Buried Alive Film Fest Recap: Day 2

Day two at the Buried Alive Film Fest offered a block of shorts, a block of local shorts, a great feature, and the 5^th Anniversary of Splatter Cinema featuring an uncut 35mm print of Argento’s masterpiece Suspiria.  As far as the shorts go, the festival was a little top heavy, with most of the award winners playing on day 1.  There were definitely gems on day 2, including one whose audio alone gave me chills and another visit from our buddy, Lobster Spaceman.  As far as the features, Nailbiter delivered and Suspiria was, well…Suspiria.  As I said in my day 1 recap, if one of these flicks sounds like something that would tickle your boat (or is that float your fancy?), then hunt them down online.  A lot of them you can watch in their entirety for free.  Also, this seems like a good place to sound the SOC battle cry…SUPPORT INDEPENDENT HORROR!  There.  Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I present…

Day 2

The Shorts:

Between Friends - Two friends learn that some secrets must stay buried.  This intimate little horror flick was well acted, well paced, and well shot.  Both ladies put in good performances, and the tension never relented until the ending, which elicited one of those evil conspiratorial laughs from the crowd.  Good stuff.

Hike - Hike is about what can happen when you go into the woods.  The third of the “shaky cam forest” flicks at the festival this year, and the second one that I really didn’t dig at all.  One problem that short films often fall into is having a plot that feels like a scene from a movie instead of a complete story.  At the end of hike you’re left with a “that’s it?” feeling.  They did make good use of the woodland shooting location though.  Oh, and while I’m not usually a stickler for realism in my movie violence, I’m sick of seeing people tear someone’s tongue out.  That’s just not possible.  Cut it out.

Ethereal Chrysalis – repeat – See Day 1 HERE for my review.

Silence - A married couple in their bedroom. Something unexpected will disturb their connubial peace. A brief reinterpretation of the homonymous poem by Edgar Allan Poe.  This one had a very nice atmosphere and some really good ideas, but the suspense never really took hold, and the twist was pretty obvious.  There were moments when I thought “ok, now we’re getting somewhere, and then it was back to the lead actor making faces at the camera again.  Not bad, not good, not much.

Un Jour Sang – Winner:  Earf**k Award.  She’s not free. Still, in her distant, haughty, sublime perfection, she’s everything. Intolerable. He has no alternative : Destroy her, ruin her, profane her, cut her into shapeless and painful pieces and squash them in a dustbin. This story is not new. Let’s tell it differently…  I’ve got a confession to make; I always thought “Best Sound Design” was a lame ass Oscar.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I found myself lobbying for Buried Alive to give an award for sound design. We promptly christened it the “Earf**k Award.”  Anyway, while we watch a man and a woman separately get ready to go out, we hear an encounter between a captive woman and her torturer.  It’s rare in a horror movie to hear great voice acting, but this was just plain brilliant.  The audio track is harrowing, and I couldn’t even understand a word of it.  While I had to read the subtitles to get the actual words, the sheer emotion and bloodcurdling realism of the exchange literally gave me goosebumps.  Outstanding.

Him Indoors – Winner: Best Actor (Reece Shearsmith).  Gregory Brewster is a serial killer, only problem is, he’s agoraphobic! Facing an impending eviction from his family home, Gregory has a plan that will save him from being subjected to the one thing he’s terrified of… the outside world. Things don’t quite go to plan however, when a surprise visit from his new neighbor finds him in a very awkward situation.  This comedic short succeeds in large part due to the acting.  Reece Shearsmith earned every bit of his best actor award as a slightly snarkier Norman Bates type of character.  After seeing Offspring and The Woman, it was kinda off to hear Pollyanna McIntosh speak.  She did great however.  The dialog is sharp, with some good horror references thrown in, and I really liked the ending.  Someone’s Rondo Hatton Award even makes a cameo appearance.  I’m gonna have me one of those someday.

Crowscare - Tasked with watching over a creepy house while the owners are away on vacation, pretty coed May finds herself dealing with both a deranged murderer AND a living scarecrow!  My only issue with this one is that at times it was tough to tell if they were going for funny or scary.  It ended up being both in some spots and, sadly, neither in others.  Aside from a very inconsistent tone, I thought it was shot well, the score was decent, and I really dug the design of the scarecrow.  The filmmakers even had the scarecrow in attendance at the screening in full costume.  Big time bonus points for the ballyhoo guys!

