FrightFest allnighter returns to Bristol for Halloween

Fancy having the crap scared out of you for ten straight hours on Halloween? Of course you bloody well do – with the emphasis on the ‘bloody’. So you’ll be delighted to learn that the FilmFour FrightFest returns to the Watershed for a fourth annual smorgasbord of gore and giblets. Once your sinister bloodlust has been sated, you can emerge puffy-eyed into daylight and feast upon a mouth-watering ‘bloody breakfast’ – or vegetarian equivalent. The whole thing kicks off at 9.30pm, with five movies being screened. Rather than lazily re-printing the PR guff, here’s our hype-free critical gorehound’s guide to what’s on offer.

ABCs of Death 2

The first ABCs of Death proved to be a very mixed bag, and there’s no reason to suppose this one won’t be much the same. The rather contrived format is that 26 directors are each assigned a letter of the alphabet and asked to choose a word beginning with that letter as the title of their short film about death. There are some pretty good directors on board for this second anthology, including the Soskia twins (T is for Torture Porn), Vincenzo Natali (U is for Utopia) and Oscar-nominated American animator Bill Plympton (H is for Head Games).

The Pact II

Oh no – not another horror sequel. The first Pact was a reasonable enough haunted house shocker in which it transpired – spoiler alert! – that the ghost was a serial killer skulking in a hidden room. The closing shot left the door wide open for the Judas Killer to return for a sequel. And so it proves. This time a crime scene cleaner starts to have spooky dreams and visions, while the cops reckon they’ve got a copycat killer on their hands. It’s not long before original heroine Caity Lotz is summoned back to whup Judas’s ass once and for all. Possibly. What’s it like? No idea. This is the UK premiere. The film opens at multiplexes on November 14.

The Editor

Something of a comic companion piece to Berberian Sound Studio, this new film from Winnipeg collective Astron-6 sends up the conventions of the ripe Italian giallo horror genre. That’s rather like shooting lurid, primary coloured, over-acting fish in a barrel, but the advance word is that this is a loving and accurate parody, right down to the terrible, poorly synchronised English-language dubbing. The cast includes Boardwalk Empire star Paz de la Huerta, Udo Kier and Human Centipede II sleaze Laurence R. Harvey – who, eagle-eyed sickos will be quick to observe, can also be seen as ‘Wanker’ in the ABCs of Death 2 film T is for Torture Porn.

Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter

This could well prove to be the camp treat of the night. Written and directed by Brian Clemens, whose TV credits include The Avengers and Thriller, this late-period Hammer horror attempted to reinvent the vampire flick by casting Horst Janson as a swashbuckling avenger who puts aristocratic vamps to the sword, with a little help from his hunchbacked assistant. To add to the pleasing 70s vibe, buxom Caroline Munro shows up as an exotic gypsy dancer. This was conceived as the first in a series of Kronos movies, but it flopped at the box office, so they didn’t bother making any more. These days, it has assumed cult status.

Last Shift

This one’s a bit of an unknown quantity as it’s a UK premiere and doesn’t appear to have been screened to anyone yet. It’s billed as the tale of a rookie cop whose world is turned upside down when she comes face to face with Paymon, the King of Hell. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?