If HorrorFest’s virgin voyage is defined as a small handful of triumphant then HorrorFest’s return trip could only be described as a very tiny silver lining on some very dark clouds. Yes, the seas become rockier from here on out, so buckle down on the hatches and open up one of the rum barrels because viewers of these movies are going to need it. Production values sink significantly and story lines become near laughable, but I braved the storm and dealt with this collection as best I could. Needless to say it’s been a long week.

Nightmare Man (2006): I need to get this one done first, because in an hour I have an appointment with a hypnotist who’s going to remove it from my brain. Yeah, it’s that bad. Two seconds into this film, you’ll notice a jarringly abysmal production quality that makes Paranormal Activity look like had the budget of Titanic. What makes matters worse is the storyline that deals with an evil mask that looks like the producers blew $19.99 at Spencer Gifts (probably 1/5 of their budget), and this cheap piece of rubber is haunting a seemingly insane woman on her way to an asylum.

The plot utilizes the typical “oh no the car ran out of gas”, and crazy girl’s husband decides it’s a good idea to leaves his certifiable wife alone in the car. Shortly after darkness falls, something, someone, or a figment of her insane imagination shows up wearing the mask and chases her through the woods to a cabin where two twenty-something couples are playing truth or dare, (very clever), and we learned that the two girls have secret past of sexual experimentation in college, which has nothing to do with the plot, but this film need somethings to make it interesting.

To make a painfully long story short: people start dying, and the plot has some twists that are intended to keep the audience wondering if there’s demon or if the woman’s just insane. The answer is unveiled with the subtlety of Looney Toons, and for no good reason “Bull” from “Night Court” shows up to sort things out. Unnecessary cameos, like Richard Moll, are the going motif this year so stay tuned. Anyway, this one wins the “Most Horrible Award” of the bunch, and keep reading; it had some stiff competition.

Tooth and Nail (2006): This flick starts off with an artsy tone and an over-voice explaining that the apocalypse came because we ran out of gas so everyone started killing each other—okay—and the plot follows a group of survivors that is lead up by a professor type guy conveniently named “Darwin.” I suppose calling him Einstein would have been too much. Regardless, Darwin and “the tough” guy, “Viper,”—played  by Michael Kelly of the Dawn of the Dead remake—are always at odds because Viper wants to secure their defenses and Darwin thinks their energies should be spent elsewhere.

Turns out Viper is right, but he splits after an argument with Darwin, and before this film’s motif cameo shows up in the form of Michael Madsen with his gang of cannibals called the “Rovers.”  At this point, I settled in for some great Madsen antics.  Remember that cop he tortured in Reservoir Dogs? He’s going to be bad-ass leader of this gang and he’s going to mess up some people. Then I blinked he was gone, wasted by a mentally challenged ten-year-old-girl. He must have lost a poker game to get stuck in this film, and was happy for a quick exit.

However, the film drags on without Madsen, through a predictable twist, a few okay kills, but overall it comes down to the typical: last girl is going to paint her face and get all primal and tough and is going to get revenge. And she does—film over.

Tooth and Nail, unlike Nightmare Man, is at least a decent attempt that makes a lick of sense. Its production value is also on the low side, but at least tolerable, and almost fitting for the post-apocalyptic setting. Overall, it’s a film that can’t shake the stench of average.  Should you catch it? Only if it’s your in-flight movie and there are not any pretty clouds outside the plane’s window.

Borderland (2007): This film ups the ante a bit, especially in its cameo department since this time its Sean Astin playing Randal, an American, that helps a Mexican drug lord kidnap and sacrifice people along the Mexican border. Astin plays a convincing role, an extremely loyal servant following blindly on a lofty quest (“You don’t see it, do you? He’s a villain.”). Astin aside, the plot deals with three Americans that go into Mexico to get laid and one of them ends up getting taken by Astin’s “Lord of the Drug Ring,” and the two remaining Americans seek the help of a renegade cop, who lost a partner to the cult, to get him back.

