Exclusive KNOXVILLE HORROR FILM FEST Interview with event organizer William Mahaffey
GOBLINHAUS: I know you are a big fan of film in general, but why specifically did you decide to do a Horror film fest?
William Mahaffey: I had made a lot of short horror films and been to some film fests that focused on them. I think short films are an art form that doesn't get a lot of attention or opportunity to be screened and I know there are A LOT of good ones out there. I wanted to bring some of the cool films I've seen at other festivals to Knoxville and try to get local filmmakers more active in making genre films. I showed one of my films and a couple of other local films at Pilot Light in 2008 and people had a good time and I think that was what made me think it could work in Knoxville.
GH: This is the 3rd year for the Knoxville Horror Film Fest and it’s growing each year. How do you go about selecting the lineup of films?
WM: We're trying really hard to get our name out there and get a lot of submissions. While we have gotten a lot more this year, a lot of the films come from me contacting other film fests I like or just researching and trying to find the best ones out there. If we continue to do more features then I imagine it will work in a pretty similar way.
GH: Can you give us some highlights of what we will be seeing this year?
WM: There's a film called Curtain I really like and there are 2 Spanish films, Decapoda Shock and Brutal Relax; that are amazing. We have a really solid lineup this year and it's kind of hard for me to choose. I think Chillerama is a fun film that people will get into and I'm very excited to see what people do for the Grindout.
GH: This is the first year for your new “Grindhouse Grindout” competition. Can you tell us what to expect from that?
WM: I don't know what to expect, but it's very exciting. Basically we are going to present a list of exploitation genres to all of the filmmaking teams that sign up and they will draw a number and based on that they will get to choose a genre from a list of exploitation genres. I hope that we have a lot of filmmakers involved, I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
GH: Along with the annual horror fest, you also do various screenings in Knoxville year round, do you have any more upcoming events scheduled?
WM: I'm very excited that we're going to be showing Human Centipede 2 this month on October 27th at 7pm and 9pm and then again on October 29th at 8pm and 11pm. This film hasn't been seen by a lot of people yet and I'm psyched we booked it already. We're also going to be showing Dead Alive as part of a dinner and a movie night in November. We haven't set a date for that yet, but we should have that figured out soon. I hope that we can continue to do this year round, hopefully people will continue to come out and not watch the films on demand or download them.
The 2011 Knoxville
Horror Film Fest is October 22 & 23 at Relix Variety Theater.
For full details VISIT
THEIR WEBSITE.