Travel Size - Three ounces of pure terror!  I had to check to be sure, but this is from the same director of Wet Dream On Elm Street from last year, and it’s the same kind of short joke involving a toy of a horror icon.  Once again I found the joke pretty funny, but once again I have a bone to pick with director Andrew Shearer.  Andrew is the master of the “almost” titty shot, which makes him my natural enemy.  Just show some nudity already, especially when your actresses are that well endowed.  Yeah, I admit it, I’m a boob loving horror perv and I don’t like being teased like that.  If you’re gonna be sleazy, be sleazy.

Mae of the Dead - A one-night stand during the zombie apocalypse.  The Good: Both of the actresses did an excellent job with what they were given.  The Bad: What they were given.  This was 5 minutes worth of story stretched into 20.  The pace was absolutely glacial.  Like I said, both actresses were excellent, but they needed more to do, or snappier dialog, or more action, or something.  The “scratching on the bathroom door” scene was goddamn interminable.  I’d like to see these gals and their onscreen chemistry again, but with a story next time.

The Transmission – repeat – See Day 1 HERE for my review.

Decapoda Shock – repeat – It was just as good the fourth time around.  LONG LIVE LOBSTER SPACEMAN!  See Day 1 HERE for my review.

Nailbiter - Finding themselves trapped in the basement of an abandoned roadside house by the storm outside, a mother and her three daughters soon discover that they are not alone and they have sought refuge in the worst place imaginable.  I already did a full review of Nailbiter a few months ago, so I’m not gonna go into a lot of detail here.  If you want a full analysis, go HERE.  In short, this is a damn good flick.  The CGI effects of the storm look better than what you see in Hollywood blockbusters (yes, I just praised a flick’s CGI), the monster design was excellent, Grandma was a hoot, the suspense was built well, and the lighting deserves special mention.  My only real complaint was that we never got a really good look at the monsters; but it feels like the first movie out of a series, so maybe next time.  While a few audience members thought it got a little slow in the middle, just about everyone I talked to had good things to say.  Buried Alive alum Patrick Rea’s first feature is an old school slow burn horror tale that delivers.

Suspiria – I’m still kinda miffed that we couldn’t vote for this one in the best feature category.  I thought it was pretty good.  I like this Dario kid’s style.  He’s got a bright future ahead of him.

The Breakdown:

Two Severed Thumbs Up: Un Jour Sang, Suspiria (duh!)

One and a half Severed Thumbs Up: Him Indoors, Nailbiter

One Severed Thumb Up: Between Friends, Crowscare

One half Severed Thumb Up: Silence, Travel Size

One Severed Thumb Down: Hike, Mae of the Dead

Buried Alive Film Fest Recap: Day 1

Last weekend, the beautiful and historic Plaza Theatre played host to Atlanta’s premiere showcase of independent horror and psychotronic cinema, The Buried Alive Film Festival.  This year, yours truly was one of the judges, so I saw everything in advance, but sitting in a dark theater for two days watching hours and hours of fright flicks with a flask of whiskey and a bucket of popcorn is my idea of heaven, so that’s exactly what I did.  What gave me a horror-d on, and what didn’t quite measure up?  Well, before I break it all down for you, I have three things to say.  First, if one of these sounds like your cup of blood, then by all means, google it.  Some of these can be viewed online, some have trailers online, and almost all of them have sites where you can find screenings.  Second, right after Halloween next year, keep an eye on SOC (or HERE) for all of the details on how you can join me in scary silver screen paradise.  Third, as always… SUPPORT INDEPENDENT HORROR!  Now, on with the flicks.

DAY 1

The Shorts:

The Window Into Time – When a scientist is asked by an old classmate to recreate a substance described in an ancient manuscript, there are bizarre and dire consequences.  This Lovecraftian story of science meeting mysticism has a lot going for it.  It was well acted, and the animated elements were interesting, sometimes reminding me of a Tool video.  The story is entirely told in voice-over, which is fine by me because it is a cool story, but if you aren’t going to have any dialog then you should keep things moving a bit quicker than this flick did.  It could have been trimmed by 2-3 minutes and been much more effective.  As it stands, I dug this creepy slow burn flick, but thought it burned just a little too slow.

