FrightFest 2013 Main Screen Programme

28th Jun 2013

THURSDAY AUG 22

18:30 OPENING FILM – THE DEAD 2: INDIA (World Premiere)

Directors: Howard & Jon Ford. Cast: Joseph Millson, Meenu, Anand Goyal, Sandip Datta Gupta, Poonam Mathur. UK 2013, 90 mins.

Another darkly mysterious Continent becomes an inhospitable and dangerous dead zone in the highly anticipated follow-up to the Ford Brothers’ critically acclaimed zombie road movie THE DEAD. Launched at FrightFest 2010 to eventual massive global success, the cult commercial franchise moves to the hustle and bustle of India as the devastating zombie outbreak takes hold and British turbine engineer Nicholas Burton must trek from one side of the country to the other if he is ever to see his pregnant girlfriend Ishani again. But it’s a journey he must undertake if he is to saveher and his unborn child from an impending flesh-eating zombie holocaust.

21:00 CURSE OF CHUCKY (European Premiere)

Director: Don Mancini. Cast: Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, Brennan Elliott, A Martinez. USA, 2013. 90 mins.

The serial killer who’s such a doll returns for more murderous mayhem. Chucky arrives to wreak havoc within a dysfunctional family that’s regrouped for a funeral. In the wake of her mother’s passing, Nica – in a wheelchair since birth – is forced to put up with her relatives as they say their tearful goodbyes. When the people she loathes start turning up dead, Nica is horrified to discover the culprit might be the weird doll she was sent a few days earlier. Picking up events from the finale of CHILD’S PLAY 3, creator and SEED OF CHUCKY helmer Don Mancini back in the director’s chair.

23:30 YOU’RE NEXT (London Preview)

Director: Adam Wingard. Cast: Sharni Vinson, AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Ti West. USA 2013, 95 mins.

Now you can finally see director Adam (A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE) Wingard’s home invasion horror slaked with survival suspense, pitch black comedy and body count splatter. The dysfunctional Davison family are getting together to celebrate a wedding anniversary. And while Crispian warns his new girlfriend Erin that things could get tense around the dinner table, nothing prepares her or any of the oblivious family for what lies in store. For when a crossbow bolt smashes through the window into a party guest’s eye, the dazed family come under attack by unknown assailants who want them dead.

FRIDAY AUG 23

10:30 THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT (UK Premiere)

Director Renny Harlin. Cast: Richard Reid, Gemma Atkinson, Matt Stokoe, Luke Albright, Holly Goss. USA, 2013, 90 mins.

In February, 1959, nine Russians hikers ventured into the Ural Mountains on a trip that should have been manageable for a group with their vast experience. Two weeks later, all nine were discovered dead. A search party found the hikers’ tents ripped open from the inside and all seemed to have died from hypothermia. With no compelling evidence or witnesses to account for the puzzling night, the case quickly fell into legendary infamy. The riddle has baffled investigators, researchers and authorities ever since. Now five young filmmakers retrace the steps of the doomed hikers in pursuit of the unsolvable mystery. What will they find?

12:45 DEMENTAMANIA (World Premiere)

Director: Kit Ryan. Cast: Sam Robertson, Vincent Regan, Kal Penn, Geoff Bell, John Thomson. UK, 2013. 83 mins.

Friday the 13th. A day like any other day for software analyst Edward Arkham. But after taking a shower he steps on a wasp and the sharp sting he receives will bug him throughout the whole day. It will put him on edge for every meeting with his fellow city-workers It will infect the friendships he has with his open plan desk jockeys. It will make him go crazy when he receives an unwanted email from his ex-girlfriend. And it will erupt into horrific bloody violence at a local nightclub. This is THE FLY meets ‘The Office’ as Edward finds himself caught between the realms of his deranged imagination and the mundane reality of his everyday existence.

15:00 TOTAL FILM ICON (to be announced)

16:20 HATCHET III (UK Premiere)

Director: B J McDonnell. Cast: Danielle Harris, Kane Hodder, Zach Galligan, Caroline Williams, Derek Mears. USA 2013, 81 mins.

In the third gore-gantuan instalment of Adam Green’s modern slasher franchise, Marybeth uncovers the true secret to stopping the voodoo curse that has left the ghost of deformed maniac Victor Crowley haunting and stalking the Honey Island swamplands in the New Orleans bayou for decades. An entire police department, face off with the infamous slaughter-machine in this action-packed, explosive sequel full of splatter stunts – all adhering to Green’s strict no-CGI rule. The first of the series to be filmed almost entirely on location in New Orleans, this marks the directing debut of cameraman B J McDonnell (‘The Walking Dead’).

