The Sacrament:
I’m not a big fan of pseudo-documentaries and/or found footage – however, it’s not so much the style that jarrs me, than the movies itself. One thing that always bugs me considerably is if you wanna have all the advantages that come with the style (cheap production, alleged authenticity), but don’t stick to its limitations. “The Sacrament”, unfortunately, is a perfect example of that. Most of the movie is supposed to be shot with one camera only, but there are cuts with changes of the camera angle all the frickin’ time. For example, when the camera team first arrives at Eden Parish, they are shown around, and the camera cuts constantly between – for example – Sam and Caroline. Later, during the interview, they have two cameras at their disposal, but they constantly shift between multiple angles, showing the Father, Sam, and reactions from the crowd. Thus, all the supposed authenticity that the movie tries to convey through the mockumentary-style, gets lost. Because of that, the movie lost me very quickly, and I would have liked it a lot better if they would have dropped the “found footage”-angle. Also: Like with many of these movies, it takes a while to really get going – even if they try to include some tense moments pretty much from the beginning. That said: The actors – especially Gene Jones as the Father – were great, there were some tense scenes, and the finale offers some haunting moments. I don’t wanna bash it completely, but I just wish that they would have either dropped the found footage-angle or would have respected its rules. But because of the way it was handled, it lost me early, and never really managed to win me back again.
4/10

Under the Skin:
An extremely fascinating movie that demands its own blog post to talk about it in detail. Just know that I loved it, and that – as hoped – it finally broke the curse of this years festival for me (given the fact that I didn’t much like the first four movies that I saw). 9/10

All Cheerleaders Die:
More comedy than horror, and the supernatural-witchcraft-angle surprised me (it took me a little while to get into the movie again after that), but quite funny, entertaining and enjoyable. There’s a great scene very early on that had me laughing my ass off, and there are many more gags coming after that. The cast was pretty to look at, and the movie was crazy-weird in a good way. What I didn’t like: At the risk of sounding like a perv, the movie could have needed more nudity. It was already rated R anyway, so why not go for it? It felt strangely safe and well-behaved in that regard. I’m also not sure if I needed the body switch-part. And the showdown really got on my nerves, with the constant screeching. It didn’t help that the sound in the cinema was rather loud, which made some of those scenes almost unbearable. Apart from that, I had a pretty good time with the movie.
6/10

Witching & Bitching:
Wow, this movie was fun! The Intro already featured the best gag of the festival so far, that had the whole cinema in stitches, and especially the first 15-20 minutes were incredibly entertaining and really funny. I dunno, maybe at that time I was already so exhausted and in a state of delirium, but I really laughed a lot. The rest of the movie is quite enjoyable too, even though the middle part drags along a bit. It also gets really crazy in the end, which might not be to everyones liking, but I was thoroughly entertained. And then there’s the aply named Carolina Bang, who was just… wow. Be warned, though: the movie is rather misogynic, and while I didn’t mind it overall, the constant women-bashing can get tiresome after a while. Other than that, I had a lot of fun.
7/10