October 21st marked the first night of the 1st annual FearNYC Horror Film Festival held at NYC's Cinema Village, promising 65 films, both classic and brand-spanking-new, spread out over six days of blood, guts, shocks, and scares. As a horror fan, it's been my experience that the genre can sometimes be underrepresented in libraries, so my goal at the festival is to see if any of the new films that premiere over the next week are worthy of being added to collections—and to remind everyone that there are some fantastic classic horror flicks out there that may have flown under your radar. The festival kicked off with a screening of House on Haunted Hill (1959), directed by William Castle and starring the brilliant Vincent Price and Carnival of Souls (1962) directed by Herk Harvey. Both are classics and deserve spots on any library horror collection shelf. Carnival of Souls was preceded by a short film from India called Awakenings, which centered on a woman in charge of two young children who are haunted by a group of mysterious entities. Directed by Bhargav Saikia, who manages to squeeze every ounce of nervousness out the 14-minute film, Awakenings is sincerely creepy. At 5pm, festival goers were treated to our first premiere: The Key, directed, written, produced by, and starring Inglourious Basterds' Gedeon Burkhard. A gang brutally tortures and murders a family of farmhands in Germany in search for something called "the Key." Forty years later, a man named Tim (Burkhard), his wife Selina (Miriam Schroetter) and two friends are chased into an old farmhouse by the younger generation of the same gang. They meet an old farmhand named Erebus (Sven Martinek) who vows to protect them. When the gang storms the house, they are torn apart by mysterious demons. See the parallels? Unfortunately, The Key is disappointing. Even if you adjust your expectations to account for the film's low budget —though those films made on a shoestring can sometimes be awesome (Blair Witch Project, anyone?)—but The Key is not worth your library's money. The plot is a little confusing, there are more than a few instances of over-acting (Shon Abram, who plays Josh, Tim's friend, is particularly guilty of this), and it's hard to ignore the goofiness of some scenes (why is a German farmhand demon super good at karate with a pitchfork?). It may have been more successful if the dialog had been in German; some of the actors were not native English speakers and seemed to struggle with the language. I also would have expected much more from the special effects team behind Homeland, who were responsible for the SFX. The monsters simply looked like Hellboy and his spawn. Also, the gratuitous profanity may turn off some viewers. Stay away from The Key for your collections—there is a mountain of better low-budget films to choose from. There is a market for the next film in the lineup, but that market is not public libraries. Atroz ("atrocious" in Spanish), directed by Lex Ortega, is exactly that. It follows the tradition of found-footage films, in that the movie centers on tapes Mexican police find when they arrest two wanted serial killers after a traffic accident. The tapes show, in GRAPHIC detail, the crimes these two have committed. Some of these scenes have  been burned into my memory forever, and despite my best efforts, I had to leave the theatre after about 45 minutes, or else the poor usher would have had to clean up a lot more than popcorn. After the movie was over and I went back in, I asked the guy sitting behind me if he watched the whole thing. He replied, "Yep. I've been going to these types of things for about 11 years and I've seen worse than that." He then shared there were only about six people left in the audience at the end, from the maybe 30 or so who started it. Giving credit where it's due, I have to admit that it was extremely well made, as evidenced by the fact that I was not able to recognize that it was a movie. It all looked very real, which made it all the more effective. To put in perspective, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), which was directly after Atroz, calmed me down enough so that I wouldn't lose my dinner. Tobe Hooper's masterpiece needs no introduction; it is one of the greatest and most iconic horror movies of all time, one of those rare horror films that hasn't lost any of its impact over the years, and it just as terrifying today as it must've been the 70's. If it isn't in your collection by now, it definitely should be. There was one more movie on the slate, a world premiere creatively titled Dont @!#% In the Woods, but I honestly was so tired and worn out from six hours of horror that I skipped it. It hits theatres on October 25th, and it's about a group of friends that go camping in the woods to celebrate graduating college. You can probably guess what happens next. Join me tomorrow as I cover Day 2 of the FearNYC Film Festival!