We spent most of the fourth day of FrightFest ’09 in the Discovery Screen, where there was a host of intriguing film fare on offer. And we weren’t the only ones to take advantage of this year’s new double-screen choices, as American Werewolf director John Landis also took his seat in the smaller screen. And first up was Salvage, the excellent ultra-real chiller from British writer/director Lawrence Gough.
Our third day at FrightFest kicked off with a screening of Hierro, an atmospheric Spanish chiller that promised to be in the same vein as Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth and Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Orphanage. Although it didn’t quite match the might of those two movies, Hierro proved to be an interesting film; although it did divide the FrightFest audience.
Sean S Cunningham’s 1980 slash-fest has become a deserving classic of the horror genre – and, in modern Hollywood, that’s reason enough to finance a shlocky new remake. But while most of these reboots are pointless, lazy rehashes (yes, Halloween, My Bloody Valentine and Last House on the Left your ears should be burning) Marcus Nispel’s Friday the 13th retains at least some of the spirit that made the original such a classic.
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