The Timeslip – A businessman crosses a busy city street … and suddenly finds himself trapped in another time.  Gone are the buildings, cars and people.  In their place is a never-ending forest and an unknown danger.  You know, Buried Alive almost could have had an entire programming block dedicated to “shaky-cam footage of people running through the woods” movies.  Unfortunately, I didn’t dig this one.  It was half over before anything happened.  It’s a guy walking through the woods, then the “menace” shows up, and it’s a guy running through the woods.  I spent the whole time waiting for something big to occur, but the payoff never came.  The cameraman REALLY needs to lay off of the caffeine or cocaine or whatever is giving him the shakes.  That one shot of the businessman in the rain with his briefcase did make me laugh really hard though.

Doppleganger/Idle Worship – I put these two together since they were made by the same filmmaker (Theo Pingarelli), and share the same style and thematic elements.  In both a skeleton arises and begins searching for others like him (Doppleganger) and something to worship (Idle Worship), with both searches ending in calamity.  I loved these.  I could watch a whole series of “The Misadventures of Skeleton Guy” shorts.  Nothing is ever spoken, but the music conveys everything you need to know.  Skeleton Guy (he doesn’t have a name, that’s just what I dubbed him) is a remarkable creation.  It’s hard to give a character emotion and evoke empathy for them without having them speak, but he doesn’t even have the benefit of facial expressions.  Yet, such emotion is conveyed through his movements that you immediately identify with this simple skeleton figure.  That speaks to Pingaelli’s skill as an animator.  I hope to see more in this series, which is a sentiment I heard echoed by many in attendance.

The Transmission – While a storm rages outside and Henry drinks his bottle of absinthe, he receives a television transmission – from his dead wife.  The first of the locally made shorts to be shown, The Transmission was also the best of the Atlanta offerings.  Visually, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  It melds actual Super 8 footage with high-def to create a nice dream-like feel. The acting is good, and the nods to classic horror flicks are an added bonus.  It has some comedic elements, but they never overpower the spooky atmosphere.  The only thing I didn’t dig was the incredible amount of grain, which may or may not have been added.  It was distracting.  There was a Q and A with the director at the festival, and his explanation of how some of the effects were done on such a low budget really impressed me.

Decapoda Shock – Winner: The Mind-F**k Award.  An astronaut returns to Earth after a fatal accident on a distant planet. When he discovers he has been the victim of a sinister plot, he decides to take vengeance on those responsible for the death of his family.  This short was the talk of the festival.  The Atlanta horror scene has a new folk hero in Lobster Spaceman.  Again, that’s not the character’s actual name, but it’s what he was referred to as by most of the attendees.  This flick fuses absurdity, humor, horror/sci-fi tropes, social commentary, animated sequences, and enough pure “that the f**k am I watching” to absolutely blow your mind.  The audience roared with laughter, and erupted in cheers and applause as the credits rolled both times it showed.  There’s a reason why Lobster Spaceman is front and center on the festival shirts.  The two Buried Alive screenings were the third and fourth time I’ve watched it and I was equally psyched every time.  Apparently Spanish director Javier Chillon has another short out there, and it just jumped to the top of my “stuff to track down” list.

Game – Winner:  Best Horror Short and Best Actress (Andrea Lee Norwood).  In a chase through the woods, these hillbillies have no idea what kind of woman they are hunting down.  From the great white north comes the second “shaky cam in the woods” flick.  The difference between this one and the other two…this one is awesome.  It’s well acted, features a really good creature design and makeup, and has a great ending.  The scenery is beautiful too.  About halfway through, there is a cool twist that struck me as very EC comics style, and that’s never a bad thing.  A really fun short, despite the cameraman’s Parkinson’s.  Pay attention through the credits, you’ll be glad you did.

Torturous – Winner: Best Comedy Short.  A case of mistaken identity brings a career counselor into the world of a professional torture artist.  It’s no secret that when it comes to comedy, I’m a very picky man.  People send a ton of bad indie horror comedy.  Most of it is of the goofy/silly/sophomoric variety.  Don’t get me wrong, that can be done well, but it’s not usually my thing.  That’s why it was so refreshing to see a smart, well written, character and dialog driven comedy that made me laugh throughout.  The way this flick plays with the conventions of torture flicks is razor sharp.  Speaking of sharp, there’s a little nicely done gore too.  Great stuff.  It contained my favorite line of the festival; “I’m the drill guy, not the meathook guy!”

