The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (台北金馬影展) is celebrating the wacky, bloody and sexy aspects of cinema with a new festival that focuses mostly on B movies, cult films and genre flicks.
The lineup for the Taipei Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival (台北金馬奇幻影展) includes zombie films like Dead Snow, a hilarious Norwegian take on the genre that reportedly went through 475 liters of fake blood during production, and The Children, a classic horror flick about a group of possessed kids who murder their parents.
Paired somewhat incongruously with such fare are a mini retrospective on Roman Polanski’s early works that includes his 1958 short Two Men and a Wardrobe and a program of classics selected by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢).
Organizers aren’t sure whether the fledgling festival will land a permanent spot in Golden Horse’s stable of events, as it lacks government funding and is relying mostly on ticket sales to cover costs. But festival director Wen Tien-hsiang (聞天祥) says he is optimistic because a third of the screenings have already sold out and revenue from advance ticket sales has exceeded NT$2.4 million, more than double the projected amount of NT$1 million.
Even more surprising for Wen is that tickets for B movies and cult films such as Little Shop of Horrors and The Rocky Horror Picture Show have been among the first to go.
“I think we can learn a few things from the audience,” Wen said. “We used to think Golden Horse audience members were pretty square. But in fact they’re not as conservative as you might think.”
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