After Dark Horrorfest/Originals

[The Villain]

Starting in 2006, After Dark began their annual horror film festival Horror Fest featuring 8 films to die for. This year they began making their own films called After Dark Originals. Every year i have strived to watch these movies and with the exception of the first year and the originals, i have seen every movie.

2006:
The Abandoned:Interesting enough story but i couldnt get into it

Dark Ride:Boring and generic, very uncreative

The Gravedancers:Interesting idea and well done movie. There were actually some scary parts to this one and i generally liked it

The Hamiltons
Reincarnation
Penny Dreadful
Unrest
Wicked Little Things

Sadly i have only seen the first three. I've been meaning to watch the others but just havent gotten around to it.

The Best:The Gravedancers
The Worst:Dark Ride

2007:
Borderland:Pretty interesting movie. Follows a similar format to the Americans in a foreign country story but slightly different. I enjoyed it

Crazy Eights:The only one i didnt like from this year. Very boring generic ghost story. Nothing unique about this one and continually followed a pattern of killing off the characters every time they stupidly went off alone even after becoming aware of the murders.

The Deaths Of Ian Stone:I was probably looking forward to this one the most. The story took a different turn then i expected and due to my own expectations i didnt like it as much as i thought i would but it is still a good movie

Lake Dead:I'm partial to this one as the killers are the evil Lake family and my last name happens to be Lake. Pretty much just your average deformed family movie though. Nothing special but not terrible

Mulberry Street:Zombie movie with a twist. Instead of your average zombie movie, we here have mutant rat people. Gritty visuals and an interesting story. Definitely one of the best that year

Nightmare Man:Seemed very much like an indie film, almost a student project if you ask me. Very different from the other movies on the list. It switches gears halfway through the movie but in a way that is actually done well and for this i liked it

Tooth and Nail:With the exception of the extra film Frontier(s) this movie was probably my favorite. There were some aspects of it i didnt like but i found it to still be intelligently made and enjoyable

Unearthed:I was very interested about this film because i really enjoy monster movies especially those where the monster is released from somewhere. Also since After Dark doesnt do monster movies much, i was excited to see how they would do it. Sadly the monster turned out to be an alien and this was nothing special. Not bad though, just not great

Frontier(s):Gritty, dark and brutal. Exactly the kind of thing thing you would hope for from a foreign movie about people being kidnapped and tortured.

The Best:Frontier(s)
The Worst:Crazy Eights

2009:
This year they switched gears and instead of having it in November of 2008, they held it January of 2009

Autopsy:I was very surprised to see Robert Patrick in this one playing the villain and sadly that was one of the only redeeming things about this movie. Pretty straight forward evil hospital story. Not terrible, but not great

The Broken:Just boring

The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations:I found it weird having this movie on here since they hadnt had any sequels before but i liked the way they took the series especially after the horrible 2nd movie. This one was actually pretty good and i liked it.

Dying Breed:The story veered off of its original story into one less interesting. Not very good

From Within:Not bad but it was the kind of thing you expect to see on the CW except with more violence.

Perkins 14:This story had a very interesting premise and i think it
could have been very good if they had just changed a few things and fleshed it out a bit more. Sadly it was just not that good in the end

Slaughter:Way too generic, even the title is boring. Hated the main character and just couldnt enjoy the story

Voices:Very interesting Korean movie. The creepiest one of the year. Very well done

The Best:Voices
The Worst:The Broken

2010:
Dread:Since it was based off a story from Clive Barker i was very interested and this story did not disappoint. It was shot in a very dark way and all the characters were interesting. It goes in a different direction then the original story but it was still very good

Kill Theory:This could have been great if they had fleshed out the fear the characters had and brought out more of the aspect that they had to kill each other to survive. I still liked it though.

