Ari Saavedra in El Padre.

This year, you might have missed my obligatory Halloween scary movie column. Well, or you might not, but I sure as hell missed writing it. There was, of course, logic behind the omission – I was waiting for the first ever Malta Horror Film Festival in order to give my horror post a local twist.

The festival took place as part of the Dar il-Waħx walk-through horror attraction which was organised at the old police-station in Żabbar. Spread over the four days of Halloween weekend, it included the par­ticipation of about 35 shorts hailing from various countries (including Malta).

Much as I’d have liked to view them all, this wasn’t possible, so I will limit myself to the Saturday offering. The list on the night included a good portion of gore horror, which I know has a good following in Malta. Although not my preferred genre of horror, I could appreciate the painstaking and time-consuming work that went into these productions in order to give them as realistic a feel as possible.

Nefandus, which – being written and directed by Patrick Vella, the artistic director of the festival – was screened out of competition, is one such exam­ple that also incorporated para­normal horror, with the story revolving round demonic pos­session with a twist ending.

Gore enthusiasts also enjoyed The Breeder (also written and directed by Vella), which was screened not as part of the festival, but as part of the Dar il-Waħx experience. The use of classical music in this short was particularly effective, and testament to the crucial role the music plays in film.

I myself particularly enjoyed The Mansion, directed by Miguel Angel Izquierdo, which was minimistically filmed and which came with a wicked twist ending.

Another one that got my tension levels up was Florian Puchert’s Wrong Place, Wrong Crime. The fear in this one was created by the claustrophobic aura of the whole movie, which was achieved not only by the simple fact that the film mostly takes place in a broom cupboard, but also thanks to the camera panning into extreme close-ups of the female lead. Demented was never quite so spot-on.

Audience members who are fans of black comedy were in fits over Division Blu, directed by Leslie Arias. The plotline was very simple – two German para­troopers find themselves stuck in a tree and proceed to try to dislodge the straps by shooting at them. With, of course, predict­ably gory results. Although I’m usually a big fan of black comedy, I didn’t particularly take to this and found it rather long-winded. The majority of viewers seemed to disagree with me, however.

The festival ended with another Maltese effort – Homecoming, by Jurgen Spiteri and Kurt Cauchi. This zombie short was beautifully filmed, with retro-style end credits that gave us a series of flashbacks. Unfortunately, the storyline was very undeveloped.

The use of classical music in this short was particularly effective, and testament to the crucial role the music plays in film

I was told that the films that were shown on Sunday were particularly disturbing – hope­fully, they will be made available online. For those who would like to see the whole list of shorts that were screened, these are available on www.maltahorror filmfest.com.

As it turns out, I only managed to see one of the winning entries, which was The Mansion, winner of Best Original Concept.

The other winners were Hotel (Best Short), El Padre’s Patricia Venti (Best Director), Monster (Best Cinematography) and Dark Places (Best Animation).

I certainly look forward to viewing them when they are made available online.

Kudos to Vella for making the first local horror film festival a reality. We look forward to a bigger and more polished product next year.

rdepares@timesofmalta.com