A worldwide first in the horror genre! A terrifying, shock filled suspense horror, filmed in one continuous shot!
Five friends return home from a cocktail party to their cottage deep inside the woods of the Peak District. Having rubbished the notion of urban legends our main characters find themselves weaving through the nightmare reality of their very own horror story!
‘Cut’ is a claustrophobic thrill ride only relenting on its increasingly unbearable tension and heart stopping shocks to inject a little humour to soften the blow and increase the fun! Because the film takes place in a single continuous shot the audience feel more connected to the action that ever before- there is no escape! This filming concept creates an incredibly exciting, uniquely terrifying, experience, never before witnessed in a horror film.
The film stars Zach Galligan (‘Gremlins’) as well as a host of up and coming talent including Danielle Lloyd, Simon Philips (‘Jack Said’) and Michael Socha (‘Dogging: A Love Story’).
‘CUT’ is released in the UK on DVD Monday 22nd February
Before Caligula and Salon Kitty came the Tinto Brass 1960’s Psychedelic Classics.
Welcome to the sexual revolution as only Tinto Brass could have imagined it! Featuring Deadly Sweet (Col Cuore in Gola) a cinema fumetti pop art giallo thriller, starring the sexy Ewa Aulin (Candy). The Howl (L’Urlo) a surreal cult classic, with Tina Aumont (daughter of Maria Montez) now for the first time ever Uncut on DVD. And Attraction (Nerosubianco), a psychedelic pop art experience, with music by Freedom (ex Procal Harum)
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Widescreen version (16×9 Enhanced)
- Restored, uncensored versions
- English audio commentaries by Tinto Brass
- Photo Galleries
- Trailers
Saying that Carlos Atanes is an odd filmmaker is a slight euphemism. The Spanish author shows universes that are so strange that it is hard to understand anything for the everyday audience. His movies mix philosophy, poetry and sociologic thoughts and get a surrealistic aesthetics which sometimes remind of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s colourful frenzies.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) throws us into a futurist world where women have taken hold of the power. Mutant animals, biological experiences and masculine spying: the components are given one by one and the stake is hard to understand. We kind of get that this modern society forbids any physical contact, which is an enormous issue for a pornographic filmmaker!
Angeline is a young woman who lives with Nono, a mute young man who is a sound mixer. He is at Angeline’s disposal and has to serve her glasses of milk whenever she asks for it. Angeline wants to join the brotherhood, ironically named because it is an organisation only composed of women. Even if we understand globally what is going on, it remains hard to know where we are going and we are often lost with Angeline’s logorrhoea who talks a lot about everything. Concerning the settings, the choice is meticulous and we are travelling in the squalid streets of Paris, in the autumnal Pyrenees and in a reddening and arid desert.
Metaminds & Metabodies takes place in a quite squalid pub which is the antechamber of Hell. A play is played out on stage. A woman is tied up by her hair to barbed wires. A kind of devil dominates her and is torturing her, undercover of a mysterious contract. But the woman manages to escape and shots the devil with a gun. In the audience, another woman, hysterical, attacks everyone. The drama on stage is mixing with what’s happening at the bar until we do not understand anymore what is real or played.
As in FAQ, Atanes accumulates levels of reality until the audience is lost. Once again, we do not understand what’s happening, except that there are violent conflicts between the characters, all hysterical, a little like in Andrzej Zulawski’s movies.
With Morfing, Atanes puts himself on stage and creates a work on the job as a film maker, with introspection about his obsessions. And as he is a little crazy in his mind, it makes a maelstrom of pictures and ideas where the difficulties of the independent cinema come one after the other (find financing, convince the actresses). These actresses criticize him a lot in the dressing rooms and he makes them intervene: they say that he is a pervert who only thinks about filming them getting undressed. In a masochistic momentum, the producer films himself trying to commit suicide. But a bunch of producers try to stop him (among them: Nacho Cerda and Jaume Balaguero!) Morfing shows us a lot. The characters speak a lot without stopping. It gives velocity to the movie, either we are sucked in, either we are overflowed with these countless words.
His most crazy movie is certainly Welcome to Spain, the opposite of a touristic postcard. A young man meets his father at the airport but the two do not get on well. The movie is mostly worth it with the sequence called the stairs, where the main character tries to go up when the others try to stop him at the risk of their lives. This sequence is ten minutes long and there is blood, sex and food: everything in the stairs. Once again, we seem to see a metaphor of the difficulties encountered by Atanes to end a movie.
How have you become a director ?
I am still becoming a director! In fact, I am basically a writer who can occasionally shoot my ideas. Every film I make is like doing the first one, and I want to surprise myself with every new work. I started to make movies in 1987 with my friends and a video camera. Since then I have not changed essentially my philosophy. More people, better cameras and a greater budget (often, not always), but I keep a totally independent working way, for better or for worse.
How did you meet Arantxa Pena ?
In a casting, a lot of years ago. I was preparing my infamous “The Metamorphosis of Franz Kafka” and she was a wannabe actress. The rest is History of Cinema.
What’s the matter with the milk ?
I don’t know… What’s the matter ?
Why is FAQ in French language ?
