Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I can't say I was a fan of the films that played the first AFTERDARK HORRORFEST, but I dig the idea of taking a bunch of indie horror flicks and giving them a decent nationwide theatrical release with these fests.

We've got a spy who has seen a couple of this year's entries and wants to tell you about 'em! Enjoy!

The 2007 edition of the AfterDark HorrorFest is in full swing with the first weekend screenings of 8 films coming to a close tonight. Sadly, I didn't have a chance to see Friday or Saturday's showings, but I did manage to catch both of Sunday night's shows. Luckily, all 8 films will be showing during the week and again next weekend at roughly the same times. Sunday's films seemed to come from completely different planets; I can't imagine how the two could be more different.

First up was NIGHTMARE MAN. If you constantly find yourself staying up to finish a VH1 I Love the 80's marathon, then this is probably the film for you. This thing screams 80's. Were it not for the presence of smaller-than-a-brick cell phones and a shot of the back end of a Pacifica (which I only recognized because my parents bought one awhile back…thankfully it's been replaced with a Jeep) there would be nothing tethering this to the 21st century. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of great stuff came from the 80's. Like the original Nintendo. And Return of the Jedi. And Jessica Biel. But this one didn't work for me. It has a few moments, a few witty remarks, a bit of subtle lesbianism hinted at between attractive girls. But it was nowhere near enough to save this mess. The main girl is laughably bad and spends half her screen time breathing heavily and calling for her husband Bill (who looks a bit like Bruce Campbell…only he's got a heavy Spanish accent… and his name is Bill…is that a more common latino name than I think it is?). This has every cheap scare you can think of, creepy not-so-subtle music clues, gradual reveals, mirror shots, false alarms, even the car running out of gas in the middle of nowhere. Bill goes to get gas leaving his wife Ellen, who may or may not be crazy, in the car. It was day when this happened, but it turns to night out of nowhere and Ellen is eventually terrorized and chased through the woods by the NIGHTMARE MAN. Oh our titular character. Wow. He wears this fertility mask with devil horns through the whole film and does a pretty good job of looking like a black and white Darth Maul. Ellen spends a good deal of time running around and making a lot of noise while "hiding" before escaping the terrifying clutches of the Sith master with some help from the hot and horny foursome staying at a remote cabin in the woods. Mia, the lone tomboy badass played by Tiffany Shepis, is the hottest and horniest and keeps an array of weapons around, including a damn cross bow. I like horror films and I'm OK with people making some dumb decisions in order to advance the plot or line things up for a kill, but there were times when the sheer totality of the lack of common sense was almost unbelievable. Everything doesn't have to make perfect sense, and this can be helped a lot if the film is enjoyable. Having a good time is what it's all about. But while there were moments and lines I liked, it couldn't make up for the rest of the film. Since I grew up as a preacher's kid with an ultra-conservative mother, it's completely possible that this flick was paying homage and alluding to a bunch of older horror films that I never saw, in which case some of you may see it and think it's a fantastic film, a hidden gem. But my guess is that it's not, and it's just not very good. It does flirt with the so-bad-it's-good line but it ended up on the bad side for me.

Luckily I stuck around for CRAZY EIGHTS, which was thankfully not like a synopsis I read before seeing it which likened it to I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. I almost didn't see it because of that, and while it does involve a group of friends and their past, I think there's a significant enough difference, in addition to other admirable elements, that put this film in a different place. From what I can tell, this probably has the most recognizable cast of any of the HorrorFest films, with Dina Meyer (Saw films among others), Frank Whaley (Brett from PULP FICTION), George Newbern (Bryan from FATHER OF THE BRIDE) and Traci Lords (if you don't know who she is, then I can't help you). This one stays pretty close to familiar territory, with the characters trapped in an ominous location and a creepy child both coming into play. It left a lot of things to the imagination, which is great when it's done well, but seems to have been left at the wayside by modern show-us-everything-and-more horror films. This one still has some solid blood and gore, it's not shying away from that, but it's not spelling everything out for you either. There are times where you'll see a setup, and you know there's a kill but you'll see a still shot of a closed door and just hear the screams. That worked well. The imagination is often a scarier place than anything committed to celluloid. Expanding on that, while the creepy kid is present, you don't ever get a really clean look at her face or at her at all come to think of it. A lot of this is done with quick cuts and overlays but there are some good old-fashioned hand creeping up from behind scenes as well, and many times you just see her tattered gown. There were parts of this film that reminded me a bit of THE ORPHANAGE (which I was lucky enough to see at Fantastic Fest) and while this flick is nowhere near as good as that one was (ORPHANAGE is in a totally different class) CRAZY EIGHTS did have some effective use of atmosphere and a somewhat similar theme that had me thinking of it. Let's be clear, this isn't a great horror film by any means. Some of the logic jumps baffle the mind; it almost felt made up as they went along. And no one seems capable of taking the "we need to stick together or else we'll die" concept seriously. But I guess if they were really smart they wouldn't be trapped and no one would die. How do you market a horror movie where no one dies? Anyway, this film was a decent effort and there was plenty for horror fans to like. I'm interested to see what the other films have in store….

Billy Sunday