Zombie Command

With tickets for the Discovery Screen limited to just 42 per day for weekend ticket holders I made sure to get up early and arrived a good hour before the first film. Queues had already formed and it was a little bit unorganised as we weren’t let in until about 10:30, where we then queued up until the start of THE HORSEMAN at 11:00.

I managed to pick up tickets for I SELL THE DEAD and COLIN and made it in with a few minutes to spare for THE HORSEMAN.

With Emma still missing I met David a few seats over and we watched THE HORSEMAN. This Australian revenge flick comes from directoral debutant Steven Kastrissios and having avoided reading anything about it I wasn’t sure what to expect.

THE HORSEMAN -

An action-packed, multi-award winning Australian thriller that features a range of powerhouse performances in an unflinching study of grief & retribution. Explore the dark fantasies we all dream up as Christian (Peter Marshall) grieves over the suspicious death of his teenage daughter.

As he travels through rural Queensland to investigate, he picks up Alice (Caroline Marohasy), an awkward young runaway and an unlikely bond develops. But as the crime is pieced together, an ugly truth is revealed and Christian spirals down a dangerous path.

Initial Thoughts – This was surprisingly brilliant and a cracking way to start off Day 2. While at points it does drag on a bit at 110 minute run time it is a brutal revenge chiller with many of the scenes making the crowd winch and flinch (especially the guys). Strikes up a great debate as to whether or not the father is justified in his actions because while you’re initially sympathetic it soon becomes apparant that he’s not really thought through his revenge killings. Definitely something I could watch again and would recomend you catch it if you can.

Not much to do for the hour and a half between THE HORSEMAN and I SELL THE DEAD so grabbed a bit of lunch and headed into my first Discovery Screen film of the festival.

The main screen at The Empire Cinema can hold over 1,300 people. The Discovery Screen about 150. The transistion from such a huge cinema to this more intimate affair was huge and it immediately gave much more of a sense that this was an exploration of film rather than just the freedom to applaud and whoop whenever something cool happened on screen. With that in mind I sat down to watch the next film.

I SELL THE DEAD –

19th century justice has finally caught up to grave robbers Arthur Blake and Willie Grimes. With the specter of the guillotine looming over him, young Blake confides in visiting clergyman Father Duffy, recounting fifteen years of adventure in the resurrection trade. His tale leads from humble beginnings as a young boy stealing trinkets from corpses, to a partnership with seasoned ghoul Willie Grimes as they hunt creatures unwilling to accept their place in the ground. The colorful and peculiar history of Grimes and Blake is one filled with adventure, horror, and vicious rivalries that threaten to put all involved in the very graves they’re trying to pilfer.

Initial Thoughts – Was quite disappointed by I Sell The Dead. Wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this and while the story was original, the filming quite nice to look at and the acting mostly spot on, it still left me wanting something a little different.

The initial encounter with the undead appears to have been a homage to Raimi’s Evil Dead but unfortunately doesn’t even come close and just leaves me wishing I was watching Evil Dead 2 on the big screen. While it does contain a couple of zombies, which actually have a couple of the funniest scenes, there’s just a spark missing that makes this film hard to recommend.

Next up was AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON which I have seen before but not for a long time. It followed the BEWARE THE MOON documentary on it which I skipped in favour of I SELL THE DEAD and has been remastered in HD for Blu-Ray discs.

John Landis was in attendance and over the course of the next few days I would hear a lot of fans getting all gooey at having just spoken to him. It was also impossible not to hear from the man himself while he was there, rivalling Brian Blessed for being ridiculously loud :)

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON -

David Kessler (David Naughton) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) are two American backpackers attacked on the English moors by a snarling creature that changes their mortal lives forever. Nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter) lets David move in with her before realizing he’s raoming the West End of London committing brutal murders in werewolf disguise.

Initial Thoughts – Having seen it before and with it being almost 30 years old I figured that it wouldn’t be all that impressive but the remastered image quality was amazing on the 56′ screen and the effects (while still looking fake) do hold up as well as they did then. If you’re a horror fan you need to see AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, though not so much the second.

After the film John Landis got back up along with some of the cast and crew and he then proceeded to talk. And talk. And talk. Luckily he’s a funny and interesting guy. He then drew the raffle winner for tickets to the after-party but as the first winner walked out before it was drawn they never claimed their prize and that went to another ticket holder. I bet that first person is kicking themselves now.

