Horror Shorts 2010

Whorticulture.com reviews the Horror Shorts (A and B) from the International Horror and Sci Fi Film Festival 2010

The shorts are the best thing about the festival!  Please try to check them out if they appeal to you - these film makers need love, too!

Rise of the Appliances

Directed by Richard Holmes
"After every domestic appliance in the world starts to eat their owners, the Thomas family realizes that perhaps it was a stroke of luck that all their worldly goods were re-possessed by the credit card companies the day before."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
Hilarious and fun!

Nice Guys Finish Dead

Directed by Peter Binswanger
"A slasher villain meets the girl of his dreams, but struggles to get her to fall in love with him."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
Such a great, fresh take on your regular slasher flick.  Filled with comedy and lots of heart.

MutandLand

Directed by Phil Tippett
"As the sun goes down on MutandLand, the creatures roaming this world are on the ultimate search for food.  But all is not what it seems in this thriller where danger lurks around every corner."
Female grade: C
Male grade: A
Very dark animated short.

Abra Cadaver *
Directed by Jay McBeth
"A streetwise hooker teaches a failed magician the difference between illusion and reality."
Female grade: B
Male grade: C
The magician is creepy and believable, and the story was decent, but that's about it.

The Zombie Monologues

Directed by Andrew Lane
"A journalist and his camera man sneak into the exclusion zone in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.  They meet a vegetarian zombie who gives them an insight into her world.  But how close is too close?"
Female grade: C
Male grade: C
Droned on and on with a lecture about zombie behavior that could have been funny, but missed the mark.  The ending was pretty good, though.  Frankly, it was "balls, balls, balls, balls, balls."

Recollection

Directed by Federico D'Alessandro
"After awakening in a freshly dug grave, a man with no name and no memories struggles to escape a nightmarish lair while trying to understand who he is and why he's being hunted."
Female grade: C
Male grade: C
Easily predictable, but decent in gore.

The Furred Man **
Directed by Paul Williams
"Max Naughton sits in an interrogation room sporting a black eye, a bruised cheek and dressed in a furry costume which is caked in dried blood.  He will explain..."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
Really good story, hilarious gore. 

Beep

Click here to watch it on YouTube.
Directed by Nicholas Militello
"A weary traveler checks into a luxurious hotel hoping to get a much needed good night's rest.  When a mysterious sound wakes him up in the middle of the night, his frustration forces him to investigate."
Female grade: B
Male grade: C
Decent, but spent too much of it's short time not getting to the point.

Alice Jacobs is Dead

Click here to see the trailer on YouTube
Directed by Alex Horwitz
"A scientist races to find the cure to a horrific virus before it turns his wife into something monstrous."
Female grade: A+
Male grade: A+
Easily the best horror short at the festival, starring Adrienne Barbeau and John La Zar (Z Man!!).  So much depth and heart.  Simply brilliant.

DemiUrge Emesis

Directed by Aurelio Voltaire
"A mummified cat is tormented by the skeletons of past meals.  Narrated by Danny Elfman."
Female grade: B
Male grade: D
We wanted to like this one more than we did.  Our male is a big fan of Voltaire.  It just seemed so pompous, and not terribly interesting.  Probably better in another setting.

The Midge

Directed by Rory Lowe
"A sexually inexperienced country boy is taken off to the woods by the girl of his dreams and his nightmares.  But it's not her he should be scared of."
Female grade: B
Male grade: C
So there's sex, and the story is pretty good, but it still falls short.

Cupcake: A Zombie Lesbian Musical

Click here to watch the trailer on YouTube.
Check out their website.
"A melodic massacre featuring a young love struck lesbian couple, two bigoted old ladies, a postman delivering death and a chorus line of fabulous feathered flesh eating zombies."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
It doesn't hide its message, but isn't preachy about it.  Fantastic musical scores ("My girlfriend ate my pussy") ("No penis between us") and great comedy - easily the most remembered from the Festival.

The Familiar

Click here to check out the trailer on YouTube.
Directed by Kody Zimmerman
"Sam Matheson has accepted a very odd job: be the personal caretaker  of an immortal, amoral, bloodsucking vampire."
Female grade: C
Male grade: B
Thankfully there were no Twilight jokes in this short.  If you watched the trailers, you saw the best parts.

* Award winner - best student horror short
** Award winner - best horror short

Night of the Demons (2009)

Whorticulture.com reviews Night of the Demons (2009), starring Shannon Elizabeth and the guy who ate Edward Furlong

The closing night event at the International Horror and Sci Fi Film Festival was the remake of possibly my favorite horror movie ever, Night of the Demons.

