I spent the whole day watching horror films at FrightFest to detrimental effect on my sanity

The Rezort

Being a habitual but noncommittal lover of horror films, I wanted to test how far my sanity stretched by committing to an entire day of dark, gory, soul-destroying horror.

What better way to subject myself to that kind of torture, I thought, than hitting up the Horror Channel FrightFest, which had migrated from the bright lights of Leicester Square to Shepherd’s Bush Vue Cinema?

Saturday purveyors were an eclectic bunch and of the six screens, I chose Arrow Video as my temporary prison because it had a wide array of horrors to sample, from the soft-core to the savage.

11am to 11pm. Six films. My sanity hadn't stretched all that far.

Here's a rundown of the films I sat through, and the ensuing spiral into madness:

11am: Film 1, The Master Cleanse

The first film has Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki, so I’m excited. I try surreptitiously to open my family-size bag of Doritos, but the woman sitting in front of me let me know, with her pointed glare, that I wasn’t being quiet. Oh well.

The first film of the day is designed to ease the viewer into a false sense of security and that's precisely what Bobby Miller's introspective horror-lite does; The Master Cleanse is a brief and decidedly bizarre foray into the human condition. Galecki is the bumbling Paul whose endearingly simple character attends a retreat in order to get over the fiancé who left him at the altar. The premise is simple: go to a retreat, drink the juice, and partake in “healing” activities consisting of screaming and forced eye contact with other retreaters.

But here’s where Miller steps in and tells the writers to go crazy. Because when you’re done juicing, you defecate and quite literally “expend” a poo-slug-baby made of all your life's disappointments. At this point in the film, I make awkward ‘what can you do?’ eye contact with the guy next to me, because we’re both confused and slightly weirded out by what's happening on the screen.

A throwback to earlier infestation films akin to David Cronenberg's Shivers, The Master Cleanse delivers story without bite. Although it's a plot indie enough to entice the pretentious critic, ultimately it falls short of pathos.

1:30pm: Film 2, The Rezort

The Rezort

Zombie-driven TV series seem to be making a comeback; the same can’t be said for its filmic counterparts. Director Steve Barker veers from the norm by posing a new question to fill the zombie void: ‘what happens if humans win?’

The creation of a multi-billion dollar business selling thinly-veiled sociopathy to the rich, that’s what.

Described by critics as “Dawn of the Dead meets Jurassic Park” The Rezort is an island populated by zombies. It's used as a lucrative business base of operations by actress Claire Goose’s corporate villain Wilton, who I’m referring to by her last name to signal that she’s really, really bad.

The main character is Melanie, ambiguously youthful and nursing the scars of a zombie war eight years previously. She shuns normal, sofa therapy in favour of an isolated island filled with zombies she can shoot to her heart's content.

Things go wrong (as they are wont to do when zombies and gun-wielding civilians are involved) and said multi-billion dollar industry collapses in on itself as the zombies are accidentally freed.

I can’t help but chuck at the introduction of two East London rude bois who sound like they’ve crawled straight out of Gants Hill’s Cakes and Shakes (because that’s where all the mandem are). I think ‘they’re the ones who will die first.’

They do.

What strikes me about the film is its big budget feel. Director Steve Barker said that, despite being fairly small budget, the film was shot using old anamorphic lenses, giving that “wide movie” composition. Very Hollywood.

The film made me a little contemplative about capitalism, but it mainly made me think of humanity's millennia-old love affair with stupidity. In this case, isolating oneself on an island filled with things that want to eat you.

Despite the potentially creepy premise, the film lacked that Dawn of the Dead desperation.

4pm: Film 3, Abattoir

God, it’s four o’clock already. I snuggle into my seat for Darren Lynn Bousman’s Abattoir, which he fondly refers to as “film noir horror.” Bousman also directed Saw III and IV but his latest film is tame, swapping Jigsaw violence for a muted, glossy cinematic experience as cool as the Grady-the-policeman’s gun.

Julia, a journalist whose beat is real estate and who yearns for the excitement of crime gets her wish when her sister and family are brutally killed in their house. As if that isn’t morbid enough, someone’s gone and literally ripped out her nephew’s entire room – where the murders took place.

At this point, I’ve gone through my extortionately expensive bag of Doritos, and I’m still hungry. Should I try and sneak in a box of Dixy Chicken? The fact that I'm contemplating food makes me worry; have I become desensitised to the horror, or am I bored?

I drag my eyes back to the screen, and at this point Julia's flawless face is scrunched into an expression of delicate fear. I'm probably meant to be feeling scared too, but I just feel tired. Abattoir is like the confused great aunt of Joel Schumacher’s The Number 23; it appears clever and put together from afar but the closer you get, the more it unravels.

