Los Angeles, it offers a week's worth of new films and shorts, many of
them premiering at the event. The lineup does include some major studio
releases, but is primarily filled with independent and self-financed films.
It's impossible to see everything, but I managed to catch a solid 10
features, half the total of this year's show.
"The Tournament": The festival's opener was probably my least favorite film
this year. In fact, I couldn't wait until it was over. The vaguely sci-fi
concept (in what appears to be the near future, 30 assassins compete for a cash
prize to wipe each other out, while an elite group wagers on them) is neither
new nor necessarily bad, but here it's just used as an excuse for mindless
fetishization of guns, gore and violence.
"The Human Centipede": One of the most bold, horrifying and, yes, funny
movies I've seen this year, this walked away from Screamfest with the show's
Best Picture award. A mad German scientist (an unforgettable Dieter Laser)
kidnaps three tourists and surgically makes them into the title entity. How he
does it, and the aftermath, is the stuff of nightmares.
"The Canyon": Honeymooners Nick and Lori (Eion Bailey and Yvonne Strahovski
of "Chuck") let a sketchy old coot (Will Patton) lead them on mules into the
Grand Canyon, where snakes, wolves and the sheer vastness of the gorge make
their survival highly unlikely. Sort of "Open Water" on land. Strahovski is very
good, Bailey rather bland, and Patton chews the scenery, which incidentally does
inspire a healthy respect for the terrible power of nature.
"Forget Me Not": Tyler Oliver's teen horror film gets around the basic
problem of how to keep the characters in the dark when everyone around them is
being murdered: simply have the memory of each victim erased at the moment of
their death. Smarter and with a more likable cast than usual for this kind
of thing, the movie's effects are still familiar enough to keep this from being
more than a moderately enjoyable chiller.
"Triangle": Melissa George and her friends escape a capsized yacht by
boarding a strangely empty ocean liner, only to discover that someone on board
is hunting them down. That just sets up what becomes one of those time-twisting
mind-benders that can give you a headache. Less witty than "Timecrimes" (which
it resembles in many ways), "Triangle" telegraphs many of its twists early but
still manages to sustain a mood of unease and suspense.
More on the next page!
('The Canyon'/Magnolia)
Close
Hotmail
