These days it's getting pretty hard to beat the awesome-ness of past events. This past weekend is so high up on the scale I doubt it will ever be knocked off the list.
Last weekend Brother Chris and I attended the Phantasmagoria Film Festival held in Swindon. A great showcase of independent genre films from horror to martial arts. For us this was just the beginning.
Day One -
We took a train. So far so good, then found our lodgings in the form of the Travelodge. Then the weirdness began. I'm convinced that the girl checking us in was called Jens. Which just conjures up images of Blade Runner-esqe androids. So we took our key, gave warning to keep away from any Harrison Ford looking types, and made out way up to the room. Brother Chris settled in easy enough. I on the other hand was disturbed by the freaky Dark Water-esqe drip stains on the wall, just above my bed. I did not want to be dragged away in the middle of the night by a long haired Japanese ghost girl.
For the time being I managed to suppress my fear and we left for the festival. Well, sort of. We left on the hunt for dinner, where we passed a pub. At which point we stopped as Uwe Boll was inside with two people. We decided to go in, find something to eat and stare at him. Instead, we went in, Chris recognised one of the people so we went over and joined them. Having a drink with Uwe Boll. Awesome.
We later left for the Arts Centre for the first film of the first day, Gnaw. A good horror film. It was a little predictable at times but the effects and acting were good enough. After a brief Q&A with director Gregory Mandry. We had a time for a quick drink before the last film of the evening. In this time I was introduced to Julian Richards, director of The Last Horror Movie and Darklands as he'd met Brother Chris before. We then went in to see Uwe Boll's film Rampage. It's a brilliant film. Well shot and edited. Uwe Boll comes under a lot of bad press because of his video game movies, which aren't that great but as he pointed out, still sell a hell of a lot more than his regular films, which are always better. Rampage should definitely be checked out though, and Brendan Fletcher is quite convincing as the young guy whose is tipped over the edge to go on the titular rampage.
So a great first day. Now we really needed to get some food, and head back to the Dark Water room. After an encounter with take away food we got excited by the Ice Cream machine in the travelodge, with the the futuristic method in which fridge opened and suckers gripped the ice cream to dispense out of the front of the machine. We were still in Blade Runner territory. Thanks to that machine, and watching the end of The Howling, I could ignore the evil water stains and went to sleep, ready for the next full day of films.
No comments:
Post a Comment