Black Death was a big winner taking home four awards for Best Director (Chris Smith) , Best Actor (Sean Bean), Best Cinematography (Sebastian Edschmid) and Best Musical Score (Christian Henson).

Best Picture went to the French film Caged (Captifs) as well as Best Actress (Zoe Felix)

Filmmaker Jerome Sable won Best Horror Short for his short film The Legend of Beaver Dam.

Best Editing (Olivier Gajan) and Best Special Effects was award to the French film The Pack.

The Aussie flick, Needle, took home an award for Best Makeup.

Controlled by Craig Cambria won for Best Screenplay in Screamfest Horror Film Festival’s screenplay competition.

Screamfest is a non-profit 501 ( 3 ) ( c ) organization held annually and is an internationally recognized and participated in genre film festival honoring independent filmmakers and screenwriters from around the globe.

For more information on Screamfest visit its official website at www.screamfestla.com

The festival is competitive, with approximately 50-60 films screened and will host a variety of workshops and panels covering various aspects of the film industry and horror genre.

All winning entries will be reviewed for consideration for production and/or distribution. In addition, to recognition among thousands of industry professionals, in some cases there will be a cash prize and/or a product/software bundle.

The regular deadline for submission is June 5, 2010. Final submission deadline is July 3rd. All entries must fall into at least one of the following categories: horror, supernatural, monster, sci-fi, crime, thriller, suspense, cult, or mental illness.

For more information and the festival’s submission form, visit their Web site at: www.oklahomahorrorfilmfest.com

A scene from Fritz Lang's Metropolis

To help celebrate The Berlinale’s 60th anniversary next year, Fritz Lang’s original cut of his silent masterpiece Metropolis will debut at the Berlin Film Festival in a gala premiere on February 10, according to a press release.

Metropolis is a classic science fiction film of the silent era. Set in a dystopian future, the story revolves around a young man from a privileged class who falls in love with a girl and slowly begins to identify with the plight of the working class.

The film has extraordinary special effects for the time. When it debuted in January 1927, it was the most expensive film ever made in Germany.

After the film did poorly at the box office, the studio (UFA) re-cut the film and excised almost 30 minutes. Upon re-release, it was a hit. But the original cut of the film has been thought lost for decades.

A large number of sources had known about a longer version, but no prints of it could be found. Then, last year, a 16mm negative of the original film was found in Buenos Aires.

Now the original film has since been restored by the Murnau Foundation in cooperation with pubcaster ZDF, Gallic-German cultural web Arte and the Deutsche Kinemathek.

“The unwavering desire and unflagging efforts to restore what was believed to be Fritz Lang’s lost original cut of Metropolis epitomize the Murnau Foundation’s commitment to save and preserve our rich filmic heritage and make it accessible to the public,” said Eberhard Junkersdorf, Supervisory Board Chairman of the Murnau Foundation.

“Metropolis is a classic of film history and it set the standard for cinematic art worldwide. It symbolizes the tradition and high quality of German film heritage, and its preservation is one of our top priorities,” said Minister of State and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann.

If horror films interest you, be sure to check out the Screamfest LA festival Check out the Web site www.screamfestla.com for showtimes and tickets.

Void promotional poster.

Void

In a small desert town, FBI Special Agent Liz Metera (Jennifer Christopher) is investigating a series of gruesome deaths. Her job is made more difficult by the fact that the bodies seem to be torn apart by an animal — something monstrous. As she begins to piece together the evidence of the latest death, she meets a young boy named Avery (Michael Len). His ill-tempered father may have information about how the victims met their unpleasant fate.

At first glance, Void seems like a cast-off episode of The X-Files. An attractive FBI agent, sans Mulder, is investigating unnatural deaths. She seems well-educated, and doesn’t flinch when she sees the remains of the body. But Agent Metera is more nurturing, more motherly, than Scully could ever be. Her fascination with Avery comes across as natural, not forced for the sake of story. Meredith Berg does a wonderful job of drawing the audience into a place that is both familiar and strange.

Sophie (Anne Gaelle Ponche) faces her fears in the short film Bad Mistake.

Bad Mistake (Mauvaise Erreur)

Sophie (Anne Gaelle Ponche) and her friends like to watch scary movies every Friday night. But Sophie is a bit jaded and doesn’t seem to find anything scary anymore. Then, one night, she is mistakenly kidnapped by masked men. The situation turns sour when the leader realizes that she is not the right woman. And so Sophie must now deal with the horror of her pending death — and see if she has what it takes to survive.

Bad Mistake is a fun short film. In a brief seven minutes, director Xavier Hibon manages to tell a good story quickly. Like a well told joke or fable, it sets up the story, establishes characters, and delivers the turn. When it’s over, the audience is shocked, and then comes to a realization of what has happened. It pays off generously.

The Familiar

If you’re a fan of workplace humor like The Office or Office Space, you will probably have a soft spot in your heart for Sam. As the titular character in writer and director Kody Zimmerman’s short film The Familiar, Sam (Torrance Coombs) has one of the worst jobs imaginable. He’s a familiar for Simon (Paul Hubbard), a 400-year old vampire. For Sam, this once sounded like a perfect job, especially considering the promise that one day he, too, might join the ranks of the living undead. But being a familiar is hard — and often disgusting — work. And after five years of it, Sam is having second thoughts.

