in the auditorium while the gorgeous cinematography on location in Australia filled the huge widescreen to impressive effect. Frightfest 2009 was off to a strong start.

Frightfest always has room for retro-splatter movies, and this year was no exception. The first of them was THE HILLS RUN RED, given a prime opening night slot and with director Dave Parker, sexy actress Janet Montgomery (giving off the vibes off someone who‘d rather be elsewhere and soon to be seen in WRONG TURN 3), actor Alex Wyndham and composer Frederik Wiedmann in attendance for a Q & A. The movie, a DVD-bound effort from Warner Premiere and Dark Castle, has a nasty edge courtesy of screenwriter David J Schow as it follows one obsessed genre fan’s quest to find out more about a legendary 80’s slasher movie entitled “The Hills Run Red”. His mission leads him to get caught up in a series of gory murders that may or may not be the work of loopy filmmaker William Sadler in the guise of the “Babyface” killer of his movie.

Though some of its post-modern smugness came dangerously close to taking the film into dated, SCREAM-era realms, this was mostly a sharply paced, splendidly grisly old-school slasher with a high quotient of face-cutting gore and pert boobies. Director Parker introduced it as a “movie to be vocal at”, and it largely lived up to the hype. Parker was by far the most enjoyable member of the film’s on-stage entourage, enthusing about teenage years spent obsessed with SUSPIRIA, THE BEYOND and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE while giving some insight into how Schow’s original script pushed the envelope even further – and noting that, to date, Warners are refusing to release his unrated cut (containing a rape scene).

Perhaps even more warmly received was the final film of the first night, Kyle Rankin’s quirky take on the old-fashioned big-bug movie. This nifty modern day B movie got a lot of hearty laughs, many of them thanks to a refreshingly asshole-ish, slacker hero played superbly by Chris Marquette – a guy who loses his job just as his city is invaded by over-sized deadly bugs. An unusually witty script incorporated a very funny supporting role for Ray Wise while allowing for plenty of inventive attack scenes – all staged with a combination of practical FX and CGI that, for once, worked seamlessly well.

This little gem closed opening night in a charming fashion and was preceded by the first of the festival’s three short films – Spencer Eastabrooks’ zombie western DEADWALKERS. It was an atmospheric genre mash-up slightly spoiled by too much CG grue but with a cool punch line, grizzled gunslinger narration and the first of the weekend’s now de-rigueur fast-moving zombies.

DAY TWO : AN INSANE AMERICAN DIRECTOR IN LONDON

Frightfest can be hard on sleeping patterns – you drag yourself away at around 230 in the morning after the final movie of the night, then wander around Leicester Square in search of something resembling food, then spend half an hour figuring out where to stash that dismembered hooker you killed in your hotel room. Before you know it, it’s morning again and another day of back to back films and drinking and chatting to film-folk awaits.

Frightfest Friday this year began on a high with the vivid Australian revenge flick THE HORSEMAN, with Peter Marshall outstanding as a devastated dad on a mission to kill the porno film-making creeps responsible for his teenage daughter’s recent drug-induced death. Closer in tone and approach to TAXI DRIVER and DEAD MAN’S SHOES than the far less ambiguous DEATH WISH movies, this offered a devastating insight into the impact of violence, with Marshall heartbreaking in the central role.

The crowd reaction to this gritty, intense movie was universally positive : many ranked it as among their favourites of the whole weekend and, although not a horror movie, it did contain more wince-inducing moments of brutality than perhaps anything else shown over the five days. Queasy highlights involved hammers, knives, snapped limbs, pliers, nipples and genital torture. And that was just at the bar afterward.

The afternoon was given over to AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, beginning with the screening of BEWARE THE MOON, Paul Davis’ long-coming feature-length documentary about its making, and destined to make a really excellent extra feature when the movie is re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray later this year. Davis, who was present throughout the weekend with his producer and editor, did an impressive job of tracking down and interviewing on camera almost anyone with any significant connection to the 1981 horror classic (barmaid Lila Kaye and chess player Rik Mayall being notable exceptions but their absence was explained in the Q & A afterward), and his documentary, while repeating some stuff we already know from previous DVD features, succeeded in offering insight and revelations into every conceivable aspect of the movie.

