Diary Sunday November 1st 2015 The Festival Of Fantastic Films

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My second day at the 26th Manchester based annual film festival, having missed its opening night. I travelled in early by bus, which run less frequently on a Sunday. I spent much of the day watching movies and panel items. I chatted with other con attendees and bought an expensive book written and signed by Victoria Price about her father, Vincent Price for my Mum for Christmas though that is being posted on to me. The opening film of the day was an odd Italian Guello (yellow) cod-Hitchcockian murder drama called The Night Evelyn Came Out Of Her Grave – tacky and full of soft-porn tosh. It was by no means offensive but it made no sense at all. A talk by actress Sarah Douglas followed. She is best known for playing Ursa, one of three super-villans in Superman 2, but she has been in many movies, including The People That Time Forgot (which she sees as her most fun filming experience) Conan The destroyer, V- The Mini-Series and Falcon Crest among much more. Superman 2 was screened after her appearance, but having seen it, I watched a Japanese horror movie instead, Ghosts Of Kagami Pond, which was almost Shakespearian melodrama. A talk by Harry Potter and Doctor Who actor Simon Fisher Becker the Fat Friar ghost in the first Potter movie) got very surreal in that M J Simpson sacrificed his chairing of the discussion to a twelve year old boy who did an amazing job of it. When Fisher-Becker described how some film work he has done has been left on the cutting room floor the boy amazed him by relating his own experiences of the same thing. The boy had danced in a Bollywood feature but because of his small height, the camera didn’t see him once. Fisher-Becker seemed unsure what to say at first but came back finally with a shrill ‘I know your pain’. Two bonkers B-Movies followed. It – The Terror From Beyond Space, and The Giant Claw. The last movie shown was The Reptile, which I have seen, so I slipped out to a café for food and returned as it finished. With a short break before the official closing ceremony for the festival, a brief animation about a skeletal cowboy killing Dracula in a time-travelling fairground was added, and then Ramsey Campbell thanked the event organizers for their hard work over the event. The night concluded with the now increasingly challenging annual quiz which I happened to be on the winning team for the second year in a row though I only got a few answers for us. We won a bottle of Bourbon specially labelled for the event, which our captain requested to keep and never unseal. We had lots of wine, whiskey and rum offered round anyhow, as well as lots of sweets, crisps, nuts and cheeses as well. I stayed until my last bus was imminent and said goodbye to my wonderful friends before leaving. I was home before discovering that I’d left my phone at the hotel which means popping in on Monday to retrieve it. A huge thanks again to everyone involved in and attending the festival. I’ll review many of the movies I watched there in the days to come. Arthur Chappell