“FAQ” began improvising a shooting in the forest. The actress was French, and I liked she spoke in her language. Then I wrote the screenplay and placed the action in France. So it was normal to continue in French. Suddenly I felt everything fitted properly, and the film was becoming what many people reckon as a “French arty movie”. That’s so funny!
I didn’t understand many things, is it normal or am I dumb ?
Even me don’t understand all! It is not worrying. All the films I like are a little incomprehensible, a little
mysterious. The total clarity is boring and easy to forget. I am sure if you watch “FAQ” again you’ll see things you didn’t noticed the first time. I think a dumb is not a person who does not understand entirely something, but somebody who thinks that a movie, a book, whatever else (the world itself!) must be absolutely intelligible. Art and life are full of ineffable aspects.
FAQ and Proxima both seem pretty “sweet” compared to your short movies? What happened ? Have you calmed down ?
Yes, it does if you compare them with “CODEX ATANICUS” trilogy. But it is not meaninful. I have done just two (finished) feature movies. Several of my shortfilms are also sweet compared with the “CODEX”. The “CODEX” is especially disturbing, but maybe my next feature would be even more crazy, hard and annoying. Who knows. I prefer not to jump the gun. I like challenge myself. I am older but not exhaust.
Is Welcome to spain a clip to attract tourists in your country ?
Sure. As you can see in the film we have sunny reedbeds, tripe, hens and bold girls. What else can a tourist ask for ?
Is there a meaning to Welcome to spain or is it just complete madness ?
The plot contains a very simple message: how much hard is to do aything here! You’re always surrounded by envious bastards who have nothing to do but stopping you. But don’t misinterpret me, I’m clear about there are suckers aywhere around the world. I know it’s a widespread trouble, but I am Spaniard and in the time when I shooted it I felt especially weighed down, so my country carried the can.
Nevertheless, besides the message “Welcome to Spain” is, yes, a complete madness.
How have you managed to imply famous directors in Morfing ?
I called all the filmmakers I scarcely knew personally at that time, when I was living in Barcelona. It’s not a big town and all the filmmakers from there knew each other directly or indirectly, more or less. But notice that some of them, for example Jaume Balagueró, was not still famous. He had made only one or two shortilms in those days.
José María Nunes instead was a living legend, as he’s still now, and he was kind enough to come (he had played before a role into my “Metamorphosis”). All of them improvised their dialogues according to their own idiosyncrasy. Of course Nunes declaimed an apology of suicide, one of his favourite subjects.
Can you make a living with your movies ?
Oh, yes, of course… Not just a living for me, but for the banks that give me credits for making the movies. I’m not a selfish person, so I work for them. Bankers are very happy with me and they repair their yatchs thanks to my films.
What will be your next movie about ?
I am now taking up again my old project of making a feature movie about Aleister Crowley, the British magician. The screenplay is finished and I am looking for financing and co-producers from around the world. I hope I could shoot it next year, in spring, gods willing.
A series of Olivier Smolders’ short movies, the author of Black Night, which has a chronicle on the website.
Synopsis
Adoration: a young man settles a movie camera fixed in a dark room. He invites in a young woman. They have a romantic dinner. Then, the young woman reads poetry, they drink wine seated on the carpet. The young man remains mute. A moment later, he murders the young woman by shooting her in the back.
Mort à Vignole: scenes of family movies, shot in 8mm and commented by the author himself. The comments are poetically and philosophically about life, death, the passing of time. The story starts with his stillborn child.
L’amateur: a man is talking to his missing wife to tell her his unusual activity which consists in shooting women agreeing to be naked in front of his lens.
Neuvaine: a man is talking about his youth through his punishment within a catholic institution.
Ravissement: beautiful woman faces, in black and white, are scrolling over Thérèse d’Avila’s pieces of writings. The nun describes her vision of the oration, in a passionate implication of her faith.
Pensées et visions d’une tête coupée : the painter Antoine Wiertz’s last will. He leaves all his work to the state. Dwarfs visit the museum where some of his masterpieces are interpreted.
Philosophie dans le boudoir: pieces of Sade’s texts, “inviting families to profusion”.
Point de fuite: one of the rare short movies in color. A teacher enters her classroom and notices, with astonishment, that all the pupils are waiting for her, naked and in silence… The class was supposed to be on perspective…
L’art d’aimer: the author, a man, tells a part of his childhood with his ill mother and Madam Claude, a sad housewife. Then, he discovers what he calls “life”.
Seuls: Smolders shoots autistic children in an institution.
Smolders is obviously an author. Through his short movies which can go far into intimacy, his talent of aesthete is obvious. Mort à Vignole dares the family novel, asking some existential questions which are sometimes conventional but always pertinent. An average audience could accelerate those family pictures if they did not mix nostalgia and sensibility as well as a long and complacent exposure of emaciated bodies on dissection tables. We have the same tone of a painful past, in Neuvaine where the content is much more tortuous (anticlerical?). Smolders is an entomologist: he perpetuates a black and white very detailed. The pitch of Adoration deals with a couple of insects in a jar where tragedy of love and murder will take place. The young man is at the same time the insect and the experimenter who is going to put off the other insect’s wigs. His necrophilic, mutilating and cannibal game, pointing at his guest, ends the setting of his fantasy in a morbid atmosphere. This short movie gets its inspiration from the news item about Issei Sagawa, the cannibal murderer, is very refined and is one of the most fascinating author’s movies. Smolders tries to reconstruct the character’s indifference which is probably right on a psychopathological level. Great perverts of that kind are barely sexually attracted by their victims, but take pleasure “nearby”, with their sufferings or the use of their body as an object. Beyond this squalid news item, the refinement of the shooting and of the photography highlights the subject of the movie at the expense of almost absurd scenes like when the victim to be reads Mallarmé and Nerval’s poetry to her murderer.
