Sunday: Day 3 of BIFF and I was going for movie no 6 & 7. Movie no 6 was the lengthily titled "Drive in Delirium Presents: Trailerpalooza and 50 Best Kills". And the greatest thing about this movie was that it actually felt like I was seeing heaps of movies. Trailerpalooza was an incredible 75 minutes of trailers for some of the weirdest, crappest or mondo bizarro cult movies of all time, sandwiched between a fabulous introduction from the drive-in (including instructions for the drive in and an ad for the snack bar) and an intermission complete with craptastic ad for Export Cola. The movies covered ranged from exploitation flicks to bad home-made sci-fi to giant creature movies to drug warning movies, but nothing past about 1983. It was surprising to see some big Hollywood stars of yesteryear slumming it in these low budget movies - I'm particularly keen to find Dean Martin and Ann Margret's super spy flick Murderer's Row (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060728/). Titles I'm keen to catch up on include The Jezabels, Trog, Slumber Party Massacre and Mega Force (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084316/). Titles I'm keen to never, ever see include Sadomania (the trailer for this was truly awful, sexist and ridiculous), The Big Cube, and Chastity (Cher as a dropout chick who according to the voiceover is "an experience").
Following this was 50 Best Kills. Put together by Lars Nilson, the guy behind Fantastic Fest in the US which has created a mini-program for this year's festival, it was basically 25 minutes of the best death scenes, or at least the ones that Lars isn't sick of yet after 100 Best Kills became an annual institution at his festival. This started off with the fantastic scene from Meet Joe Black (which we definitely watched more than once on slow mo when we saw this movie) and then went through what I counted as 41 different movies, containing what Lars counted as 55 different deaths. Most of these deaths were either weird or brutal or gross and it was a lot of fun revisiting some old faves and seeing some new ones. Lars was on the mic giving a running commentary on the movie titles and a few funny asides, so I don't know how this going to come across when they screen this again later in the week at the pop-up drive in at Hamilton, as this and the audience participation (cheers, laughs) really made the experience. He didn't include one of my favourites, the lawnmower death in Braindead, but hey, they didn't show a lot of really great ones and ultimately it's just personal taste. Lot of laughs in this for those with a twisted sense of humour.
I followed up the trashfest with Canadian supernatural thriller The Corridor, also from Fantastic Fest. This one followed a group of friends who head out to a deserted cabin in the woods after one of their number (Tyler) has recovered from a mental breakdown over the death of his mother. He also attacked said friends with a knife at the same time, so their consent to go to a remote cabin with the guy seems a little weird at first. But they are all trying to mend fences and get their lives back on track, so why not? It's not long before Tyler comes across something supernatural in the frozen woods near the cabin and a wild ride begins. I'll not say more because this one could make it over here, but it was quite chilling and definitely one of those "was that real or just in the mind" kind of movies. If anyone was there last night and has a theory, please come and post a comment (no spoilers if possible - maybe message me instead), as I'm keen to see what other people thought.
It certainly created a very effective chilling atmosphere, because I had to keep looking over my shoulder while walking by myself to the car afterwards as it was an especially cool, windy evening in the city. I don't know why I always do something to scare myself after seeing a scary movie (The Silent House followed by camping last year) but I had to drop into work afterwards and boy I never knew an office building could be so creepy and make so many strange noises late at night. Silly me! Unfortunately the next screening of this is as part of the horror/genre movie marathon next Saturday night at Tribal, showing at 4:30am, so most people probably won't see it, but if you can last all night (or get up really really early), it is worth seeing.
Thanks Fantastic Fest for a good weekend of movies. I still have their Penumbra (Thursday 10pm) and Revenge: A Love Story (Wed 4pm or Sat 12 4pm) to go so I'm really looking forward to those.
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