Fright Nights: Horrorant Film Festival, 2014 – Part 1: Thursday 13th & Friday 14th of March

I’m a film festival junkie. In the last 15 years I attended midnight screenings, small festivals, movie events and international film festivals in cities such as Athens, Thessaloniki, Berlin, Edinburgh, Cannes and London. When I found out about Horrorant Film Festival I almost had a heart attack.

I was surfing the internet when I came across Horrorant, and read that in its 1^st year it will hold screenings both in Athens (13^th to 19^th of March) and Thessaloniki (20^th to 26^th of March). This is a pretty ambitious task for a Horror International Film Festival on its first year. This is the real deal.

Horrorant is very ambitious and is taking place in high-quality cinemas and will screen the films with great image and sound. Each feature will be accompanied by a short. We are talking about 19 features and 18 shorts. All of the films are Greek premieres and four of them are European premieres as well. Horrorant is the only European Film Festival happening in two major cities.

Movie Review: Skew (2011)

When it comes to independent filmmaking, you really have to get creative. I suppose that's obvious, considering the fact that this is a creative medium, but I mean in how you put the movie together. One popular trick is to make the cameraman a character in the movie. This started with The Blair Witch Project, hit a bigger scale with Cloverfield, and was tweaked a little in Paranormal Activity. It's a nice cover for bad video quality and gives some leeway on sound and camera work. What it doesn't make up for is story. If the story is good, sometimes the rest doesn't matter. Skew takes the concept and still maintains film and sound quality and uses solid storytelling.

It starts out with three friends on their way to a wedding. There are Rich and Eva (a couple), and then there is Simon, who annoys the other two with his endless filming. Simon's girlfriend is supposed to go, but she bails. Things get weird for him when a motel clerk's face shows up blurry through the camera, and he is later killed.

Movie Review: House of Flesh Mannequins (2009)

Directed by Domiziano Cristopharo

Starring Domiziano Cristopharo, Irena Hoffman and Giovanni Lombardo Radice

It really is hard for me to sum up a movie that tries to be 5 different styles of film at the same time. It wants desperately to be an art-house movie, filled with bizarre images and undecipherable symbolism. It all too often wants to be a porn movie, indulging in acts of masturbation, penetration, oral sex and tons of nudity, (think naked masturbating clowns ejaculating on themselves and sex scenes involving blow-up dolls). There are times it wants to be a love story, a horror movie and ultimately a snuff film.

Buy House of Flesh Mannequins at Amazon.com

Now, you would think with all that juicy subject matter this flick would be over-the-top awesome, right? Well, the answer is yes(at times).....and no (most of the time). I walked away with a feeling that the makers of this film probably started out with a list of shocking images they wanted to convey and then as an afterthought tried to create some sort of story-line in an attempt to tie it all together.

Vicious Circle Aims to ‘Wound’ Audiences wi th a Gore-Filled Supernatural Tale of Revenge

February 1, 2012 - Philadelphia, PA — Breaking Glass Pictures has announced the March 6 DVD release of the carnage-packed horror film Wound (SRP 24.99). Director David Blyth takes audiences down a twisted rabbit hole where unimaginable horrors become reality.  Wound hits hard and shows that the only way to survive is to Beware the Beast!


Legendary director Ken Russell (Oscar-winning Women in Love, The Devils, The Who’s Tommy, Altered States) hailed Wound as a “romantically charged Gothic psycho-sexual horror tale.”  He championed the film as a “masterpiece,” pointing out the “gorgeous images and repulsive dream-surgery into the recesses of female consciousness.”

Movie Review: Bite Marks (2011)

I've said it many times, but I've had my fill of vampire movies.Hell, I've had my fill of vampire TV, costumes and thoughts. I can't even eat Count Chocula anymore. When Bite Marks ended up at my house, I wasn't too excited about it. First strike was the vampire thing, of course. The second strike was that it was presented as a gay vampire movie with the tagline "Wrong On So Many Levels." It had nothing to do with homophobia. I don't possess that trait. The problem was that I expected horrible over-the-top stereotypes. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, this movie is marketed completely wrong.

Buy Bite Marks on DVD

Movie Review: Mad World (2011)

Imagine a movie that is part American Pie and part Kids. I'm pretty sure that's what Mad World was going for, but it wasn't even close. I wasn't sure what it was actually supposed to be, but it turns out that I just watched the world's worst After School Special.

Buy Mad World on DVD

I get teen angst. Oh, do I get that. I went through plenty of it, and I even guided my youngest sister through some of hers. When I watched this movie, it seemed like the writer tried to come up with every possible horrific scenario that a teen could deal with. Once he crammed all of that in, he added some extreme absurdity. We get jocks bullying losers, racism, abusive teachers, sexual indiscretions, verbally and physically abusive parents and yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. The kids yell. The parents yell. The teachers yell. I could have had my TV muted and I still would have heard the horribly written dialogue.

First Annual Horrible Imaginings Film Festival

On Saturday, November 6th, I was fortunate enough to attend the First Annual Horrible Imaginings Film Festival. It is, I believe, the first horror film festival in the city of San Diego; and here's hoping it happens every year.

Visit The Horrible Imaginings Website today!

Miguel Rodriguez is a newcomer to the city, but he's managed to do in two months what others have tried for years and failed to accomplish, and for that, the fans thank him. And there were plenty of fans there to enjoy the varied selection of micro- and moderate-budget shorts and features; some older films and some newer ones. The 10th Avenue Theater & Arts Center building downtown was the perfect venue. The lobby was decorated with various horror props, including many creepy undead babies, and behind a table covered with T-shirts and other merchandise sat {artist name here] who does some amazing graphic novels dealing with the Cthulu mythos. Upstairs was an art space with some wonderfully dark art and a very cool room of neon 3D art. On the roof they served hot dogs and nachos, sodas and beer, and mixed drinks on a constant basis until the after party closed at 2AM. For a first outing, Miguel really hit all the high points. About the only thing missing was a large dealer's room, but there wasn't really enough time to peruse one anyway.