In a different register, the monochrome eroticism and some women’s beauty in the Amateur, help to forget the vacuity of the recited topic, one of the less interesting texts. One picture remains: the stunning reflection of the mirror delicately set on the first woman’s sex.
Beyond the “captured” image of the woman, Smolders is attached to themes or gimmick that we can find in Black Night: the native Congo, animality, trains… In the feature-length movie, sexuality is less present, but here it is recurrent: from the most pictured (Ravissement) to the most crude (La philosophie dans le boudoir). JF Stevenin’s voice in the latter is wonderful. Other pictures may cause uneasiness, like the naked child holding a pig (Pensées …) in an irritating surrealism which is the alibi of a visual transgression. The setting of the autistic children (Seuls) can also be troubling because it shows the stereotypes and their complexity in a stylized way.
One of Smolders’ main qualities is his capacity to go from realistic and concrete pictures to abstract excess, either shot or read. He hardly does without his bicephalous style, between writing and literature. His cinema is clearly intellectual and even cerebral. Smolders’ short movies are full of real moment of grace. The pleasure of the senses is present, going past the most pontificated aspects.
Bonus: Soundtrack of Nuit noire.
Spiritual exercices: soundtrack with the author’s comments.
Images amoureuses, images de mort (2003): Smolders comments on his art with images of the shooting.
Written and directed by Dick Maas (Silent Witness; The Shaft), the cult classic action-thriller AMSTERDAMNED comes to DVD for the first time ever in the UK this September, totally uncut, courtesy of Nouveaux Pictures and Cine-Excess.
Rarely seen in the two decades since its original release, AMSTERDAMNED was a box office sensation in its home territory of the Netherlands and quickly established itself as a cult favourite amongst horror and thriller fans elsewhere in the world.
When the brutally mutilated body of a hooker is discovered suspended from a bridge in the heart of Amsterdam’s popular tourist district the city’s police fear the worst. Within days further murders confirm their suspicions – a serial killer is on the loose and is using the vast network of canals to traverse the city before dragging unsuspecting victims to their watery graves and escaping detection by hiding in the darkness beneath the surface.
Fearing an outbreak of mass hysteria and a serious blow to the tourist trade should the news break to the public, the mayor demands swift action from the authorities. The police respond by assigning their best man, Detective Visser (Hube Stapel), to the case. Figuring the killer must be someone with scuba diving experience, Visser begins his investigation at the city’s principal sub-aqua club where he meets and befriends an attractive woman diver, Laura (Monique van de Ven), and her therapist, who was also once a diving enthusiast. Meanwhile, as the body count begins to rise, Visser’s adolescent daughter and her school friend have unwisely decided to try and track down the killer themselves.
Directed with considerable flair by Dick Maas, AMSTERDAMNED is a taut, suspenseful thriller boasting a rich vein of black humour (in particular some humorous nods to “Jaws”) and several memorable set-pieces, including a much-lauded and extremely gripping speedboat chase through Amsterdam’s narrow waterways.
AMSTERDAMNED (Cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£19.99) by Nouveaux Pictures on 28th September 2009. Special Features include: “Making of” featurette; Dutch (with English subtitles) and English dub audio options; Dutch trailer; English trailer.
The debut feature from writer-director Steven C. Miller, ZOMBIE TRANSFUSION is a gripping contemporary horror movie that recalls the spirit, energy and inventiveness of independent horror classics such as ‘Night Of The Living Dead”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Last House On The Left”.
Relentlessly violent, shockingly gory, fast-paced and boasting superlative special effects that belie the film’s modest budget, this is one zombie movie that horror fans will not want to miss.
Rather than spend the evening at a house party hosted by the high school jocks and their cheerleader girlfriends, a trio of small-town friends head into the city hoping to catch an early rock show. En route, they notice a complete lack of rush hour traffic on the freeway and, arriving at their destination, are disturbed by the absence of any people on the streets. Their apprehension regarding the bizarre circumstances soon turns to outright terror when a horde of flesh-hungry zombies suddenly descends upon them, forcing them to take temporary refuge in the deserted rock club. Meanwhile, back in town, an unwelcome guest has gate crashed the party and begun feeding on and infecting the revellers, spreading what appears to be an unstoppable virus.
Quickly realising they won’t last the night if they stay holed up in the club, the three buddies decide to head back home intending to gather together their family members and other friends. They arrive to find just a handful of survivors amid the bloody carnage and, accepting they have nothing left to lose, resolve to take on the zombies themselves in a violent fight to the un-death.