What saves the film from ineptitude is Lin Shaye, of Insidious ilk, whose intimate portrayal of the simultaneously warm and demented Allie is enough to open my eyes a little. Think Nanny McFee meets Harley Quinn.

6:15pm: Film 4, Blood Feast

I've been here for seven hours, and the world premiere of the remake of Blood Feast is a pastiche of wanton violence that manages to dislodge my sanity from its comfortable perch and plunge it into dark waters. Marcel Walz gave the1963 original a particularly gruesome upgrade.

Quiet father and husband Fuad Ramses opens up an American diner in France, stops taking his medication – is this a random, red-herring tangent? Is it plot? Why don’t I care? - and goes on a rampage of gore.

Ishtar, an Egyptian goddess he meets during a night shift in a museum, coaxes him into initiating a hecatomb of horror; there’s something in there for the casual gore fan (when Fuad cuts off a homeless boy’s penis), the moderate connoisseur (when Fuad slices himself some buttock meat a-la-young-woman) and those who worship the genre (when Fuad rips out a young woman’s tongue with his teeth).

The dialogue is so bad it makes me physically recoil, but sequence after disgusting sequence of explicit torture scenes serve up precisely the kind of slide into insanity I have been waiting for.

I spend the vast majority of the film with my hands over my eyes, because watching Ramses eat a man alive doesn't inspire anything other than a serious contemplation of my life choices. In fact, at one point my eyes are closed and my fingers are stuffed into my ears to muffle the squelching sound of all hope lost.

Let's just say nobody goes to see Blood Feast for pithy repartee.

8:30pm: Film 5, Sadako vs Kayako

Ten hours in. The previous feature made me dry-heave into my leather backpack. My emotions are completely and utterly unprepared for a film about two of the scariest monsters of my childhood.

So when three minutes in, the camera suddenly pans to Sadako, who's standing behind the probation worker with her hair over her face, my mouth opens of its own volition and a single shriek escapes. It's a packed cinema filled with horror lovers so you can imagine how that goes down; clue?

It involves a lot of laughing.

Having provided the comic relief, I watch the film in earnest. On one side of town, two girls buy an old video player from a second hand electronic shop, only to find the cursed video inside.

Clearly they haven't watched any horror films, because one of them decides to watch it despite the definite ‘curse’ vibes the cracked video is giving off. As per Sadako's curse, the girl sees the entity and gets the dreaded you're-dead-in-two-days phone call. On the other side of town, a girl and her family move in to a new home, which is located next to Kayako's cursed house. Young girl is drawn to the house and eventually enters, making her cursed.

Japanese horror films have a singularly unique affinity towards psychology; the story slithers into your mind so subtly you don’t realise you’re still carrying the fear it evokes; not until you’re lying on your bed staring intensely into the far corner of your room because you could have sworn you saw the shadows move.

Kōji Shiraishi, a seasoned horror director provides all the jump scares a girl can ask for and I am filled with a foreboding sense of inevitability as the plot reaches its peak. The cinematography is stunning, the dialogue is entertaining and when it's finished, I am left feeling devoid of emotion.

One thought however, remains: don't buy vintage anything.

11pm: Film 6, Beyond the Gates

The last film. I didn't think I'd get here. There's a strange sense of other about the place and I look around the dimly lit theatre, as people attempt to gather the bits of them that had scattered across the floor in the process of the day. I see my own desperate, wide-eyed expression mirrored on several faces. These are the hard - core fans; the ones with clout. And then there’s me.

One more film. I could do this.

Beyond the Gates is like Jumanji except with VCR: this game doesn’t unleash a jungle in your attic and Robin Williams’ rosy-cheeked face; it unleashes a doorway to Hell. Or something. They’re not very clear on the details and I'm only half paying attention.

Two estranged brothers clean out their late father’s attic, find a dust-ridden game and decide to play it.

Jackson Stewart’s directorial debut has a certain nostalgic tone that brings to mind cinematic conventions of the 1980s, and the deliberately disjointed effects makes me feel like I'm in a macabre light show.

Despite this, the film is reminiscent of a pretty painting; not beautiful; not visceral. It's just enough to make me shrug and think 'aw, cute brotherly love' but nothing more.

Final thoughts:

It was daytime when I entered, and now the sky is the purple-black of night. My eyes try to adjust to the neon lights of Shepherd’s Bush station, and I have a moment of blind panic, fully expecting something to come at me from the dark corners.

I want to say that I had a life-altering experience, that watching six horror films back-to-back was religiosity, rapture. But in reality, all it did was reignite, in an acute and distressing fashion, my fear of the dark.