When it comes to Film Festivals we get the reports of how it went, what was good, what wasn’t from critics or reporters. Because here at The Blood Sprayer we try to buck tradition as often as we can, we thought it might be fun to hear a first hand account of the festivities from someone who was showing a film there. Consider it a “diary” if you will.  Our willing participants in this experiment were Jen & Sylvia Soska, filmmakers behind one of our favorite new films, Dead Hooker In A Trunk.  If you’d like a refresher course, feel free to check out Zach’s review of DHIAT and interview with the Soska Sisters.

This account of their trip to both the Viscera and BleedFest Film Festivals in Los Angeles, California,  was written by both of them, but because they love all of you, told  through the eyes of Sylvia so as not to confuse. Make sure to check out their site and DEMAND to see it in your town! If films like Paranormal Activity are getting theatrical releases, then surely a film that is worthy of demand should too!  Twisted Twins Power Unite!

It’s hot as hell in Los Angeles this weekend. We can’t tell whether it is just from the massive climate change (we live in Vancouver, Canada), although anyone we ask informs us that this is hotter than usual. Not just in the temperature sense, this weekend is going to be very hot. We have been invited to the Viscera Film Festival to show our trailer for ‘Dead Hooker in a Trunk’ with the feature screening tomorrow at the festival’s sister fest, Bleedfest..

But what are Viscera and Bleedfest? Viscera is a film festival that promotes and celebrates feminism in the horror genre. The festival screens dozens of short films and trailers created by women or that represent women in an empowering way. This year’s festivities were brought to you by Heidi Martinuzzi (filmmaker, journalist, and co-creator and editor-in-chief of Pretty/Scary) and Shannon Lark (director/founder of the Viscera Film Festival, CEO of The ChainSaw Mafia, and has held the 2009 Spooksmodel crown for Fangoria Entertainment) who worked their asses off to orchestrate an event that was not only fun, but also inspiring. The fest would have six hours of projects cut into three portions – Comedic, Experimental, and Scary.

We park somewhere that we will forget by the time the festival is finished, but will find as a direct result of the kindness of a fellow film maker, Marichelle Daywalt. She will drive around for half an hour while we mumble unhelpful helpfulness like, “It was totally in a parking lot”. “I think it had a sign in it.” There is a brief few block walk to the venue, the Downtown Independent Cinema. Outside there is a small crowd peeking through the windows at the hard working staff and guests of honor. The three of us (Jen, CJ, and I) head inside.

We are greeted, hands shook, and hugs given out. We introduce ourselves as the ‘Dead Hooker Crew’ and there are laughs. Instantly, we see our films poster being hung. Someone, sweet and smiling, says that they are ‘really excited to see that one.’ The festival and its organizers went through a lot of trouble to make all the film makers, many of us coming from independent backgrounds, feel like appreciated artists. This feeling of comradery is everywhere. Film makers from all over North American had been brought together to celebrate accomplishments and share horror stories.

I can’t even begin to say how utterly cool these men and women were. Think of your nerdiest, nerdfest chats about fake blood, eviscerations, Takeshi Miike, scream queens, and everything in between and now apply those talks to an entire population of a crowd of over a hundred film makers and fans that know their shit and are gratuitous enough not to make you feel like an asshole for the stuff that you don’t know.

There is an independent spirit in the air as the festival directors and film makers team together to make sure that everything is set up perfectly. People are running around, photographers and journalists are setting up, we are told that there will be a red/blood splattered carpet walk soon. We are greeted by Elisabeth Fies (film maker and festival head for Bleedfest). She is setting up posters and handing out Bleedfest fliers. Elisabeth is very friendly and has such a sweet disposition. Her film, ‘The Commune’, is playing after Hooker tomorrow at the festival. I wonder what kind of horror someone as dear as Elisabeth and her sister, Brenda, would make. Their two shorts – ‘Consumed’ (Elisabeth’s) and ‘Distraught’ (Brenda’s) show me their edgy, dark humor which makes me like them and their style even more.