Particularly interesting were details of the songs John Landis originally wanted to use ; specifics of how test screenings and the MPAA helped water down the love scene and nix some of the most gruesome moments and an insight into how Landis pulled off the once-in-a-blue-moon location shooting of vehicular mayhem in Piccadilly Circus just a year after he did much the same thing in Chicago for THE BLUES BROTHERS. Davis wasn’t a very charismatic host in the documentary’s framing scenes, but the interviewees, particularly Landis, more than made up for it. And on stage Davis’ genuine thrill that more than ten people had seen his documentary was touching to behold.

Talking of Landis, he was on hand to introduce the newly remastered big-screen showing of WEREWOLF, and cheerfully displayed how he was going to steal the whole of Frightfest 2009. The movie itself holds up remarkably well : everyone remembers the still-stunning transformation scene and the clever soundtrack and Griffin Dunne’s “walking meatloaf”. But what you might not remember are the great incidental comic moments (the bumbling British copper ; David Naughton’s attempts to find something good on British TV) or just how poignant and well-layered Naughton’s performance is. The sharpness of the print enabled hitherto unnoticed details to be seen, including some graffiti in the film’s phone booth sequence.

Landis was animated, informative and utterly hilarious on stage. The Frightfest boys managed to reunite a fair number of WEREWOLF personnel, from Linzi Drew (a porn star who features in the “See You Next Wednesday” interlude) to cameraman Robert Paynter, but Landis barely let them get a word in. He fielded some dumb questions from the crowd, including “How did you feel on hearing the news about Michael Jackson” (mmm, what do you think?!) and someone asking why it wasn’t shot in ‘scope (cos he didn’t want to).

He was on-top form when left to his own devices to reminisce and ramble, contributing a hilarious story of Michael Winner being a shit to almost everyone on the set of 70’s western CHATO’S LAND (and enjoying specially flown-in food with Charles Bronson) and reflecting on his fondness for the striking British 70’s horror RAW MEAT, a key influence on the great subway sequence in WEREWOLF. He also reaffirmed of how he always saw WEREWOLF as a pure horror film that just happened to be funny ; noting that his later, underrated INNOCENT BLOOD WAS intended as a comedy but got dismissed as merely “horrible”. Landis was so vocal and enthusiastic he practically had to be shooed off the stage so the rest of the night could stay vaguely on schedule.

The remainder of the day’s movies toyed with contrasting sub-genres and emerged from different countries. Italy’s SHADOW, from rock-star-turned-director Federico Zampaglione, was hailed by Alan Jones as representing the great return of Italian horror, but could be more accurately described as a feature length music video marred by a shaggy dog ending stolen wholesale from JACOB’S LADDER. Zampaglione was present with several members of his family, and was so excitable and proud to be there for this world premiere that it was too bad the film wasn’t a) more interesting and b) more enthusiastically received.

Significantly more exciting was the latest blood-drenched hardcore French horror entry, THE HORDE, which pulls off the old FROM DUSK TIL DAWN genre-switch trick as it morphs from a gritty mob thriller into a batshit-crazy fast-zombie splatter movie. Portions of it echo REC and 28 DAYS LATER, and the fashionably fast-cut, shaki-cam style gets a bit wearying, but the movie builds to hugely impressive set pieces involving multiple zombies and has a strong thread of humor from a fat, ageing Rambo-wannabe who gets all the good lines and acts like it’s still 1968 with a burning desire to wipe out “Chinks”.

Finally, the day’s midnight movie was MACABRE, a Singapore-Indonesia co-production that slow-burns into a hysterically bloody, scream-dominated final half-hour. About a pair of siblings who fall prey to a hitchhiker’s unnaturally young-looking mom (with a need for new-born babies), it had little to add to the current cycle of sadistic horror but the array of dismemberment, beheadings and open wounds was still brisk enough to ensure the late-night slot breezed past.

