“It kicks off on Halloween with a film called The ABCs of Death which has only premiered about a month ago I suppose at the Toronto International Film Festival. …basically there’s 26 directors around the world who are the young, exciting, upcoming, biggest new names in horror, directing 26 episodes. Each episode beginning with the letter of the alphabet inspired by a tale of death. It’s a Halloween film, so it’s a pretty good one for Halloween. That whole night is a dress up night, as Halloween nights are, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun.
“The following night there’s a film called Grabbers from Ireland, which is an alien sea monster kind of film, crossed between The Guard and Tremors, about aliens that attack this idyllic Irish coastal village and the locals realise that they’re blood-sucking aliens, and they realise the only person in town they seem to reject is the town drunk, because his blood alcohol is so high, so they realise the only way to fight off these aliens is to get pissed,” he laughs.
“On the Sunday evening we’ve got two really fantastic films. There’s this teen filmmaking collective in Canada called Astron-6. They’ve been making these really hilarious films, and they’ve got two films playing back-to-back. One’s called Manborg and the other one’s called Father’s Day. Father’s Day was shot for like $10,000 and it’s been playing the festival circuit all around the world and has become a festival darling, and it’s absolutely amazing, it’s really well made and hilarious – and really sick. It’s got a blood count like World War I. It’s fucking absolutely outrageous…That’s a massive highlight. It may be my favourite film in the whole program”.
In conjunction with the excellent array of international premieres, Monster Fest will be showcasing the best in Australian horror filmmaking.
“We’ve got like four Australian premieres. We’ve got a film called 25th Reich by a Melbourne filmmaker called Steven Amis, which is a kind of a time travel film set in World War II about some American soldiers in Australian Outback who get transported into the future and have to fight it out against Nazi robots of the future, which is a really creative, really fantastic funny film.
“Then we’ve got another really cool Australian premiere called Muirhouse, which is a spooky ghost story set in a genuine haunted house, a house called Monte Cristo Homestead in New south Wales, regarded as Australia’s most haunted house, and it was actually filmed there in this house.
“The two closing films nights I have to mention are Excision which is a body horror starring 90210’s AnnaLynne McCord, – she’s a glamour, Hollywood, beautiful IT girl – she plays this ugly, alienated teenager with this kind of sick, demented surgery fantasies and she’s dissecting animals all the time and conjuring up all these weird fantasises about performing surgeries on people. It’s a really bloody and twisted film. It’s got Traci Lords in a dramatic role playing her fucked up neurotic mother. It’s got John Waters playing her church counsellor, it’s called Malcolm McDowell playing her teacher, Ray Wise is in it from Twin Peaks.
“The last film of the program is called American Mary, directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska known around the world now as ‘the twisted twins’ – a couple of identical twins from Canada in their mid-20s, absolutely gorgeous, and they’ve made this film – without exaggeration – it’s taking the festival world by storm at the moment. It’s about a girl who’s studying to be a surgeon and to make ends meet, she on the side does this body-modification work in Vancouver…[it] then becomes a very dark, very twisted, rape revenge film where I went tell you what happens, but it’s one of the most shocking, interesting, and unique horror films I think in a long time.”
One of the integral themes of Monster Fest this year is the role of women in the horror genre, evidenced by the inclusion of horror hostess Elvira for Night of the Women.
“We’ve got this night called Night of the Women and we’re actually looking for a horror hostess to help us with all our online stuff and do reviews for us on our website, that kind of stuff. So we’re having a kind of talent quest that night, which will be a bit of fun and screen Elvira’s film from the ‘80s.
“One thing we’re really proud of in Monster Fest is we’re trying to push this ‘women in horror’ angle and playing with American Mary on the last night is an Melbourne stop-motion animation by this really talented filmmaker called Isabel Peppard …It’s a really incredible film by a really incredibly talented filmmaker. If anyone has an inking towards horror films, it’s a great night to be there, because you’re seeing some of the hottest young female talent in the horror world on display.
Evidenced by my best friend, horror films often place the audience in a state of discomfort, and I wondered what Foley thought made the horror genre appealing.
“What makes any film appealing? It transports you into another realm and with horror films, whether you love them or hate them, they absolutely take you into this space that you’re not in, in your everyday life. They’re a chance to delve into a side of life that you normally don’t have access to, and probably wouldn’t want to have access to but then you can sit there in the safety of your lounge room or cinema and go into this kind of darkest imaginings and explore possibilities you certainly wouldn’t want to replicate. And I think they’re also a great way of trading dialogue and talking about some difficult stuff that is difficult to talk about in an open public forum. The history of horror is so full of analogies to various aspects of our society and that’s what it’s about: if you look at it as a commentary…horror is a great way of being able to talk about that stuff that might be difficult to talk about”.
BY NICK ‘THE SPOOKMEISTER’ TARAS
