Blog of Round Things

Horrorfest Day 2

(Sat 11/18/2006 10:29pm)

Have a nice nap? Here's my report for Day 2 of the After Dark Horrorfest. In general, today's film trio was a notch above Friday's, and I've been impressed with the breadth of stylistic and thematic choices shown by these low budget projects. In contrast, the horror trailers shown before each film for upcoming Lionsgate releases - Captivity, Hostel Part 2, Bug - seem mired in the ditch of catering to what's perceived as "hot".

For today's experiment, I chose the Crown Village Crossing multiplex in Skokie, a theater complex distinguished by its extra large lobby and for how its teenage managers come into the theater before each show to introduce themselves. It may be the venue, or it may be the fact that it's Saturday, but the crowds for today's shows seemed to be much larger than yesterday's turnout.

First up was Gravedancers, a fun exercise from Mike Mendez (Bimbo Movie Bash). A soap opera errupts at a funeral as a trio of old thirtysomething friends bid farewell to their lost fourth wheel. There's Harris the uptight lawyer (Blade: Trinity's Dracula Dominic Purcell), Sid the Peter Pan type still working at Kinko's (Marcus Thomas), and Kira (another vampire: Josie Maran of Van Helsing), who is... well, we're never told what Kira is except an old flame of Harris' who tried to break up his marriage to Allison (Clare Kramer, "Glory" from Buffy - hey, what cast this - Ann Rice?), who is still jealous over it. The three break into the graveyard after the funeral and find a card with a bit of doggeral advising them to celebrate life by dancing on some graves. Soon after their night out, all three begin to experience poltergeist activity, which escalates into violent encounters with ghosts. Sid calls in some ghostbusters, Vincent (Tcheky Karyo) and Culpepper (Meghan Perry, who was also on Buffy) to check things out, while adding exposition and some much needed comedy to the movie. It all climaxes with a big special effects showdown with the evil dead at Vincent's mansion, and if the plot stalls here and there, you can forgive it in the spirit of spooky fun. Mania Grade: B. (Gravedancers will repeat on Monday.)

The Abandoned is the first full length feature from Spanish director Nacho Cerda, whose extreme short Aftermath has been wrenching guts since 1994. His feature is more poetic than shocking, while still providing plenty of scare power. Set in Russia (but filmed in Bulgaria), it tells the tale of Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille of New Year's Day), who was adopted by a British couple and lives in California, but has returned to the country of her birth where she and a twin brother were found under bizarre circumstances in 1966. The purpose of the trip is to investigate her background by visiting the family farm she's inherited, venturing deep into the wilderness. In the hulking old ruin of a farmhouse, she finds her heretofore unknown brother Nicolai (Karel Roden of Hellboy) already there, and the two of them encounter such frights as shifting time and space, the vicious ghost of their father (who killed their mother), and really creepy zombie doppelgangers of both of them. It's nice to see a horror film that's not centered on teens, and Hille gives a great performance reminiscent of Susan Saradndon at her best. Shot by Xavi Gomez (Darkness), the film is a visual masterpiece, and Cerda paints an amazing nightmare picture, but the proceedings can wear on the viewers patience a bit and the film could use a bit of editing. Mania Grade: B+.

Also in need of a pair of scissors is Richard Brandes (Vampires: Put For Blood) and his film Penny Dreadful, which should not be confused with Bryan Norton's recent horror of the same title. Teenage Penny (Rachel Miner of Little Athens) is indeed full of dread, suffering from multiple phobias stemming from seeing her parents die in an auto wreck years ago. To work through her fears, her therapist Oriana (Mimi Rogers) takes her on a road trip replicating her family's disastrous one, but things turn foul once again when the shrink runs into a strange man on the road, and after giving the stranger a ride, the women fail to promptly escape due to a flat tire. Knocked unconscious while trying to find Oriana (who went hunting for a phone signal), Penny awakes to find the film's main twist - and it's a doozy. Our lead actress spends the better part of the second half trapped inside the car with a corpse, with all hope of assistance picked off by the lurking psycho killer. This cost-effective gimmick works wonders, but there are sequences where it feels like the movie is running in real time, and something should've been done to pick up the pace a bit. Mania Grade: B+.

One more thing I'd like to note before closing this report: in an era when so many films rush straight into the action, it's nice to see that every Horrorfest entry thus far has been given a creative main title sequence.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story. Hey, has anyone found a theater playing The Tripper?