For many people Sunday is Gods day. For me and the entire audience in Screen 1 of the Empire Leicester square Sunday was day four of FrightFest, a day for blood, guts, banshees, cannibals, scary shorts and a quiz from hell none of which God and his people would probably approve of and all of which I was thoroughly looking forward to.

First film up was the morning screening of The Pack a French frightener which offered up nasty new monsters born from blood and dirt and hungry for human flesh. When Charlotte Massot (Emilie Dequenne from the brilliant Brotherhood of the Wolf) picks up a hitchhiker she has no idea of the consequences about to befall her.

When her highway companion disappears in the toilets of the truck stop café run by the intimidating ex-wrestler La Spack (Yolande Moreau), Charlotte decides to investigate and ends up trapped and caged branded and tortured to become food for the ghoulish monsters who rise from the mud to feed on the living. Well shot and well acted, full of muted grey tones and nasty moments this movie has some original monsters and a menacing murderous matriarch that even a son couldn’t love.

Following that was something completely different. Star of Severance, Black Death and currently appearing in Ghost Stories at the Duke of York’s Theatre Andy Nyman took to the stage to host the annual FrightFest Quiz from Hell. Packed full of particularly taxing questions and a demanding soundtrack round you needed a bulging brain full of horror movie trivia to even stand a chance especially against the masses of other obsessive horror fans taking part.

Journeying back out to the foyer I saw a huge line of people queuing to get tickets for the Discovery Screening of Outcast. A monster movie about Celtic fairy people I wondered why this particular picture was seemingly so popular and then sadly realized it was because on next in the main house was the Film4 International Short Film Showcase.

It is sad that so many people are unwilling to watch short films or disregard them entirely especially as they are often much more original than mainstream cinema and the directors and creators behind them are fundamentally the future of cinema.

Presented by FrightFest organiser Paul McEvoy he explained that the selection process included him watching between 300 to 400 short films to get the final 14 we where about to watch. He also got several of the directors on stage all of whom where humbled to have their work shown on such a large scale.

Featuring movies from the U.K, America, Europe and Canada there was a massive mix of crazy comedy, creeping tension and powerfully disturbing pictures predominately from unknowns but including Colin director Marc Price’s The End a parody of the action movie finale.

Standing out of the bunch were the dark and unsettling To My Mother and Father and La Madre both dealing with nightmarish images of family tragedy in very different ways but both extremely affecting.

Red Balloon gave a new twist on a very old urban legend revolving round a baby sitter and a child who keeps waking up screaming and How I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse was a touching tale of a mother and son dealing with the destruction of human kind working almost as a zombie version of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful.

To prove that horror and humour go hand in hand the brilliant Rise of the Appliances showed what would happen if domestic appliances tried to take over Wales while the hilarious gore filled fun of Papa Wrestling taught us never to steal a lunch box from a wrestler’s son.

It was a great showcase of talent and a brilliant event for FrightFest to include in their programming to encourage anyone and everyone to pick up a camera and make their own movies and I recommend anyone interested in horror and short films to seek these films out to watch as many are available online.

After a brief presentation on the upcoming Art of Hammer book which features over 300 Hammer Horror posters from their extensive archive we moved from shorts to a full feature in the UK premiere of We Are What We Are a Mexican horror shown in the Director’s Fortnight strand of the Cannes Film Festival 2010.

A slow paced family drama about a family who are far from normal it follows them as they deal with the death of their father the man who provided for them bringing money and people to the house, people they could kill and eat. Without a leader a power struggle between the brothers breaks out as they try to find a new way to feed their hunger for flesh and provide victims for the blood rituals they perform which in some way justify the horrible diet the poverty rife in the Latin American urban jungle has driven them to.

From moving shocking realism to a frenetic assault on the senses that is Dammed by Dawn. The UK premiere of this Australian shocker it begins when Claire (Renee Willner) takes her new boyfriend home to meet her family who live in an isolated country house cut off from the world. The reunion is bittersweet as Claire’s grandmother is very unwell and during her ramblings regarding her impending demise she talks of the Banshee who is coming to take her to the other side.

The old woman’s words are far from hallucinations as Clare experiences first hand on the night of her nana’s death the shrieking female figure comes to the house with blood streaming from her eyes to take the deceased woman’s soul away. Claire makes the mistake of trying to stop the banshee’s work which leads to an uprising of an undead army sent to wipe every one of Claire’s family away.

With cgi skeletons, a flying scythe wielding spectre and more fog and mist then The Fog and The Mist this entertaining thrill ride is Evil Dead done Down Under as the plot, style and monsters are more than a little influenced by Sam Raimi’s masterpiece.

Read Day 4 Part 2 Here

The Pack Trailer:

Dammed by Dawn Trailer: