Ithaca International Fantastic Film Festival Announces VHS Contest!

This weekend long genre festival in upstate New York is looking to bring the thrills and chills through November 16th to 18th. And the festival organizers have announced a trailer contest sponsored by Magnet Releasing in conjunction of their release of the horror film V/H/S. The contest celebrates the home video format that was, for many of us, the gateway to genre cinema in the 70s and 80s - VHS!

The IIFFF VHS trailer contest is the chance for a new generation of filmmakers to show what they can do with the device and for the old timers to go back to their beloved format. Even more, it allows folks to imagine their very own film in one of the amazing genres of the 1970s. The contest asks you to produce a faux movie trailer in the spirit of those from the 70′s that made so many of us fall in love with genre films. Submissions should be three minutes or less, and we encourage you to be creative in picking one of the many fantastic genres of the 70′s--from Giallo to Slasher movies. We'll pay particular attention to the ways in which films exhibit originality while also working within the canonical forms of the period. One last obvious detail: we'll only take VHS submissions!

So find your parent's wedding video and prepare your own faux movie trailer! The festival is still taking submissions for their shorts and feature films programs. They've also announced an Ozploitation Retrospective and three films already in that program will be George Miller's Mad Max, Richard Franklin's Patrick, and Brian Trenchard-Smith's Stunt Rock.