10th August 2007.

Looking forward to the annual Film4 FrightFest quiz? Don’t forget it’s taking place this year before the World Premiere screening of Wrong Turn 2 at 6.30 pm on Saturday, August 25. Pens and paper will be provided before you enter the auditorium. Your solution sheets will be collected after the questions have been read out. The answers will then be revealed but we won’t announce the winner until before our closing night attraction The Orphanage.

Zone Horror, last year’s headliners, is sponsoring this event and has promised a fabulous first prize. For this reason I decided to set the questions myself. Not that past quizmaster Ian Kirby didn’t do a great prior job it’s just that I wanted to give everyone a real mental workout this year. So be warned. It’s 20 reasonably difficult questions, ones that are meant to separate the true horror fan from the casual browser.

Don’t expect anything of the ‘Who played the Count in Hammer’s Dracula?’ coasters. I’m going to really test your knowledge so you earn that prize. May I suggest homework? Required reading being ‘The Rough Guide to Horror Movies’ by, oh, me! Copies will be on sale in the Odeon foyer at a knockdown price should you have the gall not to own one already! Well, I have to get rid of the numerous copies I still have lying around my flat taking up space somehow.

And don’t even think about asking Paul McEvoy for any hints or clues. Although he’s repeatedly asked to see the questions, I know his loose-lipped ways all too well. So I’m keeping them to myself until the minute before I hand them over to MC, and resident 70s horror relic, I mean icon, David McGillivray to intone in his uniquely comic way. Let’s hope he has as much fun with them as we’re expecting.

Incidentally, David is putting all his Pathetique short films that we’ve shown over successive FrightFests into one DVD package to be released later in the year. Extras will include a documentary titled ‘Horror Icon’ (he says because I keep insisting on calling him that) and will feature footage from Film4 FrightFest 2007. So don’t be alarmed if David suddenly thrusts a camera in your face and asks for pithy comments on his past and present career. Even if your remarks revolve around the pertinent retort, “What career?”

Other camera crews will be evidence over the weekend too. There’ll be lots of activity during the Black Sheep premiere with real sheep on the celebrity red carpet, if the Foot and Mouth disease crisis has abated by then. Let’s see if we can get our glamorous helpers to dress up like Little Bo Peep! The Zombie Diaries day will be well covered too as various UK zombie clubs try and break the world record for a dead flash mob in Leicester Square. Your participation is encouraged. All you need to qualify as a zombie is wearing white face makeup and trickles of blood. Experts will be on hand to help and appointed zombie wranglers will guide you into position for the key photo opportunity – from the balcony of the big Odeon opposite. Chris Hewitt will be lurking around filming weblogs for Empire Online. And Rel Pinto, FrightFest’s veteran ‘bitch’ (his description I assure you) is filming everything for our own purposes so we have key footage for next year’s lucky sponsors. So look good, speak eloquently and praise us for everything – including World Peace - and your time-capsule insertion is guaranteed. All part of the fun excitement bound to make Film4 FrightFest 2007 the best event ever.

Until next time…