Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Review: "The Howling" Still Has Bite

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 52 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Howling (1981)
Running time: 91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Joe Dante
WRITERS: John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless (from the novel by Gary Brandner)
PRODUCER: Daniel H. Blatt, Jack Conrad, Michael Finnell, and Steven A. Lane
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jim Hora
EDITOR: Mark Goldblatt and Joe Dante
COMPOSER: Pino Donaggio

HORROR/THRILLER/DRAMA/FANTASY

Starring: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, Belinda Balaski, Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Elisabeth Brooks, Robert Picardo, Margie Impert, Noble Willingham, James Murtaugh, Jim McKrell, Kenneth Tobey, Don McLeod, and Dick Miller

The subject of this movie review is The Howling, a 1981 werewolf movie from director Joe Dante. The film is loosely based on Gary Brandner’s 1977 novel of the same name. The film starred real-life husband and wife Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone, who were married from 1980 to Christopher Stone’s death in 1995.

One of the few great werewolf movies of the last quarter of the 20th Century is The Hollowing. Directed by Joe Dante, the film is part tongue-in-cheek and part tribute to B-movie horror, but to describe the film as merely cheeky or cheesy would be a disservice to a film that features some really great scary movie atmosphere and some fantastic monster makeup effects.

After a traumatic experience with a serial killer, TV news reporter, Karen White (Dee Wallace) and her husband, Bill Neill (Christopher Stone), move temporarily to a rustic California resort called The Colony, at the behest of the resort’s founder, Dr. George Waggner, who is Karen’s therapist. Once at the colony, both Karen and Bill dislike the kooky yokels. However, Bill starts to blend in after a comely and brazen young woman puts some moves on him. Karen is upset by this attention Bill is getting, but she is more worried by what she hears at night, right outside her window – the howling. Meanwhile, Karen’s colleagues, Terry Fisher (Belinda Balaski) and Christopher (Dennis Dugan), are getting closer to making a shocking connection between the serial killer who attacked Karen and The Colony.

The Howling for all its humorous edge is also quite intense. In fact, Dante directs the shrewdly and tightly (co-written script by John Sayles) in a straight fashion and with a straight face. Considering the subject matter, the viewer may take The Howling as a howler or as a riveting horror flick. It works quite well either way, plus, the film’s sexual edge is quite effective. The women in this film are by far the most interesting players. Dee Wallace and Belinda Balaski’s primary mode is either breathless wonder or wild-eye terror, and they do it so well.

The Howling’s best aspect is the monster costumes and special makeup effects; the werewolf transformation scenes are fascinating and mesmeric, each one a unique, mind-bending, imaginative showcase of the immense talents of Rob Bottin. Unfortunately for Bottin, his work was overshadowed by his mentor, Rick Baker, who won an Oscar for his make up work in 1981’s other werewolf movie, An American Werewolf in London. Bottin’s work, Dante’s directing, and the Sayles/Winkless script make this a must-see for horror movie fans.

8 of 10
A

April 6, 2005

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Monday, October 29, 2012

"Ringu" a Gooseflesh Generator

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 145 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux


Ringu (1998)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japanese
Running time: 96 minutes (1 hour, 36 minutes)
Not rated by the MPAA
DIRECTOR: Hideo Nakata
WRITER: Hiroshi Takahashi (from the novel by Kôji Suzuki)
PRODUCERS: Takashige Ichise, Shin'ya Kawai, and Takenori Sentô
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jun'ichirô Hayashi
EDITOR: Nobuyuki Takahashi
COMPOSER: Kenji Kawai

HORROR/MYSTERY with elements of a thriller

Starring: Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rikiya Otaka, and Katsumi Muramatsu

The subject of this movie review is the 1998 Japanese horror film, Ring, which is better known under the title, Ringu. The film is directed by Hideo Nakata and is based upon Ring, a 1991 novel by Kôji Suzuki. Ringu was released in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2000.

In this film, there is an urban legend in Japan that if you watch a peculiar videotape, you will die a week later. After watching a mysterious videotape, a group of teenagers die gruesome deaths. One of the teenagers was the niece of reporter Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima), who had been trailing the urban legend of the cursed videotape for her newspaper. But her niece’s death troubles her and makes her believe that there may be some validity to the story. She tracks the tape to a mountain resort and watches it, and immediately after gets a phone call promising death in seven days. Reiko panics and fears for her life, so she calls on the help of her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), who may actually already know something about the strange girl on the tape. Time becomes of the utmost purpose when the divorced couple’s young son, Yoichi (Rikiya Otaka), watches the tape, so they must uncover the secret of breaking the tape’s curse to save all their lives.

