No Reviews?

The smouldering remains of the Frightfest 2013 Halloween All-Nighter.
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TheDukeAbides
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No Reviews?

Post by TheDukeAbides »

Its a bit quite in here considering.

Anyone with an opinion on any of the films?
Alex J
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by Alex J »

I plan on posting some reviews for all of the Allnighter films, but have kind of been holding off while the events take place, lest there are too many spoilers - perhaps this goes for others too? Plus I've been rather busy so hopefully later in the month will work better for me....

Still, I shall take this opportunity to thank Alan, Paul, Ian and Greg once again for another fantastic fest, as well as the guests, cinema staff, audience and all of the others involved in making such an event happen - well done!
No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by DJBenz »

TheDukeAbides wrote:Its a bit quite in here considering.

Anyone with an opinion on any of the films?
Got a full event review to post on my site, but been on holiday for the last three weeks so need to make time to get the article up.
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by soberdave72@hotmail.com »

Great Night at the London one, A Good mix of movies, even if I didn't like all of them.

Movies
1.Soulmate (Uninspired Ghost Story, and unscary being its cardinal sin) 3/10
2.Patrick (Highly Enjoyable Oz remake, great hammy performance from Charles Dance) 7/10
3.Mark of The Devil (Witchfinder General esque, with even more violence. Actually made me wince) 6/10
Great intro from the director, Michael Armstrong who reminded me of the late great Ken Russell/Michael Winner
4.Discopath (Good fun, terrific cheese soundtrack, and kept everybody awake) 7/10
5.The Station (My favorite film of the night...first rate Thing style horrors and great location photography as well) 9/10
6.Nothing Left To Fear (A Squandering of a great horror idea, gateways to hell. Clancy Brown always watchable
but this run out of steam pretty quickly) 2/10

The only thing I would moan about, is the Security Staff who treated everybody like Naughty school children, confiscations, bag searches, which we do not usually get at Frightfest.

Also, they closed the Bar at Twelve... At an Halloween!?! Allnighter. Not the Frightfest teams fault, but Vue definately need to improve their attitude if Frightfest return there next year. The Bar was open all night long in previous years, and there was no trouble. Horror fans should not be treated like nightclub attendees!

Looking forward to Glasgow.
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by Donut »

Sunderland

Patrick- a good laugh
Discopathe- best film of the night
The Station- average
Nothing Left To Fear- shit

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Re: No Reviews?

Post by The Soapmaker »

soberdave72@hotmail.com wrote:Great Night at the London one, A Good mix of movies, even if I didn't like all of them.
4.Discopath (Good fun, terrific cheese soundtrack, and kept everybody awake) 7/10
Not me... but I can fall asleep to anything.

I did see most of it. Wanted to hate it, because I was pissed off with the director for talking all the way through Mark of the Devil. But it was OK, didn't really seem to know if it was comedy or horror but scored points for (a) very convincing '70s look and (b) featuring Kiss' I Was Made For Lovin' You on the soundtrack.
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by Wolfshade »

Great night in London, definitely the best all nighter line up I've been to!

SOULMATE - good to see a Frightfest goer making a film, and well acted, but I thought this stretched a simple idea too far and would have been better as a short; too many long dragged out scenes the girl talking to the ghost. Decent first effort though 5/10
PATRICK - great fun! Plenty of jumpy moments, nice cheesey CGI and a hilarious performance from Charles Dance, loved it 8/10
MARK OF THE DEVIL - hadn't seen this before and I love 70s medieval/folky horror stuff, so this was a total blast. Not quite as good as Witchfinder General, but very good all the same 8/10
DISCOPATH - wierd concept but it worked really well, didn't love this as much as some did, but it was great to have such a different film as this in the line up...was glad someone asked the question about the body at the end, cos I hadn't quite worked out what had happened either! 7/10
THE STATION - 4am and the fifth film was too late to be fully concentrating on a subtitle film unfortunately, but I enjoyed what I remember of this, and need to see it again 7/10
NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR - Polished and looked great....but there really was nothing there - "we have opened a portal to something bad, now we've gotta close it", ummm yeah. Dull, repetitive and not scary, bad end to an otherwise great night 4/10

So 4 films I really liked, 1 okay and 1 I didn't like - good stuff, best line up for the all nighter I've seen, and this would have end been a pretty strong line up for one of the days at the August main event. For the first time I stayed awake through all the films, which is undoubtedly due to the quality being better than in recent years; there was none of the rubbish like Bad Meat, The Watermen, Faces In the Crowd, Altitude, Choose, Spiderhole, Umbridge, Gnaw etc that we've had at the all nighter recently.

