11TH MAY - THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM.

So, we arrived in Cannes without any problems, although it seems those heading to the South of France next week might face a few more hiccups due to either volcanic ash or British Airways strike action. How smug are we knowing those stress levels have been removed, well for two weeks anyway, until we have to head back?

We’re in our usual place of residence mainly because it was the easiest option being familiar with the layout and knowing how to get everywhere from here. Plus walking beside the beach on a sunny morning is a great way to start a heavy day of continual screenings. Not that we’ve had any sun so far.

It was quite cold when we arrived on Friday night and although we did manage a jaunt up the Rue D’Antibes on Saturday afternoon – where we saw the poster for the new Luc Besson fantasy epic THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC-SEC and Paul finally got his Blu-Ray of PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, only released in France – it poured with rain the moment we got back and continued all evening.

We always come to Cannes at least five days before the festival begins proper so we can ease ourselves into the routine and watch the many submissions sent to us in both short and feature film categories. Saturday night saw us kicking off with Devi Snively’s short I SPIT ON ELI ROTH, which has a group of horror fans kidnap and torture the loudmouth HOSTEL director for his crimes against the genre. The one joke idea isn’t carried through with any real cleverness or conviction and, frankly, as I still like Eli a lot I found it all rather bitchy and unpleasant. Mind you, Peaches Geldorf, what’s that all about? The feature we decided to watch was Devin McGinn’s THE LAST LOVECRAFT: RELIC OF CTHULHU. “It’s supposed to be like JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER”, enthused Paul. Well, it wasn’t, and didn’t work either as a creature feature homage or satire. That’s one ticked off the list of screenings we now need not attend. With a very poor line-up of films in Cannes competition – apart from the Mike Leigh movie I may go and see – it looks like we’ll be concentrating on the market section this year. So what are we most looking forward to? Well, there’s RUBBER, the one about the car tyre that vibrates and explodes heads. There’s SHOCK LABYRINTH EXTREME 3D with evil rabbits, DREAM HOME where ‘Location, Location, Location’ meets FRIDAY THE 13th and the one-continuous-take THE SILENT HOUSE. Hideo Nakata’s CHATROOM is playing too, although no one is sure if it’s a horror film and there are the remakes of AND SOON THE DARKNESS plus MOTHER’S DAY. We’re all looking forward to our first glimpse at HATCHET 2, there’s a sizzle reel presentation, and I personally cannot wait to see JERRY COTTON, which promises to be a German 0SS 117. I was always a huge fan of that 60s Eurospy series starring George Nader and hope it’s as fun as I would like it to be. Adam Gierasch’s new movie FERTILE GROUND is showing so I’ll also be heading to that so I can call him immediately with my opinion.

Party highlight of Cannes 2010 is bound to be Tim League’s 40th birthday beach party. That’s if the violent storms that occurred last week causing havoc haven’t washed the sand away! The Fantastic Fest Austin main man has already circulated his karaoke list to all invited guests so they can pick their choice without fear of clashing. And I cannot wait to see, but probably not hear, Ian take a stab at ‘Goldfinger’!

Alan Jones.

BACK TO POSTCARD INDEX

 © London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2010
_____________________________________________