18:45 HAUNTER (UK Premiere)

Director: Vincenzo Natali. Cast: Abigail Breslin, Michelle Nolden, David Hewlett, Peter Outerbridge, Stephen McHattie. USA, 2013, 97 mins.

GROUNDHOG DAY meets THE OTHERS in Vincenzo Natali’s chilling reverse-ghost story. True to the form of CUBE, CYPHER and SPLICE, Natali’s spooky tale of vintage murders, time travel, and clear boundaries between the living and the dead is impeccably constructed and tightly focused with a strikingly good performance from Abigail Breslin. She plays Lisa Johnson, a teenager, who along with her family are deceased, doomed to repeat the fateful last day before they were all killed by the Haunter in 1985. Only Lisa has ‘woken up’ . It’s the present day and the serial-killing Haunter is closing in again.

21: 15 V/H/S/2 (UK Premiere)

Directors: Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett, Eduardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans, Jason Eisener. Cast: Kelsy Abbott, Hannah Al Rashid, Fachry Albar, Oka Antara, Devon Brookshire. USA 2013, 95 mins.

In the far superior sequel to V/H/S, two private investigators break into the abandoned house of a missing college student, uncovering a collection of mysterious videotapes. They reveal four horrifying films, trafficked by an underground tape sharing community, which lead the pair to a shocking resolution to their case. The horrific contents of each cassette come from such genre visionaries responsible for an array of notable shockers like YOU’RE NEXT, A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, THE RAID, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN and THE ABCs OF DEATH.

23:30 100 BLOODY ACRES (UK Premiere)

Directors: Cameron & Colin Cairnes. Cast: Damon Herriman, Angus Sampson, Anna McGahan, Oliver Ackland, Jamie Kristian. Australia 2013, 92 mins.

In the proud tradition of THE LOVED ONES and WOLF CREEK comes this hilarious horror from Down Under. Reg Morgan runs a small organic bone fertiliser business in the outback with his bullying older brother Lindsay. They’ve recently taken the lead over their competitors thanks to a secret ingredient – liquidised human corpses! When Reg picks up three city-slickers who’ve broken down, he’s torn between his instincts to mulch the trio, and pangs of conscience as he falls for one of his captives, the charming Sophie. Gory, shocking and funny, with one of the most hysterically disturbing sex scenes in cinema history, mark this rural survival saga an Oz classic.

SATURDAY AUGUST 24

10:30 THE HYPNOTIST (UK Premiere)

Director: Lasse Hallström. Cast: Tobias Zilliacus, Mikael Persbrandt, Lena Olin, Helena af Sandeberg, Oscar Pettersson. Sweden 2012, 122 mins. Swedish with English subtitles.

In 2009 FrightFest pioneered the Nordic Noir trend by being the first festival in the world to show THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Now we present the latest Scandinavian sensation from award-winning director Lasse Hallström, based on the international bestseller by Lars Kepler.. A triple murder, all the same family. The only surviving witness, Josef, whose parents and little sister were killed before his eyes. Is in shutdown, The killer is at large, and it looks as if the elder sister escaped the carnage. But she‘s missing and it seems only a matter of time until her slaughter. In desperation, Detective Inspector Joona Linna turns to disgraced hypnotist Erik Maria Bark…

13:15 FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY (English Premiere)

Director: Richard Raaphorst. Cast: Karel Roden, Joshua Sasse, Robert Gwilym, Alexander Mercury, Luke Newberry. USA 2013, 86 mins.

In the waning days of World War II, a battalion of Russian soldiers find themselves lost in eastern German enemy territory. Stumbling upon a village decimated by an unseen terror, they discover a secret Nazi laboratory and a mad scientist conducting experiments using the journal of one Dr. Victor Frankenstein to fuse flesh and steel to create unstoppable undead soldiers. Call it a historical HOSTEL on Hammer Horror steroids, cyberpunk by way of classic Universal monster mayhem or found-footage fear taken to the next level, this inventive old-style freakshow with gore, guts and gunplay is a midnight movie audience’s wet dream and instant cult classic.

