Tuesday 18 July 2000

International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival 2016


I've been eagerly waiting for the line up for the 2016 International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival because it's a really important year.

It marks the first time in many years that any change has happened to the crew who put on the event, as Andrea Canales, the Midnite Movie Mamacita, stepped down as Festival Director to be replaced by Monte Yazzie. What will Monte do to establish himself and his vision for the event?

It also marks the last in a set of three years, the time period by which this festival has identified itself. So what will the years of 2014 to 2016 be remembered as? Well, that's still up in the air but I'm eager to figure that out in early April.

Certainly the numbers have stayed pretty consistent across these three years. 2016 will see three horror and three sci-fi features in competition, along with two sets each of horror and sci-fi shorts. There are currently nine showcase features with one enticingly open slot that may add a tenth on Wednesday night and I'm eagerly looking forward to a couple of them.

Except for Monte replacing Andrea, the rest of the crew behind the festival remain the same, 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.

Here are all the films that screened this year, with titles linking to my reviews and the IMDb pages added for reference.

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 Dark Tapes 2016 2 Michael McQuown & Vincent Guastani IMDb
Dead Body 2015 4 Bobbin Ramsey IMDb
Night of Something Strange 2016 5 Jonathan Straiton IMDb
The Cruel Tale of the Medicine Man 2015 5 James Habacker IMDb

Sci-Fi Features
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
The History of Time Travel 2014 4 Ricky Kennedy IMDb
Parallel 2015 5 John Turk & Keith Nickoson IMDb
Displacement 2016 5 Kenneth Mader IMDb

Showcase Features
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Under the Shadow 2016 6 Babak Anvari IMDb
Badoet 2015 Awi Suryadi IMDb
High Rise 2015 5 Ben Wheatley IMDb
The Greasy Strangler 2016 5 Jim Hosking IMDb
The Blackcoat's Daughter 2015 5 Osgood Perkins IMDb
The Sublet 2015 5 John Ainslie IMDb
Last Girl Standing 2015 5 Benjamin R Moody IMDb
Antibirth 2016 5 Danny Perez IMDb
The Eyes of My Mother 2016 6 Nicolas Pesce IMDb

Horror Shorts A
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Gotcher 2014 Bruce Branit IMDb
Ideal 2015 Kevan Tucker IMDb
Blight 2015 Brian Deane IMDb
The Man Who Loved Flowers 2015 Justin Zimmerman IMDb
A Way Out 2015 Jason Tostevin IMDb
The Smiling Man 2015 A J Briones IMDb
Deathly 2015 Mike Williamson IMDb
Yummy Meat: A Halloween Carol 2015 John Fitzpatrick IMDb
Welcome to the Party 2015 Michael A Livingston IMDb

Horror Shorts B
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
A Tricky Treat 2015 Patricia Chica IMDb
Night of the Slasher 2015 Shant Hamassian IMDb
Miriam 2015 Emiliano Ranzani n/a
The Voodoo Dick 2015 Daniel McDonald IMDb
Larry Gone Demon 2015 Matthew John Lawrence IMDb
Flush 2015 Matt Cooper IMDb
Bad Blood 2015 Aleksandra Lagkueva IMDb
Little Old Cat Lady from Rancho Cucamonga 2015 Stephen James Thomas IMDb
20 Matches 2015 Mark Tapio Kines IMDb

Sci-Fi Shorts A
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Project: Horizon 2015 Kirill Kripak IMDb
Clones 2015 Rafael Bolliger IMDb
Back to the Gaia 2015 Chen Xiaomeng n/a
Iris 2015 Richard Karpala IMDb
Jakob 2015 Eymeric Jorat IMDb
Younglings 2015 Stuart Baker IMDb
Avant 2015 Arthur Tabuteau IMDb
As They Continue to Fall 2016 Nikhil Bhagat IMDb

Sci-Fi Shorts B
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Tomorrow's Dream 2015 David Gould IMDb
Ozone 2015 Branko Sujic IMDb
Legacy 2015 Josh Mawer IMDb
Populace 2015 Aaron Bevan Bailey IMDb
The Grid 2015 Andi Osho IMDb
Helio 2015 Teddy Cecil IMDb

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