Been a crazy travel heavy year for yours truly. Lots of losing myself to find
myself type of shit and I think through all of this – I have found some answers
and some inner peace – but enough with that crap. What better way to cap my
year off than with
the SITGES FILM FESTIVAL. As opposed to past years (been attending this fest for
5 years now) I was only able to kick it in Spain for half of the Fest, yup 6
days. With that said, even though I missed on lots of movies (and parties), I
still once again had a swell time for varied reasons. This year STIGES celebrated the 30Th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s ALIEN,
proving once more as to how much class it has. Moreover, they introduced 3D into
their festival AND did an 80’s retrospective, playing horror gems from that
time.
Some of the Sitges movie posters…
Personally, I got to see some
pretty money films (VENGEANCE owned me and HUMAN CENTIPEDE was nuts!), I got to
present a short I was involved in called OLD NUMBER 7 at a packed house while
RECON 2023 (I co wrote and acted in that one) got its Spanish premiere there as
well. A note on the latter; it was nice to hear from some of the Festival
attendees after the fest; lots of peeps dug the film. My gut says that European audiences get our little oddball flick more
than North Americans. But hey, what do I know. Finally, there was a memorable little
encounter with a certain Mr. Viggo Mortensen that slapped a fanboy grin on my
face, but more that jive later. So without further ado, here was my SITGES FILM FESTIVAL in a nut shell.
FILMS I SAW AND REVIEWED:
SPLICE –
SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD –
MOON –
CARRIERS –
VENGEANCE. –
DEAD SNOW –
ORPHAN –
PANDORUM –
SORORITY ROW –
ZOMBIELAND –
ALIEN
SITGES FILMS AITH HAD COVERED ALREADY:
9 –
BEST WORSE MOVIE –
BOOK OF BLOOD –
IP MAN –
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY –
RECON 2023 –
THE COLLECTOR –
SMASH CUT –
SUPERBEASTO –
THE REVENANT –
THE ROAD
SITGES REVIEWS STILL TO COME:
SOLOMON KANE – HUMAN CENTIPEDE – AMER –
BRONSON – GIALLO – GRACE – THE CHILDREN – THE HILLS RUN RED
THE VIGGO STORY
Nice t-shirt Viggo!
Go Habs go!
Slap this in the “cool fanboy moment”
folder. I was walking to my room in the fancy pants MELIA HOTEL, trapped in my horny thoughts. It should be said that I was wearing my
blue Habs (Montreal Canadiens hockey team) t-shirt at the time. So some dude passed me on the left,
I paid no attention to him, my mind on the poon and suddenly I heard: ” Go Montreal
go!”. I turned around to see f*cking Viggo Mortensen staring back at me
with a smile on his face. Viggo asked: “Are
you from Montreal?” and I answered yes in a blubbering fanboy fashion.
He then remarked on my t-shirt and said "I have the same t-shirt at home, except I have Markov written in the back” (mine has Gionta). Anyways, we
went on
to yap about Hockey (Viggo was happy that the Habs beat the Leafs in Toronto)
and the Habs
and it ended with Viggo shaking my hand and saying: “Vives les Habitants”
(an old French Quebec saying having to do do with the Montreal Canadiens). Needles to
say it was a weird encounter – but good weird. And YES Viggo won more “great man points" in my book. The dude is not
only an outstanding actor and a man of countless skills, he’s also a die hard Habs
fan. NICE! I RESPECT THAT! NOTE: Nope, I didn’t have my camera on me at the time… bummer.
INTERVIEWS
Deke and Zombi star Al Cliver!
My actor buddy Deke Richards, who was at the
Fest to push RECON 2023 (which he stars in) was nice enough to do a couple of
interviews for us on his down time. Nothing fancy pants here, you can call this
guerrilla interviewing if you will, but hey, he nabbed some cool people and got some good stuff. Check the
interviews out below!
AL CLIVER (ZOMBI)
The star of Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBI. The man had lost his voice but you can still
hear him and he has lots of interesting things to say. Great man!
JOAN HOSTENCH (REC 2)
Its the first time we have a child actor interviewed on the site. Meet Joan Hostench who plays a Zombie kid in REC 2!
TOM SIX (HUMAN CENTIPEDE)
HUMAN CENTIPEDE writer/director TOM SIX is a sick man and we love him for it!
OLD NUMBER 7 PREMIERE
Shaking Jake West’s hand (Evil Aliens) on the Sitges
stage.
OLD NUMBER 7 (which I co wrote, co produced and acted in)
was unleashed upon its first audience at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. The
mammoth crowd at hand was a party crowd and they were there to have a good time
and a good time they had. So after great man Jake West (Evil Aliens) introduced
my sorry ass, I ran up on the Sitges stage winged a speech and the film rolled
on.
From my perspective the screening went well for 4 reasons. 1- Lots of the
audience seemed to like it. They were obviously entertained, they clapped and
cheered. 2- No booing. 3- I actually liked the film. The intro is KILLER and at
least 2 other scenes really work in my opinion. 4- When you work on a film for a
long period of time, you don’t see it anymore and it takes a screening like
this, with folks totally detached from the production watching it, to TRULY
discover what works and what doesn’t work.
Yapping to the Sitges crowd….
Some of the OLD NUMBER 7 cast and crew.
So in the case of Old Number 7, a couple of
times, the audience laughed at parts that were not supposed to be funny. Now you
can take this two ways, get bummed about it and sulk or you can take it MY WAY,
be happy that you now know that these bits don’t work and that you can go back
and fix them. IMO, 85% of the film worked.
When the screening was done, we had a mini wrap party in Gonzalo Lopez’s (who
directed the film) Hotel room. We had a bottle of Jack going (Old Number 7 – get
it!) and we basically enjoyed each other’s company and discussed the pros and
the cons of the screening. So where we at? After much talk with director Lopez,
we’re going in the editing room one last time to fix what didn’t work. I
personally SEE the film again and feel confident that this further trip in the
cutting room will make a good short film even better. To be continued on that
shite!
CONCLUSION
Raquel! Quepasa chica!
So there ya have it, another year, another blast at Sitges! It was once again a
thrill to attend the festival this year. I really enjoyed all the goods the Fest
slapped my way and valued getting to catch up with all of my friends. After 5
years of doing the Fest, it pretty much feels like a family reunion when I go…hey…nothing wrong with that! Big thanks to Festival organizers
Mike “PR King” Hostench and Angel “he’s no angel” Sala for yet
another bang-on time! Man, I love Spain and its people! They are close to my heart! Am still
working on learning the damn language : ) In closing, here are couple of pics
from my Sitges stay. Till next year!
The great PAUL NASHY, who is sadly stricken with cancer
at the moment.
Gotcha Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void)!
With my OLD NUMBER 7 co-star and fellow Stallone fan,
Sergio Bernal.
Tom Six (Human Centipede).
Director Gonzalo Lopez and I in front of the OLD NUMBER
7 poster.
Good bud Deke and I doing what we do best.
Chilling with some new friends (Calum Waddell and Naomi
Hollwill).
Al Cliver in the flesh!
Deke and John Saxon, who was a member of the Jury this
year.
With OLD NUMBER 7 effects artist Sofia Daunis. Great
job on the kill Sofia! You rock!
Me and Gonzalo thinking “dark”.
The men behind the Sitges magic: Angel Sala and Mike
Hostench.