15:30 HAMMER OF THE GODS (UK Premiere)

Director: Farren Blackburn. Cast: Charlie Bewley, James Cosmo, Michael Jibson, Clive Standen, Glynis Barber. UK 2013, 95 mins.

It’s Britain, 871 AD and dying King Bagsecg needs reinforcements with a strong leader to cement the Viking position in central Britain. So he sends his son, Steinar, and his brutal associates, Grim, Jokul and Hagen, to find his vicious firstborn Hakan the Ferocious to take on the gathering Saxon armies. This is an old-fashioned, high adventure romp through BEOWULF and GAME OF THRONES style terrain from Farren Blackburn, director of ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘The Fades’, and written by Matthew Read, scripter of the PUSHER remake. It’s HAMMER time, so kiss my axe!

18:00 NO ONE LIVES (UK Premiere)

Director: Ryuhei Kitamura. Cast: Luke Evans, Adelaide Clemens, Lee Tergesen, Derek Magyar, Beau Knapp. USA 2012, 87 mins.

Fourteen students are murdered and the crime scene offers no clues to the whereabouts of the one person who could be the only survivor. Months later a gang of robbers screw up their latest mansion heist and mug a couple in a car instead. What they realise too late is that the driver is the killer responsible for the student massacre. Then it’s Psycho vs. Psychos in a taut, tension-laden cat-and-mouse chiller that sees both sides trying to outdo the other in terms of entrapment, torture, pain and terror. MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN director Ryuhei Kitamura continues his American gothic adventures with a stylish, ingenious and sensational shocker.

20:55 R.I.P.D. (UK Premiere)

Director: Robert Schwentke. Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Jeff Bridges, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak. USA 2013, 120 mins. 3D.

MEN IN BLACK meets GHOSTBUSTERS in an blockbuster crime fantasy by RED director Robert Schwentke. Based on the comic book ‘Rest In Peace Department’ by Peter M. Lenkov, veteran sheriff Roy Pulsifer has spent his career with the legendary R.I.P.D., tracking monstrous spirits who are cleverly disguised as ordinary people. His latest mission is to bring to justice a breed of criminals trying to escape final judgment by hiding on Earth. Pulsifer teams up with detective Nick Walker and two of R.I.P.D.’s finest must miraculously restore the cosmic balance or watch the eternal time tunnel to the afterlife begin sending angry souls the wrong way.

23:30 CHEAP THRILLS (English Premiere)

Director: E.L. Katz. Cast: Pat Healy, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton, David Koechner, Amanda Fuller. USA 2013, 85 mins.

This smart, fun and highly disturbing feature is the debut feature of E. L. Katz, writer of AUTOPSY and POP SKULL. Craig is down on his luck, fired from his job, facing eviction and a wife and newborn to care for. Craig heads to a bar where he runs into old friend Vince. Things then go from nostalgic to crazy when the duo hooks up with a wealthy married couple out for a good time, who start making bets on Craig and Vince’s behaviour. Eager to out-do each other, the two blue-collar nobodies embark on a battle for cash. To begin with the wagers are innocent but then the challenges start getting more extreme and bloody as the night goes on…

SUNDAY AUGUST 25

10:15 MISSIONARY (European Premiere)

Director: Anthony DiBlasi. Cast: Mitch Ryan, Connor Christie, Dawn Olivieri, Jesse Malinowski, Kip Pardue. USA 2013, 95 mins

From CASSADAGA and DREAD director Anthony DiBlasi comes the psycho kook of Mormon, a Godsploitation thriller with a splatter-day saint twist. Separated from her husband, Katharine Kingsmen is having a hard time raising her son Kesley. So when two Mormon missionaries arrive at the door to preach the gospel, she doesn’t see any harm in them playing football with him. But for Elder Brock it’s the prelude to a major test of his faith as he seduces Katharine and becomes increasingly obsessed by the perfect family life he’s always wanted. Then Katharine shuns his affections – an act that tips him over the edge…

12:40 IN FEAR (Special Preview)

Director: Jeremy Lovering. Cast: Iain De Caestecker, Alice Englert, Allen Leech. UK, 2013. 85 mins.

In Jeremy Lovering’s chilling feature debut, a young couple fights to survive one night-turned-nightmare. Driving to a music festival Tom and Lucy have plans to cement their burgeoning relationship at a countryside hotel. But with hotel signs leading them in ever-decreasing circles through the dark, rural terrain, they soon become lost in a maze of dirt tracks and dead ends…and the target of an unknown tormentor. With the lead performances by Alice Englert and Iain De Caestecker given an added edge by the director withholding the script, this uniquely produced white-knuckle horror revels in its sense of unsettling claustrophobic style.

