 |
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.
2019 is the final year in a new set of three, which seems to me like the Reaffirmation Years, during which festival director Monte Yazzie has given it a fresh emphasis within the Phoenix Film Festival, expanding its scope and improving the quality as it's gone. He's made few changes this year, the obvious one being that he's shifted two slots away from Showcase Features to Competition Features.
That change means that there are four features in competition in each of the horror and science fiction tracks this year but showcase features drop to fourteen, two of which are still to be named. On the short film side, there are once again two sets of shorts for each of horror and sci-fi. That means that we're still at 26 slots, the same as last year and the previous high of 2007.
Taking advantage of the longer running time of the festival, there are plenty of repeat showings. Each competition feature will screen three times and each competition short twice. Most showcase features will also screen twice but four are only on the schedule once and one, Survival of the Film Freaks has three screenings. I'm not sure why.
This all looks good, as do the selections. The majority of films seem to be English language, mostly from the US but with plenty of UK films and a few from Canada and Australia. The exception is on the sci-fi side, where the four competition features include one from China and another from Malaysia and the short sets include films from Qatar, Sweden, Georgia and the Ukraine.
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 are 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 |
| Isabelle | 2018 | Robert Heydon | IMDb | ||
| The Chicken Party | 2018 | Carlos R. Valencia | IMDb | ||
| My Soul to Keep | 2018 | Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad | IMDb | ||
| To Tokyo | 2018 | Caspar Seale Jones | IMDb | ||
| Sci-Fi Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Excursion | 2018 | Martin Grof | IMDb | ||
| Last Sunrise | 2019 | Wen Ren | IMDb | ||
| Volition | 2019 | Tony Dean Smith | IMDb | ||
| The Spiral | 2018 | Peter Wong | IMDb | ||
| Showcase Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Assassinaut | Drew Bolduc | IMDb | |||
| Automata | 2019 | Lawrie Brewster | IMDb | ||
| The Bastard's Fig Tree | 2017 | Anaïs Murugarren | IMDb | ||
| Body at Brighton Rock | 2019 | Roxanne Benjamin | IMDb | ||
| Darlin' | 2019 | Pollyanna McIntosh | IMDb | ||
| The Hole in the Ground | 2019 | Lee Cronin | IMDb | ||
| I’ll Take Your Dead | 2018 | Chad Archibald | IMDb | ||
| In Fabric | 2018 | Peter Strickland | IMDb | ||
| I Trapped the Devil | 2019 | Josh Lobo | IMDb | ||
| Nightmare Cinema | 2018 | Alejandro Brugués, Ryuhei Kitamura, David Slade, Joe Dante & Mick Garris | IMDb | ||
| One Cut of the Dead | 2017 | Shinichiro Ueda | IMDb | ||
| Redcon-1 | 2018 | Chee Keong Cheung | IMDb | ||
| Survival of the Film Freaks | 2018 | Bill Fulkerson & Kyle Kuchta | IMDb | ||
| They’re Inside | 2019 | John-Paul Panelli | IMDb | ||
| Horror Shorts A | |||||
| Plastic Hip | 4 | Bradford Uyeda | n/a | ||
| Third Wheel | 2017 | Daniel DelPurgatorio | IMDb | ||
| Keloid | 2017 | Brendan Pollecutt | IMDb | ||
| Rotsy | 2018 | D. A. Keenan | IMDb | ||
| Songbird | 2018 | Helen Baldwin | IMDb | ||
| The Leshiy | 2019 | Ben Anderson & Sawyer Purman | IMDb | ||
| The Foodies | 2014 | Julien de Volte & Arnaud Tabarly | IMDb | ||
| Horror Shorts B | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Peep | 2018 | Zachary Dehm | IMDb | ||
| Zombied | 2018 | Matthew Van Vorst | IMDb | ||
| Frozen in Terror | 2018 | Chad Patrick Shannon | IMDb | ||
| The Whistler | 2019 | Jennifer Nicole Stang | IMDb | ||
| Exhibit Man | 2018 | Trevor Mirosh | IMDb | ||
| A Doll Distorted | 2018 | Niall Shukla | IMDb | ||
| Sci-Fi Shorts A | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Transmission | 2018 | Rebecca Gardiner | IMDb | ||
| Bombora | 2019 | Augie Meleo | IMDb | ||
| Beautiful Bunkers | 2018 | Boone Cavender | IMDb | ||
| Lavender | Henry Boffin | n/a | |||
| Hot Knife Cold Butter | 2017 | Zaine Salameh | IMDb | ||
| Tik Tok | 2018 | R. J. Blake | IMDb | ||
| Regulation | 2019 | Ryan Patch | IMDb | ||
No comments:
Post a Comment