You know what I love about Halloween? I love the fact that there are so many opportunities to see all kinds of horror flicks. You’ve got genre film festivals, and if you don’t live in a film festival friendly kind of town, you can just go to you local video store, or go nuts on Amazon.com. And this past weekend, I got an early Halloween thrill at Shriekfest 2007, The Los Angeles Horror/Sci-Fi Film Festival. And it was exciting to be in the crowds for their seventh birthday.
The festival, founded by the lovely Denise Gossett, who is also one of the festival directors, is an exciting mix of independent horror shorts and features. Sadly, I missed the first couple of nights so I was not able to get the full impact, but I did get a chance to see a nice mix of horror. It was a little bit of icky gooey stuff that made people get freaky, a house that brings your fears to life and a man given a puzzle which could save his wife’s life if he found all the pieces.
Rating: 2 on 4
First up was the David Winning directed SOMETHING BENEATH which starred Hercules himself, Kevin Sorbo. I am a fan of the dude as he underplays his roles with humor and charm like a champ, and he does the same here. It seems that a bunch of evil land developers are building a resort over something beneath… a sticky life form substance that when touched, creates some damn freaky illusions and drives you to your death. And when a big convention of peeps trying to save the earth come to town, that ucky gooeyness gets a bit ticked off.
This is not a bad film and Kevin Sorbo and Natalie Brown give a couple of nice
performances. I also felt that director Winning has fun with this one, creating
some unique visuals, especially when the “fear” set in. This dude can direct and
he makes this Sci-Fi Channel straight to DVD worth a look. But sadly, you have
to put up with some horribly annoying characters, including a Paris Hilton
wannabe that doesn’t die quick enough, and some ridiculous dialogue that makes
it very hard to take seriously. As I said, it’s not bad but don’t get your hopes
up too high. A couple of decent performances and a strong director can’t always
make a film great.
Rating: 3 on 4
As for the next flick, HOUSE OF FEARS, I really enjoyed this one. Yeah, it’s a typical teens trapped in a haunted something or other, but I really loved the idea of a haunted house that makes you face your fears. Director Ryan Little really knows how to make this sort of movie. A group of friends, including a couple of step-sisters (forced to spend time together by parents) stay the night in the house of fears and find each of them coming true. The actors do good work and surprisingly, I actually gave two shites about these characters. At times, they made really dumb choices, but what horror film of this ilk do they not?
This sort of felt like WAXWORK meets THE FUNHOUSE. The house itself is creative and looks creepy (very creative set design), whether you are afraid of clowns, knives, darkness and so on, there is something for everybody. The murders are not bad, yet could have been a little more unique (loved the room filling with sand) and I liked the build up. This works quite well in it’s particular sub-genre. Ryan Little also has a great eye and fills the screen wisely, while using color extremely well. Yet this film suffered a little bit with continuity… since when did a business that hasn’t even opened yet keep lit candles around? But still, it’s a great film to look at, and the actors are pretty capable while creating semi-likeable characters. 3 out of 4
Finally, we are given a true independent film with writer, director, producer, actor, and pretty much everything else, Anthony Falcon and 99 PIECES. This particular film I struggled with. I was up and down throughout as to whether I liked it or was just completely annoyed by it. It starts off when a man who is having marital problems, wakes up with his wife gone, and a few boxes and such with a tape recording of some dude that sounds like Jigsaw from you know what. He is told that for his wife to live, he must put together a puzzle and find out just where he went wrong.
Rating: 2. 5 on 4
First of all, I really credit Mr. Falcon for taking this one and making me feel something. Once it gets passed the should we or shouldn’t we call this SAW, I kind of liked the humanity in it. The man is given a point system and is allowed to spend time with his wife in the house he had been ordered to board up. And as time passed, his points are taken away, as is his food, electricity and of course his loved one.
It seemed a bit unbelievable that none of his neighbors would question the
“no trespassing” signs. But I did let that go, yet I feel that our hero didn’t
really try and get out of it in the beginning and I didn’t feel a very strong
reaction to his situation. Although both him and April Potter give nice
performances, I didn’t fully buy their relationship. But there were some lovely
moments that kept pulling me back in… come on, Monopoly always brings people
together. This was a terrific experiment, but at times it felt too much like
one.
So thank you to Denise, and everyone involved in Shriekfest. And hopefully next year, I will be able to spend a little more time with all the madness and mayhem. Let me know what you think, send questions and/or comments to jimmy@joblo.com.