15:00 THE GRIEF TOURIST (Special Preview)

Director: Suri Krishnamma. Cast: Michael Cudlitz, Melanie Griffith, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Suzanne Quast, Eddie J. Fernandez. USA 2012, 85 mins.

Once a year security guard Jim Tahna takes a vacation and travels to locations in the life of a serial killer. This year’s obsession is arsonist Carl Marznap so Jim spends his days in Hetacomb, California, visiting the places of pain and anguish in the mass murderer’s abused life. Staying in a seedy motel Jim discovers an unexpected connection to a local diner waitress attempting to recover from her own tragedy. But next door at his motel is a prostitute and soon Jim’s sexual impulses and weakening grip on reality deteriorate into violent despair. Featuring a fearless lead performance from Michael (‘Southland’) Cudlitz and a brilliantly back-on-form Melanie Griffith, this is a powerful, haunting and exceptional study in criminal cause and effect.

PLUS…SPECIAL EVENT: – ANDY NYMAN’S QUIZ FROM HELL 4

18:45 THE CONSPIRACY (UK Premiere)

Director: Christopher MacBride. Cast: Aaron Poole, James Gilbert, Peter Apostolopoulos, Angela Besharah, Bruce Clayton. Canada 2012, 85 mins.

The found-footage movie steps into yet another unique arena. Two filmmakers are shooting a documentary about Terrance G, a conspiracy theorist convinced all major world events – the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, 9/11, the banking crisis – are the responsibility of a secret society controlling the course of history for profit. Suddenly, after weeks of surveillance, Terrance goes missing. Digging deeper, they hit upon links to the mysterious Tarsus Club who worship the ancient deity Mithras and decide to infiltrate the weird cult. Maintaining a compulsively gripping, terror traction, the film builds to a chilling crescendo of palpable paranoid fright.

PLUS…SPECIAL EVENT: 666 SHORT CUTS TO HELL COMPETITION WINNERS

At FrightFest Glasgow in February we and our friends at Movie Mogul, in association with Horror Channel, asked aspiring filmmakers, “Can you make a short film that can cut it in hell?” It was no ordinary competition though – entrants had to follow a series of ‘killer’ restraints such as a maximum of 6 lines of dialogue, a maximum of 6 cast and crew and a maximum budget of £666. Entries flooded in – all judged by our panel of 6 consisting of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE trilogy director Tom Six, Paul Hyett, director of THE SEASONING HOUSE, Total Film’s Rosie Fletcher, Movie Mogul’s John Shackleton, Horror Channel presenter Emily Booth and FrightFest’s own Paul McEvoy. Today you will see the 6 shortlisted movies and the overall winner will be announced, who will receive a prize of £6,666 and the opportunity to develop a horror feature idea under mentorship of Movie Mogul, for a possible 2014 production..

21:10 THE LAST DAYS (UK Premiere)

Directors: Alex & David Pastor. Cast: Quim Guttierez, Jose Coronado, Marta Etura, Leticia Dolera, Isak Ferriz. Spain 2013, 101 mins. Spanish with English subtitles.

From the CARRIERS directing duo of Alex and David Pastor comes a brave, bold blockbuster science fiction fantasy adventure that delivers epic thrills, visceral excitement, high-flying visual effects and grandiose emotion. A mysterious epidemic known as The Panic has spread across the planet. This irrational fear of open spaces leads to instant death and soon the world’s population remains trapped inside buildings afraid to move. As Barcelona descends into chaos Marc embarks on a citywide quest to search for his pregnant girlfriend Julia – without setting foot outside. Clever, moving and visually startling, THE LAST DAYS ends with the most profound and haunting coda of the year.

23:30 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE 2 (European Premiere)

Director: Steven R. Monroe. Cast: Jemma Dallander, Joe Absolom, Yavor Baharov, Aleksander Aleksiev, Mary Stockley. USA 2013, 90 mins.

The movie you thought they wouldn’t dare remake now has an equally astounding sequel. Director Steven R. Monroe returns for another D-Day of the Woman. Kate has just settled into New York and she’s thrilled when she’s offered what seems like a dream assignment. But what starts out as an innocent and simple photo shoot soon turns into something disturbingly unthinkable! Brutalised, tortured and kidnapped to a distant foreign country, Katie is mercilessly buried alive and left to die. Against all odds, she manages to escape and she taps into the darkest places of the human psyche to exact the starkest and bloodiest revenge on her attackers.