I can unstand the Vue staff searched people,as that's their policy, but closing the bar at midnight was indeed a bit stupid, the only negative of an otherwise awesome night.
Alex J
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by Alex J »

Soulmate
Old-fashioned, hokey ghost story, which some will find too slow-paced for their liking, while some of the supporting performances were a bit am-dram. Some horror fans will also find the tale has too much romance and not enough horror. Still, I appreciated the effort to make something a little more traditional and Anna Walton was a strong lead. Good use was made of the locations, while Anubis was a stand-out! 6.5 / 10

Patrick
I still haven't seen the original, so I don't know how this remake compares, but I liked the setting and the gothic atmosphere that combined interestingly with the telekinesis and technology on display. I felt the tone was uneven and at times was a little too silly, but Vinson, Dance and Griffiths were all good value in their roles. The combination of tension, humour and gore kept the film ticking along nicely though. 7 / 10

Discopath
Good fun, with good attention to detail on the period setting, but I had a nagging feeling throughout that it could have been even better, with more humour and over-the-top splatter gore setpieces. I thought the soundtrack was a bit repetitive and plenty more well known disco tracks could have been used, but this was possibly due to budgetary reasons? Still, worth a look if you like the disco period and / or horror comedies. 7/ 10

Mark Of The Devil
A retro showing of the censorship-plagued medieval horror that is reminiscent of Witchfinder General and others of that ilk. Naturally, it showed its age a little and is a product of its time, but there are some effective torture sequences, entertaining setpieces and offbeat British quirkiness that make this film worth (re-)visiting. The rabbit scene is also one of the funniest I have seen all year! I thought the corruption of power theme was also well explored and still resonates today. 7.5 / 10
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Alex J
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by Alex J »

The Station
**Possible spoilers**
I enjoyed this environmental chiller - very much in the vein of "The Thing" and this effort surpassed the recent prequel to the latter. I liked the characters and the plot, even though 1 or 2 bits of storyline seemed to be missing from being on screen, chiefly around the mystery jogger. Good use of gore without being OTT and it certainly had heart and charm to the story. A worthy successor to "Sennentunschi" in the Alpine horror microgenre. 7.5 / 10

Nothing Left To Fear
**Spoilers**
I heard a fair amount of negativity towards the film afterwards, but I quite enjoyed it, despite it being mainstream US horror fare with a generic story. I actually liked the plot despite it not being very original, while I thought the theme of religious power being misused made it an interesting comparison to "Mark Of The Devil". I also enjoy a downbeat ending too.... 7 / 10
No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.
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Re: No Reviews?

Post by Davidoff »

I've been to the last 5 frightfest all-nighters and this was the worst, by a country mile. The choice and overall quality of the films was POOR. Even going so low as to drag out a 40 year old movie (that we could have rented at home for a third of the price) as filler? Come on, I've seen some of the reviews and they're not accurate, not by horror-film fan standards at any rate. Compare this night to the one when Human Centipede 2 was on there, totally different vibes. 2013 was a shambles and it felt like even the (usually attentive) presenters knew it. Hence, why one of them (the one with hair and dresses like he has just left his bench) appeared unashamedly drunk throughout and didn't seem to care what was going on. It felt like apathy on their part, like they knew that all the films were just rubbish. Organisers, please note: turning up the volume in an attempt to distract attention from the eyes will not salvage anything, only bury it for good. Despite the stupidly insane volume, Discopath was okay, bearable and with some interesting ideas in places. Kind of what should have normally been the worst film of the night but was in fact the best. Patrick was insulting, maybe one day it will be seen much like 'Horror Hospital' but that won't happen for about a thousand years as it is nowhere near as good. I couldn't tell if it was taking itself seriously or if it was in on it's own joke. Either way, it failed on both counts but I recommend you approach it as a joke. The rest were forgettable. Oh, though now I recall the first film, which set the suicidal tone of the night. I don't recall its name but it felt like I'd turned on ITV4 to watch a drama be put to sleep. And that was it, a night of sleep wasted. All these films will probably end up with 1-2 stars out of 5 on any streaming channel and for a fraction of the 50 quid that was spent on this.

I imagine ticket sales have declined the last two years, the place was only about half full. And I can understand why...

As a result, my party of friends and myself decided that this would be our last Frightfest all-nighter. If they get Human Centipede 3 this year then we may reconsider...
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