FEAR GOOD MOVIES *

For some reasons, I didn’t fully realize that there is a genre where you get to actually laugh at gory movies. Seriously. I thought it’s either comedy or it’s slasher gore-horror type. Which was what I thought this festival was all about. I was wrong. Yes there were horror, slashers, zombies, fantasies, but most importantly there’s horror comedy!

Just like Zombieland (which I love).

Suddenly I wanted to see more movies like that. Also this year I seemed to play a lot of fun bloody games (Mini Gore, anyone?) and actually my favorite part of Assassin’s Creed was when I could kill all of the guards.

The Festival itself was really nice and well organized (the Germans are really awesome for these kind of things!). You can get a festival pass (which was sold out in a blink – my friend said), the slightly discounted pre-sales tickets some weeks before, or you can get the normal ones starting from a week before the showings.

I only went to five movies. Which is quite a lot in a week’s time but I tell you nothing compared to the real fans (yeah, you know who you are ;)).

Alright, here’s my short impressions of the movies I saw!

Grabbers

It’s a fun crazy movie about bloodsucking aliens. The catch? Toxic blood is toxic for them. The solution: drink a lot of booze! They should’ve known not to land in Ireland ;).

The movie is just loads of fun without being too silly. There’s some cliches in the story line, but enough surprises and jokes to make up for it. All in all, it’s a very good start to the festival! Totally recommended if you like crazy alien bloodsucking movies. Or Irish people smashing stuff.

Thale

A Norwegian movie, about this folklore called Thale. It was not what I expected from the poster and the trailer. It was actually more of a drama – thriller, so it’s a little bit on the boring side for me. The cliched story didn’t really help here either. It’s an okay movie, but I guess I wouldn’t remember much of it except that Thale was mostly naked throughout the movie. I wouldn’t really recommend this, but I wouldn’t say you shouldn’t watch it either.

The Suicide Shop

The main characters are a family who owns a suicide shop. This movie actually is what I like about this festival. You get to see movies where the stories were not typical. A somewhat dysfunctional family whose goal is to sell items for a suicide, ranging from poison to katanas. It has the promise of being a great dark animation movie, but it fell short on the ending – thanks to the cheery youngest addition to the family. The singing is also a bit much. However I do like the visualization.. and it’s in 3D, I like animated 3D sometimes. Still very interesting and recommended especially if you like the drawing style.

Btw, this movie actually reminds me of School of Evil (A book by Danny Gregory). If you’re into this kind of story, read this e-book. It’s a totally dark and twisted book of a (good) kid going to School of Evil.

Get Shorty

It’s a collection of short films. Always recommended if you go to a film festival. I expected to see something very gory in this mix, but actually it was really a good unexpected mix. It’s even not as depressing as the Berlinale ones!

The Black Lake is too twisted. It follows the French pattern of they met, fall in love, they fuck, in the end one of them died. The ending was just too disturbing, even though I actually understand why she did it… Tune for Two is a sarcastic Nordic humor… Luminaris is a very beautiful piece about this two young people who worked at a light bulb factory and has a big dream… The Trap is an interesting idea. Curiosity always kills the cat… Danny Boy is quite interesting because I see it as a sarcastic metaphor. If you are different but better than everyone else, would you sacrifice it just for the sake of being ‘normal’?… The Little Mermaid I know nothing about, I fell completely asleep… Abiogenesis has some interesting robotic bio movements… The Furred Man and Sugar are really depressingly funny, you’re not supposed to laugh at someone’s misfortunes ;)… Believe the Dance is just weird dancing sequence. Unforgettably weird.

My favorite ones from the Get Shorty are Luminaris and Sugar.

Cockneys vs Zombies

The last movie I saw in this festival, and what a way to end it too. It’s a glorious zombie killing movie, full of crazy banters and cockney humors. What to do when a group of elders had to fight against a bunch of zombies?  Run, yeah, with a help of the walking aid. Luckily the zombies can’t walk fast either!

I laughed a lot during this one. Totally the best movie I saw in this festival. Bloody funny gory fun. More, please!!! And yes, totally recommended! I think it would be much funnier if you know London too :D.

* PS: I hate being fussy about grammars, but I found the tagline is a little confusing… fear good movies. What does it mean? Fear – good movies? Should I be afraid of good movies? So the movies in this festival are all bad? Fear good – movies? Movies where having fear is good? But it’s missing an ‘is’? Although I guess this one makes more sense… but still, I hope they would come up with a better tagline next year, less confusing at least ;).