HEY, THANKS! TIP JAR

...is over.

2011 marked the 11th year for Denise Gossett's Los Angeles Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival aka Shriekfest. The Shriekfest screens short films and feature length films, as well as a category for short and feature length screenplays. The new category added this year is film music. Original Music is a "listen only" category and any music videos cross that border and are not shown. The winner of Best Original music went to the song, TO ALL THE YOUTH.

The Festival goes on for three days, Friday through Sunday and these are my Best of of the Fest picks.
FRIDAY - THE MILLENNIUM BUG
SATURDAY - ISLE OF DOGS
SUNDAY - PIG, with a runner up of ABSENTIA

As with all film festivals, the selections this year were a mixed bag. Shriekfest 2011 didn't have a theme, but if it had, the over-riding theme among feature films appeared to be beating and raping. In most of the feature films, there was a rape scene or the movie revolved around a rape or beating or a combination of rape and beating (THE MILLENNIUM BUG, THE FEED, ISLE OF DOGS), with a few drawn out extended beating and/or rape scenes (RAGE) all the way to tedious absurdity (THE HIKE, THE ORPHAN KILLER).

Rape can be done horrifically, as witnessed by movies like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, and either of the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE films. Only one of the movies that used rape and beating for a scene put it to horrific effect: RAGE by writer, director Chris Witherspoon.

RAGE is Witherspoon's second outing as a director and first time as a Horror Thriller movie director - and it shows. Chris crafted an otherwise tight, solid re-telling of Richard Matheson's short story, DUEL, only instead of a faceless driver in a semi-truck, RAGE features a faceless driver of a sport motorbike (we never see who is behind the helmet's faceplate).

Then, in the last 15 or so minutes, Chris takes a baseball bat to his own movie and smashes it to pieces with a surprisingly awkward insertion of an entirely different kind of Horror movie that betrays everything Chris did before (especially his own movie's logic).

Imagine if, in the last 15 minutes of the movie SAW, Jigsaw suddenly became HALLOWEEN's Michael Meyers, and started chasing an entirely different group of people around with a chainsaw like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and once he killed them, he returned to RAGE, already in progress. The movie never recovers from that.

While Shriekfest does double-duty for Horror and Sci-Fi (one OR the other instead of one AND the other), there were no movies this year that took advantage of both aspects. Horror was clearly in Horror/Thriller, Horror/slasher or Horror/supernatural, and Science Fiction stood on its own as a Thriller. For me, the Best of the Fest in Horror Thriller was Writer Sean Hogan and Director Tammi Sutton's ISLE OF DOGS.

Originally released in 2010 in London's Fright Fest film festival, the movie got such a drubbing (the audience derisively laughed at it in all the wrong places, then booed), that the makers went home to the U.S. ready to bury themselves, their movie and take the loss.

Instead, after some late night pondering, Tammi stepped up to the challenge, went back to post, and using only the film that was already shot, edited, tightened, and created a hardcore, rocking movie worthy enough to stand her alongside Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. That's no damn small feat!

Certainly not all the time, but sometimes, it pays to listen to the critics. And that isn't true for everyone: It can only work for good directors. Some folks make movies that are an unsavable mess. Tammi isn't one of them.

Apparently the judges agreed with me as ISLE OF DOGS won for Best Thriller (the award was sponsored by Girls and Corpses Magazine - which should tell you something of the gore factor). It was so good I wanted to jump out of my seat and cheer like I did the first time I saw RESERVOIR DOGS, PULP FICTION, and SNATCH. But I maintained an air of cool.

Girls and Corpses publisher, ROBERT RHINE awarding
TAMMI SUTTON for ISLE OF DOGS.

The Best Sci-Fi Award went to PIG by Writer/Director Henry Barrial. While I correctly guessed the mystery in the first ten minutes, I enjoyed the journey all the way to the reveal. Without revealing too much, fans of movies with "Loss of Self" themes (DARK CITY, MEMENTO) should enjoy PIG, though bear in mind that the movie would be an addition to such a category and not merely a riff on anything that has come before.

PIG Producer MARK STOLAROFF and
Writer/Director HENRY BARRIAL (holding award)

This year's Best Science Fiction Feature Film award also echoes back to the 2010 Shriekfest Sci-Fi winner, the German film, TRANSFER. Both movies are about loss of self and both movies handle the matter in entirely different ways. To date, the excellent TRANSFER has yet to receive U.S. distribution.

ABSENTIA Writer and Director MIKE FLANAGAN with
Actor COURTNEY BELL.

Best Horror Feature Film went to Writer and director Mike Flanagan, for his movie, ABSENTIA, a slow, more drama than Horror - nearly mumblecore - Creature Feature with a brief appearance by fan favorite actor, Doug Jones (HELLBOY, PAN'S LABYRINTH, UNIVERSAL DEAD).

The Best Supernatural Feature Film award went to Writer Director Travis Betz (LO), for this year's entry, THE DEAD INSIDE. Travis describes his film as a Horror comedy musical.

Best Webisode went to Writer and director L.C. Cruell for "31" The Series.

Best Super Short Film award went to Luke Asa Guidici for CERTIFIED.

Best Horror Feature Screenplay went to Writer T.J. Cimfel for SHUT IN.

Best Science Fiction Feature Screenplay went to Writer Larry Whetcott for TIME WRECK.

Best Short Screenplay went to Writer Ryan Gilmore for HEAR NO EVIL.

END

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