One message that these festivals have stated and proved is that gender does not dictate what the work will be. Over the next six hours, we will see Valley Girl Zombies shop for brains, an infant cooked alive, a cheese-grater style dildo, child-created monsters take their pounds of flesh, a Hollywood wannabe slice away those excess pounds, puppy mutilation and reconstruction, the walking dead, supposed victims that take shit from no killer, vastly creative kills and bloodletting, a woman spout a fountain of seemingly endless blood, a couch potato’s Frankenstein wet dream come true, and so many more shocking, entertaining, and impressive moments that reveal that there is a legion of upcoming female film makers that are ready to take on the genre and eliminate any of the lingering misinterpretations of gender in horror.

Elisabeth gives us the run down of what is happening now and what is going to happen at Bleedfest tomorrow. We are met by Heidi, who I haven’t seen stop moving since we arrived, who lets us know that we will be starting the red carpet within the next few minutes. I can only imagine the level of stress and coordination that she is going through as she hides it very well. With all the smiles you see around the lobby and the excitement in the air, only Heidi and Shannon might have any idea of any trouble shooting that may have existed. We make our way to the carpet.

Across the room, we see one of the guest presenters, Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Drones). I try to think of something cool to say to her that I never actually do. We stand in line waiting for our time on the carpet and in the spotlight. Our fellow Canadians, two fantastic girls from Montreal, Maude Michaud (her short ‘Hollywood Skin’ will play in the Experimental portion of the fest, bloody good) and Michelle Ayoub (who is not only talented in film, but is also in stereotype-crushing music) are also in line. When you get so many ladies together in an industry that is known for its competitive nature, you may assume that it will be a total bitchfest. Even in my most optimistic, I figure that I will run into at least one or two undesirable personalities at any event, but Viscera was beyond such inane unpleasantries.

Many of the film makers had an opportunity to meet and get to know one another the previous night at the Mistress of Horror Gathering hosted at Heidi and Stacie Ponder’s (also a film maker whose films show the proper way to use Barbie dolls – homicidally) beautiful Californian home. Her movie collection, it takes up almost an entire wall, is incredible. It is filled with classics, obscures, and everything in between. It was Shannon’s birthday during the gathering, there was cake, but she had so many things to get done before Viscera that she was unable to attend. She never mentions it, she is too much of a professional to vent about any frustrations she may have felt about working the entirety of her birthday. Heidi does an excellent job of getting everyone acquainted with one another. We give introductions, talk about our projects, and share stories from the business.

Heidi stands by the carpet announcing the film makers and guests as they get their photos and video taken. I am hugged – Scream Queens, Tara Cardinal and Devanny Pinn, have arrived. It’s one of those strange moments that are getting more and more common in this new cyber age where you get to know someone online, then finally meet them in the flesh. During Women In Horror Month last February, Tara and Devanny hosted their own blood drive south of the boarder and collected gallons of the red stuff and food and clothing for the victims of Haiti. We have been friends and fans ever since. They look beautiful, we tell them so, they tell us that we look beautiful. We have a million things to say to one another, but it’s our turn to walk the carpet. We decide on getting a photo of the four of us as Jen, CJ, and I take our place.

It’s a surreal feeling to be standing in front of so many cameras and people being so excited to see you. We smile, we get our photos taken, we come back to get photos with more of the girls. I get a nice, cold Heineken to fight the humidity – it works. Upstairs there is a rooftop bar for the afterparty and a VIP room filled with goodies on the second floor. The show is about to start, after chatting with new friends, we head into the massive theater.

Heidi and Shannon open the event and introduce the first guest presenter, Amber Benson. She is as adorable and charming as you die-hard Buffy fans might have expected. She digs horror and is excited to see the female take on it tonight. The lights go out and the films start – ‘Drones’ trailer (Amber Benson and Adam Busch), ‘Dead Hooker in a Trunk’ trailer (Jen and Sylvia Soska), ‘Space Girls’ trailer (Stacie Ponder), ‘Sprinkles’ trailer (Roger A. Scheck and Brooke Lewis), ‘Movie Monster Insurance’ (Paula Haifley), ‘BRAINS’ (Shannon Lark and Amber Steele), ‘Confederate Zombie Massacre’ (Devi Snively), ‘Snow Day, Bloody Snow Day’ (Faye Hoerauf and Jessica Baxter), ‘Barbie Butcher’ (Sophie Lagues), ‘I Spit on Eli Roth’ (Devi Snively), ‘Heading Home’ (Jane Rose), and ‘Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear’ (Stacie Ponder).

