I came back to reality drinking a cup of coffee, checking a newspaper to see if the stock market price of sanity had gone up. The edges of sleep deprivation had begun to enclose my mind.

BUYBUY!

SELLSELL!

I’d all but decided to miss Sean Hogan’s ‘Lie Still’. I wasn’t too hungover, but I was tired and running late. In fact, with the thirst setting in and sleep deprivation already dancing on my brain, the chances of me actually going to many of the films was slim.

I had myself delivered to the IFI in separate sections, wherein I had myself reassembled in the disability toilet by a cripple. Which probably explains why I now have to take my shirt off to blow my nose.

Once ready and fighting fit, I headed directly to the smoking section and with the help of a plunger device, forced two cigarettes directly into my brain. It wasn’t pretty and probably would have gone a lot smoother had that woman just stopped screaming.

Strangely enough, in all my sleep-deprived haste, I discovered I’d arrived early and the bar wasn’t open for alcohol. I tried, I even begged, it was only about forty minutes away, but the barman wouldn’t budge…

No one likes to see a grown man beg. I may even have clawed the bar and sobbed some.

I hooked up with Mike (Eatmybrains.com) first and drank coffees sweetened with good old bag booze. Bushmills to be exact. The conversation moved quickly back to movies and all related realities. In a move of rare cunning, I was careful not to mention my plot to do away with him.

I discovered, that in ‘Shaun of the Dead’ when Dylan Moran had been pulled out of the window and torn apart, that those legs had belonged to Mike. It’s a pretty good claim to fame, one that’d left me thinking how cool it would have been to be the stand in tongue for Alan Bates in ‘The Shout’. I mean, think about it; “What do you do?” “Oh well, I’m a stunt tongue.” “Really? Sounds difficult.” “Oh indeed, spent two grueling years at RADA for it too.” Still though, presented with the competition, I was looking for a good moment. No witnesses. I still had the clump of napkins. It would be quick. Fast snatch, clamp, crush his windpipe to make it go faster. If it was between movies, I’d be able to get his body to a wasteland, probably Limerick. If not, I could disguise it with some green spray paint and hide him amongst the potted plants.

I’d had to abandon the ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ plan due to the fact I was worried people might start mistaking me for the corpse.

Having distracted Mike with a DVD and completed the soliloquy needed by any quasi-villain about to murder for his own personal advancement, I was just beginning to curl ophidian around the table about the coffees, when Jay appeared, beer in hand.

“Big Fella – Little Big Fella, bigbigfellafella-GeezerGoreBoozeAleoooIbetShe’sagoerBlastFighter!-Geezer”

The voice cut across the IFI like the song from a whippoorwill in some lost Lovecraft story.

Beer? Hey, wait, how the hell did you get a beer? Oh, the bars open.

A pocketed left hand ready to throw a distracting fistful of powdered blowfish into Jay’s eyes, unclenched and retreated quickly.

Thwarted, I snapped back to my seat like an old soggy elastic band and slinked off to the bar.

Both Jay and Mike were in fine fighting form, as I have to admit was everybody. It’s that special Horrorthon stamina, the unknown reserve you last used as a child around Christmas time. The Thursday and the Friday had been a fine warm-up and at this stage, the Horrorthon was in full swing.

To those of you planning on coming and I hope you all are planning on coming to the 10th anniversary this year. Don’t think you can just hop along for these two days, the build-up is needed, it’s like a jogging machine starting up, once you forgo your health and your sanity, you hit your stride and its wonderful.

I didn’t go in for ‘Darklands (Director’s cut)’. I hadn’t much interest in something everyone was telling me was like ‘The Wicker Man’ except not as good and based in Wales. I’ve been to Wales and I barely escaped with my life, I didn’t need to see a documentary about the place. I’ll watch it and review it again. Don’t expect me to like it. I guess I have to commit Horror-fan community suicide and para-quote the words of Peter Griffin some.

I didn’t like ‘The Wicker Man’. I enjoyed it for what it was, nothing more, nothing less.

It insists upon itself.

And what is worse than it insisting upon itself, is all the fans who insist upon insisting upon it. I’m sick of them, of you. Oh, if I don’t agree that Wickerman is one of the greatest horror movies of all time then I just don’t understand it. Yeah okay, here’s a short pier, race ye. You’re as bad as those Rob Zombieites who can’t see what a steaming pile of shit ‘House of a 1000 Corpses’ was.

Lets adopt a crazed staccato voice and talk in metaphor for a moment.

This is my porch, I have a prosthetic leg And a shotgun.

Don’t come around here no more

Stay away from the orchard

Leave my goddamn apples alone.

