Horror Fest 2007 Sunday Night
Final Two Movies
Sunday night rolled around and it was time for the final two films of Horror Fest 2007. I was hoping that they had saved the best two movies for last, but knew little about the duo on tap. As before, the theater was not at all crowded and I recognized pretty much everyone in the place. We took our usual seats two-thirds of the way up and right on the aisle. By this time we knew the pre-movies trailers and junk by heart. I really wish they had just thrown together trailers. Anything would have been nice.
Film #7: Nightmare Man: This movie got off to a really slow start. The acting during the opening scene is so laughably bad that it kills the obvious gotcha moments. Unlike a few of the other movies in the fest, Nightmare Man actually recovers from a couple of bad performances from the leads. There are some great twists in this movie as it goes from paranoid boogie man movie to thriller to Evil Dead demon flick all in less than an hour. It is hard to tell if the director is going for laughs or scares during this movie, but there are plenty of both. I honestly think that the audience jumped more during this movie than in the other seven films combined. It also has another fantastic thirty second cameo. This time from Richard Moll of Night Court fame. I’m not sure, but his part might have taken less time to shoot than Michael Madsen’s in Tooth & Nail. I think that this movie had great potential and with a better cast it would have been really, really good. It was scary, it was funny and it was a lot more entertaining than I expected it to be.
Film #8 Crazy Eights: This movie has the most star power of the 8 choices. Included in the cast is the one and only Ms. Traci Lords. It’s been twenty years since Traci turned her little underage porn stint into a movie career. Though her infamy has faded, Traci hasn’t really added much to her repertoire. She is a pretty horrible actress and hasn’t aged all that well either. It’s hard to believe that she’s still on the low side of forty. The movie itself is interesting, but painfully vague. I like movies that make me think, but when I leave a horror film and have to think this hard, it’s never a good sign. There isn’t a lights-on moment like at the end of Jacob’s Ladder where it all makes sense. Instead you can go about six different ways with the movie and none of them are very satisfying. I came home and read some other reviews and came up with another half dozen possible meanings and that just makes it more frustrating. There are some scary moments, some creepy moments and times when I felt that this movie was going to be the best of Horror Fest 07. Instead it just ends up feeling incomplete. I don’t know if the script needed more back story, a better ending or something else, but it was definitely missing something.
Final rankings: 8. Lake Dead 7. Unearthed 6. Mulberry Street 5. Nightmare Man 4. Crazy Eights 3. The Deaths of Ian Stone 2. Tooth & Nail 1. Borderland.
I’ve read a lot of complaints over on the board on HorrorFestOnline.com. Some of them are valid and some just sound like bitching. There were things I would like to see changed for next year. Rather than focus on that though, let’s just say that I had a great time I really did. Even if the movies were disappointing, the overall experience was great. Mrs. Rog and I got out of the house for eight movies. It wasn’t to crowded and the price wasn’t horrible. ($75 each for the whole thing.) If there is a Horror Fest 08, we will be back. Hell, I might even try to get some industry friends to come along and make a weekend of it. Hey maybe Shane’s World can bring some hotties for a Horror Fest weekend fuck fest. Hey, I can dream can’t I?