Away from the movies, Landis participated in an epic signing session that had to be cut short ; thankfully, his tongue in cheek demand to be “left the fuck alone” so that he could enjoy the weekend’s movies proved to be a typical Landis gag and the guy was friendly to a fault and open to chat / autographs to anyone who came his way. (In contrast to Neil Marshall, who looked pissed off all weekend and was apparently unpleasant to those wanting a moment of his time).

Universal’s impressive trailer for the long-awaited new WOLFMAN movie looked great on the towering Empire screen, and Vincenzo Natali pretentiously introduced (on video) some exclusive footage from his forthcoming sci-fi horror SPLICE starring Sarah Polley.

The second Douche Brothers short skits involved an inspired spoof of AMERICAN WEREWOLF’s moors sequence, with references to Green’s desire to fuck regular Frightfest guest Emily Booth (a presenter on the UK’s “Zone Horror” TV channel). An uproarious cameo by Alan Jones and a moment in which Joe runs back to save Green only because of a dvd copy of TROLL 2 got the biggest laughs of the day.

Last but not least from Friday was PARIS BY NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Gregory Morin’s inventive zombie-apocalypse. Despite obvious cheap CGI, this was the best of the weekend’s shorts, with a very sexy Karina Testa (also in SHADOW) as a newly married young woman in a zombie-dominated Paris. Frenetic action, exploding heads, a hilarious mock-MGM logo at the very start, and a sublime punch line made this a real pleasure.

DAY THREE : Get On Down With David Hess

Saturday was a day of many and various pleasures both in and out of the Empire’s big screen. The third “Road To Frightfest” sketch from messrs Lynch and Green involved the former bravely repeating David Naughton’s nude scenes from WEREWOLF, alongside a delicious range of bestiality jokes and more self-deprecating humour aiming potshots at the directors’ own work (one character remarks, of HATCHET, : “I liked it better the first time when it was called FRIDAY THE 13TH”). The most notable of the day’s exclusives was some early footage from George Romero’s SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, introduced on tape by the legendary director himself : it’s far too early to judge but, based solely on what was shown, the advance buzz is a little underwhelming.

The first of the day’s films was SMASH CUT, an accurate modern-day parody of the look, sound, acting styles and production values of Herschell Gordon Lewis horror films. David Hess grabbed a rare leading role as a nutty low budget horror filmmaker who finds the best way to make convincing genre films is to actually kill people for real and use their cadavers and body parts on screen.

Kind of a Lewis-filtered riff on FADE TO BLACK, this divided the audience right down the middle and is only really going to be appreciated by conossieurs of Lewis’ 60’s and 70’s genre work, but, for those in on the joke, it was a colourful and amusing tribute. Its screening was all the excuse Hess needed to take to the stage and strum out a couple of bluesy tunes on his guitar, though the roguish actor stayed for the duration of the festival and proved to be a lively presence at the Phoenix bar after parties (ladies, beware!).

Hess was joined on stage by director Lee Demabre, another affable guy, and the two had an amusing rapport (“Don’t touch my ass, man!” were Hess’ opening words before launching into a Jerry Lewis impersonation). Demabre explained how the title came from Lewis himself (referred to as a “marketing genius”) and the titles used for the wonderful posters within the film also stemmed from movies Lewis never got to make.

The Q & A allowed Hess to indulge in some memories of swimming “like a motherfucker” from some live crocodiles on the set of Wes Craven’s SWAMP THING, and for Demabre’s recollections of SMASH CUT co-star Michael Berryman (seen throughout in a hilarious black curly wig) being oft-naked on set. As for the question on everyone’s lips : leading lady Sasha Grey (ably channelling the wooden nature of Lewis’ protagonists) didn’t get naked in SMASH CUT because “having her lovely vagina in our picture would have gone against Herschel’s original intentions”. Demabre reassuringly added that, for fans of said vagina, Miss Grey is still making porno movies.

