Fantastic Fest Day Two

Fantastic Fest Day Two

What an amazing festival so far. By far the best one ive attended. Out of 9 movies so far only two that I disliked. Unfortunately day two started off like day one. With a bad movie.

The Legend is Alive

The Legend may be alive but this movie viewer was almost asleep. Not really much positive to say about this movie. Its basically a Vietnamese drama about a slow dude that lives with his mother and thinks his father is Bruce Lee. After his mother dies he tries to make his way to America and gets into trouble on the way trying to protect a young girl he encounters. Once the action starts its very amateurish and unimaginative. Final Rating: 3/10

Hard Revenge Milly and Hard Revenge Milly:Bloody Battle

I had no idea what to expect from these movies. Hard Revenge Milly is a low budget crazy Japanese short movie (47 min) in the vein of Machine Girl. Its post apocalyptic Japan and Milly's husband and child and killed and burned before her eyes. Milly is also horribly wounded and left for dead. But a mad scientist finds her and makes her a half human/ half cyborg killing machine with a shotgun in her kneecap, mechanical arms from her chest along with a flame thrower. So Milly is out to get revenge on her torturers. Simply storyline but thats all it needed. It had some instane stuntwork and some great fight choreography that was often very funny. Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle was the full length follow up that was shown immediately after it. It was just more of the same thing except for Milly now has a mechanical arm that can shoot off of her body attached to a cable. These were not for everybody but I had a blast watching it. Final Rating for the two: 7/10.

Sweet Karma

This movie was a very low budget revenge thriller. The story is about this Russian mute chick named Karma that is out to get revenge on the people who kidnapped her sister and sold her into slavery on the Canadian black market. The was the first just ok movie I saw at the festival. I didnt hate it but didnt really like it either. It was probably a little too ambitious for the low budget. Final Rating: 6/10

Trick r Treat

There was just no way this movie can live up to the hype. The wait is finally over. Ive been looking forward to this movie for almost two years. Even though its about to be released on dvd I was grinning just thinking about watching it on the big screen. For the most part it didnt disappoint. The first thing that popped out was the awesome set design. From the houses, to the streets lined with pumpkins, to the parade till all the stuff in the woods all of it just tied together perfectly. While it was an anthology movie it was pretty different by not really have it split up into sections but having it all flow together till it ties up in the end. There was basically four different storylines which I liked to different varying degrees. The werewolf story I liked the least with the kids going to the rock quarry was my overall favorite. Not as good as I hoped but still a solid horror anthology. Final Rating: 7.5/10.

Doghouse

This was the midnight screening on day two of Fantastic Fest. The only thing I knew about this movie was this it was done by Jake West whose last two full length movies were the shitty Pumpkinhead sequel and the just ok Evil Aliens. Wow I was pleasantly surprised. This was a very solid horror comedy. It was about a group of friends over in England that go on a weekend retreat to help cheer up their mate that was recently divorced. When they arrive at the small village they immediately notice something is not right. They encounter a bunch of crazy zombie bitches out for blood. Also their female bus driver turns to a zombie and prevents them from leaving in their chartered shuttle bus. The only survivor they encounter tells them that its a military experiment gone wrong and the virus only affects females. Stuck in the village the men basically go from house to house, store to store trying to devise an escape plan. Not only were the gore and kills pretty cool, but there was a lot of funny moments. Yeah its another zombie comedy but I think it did enough to stand out on its own. It may actually be my favorite zombie comedy ever. Final Rating: 8.25/10