A splattery splash

If you’ve seen the posters all over town advertising After Dark HorrorFest 2007 -- they’re hard to miss, like that one showing a putrefied ghoul creeping up the backside of a nude woman -- your reaction was probably either “Ewww!” or “Cool!” If it was the latter, you are part of the reason that second annual HorrorFest is poised to land in theaters this weekend with a national splatter.

The six-day, eight-film festival -- beginning Friday and stretched over two weekends -- will bring its collective charms (which include cannibals, Mexican cult killers, spooks, were-rats, a raging mystery virus and enough fake blood to fill a tanker truck) to about 300 U.S. screens. That arguably makes HorrorFest (a.k.a. “8 Films to Die For”) a world-class festival -- a sort of super-sized Sundance for sadism.

“It’s the biggest on the planet,” said filmmaker Courtney Solomon, the festival founder. Well, yes and no; the 2006 festival was actually larger (it was on 468 screens), with a respectable gross of $2.6 million.

But the 2006 HorrorFest (the first festival to rank in the weekly top 10 at the U.S. box office) has certainly cut through to core genre fans and has become viewed as a launching point for DVD releases and more lucrative international deals for the movies that make the cut. A clear indication of its higher profile is the presence this year of “The Deaths of Ian Stone,” a film with an $11-million budget, about five times the cost of any movie in the 2006 festival.

“In just a year it’s become a real brand name for horror fans, and these are die-hard fans,” said James Koya Jones, director of “Crazy Eights,” one of the films in this year’s festival. “We’re very happy to be part of this festival, and we think it will be great exposure for the film.”

Fans can buy tickets online or at each theater box office for individual movies or pay an all-you-can-stomach price of $75 and sit through every stabbing. The other films this year: “Tooth and Nail,” “Lake Dead,” “Unearthed,” “Nightmare Man,” “Borderland” and “Mulberry Street.” While Cannes this year offered Brad Pitt and George Clooney cavorting on the red carpet, After Dark’s films are dotted with earthier celebs, such as former porn queen Traci Lords and British tough guy Vinnie Jones.

Solomon said the model for the festival came from beyond the cineplex world. He compared it to the spirit of Comic-Con, the massive pop-culture exposition in San Diego that has become a rite of passage for fan-boys. “It’s a destination event,” he said, pointing out that fans come in large groups, linger for hours and in some cases wear costumes. He added: “It’s about being seen as much as seeing the movie.”

The great challenge for theaters now is prying people away from the sofas and home theaters that have keep the popcorn crowd at home. Solomon said that borrowing a page from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and its ability to turn any theater lobby into a pop-culture hub is one way to pump new stage blood back into the business. “You have to do something,” he said.

After the festival last year, HorrorFest organizers got calls from theater managers that fell into two categories: They were pleased with the turnout and feedback or they were aghast at the loitering teenagers, the mess they left behind and the sound of beer bottles rolling down the aisles. “Really, it’s more like a concert experience than a neighborhood movie theater experience, and that’s a good thing because that makes it special,” argued Solomon, who believes Hollywood should embrace more such promotional stunts to make lobbies and movie house employees “part of the show.” He offered as an example the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez film “Grindhouse,” calling it “a missed opportunity” to turn the theatrical venue into an extension of the screen entertainment.

Solomon may find some Hollywood insiders a bit skeptical of his marketing advice; after all, his After Dark Films had an infamous failure this year with “Captivity,” an especially pungent example of the so-called “torture porn” horror film sub-genre. Billboards for the film showing unsettling images of a woman being kidnapped, tortured and killed led to widespread criticism that resulted in the ads being taken down.

Not that “Captivity” was alone among flops in the open-vein sector. The surge of horror hits over the past decade led to a particularly crowded release schedule this year -- 26 such studio theatrical releases last year versus more than 40 this year. The saturation undercut many of the films this summer, especially sequels such as “Hostel 2,” “28 Weeks Later” and “The Hills Have Eyes II.”

But as the calendar moved closer to the trick-or-treat season, the genre rebounded, with particularly strong showings by “Saw IV” and Rob Zombie’s “Halloween.”

“Saw IV” was No. 1 at the box office the final weekend of October, making it a third consecutive Halloween season opening of more than $30 million for the franchise. Lionsgate, the studio behind “Saw,” is a partner in HorrorFest, but Solomon said even if it wasn’t, the “Saw” machine is powerful to run up against head-to-head.

“That,” he said, “would be really scary.”

geoff.boucher@latimes.com

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After Dark HorrorFest 2007

Where: Selected theaters

When: Friday through Nov. 18

Info: For ticket information and a list of theaters, go to www.horrorfestonline.com