by MARK SLUTSKY

Quebec moviegoers have always had a particular fondness for genre cinema, God (or rather, Satan) bless our souls. Since more or less anything and everything worth doing in this burg warrants at least one festival, it’s no surprise that Montreal has a couple dedicated to the cinema of the ghoulish, the ghastly, the unbelievable and the unseemly.

While Fantasia may bring in the big boys of genre from around the world, Festival SPASM, now in its fifth year, is admirably local in scope. The directors may have included a few international entries, but the bulk of the festival’s programming consists of horror shorts from Quebec, and with over 100 entries this year, who knew the province was such fertile ground for cinematic spookhounds?

Tonight’s Un autre genre de 5 @ 7 event at Café Cleopatre features appropriately 13 films from Quebec, including a couple of selections already shown at Fantasia and the ongoing Prends ça court! event. Check out some international entries here, like Hungary’s Before Dawn or the Iranian war drama Zero Degree, as well as shorts by local directors like Kun Chang’s The Rip Off and David Baron-Brunelle’s Marée d’un seul homme.

Following that at the same location is the decidedly more adult-oriented, drag-queen-hosted Cabaret Trash. Feast your eyes on François Harvey and François Trépanier’s porn-themed Cuntine, or Goopy Spasms, an animated short by the Mirror’s Rick Trembles, among many other salacious selections.

Friday sees Kabaret Kino Spécial horreur at Club Soda. It’s a shorts program, yes, but with a twist: all of the films have been shot and edited in the week leading up to the event. And the next night, the festival goes out with a bang with the Grande soirée horreur at Club Soda. Hosted by comedy duo Le Night Shift, the event will feature shorts like Nicolas Grenier’s 11:11, François Simard’s She Didn’t Look Like She Had a Disease, Gil Brousseau’s Le 4e Quart and 13 others, in addition to an awards ceremony.

Once the fun is done you can bring home some of the SPASM magic with Horreur Vol. 2, a new DVD collecting 11 favourite shorts from festivals past. Le Night Shift provide the between-film entertainment for the disc, which aims to recreate a night out at one of the fest’s surely unforgettable Grande soirée horreur events.

Festival SPASM runs through Nov. 4.
For more info see www.spasm.ca

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