I didn't really know what to expect from it, I just wanted lots of boobs and gore.  I wasn't thrilled with Shannon Elizabeth playing Angela...but I was willing to overlook it.  Plus, Tiffany Shepis was going to be there.  Granted, she only has about 4 minutes of screen time (she plays Diana, the door bitch who steals all the money and books it out ALIVE when the cops come).  She's in a bunch of my favorite Troma movies, so I was pretty jazzed.

The movie is EXCELLENT.  It's not very close to the original.  First off, this new mansion they're in wasn't ever a funeral home.  The background story isn't nearly as cool as the one in the original - this one is about some woman pining for a man to love her and basically calls upon the help of some demons who (gasp) trick her.  These demons were kicked out of Hell and now seek to take over the world by possessing 7 people on Halloween night.  Okay, so it's not Shakespeare, but it doesn't really matter.  We just want tits and blood!

Dear God, did we get a lot of tits and blood.  Not even Shannon Elizabeth's tits, which I was personally grateful for.  We get both Diora Baird and Bobbi Sue Luther's tits, which are excellent.  We get demon anal rape (Tiffany Shepis seemed extra excited about that one - and it was pretty awesome).  We get a chick's tits and face being ripped off.  We even get a cameo from Linnea Quigley (this basically made the movie for me right there) basically bringing her character Suzanne back from the dead just to warm my heart.

Oh, AND we get a tribute to Linnea Quigley's cinematic masterpiece - the lipstick scene.  Check out my previous post on that here. 

The remake captured the pure cheese essence of the original, but brought it up to date for more modern audiences.  I could have gone without seeing Edward Furlong - or really, the guy who ATE Edward Furlong in all of his bloated New Jersey Housewife glory.  That poor bastard.

Anyway, it comes out on DVD and Blu ray tomorrow (October 19th), so PLEASE check this one out!  Thankfully I already picked mine up - complete with an autograph from Tiffany Shepis.  It's a really fun time.  And if you haven't, GODDAMMIT go pick up the original!  You are missing cinema brilliance with that one!

I give the remake an 8/10.  It's pure cheese, and it's got the 3 B's (boobs, blood, and beasts)!

Sci Fi Shorts 2010

Whorticulture.com reviews the Sci Fi Shorts (A and B) from the International Horror and Sci Fi Film Festival

The shorts are the best thing about the festival!  Please try to check them out if they appeal to you - these film makers need love, too!

Lines in the Sand-Ties
Directed by Justin Golightly
"A soldier invading from Earth and a widow mourning from Mars change each other's lives forever."
Female grade: C
Male grade: C
We just couldn't get over the terrible, video-game like graphics; the story was fragmented and confusing.

A Call to Arms

Directed by John McCarthy
"Water and air temperatures on the rise!  A spacecraft crashing to the ground!  A planet dying from global warming.  Politics meets the Twilight Zone in A Call to Arms."
Female grade: B
Male grade: C
A clever take on the idea of atomic energy.

Fallout

Directed by Paul DeNigris
"An epic science fiction action thriller inspired by '24,' 'Stargate SG-1,' 'The Wire,' and 'Minority Report.'  Shot entirely on green screen and produced by the student and faculty of UAT."
Female grade: B
Male grade: A
A fun and smart tale of betrayed soldiers in the future.  Lots of cool weapons.

Radium

Directed by Daniel Falik
"A woman infiltrates Tel-Aviv in search of her long lost love 15 years after Tel-Aviv was turned into a quarantine zone because of a nuclear bomb.  Only to find that the reality inside, is not what it seemed on the outside."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
A short story with a lot of heart on humanity and survival.  Also, excellent gore.

Cockpit: The Rule of Engagement

Directed by Jesse Griffith
"In 2013, one rule in fighter combat keeps a mind controlling alien race away from Earth's doorstep."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
A compelling short on space warfare.  Very interesting, excellent ending.

One Small Step

Directed by Damien Slevin
"One July 24th 1969, man finally reached the Moon as 800 million people watched.  They were not the only ones."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
Very fun, albeit a little sad because of the score.

Kontakt **
Directed by Anders Overgaard
"Martin, a teenager who is extremely interested in aliens, bumps into Lene, a vain girl from school.  A lightening object flies across the sky, towards an abandoned house in the forest.  In spite of this, Lene runs to the house, and Martin must protect her."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
A delightful mix of scary and sweet.  You might jump out of your seat one minute, and have tears in your eyes the next.

Shaqani

Directed by Robert Berg
"Shaqani is young, she's beautiful, she's romantic, and she's from WAY out of town..."
Female grade: B
Male grade: B
Sweet and comical story of a girl trying to find love on a foreign planet.