Ringu was the subject of a 2002 remake from DreamWorks Pictures called The Ring. Both films are based upon Kôji Suzuki novel, Ring (the first in a horror trilogy). Both films are similar, although Ringu is not as oblique as The Ring. Director Hideo Nakata drenches his films in deep and penetrating shadows, and haunting reflections suddenly appear dreamily in reflective surfaces when you least (but should) expect it. Even the daylight is filled with a sense of the haunted and the foreboding, and the most benign everyday sounds, such as a phone ringing, hints at evil. Nakata, more than Gore Verbinski did in his remake, creates the overwhelming suggestion that around every corner and just over one’s shoulder is doom and gruesome death.

Nakata’s best feat, however, may be in that he surrounds the cast with a sense of normal, everyday life. There is the illusion that everything is normal, and that what goes on every day happens this very day. But just beneath the normalcy is another real world of horror and creeping evil. That’s the scariest kind of horror of all.

8 of 10
A

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Review: "28 Weeks Later" Surpasses First Film

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 81 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

28 Weeks Later (2007)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK/Spain
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and gore, language, and some sexuality/nudity
DIRECTOR: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
WRITERS: Enrique López Lavigne, Rowan Joffe, and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo & Jesús Olmo
PRODUCERS: Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, and Enrique López-Lavigne
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Enrique Chediak (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Chris Gill
COMPOSER: John Murphy

HORROR/SCI-FI/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring: Catherine McCormack, Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Rose Byrne, and Idris Elba

28 Weeks Later is a 2007 British horror film and sequel to the 2002 film, 28 Days Later… (released in the U.S. in 2003). Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the director and writer of the original film, respectively, are this movie’s two executive producers.

While watching the British post-apocalyptic horror flick, 28 Weeks Later, one can’t help but understand that this brilliantly imagined film is speaking directly to its audience, here and now. The messages are writ large across the screen – everything from the foolishness of military occupations as a stopgap against the inevitable to the horrors that the careless manipulation of the environment can bring. It’s as if director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and his screenwriters made a gumbo out of the mental horrors of Edgar Allen Poe, George Romero, and George W. Bush.

28 Weeks Later opens six months after the events depicted in the first movie. American military forces have secured District One, an isolated section of London, where the survivors of the rage virus outbreak can repopulate and start again. Not everything goes as planned. The rage virus continues to live and is waiting to be spread again and finds its carrier in an English nuclear family.

What I like about 28 Weeks Later is that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is unapologetic in composing a brutally gory horror flick. 28 Days Later… started off as a right vicious cheesy horror flick; then, it bogged own in a morality play/test of wills between a mad military type and desperate peaceniks. Both sides were wrong, and their little message theatre cooled off the infection-fed fever that was 28 Days Later… the first half. 28 Days Later… might make you think the horror genre and message movie couldn’t really go together.

Silly rabbit, great horror speaks to our deepest fears and anxieties – past, present, and future. Like George Romero, whose Night of the Living Dead and The Crazies influenced 28 Days Later…, Fresnadillo understands that a horror movie can essentially be a message movie without every trying to be obviously socio-political. The filmmakers can do this by creating scenes in which characters argue and debate their circumstances both in an intimate and in a larger context).

28 Weeks Later is swift, vicious, and smart. The script is grimly imaginative in creating deadly peril for its cast, and never letting the audience off the hook. Both biting and timely, the film says that the “rage” infection ain’t going away (which means a seemingly endless supply of infected/zombies) because the very structure of our society – a collective that can be both parasitic and symbiotic – is the perfect moist nesting ground for the disease.

Six months after the rage virus annihilated the British Isles, the U.S. Army declares that they have won and that rebuilding can begin. The blindness of the American forces to the reality of their environment mirrors current realities. Maybe, some of these fictional military types believe that being part of a hyper-power: with all its fire power, know-how, and cutting-edge technology, means that they can shape reality, but death on two, swift, rage-infected legs says otherwise.

