I wonder how many people attended the opening weekend of Horrorfest in Madison. See, I experienced After Dark's Borderland was, hands down, the best of the bunch this weekend -- an exceptionally well-written crime thriller combining the looming threat of torture in Hostel with the ferocious visceral kick of Straw Dogs. Writer/director Zev Berman based his film around the 1989 disappearance of a 21-year-old American tourist in Mexico. Unlike other horror films that spuriously claim to be "based on true events," while spinning yarns that are about as believable as Santa Claus, Berman tells his tale in a very matter-of-fact manner, creating a world that is realistically nightmarish. In addition, viewers get to see Sean Astin (the once affable hobbit) cast against type as a murderous, mean-spirited brute.
Even though writer/director Jim Mickle's Mulberry Street suffers from a been-there-done-that redundancy, it remains an extremely well made survival-horror flick with fantastic acting, a wonderful ensemble cast and accomplished hand-held camera-work. It combines the immediacy of 28 Days Later with the lurking inevitability of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, though, to be fair, its monsters are rat people rather than zombies. Still, let it be said that these rat people certainly behave a lot like zombies. In fact, they behave exactly like zombies, charging after their victims with the single-minded purpose of rendering their flesh and chewing on their brains.
Directed by Dario Piana and written by Brendan Hood, The Deaths of Ian Stone definitely gets points for trying, has good performances by both Jude Law look-alike Mike Vogel and Jaime Murray, and is the last of my recommendations. Though relatively successful as a science fiction thriller/mystery, the film is short on scares of any kind and relies too heavily on computer-generated special effects in its final third.
Despite its wonderful premise, Tooth and Nail is a stilted, drab and (dare I say?) boring affair for most of its running time. In a post-apocalyptic world, a ragtag group of survivors (including Rachel Minor, Rider Strong and Nicole DuPort) are forced to defend themselves against feral, Viking-like cannibals called Rovers (including Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones). As written and directed by Mark Young, the potentially action-oriented mayhem is neither tense nor horrific, a high concept script hampered by too low a budget. At least a third act plot twist jump starts the film into life, so it finishes on a high note. In case you go, here's a question to ask yourself while watching: Why is it that every time one of the heroes kills a Rover, they never, ever pick up the bad guy's weapon? Is it because they couldn't complain later on about not having any?
Nightmare Man, the latest from writer/director Rolfe Kanesky, is a silly, altogether ridiculous film that is at least never dull and does possess a fairly engaging performance from Tiffany Shepis, who acquits herself of the material nicely. The script's interesting ideas are never properly fleshed out, and, like Jaresky's previous film -- The Hazing -- borrows way too heavily from the Evil Dead films. A preposterous third act plot twist, combined with an altogether illogical script, makes this one a guilty pleasure at best. Here's some food for thought -- how in the hell does the entity within the mask possess anybody, if we never witness anybody putting the mask on to begin with?
The not-so-thrilling psychological thriller Crazy Eights is a tedious exercise in mediocrity, a relatively incoherent ghost story that leaves far too many loose ends untied and should have been released as a Sci-Fi Original.
Matthew Leutwyler's terribly boring creature-feature Unearthed was one of the worst films of the festival, an unoriginal, plodding mash-up of Feast, Tremors, Alien and numerous other films that are more worth your time. This is the film that replaced Frontiers?
For those of you who don't know, the highly anticipated extreme French horror/thriller Lake Dead (directed by George Bessudo and written by Daniel P. Coughlin), the absolute worst film of the festival. It boggles my mind that someone sat down, wrote this script, thought highly enough about this script that they actually pitched it to somebody and that somebody actually fronted the money to make it. Patton Oswalt should amend his act to rant against this movie instead of Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People, because I guarantee Lake Dead is far worse.
After Dark Horrorfest will be playing at Marcus Eastgate Cinemas from Friday, Nov. 16 through Sunday, Nov. 18. A schedule of the show times of screenings follows:
Friday, Nov. 16
Lake Dead: 10 a.m.
Mulberry Street: noon
Tooth and Nail: 2 p.m.
Nightmare Man: 4 p.m.
Unearthed: 6 p.m.
The Deaths of Ian Stone: 8 p.m.
Borderland: 10 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 17
Crazy Eights: 10 a.m.
Unearthed: noon
The Deaths of Ian Stone: 2 p.m.
Borderland: 4 p.m.
Lake Dead: 6 p.m.
Mulberry Street: 8 p.m.
Tooth and Nail: 10 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 18
Tooth and Nail: 10 a.m.
The Deaths of Ian Stone: noon
Borderland: 2 p.m.
Lake Dead: 4 p.m.
Mulberry Street: 6 p.m.
Crazy Eights: 8 p.m.
Nightmare Man: 10 p.m.
Monday, November 19
Unearthed: noon
Nightmare Man: 2 p.m.
Crazy Eights: 4 p.m.
The Deaths of Ian Stone: 6 p.m.
Borderland: 8 p.m.
Mulberry Street: 10 p.m.
Tuesday, November 20
Unearthed: noon
Nightmare Man: 2 p.m.
Crazy Eights: 4 p.m.
The Deaths of Ian Stone: 6 p.m.
Borderland: 8 p.m.
Mulberry Street: 10 p.m.
