Panic Fest 2020 - Days 3 & 4

And Sunday. Final day of the weekend of the festival.

The day's movies and podcasts started at 1 p.m. Beth and I had talked about getting lunch before the first showing but we both got up late. I decided to skip whatever I had planned on going to originally to go to the live taping of the Shock Waves podcast with Beth.

Shock Waves is a horror podcast, previously in the Blumhouse family and now in the Fangoria Network, that has a bit more free formed and meandering discussions but centers around top 5 lists from the hosts and guests. The hosts are Dr. Rebekah Mckendry (professor, writer-director), Elric Kane (professor, filmmaker) , Ryan Turek (Blumhouse's VP of Development) and Rob Galluzzo (Fangoria's Director of Distribution and Acquisitions.) Only the first two were there but it was still great chemistry. I have listened to the podcast a few times but generally prefer a more focused and/or academic look at horror movies or topics. (Beth would later tell me about Dr Mckendry's Nightmare University podcast which I've started devouring this week and plan to use as an outline for themed horror movie nights in the future. It is much closer to the podcasts that I usually listen to though she focuses on specific subgenres of horror films in ways that I have found new and interesting, while also dipping her toes into the production and marketing side of some of them, to give the audience an idea of why those movies were made at that specific time.)

After some technical difficulties getting the laptop set up, they got started. Their topic was body-horror though they had made a deal pre-show to not include any Cronenberg films in their top-fives for fear that his films might dominate the lists. Instead, they had a separate discussion about his films. They each had a list with movies I added to my notes as movies to see, including Seconds (on Amazon Prime), XTRO, Society (which I know I saw on one of the streaming sites recently, maybe Shudder?), Baby Blood (French), and Evolution (on Netflix.) Dr Mckendry's description of Tokyo Gore Police also peaked my interest in a way that seeing the cover and whatever summary went along with it has never been able to.

I also really liked Dr. Mckendry's point about horror often acting as the avant-garde. It is often made more independently, from filmmakers early in their careers and willing to take chances, and it has more opportunities for visuals and ideas that are on the edge. If horror doesn't push this edge, Dr. Mckendry asked, who would? And how will Hollywood ever take risks if they haven't seen indie films successfully doing some of it first?

Beth came in late to Shock Waves and I was writing and didn't see her, so we hooked up at the end of the show. I followed her up to the front where she talked to Dr Mckendry about her film Rot and getting films made on a small budget, filming over the weekends while you worked other jobs. Dr Mckendry apparently made All the Creatures Were Stirring over twelve days, six weekends of shooting, with a three-week break in the middle for her to have her baby. That is some hardcore filmmaking!

It's always going to be weird to be the person who is JUST a film fan in situations like this, but I did also talk to Dr Mckendry as well. I had seen her on two panels at Phoenix Fan Fest two years ago and it was amazing to see a woman up there with the men talking about horror films past and present, as well as about the production side. I told her that I had gone to Salem Horror Fest to see The Faculty of horror podcasters and have started a blog to write about my own experiences and thoughts on horror, though I didn't have anything fiction in the works right now. "You'll find your story,"  she said to me. That made me feel really good.

Next Beth and I went to see James Versus His Future Self. It was a sunny romantic sci-fi comedy about a self-obsessed physicist on the brink of a discovery in time travel when future self comes back in time to tell him not to invent time travel. Of course the knowledge that he is successful pushes him to want to continue his work, against the wishes of future him. I really like that the movie had some interesting answers to some time travel questions as well as interesting answers in how to film a time travel movie. Even as cynical me kept waiting for something really dark to happen, the film stayed pretty light and fluffy, though it also made me get a little teary near the end. This would be good for someone who doesn't require a big budget in their movies and likes romantic comedies or Big Bang Theory but not scifi movies about spaceships.

I had to skip the next time slot but Beth went to see a movie called The Perished, an Irish film about a woman, abandoned by her boyfriend and family, is recovering from an abortion in an old house that was once part of a Catholic Church compound, and where 800 dead babies happen to be buried, babies who decide they want her to be their mother. Beth really liked it and I hope to catch it in the future. The director of the film Paddy Murphy was there all weekend promoting the film and seem to be very outgoing and friendly to all people, whether industry people or just local film fans.

I had to run to get my kid from my parents and then take her to bf1's house and get her settled for the night, as he offered to watch over her so I could go to a special screening, as long as timing worked out well with dropping her off.

Luckily everything worked out well and I was able to make the movie Hardware as well as stay for the Nightmare Junkhead podcast taping right afterwards. Hardware is a punk Apocalypse movie from 1990, the first movie directed by Richard Stanley, who started in music videos and would go on to make the infamous Island of Dr. Moreau with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando, and whose new movie Color Out of Space just came out. The guest on the podcast was director Joe Lynch who also does the podcast The Movie Crypt. Before the podcast they show the series of trailers Lynch had put together of other movies from 1990 to help us get a feel for what was out at this time. It included Tremors, Nightbreed, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 (the only sequel), and Darkman. During the podcast they would talk about how many of these movies are beloved by movie fans but didn't do well at the box office, sometimes because they didn't know how to market them properly. One of the podcasters included a story about how a local tv station was giving away tickets to Tremors during a kids show. Even though I saw it when I was 8, I'm not really sure Tremors is a kids movie. 