Marking Steven C. Miller as a horror director to watch, this first part of a proposed ZOMBIE TRANSFUSION trilogy (the second movie is currently in production) is an extraordinary debut, a film that begins with a bang and builds to a thrilling climax that will leave viewers begging for more.
ZOMBIE TRANSFUSION (cert. 18) will be released on DVD (£12.99) by Momentum Pictures on 12th October 2009.
October 2009 sees the highly anticipated Blu-ray release of George A. Romero’s classic zombie movie DAWN OF THE DEAD, presented as a special three-disc edition – exclusive to the UK – that represents the ultimate presentation of the film available anywhere in the world. Released just in time for Halloween, this is undoubtedly the horror movie Blu-ray release of the year.
Produced and compiled by Arrow Video with the kind of loving care and attention only the most devoted of zombie aficionados are willing to provide, this must-have three-disc set includes the George A. Romero approved Theatrical Cut of the film in 1080p resolution on Blu-ray, plus the Director’s Cut and the Dario Argento Cut on DVD, the latter being made available on DVD as part of this collection for the first time in the UK.
Also included is a host of extras that include the rarely seen “Scream Greats” documentary on the career of special effects wizard Tom Savini, audio commentaries by the filmmakers and, for the first time, French Romero fanatic Nicolas Garreau’s fascinating travelogue-come-documentary “Fan Of The Dead”. Additionally, exclusively designed packaging features four different sets of artwork from which fans can choose to display the collection, including the little-seen “gasmask” artwork and an all-new, specially commissioned oil painting commemorating this landmark release of the film.
The release will be supported by screenings of DAWN OF THE DEAD and “Day Of The Dead” in Dublin (24th October), Edinburgh (25th October) and Glasgow (26th October) with special guests Ken Foree and Joe Pilato in attendance for audience Q&A sessions (see below for full details).
Disc One (Blu Ray)
Theatrical cut of the feature in 1080p High Definition; DTS HD and Stereo audio options; audio commentary by director George A Romero, special effects artist Tom Savini and assistant director Chris Romero; audio commentary by producer Richard P. Rubinstein; “Document of the Dead” documentary; “Document of the Dead: The Lost Interview” and deleted scenes; “Fan of the Dead” documentary.
Disc Two (DVD)
Director’s cut of the feature; “The Dead Will Walk” documentary.
Disc Three (DVD)
Dario Argento’s cut of the feature; “Scream Greats” documentary; Publicity Vault containing US and German trailers, TV and Radio spots, reviews, Arrow Video’s Giallo trailers (”Macabre”, “Sleepless” and “The House by the Cemetery”).
Also included
Exclusive, four artwork option packaging; double sided poster with all-new Rick Melton painting on one side and the original UK theatrical artwork on reverse; “For Every Night There is a Dawn” booklet written by Calum Waddell.
Support Activity in the UK and Ireland
To celebrate the October 26th Blu-Ray launch of George Romero’s classic horror epic DAWN OF THE DEAD, Arrow Video has teamed up with the Cult Fiction store in Edinburgh (www.cultfictionmovies.com) to bring fans in Scotland and Ireland a double whammy of zombie fun on the big screen. In addition, Romero buffs will have the chance to meet and greet iconic horror actors Ken Foree, the star of “Dawn of the Dead”, and Joe Pilato, who memorably brought to life the villainous Captain Rhodes in “Day of the Dead” and who will be in the UK to shoot all-new exclusive extras for the “Day of the Dead” UK Blu-ray due out early in 2010.
The dates are as follows:
Saturday 24th October, Horrorthon, Irish Film Institute, Temple Bar, Dublin.
15.45: Day of the Dead (with Joe Pilato in attendance for audience Q&A).
18.00: PREMIERE: Zone of the Dead (this hotly tipped Romero homage will have the star, Ken Foree, in attendance for an audience Q&A).
Tickets: +353 1 6793477 www.horrorthon.com
Sunday 25th October, Cameo Picturehouse, 38 Home St, Edinburgh, Scotland.
18.00: Dawn of the Dead (with Ken Foree for Q and A after the film).
21.00: Day of the Dead (with Joe Pilato for Q and A after the film).
Tickets: £10 Full/£8 Concessions go on sale at 11 a.m. on Saturday 26th September via the booking line on 0871 704 2052 or in person at the box office. There will be no web sale of the tickets.
Monday 26th October, Glasgow Film Theatre, 12 Rose St, Glasgow, Scotland.
17.30: Dawn of the Dead (with Ken Foree for Q and A after the film).
20.00: Day of the Dead (with Joe Pilato for Q and A after the film).
In a very rare instance, the British Board of Film Classification has refused to grant an 18 certificate to Japanese horror movie “Grotesque” due to the amount of unacceptable content featured throughout the film.
Set for distribution in the UK by 4Digital Asia, “Grotesque” concerns the abduction of a young couple by the film’s main protagonist, a psychotic sadist, who proceeds to restrain, strip and sexually assault his victims before torturing them to death.
