Twisted Dreams fest honors horror
Program seeks wider audience for genre
WSpecial to the Journal Sentinel isconsin’s typically chilling transition from winter to spring seems an opportune time to launch the Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Film Festival, a new horror film festival.
Co-founded by Milwaukee Movie Talk bloggers Christopher House and Stephen Milek, the Twisted Dreams Film Festival unspools Friday and Saturday at the Underground Collaborative, in the lower level of the Shops of Grand Avenue, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Milwaukee filmmaker Mark Borchardt will be the opening night’s MC.
Longtime horror-movie fans, House and Milek felt compelled to create a forum in which fellow fans of the genre could have the chance to see films that rarely, if ever, get shown locally.
“We hope to educate the public that horror and sci-fi are more than what they perceive,” House said. “The local festivals that do play horror weren’t playing the films we felt deserved to be played.” Milek added: “It’s our hope to bring horror fans in Milwaukee together for a couple of nights of great film viewing. We feel that the best way to watch horror films is in a dark theater with a group of people. We also want to showcase indie horror films that won’t normally be shown here.”
It’s not the first horror film festival in the state. Oshkosh has had horror film festivals over the years, with the latest incarnation, the Northeast Wisconsin Horror Film Festival, debuting in October.
A new horror film festival in Madison called the Madtown Horror Festival started last year. And the It Came From Lake Michigan horror festival had a run in southeast Wisconsin for several years.
For its inaugural year, Twisted Dreams is showing four feature-length films, including the opening-night movie, “Dark,” a psychological thriller directed by Nick Basile about a young woman alone in her New York City apartment during the fall 2003 blackout.
The screening, at 6 p.m. Friday, will be the movie’s Wisconsin premiere.
Other events at the festival include a 40th anniversary screening of the horror cult classic “Blood Sucking Freaks,” about a group of murderous traveling performers.
The screening Friday follows a performance at 11 p.m. of sideshow acts by Professor Pinkerton and Sanjula from Dead Man’s Carnival.
The festival’s closingnight movie, showing at 9 p.m. Saturday, is “. . . In the Dark,” a thriller about a paranormal specialist and a skeptical graduate student who check out a supposedly haunted house and find more than they bargained for.
Also scheduled are three programs of short programs, including a showcase
IF YOU GO
The Twisted Dreams Film Festival starts at 6 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday at the Underground Collective, in the lower level of the Shops of Grand Avenue, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave. Tickets are $10 for individual screenings, with a variety of special-access passes ranging from $20 to $50 (all excluding fees), available at the door during the festival and online at shepherdtickets.com. For more info on movies, events and showtimes in the festival, go to twisteddreamsfilmfest.weebly.com. of 10 short films from Wisconsin filmmakers, showing at 8 p.m. Friday. Several of the filmmakers will be at the festival.
The festival plans to present audience and jury awards for best feature and best short film.
“There are a lot of great horror filmmakers here in Wisconsin,” Milek said, “and we would love to get their movies seen by a wider audience.”
University of WisconsinMilwaukee film alum and horror fan Michael Viers, whose debut horror short “From the Darkness Theatre” screened at the 2013 Milwaukee Short Film Festival and other festivals around the country, is excited about the launch of Twisted Dreams.
“Genre films, and especially horror, have always struggled to get attention at some of the bigger festivals,” he said.
“A lot of times, they’re viewed as novelties and don’t get as much respect as other films.”