No Room In Hell

With the fourth installment of After Dark HorrorFest: Eight Films to Die For—or at very least films you want to die while watching—on the way, I thought I’d take this week to examine what has been and maybe gain some insight of what a potential HorrorFest viewer is getting himself into. Let’s roll with the highlights and disappointed groans of the first year.

Since I already touched on Wicked Little Things I will forgo diving back into that train wreck and start with a superior film, The Abandoned (2006). This strange little piece about a woman’s bizarre homecoming was one of the more surprising films in the series. Its quirky tone and Twilight Zone-esk format made it stand out amongst the crap pile. The plot deals with a woman who returns to her home country to the family house she never knew and while there she meets her estranged brother, but before the siblings can enjoy their reunion two zombie  doppelgangers stumble onto  the scene. Confronted with undead mirror images, the brother and sister team are forced to investigate a mystery that exposes a tragic past and leads to a thought provoking conclusion. This one IS worth a watch.

Next up we have Unrest (2006), a story about a Med-student whose cadaver’s angry spirit starts some havoc. While this piece had some good cringe moments–anyone up for formaldehyde diving with corpses–everything about this piece just reeked (worse than the compilation of bodies) of average. Nothing much to say, watch it if it’s a rainy day and this one is on SyFy, but don’t go out of your way.

Penny Dreadful (2006) – which first off, I thought was the stupidest title ever and then discovered that two other movies share the name – rolls  onto the screen with a pretty awful premise. The trick is that “Penny” has a paralyzing fear of cars, so her shrink decides it’s a good idea to drive her out to the middle of nowhere where—oops—a  killer happens to be on the prowl, and now her biggest fear is her only sanctuary. Yeah, it was as dumb as it sounds. Do yourself a favor, don’t watch it.

Gravedancers (2006) is a strange one, but not in a good way. I could write an entire piece on this movie alone. The premise seems simple enough: a bunch of 30 somethings go to an old buddy’s wake, get drunk, and dance on some graves, which produces a trio of unpleasant vengeful spirits, which is pretty standard and simple, not something you would think could be easily screwed up in a complex way. However, stick around, because while the first half is creepy with artistic ease, the second half takes one of the worse dives in film history. It’s like the filmmakers ran out of money, starting using heavy drugs, or just ceased to care, and the imagery goes from eerie to laugh out loud funny, until it leads up to a climax that is close to Looney Toons quality; I thought Wile E. Coyote was going to show up and drop an anvil on someone.  People who like funny-bad need to see this one. Everyone else should steer clear.

The Hamiltons (2006) was my favorite of this year’s films. Its loaded with plot holes,cartoonish acting, and incest is apparently hot according to this movie,  but, with all that aside, this film is a decent character driven and genre transcending experience. “The surprise” of  the movie is fairly obvious as the premise is that a family of murders moves from place to place, kidnaps people, and keeps them bound and gagged under their house while systematically draining their blood. What this piece does well is everything that Rob Zombie attempted and failed to do with The Devil’s Rejects, the old sympathy for the devil routine. The Hamilitons forces you to live with the family in a manner that makes you identify with them. I think this one is a matter of taste. It worked well for me and has my recommendation, but I recognize that many people may hate this one.

Reincarnation (2005) aka Rinne comes to us from Grudge director, Takashi Shimizu, but is a much more creative film then either Grudge film. It deals with an actress that starts having strange vision after taking a role in a film that portrays a real life mass murder of forty years ago. The mystery unfolds with a creepy, but slow pace that’s worth waiting for. The climax is both terrifying and thoughtful. If you like J-Horror and want to see something that’s not the same the Ring-clone garbage then give Rinne a shot.

Dark Ride (2006) is New Jersey answer’s to The Funhouse (1981) and is set in Jersey’s once iconic amusement capital, Asbury Park. To really Jersey it up, this flick stars Jamie-Lynn Sigler of Meadow Soprano fame. The setting and her presence is mildly distracting but something had to distract people from the typical format, the typical twist, and the cheap rip-off quality to this piece. Not a gooden by any stretch of the imagination.

Snoop Dog’s Hood of Horror (2006) is your typical Creepshow format vignette piece. There’s nothing all that original about this one—especially since somebody basically did this ten years. Remember Tales from The Hood (1995)? However, this film does what it sets out to do: fun splatter and dark humor at its best. Plus, it features Jason Alexander of George Costanza fame up to his usual jerk-store-number-seller antics. Even though “HOH” has about as much artistic subtlety as a sledge hammer it’s still just good fun.

At the end of  HorrorFest I, I would say that the average and horrible outweighed the brilliant six to three. That’s a low ratio, if you just pick one at random, which could really suck if you drive far for this thing, and since the cities are limited this year, that’s a definite possibility. If you’re a die hard horror fan that wants to truck out to somewhere to check it, my advice is weight the evidence carefully, watch the trailers, visit the sites, do your homework, and use your judgment, but don’t go out of your way if it doesn’t come to your city.

HorrorFest starts January 29 check official site for details: http://www.horrorfestonline.com/