8 of 10
A

Saturday, October 13, 2012

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Review: "28 Days Later" is Just Short of Being Great

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 97 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

28 Days Later (2002)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: United Kingdom
(U.S. release: June 2003)
Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and gore, language and nudity
DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle
WRITER: Alex Garland
PRODUCER: Andrew Macdonald
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Anthony Dod Mantle
EDITOR: Chris Gill
COMPOSER: John Murphy

HORROR/SCI-FI/DRAMA

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomi Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Noah Huntley, and Christopher Eccleston

What if the Danny Boyle, the director of the sublime Trainspotting and The Beach (hey, I really like that movie), decided to make a zombie movie? If you’re like me, you were excited the first time you heard about this project. Well, we got it…sort of. Released in the United Kingdom in 2002, 28 Days Later was a big hit, but we had to wait until the summer of 2003 before Americans saw it. It’s not quite the zombie gore fest that I expected, but it’s a very creepy post-apocalyptic drama.

A group of do-gooder animal rights activists (the road to Hell…) break into an animal research facility with a lab full of monkeys that are, a captured scientist tells them, “infected with rage.” An infected monkey attacks one of the activists and unleashes an epidemic that destroys the U.K. Whenever a human is exposed to even one drop of blood or saliva from the infected, he becomes locked into a permanent state of murderous rage. In 28 days, Great Britain is a dead civilization.

On the 28th day, bike courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes from a coma he suffered after a car hit him and finds himself in a completely empty hospital. Not long after that he runs into group of infected humans, now murderous “zombies.” These “rage” creatures aren’t like the traditional foot-shuffling zombies we’ve come to love, especially in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and its sequels. They’ll chase a healthy human down with the speed of a track star and the single-minded zeal of a crackhead. Jim meets a handful of survivors including tough girl Selena (Naomi Harris) and father-daughter team Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns). Jim and a few of the survivors eventually end up at a military compound where they discover that their most desperate struggle for survival might not be against the ghouls.

28 Days Later taps into two of post-9/11 biggest worries, the threat of terrorism and lethal contagion. Arriving in America on the heels of the SARS scare, the film has dreary and sort of dreadful sense of realism. I found the “rage” disease and the speedy, raspy, blood-vomited monsters a bit farfetched (but still scary), so the entire horror genre angle of the film was mildly retarded; it simply just didn’t have the blow-to-the-gut immediacy and terror of something like Day of the Dead. The scariest thing about this film is the idea of how much harm humanity can do itself. The most potent violence in this film is simple man vs. man bloodletting, be it from sudden bloodlust or from cold, calculated murder.

If the characters appear thin, it’s because of the weight of their troubles. The audience is more focused on the both the film’s setting and concept than the characters. Besides, in a horror movie, characters of depth are largely a waste since the sole reason of characters in horror movies is to be acted upon violently. Still, I like what I saw. Brendan Gleeson always brings a strong dramatic presence to any film in which he appears. He’s the solid, archetypical father figure struggling to save his charges from the chaos of a mad world. I like Cillian Murphy’s gangly Jim, but it’s a bit hard to buy him as a hero. However, he works as a believable everyman who shows up out of the blue; at least one of that kind survives every the apocalypse in a post-apocalypse film. I really dug Naomi Harris’s Selena; she’s a warrior and the best genre heroine since The Matrix’s Trinity.

It would have been simpler just to make a cool-looking MTV-style zombie movie, but Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland went and got all-artful on us. In the film, the threat of a sudden and bloody-vicious zombie attack is a quite palatable fear that you can feel in your soul, but genre considerations apparently had to give way to a bit of social commentary. The film speaks with a lot of hopelessness concerning the state of human affairs with just enough of hopeful resolution to make it a Hollywood ending. I have mixed feelings about this film, mostly because I didn’t get what I wanted.

Still, I can’t get the ominous and grainy images of 28 Days Later out of my head. Boyle shot the film on digital video reportedly for budgetary reasons; if this is true (others say the choice was artistic), it is a happy accident for sure. The “docu-realism” look of the film will make it a memorable movie about the end of the world, as we know it.

6 of 10
B

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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Berserk: The Golden Age Arc 1 Debuts on Neon Alley

VIZ MEDIA PREMIERES BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I – THE EGG OF THE KING THIS SUNDAY ON NEON ALLEY

First Installment Of Anime Feature Film Trilogy About A Young Medieval Mercenary Premieres On New 24-Hour Anime Channel

Don’t miss the visceral clash of arms and armor as VIZ Media premieres BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I – THE EGG OF THE KING exclusively on Neon Alley this Sunday, October 28th at 8:00pm EST / 5:00pm PST. The highly anticipated anime film repeats at 12:00am EST / 8:00pm PST, and will air again throughout the week.

Neon Alley is VIZ Media’s new 24-hour anime channel featuring the world’s best titles (dubbed in English and uncut). For a limited time only, the subscription-based service is offering a one-week free trial, available for fans who sign up at NeonAlley.com.

