Fango Weekend of Horrors Highlights
Steve Barton
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While an official event report is coming soon along with a photo gallery depicting the lunacy, we thought we’d bring you some quick and dirty details about three of the event’s darkest offerings! What has Dread Central excited? Get ready for an earful!
Just about the entire staff descended upon the LA Convention Center for Fangoria and Creation’s latest powerhouse convention, and we were hungry for some entertainment. Well, booze too but that came later.
As expected some of the bigger movies (i.e., Drag Me to Hell) got lots of attention and were well received. But there were three smaller films stuck in between the chaos that we’d like to take this time to champion a bit. Mind you the following assessments are based upon short clips and/or trailers that were shown.
First up — Adam Gierasch’s remake of Night of the Demons. If I had any worries at all about how this one was going to turn out, they were all put to rest right after the first clip. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … Adam is a fuckin’ lunatic and I love him for it. To give the crowd a taste of the madness, the first clip shown to a packed room involved demons having (consensual) anal sex, tentacles, climaxes, and violence. For us? This equaled Christmas.
With Night of the Demons Gierasch and company are clearly going for the throat. After a bit more playing to the crowd and some Q&A, the second clip was cued up and unleashed — this time showing the demons causing some good old fashioned carnage. A few of the effects shown were not finished, but they’re already looking pretty insane. The demons seen here were all unique looking, and by the time the panel was over, everyone was pretty much grinning from ear-to-ear.
Especially the director of the original film, Kevin Tenney, who was sitting right next to me. That’s one hell of a stamp of approval, folks. This film looks like it is going to kill. Look for it in theatres October 9th, 2009, from Seven Arts Distribution.
Then there was what I predict to be Anchor Bay’s next winner — Paul Solet’s Grace. Wow. No matter how you slice it, this film just wreaks of disturbing. Paul, star Jordan Ladd, and producer Adam Green took the stage and showed an absolutely horrified audience the “birthing” scene. The room filled with gasps. I shit you not, I even saw two or three women crying. It truly elicited a whirlwind of emotion out of the crowd, ranging from sadness to revulsion.
Paul Solet describes his film as a punch to your soul. The man isn’t kidding. There’s no release date set for Grace yet, but if you’re lucky enough to be within its reach, it is making the festival rounds. I implore you, if you’re a horror fan and it’s within your power to get to this film, do not miss the opportunity. Grace looks like it has exactly what it takes to become one of the more powerful and unsettling films of the year.
The last movie which looks to be worthy of some serious buzz is Dave Parker’s The Hills Run Red. For those of you unacquainted with Dave, let’s just say he’s one of us. The guy shares a love affair with our genre that is as unshakable as it is unquestionable. When the news broke that he was finally making his own original slasher film, we got pretty fuckin’ excited. Nothing, however, could have prepared us for the taste that he gave us.
First up was a red-band trailer in which we got our first look at the killer, who is lovingly named Babyface. For those uninitiated, The Hills Run Red follows “Tyler (Tad Hilgenbrink), a film fanatic whose obsession with finding a complete print of an infamous slasher movie leads him and two friends into the backwoods where the film was shot. They realize too late that filming never ended—and now they must survive a nightmarish onslaught or become part of the movie forever.”
If a slasher film’s merit is based upon how cool or terrifying its killer looks, then this movie would already be considered a knockout. Simply put — the appearance of Babyface is just goddamn insane. Scary. You don’t want this dude anywhere near you. We’re not gonna spoil it by going into details, but seriously guys, holy shit.
After a brief chat with those in attendance, Dave and the gang showed us a clip. Once again — holy shit. Without giving away too much, let’s just say some poor chick is torn completely in half in probably one of the most violent ways I have ever seen. It was glorious. If the rest of the kills in this flick end up being even a tenth as cool or as bloody as the one shown was, we could very well have a classic slasher-fest in the making knocking on our doors very soon. Look for The Hills Run Red from Dark Castle Entertainment on DVD also this October.
To say that we left the event excited is a bit of an understatement. The above is without question the pick of our litter. 2009 is shaping up to be one hell of a bloody good time, folks. Look for more about these films soon.
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