This Halloween, San Diego gets a new one-night-only film festival at Cinema Under the Stars. Halloween Film Festival hopes to scare up a new holiday tradition for horror fans.
This year’s inaugural Halloween Film Festival grew out of an event that that filmmaker Vic Terry co-hosted last year.
"We did a premiere party for our film 'Frankie' at Cinema Under the Stars," Terry said. "And it was such a cool experience, such a great celebration of art and community that we wanted to extend that to showcase the work of other talented artists and continue to build that community and foster those creative connections."
And build it around a Halloween theme, says Terry’s partner in crime Cassidy Bartolomei.
"We started taking submissions early this year, and whittled it down to eight independent films," Bartolomei said. "All with Halloween at the forefront and focused on a fun, quirky, and funny side of Halloween."
One of the highlights will be a film from the 1930s called "The Scalpel" that never got released but has been rescued and re-scored by musician Ed Hartman.
"The film never was released back in the time that it was created," Terry said. "Ed Hartman, who is a Seattle-based musician and composer, he came across Richard Lyford's astounding films that were never released and that were not completed. And, as a passionate film person himself, he went and restored 'The Scalpel,' and he created a new score, the soundtrack that the film never got to have in its day. So it really is this kind of crazy time capsule moment."
And with all the fake found footage films and AI-generated art Bartolomei assured, "It's the genuine thing, and it's fun to imagine that he was in a sort of similar place that a lot of creatives and independent filmmakers are, where you're really doing the art as an end in itself and for the love of the craft. It's a1936 film made by Lyford when he was 19 years old and a very creative filmmaker. That really resonated with Vic and myself. He went on to work at Disney, so it's awesome to see his roots and his young pieces that he made."
Terry and Bartolomei will conclude the night with an encore screening of their short "Frankie," which follows a woman artist so consumed by the need to perfectly curate her world, her work and her identity, that it begins to destroy her.
Also screening on Halloween night will be "Howl If You Love Me" from John R. Dilworth (the creator behind "Courage the Cowardly Dog), "The Von Steins" created by Jimmy Gruss and Riley McMahon, Charlie Queen’s "Mort," Jacob Miller's "The Perfect Jump Scare," and Veronica Felicity Johnson's "A Certain Method."
Plus "Monster Dykë," a film by Kaye Adelaide and Mariel Sharp, that serves up a bold homage to classic B-movie monster flicks and shot on 16mm film with practical effects.
Terry appreciates the old school approach of the film: "I'm very excited about that. Kaye Adelaide and Mariel Sharp are a Canadian-based filmmaking couple, and I saw this film in a festival, and it was one of the coolest things I feel like I've ever seen. It's shot on 16 mm black and white film. It has this unbelievable puppetry of this creature, it is old school monster moviemaking. It's incredible and definitely a bold take."
There will be an intermission so people can chat and drink some witch’s brew, followed by more films, an awards ceremony and an after party.
So grab a blanket and a zero gravity lounge chair this Halloween night, and curl up for some scary fun under the stars at the Halloween Film Festival.
Tickets are available online here.