MONDAY AUGUST 26

11:30 DARK TOUCH (UK Premiere)

Director: Marina De Van. Cast: Marie Missy Keating, Marcella Plunkett, Padraic Delaney, Catherine Walker, Richard Dormer. Ireland, 2013. 90 mins.

From multi-award winning visionary Marina De Van, director of IN MY SKIN, comes the French icon’s most personal film yet. At night, an isolated country house deep in the Irish countryside takes on a monstrous life of its own. Objects and furniture attack the inhabitants, leaving 11 year-old Niamh (Marie Missy Keating, daughter of Ronan) the only survivor of a bloody massacre that destroys her entire family. Taken in by family friends, Niamh can’t find the peace she so desperately wants. And all around her, signs of danger continue to manifest, her surroundings imbued with a lurking violence that soon unleashes itself again in this high-voltage poignant horror.

13:30 BANSHEE CHAPTER (World Premiere)

Director: Blair Erickson. Cast: Ted Levine, Katia Winter, Michael McMillian, Jenny Gabrielle, Chad Brumnet. USA 2013, 85 mins. 3D

In 1963 the U.S. government began experimenting on unsuspecting Americans with chemical agents. Intended to induce mind control, the programme was named ‘MK-ULTRA’ and the results were horrifying…When her best friend James Hirsch goes missing, Internet journalist Anne Roland decides to investigate and discovers Hirscch made a videotape of himself taking a mind-altering drug before vanishing into thin air. When Anne learns this friend has been extracting the drug from the pineal glands of dead humans, the search leads to the mysterious Chamber 5 in a Black Rock desert research centre.

15:35 ODD THOMAS (UK Premiere)

Director Stephen Sommers. Cast: Anton Yelchin, Willem Dafoe, Shuler Hensley, Patton Oswalt, Addison Timlin. USA, 2013. 97 mins.

From director Stephen Sommers (THE MUMMY) is a thrilling supernatural fantasy based on the bestselling book by Dean R Koontz. Odd Thomas sees murdered dead people and feels it’s his duty to make those responsible pay for their sins. The local police chief knows about his clairvoyant gifts and is happy to use him to keep the town virtually crime free. But one day, Odd meets a suspicious-looking man who he is convinced is connected to some terrible catastrophe that is about to occur, so he calls upon his ‘psychic magnetism’ to gather more information before dark forces are unleashed.

18:30 WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (UK premiere)

Director: Jim Mickle. Cast: Bill Sage, Ambyr Childers, Julia Garner, Michael Parks, Kelly McGillis. USA, 2013. 100 mins.

A brilliant re-imagining of Jorge Michel Grau’s Mexican art-house fantasy from Jim Mickle, director of STAKE LAND. Following the unexpected death of their mother, teenage daughters Iris and Rose Parker are ordered by their father to carry on a macabre ancestral ritual at all costs. But when a torrential storm hits their upstate New York region, the town’s river overflows and the local authorities start uncovering long-buried clues that lead them to the Parker family’s cannibalistic secret. Stunning performances from the cast add enormous weight to this major career step forward for Mickle in terms of directorial maturity, superb film craft and subtle horror nuance.

21:00 CLOSING FILM – BIG BAD WOLVES (UK Premiere)

Directors: Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado. Cast: Dov Glickman, Dvir Benedek, Lior Ashkenazi, Menashe Noy, Rotem Keinan. Israel 2013, 109 mins. Hebrew with English subtitles.

A series of brutal murders puts the lives of three men on a collision course in the black comedy thriller sensation of the year. They are the father of the latest victim on a cruel vendetta, the vigilante cop operating outside the law, and the main suspect in the killings – a religious studies teacher arrested for the crime but released due to a police blunder and lack of evidence. Watch them conspire, connive, accuse and squirm in this stylishly violent revenge chiller, expertly and brutally crafted, with fabulous cinematography, a stunning score and a teasingly twisting plot that’s part OLDBOY, part Hitchcock, part Coen Brothers.

The guest line-up and 2013 Short Film Selections will announced shortly.

Festival & day passes go on sale from 29 June. Tickets for Individual films are on sale from 27 July.

Bookings: 08 714 714 714 or www.empirecinemas.co.uk