‘The Wicker Man’ isn’t even a horror movie. It’s an occult drama. You’re the same driveling crowds that claim things about films like while you enjoyed, you couldn’t really understand it, it didn’t make much sense to you. Safe, sensitive, pseudo-intellectual fuckers with superiority complexes. I hope they remake it once a year. Yes that’s right, I’m wishing that evil on you. I bow down and swear to Godzilla, the only reason I haven’t been escorted from a horror festival for the most sudden and violent beating in history of a Wicker man fan is because I’m currently on the run from other things and I know your smug self satisfied pasty face just isn’t worth having to start thinking about changing my currency to cigarettes.

See? That’s why I didn’t go in to see ‘Darklands’. It could have gone either way, anything could have happened. For that matter, while we’re on the subject; I hate ‘Scarface’ that’s right, all you Tony Montana quoting, aping, poster owning half-wits, “You fucking hump”, you ruined it for me. And you, the blancmange sensitive souls who tell me I’m sick and in need of help because I like exploitation films. There’s a special place in hell reserved for both you and your self-righteousness.

See? This is what thoughts of a poor Wicker man clone do to me. Its like the Gordon pronunciation of Dagon. It’s not Day-gon and its realise with a goddamn S. Shit, I really need to get a handle on this and calm down. My angry muttering has managed to attract the attention of the waitress three times. She keeps bringing me beer and pots of Jasmine tea. There’s barely room to write. So, aye, I gave ‘Darklands’ a miss and sat drinking with Jay, Mike and Tuomas instead. It’s a good satisfying thing to find people you can talk to about film, who both manage to know what they’re talking about and not be pretentious.

It was around this time that I got to do my first interview. It was Jay Slater; it went very well except for one glaring problem. We did it in the corner of the bar in the IFI. Which, suffering from poor acoustics already was not helped by the fact it suddenly got very busy. So that’s it, had I recorded at a higher setting, things might have been different. That’s what’s holding back the Jay Slater interview. Its like trying to decipher someone with a mouthful of walnuts speaking Swahili and Dutch at the same time. If anyone reading this happens to be a whiz kid sound engineer, please, get in touch.

The beers were starting to fly fast and at least one passing woman had gotten one in the face in an inspired if messy and shrapnel filled moment of comedy. I was beginning to worry I might get too drunk to interview Lamberto Bava.

I skipped ‘The Lost’ and headed off across the city. I had an appointment with a whiskey store. Because it was my first proper interview with someone quite famous, not like that hack Slater, someone who had generally lifted up the potentially boring portions of my childhood and someone who had said they’d give an interview to someone from a fledgling website that wasn’t even live. I had decided to get Mr. Bava a present. Namely, a bottle of Islay scotch whisky, Bruichladdich, cask strength, fifteen years old.

Weighed down with booze, I headed back towards the IFI, stopping only to stock up on cigarettes and another half bottle top up to the supply of bag booze. I swerved into the IFI and got several things to steady my nerves for the agonizing weight before my interview.

I’m not going to lie, at first I wasn’t, but gradually over the course of the wait, which included moving in to watch Jay conduct the end of his interview, I began to shit a brick. I don’t know whether it was watching Jay steam roll through his. Maybe it had something to do with watching Jay ask questions you’d intended on asking. Note to self; try not to end up sitting in on other Journalist’s interviews, even if they haven’t seen your questions and you barely know them, the resulting paranoia regarding abduction and mind reading devices can and will prove crippling whilst you fumble about with pieces of paper.

Yes, I know he’s human and just another guy. All the same though, your first interview can be pretty intimidating. (Note: It probably would have been moreso if not for the kind words, support and general walkthrough from Mr.Slater.)

I didn’t get to see ‘The Torturer’ due to the fact I would be interviewing Mr. Bava during it. But before I went in to watch Jay finish up, I watched Bava introduce it and caught the first few minutes. It looked interesting. Funnily enough, I had just been thinking I wanted to see more blowtorch work in horror films.

Jay’s interview was filmed by Mark with the camera. It was a good one, so if you see either Mark, Jay or Ed, hassle them for a copy.

By this stage nerves had set in to a level I might call end stage parkinsons. So Jay wrapped up and like an absolute gentleman, ambled off to get me a beer. I hadn’t wanted to drink through the interview, but I had such a case of unexplainable nerves buoyed up with peeling withdrawals that I needed something to hold in my hand and offset and hopefully hide the hideous shakes I’d developed.

The interview began with the whisky hand over. He seemed pleased, at least, if pleased is indicated by cradling the whisky as if it were a child, rocking it back and forth glowingly then swatting Bruno’s hand when he tried to look at it. I guess it went down well.

