My top and bottom 3

Taking place over the Bank Holiday weekend, August 27th - 31st 2015
anaana
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My top and bottom 3

Post by anaana »

I have given some thought to my top and bottom 3 from FF2015, considering that this year I watched all the Main Screen films and nothing else.

Top 3

1. We are still here (8.5/10)
2. Deathgasm (8/10)
3. A Christmas story (7.5/10)

I reaaaally wanted to put Inner Demon at 2 or 3, as I loved the atmospheric first half, but that closet and those ghosts...
I also enjoyed James Wan's Demonic (7/10).

Bottom 3

1 (by a mile) Some kind of hate (1/10)
Then there are a bunch of movies which were not terribly bad, but were a bit too meh for my taste, like
2. Stung (4.5/10)
3. Emelie (4/10)

I was also unimpressed with two arguably beautiful films which didn't do it for me (Frankenstein and Nina Forever)
Oswald Cobblepot
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by Oswald Cobblepot »

Top 3:

Night Fare
Turbo Kid
We are Still Here

Bottom 3:

Cherry Tree
Inner Demon
Scherzo Diabolico
Critter Egg
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by Critter Egg »

Wow, top three is too difficult! But my top five would be:

1. Turbo Kid
2. Bite
3. A Christmas Horror Story
4. Night Fare
5. Tales of Halloween (the Killer Pumpkin was my favourite character of the whole weekend :D )

Also special mention to Frankenstein and Road Games

Bottom three for me were:

1. Hellions
2. Cherry Tree
3. Inner Demon

I watched a real mix of main screen and Discovery films and I felt it was a really strong line up overall this year.
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wakko
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by wakko »

Top
1.The Rotten Link
2.Turbo Kid
3.Rabid Dogs
4.They Look Like People
5. Aaaaaaah!

Meh
"Some kind of hate" (pretentious introduction in Horror channel made it worse. The fag/cigarette comment unacceptable and so the rest).

Unsure..
Banjo - I always enjoyed Troma films, but this one bored me at times. I felt it was dragging and some of the acting was really obnoxious. Kudos to the director for his passion and commitment. He came across like a nice guy. I know everyone loved it, so this may be a niche opinion.
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by scarebear »

Top 3 were:-

1/Howl
2/Road Games
3/Tales of Halloween (Loved the Friday 13th Parody)

Worst

1/Inner Demon
2/Slumlord
3/Emeile (not sure whether this counts though as it just really freaked me out!)
Wolfshade
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by Wolfshade »

It's always got to be top/bottom FIVE, 3 is not enough!

Top 5:

1. Bait
2. Turbo Kid
3. They Look Like People
4. Road Games
5. Deathgasm (might have been higher if the black metal band hadn't had bloody Trivum patches and posters everywhere...the elitist black metaller in me was infuriated!)

Also worthy of note - We Are Still Here, Night Fare and Pod.

Worst:

1. Hangman (hideously bad home invasion found footage crap that has been done already a thousand times better...just ended up getting comfy in the Prince Charles, having a beer and ignoring them film).
2. Never Let Go (complete rip off of Taken, on a micro budget with a female lead character - stolen storyline, laughably bad dialogue, and actually pretty dull for an action film).
3. Cherry Tree (how the hell was this the opening film??? Or even playing at all for that matter?!)
4. Nina Forever (high hopes for it, but was let down - seemed just to have the message of "I can't be with you without thinking of your dead ex" which it then spent a ridiculous amount of time labouring and really going nowhere).
5. Emelie (meh, bad babysitter flick by numbers, massively lacking in shocks and suspense; watch this one disappear without trace.

Also not keen on Worry Dolls (bland as hell, no doubt will be chucked in the goody bag next year), Slumlord (plodding and dready, nowhere near as sleazy as it wants to be), Tales Of Halloween (too many segments, not enough quality, rather smug and indulgent, no doubt more fun for the actors/directors than the viewers), The Diabolical (feature length low budget episode of X Files), Inner Demon (possibly might have worked as a 10 minute short, but stretched out to a film there clearly was no enough substance there).

Overall was just an "okay" year for me, not one of the best in terms of films.
ian
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by ian »

best:
deathgasm
turbo kid
we are still here

i also really enjoyed slumlord, shut in, and summer camp so i must be more forgiving than most of you lot.

however the worst three were an easy pick, the only 3 that basically made me angry at the fact i was watching them:
cherry tree
hellions
inner demon
LeighM
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by LeighM »

Top 3

The Hallow – I loved this, easily the highlight of the festival for me. Anything particularly Del Toro-y is right up my street, so a dark, folky, fairytale had me sold from the off and I was pleased it lived up to my lofty expectations. It had its flaws, the main characters weren’t particularly likeable, but it made up for it with great creature design and some very effective scares.

