Another week, more
FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL to gobble! Here are the films that I am aiming
to tap this week. Today I got
DEAD IN 3 DAYS and I really would like to make
Larry Fessenden’s
THE LAST WINTER
but that will depend on how my day goes. One thing I realized; its easier to
cover a Festival when its out of town (all you have to focus on is the Festival)
than when it takes place where you live. Every day life and responsibilities get
in the way. What can you do, but your best.
Me with Fantasia guru Mitch Davis!
This week I’ll also be seeing
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR and
THE WIZARD OF GORE.
You can also expect reviews for END OF THE LINE and
SPIRAL to surface on the site in the near future.
And of course there’s the
RECON 2022 North American premiere (a film I
co-wrote and act in). I can’t wait for that one since I have yet to see the
Final Cut of it. Should be a blast! So till then here are two AITH review of
FANTASIA films playing this week!
Directed by Jim Mickle
Written by Jim Mickle and Nick Damici
8 out of 10
Review by Eric Walkuski: Rat-people. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live… well, you just can’t live with ‘em (and us New Yorkers will put up with a lot). The best movie I saw at the fest, and the one most likely to collect a fervent fanbase, MULBERRY STREET is a sober and very intense flick that’s about 10 times better than you’d expect from a movie about a rat-induced zombie plague that breaks out in New York.
The lead character, Clutch (nobly played by co-scribe Nick Damici), a tough-guy with a big heart, anxiously awaits his daughter’s return from Iraq, when an outbreak of bizarre rat-attacks begins to sweep over the city. Unexplained, but still frightening, the bitten undergo a nasty transformation into a slobbering, pointy-toothed rat person, and the city is soon hell on earth, with an unknown number of uninfected hiding in their tenements (this is very convincingly portrayed through news and radio reports, as we’re basically watching the chaos through the eyes of Clutch and a handful of his neighbors). Meanwhile, Clutch’s daughter Casey (Kim Blair), now a hardened, scarred veteran, has only just gotten back to her home, and is immediately, hopelessly, plunged into a chaos not far removed from the one she just left.
The influence of George Romero is easily felt in MULBERRY STREET, not so much for the zombie hordes with a taste for blood (although there’s that too), but because of its allegorical, subversive nature (the War, September 11, and Hurricane Katrina haunt the proceedings – although not heavy-handedly). It also has a flair for the darkly comic (the funniest bits involve the seen-it-all New Yorkers’ almost deadpan acceptance of the situation), and a tendency to simultaneously disturb and thrill with its grisly violence. It’s the first post-9/11 cannibalistic-rat-zombie movie, and it’s a must-see.
READ REVIEW HERE
BUY TICKETS HERE
