Critical End!

Nothing quite says "Horrorfest" like a little reverse necrophilia.

To a horror nerd like myself, After Dark’s Horrorfest was nearly a dream come true.  Started in 2006, the concept alone had my money.  Fifty bucks at your local cineplex bought you a single ticket to see eight different indie horror films spread throughout the evening.  At the end of the night, everybody got to vote on their favorite, or so we were told.  I don’t recall ever voting for anything, but somehow a winner was always chosen.

And of course most of the films flat out sucked.  To this day the mere mention of The Final, Lake Dead, The Graves, or anything with Rider Strong is enough to trigger my gag reflex.  In fact, fifty bucks wasn’t much of a deal when you consider that what you really got was one great film, two okay ones, and five complete suckfests.  However, that single great film was always a nice find.  I still consider Reincarnation, The Broken, and the soon-to-be-remade Lake Mungo to be near perfect horror films.

Now it appears that after four years, Horrorfest is calling it quits.  I would assume that they were losing money, as there sure doesn’t seem to be a shortage of crappy horror films.  Add to that the fact that After Dark was bought up by SyFy Films, and perhaps all of this is good news.  Who would pay fifty bucks to see eight SyFy movies?  If anything, they should be paying me.

Oh well.  It was a good run.