Those that missed the next movie, Spanish chiller HIERRO in order to get in line for the Hess autograph session, denied themselves a beautifully shot, coastal-set mystery in which Elena Anaya desperately searches for her missing child. Light on horror but strong on atmosphere, it was too thematically close to the same country’s recent THE ORPHANAGE to stand-out but still an impressive foray into Hitchcockian territory.

High on many festival goer’s favourites list for the weekend was another foreign language title that arguably wasn’t a horror movie at all, Sweden’s MILLENNIUM : THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGO TATTOO, an adaptation of a wildly popular novel by Stieg Larsson. Its unfolding story of Nazi war criminals, child abuse, rape-revenge and a serial killer captivated some – but, despite powerful moments and an unusual female protagonist (played superbly by Noomi Rapce), left this reviewer cold, particularly as it was stretched over a two and a half hour running time. Still, the opportunity for a bit of sleep was appreciated.

Last year, Frightfest was host to the UK premiere of the Kiefer Sutherland dud MIRRORS, a bad movie that had a packed auditorium rolling in the aisles with laughter thanks to its sheer lame-ness. This year’s equivalent was the new Dario Argento picture GIALLO, given a prominent Saturday evening slot and an honest introduction by Alan Jones, who noted that he would be chairing an “Argento’s Anonymous” meeting for jaded fans immediately after the screening.

Argento’s recent output is legendarily haphazard, the visual brilliance and cruel narrative wit of his earlier work replaced by drab TV-movie style cinematography and arduous plotting in flicks like THE CARD PLAYER and DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK. Nothing the filmmaker has ever done, however, prepared us for the overwhelmingly bad, unintentionally hilarious GIALLO. But it was its insane dialogue, wooden acting and lunatic set pieces that brought the house down at the Empire Leicester Square – rest assured this movie will never be as much fun as it was at Frightfest.

A career-low is reached for co-producer / star Adrien Brody, once an Oscar winner, now playing two roles, equally badly : one a dogged chain-smoking New York cop with a single expression (a slightly sad frown), the other an astonishingly goofy killer with a prosthetic nose, crazy 80’s Rambo hair and a tendency to masturbate over pictures of corpses. Flashes of old-style Argento sadism weren’t enough to overcome the hilarity generated by perhaps the worst performance by a mainstream actor since Mark Wahlberg in THE HAPPENING.

Away from the unintentional hilarity factor, watching a former genre legend like Argento make a movie as embarrassing as GIALLO is enough to make you lose all faith in horror and humanity. Thank goodness, then, for TRICK ‘R TREAT, a wonderfully evocative horror anthology that managed to pay warm tribute to 80’s classics like CREEPSHOW and THE THING while also displaying a rare originality and imagination in its use of the format. Director Michael Dougherty has captured the look and spirit of a great scary Halloween-night campfire story for a film that dispenses with the usual anthology film’s framing device in favour of a circular narrative interweaving four separate spooky tales.

Each of the quartet was as surprising, witty and scary as you could wish for from a contemporary genre movie : if we have to pick a stand-out, it would be the fourth and final tale, a frightening but ultimately funny semi-homage to the classic “Amelia” story from TRILOGY OF TERROR. Brian Cox played a grouchy loner menaced by a pint-sized, sack-masked, ankle-slicing trick or treater from Hell in an episode that generated genuine terror, before a wholly unexpected punch line provoked knowing laughter.

Many agreed that TRICK ‘R TREAT is a movie that will become regarded as a classic of its time. Which made the depressing truth of its production history, revealed during the Q & A with Dougherty, especially startling. Dougherty talked, with admirably restrained bitterness, of how his movie was set for a US release date of October 2007 (“like being pregnant for two years”) but then shelved by Warner Bros for no clear or honest reason. “You make a quirky, original horror film and this is what happens”, the filmmaker noted, before encouraging the audience to stop going to crappy horror remakes on opening weekend and thus perhaps encourage studios to make fresh horror movies rather than the current trend.

Dougherty offered a very amusing summary of the knock-off SCREAM era of horror filmmaking, wittily described a particular story in TRICK R TREAT as being “GOONIES inspired…if they all died” and, after describing the sorry story of the movie’s fate at the hands of Warner Brothers, received a great response from John Landis, watching from the balcony seats and loudly extolling “Fuck them!”. Landis, like most of the crowd, loved the movie.

