Welcome to Dead by Dawn!Welcome to Dead by Dawn’s One Day UnHallowe’en Special!

The leaves are turning - first the colour of bruises, then of blood. The sky may be blue but the air is graveyard cold and it’s

hard to remember warmth on your skin. To me, that means it’s almost the best time of year, and today we’ll celebrate by

going underground with bogeymen, rejoicing at a maniac in bunny ears, making mental notes to learn to play better chess and

getting final, irrefutable proof that our furry friends are evil to their fuzzy cores.

Dead by Dawn exists not only to showcase potential and vibrant emerging talent, but also to provide the widest possible

range of what can be desribed as horror.

It remains a joy to programme for an audience who appreciate those film-makers who can make the familiar seem fresh,

reinvigorated and profoundly unsettling.

I hope you have a great festival!

AdèleAdèle HartleyFestival Director

DEAD BY DAWNSaturday 9th October 2010

All screenings in Cinema One

Bye Bye Sally + THE DIRECTOR’S CUT Programme starts 1215

Short Film Programme: “Horror Shorts with Happy(ish) Endings” Programme starts 1430 Danse Macabre, The Basket Case, The Pool, Life After Beth, Void, Tufty, Sunshower, Tropezones

CROPSEY Programme starts 1630

Short Film Programme: “It Can Always Get Worse” Programme starts 1830 Knife Point, Chloe & Attie, Hatch, Jardin Dead End, Sinkhole, Excision

Rite + 5150, RUE DES ORMES Programme starts 2045

RED VELVET Programme starts 2315

Red Velvet is a refreshingly funny, intelligently shot, independent gem.

Aaron (Henry Thomas) meets his neighbour Linda (Kelli Garner) in a launderette. Although he’s nothing but verbally aggressive towards her, she convinces him to tell her a story. It’s a story of the weekend up at the cabin she can’t get to and a killer (Lateef Crowder) bumping off the people that did make it there. They decide together what the killer should look like, and the film cuts back and forth between Aaron’s cabin story and their launderette conversations.

The extreme comic book violence comes in the story segments, which are shot in a style that I’d call a note-perfect homage to Suspiria and Creepshow…but it’s not just homage for its own sake. There’s an 80’s feel layered into the story parts, not just in the direction and cinematography, but in the writing, music, and acting as well. While Red Velvet is telling a serious story, half of it is filtered through a cracked mind obsessed with Eighties horror.

The kills are anything but clichéd, with a deranged brilliance to the killer. It’s macabre, yes, but in such a ridiculous way as to feel inspired. I feel sure that some people will prefer it to be purely a spoof, but if you love films that don’t hand you all the answers and take their time saying what they need to, I’m sure you’d agree with me that the pacing of the film is just perfect.

Red Velvet – Bruce Dickson’s directorial debut - is deranged and inspired in equal measures, sometimes both at once.

Taken from a review by Plagiarize at Dread Central / www.dreadcentral.com

USA / 2009 / 87 minsDirector: Bruce DicksonProducers: Sean Fernald, Ari Citak, Jim McConville, Joe MoeWriters: Anthony Burns, Joe MoeDoP: Jim DicksonEditors: Jonathan Alvord, Michael MeesF/X: Kevin Kirkpatrick, Mark Bourque, Jeff Colbert, Richard Courte, Ian Goodwin, MPFX StudiosCast: Henry Thomas, Kelli Garner, Forrest J Ackerman, Natalia Baron, Cristen Coppen, Lateef Crowder, Ryan Doom, S.A. Griffin, Jordan Hagan, Eric Jungmann, Dina Lynne Morishita, Michele Nordin, Bret Roberts, Earl Roesel, Steven Skyler, Carol Ann Susi, Lewis Tan, Carlie Westerman, Kevin Wheatley, Austin Whitlock

Red Velvet

Danse Macabre In this exquisitely shot and effortlessly elegant short, a cold, lonely death sets the stage for a dark choreography in which lifeless flesh responds, stirs and contorts in a final macabre ballet. Canada / 2009 / 9 mins Director: Pedro Pires

The Basket Case Ambrose is a man on a mission as his wife waits at home while he builds her…what? It’s a surprise. Soon enough, Josephine and Ambrose can embark on a bliss-ful future together. Ireland / 2007 / 17 mins Director: Owen O’Neill

The Pool Three teenage boys break into their school swimming pool one night to stage a macho breath-holding contest. But teasing soon kicks in and tensions escalate when they are joined by a girl they all fancy. Ireland / 2010 / 12 mins Director: Thomas Hefferon

Life After Beth Come home, hang up your coat, check messages…the daily life of a couple subsist-ing in a London flat continues, disrupted but not destroyed. With tenderness, they adapt to their changing roles. UK / 2010 / 5 mins Director: Mysterious Al

