The Chattanooga Film Festival begins today! This festival is close to my heart because the people running it are genuinely great and the mix of movies they show run the gamut from experimental and weird to more mainstream fare. To get the festival started right, here are two movies I’ve seen and recommend and four other movies we’re excited to check out at the fest.

The Outwaters

Writer/Director Robbie Banfitch has created something special with this found footage entry that merges slice of life with slice of cosmic horror. Where most found footage films end, The Outwaters continues for another act in a horrifying descent into madness. From my review:

“It’s as if the film peels away the illusion of the world and lets its characters see the cosmic and, yes, eldritch horrors awaiting just beyond. It’s things that no human was meant to witness or understand, as if we’ve entered a mirror world of madness that we are incapable of fathoming. The earlier landscape porn flips in horrifying and discombobulating directions, turning upside down and inverting in nauseating ways.”

This is a must see for found footage aficionados.

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes

Co-written and directed by Kevin Kopacka, Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is a surprising film that references everything from Italian horror cinema of the 70s/80s (as well as Giallo aesthetics) to Hammer horror and art house exploitation to splashes of Society. Here’s what the film is about:

“It all feels a little too familiar: An abandoned manor weighed down by cobwebs, a dark history, and probably more than a few ghosts. A couple whose frayed relationship threatens to collapse into violence. A long, dark night. And it all looks familiar, too, in garish shades of Jean Rollin (narratively) and Mario Bava (literally). But that story eventually fades into a very different one, similarly familiar but dropped unexpectedly into this odd context.”

It’s a film that changes its tone and direction in whip-smart ways and while I don’t have a review of it, I did get to chat with Kevin about the film on Scarred for Life, the podcast I co-host with Mary Beth McAndrews. It’s a delightful watch and while it’ll be available on the second day of the fest on VOD, I’d take the time tonight to give it a watch.

Secret Screening

One of the big traditions at Chatt Fest is their secret screening and I’m incredibly excited to find out what this year’s screening will be. They’ve kept information completely locked down, redacting the director, how long it is, what the subgenre is…outside of the fact it’s a movie from 2022, we know nothing. And that’s particularly exciting! So make sure you’re ready to go on Saturday, June 25th between 5 PM and 12:00 AM Eastern so you can participate in whatever secret shenanigans they have cooked up!

The Leech

Eric Pennycoff brought his debut film Sadistic Intentions to Chattanooga Film Festival in 2019 so it’s only fitting that CFF 2022 has the world debut of his follow-up film The Leech. I was a fan of Sadistic Intentions and The Leech sounds right up my alley:

“A devout priest welcomes a struggling couple into his house at Christmas time. What begins as a simple act of kindness quickly becomes the ultimate test of faith once the sanctity of his home is jeopardized”

Starring genre stalwarts Jeremy Gardner and Graham Skipper, as well as Rigo Garay and Sadistic Intentions star Taylor Zaudtke, this one looks like it’ll be a fun time.

The Third Saturday in October Part V and The Third Saturday in October Part I

This pair of films from writer/director Jay Burleson seems full of nostalgia for a time when every single movie in a franchise might not be readily available. So it presents, ironically, the fifth film in this supposed franchise as the first movie to watch as well as Part 1 being the second film. It’s an interesting premise and one that’s perfect for a film festival where you can go from watching one directly into the other.

Part V:

PART V drops viewers into a late-series deep end and leaves them to figure out what's going on: Who the hell is this giggling, masked killer and why is he killing these seemingly random victims? Who's that guy narrating the story? It's a safe bet that the characters are still small-town folks from the same town terrorized by the same killer from THE THIRD SATURDAY IN OCTOBER, but while the movie looks relatively slick the viewer might suspect there's a budgetary reason the guy never takes off his mask.

Part I:

Burleson applies directorial and editorial techniques from HALLOWEEN knock-offs (like the adorable Death Screams) and more outré indies of the time (imagine if all the time spent with characters in Another Son of Sam actually made them endearing) to create the convincing illusion of a horror movie created by a bunch of small town friends who just wanted to see themselves on the local drive-in screen. And who probably had no idea their fun little project might spawn a franchise running at least five entries!

Chicken House

I don’t know much about this film other than it’s LGBTQ+ and a comedy about three small town actresses taking in a new mysterious roommate from LA. Written, directed and starring Cate Jones (who has had a number of appearances in Mickey Reece movies—he’s also in it) the film sounds like the weird little indie comedy that Chatt Fest does best.

Chattanooga Film Festival has a ton of features and short films on offer and it was hard to just limit the list down, but hopefully this gives you some place to start with the festival. You can see all of the available films at this link. And make sure to bookmark their Limited Films Schedule so you don’t miss out on films that have a time lock on them! I’ll be tweeting my responses to the films when I’ve watched them so stay tuned to my Twitter page for other films you might want to add to your queue. And, as always, I will have reviews coming up out of the fest.