Nevermore 2013

I look forward to the Nevermore Film Festival every year.  This year it has fallen on the weekend I am changing shifts from 8hrs/day 5 days /week to 12 hour shifts on the weekend and a 6 hour evening on Wednesday.  So, instead of going on Saturday and Sunday, I have shifted my days.

I don’t go see the retro stuff at the Carolina theater.  If I can get it from Netflix and watch it at home, I’m not paying $9/ticket to see it in a theater.  So, the single old movie on the list is an automatic skip.  After that, it’s a question of figuring out what I can fit into  the time I have.

This year I saw:

Boogeymen From Beyond the Sea, an international long shorts collection (17 minutes or more in length).

• Boys Village (Germany, 22 minutes) a Sixth Sense style of ghost story with an ending that isn’t telegraphed.

• Baby-Sitting (France, 20 minutes) badly made, poorly written.

• I’m Dead (Italy, 17 minutes} Surprising.  It looked liked a straight up slasher story but the last 5 minutes turned everything around and changed very thing you had seen earlier.

• The Other Side (England, 20 minutes) an English slasher in the Welsh countryside.  Not many surprises by a lot of jumps

• Vadim (Austria, 17 minutes) Really didn’t have much new, but it did make me jump more than once.

• John Dies at the End was hilarious and existential and very entertaining.  There is a book available.  I have tweeted to the writer asking if the book or  the script came first.  I am not interested in reading an expansion of the script, but might be interested in an original novel.

ABCs of Death This was a fun anthology film.  For all practical purposes, it was a collection of shorts that was packaged as a single thing because of the overarching theme. Some of the letters were obvious and some were a little bit of a stretch. In particular, 2 Japanese directors whose letters worked in Japanese, but not in the English translation. The shorts DID work, though. Some were surreal, some were stories. Some were funny, some were terrifying. If you like shorts and if you like monsters, this is worth the time.

Wrath of the Foreign Invaders is the Foreign short shorts collection.:

• A Joke of Too Much  (Italy, 5 minutes)  Grindhouse.  Funny

• The White Lady (Switzerland, 15 minutes)  Everyone over the age of 12 knows this story.

• Refugio 115 (Spain, 8 minutes) Swallowed by darkness.  Nothing new.

• She’s Having a Baby (Australia, 14 minutes) Misery wants a baby instead of a book.

• The Plan (Israel, 13 minutes)  I can’t remember anything about this one, even reading the blurb on the site.

• Ocho (Spain, 14 minutes) Strange.  I’m not sure what the point was.  Satanic families spoil your birthday?

 

We Will Call Him Bobby (Spain, 13 minutes)  I like it so much I’m embedding the entire thing.

 

They’re Coming to Get You, Barbra is the North American short shorts.  There were 10:

• Torturous  (Canada, 6 minutes)  This was hilarious.

• Game (Canada, 8 minutes) Rednecks chase a woman in the woods down to the edge of a lake, then the rules change.  I liked it.
• Klagger  (USA, 12 minutes)  Slasher.  Well made, nothing new.

• Sandwich Crazy (Canada, 8 minutes)  Deal with the Devil, OK.

• Trash (Canada, 4 minutes) Homeless guys helps a girl find true love.  Loved it.

• Til Death Do Us Part (USA, 13 minutes) Zombies at a wedding.  Not particularly fresh (ha!) but a few laughs.

• Lot 66 (USA, 15 minutes) Sadly, no surprises

• Blue Hole (USA, 12 minutes)  This was good, based on a NJ legend.  And financed with Kickstarter.

• The Stolen (Canada, 6 minutes)  Is a very familiar fairy tale with no surprises.

• Take That (USA, 14 minutes)  Buddy sets his PW friend up with a hooker.  Things do not go as planned.  Fun.

Found in Time was the second actual feature length film we saw this year. I loved it.  It is an existential time loop story.  Anansi is a happiness trigger for me.  Filmmakers that use him usually make stories I’m going to like.  I got to talk to the writer/director/producer and I’m following the FB page so I’ll know when it is available to buy a copy.

Dead Men Tell No Tales is the North American long shorts.   There were 4:

• Cache Me If You Can (USA, 20 minutes)  Geocaching gone horribly wrong. Loved this one.
• Rose White (USA, 32 minutes) This was another Kickstarter.  Modern version of  Grimm fairy tale.  Uneven.

• Foodie (USA, 29 minutes) Guess who’s coming for dinner?  Filmed in Durham; I recognized one of my favorite restaurants.

• The Hike (USA, 18 minutes)  The blurb refers to Pandora’s Box, but I didn’t get that from the film. Unimpressive.