Gory Gory Hallelujah

Philly's second annual Terror Film Festival promises to feed your dark side with six nights of roughly 100 spine-tingling, hair-raising horror flicks from around the globe.

by Ptah Gabrie

Festival

Need to satisfy your taste for extreme gore? Philly's second annual Terror Film Festival promises to feed your dark side with six nights of roughly 100 spine-tingling, hair-raising horror flicks from around the globe. There's bound to be a gem or two that'll scare the bejesus out of you.

"If it isn't fun, it's a turnoff," says the filmmaker and festival director who goes by the name of "Claw." This year, TFF received twice as many submissions as last year, and has nearly doubled in length. In addition, many of the entries have shifted away from run-of-the-mill bloodbaths to what Claw calls "intellectual horror" — that is, films with more developed plotlines. One of Claw's personal picks is Jeff Leroy's Werewolf in a Women's Prison, which involves camping, werewolves and beautiful women.

Night of the Hell-Hamsters, directed by Paul Campion (an artist on Lord of the Rings and X-Men: The Last Stand), is also what it sounds like, and features bloodthirsty hamsters taking over the world. "You can see the professional quality to it," says Claw, "but in the end it's like Army of Darkness with hamsters from hell."

A Philly native, Claw loves promoting local films. This time around, he's into Temple grad Jenna Serbu's four-minute Kindfeuer. "It takes you on this very artistic joyride," he says. "At the end you find out the whole thing is about a pretty serious subject, but you don't get a hint of it all the way through."

Want big names? The festival has no shortage of those, either. During a Saturday workshop, filmmaker Bobby Logan (Repossessed, Meatballs 4) will teach aspiring directors the ins and outs of the industry. And Halloween II's Leo Rossi will hold a Q&A session following Wednesday night's screening of Diamond Zero, a comic thriller about celebrities who get crushed into diamonds.

The festival's popularity is no doubt growing, but Claw still believes in keeping a no-entrance fee for all filmmakers. "We're trying to provide a free element that adds a little more exposure to their projects," he explains. All entrants get a picture, project poster and synopsis of their piece on the TFF Web site just for submitting. The festival is also giving away $10,000 in cash and prizes, based on 15 Claw Award categories. Promotion is something that Claw knows is crucial. "We're all filmmakers," he says. "We understand the whole scenario of independent filmmaking because we come from it."

(ptah.gabrie@citypaper.net)

Terror Film Festival, Tue.-Sun., Oct. 16-21, $8 per screening, Ethical Society, 1906 S. Rittenhouse Square, 215-569-9700, www.terrorfilmfestival.net.