The International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival used to be a sister festival to The Phoenix Film Festival, run in regular genre season in October. It was shorter, cheaper and more personal, as well as being restricted to genre film. However it effectively ceased to be as a separate entity after the sixth event in 2010.In 2011, the genre festival was subsumed by the main festival. It moved from its mobile status, having played at three different theatres over six years, to a permanent home at the Harkins Cine Capri, where it effectively became the late night programming for the Phoenix Film Festival in April. Special guest slots dropped to one, in this instance Heather Langenkamp, here to promote her documentary I am Nancy.
The 2011 festival suffered immensely from arriving only six months after the previous one. Very little was shown and mostly at the same time on different screens, so it was impossible to see much of anything. I managed to see a total of four films, whereas in previous years I'd seen that much even before the weekend arrived and everything got busy. What's more, the presentations were consistently mangled with bad introductions and broken sound and video. Triple Hit wasn't a bad movie, but it ran against itself as the only sci-fi feature in competition.
On the more positive side, the shorter schedule was at least countered by some strong movies, including Absentia, the winner of Best Horror Feature and possibly the best competition film ever screened over the festival's history. The showcase features included Tucker and Dale Versus Evil and Stake Land.
The people running this festival stayed consistent. Check them all out if you're into film in Arizona, beginning with Chris and Jason and the folks at the The Phoenix Film Foundation. Andrea, the Midnite Movie Mamacita handled the horror/sci-fi programming. Program directors remained Danny and Brandon from I Can Smell Your Brains for horror; and science fiction writer Mike Stackpole for sci-fi.
Here are all the films screened in 2011, with film 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 Competition Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Absentia | 2011 | 7 | 7 | Mike Flanagan | IMDb |
| Midnight Son | 2011 | 6 | 6 | Scott Leberecht | IMDb |
| The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue | 2010 | 5 | 6 | Mike Bradecich & John LaFlamboy | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Competition Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Triple Hit | 2009 | 4 | 5 | Huw Bowen | IMDb |
| Showcase Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Hisss | 2010 | 4 | 4 | Jennifer Lynch | IMDb |
| I am Nancy | 2011 | 5 | 5 | Arlene Marechal | IMDb |
| The People vs George Lucas | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Alexandre O Phillippe | IMDb |
| Stake Land | 2010 | 5 | 6 | Jim Mickle | IMDb |
| Tucker and Dale vs Evil | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Eli Craig | IMDb |
| Horror Shorts | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Zombiefication | 2010 | 4 | 5 | Stefan Lukacs | IMDb |
| I Rot | 2010 | 4 | 4 | Josef J Weber | IMDb |
| Last Seen on Dolores Street | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Devi Snively | IMDb |
| Cold Sore | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Matt Bird | IMDb |
| Bugbaby | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Rebecca Lorrene | IMDb |
| Red Umbrella | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Andri Cung & Edward Gunawan | IMDb |
| Cell Phone Psycho | 2010 | 4 | 5 | David S White | IMDb |
| Escape | 2010 | 4 | 4 | Andres Rosénde | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Shorts A | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| The Island | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Nathan Fisher | IMDb |
| Earthship | 2010 | 5 | 5 | David K Wilson | IMDb |
| Picture Show at the End of the World | 2009 | 5 | 5 | David Rusanow | IMDb |
| Roman's Ark | 2011 | 5 | 5 | Seth Larney | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Shorts B | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Earwigs | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Bruce Legrow | IMDb |
| Antedon | 2010 | 4 | 4 | Alejandro Ayala Alberola | IMDb |
| The Hollow Men | 2010 | 6 | 5 | Ashley Denton | IMDb |
| SNAFU | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Julian Caldow | IMDb |
| The Turing Love Affair | 2010 | 4 | 4 | Natasha Kermani | IMDb |
| The Recipient | 2010 | 5 | 5 | Javier Bermudez | IMDb |
| Carry Tiger to the Mountain | 2011 | 4 | 4 | Arnold Barkus & Bennett Lieberman | IMDb |
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