Frightfest.

Hi,

Now I must confess one of my favourite types of movie is horror. In my youth that was mainly what I watched, Prom night, April Fools Day, Halloween, Friday the 13th, an endless list of blood and gore. Brilliant!
And I continued to invest in the horror genre with my DVD collection, nearly 1/3 of my films are horror. And then I came across J-Horror, brought on by watching the brilliant Ring. These were some creepy films, Ring, Ju-On and a Tale of two sisters my favourites at the moment.

So that in mind 3 years ago I came across a film festival in London called Frightfest, a collection of horror and fantasy films shown over the bank holiday weekend in August.



OH YES!

I talked to my friend (Tony) about this and he was up for it as well. The line up announced in July, the tickets bought the day after and we were going to our first film festival! Pretty cool stuff!
2 months later and we were on the train to London. Our hotel was 5 minutes from the station and about 25 minutes walk from Leicester square, I remember the walk well, because it was raining, the only time in 3 years it’s rained on us. We arrived around 3 hours before the first film, not sure of what to expect and what to do we weren’t taking any chances. The Odeon at the bottom of Leicester Square was the venue, and there were quite a few festival goers already milling around the front of the cinema and in the foyer. We collected our tickets and found a bar, had a few drinks (something we both regretted by the middle of the 2nd film) and something to eat. 18.00 soon came around, we found our seats and our festival experience began with the Australian Horror-Comedy Black Sheep.
Now the film was ok, but this was a different type of audience, with this type of audience the film worked better than it should have done. They laughed and cheered at a gory death, even applauded at times. They wanted blood and gore and when it came they bayed for more! This was how to see horror films. And so the experience was a good one from the start and it only got better!

The Films

Over 25 horror, fantasy and sci-fi films are shown in 5 days. Many are UK premiers, some are World premiers, some will never see a cinema screen outside this festival. Like the brilliant Trick R Treat we got to see this year, out on DVD in October.
You get the lot from Zombie movies (which I’m not keen on), ghost stories, slasher movies and evil kids. Grim films, really grim films (The Girl next door), fun films, very funny films and of course some utter rubbish too, well you can’t expect it all to be good can you!
Thinking about this more, I think each year deserves it’s own post, I mean there are over 25 films for me to talk about each year so this could become one massive post. The good thing is my reviews are never that big, so catch the rundown from each year and my thoughts in some future Fright fest blogs – coming soon!


The Organisers

Alan Jones, a renowned journalist and writer of horror, sci-fi and fantasy genres in all media fields. Paul McEvoy, co-owner of the Cinema shop (London and Nottingham) and long time horror fan. Greg Day who has worked in TV and Film PR for Channel 4 and Channel Five and finally Ian Rattray who is a film distributor and film booker, working in the industry for over 20 years.
Four men with a passion for films, I would guess mostly Horror and Fantasy, but I’ve never actually posed the question to any of them what other genre’s they do like. Something I may ask next year (Yes we are going back for Year 4!).
They manage the weekend brilliantly and even though it looks extremely hard work and they look somewhat stressed at times they are always willing to engage you in conversation, about the films you’ve seen, the stars, the way the weekends going, or just anything to do with films. If you ask and they know they are likely to tell you.
We were late for the Monday morning zombie movie, while getting our wake up coffee, Alan Jones came over to see us, shortly after all we were joined by the other 3 and we had a good chat about Frightfest and each of their backgrounds. As it was 10 years old what better way to remember it but get them all to sign our programmes, which they gladly did.

The Directors and Cast

A fare few Directors come along to promote their films and I suppose they enjoy seeing it played in front of a genre-friendly audience, because these are the people who are going to get it more than anyone. Various cast members also turn up, some stay for a few days, some stay all weekend. They are all told by the organisers that the public will engage them and there’s nowhere to hide!
So unless they leg it out the door at the end of the film, they tend to get asked for autographs, about the film, what they are doing next and so on. Most are willing to talk to you, if only for a brief moment. Most are just happy to be told you enjoyed the film, the direction or their part, I guess it makes them feel they have achieved something worth while.

Then we have some Directors which just keep coming back, Joe Lynch, Adam Green and Neil Marshall. Neil’s wife Axelle Carolyn is almost always with him. I always wondered if Axelle came to keep Neil company, as she’s been there the last three years, but I think it may be Neil keeping Axelle company as it would appear she is the horror expert. I picked up a book at the festival called It Lives Again! This is a history of horror films from 2000 to 2009, a very good read I must say. Then I found a picture of the author with Neil, (who had written the preface), and a caption stating the relationship between the two. I was more than a little surprised, they were married.
So the book will be returning with me next year in the hope I can get it signed.

"Me, Joe Lynch and Tony"

Joe Lynch, the director of Wrong turn 2 which played at the Festival in my first year has also been here the last 3 years, even without bringing a film to the 2 of them.







"Me and Adam Green"

Adam Green, another who had come for the last 4 years but who has a couple more films to his credit, Hatchet, which I really liked, Spiral which showed in my first year, not bad a sort of thinking man’s horror, and this year we got to see the trailer for his new film Frozen, which looks great!
But these two have gone one step further than most, in our 2nd year the 2 of them created a series of “on the road to Frightfest” shorts, taking the opening sequence from the Twilight Zone: Movie, and coming up with 5 very funny shorts. They can be found on You Tube.
With this years showing of American Werewolf in London, they did their own version, again brilliant, even Alan Jones ended up in one of them.
In my 2nd year and the year of The Dark Knight, I spent 20 minutes talking to Joe Lynch about the Batman film. He urged me to see it on an Imax screen, we were back in Manchester on the Tuesday and in our Imax on the Wednesday. All I can say he was right, awesome! Joe Lynch reminds me of Quentino Tarantino, his enthusiasm for film and this genre is infectious and he and Adam are great to chat with.

It’s moments like these that makes the film festival so damn good, ok the films – yes, but the conversations with actors and directors now that really makes it worth while.

The Audience

You may think this would be a whole load of horror frenzied geeks, well not quite, or not as many as you would think really. They are horror fans pure and simple, they love the genre, looking at the countless horror t-shirts which drift pass me in the foyer they really love this genre. And you need too, 25 horror films tests the biggest geek!

I’ve tended to talk to the people sat around me in the theatre, but not really got into many conversations with anybody else. Something I should do, because these people would be just as interesting to discuss horror with as the directors or cast. I think this should be my aim next year, talk to more geeks like myself!

So the 3rd year has been and gone, I’ve seen 84 films, missed only 3 and enjoyed nearly all of them to some degree. Only a couple I’ve really hated!

They have been 3 brilliant weekends and I’m looking forward to a few more!

ROLL ON YEAR 4.