Larry Fessenden’s Depraved kicks off outrageous film festival at IFC Center
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
March 20-24
212-924-7771
www.whatthefestnyc.com
www.ifccenter.com
The second annual What the Fest!? is a five-day extravaganza of crazy films that will have you muttering out loud, “What the f!?” Held at IFC Center, the festival opens March 20 with the world premiere of indie horror maestro Larry Fessenden’s creepy Depraved, a modern-day Frankenstein tale set in New York City. Fessenden, who has made such underground faves as Habit, Wendigo, and The Last Winter, will participate in a postscreening Q&A with producers Jenn Wexler and Chadd Harbold and cast members, while the video presentation Frankenstein Origins will precede the movie. That same night, the New York City premiere of Crazy Pictures’ Swedish thriller The Unthinkable will be preceded by Sydney Clara Brafman’s one-minute short The Only Thing I Love More Than You Is Ranch Dressing and a Q&A with Professor Anna Maria Bounds about the coming New York apocalypse.
The second annual What the Fest!? features the world premiere of the restoration of the utterly strange 1970 documentary Satanis: The Devil’s Mass
Among the other bizarro highlights are Pollyanna McIntosh’s Darlin’, preceded with a tribute to late horror writer Jack Ketchum by Douglas E. Winter; Shinichiro Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead, followed by a panel discussion on making zombie flicks; Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s suburban comedy Greener Grass; the panel discussion “Female Trouble: Fearless Women Leading the Way in Horror, Fantasy, and Suspense,” with Meredith Alloway, Roxanne Benjamin, Emma Tammi, and Wexler; the American premiere of Peter Brunner’s To the Night, starring Caleb Landry Jones; Zack Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein’s Freaks, starring Emile Hirsch; and Chinese master Zhang Yimou’s Shadow, preceded by a talk with stuntwomen Kimmy Suzuki and Ai Ikeda. Oh, as part of the festival special focus “Satan Is Your Friend,” there’s also the world premiere of the restoration of Ray Laurent’s 1970 documentary, Satanis: The Devil’s Mass, which will do a lot more than just have you repeating, “What the f?!,” and New York Asian Film Festival cofounder Grady Hendrix will be on hand to present his latest book, We Sold Our Souls, with a talk and signing. Like we said, WTF?!