2018 Fright Meter Awards

Winners to be announced December 20th

Best Horror Movie
Halloween
Hereditary
Mandy
A Quiet Place
The Ritual


Best Director
Halloween (David Gordon Green)
Hereditary (Ari Asher)
Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)
A Quiet Place (John Krasinski)
Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino)


Best Actor In A Leading Role
Nicolas Cage (Mandy)
John Krasinski (A Quiet Place)
Rafe Spall (The Ritual)
Dan Stevens (Apostle)
David Howard Thornton (Terrifier)


Best Actress In A Leading Role
Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place)
Toni Collette (Hereditary)
Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween)
Claire Foy (Unsane)
Matilda Lutz (Revenge)


Best Actor In A Supporting Role
Alex Lawther (Ghost Stories)
Linus Roache (Mandy)
Michael Sheen (Apostle)
Alex Wolff (Hereditary)
Anton Yelchin (Thoroughbreds)


Best Actress In A Supporting Role
Ann Dowd (Hereditary)
Judy Greer (Halloween)
Milly Shapiro (Hereditary)
Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place)
Tilda Swinton (Suspiria)


Best Screenplay
Annihilation (Alex Garland)
Halloween (Jeff Fradley, Danny McBride & David Gordon Green)
Hereditary (Ari Asher)
A Quiet Place (Bryan Woods, Scott Beck & John Krasinski)
Suspiria (David Kajganich)


Best Makeup
Mandy
The Predator
Suspiria
Terrifier
Victor Crowley


Best Score
Annihilation (Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow)
Halloween (John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies)
Hereditary (Colin Stetson)
Mandy (Johann Johansson)
A Quiet Place (Marco Beltrami)


Best Editing
Ghost Stories (Billy Sneddon)
Halloween (Tim Alverson)
Hereditary (Jennifer Larne & Lucian Johnston)
Mandy (Brett W. Bachman)
A Quiet Place (Christopher Tellefsen)


Best Cinematography
Annihilation (Rob Hardy)
Halloween (Michael Simmonds)
Hereditary (Pawel Pogorzelski)
Mandy (Benjamin Loeb)
Suspiria (Sayombhu Mukdeeprom)


Best Special Effects
Annihilation
Mandy
A Quiet Place
The Ritual
Terrifier


Best Costume Design
Apostle (Jane Spicer)
Mandy (Alice Eyssartier)
The Nun (Sharon Gilham)
Suspiria (Giulia Piersanti)
Winchester (Wendy Cork)

2017 Fright Meter Awards Winners


2017 FRIGHT METER AWARDS WINNERS

BEST HORROR MOVIE
The Devil’s Candy
Get Out - **WINNER**
It
Mother!
Split

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky (Mother!)
Mike Flanagan (Gerald’s Game)
Andy Muschietti (It)
Jordan Peele (Get Out) - **WINNER**
M. Night Shyamalan (Split)

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Mark Duplass (Creep 2)        
Ethan Embry (The Devil’s Candy)
Thomas Jane (1922)
Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out)
James McAvoy (Split) - **WINNER**

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Jennifer Fraser (Capture Kill Release)
Carla Gugino (Gerald’s Game) - **WINNER**
Jennifer Lawrence (Mother!)
Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day)
Kristen Stewart (Personal Shopper)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Jack Dylan Grazer (It)
Barry Keoghan (The Killing of a Sacred Deer)
Bill Skarsgard (It) - **WINNER**
Pruitt Taylor Vince (ThBalle Devil’s Candy)
Bradley Whitford (Get Out)

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Betty Buckley (Split) - **WINNER**
Betty Gabriel (Get Out)
Sophia Lillis (It)
Michelle Pfeiffer (Mother!)
Allison Williams (Get Out)

BEST SCREENPLAY
Gerald’s Game (Mike Flanagan & Jeff Howard)
Get Out (Jordan Peele) - **WINNER**
It (Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga & Gary Dauberman)
Mother! (Darren Aronofsky)
Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)



