(We're re-posting our Postal review from Fantastic Fest in conjunction with the film's theatrical release this weekend.)

There's been a little pre-release buzz on this Postal flick, most of which seems to focus on the assertion that it's either A) Uwe Boll's best film yet, or B) Uwe Boll's first good movie. Well, considering that we're talking about the guy who directed House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark and BloodRayne, "best film yet" doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. And as far as Uwe's "first good movie" is concerned, well, I suppose we'll have to keep on waiting for that one to show up. The only difference between Postal and Boll's other films is that this one tries to be funny on purpose (and fails), whereas the other three try to be serious while delivering huge laughs.

Based on the popular video game, Postal is about a generic schlub who gradually loses his cool and eventually explodes into a violent lunatic. Imagine the Michael Douglas film Falling Down, only the screenplay was done with finger-paints, and that's pretty much what Postal is "about." There's a whole lot of mirthless wheel-spinning that focuses on stolen dolls, goofy terrorists and freaky cults, but nothing that really assumes the mantle of "central plot." Aside from one good gag in the opening scene, a creatively bizarre closing shot, one strong performance and a (very) small collection of slightly amusing (gross-out or shock value) gags, Postal is every bit as awful as Mr. Boll's earlier output.

A few months back I was fortunate enough to meet up with a powerfully friendly Spaniard called Nacho Vigalondo. He was attending the Fantastic Fest in Austin, and he was there with his first feature film, the very well-received Timecrimes. How well-received? Strong enough that the Sundance programmers took note and snatched the flick for one of their Park City at Midnight slots! (Plus Jette liked it!) So we figured we'd grab a quick chat with Nacho before he becomes the next big Spanish sensation. Here's what the award-winning filmmaker (and passionate horror geek) had to say on the eve of Sundance 2008:

Cinematical: OK, let's start off with the biggie: What's it feel like to get nominated for an Academy Award?

NV: I used to say that that wasn't a dream come true, because I never even dreamed about going to the Oscars! If you check my short films, or if you read my scripts, you'll think I'm not the kind of director that you attach to the Oscars. Having said that, being an Oscar nominee was one of the most incredible and amusing things that has ever happened to me. And it gave me the possibility to shoot a feature film.

Cinematical: Timecrimes was your first feature after a series of well-received short films. What made you switch to long-form storytelling for this particular movie?

NV: The script. I fell in love with the idea. When the Oscar thing happened, and I started thinking of myself as a feature filmmaker, I decided to shoot the impossible film, the movie you couldn't shoot in other conditions. If Timecrimes is not a common film in the US, just imagine Spain, where we don't even have a genre films market.

Cinematical: Timecrimes had its world premiere at the aptly-named Fantastic Fest in Austin last September. Since then you've screened at Sitges in Spain and several other international film festivals. What's the general reaction been so far?

NV: The movie seems to be working. We won another prize in Trieste, Italy: The "Golden Asteroid" in a science fiction festival. I love to see how the people react to the little comedy elements. And the silence of the last quarter-hour, more into suspense and horror ... What I'm most grateful about is that people keep talking about the movie after watching it, discussing what has happened on screen.

Nacho Vigalondo's Timecrimes, which won the top prize at Fantastic Fest, has been picked up for distrib by Magnolia Pictures. The film, Vigalondo's feature film debut, explores the idea of time travel through a tale about a man who travels back in time and runs into himself, thus setting in motion a chain of events with consequences he never imagined. Vigalondo's 2003 short film, 7:35 in the Morning, was Oscar-nommed, but lost out to Wasp by Andrea Arnold (who went onto make the critically acclaimed Red Road, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2006, along with a bevy of other awards).

