Connect with us

Movies

Sundance ’10: Ryan Daley Reflects Back on 6 Films of the Fest

Published

on

The Sundance Film Festival is traditionally a mixed bag, but this year’s Park City at Midnight line-up was easily one of the strongest I’ve ever seen. Almost all of the movies featured were in some way entertaining, and three of the films were downright excellent. Here’s how I rank the six horror movies I saw at this year’s festival.

Click here for all of this year’s Sundance news:


The audience at my midnight screening was initially enthusiastic about The Butcher Brothers’ most recent effort, but that enthusiasm soon gave way to disenchantment, and eventually scorn, as the directors took a fun sub-genre (the 70s exploitation film) and stomped all the life out of it. All but impossible to sit through.


Even high production values couldn’t save this one, a sci-fi drama that’s all over the place in terms of tone. Is it a semi-instructional film about how to raise a mutant baby? Or is it a lurid sex flick featuring human-on-mutant groin-slammin’? Hard to tell. A weird mash-up of genres that never quite congeals.


The definition of mediocrity stretched to its breaking point. A couple of amusing scenes try to carry the load, but with the majority of the movie buried under a hapless heap of “who cares?” plot developments, this is a flick that quickly wears out its welcome.


Ryan Reynolds rocks the screen hard in a singular, no-holds-barred performance. Some will question the ending (avoid all reviews if you plan on seeing it), but in the world of tightly-wound, independently financed thrillers, Buried knows no equal.


Like Martyrs, this is torture-porn for the intellectual set. Those who enjoy their cinematic brutality served up with a side of emotional realism are in for a real treat. Sometimes graphic, sometimes restrained, 7 Days is the perfect amalgam of gut-wrenching horror and high art.


After a slow and baggy set-up, director Adam Green really brings the pain for the full remaining hour of his winter extremes horror film, a truly harrowing experience that provokes hours of discussion once the credits have rolled. By the time I left the theater, my armrests were slick with hand sweat.

Movies

‘Pandemic Sex Party’ Trailer – ‘The Devil’s Rejects’ Producer Slices into Influencers with Grindhouse Throwback

Published

on

AI has taken over the job market and most people have become either influencers or online sex workers in Pandemic Sex Party, a new horror film from producer Andy Gould (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, The Lords of Salem). Described as a throwback to the grindhouse exploitation cinema of the past, the official trailer has been unleashed this week.

Bloody Disgusting has learned that production has quietly begun on Pandemic Sex Party, about a masked maniac brutally crashing the titular bash. Writer/director Myles Erfurth says don’t let the title fool you… Pandemic Sex Party is a “balls-to-the-wall gritty horror flick and pure grindhouse terror.” Today, horror fans are being invited to join the party and participate in Pandemic Sex Party’s incentive-laden Indiegogo campaign, which is now live.

“When Myles Erfurth’s screenplay for Pandemic Sex Party came across my desk, I blazed through it in one sitting,” says Gould. “I was hooked from the start by its original mix of twisted horror and great characters, as well as its clever setting and set-up. But what really caught my attention was the blood-chilling character of The Rancher. Having worked with Rob Zombie on his classic horror films, I know a thing or two about memorable villains. The Rancher, Pandemic Sex Party’s savage killer, is a terrifying new slasher icon ready to be embraced by the horror world.”

The filmmakers pledge to recapture thrills of past exploitation gold. “As an homage to the glory day of grindhouse-style films, Pandemic Sex Party will not disappoint,” says Erfurth, whose previous feature film, The Silver Stream, was an interactive live-stream horror film that starred Bill Moseley and Ice Nine Kills.

“Our story takes place in the not-so-distant future. AI has taken over the majority of the job market, and the primary source of income for young people is that of a social media influencer or online model. Being on the verge of another pandemic, Sasha, a young video game streamer, heads off into the desert for the weekend to make ‘content’ with her online model friends: Tanya, Cash, Dream and her younger sister Cherry.”

Trouble awaits at the remote location. “Once arriving at the rental house dubbed ‘The Funny Ranch,’ the group slowly begins to realize things aren’t exactly as they seem,” music video veteran Erfurth continues. “They are soon met by The Rancher, a masked killer who has a vendetta against the newly-changing world, online influencers and online models alike.”

Erfurth further previews, “The majority of modern-day horror films have become sexually watered-down. Pandemic Sex Party is going to be a wild ride.”

Exclusively watch the trailer for Pandemic Sex Party below and head over to the crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo to pitch in and get perks including a walk-on role in the movie.

Continue Reading