Hardware itself is definitely a 90s apocalypse movie. Everything in the city that they're in is grimy, a hodgepodge of technology all jerry-rig together, lots of video screens, but there are still very bright colors, particularly reds. If you think about apocalypse movies recently, they're all dark, both in that there is little light but also in that the colors are often drab and muted. This movie had so much color to it. It centers on artist Jill and her scavenger boyfriend Mo, who brings her back parts from a busted up robot for her to use in her large industrial art pieces. Only the robot turns on, puts itself back together, and kills everyone it can. While the men on the podcast all talked about how Mo was the hero of piece, Beth and I both saw Jill as the primary heroin, with maybe some final girl thrown in there. There were several fake out endings as well as the film's final note being they even though they killed that robot, more were being made. The movie touched on political topics, like the apocalypse being from nuclear war, as well as issues of population control. While there is the sex scene that all early-90s R-rated movies required, there is also a creepy voyeur across the street, talking dirty while he's watching it. As icky as that scene made me feel, as viewers of the film, aren't we all that creepy guy, watching this sex scene? 

I really liked the podcast taping as well. I am not sure how well I would like the podcast Nightmare Junkhead on the regular, though I am going to give it a try. It is done by two local podcasters who also did the podcast The Nerds of Nostalgia and have a great chemistry between them. I really liked their interaction on stage, but I'm not sure how well it will work in the podcast form. Going out for a night of drinking and movies though, I'm in. I also really liked Joe Lynch from The Movie Crypt podcast who talk about the industry side in how many of movies being made in 1990 were risks taken by the studios to find something new that would work, often combining several genres into one to find something that would work for audiences and give them their next big hit. This it often lead to the studios not knowing how to market this new kind of movie, then the studios and other insiders calling them bombs when they weren't huge hits their opening weekends. What no one could know that first box office weekend was how many of these movies would become more well-known once they were on video and how many of them might make back their budget that way. I will probably give all of their podcasts to try.

On the drive to take my daughter to bf1's house, a thick fog had developed. Well it had dissipated before I drove to go see Hardware, but when I got out of the podcast taping, there was still some fog. The short walk to my car was definitely a little creepy. All I could think about was what kind of movie scene could be shot in this particular setting, which was a definite change from my usual thoughts of how I was going to die in this foggy horror movie scene. I once again skip to Taco Bell and went straight back to the house and to bed.

Sunday night wasn't the end of the festival though. They re-showed films that had played over the weekend on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, with Thursday being the best of the Fest, where they showed the movies that the audience had voted as the best. I did manage to go back on Monday. (I had kids on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Wednesday I was just dead tired so I did not go back either of those days.) Bf1 went with me and we managed to meet up with Beth for the first show we saw.

The first show we saw on Monday was Two Heads Creek, an Australian comedy about an Anglo-Polish twin brother and sister who find out after their mother dies that they were adopted and their biological mother lives in this small Australian town. When they go to find her, they find a town that is a little behind the times and harbors a big secret. There was a short clip before the film of the director welcoming us to see the movie as well as talking about how the film is trying to deal with the issues that Australians are having with immigration in a humorous way. I'm going to be real, it makes it seem like Australians are really fucking racist and anti-immigrant. Maybe it's just that some are. It's not like you couldn't make a movie like that about the US right now. But it was a fun and funny and gory horror comedy, which even included a musical number during their big Australia Day dinner. Bf1 had been skeptical about the humor working, but it's really landed well. 

The final movie I saw from the festival was Color Out of Space, the new film by Richard Stanley, based on an HP Lovecraft story. It really seems like HP Lovecraft is having a Renaissance right now. I think in part because many authors are not steering away from him because he's problematic (read: racist) but are embracing the W/weird and cosmic horror, while taking out the racist elements. I have definitely heard about other HP Lovecraft stories or stories that are borrowing from his work that are being made into either TV shows or movies.

I think this may have been the scariest film I saw at the festival. Other than Synchronic, I think it was probably the biggest budget of the films that I saw the festival. This is the story of a family who has recently moved out to the country, only to have something fall from the sky onto their property. At first, it looks like a glowing, throbbing purple-pink meteorite. Though it loses it's color and then disappears in the next few days, it begins to change the vegetation and, more disturbingly, the behavior of the family. It has The Thing-level body horror as well as a great deal of dread. For those looking, it has call backs to Stanley's previous work, as a quote from Hardware appears in the older son's room, as well as something that serves as both a reference and a fuck-you to Lovecraft, the black or biracial hydrologist wearing a Miskotonic U shirt the whole movie. Nicolas Cage is also in rare form as the father, loving and gentle at the start of the movie, but increasingly unhinged, perhaps channeling his own "intellectually abusive father" as it goes on. 

Skipped Taco Bell again as I went back home at 11pm for the 4th night in a row just to drop into bed. I would pay for that lack of rest for the rest of the week after. I think maybe the next time I do this I will be taking Monday off. Even if I still do movies on Monday night, being able to sleep the whole day on Monday would definitely have made a difference.

As I write this, a over a week after this ordeal started, I have to say how much I enjoyed it and how gracious I am to those who made it possible, from the people in my immediate circle who helped to pay for it and make sure that my kid was taken care of, to the people at the theater and the film fest to make it work every year, all the way to the filmmakers who make their films and put it out there for us to see an experience. For someone like me this feels like a very unique experience. I know that it happens every year and I hope that in the future I will be able to take part in it, whether I see one movie or 13. But it is still a super unique experience to get to take in all of this in one shot. I think that during the years when my kids were real little I might not have seen 13 movies in a year, much less a weekend. Thanks everyone. 

As I finish editing this over a whole week after watching my last film of the fest, I have to give even more credit. Though it has taken me longer to write about it all than I thought, I have written it. I am about to publish it online. I am pushing myself to watch more movies rather than just staring at shows I've seen before. This week I have watched a movie every week night. I feel not just more inspired to write but have even had those moments of "if they can do it, then I can too." (That doesn't always last as long as I'd like but that is for another post.) I am so glad I got to do this and I hope to be able to do more and more often.