Fright Flick. (La Luna Entertainment; 103 minutes; unrated; 2008). Gorehounds with fondnesses for topless, top-heavy actresses and buckets of blood hurled onto the screen should be in seventh heaven with this no-budget slasher item. It’s up for several awards at this weekend’s ninth annual B-Movie Festival, to be held at the Westcott Theater, 524 Westcott St.

In Dallas-based writer-director Israel Luna’s scenario, a gaggle of young filmmakers gathers to complete the Fright Flick cinematic trilogy of poverty-row slice-and-dice masterpieces. But there’s a real killer stalking the cast and crew, and the slayer’s not above offing other bystanders who get in the way. The running gag here is that the movie-within-a-movie’s stars are jaw-dropping no-talents, with busty blonde Valerie Nelson’s tongue-in-cheek performance—as leading lady Ophelia Cumming, no less—recalling the works of Independent-International’s enduring ingenue Regina Carrol.

Luna’s script mostly salutes 1980s-era slaughterhouses such as Friday the 13th, although when it comes to the catty interplay between several queenly crew members, Luna may have also been influenced by Kevin Williamson’s snarky screenplays for the Scream sendups. Luna handles this body counter’s death scenes with a straight face (barbed-wire beheadings, anyone?), but he allows the cast to occasionally wink at the campy material, with little-unknown thespians Adam Kitchen, Daphne Khoury, Todd Jenkins, Allyn Carroll and Richard Curtin scoring best—if only because their characters linger the longest. By the way, Luna pops up briefly as a fatality at a gas station, while co-producer Melissa McCurley plays a librarian who delivers the movie’s best laugh line: “What the Dewey Decimal?”

Fright Flick runs Sunday, Oct. 12, 3:15 p.m., immediately followed by a question-answer session with the filmmakers. The B-Movie Fest, which will unspool 12 features and many shorts, runs Friday, Oct. 10, 7 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.; Saturday, Oct. 11, noon to 1:30 a.m.; and Sunday, Oct. 12, 1 to 8 p.m. Admission choices range from $25 for the weekend, $10 per day or $5 per movie. An awards ceremony at the Westcott takes place Sunday at 7 p.m., with free admission. For information, call 652-3868.

Auteur theory in action: A crew member (Natali Jones) confers with her director (Richard Curtin) in Fright Flick, running Sunday at the Westcott Theater during the B-Movie Festival.