Void When Special Agent Liz Metera investigates a series of grisly murders in a small town, she uncovers a little boy’s powerful and chilling secret – one that will change her life, and the town, forever. USA / 2009 / 20 mins Director: Meredith Ann Berg

Tufty Ok, it’s time to take a swing at heart-strings! How many of us still have a cute teddy bear we got as a baby? Maybe if you knew where he really came from, you wouldn’t want to hold him quite so close. Ireland / 2009 / 9 mins Directors: Brendan Butler, Jason Butler

Sunshower Driving home from a party, still drunk from the night before, a girl hits an old man walking by the side of the road. When he won’t wake up and the car won’t start, it seems all she can do is bury him. Ireland / 2009 / 13 mins Director: Liam Gavin

Tropezones He’s crazy about food and she’ll do anything to please him. Plate after plate is devoured while she delights in his enormous appetite. A perfect romance...as long as something is left in the fridge. Spain / 2009 / 6 mins Directors: David Macián, Eduardo Molinari

Australia / 2009 / 87 minsDirector: Paul KomadinaProducer: Paul KomadinaWriter: Paul KomadinaDoP: Ivan DavidovEditor: Noah Joseph JamesMusic: Christopher de GrootF/X: David EmenyCast: Jonathan Wood, Mollie King, David Maguire, Renato Fabretti, Jennieka Chattelle, Martin Williams, Shaun Martindale, Melanie Munt, Sam Barrett, Timothy Solly, James Helm

Mike is the director. He’s also a bully and an idiot. Bobby is his long-suffering producer who watches him demolish actresses at audition until he casts the tall blond. Can she act? Who cares? She’s hot!

Driving in convoy, the cast and crew head out to a farm in the back of beyond for their two-week shoot. No phone reception and no people for miles around, it’s a location that’s perfect for focussing the creative mind and getting this damn film made.

Unfortunately for all concerned, there’s someone who doesn’t want this film to happen out here and in the dust and the heat, things start going horribly wrong. Given that Mike has pissed off just about everybody in getting to this stage, it could be anyone. Actually, after hearing the excruciating first line

of scripted dialogue, it’s most likely to be a disgruntled film critic.

Inventive, gruesome, sick, daft…this film is all of those things. With a pile of bodies to deal with and with filming ground to a halt, it’s down to Mike to decide what’s most important to him. You can try asking, but all you’ll get is his mantra: Pain is Temporary, Film is Forever!

USA / 2009 / 16 minsDirector: Paul LeydenProducers: Anne Clements, Jamie Feldman, Paul Leyden, Chris PanizzonWriter: Paul Leyden based on the short story by Lisa MannettiDoP: Joseph WhiteEditor: David Maurice GilMusic: J. Peter Robinson Cast: Malin Åkerman, Pia Akerman, Mario Pagliarulo, Troy Ruptash, Paolo Seganti, Stella Seganti, Roberto Zincone

Sally is having a bad day. Ok, a bad life. Deciding to end it all, she visits Mr Vincent who appears to be a suicide counsellor. Well he is, but he’s also an opportunist and he’s about to make Sally an extraordinary offer

Bye Bye Sally

An excellent true-crime doc that actually managed to scare me one or two times while filmmakers Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman search the woods of Staten Island (the borough that time forgot) for clues to the mystery of a handful of mostly special needs children gone missing over the decades near an abandoned mental hospital.

The film examines the elements that make up an urban myth about a child-kidnapping creepy old guy, and turn the myth into a reality that got him locked up for decades with absolutely no evidence beyond circumstantial and

unreliable witnesses. The entire film is genuinely creepy and disturbing, especially the unsubstantiated belief that former mental patients still roam the woods and live in the underground catacombs beneath the hospital, or that a seemingly limitless number of Satanists live in Staten Island. (Actually, looking at all the tracksuits in play here, I could believe the latter).

The bottom line on CROPSEY is that it works as both a mystery that can never be solved and a profile of a community shaped by its own collective fears. And the cast of characters is so colourful and ridiculous

that you couldn’t cast actors to play them any better than they play themselves. This is a great little movie.

Taken from a review by Capone at Ain’t It Cool News / www.aintitcoolnews.com

CROPSEY

USA / 2009 / 84 minsDirectors: Barbara Brancaccio, Joshua ZemanProducers: Barbara Brancaccio, Joshua ZemanWriter: Joshua ZemanDoP: Chad DavidsonEditors: Anita Gabrosek, Todd Holmes, Tom PattersonMusic: Alex Lasarenko

Yannick is a film student out documenting his new neighbourhood, riding around unfamiliar streets when a black cat streaks out of nowhere and causes him to crash his bike.

When he knocks on the door of 5150 Elm’s Way to ask for help he meets Jacques, a local taxi driver and sometime vigilante. See, Jacques knows there are bad people in the world and he knows that he’s on a mission to punish the unrighteous. Trouble is, Yannick seems like a good guy and so Jacques has no idea what to do with him other than lock him in an upstairs room.

