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Gregory Lamberson Previews Amazing Fantasy Fest 2025, Talks Expanding To 10 Days
Image Credit: Amazing Fantasy Fest
The 411 Interview: Gregory Lamberson
Gregory Lamberson is a director, writer, and producer who has been making movies since the late 1980’s, starting with the classic horror flick Slime City (1988). Since then, Lamberson has directed such movies as Naked Fear (1999), Slime City Massacre (2010), Dry Bones (he co-directed this with Michael O’Hear in 2013), the absolutely fantastic horror comedies Killer Rack (2015) and Johnny Gruesome (the best movie of 2018), the truly unsettling horror flick Widow’s Point (2019) starring modern horror icon Craig Sheffer, and the badass action flick Guns of Eden (check out my review of that 2022 flick here). Lamberson is also an author, responsible for the books Black Creek, Carnage Road, Johnny Gruesome, The Frenzy Wolves, and The Jake Helman Files series. Lamberson also co-directed, with Chris Scioli, the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival for a decade. Lamberson’s new film festival is Amazing Fantasy Fest, which is set to have its second year in 2025 and will be held at the Dipson Amherst Theatre in Buffalo, New York, from Friday, September 12th to Thursday, September 18th, and then September 19th and 20th at the Screening Room Cinema and Arts Café in Amherst, New York. In this interview, Lamberson talks with this writer about what’s in store for the 2025 edition of Amazing Fantasy Fest.
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Bryan Kristopowitz: 2024 was the first year of your new film festival Amazing Fantasy Fest. Do you consider the 2024 edition of the festival a success?
Gregory Lamberson: Absolutely, we had some great genre-defying movies: They Call Her Death, Black Eyed Susan, and Inbetweening to name just a few. Some fantastic indie filmmakers attended to show their work, and we had a lot of local films, so the best of both worlds.
BK: The 2025 edition of Amazing Fantasy Fest is set to go for 10 days, 3 more days than last year. What led you to expand the festival’s number of days?
GL: Insanity? I’ve done 10 days twice before and it’s a crazy amount of work. But this is my 15th year doing this, and I wanted to make it special. I may not be able to do 10 when I hit my 20th anniversary! Technically, it’s 9 days, though: the 10th day is a bonus “Secret Cinema” day for sponsors and people who get the 9-day festival pass; it’s closed to the public. The good thing about such a long schedule is it allows us to show more films; the bad part is it’s hard for patrons to commit that amount of time to watching cool movies.
BK: The 2025 edition of Amazing Fantasy Fest is set to be held in two locations, with the first seven days held at the Dipson Amherst Theater and the final three days at the Screening Room Cinema & Arts Café. What will the programming look like for each location?
GL: It’s the same programming ethos regardless of location. We started at The Screening Room, which holds about half as many people as the Amherst but has a very cool vibe. I generally program features by out-of-town filmmakers opening weekend, international films weekday afternoons, and local films weekday evenings. This year follows that pattern at the Amherst.
At the Screening Room, we have the 30th anniversary screening of Shadow Creature (1995), a campy monster movie filmed here in Buffalo, after the World Premiere of Cherry Baby, a lesbian-themed crime thriller filmed in Binghamton. On our closing Saturday we’re showing our animation block and The Other Christmas Show, which is like Waiting for Guffman except it’s a musical. So we’re ending this horror-fantasy fest with a Christmas musical, which I love. Maybe people will bring me presents.
BK: How many films, overall, will you be screening over the ten days of Amazing Fantasy Fest? How many short films and how many feature films have you scheduled?
GL: We’re showing 94 films: 16 features and 78 shorts. One-third of the films were produced locally, and one-half of those were directed by women. But we’re also sneaking in two proof-of-concept shorts as surprises.
BK: What is the genre breakdown of the films you’ve scheduled for Amazing Fantasy Fest 2025?
