Kit Ryan's Botched is a hugely entertaining movie that is, as of last night, an award-winner to boot.  This U.K.-produced horror/thriller/comedy mega-hybrid was named Best Feature at the New York City Horror Film Festival—and deservedly so.  Full of surprises, great comedic performances, and a spirited naughtiness throughout, Botched made the screening audience erupt into laughter with an intensity and frequency that I rarely see even in straight-ahead comedies.  Star Stephen Dorff, whose sly, slow-burn performance helps anchor the inspired insanity, was named Best Actor.  (More on Botched at a later date.)

Richard Gale's clever and squirm-inducing Criticized was named Best Short, and it is again difficult to argue with the choice.  While horror fans are a jaded lot and can withstand the most extreme visual onslaughts, this movie had people practically climbing the walls in its climactic sequence.  Moreover, the physical nastiness depicted was far from gratuitous, being instead a perfect fit thematically for the story.

  (Besides, if you've seen the film, you know I'm obligated to review it positively even if I hadn't actually enjoyed it—the plot concerns what happens to a film critic who makes the wrong horror director the target of his poison pen….)

For me, right up there with Criticized was the masterful Dara from Indonesia's "Mo Brothers."  Criticized wears its low-budget status on its sleeve and achieves a lot through the sheer single-mindedness, originality, and wit of its script.  Dara, on the other hand, features many elements that will be familiar to horror audiences, but delivers them with such shot-by-shot precision that it's like a full-length feature that's been lasered down to gemlike perfection.  I've probably not seen a tighter horror-thriller—at any length—all year.  Dara justifiably won the Audience Award, and it would be hard to find anyone who's seen it who wouldn't look forward to more work from directors Timothy Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel.

Rounding out the awards are:  Masha Wattanapanich, Best Actress for Alone; Nobody and Seed for Best Cinematography and Best Special Effects respectively; and Sean Tretta for Best Screenplay for his Death of a Ghost Hunter.