The evening – and, arguably, the festival – peaked with this movie, though Saturday’s closing film, VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL had its share of fans. In a similar vein to recent over the top Japanese comedy-splatter movies like MACHINE GIRL and TOKYO GORE POLICE, this high-school-set take on the Frankenstein legend enthusiastically threw everything into the mix, from racist black-face gags to hosepipe bloodletting to jokes about self-harmers. A little of it went a long way, and the joke had worn thin after about an hour but the film’s energy and sense of glee made it hard to truly dislike. In a weird example of life imitating art, this reviewer returned to his hotel room where a Japanese schoolgirl engaged in acts of self-mutilation (in exchange for cash).

DAY FOUR : Introducing the Human Centipede…

What better way to start a Sunday than with watching Nazi zombies decimate a group of medical students in snowy Norway, courtesy of director Tommy Wirkola’s crowd-pleasing DEAD SNOW? An exuberant continuation of the current, minor Scandinavian horror boom (following the excellent COLD PREY films and MANHUNT), DEAD SNOW showed a likeable reverence for the earlier, bloodier work of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, while wittily deconstructing genre clichés, to the point where the obligatory fat horror nerd character gets lucky with a hot girl.

Funny dialogue and a second half full of clever, well staged zombie gore, made this a festival highlight. Wirkola, who acknowledged past entries in the very limited Nazi-zombie sub-genre (that’s ZOMBIE LAKE and SHOCK WAVES) was a laidback but pleasant guest, openly explaining the necessity to use some digital blood despite his original intentions (the fake blood kept freezing) and also justifying his choice of the always-controversial fake zombies (they had to be fast because they were trudging through five feet of snow).

DEAD SNOW warmed the crowd up despite its frosty setting, and few movies got them talking as much as the next feature, Tom Six’s warped, unique THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE). This blackly comic sickie -a British / Holland co-production – channelled the darkest work of Cronenberg and Takashi Miike but was quite unlike anything you’ve seen before. In plot terms all you need to know about it is in the title : three hapless young people are stitched together (mouth-to-anus) by a demented German doctor, played to the hilt by the wonderful Dieter Laser, who hates humans and thinks that a “human centipede” is the natural way to go.

At least one moment (involving actor Akihiro Kitamura) made nearly everyone want to vomit despite the relatively discreet fashion in which it was conveyed while director Six, on stage with two actors introduced as “the front and arse of the centipede” (Kitamura and hottie actress Ashley C Williams), proved to be a very amusing, cheerfully nuts speaker. He explained that the main source of inspiration was his thought that, if people really piss him off, they should have their faces sewn to the ass of a fat truck driver. Six added that the sequel, to be called THE FULL SEQUENCE, will involve a 15-person centipede and will make this movie seem like SESAME STREET! And for anyone with any doubts, he claimed that the movie was designed in collaboration with a famous Dutch surgeon and was “100% medically accurate”.

Pretty much anything was going to seem ordinary next to the fabulously demented HUMAN CENTIPEDE, so COFFIN ROCK, introduced by Australian actor Sam Parsonson, was destined for a significantly more subdued reaction. Turns out that this was a gender-reversal of FATAL ATTRACTION in which brushed-off loner Parsonson flips out after being rejected by the married woman he has just impregnated. Interchangeable with any number of 90’s home-invasion thrillers, it had flashes of nastiness – a baby kangaroo beaten to death is an early highpoint – but Parsonson (despite winning some praise from certain sectors) made for an unconvincing villain and the movie felt out of place.

Sunday evening brought with it the fourth in The Douche Brothers sketch series, this time involving a wonderful recreation of AMERICAN WEREWOLF’s Soho porn cinema sequence, adapted to include a comical MARTYRS 2 and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN 2 (“Let me in…again…”) instead of “See You Next Wednesday”. There were more self-mocking references to WRONG TURN 2, along with a riotous cameo from Guillermo Del Toro. Adam Green appeared on stage to introduce some awesome footage from his upcoming third picture, FROZEN – an intense suspense picture that looks like OPEN WATER based around a broken ski-lift.

