Fantasia Roundup! Assmonster! Right At Your Door!

So. Day One. Six hours in the car and a quick hotel check in leads me to the theater for an afternoon screening of Bill Zebub's Assmonster, a film programming honcho Mitch Davis has been raving to me about since the day he first saw it. A chance encounter with former festival programmer, The Abandoned writer and Beautiful Beast director Karim Hussein led to an introduction to Chris from Oddity Cinema, to whom I apologize profusely for completely forgetting to introduce to the people we ran in to afterwards. I'd put it down to fatigue from the drive but the reality is that I just totally suck that way, a fact that the lady-friend kicks my ass for on a regular basis.

Anyway. Standing in front of the theater with Chris chatting a bit when I hear a hard German accent to my right, look over and recognize a pair of the actors from On Evil Grounds, walked over and asked which of the group was director Peter Koller, who I've been emailing with for ages but have never actually met. Good lads, those Austrians, here for the entire duration of the festival and loving every minute of it.

And then the film we came to see. I don't share quite the same level of enthusiasm for Assmonster that Mitch has but I can certainly see the appeal. A friendly poke at fan culture, Bill Zebub's film - say the name aloud and you'll get the joke - is zero budget spoof of zero budget exploitation film making, the story of three friends trying to cash in on middle aged basement dwellers by shooting a bad T&A film to sell direct to fans at an upcoming horror convention. Crass, juvenile and loaded with gratuitous nudity - they are shooting an exploitation film, after all - what makes the film work is its surprisingly gentle spirit. Zebub has a gift for natural dialogue and never allows the film to dip into any sort of mean spirited mocking or laughing at, rather he laughs with - clearly positioning himself as a member of the community he's poking fun at and mostly making fun of himself for loving the things he does. So while you can argue that the film is probably a little bit long for its own good and while some will object to paying more for tickets to see a movie than what the movie itself appears to have cost to make, that spirit gives it that little special something that lifts it above the pack.

The next likely viewing target was Sion Sono's Exte: Hair Extensions but by this point I was feeling the effects of the long drive from Toronto and decided to have mercy on those sitting around me and take a shower rather than proceeding directly to the next film.

Cleansed and fed I then returned to the theater for Chris Gorak's Right At Your Door a searing, powerful piece of work that is going to polarize audiences something fierce when it goes in to wide release late next month. Gorak casts Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane - and thank god he's still working after his character was unwisely killed off of CSI: Miami, his absence immediately making the show unwatchable - as an LA couple caught in the middle of a nightmare when a series of dirty bombs are detonated throughout the city, trapping Cochrane in the house - sealed against contamination - while his wife remains trapped outside, contaminated and slowly dying while awaiting medical aid. The beauty of the film - the main beauty, anyway, the thing works on a number of levels - is the way Gorak focuses exclusively on the relationship between Cochrane and McCormack, keeping the overt politics out of the picture - the word terrorism never appears int he film - and putting the focus squarely where it should be: the human cost. It's a stunning bit of work that marks Gorak as a significant talent to watch, and he proved to be quite articulate about the film - if somewhat uncomfortable in front of a crowd - in the Q&A afterwards.

And what to do after watching the end of LA? Drink, of course! It was off for pints with Toronto After Dark programmer Peter Kuplowsky, Mitch Davis, Dread Central's Johnny Butane, JoBlo's John Fallon - who has a pair of films in the festival - our own Kurt, Bill Zebub and others before eventually ending up in a karaoke bar with Sion Sono, who I have now heard sing the theme song to Linda, Linda, Linda. It'll be a much quieter day today - likely just a single screening before heading to the airport to pick up the lady friend - but things are off to a quality start ...