While this title boasts the “Based on a True Story” tag, and I hate to fall for that spell, I still will file this one under “enjoyable.” The images do justice to real brutality and avoid the cartoonish. The plot itself is a much told tale of strangers in a strange land, over their heads, and combating a force they can’t understand, but the raw nature of the delivery is worth a watch.

Lake Dead (2007): I thought I knew what ridiculous was until I saw Lake Dead. Basically, it’s the tale of two bad films. The first half is an off-the-wall soft porn romp in somebody else’s wet dream, which was maybe an attempt to homage the horny-teenage exaggerations of the early 80’s slashers but it’s too over-the-top. Second half rolls over into a typical incest-born super strong killer/Texas Chainsaw clone type mess. Ugh, I can’t bring myself to relive the viewing of the film anymore, but it’s still better than Nightmare Man.

Crazy Eights (2007): Anything with Traci Lords can’t be bad, right? Horrible acting aside, this film follows six people that are following a map to a time capsule at the request of a dead friend. The group starts reliving childhood trauma and bad flashbacks that lead the viewer through this puzzle of the past that’s scattered around the circumstances of a box with a young girl’s bones in it. During all the hoopla of “I know what you did last summer-twenty years ago” the filmmakers make a couple attempts at strong atmosphere, but generally fall short. This one you can watch over the pretty cloud if it’s the in-flight movie, I guess.

Unearth (2007): Look out! Someone has dug up some bad CGI that looks H.R. Giger’s failed early sketches of The Alien and it’s pissed off. It’s hard to find anything constructive about something that reeks of straight to SyFy-monster movie. I understand that there’s an audience of people that love this type of flick, but I find they follow a formula, developed by the original Tremors (1990). Even the variables on this recipe are typical: one character has to have an addiction and another has to be a pseudo-villain, which has some obsession with the monster, that the good capture and refuse to kill him (because this guy never escapes and gets more people killed.) Another character will have a tragedy in their past, and the rest of the energy of the film involves developing some delivery system for the really exotic method to kill the beast.

Like I said, I know people that can’t get enough of this formula. Me, when I’m in the mood for the medium size monster movie, I just re-watch Tremors.

The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007): Someone jumped up in the middle of the night and realized that Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day (1993) just had to be a horror film. They sat down and got writing and this is how we got “Ian Stone.” I think I want to like this one. It’s different and even hard to describe the plot, which deals with this guy that is being pursued by these creatures that kill him every day so he can wake up in another life and do it again.  While I do applaud the originality, since there isn’t much in this festival, the film attempts a loftiness beyond its means and doesn’t really do the sci-fi/horror multi-genre well, but I still slide this one at the top half of this year, and most of the previous year’s for that matter.

Mulberry Street (2006): How can you go wrong with rat zombies? Mulberry Street answers the question: what would happen if you combine Ben (1972) with 28 Days Later? Well, you get a halfway watchable zombie horror piece with some decent cinematography. While Mulberry Street is a bit grainy and some of the rat zombies are pretty hokey looking, I still enjoyed this one. It has a artsy feel like the filmmaker knew what he was doing at least half of the time, which is more than I could say for much of the slop we’ve been talking about. If you like zombie horror, check it out.

If I step outside of myself and examine HorrorFest as an entity where young filmmakers can have a chance to air out their amateur products, then I can recognize it as a positive – everyone needs a chance to start somewhere. As an artist I applaud all attempts at art, but as a critic I recognize that the product which is HorrorFest seems to be on a steady decline. HorrorFest I was mostly tolerable, HorrorFest II was mostly terrible, and HorrorFest III featured Ashton Kutcher’s Butterfly Effect’s (2004) second straight to video sequel, Butterfly Effect III: Revelations (2009) that seems to discount my theory that film festivals should be enjoyed with the knowledge it’s intended to showcase NEW artists attempts at ORIGINAL creations.

For better or awful, HorrorFest will invade theater this Friday, January 29, 2010.  Buyer be warned. Stay tuned for a quick look at HorrorFest III and a preview of HorrorFest IV.