FrightFest scared up a storm in London over the weekend, with the UK’s premier horror movie festival screening five days' worth of freaky film at their new Vue venue in Shepherd’s Bush.
I went along for the ride on behalf of IGN - what follows are the three best flicks I managed to catch, along with a brief mention of a film that I really didn’t like, but you’ll probably want to hear about…
Release Date - US: December 2016, UK: February 2017
This was perhaps the festival’s biggest surprise, largely because the set-up isn’t particularly appealing. Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings) plays Seth, a loner who works at an animal sanctuary and starts obsessing over a girl he went to school with. He tries to flirt, with little success, then goes down the stalker route, with predictably horrible results. Finally, Seth kidnaps his beloved and locks her in a cage. And that’s all I’m going to say about this one, as the twists and turns that follow make the film’s second half as unexpected as its first half is predictable. Monaghan is terrific as the obsessed loser in love, while Ksenia Solo gives as good as she gets as the object of his affections.
Release Date - US: October 2016, UK: TBC
Skipper and Williamson playing the boardgame from hell.
You know the drill – find an obscure VCR board game in your missing father’s back office, decide to play, discover it’s cursed, realise it might hold the key to your father’s whereabouts, carry on playing even though it might kill you. That’s the set-up for Jackson Stewart’s hugely entertaining Beyond the Gates, which makes up for some obvious budgetary constraints with tongue-in-cheek humour, a plot that keeps you guessing, some awesome gore gags, and committed performances from a cast that includes Graham Skipper (The Mind’s Eye), Chase Williamson (John Dies at the End) and - playing the interactive game’s beautiful host - horror legend Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond, You’re Next, and loads more). It’s a blast that will appeal equally to nostalgia junkies who played this kind of terrible game at the time, and those who just want a fun time at the movies.
Release Date - US: Already Released, UK: TBC
Yoo Gong illustrating how they play baseball in Korea.
The festival’s final film was also quite possibly its best. This Korean horror hybrid wowed the crowds in Cannes, and proved to be a similarly effective crowd-pleaser in London. Seok-woo (the excellent Yoo Gong) is taking his daughter on the train from Seoul to Busan when a deadly virus starts turning everyone around them into bloodthirsty monsters. What follows is a nail-biting fight for survival that combines the pulsating action of 28 Days Later with the human drama of The Walking Dead, as our heroes discover that their healthy fellow passengers can be just as dangerous as the infected. Combining multiple genres, director Yeon Sang-Ho manages to keep the tone consistent, while the emotional finale turned me and many of the hardened horror fans around me into blubbering wrecks.
And now for the one I didn’t like…
Release Date: TBC
Looks like she might have a grudge in her ring.
The fact that I was so looking forward to Sadako vs. Kayako made the disappointment all the more tough to take. This mash-up of The Ring and The Grudge finds a pair of Japanese schoolgirls watching the dreaded Ring vid and being cursed by Sadako. At much the same time a young girl wanders into the wrong house and becomes the target of the Grudge’s Toshio and Kayako. So they call ghostbuster Keizo and his young, blind, sharp-tongued sidekick Tamao for help, who in turn come up with a plan that revolves around an almighty battle royale between these two icons of Japanese cinema. Only trouble is, SvK takes an age to get to the deathmatch, and when it does arrive, the fight is something of an anti-climax. Worse still, this combination of two of the most frightening films of all-time isn’t even slightly scary, too often playing like an unfunny spoof. All-in-all, a missed opportunity (though we wouldn't be adverse to a Keizo/Tamao spin-off as they are the one bright spot).
Other films worth a mention include My Father Die, the heartbreaking Southern Gothic horror that opened the festival, and The Chamber, a claustrophobic underwater thriller about a special ops unit trapped on a tiny submarine. We Are the Flesh, The Love Witch, Through the Shadows and Found Footage 3D all received rave reviews, though I didn't manage to catch them due to scheduling conflicts/sleep/the bar. And I previously wrote about FrightFest flicks Red Christmas and Man Underground in my Fantasia overview, while The Devil’s Candy got lots of love in my Fantastic Fest write-up.
Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN in the UK and urges anyone with an interest in the genre to head to FrightFest next year as it really is a blast. He also wants to thank organisers Alan, Paul, Ian and Greg for overseeing the greatest horror show on earth. He'll now stop talking in the third person, though if you want to batter him about any of the above, Chris can be found on Twitter.
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