Jette Kernion, who reviewed the film for Cinematical during Fantastic Fest, enjoyed it as much as the rest of the audience; she added the film to her viewing schedule after hearing from folks who attended the first screening that the film -- and the Q&A with Vigalondo -- was a must see. Kernion's take on the jigsaw-puzzle plot of the film:

"Many time-travel films seem to work only on that level -- when you try to think about them too hard, the premise crumbles. Timecrimes, however, is so tightly and intricately scripted that upon reflection, everything fits logically. you have to pay close attention, because every scene ends up being re-referenced later in the film. It's the kind of movie where more than once, you end up thinking, 'Oh! So that's why we saw -- ah, I get it now.'" Magnolia will release Timecrimes in 2008; in the meantime, you can read Jette's full review right here.

Stop me when this sounds familiar: A group of kids lie to their parents, hit the road for a night full of partying, and stumble across a nightmare of monumental proportions. Sounds like your typical B-grade horror movie, right? Absolutely. Hell's Ground is an unwaveringly derivative and preposterously gory little genre concoction that borrows a lot from the finest films of George Romero, Sam Raimi and Tobe Hooper while forging very little new ground of its own. But you know what? It's still a fun fright flick, even with all its obvious touchstones and blatant inspirations. Once the movie gets the character introductions and the requisite wheel-spinning out of the way, it's a pretty energetically good time.

It's Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Dawn of the Dead, sorta ... oh, and it came from Pakistan. Did I not mention that part? Yep, a mega-splattery zombie-strewn slasher flick from Pakistan. Shot entirely in Islamibad by a bunch of young filmmakers who clearly grew up with the same horror flicks we did. So while you're being assaulted with ideas, characters and monsters that are clearly 'borrowed' from other sources, well, it's just quite the novelty to witness Pakistan's first gore movie.

I make no apologies: This flick is a whole lot of good, gory fun. A follow-up to the 2003 Rob Schmidt movie Wrong Turn -- which focused on a bunch of young adults who stumble across some vicious mutant cannibals in the woods of West Virginia -- Wrong Turn 2: Dead End provides a really amusing way for our latest victims to end up in trouble: They're the contestants on a Survivor-style reality series -- and let's just say the program's location scouts were rrrrreally stupid. Because our six contestants (and a few poor producers) are actually tramping around Mutant Cannibal Country ... and things are about to get splattery.

From the opening kill, first-timer Joe Lynch sets the pace quite slickly: This is going to be a fast-paced and energetic hack-'em-up, one that's not even remotely afraid of doling out big buckets of gooey gore. No, it's not a "bleak and disturbing" sort of horror flick, but one that approaches the violence (and the viscera) with a wink, an arched eyebrow, and a solid little elbow in the ribs. Indeed, if there's one major difference between Wrong Turn 2 and its predecessor, it's that the original was pretty darn stone-faced, while the sequel hits the screen with tongue planted firmly in cheek. (But yes, it's still pretty creepy on occasion.)

To say that screenwriter Daniel Waters has had an "up and down" career would be a very accurate observation. After penning the cult classic comedy that is Heathers he moved on to The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (ugh) and Hudson Hawk (whoa) before earning a credit on the excellent Batman Returns. Then he co-wrote Demolition Man, vanished for eight years, and made a small comeback with an indie comedy called Happy Campers, the movie that marked his directorial debut. So which Waters would show up in Sex and Death 101? Well, let's just say we're not nearly in Heathers territory, but Waters' latest represents his very best work in a very long time.

The plot is a cleverly simple one: A likable ladies' man receives a list of names -- all the women he's ever slept with! At first it seems like a prank played by one of Roderick's wise-ass buddies, but get this: The list also includes the names of every woman that Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) WILL sleep with! Like, for the rest of his life! Now, imagine if you received an email telling you the name of every sex partner you'll ever have ... precisely what would that DO to your approach to romance? If you meet a nice sweetie -- but she's not on the list -- what would you do?

What's so frickin' great about Austin? That's a question I hear all the time -- because I spend a good deal of time there and I love the city allllmost as much as I love Philly. (Yes, Philadelphia. Stop laughing.) Well, you could spend paragraphs talking about Austin's night life, its restaurants, its awesome women and its world-renowned music scene -- but for me it's all about the film festivals. In March it's South By Southwest and in late September it's time for Fantastic Fest, baby, the slickest, screwiest, most user-friendly genre festival this side of the continent. Although only three (3!) years old, FF has already earned a very solid rep among filmmakers, studios and movie nerds.

