Bubble and Bomber at the BIFFF (part 1)

It's over ... my first Festival of Fantastic Film, or Fantasy Film Festival or Festival of Fantasy Film (depending on who you ask, they weren't very consitent about the naming, only the acronym). Overall it was an enjoyable experience, the almost Rocky Horror stylee repetition of the same cat calls; "Give us a song" every time someone gave a premovie talk, "We don't give a shit" when faced by the anti-piracy screen and the appreciative applause every time the filmmakers managed to actually scare the audience. My favorite was probably in a scene during The Descent, in which our Heroin wakes up from a ... wait for it ... coma to find herself in hospital, hooked up to the machine that goes beep. Some clever so-and-so lets out an extended "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep" into the silence that has gripped the audience. Our Heroin pulls the hospital equipment out of her arm and the MTGP obliges with an identical long tone. Que audience cracking up. Very droll.

The movies themselves and we ended up seeing six; The Descent, Evil Aliens, Running Scared, Starfish Hotel, Minotaur and V for Vendetta. We canned Sky High because it clashed with teh England france game (well, that was worth it...) and also got a look at teh Hitch Hiker's Guide at home that week.

First up, The Descent. I had read through loads of movie descripts during my research of which flicks to see at the BIFFF, marking them with a pen on the schedule. Thus, by the time we arrived at P44 for the movie, I had forgotten exactly what it was that had attracted me to this movie in the first place. What the fuck do I want with a movie about a bunch of women going caving? Unless they all get their kit off and go underground rockpool skinny dipping of course, but then brining Bubble along might have turned into a problem. Then the director's track record was read out. Only one movie in this man's past that I was aware of and it was Dog Soldiers ... hmmm, low budget horror goodness, I remember now. I had to make a quick apology to Bubble as I'd told her that I thought it was a thriller, but she'd enjoyed Dog Soldiers as much as me so I figured we couldn't go far wrong. And we didn't. This movie, I suspect, marks entry into the big time for Neil Marshall. For sure Dog Soldiers was fucking brilliant, but it did suffer from budgetry problems, which showed though in the bloke in a wolf suit moments towards the end. This movie sufferred none of those drawbacks (such as they were) and delivered on all fronts, particularly the promise to "scare the shit out of you lot", which had been his stated purpose during the premovie speak thingy. The movie centers around a group of women who go caving together. And that's all the plot I'll give you coz you should see it yourself. Clearly a horror movie set in a cave is going to play on claustrophobia and this does so amply. There's also some significant tension between the characters which drives the subplot between them. I especially liked the characters of the mains in that they are basically human, weak and fallible. There are no great heroins and, through the bravado of fuck yeah cave diving, they're all scarred shitless and clearly in considerable pain for most of the film, which is a good thing. I would say that I had some issues with how parts of the main sub-plot played out, which I think was down to some spakky dialogue (you'll have to watch it, I don't want to spoil it for anyone) but one itty bitty problem with a superb movie I can forgive completely.For those of you looking for a pidgeon hole, and this movie doesn't spend an awful amount of time trying to be original, think of The Cube, with aspects of something like Into Thin Air. Recommended viewing.

Bloodrayne was showing between The Descent and our next outing, Evil Aliens. In retrospect, I wish I'd bought tickets for all three, but I had considered at the time that attention span issues wouldn't be fair to Evil Aliens if I had. Also, if I'd noticed that Meatloaf (Aday) was in BloodRayne, I'd have definitely gone to see it. Meh, it'll be out on DVD soon anyways. In the end Evil Aliens doesn't require anything as lofty as an attention span, but I'm glad I had a kebab in my stomach so I could concentrate on the movie instead of feeling hungry. Evil Aliens is a director described slasher alien flick. "Think Bad Taste" the director told us in the opening speach thingy. Many will take this as a greatly pretentious thing to say about your movie, compaing it to the works of the Great Jackson but, meh, Jackson was having visceral fun in Bad Taste, not making art so alls fair I reckon. Plot-wise, this is a story of one of a cable TV crew investigating a claimed alien abduction/impregnation in darkest Wales. The cable TV crew make their bread and butter out of this kind of story, but don't believe any of it themselves. But, hey, it's entertainment, right? Deepest darkest Wales turns out to be an island only accessible at low tide (of course) populated by a family who have clearly been keeping it in the family for generations, most of whom spend the movie being rude about the English, in Welsh. Que a spankingly good alien slasher flick in which just about everyone has sex with everyone else, far more blood is spilled than could feasibly have been there in the first place and farm impliments are used to their full murderous potential (including a combine harvester). Is this as "good" as Bad Taste? I don't know, it's been at least a decade since I saw that film, but I can say that if you enjoyed Jackson's romp through Alien lore, you'll definitely get a kick out of Jake West's.

That's enough fro the time being I rekon, I'll get ojn with the rest tomorrow (or next month, or something)

Bomber out

Right, this took AGES so I hope you enjoy them

Richard and smudge finishing off the (cheese) pies

Our Chalet

View from the pad

More mountains

And again with the mountains

Snow angels under the balcony. Some red wine may have been involved

Lunchtime (again....)

Oh, look ... We're eating

At the Vin Chaude stop