Tuesday 18 July 2000

International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival 2015


The International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival shrank massively in 2011 when it was subsumed into the Phoenix Film Festival, but it grew successively with every year's event until it reached a new peak in its tenth anniversary year of 2014. The 2015 festival looks to be roughly the same size as the previous year, suggesting that its growth may have stabilised, with one more competition feature but two less showcase features. There thankfully remain four sets of short films.

The most notable difference is the lack of a classic film or a special guest to accompany it. Instead the focus is entirely on newer filmmakers, with many showcase features planning to send directors and/or talent for Q&As. Sadly, in the end, perhaps only Matthew Brown and Ashley Williams of Julia showed up, but many of the competition films were represented by cast and/or crew.

The people behind the festival remained consistent, as always. Check them all out if you're into film in Arizona, beginning with Jason Carney and the folk at the Phoenix Film Foundation. Monte Yazzie is the festival manager, who programs the showcase features with Andrea Beesley, the Midnite Movie Mamacita, is the festival director. Danny Marianino and Brandon Kinchen from I Can Smell Your Brains program the competition side for horror and science fiction writer Mike Stackpole handles sci-fi.

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
Blood Punch 2013 6 6 Madellaine Paxson IMDb
Closer to God 2014 5 5 Billy Senese IMDb
The House on Pine Street 2015 4 4 Aaron & Austin Keeling IMDb

Sci-Fi Features
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Adventurados 2014 4 4 Berton Pierce IMDb
Clew 2015 5 5 Eric Badros IMDb
The Shells 2015 Max Finneran IMDb
The Sighting 2013 4 4 Doug Dezzani IMDb

Showcase Features
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Betamax 2015 2 2 Mike Etoll, Bobby Hacker, Jim Kunz, Scooter McCrae, Damon Packard and Vanessa Scully IMDb
Deathgasm 2015 6 6 Jason Lei Howden IMDb
The Editor 2014 5 5 Adam Brooks & Matthew Kennedy IMDb
Exeter 2015 Marcus Nispel IMDb
Julia 2014 6 6 Matthew A Brown IMDb
Kumiko the Treasure Hunter 2014 5 5 David Zellner IMDb
Lost Soul 2014 6 - David Gregory IMDb
Monsters: Dark Continent 2014 4 4 Tom Green IMDb
When Animals Dream 2014 5 5 Jonas Alexander Armby IMDb

Horror Shorts A
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
What is Momo? 4 4 Ross Harris n/a
In Extremis 2014 4 4 Gregory Crosbie IMDb
Hush 2014 4 5 Michael G Kehoe IMDb
Dead Hearts 2014 5 5 Stephen W Martin IMDb
Boys Will Be Boys 2014 4 4 Richard Rotter IMDb
Bad Guy #2 2014 6 6 Chris McInroy IMDb
M is for Mobile 2013 5 4 Baris Erdogan IMDb
Father Mud 2014 5 4 Jameson Hesse IMDb

Horror Shorts B
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Lure 2013 Kyle Robinson IMDb
Q 2014 Tom Vujcic IMDb
Less of You 2014 Byron Camacho IMDb
Paramnesia 2014 Michael May IMDb
I Owe You 2015 Mike McNeese IMDb
Viscera 2014 4 4 Lauren Marie Morrison IMDb
A Stranger Kind 2014 5 5 Oliver Murray IMDb


Sci-Fi Shorts A
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Death and the Iron Maiden 2014 3 3 Kevin McGuiness IMDb
Air 2014 5 5 Emma Maclennan IMDb
RomantiCorp: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Computer 2014 5 5 Kirill Kripak IMDb
2.0 2014 4 4 Ally Burnham IMDb
Witch Hunt 2014 4 4 Johno Faherty IMDb
The Routine 2014 5 5 Brian Groh IMDb
Cassandra 2014 5 5 Guy-Roger Duvert IMDb
When Tears Have Fallen 2014 5 5 Henrik Henziger IMDb

Sci-Fi Shorts B
Title Year H D Director(s) IMDb
Japanese Doctor Who 2014 4 4 Joshua Kahan IMDb
The Temporal Party 2014 5 5 Ignacio J Reveco IMDb
M-Theory 2014 4 5 T L Westgate IMDb
The Looking Planet 2014 4 5 Eric Law Anderson IMDb
Nostalgic 2014 5 4 Ronald Eltanal IMDb
Super Therapy! 2014 4 4 Kai Arne Soot & Stig Morten Waage IMDb
Valiant 2014 5 5 Robin Phillips IMDb

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