karohemd | FFW09

Flash Gordon (the one from the 80's with Brian Blessed): No introduction needed but this cut had some bits I hadn't seen before like Klytus' eyes popping out when he dies and Dale Arden with her shoes during the escape.
Madhouse with Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. A bit rubbish but good fun with lots of hammy acting.
Razorback, an Australian monster pig film with some suprisingly good photography and an enormous pig prop. Good fun.
The Scar Crow, the first of the new British films on offer. Not bad for a £50K budget film with a good idea but odd explanation of the plot and really quite sexist in places for a modern film (although not as bad as Lesbian Vampire Killers). Reasonable production values, though.
The Disappeared (imdb), the second new British film, was excellent and by far my favourite of the films I hadn't seen before. Very simply shot, it's the story of a teenager whose younger brother disappeared one evening when their father wasn't home and the older brother had a party. Part ghost story, part psycho thriller, it really kept my attention throughout because you just cared for the characters. I advise against watching the trailer because it contains (in my opinion) two major spoilers you should really find out for yourselves when watching it. I hope this will get the wider release it deserves. Brilliant. Oh, and for the Harry Potter fans, it has Tom Felton playing the lead character's best mate (and he always felt more like a chav to me than a poncy prat).
Shaun of the Dead: again no introduction needed but good to see on the big screen again with friends who laugh at the right moments and sing along with "Don't Stop me Now".

Short Films: 28 (about quantum parallel worlds, quite fucked up); The Auburn Hills Breakdown, a hilarious not quite slasher (as there is no gore, just slasher characters); Cinema of Horror, a British short film with Bradford film students and Tony Earnshaw as a zombie, cheap but fun; Dead Bones, a Western/Slasher, really gory but well made with high production values; Ironwerkz was odd and surreal, almost steampunky but very dark indeed; The Lift 2, in which a security guard learns of the dark secret of a genetics company, quite haunting; Mother, Mine, a woman receives a video tape from her daughter she had given up for adoption but things don't turn out as expected; Overslept was really fun and not what you expected to be in the end; Quarry was quite a shocker with a similar concept to Hostel; The Sack, another slasher but with a bit of a twist; Stagman was a weird but wonderful (and French with incomplete subtitles) film about not fitting in and finding someone who shares your situation, basically and The Tell-Tale Heart, an animated film based on the Poe book of the same name, surreal and ace.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the original black and white one was wonderful. Recently restored in great quality, this didn't feel dated at all and the morphing between the two titular characters was very well done indeed. I hadn't seen this for ages so this was great to see on the big screen.
Vampyr with a new score played live. This, sadly, was a disappointment for two reasons. Firstly, while nice, the music was too samey and quiet in tempo and literally put me to sleep (and I wasn't the only one). Secondly, the film shown was the restored German print but because of the live score, the sound was turned off so you couldn't hear the dialogue. I guess I was the only one with that complaint in the cinema, though but subtitles on the intertitles (rather than translated intertitles) and the pages of the book made the thing a bit difficult to look at. Shame, really.
Aliens in 70mm blew me away, similarly to The Thing last year. Perfect action fodder in glorious quality.

Gnaw, new Brit slasher. Nothing really to write home about but nothing particularly bad, either.
The Call of Cthulhu, the silent HPLHS version looks fantastic on the big screen and the stop-motion Cthulhu is awesome.
The Terminal Man was very good but depressing. I don't think I'd had actually seen it before, well worth it.
Star Trek at IMAX was even better with all that visual and aural detail. However, despite sitting reasonably far back, it was just a little big to me as I don't like panning while watching a film.
Suspiria was loud, both in sound and colours and surreal in the typical Argento way. Good to see it on the big screen, it's been a bit boring on TV. (Noooo, it's being remade)

Counting the (two hour) short film session as one, that was 15 films in three days. Whew. When's the next one? ;o)