Sick-N-Wrong film fest returns for fourth year
Things To Do different categories will pick the winners.
Katelyn Gelhart is a judge from Orlando who recently moved to Los Angeles. She will be handling the Splash Zone Award for best practical effect. “I love a good gunshot,” she said. “It’s not just, ‘You did a good gun shot.’ It’s how well it was conveyed and how well it was pulled off.”
The effects in this festival can go over-the-top, but Gelhart, 25, said that can be for the best. “Sometimes it’s not the most realistic, but if it sells the point of a story, if it had some meaning behind it … sometimes you need that to sell the movie,” she said.
David Lee Hess’ directorial debut, the short film “Fetish,” is nominated for the Giggling-at-the-Funeral Award for sparking inappropriate laughter. While Hess calls the movie a romantic comedy, it was one moment in the flick that landed it in this particular festival. “It was my North Star for my entire process,” he said. “I laughed and I laughed all the way through concept up to completion. It carries the whole movie. It’s something you’re not going to forget.”
Hess, 49, doesn’t think his pivotal moment is too offensive. “Mostly people like that bit of it,”he said. “And then there’s a small percentage that doesn’t like it for sick and wrong reasons.”
“I don’t want to blindside people,” said Stull. “I’m not a shocker. I want people to know, right when they walk in, that this is going to be weird.”
Stull is sure that some movies will be too gross for some people, and others will just be too odd, but all of this is part of the point. “Honestly, I want [the audience] to be disturbed,” he said. “This isn’t just a big gore fest. I want to show them movies that are existentially uncomfortable.”
As the festival grows, Stull has a very simple philosophy. “I want people to see something they haven’t seen before,” he said.