Horror fans in Newfoundland and Labrador are about to be rewarded for their dedication to the macabre and ghostly art of genre fandom.
Fogfest, a locally curated night of local short films that brings together some of Newfoundland and Labrador’s finest auteurs of horror for an evening straight from your nightmares, hits Cineplex St. John’s on October 28th.
Fast rising horror-troupe Grind Mind will finally release their long-awaited Mummering Legends, alongside local mainstay of all things spooky Mike Hickey’s That Halloween.
Not content to end with that one-two punch of fright, Fogfest also features contributions in the form of New Woman by Ark Film and La Véillée by Kerrin Rafuse.
“Our first few years of doing s**t was just grinding ourselves to the bone, putting it on the internet and hoping people give it a thumbs up. And luckily they did, and they kept doing that, and I made the joke a million times. It was that instant gratification that kept us going to the next one,” shared Grind Mind’s Shane Mills in a sit-down with The Herald.
“And then you have something like Mummering Legends, which took like two f’n years to make and that instant gratification, boy did that ever just die. It was not instant. So it was a big switch up for us to be like we’ve got to hold on this, make it and work on it for two years. But in the Grind Mind fashion, we try and keep everything transparent and we’ve kept everybody sort of up to date with where we were.”
Adds Hickey, a mainstay of the local film and television scene and avid horror fan and member of its international community of artists: “People here always recognize Newfoundland as kind of really hit outside our weight class in terms of comedy and presence on like the CDC and all that kind of stuff. Horror comedy are so similar. And it’s just kind of funny that it’s taken this long for it to really get that spotlight that it seems to be getting the last couple of years. And I completely credit that to Shane and the guys.”
The early screening of Fogfest is sold out, with a late night second showcase seeing tickets going on sale tomorrow at 10am! For more on Grind Mind visit shopgrindmind.com and their various social medias, and visit thathalloween.ca for more on Hickey’s That Halloween!