Although I show up mainly for the scary stuff, FF '06 offered an impressively wide array of cinematic goodies: Abominable, Blood Tea and Red String, Broken, Bug, Edmond, The Fountain, Frostbite, Hatchet, The Host, Isolation, The Living and the Dead, Renaissance, Roman, Severance, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Tideland, Wilderness, The Woods ... plus a surprise screening of Apocalypto with Mel Gibson in attendance. Plus you can drink beer and eat cheese fries while you watch the movie(s)! Sorry but I've been to six Sundances and I never got to eat cheese fries while watching a horror movie. 'Nuff said.

So what does the Alamo Drafthouse have in store for us next month? Well I've only seen a few of the titles, but I did get to offer my .02 to the programmers -- as did SXSW kingpin Matt Dentler and the movielords at Twitch and AICN. So while that's not a promise that you'll love all the flicks, you can rest assured that the slate was constructed by and for the genre junkies. Dig on in...

I was going to help Tim League and his Austin Fantastic Fest crew pick a few movies for this year's event, but unfortunately I had to head back to the east coast for the summer. But it sure doesn't look like the FF programming crew is having ANY trouble without me! (A crew that includes Twitch's Todd Brown, SXSW's ever-classy Matt Dentler, the Alamo's mad genius Kier-la Janisse, and AICN's recently-wed (congrats) Harry the K, just so you know who's pickin' the flicks.) Anyway, released just today is a brand-new batch of genre titles that can soon be enjoyed at the third annual Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. I may be a little biased (since Austin and everyone in it rocks the proverbial house) but I'm getting pretty darn excited for FF this year. (Plus I've had a rotten summer, and the only thing that can make me feel better is a full week of horror movies!)

In addition to the already-released list of titles, the FF posse just unleashed another batch of gore-soaked goodies. Nope, it wasn't enough to book movies like End of the Line, Flight of the Living Dead, The Last Winter and Spiral (all of which I've seen and awarded S. Nerd Weinberg stamp of approval) and get Uwe Boll himself to introduce Postal ... nope, these guys had more blood to spill. (Clarification: Fantastic Fest does a lot more than just horror; it's just that I always choose to focus my eyeballs there first.) Anyway, their new batch includes titles like Joe Lynch's Wrong Turn 2 (I've seen an excerpt and boy is it splattery!), Winona Ryder in Daniel Waters' Sex and Death 101, and the very amusing Sundance mockumentary Finishing the Game.

For everything you need to know about Fantastic Fest (which runs September 20 - 27 at the awesome Alamo South Lamar), feel free to pick through the official site. It's there you can check out plot synopses, find a few reviews, scope some trailers and make up a handy little schedule of what you'd like to see ... even if you can't attend. But fear not: Cinematical will have a small team of lunatics there to keep you up to speed. Can't wait! (And they still have some titles to announce yet! I'm promised some big news, too!) For the "old" news, check out Jette's May 17 report right here.

When it comes to horror on DVD, we start with outfits like Lionsgate and Anchor Bay, and since I spend a good deal of time saying very nice things about (most of) LG's horror output, now's the time to celebrate a milestone for Anchor Bay: No, not another re-issue of Halloween or Army of Darkness ... They've picked a flick for their very first* theatrical rollout! That Hatchet movie! (And let's give it up for the festival-fave horror indies; both Hatchet AND Behind the Mask will be earning theatrical releases early next year, which is a testament to the quality of both flicks; movies like these -- good, bad or awful -- generally get remanded straight to the video stores.)

Yes, it's Adam Green's Hatchet that (according to a recent press release) will hit theaters next April, a film that's played a whole bunch of festivals and gave me a very entertaining 90 minutes when it screened at last September's Fantastic Fest. Chock-full of old-school horror staples (Kane Hodder, Robert Englund, Tony Todd, etc.), a sly sense of humor and more than a few ferocious flurries of gore, Hatchet is precisely the sort of horror flick that'll please anyone who grew up on the earliest exploits of Freddy, Jason and Mikey.