BEST SHORT HORROR FILM
Balloon directed by Mitchell Slan
Death Metal directed by Chris McInroy - **WINNER**
Justice Served directed by Patrick Rae
Taste directed by Jay Palmieri Jr.
The Thin Place directed by Alexander Mattingly

BEST MAKEUP
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
It
The Lure
Raw
The Void - **WINNER**

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS
Alien: Covenant
Annabelle: Creation
It
Life
The Void - **WINNER**

BEST SCORE
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Elvis Perkins)
A Cure for Wellness (Benjamin Wallfisch)
The Devil’s Candy (Mads Heldtberg & Michael Yezerski) - **WINNER**
Get Out (Michael Abels)
It (Benjamin Wallfisch)

BEST EDITING
Gerald’s Game (Michael Fimognari)
Get Out (Gregory Plotkin)
It (Jason Ballantine)
Mother! (Andrew Weisblum) - **WINNER**
Split (Luke Ciarrocchi)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Julie Kirkwood)
A Cure for Wellness (Bojan Bazelli) - **WINNER**
It (Chung-hoon Chung)
It Comes at Night (Drew Daniels)
Mother! (Matthew Libatique)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Annabelle: Creation (Leah Butler)
A Cure for Wellness (Jenny Beavan)
It (Janie Bryant)
The Lure (Katarzyna Lewinska) - **WINNER**
Personal Shopper (Jurgen Doering)

Fright Meter Films Announces Their Third Feature Film!



As Fright Meter Films second feature, the Christmas themed slasher film Strirring begins its festival run, already screening at Texas Frightmare Weekend, Shock Stock, Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival (where director Troy Escamilla won the Best Director-Feature Film trophy), and International Horror Hotel, Escamilla is excited to announce his next feature film, Teacher Shortage.

Plot Synopsis:  What is supposed to be an educational and collaborative weekend professional development session for the English Department of Prescott High School instead turns into a blood soaked nightmare when a masked killer targets them.

Casting for the film will begin soon, and Escamilla hopes to launch a crowdfunding campaign for the film this fall and get the cameras rolling in early 2019.

In the meantime, fans can keep up to date on the development of Teacher Shortage by liking the official Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/pg/teachershortagemovie/

POSTER FOR “THE FP 2: BEATS OF RAGE” REVEALED!




Sequel to Indie Favorite Sports Retro Art By Thomas Hodge (Hobo With a Shotgun) 

North Hollywood, CA – Any follow-up to 2011’s beloved post-apocalyptic comedy The FP has huge Beat-Beat boots to fill. But if the just-revealed poster art is any indication, director Jason Trost is delivering everything we loved about the original in his sequel, Beats of Rage.

“We wanted everything about Beats of Rage to build on and do more of what people loved in The FP,” Trost said. “My hope is that, when they see this super badass poster by Tom Hodge, people will have a sense of how much fun the movie is, and the kind of wild ride they’re in for.”

Created by hand-drawn poster legend Thomas Hodge (The Dude Designs), the official poster for Beats of Rage features a gleaming, pitch-perfect title treatment inspired by the arcade game at the heart of the FP universe, where gangs settle turfwars with battles on “Beat Beat Revalation” dance decks. Flames explode behind it.

At the center of the action, surrounded by characters dressed in dystopian Americana, Beat-Beat champion JTRO (hero of the first film, played by the multi-tooled Trost) has returned. He’s ready for a fight. Looming threateningly over them all in a column of blue and purple light is the sole collector himself, AK-47.

Beats of Rage is a “ghetto-ass fantasy” set in an apocalyptic world locked in a booze drought. It continues the story of fan-favorite JTRO, a Beat-Beating champion from a legendary bloodline of beat-beaters.