Night Fare – Thriller of the weekend goes too…! We had a lot of thrillers this year, I feel like I probably saw more of these than straight up horrors. This was the pick of the bunch though. Very tense and dark with a bit of a Korean (thinking of I Saw The Devil) edge to it with the whole cat and mouse element. I’ve seen a few reviews saying it falls apart in the final third, but I liked the ending, it was different where it could have easily gone down a far more clichéd path.

The Rotten Link – My only visit to the PCC of the weekend was to see this little gem. I took a complete punt on this based on the programme notes (see also: Inner Demon, where that backfired!) and I’m glad I did. It’s such a difficult film to try and put in to words, the soundtrack was great, the performances were wonderful. It was dark, funny, disturbing, disgusting, often all at the same time. I hope it gets picked up for a DVD/Blu release over here, I can’t wait to see it again.

Bottom 3

The Shelter – Haven’t seen anyone else mention this anywhere and I’m not surprised, literally one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. I hold my friend fully responsible for convincing me it would be better than Demonic and myself for not leaving within the first 20 minutes.

Inner Demon – What a fucking mess. I think I saw it summed up best on Facebook – whoever was responsible for the comparing it to The Babadook in the programme notes has seen neither The Babadook nor Inner Demon.

Pod – The fact that this is here is testament to the quality of films this year, I really struggled to pick a third. Pod was a serviceable low budget psychological horror/thriller with a good performance from one actor in particular. However the rest of the cast were fairly poor and it the film sort of spluttered to a conclusion having lost all momentum about halfway through.

Hon. Mentions

Christmas Horror Story – Probably would have made my top 3 were it not for the unforgivably dull haunted school basement plot line. The rest of it was a blast and that particular plot felt really out of place, almost like they'd spent the whole budget on the rest of the film but still needed something to fill 20 minutes.

Deathgasm – “Brutal as fuck” \m/

Emelie – Probably the biggest surprise of the weekend for me, went in with absolutely no expectations (I don’t think I’d even bothered reading the full programme notes) and came away loving it. Fantastic central performance and the kids were great as well. I thought it was in danger of going a bit Home Alone at the end, but reigned itself in and came to a reasonable conclusion.
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by The Soapmaker »

Top 3.... no, let's make it 5:

Nina Forever
Turbo Kid
Bait
Night Fare
Deathgasm

Bottom 3:

Cherry Tree
Scherzo Diabolico
Inner Demon

We Are Still Here might well have been somewhere near the top, but unfortunately it coincided with my (unintentional) early evening nap that day. And we didn't see anything in the disco screens so who knows what wonders I may have missed there. I did want to see The Hallow but it was sold out.
Last edited by The Soapmaker on Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
HannahNoir
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by HannahNoir »

All the films I saw, categorised below...! I thought there were some great films this festival.

My top films from the main screen:
*Turbo Kid
*We Are Still Here
*Deathgasm
*Slumlord
*Scherzo Diabolico

My top films from the discovery screens:
*Pod
*Hangman
*Tenderness of the Wolves
*Over Your Dead body
*The Lesson
*Awaiting
*Hostile

My ' they were ok' films:
*James Wan's Demonic
*Jeruzalem
*Emelie
*Another me
*The Hallow
*They Look Like People
*Tales of Halloween

My 'I wouldn't recommend' films
*Cherry Tree
*Stung
*The Entity
*Afterdeath
*Farhope Tower (only film I attended that didn't get a clap at the end. A hilarious arm waving scene though)

Films I HATED:
*Some Kind of Hate - awful writing, awful acting, coked up Director, insulting to the bullying experience and self harm
thatcambridgebird
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by thatcambridgebird »

Top:

Deathgasm
Rabid Dogs
Slumlord (basically because of the slumlord, mind you. He kept the film together, because to be fair I pretty much wanted all of the repellant protagonists to die)


Bottom:

Inner Demon (can I just say this 3 times?)
Shut In (it really didn't need the
Spoiler:
paedogeddon link, and would have been so much better IMO if the writers had just made her a crazy person whose addiction to the craziness was fed by her brother
)
Erm... probably Frankenstein. It looked visually amazing, but it just didn't sit well with me personally. I don't know why, I just wasn't feeling it I guess.
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by kickasschewgum »

Top 5:

Nina Forever
Deathgasm
Road Games
Jeruzalem
Rabid Dogs

Honorable Mentions: James Wan's Demonic, Bloodsucking Bastards, Shut In, Slumlord, Curve, Night Fare, These Final Hours

Bottom 5:

Cherry Tree (what the hell were the guys smoking when they picked this as the opening film? It wasn't even worthy of a Discovery screen).
Frankenstein (pretentious nonsense)
The Diabolical (incoherent nonsense)
Hellions (pretentious AND incoherent nonsense)
Inner Demon (which was a shame because the first 2/3 of the film was really good)

Generally a fantastic line-up. Just one small niggle...

