Long running film festival brings the scares
On Saturday, October 26th, the region’s best horror film festival is back for its ninth iteration. I’m fairly certain that this makes the Frightening Ass Film Fest the longest running annual film event in the city.
Without a doubt, the FAFF is a Chattanooga institution. It’s place for film fans to celebrate the weird, gross, and scary. There are plenty of haunted attractions around Chattanooga—corn mazes, caves, forests, parking lots.
They’re fun, for sure, providing those brief, roller coaster type thrills that makes your heart jump into your throat.
But the fear found in a great scary movie can last for weeks. October is never long enough—the FAFF gives film fans the opportunity to revel in that fear with seventeen unique films over the course of a single Saturday.
Happening in the Dark Roast Room of the Stone Cup, FAFF Part Nine is absolutely the best place to be for any horror movie aficionados around the Southeast.
Every film is carefully curated by the folks in charge of the Chattanooga Film Festival, which means while you don’t necessarily know exactly what you’re going to see, you can rest assured that the films are chosen with love and heart.
As it happens, I was lucky enough to see the first feature in the FAFF lineup: Wrinkles the Clown. The documentary is an exploration of a strange and disturbing viral phenomenon that started with a YouTube video and a few stickers with a phone number placed around Fort Myers, Florida.
The “creepy clown” has become something of a meme at this point —IT has gotten a reboot, Joker is currently topping the box office, and evil clowns have long been a staple of Halloween costumes over the years. Wrinkles is inspired by these things, of course, but also evolves into something else.
The film begins by interviewing parents who have taken to using Wrinkles as a motivator. If kids misbehave, their parents will call Wrinkles to come get them. As a parent and teacher, I can assure you that terrifying children is unlikely to elicit much beyond temporary compliance. The film goes on to prove this, as many children take to contacting Wrinkles on their own—think “Bloody Mary” for the internet age.
Wrinkles the Clown has a something of an unnecessary twist, but overall, the film is entertaining, in a perverse sort of way, and it considers the ramifications of unchecked viral sensations without making a conclusion one way or another.
As for the other films, the lineup seems to be loaded with exceptional content—apart from maybe Tammy and the T-Rex, an off-the-wall bonkers film about a teenager’s brain implanted in a robot dinosaur, starring a very young Denise Richards and Paul Walker. No one would describe it as good, but seeing it is an experience all its own.
But films like After Midnight (a south Florida monster movie by the same guys that brought us Tex Montana Will Survive!) and VFW, a film by CFF favorite Joe Begos that Bloody Disgusting describes as The Wild Bunch meets Night of the Living Dead are not to be missed. These are films that you aren’t going to see elsewhere.
Beyond just the features, the festival starts with twelve “Shocking Ass Shorts” with a wide range of subjects.
Of particular note are films like The Haunted Swordsman—(a Japanese story of evil and vengeance), Chickens (a tale of two racist cops who try to cover up killing an unarmed teen), and LVRS (an examination of abusive relationships through surrealist violence and magical realism).
These films couldn’t be more different, helping to showcase the diversity of genre film. Fear is not just one thing—it’s many things.
Therein lies what makes the Frightening Ass Film Festl great. Like the Chattanooga Film Festival, it brings unique film experiences to a city that rarely gets them. Every once in a while, AMC will through an independent film onto a screen, but it’s never for long.
The FAFF/CFF are a breath of fresh air for a city in need of some culture. Sure, that culture might be a little bloody, but it’s a small price to pay for something different. Badges for the FAFF are available online at chattfilmfest.org for $45. Support local film.