Three days ago, I was riding the biggest (natural) high of the year. It was a gorgeous day outside, and there were only 345 miles between me and the Telluride Horror Show. Now, as I sit at my desk in my office…I’m left wondering how it went by so fast. How hollow and empty I feel no longer tucked away in a tiny, remote town nestled into the San Juan Mountain range. So if I may, let me reflect and relive those magical 53-ish hours and paint a picture for all of you who weren’t able to attend.
Instead of ranking and ordering based on my personal favorites, I’ll give a chronological walk-through of everything I was able to see. One of the downsides to film festivals is…you can’t see every single thing playing. Just impossible to make time for every movie, which leads to specific planning and choosing to prioritize what you want to see most. Stay tuned for individual reviews for a more in-depth description and thoughts on each film!
Originally, I wanted to kick Friday (and my festival as a whole) off with The Breach. Unfortunately, I ran into some one-lane, no guard rail, dirt road construction in the mountain that delayed me by over 45 minutes. So my jumping off point for the weekend was with The Attachment Diaries; a 70’s throwback, Argentinian film. It was a perfect blend of having some wonderful cinematography, some truly surprising and shocking moments, without being too heavy nor campy. It was a great starting point. After that ended, I snagged some ice cream from the Ice Cream Social. My extremely introverted self went and ate it while walking through some back alleys, ignoring the “social” side of the event. The Harbinger was my second film, which was much better than I was anticipating. One of the only well-executed films I’ve seen centered around the global pandemic we all suffered through. Globally shared trauma meets extreme nightmares leads to a very universal film that will creep under anyone’s skin. I ended the night with A Wounded Fawn, a film that premiered at Tribeca and was immediately scooped up by Shutter (if that tells you anything). It was a perfect final screening to end on. A little campy, a little violent, a little retro-throwbacky…but all extremely entertaining and engaging. Definitely the highlight of my Day 1.
Saturday I managed to pack 4 feature length films in; Seire, Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge, Christmas Bloody Christmas, and Mad Heidi. Seire was a nice way to ease into the day, being a mostly dramatic story about loss, with a hint of the supernatural. Wasn’t my favorite of the weekend by any means, but it was well-made and always engaging. Without much time to waste (other than snagging another coffee on the way), I headed down to the Michael D. Palm Theatre. I saw the first Scare Package at the 2019 Telluride Horror Show, and absolutely loved it. So I was very excited to see Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge was on this year’s lineup. If you’ve seen the first one, well, you already know what to expect. It’s that…but with the silly, campy, and parody ramped up tenfold. This was definitely a crowd favorite, with some of the most laughter and reaction I heard all weekend. After grabbing some of the included BBQ at the annual Pig Roast (thank you Oak), I settled into the haunted Sheridan Opera House for my most anticipated film of the festival; Christmas Bloody Christmas. I mean, come on. It’s Joe-Fucking-Begos. Do I need to say more? If you’re unfamiliar, go check out his previous cinematic works and come back. Think of those movies, but with a studio that gave him a substantially larger budget to work with. Yeah. Exactly. While that movie would have made a perfect “midnighter” ending to the day…I now see why they decided to screen Mad Heidi last. Because wow. What a rompy, ridiculous, over-the-top piece of fun horror that was. Listen, it’s like Grindhouse meets Super Troopers. It’s violent, it’s absurd, and it’s comedic.
Running off two nights of minimal sleep, I begrudgingly got started on my bittersweet final day. Enys Men may have been the most divisive (or straight up most disliked) film of the festival. I get it. It’s super arthouse, very abstract, almost no dialogue…not the easiest thing to digest first thing at 10:00am. I’ll say this about it; after the film, I spent the most amount of time dissecting and discussing it with my group of friends over any other film of the festival. I cannot wait to dive in for a full review on this. Next came a section where all three theaters were showing short blocks. I’m personally not a fan of short films (I know I know, send me all the hate mail you want), so I skipped and decided to shoot some more photographs. Running down the Jud Wiebe Memorial Trail, with two cameras bouncing around my neck, I barely made it back in time to catch The Offering.I’m so glad I did. Another film in which the trailer didn’t really sell me 100%. But goes to show, the trailer isn’t everything. This was a wonderfully executed possession/religious film that had the most genuine scares than I’ve seen in a while. Without much time to wait, I hopped right on over to the town’s actual year round movie theater; The Nugget Theater. Closing out the festival, I chose to watch Mind Body Spirit. This is a screen-horror/found footage style film that is both anxiety-inducing, and full of laughs. Just imagine if Paranormal Activity was created by an inspiring yoga YouTube influencer. This was seriously a wonderful movie to leave off with, because as soon as it ended, it was time for me to make the long drive back home. This weekend always flies by entirely too fast for my liking. I vote we turn this thing into a week-long event next year.
There were a handful of movies I unfortunately was not able to get to. Those include The Breach, Deadstream, Huesera, Ice Cream Man, Matriarch, Megalomaniac, Something in the Dirt, Spirit Halloween and V/H/S 99. You win some, you lose some. Word of mouth is, Megalomaniac was great. Both V/H/S 99 and Matriarch are coming out later this week, so regardless if you attended the festival or not, we all have the opportunity to see them soon!
Let me know what you think! Did you attend the festival? What were your favorite films of the weekend? If not…why the Hell not & you better come next year! Seriously cannot put into words how special this weekend is for me. Thanks everyone involved in setting up and running the event year-in, year-out. And like I said, keep your eyes peeled on the site for reviews, ratings, and more! Also, extremely shameless plug here, but check out my Instagram (@jacobedge.rar) as I took over 100 photographs during the weekend and that’s where they will all be posted.
And until next time, this is Frightday. Stay Scared.
– Byron (Not actually Byron)