The best of the horror film world gathered in New York to celebrate the New York City Horror Film Festival. The festival kicked off October 21 with a huge party at Don Hills followed by four days of sold out film screenings, celebrity appearances, and a panel discussion at the Tribeca Film Center in Lower Manhattan.
The NYC Horror Film Festival and The Independent Film Channel awarded horror legend Tom Savini with the Festival’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. During a special program honoring Savini’s career as actor, director and special effects pioneer, the Festival screened Savini’s directorial debut, the remake of the horror classic “Night of the Living Dead”. Savini granted the packed house with a Q&A after the ceremony.
Another highlight of the Festival was a unique screening of Thomas Edison’s original 1910 Frankenstein which is available to horror fans worldwide from film collector Alois F. Dettlaff.
On Sunday, October 26, the second NYC Horror Film Festival announced awards in six categories:
BEST FEATURE: “MALEVOLENCE” – DIRECTED BY STEVAN MENA ^ The story begins ten years earlier with the kidnapping of a six-year-old boy named Martin Bristol, who is forced to witness unspeakable acts of torture and murder by a madman. Fast forward to 1999, where a group of friends plan a bank job that goes tragically wrong, only to reveal treachery among friends and a matured evil lying in wait
prize: ^ DVD authoring and encoding from Customflix.com ($600 value) ^ Scheduling, budgeting and breakdown software curiosity of Junglesoftware.com ($400 value) ^ One “Module 1” Class courtesy of Filmmaker’s Central School of Cinema ($300 value)
BEST SHORT: “SCREAM FOR ME” – DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER BROADSTONE ^ In this psychological horror-thriller, in which one killer becomes the victim of another, Garrott Druck seeks the truth of what lies beyond death within the screams of the women he murders. Tonight, however, he will fall fate to a killer more insane than himself, and come face to face with the horrible truth that hides within the screams of his own violent death. ^ prize:
Scheduling, budgeting and breakdown software curiosity of Junglesoftware.com ($400 value) ^ DVD authoring kit from Customflix.com ($60 value) ^ One “Module 1” Class courtesy of Filmmaker’s Central School of Cinema ($300 value)
BEST ACTOR: KRISTINA COPELAND (as Julia) – SAVAGE ISLAND – DIRECTED BY JEFFREY LANDO ^ Steven & Julia are having marital troubles but a weekend visit with Julia’s family on remote Savage Island makes that the least of their worries. Squatters demand Steven and Julia’s newborn as payment for the death of one their own.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: RICHARD SIEGEL – FLESH FOR THE BEAST – DIRECTED BY TERRY WEST
BEST MAKEUP EFFECTS: G&S EFFECTS – FLESH FOR THE BEAST – DIRECTED BY TERRY WEST ^ When a crack team of parapsychologists get a call to investigate a manor and former brothel, they jump at the chance to cleanse the vast estate of its restless spirits. They get more than they bargained for upon exploring the house, being confronted by blood-thirsty demons disguised as beautiful women, a horde of zombies bent on a rampage of carnal slaughter and a madman with a satanic secret.
AUDIENCE CHOICE: “STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN AT SUNDOWN” – DIRECTED BY MARC FRATTO ^ A pulse pounding story of vampires run amuck in NYC. There’s a group of low level mobsters with fangs, an age-old vampire who does mob hits for money, a pair of vampire lovers on the run, an Italian girl from Brooklyn bitten by vampires, and a psychotic 400 year old blood-sucking housewife with a fetish for cleanliness. All of them are being hunted by a nefarious vinyl clad woman whose intentions are mysterious and powers are unmatched.
For more info, visit the New York City Horror Film Festival website.