Check back in a few weeks for our interview with Gory Adam Green; you won't believe what his next project is.

*I could be wrong on this. Anyone out there know if Anchor Bay went theatrical on something before Hatchet?

Ask any experienced writer if they'd like to cover two whole film festivals over the course of three short weeks, and you'll probably get a response like "Um, no." But throughout all of the Toronto International Film Festival, I had a shiny little treat on the horizon: The Second Annual Fantastic Fest, which was to take place at the Alamo Drafthouse (South Lamar) down in lovely Austin, Texas. Upon returning home from TIFF, I was this close to simply bailing on Fantastic Fest, basically because I had a LOT of work to finish, plus I really wasn't all that excited about dealing with airports again so soon.

Fortunately I came to my senses and decided to attend the festival. And get this! A few days before the fest, super-cool festival honcho Tim League asked if I'd like to be a jury member! Now, film critics don't get a lot of back-pats or cap-feathers, but being asked to sit on a festival jury is very flattering indeed. Plus, this festival was mostly horror movies -- so obviously I was grinning like a pig in poop. So now that the festival is over and I've returned home (with a horrific cold), I thought you might be interested to know which flicks won what. So let's get to it...

Horror Jury Awards

Best Picture - Isolation
Best Director - Billy O'Brien, Isolation
Best Script - Dylan Bank and Morgan Pehme, Nightmare
Best Actor - Kane Hodder, Hatchet
Best Actress - Nicole Roderick, Nightmare
Best Supporting Actor - Lance Henriksen, Abominable
Best Supporting Actress - Kristen Bell, Roman
Best Art Direction - Alex Boynton, Unrest
Best Cinematography - Robbie Ryan, Isolation
Best Special Effects - Hatchet
Best Make-up - Broken

The Horror Jury was composed of four film freaks: Jay Slater of Hotdog Magazine & FilmThreat.com, Ed Neal of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Peter Martin of Twitch and Chris Cargill of AICN.

Short Film Jury Awards

Best of Show - The Listening Dead
Best Short Form - Cost of Living
Best Long Form - Rogairi (Villains)
Best Animated - If I Had a Hammer
Best Comedy - They're Made Out of Meat

The Short Film Jury was composed of three AICN writers: Brian Satterwhite, Jay Knowles and (again) Mr. Cargill.

Audience Awards

1st Place - Hatchet
2nd Place - Isolation
3rd Place - Firefly

The audience awards were decided by "average Joe" audience members who opted to cast ballots, obviously.

Fantastic Fest Jury Awards

Best Film - The Living and the Dead
Best Director - Simon Rumley, The Living and the Dead
Best Script - Larry Kent and Daniel Williams, The Hamster Cage
Best Actor - Leo Bill, The Living and the Dead
Best Actress - Jodie Jameson, Venus Drowning
Best Supporting Actor - Alan Scarfe, The Hamster Cage
Best Supporting Actress - Kate Fahy, The Living and the Dead
Best Art Direction -Starfish Hotel
Best Cinematography - A Quiet Love
Best Special Effects - Puzzlehead
Best Make-up -The Living and the Dead
Special Jury Mention - Blood Tea and Red String

The Fantastic Fest Jury was composed of Christian Hallman of the Lund International Fantastic Film Festival, Wiley Wiggins of Dazed and Confused and Waking Life, and Scott (dork) Weinberg of eFilmCritic.com, Cinematical.com and Rotten Tomatoes.

And I'll take this quick opportunity to share some opinions with you: I attend a solid handful of film festivals every year -- and Fantastic Fest was (far and away) one of the most entertaining trips I've ever taken. From fest-head Tim League down to the part-timiest festival volunteer, these folks were absolutely sterling. If you have even a passing interest in films best described as horror, sci-fi, fantasy or "plain old weird," I could not recommend Fantastic Fest highly enough. In only its second year of existence, FF looks to be one of North America's premiere genre festivals -- and I can only imagine what the 2007 event will look like.