Bleedingham offers horror, gory short films

The Bleedingham Film Festival, now in its fourth year at Pickford Film Center, celebrates short horror films made by filmmakers from Washington, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia.

Bleedingham 2015 will take place at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Pickford, 1318 Bay St. There will be an awards ceremony for winning films on opening night. The encore show will be just a run of the films, but there will be audience prizes both nights.

Langley J. West, who founded the festival in 2012 with Western Washington University graduates Gary Washington and Avielle Heath, said in a 2012 opinion piece in The Bellingham Herald that “Bleedingham provides an arena for low-budget filmmakers to practice their skills, show the results and be rewarded for exceptional effort.”

The prize for best film is $500. “Bloodies” trophies will be awarded for best sound design, best special effects, best cinematography, best story and best editing. A panel of non-participating judges review the films.

This year’s judges are Thom Carnell, a fiction writer who has been a judge since the festival’s inception; Roman Stadtler, longtime manager of The Comics Place in Bellingham; Seattle writer and artist Lorelei Shannon; Chris Vargus, an assistant professor of art at WWU; James Pidgeon, chief of operations at Bellingham’s Hand Crank Films; James Fairley, a graduate of Vancouver (B.C.) Film School; Kate Dixson, the owner of Killer Make Up FX; horror journalist Heather Buckley; filmmaker and director Landon Salyer; Seattle filmmaker John Portanova; and cinematographer Dominic Barbero.

Films can be up to 15 minutes in length, but there’s no limit to how scary or disturbing they may be, so viewer discretion is advised.

Costumes are encouraged both nights. The event has sold out in the past, with 170 seats in the theater, so early purchase of tickets is recommended.

“Over the years Bleedingham has actually become more competitive, but is still accessible to the novice filmmaker,” says organizer Michelle Barklind.

“Horror is subjective and the diversity in Bleedingham entries is certainly a testament to this,” she says. “One of the most rewarding aspects of the festival is that we get to see first time filmmakers shoulder to shoulder with entries filmed by full production crews.”

“It’s a scary good time to put you in the Halloween spirit,” she says.

This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Bleedingham offers horror, gory short films."