GL: Perhaps less horror than usual, but I say that every year. Straight On Till Morning, Zombie Chronicles, Frenzy Moon and Humanoids from the Deep are straight horror. A Serbian Documentary caters to the horror crowd. Dyngus Day is a horror-comedy. And that’s just the features. I tend to think of the programming as edgy and underground, difficult-to-classify films; some horror, some action, some fantasy, some comedy, some really offbeat stuff – an eclectic grab bag of unusual films. I can’t stop thinking about Dead, White and Blue, a hilarious action-comedy about politics and racism made entirely from stock footage which was then dubbed.
BK: You have scheduled a 45th anniversary screening of the classic Roger Corman produced monster flick Humanoids from the Deep. How did the idea of screening that come about?
GL: I first saw that film on HBO when I was in high school. I hadn’t watched it since, and earlier this year I watched it on Tubi under the title Monster and loved it, then immediately watched it again right away with my wife Tamar (who runs Valkyrie International Film Festival with our daughter Kaelin) to gauge her reaction. I often squeeze in one retro film, and when I realized this is an anniversary year for Humanoids I decided I wanted to see it on a big screen. The last act of that film is nonstop action, violence and special effects, and films like that really play for an audience. Plus, it’s got Doug McClure!
BK: Your latest directorial effort, the werewolf horror flick Frenzy Moon, is set to have its world premiere at Amazing Fantasy Fest. How anxious are you to see it on a big screen with an audience?
GL: I’m eager for people to see it. I believe it’s a good film and I think the audience will think so, too. We were in pre-production one year ago, so it hasn’t been that long, but we shot it over three seasons, just missing four, so it feels like forever. I originally thought it was going to be released in September or October, so I didn’t plan a festival run, I thought AFF would be it. The release will be slightly later, so I’m doing a very focused, selective festival run. Two festival directors invited me, which got me off my ass; three have already said yes, and I’m waiting on five. “Just a shmuck like everyone else,” as Ray Liotta said at the end of Goodfellas (1990).
BK: Amazing Fantasy Fest 2025 will be your fifteenth year running a film festival of some sort. How has the film festival world changed since you started?
GL: It seems like there are a lot more festivals now, but many of them are short-lived. When I was looking at fests to submit Frenzy Moon to I saw that many that I had either screened at in the past, or considered submitting to, or that had rejected me, are gone now. When you read some of the festival descriptions on FilmFreeway you can’t help but think, “Wow, these people really think they’re the shit!” And then they’re gone without even leaving behind a body and you think, “They found out it’s a lot harder than it looks, and they weren’t all that.” It takes fortitude to be a festival director!
BK: What do you hope attendees get out of year 2 of Amazing Fantasy Fest?
GL: I want them to see things on the big screen they won’t see anywhere else in Western New York. Films like Dead, White and Blue and Astral Plane Drifter are crazy and wildly entertaining. We show such different films that we get left off all the “Best Horror Festival” lists, but I think our programming is way more unique, so fuck those lists. We know what we’ve got here.
BK: Could the werewolf from Frenzy Moon defeat a Humanoid from the Deep from Humanoids from the Deep in a fight?
GL: One Humanoid versus one werewolf? It would depend on whether the battle took place on land or water, wouldn’t it? But a werewolf bitch just might teach one of those Humanoid rapists a lesson. Rob Bottin created the Humanoids, BTW, and Chris Walas and Steve Johnson were on his crew. James Horner did the score and Gale Anne Hurd was a PA.
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A very special thanks to Gregory Lamberson for agreeing to participate in this interview.
Amazing Fantasy Fest runs from Friday, September 12th, 2025 to Thursday, September 18th, 2025 at the Dipson Amherst Theatre in Buffalo, New York, and then September 19th and 20th at the Screening Room Cinema and Arts Café in Amherst, New York.
Check out the Amazing Fantasy Fest official website here!
Check out the official Amazing Fantasy Fest Facebook page here!
Check out Gregory Lamberson’s official website here!
Check out Gregory Lamberson’s Facebook page here!
Gregory Lamberson image courtesy of Gregory Lamberson. Amazing Fantasy Fest logo created by Chris Cosgrove. All other images courtesy of Amazing Fantasy Fest.
