It's weird, it's scary, and you'll come back for more: Midwst WeirdFest, Night of Horror return to Eau Claire
EAU CLAIRE — Two mainstays of the Chippewa Valley entertainment scene, the 10th annual Midwest WeirdFest and the 18th annual A Night of Horror International Film Festival return next week.
Despite being a near-constant in Eau Claire, one of the festivals is rooted half a world away.
"The Night of Horror was a festival that I originally founded in Sydney, Australia, back in 2006," said the founder of both festivals, Dean Bertram. "Originally, it was a short film festival, but very quickly, after the first year, we were inundated with so many submissions and people wanting to submit features that we became a feature festival our second year."
The event had a long successful run in Sydney, but then Bertram moved to Eau Claire, where he then started the Midwest WeirdFest. Though The Night of Horror had a successful run in Sydney, Bertram decided to bring that to the area as well. The two events now run concurrently at the two-screen Micon Cinema downtown — something that has proven to be successful — and both will take place next week.
Bertram described the film showcased in both festivals as "genre films," and said that attendees to either festival feel quite passionately about those films.
"I think that genre films tend to attract a very strong fandom, and people are appreciative of the art of that type of cinema," he said. "Horror fans obviously enjoy the artistry of a good jump scare or special effects of a good kill, or something that keeps them on the edge of their seat.
"So I think there's a level of: once you become a fan of that genre, you just want to see more and more films, working different ways of ticking all those boxes. And certainly in the independent film space, which is what these festivals are in, you tend to get films that think outside of the box, which don't always have to follow more of a Hollywood traditional narrative."
The festivals have continued to be popular, but the Night of Horror's success in Sydney only somewhat prepared Bertram for the kind of success he would see stateside.
"I'd been doing [the festival] in Sydney for over a decade, and I also ran a science fiction festival there, so I had a good idea of what the Sydney market was for genre films, but I had no real idea here," he said. "I did know that America loves horror films — I mean, you have a holiday which has really morphed into a celebration of horror movies as much as anything else here, so I suspected there'd be a market here. And it turned out there was, which I'm very grateful for."
Films that Bertram considers headliners include "Peeping Todd" at Midwest WeirdFest, telling the tale of a stalker that turns into a musical and from there gets stranger; "The Mid-Night Driver," where girls who follow an occult ritual summon a diver that takes the girls to dark and strange places; "Sunset Strip Killers," a true story about a serial killer couple who were active on the Sunset Strip in the 1970s; and in the Night of Horror there is "Incubation," which deals with a family being isolated after a particularly nasty pandemic when suddenly they deal with an intruder.
Several films will have their world premieres at the festival. Additionally, some directors whose work has been featured in past editions, like Chad Ferrin, the director of "Sunset Strip Killers," are returning for this event with new films.
Bertram has said about the selection, "I absolutely love every film submitted to the fests."
Another thing he has pride in is the wide expanse from which his films come. In the Night of Horror, there are not only films from the U.S., but this year also from Spain, Argentina and Finland.
"It just goes to show the strength, I think, of horror. It's folk tales or folk stories or urban legends — this is something the human psyche can grab onto, which transgresses traditional borders," he said. "Everyone loves a good scare. Everybody likes a good ghost story around the campfire, whatever part of the world you come from — and I think it's the same with horror cinema."
And while the films are the stars every year for both film festivals — as seen from the longevity both events have had — there is more to it than just odd or scary films. At these festivals, several of the directors, writers and actors will be on hand to interact with audiences after the screening of their films, another point of pride for Bertram.
"What I love about it most, is that the audience are able to come and engage with the filmmakers directly, and the filmmakers can engage with their audience directly," he said. "These films are normally very early on in the film's release; they haven't ever been commercially released, and they're normally very early even on their festival run, so filmmakers and audiences get that special treat — that interplay. That's something you never normally see when you go to see a Hollywood movie at the megaplex. The director or the cast or whatever aren't there to actually present the film and then take your questions after the movie finishes.
"So what the audience can take away is a richer understanding of the cinematic process, and I think the filmmakers can get an understanding of how their film is playing in front of a live audience early on — it's healthy for both the audience and for filmmakers."