On the subject of AMERICAN WEREWOLF, John Landis was back throughout Sunday, roaming around like an excited puppy, enthusiastically signing anything you could thrust in his face, raving about TRICK ‘R TREAT and telling an actress from the superb DREAD (more of which in a moment) how relieved he was that the huge birthmark she sports in the film was just make-up. In a comic highpoint of this or any other Frightfest, Landis – on hand to introduce a special screening of rare “Making of THRILLER” footage – could be found late Sunday evening encouraging everyone to enter the auditorium because there were still plenty of spare seats! “Come on in even if you don’t have a ticket!”.

The one hour “Making of…”, drawn from Landis’ own collection, began with the “Thriller” video in full, which still holds up as the highpoint of Michael Jackson’s solo career. It then launched into a fascinating look behind the scenes of the legendary music video. Reuniting much of the crew from AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, the ambitious video featured more memorable work from the Rick Baker studio and was energised by Landis’ enthusiastic presence. Most interesting to watch in the wake of recent events was Jackson himself – a confirmed fan of WEREWOLF, he was captured on set as looking, acting and sounding like a 12 year old kid rather than the superstar he was at this point. At one point he wears a bright pink Mickey Mouse jumper and giggles like a schoolgirl as Landis tickles his feet. Pretty fascinating stuff, and an unusual, controversial but worthy addition to the festival programme, this proved to be a nice conclusion to the weekend-long celebration of Landis’ work.

Mixed audience reaction greeted Sunday night’s trio of feature premieres. Adam Gierasch, who attended 2008’s Frightfest to accompany the screening of AUTOPSY, was back alongside wife / co-screenwriter Jace Anderson to unveil his remake of NIGHT OF THE DEMONS. All too clearly destined for a straight to DVD fate, this New Orleans-set reworking of the memorable Kevin S Tenney film kept the basic plot and key shock scenes from the original while roping in a frighteningly aged Linnea Quigley to reproduce the best pantie shot of 80’s horror cinema. Notable villain Angela was recast as a seductive, manipulative sexpot played by Shannon Elizabeth, the infamous “lipstick” scene was recreated and the pacing ebbed and flowed.

Gierasch, pacing up and down on stage and coming off like a horror filmmaker reincarnation of Woody Allen with a similar level of nervous, dry wit, described the movie as something his “horny 17 year old self would have wanted to see…big breasted women being chased by demons to a punk rock soundtrack…”. That summed up this unpretentious, undemanding remake as best as anyone could do, while the filmmaker was very funny in describing how the condition of him doing the remake was if he could figure out a way of incorporating demon anal (he did).

Gierash also fielded questions about the decision to cast Eddie Furlong (looking like a very bloated, washed-up k.d. lang here) as a drug-dealer, while he was joined on stage by buxom star Bobbi Sue Luther (becoming a bit of a scream queen after her turn in the superior LAID TO REST), co-star John F Beach and composer Joseph Bishara. All were very approachable after the movie, and Luther was just one of an awe-inspiring parade of horror hotties seen over the weekend.

Much more serious was CLIVE BARKER’S DREAD, another “Book of Blood” adaptation directed by Anthony DiBlasi, who was in attendance along with impressive actors Jonathan Readwin, Shaun Evans and actress Hanne Steen (as with THE HILLS RUN RED, all of these were British actors pulling off American accents). Expanding on the short story, DiBlasi is refreshing amongst contemporary horror films in its emphasis on dialogue, characterisation and slow-burning (um) dread. Its plot was deceptively simple – two students conducting a filmed thesis on fear and dread, opening up their and others’ deepest darkest secrets before it gets out of control.

The bold, disquieting central performances were at the core of an intensely serious study of human cruelty, marked by visceral axe-murder flashbacks and a horrific climax involving a harrowing bathtub act of self mutilation and a non-gory but sickening sequence in “the meat room”. Following MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN and BOOK OF BLOOD, DREAD continues a very promising trend for Barker’s difficult, unsettling fiction to hit the silver screen without losing the integrity or power of the original prose. DiBlasi was an intelligent presence on stage and off, and has made an uncommerical, uncompromised piece of work.