I couldn't shake the feeling that certain films were given a prime position because they were either British (whilst I've always applauded the guys for championing British film, it should only be if it is worth championing), made by previous FrightFest alumni or because they had been acquired by the new 'FrightFest presents' label. I'm not saying that some of these films shouldn't have a place in the festival but I got the distinct feeling that a few of the films that were in the Discovery screens were far more deserving of a Main screen placement and vice versa.

The most obvious offenders were Cherry Tree, Hellions and Emelie. Cherry Tree was just offensively awful and had the negative side-effect of setting the tone of the festival (which was deeply unfair as the overall line-up was very strong). The others were just curiously favoured over several films that would almost certainly have played much better on the Main screen (Bloodsucking Bastards, The Hallow, Summer Camp, They Look Like People to name just a few). Surely the criteria for Main Screen choices should be the BEST films possible and I don't think ANYONE would have the debating skill to be able to mount an argument in favour of Cherry Tree over any one of these films.

I'm not knocking the guys' hard work. They once again delivered a very strong line-up and an awesome weekend for all who attended. And I will remain one of the many FrightFest fanatics for years to come. But I do think that their Main screen choices are occasionally tainted by criteria other than those that should, ideally, be informing those decisions (in a perfect world).

Thanks to Paul, Alan, Ian and Greg for another great year. Already looking forward to October and Glasgow next year.
Malky
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by Malky »

Top

1. Deathgasm
2. Turbo Kid
3. Curtain

Bottom

3. Most Likely to Die
2. Cherrty Tree
1. Worry Dolls
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by Buffalobill »

Had a great time as always, thanks to all the organisers for their hard work in making the festival so enjoyable.

No films blew me away this year, or even scared me but I found the line up much more consistent in terms of quality of films. Either that or I am getting better at dodging the lame ones!

Top 3 would probably be

Nightfare
Summer Camp
Turbo Kid

Bottom 3 would be

Cherry Tree (terrible choice for the opener)
Inner Demon (terrible all round)
Emelie (not bad but could have made so much more of it)
stshaw
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Re: My top and bottom 3

Post by stshaw »

First of all I would like to thank the Fright Fest team for a fantastic weekend and a bit. I often indulge in ungrateful moaning about things like ticketing and lose sight of the monster that FF has become in terms of organisation and management. But, in the end the event is always a joy. Thanks.

Now back to the topic at hand, I don't think that I saw a bad film during Fright Fest this year (although I had the advantage of having seen Frankenstein at another festival) so I will only give my top three:

Bait
The Lesson
Sun Choke

These Final Hours, Nina Forever and Rabid Dogs might also have been fighting for top 3 positions if I had not already seen them at other festivals.

I guess I should also include Hellraiser, but I knew before going in that it was going to be great.

For me the Fright Fest 2015 was full of good films and even a couple that I am prepared to be enthusiastic about, but nothing great. To be fair to Ian, Paul and Alan that seems to be a good summary of the genre in 2015. This was my seventh festival of the year and after this weekend I have probably seen around 150 films, most of them good, very few bad or without merit, but no great films.

Other comments and highlights.

The Hawk the Slayer poster. Brilliant! I will sort out framing for mine at the weekend.

The Vue. I missed FF2014, so this was my first time at the Vue for the August event. I thought it worked well. The atmosphere of the Empire big screen is clearly gone, but theres no point crying about that. The Arrow screen (which I think was the smallest of the three screens) was a little bit quiet, but it was rarely more than 3/4 full. I was sat 4 or 5 rows from the front on one of the wings and for most films there were only a couple of people in front of me. Perhaps the guys could look into having a bigger proportion of pass-holders in this screen to try and keep it fuller?

I missed all of the teasers and previews from previous years (I think I was in the PCC when the flying sharks stuff was shown :(). Is the Duke Mitchell party now the only way to see this stuff?

The guests. I go to a lot of festivals, but Fright Fest is almost unique in the proportion of films where the talent actually turn up and for me it is those interactions and the audience that make the festival such fun.

The music. I love the death proof sound-track and having the opportunity to listen to it 23 times over the weekend really made the festival a very special weekend for me. Anybody know where I can buy a copy? :)

I'm guessing the October slate is already locked, but if not and if Ian and co are reading it would be great to have the chance to see Excess Flesh (although as that looks likely to play Grimm Fest I guess not), Spanish animated feature Possessed and French film Nobody from Nowhere again at the Halloween events.

Heres looking forward to 2016!
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