The Horror Festivals Just Keep On Comin'

I haven't even finished all of my Fantastic Fest work yet (expect a semi-large wrap-up real soon), but my inbox has been flooded with new reports from three other genre festivals. And since I love this stuff, I figured I'd throw 'em all into one handy section. Let's begin reverse-chronologically, shall we?

Beginning on October 17 is the small-but-powerful Toronto After Dark festival (October 17 - 24), which aims to fill a post-TIFF void while Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes and his staff take a well-earned vacation. I shan't be able to attend this fine-looking event, but the final slate just came in -- and I can definitely vouch for titles like the brilliant Let the Right On, the amusingly bizarre South of Heaven, the splatterific Tokyo Gore Police, and the stylishly nasty Donkey Punch. Among those "ooh, I wanna see that" titles we have Kevin Tenney's Brain Dead, the comedy horror Netherbeast Incorporated, and I Sell the Dead, which stars Ron Perlman, Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden AND Angus Scrimm. Cool. For more info on Toronto After Dark, click right here.

After the jump: More geeky droolings on L.A. Screamfest and the biggie: SITGES!

Based only on the flicks they've shown, I'd say that L.A. Screamfest (October 10 - 19) keeps improving with every year. They shoot for a good cross-section of American indies and groovy imports -- but of course you always have to throw a few Hollywood titles into the mix. Every festival does it, especially those that take place in Los Angeles.

You can flick through the official site right here, but obviously I'm going to give you a nerdish overview of the event right ... now: Of the movies I've already seen (Acolytes, The Burrowers, Dance of the Dead, The Disappeared, Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds, Let the Right One In, Martyrs, Spine Tingler, and Splinter), Screamfest is already batting a thousand. I liked or loved all of those flicks, plus they're also offering stuff like Eric Red's 100 Feet, Marc Caro's Dante 01, Mike Dougherty's Trick 'r' Treat ... and something called Night of the Living Jews. (I wonder if it's too late to book a flight to L.A.)

Last but by no means least we come to the big one, the grand-daddy, the festival that ALLLLL the horror circuit lunatics speak about in hushed tones: It's called Sitges (October 2 - 12), and you just won't believe how many horror flicks get shown there. You can see all of the slates right here, as I did while weeping that I cannot attend this monumental cinematic event. Maybe next year. Darnit. Suffice to say that if it's a genre film that's been seen, discussed, debated, adored or hated in recent months, then it's playing here. Plus they have some juicy-looking premieres, and that's the part that hurts the most.

P.S. We reviewed Let the Right One In back in APRIL ... and boy it feels good to see every other film geek fall in love with it at each successive festival.