Las Vegas Weekly

Vegas’ own Grindhouse-syle film festival

Scars of Youth

Downtown's Sci Fi Center has been home to a number of grindhouse-style movie premieres and showcases over the last few months, many courtesy of local filmmaker and writer Chad Clinton Freeman. So it's only appropriate that the Center will host an entire festival devoted to underground horror and science-fiction films. Freeman's PollyGrind Film Festival will screen 13 feature films over five days, including such tantalizing titles as Slime City Massacre, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, Orgy of Blood and Vaginal Holocaust. The event will also showcase short films, music videos and trailers, plus appearances from filmmakers and actors.

Freeman picks opening-night film Scars of Youth as a particular highlight of the festival, noting that filmmaker John R. Hand "does horror and sci-fi in a very art-house way." There's a fine line, certainly, between underground genre weirdness and artistic ambitions, and the festival will no doubt do everything possible to blur it.