Reviews

Horror Fest - Night One

I had been toying with the idea of driving to Cincinnati to attend Horror Fest. Luckily, at the last minute Southern Indiana was added to the list. The good news was I didn’t have to drive far to attend. The bad, dealing with the audience of this theater is almost always a nightmare. Fuck it – I want to see the films “too scary for the big screen”.

For those not familiar with what horror fest is… you don’t watch the Sci-Fi channel. After Dark films and Lions Gate have their hands on eight movies no one wants to show. So it’s time to make lemonade. The movies were dubbed too violent and scary for release, given a slick add campaign, then shown for one weekend. Seeing that I love shitty horror movies and I was excited to see an add campaign thought dead since the 60’s… I knew I was going.

Before I get into the movies I think it’s important to address the crowd. After all the audience is part of the movie going experience. The theater stayed about a third to half full all night. The crowd varied from quiet to beyond obnoxious. One guy who would clap and declare, “Oh fuck yeah!” anytime someone would die. A group of girls who looked like high school freshmen but dressed like street walkers who laughed and made fun of the way Japanese people talk. The wanna be tough guys who were hanging onto the future consumers of Wal-Marts junior maternity department. The couple sitting behind me who would randomly say things like, “Remember when he tried to get you to see Brokeback?” “Huh, two hours of fags lookin at eachother. Not even New York.” Lastly the two people who felt it necessary to let everyone know they were there to “critique” the films at the end of each movie. The same two people who would get on cell phones and say, “I don’t. I don’t like being here either. I don’t even know what this movie is about.” The Great Escape in New Albany is a moviegoer’s paradise.

OK – on to the movies

Dark Ride: First movie of the night. Have you seen Tobe Hooper’s Funhouse? You’ve seen Dark Ride. There are differences but they all feel like someone threw a dart at random horror movie scenarios. Is it stupid? Oh mama is it stupid. College kids pick up a hitchhiker while on (get this) SPRING BREAK then decide to spend the night inside a spook ride… which they keep calling a dark ride. Typical slasher movie, plot twist you’ll see a mile away and people die in a paint by number manner. End result: Dumb as shit but at least it’s fun. Perfect to watch with friends after a late night of drinking. I sure hope Jamie Lynn DiScala (Sigler) is saving her Soprano’s money. This is the second shitty C grade horror movie I’ve seen her in.

Reincarnation (Rinne): Best movie of the night. As Japanese horror films have run their course Takashi Shimizu makes them fresh by while doing nothing different or the same at once. In my eyes the man is a master. He has a perfect balance of tension, atmosphere, story telling and fear. Not just jump scares either, Shimizu sets up scenes that resonate with its viewers. His movies make sense the way dreams make sense while they're happening. With that being said reincarnation is another ghost story. You know, I don’t care it is another Japanese ghost story because Shimizu does them best. The film ends with a scene reminiscent of something Jan Svankmajer would do. End result: Loved it. Not as much as Ju On the Grudge (not the compromised American version) but I loved it. This is the kind of movie that makes me wish American audiences weren’t such raging pussies when it comes to reading subtitles.

Unrest: Last movie of the night. Total shit. The only movie where I kept checking my watch and hoping it was almost over. A med student gets a bad feeling about the corpse she has to dissect for class. Unrest is an hour and a half of kill scenes tame enough for TV. Seriously, the Shield is more violent. About half the kills were people stumbling across bodies… wow… that’s… boring. The rest of the movie revolved around med students standing around and discussing their latex corpse. I could talk about how bad the acting is or how improbable most of the character reactions (police, teachers, students… the hospital itself) are. But I feel like I wasted enough time just watching it. End result: Avoid. Unrest is a dull scare free bore-a-thon.

Night two is tonight. Look for a review of it tomorrow.
Andy

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