As we wind down into the end of August and the end of summer, I can look forward to two different fantastic film events.
First up, starting on August 30thand running for three days is the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival. Started ten years ago by my friend Miguel Rodriguez the festival is dedicated to horror films of all stripes. Miguel and his team cast a wide net using a liberal definition of horror that includes everything from neo-noir crime thrillers to surrealist experimentations exploring deadly vampire clay. Started in San Diego with a tiny venue, the festival now is hosted in Orange County California at the wonderful art house theater The Frida Cinema, and while the locale has added about an hour and a half of travel time, it is still well worth the effort. Sadly, because August 31stis the first day of a long holiday weekend and I do not yet have 15 plus years of seniority at my day-job I will be missing the first evening’s festivities including what looks to be a fun film Satanic Panic. Seriously, at my job people rarely leave once they get in the door, and that is understandable, but to get any time off around the holidays is neigh impossible for anyone with less than 15 years of seniority. I do miss the days when the festival was located in San Diego and I could simply drive down to the Museum of Photographic Arts to catch the first evening, but the Frida is a great venue and I would rather the festival thrive than wither simply because it would be easier for me.
The second film event is on September 28thand is The Secret Morgue 2. Created by our local film fanatics Film Geeks SD, of which Miguel is a founding member he’s responsible for in part or in whole for a whole lot of good film stuff in San Diego, this is a 13 hours marathon of horror film hosted by the Comic-Con Museum in Balboa Park. Last year at the first Secret Morgue the theme was 70s and 80s horror, the sort of title you would discover in video rental stores, if you remember what those were. The titles were secret and I rolled the dice and attended the screenings. What fun I had! Every film was one I had never seen, and while some were tedious than entertaining, I don’t regret attending. This year the theme is SF Horror and I suspect I will have seen some of these titles before but I could be wrong. Film Geeks SD has a deep cinematic knowledge and their choice can be quite surprising.