The Adjustable Cosmos

Directed by Adam Duncan
"In the fifteenth century, three worthies come together to tackle the Emperor's disastrous horoscope."
Female grade: A+
Male grade: B
Absolutely brilliant.  Remarkable animation.  Hilarious.

Alien Probe: The Musical
Click here to check it out on youtube.

Directed by Mark Copley
"The timeless musical story of 'alien meets planet, girl meets jerks, Alien gets girl!'"
Female grade: B
Male grade: A
Catchy song and dance numbers, great comedy.

The Necronomicon

Click here to check it out on Youtube.

Directed by Joseph Nanni
"Do you want to be a nicer person?  Are you looking for inspiration to do good things?  Well keep looking.  But if you're into opening up terrifying vistas of reality then the Esoteric Order of the Old Ones and Cthulhu Cultists want to help."
Female grade: A
Male grade: A
Absolutely hilarious and very, very clever.

S.P.A.G.H.E.T.T. -1

Directed by Adam Varney
"At the turn of the 20th century, an eccentric Southern scientist deceives his former assistant into helping him develop his latest invention: a device he thinks will change the outcome of the Civil War!"
Female grade: B-
Male grade: B
Amusing, but a little boring.

Get Out

Directed by Alberto Corral
"An average guy that is living a strange situation where glasses disappear, clothes change, and doors don't get you through where you expect."
Female grade: B
Male grade: B
Clever and quirky.  Not predictable.

** Award winning

Our grades are from a couple who are dating, used only for perspective.

Rage (2010)

Whorticulture.com reviews Rage, starring Rick Crawford and directed by Chris Witherspoon

Day three of the International Horror and Sci Fi Film Festival, we were lucky enough to catch a screening of the movie Rage.  We also got to chat with the director Chris Witherspoon.

First we'll give you the plot, then we'll tell you what we thought.

"Dennis Twist, a 30-something man who lives in a nice 'Spielbergian' suburb just outside Portland, Oregon says goodbye to his beautiful and loving wife, Crystal and heads into town.  There he unintentionally provokes the wrath of a mysterious motorcyclist, 'The Biker.'  The confrontation between the two sets in motion a daylong battle of cat and mouse.  Beginning in the form of harmless taunts; quickly escalating into something more serious...then something unimaginable.  RAGE simultaneously seeks to redefine what is scary in current American horror-thriller cinema and even delves into existential questions about karma while addressing the very contemporary issue of infidelity and its ultimate destruction of the family unit."
Taken from the festival booklet

So let's get down to it.  In planning our festival, we came across this and didn't quite know what to think.  We didn't have terribly high hopes for it (even though the festival has never let us down before) but thought we'd check it out anyway.  We met Chris Witherspoon right beforehand, and he gave us a synopsis from screenspotlight.com.  This is where we learned that this movie might not be for the more squeamish viewers.  Obviously that's a plus for us, so we got a little excited.

There are a million and one things we loved about this movie.  It leaves you feeling like you got punched in the gut with a fist full of awesome.  The suspense is enough to drive someone insane.  Viewers will find themselves totally engrossed in the biker's game.  It's low on gore, but what it has counts in a big way.  We loved the references to Spielberg's DUEL (1971).  The biker, although he stays anonymous and silent through the entire feature, becomes a truly terrifying character along the lines of Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. 

Without giving too much away, allow us to say this: throughout most of the movie you're led to believe that the biker is one guy, but at the very end you find out he's not - and they never reveal his true identity.  Let's examine that for a moment.  As a viewer we OF COURSE wanted to know who it was.  This was brought up during the Q&A after the movie:

But really, it doesn't matter who the biker is.  We think revealing the biker would almost cheapen the affect his anonymity achieves.  His identity doesn't matter - the movie is about how your actions impact others, not yourself.  Keeping him anonymous makes him the everyman, or the anyman.  That's the root of the scare - you steal someone's (anyone's) parking space, they could beat you senseless and rape your wife.  And murder your neighbors with a chainsaw.

In short, we fucking LOVED this movie.  Rick Crawford and Audrey Walker gave out-freaking-standing performances (as did director Chris Witherspoon, who played the role of the Biker).  The bike and the car became their own characters and gave great performances, too.

We weren't the only ones who loved this movie.

Congratulations Rage, winner of Best Horror Feature at the 2010 International Horror and Sci Fi Film Festival!

You gotta check this movie out if you have the chance.  If we ever hear that "beep beep" from a motorcycle, we'll probably wet ourselves.  Truth.  

Click here to read the screenspotlight review we recieved.

Click here to check out the movie's website.

Taken from www.ragethemovie.net

 Don't fuck with this guy.

 Click here for the trailer.

