Back at last year's Fantastic Fest, I was privy to a conversation between Scott Weinberg and screenwriter Marcus Dunstan about the latter's latest project (he'd just done some Saw sequels and was in town for his Feast follow-ups). It was called Midnight Man at the time, and if I could remember what it was about, I'd tell you. (Honest!) I just remember being vaguely psyched for it.*

Well, the film's done now, under a new name of The Collector and accompanied by a bunch of solid buzz from genre sites all over and none other than Alamo Drafthouse head honcho Tim League himself. Thusly, Fantastic Fest and our own Horror Squad have teamed up to bring an early screening of the film to Austin before its July 31st theatrical run.

For more details on this free (!) sneak peek, head on over to Horror Squad.

*"Vaguely psyched!" - Go ahead, put that on the poster.

Since last September, at Fantastic Fest, it became immediately apparent that Repo! The Genetic Opera was due for a cult following, and a successful roadshow run last November and December seemed to confirm as much. I wasn't the biggest fan of Darren Lynn Bousman's goth-rock horror musical at the time, and don't exactly see myself giving it another look any time soon, but when its DVD release hasn't prevented fans from organizing summer screenings with shadow casts far and wide, it's futile to deny that it has at least an audience beyond home video and into the realm of true theatrical cultdom.

Meanwhile, the sheer sloppiness of Tommy Wiseau's infamous The Room has it similarly garnering underground popularity. I settled for seeing it on Cartoon Network when Adult Swim aired it as their idea of an April Fool's joke, and it became much more of a chore to sit through than I could've possibly imagined (and it's not like the constant commercial breaks weren't helping).

Would it have been much better with a crowd? I couldn't say, as the appeal hasn't quite reached Central Florida yet, but I ask: just because a film has reached the ranks of something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, does that mean it truly deserves to? What are your personal criteria for a proper cult classic? What's your fondest memory of audience partici... pation, and what other films do you feel stand to join the ranks of the modern midnight movie that maybe haven't quite crept up on the ol' cultural radar just yet?

Cold winds and torrential rainfall did not dampen the spirits of attendees on the first day of SXSW in Austin, Texas. Cinematical writers traveled from near and far to cover the annual celebration and eat some barbecue. It's only my second SXSW experience, but seeing so many writers, film critics, and bloggers whose work I read and respect has inspired me to quit the business. No, no, I meant to say: it's cool seeing so many Twitterers in person.

Good Buzz: The film festival proper got underway with some serious man love, as the opening night presentation of John Hamburg's bro-mantic comedy I Love You, Man was unveiled at the historic Paramount Theater, with stars Paul Rudd and Jason Segel among hundreds in attendance. Simultaneously, a slew of films began screening at other venues; William Goss said Nash Edgerton's Australian thriller The Square was unexpectedly good, I heard very good things about Eric Kutner and Adam Goldstein's snarling comedy The Snake -- presented by Patton Oswalt, who was in the house -- and I enjoyed a wild and wacky program of music videos.

Midnight Gets Crazy: To cap the evening, most of the Cinematical crew gathered for the first evening of SXSW Presents Fantastic Fest at Midnight, the international festival premiere of Ong Bak 2. The directorial debut of martial artist supreme Tony Jaa features numerous insanely awesome fight scenes and, er, elephants. Before the film rolled, new SXSW Producer Janet Pierson introduced Alamo Drafthouse impressario Tim League, dressed for some reason in a Roman toga, who kicked things off with a contest that I'm not sure I should describe in detail. (Hint: it involved beer. And men. And drinking.) A good time was had by all.

I'll confess to being in the dark as to why certain DVDs don't boast an audio commentary by the filmmakers when they actually want to do one, so while I won't strike out blindly against The Studios for getting in the way, I instead admire those who see fit to give their fans what they want.

Case in point: Following in the footsteps of Darren Aronofsky and The Fountain, director Ben Rock and some of his cast and crew members have come together for a full commentary track, now posted over on Dread Central to accompany this week's release of Alien Raiders. The film -- which, and I think Ben will agree with me, is nothing like The Fountain -- concerns a team of specialists (led by none other than 24's Tony Almeida) who lock down a small-town supermarket for reasons that you may be able to deduce from that title (a title that's frankly more campy than the flick is).

Scott and I both saw this at Fantastic Fest last year, and I don't think it's any great stretch to say that it's probably the best thing put out under the Raw Feed label to date, and given the film's exceedingly tight production schedule, I'm willing to bet that this might make for a pretty informative listen.

In this week's Indie Roundup: The reverberations in the indie film world continue from yesterday's announcement about Geoff Gilmore's job change. (See Festivals below.) One person really can make a difference!

Deals. John Travolta may have put away his dancing shoes year ago, cinematically speaking, yet his role in Saturday Night Fever continues to be influential. Pablo Morrain's Larrain's * disturbing Chilean drama Tony Manero was picked up by Richard Lorber for his new Lorber Films label, according to indieWIRE. The film follows a 50-year-old man who is obsessed with the title character played by Travolta in the 70s disco sensation. Lorber Films plans a quick release in April or May. The trailer is embedded below.

IFC Films acquired US rights to Bruce McDonald's Pontypool, described by iW as a "Canadian zombie horror-thriller." The film will be released for VOD on May 27 and will also get a theatrical release beginning on May 29.

Box Office. An Italian mob movie and a Brooklyn romantic drama made noticeable impressions at the box office last weekend. Gomorrah scored $15,540 per screen at five theaters, and Two Lovers did $13,569 at seven, per Box Office Mojo. Did Joaquin Phoenix's appearance on David Letterman's show help or hurt the movie? Advertising Age wonders.

