By KEVIN HOOVER
For its ninth annual outing, SALEM HORROR FEST will continue its revelry of genre films that have shaped the horror landscape, while dually building in-roads for the creators and their projects who work tirelessly to see today’s dreams become tomorrow’s cinematic nightmares.
Before guests and attendees flock to the various locations around Salem, MA that will host the numerous events scheduled for Thursday, April 30th – Sunday May 3rd, the organizers have selected this year’s Jury Award winners.
RUE MORGUE is honored to share the details here first and wishes all involved filmmakers and their teams continued success with their work.
BEST FEATURE
Blood & Guts
Directed by Carlye Rubin, Katie Green and Tina Grapenthin
View the trailer here
The lines between real life and reel life are muddied in the story of the Adams, an unconventional family who makes independent horror films. While they may vomit blood onto one another, lack boundaries and make frequent use of the F-word, they also face what every family must: change.
BEST INTERLUDE
Very Prosperous Men
Directed by Josiah Walker
View the trailer here
When a struggling door-to-door Bible salesman commits murder, he scrambles to dispose of the body while navigating a haunting consequence.
BEST SHORT
Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawer of Rocks)
Directed by Louise Flaherty
View the trailer here
Presented in Inuktitut with English subtitles, two young women out for a walk follow a trail of colored stones left on the ground, which leads them to danger. They are trapped in the lair of the Mangittatuarjuk, the Gnawer of Rocks. The women are terrified when they realize what the monster has been doing. The young women and their village must use the teachings of the elders to defeat the monster.
Regarding this year’s selections, SHF co-director Leslie Adams states, “With nearly 50 Official Selections, narrowing the Jury Award to one per category was difficult! In the end, one of the themes of this year’s festival is the craft of filmmaking, and we feel these movies are strong representations of this craft.”
“We come from the documentary world, where the work tends to be heavy — so getting to dance along the sidelines of horror filmmaking has been an unexpected gift,” comments the Blood & Guts filmmaking trio of Carlye Rubin, Katie Green and Tina Grapenthin. “Endless gratitude to Salem Horror for this recognition, the horror community and, most of all, to the Adams for letting us be a fly in their weird, wonderful world.”
Canadian director Louise Flaherty, recipient of the award for Best Short, adds, “Thank you very much for showing Mangittatuarjuk. As a child I loved listening to these magnificent stories coming from our Inuit Culture. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.”
Josiah Walker, who now has the distinction of being an award-winning director with his debut work, says of the recognition, “Very Prosperous Men is a short film about door-to-door Bible salesmen in the 1960s, inspired by the documentary Salesman, Carnival of Souls and Robert Bresson. This was my first film. Winning the Jury Award at Salem Horror Fest, a festival that clearly knows what it’s doing, is massively encouraging.”
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