Bruno Busetti was I think, the director of the Cultural Attaché Italian Embassy. The I think in there being the wavey hand sort of airy vagueness you try and affect when I actually know I’m right because I’ve got his business card in front of me, but hey, appearances and all. He was also like many of the people I’d met during the Horrorthon, a smiling happy fellow predisposed to putting you at ease. The interview went well. At least, I think so. Possibly having your second interview as largely a foreign language isn’t the best idea. I, a reasonably polite person had absolutely no idea where to look or who to look at. Do you spend the entire interview staring at Mr. Bava or do you spend the entire interview staring at Bruno as he translates.

Aside from this small point, I also discovered something I shall refer to as interview time. I had thought the entire thing had lasted only fifteen to twenty minutes, perhaps twenty three at a push. When it was done, I found out I’d been in there for an hour or so. The realization of this and the fact that the Bava interview had gone smoothly without a hint of spontaneous implosion or the interference of time traveling sprouts, left me generally dizzy and in need of a strong drink. Probably whiskey, in the quadruple measure frame.

Switched back on and turned back up, the night resumed full swing. Lamentably Bava headed off to have dinner with Bruno, so it was just the usual suspects. This had been ear marked as the big night out. The strap your balls to your chin we’re going in rough sort.

But first – first there was the matter of two more ‘Masters of Horror’ episodes. They were introduced once again by Andrew Deane with his usual roaring Hollywood circus aplomb. In the right light, it almost looked as if he was wearing tails and a top hat – barker style.

Family

From series two, this Brent Hanley written episode is John Landis’ second entry into the MOH canon. All this really does, is hammer home the confirmation that John Landis is back on roaring form. To any skeptics who watched ‘Deer Woman’ and wondered if it was just a ‘Dream on’ inspired fluke, this little piece strides the screen like Hicks doing an impression of Robin Williams. A mean one.

Both giving top notch performances, Meredith Monroe and Matt Kesslar are a young married couple who have just moved into a new house in a new suburb in a new city. As you can expect, the man across the street is not exactly what he seems.

Solid in every respect, this piece is lifted immeasurably by George Wendt who just about steals every scene, even the ones he’s not in. That he seems to have been over looked for so long is a shame.

Anything I can say about the contents of this episode would give something away. It’s veined with comedy, but of a much darker sort than ‘Deer Woman’. There is also a cohesiveness in it you rarely find anymore, right down to the music, some of which, I need to find, need to own. Will ‘Masters of Horror’ be releasing a soundtrack series? I bloody well hope so.

In regard to ‘Family’ as a complete package I can find only one failing and it’s a minor one; it’s ending is a little bit predictable. While not as predictable I mind in this case, it was just a small bit disappointing.

Here’s a hoping John Landis does a full-length feature sometime soon, three and a half out of five.

Pelts

Like Landis’ ‘Family’, ‘Pelts’ is Dario Argento’s second entry into the MOH series. F Paul Wilson’s short story being adapted for the screen by Matt Venne and later described as an erotic tale told in the Giallo style. I didn’t really see the eroticism in this; it feels just like a supernatural Giallo with the usual nudity and sex.

I hate being lied to about eroticism.

I was expecting ‘Black Lace’ you give me Mills & Boon.

Bastards.

I’m not going to dress it up in fancy clothes, for the most part, I’m like Homer as a restaurant critic, everything is good. Except for the bad shit, which I probably just didn’t understand.

So basically, I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything Argento has put out, the same going for ‘Pelts’. He’d have to really try to disappoint me and what with John Saxon and Meatloaf, ‘Pelts’ was never going to disappoint me.

The story centres around raccoon pelts of a supernatural origin in an obvious fashion.

Hold your breath there…

Bad things happen to those who come in contact with them.

The entire episode is beautifully shot, complete with some wonderful little scenery asides. With a satisfying Simoneti score and good fist clenching effects. I feel that for those people who have been complaining in recent years, ‘Pelts’ is a good sign that whatever they felt Argento was lacking has returned.

Now for the problem – the story is too big for just an hour. The whole piece bristles and bulges at the edges, it feels cramped, as if a much wider story was forced down into an hour. Things are half told, threads trail off at the ends like a wooly jumper your hook handed epileptic aunt knitted you last Christmas.

There are hints, that if allowed to have a full running time, the entire thing would have been far better and could well have shaped up into some sort of Argento Pan’s Labyrinth and for that, I resent it. I wanted it longer, more polished and rounded, everything evened out. And while I know that’s a good thing for a short story, in most cases, the wanting more, its just I feel in this case it does ‘Pelts’ a disservice.