We vacate the theater for more chatting and more drinks – energy ones this time. I meet Shannon Lark for the first time in person downstairs. She is lovely. I introduce myself and we shake hands. I’m glad that I get to meet her before I see her short, ‘Lip Stick’. She is a confident and ballsy lady – the groans and gasps from the audience say it all as her short film plays out. It’s one of the ones that people talk amongst each other in the hallways with shocked giggles.

We get interviewed for the Viscera behind the scenes documentary.  It’s cool to get to talk about the festival. Apparently, this is the first time the festival has been held at such a venue, usually it is held from Shannon’s basement (someone tells me this in the stairwell). It makes this evening even more impressive as it is going off smashingly well.

We miss the introduction into the experimental section by Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever, Return to the House on Haunted Hill) which is a major bummer because I really wanted to get to see her. The experimental films start – ‘The Commune’ trailer (Elisabeth Fies), ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ (Sallie Smith), ‘Salome’s Picnic’ (Victoria Waghorn), ‘Distraught’ (Brenda Fies), ‘The Date’ (Jennifer Gigantino and Natasia Schibinger), ‘Hollywood Skin’ (Maude Michaud), ‘Mary Jane Go Round’ (Ginnetta Correli), ‘When Sally Met Frank’ (Victoria Waghorn), ‘Lip Stick’ (Shannon Lark and Stacie Ponder), ‘Sisters’ (Belinda Green-Smith), ‘Fantasy’ (Izabel Grondin), and ‘Beautiful As You Are’ (Doug Mallette and Mary Katherine Sisco). There are laughs, gasps, and cheers. The violence and weirdness is amping up. Next is the Scary portion and I am stoked.

I take a pee break. Amber Benson washes her hands beside me. This is where the before-mentioned cool thing to say to her could have happened, but neurotically, I didn’t want to be the weirdo that wanted to talk in the bathroom. I head back to my seat and run into Heidi. She has been everywhere making sure things go smoothly. She stops to ask if we are having a good time. I let her know that we are. We don’t really get too much time to hang out, which is part of our sporadic conversations, but I really respect a woman who works as hard as she does. She has a wicked sense of humor and you can’t help having a good time hanging out with her.

It’s time for the Scary shorts. Brea Grant (Heroes, Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2) takes the stage. She confesses that she is a girly girl which makes me smile. I feel a bit girly for a horror chick myself. She has brought ‘proof’ of her girliness in form of her comic (she collaborates on it with her brother, Zane) – ‘We Will Bury You’. It follows a zombie outbreak in the 1920s. Well, they are definitely not girly. For you fellow comic nerds – the extreme content and nature rivals things you would see from Garth Enins and Steve Dillon’s ‘Preacher’ or ‘Punisher MAX’. There’s enough blood, sex, violence, and dark humor to make any fangirl squeal with delight.

The lights go out and the Scary begins. Tara and Devanny are sitting in front of us. They have been an absolute treat to watch and comment with. Their trailers are coming up and they have a camera to catch the reaction. They begin to play – ‘Song of the Shattered’ (Wolfgang Meyer, Brandon Slagle, and Devanny Pinn), ‘Legend of the Red Reaper’ (Jose Zambrano Casella, Matt Dean, and Tara Cardinal), ‘Side Effect’ (Liz Adams), ‘The Resurrectionist’ (Susan Bell), ‘The 17^th Man’ (Yimeng Jin), ‘Don’t Lose Heart’ (Matt Mitchell and Talieysn Brown), ‘Mockingbird’ (Marichelle Daywalt), ‘Wretched’ (Heidi Martinuzzi and Leslie Delano), ‘Switch’ (Melanie Light), ‘Void’ (Meredith Berg), and ‘Consumed’ (Elisabeth Fies).

