FrightFest

The gold standard should be 2008 which included Eden Lake , Time Crimes , Mum & Dad , The Chaser , Let the Right One In and Martyrs . Gosh yes, that was a good year! Although I'm sure there was some dross as well if I could be bothered to look it up.... what year was Bubba's Chili Parlor ?

I wonder if we'll eventually gravitate towards a system more like the London Film Festival, with no "Main" or "Discovery" screens but with a number of films showing simultaneously, and you'd just pick (in advance?) what you wanted to see. Regardless of if it changes, I'll be doi...

The thing is, what the men in suits who decide to make these offers don't realise, is that the prestige attached to Main Screen isn't what it once was because the Discovery Screen offerings get stronger every year. But horror festival/West End(usually)/premiere/Main Screen obviously still curries s...

This has always been a bit of an issue (except for those who can live on beer and hot dogs for five days). I can remember some years where there was barely an adequate food gap all weekend, but last year it seemed to be sorted out and (as I recall) there was at least one decent 75 to 90 minute gap e...

For me, picking and choosing begins with sub-genre - I'll start with the Discovery Screens and easy ones were Giallo - Francesca, Pseudo & Real Documentaries - Hostage to the Devil, Population Zero, Fury of the Demon, & The Killing of America, UFO conspiracy - Man Underground, and Controver...

Top 5

1. Train to Busan
2. They Call Me Jeeg Robot
3. Beyond the Gates
4. The Windmill Massacre
5. Broken

Bottom 5

1. Blood Feast
2. Abattoir
3. From a House on Willow Street
4. Mercy
5. Red Christmas

As usual, I didn't see anything on the Discovery screens... probably a mistake this year.

To go off on a slight tangent, were there any SCARY films this year? I know what we find scary is a personal thing - for me it's the gradual building of tension, that haunted house sensation of knowing that something is going to happen but you don't know when. And absolutely nothing this year gave m...

I thought the films on the Main screens were pretty woeful for the first couple of days, but improved quite a lot on Sunday and Monday. It seems to me that since the advent of the Discovery screens, however many years back that was, the Main screen has drifted towards being the main stream screen. I...

Nicely made, but I found it all somewhat bland and dull. Although as I sit here now, it's actually quite thought-provoking... The elements I disliked: Marc's life in the "present" was all so bloody perfect - loads of money, beautiful house, beautiful friends, hipster business with happy em...

Probably the best-directed film of the weekend, I loved the intense sound design and the near-constant use of extreme closeups. But, as Simon Rumley said, he didn't write this one and beneath the highly skilled film-making there was a pretty bog-standard revenge from beyond the grave plot, even if i...

It was all familiar stuff, but familiar stuff which doesn't get made any more... I was thinking of The Old Dark House, From Beyond the Grave, the aforementioned Dr Terror's House of Horrors. Good to see a mix of characters instead of the usual moronic partying teens, and good to see a plot which is ...

The film's biggest strength by far was the interaction between the two lead actors, the way they conveyed the subleties of their characters' relationship. It can't have been easy to create a character like John, who was basically obnoxious most of the time but still remained sympathetic. Having said...

I hated it. I was expecting trashy nonsense but I wasn't expecting total incompetence. The broken-down driver scene was hilarious but it - and the gore scenes - felt more like porn than horror (I know it's very much personal opinion, but I found the violence in this one unpleasant rather than entert...

Last film on the Monday night is always a bit of an unknown quantity, sometimes it's the best film of the weekend, sometimes it's something mainstream and formulaic just to wrap things up and get us out of there. This was definitely the former. I wasn't sure about the director's filmed intro (cheery...

Really liked House of 1000 corpses, Devil Rejects but his films are getting so predictable and cliché. Wish he would break his own rules a bit more. I can't disagree with you there. I like Rob Zombie's films, I like the "talent pool" of actors he works with, I like his 1970s obsession, I ...