This year in SXSW, the Austin weather was not cooperating; it’s been torrential rain all day. My day started with going to the express line. This is a system that was put in place 2 years ago, in which in first come first serve system; anyone can reserve their seat for 2 screenings the day hours ahead of time. They only give about 10% of seats in the theaters playing the show. It puts you in front of the line if you can get to the show 30 minutes before Showtime. It helps you get into anything you want, but it would cause you to loose a lot of sleep., my choices of movie were THE CABIN IN THE WOODS and REC 3.

My first movie of SXSW 2012 was:

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

I have been waiting for this movie since I started watching the posters with the words “Ill be right back” on its top title. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing this movie. I had to walk 6 blocks from the Austin convention center to the Paramount Theater in a huge rainfall. I was lucky in the way a guy was giving away free fandango ponchos. It kept me about 20% dry. When I got there we had line which was ridiculous long, even with the pouring rain. I was lucky to only be in the waiting line for about 7 minutes. Thank you express pass for letting me get into the theater quickly.

An old IT friend of mine was seating in the theater and invited me to seat with him. The thing I did not count was Joss Whedon was seating right behind me. I did my best in controlling my geek impulses to talk to him. I don’t want to tell you anything about the movie or the Q & A as they will spoil too much. I can say this movie completely kicks the shit of the scream series. You need to see this movie as soon as it hits theaters. I also can’t wait to own this movie on Blu-Ray, so I can pause 50 times to look for all the different eastern eggs hidden in the movie.

After the movie I had the most terrifying experience in the festival. As I was walking out of the paramount I realize my badge was missing, I enter the panic zone at that moment running back to my seat, at one point I ran into the theater as they were doing a test for the next movie. One of the techs actually said I needed to leave as they were beginning a test, but I didn’t care, my sxsw experice could not come to an end after the first movie. I could not find my badge on my seat. At that moment every know profanity was being yell out by me. I went to the paramount concession stand to see someone had maybe found the badge. As I was in the middle of a sentence when a person from the sxsw staff taps in the shoulder and put the badge in front of my face. She said she found it on the floor.

I quickly deducted how this happen, the badges on sxsw have this clip on the top and in certain situation as your moving the clip might come off and the badge would fall. I made sure to tape my badge after this happen. I hope they don’t make badges this way next year.
After the movie I took the film bus to get to the Alamo Lamar to watch REC 3.

It seems REC 3 was the point of convergence for many of the Spill member. Everyone of the Spill crew was there, except for Leon. At one moment while we waited in the line. A spill fan showed up and completely geek out. He first recognizes Cyrus, but as he was talking to Cyrus he notice a floating head behind Cyrus talking to a really hot blond girl. This boys eye just light up like a firework display he could not believe his idol was right next to him. I want to congratulate the co-host for taking his time away from talking to the hot blond to talk to this big fan, He is a great robot.

REC 3

I have mixed feelings about this movie, I think it would have made a fine zombie film, but when you compared with the previous REC movies, it’s definitely a letdown. The big problem it has as a sequel is that it does not pushes the storyline any further like REC 2 achieved. It just gives a lot of cool kills, but that’s it, it does not tell anything else about the origin of this infection, which was what I was expecting of this movie. It also has this mix of comedy in the movie which was missing from the last movie. The last 2 movies were really deadly serious. This decision really hurts this movie. This movie was directed by Paco Limon one half of the team from the first movie. This movie makes you wonder how much influence did the other filmmaker had in the last movie I still hope REC 4 manages to rectify the problem with this movie.

Well it was a great of movie which did something different and one which took a horror franchise in the wrong direction. Ok, time for some rest lets get ready for tomorrow.