The lights go up as Heidi Martinuzzi and Shannon Lark take the stage. There is a huge applause and cheers. We holler loudly. It’s been hours and hours of horror. I feel a little stir crazy, but my excitement to be a part of such an event trumps any fatigue. The audience votes for their favorite which deservingly goes to Liz Adam’s ‘Side Effect’. I don’t want to give anything away, but there is some ultra violence here that will please even the most hard-core of horror fan. There is a brief Q & A where horror, gender, and business come into discussion. It’s hip to see so many male feminists out to support the film makers.

The awards are given out. I hold my breath and get optimistic. Ladies take the stage and take their awards. Poo, no award for Hooker… but wait! We head into the hallway and start talking to more folks. Some one wants to introduce us to their distributor. Shannon comes over – ‘Where’s your award?’ She brings us down to the stage to give us one. It’s awesome – a headstone-style statuette with a film reel crowned on a heap of gore! I LOVE IT. It’s such a nice touch to such a hip show. We get photos taken and shake hands. There is now a stupid, insanely happy grin painted on my face that may never leave.

It’s getting late and Bleedfest starts at noon tomorrow. We want to be there early, so we start our goodbyes and head to the car. The car that we only find because of Marichelle Daywalt, film maker and human being extraordinaire. Exhausted, we return to our motel. We tell stories of everything that happened to one another and gush about the feeling of success. The cockroaches, that endlessly crawl the walls, seem proud of us. We fall asleep watching ‘From Dusk Til Dawn 2’.

I brush my teeth twice this morning due to nerves. I am nervous. This feeling will stay with me until I hear the first laugh from the audience watching ‘Dead Hooker in a Trunk’. CJ, Jen, and I are dolled up and looking good. We stop briefly at Greco’s Pizza on the way to the Two Roads Theater. We find parking easily enough and memorize where the car is this time. We get our box of merchandise out of the trunk (no Hooker this time) and walk over to the venue.  The Fies ladies are already hard at work setting up the festival.

Elisabeth and Brenda have these perfect, cheerful smiles that are intoxicating. They have catered the venue themselves with treats, drinks, and wine. We set up our merchandise in a corner and help the ladies poster up the walls, windows, and street. Already, there are die-hards lined up outside. We exchange knowing glances of inner horror-geek joy. I make a dead hooker joke that gets a hardy laugh. I ask the good-natured gentleman how he heard about Bleedfest and he lets me know that he read it on one of his favorite horror sites. I am constantly amazed by how tightly woven the horror community is and touched by how supportive we are of one another.

It’s noon, time to rock the show. Elisabeth introduces the first film, ‘In Memorium’, which is a reality-style paranormal film by Amanda Gusack. The film follows a terminally ill young man who has given up his hopeless fight with cancer but not his love of film. He decides to move into a house with his girlfriend and fill it with motion-activated surveillance cameras to capture his last days. It’s heart breaking and sad, especially to anyone who has had that cunt cancer fuck with their lives, but I digress. The film takes an unexpected turn when a camera in the ‘sitting room’ captures something supernatural. Check the trailer on YouTube – this part made Jen jump in her seat and, subsequently, CJ and I laugh at her because that’s what friends do.  This came out five years before ‘Paranormal Activity’ which is lame because it’s a brilliant idea that just ended up being ripped off like most creative ideas in the film industry.

Before the film comes to its horrific conclusion, I get a text from Loyd Bateman –producer, camera, actor, and stunt coordinator from Hooker – with a picture of him sporting a Hooker T-shirt next to our poster outside. As soon as the film is done, we head outside to see him. He is with Raymond Chan, an actor and stunt actor from the film. He eviscerated someone for us in one of our goriest scenes and is one of the most genuinely nice guys in the industry, so he has a special place in our twisted little hearts. Despite their busy schedules (if you check their imdb page, you will understand), they can stay for the screening and Q & A afterwards. We get so caught up shooting the shit that we miss the next short film, ‘Simone’ by Jenine Mayring. The short is a psychological thriller that exposes the ultimate dating nightmare. I walk into the Q & A portion with the lovely Jenine as they discuss how people often laugh, and did so during viewing, at deaf people. I really wish I had caught it and, being a guilty Catholic, feel awful about it for the next few days.

