Horror Fest 2007: Night One

Friday Night, Block of Orange

Hey everyone. I know that this has nothing to do with porn, but I’m going to write it up. If you like it, great. If not, I’m sorry. At least I warned you. It’s just a quick overview. I will try to write more detailed reviews of the films and the festival later.

So the Horror Fest 07 has finally arrived. We had our all access badges and were ready to take in the first three films on Friday night. We were running late of course and hit 5:30 Friday night traffic, turning the five mile trip into a half hour of sheer hell. When we arrived at the AMC 30 in the Block of Orange it was 2 minutes to six. Perfect timing. They sent us back to theater 29 where the movies would be shown. There weren’t doing anything special for the festival and that surprised me. No one to pass out viewer comment cards or anything. I was also quite surprised to see that the theater was nearly empty. When the first film started there were perhaps twenty people with us and I would estimate that the attendance topped out at thirty or so during the evening.

Film #1: Unearthed: We led off with a pretty simple monster movie. Something gets unearthed in the desert on the reservation. It quickly targets the small town while the young female sheriff (Who is also the town drunk) and a handful of passers-by do their best to stay alive. There were some good scary moments during this film and at times it compares favorably to “Alien.” It isn’t especially gory and works best when the unseen creature nabs hapless victims like a lion tracking down weak gazelles. Once we finally the monster, things come unraveled a bit. It just isn’t a very scary creature and the CGI stuff is pretty bad. This one is good for some scares and on the small screen, the special effects might not be such a glaring weakness.

Film #2: The Deaths of Ian Stone: Poor Ian just can’t seem to make it through a day without dying. The Déjà vu thing isn’t entirely new and I found myself thinking that I may be the only person in the world who didn’t hate “The Butterfly Effect.” This is a tightly written script with just enough paranoia to keep us guessing for a little while. Eventually we discover that it is more than just tricks of the mind that keep these misty-blade obsessed creatures from 86ing Ian once a day, every day. The concept here is very good though the movie slows down during the final third and the resolution isn’t exactly satisfying. Great idea, better special effects and a few gotcha moments made this one worth checking out.

Film #3: Borderland: At seven minutes in, I was ready to walk out on this one. It starts off like your basic torture-porn flick and I turned to Mrs. Rog and whispered. “If this becomes Hostel 3, let’s just go home. Not that I mind a good T-P flick, but I just wasn’t in the mood to watch eyes get carved out for two hours. What follows is a very enjoyable action/horror movie that avoids falling clumsily into the genre. It’s violent to be sure, gory enough to make Saw fans squirm and intense enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seats for two hours. Borderland is gritty, taut and at times, gross. It was less of a horror film and more of a bloody thriller, but it will make you think twice about heading to Mexico for a drunken weekend. There are times when it falls into action movie traps and has some huge logic gaps, but overall this was the best film of the night. As an added bonus we get to see Sean Astin as a crazed rapist/killer.

Rankings so far: 3. Unearthed 2. Deaths of Ian Stone 1. Borderland

I was disappointed that there wasn’t more going on. I realize that with 200 plus theaters, we don’t all get to see someone from each movie at our showing. Some reaction cards might have been nice, or maybe something about the movies. I don’t know. It just didn’t feel like much of anything other than a triple feature. Maybe my expectations were too high. Tonight I will arrive a little earlier and know exactly what I’m in for.