Saturday was the turn of the European premiere of the latest Robin Hardy’s movie The Wicker Tree, the world premiere of Panic Button, the preview of Fright Night 3D, the Uk premiere of The Woman, and the UK premiere of Chillerama.
The Wicker Tree was one of the most expected movies of the festival, given that Robin Hardy delivers a film every decade and considering the cult status of his The Wicker Man. Unfortunately this new movie completely fails his goal to maintain the same intensity and creepiness of the first one. Not really a sequel, but also not a standalone film – it is going to be trilogy – The Wicker Tree is nothing like The Wicker Man. A funny
parody of its predecessor that throws no punches. It is not terrifying, it is not scary, the plot is clear from the beginning and what is left is decent performances – with a cameo by Christopher Lee – and entertaining music, hoping the next one would make it up to Hardy’s loyal fans.
Next was Panic Button, an English production that plays with the actual and contemporary topic that is the social networks. An intense and reflective story on 
how scary and dangerous can be to share personal information, thoughts, beliefs, jokes and whatnot, with all the “friends” of the social network. People are never what they appear to be and this leads to hypocrisy, falseness, carelessness and arrogance towards the “real people”. Despite the majority of us uses social networks for many and different reasons, the lack of communication is still the main issue among us humans, and the movie catches very well the stupidity and the fear of not being accepted if you are not part of this trend. Panic Button should deserve an adequate distribution and it should make a lot of people think about how they use the social networks and how addicted they are to them.
Fright Night 3D is the 100th remake this year, and everybody was worried it would be
disappointing and would ruin the cult-status the original ’85 movie had and still has. Although the 3D is completely unnecessary, Fright Night 3D is a surprisingly good movie. Different from the orginal in many aspects, much darker and creepier, with a convincing and effective Colin Farrell playing Jerry The Vampire, and with the two leads who deserve much of the credit, this new remake is a much better movie than many others horror remakes of this year. Definitely not the usual soppy emo-vampire flick we are used to seeing nowadays. Nonetheless it lacks the Rear Window suspence and it prefers to insist on horrific make-up rather than a more acute storyline, but it is not afraid to be a different movie and it deserves respect for that. But again, enough with the 3D, there is no point, it does not add anything to the story, and I don’t care if I see blood, arrows or newspapers coming at me. If it’s not integrated with the story it’s just a waste of time and money.
The new movie of american director Lucky McKee, The Woman, is probably my personal favorite film of the festival. During a hunting trip, Chris finds a woman who has been living in the woods and does not talk, does not behave and does not act as a human being, but more as an animal. As a father and a husband, Chris wants the whole family to be part of this “project”, and his goal is to educate the woman. The story develops in ferocious abuse, extreme violence and feral madness, and thanks to a few shocking twists The Woman becomes a refined horror that compels the audience to look at those somewhat disturbing images, despite strong sequences and an unexpected ending.
Producer Andrew Van Den Houten – also director of Offspring, the movie that spawned The Woman – said that the most interesting stories are those about people who do something wrong and nasty and they keep doing it even if they know it’s wrong and nasty. Thanks to the ability of Lucky McKee, who also uses music in the most effective way, and the incredible performance of Pollyanna McIntosh, this portrait of a deranged and dysfunctional family hits the stomach and leaves you staring at the closing credits pondering on what you just saw.
Chillerama closed the night and with no doubts it deserves the prize for the most insane and creative movie of the festival. Four episodes, each one of them set in a different decade, to depict what is a love letter to cinema, to put it with Joe Lynch’s words who, together with Adam Green, Adam Rifkin and Tim Sullivan, crafted the movie that no studio would have ever produced. Zombies, a monster-spermatozoon, a black and white segment in german with a jewish frankestein, a gay musical, sh*t thrown everywhere, and more zombies…that is Chillerama. An anthology movie made for the true fans of horror and cinema in general, with an overwhelming last sequence filled with cinematic references and terrific fun.
