What I like about the event is the casual nature of the scene and the ability to just talk with the directors, actors and writers of the movies your seeing. Since these are independent films, they aren't excepted to be over the top on levels, but some come off as better than the rotting corpses that Hollywood put out every year on the big screen.
I had the pleasure of sitting down for the first movie of the festival Opus. (Spoilers) Now Opus drew me in through previews of a trapped group in the middle of nowhere. This group was led there under the idea they'd be in some reality show, yet there's no crew or cameras.. they can see. Like a reality show the movie got old fast. From such a sublime concept came such bitter film. It left that taste in my mouth or more like a piece of gum that's lost it's flavor. It had some great shots of people trapped within the house looking down on them from above. The nature of the house this group gets trapped in is also great in design, because of it's repetitive nature and long Hallway.
Now to the bad, the characters were just way to cardboard, I don't think they were going for comedy in this film, but they chose some very cliche' characters like the gansta black guy, slutty girl, peppy blonde, and horror fan.
One scene, made me almost laugh as Cesar, the cliche' black gang member, suddenly gets angry for no reason. He just, randomly gets angry. It ruins someones piano performance.
Other scenes don't make sense and finally your left with no answers to who or what happened and you don't care anymore. I feel if more time was taken with the film it could have been a lot better. The team who worked on it had some great stuff, but it could have been a short.
This film was made with the horror fan in mind. After the creature known as the Moleman moves on to humans the two brothers in this film try to feed it a hobo, that they almost can't sacrifice. They feel so bad, they feed him a steak, get know him and of course play the bongos and smoke pot with him. This is one of many scenes that makes the film bloody funny.
There's sex, nudity(boobies), pot smoking and of course a lot of dead animals. The film is rather un-bloody know that I think about it, but is still filled with enough dirty stuff to have an R-rating.
Some elements don't work or could have been better, for some reason the brother's have a band and it just doesn't need to be part of the story, secondly it seems more like two friends are doing stuff together than brothers, they don't seem to really be brothers, nor is that important that they be. I would have really like if more tenants died like the pot smoker and his friends.
However, even thought the movie doesn't pull of a level of comedy like the recently release Tucker and Dale Vs Evil it has some great comedic moments that would make it a fun rental.
From the silly gear the brothers wear to defend themselves, the obvious reasons why they should just call the police to handle the situation and the great scenes about pet death it was a fun romp into the horror comedy medium.
Shriekfest continued on with many films and concepts, maybe my favorite part being the scores of shorts. All dripping with blood and bad intentions.
I"ll be sure to go through the winners when the post'em.
