Horrorfest: 8 Films To Die For - Report 1

Posted By:	Adam Mast
Posted On:	Wed Nov 22nd, 2006

I don't need to remind anyone that I'm a huge fan of the horror genre. It should be painfully obvious to those of you who read this site. Yes, I'm a massive fan of movies in general, but horror films are of particular interest to me. Why? Partly because I was raised on them. I used to watch monster movies with my mom when I was a wee lad. The classic Universal monster movies (i.e. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, etc.), Them, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You name it, I watched it. When I was eight, I saw Carrie in a theater. It was my first real introduction to the genre in a movie house (actually, I saw Jaws at a Drive-In a year or two earlier, but that was an entirely different kind of horror movie) and I was all but hooked immediately. Through the years, I've become quite the connoisseur of the genre. It makes my friends laugh. They'll say something like; " How can you possibly put The Descent and Hostel on a best of list right along side titles like The Queen, The Departed, United 93, and Thank You For Smoking?" The answer is quite simple. The Descent and Hostel are great movies in terms of the genre they're representing.

When I heard the new movie distributor After Dark Films would be throwing a special one weekend only festival as a means to showcase eight horror pictures they deemed "to shocking for the general public," I should have known better than to get my hopes up. After all, these particular films would be screened in regular "public" movie houses across the country. Still, I had to be there. I'm always on the look out for that next special horror flick.

And in fact, 2006 has been a damn good year for horror films. The Descent, Hostel, Feast and Slither are exceptional. Even some of the more flawed genre pictures this year have had moments worth mentioning be it the visual splendor of the trippy Silent Hill or the brutality of The Hills Have Eyes update. Hell, I even enjoyed Saw III.

Are the After Dark films I saw at Horror-Fest better than the previously mentioned movies? I'd say no, but I still commend the distributor for opening the door for new film makers.

Unfortunately, I hadn't the time to see all eight films, but I did manage to knock out five of them. Here's the rundown.

UNREST
Starring Corri English, Scot Davis, Joshua Alba, and Derrick O'Connor

Unrest weaves it's tale around a group of medical students who come f