Thanks to the Landis-Thriller bandwagon, the final film of the night, the French blaxploitation / creature feature hybrid BLACK, started more than an hour late at around half past midnight. This reviewer gamely attempted to stay awake and alert for this curio, but wasn’t quite in the mood for a slow-starting two hour subtitled flick so bowed out. Many others did the same thing, but those who stayed the course tended to have positive things to say about it.

DAY FIVE : The Birth Of A New Genre Of Pretentious Filmmaking?

Frightfest 2009 bowed out in style with a star-studded pair of world premieres, an outstanding low budget homage to 70’s American horror and an opening movie that could well be an early warning sign of the apocalypse. Talk about variety.

The premiere of Warren Speed’s ZOMBIE WOMEN OF SATAN, a no-budget horror comedy made in the North of England with burlesque performers, was notable for being dominated by about half-a-dozen zombie girls caked in blood and wearing just their underwear. Host Ian Rattray looked happier being groped live on stage by these girls than he did for the whole weekend, his other appearances on stage being largely dominated by increasingly angry pleas to certain fest-goers to turn their (insert expletive) mobile phones off.

This initial bit of fun and the fact that the movie coincided with the festival’s annual Bank Holiday Monday zombie walk, built up some expectation for a movie that turned out to be on a par with the very worst of Troma. Some audience members got laughs out of its gay jokes, zombie-shagging jokes and an extended sequence of a midget taking a noisy shit…but the vast majority were in agreement that this film represented a new quality low in the festival’s ten year history, worse even than last year’s grim BUBBA’S CHILI PARLOUR. It strained hard for laughs throughout but, particularly on the Empire’s huge screen, just looked and felt like a home movie given unwarranted exposure.

Lovely former Hammer girl Madeline Smith was around on Monday afternoon to plug a cool new “Hammer Glamour” book full of exciting cheesecake shots of busty old-school horror starlets. The day’s highlight for this reviewer, however, was confirmation of THE ROOST director’s Ti West talent in the form of mid-afternoon screening of his new movie HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, made over a five-month period during which the filmmaker was effectively locked out of the edit for his still-unreleased CABIN FEVER 2. (In the Q & A afterward, West filled in many details of his bad experience with this Lionsgate sequel – he made it as a gross-out Paul Bartel-style comedy but the studio disapproved and dramatically recut it against his will).

Specifically invoking the Satanic Panic that swept across America during the 80’s while emulating the visual style and pacing of classic 70’s American occult horror films, HOUSE OF THE DEVIL was the best of the weekend’s retro genre offerings. The simple story of a young woman assigned to “baby-sit” an elderly woman during the night of a lunar eclipse by odd devil-worshipping couple Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov (a grumpy recluse according to West who took some persuasion to come out of retirement), the movie proved to be a tour-de-force in its slow-burning escalation of tension. With the possible exception of the ending, everything about the flick, from its old-school opening titles to its creepy Jeff Grace score, contributed to an understated mini-masterpiece of dread. Clichés were refreshingly avoided and several audience members (this one included) got seriously spooked by the deceptively simple scenes of the heroine merely exploring Noonan’s creepy house.

Also emulating the devil / demonic horror cycle of 70’s Hollywood was the mainstream CASE 39, directed by Christian Alvert, who made his mark with the sinister German variation on SE7EN entitled ANTIBODIES, shown at Frightfest a few years earlier. In this one, social worker Renee Zellwegger (miscast and annoying, as usual) has to face up to the fact that the troubled 10 year old she has taken under her wing is a manipulative force of evil. Bradley Cooper perishes amidst a swarm of CG hornets and Ian McShane cashes an easy paycheque as a doomed cop in this unfrightening curio, distinguished only by a decent opening stretch in which an apparently insane Callum Keith Rennie hurls a little girl into a gas oven shortly before a different child kills both his parents with a tyre iron.

