this doc is a hair-raising revelation. A jarringly up-close and personal staredown with the eldest of the Lutz chil- dren, Daniel, it focuses on his account of what really hap- pened after his family moved into the infamous DeFeo murder house. His words only tell part of the story; his mannerisms, metal guitar shredding (!) and nervousness on the topic of polygraph testing handle the rest. Respect to director Eric Walter for braving hundreds of hours in small rooms with one seriously intense dude. TZ


A NIGHT OF NIGHTMARES - USA Buddy Giovinazzo


Great performances help buoy this minimalist haunted house entry from genre veteran Buddy Giovinazzo. A music vlogger, played by Marc Senter, travels to an up- and-coming singer’s rented house for an interview, only to be subjected to some increasingly strange events, from the arrival of a psychotic stalker to dark revelations about the former owners. A departure of sorts for Giovinazzo, A Night of Nightmares flirts with Paranormal Activity territory but quickly turns into something else entirely, with surreal and unexpected touches that will subvert expectations and keep even seasoned horror fans on their toes. PC


Mess ’O Trouble: (clockwise from top left) My Amityville Horror, The Cat, Gyo : Tokyo Fish Attack, Excision, (inset) Grabbers, and (opposite) Game of Werewolves


for cinematic madness. Note: watch on an empty stomach. MG


HEMORRHAGE - Canada Braden Croft


Despite being the top student at the psychi- atric institution he has called home for six years, recovering murderer Oliver Lorenz’s reintegration into society takes a turn for the bleak when he falls in love and embarks on a killing spree with his new girlfriend/hostage in tow. Newbie director Braden Croft creates a downbeat, albeit humanistic voyage into vi- olent psychosis, and Alex D. Mackie’s turn as the lead is as captivating as it is tragic. Low on gore but high on tension, Hemorrhage scores another point for intelligent, well-made independent cinema. TZ


THE HUMAN RACE - USA Paul Hough


“Stay on the path, or you will die. If you are lapped, you will die,” boom the instructions to a diverse group of unwilling participants on a sadistic obstacle course. Paul Hough (son of director John Hough: The Legend of Hell House) directs this brutal (think exploding heads à la Scanners) tale of overcoming ob- stacles without sentimentality. Delivering the most jaw-dropping stunts since Crippled Masters, lead Eddie McGee is a standout, not because he’s an amputee, but because of his charisma, and beauty Trista Robinson as “Deaf Female” is a ferocious new scream queen. Run for your life! MG


INBRED - UK/Germany Alex Chandon


There’s no shortage of local yokel rural horror films, even from Europe. Inbred’s variation


sees two youth workers take some troubled teens to a small vil- lage, where they run into your standard-issue filthy, genetically challenged gaggle of sadists, who indulge in a particularly nasty form of performance art. But the torture and murder involving farm animals and implements isn’t as nasty as it could be thanks to the film’s over-the-top tone (it’s been compared to Severance). With some inventive gore gags, and fun theatrical performances, Inbred is acceptably mad midnight movie material. DA


MON AMI - Canada Rob Grant


Passed over for promotion yet again, two disgruntled hardware store employees decide to kidnap their boss’ daughter for big bucks, only to discover that they are spectacularly bad criminals. This dark splatter comedy only teases violence at first but soon ramps up to impressively excessive heights, leaving behind a trail of gory injuries, dead neighbours and severed body parts. But at its core, Mon Ami is also a heartfelt buddy film, as two friends bond over their hilariously homicidal misadventures. PC


MY AMITYVILLE HORROR - USA Eric Walter


For fans of the Amityville movie series and its source material,


PLAY DEAD - USA Shade Rupe and Teller


Coney Island icon Todd Robbins combines stage magic, storytelling and old-fashioned spookshow theatrics in this fascinating one-man show co-directed by writer/film- maker Shade Rupe and Teller (of Penn & Teller fame). In this evening of macabre mischief, focussed around dis- cussions of some of history’s most notorious killers, Rob- bins elicits squirms and laughs in equal parts by eating lightbulbs and contacting the dead. It’s only too bad the show’s audience participation aspect is lost in translation – film viewers are in no danger of getting pulled up on stage, sprayed with blood or grabbed by unseen hands in a pitch-black room. PC


RESOLUTION - USA Justin Benson


Putting a fresh spin on the use of found footage, this slow-burn comedic horror-thriller tells a poignant story of the extreme lengths friends go for one another in times of dire need. After getting an email containing a video of his friend Chris spun out on drugs and dan- gerously toying with rifles, Mike ventures into the woods to help his pal detox and straighten out. When it’s revealed that Chris never sent the clip, things take a turn for the surreal and the pair become hunted by an unseen force with unearthly powers. The final frames of Resolution are haunting. TZ


Finally, the fantastical is replaced


There are always a few juicy morsels in the


mixed bag that is FanTasia’s Small Gauge Trauma shorts program. Highlights of this year’s batch in- clude a trio of films that remind us humans are the real monsters. In Xavier Hibon’s The Golden Twi-


light (Belgium), a sweet and solici- tous young caregiver at an old folks’ home discovers the hard way that reminding the elderly about their lost youth can have traumatic conse-


quences. Notable for the director’s end credit dedication, which reads: “To my mother. If you fuck with me, I’ll put you in this same home.” Mother trouble continues in Pau


Teixidor’s Leyenda (Spain), a lyrical lycanthrope fable in which a young girl discovers that she is the incar- nation of her storybook’s heroine and that her true family lives in the forest and howl at the moon. Suffice it to say, the werewolf adoption process results in a lot of the red stuff.


with real-world horror in 72 (Mex- ico), Jorge Michel Grau’s grim depic- tion of the human cost of the Mexican drug trade. Seventy-two blindfolded prisoners are executed one-by-one with no explanation and zero mercy. The heartbreaking de- piction of loved ones reconnecting in the afterlife recalls Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, making the short stand out against the rest of the lineup, which consisted mostly of cut-rate ’80s horror imitations.


ANDY MAURO


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