Original Post Event Publication from 2002:
SCREAMFEST EVENT (2002)
SCREAMFEST ANNOUNCES ITS 2002 SCHEDULE
WES CRAVEN SIGNS ON FOR CLOSING NIGHT PANEL
LOS ANGELES, September 6, 2002 – ScreamFest, now in its second year, has announced its 2002 schedule this morning. The four day festival running October 17 – October 20, 2002 will include twelve independent feature films, three documentaries, seven shorts, five comedy shorts, three animated shorts and five student films. Screenings will be held at the Fairfax Laemmle Theater, located at 7907 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles and Laemmle Sunset 5 located at 8000 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90046.
ScreamFest was formed in 2001 by producer Rachel Belofsky to give filmmakers and writers in the horror genre a venue to introduce their work to the industry. “We are very proud to announce that the attending distributors and producer have expressed interest in distribution for some of the films already,” says Belofsky.
ScreamFest will open on October 17th with a special screening of The Exorcist.
Feature films eligible for awards include the highly anticipated true story Vampire Clan, directed by John Webb. The cast includes Young and the Restless’s Kelly Kruger and Six Feet Under’s Marina Black. A group of young outsiders believing themselves to be invincible vampires turn to the dark side for acceptance, but find no protection from earthly justice.
Making its Los Angeles debut at ScreamFest 2002 is Curse of the Forty-Niner directed by John Carl Buechler and featuring John Phillip Law, Karen Black, Richard Lynch, Vernon Wells and Jeff Conway. Cradle of Fear, directed by Alex Chandon, stars Dani Filth of the black metal band Cradle of Filth. In this film Chandon, known for his gory films presents audiences with what one reviewer says is “one of the most mind numbingly gory scenes that (he has) laid witness to…”.
Other feature films include Mike Kallio’s tragic love story/psychological thriller Hatred of a Minute (Produced by Bruce Campbell and features ‘Leatherface’ himself (Gunnar Hansen), M.A. Galluzzo’s 2002 Slamdunk winner of best feature film, R.S.V.P., featuring Jason Mews of Jay and Silent Bob fame, Horror directed by Dante Tomaselli, Kolobos directed by David Todd Ocvirk and Daniel Liatowitsch and Ghostwatcher directed by David Cross.
The Documentary portion of the festival mixes a bit of cult, history and science. Chiller: 3 Days of Peace, Love & Gore, directed by Michael DiCerto, is a look at the famous Chiller Convention in New Jersey. The writer of Halloween 6, Daniel Farrands offers up an in-depth look at one of the most famous haunted houses of or time in Amityville: The Haunting. Finally, ISPR Investigates: Ghosts of Belgrave Hall, from Daena Smoller, is a documentary on the paranormal research that took place at Belgrave.
Director John Coven offers a triple threat in the shorts category with Repossessed last seen at the Los Angeles Film Festival, starring Juliet Landau and Jo Beth Williams. Covens other two shorts make their Los Angeles debut at ScreamFest, Talk 5.0 and Out There starring Jeff Fahey. Tim Burton’s assistant Derek Frey premieres his film The Day the Dolls Strike Back in this category while the other shorts include Brendan Donovan’s Grasp, hard boiled detectives and a pathologist investigate a severed hand found in a laundry mat, Missing, by Terrence Atkins about a serial killer on the loose in Silver Lake, Little Ricky, the story of an 8 year old boy who gets even with his grandmother for the murder and consumption of his cousin Kyle, directed by Michael Condro and finally, based on the short story by Steven King, director Peter Sullivan brings Night Surf to the festival.
Another Los Angeles debut film falls under the Comedy Horror category. The Bad Father written, directed and edited by Robert Benson stars Ken Ward as ‘a bitter yuppie with daddy issues discover(ing) how bad really was.’ The debut film also features scream queen Brinke Stevens (creator of the comic book series Brinke of Destruction) who has appeared in over a hundred films like American Nightmare, Slumber Murder Massacre and Body Double and lead films such as Haunting Fear, Teenage Exorcist and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-A-Rama. Stevens will next be seen starring in Tom Savini’s Death Island.
Other films rounding out the Comedy Horror category include a salesman who must sell a car to the Grim Reaper in Death and a Salesman by Brian Grisaffi, Jody Fedele’s Samuel in which a man is sent to hell, the only way to get out is to be nice to his wife and Blood on the Backlot also starring Brinke Stevens in a murder mystery on a 1940’s studio backlot, directed by Michelle Deal.
The Animated Shorts category contestants are Jurgen Heiman’s Puphedz making it’s Los Angeles Film debut, Hazel Grain’s Baby Cue from the UK and George Higham’s Annabel Lee.
The Student Film category introduces the next generation of filmmakers like USC’s Sebastian Roche-Lochen entering his film Dark Focus, UCLA’s Lisa Kohn with her film Killer Cello, NYU’s Bryan Norton with Tomorrow’s Bacon, Columbia University’s Tyler Polhemus’s Off and Greg Lanes The Binding.
The ladies of The Evil Dead will host a screening of the Sam Raimi written and directed 1982 horror film. The date of this screening is yet to be announced.
Each film, while battling out amongst their categories, will also be eligible for awards such as “Most Creative”, “Best Editing”, “Best Foreign Film”, “Best Cinematography”, “Best Special Effects”, “Best Make-Up” and “Best Picture”, while individual awards include “Best Actor”. “Best Actress” and “Best Director”. The festival will also be reviewing screenplay. Winners there will receive the “Movie Magic Screenwriter Award”. Jessie Berdinka of Dimension Films is signed on to be one of the judges for the screenplay category.
The closing night of the festival offers audiences a screening of The Hills Have Eyes followed by a guest panel discussion on the Pros and Cons of Film Censorship. The current confirmed panelists are Wes Craven (con), the Director of Friday the 13th Part 7, John Carl Buechler (con), Doug Downs a film critic for Christian Spotlight & host for his Massachusetts cable show Focus on Film (pro) and a 1st amendment attorney, Craig Parshall.
ScreamFest is open to the general public and tickets are available by calling (323) 656-4SCREAM or purchase opening night and festival passes by visiting their website at www.screamfestla.com. Tickets for individual films are $10.00 while a ScreamFest pass is $200.00. Full Festival passes include all screenings, after parties, a complementary bloody mary, seminars and the closing dinner awards ceremony.
Dedicated to garnering recognition for intelligent horror films and film makers as well as honoring important contributions to the genres history, ScreamFest is in its second year.