Quality of films this year

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dundermifflin
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Re: Quality of films this year

Post by dundermifflin »

killer guinea pigs wrote:Sadly i agree that things have gone down hill (no pun intended) slightly.

Do you remember when frightfest used to have a major players turn up like george a romero or john landis, hellboy with the cast and crew or christopher nolan, danny boyle or argento etc

this year we had over 200 guests.........well i recognised that bloke from lord of the rings and andy nyman but not anyone else.

we all paid £185 for a pass and i dont give a crap about politics for this and that i just want the best films please otherwise i might as well just go to grim up north and pay £65 for a pass and watch most of the same films in manchester........which offers very good value for the cost.

celluloid screams in sheffield seems to be great value as well.

the problem with frightfest is most of the world premieres seem to be included just to say we have a world premeire ...how exciting but this is just a gimmick. most are rubbish that wont turn up anywhere else and wont go onto other festivals.

when other major fests around the world show dont breathe or the woods etc other fests want them..............name one frightfest premiere world that turned out to be a blockbuster where other festivals said we want that film........some low budget films are good like broken and nina forever but they were british films with uk or horror fan interest.

this year cell was released the day after frightfest so only a filler on opening night and in my opinion shouldnt have been shown for that reason not because it was absoulute crap and train to busan although fantastic was online for download before the fest began which someone i work with told me about !!

i too thought the first few days were hard work and not sure it got much better later on.

if your not happy about this then dont buy a pass next year..............but we all will again as there is a lot to enjoy but more transparancy about the way things are would be nice but we never got a explanation about why shockwave or bubba chilli parlour was shown so iam not holding my breath !
I was going to post about the guests. We used to get quality and quantity, and now, like you say, I think most people recognised "the bloke from Lord of the Rings" and that was it out of 200 odd people. Ofcourse the cast and crew of some new, undiscovered British horror are "guests", but no one apart from the cast and crew themselves, their friends, or maybe people working in the industry know of them or indeed care that they are there.

I spend £700+ every year going to Frightfest, including the pass, accomodation, food/drink, travel etc. For that amount of money or very little extra I could go to BIFFF, Sitges or Neuchatel.
Magic Hour
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Re: Quality of films this year

Post by Magic Hour »

My attendance at FRIGHTFEST has been sporadic over the years due to various reasons, but I keep close tabs on the films showing and I have noticed a downturn in the quality of the product. At the same time I have noticed that the London Film Festival, since re-inventing itself (in 2013 I think) with the CULT & DARE strands, appears to be picking up some very high quality genre releases. UNDER THE SKIN, THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS, BORGMAN, A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, IT FOLLOWS, SHREW'S NEST, SPRING, EVOLUTION, THE WITCH, THE CORPSE OF ANNA FRITZ, OBSERVANCE have all had their UK premieres at the LFF.

When I questioned one of the Frightfest team at the time as to why they had overlooked 'A Girl Walks Home..' the response was that it was not the type of film that would go down well there. Now, that got me wondering whether the LFF team had possibly trumped the FF team in securing the premier, or whether it is actually a sad fact that the type of film needs to be a pacey, action packed blood fest to keep the audience awake and entertained?

FF appears to be overlooking arthouse horror in favour of fairly mundane European & World premieres which end up straight to DVD soon after.

I would love to see an Arthouse/World Cinema Screen at Frightfest, but at the moment we are lucky to have the LFF filling in the gaps, with their 2016 line-up of RAW and THE EYES OF MY MOTHER leading the way.
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WraithApe
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Re: Quality of films this year

Post by WraithApe »

@Magic Hour

I would have to agree with whoever you spoke to about not showing A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - sappy emo vampire flick which had the temerity to bill itself as Iranian horror, despite being shot in California! It was no great loss to Fright Fest. On the other hand, most of the other films you mentioned (or at least the ones I've seen) with the exception of The Corpse of Anna Fritz (watch the Spanish short Aftermath instead for a necro fix - it has the cojones to go places TCOAF only dreamed of!) were indeed high quality. Under the Skin, Strange Colour, It Follows, Spring were all excellent in my book and Observance not bad either.

Scheduled release dates probably come into play, with some films slated for release after FF, but really I just don't think FF can compete with the draw of LFF now. This is one of the world's premiere film festivals and distributors want their films to play to as wide an audience as possible; they don't necessarily want their films to be seen as great genre films but just great films. Are you saying you're getting to the point where you'd sack off FF and only go to LFF? Personally, I've enjoyed doing both the last few years. It has got to the point where I expect to see better quality films at LFF, but it doesn't have the vibe, being spread over two weeks and multiple venues. There's no real community spirit or rabid enthusiasm for a particular genre, and that's half the appeal of FF isn't it?
Magic Hour
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Re: Quality of films this year

Post by Magic Hour »

WraithApe wrote:@Magic Hour

I would have to agree with whoever you spoke to about not showing A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - sappy emo vampire flick which had the temerity to bill itself as Iranian horror, despite being shot in California! It was no great loss to Fright Fest. On the other hand, most of the other films you mentioned (or at least the ones I've seen) with the exception of The Corpse of Anna Fritz (watch the Spanish short Aftermath instead for a necro fix - it has the cojones to go places TCOAF only dreamed of!) were indeed high quality. Under the Skin, Strange Colour, It Follows, Spring were all excellent in my book and Observance not bad either.

Scheduled release dates probably come into play, with some films slated for release after FF, but really I just don't think FF can compete with the draw of LFF now. This is one of the world's premiere film festivals and distributors want their films to play to as wide an audience as possible; they don't necessarily want their films to be seen as great genre films but just great films. Are you saying you're getting to the point where you'd sack off FF and only go to LFF? Personally, I've enjoyed doing both the last few years. It has got to the point where I expect to see better quality films at LFF, but it doesn't have the vibe, being spread over two weeks and multiple venues. There's no real community spirit or rabid enthusiasm for a particular genre, and that's half the appeal of FF isn't it?
The issue with A GIRL WALKS HOME.. was not that it was deemed not good enough (and I rate the film, even if I dislike the Director intensely), but that they considered the FF audience wouldn't like it. When I look at some of the product they have screened over the past 3 years I find that staggering.
In recent interviews the FF team have said they can pretty much pick and choose what they get for the Festival, but in essence this is not really true is it? Yes, Scheduling & release dates come into play, but why, for example, did ARROW choose the LFF to showcase their 4K remastering of PHANTASM?

I wholeheartedly agree with you that the LFF badge of honour is probably more worthy than an FF one, but that wasn't always the case. Over the past decade FF has premiered some fabulous films whilst the LFF went about its business. Maybe the appointment of Michael Blyth has had something to do with the shift, I don't know, but FF is bigger than it's ever been but is it better?

There's nowhere better to watch a film than in an auditorium of similar-minded fans of the same genre, and FF will always be champion in that respect, but in recent memory the screening of IT FOLLOWS in Shaftesbury Ave on that Sat night in Oct 2014 ranks as one of my highlights.

(Thanks for the recommendation of "Aftermath.")
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WraithApe
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Re: Quality of films this year

Post by WraithApe »

Magic Hour wrote:(Thanks for the recommendation of "Aftermath.")
I wouldn't say I recommend it exactly :green: but it achieves what it sets out to do (be grim as ****!) and has some impressively gooey effects, so I give it its dues. TCOAF on the other hand, was basically a bog standard thriller set in a hospital morgue billed as something more transgressive.

I was also there for that screening of It Follows at Shaftesbury Ave - plenty of horror fans were there I think, including some faces I recognized from FF - a palpable sense of anticipation, and then the film really delivered. It would certainly have been one of the highlights had it been at FF that year.
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Re: Quality of films this year

Post by ian »

check Celluloid Screams out: http://celluloidscreams.co.uk/featurefilms-2/

i've been along for the odd day in the past and they do really well not crossing over with the FF films, which Grimmfest doesnt do at all. Last year's line-up had The Invitation, Goodnight Mommy, The Witch, They Look Like People, Deathgasm...
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