Features

Enlarge Image

Winnipeg Horror Cinema

Not only did the inaugural Winnipeg Horror Cinema event sell out last year, three audience members even threw up.

"That’s a good thing, I guess," laughs local filmmaker Kevin Bacon, the event’s organizer. "It’s a horror film festival after all.

"It could also be because it was late and they were drunk. But I’d like to think it was because they were scared."

Rather than frightening people away, Bacon packed 'em in at Cinematheque last Halloween, with what he intended as a replacement for the highly successful Winnipeg Short Film Massacre, which repeatedly sold out during its run from 2004 to 2009. Winnipeg Horror Cinema returns for its second year this Sunday.

"I wasn’t sure if I could get people out, because, you know, it wasn’t the Massacre," Bacon says. (Rather than a series of first, second and third prizes awarded by a panel of judges, for instance, the audience votes for its favourite film according to ballots.)

"But people seem to need a horror film festival at Halloween. So I’m pretty sure they’ll be there again this year."

Also encouraging is the fact that many of the films submitted are from filmmakers Bacon is unfamiliar with. "It just shows there’s so many people out there who want to take part and see this event continue," he says, adding that other entries are films made years ago but never before shown publicly.

What this reflects is that the Winnipeg film scene is even larger and more diverse than it seems on the surface. For all the brilliance showcased by members of the artist-run Winnipeg Film Group, from Guy Maddin (Keyhole) to Mike Maryniuk (The Yodeling Farmer) to Jeff Erbach (The Nature of Nicholas) and Danishka Esterhazy (Black Field), there is seemingly a parallel and often invisible world of local filmmaking creativity.

Take one animated film showcased in 2010, Ryan Hill’s The Pumpkin Sam Theories.

"It’s a lot of work doing something like that," Bacon marvels. "Some people are really dedicated." (This year’s line-up will also feature animated works, he adds; Bacon’s own entry is a music video for Winnipeg musician Greg Arcade, for his song Creature of the Night.)

Then there was Winnipeg writer/director/producer Natalie Dacquisto’s film Vinnie’s Tale, a "’50s zombie comedy," as described by Bacon, which was voted last year’s audience favourite; Dacquisto took hom the grand prize of a smoke machine.

"I’m not sure what the big prize will be this year," Bacon says. "It’ll be something someone can potentially use to make a horror film, though."

The former Massacre itself was something several local auteurs used to make films: it was through the event that formerly Winnipeg-based genre collective Astron-6 — including filmmakers Adam Brooks, Conor Sweeney, Steven Kostanski, Matt Kennedy and Massacre co-founder Jeremy Gillespie — was formed.

"I was connecting with filmmakers more like myself," says Brooks, whose debut feature Father’s Day — made in collaboration with fellow Astron-6ers and distributed by exploitation legend Troma Entertainment — premiered last week at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

"If not for the Massacre, I don't know that I'd have ever met or even heard of Matt and Conor, and vice versa," Brooks continues. "The event birthed Astron-6.

"The audience for it clearly existed. That was the deal: it was a place for the like-minded, unacknowledged horror fans to come together and have fun."

Whether Winnipeg Horror Cinema enables another such unholy filmmaking force into being remains to be seen. One thing, Bacon says, seems certain: "Winnipeg just seems to like horror films."

Still, he plans to hunt down programming from outside of Winnipeg in the future. "People love the genre ‚ I know I always have. I’ll see any horror film. There are some real die-hard fans out there.

"And that can make the experience of viewing it, in a fest, a whole lot of fun."

WINNIPEG HORROR CINEMA
Oct. 30, 9 :30 p.m., Cinematheque
Admission is $10 at the door or $7 with costume