The Raven - December 1959: Poe, a young writer, has locked himself inside his seedy Hollywood motel room. Astray in his projected memories, he gets a visit from a dark bird named, Nevermore. This flick had some really nifty stuff going on visually, especially near the end, and the central performance was good; but for the love of Poe, give The Raven a rest.  We all know the poem, and The Simpsons already did it better than we’ll probably ever see again.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore Poe, but The Raven is just plain overused.  As I said, there were some cool visual touches here, but I think we should call a moratorium on The Raven until someone can offer up something truly unique instead of the thousandth variation on a guy yelling at a bird.

Ethereal Crysalis - Enter the multidimensional maze of the Ethereal Chrysalis, where the doors of perception become the annihilation of all rational thoughts. This was the runner up for the Mindf**k Award.  As I told some people at the festival, this is the kind of flick I can see my friends and I taking hallucinogens, watching repeatedly, and arguing for hours about what it means.  This is a visual feast of bizarreness, from the evil flying french fry to the bugman thing to…um…I’m not sure what a lot of that was honestly.  It might be the best representation of dream logic on screen I’ve ever seen.  It takes a LOT to get me to call a flick weird, but this one was freakin’ weird.

The Features –

Abed – Winner: Best Feature Maggie lost her husband, Quint, during the early days of the living dead plague. She now lives a life of quiet horror and desperation, for her mother-in-law will do anything to help the family adjust to this new world… even the unspeakable.  At this point, if you can show me something involving zombies that I haven’t seen before, I’m a happy guy.  When you do it with this kind of intensity and humanity, I’m enthralled.   I’ll go ahead and tell you now that you aren’t prepared for where this one is going.  It’s pretty damn hardcore, but it’s done with a gravitas that makes it as mentally and emotionally extreme as it is visually and thematically.  The acting was great, especially Vicki Deshaw-Fairman as Mama.  The zombie makeup looks phenomenal as well.  I’ll put it this way; normally the Plaza horror crowd is pretty raucous.  As this one played, however, there was stunned silence, which was only broken by a little nervous laughter and a girl behind me repeatedly saying in a disgusted voice “this movie is SICK!”  I loved this movie.  It’s currently making the festival rounds, so if you see it showing near you, trust me, see it!

Manborg - A soldier, brought back to life as a cyborg, fights alongside a band of adventurers against demon hordes in a dystopian future.  From Astron 6, the sick bastards that brought you Father’s Day, comes this hilarious post apocalyptic sci-fi/ horror/ action hybrid.  There is nothing about this flick that isn’t ridiculous.  It’s so over the top that you have no choice but to just go with it.  The effects are spectacular and awful at the same time.  Then, when you realize that it was made for less than $2,000, it becomes one of the most impressive feats you’ve ever seen.  The whole thing is played with that straight faced “yeah, this is cheesy as hell, and we know that, but we’re sure as hell not gonna wink-wink-nudge-nudge at you” comedic style.  It’s the dumbest, most entertaining thing I’ve seen in a long time.  I don’t know if the visuals would play as well on a TV as they did on the big screen, but Manborg is most definitely worth a look.  Incidentally, “You Dick” in the Manborg voice might have been the most repeated line of the festival.  It’s accompanied by a faux trailer for Bio-Cop, which I REALLY want to see as a feature.

The Breakdown –

Two Severed Thumbs Up –Doppleganger/Idle Worship, Decapoda Shock, Torturous, Abed, Manborg

One and a half Severed Thumbs Up – The Transmission, Game

One Severed Thumb Up – Ethereal Crysalis, The Window Into Time

One half Severed Thumb Up – The Raven

One severed thumb down – The Timeslip

Buried Alive Film Festival Report: Day Two

Sorry it took so long folks, but here’s the rundown of the 11 shorts and 2 features presented at Day 2 of the Buried Alive Film Festival. From 2pm until the after party started after midnight, we we got a block of shorts chosen by 30 year Fangoria vet Philip Nutman, a local filmmaker showcase, one of the most anticipated indie flicks of the year, and a lot more. Like I said in part one, do a little research on these flicks. Many of them can be watched online. Support Independent Horror!

The Shorts:

The Other Half – The moment I got the double entendre of the title, I knew I liked the cut of Atlanta filmmaker Bret Wood’s jib. An amputee forces his wife to set him up with a whore to prove that “he’s not dead yet.” A nasty little burst of psychosexual debauchery with a very David Lynch-ian vibe. Good stuff.

