Frighfest Panel at MCM London. Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
Halloween may be over, but Frightfest is keeping the spooky spirit alive this Saturday as they host their all-day scare-a-thon. Starting around 10:45am at Cineworld Leicester Square, the group will screen six of the newest genre film offerings. Films on the line-up include Reborn, Parallel, Mara, Peripheral, The Unthinkable, and Abrakadabra, as well as a smattering of short films.
Ahead of the event, the team took over the main stage at last weekend’s MCM Comic Con in London to share a sneaky peek at the line-up. Hosted by Frightfest’s very own Paul McEvoy, the line-up included short-filmmakers Krent Able and Matt Harlock, whose short Deep Clean plays at the event, Reborn director Julian Richards, Peripheral actor Hannah Arterton, Craig Conway and Clive Tonge, the star and director of Mara respectively, and director Tom Paton. Paton doesn’t have anything screening on Saturday but he was on hand to give an update on Black Site, which screened at August’s event, as well as to share all on his latest venture – Stairs.
For those that missed out, here’s a round-up of everything that we learned:
Director Tom Paton at Frighfests MCM Panel. Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
Tom Paton On A UK Release of Black Site
Tom started off the panel by sharing that he was looking at a February UK release for Black Site. He also asks that you wait until the release to watch it and don’t try to pirate it online. Remember film piracy is film theft folks.
Tom Paton Gives The Lowdown On New Venture Stairs
“Stairs is about eight mercenaries in a war zone they aren’t supposed to be in. They kill someone they aren’t supposed to kill. When they get back to head office they reach these Escher-esque stairs that they can’t get off of. The only door leads them back to ten minutes before they killed this guy. So they have to stop their younger selves from killing him in the first place. It’s a time-travel action film. Hopefully we’ll premiere at Frightfest.”
Tom Paton On How Frightfest Has Impacted His Career
During his time to talk, Tom couldn’t speak more highly of the festival and implored aspiring filmmakers to seek the team out.
“You guys are an amazing platform. If there are any filmmakers in the building, honestly these guys career-wise rocketed me. If you are working on something, even if it’s a short, submit it. It’s well worth it.”
Krent Able and Matt Harlock at Frighfests MCM Panel. Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
Krent Able And Matt Harlock Explain Deep Clean
“Basically it’s about a crew of lovable slackers on this road crew who do far more drinking tea than digging up roads. This is because their real job is sealing up demon holes.”
Krent Able And Matt Harlock Talk Plans To Make Deep Clean A Feature
“We have plans in that [feature film] direction. The monsters were done by Dan Martin who works with Ben Wheatley a lot. We were also very lucky with our VFX to work with Territory Studio who last year did Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner 2049 and Guardians of the Galaxy. I think this, plus our cast, proves that we can work on that bigger budget production.
Director Julian Richards at Frighfests MCM Panel. Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
Julian Richards Breaks Down Reborn
As well as sharing cast details, which include Cher’s son Charles Bono, Julian Richards gave a brief synopsis of Reborn, a film which he finished cutting the night before the panel!
“It’s very much an old-school classic horror story set in contemporary Los Angeles. It’s sort of inspired by Frankenstein; a monster meets its maker. It’s a story about a baby girl who is stillborn and was brought back to life during an electrical storm. She’s smuggled away from the morgue by the morgue attendant and is raised as his sister. When she reaches sixteen she decides to escape and find her real mother who is a failed Hollywood actress played by Barbara Crampton.”
Hannah Arterton at Frighfests MCM Panel. Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
Hannah Arterton Talks About Filming Peripheral
“It was definitely the most intense thing I have done in my life. I’m in pretty much very shot. The character doesn’t leave her flat. We built this flat in a school hall in Watford. I went kind of nuts making it, it was fun. I didn’t speak to anybody, I just stayed in my hotel room, or was in my little pretend flat.
I’ve worked with Paul [Hyett] before and we have such a fantastic shorthand together. I think this film is so ambitious, and certainly from an actors point of view, you have to hit the floor running with the character. There was no grace period with the director to get to know each other. We’d already made a feature so working together was great.”
Hannah Arterton Discusses Her New Venture Into Directing
“I’m directing a film. What I’m directing is a short film and its not a horror. It’s a sci-fi with a definite edge to it, it’s about an alien and is called Hayley Alien.”
Craig Conway and Clive Tonge at Frighfests MCM Panel. Photo Credit: Kat Hughes
Director Clive Tonge Explains Mara’s Interesting Subject Matter
“It’s based on sleep paralysis. We spoke to sleep clinics and sleep doctors as an untapped resource. Forty percent of the population suffer from this condition at some point. In fact we found that when pitching that, pitches went well when someone on the panel had sleep paralysis and were genuinely scared. I know films like A Nightmare on Elm Street tell about sleep paralysis in a different way, we wanted to stick more to the facts and what the doctors told us. All the scares in Mara are based on actual people’s experiences. We didn’t really make anything up in that regard.”
Actor Craig Conway Shared All On His Next Projects
“Neil Marshall’s doing a UK return to horror so I’ve just signed to that. I’ve also just been asked to do an adaptation of Dracula for next year so I’m looking at playing Jonathan Harker hopefully.”
Arrow Video Frightfest takes over the Superscreen at Cineworld Leicester Square on Saturday 3rd November. Tickets can be found here.
