HORROR fans will swoop on Glasgow this week for a three-day film festival with a record 14 premieres – including the first Albanian ghoulfest – as well as an eerie and blood-soaked premonition of how horror will treat the 45th US President in the months and years ahead.
The aptly-named FrightFest, part of the Glasgow Film Festival, will see the world premiere of Bloodlands, the first big-screen collaboration between Australia and Albania, but also the Balkan country’s first foray into horror cinema.
The director, Steven Kastrissios, will be joined on stage by the main cast members.
Kastrissios’ passionate project invites the viewer to explore the mind-set of modern Albania while sinking into a journey into terror.
Already sold out is Shin Godzilla, in which the monster returns to present-day Japan to wreak havoc. The inspiration for it was drawn from the Fukishima nuclear disaster.
This is the 31st film featuring the monster and the third from the Japanese production company behind it. It was released in Japan in 2016 and was the country's highest-grossing live action film.
Alan Jones, one of the four directors of the FrightFest, said, "Shin Godzilla is our first big sell-out. Godzilla fans can’t get enough of that monster stuff."
He continued: "I particularly like Fashionista which is Simon Rumley’s new one. This is considered his best work. It has a very unusual look about it."
British directer Rumley, who will be in Glasgow, has specialised in low-budget slasher movies but this one is on a grander and bloodier scale. It's a psycho-horror thriller set in Austin, Texas.
Stars from the film including Amanda Fuller – who played Morgan Paterson in Grey's Anatomy – will be among those at the event, which starts on Thursday.
The festival starts with a special screening of A Cure For Wellness from Gore Verbinski, director of The Ring, a supernatural thriller which starred Naomi Watts. Cure features a spa, giant carnivorous eels, a hideously deformed baron and starring Mia Goth, best-known for playing the character P in Nymphomaniac. This probably isn't family viewing.
Friday’s line-up includes the UK premiere of Matthias Hoene’s blockbusting $50 million fantasy epic The Warrior's Gate, followed by the UK Premiere of It Stains The Sands Red, a "thrilling and unexpectedly heart-felt zombie road movie".
Director Colin Minihan and lead actress Brittany Allen will be in attendance.
This year could also see the new US President inspiring a raft of ghoulflicks. American Horror Story, an American television series on the FX channel, is planning to base the forthcoming series around Trump (as if the reality wasn't horrific enough!).
To end this year’s global feast of fear is the UK premiere of an extreme horror comedy which it is said attempts to push all the boundaries. Roberto San Sebastián’s The Night Of The Virgin is described in the pre-publicity as "disgusting, offensive, hilarious and totally brilliant".
Jones said: "When we saw this we thought we’ve just got to put this on, it’s too insane."
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