‘m trying a new app, BloggerPro, so if it looks weird, or something, pardon the dust while I figure it out. I also had to up my data plan as I’m burning through it pretty fast using my iPad at the festival.

Evolution

This film is a creepy, arthouse, slow-burn mystery about a boy, Nicolas, and his mother. They live on what looks like a volcanic island by the sea. The location is not named. He doesn’t got to school. Their home is incredibly sparse and offers no hint as to the time and place where they live. The town they live on seems to be populated by other single women and boys that all look eerily similar. The film is told from Nicolas’ point of view as he begins to question the nature of his existence, the woman he calls mother, and the strange things he observes at night. The answer is haunting, fantastic, and even after the credits roll, mysterious. This movie made an impression on me. France (French with English subtitles)

Short Fuse (Horror Shorts)

The shorts program is always worthy, and my personal favorites were The Mill at Cedar’s End, an animated puppet feature about a family curse, and Portal to Hell!!! about the maintenance worker in an apartment building who comes across some satanists opening a portal in the basement, and has to battle evil special effects.

Southbound

A horror anthology that’s reminiscent of Tales From The Crypt, in which several short stories are loosely connected to each other, each directed by a different director.  Devil worshippers, home invasion, road chase by supernatural beings, a John Carpenter-inspired blood and gore filled horror segment that’s not for the squeamish. Southbound is an entertaining midnighter. However, like most anthologies, don’t expect the disconnected narratives to form a single larger narrative.

The Devil’s Candy

Sean Byrne is well regarded by the Fantastic Fest crowd for the Aussie horror/torture picture, The Loved Ones, and he live up to his reputation in his new film. The Devil’s Candy stars Ethan Embry, Siri Appleby, and Pruitt Taylor Vince about a house in rural Texas haunted by something evil. Embry and Appleby play the couple who move in with their teenaged daughter (Kiara Glasco), and before long, Embry is having visions, while Vince is hearing satanic chanting and feeling murdery. It’s well made, another solid midnighter with a loud metal soundtrack and a satisfyingly frenetic and bloody ending.

What We Become

This is a horror film about a mysterious disease that quickly overtakes a suburban neighborhood. It seems that after victims die from the sickness, they become a rabid killer. Told from the point of view of a middle class Danish family who find themselves holed up in their fashionable middle class home and under quarantine from nameless, faceless military pointing automatic weaponry. While the movie never uses the Z word, the story beats are straight out of the George R. Romero play book, down to people doing stupid things they know will get them killed. It’s like any Hollywood zombie movie, but with subtitles. Denmark (Danish with English subtitles)