FrightFest Day 4 - Monday

Graham, Steve and Rich

The final day began with a screening of Born To Fight which I'd already seen (check out my review here) but it was great to see it again with the FrightFest crowd and there were plenty of "ooohs" and "aaahs" as the mad Thai stuntmen took care of business. Next up was Day Of The Dead 2: Contagium which sucked big donkey balls - well, I only managed fifteen minutes before deciding that the bar would be a much more attractive alternative!

Me and Paul Spurrier

I was a little nervous about finally seeing P as I'd already done an interview with the director, Paul Spurrier, and had been hyping his film up for months. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed; it was a refreshing take on Asian spirit folklore with some great performances from its novice cast and shot in beautiful cinemascope. Paul did a Q&A after the screening, and Russ and I caught up with him in the bar later - after being collared by a couple of girls from Devon (aka the FrightFest drunks) who claimed to be big fans of the Eat My Brains website. Before Antibodies (with the director and lead actor in attendance) we were treated to some more new trailers and had to judge a short film competition for inclusion on The Last Horror Movie DVD release. Sadly none of the shorts were quite as good as yesterday's The Ten Steps, but we eventually picked Self Help as the winning entry.

Greg McLean and the Wolf Creek cast

Before the final film of the festival the organisers took the stage to announce the winners of the inaugural FrightFest film quiz, and I was delighted to find that I'd finished in the top ten and won another goodie bag of The Devil's Rejects stuff. Wolf Creek was introduced by its director and cast and was a fitting climax to the event - my favourite film of the whole weekend, tense and unrelentingly grim. Do go and see it when it has its UK release later this month.

So, that's FrightFest over for another year. My initial misgivings about the quality of this year's films were soon tempered by some excellent movies on the Sunday and Monday. The move to the OWE was also successful, with better seating and more room to socialise around the venue. Thanks must go to the unholy trinity of Paul, Alan and Ian, and to my fellow FrightFesters - especially Steve, Rich, Mike, Jim, Russ, David, Graham, James and Jodie - for making it the highlight of my film-going year.

You can read my full account of FrightFest on Eat My Brains here.