Bloodbath - Aftermath

Urgghhgghhh...

That is the best description I can come up with for how I felt at 2:30 this morning after 30 hours sitting in a dark theatre in a small, non-ergonomic chair watching low-budget horror, martial arts and conspiracy movies. I'm still a little dazed, but I figure I should get some thoughts out there before the blood dries.

Some of the movies were great, some bad, some really bad and some downright bizarre. The reason I hadn't heard of most of the movies was that many were ultra-low budget labours of love for their respective makers, and many haven't had a cinematic run of any consequence and are not even available on DVD. A few of the directors were on hand to discuss their films, and freely shared their experiences of the nightmare that is independent film-making. These Q&A sessions were a highlight.

Unfortunately for the organisers and the film-makers, not many people turned up, with the audience ranging from about 40 people to as few as 4 (sounds like the average readership for this website). There were a few technical glitches over the weekend, and I was disappointed that so many of the movies were shown on DVD rather than on proper film. Projecting standard definition DVDs onto a large screen looks blurry, unlike film which, even if a little scratched, gives a much more defined picture. But I understand that film prints are expensive, and given the nature of many of these movies, it was just not an option.

The focus of this festival was definitely on recent, independent, British films, and while interesting, I would have liked a couple of more crowd pleasers (of the evil, bloody, limb hacking kind) and some genuine scares (e.g. horror), which were rare. The scariest moment of the weekend was walking the 2km home through the back-streets of Bristol through a gale at 2:30 this morning.

Reviews of each of the feature-length movies will follow over the next couple of days. I'm looking forward to sharing some of the gems, as some of these movies deserve an audience. It will become clear, however, that some probably don't.

And you should probably ignore my preview, as I wasn't even close.