The Maelstrom International Film Festival is a weekend long festival of independent and international genre films, specializing in movies of the types that can be overlooked at other festivals – animation, horror, fantasy and science fiction. It’s going on this weekend at SIFF Cinema with a number of excellent offerings.

Friday night see The Revenent, winner of the Silver Vision Award for best independent film at the Toronto After Dark festival, a feature about an ancient pestilence coming back to attack modern man. It’s paired with Death in Charge, a short film in which the Grim Reaper gets mistaken for a babysitter.

Saturday gives you the chance to see three different shorts programs: Animation and Fantasy at noon, Science Fiction at 2:30 and Horror at 6:00. Saturday night’s feature is Pig Hunt, at 8:30, a film in which hillbillies, hippies and a giant pig collide in a pot field in Northern California. Plays with a short entitled The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon.

Sunday morning at 11:30 check out out a double feature of locally produced science fiction films and come back at 2:30 for a program of Fantasy shorts.

Until the Light Takes Us at 6:00 pm Sunday is afeature length documentary about the unique, often strange and sometimes violent subculture of Norwegian black metal.

The final screening of the festival comes Sunday evening with Strigoi, a Gold winner at Toronto After Dark that introduces an ancient Romanian legend: the strigoi, souls who rise from death to seek justice for having been wronged in life and now come with a thirst for human blood. The director/writer and producer will be on hand to discuss the movie.