This book, by film critic Hal C F Astell of the Apocalypse Later review site, covers every feature and every short film that screened at the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Tempe, AZ in 2011, 2012 and 2013. These were 'the transition years' as the festival merged into its big sister, the Phoenix Film Festival, and it was forced to reinvent itself.
Inspired by the realisation many of his reviews of festival films were the only reviews that existed online and that some films had no presence left on the internet, as if they had never been, he aimed to review every film that played this festival, which holds a special place in his heart, and to compile these reviews into book form.
This book, whatever else it is, is a line in the sand to say that these films existed, that they played a festival, were seen by an audience, even won awards. Hopefully reading about them here will keep some of them alive because no film deserves to die. No, not even that one.
The foreword was written by Mike Flanagan, the director of Absentia and Oculus. The afterword was written by Andrea Canales, the Midnite Movie Mamacita. The cover is by Marty Freetage.
Features reviewed include Absentia, Midnight Son, The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue, Triple Hit, Hisss, I am Nancy, The People vs George Lucas, Stake Land, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Below Zero, It's in the Blood, Folklore, Pig, Beyond the Black Rainbow, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, FDR: American Badass!, Monster Brawl, Slumber Party Slaughter, The Theatre Bizarre, The Victim, With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, Found, Nailbiter, Sader Ridge, Channeling, Found in Time, Space Milkshake, Errors of the Human Body, The Four, Gamera vs Guiron, The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, Kiss of the Damned, Play Dead, Saw and They Live.
Short horror films reviewed include Zombiefication, I Rot, Last Seen on Dolores Street, Cold Sore, Bugbaby, Red Umbrella, Cell Phone Psycho, Escape, Shoreditch Slayer, Follow the Sun!, Brutal Relax, Bad Moon Rising, Ambush, The Table, Roid Rage, The Waking, Employee of the Month, Diecons, Game, The Root of the Problem, Steve from Accounting vs The Shadow Dwellers, Sybling Rivalry, Midnight Daisy, Welcome Wagon and Killer Kart.
Short sci-fi films reviewed include The Island, Earthship, Picture Show at the End of the World, Roman's Ark, Earwigs, Antedon, The Hollow Men, SNAFU, The Turing Love Affair, The Recipient, Carry Tiger to the Mountain, The Uncanny Valley, Doctor Glamour, Hollywood Forever, Secret Identity, 20th Century Man, Solaria, Alchemy and Other Imperfections, Mirage, Y Sci Fi, How to Kill Your Clone, Anaphora, Outsight, Dream Cleaners, Dry Gulch, Ontogenesis, Ellie, A Conversation About Cheating with My Time Traveling Future Self, The Secret Keeper, Low Tide in the High Desert, Restitution, Iris, Odokuro, Sol, All I Think of is You, Quantum, Golem, Sunset Day, Flashback, White Room: 02B3 and The Phoenix.