Emergency Preparedness – It’s Halloween, and monsters are invading. One man is ready for them, but they may not be what he thinks. This is from the same director as Do Not Disturb from day 1, and it’s just as good. The ending is especially satisfying.

Hell Week – Three sorority sisters take revenge on a frat pledge who seduced them all to avoid hazing. This was short number three from Patrick Rae, and it’s my least favorite of the three. The acting wasn’t as good, and even for a 13 minute short it really didn’t seem to go anywhere. As the song says, two out of three ain’t bad.

Borley Rectory – This was just a teaser trailer for an English flick about the “most haunted house in England.” Looks to be another found footage flick, with the gimmick being that it was shot many years ago. I’ve never seen anything else Ashley Thorpe has done, but he must be something special for them to have made such a big deal about this trailer.

Down to Sleep – I don’t know a better way to describe this flick in a non spoilerish way than a phrase from the festival program; “life/death, incest…and goldfish!” This was the longest of the shorts at 40 minutes, and it felt like the perfect length for the story. The acting was good, it looked great, it had plenty of atmosphere, and the twist ending is a perfectly executed punch in the gut. At the after party, director Ryan Lieske told me that one of his big influences is Cronenberg, and I can definitely see that in this flick. One of the best of the festival. Did I mention that awesome ending?

A Wet Dream on Elm Street – Not the recently released porn parody, but a local short. It’s a three minute long Freddy sex joke…good thing it’s freakin’ funny. It’s intentionally silly, and you just can’t help laughing. My only qualm…I hate “almost” nudity! Just show it!

Satanic Panic: Band out of Hell – You always thought heavy metal was the devil’s music, didn’t you? Well, turns out it’s dance pop. Satanic Panic is a band of devil worshipers that is a cross between Dead or Alive and Electric Hellfire Club. The flick concerns a new threat that arises at their video shoot. Speaking of which, the videos for songs like “Six, Six, Sexy” are the funniest part of the flick. I also enjoyed the nod to the infamous Gaal “Satan” interview. I look forward to the promised sequel.

Survivor Type – If you were stranded on a deserted island, how far would you go to survive? I’ve never read the Stephen King story that this is based on, so I can’t compare the two, but the movie more than stands up on its own. The central performance is strong, and the gore is effective. Probably the best film out of the “Georgia Fever Dreams” local filmmakers showcase. Definitely worth checking out. My only question, would his hair really grow that fast?

Data Entry – Good concept, but it was 6 minutes of epileptic cameras and tiresome repeated jump cuts. I get it, this style is supposed to convey the craziness of the scene. It doesn’t. Far too often these contrivances are mistaken for actual visual style. I was not impressed.

The Familiar – Sam becomes a vampire’s familiar, only to find that the job isn’t nearly as glamorous and rewarding as he thought. This short seemed more like a TV pilot. The production values are very high, it looks great. The acting is good all around, but Paul Hubbard as Simon, the vampire, steals the show. The tone is funny without becoming jokey. The end sets up the possibility of a continuing story, which I would love to see.

Banana Motherf**ker – Bananas killing people in horrible ways. What more needs to be said? This Portuguese short is 13 minutes of pure frenetic gore soaked insanity. The nods to classic horror movies (especially the Nightmare on Elm Street homage) had me laughing out loud. You can tell that some of the people on screen are barely maintaining a straight face, and you won’t be able to either. This was the winner for Best Short. There were more polished films and more technically proficient films, but certainly none were more entertaining. On a side note, I think Ben & Jerry's should have a flavor called Banana Motherf**ker.

The Features:

The Selling – A realtor is having trouble selling a haunted house. This was, in my mind, the best feature of the festival (even though I Didn’t Come Here to Die took the award). This horror comedy is extremely smartly written. The interplay between the two partners selling the house was great, as the two actors have wonderful chemistry. The entire cast is good, but these two really anchor the flick. All of the conventional haunted house tropes are trotted out, but presented in a new context, they seem fresh. As far as the laughs go, the movie is fairly top heavy. The scenes of them trying to sell the house in the first half are much more clever than the second half. It doesn’t lose too much steam, however, and delivers throughout. I loved this one.

