World's Greatest Dad - October 15th (Photo: Courtesy AFI) |
From our friends at the AFI Silver Theatre...
The Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival will unspool 51 short and feature films at the eighth annual festival, held for the second consecutive year at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD October 10-19, 2013.
The search for “Big Foot” is the subject of WILLOW CREEK, the opening night feature Thursday, October 10. WILLOW CREEK’s filmmaker, Bobcat Goldthwait, will be in attendance opening night for a Q&A moderated by Laura Kern from Film Comment magazine. WILLOW CREEK is one of the most intense and scary films on the festival circuit these days, and has proven to be a dramatic departure for Goldthwait. "Nerve-wracking – it’s not easy to manufacture the kind of tension WILLOW CREEK achieves." – Variety
Opening night 2013 will also feature a screening of the explosive horror mash-up AN AMERICAN TERROR, the winner of the 2013 Spooky Movie Opening Night Feature Film Contest, and one of the best true indie horror films of the last decade.
In addition to WILLOW CREEK, Spooky Movie and the AFI Silver will present a complete retrospective of the films of Bobcat Goldthwait, October 14 - October 17, including SLEEPING DOGS LIE, WORLD’S GREATEST DAD, GOD BLESS AMERICA and Goldthwait’s debut SHAKES THE CLOWN. Festival Pass and Combo Tickets will be honored for the retrospect.
For anyone concerned Spooky Movie has gone soft on horror, Spooky Movie 2013 has plenty of teeth chattering features and shorts to rattle even the hardest hard core fan.
DARK TOUCH, which screens on Friday, October 11, and had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Fest earlier this year, blends supernatural and horrors all-too-real. As the Village Voice said, “Much of the best horror, (DARK TOUCH) works the fears that connect to real life.”
On Midnight the following evening (Saturday, October 12), things get intense with the Canadian shocker, THANATOMORPHOSE, an intimate and powerful trip into the private hell of a woman who has begun to rot away to nothing, One of the goriest, unrelenting and unsettling experiences Spookyfest audiences will have.
On Friday, October 18, Spooky Movie is proud to present the DC area premiere of BIG BAD WOLVES, one of the top genre films of the year. Sponsored by the Embassy of Israel, BIG BAD WOLVES will keep you hovering beyond the edge of your seat.
Ever since the 2010 Opening Night premiere of TUCKER & DALE VS EVIL, fans of the Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival have hungered for great horror comedies. On Saturday, October 12, the festival is thrilled to present, straight from Australia, 100 BLOODY ACRES, a gory and funny feature called “the best low budget horror comedy since SHAUN OF THE DEAD.” Screening right before 100 BLOODY ACRES on Saturday the 12th is HAUNTER, a modern twist on the classic haunted house film, which had its premiere at South by Southwest earlier this year.
Also hot on the festival circuit is HALLEY, which screens on Friday, October 18. From its premiere at Sundance, up through upcoming screenings in Austin at Fantastic Fest, HALLEY is a film audiences have not been able to shake.
This is all just the tip of the ice berg at Spooky Movie 2013. From bad girls (CHASTITY BITES, PIN UP GIRLS ON ICE), to evil spirits (SPIRIT CABINET), to British killers (ART OF DARKNESS), to zombies and hillbillies (BUCK WILD) to a documentary about zombie walks (DEAD MEAT WALKING), the ten nights of Spooky Movie 2013 will be the best yet. But that is still not all!
The Mid-Atlantic region – home of cult legends John Waters, George Romero, Don Dohler, Jeff Krulik, Ed Sanchez and more – has long been fertile ground for creative independent filmmaking.
On Sunday, October 13, the festival is proud to present a series of local features and shorts, including the premieres of features MORTAL REMAINS and BACKWATER, as well as a screening of the festival produced documentary BALD HEADED BLUES: A DOCTORMENTARY ON SARCOFIGUY, accompanied with the short SHOW AND TELL, directed by filmmaker Joseph Pattisall, co-director of the documentary THE LEGEND OF COOL DISCO DAN.
All good and creepy things come to an end, and on Saturday, October 19 we wind things up with the 40th anniversary screening of SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM, presented by local television legend (also celebrating his 40th anniversary) “COUNT GORE DE VOL.” Following February's sold-out HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and July’s packed house for PHANTASM, Count Gore returns to present another moldy oldie in the spirit of the original TV broadcasts, with interactive intermissions and lots of ghoulish good fun and surprises in store.
In all, there will be 22 features and twenty-nine shorts programmed over the course of 10 nights at the most ambitious Spooky Movie Film Festival yet. Click here to see the full schedule, and purchase tickets.