The decision to ban the film was taken by BBFC director David Cooke and senior colleagues who claimed, “Unlike other recent ‘torture’ themed horror works, such as the ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel’ series, ‘Grotesque’ features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism. In spite of a vestigial attempt to ‘explain’ the killer’s motivations at the very end of the film, the chief pleasure on offer in not related to understanding the motivations of any of the central characters. Rather, the chief pleasure on offer seems to be wallowing in the spectacle of sadism (including sexual sadism) for its own sake.”
The last time a film was rejected by the BBFC was in April of this year when “NF713″ (aka “Enemy Of The State”) was refused an 18 certificate. In February 2008 the film “Murder Set Pieces” was also rejected. Prior to that, the Board had not refused an 18 rating since 2005 when the film “Terrorists, Killers And Other Wackos”, a work made up of real clips of executions and torture, was turned down.
A spokesperson for 4Digital Asia expressed surprise at the outright rejection of “Grotesque”, stating, “We knew that the BBFC was debating the content of the film quite intensely but we had expected to receive from the BBFC a list of recommended cuts enabling the film to be passed with an 18 certificate. We are now considering whether or not to appeal against the Board’s decision.”
Welcome to a Japanese nightmare…
Billed as “the cruelest Japanese splatter movie ever” (a statement that doesn’t do the film’s graphic scenes of torture and dismemberment anywhere near enough justice), GROTESQUE is a survival horror movie that makes the likes of “Saw” and “Hostel” look like “Mary Poppins” in comparison.
Written and directed by Koji Shiraishi (Carved aka A Slit-Mouthed Woman) and starring Hiroaki Kawatsure (Chanbara Beauty; Carved) and Japanese porn star Tsugumi Nagasawa (Tokyo Gore Police), the film takes the concept of Japanese extreme cinema to a whole new level.
A girl, Aki (Tsugumi Nagasawa), and her new boyfriend, Kazuo (Hiroaki Kawatsure), are mugged, knocked unconscious and kidnapped by an unknown assailant. They wake up to find themselves bound and gagged in a torture chamber-style basement at the mercy of a man armed with a mind-boggling array of kitchen implements and power tools whose only pleasure is gained from the suffering of others. So begins a slow and sustained assault during which the couple is gradually hacked, mutilated and degraded to the point where death becomes a more desirable option to living. Or is it? When one captive is offered the chance to die in order to save the life of the other, the question of how far one would go for a loved one is answered in the most unpleasant of ways.
Nina is the voluptuously alluring girlfriend of Johnny, a charming but delusional crook.
To escape from her weary life she casually sleeps with an old friend, Teddy, but is fed up of her current lifestyle especially the drunken dreams of Johnny. One night after an argument with Johnny, she storms home where she is abducted by a pair of thugs and is fortunatley rescued by a timid and guilt-ridden girl, Monella.
Even though they are from two very different worlds, they quickly become close friends and sooth each other lives.
Director David Noel Bourke already brought us Last Exit, which was a small and smart indie movie. No right turn is a bit more ambitious and hires Eric Witzgall for its cinematography. He gave the film its brilliant specific color tone, which depends on the scene. Some kind of sepia for the amateur of old trains, red/blue/green for night places and warm wood colors for the apartement of Nina and Johnny. Bourke is a curious European blend of David Lynch, John Dahl and Quentin Tarantino. He makes me think of Lynch because of the beautiful eerie pictures. As in Last Exit, the director just loves to describe cut throat bad enlightened streets. He also likes to shoot scenes taking place in night clubs and bars. This whole “nightlife” world, with raw colors and neon lights, seems to seduce him. Thanks to these atmospheres, he captures the mood of the wandering souls that pretend to be happy using drugs and alcohol although they just have a pathetic life.
Now Tarantino because of two things. First, Bourke lengthily depicts the everyday life of his characters with the help of fancy dialogues. It tends to establish an emotional bond between the audience and the characters on screen. The movie mainly relies on the two lead actresses Sira Stampe (Monella) and Laura Bach (Nina). They have a special gaze, and if they’re beautiful and sexy, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a deep personality. I think their portrait is the main success of the movie. We are seduced by these femme fatale and just believe in those two characters.The first one is a kind of classy blonde who’s looking for a brighter future. The other one has a disturbed mind and a dark past. We can like or be somewhat bored by this long exposure as we go from a character to another without any transition in the story . One weakness of the movie most certainly comes from the writer character. We don’t really see the meaning of his presence. He lives near an old locomotive and several scenes just focus on him and we don’t why. Well, until the end where we happen to know what part he’s truely playing in the plot.
And like in Tarantino movies, violence can spurs from anywhere at anytime. Let’s not spoil the surprise but some trashy scenes occur from time to time ! Bad taste surprises just come up without a warning.
Whereas there’s no strong plot during the first hour, a certain tension is created and allows us to be interested in the characters depicted. Then we go for a classic betrayal intrigue. That’s where John Dahl comes up. The end of the movie is a bit expected (well not the end after the end). It looks like John Dahl movies of the 90’s where everybody manipulates everybody and you just don’t know who’s going to be the cleverest.
On the overall, No right turn, as an independent film, doesn’t want to please its audience absoluetly. The fact is the movie is kind of personal and David Noel Bourke just wants to share what he usually likes. We would pompously call that an author’s vision. Just when it tends to get boring, it goes on with a thriller plot, that has been seen before but which remains entertaining. But what fully won my attention was the kind of 80’s pulp look and the ambiguous relationship between Nina and Monella.
