Festival Report - Horrorthon 2000

It kicked off on Friday 27th with "Underworld", a short thriller by Irishman Ronan Gallagher. Next up was the first Irish screening of David Twohy's "Pitch Black" (see next month's reviews section).

Saturday afternoon got underway with Lucio Fulci's "City of the Living Dead", probably the weakest of his Zombie cycle, but enjoyable nonetheless with some great cheesy dialogue and a stunning death by drill sequence. After the movie I received a copy of the lame "Halloween : H20" for being the only person in the audience who could name the director of "Halloween 3" (Tommy Lee Wallace). John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness" never got a cinema release in Ireland and so received it's first 35mm showing here. I still think John's last great movie was "They Live" but it was nice to see his widescreen compositions as they were meant to be seen. The low-budget British vampire flick "Razorblade Smile" was scheduled for 5.30 but was pulled from the festival and replaced by "The Dead Hate the Living" a jokey zombie effort from Full Moon Entertainment. Ten minutes was all I could take of this so I took the opportunity to grab some junk food and beer. The faces on the hordes swarming out when I returned told me I hadn't missed much. Next was "Lighthouse", a bland slasher movie from Britain, which showed some promise for it's young director Simon Hunter. There is one great Hitchcockian moment involving a can of fresh air spray. Hunter was in attendance at the festival and held a Q & A session afterwards. He had some amusing anecdotes about the film-making process to tell. The director is off to Hollywood next to make "The Mutant Chronicles" and it should be interesting to see him work with a top class crew. Dario Argento's "Phantom of the Opera" never even got a video release in Ireland. After seeing it, I realise why. It's easily his worst movie, more a romance than a horror film, filled with some of the worst dialogue you're likely to hear and some truly awful 'comic' moments. Asia looks stunning as usual however. Now if we can just get a look at "The Stendhal Syndrome" next year? Comic horror seemed to be a major element this year and Saturday night's final film "The Convent" was no different, a dire "Night of the Demons" rip off. I drifted home praying that Sunday could save the event.

Sunday started off well with David Gregory's brilliant documentary "The Shocking Truth". This tells the story of the making of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and it's sequels. Gregory managed to get interviews with almost everyone involved and is certainly one of the better documentaries on the film-making process. Of the new films being shown, this was by far the best. Jim Van Bebber's "Roadkill" follwed. A nasty piece of shit, one of the worst shorts I've seen. Of the "Phantasm" series, I've only ever seen the first installment and I enjoyed it a lot. That was shown at last year's event and this year the first of it's sequels received a showing. It was enjoyable enough but after forty minutes my stomach was moaning so I nipped out for food. The general consensus when I returned is that it was good fun so maybe I'll rent the vid some wet Wednesday evening. "An American Werewolf in London" is one of my all-time favourite horror movies and seeing it on the big screen (albeit a projected DVD) was easily the highlight of the fest. This made the weekend ticket worth the purchase. It was the turn of the festival's surprise film next. In recent years this slot has been taken by "Phantasm 4" and "Idle Hands", so nobody was getting too excited. This year however they managed to pull of a bit of a coup with the first Irish screening of "The Cell" (see next month's reviews section). Wes Craven's notorious "Last House on the Left" was next. I'd already seen it on video, and while it's worth seeing, like "I Spit on your Grave", it only needs one viewing. The lack of an adequate late night bus service in Ireland's capital meant I had to miss the closing film "Zombie Holocaust". All in all the fest was a disappointment, but maybe I had been spoiled by last year's excellent line-up. Of course, I'll be back there next year nonetheless.