Despite (or because of?) movies-on-demand in a digital society, film festivals are not only persisting but are proliferating. Even tertiary towns have their own international festivals and most big cities have numerous specialized ones focused on ethnic, genre or other aspects of filmmaking.
Milwaukee has had a major international film festival since 2003 and many smaller ones with long histories, but until now, our city has not seen a film series focused on horror. With Chicago and Madison as sites for horror film festivals, Milwaukee’s Chris House and Steve Milek decided it was time to start one here in town. For its inaugural run, the Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Film Festival will feature two days of programming including a handful of feature films and more than two-dozen short subjects. The opening night will be MC’d by Milwaukee’s cult director-actor Mark Borchardt and include performances by Professor Pinkerton and Sanjula of Dead Man’s Carnival.
House and Milek met while working third shift at a local pharmacy. “There’s often nothing to do when you’re working with someone at 4 in the morning than talk about your hobbies,” House says. They discovered a shared hobby: viewing movies. “I watched every movie ever nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award in chronological order,” Milek says. It took him two years.
From their dusk-to-dawn discussions came their website, milwaukeemovietalk.com, which began, simply enough, with House and Milek talking about movies. Perhaps the crepuscular ambience of an empty drug store in the small hours before sunrise gave rise to their dream of the Twisted Dream Film Festival.
“Horror gives you a rush of adrenalin. People want to be scared. It’s about the unknown. Horror has attracted some of the most loyal fans of any genre,” House says. Milek adds: “There’s something about seeing a twisted, disturbing film that will make you think and make you talk about it all the way out of the theater.”
Not every entry in the Twisted Dreams festival is horror strictly defined. Some films are dark comedies, some are science fiction, but horror in its many manifestations is the prevailing theme.
The festival opens on the evening of Friday, April 8 with the Wisconsin premiere of Dark. Produced by Joe Dante (Gremlins), the film is set during the 2003 New York blackout and concerns a woman left in the dark to confront her demons. Afterward, the Wisconsin Twisted Shorts program features 10 Badger State entries including Melonie Gartner’s Two Rivers. Displaying the festival’s range, the film is set in the Wisconsin town of the same name against a backdrop of rumored factory closings and outsourcing of jobs. Two Rivers shows the unraveling marriage of Emma (played by Gartner) and Dirk (a maniacal Borchardt).
Day two begins at noon with short films from around the world and a trio of feature films including The Hike, Holy Hell and …In the Dark.
Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Film Festival runs April 8-9 at the Underground Collaborative, lower level at 161 W. Wisconsin Ave. For tickets, visit shepherdtickets.com. Visit the festival’s Facebook page for additional information.
