Feature by Chris Regan
Flesh-eating zombies, highly trained assassins and explosive gun battles are not the first things that come to mind when walking the streets of Swindon, but the PhantasmaGoria festival offers all of the above and more. ‘We wanted to bring horror, fantasy and martial arts movies to the South West area,’ explains festival director Justin Richards, ‘and after running similar events in both Bath and Bristol, with the BloodBath festivals, I decided that it was Swindon’s turn.’
The festival was originally planned as part of the 2007 Swindon Film Festival which is how Justin became involved – ‘I was approached by the organiser of the Swindon Film Festival (Pete Snowman) to help organise a horror/cult movie strand, to which I said ‘yes, I’ll help programme it’ and then, a couple of months later, he dropped out - for personal reasons, and the 2007 Swindon Film Festival was no more, and I had to decide whether to carry on with my strand anyway. Luckily, Steve Causer, a mutual acquaintance, offered to help with the marketing of the festival so I decided to go for it.’
The festival took place in Swindon Arts Centre on 11th – 13th July and combined a number of different genres, primarily horror, thriller, action and martial arts. The decision to include action films in the mix was partly a reaction to the general attitude to the genre – ‘Action films are often unfairly dismissed by film critics and festivals as having little or no artistic merit,’ says Justin, ‘and that kind of attitude really annoys me. There is definitely snobbery, even within the film community, that looks down on action and martial arts films, even though they are some of the hardest films to make. I felt it was about time for the UK to start giving some of its upcoming action movie makers a fair crack at the whip of getting their films shown at a proper film festival on the big screen where they so obviously belong.’
Overall the festival boasts an impressive and eclectic selection of films from the US and UK. ‘I’ve amassed quite a good contacts list so initially I went down that list asking if anyone would have a film they might want to screen at PhantasmaGoria.’ explains Justin, ‘The response was pretty good and that gave me confidence to spread my net wider this time around. I advertised on film sites, such as Talent Circle and on Mandy.com and got a reasonable response from those. I was also lucky that a good friend of mine, Andrew Skeates, who writes for Impact magazine, let me have some of his contacts, from the action world, so I was able to approach them and ask if they had any films that I could screen. Generally speaking most of the people I approached were keen to increase the exposure of their films so I didn’t have to do much arm twisting!’
The festival also featured a large number of short films, one or two of which was screened before each feature. Certainly the most accomplished of these was Steve Looker’s Cold Blood which crams an entire slasher film into a 13 minute running time complete with some great performances, plenty of gore and its own unique psychotic killer. Another highlight was Uisdean Murray’s Jemima – Dating is Murder, a look into the mind of a young female serial killer and the first in a trilogy of shorts that the director is currently working on featuring the same character.
Of the twelve features showing at the festival there were several unique highlights. Broken Path is the My Dinner with Andre of action films - one fight in one location that lasts 90 minutes. Definitely not for everyone but it is certainly action cinema at its most experimental. Another martial arts action film, Contour, was the most enjoyable film of the weekend – a sentiment clearly shared by an extremely enthusiastic audience. Filmed on a micro budget it is a little rough around the edges, but this is a film with a lot of heart and that comes across in every scene.
Best among the British offerings was creepy horror Dead Wood - an ultra-low budget film about a group of young campers who get lost in the woods but thankfully don't get picked off by a man in a mask. Instead what starts out with a fairly standard slasher set-up turns into a creepy and rather effective supernatural horror film. Another of the British films on show was Room 36 – a stylish Hitchcockian black comedy loaded with twists and turns despite being set almost entirely in a hotel room.
There was also the opportunity to see a couple of classics including a 35mm screening of Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares in a Damaged Brain – a rather seedy seventies horror film with some excellent Tom Savini effects that looked great on the big screen. Another rare treat was an uncut 35mm screening of Albert Pyun’s Mean Guns – a brilliantly stylish late-nineties action film and the kind of work that rarely makes to cinemas in the UK.
British action was well represented with screenings of Ten Dead Men and The Silencer along with sci-fi action zombie fest Infestation – a real achievement of low-budget filmmaking that took ten years to bring to completion. Also showing was Julian Richards’ (The Last Horror Movie) acclaimed new film Summer Scars and the festival closed with James Eaves’ (Witch’s Hammer) Saw-esque British horror Bane. Many of the filmmakers were on hand to introduce the films and take audience questions after the screenings which added another dimension to the festival –a celebration of the hard work and determination it takes to get a low budget genre film made in this country.
No matter the programme, the film festival as a way to see new films is facing an uphill struggle for new audiences and Justin has his own theories on the challenges facing festival organisers in the coming years - ‘I think the problem is that people can get hold of films so easily now, either on DVD or by downloading them off the internet, and there’s not the same drive for people to travel any distance to go and see the more obscure movies at festivals, as there once was. Understandably people are often just as happy to sit at home and watch them on their 42” plasma TVs. However, I think, in doing so, we’re losing an important institution – festivals are important to filmmakers, critics and film buyers and can be great fun for the audience. There’s definitely an atmosphere at a film festival that can never be replicated in your own home.’
Whether horror, exploitation, martial arts, action or thrillers these films have a universal appeal that pulled in a dedicated audience from all over the UK. The real triumph of the festival was that no two films were ever the same resulting in an overall experience that constantly confounded and often exceeded expectations. While the audience varied from film to film it was clear from the enthusiastic reactions that everyone present was having a good time, and the feedback reflected this – ‘The feedback from the festival questionnaires, and from general word of mouth, has been really positive. Pretty much everyone who attended the event, said they would return next year, if there’s another one, and would bring their friends. This kind of feedback has been great news to me and Steve and I reckon that there may well be a PhantasmaGoria II.’
More information about PhantasmaGoria and the films screened this year can be found at www.phantasma-goria.co.uk
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