Update on 12/20:
Not only has Rage been winning countless of "Best Feature" awards in the festival circuit lately (Shockerfest International and Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festivals, just to name a few), but Fangoria - the granddaddy of horror magazines - reviewed this movie!  Click here to read it, it's pretty epic.  Congrats to Christopher Witherspoon and everybody involved in this awesome movie!  It's about time you guys are getting the accolades you deserve!

“RAGE gives homegrown horror a good name.”
- Chris Alexander - FANGORIA.COM

Friday Night Pictures

Whorticulture.com Presents: Photos from Friday Night at the International Horror Sci Fi Film Festival

Tonight we saw The Fog (1980), met Charles Cyphers, suffered through a special X-Rated UK 35mm print of Suspiria (1977), and ran into a couple of the Gore Girls.

These lovely ladies were the only Gore Girls worth taking pictures of.  If we found out that neither of these girls won, we would hereby call shenanigans on the entire institution of Gore Girls!

Update
Oh hey, looky here:

Photo taken from the Festival Facebook Page here
Congratulations, Miss Lucky Zombie!

All in all, a night filled with badassery.  Check back later for our full reviews of each of the films/shorts the Festival has to offer.

Whorticulture at the Horror Sci Fi Fest

Come Hang Out with Whorticulture at the International Horror Sci Fi Film Festival - This Weekend!

Well, ghouls and boys, the Horror Sci Fi Fest starts tonight.  We'll be there pretty much through all of it, as long as MADCAP is open!  Check out their website for a film schedule & celebrity guests, but let's talk about the other events they're having that are worth your while.

Friday night is the Gore Girl competition:

This is ALWAYS fun.  This year it's a little different; they're holding a gore girl DEATH PAGEANT.  There's a runway, a Q&A, and this year's winner will become the face of next year's festival!  So if you think you've got what it takes, check it out!

By the way, check this page out for past gore girls.  Hot, bloody, deadly chicks?  THAT'S WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT, FOOLS. 

Saturday night is the Beat the Geek competition:

This is the first one, so we can't say how awesome it is, but it sure sounds like fun. 

From the website:

"3 contestants will be selected to represent each genre (Horror & Sci Fi) and to challenge our resident geeks in a contest based on trivia questions."

Think you can beat these geeks?  You can't.  We know these guys.  They totally kick our asses at horror trivia. 

Both of these events are FREE, and face it, you ain't got anything better to do.  Plus we'll be there!

And in case you're curious, we'll be seeing the following films & reviewing them here:
The Fog
Suspiria
Horror Shorts A
Rage
Horror Shorts B
Aliens
RoboGeisha*
Ashes
Sci Fi Shorts B
Night of the Demons**

* This one is only a possibility, we might have to skip it
** WE ARE SO EXCITED FOR THIS ONE, WITH ACTRESS TIFFANY SHEPIS IN ATTENDANCE!

Hope to see you there!  We've been to every festival and can assure you, you're bound to have a fantastic time!

Best Of: Best Way To Spend October in Phoenix, Part II

Whorticulture.com Presents: The Best October and Halloween Events in Phoenix, Arizona - The International Horror Sci Fi Film Festival!

October 14th - 17th, Phoenix holds one of it's most fun October events.  The International Horror Sci Fi Film Festival, now in it's 6th year. It's a great chance to meet celebrities and see horror or sci fi movies you probably wouldn't have the opportunity to see.

At previous festivals we've gotten the chance to meet Linda Blair, Ken Foree, Jeffrey Combs, Casper Van Dien, Adrienne King, and a bunch of others!  It's really cool to talk to them, take pictures, and ask them questions about the movies they've starred in (although Linda Blair was a huge disappointment - she cared more about shoes than the fans and didn't want to talk about The Exorcist, but rather her pet charity.  It's a great cause, but come on, you knew why you were there!).

Also, we've seen great movies there that we never would have seen.  For example, we saw Pakistan's first gore movie called Zibahkhana, or Hell's Ground.

We also saw a movie called Special, starring Michael Rapaport, which brought us to tears and we love love love!

This year is definitely going to please!  They'll be showing such awesome movies as The Fog (Charles Cyphers will be there!), Aliens (Lance Henriksen will be there!), Suspiria. and a bunch of others, including both horror and sci fi shorts!  Click here for the schedule, you'll no doubt find something you want to see!


There are a few different ticket packages to choose from, but we definitely recommend the VIP passes which get you a bunch of bonuses and are absolutely worth the money!


This event makes us happy we live in Phoenix.  Expect a few more events to pop up here on Whorticulture, but if you're only going to check one out, let this be it!

Update!
Check out this bad ass poster for this year's festival!