Colourful, kitsch, gory and extremely funny, the horror-comedy SEXY KILLER is a crowd-pleasing popcorn movie – part serial killer thriller and part zombie shocker – that wittily pays homage to the genre classics that have so obviously inspired its makers. It brings to the screen a charming, sexy and charismatic anti-hero (or, in this case anti-heroine) in the form of a loveable serial killer for whom viewers will be rooting until the final frame.
At an exclusive university dead bodies are turning up with alarming frequency, all believed to be victims of the notorious Campus Killer. The police are stumped as to who the killer might be and, of course, nobody suspects innocent looking med student Barbara. A superficial fashion queen whose childhood dream was to grow up to become the living embodiment of her favourite doll, Cindy Superstar, all Barbara needs now is to find herself a real-life equivalent of Cindy’s plastic partner, Glenn. But behind the mask of her perfectly applied make-up is a deadly cross between Paris Hilton and American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, a female serial killer for whom ruthlessly slaughtering people isn’t so much a question of why as one of why not?
Barbara’s grisly trail of murder fortuitously leads her into the arms of Tomas, a fellow student assigned to the campus morgue who is experimenting with a machine designed to translate thoughts and brainwaves into images. What he later discovers, though, is that with a little tinkering (and the addition of a healthy dose of Ecstasy to his subjects) the machine is able to reanimate the dead. Not surprisingly, this proves to be bad news for Barbara as Tomas begins reviving the Campus Killer’s victims in the hope that at least one of them will be able to identify their murderer. Of course, what he hadn’t bargained for was their insatiable hunger for both revenge and for human flesh. Soon, Tomas finds himself the innocent bystander in a bloody and explosive serial killer versus zombies showdown.
From Fumihiko Sori, the director of Vexille and Ping Pong, comes the period martial arts action saga, Ichi, a bold, gender-bending reimagining of the classic Zatoichi series of films and TV shows that the Sunday Mirror has called a “super-stylish Japanese period action film.”
Originally created by novelist Kan Shimozawa, the eponymous hero – a blind masseur and master swordsman – has traditionally been a male character (previously played by stars such as Shintaro Katsu, Takeshi Kitano and, in Blind Fury, by Rutger Hauer). In a refreshing break from tradition that adds an intriguing twist to the story, Sori’s Ichi stars actress Haruka Ayase (Hero) in the title role playing a young and beautiful blind musician who also happens to be an adept swordswoman.
Co-starring Shido Nakamura (Red Cliff; Letters From Iwo Jima), Yosuke Kubozuka (Ping Pong) and Takao Osawa (Sky High), and with fight choreography by Hiroshi Kuze (responsible for the amazing sword fights in many of Akira Kurosawa’s epics, including Ran) and a superb musical score by award winning composer Lisa Gerrard (Gladiator), Ichi is a sublime and welcome addition to the Zatoichi movie canon.
ICHI (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£17.99) and Blu-ray (£24.99) by Manga Entertainment on 24th August 2009.
During the 30’s in the Mandchourie region, Tae-Goo (”the weird”) steals the mysterious map of a Japanese man which would probably lead to a treasure. Despite the fact that he manages to take the map easily with his gun, the train in which he is travelling is stopped by rascals. Chang Yi, “the bad”, a merciless criminal, tries to stop the weird, without success. The latter runs away but he is purchased by “the good”, Do-Won, a bounty hunter who tracks down outlaws for whom the authorities have put a price on there heads.
Thanks to a particularly crazy screenplay, Kim Jee-Woon only puts back to life the spaghetti western which was made famous in our countries with Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. Obviously, the title is a tribute to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Korean cast is a perfect echo to the trio formed by Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef. We have Lee Byung-Hun who is a kind of dandy-killer, paying much attention to his appearance: a lock of hair in front of the eye and a good layer of mascara to give him a deep sight. Playing the weird, it was obvious to find Song Kang-Ho (The Host, Memories of Murder), an actor who manages to mix extreme stupidity à la Benny Hill with emotion and seriousness when there is a need to. Woo Sung is the most discreet (for sure, he is the good) and he gets most of his inspiration from the traditional cow-boy. The whole movie is about discovering who is going to be the cleverest, the faster, and also who is bluffing.
With the exception of some slow moments (to give the time to breathe a little), the movie moves on scenes of action is a complete joy. When Hollywood is always doing more and more things to amaze the audience (more special effects, more guns, more “what the fuck!”), the Korean movie director chooses to reinvent the old scene of action. We see this originality in the construction of the scenes. Instead of going too far with a quick editing and short shots, Kim Jee-Woon gives us sequence shots. They do not particularly last long but where another movie director would have cut, he shows us the action without brake. Theses staging choices are audacious and allow the audience to really take part to the events. Thus, through a window to the other side of the street, we can observe rascals throwing a hook on the roof of a house, where we are standing with the weird. Then, during the same sequence, we can see the rascals jumping thanks to the tightened rope then breaking the window and enter the house. The effect is visually striking and really frightening.
