Scary movies are big business and for those who like to give themselves a fright every once in a while, writes Jennifer Cosgrove, there’s nothing better than a trip to the cinema for a good dose of horror.
With a new festival dedicated to genre taking place at Dundee Contemporary Arts this weekend, it seems local people have a healthy appetite for blood, gore and thrillers.
“We thought it was time that Dundee had a horror film festival, too,” says Alice Black, head of cinema at DCA. And, thanks to the community spirit enjoyed by the contemporary arts venue and cinema, the idea for Dundead came from the movie fans themselves.
She explains, “We have fairly good lines of communication with our customers, so they feel quite comfortable about requesting certain films and giving us feedback.
“It was one of DCA’s Twitter followers, Duncan McCurdie, who suggested the cinema run a horror festival. It’s something that was done in the past occasionally, but not as a concentrated festival weekend and the idea interested me.The Dundead Festival runs from April 28 until May 1. Visit www.dca.org.uk for more details.”Duncan quickly set up a Facebook site and, by the end of the day, he had about 60 members. We thought if there were 60 people out there, then that was a start.
“We also put a call-out on Twitter asking people what they thought the festival should be called and another one of our customers came up with the name Dundead.”
The Dundead Facebook site now has almost 300 followers, which isn’t bad going for a venture that began as a conversation on a social networking site back in November.
Alice says the next step was finding a good time to hold the festival and thanks to the announcement that a prominent member of the royal family was to marry his long-term girlfriend in on April 29, the date was set.
“When we heard there was going to be an extra bank holiday for the royal wedding, we thought this would be a perfect time for people who are going to be off and who weren’t that interested in watching the wedding!
“We kept the Facebook page going and asked people what kind of films they wanted to see, so they have also had the chance to feed into the programming of the weekend itself.”Double billDundead features a mix of classic horror flicks as well as some newer and more obscure titles and takes a “double bill” structure.
“We have tried to do double bills so we have one new film that either people won’t have seen or perhaps not heard of, and then we match that up with a classic. On the final night there are three films,” Alice says.
“As a genre, there are so many different kinds of horror films. The one that we are opening with Hobo With a Shotgun is an homage to the grindhouse genre.
“Then we’ve got something like Outcast, which is a Scottish take on horror films, and also Insidious, which is by the producers of Paranormal Activity.”
Low-budget mock documentary Paranormal Activity was shot on a video camera and released in the US in 2009 in only 12 college towns. Word of mouth and an online marketing campaign resulted in it gaining a nationwide release and becoming a box office hit across the globe.
The much-anticipated Insidious has been directed by the creator of the original Saw movie James Wan, who described it as “this generation’s Poltergeist.” It is a supernatural chiller starring Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne about a couple whose son is troubled by ghosts and demons.
“That’s one of the films people are really talking about in the programme,” Alice continues. “We’ve got Red Hill, which is from Australia and a bit like a Spaghetti Western then we’ve got all the classics.”
Continued…
The well-known favourites on offer include George Romero’s epic 1978 zombie movie Dawn Of The Dead, a digitally-remastered version of An American Werewolf in London, 80s nasty The Beyond in HD and the psychologically unsettling Don’t Look Now, starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie.
While some established horror festivals like Edinburgh’s Dead by Dawn runs overnight, Alice says Dundead won’t be following suit just yet. Tickets have been selling well and she hopes it will become an annual event.
“A festival pass costs £30 and this is ridiculously cheap for nine films. You’re almost best to get that, even if you are only planning to come see a few, but you can buy them individually as well.
“I think we will do the festival again next year, but we will also start doing double bills every six weeks or so as a regular part of our programme, just because there has been so much interest in it.
“I know we’ve got people travelling to the festival from places like Edinburgh and Glasgow, so that’s great.”
Alice says there will be competitions and giveaways for those attending over the weekend and she wouldn’t be surprised if some members of staff decide to do some dressing up. There is certainly quite a buzz around the festival and it just goes to show what can happen when likeminded people put their time and energy towards a project.
Alice adds, “I like to think we are very open and people who come here feel it’s their cinema. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”