Incest, bikinis, and 8-year-olds: A preview of the Madison Horror Film Festival

There’s really no surefire criteria for judging a horror film. Scariness might immediately spring to mind, but where does that leave the mindless fun of campy, blood-drenched gore-gasms? And if body count’s the arbiter, then what of those moody classics where half the fun is watching someone go bat-shit insane? Now in its second year, the Madison Horror Film Festival attempts to answer these questions, all while providing a whole bunch of gut-ripping slasher fun. The fest’s 21 films are showing at Market Square Theatre Oct. 3-4, and since no screeners were provided, we’re relying on the festival organizers’ picks and our own twisted observations for recommendations. Here’s what The A.V. Club found intriguing.

The granddaddy of gore, and the ladies of death
UW-Madison alum Stuart Gordon is known around town for founding Broom Street Theater, and one has to wonder how that den of quirk influenced his crowning horror achievement, Re-Animator. On Saturday, Gordon will be on hand for a special 35-mm screening of Re-Animator (8:50 p.m.) with a Q&A, as well as another Q&A screening of the episode “Dreams In The Witch House” (Oct. 4, 4:45 p.m.) from the Showtime series Masters Of Horror. Also appearing at the fest are Debbie Rochon, Elske McCain, and Scarlet Salem, a trio for whom the question “Horror B-listers or soft-core porn stars?” is a reasonable one.

Bikinis, blood, and . . . well, bikinis and blood
There’s rarely any shortage of horror films in the “half-naked women die” oeuvre, but festival organizer Rich Peterson lists Bikini Girls On Ice (Oct. 4, 11:00 a.m.) as one of his can’t-misses. The movie’s title introduces a half-second of doubt as to whether these bikinied beauties are going to be slaughtered while shivering on an ice rink, but a spin through the trailer tells a different story: They’re simply killed and put on ice.

Hey, it’s that one guy!
Low-budget horror films are often promoted as featuring that one guy from that one show/movie you’ve vaguely heard of, but don’t really remember. The MHFF is no exception, particularly with Deadland (Oct. 3, 10:35 p.m.), starring William Katt. William Katt, you say? He’s that dude from the TV show The Greatest American Hero. It ran in the early ’80s? And it had that song with the line, “Believe it or not I’m walking on air / I never thought I could feel so free”? Anyway, he’s in it.

Um, kid, you got an I.D.?
Inside A Car’s (Oct. 4, 2:15 p.m.) descriptive blurb—“A man's life takes a turn for the worse after he encounters an apparition on the doorstep of his new home, gets trapped in his own car, then discovers a human skull in the backseat”—seems to draw on standard horror tropes until you realize by “man” they mean “8-year-old boy named Shea Standing, who wrote and directed this nine-minute short.” We’re guessing this has little chance to fall anywhere between awesome and interminable—it’s going to be received as either one or the other. Here’s a sneak preview.

Homegrown family love
The festival unofficially kicks off on Friday, Oct. 2 with the première of Incest Death Squad (fest organizers were involved with the film’s development, so they thought it unfair to include it in the festival proper), a cheery familial tale that includes many Madison-based actors, and music from local bands like Helliphant and Buried Future. The A.V. Club interviewed the film’s creator Cory Udler in June, and he told us about some of the backlash he encountered during shooting. Since art should be judged on merit and not knee-jerk reactions regarding murderous copulating siblings, we’re going to suggest giving it a look.