Chillerama - I wanted to like this movie a lot more than I actually did. This anthology, directed by Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Tim Sullivan, and Adam Rifkin, presents four stories that are extremely uneven. First up is the oh so cleverly titled Wadzilla, in which a city falls under siege from a giant sperm. This part played like a decent SNL sketch that drug out way too long. The double entendres hit perfectly, and are really funny, but overall the cum joke wears extremely thin by the end. Eric Roberts is always a welcome presence though. I was a Teenage Wearbear is the second, longest, and worst chapter. The musical isn’t funny at all, nor is it even entertaining. Just boring. Luckily, The Diary of Anne Frankenstein is up next. This story of Hitler creating a Jewish monster (played by Kane Hodder) was hilarious, and almost made sitting through Werebear worth it. The final chapter, in which day-glow blue zombie spooge causes an entire drive in to devolve into an orgy of gore, is decent. The non-stop classic movie lines are funny, the gore effects are very well done, the young leads do a good job, Richard Riehle is a hoot (yes, I really said that), and I liked the ending. Watching the zombies screwing everything in sight is funny for a couple of minutes. The problem is, like the rest of the flick, they beat you over the head with the joke long after it ceased to be funny.

I admit, I’m very picky about my comedy. Sophomoric comedy normally doesn’t do it for me. I’m not one of those pretentious “I am above this low brow humor” people, but an hour and a half of jokes about jizz just isn’t my cup of guts. Those of you who dig that style of humor will most likely enjoy Chillerama much more than I did. I like the “drive-in tribute” atmosphere, but overall the flick seemed like it got a last minute rewrite by a couple of giggling 12 year old boys. Greene’s Diary of Anne Frankenstein was by far the best, being genuinely funny most of the time. Werebear was by far the worst. It drug at a glacial pace through tired gay jokes and badly filmed musical numbers. The other two were somewhere in between. I hate to give this a lackluster review, because I like a lot of the filmmakers involved. There are a lot of fun things about the flick too, it’s just very one note and not very funny.

Breakdown:

Two Severed Thumbs Up: The Other Half, Emergency Preparedness, Down to Sleep, Survivor Type, The Familiar, The Selling, Banana Motherf**ker

One and a Half Severed Thumbs Up: A Wet Dream on Elm Street, Satanic Panic: Band out of Hell

One Severed Thumb Up: Chillerama

Half of a Severed Thumb Up: Hell Week, Data Entry

Buried Alive Film Festival Report: Night One

Alright, vacation’s over. It’s time for the Son of Celluloid to get back in the saddle, gas up the chainsaw, and return to my dark little corner of cyberspace. Yes folks, October kicked my ass. Between Netherworld, the Horror Movie Darwin Awards, and THE MADNESS competition, I was in serious need of some recharging, so I took a little time off. Luckily, this weekend is the Buried Alive Horror Fest at the historic Plaza Theatre, which seems like the perfect heart-shot of adrenaline to bring me back from my coma.

Tonight was the first night, and we were treated to six shorts and a feature. Here’s my analysis in the order they were shown. If any of these intrigue you, google them and find out where you might be able to see them. Some of them you can actually watch online. I’m just too lazy tonight to gather the links. Deal with it. If none of these sound like your cup of tea, what the hell are you reading this blog for? Viva la Independent Horror!

Cabine of the Dead – This 9 minute French short about a man trapped in a phone booth surrounded by the living dead, desperately calling his friends and family. Not an enviable position at all. The acting was good, the zombie makeup was very good, some of the shots of him in the phone booth with the zombies looking through the glass were killer, and some moments were downright hilarious…I think. See, the problem here was that the subtitles were screwed up. Whole lines were skipped, and when they were there, only the tops of the letters were visible on the screen. I’m pretty sure there was some good stuff going on that I missed. If they’d fix the subtitle issue, this would be a top-notch bite sized zombie flick.

Enter the Dark – I’ve seen some glowing reviews of this one, but it just didn’t do it for me. How many times do I have to watch people ghost hunting in night vision? Yes the climactic scare is pretty cool even if it is telegraphed, and I laughed at the “Tim the drunken Irish dude” line, but this didn’t really do anything to differentiate it from the POV pack. Not bad, just kinda blah. I’d say how I would have handled the “post climactic scare” moment differently, but that would be spoilerific, and that’s not how I roll. If you’re not sick of ghost adventuring yet, you might dig it.

