The Flick Chicks

Out-of-competition films of 2013 PollyGrind Film Festival to include projects from creators of Sharknado and Scrapboo

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Films from Peter Grendle, James Cullen Bressack and Eric Stanze will get special out-of -competition showcases at the 2013 PollyGrind Film Festival in October.

PollyGrind director Chad Clinton Freeman excitedly announced during San Diego’s Comic Con Weekend that Grendle’s Blood Soaked, Bressack’s 13/13/13 and Stanze’s China White Serpentine will screen at the Las Vegas event.

“We’re still receiving entries for our competition films until July 31,” Freeman said. “We are also six weeks away from when the official in-competition selections are announced, but I thought it might be a cool tradition to start naming the special showcases each year during Comic Con.”

Blood Soaked, a small film from New Mexico that features zombies, Nazis and lesbians, will have a Special Wild Eye Releasing Showcase.

Featured recently in Fangoria magazine, Blood Soaked won Best SFX at the Jersey Gore Film Festival and played the Dark Matters Film Festival. It is also slated to screen at the Salty Horror International Film Festival.

“I can't tell you how proud I am that we'll be playing PollyGrind,” Grendle said. “I'm a big fan of your programming. You guys do great stuff.”

Blood Soaked recently signed with Wild Eye Releasing, who has been a sponsor of PollyGrind since 2011. In addition to the showcase, this year Wild Eye will be hosting a panel on distribution, and giving away distribution contracts and consultations to winners.

The demonic 13/13/13, a sequel to 11/11/11 and 12/12/12, gets a Special Asylum Showcase. The film will have its world premiere at the festival. Writer and director Bressack world premiered his found footage film Hate Crime at PollyGrind last year and won awards for Most Horrifying and Best Transgression Film.

“I’m really glad to have The Asylum on board PollyGrind as a sponsor and to be screening 13/13/13,” Freeman said. “I’ve been talking with them for some time, they recently had some success with Sharknado on the SyFy channel and had a film from a PollyGrind alumni in the pipeline, so the timing worked out really well.”

China White Serpentine will have an Underrated Gem Showcase. It was originally released in 2003 and is currently out of print.

“I’m a huge fan of Stanze,” Freeman said. “And this is probably his least-seen and least-talked-about movie. It’s a great piece of experimental art filled with sex, drugs and death. I am very happy to be showcasing this.”

Stanze’s Ratline won Best Crime Film and Best Use of Music at the festival in 2011.

Currently revisiting a few of his older titles, hoping to give them a new spotlight, Stanze, who also directed the cult classics Ice from the Sun and Scrapbook, had many praises for PollyGrind, which screens everything from arthouse to grindhouse.

“Few film fests in the world champion truly independent cinema the way Pollygrind does,” Stanze said. “Due to its exhibition of cutting-edge indie flicks and on-the-rise filmmakers, Pollygrind is an essential part of the independent film landscape.”

An international film festival steeped in artistic freedom, PollyGrind celebrates individuality, diversity, creativity, and empowerment by showcasing the work of filmmakers with defiantly independent visions.

Named one of 2012's “25 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” by MovieMaker, PollyGrind has seen its official selections earn distribution deals from LionsGate, Alternative Cinema, Showtime, IFC Midnight, Wild Eye Releasing, Hannover House, Troma, Synapse Films, Cult Epics, Autonomy Pictures, and a slew of other outlets.

An IMDb qualifying event, PollyGrind has been said by Withoutabox.com to revel “in the bold, the exciting, and the avant garde” and “single-handedly redefined what to expect during the film festival experience.” Past festivals have included concerts, burlesque and art shows, as well as a zombie red carpet walk and cupcake eating contest.

As one of the first festivals to screen, embrace, and award the underground gems Slime City Massacre, The Bunny Game, Dear God No!, The Gruesome Death of Tommy Pistol, and Adam Chaplin: Violent Avenger, PollyGrind “lives to champion underdogs by turning them into beloved sensations,” Withoutabox wrote in this year’s spotlight on the festival.

Before Jen and Sylvia Soska's American Mary success, their debut Dead Hooker in a Trunk won numerous awards at PollyGrind. Before Calvin Lee Reeder starred in the hit V/H/S or directed The Rambler feature, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival, he won best director at PollyGrind.

Additionally, Randy Moore’s 2013 Sundance film Escape from Tomorrow was a 2012 official selection and Craig McIntyre’s L.A. Maniac (formerly The Los Angeles Ripper), which is slated to be released this fall by Lloyd Kaufman’s distribution company Troma, played the festival in 2011.

PollyGrind, which has more than $30,000 in cash, prizes and swag to give away this year, was founded in 2010 as a festival that pays homage to the spirit of the highly creative and innovative works of indie film pioneers of the past such as Herschell Gordon Lewis, Ted V. Mikels and Doris Wishman.

Scheduled to take place October 9-13, the festival offers special discounted categories for women and girl filmmakers, all filmmakers under 18, Nevada filmmakers and films, debut and sophomore features that have not had world premieres, as well as films that have been rejected from other festivals. New this year is also the addition of a screenplay competition.

PollyGrind selections have screened at Sundance, Telluride, Another Hole in the Head, Fantasia, Raindance, Fantastic, Toronto International, Arizona Underground, Chicago International, Austin and more. Its films and filmmakers have been covered by Variety, Hollywood Reporter, National Lampoon, Fearnet, Fangoria, Dread Central, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Indiewire, Diabolique Magazine, HorrorUnlimited.com and Arrow in the Head.

Aside from The Asylum and Wild Eye Releasing, other sponsors this year include Afternoon Innovations, Footage Firm, Video Blocks, Sony Creative, Glidecam, Alternative Cinema, Apprehensive Films, theatre7, Quick Film Budget and Atomic Liquors.

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