All the same though – watch it, enjoy it.

‘Masters of Horror’ is still banging the drum and banging it well.

Buy the box-set, make sure they don’t get to stop making these babies.

Two and a half out of five. I’d give it two and three quarters, but I don’t think they’ll let me.

With the ‘Masters of Horror’ episodes finished and closed by Andrew Deane, we retired to the bar like gentlemen at the beginning of ‘Eighty Days around the world’ except more drunken and shabby and without the accents, what-what.

Like I said before, this was to be the big night out for the Horrorthon assembled and somehow I’d been lumped with deciding where to bring people. I still haven’t figured out how this worked, I’d come to cover the thing for a website that didn’t technically exist yet and somehow ended up a warped John Merrick version of a university ents officer.

This drawing out of describing the end of night festivities is basically the journalistic equivalent of a man coughing nervously and considering his options.

So yeah…

We started off in the IFI bar, everybody getting down the pre-requisite stomach bedding of booze for further boozing. Things seemed to go fine, people seemed to enjoy themselves, at least I think so, I was busy having a John Lithgow style freak out in and around the smoking section as I tried to figure out where to take the group and why exactly I was deciding.

Hands clenched about face, face searching the heavens imploringly, oscillating vocals, the lot.

In the end, I decided on ‘The Viper Room’. A true gem within the jungle of Dublin’s bar system. They win extra points for serving Lech, quite possibly the greatest beer ever hand poured by buxom, curious and open minded nineteen year old Eastern European virgins.

On the way, Jay discovered two girls, drinking on the knack (Dublin vernacular – outside drinking.). Actually I lie, it wasn’t on the way, it was right outside the IFI. On the way just made it sound more of a Hobbit style there and back again adventure. Which it wasn’t and I’m crap at this sort of thing.

The weather system that is a slightly drunk Jay sweeping up the girls, badgering them about the booze they were drinking then hassling them for it until they forked it over whereupon he began a system I can only describe as guzzling.

Seriously though, I’m just waiting until Jay is playing quasi-host at something I attend. Bottling up the larger part of the madness. When I’m finished, it’ll be five in the evening and he’ll be wiping sleep from his eyes as he wakes up on the backroom of a bar in Aberdeen.

‘The Viper Room’ went good everybody seemed to enjoy themselves, some people scored, nearly everybody got rip roaring drunk – and that’s about all I can tell you. I say anything else I’ll probably either wash up dead off the coast of Dubrovnik or be slapped with a liable case faster than you can say; “You know they’re going to kill you anyway.”

So…

Staving off the being tortured and killed bit, I’ll move swiftly to the bit after ‘The Viper Room’. The party drifted and scattered with the core consisting of Jay, Mike, Carl Daft, Tuomas and myself finding ourselves drinking on the street near the IFI.

This had been intended as just a quiet nip, but then it turned out almost everyone had bag booze and so it ran and ran for quite some time. Time enough for the crazy old man who worked the night desk in Jay’s hotel to come outside and loudly threaten us with the police if we didn’t move on and shut-up.

So we sidled about a handful of metres down the street. Just far enough away so he couldn’t hassle us. The entire scene, respected journalists and distributors, standing passing about half bottles of whiskey in the middle of Temple Bar making me quite proud of my Tramp-Hop belly tattoo “Hobo Life”. Years spent eating from bins and playing the “Move along” game with the police having given me a fortitude against the cold that the others didn’t seem to have.

One thing I did learn though, was if your playing pass the bottle of street-booze and Carl is around, keep a careful eye, he tends to Bogart the half bottle.

And then it was done…

The booze was gone and it was just a matter of last cigarettes and people stumbling off to their hotel rooms.

I had further adventures that night as I wandered off across the city toward home. A portion of which involve the sad but charitable loss of my famous traveling hat, drinking with a junkie by the canal and fending off a group of truly bizarre English tourists looking to pay for things ain’t no man getting off me, money or not and a strange twilight zone experience in a Burger King that no longer served burgers in ways weirder than I can explain in the wrap up of this piece.

All are stories for another day, over a pint somewhere.

Dawn wasn’t rapidly approaching; it had snuck up behind me and happened like a bad case of food poisoning. And the second last day of the Horrorthon was already upon me.

What would the surprise film be?

Would I be able to wake up?

How would a Dublin audience react to Takashi Miike’s ‘Imprint’?

Would I be able to finally corner Mike, the horror website competition and quietly and quickly do away with him, thus clearing the way for the people I was working with?

Would that sinister quacking in the distance finally prove my anatidaephobia right?

And more amusingly – would Jay Slater make his plane?

I’ll probably answer these questions at some point.