The history of The International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival seems to be organising itself into three year sets.
The first three years, at the Harkins Centerpoint in Tempe, are the early years as the festival established itself. The second three, at Chandler Cinemas and at MADCAP Theatres in Tempe, are currently the classic years, when it was in its prime with substantial programming and excellent guests. The third three saw it merged into the Phoenix Film Festival, initially as the red-headed stepchild but growing consistently each year.
2014, its tenth anniversary year, sees it almost back to the size it used to be in its heyday and the selection of films looks notably impressive, even if the much anticipated Oculus was hijacked by the larger festival.
Last year was strong on the short film programming and those selections were notably well attended. It's great to see this year honour that by returning the number of selections to four, two for horror and two for sci-fi. It's similarly great to see the number of competition feature slots remain at six, three in each track.
What's more, there are ten showcase features, up from last year's eight (eleven if Oculus stays on this side of the larger festival), and they include some potential gems, including Why Don't You Play in Hell?, Queen of Blood and The Sacrament.
Only one of these is a classic film drawn out of the archives to accompany a special guest. This year that's Cujo, presented by Dee Wallace Stone.
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. Andrea Beesley, the Midnite Movie Mamacita, is the festival director who also programs the showcase features. Danny Marianino and Brandon Kinchen from I Can Smell Your Brains program the horror side and science fiction writer Mike Stackpole handles the sci-fi side.
Here are all the films that screened this year, with titles linking to my reviews and the IMDb pages added for reference. Here are my reviews for the 2014 festival.
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 |
| Billy Club | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Drew Rosas & Nick Sommer | IMDb |
| Morningside Monster | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Chris Ethridge | IMDb |
| The Shower | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Alex Drummond | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Dust of War | 2014 | 5 | 5 | Renaud Gauthier | IMDb |
| Mind's Eye | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Mark Steven Grove | IMDb |
| SOS: Save Our Skins | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Kent Sobey | IMDb |
| Showcase Features | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Cujo | 1983 | 4 | 4 | Lewis Teague | IMDb |
| Discopath | 2013 | 3 | 4 | Renaud Gauthier | IMDb |
| LFO | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Antonio Tublen | IMDb |
| The Machine | 2014 | Caradog W James | IMDb | ||
| Oculus | 2013 | 6 | 6 | Mike Flanagan | IMDb |
| Proxy | 2013 | 6 | 6 | Zack Parker | IMDb |
| Queen of Blood | 2014 | Chris Alexander | IMDb | ||
| The Sacrament | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Ti West | IMDb |
| Savaged | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Michael S Ojeda | IMDb |
| Why Don't You Play in Hell? | 2013 | Sion Soto | IMDb | ||
| Witching and Bitching | 2013 | 4 | 5 | Álex de la Iglesia | IMDb |
| Horror Shorts A | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Liebe | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Cameron Macgowan | IMDb |
| Happy Birthday, Mr Zombie | 2012 | 5 | 5 | David Leclercq | IMDb |
| VHS | 2013 | 4 | 4 | Scott Bekicz | IMDb |
| Itsy Bitsy Spiders | 2013 | 6 | 6 | Bertrand Paré | IMDb |
| 'Til Death | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Jason Tostevin | IMDb |
| Signal | 2013 | 3 | 3 | Lutfu Emre Cicek | IMDb |
| One Please | 2014 | 5 | 5 | Jesse Burks | IMDb |
| Beware of Children! | 2013 | 6 | 5 | Ares Ceylan | IMDb |
| Dust Jacket | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Kenneth Miller | IMDb |
| Horror Shorts B | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Whispering Pines | 2012 | 4 | 4 | John Fraser | IMDb |
| Edward the Damned | 2013 | 4 | 4 | John L Weckworth | IMDb |
| Tasha and Friends | 2013 | 4 | 5 | Greg Kovacz | IMDb |
| Bright Eyes | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Jamie Rivera | IMDb |
| The Carriage or Dracula and My Mother | 2013 | 4 | 4 | Benjamin L Gordon | IMDb |
| My Love, Our Time is Now | 2013 | 2 | 3 | Kyle Dunleavy | n/a |
| One More for the Road | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Navin Ramaswaran | IMDb |
| The Bad Days | 2013 | 6 | 5 | Greg Keras | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Shorts A | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Library | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Rose Brauner | IMDb |
| Pale Blue Dot | 2013 | 4 | 5 | Aaron Schuppan | IMDb |
| The Wars of Other Men | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Mike Zawacki | IMDb |
| The Escape | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Alessandro De Vivo & Ivano di Natale | IMDb |
| The Horizon Project | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Scott Belyea | IMDb |
| The Developer | 2013 | 6 | 5 | Robert Odegnal | IMDb |
| Sci-Fi Shorts B | |||||
| Title | Year | H | D | Director(s) | IMDb |
| Liftoff | 2013 | 4 | 4 | Nir Yaniv | IMDb |
| LiFi | 2014 | 6 | 6 | Preston Peterson & Jason Boesch | IMDb |
| Enhanced Cellphone of the Future | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Snehal Patel | n/a |
| Your Cocoon and You | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Dallin Cerva | IMDb |
| Passing | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Stephen Sherwood | IMDb |
| My Date with Adam | 2013 | 5 | 5 | Dennis Schebetta | IMDb |
| DOUG.DAT | 2013 | 4 | 5 | Christopher Rowell | IMDb |
| Sad Monster | 2013 | 4 | 4 | Kurt Dettbarn | IMDb |
| B-Class Cultural Heritage | 2013 | 6 | 6 | Yuji Hariu | IMDb |
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