The Phoenix Fear Film Festival

by MovieMaker Staff | Published November 26, 2006

Location: Phoenix, AZ
Festival Date: December 29th, 2006

In a show of support for all the Scrooges out there who detest the enforced merriment of the holiday season, Brain Damage Films and Trash City Entertainment have teamed up to bring you the first annual Phoenix Fear Film Festival, a one-day event designed to celebrate all things gory and Grinchy. “It’s good counter-programming for all that cheer and good will toward men during the holidaysâ€”something different to do,” says festival director Chris McLennan. “What we hope to accomplish at this inaugural event is to make our presence known. To let all the â€˜Gore Houndsâ€™ in the world know that we are interested in helping to expose the art of horror in many forms, not just the conventional, marketable, commercial one,” he continues.

Gearing their fest toward low-budget and cult films, The Fear Fest dealt with several formidable obstacles in putting its first-time event together: “The most difficult part of organizing this Fear Festival was getting the word out to filmmakers that we actually had an event they could submit their films to,” recalls McLennan. â€œBudget constraints made it nearly impossible to advertise in big publications, but we took full advantage of many of our sponsors, who helped us by handing out flyers, doing PSAs on broadcast radio and, of course, e-mail blasts to everyone in our combined databases and MySpace to get the word out.” Luckily, the fest received more than its fair share of submissions, and is looking forward to continuing a tradition of gruesome anti-holiday fun for years to come.

Moviemakers interested in screening their flicks can still submit up to the late deadline of December 15. Visit www.phxfearfilmfestival.com for more information.