Shriekfest

Shriekfest 2006: Day 2

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 1, 2006

Hey folks, sorry about the delay. Here is a sum up for Film Program 8 featuring one short and one feature length movie.

My Ambition In this super short we meet a kid who loves vampires. Seriously. He’s kicked out of class for reading his essay, entitled appropriately enough “My Ambition,” which revolves around him wishing to become a vampire and feast on the blood of his classmates.

He goes to the zoo and reads from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to a vampire bat. After being harassed by a zookeeper he finds a hole in the cage and rescues the bat, whom he believes to actually be Dracula. Arriving at an abandoned warehouse, he slits his wrist and offers it to the bat. Upset that the bat will not drink, he cuts himself more, finally slitting his own throat. As his life passes, the bat transforms into a monstrous vampire and descends on him.

This wasn’t a bad little short. It was fairly entertaining and to the point. The production values were good, especially the final Dracula type creature. Nothing amazing here though, unfortunately.

Final Grade: C+

All is Normal (allisnormal.com)
This feature follows a young girl running from an abusive relationship who takes a job as a house sitter in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. She makes friends with the gardener, a stray cat, and shows people around the house and property, slowly becoming more and more of a sales person.

Strange things start to happen, as they always seem to do when you’re in the middle of the woods, and she begins to believe her ex-boyfriend has tracked her down via her cell phone. What follows is a mystery of sorts will many instances of mistaken identity type problems and confusion. After she kills a stranger in self-defense, who falls into a lake and disappears, and the gardener goes missing but the calls continue - who did she kill? There’s a twist ending to boot!

This wasn’t bad. Again, it wasn’t great, but it was easily very watchable. I was fairly curious as to what was going on and followed the story along. The lead was a good actress and played the role well, but the real star was the stray cat, who is by far the friendliest cat that has ever lived. Linda Blair, you know, the freaky kid from the Exorcist, guest stars as a counselor.

Final Grade: B-