LoveHorror at FrightFest 2011 – Day 3

Film4 Frightfest 2011

Troll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was the way that Saturday 27th started for me in the darkened Screen 1 of the Empire Leicester Square as the superb Scandinavian monster movie TrollHunter opened day 3 of FrightFest with a ground shaking, bone breaking, laugh making, found footage film as original as it was entertaining and one of my favourite films of FrightFest so far.

FrightFest 2011While The Dead played next door in the Discovery Screen with live commentary from the Ford brothers we had already been treated to an exclusive trailer of The Drought introduced by director Lawrence Gough as well as a look at Hammer’s new Woman in Black trailer, with a start like that what a great and gruesome day it was shaping up to be.

The Wicker Tree was next up introduced by the director Robin Hardy the man who made the classic chilling The Wicker Man. Hardy while presenting the audience to the movies main stars, Brittania Nicol, Henry Garrett, Honeysuckle Weeks and Jacqueline Leonard, explained his new movie was not a sequel as such but explored the same themes and employed the same style as his previous pagan picture.

He also admitted he was spurned on by the terrible Hollywood Wicker Man remake and that his new film was part two of a trilogy with a third film on the way called the Wrath of the Gods.

The Wicker Tree was more of a bawdy romp than an all out horror full of sexy sirens seducing the innocent Texan Christian couple who journey to Scotland to save the heathens of the village. The Jesus lovers find out much too late that these country folk worship a very different set of gods than them and the inevitable ending comes all to son for them.

 

FrightFest 2011
Fans queue to meet Wicker Man director Robin Hardy

As one of Love Horror’s other reviewers checked out Atrocious in the Discovery Screen I was back awaiting the British made Panic Button an innovative and original horror receiving its world premiere at FrightFest 2011.

Personally picked by festival organiser Alan Jones it is a very modern tale of four random people who win a competition on a social network site All2gethr.com to fly on a private jet to New York. Once aboard they are told that there is another game for them to play on the screens in their cabin, a game that will reveal them as they truly are.

Starting out with some uncomfortably personal questions with information on them all gathered online it is soon apparent that whoever is controlling the game knows a lot more about the foursome than anyone should. Trapped at 30,000 feet the stakes are about to rise and they are faced with the terrifying game which they must play to save themselves and their friends from the wrath of the invisible killer controlling their fate.

FrightFest 2011
Cast and crew of Panic Button

James Moran’s hilarious and inspired take on Halloween was shown next as part of the exclusive FrightFest John Carpenter tribute films taking the form of H33 where Michael Myers having moved to England and gotten a lot older is just as violent now he’s a psychopathic pensioner because he hates teenagers even more.

Before the second 3D film of FrightFest began we where treated to several exclusive clips and trailers as Martin Kemp and Ryan Andrews took to the stage and after apologising for Dead Cert last year showed us a specially made trailer of Ray and Jaime Winstone staring Elfie Hopkins, a killer clip from Kemp’s Stalker and a titillating trailer from Strippers Vs Werewolves all of which looked great.

FrightFest 2011
Ryan Andrews and Martin Kemp

FrightFest favourite Joe Lynch took to the stage next previewing Knights of Badassdom a movie so baddass we got to see not only the trailer but a full clip too both showing that this is a LARPing laugh riot full of gore and more which hopefully will play at next years FrightFest.

Fright Night

The 3D remake of Fright Night may have been made by Disney but it definitely delivered on the frights and the thrills. Packed full of action and staring a great cast including Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Toni Collette and David Tennant in a brilliant role as a rock and roll magician the tale of what happens when a vampire moves in next door was massive fun even if the 3D was a little pointless.

Bringing about a very different tone to the proceedings Lucky McKee introduce The Woman next a film many FrightFesters had been eagerly anticipating. Dark and disturbing, emotional and compelling it was often times hard to watch but well worth experiencing for the impact it provides and the images it leaves behind.

As another one of our reviewers popped over to the Discovery Screen to finish the night with A Horrible Way to Die I ended the evening on a high as Joe Lynch was back for the late night screening of Chilleramma which he previewed at last years festival. The horror anthology takes the audience through a quartet of horror with WadZila, The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, Zom-B-Movie and I was a Teenage Werebear directed by Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan, Adam Green and Joe Lynch himself.

Day 3 was done and the weekend was well underway and with the bank holiday in full affect Sunday was gearing up to give me even more thrills, chills and frights the way only FrightFest can.

LoveHorror at FrightFest Day 4 Here

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Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

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