Vampires and trolls and zombies ... oh my! Here is all our coverage of the Film4 FrightFest 2011 – the UK's premier fantasy and horror film festival. Now in its 12th year, each August thousands of genre fans gather together at London's Empire Cinema for five days of premieres, previews, personal appearances, signings and surprises ... and the odd drink or two.
BLOGPOSTS
• Film4 FrightFest's 2011 line-up revealed | Adam Stephen Kelly
• Preview: Film4 FrightFest 2011 | Stuart Barr
• FrightFest Day 1 | Adam Stephen Kelly
• FrightFest Day 1 | Stuart Barr
• FrightFest Day 2 | Stuart Barr
• FrightFest Day 3 | Stuart Barr
• FrightFest Day 4 | Stuart Barr
• FrightFest Day 5 | Stuart Barr
PODCASTS
• FrightFest Day 1 | We preview the festival with FrightFest directors Alan Jones, Greg Day, Ian Rattray and Paul McEvoy
• FrightFest Day 2 | We review Day 1, preview Day 2 and chat with filmmakers Simon Aitken and Clive Ashenden
• FrightFest Days 3&4 | We review Days 2 and 3, and chat with filmmaker Jake West and horror journalist Billy Chainsaw
• FrightFest Day 5 | We review Frightfest 2011, with the help of directors Ben Wheatley and Sean Hogan
VIDEO: HIGHLIGHTS AND INTERVIEWS
• FrightFest Day 1 Highlights | Presented by Lucy Clements and Jennifer Eiss. The launch of Film4 FrightFest 2011, now in its 12th year. Alan, Ian, Paul and Greg welcome the regulars and newcomers in familiar fashion; Jake West spills the beans on his short tribute to John Carpenter, Escape From London; and directors Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory and Karim Hussain take to the stage of The Theatre Bizarre.
• FrightFest Day 2 Highlights | Presented by Lucy Clements and Jennifer Eiss. Horror icon Larry Fessenden discusses his career, then joins a panel discussing the current state of the American horror film consisting of some of the US's best young horror directors and producers - Ti West, Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Lucky McKee and Andrew van den Houten; Andy Nyman stars in Christian Solimeno's gripping new British recession horror The Glass Man; and Susan Jacobson brings a feminine touch to claustrophobic farm-based chiller The Holding.
• FrightFest Day 3 Highlights | Presented by Lucy Clements and Jennifer Eiss. Lucky McKee directs a feral Pollyanna McIntosh as the title character in The Woman, and reveals an unlikely horror influence; Chris Crow and the cast of Panic Button warn of the hidden dangers of online social networking; screenwriter Jason Moran makes his directorial debut with an unusual take on John Carpenter's Halloween; and Robin Hardy makes his long-awaited return to directing with the latest instalment in the Wicker Man saga, The Wicker Tree.
• FrightFest Day 4 Highlights | Presented by Lucy Clements and Jennifer Eiss. We've passed the halfway mark of Film4 FrightFest 2011, but it's not over yet with a packed fourth day. Ben Wheatley and his cast bring us the premiere of perhaps the festival's most eagerly anticipated British thriller Kill List, and attempts to give us an exclusive on his next project; Dick Maas flies over from Holland to present Saint, the latest edition to the canon of Christmas-based genre movies; directors Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales give us Rabies, the first Israeli horror movie; the directorial talents of Ti West and producing mastery of Larry Fessenden join forces once again for haunted hotel movie The Innkeepers; and Sean Hogan teaches us that being a hitman is The Devil's Business, and pays tribute to John Carpenter in another of FrightFest's exclusive short films.
• FrightFest Day 5 Highlights | Presented by Lucy Clements and Jennifer Eiss. The final day of Film4 FrightFest 2011, and we've saved some of the best until last. The closing night film is Julian Gilbey's A Lonely Place To Die, a twist on kidnap thrillers set high in Scotland's mountains; Emily Hagins, eighteen year-old director of postmodern vampire romp My Sucky Teen Romance, discusses her experiences of moviemaking with Bizarre magazine's Billy Chainsaw; bloody violence in the countryside with Inbred, the latest comedy-horror from Alex Chandon; director Michael Steiner tells the story behind the intricate handmade poster for his latest movie, Sennentuntschi: Curse Of The Alps; a multitude of genres are mixed with an '80s movie attitude by the Pierce brothers in their zombie comedy Deadheads; and the minds behind FrightFest, Alan Jones, Paul McEvoy, Greg Day, Ian Rattray and Johanna Wartio-McEvoy, share their closing thoughts on this year's festival.
FILM REVIEWS
• Don't Be Afraid of the Dark | Stuart Barr
Your worst bedtime nightmares are about to come true thanks to producer/co-writer Guillermo del Toro. Young Sally moves to Rhode Island to live with her architect father and his new girlfriend in the 19th-century mansion they are restoring. But the foreboding edifice has a dark past – something lurking within caused the destruction of artist Emerson Blackwood’s entire household a century before.
• Final Destination 5 3D | Stuart O'Connor
In this fifth instalment, Death is just as omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of co-workers from a horrific suspension bridge collapse.
• The Theatre Bizarre | Adam Stephen Kelly
Down a seedy city street in her neighbourhood, young Enola Penny is obsessed with what appears to be a long-abandoned theatre. One night, she sees that the front door is slightly ajar and impulsively decides to sneak inside. But there in the dark, decrepit auditorium, a show unlike any other unfolds before her eyes. Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to The Theatre Bizarre.
• The Holding | Stuart Barr
A heart-pounding suspense thriller set in the rugged and atmospheric landscape of the English countryside.
• The Glass Man | Stuart O'Connor
Brother, can you spare a crime? A terrifying nightmare for these awful recession times, this exploration of fear in a very real world sees one man cross a line he never dreamed he’d even get close to.
• Urban Explorer | Adam Stephen Kelly
Are you an urban explorer, one of a growing community of thrill-seekers who infiltrate normally unseen and off-limits parts of city areas and industrial facilities? Then this chilling cautionary tale is for you!
• Vile | Dr Karen Oughton
How far are people willing to go when instructed by authority? Nick, his girlfriend Tayler and their two best friends are about to find out. Abducted after a camping trip, they wake up in an unknown prison with two vials wired into the base of their skulls. They are not alone: another four people are in the same nightmarish predicament. Their task, set by a mysterious video figure, is to fill the vials with chemicals the brain produces when in extreme pain. Who will become leader of the pack and who will be first to suffer the excruciating agonies they must devise within the 22-hour time limit?
• Panic Button | Adam Stephen Kelly
Touching on today’s hot-button internet issues, such as identity theft, bullying, voyeurism and peer pressure, this inventive twister explores the chilling consequences of posting too much information online. In cyber-space no one can hear you scream.
• Troll Hunter | Justin Bateman
• Troll Hunter | Stuart Barr
Best described as Ray Harryhausen goes the 'found footage' horror route, this slyly compelling and dryly humorous hybrid details what happens when a group of documentary filmmakers attempt to expose an infamous bearskin poacher – who actually turns out to be Norway's only living troll hunter.
• Fright Night 3D | Stuart O'Connor
Fright Night comes to FrightFest – talk about a marriage made in heaven. Or should that be hell? Based on the 1985 classic comes the year’s most anticipated remake; it’s fangs for the memory with a horror comedy you can really sink your teeth into.
• Deadheads | Stuart O'Connor & Stuart Barr
A return to 1980s’ style comedy-adventure movies, the Pierce Brothers’ winning combo of gory horror action, smart humour and heartfelt emotion follows zombie slackers Mike and Brent as they travel across country to find the former’s old girlfriend and love of his life. But will those nasty bounty-hunting agents with a secret agenda catch them before they do?
• A Horrible Way to Die | Stuart Barr
Sarah is trying to start a new life. New town. New job. New boyfriend too, thanks to the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she's making progress despite a nervous edge hinting at a difficult past. For Sarah’s old existence fell apart when she realised the man she loved was a psychopath after accidentally finding his Kill Room. But now Garrick Turrell has escaped from prison and the corpses start piling up as he travels a direct line from Sarah’s old life to her new one.
• The Divide | Stuart Barr
A post-apocalyptic shocker about the nightmare unravelling of humanity in the most extreme circumstances imaginable. It starts with a bang – a nuclear one – and as New York City is decimated in the holocaust, pandemonium breaks out and a random collection of people make a chaotic sprint into the basement of their apartment building.
• The Caller | Jacqui Barr
Troubled divorcee Mary Kee moves into a new apartment in Puerto Rico eager to put as much distance between herself and her estranged husband as possible. Life returns to normal, she makes new friends in the neighbourhood… then Mary starts receiving sinister telephone calls from a mysterious woman named Rose asking to speak to a man who doesn’t live there.
• Chillerama | Adam Stephen Kelly
It's closing night at the last drive-in theatre in America and Cecil B. Kaufman has planned the ultimate marathon of lost films to unleash upon his faithful patrons – four films so rare that they have never been exhibited publicly on American soil until this very night! What could possibly go wrong?
• Tucker & Dale vs Evil | Stuart Barr
Brother, can you spare a crime? A terrifying nightmare for these awful recession times, this exploration of fear in a very real world sees one man cross a line he never dreamed he’d even get close to.
• The Woman | Stuart Barr
A scandalous tale of two extremes, a feral female force of nature and an abusive parent, on collision course for a brutal showdown with a family caught in between. When Chris Cleek discovers a primitive woman in the wilderness on a hunting trip, he traps and locks her up in a cellar to domesticate her into a civilised human being.
• Kill List | Stuart Barr
A darkly funny, brutally visceral and surprising tale of terror. Ex-soldier-turned-hit-man Jay hasn't worked in months and his unemployment and general lack of social graces are taking its toll on his marriage. Then his pal Gal comes up with an assignment for a mysterious client who slowly doles out their targets one at a time.
• A Lonely Place to Die | Stuart Barr
Breathless suspense and breathtaking photography: the tension never lets up in the ultimate British survival shocker featuring harrowing stunts and nerve-racking action. Five mountaineers are climbing in the Scottish Highlands when they stumble across an air pipe sticking out of the forest ground emitting panicked cries from a small girl speaking Serbian. Who buried her in the earth chamber? Why? And when will her kidnappers return?
• The Wicker Tree | Dr Karen Oughton
A Texas gospel singer and her boyfriend, both devout evangelical Christians, are sent to Scotland on a mission to spread the word of God. After a concert in Glasgow Cathedral the pair are invited by Sir Lachlan Morrison to preach in his remote border village. They assume their host simply wants to hear more about the Bible and are delighted when offered central roles in the fiefdom’s May Day celebrations, especially their custom of the Riding of the Laddie. But soon the horrifying reality dawns on the naïve couple as they learn the true significance of the Celtic pagan rites.
• The Devil's Business | Dr Karen Oughton
Two hit men are sent to murder an old associate of their underworld boss. Middle-aged Pinner is the been-there-done-that cynical veteran, while his new inexperienced partner Cully is about as green as they come. Waiting for their mark to return home, and irritated by Cully’s constant nervous chatter, Pinner attempts to pass the time by telling a strange story from his past, involving Valentina, a dancer he was once ordered to kill…
• Inbred | Stuart Barr
Four young urban offenders and their two care workers embark on a community service weekend in the remote Yorkshire village of Mortlake. Before you can say ‘Ey up’, they upset the yokels with their city ways in local boozer The Dirty Hole and put themselves in the gravest of dangers.
NEWS, PREVIEWS AND ROUNDUPS FROM ELSEWHERE
• The story behind FrightFest | Total Film
• FrightFest 2011 Preview | Screengeek.co.uk
• 10 films you have to see at FrightFest 2011 | Total Film
• Film4 FrightFest 2011: A definitive guide | Nigel Floyd, Time Out
• FrightFest 2011: Films to check out on the Discovery Screen | Evrim Ersoy
• FrightFest 2011: Panic Post-mortem | Panic Button writer Frazer Lee
• The FrightFest Awards | Total Film