The festival closed with two sold-out world premieres for movies that wont be unleashed to the world at large for at least a few months. In attendance for both of them were prominent cast members and filmmakers that helped instigate a massive blockage in and around the Empire as well as a flurry of press activity.

There was a lot of goodwill directed toward HEARTLESS, the return to filmmaking after nearly 15 years for PASSION OF DARKLY NOON director Philip Ridley, a famously reclusive figure. Sadly, for the many horror fans in the audience, this goodwill was somewhat neutered when the director and producer pretentiously described their own movie (apparently without irony) as being “not just a film, it’s a movie…and it’s not just a horror movie…it creates it’s own genre, a new genre of horror”. Let’s face it, when a director heralds the fact that his own movie marks the “birth” of a new era in horror, it’s always going to provoke an irritated reaction.

Not everyone liked the movie itself, away from the irksome remarks of the smug people responsible for it. Some rightfully objected to its rather insulting middle class depiction of working class East London, while others were unimpressed by the heavy handed “street” dialogue. For sure, HEARTLESS is flawed, but this tale of a lonely young man (Sturgess, sporting an elaborate birthmark just like a key character in DREAD) given the chance for happiness after a bargain with what appears to be the Devil, is still a haunting, beautifully executed modern-day urban Gothic.

It exploits contemporary British fears of hoodie gangs in a fairly obnoxious manner, but also boasts remarkable use of music (two songs from the soundtrack were performed by Sturgess prior to the screening), nightmarish visuals (love the toothy demons that plague the hero throughout) and droll humour (largely via Eddie Marsem’s performance as the “Weapons Man”. Worthy of repeat viewings, it’s an art house horror film that beguiles in spite of its self-conscious efforts to rise above the genre it somewhat looks down upon.

Closing night of the festival is always dominated by an infectious buzz of excitement. Adam Green and Joe Lynch appeared on stage to convey the sheer love of Frightfest that encouraged them to produce more shorts for the festival this year (the last of which was capped by a sublime jerking-off joke that finally confirmed why the pair had spent the whole weekend taking photos of festival attendees eating popcorn). They got the whole audience on their feet for an American-style standing ovation in celebration of what has become the world’s best horror film fest. It was lovely and heartening to hear this duo talk about their passion for the festival and proved to be a delightful way to bow out for its most popular guests.

There was still one movie, however, the world premiere of THE DESCENT PART II, accompanied by its understandably nervous director, Jon Harris, and numerous cast members including returning heroine Shauna MacDonald, who was heavily pregnant and anticipated harsh comparisons to the dynamic original by telling the audience to “go easy” on Harris, affirming “he’s no Neil Marshall, and he might actually be better…”.

Hitherto unseen even by the actors who starred in it, this sequel proved a fine choice of closing movie since its rousing splatter content and chair-jumping shock effects made for a strong audience picture. Given that THE DESCENT was a perfect horror picture, terrifying and bleak, it’s inevitable that the second chapter pales in comparison, particularly since the script follows an unadventurous horror sequel template, contriving a way of getting MacDonald back down into the Appalachian cave network, accompanied ALIENS-style by a new bunch of soon-to-be-victims of the horrific “Crawlers”.

Much of the movie felt like a slightly modified reprisal of what had gone before, including the use of the same cues from David Julyan’s haunting original score. Director Harris is faithful – too faithful – to Marshall’s style and approach, though does come up with some diverting shock frissons of his own and pulls off an admittedly effective play on the original film’s outstanding “Crawler-in-the-viewfinder” shock moment.

The majority of the DESCENT guests were exceptionally nice and charming, hanging around generously for autographs following the movie’s late finish, and very pleased to hear that the many fans present had enjoyed what was always going to be a risky venture. It was a pleasing way to end the tenth anniversary edition of Frightfest. The movies were often satisfying, while the sheer exuberance of Landis, Green, Lynch and co., the warmth of the audience reaction to gems like DEAD SNOW and INFESTATION, and the wonderful new venue made for a magnificent festival experience.