Concerning the “action”, we have our money’s worth. Gun fights never stop and there is always something which makes the film unique. As an example we will give the weird wearing the helmet of a diving gear to protect himself from bullets (a clever wink to the bulletproof vest of A Fistfull of Dollars?). There is also the aerial gun fight which takes place on the roofs with the fighting men using ropes and pulleys to propel themselves in the air. The ballet is amazing and sometimes, the camera seems all the more to be flying at the end of a rope! The climax of the movie is reached during a pursuit in the desert where all the characters are implied: Japanese men with cannon and machine guns, Chinese men on horses, our weird in a sidecar and other men on motorcycles. This happy shambles remains comprehensible and all the more audible thanks to the song “don’t let me be misuntderstood”, which, despite of being in disharmony with the time, really fit with the atmosphere of the scene. This final scene of action remains memorable because we feel like being in Mad Max with more fun! The horses receive cannonballs, the motorcycles collide, the blasts as well as the stunts do not stop; it is a complete show.
The Good, the Bad and the Weird, is not an “author” movie. To do short, it is simply the story of three men who run after the others. Though, it is hard not to like seeing those guys becoming very resourceful in order to find a treasure which is not the one expected, we know that right from the beginning. When searching a little more, we find some lines of thinking and mainly a reflexion about the history of Korea and especially the Japanese supremacy which the country underwent between 1910 and 1945. This difficulty is seen through the weird who emigrated and whose dream is to buy land in his country to rear cattle. The dark and melancholic side of the weird is typical of Kim Jee Woon’s movies and this is a counterpoint to the amazing show of the scenes of action.
Whether it is in 2 Sisters or Bittersweet Life, he always depicts lost souls who fight with their origins and their environment.
The blu-ray version pays very well tribute to the barren landscapes, very detailed. There is only an inner scene which has a strange dark blue grid though the colours should be black. The surround sound is very well used with many detailed effects on the background. The box beam is not very much solicited. Music is emphasized a little and takes part a lot to the entertainment.
After ten years helping other genre filmmakers bring monstrosities to the screen, special FX makeup artist Teresa Fahs says she is ready to breathe life into her own undead creations. The CEO of Gorify.com, a one-stop special effects make-up resource for the do-it-yourself zombie, has written and is currently seeking funds for “Haunting Kira,” which she plans to direct in November and release theatrically on Mother’s Day next year.
“Over the years, I have become proficient at visually translating a script into reality,” Fahs said. “What I haven’t had a chance to do, is really push the special effects envelope from the writing and directing perspective.”
Now that is changing as Fahs looks to bring fans something different than the normal scare fare they’ve grown accustomed to with modern horror. The genre has been watered down with remakes, sequels, PG-13 ratings, as well as stale and predictable kills and plot twists. Fahs promises her “Haunting Kira” screenplay stays far away from those pitfalls.
“I’ve had all these amazing gore bits, scares, and kills floating around in my head for years,” Fahs said. “I also had an original zombie concept that goes beyond the typical shooting gallery, and I needed to bring it to the screen. Then one day it all just gelled together. Writing the script was really just the process of yanking it out of my brain.”
Fahs describes “Haunting Kira” as a ghost story, a zombie film, a gorefest, and a strange trip that is like “Being John Malkovich” meets “The Shining” meets “Night of the Living Dead.”
“It’s got paranormal activity, re-animated and decaying corpses, painfully realistic gore, frenzied and meaningful kills, and an ending that will hopefully make audiences want to see it all again, and again, and again,” Fahs said. “‘Haunting Kira’ also explores issues of death and immortality, the impact of physical pain on behavior, commentary on medical professionals, how women’s self-image is attached to her appearance, the effects of aging on personality, and more. It’s not a preachy story though. It’s more like a journey into your worst fears with no way out.”
Fahs is partially funding the film’s budget with revenue earned from Gorify.com. She hopes to find matching funds from investors and is also offering fans a chance to be a part of the production. They can make pledges on Fundable.com and in return for their donations of $50-$1,000 they will receive screen and IMDb credits, a DVD copy of the project and progressive perks depending upon the amount pledged.
One of Fahs’ most recent credits as a makeup artist was for “The Hillywood Show,” a highly popular online series with more than a million viewers. The creators and directors of the show - the Hindi sisters - have nothing, but praise for the Goddess of Gore.
“Teresa’s SFX make-up is by far some of the best work we have ever seen,” Hilly Hindi said. Hannah Hindi added, “Her note to perfection and quality is simply amazing. She demonstrates her passion and love for the art in a way that is completely inspiring.”
Scorpion is pursued in the subway by the police. At the last minute, she manages to escape them, taking with her one of the policemen’s arm with the handcuff. She takes refuge at a prostitute’s home who has strange relationships with her crazy brother.
The Beast Stable is the third and last movie produced by Shunya Ito. It digs a little more the morbid and desperate line which started with the two previous movies: Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion and Jailhouse 41. The opening which is a real uppercut in the stomach, insists on the aggressive atmosphere in which the film falls down without any restraint. During a pursuit in the subway, Scorpion is caught with handcuffs by a policeman. To escape, she has no other possibility than tearing off the policeman’s arm. For a while, she strolls in the street with the bloody arm hanging from her wrist. The literal and play metaphor of violence, which pursues the young woman marked by fate, does not beat around the bush. Goodbye ellipses, what’s left unsaid. Shunya Ito completely accepts the deal: telling a violent story full of noise and rage in an atmosphere looking like a vicious photo story. The serial had never gone so far in the sadistic and morbid atmosphere.
