FrightFest

A big thank you to Ian, Paul, Greg and MIA Alan for organising another great event yesterday! Also thank you to Helen, Alex and all of the others behind the scenes that make these festivals run so smoothly and enjoyably, as well as the cinema staff, the guests and the audience!

I'll post my reviews below.

Candy Corn

Some nice kills, but ultimately a tad uneven with a strange kind of tone. The low budget showed and the acting was also odd, but perhaps it was intended to be off-kilter? This Halloween homage was both derivative and knowing at times, but overall nothing I haven't seen before and done better. 6 / 10

The Haunted Swordsman

Some very effective puppetry in this short that is presumably intended to be the first part of a longer story to be told. My only real criticism is that some of the action sequences are a little unclear in seeing what is going on, but appreciate the difficulties of doing this with puppets! 6.5 / 10

We Summon The Darkness

An enjoyable blast of heavy metal, religion, satanic occultism and more, with some twists along the way, even if some of them are fairly predictable. It also makes good use of humour and doesn't take itself too seriously, but it isn't afraid of showcasing the gore too. 8 / 10

Uncanny Annie

The latest in a long line of horrors based on games, more of a challenge card game in this case. It has some good moments of action and also suspense, boosted by a plot that includes the unravelling of secrets within the group of players. It does feel a tad horror-lite at times, perhaps aiming for the teen market? 7 / 10

Swallow

Whilst I did like this I ultimately didn't find this to be quite as powerful as the hype and others' reactions were to it. I appreciated what it was aiming for, but it didn't quite push enough of my buttons, perhaps because I didn't warm to the heroine, who was in a privileged position (although I acknowledge she had hardships, pressures and difficulties to face) and developed a habit that also did more to turn me away from her rather than engage with her. Maybe one to mull over to see if it sticks in my mind and grows on me.

7.5 / 10

Trick

I had a lot of fun with this one, although it was played more straight than I thought it was going to be. A little hokey in places, but I enjoyed the storyline, the twists and the games of cat and mouse, although I wasn't 100% happy about the twist ending, even though it was signposted and made a lot of sense given earlier events. One I'll watch again. 8 / 10

Scare Package

Some segments were too daft / ropey / meta for my liking, but there were some good gore and kill scenes, some ickiness and the closing segment was the strongest for me, ending the anthology on a positive note. Despite my opening comment I did enjoy some of the exploration of horror tropes, while the humour was very hit and miss, with too many jokes falling flat for my liking. 6.5 / 10

My top films were We Summon The Darkness and Trick as joint top, with Swallow in third place.

Trick lost it a bit with too much running around in the Halloween Barn and movie theatre. Confusing, shaky cam stuff

The Halloween event is usually weaker than FrightFest proper, and when I saw the schedule of six USA films I expected the worst.

However it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable day. The excellent Swallow will excite a bit of debate, Trick was more so-bad-it's-good than actually good... but only the dreary, utterly boring Candy Corn let the side down.