Festivals. Anne Thompson of Variety says that Geoff Gillmore has been talking about leaving Sundance for quite a while; the native New Yorker told Eugene Hernandez of indieWIRE: "I really want to move to New York." Gilmore will be exploring "the ways that festivals become platforms for new enterprises." The Wrap claims that "In the industry, the consensus was that however Gilmore changes Tribeca, his efforts will better the organization." I'm waiting for the first comparison of Gilmore to President Obama.

And boy does it taste awesome! As you probably know, and with all due respect to the Austin Film Festival, the two coolest film festivals in Austin have combined their cinematical magic ... and the result is six more flicks that will tickle the eyeballs of any self-respecting genre fan. This is the first year that Fantastic Fest has contributed to the SXSW slate, and it sure looks like the partnership is off to a great start.

The six flicks are: French action flick Black, Thai mayhem sequel Ong Bak 2, the world premiere of The Haunting in Connecticut, a blisteringly good Aussie thriller called The Horseman, the awesome-sounding British import Lesbian Vampire Killers, and the Canadian zombie effort Pontypool, which played Toronto last September and got some rather good notices.

Of the six, I've only see The Horseman, and I think it's a damn good film. DAMN good. It's about a father whose runaway daughter is found dead after appearing in a homemade porno flick, so he goes on a ruthless road trip of revenge. Only he didn't expect to pick up a young female hitchhiker along the way. (It's not a comedy.)

For more info on these flicks, I refer you to post-jump and / or the official SXSW website.

As it turns out, I lied to all of you last week when I said that next month's SXSW Film Festival had announced its full line-up -- and I couldn't have been happier. It looks like those awesome Austin-ites are bringing summer in March, specifically 500 Days of Summer, the one apparently adorable title I particularly pined for as a non-Sundance-ite.

But wait! There's more! In addition to six picks from the Fantastic Fest crew that have yet to be announced (and are as eagerly awaited by yours truly as anything else), SXSW is bringing Broken Lizard's latest (The Slammin' Salmon), an Iron Maiden tour doc (Flight 666), Jason Eisener's already acclaimed horror-comedy short (Treevenge), and a handful of other features and shorts programs.

Between all of that and all of this, I can honestly say that I'm the most psyched for this fest than I have been in the past three years (nothing personal, Matt!), and again, you can be sure to hear plenty more from our lot in just a couple of weeks.

(from left to right) Fantastic Fest programmer Zack Carlson, Fantastic Feud co-hosts Devin Steuerwald and Scott Weinberg, and Not Quite Hollywood director Mark Hartley

With the weekend came no sure rest for Fantastic Fest attendees. Saturday kicked off with, among other things: a screening of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes shown from an HD master of a cut unseen in over thirty-five years; initial screenings of the very popular Tiffany stalker doc I Think We're Alone Now and the very anticipated Swedish vampire drama Let the Right One In (which can now fall firmly in the former category); and a boat party held in honor of Donkey Punch, in which several youthful types face some serious consequences after their high behavior on the high seas. Did life end up imitating art on that front...?

I'm just over a week away from experiencing my very first Fantastic Fest at the fairly awesome Alamo Drafthouse in the fairly awesome town of Austin, Texas. Word from attendees of the past couple of years, including our own S. Weinberg, suggests that this year's Fest will itself be -- you guessed it -- fairly awesome.

On the one hand, FF is infamous for selling, and selling out, its badges for the following year during the current year's festivities. On the other, they've teamed up with sponsors AMD and B-Side to offer up five short films and five full features for free upon their website from September 14th through the 20th. You must sign up for the B-Side community in order to partake, but that's easy enough (and similarly free of charge), and then you get to cast a vote for the 'online audience favorite' award to be given out at the formal ceremony come the 22nd.

As far as the features offered go -- Dr. Infierno, I Think We're Alone Now, La Creme, Rule of Three, and South of Heaven -- I've only seen the second one, and when it comes to the shorts, among them is a killer Christmas tree short from the minds behind Hobo with a Shotgun that sounds too tempting to wait a week for. Should any of you indulge in the whole nine well, ten yards, do let us know what you think of which titles.

You might think Fantastic Fest announces their annual line-up in three big chunks so they can get a little extra press, right? (Hell, if that technique is good enough for Toronto, then it's good enough for Fantastic Fest!) That's a small part of it, but the main reason Tim League announces his slate in three big chunks -- is because he's busy trolling the planet up until the very last minute, looking for good movies. (In the past month he's been to Korea, Turkey, and PORTLAND!)

If you're looking for FF Batch One or Batch Two, you can find those here and here OR at the official FF website ... but if you want the final batch, well, you'll find that right here. As usual I'll include the full press release after the jump, but not before mentioning new Fanty* additions like Fanboys (my review here), JT Petty's The Burrowers, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird (which is so good it's playing Telluride, Toronto AND Fantastic Fest), Alien Raiders (aka Supermarket), and the long-awaited Repo! A Genetic Opera from Saw-lord Darren Lynn Bousman.

Woohoo! Not one holocaust documentary or 165-minute French political drama at this festival, folks! And of course you should expect a few last-minute surprises. This is, after all, the festival that scored (way) early screenings of Apocalypto, Persepolis, Southland Tales, Pan's Labyrinth, There Will Be Blood, and ... um ... Postal. FF begins on September 18, and you know who'll be covering for us? The ultra-mega-stellar awesome team of Goss, Martin, Kernion & Weinberg. And we take our genre stuff very seriously.

*Yes, "Fanty." Let's hope it sticks.