30th September - I hope you are enjoying these sometimes sporadic postcards from Austin. As Ian explained the wi-fi here is a little odd to say the least.

Anyway, here's an update .. but first a bit of background on Fantastic Fest. Now in its fifth year the festival has transformed into a brilliant, mad carnival of films and people. For instance on Saturday night alone there were four films playing at the Alamo Drafthouse, another couple way downtown and two parties were being held. So in what has become THE festival quote de jour courtesy of TIMECRIMES Nacho Vigalondo Chaos Reigns!... also courtesy of ANTICHRIST of course. What has been fabulous has been catching up and enjoying the company of a bunch of our Frightguests including Tom Six and his centipede team. His film went down a storm both times with riotous Q and A sessions and went on to win the best horror award at the FF awards ceremony – along with best actor for mad doctor Dieter Laser. MANDRILL the latest from the KILTRO / MIRAGEMAN team also scooped some awards as did – much to the shock, pleasure and delight of our UK buddies behind DOWN TERRACE. Congratulations guys!

Amongst the many films we have seen was Uwe Boll's once again button pushing RAMPAGE. Billed as his best work to date this is bleak, nihilistic filmmaking to the max and whilst a well made film it does beg the question.. why. The improvised script essentially follows a young guy who is apparently sent over the mental edge by his life and surroundings – and then heads on the kill crazy rampage of the title in an unfortunately extremely believable scenario of extreme gun crime.

The producer of AVATAR also showed us some exclusive footage from James Cameron's upcoming mega budget 2 and 3-D opus. This included stuff that had not been screened previously. Some of this was incredibly impressive.. some felt a little flat, but all of it looked interesting although I still think they are holding some of the most interesting stuff back.. hence the slightly lackluster trailer which admittedly looks better in 3-D. It was also revealed that the running time would be in excess of two and a half hours!

Closing night party and the final surprise film tonight..!

Until the next time...

Paul.

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