Prelude to HorrorFest
Ready for a blood bath? SplatterFest draws guerilla filmmakers to createmini-monster masterpieces
Your adrenaline starts pumping. Your imagination goes wild. You don’t have time to sleep. You barely take time to eat. With only 54 hours to complete your task, if you’re not done before the clock strikes midnight, all is for nothing.
Though this may sound like an episode of CBS’s Survivor, it is instead a test of creative mettle – guerilla filmmaking, if you will, and specifically of the horror kind. Nineteen Houston teams took the SplatterFest short film challenge.
They came, they shot, they edited; in one crazy weekend of movie-making mayhem last month. Sixteen teams made it before the witching hour deadline.
On Monday and Tuesday night, the blood and guts of their labor will spill forth at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema West Oaks and you are invited to feast your eyes.
SplatterFest is the brainchild, and by no means an “Abby Normal” brain as in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, of Kerry Beyer and his partner in creeps, Kelly Smith. By day, Beyer is a professional still and video photographer, and Smith is an actress. They co-founded the competition as a short film prelude to kick off the feature-length Houston HorrorFest that screeches its way into town Wednesday through Friday.
While there are other marathon filmmaking competitions around the country, like the most recent 48-Hour Film Project competition in Houston, Beyer and Smith determined there was nothing specifically geared to the horror genre. They set out to create something decadently different.
By the luck of the draw, each team of filmmakers was assigned a unique murder weapon and a character that had to be included in their work. Some of the more unusual murder weapons were household items: A pencil, toothbrush, water, and food. My refrigerator probably had something gray and growing that would have been perfect.
The dispensed characters were of specific professions, such as a radiologist, dentist (oh the horror!), construction worker, and stock broker (maybe too horrific). All teams were given the same line of dialogue to use, whether spoken, written, in a foreign language, sung, or whatever. The line was, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Imagine that coming from a Hannibal Lector type.
Nothing could be written or prepared in advance by the teams except for gathering equipment and volunteers. Once the drawing for characters and weapons was held, it was off to the boneyards to create a monster masterpiece that would run four to seven minutes tops.
The sure-to-be-chilling results of these 16 teams, plus two more films that made it just under the deadline and can screen but not compete, will be shown both Monday and Tuesday nights 7-9 p.m., with the awards presented directly following the final night’s screenings. There are several award categories, including my personal favorite “Best Scream.”
SplatterFest co-founders Beyer and Smith, who self-financed the competition, are rightfully proud that the grand prize is indeed grand; a Canon Rebel T21 camera that shoots both still photos and video. According to Beyer, competitions usually have to get to the national level to have a significant prize.
Adding to the fun, stuntman Mark Chavarria, who was recently stunt double for actor Cheech Marin in Machete, is slated to be on hand Monday 6:15-6:45 p.m. for a Q & A.
The top nine SplatterFest films will go on to further greatness and screen at the Blood Bath 2 Film Festival in Dallas.
Gives me goosebumps just to think about it.
See the trailer here:
