Origin: Spirit of the Past – Origin is a fairly typical anime story with typical (but quality) animation.

Zhest – Producer Yusup Bakshiyev flew in from Russia to bring us this well-made action/horror movie tinged with psychedelia about a retired female crime reporter that specialized in sociopaths who comes out of retirement to interview a unique killer. Incredible production values are being exhibited in Russian film now and I expect great things from the trailer that ran before Zhest called Paragraf 78 — a paramilitary action/fu film — however Zhest had pacing problems in the middle and went completely off-kilter at the end. Fun, all-in-all, but not as easily consumed in the States as Night Watch was.

Faceless – this pointless short about a sculptor who finds a “unique” material for her human figure studies is unoriginal.

Starfish Hotel – a fanatic of a prolific mystery novelist is bored with his wife and life, and he has an affair that sends him on a surreal journey of man-sized rabbits, the disappearance of his wife, and prostitution. The story is slow and plodding, but the twists are interesting.

Rut=& – hilarious short about a man bored with the rut his life has become picks up a polaroid in his attic and starts a new hobby.

Simon Says – Director William Dear and son Oliver Dear were in attendance to screen what I believe is the one of the core films of this year’s festival. Crispin Glover plays twins, one of whom went on a killing spree but was released because of his retardation. They run an autoshop and roadside store near a camping site the teenagers go to for privacy…and you know where that’s headed. Glover is at his crazy finest with inspired clever slaying, the boys are hunky and the girls are hot and topless at least once. This film is a great addition to the tradition of fun teen slasher movies, funny at times, scary at times, silly at times.

If I Had A Hammer – another hilarious short. Thor is picking out a new hammer at the hardware store. This one was done with CGI.

Hatchet – another core entry for this year’s festival, Hatchet was screened with Driector/Writer Adam Green and Andrew Bryniarski (because it features his friend Kane Hodder, the stuntman for Texas Chainsaw 3 and Jason Goes to Hell) and this low budget teen slasher delivered a horror feast with no CGI. Hitting all the right notes, darkly funny and scary with over-the-top deaths, this film will surely cause studios to salivate at the prospect of a franchise. Special note: Mercedes McNab (Harmony from BtVS) is featured prominently…prominently topless, that is. Green says she’s actually smart and hardcore — nothing like Harmony or this character — and she decided that if she was going to do Playboy (out next month) she might as well do a topless stint in a horror flick.