Nightmare Cinema: U.S. Premiere, NYC

Taking a final lap in its tour of the world’s top genre film festivals, Nightmare Cinema is now racing toward its long-awaited US Premiere.

Earlier this month, the film finished its circuit of the UK with a screening at The Leeds International Film Festival, the film went on to play at El Festival de Cine Fantástico on the Canary Islands, where Producer-Director Mick Garris received the Festival’s del Premio Isla Calavera de Honor Award, a skull designed by special effects master Colin Arthur (The NeverEnding Story). From there, our film headed to the Land Down Under for its Australian Premiere at Monster Fest VII, where it received an enthusiastic reception at Cinema Nova.

Next up: New York City and a US Premiere at The New York City Horror Film Festival, where I’ll be joining Mick Garris at a Thursday night screening at Cinepolis Chelsea.

Other highlights of the NYC festival will include the Screenplay Competition. Among the finalists is The Blood Grinder – an over-the-top horror comedy that has already won Best Comedy Feature at the Austin Revolution Film Festival. One of the writers is Nick Schwartz, with whom I have been collaborating on an adaptation of my story “Prime Time!”

I’ll be posting reports from the scene next week. Until then, I’ll leave you with links to some more Nightmare Cinema’s reviews.

The first is one that I missed when it came out at the end of summer. The others are from the Leeds and Melbourne screenings. As in my previous posts, the quotes are followed by links to the entire review.

Here they are:

Alejandro Brugués’s segment is up first, and is easily the most entertaining of the bunch. It’s a send-up of classic teens-in-the-woods slashers, and it’s hilarious […]. From there, we’re taken to a debatably gifted plastic surgeon (from Joe Dante), then a giallo-inspired Catholic school gone horribly wrong (from Ryûhei Kitamura), an atmospheric black-and-white child’s horror (from David Slade), and finally a haunting hospital rumination on death and loss (from Mick Garris, who also directed the wraparound). All of the pieces are quite different, but they somehow fit together nicely. The flow, from funny to ultimately quite heartbreaking, shows the range of these directors as well as the scope that horror can span within a single genre. — High-Def Digest

“This Way to Egress”[is] a gorgeous monochrome descent into madness starring the ever-brilliant Elizabeth Reaser. — Flickering Myth

Hollywood’s most under-valued horror director, David Slade (Hard Candy, 2005; 30 Days of Night, 2007) provides the psychologically troubling vision, ‘This Way to Egress’. Shot in richly textured black-&-white, it stars Elizabeth Reaser (pictured, above; currently seen in the hit Netflix show, The Haunting of Hill House) as a mother of two brattish boys slowly losing her mind in the waiting room of her ‘specialist’, Dr Salvador (Adam Goodley). As time passes, the pristine office surrounds become overwhelmed by a dark filth; the faces of those that she passes in the halls grow increasingly deformed. Slades’ film is a masterful take on mental health, depression, social disconnection; while it foregoes the visceral horror of the film to this point, it is a warped walk in a convincingly disturbing, Cronenberg-esque realm. — Screen Space

There have been a lot of fantastic anthology horror films over the last decade with notable favourites of mine being The Theatre Bizarre, Trick R Treat and Tales Of Halloween. Other noteworthy titles include Holidays, XX and the ever popular VHS and ABCs of Death franchises. NIGHTMARE CINEMA is a worthy addition to this list and makes a point of difference by having a consistent quality of stories throughout. — FakeShemp.Net

Images:

• New Your City Horror Film Festival logo.
• Mick Garris receives del Premio Isla Calavera de Honor at El Festival de Cine Fantástico‘s official opening gala, Multicines Tenerife, Canary Islands.
• Cover page of The Blood Grinder by Dave Conte, Nick Schwartz, & Matt Braunsdorf.
• Sarah Withers in “The Thing in the Woods.” 
• Nightmare Cinema poster from Monster Fest VII.
• Elizabeth Reaser in “This Way to Egress.”