With 20 minutes before the next film I made a dash to McDonalds and was back in time for the film I was most anticipating for the whole of Frightfest, COLIN.

Famous for being shot on £45 it has received critical praise from Cannes to (now) London. It tells the story of a zombie outbreak from the view point of a zombie. With director Marc Price and ‘Colin’ himself, Alastair Kirton, attending both showings of COLIN we got a brief introduction to the movie from them.

COLIN -

Our hero Colin is bitten by a Zombie; he dies and returns from the dead. We follow him as he wanders through suburbia during the throes of a cadaverous apocalypse.

Initial Thoughts – First thought, this was not shot for £45. Second thought, oh 4:3 ratio. Third thought, while dragging on too long on a couple of set pieces this is an original and accomplished movie showing many zombie film staples from the view point of the zombie. The end doesn’t give any credit to the audience for not being idiots but there’s a lot to praise here.

With another 90 minutes to kill before my second zombie film of the day LA HORDE, I wrote up a few notes for the day so far.

Before that though we were then treated to a short preview of SPLICE, the new Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Cypher) film. It looks like it could be interesting but not knowing anything about it I’m still somewhat in the dark. Scientists seem to have created life by splicing together various kinds of DNA, inevitably it’s a mistake but the little kangaroo/vole hybrid in the teaser didn’t seem terribly threatening.

LA HORDE is a French zombie film pitting gangsters, cops and zombies against each other. I’d heard some good things about it so was very much looking forward to it. Back in the main screen there was still no sign of Emma, I began wondering if I had said something to her but figured it was just because she was working.

LA HORDE –

In order to avenge the murder of one of their own by a group of ruthless gansters, four corrupt Parisian cops go on a rampage in a condemned building serving as the mobster’s hideout. Trapped by their prey, the officers are about to be executed when the unimaginable occurs – hordes of rage-fueled zombies suddenly invade the building, savagely atacking everyone and leaving no prisoners. Unexpected alliances are made as both police and gansters fight to get out of the building alive.

Initial Thoughts – We were actually told at the start there was a review embargo on it until the official premiere so you’ll just have to wait until it’s out so I can review it in full.

Next up was the days’ short PARIS BY NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, my third zombie film of the day! Directed by Gregory Morin it was unsurprisingly in French, though with next to no dialogue and filled with nothing but ridiculously awesome set pieces it didn’t really matter.

PARIS BY NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD -

A couple get married during a zombie apocalypse just before the undead break in and eat the minister. What happens next is a rollercaster ride of guns, chainsaws, swords, motorbikes, grenades and rocket launchers.

Initial Thoughts – I enjoyed it. Wasn’t perfect but a great ride to come along on.

Last film of the night was MACABRE, the Indonesian take on the torture sub-genre. I was pretty much expecting this to be horribly cringeworthy and was hoping for something like Ring or Audition more than some of the more recent efforts.

MACABRE –

Two newly weds Adjie and Astrid, along with 3 of their best friends decided to have an interstate road trip as a last attempt to reconcile Adjie with his estranged little sister Ladya. Their trip is however abruptly interrupted when they run into Maya, a strange girl out of nowhere, who wanders aimlessly into their path. The friends unanimously decided to give her a ride to her isolated house by the end of the woods. Maya introduces Adjie and friends to her blue-blooded mother Dara, a woman of ageless enigma and few spoken words. Dara insists that their kindness should be repaid with a dinner feast. This is where the night turns into a crimson-hell for the 6 friends, who find themselves trapped and hunted down by Dara and her cult-like family of her three deadly protégés, born and raised to systematically eliminate unsuspecting passers-by for one nefarious reason. Slaughtered one by one, everybody will bleed, the darkest of nights never looked so red.

Initial Thoughts – Far too dull for this time of night. While the casting was spot on, especially with the creepy family, there was nothing that made me have to look away from the screen, nothing particularly original about the story, despite being 93 minutes felt like it went on for far too long and instead of gore all we get is red; buckets and buckets of red.

A disappointing end to Day 2 and on the way home I started to feel incredibly ill and almost had to throw up several times. I eventually got to sleep about 5am which crippled me for the rest of the festival :(