Day 3 – Saturday
If I was feeling a little tired on the morning of day 2, I’m properly flagging now. The can of monster from Tesco was an absolute necessity today. I always walk home from the festival in the evenings and with the last film ending at 1am, I got home at about 2. Then to get up in time for the bus into Manchester is a struggle.
Day 3 opened with another batch of short films. There were 5, but only 4 are listed in the programme.
The shorts Some Visitors and Old Timers both had almost identical stings to the tale, but Old Timers definitely did it best.
Some Visitors is a home invasion story that was reasonably good but was a little bit annoying when the action sequences started. If someone knows how to fight (and the central character certainly did), they don’t flop their arms weakly around them if someone is trying to strangle them. Also (sorry, slight spoiler) if they take a meat cleaver to the shoulder, that’s the collar bone broken and they ain’t using the arm on that side again for a few months if they don’t bleed out and die. It ended nicely, but the fight scenes were too silly and unrealistic.
Old Timers was a lot more subtle and delivered its twist with panache. It was certainly the best of the shorts for the whole weekend.
The Evil is Inside looked like it was going to borrow from the old Bill Pullman film Frailty, but then just stopped mid story which was a bit of a shame. The Baby Next Door was entertaining and yet another baby centric short.
The first full length feature of the day was Moon Garden
Moon Garden – Dir Ryan Stevens Harris
This was a really quite special movie. It’s not a horror film as such, although the Teeth character is truly nightmarish. A young girl falls down a flight of stairs and enters a dream world while her parents worry at her hospital bed. This uses traditional stop motion and time lapse photography to stunning effect. I’ve not seen a film like this in years. It’s another one that compares very favourably to early Tim Burton with its fairy tale feel. I voted for this as the best movie of the festival.
The Q&A with the director was the best Q&A of the weekend too
The Goldsmith – Dir Vincenzo Ricchiuto, Cast – Stefania Casini, Guiseppe Pambieri, Gianluca Vannucci
When three criminals break into the isolated home of a goldsmith, they find themselves caught in a deadly trap. This ratchets the tension brilliantly and throws in unexpected character deaths and some truly surreal horror moments towards the ending. Recommended.
Night Sky – Dir Jacob Gentry, Cast – Brea Grant, AJ Bowen, Scott Poythress
This was a very entertaining road trip movie with a thief heading across the USA to New Mexico with a young woman who isn’t entirely human while a cold blooded killer tracks their every move. The dialogue was great between the leads and it built genuine tension as it moved on.
The Price We Pay – Dir Ryuhei Kitamura, Cast – Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, Vernon Wells
More robbers on the run. This time they hole up at a remote farmhouse with their reluctant hostage where they find the proceedings are far more dangerous than anything they’re hiding from. This contains some of the most creative character deaths I’ve seen in a long while. Buckets of blood are thrown gleefully across the screen to accompany the spot on characterisations and crackling dialogue between the leads. This was one I thought about voting for as best film.
Next up was supposed to be Cult hero. But, the organisers had managed to get a copy of Pussycake with English subtitles so I saw that instead.
Pussycake- Dir Pablo Peres, cast – Macarena Suarez Dagliano, Aldana Ruberto, Anahi Politi
An all-female rock band (the eponymous Pussycake) are sent to a small town for their next gig. Unbeknownst to them, the previous day, a portal had been opened to an alternate dimension in this town, leading to the release of a deadly creature. This is the second best “alien slug which turns people into drooling blood soaked zombies” film of the festival but is still good fun. The performances are decent and, even though we know from the start who lives and who dies, it stayed entertaining and happily blood soaked throughout. The beach scenes were particularly good and the most original thing about this film.
I’m glad we had this film on the Saturday because it meant there wasn’t a bad film all day.
Final film of the night
Malibu Horror Story – Dir Scott Slone, Cast – Tommy Cramer, Dylan Sprayberry, Jacob Hughes
This is a found footage film of sorts, following the investigation into the disappearance of 4 teenagers the previous year. It has the most jump scares of any of the movies all weekend and delivered them impeccably. The creature wasn’t overused and was genuinely pretty bloody scary. A good end to a very strong day at the festival.
Once again, I left at 1am and got home at 2 but it was well worth it. Day 4 write up to follow soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment