Tuesday 18 July 2000

International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival 2017



Here's my usual index of all the films, features and shorts, that are being screened at IHSFFF in 2017, with directors, years and IMDb pages (where they exist). I'll link to my reviews as I write them.

Those of you who have been following my coverage of the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival over the years, especially those who have read my book, The International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival: The Transition Years will know that I see it as unfolding in sets of three years. We've gone through the Early Years as it figured out what it was, the Indie Years when it went on the road, the Transition Years when it was subsumed by the Phoenix Film Festival to be its genre track and the Pre-Teen Years, when it realised it still had an identity but wasn't quite sure what it was.

Well, 2017 marks the start of a new set of three years, firmly under the guidance of festival director Monte Yazzie, and I can already see many strengths by looking at what's scheduled.

For a start, this is the most international that the event has been in a long time. This is especially true on the sci-fi side where all three competition features and the entire Sci-Fi Shorts B set are from foreign shores. It's less true on the horror side, but there are still features from Australia, Finland and Ireland and shorts from places as far afield as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

There's also more content than there's been since 2014. Like that year, there are three horror features and three sci-fi features in competition, plus eleven showcase features; plus two sets of horror shorts and two more of sci-fi shorts, for a total of 21 slots. That's one slot up on last year and the trend is pleasing.

And, perhaps most importantly for genre fans, not only can we see every single IHSFFF film (as we could for the first time in 2016) but we even have options this year! That's great scheduling and I'm very appreciative of the effort that went into making that the case!

In fact, we can see every IHSFFF film and still have room on Sunday for a couple of features screening in competition in the wider Phoenix Film Festival: Unnerved and Brave New Jersey, a horror thriller and a comedy set during Orson Welles's infamous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1938.

The crew behind the festival remain the same as last year, starting with Jason Carney and the folk at the Phoenix Film Foundation. Danny Marianino and Brandon Kinchen remain in charge of horror competition titles and science fiction writer Mike Stackpole handles the sci-fi competition side. Monte Yazzie is the Festival Director.

Rating System
1 - Abysmal | 2 - Bad | 3 - Poor | 4 - OK | 5 - Good | 6 - Excellent | 7 - Classic

Horror Features
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
The 6th Friend 2017 5 5 Letia Clouston IMDb
Happy Hunting 2017 6 6 Joe Dietsch & Louie Gibson IMDb
The Night Watchmen 2017 5 5 Mitchell Altieri IMDb

Sci-Fi Features
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Anti Matter 2016 5 5 Keir Burrows IMDb
Inherit the Stars: The Director's Cut 2015 2 3 Keishi Suenaga IMDb
The Open 2015 5 5 Marc Lahore IMDb

Showcase Features
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
A Dark Song 2016 5 5 Liam Gavin IMDb
Dave Made a Maze 2017 5 6 Bill Watterson IMDb
Found Footage 3D 2016 5 5 Steven DeGennaro IMDb
Game of Death 2017 5 5 Sebastien Landry & Laurence Morais-Lagace IMDb
Hounds of Love 2016 6 5 Ben Young IMDb
Killing Ground 2016 5 5 Damien Power IMDb
Lake Bodom 2016 3 3 Taneli Mustonen IMDb
Sequence Break 2016 5 5 Graham Skipper IMDb
Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl 2016 5 4 A. D. Calvo IMDb
Tonight She Comes 2016 5 5 Matt Stuertz IMDb
The Transfiguration 2016 5 5 Michael O'Shea IMDb

Horror Shorts A
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Unfinished Business 2016 4 4 Adam Ganser IMDb
Wandering Soul 2016 5 5 Josh Tanner IMDb
Spell Claire 5 5 Greg Emetaz n/a
Creatures of Whitechapel 2016 5 5 Jonathan Martin IMDb
Shah Mat 2016 4 4 Razan Takash & Kirill Kripak IMDb
Mister Sewer's Murder Room 2016 5 5 Abe Epperson IMDb
A Horror Story 2016 4 4 Philip Donohue IMDb

Horror Shorts B
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Time to Eat 2015 5 5 Luke Guidici IMDb
From Dusk Till Dad 2016 4 4 Abe Epperson IMDb
Laura, Lost 4 4 Simon Sandquist n/a
The Catalyst 2016 3 4 Alan Fine IMDb
The Call of Charlie 2016 4 4 Nick Spooner IMDb
Black Ring 2016 6 6 Hasan Can Dagli IMDb
Born Again 2016 6 5 Jason Tostevin IMDb
Kookie 2016 5 5 Justin Harding IMDb
Beneath the Surface 2016 5 4 Michael Trainotti IMDb

Sci-Fi Shorts A
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Dogstein: Super Science Adventure 4 4 Tianyiming Qi n/a
Dark Machine 2016 5 5 Sander van Dijk IMDb
The New Politics 2016 5 5 Joshua Wong IMDb
The Night Shift 2016 5 - Adam Gold IMDb
Girl #2 4 4 David H. Jeffery n/a
Real Artists 2017 6 6 Cameo Wood IMDb
Where No Jedi Has Gone Before 2016 5 5 Rena Yamamoto IMDb
The Massacre at Black Divide 2016 5 5 Steve Makowski IMDb

Sci-Fi Shorts B
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
I am the Doorway 2017 4 4 Robin Kasparik IMDb
Gadget 2016 4 4 Sebastiano Pupino IMDb
Zero Sum 2016 4 4 Jimmy Hay IMDb
Might 2016 4 4 Emil Sallinen IMDb
Enora 2016 5 5 BenoƮt Monney & Sami Khadraoui IMDb

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