FrightFest

A creature of habit, I've stayed with the main screen choices this weekend.

So: which hidden gems did I miss in the Discovery screens? Which titles should I buy on Amazon at £3.99 in six months' time?

Honeymoon was fantastic....as was The Canal

The Canal and especially Coherence, which was mind-bendingly brilliant...

House at the end of Time, The Canal, The Forgotten, The Visitor

Disco screen is where it's at

The Sleeping Room

Some great shorts as well, She, Selkie, Call Girl

Better theatres for the Disco screens was a big plus of the change to Vue.

Coherence, Show Pieces, Lost Souls.

hingethunder wrote:Disco screen is where it's at

It probably is, but I don't like watching trailers or reading up too much about films before I see them... so the main screen is the easy option.

Fortunately there are threads like this to help me figure out what I need to catch up on.

Creep, The Canal and Truth Or Dare were all amazing.

Also saw Lemon Tree Passage in the Disco, which I really didn't like, but 3 out of 4 is a good return! Very strong Disco line up this year, and nice to have it big enough to actually be able to get tickets this time around.

The Soapmaker wrote:

hingethunder wrote:Disco screen is where it's at

It probably is, but I don't like watching trailers or reading up too much about films before I see them...

Not even a brief read-up on the Disco films to see if any are the type of films you go for..?

Of course, if they are, then you have to start reading up on the opposing Main films

Not really, I wouldn't say there's any particular type of (horror) film I go for. Yeah, broadly speaking I suppose I could say I prefer creepy/atmospheric to dumb/gory, but that's nowhere near a hard and fast rule.

I do have a very brief read-up, but mainly to see who directed or wrote them, or what country they're from. I barely skim the plot details because I don't want to know!

Let's face it, a lot of horror films have extremely "familiar" plot/structure - you could read synopses of two films and they'd sound almost identical, but one could be great and the other a stinker. It's the execution that makes a horror film work; and even then it's a matter of personal taste (or hangups?) whether it works for you or not.

Guilty pleasure : Bad Milo

Utterly Bonkers : The Visitor

Show Pieces was a highlight of the discovery screen for me. Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins' Q&A afterwards was probably the best Q&A I saw at the festival. Robert Englund's Q&A for Nightmare on Elm Street was also really good. And of course the two short film showcases had some great stuff.

A lot of the stuff on the Discovery Screens seems to be better than what gets shown on the main screen. I have no idea why Nymph, I Survived a Zombie Holocaust and Shockwave Darkside get main screen showings while things that have been getting a lot of good word of mouth are only playing Discovery. The Short Films should definitely be back on the main screen as they're some of the highlights of the festival.

The Canal, Creep, Digging up the Marrow, Honeymoon, White Settlers and Preservation.

Also check out The Tour and Zomonic short films

I picked well this year.

The Canal, The Forgotten, Honeymoon and Coherence were all either good or very good (sorry to re-iterate what others have said ) and should have got mainscreen places instead of other films really, however, everyone says this about a few films every year. Don't really know how the whole booking films thing works so i guess this will always happen. but home and xmoor, for example, didn't deserve main screen in place of some disco films. I do understand why the forgotten was on that screen but the canal, coherence and honeymoon deserved to get seen by more people.

zappa fan wrote: Also check out The Tour and Zomonic short films

Zomonic, which I agree, was brilliant, can be watched here
http://www.duffelfilms.com/zominic/index.php as linked from http://randomacts.channel4.com/films#/r ... ts/one/778

Re Discovery Films

House at the End of Time (Excellent, shame the film-maker couldn't make it)
Show Pieces (Excellent and very interesting Q&A)
Honeymoon (Very Good)
The Canal (Very Good, but distracting mix of accents)
Julia (both brilliant and yet also, 'meh')
Gas Man, a weird one about a dildo, a useful 'instruction video', and Zomonic were all great shorts from Shorts#2
Wish I had seen Coherence...
Nic