How's everyone doing out there? I don’t know about y’all, but I feel a little numb. A little dead inside. A little lost. And when I get that feeling, I like to turn to the revitalizing powers of horror to guide me back to the light—even if that light involves eviscerated teenager guts and fleeing from a chainsaw-waving psychopath. At least with horror, it’s a only a make-believe maniac, one who has absolutely no control over Supreme Court nominations.
So it’s perfect timing for the second annual PDXtreme Film Fest to return to the Academy Theater, with more than 25 hours of murderous mayhem and merry massacres. Fest director Jeremy Jantz got this nascent fest on its feet last December with three days devoted to visiting filmmakers and their films—some of which were truly horrific, some of which were delightful and quirky, and some dark and clever. All of them were genre. PDXtreme filled a film fest niche that Portland didn’t even know it had.