After Dark HorrorFest III: Anyone going?

[Darkwolf71]

I've been looking forward to this for over a year now, since they pushed it back from Oct 2008 to Jan 2009. I was generally pleased with the films last year, only one or two that were meh, and not really any that I thought were terrible.

This year:

The Brøken
A young woman is surprised to see what looks like herself, drive by one day. She follows the woman, which sets off a chain of events which leads her into a haunting, nightmare reality.

Faithless (aka Slaughter)
A young woman returns to her family farm in the hope of escaping an abusive situation. Unfortunately, this safe place ends up being much more abusive than her previous one.

Perkins' 14
Robert Perkins brainwashes 14 people, in order to create an army that will defend him from his parents' killers.

Butterfly Effect: Revelation,
A young man with the power of time-travel attempts to solve the mystery of his girlfriend's death. In doing this, however, he frees a vindictive serial killer.

From Within
The residents of a small town in the USA begin to die off, supposedly of suicides.See official website and myspace page.

Autopsy
A young woman attempts to find her injured boyfriend in a bizarre hospital.

Dying Breed
Zoology student Nina and her friends go into the Tasmanian Forest in search of the Tasmanian Tiger. What they discover, however, is a cannibalistic clan who are the descendants of a famous escaped serial killer known as The Pieman.

Voices
Overnight, brutal murders become everyday occurrences as friends turn on friends, brothers turn on sisters, and husbands turn on wives. Originally released in Korea as Someone Behind You.

Also the unrelated horror film The Unborn is opening this weekend as well, so there is an unofficial 9th film.

My horror movie buddy and I will be seeing all nine films this weekend. Three on Friday, two Saturday four Sunday.

They all look pretty good, my only real concern being with The Butterfly Effect, because the second one was so bad.

 

[frankthedm]

Given the distance, my work schedule and the pricey locations I'll probably pass on most. I'm curious about From Within and would be willing to see Br0ken if my schedule permitted. I am hoping next year has fewer killers / cannibals and more creatures.

This year:

Netflix the lot of them when they hit DVD and buy the (1d4-1) I find entertaining enough to own with the cash it would have taken for gas, tolls, meals, snanks, parking and tickets.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Given the distance, my work schedule and the pricey locations I'll probably pass on most. I'm curious about From Within and would be willing to see Br0ken if my schedule permitted. I am hoping next year has fewer killers / cannibals and more creatures.

I was lucky enough to get an AMC giftcard for Christmas, so I'll be paying approx half the total cost of the movies.

Netflix the lot of them when they hit DVD and buy the (1d4-1) I find entertaining enough to own with the cash it would have taken for gas, tolls, meals, snanks, parking and tickets.

Certainly an option. One I considered when they dropped the all-access passes for this year. But since I don't actually go to the theater often, I'm using it as an excuse.

I'm not a very good reviewer, but I'll try to post my thoughts on the movies when I get home each night.

 

[frankthedm]

well Unborn is well written and the execution is entertaining too. Some might say the 'root cause' of the issue is "kinda out there" or "unrelated", but IMHO it kept the movie from feeling too mundane. The characters felt genre savvy, but not so much as to damage the 4th wall. Sadly one character did go into a "Don't go out there you ing idiot" situation, but overall most the characters were competent. Example when the good guys were heading for the 'showdown" they had the sense to bring

Spoiler

ten people with besides the protagonist, including an EMT.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Cool, I'll be watching The Unborn tomorrow afternoo. I'm looking forward to it.

As for the official 8 Films To Die For,

From Within, was first up and let me just get this out of the way... I hate it when movies have to portray Christians as ignorant, intolerant, hateful and even worse. This film managed to slip in most every church bad image out there including

Spoiler

homosexual clergy

. They also managed to mash Baptists, Charismatics and Catholics all into one strange beast of a church. However... All that being said this was one fine movie. Good acting, decent plot. It had a very 'Asian Horror' film feel to it. Which is a good thing, IMO. No happy ending for this movie, but it is GREAT.

