A photo of the crowd before the first screening
Dear Shaded Viewers,
The fantastic night is always a key event during Brussels' Fantastic Film Festival and I make sure I never miss it. The four films presented this year were rich in constrasts and surprises: the Spierig brothers' Daybreakers, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu's Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl, the Mo Brothers' Rumah Dara and Chris Hartwill's Ghost Machine. The audience played its part perfectly, shouting at the actors when there was trouble ahead, begging for nudity and intimate encounters, throwing rolls of toilet paper -and other unmentionable objects- over the crowd and clapping every time blood spurted on screen. In fact, there was no shortage of hemoglobin until the early hours.
A still from Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl
I really liked Rumah Dara, an Indonesian slasher film whose main themes were cannibalism and immortality. The actors were great together and the tense atmosphere kept going until the very end.
A still from Rumah Dara
Daybreakers was probably the most "serious" film, with fine performances from Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill and Willlem Dafoe. Set in 2019, the film depicts a society run by vampires with few humans remaining. Blood is running out and vampires are trying to find a treatment that could save humans. Vampires films are often perceived as a metaphor for greedy capitalism and the film raised interesting questions around the lack of natural resources and ongoing need for survival. Ghost Machine examined the dangers of virtual worlds, with boundaries shifting between reality and fiction.
A still from Ghost Machine
There were even some Shaded fans in the audience and one could not resist baring it all.
Best,
Philippe