Combining a foreboding medieval European-inspired setting with fantasy and exquisitely detailed swordsmanship, BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I – THE EGG OF THE KING follows lone mercenary, Guts, as he travels a land where a hundred-year-old war is taking place. His ferocity and ability to kill enemies attracts the attention of Griffith, leader of the mercenary group “The Band of the Hawk,” and Guts is recruited to the unit. Thanks to their continued victories on the battlefield, the bond between Guts and Griffith deepens, but despite all their success, Guts begins to question his reasons for fighting for Griffith’s dream. Unknown to Guts, this unyielding dream is about to bestow a horrible fate on them both.

BERSERK: THE Golden Age Arc film trilogy was produced in Japan by Studio 4ºC and is based on the bestselling medieval dark fantasy manga (graphic novel) series created by Kentaro Miura.

For more information on the BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC film trilogy, please visit the official Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/BerserkFilm.

For more information on Neon Alley and to register for updates, please visit NeonAlley.com.

Robert Zemeckis Retrospective at Museum of the Moving Image

New York, NY – October 26, 2012 – Academy Award-winning® director Robert Zemeckis has been at the helm of some of the most entertaining, inventive, and critically acclaimed movies of the past three decades, including Romancing the Stone, the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away.


On the occasion of his latest film, Paramount Pictures’s Flight, which Peter Travers of Rolling Stone has said “Flight is Zemeckis at his most emotionally open and thematically provocative,” the prolific filmmaker will be joined by the film’s screenwriter John Gatins, and stars Denzel Washington and John Goodman for a special Q&A on Monday, October 29 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s four-film retrospective of Zemeckis’s work, taking place October 28 through November 4, 2012.

“As dazzling as his films can be, they are also marked by a mastery of cinematic language, and surprising emotional depth,” said Chief Curator David Schwartz. “His latest film, Flight, is both an action thriller and an intense and deeply moving character study with a bracing, audacious performance by Denzel Washington.”

The special screening of Flight, will take place at The Ziegfeld and is by invitation only. Museum members may reserve tickets by calling 718 777 6800. To learn about Museum membership and to join, go online to http://movingimage.us/support/membership or call 718 777 6877.

The other films in the retrospective—Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, and Cast Away—will screen at the Museum. Tickets for these screenings are included with Museum admission, which is free for Museum members.

Press Contact: Tomoko Kawamoto, tkawamoto@movingimage.us / 718 777 6830

SCHEDULE FOR ‘ROBERT ZEMECKIS,’ OCTOBER 28–NOVEMBER 4, 2012

Unless otherwise noted, film screenings take place in the Main Theater and in the Celeste and Armand Bartos Screening Room at Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Avenue (at 37 Street), Astoria, and are included with Museum admission.

All films directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Forrest Gump
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1:00 P.M.

1994, 142 mins. With Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field. The slow-witted Forrest Gump floats through his life—and a tumultuous period in American history—somehow showing up as a bit player in one iconic moment after another. One of the most acclaimed and successful films of the past 20 years, and the focus of intense critical debate, Forrest Gump is both a technical marvel and a compelling blend of comedy and drama. Screenplay by Eric Roth. Based on the Novel by Winston Groom.

SPECIAL PREVIEW SCREENING FOR MUSEUM MEMBERS:

Flight

With a Q&A with Robert Zemeckis, Denzel Washington, John Goodman, and John Gatins At the Ziegfeld, 141 West 54 Street, Manhattan

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 6:30 P.M.
2012, 135 mins. With Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Kelly Reilly, John Goodman, Bruce Greenwood, Brian Geraghty, Tamara Tunie, Nadine Velazquez, Peter Gerety, Garcelle Beauvais, Melissa Leo. In Zemeckis’s action-packed and powerful mystery thriller, Academy Award®-winner Denzel Washington stars as Whip Whitaker, a seasoned airline pilot who miraculously crash-lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe, saving nearly everyone on board. After the crash, Whip is hailed as a hero, but as more is learned, questions arise as to who or what was at fault and what really happened on that plane. A Q&A with Zemeckis, Washington, John Goodman, and screenwriter John Gatins follows the screening.

Back to the Future
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 6:30 P.M.

1985, 116 mins. With Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson. In this rollicking time-travel story about a 1980s teenager who travels back to the 1950s, where he must arrange his parents’ meeting, director Robert Zemeckis perfectly balances science fiction, spectacle, comedy, action, and emotional depth.

Cast Away
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 4:00 P.M.

