2018 PFF & IHSFF Festival Recap – Friday, April 6th 2018
Coda’s ongoing coverage of the 2018 Phoenix Film Festival & International Horror Sci-Fi Film Festival. I'll be using these posts to recap the films I've experienced as part of these festivals.
FOREVER B (ABDUCTED
IN PLAIN SIGHT) – Directed by Skye Borgman
Before I went into this true crime documentary, a friend
told me that it would be fun to count how many times I said “WTF” during the
screening. Now, I’m not all that hip to all of these new internet acronyms and I’m
far too scared to Google them so I’ll just assume that WTF stands for “Wow!!!
This Film!!!”
This story takes place in a small Mormon community in Idaho
in the mid 1970’s where apparently, literally anything, including alien
abduction is more plausible than pedophilia. It’s kind of like the mirrored
image of Andrew Jarecki’s CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (’03). All extreme forms of
trust issues are explored, from dumbfounding naiveté to crippling paranoia.
This film may leave you questioning its authenticity but, who could possibly
make something like this up, and why in the hell would they?
DOWNRANGE – Directed
by Ryûhei Kitamura
VERSUS (2000) director, Ryûhei Kitamura brought his new high
concept thriller of a gore-fest to the IHSFF this year. The opening scene sets
up the entirety of the plot. And even before anything significant happens, this
film appears to assume that its audience has seen the trailer or read the synopsis.
It exploits some existing horror tropes to throw a few misdirecting shots around.
Also, I’m beginning to wonder if we’re about to see a revival of the split
diopter camerawork. This is the 2nd release this year that I’ve seen
it used (the other being STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT) and it gave an interesting
effect.
I may be giving this film more credit for its timeliness
than is warranted. But, we live in a day and age in which someone with the
means will randomly kill others, just because they can. This film, in Kitamura’s
over-the-top flare, does an overall good job at playing on the collective fears
of living in modern day America.
FERAL – Directed by Mark
Young
This year is actually the unofficial Scout Taylor-Compton film
festival. She stars in 3 films including this one, CYNTHIA and ANDOVER. She’s
pretty great so I’m into it…
I’m always a little curious about horror flicks like this.
It sets up a sort of mystery for the characters to solve. But answer is usually
fairly obvious to the audience. I’m not sure how I feel about this. And I wasn’t
too thrilled with how this was shot. Lots of close ups are great for dramatic
tension but when the horror action starts, it makes it too hard for the viewer
to keep track of the space being used. Overall, amid its shortcomings, this
film ultimately succeeds as a combo cabin-in-the-woods/creature feature.
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