Reviewed at Dendy Newtown,Thursday November 24 – Sunday December 4
For the tenth year running, an unseasonal darkness descended over Dendy Newtown in November, and in that darkness what horrors dwelt. The annual A Night Of Horror/Fantastic Planet Festival once again offered indie genre filmmakers an opportunity to mingle with their more macabre colleagues, and a rare union of two oft-maligned modes of modern storytelling.
Sadly, audiences were harder to come by this year, with the biggest turnout emerging for the retro screening of David Cronenberg classic Scanners. Cronenberg’s practical effect mastery has lost none of its potency, but the audience quickly found its comfort zone in spite of the hammy acting and terrible dubbing – or perhaps, because of it. Michael Ironside’s O-faced telekinesis prompted giggles, and that notorious exploding head scene was greeted precisely as it should be: with a riotous round of applause.
In the short time I spent at the festival, I made it to two original screenings (out of 22 films making their Australian debut), a masterclass from indie horror directors on how to get up and running, and a gala of 12 fun-size frighteners from around the world.
The masterclass, led by a veteran film journalist and Empire senior editor, ended up overlong, stretched out by anecdotes from directors on their films, but the panel of Devin Goodsell (Bornless Ones), Steven Kastrissios (The Horseman), Deke Richards (Tax Shelter Terrors), Sevé Schelenz (Peelers) and the legendary Hiroshi Katagiri (special effects master and director of Gehenna: Where Death Lives) provided some solid advice for the relatively thin crowd.
Next up was Somnio, a Fantastic Planet entry and a terrible snooze that failed to live up to its potential, reliant on meaningless landscaping and a concept too closely tied to other dream-based thrillers. For it to truly reach its goals, it could easily have had a whole hour shaved off its heavily padded runtime.
The International Shorts screening, subtitled ‘World Of Dread’, was marred by catastrophic technical failures which rendered Justin Harding’s Kookie out of sync and unwatchable. While many were reliant on a simple jump scare and old-hat home invasion/spooky serial killer tactics, a few broke the mould: Alfonso Garcia’s brutally paced iMedium, the clever twist in Ashlea Wessel’s Trunk Space, and the unimaginably gruesome surrealist alien effects of Anthony Cousins’ When Susurrus Stirs, in which an alien not unlike that in Prometheus is birthed from the penis of a cinemagoer.
My nights of horror ended with a bizarre and unexpected highlight, VHS-obsessed and brimming with tongue-in-cheek absurdities. She’s Allergic To Cats is, indeed, unlike any film you’ve seen, perfectly capturing the VHS video art aesthetic and sticking to the most basic, unhorrifying story imaginable – that stated in the title.
While my experience was brief, the festival seemed too insular this time, with the selections mired in tropes. The bravery and ingenuity of last year’s creatives seemed in short supply, and one hopes 2017’s commissioning panel has a more discerning and far-reaching eye – it would certainly entice a larger crowd.
Nevertheless, A Night Of Horror/Fantastic Planet remains one of Sydney’s best opportunities for genre filmmakers and for any punter in need of chills, thrills and spills.