Zimmerman manages to make Sam a sympathetic character. Sam narrates the tale, so we’re meant to see things from his sardonic point of view. With his pop culture references and his desire to advance in his career, he’s not particularly dark and brooding. He’s that guy who works in the cubicle next to ours. What makes Sam believable as a character is his voice. This is a character that knows what it means to suffer silently. The Familiar is a small film, but it’s well done with some surprisingly good effects. It may not always be laugh-out-loud funny, but it is amusing. And by the end of it, it has us cheering for Sam, too.

Dead Walkers

They say that the key to success in Hollywood is being able to sum up your film pitch in a single sentence. Well, you don’t have to think to hard to know that Dead Walkers is simply “The Old West… with zombies.” Yes, those beloved undead who have become all the rage in pop culture have finally invaded the typical Western — with not-so-surprising results. The story centers around a bounty hunter named Jack (Michael Shepherd), who has captured a couple of no-good types and is hauling them into the closest town so they can be put on trial. What Jack and his companions don’t expect is that the local townsfolk have been infected. A strange sickness makes them hungry for human flesh and very hard to kill.

Now, normally, I would look at a film like Dead Walkers and assume it didn’t have much to offer. After all, it’s a Western with zombies. That’s a pretty odd mash-up. But something about this short film from director Spencer Estabrooks grabbed my interest from the beginning. Maybe it’s the beautiful cinematography and outstanding makeup. Maybe it’s Shepherd’s portrayal of the rugged Old West bounty hunter. Or maybe — crazy as it sounds — it was the zombies. I haven’t seen a lot of zombie Westerns, and this film dared to be different. It’s amusing, action-packed, and leaves you wanting more. Not a bad way to spend 13 minutes.

Excision

Excision

Richard Bates Jr. writes and directs Excision, a troubled teen story that has more angst in its 18 minutes than any television show on the CW network could pack into a season. Pauline (Tessa Ferrer) is the black sheep of a small family that devotes all its attention and resources to her sickly little sister, Grace (Carly Hobson). In the absence of love from her parents, Pauline has become fascinated with surgery. Blood haunts her dreams and she practices her art on dead animals in the neighborhood. It soon becomes apparent that she isn’t just studying for med school. She has more immediate plans that involve her family.

While Bates could have given us a shocking and gruesome gorefest, his film takes a different road that serves to make it stand out. While he is not above showing us the bloody detail (as when Pauline is licking blood off a dead bird), his film is really about the family dynamic in a home where one child is ill. Call this a horror movie, call it a cautionary tale. I call it a winner.

Séance

Séance

In Séance, writer and director Robin Kasparik opens the door to the unknown with a Gothic tale of horror. Klára Jandová plays Maria, a young village woman who has the unique gift of speaking to the dead. When Richard (Pavel Nový) asks her to visit the Baroness, Maria is frightened. The Baroness is a reclusive creature who never has visitors. But Maria soon discovers that she is not being summoned by the Baroness, but to speak to her.

Kasparik has created a short film that reminds me of a tale by Edgar Allen Poe, one filled with greed, hatred and betrayal. It has the benefit of being shot on location in a 16th century palace. And, supposedly, the crew hired an expert in magic and magical language so everything is authentic. The result is a film that is both beautiful to watch and pleasantly creepy. While it is not as frightening (or surprising) as some horror films, it is a wonderful, haunting tale.

While we would have loved a chance to attend, that wasn’t in the cards. But thanks to Rachel Belofsky, we’ve had a chance to screen several of the short films being shown this year. Over the next few days, we will post some of our thoughts about the films — and may even feature a few surprises!

If you are in the LA area, Screamfest runs from Oct. 16-25th. The short film program is this weekend only — on Oct. 17th and 18th. For more information about the festival (and to get tickets) check out their Web site at www.screamfestla.com

To kick off the reviews, let’s take a look at Lazarus Taxon and Else, two short films from Europe that both deal with apocalyptic futures.

Lazarus Taxon

Lazarus Taxon

From Spanish director Denis Rovira comes Lazarus Taxon, a film that is beautiful in its bleakness. Set in a “probable future,” we watch as a father (Ariel Casas) rows a boat across a new sea to find a cure for his dying daughter. We see the father struggling to breathe and are told by one character that the land is sick, the result of global warming. But the circumstances of this post-environmental future are secondary to the heart-wrenching circumstances. Casas delivers a haunting performance as he crosses the sea with only his hope to guide him. But the solution for helping his daughter live on may have less to do with hope and more to do with resurrecting a long dead practice.

In this short film, Rovira offers something that is soul-sucking and terrifying because it could represent our future. Even so, he manages to challenge our notion of horror. He raises it to a new level, showing us that this genre can be more than death. It can also be life.

Else

Else

In Else, love and horror come together in a bizarre nightmare brought to life. The setting is France, where a poison cloud over the city is turning people into their surroundings. Betty (Caroline Breton) and Todd (Gilduin Tissier), two young lovers, have been quarantined in their apartment. As Betty stares out the window, morbidly fascinated by whatever is out there, she becomes frightened to discover it is staring back at her. Soon, she too is changing. But as Todd sees the woman he loves succumb to this plague, how far will he go to be with her?

Director Thibault Emin creates a grotesque and fascinating film that blurs the line between sexual fantasy and horror. While the premise seems fantastic, it challenges the audience’s notion of love in the face of an altered reality. Emin’s film is provocative and erotic, but also an artistic achievement.