Another Grimmfest over, watched a lot of great movies.
COMEDOWN: An urban 'yoof' movie which morphs into a bloody slasher film when a group of teens head to the top of an abandoned tower block to put up an antennae for a pirate radio station. Good solid no-nonsense slasher that's well directed and well shot. Avoids the mistake made with attack the block and actually gives the audience characters that we can sympathise with.
COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES: Delivers exactly what it promises in great style. Very funny and great audience reaction. A quick paced comedy-horror with plenty of blood and a great cast including RICHARD BRIARS!! and Alan Ford (who attended the screening and is a genuinely nice bloke!)
SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE: An introverted guy who works in an ice cream parlour is killing off the men who tormented him at school....or is he? Well written, funny and has lots of pathos and likeable characters this has been shown in previous years but was at grimm again to promote their new label. Definately one i'm picking up on day of release.
GRABBERS: A small island of the cost of ireland is terrorised by blood sucking tentacle monsters from space. Think an Irish Tremors and your in the right area. Funny and entertaining with a well designed creature and lots of jokes about drinking.
NIGHTBREED: THE CABAL CUT: A genuine revalation, at the minute all the footage is from a VHS tape of the rough cut, but hopefully if enough people can get to the OCCUPY MIDIAN website
Occupy Midian - Home or go onto the facebook page and sign the petition then the process of tracking down the footage and putting together a print suitable for a HD release can begin!
WAKE UP AND DIE: A woman wakes up in a strange house with a strange man, when she tries to leave he kills her, then she wakes up in the strange house again and begins to realise this is happening over and over again a la groundhog day. Not the best thing screened but certainly interesting this is one still worth checking out.
THE OTHER SIDE: Short slasher film with shades of switchblade romance, a fun little short that hopefully may one day become a feature!
THE DEVIL RIDES OUT: I was very apprehensive about this, given before I left for Grimm the internet rumour-mill was going full swing about the added effects. For the record its about a second of blue flame behind the angel of death and a flash of light as he enters...thats it. It actually improves the sequence greatly. A lot of whats online seems exaggeration and hyperbole in retrospect. The film looks fantastic and i'm definately buying it. Patrick mower was in attendance and my mate won his autobiography. A nice bloke, he ended up nicking my seat for the next screening but I can forgive him (got to sit next to him for the film)
BEFORE DAWN: Supurb low-key zombie film made by and starring Paddy from emmerdale (dominic brunt) a genuine enthusiast of the genre who runs the leeds zombie festival. Very serious (though some humour in places) its a grimm and tragic movie and well worth seeing.
ATTACK OF THE WEREWOLVES (LOBOS DE ARGA): Brilliant homage to classic werewolf cinema, had the audience laughing and cheering in the right places, great wolf-man style prosthetics and plenty of blood. Fun Q+A with the director afterwards and I won a soundtrack CD
CRAWLSPACE: Fun little aussie sc-fi/horror with a team sent to secure a top secret millitary installation only to find things inside have gone horrible wrong. Its great trashy fun from beginning to end and a supurb midnight movie.
CURSED BASTARDS: A somewhat overlong but decent argentine anthology film. I would have liked it more if it had been shorter as the individual stories have a tendency to drag on far too long.
TWISTED: A hong kong horror antholgy with lots of humour. A much better prospect than cursed even though its almost as long. Lives up to its title! Best story is the third and final one with a fake exorcist forced to deal with the real thing!
BASKET CASE: The most exciting prospect of the whole festival for me was to see this projected on a cinema screen. The HD transfer looks 'great' (genuinely good, but as good as this film will ever look) and the film got a great audience reaction, there were even a few people who hadn't seen the film before!
BELOW ZERO: Supurbly written and directed and starring Edward Furlong and Michael Berryman. The film is about a writer (furlong) who locks himself in a meat locker for a week in order to write a new screenplay, pretty soon the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur...
RITES OF SPRING: Mostly great with a very abrubt and unsatisfying ending, this is still reccomended viewing as the film is mostly fantastic. Two stories, one about a kidnapping gone wrong, the other about a nutty farmer sacrificing women to the creature in his cellar, collide and things get bloody. Tense, well directed and written this is worth a look.
HIM INDOORS: A very funny short with Reece shearsmith as an agoraphobic serial killer and Pollyanna Mcintosh as his neighbour. (pollyanna was there for a q+a) if you get the chance seek this out.
STITCHES: BEST AUDIENCE REACTION OF THE FESTIVAL! Ross Noble plays a seedy clown who comes back from the dead for revenge! Very funny and some great gore effects this film was a total blast. Even better Ross Noble himself was there for a Q+A and was on top form!