ST. GEORGE — The HorrorFest International Film Festival’s 20th Anniversary closing night film “Deadstream” features constructed effects rather than computer-generated graphics, the directors said. 

This year’s festival will be at the historic Electric Theater in St. George from Wednesday-Saturday. There will be 67 films (six features and 61 shorts) representing 16 countries.

In addition, 26 feature-length scripts and 22 scripts for short films will be included in the film festival’s script competition over the four-day fright-filled festival.  

HorrorFest International 2022 will host filmmaker and horror-themed panels, a traditional trivia event, live script read of a beloved horror classic, costume contest, secret screening and more, according to a press release. 

“Deadstream” is written and directed by Joseph and Vanessa Winter of Orem, Utah. The independent film is shot entirely in Utah. It features a disgraced internet personality who tries to win back his followers. He live-streams spending a night alone in a haunted house. But the host tempts fate and offends a vengeful spirit, which then causes a real-time fight for his life.

The 87-minute movie was written, produced and directed by Winters. The couple met in film school at Brigham Young University 10 years ago and worked on various projects together. “Deadstream” is their first feature film collaboration.

Vanessa Winter said she prefers “practical creature effect” filmmaking. By having constructed rather than using computer effects, it brings a realness to the film. 

“I like the way that it looks on screen. For me, it’s better as a film watcher,” she said. “When things are real, I can feel it while watching the film. Rather than something that’s computer generated, I think that it loses some authenticity.”

Her background in the art department adds to her fascination with the craft of practical effects. She said moviemakers from the 1980s had to create animatronics, masks or creatures. Gore effects have always been an art. Vanessa Smart said nowadays, most movies have computer-generated effects. 

“I think it’s a dying art form. Unfortunately, because most movies you see are very heavy on digital effects,” she said.”It’s an art form that we miss, and we want to have it be more prevalent in new movies. So, we were excited to do a feature-length film to handle many of the practical effects.”

The house featured as Death Manor in the film is in Benjamin, next to Spanish Fork, Utah. It is a pioneer-era home that has been abandoned since the 1940s. Joseph Winter said the home is in fields in the middle of nowhere.

They needed an old, dilapidated house in the woods left in the forest. This house did not match that, except for a cluster of big trees. Joseph said they shot at night, pointed through the trees and made it look like it was in the woods. Then they filmed other shots in the Spanish Fork Canyon campground.

The Winters said Utah has a great film community and encourages people to make the films they think about despite financial challenges.

“One thing that I would say to other filmmakers is that there is momentum and getting started,” Vanessa Winter said. 

She added that filmmakers often invest their own money initially. Still, another producer or investor can see the filmmaker is serious about it. One of their biggest investors came on after they had already filmed to help pay for post-production.

Joseph Winter said in the independent film industry, so many filmmakers want to make their films, but financial reasons keep them from doing it. 

“That’s the biggest challenge of any aspiring filmmaker. We decided it was time that we made something that no one could really say no to,” he said. “We intentionally were trying to come up with ideas that could potentially be something that was a small amount of money to make. So that we could go out and make it happen even if a big investor wasn’t on board.”

The couple will be on hand at the festival for a question-and-answer panel following the screening for its Utah premiere. “Deadstream” has screened in various festivals around the country, including South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Joseph Winter said during that festival, they were able to land a distribution deal with Shudder, which is like the Netflix of horror films offered online. 

The HorrorFest International Film Festival has been named “one of the best horror film fests in the world” by the popular website Dread Central. The festival is hosted by the nonprofit Film and Media Alliance of Southern Utah (FMASU).

The opening night selection is Adrian Langley’s “Bunker.” Adam Mast and John Pugh, co-founders, and Jeff Sanders, senior programmer, assisted with the festival. 

“We could not be more excited to roll out this lineup of films and events as we celebrate our 20th year,” Mast said. “We have seen this film festival grow over the past two decades to become a truly special film festival on the international scene, while highlighting the filmmaking accomplishments in our home state of Utah. And we’ve never lost the warmth and camaraderie our filmmakers and film fans enjoy here.”

In the short film selections, Utah-produced shorts include J. Manso’s “Lupe,” about an immigrant mother and priest facing dark unknowns as she tries to protect her daughter, Alan Seawright’s “Moonstruck,” about a mother trying to figure out what is happening to her family when a terrifying emergency alert wakes her, and Paul Amstone’s “Quietus,” which focuses on a man faced with a peculiar situation after accidentally killing a woman.

The international short film selections include Frank van den Bogaart’s film out of Belgium, “Darker,” about a girl who goes into the woods to seek out a mythological creature believed to collect the stories of dying beings. Michael Jones and Paddy Jessop’s Australian film, “Hairsucker,” is about a creature that feeds at night on those who are asleep. David A. Roncone’s Italian film, “Stuck,” is about a young woman who accidentally lets a demonic entity loose while moving to her new house. Fabio Colonna’s Mexican film, “Unheimlich,” tells a story about the eternal fight between the conscious and unconscious.

Highlighting the curated list of features is Jamie Hooper’s British horror film, “The Creeping” is about a woman forced to return home after several years to look after her grandmother, who is suffering from dementia. Soon after, she finds herself in a nightmarish fight for life against a malevolent presence and her grandmother’s fading memories could be the key to them both surviving the nightmare. Rob York’s “Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween” is another local Utah production being highlighted by HorrorFest International this year.

In the film, high school teenagers accidentally unleash an ancient and malevolent Irish entity. They have until midnight on Halloween to stop it. From XYZ Films are Adam Leader and Richard Oakes’ “Feed Me,” a harrowing and darkly comedic tale of an emotionally broken man who finds himself in the home of a deranged cannibal. Mike Schiff’s documentary “The History of Metal and Horror” is a cinematic love letter that explores the history of heavy metal and horror and how the two genres merged over time. Also, Dylan Arnow’s comic take on the slasher genre, “Nightmare at Camp Bloodbath,” will be shown before the festival’s final film.

Special guests of HorrorFest International Film Festival include the return of horror filmmaking mainstay Frank Dietz (“Beast Wishes”). Dietz will be on hand with his nonprofit Scripts Gone Wild to do a live reading of the ’80s horror classic “Creepshow” with a team of local talent during the opening night after-party, according to a press release. 

Click here to purchase festival passes or for more information about the HorrorFest International Film Festival.

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