Feature - Celluloid Screams 2012

It seems to take forever to come round but Celluloid Screams is back for its fourth year. The festival takes place at The Showroom cinema in Sheffield and this year even had some screenings in the larger Screen 4 (some planned, some not). It is going from strength to strength.

A festival can only be as good as its films, although saying that I enjoy the whole atmosphere, and secretly I even quite like having a good rant about really bad films. The best thing is that there are so many films there will be something for everyone. One person's worst film is another person's best, and all that malarkey.

At the midpoint in the festival I did start to feel a little bit too grumpy and started to think about what I want from a film: characters who I care for, a coherent theme where the ending relates back to what has gone before, some jumps and scares that don't rely on sound alone, well-written and well-acted dialogue and a stunning atmosphere. And gore. Obviously. So many of the initial films fell down on so many of these points. Luckily things got better.

So prepare yourself with a pasty and a pint and let's crack on with the first of the reviews...

evlkeith