Saturday 1 November 2014

Feature - Celluloid Screams 2014


Despite not feeling great, I managed to drag myself along to Celluloid Screams this year, although I did have to miss a fair few films including the allnighter (Bride of Re-animator, Maximum Overdrive, Night of the Creeps and Killer Klowns from Outer Space). The only film that I missed that I wouldn't have minded seeing was Night of the Creeps but I'll get that on DVD soon. I missed two of the new films ABCs of Death 2 (I haven't bothered to see the first, it really doesn't interest me) and What We Do In The Shadows which went on to be voted as the best film of the festival. I'd watched the trailer which was supposed to be funny and didn't raise the merest glimmer of a smile. I didn't look like my sense of humour so I didn't bother.

Here's a quick run down of what I did watch:


The Editor - Tribute/parody of giallo films that despite my love of the genre didn't raise a smile and bored me silly.

Rating - 2/10


Housebound - Horror comedy from New Zealand that had an unlikeable first half but picked up in the latter stages to attain the lofty heights of averageness.

Rating - 5/10


Creep - Disturbing and, well... creepy, this had some effective scenes and a quality wolf mask named Peachfuzz but was a tad reliant on cheap scares.

Rating - 5/10


Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla - Repetitive and dull for the most part, this could have been a lot better if there had been more killings in the second half once the main character of the ice-cream man was established.

Rating - 2/10


Starry Eyes - Rather than watching this low contrast dirge fest watch Black Swan or Mulholland Drive instead.

Rating - 1/10


Spring - Initially engaging love story that plummets down the ratings due to the second half dragging on for what seemed like years.

Rating - 3/10


Society - It's a fair while since I've seen this but it holds up pretty well; the shunting is still fairly disgusting.

Rating - 6/10


Suburban Gothic - From the director of Excision, this horror-lite film is more of a quirky comedy love story type thing but it does manage to have one really funny line from Ray Wise.

Rating - 5/10


Dagon - Despite some early ropey CGI work this manages to be atmospheric and brutal especially in the face removal scene.

Rating - 7/10


Asmodexia - Really low quality exorcism film that was a real disappointment as the secret film.

Rating - 1/10


Dead Snow 2 - I wasn't that enamoured with the first and this hasn't done much to change my opinion but maybe with a bigger budget (for more zombies) it could have tipped into above average.

Rating - 5/10

The highlights were easily Society and Dagon and it was great to listen to Brian Yuzna talking about his career. But as you can see from my ratings I wasn't that keen on the new films shown this year. I thought that last year was weak with only a couple of good films but this has easily been the worst. I can't blame the organisers because they can't magic up great new films. I've been thinking for a while that the horror genre is dying a death and this has cemented that opinion. Will I go next year? The jury's out...

evlkeith

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