Jacques, his wife and children try to function as normal, but Yannick bothers Jacques and the increased tension in the house leads to an unravelling of a family already pushed to the edge.

Although the family provide us with interesting context and a solid background, the film gradually evolves into a prolonged strategic face-off as

Canada / 2009 / 111 minsDirector: Éric TessierProducers: Pierre Even, Josée ValléeWriter: Patrick SenécalDoP: François DutilEditor: Alain BarilF/X: Erik Gosselin, Edwina Voda, Jean-Michel Rossignol, Vincent Brabant, Mokko StudioCast: Marc-André Grondin, Normand D’Amour, Sonia Vachon, Mylène St-Sauveur, Élodie Larivière, Catherine Bérubé, Normand Chouinard, Louise Bombardier, Pierre-Luc Lafontaine, René-Daniel Dubois

Jacques – a fanatical chess player – offers Yannick his freedom if he can win just one game. A complete novice, Yannick sees not only an opportunity to learn more about his captor, but also to buy time and hopefully find a weakness to exploit.

This is an accomplished psychological thriller, and although Yannick is the only one locked away, every member of Jacques’ family is trapped in a domestic nightmare over which he is slowly but surely losing control.

5150RUEDES ORMES

A young girl is about to undergo a ritual. Like all tribal rituals, it seems perfectly normal to this small community and it’s a day for celebration and joy. Odd, unusual, inexplicable things are often done in the name of tradition.

USA / 2009 / 9 minsDirector: Alicia ConwayProducers: Aaron Goldstein, Ben RockWriter: Alicia ConwayDoP: Stephanie MartinEditor: Ben RockMusic: Kays Al-AtrakchiF/X: Jason Collins, Thomas D. MoserCast: Tabitha Morella, Kelly Holden, Lauren Belle, Mia Fairgood, Linda A. Smith, Megan Soule, Emma Messenger, Lena Bouton, Toni Perkins, Jay Bogdanowitsch, David Bickford, Jon Hughes, Luke Epperson, Josh Feldman

RITE

Knife Point A family offers a travelling knife salesman a ride on their way through upstate New York. They are clearly delighted to be helping a fellow man, but too much time spent together brings tensions to a head. USA / 2009 / 27 mins Director: Carlo Mirabella-Davis

Chloe & Attie There’s a secret, and it’s best kept in the dark, away from prying eyes. But one Autumn day, Chloe and Attie have something special planned. They both know that secrets have a way of getting out. Canada / 2009 / 9 mins Director: Scooter Corkle

Hatch A man relaxes in the bath, letting everything, and I mean everything go slack. What appears in the water is something of a shock, but with patience and care, maybe he’ll figure out what it means. Ireland / 2009 / 10 mins Director: Damian McCarthy

Jardin Dead End A guy meets a girl in a club, she seems pretty and normal. She confesses to one little failing, but it’s so hard to meet people that our hero figures he can cope with her imperfection. Canada / 2009 / 12 mins Director: Stephane Lapointe

Sinkhole A salesman approaches a mysterious, reclusive landowner with an offer to buy the man’s smouldering abandoned coal mines but finds that there is more at stake than the land. USA / 2009 / 14 mins Director: Eric Scherbarth

Excision Pauline is a high school senior, a geek, obsessed with just one thing. A near-total loner, she helps look after her sister and spends her days thinking of new ways to infuriate her mother who just doesn’t seem to see Pauline’s potential. USA / 2008 / 18 mins Director: Richard Bates Jr

My thanks to all those without whom...

Richard Bates Jr, Meredith Ann Berg, Ali Blaikie, David Boyd, Barbara Brancaccio, Brendan Butler, Jason Butler, Ali Clark, Alicia Conway, Scooter Corkle, Paul Cranefield, Mark Crossan, Bruce Dickson, Craig Docherty, Daniel Domachowski, Sean Fernald, Jayne Fortescue, Thomas Hefferon, Robert Howie, Paul Komadina, Stephane Lapointe, Jenny Leask, Danny Lennon, Paul Leyden, Andy Lobban, Maria Elena Lopez-Frank, Seth McAnespie, Damian McCarthy, Ally McCrum, James McKenzie, David Macián, Allan Macraild, Lara Matthews, Carlo Mirabella-Davis, Richard Moore, Sadhbh Murphy, Mysterious Al, Derry O’Brien, Owen O’Neill, Pedro Pires, James Rice, Eric Scherbarth, Alan Simpson, Deanne Sowter, Éric Tessier, Theresa Valtin, Rod White, Jonathan Whiteside, Joshua Zeman and the SB, of course.

We’d like to thank all the producers, distributors and sales agents for their assistance in putting this year’s programme together. Thanks also to all the Front of House and Bar staff at Filmhouse cos they are just magic. And thanks to you for making the effort to be here. To anyone I’ve missed out – your help and support does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

Cover image by flickr.com/photos/heroethic/