Then we saw The Butterfly Effect: Revelation After seeing the second film of the series I really didn't expect much from number 3. Wow! I was amazed.The story was easily as gripping as the original. Sam, the protagonist is using his powers to help the police solve crimes. He has a very strict rule of non-interference when he jumps. Observe only, and never mess with his own life. Yeah, well that won't do for a 'horror' flick and he soon ends up breaking his own rules and things go south PDQ. I did see the 'twist' coming about 30 minutes early, but they did take it a bit farther than I anticipated. Final scene? Well, it's actually a (mostly) happy ending, with just one disturbing image. Another good movie.

And last for the night was Dying Breed. This one may well receive the WTF award for the weekend. Part Deliverance, part Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was really good overall, but there just seems to be a lot of unanswered questions. Not sure how to discuss without giving things away, so I'll just recommend this one for rental. It's definitely worth seeing, but unless you're out for the whole 'event' like I am, there are better films to see in the theater.


A good night. Lots of laughter and looks of shock myself and the two friends I was with. Looking forward to tomorrow.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Watched The Unborn and Slaughter.

The Unborn was every but as good as you said. My only problem was that I didn't find it particularly frightening. Yeah it was kind of supernatural spooky, but I just didn't 'feel' it. I enjoyed the movie immensely, but... I don't know that I can quantify what was missing (for me). I won't try to expand on what frankthedm said, he covered it very well. It's a good movie, but for some reason, I'm just, kinda 'meh' about it.



Slaughter... wow. Forget whatever I said about the WTF award Friday. This film holds it securely in it's grasp. Absolutly full of those 'Oh my God, what are you doing???' moments that were absent it Unborn.

Spoiler

When you have the killer on their back and YOU have the shotgun and the cops are on the way, the proper response is NOT to attempt to help the killer escape.

The worst part is, the build up was done fairly well. Not great, but not horrible either. Then at about an hour into the thing, it seems like the writers maybe had too long of a movie and they had to rush the end and just turned the characters into idiots to get it over with. bad movie. Baaaaaad.

 

[shilsen]

I'm a little surprised about the comments on The Unborn, until I reminded myself that tastes differ incredibly widely. I saw The Unborn yesterday and my girlfriend (damn her for making me go!) and I both thought that it was as entertaining as watching paint dry and approximately as scary. The only amusement I got out of it was recognizing standard horror movie tropes and easily predicting what would come next.

 

[Felon]

What, nobody taking the time to malign Courtney Solomon here?

 

[Darkwolf71]

The Brøken This was interesting. Kinda like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but with a very interesting twist. The story does move kinda slow. 60 minutes of story crammed into a 90 minute movie. I think I actually dozed off a couple of times, briefly… but it was still good. (and after seeing Lena Headey topless, I will never see The Sarah Conner Chronicles the same again.)

Autopsy Man, classic ‘freaky hospital’ type of story If you’ve seen Room 6 then little here will surprise you. Yet, again it’s a good fun movie. A lot of bloody ‘gross out’ scenes.

Voices The Korean film, everything you want in a Asian Horror flick. But it is confusing. You never really find out why what happens, happens. It just does and you nod and roll with it because, hey. It’s got cute Asian girls in school uniforms.

Perkins' 14 The ‘zombie-like’ movie. They aren’t Romero zombies and they aren’t 28 days later zombies. They are pissed off, mean and most importantly they will eat anyone who gets in the way. Good story, wonky camera angles and such.

 

[Darkwolf71]

I'm a little surprised about the comments on The Unborn, until I reminded myself that tastes differ incredibly widely. I saw The Unborn yesterday and my girlfriend (damn her for making me go!) and I both thought that it was as entertaining as watching paint dry and approximately as scary. The only amusement I got out of it was recognizing standard horror movie tropes and easily predicting what would come next.

Oh, I didn't think it was a great movie, but I enjoyed it. As you said tastes vary, I am a fan of horror in general. Foriegn, B-rate, low budget, campy, actually frightening. I watch them all and like them for different reasons. No, The Unborn was not scary at all. I thought it was interesting because it doesn't follow your typical horror genre sterotypes.

If I was to recommend one film out of this bunch it would be From Within. I really liked that film, in spite of the issues I had with it.