Inside Ned’s Home – What the f**k was that? Something about a missing cat, the flying sound effect from Defender for the Atari, murder, lots of blood, otherworldly voices on a red phone, and..um…I dunno man. Whatever it was, it was pretty cool. At first I was wondering if it was going anywhere, then as the weirdness began to pile up, I realized that this is an avant garde little bizarro trip into madness. Jack Lorentz (writer and director), you officially have me intrigued.

Do Not Disturb – A killer checks into a hotel where he starts receiving strange, disturbing messages. This one created a cool mood, had some unique creepy visuals, and presented an interesting, vaguely EC comics-esque central idea. I wish this had been about 10 minutes longer. I get the “leaving the ending ambiguous” thing, but a little more explanation and a little more time to let it play out would have been nice. Then again, I’d much rather be left wanting more than have a thin idea stretched until it wears out its welcome, like certain major motion pictures I’ve seen recently.

Alice Jacobs is Dead – This bittersweet zombie love story is short on the usual zombie mayhem (although there is a bit of enthusiastic gut munching), but long on real emotional drama. A scientist has found a way to delay the “Z-virus” and is hailed as a hero, but can he save those he loves? This well written short is carried by expert performances by vets John La Zar and Adrienne Barbeau. Its theme of “when is it time to let go” makes this a rarity among rarities, thought provoking zombie cinema. On a less serious note, Adrienne voraciously stuffing her face with raw meat as Bela Lugosi looks on approvingly is a brilliant moment. Wait, Bela Lugosi? Yes indeed. No, I won’t explain. You’ll just have to see it for yourself.

An Evening With My Comatose Mother – When Dorothy takes a job watching a house for a couple going to a costume party, she finds out that caring for the titular elderly vegetable is part of the deal. Seems easy enough, until the real creepy Halloween fun starts. This flick is dripping with atmosphere, and the cinematography makes great use of the mansion. I’m not sure what that whole Tiny Tim thing was all about though. Mother is pretty frightening, but nowhere near as nightmare inducing as that harlequin doll. Dolls don’t usually strike me as scary, but this thing puts even the Poltergeist clown to shame. Good effects too. The flick doesn’t take itself too seriously though, keeping its tongue firmly in cheek without being too jokey to be effective. If Tales From the Crypt was still around, this would make a great episode.

I Didn’t Come Here To Die – When six young people head into the woods for a little volunteer work building a campground, things go horribly, horribly wrong. Content-wise, this movie was excellent. The story, while predictable, was creative, unconventional, and fresh in a lot of ways. Some of the concepts come completely out of nowhere, but generally they work. The cast did a good job. There are some laugh out loud moments, as well as some pretty juicy practical effects; often packaged together. The chainsaw scene is in my top three favorite cinematic moments of the year. We got some gratuitous boobs, which are always welcome. Like I said, the actual content of this flick is first class.

Stylistically, it’s a whole different story. I believe they were going for the “faux-grindhouse” thing based on the logo and a “burned film” gag at the end. Therefore I suppose the completely washed out colors were supposed to make it look like aged film. It doesn’t. It looks like digital footage that’s got a filter on it to remove all vibrant color from the beautiful forest locations. The constant use of my old pet peeve, needless and annoying camera shaking and wobbling, also betrays the grindhouse thing. If you want it to look old, don’t use the worst feature of modern horror cinema. The fake grain looks awful too.

I Didn’t Come Here To Die didn’t need the faux-grindhouse thing at all. It would have been much better without it to tell the truth. I would have loved, and I do mean loved, this flick if it had just been left as a “shot on digital, kids dying in the woods” flick. Well, that and if the camera man was sober. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that was the problem and that the constant swaying and weaving of the frame wasn’t intentional. This is a really enjoyable, well written, creative, bloody flick that’s unfortunately marred by some stylistic choices that mirror some of the more odious trends currently plaguing today’s horror flicks.

Breakdown:

Two severed thumbs up: Alice Jacobs is Dead, An Evening With My Comatose Mother,

One and a half severed thumbs up: Cabine of the Dead, Inside Ned’s Home, Do Not Disturb

One severed thumb up: I Didn’t Come Here To Die, Enter the Dark

No matter what I rated them; Nathan says support indy horror and check all of them out. I’ll be back with a report on the remainder of the festival (there’s some really cool stuff coming up) early next week.