Every year, as Sundance fires up in Utah , Slamdance slides in to slam the independent festival by providing a more accurate selection of independent film. The films selected for competition must be made by first-time filmmakers for budgets under $1 million, and many of them are quirky beyond belief, even the opening-night galas. Last year, the opener was Larry Clark's Wassup Rockers. This year, it's Weirdsville.

While that name might not ring bells, perhaps its director, Allan Moyle, does. He's the nineties teen cult movie guru who brought us Pump up the Volume and Empire Records, as well as the quirky The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag and the more somber New Waterford Girl. I can't share its plot any better than Slamdance does, which they describe as the "story of two junkies on the run from a satanic cult, a cabal of midget knights, a vengeful drug dealer, and a mouse, in a little town called Weirdsville."

The rest of the Slamdance line-up slides into four film areas -- narrative features, documentaries, special screenings and shorts. (Their website also has short film content online, and is worth checking out.) The narrative battle includes a ton of world premieres and the topics range from American Zombie, which is about a group of zombies trying to gain acceptance in LA, to a boy willing to fight his rooster to win the heart of a young prostitute in Tijuana Makes Me Happy. For the docs, selections range from Noah Thomson's Children of God: Lost and Found, his account of growing up in a Christian cult, to Luke Wolbach's Row Hard No Excuses, a story about men attempting to row across the Atlantic . There seems to be a little something for everyone, so check out the full list of films on their website.

And who can blame them? Mandy (Amber Heard) is a teen dream: A long-distance runner, friend to all and kind to her unpopular best friend Emmet (Michael Welch). Red (Aaron Himelstein) explains: "Since the dawn of Junior year, men have tried to possess her ... and failed." All the Boys Love Mandy Lane opens at a pool party, where an effort to catch Mandy's eye turns from hijinks to homicide; jumping 9 months later, Mandy seems a little haunted -- and distant from Emmet.

But Mandy has plenty of friends, and takes off for a weekend ranch getaway at Red's dad's place, along with bad-boy Jake (Luke Grimes), blonde, brittle Chloe (Whitney Able), party-girl Marlin (Melissa Price) and nice-guy athlete, Bird (Edwin Hodge). It's gonna be a good time -- until the group of six realize that someone's turned dreams of Mandy into their nightmare. There's no cell reception; they're in the middle of nowhere; they're partying hard ... and then the killing begins, transforming All the Boys Love Mandy Lane into the best modern slasher flick since Scream. In fact, I like All the Boys Love Mandy Lane a little more than Scream -- All the Boys may be knowing and post-modern as it begs, borrows and steals from films like Prom Night, Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (as well as non-genre films like Dazed and Confused and Mean Girls), but it never winks at the camera.

We had intended to cover Slamdance - you know, that other film festival tucked away in the bowels of Sundance - during our 12 sleep-deprived days in Park City. Really, we did. I had my credentials info all together, ready to take to the Slamdance office to get my press pass and everything. And then somewhere in between Man Push Cart and Quinceañera, we just ran out of time and energy. But never fear, dear readers.

Culturepulp's Mike Russell not only covered Slamdance, he drew cartoons about it! And just like you, we love to get our film festival breakdown through cartoons - after all, how many whining essays on how Sundance has really gone downhill in the last 20 years, and how bad the parking sucks, and how jam-packed it is, can you really stand to read? Mike saw 16 films in a few days, fueled by sleep deprivation and altitude sickness  (so keep that in mind when you read his capsule reviews, eh?), and he's documented all of it. So pop on over and enjoy his take on this year's Slamdance films and parties. It's almost like being there, only without the free beer and sushi.

Wassup Rockers, the truly bizarre-sounding latest from pervert-turned-auteur Larry Clark, has been selected as the opening night film for this year's Slamdance film festival. Slamdance, which runs in Park City concurrently with Sundance, has sort of absorbed the latter festival's ex-function as a place for lesser-known filmmakers to showcase their work. As such, you probably haven't heard of most of the movies on the slate announced today; but, as last year's festival launched indie hit Mad Hot Ballroom and the soon-to-be-classic undistributed Four Eyed Monsters, that's probably not a bad thing. After all, you've heard of Larry Clark, and his movie apparently involves a crew of pre-pubescent skateboarders getting into Harold and Kumar-style trouble with a badly-cast lookalike of Charlton Heston. You can check out the full list at indieWIRE.

All the cool kids are talking about Arin Crumley and Susan Buice's Four Eyed Monsters video blog. The very canny filmmakers immediately jumped on the release of the Ipod Video by doing an interview with indieWIRE, announcing their plans to podcast a series of videos about their struggle to find distribution. "We are pretty excited and pretty glad Apple finally did what we predicted would be happening and they coincidentally did it the same day we launched our intro episode for our video podcast series," Crumley told Eugene Hernandez. They sent out a press release today, asking their fans and supporters to subscribe to their MySpace Blog and Video Podcast in iTunes, and to watch their video podcasting tutorial. That intro episode is awesome – cut, like their feature, in rapid-fire montage style – skims through their festival successes, their failure to find a distributor, and their subsequent money problems, which apparently have forced the couple to move in with Susan's parents.

Dan Mirvish, co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival and director of a neat little musical called Open House (think Everyone Says I Love You in the cutthroat world of Sunday real estate) is currently recovering from a terrible accident. Mirvish fell whilst making some home improvements, severely broke his leg and shoulder and, according to Film Threat, "lost 40% of the blood in his body."He's going to recover, but the coming months are going to be no picnic. Film Threat is soliciting cards and donations for Mirvish; we here at Cinematical wish him a smooth and speedy recovery.