News

The 2011 Bram Stoker International Film Festival, running October 28th-31st, takes place in Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, and shows independent narrative features, documentaries, and shorts from around the world, many of which will be having their world or UK premieres at this year's fest. Read on for all the details regarding the lineup!

Below is a list of all the films screening this year. Other events include a Vampire Ball on Saturday, October 29th; a performance of The Feast of Blood on Sunday, October 30th; and the Scorpius Dance Theatre's production of A Vampire's Tale on Halloween itself. In addition, the following awards will be presented at the festival:

Best Picture

Best Short

Best Director

Best Effects

Best Script...

...and a special Lifetime Achievement Award

For more info visit the official Bram Stoker International Film Festival website, and click here for ticket packages.

Absentia - UK Premiere

Director: Mike Flanagan...

Having divided viewers and sparked a lot of chatter on the film-festival circuit and at midnight shows over the past year, Deadgirl has now arrived on unrated DVD from Dark Sky with a reversible cover reflecting the way the movie subverts expectations of the undead and bad-girl subgenres. Initially packaged on the outside is the traditional zombie image seen at left; on the inside is the more provocative art seen below.

The movie (reviewed at length here) is both a gory ghoul opus in which the living corpse receives more violence than it inflicts, and a femme-fatale film of sorts in which the title character is confined to a state of inactivity for much of the running time. Specifically, the catatonic DeadGirl (Jenny Spain) is discovered bound to a table in the basement of an abandoned hospital by Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Noah Segan), teenaged pals united by their high-school-outsider status.