Film Four Frightfest Horror Festival: Day Three

Day three of Frightfest started for us a little later than it should, a brief visit to Chelmsford went pear shaped and as a result we missed the opening movie Cherry Tree Hill, and arrived just in time for The Tortured.

The Tortured is one of those “what would you do” movies, finding a couple in turmoil after the killer of their child gets a lesser sentence than they would like. To be honest it was a reasonable offering, that did at times just drag a tiny bit, simply because once you put them in a place to execute their justice, on the killer where do you go from there.

A smash last year at Frightfest was The Human Centipede, and the movies director Tom Six dropped by with some photographs from the set of the sequel. A quick Q & A bought a lot of laughs from both the stage and the audience, Six promised that last years movie was going to be like My Little Pony compared to the sequel entitled The Human Centipede: Full Sequence. What we do find out from the elusive director, who wants to keep his movie secret, is that the centipede this time consists of an awful lot more people, or victims if you prefer.

The surprise movie today for me was 13Hrs, a film that was getting little interest from conversations I heard at the festival, and from various online forums. When you get passed the fact that the movie seems a little like a teenagers horror movie, the film does have some merits. It was a little obvious what was going on from quite early on, but still had some new elements to bring to the audience.

Before I Spit On Your Grave (the remake) screened we were shown a five minute sequence from the director of Zombie Virus On Mulberry Street’s director called Stakeland. Moving from Zombies to vampires, it obviously looked low budget, but may hopefully show some promise when it is released in 2011.

I Spit On Your Grave I feel is probably the biggest surprise for the whole audience, all of whom clearly enjoyed the movie. If your unfamiliar with the story, it surrounds an author who takes time out of city life to focus on her book, running up against some village hoodlums she is targeted and eventually raped by every one of them, she in turn decides to take revenge. The movie far exceeds the original in all angles, it’s a solid remake from Starz/Anchor Bay who have made a smashing remake, amongst a sea of dire failures. Many a man watched the movie I can imagine with crossed legs, and buttocks clenched tight; this movie has revenge delivered in the blackest of ways.

Part three of The Road To Frighfest saw Adam Green, and Joe Lynch continue their trip to Frightfest, and the subject of this instalment is the worst review they received for one of their movies. The episode finished with both making some unpleasant use of a picture of Emily Booth.

The final movie we saw was Monsters a top quality movie by newcomer Gareth Edwards. This monster movie/road movie/romance could not be any more a stark contrast from the previous film. Incredibly beautiful, touching and at times menacing this low budget movie looks like it was filmed on a massive scale. It has more than a passing comparison to Cloverfield, however this has a lot more story to it. I won’t lie, I still expected better but it certainly movies to a place of joint top personal ranking for the festival so far.

We are taking a low key look at Sunday’s events opting only to see Outcast, Damned By Dawn, and if it is allowed to be screened A Serbian Movie, which rumour has it, has been pulled from the festival after the BBFC demanded too many cuts.