The Film Festival Doctor

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Today’s blog is a horror special, partly because I’m having an ‘Abertoir Horror Festival day’ as I’m meeting up with the other members of staff today so I thought before the Tarantino-Venice news kicks in, lets have a full-on horror day. Frightfest finished on Monday 30th and word on the internet of some of the films screened has been pretty good. I hear that 13HS was ‘cheap and cheerful’ (always a good thing), Cherry Tree Lane was an improvement from The Cottage, whereas The Tortured was not very good. Monsters on the other hand was well received (which is not really a horror more sci-fi). I’d heard very positive things about this whilst at this years Edinburgh Film Festival, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this one when it arrives into UK cinemas in mid-November. Am very intrigued by The Pack (loving the poster), since it sounds like a challenging film. However, above all, I was really pleased to heat that The Dead went down extremely well – and rightly so, that must have been the hidden gem of the festival I imagine.  One thing which can’t go unnoticed is that the organisers had to pull A Serbian Film from their line-up at the very last minute due to the BBFC demanding a series of (just under 4 minutes) cuts before it could be screened. The festival decided not to screen the heavily cut version because they believed that a film of this nature should be shown in its entirety, in the way that the director would have intended – I couldn’t agree more with them. This is my favourite film of the year. Ignore the ‘torture porn’ tags it’s been receiving as it isn’t this kind of film, it is rather an art house horror film which is incredibly well made and acted. Yes, there are indeed some shocking scenes but the directors are completely in control of what they are doing and not once do they slip up, as the whole thing is tightly crafted and very well put together. Overall, it’s a film which makes you think very hard about film making and the narrative challenges you much more than any other film would – which is what, in my opinion, makes it a superior film. J Almost time for the meeting...speaking of challenges, I have set myself the task of walking up Penglais hill in heels – fun times ahead.