FrightFest - Part Four

I have to finish what I've started, but since I am running out of steam, the remaining report may well be brief -- although the absolutely star film of the weekend was the very last to be shown, says PPP.

The Zombie Diaries (2007): This British entry is already out on DVD and I don't really believe that it will find a cult audience.  It's another instance of a strange virus zombifying the population and how clusters of survivors struggle to carry on.  Boring...and have you ever noticed how only twenty-somethings seem to do better than the rest of the population?

KM31 (2007):  This Mexican film was apparently a big local success and could  do well elsewhere.  A haunted stretch of highway which runs over an old river has been the scene of numerous accidents and deaths, as malignant spirits from the past seek new victims.  The latest is a young woman who lies in a coma as her identical twin is drawn into solving the mystery and finds herself in a twilight world.

Spiral (2007):  The director's previous movie "Hatchet" had its European premiere at last year's fest (I didn't reckon it at all), so he was invited back with his latest effort.  While it was an interesting film (in a smallish way), it really was out of place at a horror festival in its focus on an office nerd with artistic leanings who fills spiral notebooks with the same poses of various young women.  We follow his awkward courtship of co-worker Amber and are led to wonder if her fate will be like the others or indeed whether there ever were any others. 

Day Watch (2006):  This is the second part of the proposed Russian trilogy which began with Night Watch a year or so ago.  Since I was quite taken with the original movie and since I recently rewatched it on DVD (amazing how much of it I'd forgotten), I was keen to see this next entry.  As I wrote previously it is the story of the final stand-off between the denizens of the day and night, of good and evil, of the forthcoming apocalypse.  While flashily presented, I found the film too long and too convoluted and therefore an unfortunate disappointment.  Yet I suppose I will reserve final judgment until I've seen the third section in due course.

The Orphanage (2007):  This Mexican-Spanish entry with the wonderfully talented Guillermodel Toro as executive producer was for me the best film of the festival, full of real tension and frissons of fear -- there were even a couple of physical jumps-in-one's-seat.  Belen Rueda plays a doctor's wife who has moved into a former orphanage where she spent much of her early days before being adopted.  She and her husband have also adopted a young boy, who as it happens is HIV-positive, and it is her hope to fill the huge mansion with other disadvantaged children.  But the spirits of past tragedies haunt the old building and her son in particular is sensitive to the ghosts of long-departed children.  And then he disappears...  Rueda's growing desparation lead those about her to think that she has lost her mind, but we the audience understand that she will eventually uncover the source of the mystery and the reasons for the strange, palpably real, atmosphere of terror.

So that's all folks!  It's back to my regular eclectic pastimes next week.

Tags: FrightFest, horror, Mexican, Day Watch, The Orphanage