Despite hanging up his boots following the events of The FP, JTRO must return to the blood sport of Beat-Beat Revelation one last time. JTRO and KCDC – his mystical hype man – will quest deep into The Wastes, a land decimated by the Beat Wars, to compete in the ancient Beat-Beat tournament, “Beats of Rage,” face AK-47 – and, hopefully, save the world. 

Trost plans to debut the film at “a major U.S. genre festival” this October, with more information to be announced on Trost’s Facebook page soon.



The Fight Against Time: Prince of Darkness






The Fight Against Time
By Amanda Fasciano
Fright Meter Awards Committee Member and author of Waking Up Dead

Here we will examine older horror films and see how they stand up to the test of time.

Today’s victim: John Carpenter’s “Prince of Darkness” (1987)



“Prince of Darkness” stars Jameson Parker, Lisa Blount, and a host of Carpenter alumni like Donald Pleasance, Dennis Dunn, and Victor Wong. In this movie an old priest dies, leaving behind a diary and a mysterious key, which a fellow priest played by Donald Pleasance takes guardianship of. Fun fact, Pleasance’s character is never given a name throughout the entire film. Finding something inexplicable in the basement of the church the dead priest had come from leads him to contact Professor Birack, a well-regarded theoretical physicist he knew, to try to figure out what is going on. After being shown what is in the basement, Birack recruits some of his best students, as well as students and professors from a couple other departments, to help with the study. As is usual in horror, shenanigans then ensue.

What worked about this movie then generally still stand up now thanks to the scares being based off of the creepy atmosphere of a mostly abandoned old church and practical effects. The scares are also based off of general fears instead of in your face “boo” scares. The vacant eyed, aggressive homeless person; drowning or choking; and bugs, oh dear God the bugs! The philosophical debates presented in this also still work, as the priest and Birack debate religion versus science, and others debate good versus evil, and even the good of the one versus the good of the many.

Carpenter is known as one of the Fathers of horror, one of the ones who helped create the “rules” that the film “Scream” loves to flaunt. But long before “Scream” was a thought in someone’s head, Carpenter was already breaking some of the rules he helped to create. There is no Final Girl in this movie that walks (or limps) away at the end, though there were female characters involved. No nudity is shown at all. In fact while sex between a couple is suggested, there are only a handful of kisses shown, nothing more. Not only is the “sin” of sex thrown out (for the most part), none of the characters drink or do drugs. These aren’t high school kids or frat boys. These are Ph.D. students in some pretty challenging subjects (theoretical physics, microbiology, applied physics, and theology are name checked). The rules that Carpenter’s previous movies helped create were out the window here.

As much as this movie does stand up and is still a great watch, there are some elements that wouldn’t work in this day and age. The technological side of the study of the canister in the basement is very dated, especially the computers and monitors. Also, in the beginning, the main character Brian is practically stalking the girl of his dreams, Catherine. He watches her from afar for a long time before he makes his move, and it comes off as less sweet and more creepy as he waits outside the library because he saw her go in, then looks offended when she leaves with a man (nothing indicated this man was any kind of romantic interest for Catherine). Cellphones would also make things easier, as instead of searching the large mostly empty church for Susan (radiologist, glasses) when she disappears, they could just text.
 

The Verdict

Plot Holes: Since when does the Catholic Church need scientific proof for anything?

Pet Peeve: Susan and the canister. Carbon dating something is not what radiologists do! Also, given the equipment of the day there is no way she could have X-rayed the top of the canister without the canister having been moved for her, which it was not.

Best Scare: Wyndham, in the parking lot, with the bugs.
F/X: Most of this holds up very well. The dummy of Kelly that you could tell was dummy is the only “bad” part really.

Did it Age Well? Yes, it did. Go into it understanding that you are going to see 80’s tech, 80’s cars, and 80’s fashion (which can be nightmarish enough). Because of its atmosphere, play on real phobias, and the fact that it is more intellectual and philosophical than you find in many horror films “Prince of Darkness” definitely stands the test of time.