HPL film fest, aka movies I saw this weekend

Pwththth came into town Friday- and the rest of the weekend I watched movies.A lot of movies.At the HP Lovecraft Film Festival at the Holyywood Theatre.Saturday Lineup:Marebito, Directed by Takashi Shimizu, Japan 2004: The delightful tale of a psychopathic videographer and his pet vampire/gug/Doro. Throw in some mountains of madness, dead highschool girls, a descent into madness, ghosts, eyeball gutting, and naked chained girls... this was total classic Japanese horror in mythic monster style. If you likes Uzamaki, see this film.Short Blocks 1, Various directors: Some of the highlights were Experiment 17 (Nazis raid the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris for the Necronomicon, and then try to experiment with it- all shot vintage footage style, and using *actual* footage of Hitler and his Arab Cunsul shot by Eva Brown), Antiques Roadshow: Arkham (which is as silly as it sounds, but could have done better with price tag pop ups a la Roadshow), and of course, Call of Cthulhu (Brought to use by the HPL Historical Society, those wacky folks who brought us Shuggoth on the Roof, the musical. This time they shot a 45 min silent movie that was really well done... I HIGHLY recommend it.)Dreams in the Witch House, Directed by Stuat Gordon; Shot as part of the Masters of Horror series for Showtime which begins airing the Friday before Halloween, he does a fairly realistic rendition of the tale. The rat has a face, the witch is sexy and has extra nipples, the raving lunatic is somewhat believable, and the man who wascursed before has a wacky crucafix fetish. Any director who will work with rats, baby actors and sex scenes all in one film gets a thumbs up from me.We ran into great folks Saturday. Anton got turned away because they SOLD OUT Saturday- wacky. Way to go Film Fest! Okay, my major bet was it was the Patti Smith concert that night... Pwththth and I skipped it. I have no real interest in ex-punk divas reading poetry. At least, not any interest worth staying out past when the MAX stops running. Dinner at Laurelwood Pub with Duncan, his H, the Brothers, Anton, Pwththth and all was good and yummy. I do not need to buy minatures or hoodies, I do not need to but minatures, hoodies or jewellery made of snake bones.Sunday Lineup:Cast a Deadly Spell: Directed by Martin Campbell, USA 1991: 1948 and the whole world uses Magic... except for our Gumshoe detective HP Lovecraft. Unicorns, Virgins, the Necronomicon, Smoking hot Julianne Moore singing in a green sequin dress, LOTS of drinking, and a heavy coating of revisitind film noir. Big thumbs up.Out of Mind: The Stories of HP Lovecraft: Christopher Heyerdahl (of Stargate Atlantis, Blade Trinity, Highlander III and Chronicles of Riddick) introduced the film, shot a number of years back (no idea, this film was a last-minute addition and not part of the program) where he plays HPL. The historial footage really feels like historical footage. It was a really fun/serious and well-done film.Live Show: Late Bloomer by Clay McLeod: Okay, sow I saw the movie in block 2... but the live show was hilarious. Sex ed, as interpreted by Edlrich horrors. Clay McLeod is a comic genius, and if you can ever see him live, do!Short Films Block 2, Various Directors: Highlights included Courtesey Nudge (a man who watches paint dry for a living has maggots coming out of his head and gouges out his own eyes, comedy galore!), It's the Great Cthulhu Chuck and Dexter (two cultists travel to a Mass. beach for Summer Solstice to wait for Great Cthulhu to bring them presents), Le Facteur Poulpe (Octopuses anyone?), and of course, the movie version of Late Bloomer that is really quite a fantastic piece of stort film magic.HP Lovecraft: The Terror Within; The Road to L, Italy 2004: Documentary, or Blair Witch. I was really bought for the first 3/4 of the film that it was the first. By the end, it leaned towards the second. Very believable cast. Concept is that an american Actor/Director is hired to do a documentary about the theory that Lovecraft visited the Po Region of Italy in 1926 *before* writing any of his Mythos books, and was actually inspired to write those stories by the tales of the regions and what he may have seen there. But once shooting they are met by resistance, folks having dissapeared, and more.Secret Screening: Dreams in the Witch House... the bad version. Imagine a stack of lovecraft fans doing Rocky Horror shout-outs and all that to the worst production of this movie ever done. The whole audience stomps up the stairs, we all scream "wipe out" at every witch cackle, and the Sweater Queen and Pajama King in Yellow will live on. Who needs a rat with a human face when you can have Sheba the Ferret... and of course... Elwood. This has become a yearly film fest tradition. The new addition to the secret screening this year was a sing-along of "Dagon is the One that we follow, Dagon is the beast" which is so bad that, no... its just bad.Adam joined us sunday. He left to go nap during Shorts 2. Dinner was a good mix of folks as well, this time at the Poor Richard. More happy faces. Drinks afterwards at Sams Billiards was good, then a rush off to hang with the Film Festival Staff and Special Guests (including Heyerdahl) at Voodoo Donughts (I saved the day by calling to make sure they were open- they weren't- but reopened for our 20 person out of towners group at my sweet request). Then back to Andrew Migliore's place (who runs the fesival) to eat donuts, tell tales of Disney at night and the depths of Dairy Queen Zombie madness.If you are an HPL buff, a horror film fan, or just like being around a thousand goths giggling... come see the festival some year :)The next festival I want to see, if I have time (I can't do Saturday... but maybe Friday if I skip Dyke Night?) is the Portland International Short Short Film Fest (that's right, PISS Fest!), all short films, none longer than 10 minutes. Fri and Sat October 21st and 22nd.