2000, 143 mins. With Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt. An executive for Federal Express survives a plane crash and winds up on a remote Pacific island, where he must learn how to survive. Hanks’s tour de force performance captures the grueling physical journey as well as the complex emotional transformation. As with Zemeckis’s best films, this is a cinematic triumph that is as deeply moving as it is entertaining. Written by William Broyles, Jr.


Museum of the Moving Image (movingimage.us) advances the understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media. In January 2011, the Museum reopened after a major expansion and renovation that nearly doubled its size. Accessible, innovative, and forward-looking, the Museum presents exhibitions, education programs, significant moving-image works, and interpretive programs, and maintains a collection of moving-image related artifacts.

Hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Friday, 10:30 to 8:00 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Closed Monday except for holiday openings

Film Screenings: Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, and as scheduled. Unless otherwise noted, screenings are included with Museum admission.

Museum Admission: $12.00 for adults (18+); $9.00 for senior citizens and for students (13+) with ID; $6.00 for children ages 3-12. Children under 3 and Museum members are admitted free. Admission to the galleries is free on Fridays, 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Tickets for special screenings and events may be purchased in advance by phone at 718 777 6800 or online.

Location: 36-01 35 Avenue (at 37 Street) in Astoria.
Subway: M (weekdays only) or R to Steinway Street. Q (weekdays only) or N to 36 Avenue.

Program Information: Telephone: 718 777 6888; Website: movingimage.us

Membership: 718 777 6877, members@movingimage.us

The Museum is housed in a building owned by the City of New York and its operations are made possible in part by public funds provided through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Natural Heritage Trust (administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation). The Museum also receives generous support from numerous corporations, foundations, and individuals. For more information, please visit movingimage.us.

Wesley Snipes' "Gallowwalkers" Finally Arrives

Wesley Snipes Returns to the Silver Screen, Gun-slinging his way through the Wild, Wild West

Movie star Wesley Snipes will be released into the wild, wild west to fight the undead and blast his way into Film4’s FrightFest 2012 Saturday, October 27th with the World Premiere of his latest film.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Movie star Wesley Snipes is making headlines with his long-awaited and highly-anticipated return to the big screen with the World Premiere of the cowboy wild west- zombie mash-up: Gallowwalkers. Snipes stars as the mysterious gunslinger Aman, who carries a curse. The curse: all those who die by his hand shall return to hunt him. Snipes is forced to blast his way through the old west, while the scores of undead ferociously track him to the bitter end. The film’s slogan is “Live by the gun. Die by the gun. Come back for more.”

The fans of the star and fans of the wild west and horror genres have been long-awaiting the film’s release. Shrouds of mystery and rumor surrounded the film following Wesley’s legal complications and headlines of the last several years. However, with Wesley’s release imminent (scheduled for the summer of 2013), the film remained “never having been seen” and its release strategy is still a tightly keep secret.

The films’ Producers said in a statement Friday: “We support Wesley fully in his film career and look forward to his return next summer. We are beyond thrilled to announce Wesley’s return in the World Premiere of Gallowwalkers. We couldn’t be more excited for the road ahead.” Gallowwalkers is set to World Premiere at the Vue West End in London’s Leicester Square, Saturdaym October 27th 2012 at 9pm.

Shot in the dusty sands of the Namibian desert, Gallowwalkers was produced and executive produced by Jack Bowyer (under his production shingle Jack Bowyer Productions), Executive Produced by Roger Grad, Ken Ross and Directed by Andrew Goth.

ABOUT JACK BOWYER PRODUCTIONS
Jack Bowyer Productions is a UK-based production company. Principal Jack Bowyer founded the company in 2007. JB is a prolific producer of independent film; they recently received a Nomination for “Best International Film” at Raindance for their latest film DARK HEARTS starring X-men topper Lucas Till.

ABOUT BOUNDLESS PICTURES
Founded in 2008 by Courtney Lauren Penn and Brandon Burrows, Boundless Pictures is a New York City, Los Angeles and Greenwich, Connecticut-based production company that develops, co-finances and produces independent film. They have produced alongside Jack Bowyer on Gallowwalkers and Dark Hearts.

http://www.BoundlessPictures.com

ABOUT FILM4 FRIGHTFEST
FILM4 FrightFest is the UK’s premiere international fantasy and horror film festival. The festival, in its 13th year, attracts thousands of genre fans to the heart of London’s West End. The festival has previously screened Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, Paul W. S. Anderson’s Resident Evil, Scary Movie 2, Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, among countless others.