I sit in an entirely new spot for no real reason with Jen. CJ is in the projection room to make sure that the film plays properly. There is an unspoken paranoia amongst film makers that sound or picture issues, which most often go completely unnoticed by the audience, will occur and dampen the experience. The very familiar opening sounds and song plays. I hold my breath and wait for the first laugh. At my most neurotic, I think it will be a disaster. They laugh. Thank God for Goody Two-Shoes. We are joined by Tara and Devanny in our row. Behind us are the fabulous Fies. Loyd and Raymond are across from them. There are laughs and cheers and I feel very fortunate to have the film playing here with such a wonderful audience. We take the stage for a Q & A portion after the screening.

Making a film, especially one that has such an independent feeling with cast being crew and everyone chipping in, feels like a family. Getting to talk about the making of and telling stories from set brought back a million memories. Afterwards, the winning and lovely Brea Grant meets us in the lobby to tell us that she dug the film. Her words give me a big happy/stupid smile. I tell her that I really liked her comic book slides. The crowd is incredibly kind as they talk about the film and different parts that stood out to them.

It’s time for the final film, Elisabeth Fies’ ‘The Commune’. I’ve been creeping it online to find out as much as I can. There is a promised hardcore, shocking ending that has piqued my curiosity. From their shorts, I know that Elisabeth and Brenda can deliver the goods, so I am ready for a good show. I am not disappointed. The film is about a girl named Jenny. She is the product of divorce, but has a smart no bullshit attitude to life. Her sixteenth birthday is coming up and what teen wouldn’t want to leave her home to stay with her estranged father on his commune? It’s not all bad, she meets an emo babe during her adventures and their romance is very sweet. Elisabeth plays Jenny’s mother – who seems like the perfect pal-mom with a secret raunchy side. Well, there are more secrets. I’m not going to spoil the movie, but it delivers. It delivers something so graphic and upsetting at the end that the audience didn’t make a peep. Mission accomplished, Elisabeth. A pitch perfect sexualized, psychological thriller.

The ladies take the stage to answer questions. I ask a sex question about some of the scenes and Elisabeth has some great stories to share. She is one ballsy film maker and I will be in line for whatever project she has up next. We fill the lobby with the audience and film makers as we all speak enthusiastically about what we all just witnessed. I sell some Hooker merch which will make my dad happy. He and my mom have been our partners in Twisted Twins Productions since the get go, helping their overly ambitious daughters build a small empire. When we run out of credit cards to max out or spend all that we have left, they are always there to pitch in. My dad, being a damn great graphic designer, created our T-shirts and bumper stickers. The blood pens were outsourced.

That out-dated misconception that there is a ‘type’ that creates horror movies must be quivering, lying bleeding in an astral alley somewhere. The films that we have seen over the last two days – roughly around twelve hours of work – has left us inspired, shocked, humored, and excited for the future of film making. At one point, an audience member asked what the future of female horror film makers may be and several answers were given by various intelligent sources citing the first Oscar given to a female director with more and more female artists taking the spotlight. From what I have seen and experienced, there is a huge plethora of talent out there. There are new ideas creating material that will give you nightmares and want to pick up a camera yourself. Media can only get better with more voices being heard. I hope that these feminists, both ladies and gentlemen, will continue to make fucking great work and that venues like Viscera and Bleedfest will continue to promote and celebrate these rad film makers and films. Major props to Heidi, Shannon, and Elisabeth for a truly memorable and fun-filled weekend! See y’all there next year.

Tags: Bleedfest Film Festival, CJ Wallis, Dead Hooker In A Trunk, Elisabeth Fies, Forty FPS Productions, Heidi Martinuzzi, Jen Soska, Marichelle Daywalt, Stacie Ponder, Sylvia Soska, Twisted Twins Productions, Viscera Film Festival