The Final:A group of students decide to seek revenge on the bullies that have tormented them. I expected more from this as the subject matter greatly interested me. There should have been more pain and sorrow from the bullied. The movie should have made you feel bad for the killers and the victims but instead it painted the bullied kids as straight forward villains and disappointed me when they started to turn on each other. Still not terrible though.

The Graves:Not much to say about this one. Not bad i guess

Lake Mungo:So boring, nothing scary about it. If you hate found footage movies, skip this one. If you hate movies that act like a documentary but is actually supposed to be a horror movie definitely skip this.

The Reeds:The story wasnt what i expected and it got a little weird but it was still good.

Hidden:Boring

Zombies of Mass Destruction:This is actually more of a horror comedy then a horror. Actually its pretty much straight up horror comedy. I found it pretty funny though so if you're into that genre, check it out.

The Best:Dread
The Worst:Lake Mungo

2011: After Dark Originals
Husk:I was probably most interested in this one as i like Scarecrow stories but have only seen one good one which is Dark Night of The Scarecrow. When i found out this was going to be released on the SyFy Channel, my expectations were lowered and its a good thing too. Basically the sort of thing you would expect from SyFy. It was just okay

Area 51:Another SyFy debut and just as weird and stupid as you would expect from SyFy. Once again, i lowered my expectations and prepared for a typical SyFy movie and because of that i didnt hate it.

Scream Of The Banshee:Yet another SyFy release but this one was a little better then their typical movies. Too many one liners though which i hate but not bad at all especially since i havent seen too many Banshee movies or really any besides this.

Prowl:The story just seemed incomplete and the vampires were totally a rip off of the ones from 30 Days Of Night. Not very good

Seconds Apart:After Husk, this was the one i was most interested in. Unfortunately its not good. I expected so much more since the story sounded really interesting and it was getting good reviews. The characters weren't fleshed out enough and there was practically no build up. The use of repeated flashbacks all throughout the movie hurt it as well.

Re-Kill
Fertile Ground
The Task

I havent seen the last three but i'll report on them when i do and give my thoughts on what i thought was the best and the worst.

What does everyone else think about these films? Do you have a favorite?

[TheWickerFan]

I've seen most of the films from the 1st and 2nd year, and I found the films pretty mediocre so I never bothered watching any more.

[The Villain]

Yeah none of them will ever be considered great horror movies but they're fun if there's nothing else to do i guess.

[TheWickerFan]

Originally Posted by The Villain

Yeah none of them will ever be considered great horror movies but they're fun if there's nothing else to do i guess.

Yes, I don't remember hating any of them, but just not being overly impressed. If you're a fan of J-horror, Reincarnation is quite a decent flick.

[The Villain]

Originally Posted by TheWickerFan

Yes, I don't remember hating any of them, but just not being overly impressed. If you're a fan of J-horror, Reincarnation is quite a decent flick.

I am so i'll definitely have to check that out

[Angra]

I think there was a lot of great ones in the 2006 collection, especially Reincarnation and The Abandonned. But also Gravedancers and Unrest had some good parts.

[neverending]

I thought both Reincarnation and The Hamiltons were great.

There's an old thread somewhere that Chrono started that has in depth discussions about all the films.

[The Villain]

I'm sure that one's a lot better then mine. Just wanted to keep it kind of casual. Didnt see another thread, must have missed it.

[hammerfan]

Loved "Wicked Little Things" and "Reincarnation"

[roshiq]

Originally Posted by The Villain

Seconds Apart:After Husk, this was the one i was most interested in. Unfortunately its not good. I expected so much more since the story sounded really interesting and it was getting good reviews. The characters weren't fleshed out enough and there was practically no build up. The use of repeated flashbacks all throughout the movie hurt it as well.

I liked Seconds Apart...liked the story, characters were okay..nothing so much disappointing; always enjoyed this sorta twisted Twin Brother story. As an AfterDark originals I think it's a pretty good entry.

Other than SA, I've only seen Husk & Prowl. Both are typical average AfterDark features...didn't like them.