The stunning entrance into the bosom of true cinema of exploitation goes on with a series of very violent and audacious scenes. A prostitute sleeps with her mad brother, she becomes pregnant and is assaulted by a perverse female pimp who is an old cell rival of Scorpion. Women are beaten, humiliated and murdered in dreadful sufferings. The iconic character of Scorpion, a kind of death angel in a woman body, owns a cathartic and erotic power directly coming from the universe of a manga. Pomposity and madness are in the middle of a fabulous and stylized B serial which is on the side of the Italian bis of the 70’s. This maelstrom of deviant sex and sharpen violence is soften by a sophisticated and refined direction which is underlined by elaborated framings. The interesting game of the frame into the frame reminds of the graphical spirit of the manga. This wish of going beyond the aspect ratio of the 35mm film which is sometimes austere, curiously is at its best in the most explicit scenes of the movie. This a concern of mixing the form with the content in a film which reminds of Seijun Suzuki’s visual work, who is a great producer of films of exploitation and who managed to insert popular culture without renouncing to his artistic integrity. Shunya Ito does not go as far as the author of Branded to kill in the composition of pictures but he offers a representative sample of the Japanese cinema of the 70’s.
However, The Beast Stable suffers from a deficient story which struggles to go on when all the elements are present. The movie races so fast, going from the most extreme situations to extreme situations, that the loss of impetus is ineluctable. After an hour, Ito does not have much more to show despite a visual sans that is stunning.
However, we see the producer’s wish to avoid repetition. For example, he avoids sending the anti-heroine in jail in order to avoid the pitfall of the traditional WIP. This minor fault which is central in all the films of the serial, does not prevent from adhering to this rape and revenge which is a major influence of Quentin Tarentino who did not hesitate to take a piece of credits for his famous Kill Bill.
Meiko Kagi, who is beautiful and very inexpressive will abandon Scorpion’s character for the following opus of the serial.
(JAPAN - 1973, from Shunya Ito with Meiko Kaji, Mikio Narita)
Awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, BAD BOY BUBBY with its hard hitting content of deprivation, mental illness and incest, shocked its audiences to become one of the most daring and controversial cult films of the 1990s.
Nicholas Hope gives an astonishing performance as Bubby, a demented man-child kept locked for his entire life in a squalid apartment by his depraved mother who uses him for sex. When Bubby who can only communicate by mimicking what others say and do, escapes into the outside world, he soon discovers young women, crime, rock ‘n’ roll, and pizza. Will this naive ‘mad bastard’ be destroyed by the realities of our cruel world, or does a higher calling ultimately await him in the most unlikely place of all?
Bad Boy Bubby is released UNCENSORED, UNCUT, THE DIRECTOR’S VISION on 3rd August 2009 for the first time in the UK on Blu-ray in a 3-disc box set also containing a DVD version and Digital Copy.
A worldwide first in the horror genre! A terrifying, shock filled suspense horror, filmed in one continuous shot!
Saying that Carlos Atanes is an odd filmmaker is a slight euphemism. The Spanish author shows universes that are so strange that it is hard to understand anything for the everyday audience. His movies mix philosophy, poetry and sociologic thoughts and get a surrealistic aesthetics which sometimes remind of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s colourful frenzies.
His most crazy movie is certainly Welcome to Spain, the opposite of a touristic postcard. A young man meets his father at the airport but the two do not get on well. The movie is mostly worth it with the sequence called the stairs, where the main character tries to go up when the others try to stop him at the risk of their lives. This sequence is ten minutes long and there is blood, sex and food: everything in the stairs. Once again, we seem to see a metaphor of the difficulties encountered by Atanes to end a movie.
How have you become a director ?
Smolders is obviously an author. Through his short movies which can go far into intimacy, his talent of aesthete is obvious. Mort à Vignole dares the family novel, asking some existential questions which are sometimes conventional but always pertinent. An average audience could accelerate those family pictures if they did not mix nostalgia and sensibility as well as a long and complacent exposure of emaciated bodies on dissection tables. We have the same tone of a painful past, in Neuvaine where the content is much more tortuous (anticlerical?). Smolders is an entomologist: he perpetuates a black and white very detailed. The pitch of Adoration deals with a couple of insects in a jar where tragedy of love and murder will take place. The young man is at the same time the insect and the experimenter who is going to put off the other insect’s wigs. His necrophilic, mutilating and cannibal game, pointing at his guest, ends the setting of his fantasy in a morbid atmosphere. This short movie gets its inspiration from the news item about Issei Sagawa, the cannibal murderer, is very refined and is one of the most fascinating author’s movies. Smolders tries to reconstruct the character’s indifference which is probably right on a psychopathological level. Great perverts of that kind are barely sexually attracted by their victims, but take pleasure “nearby”, with their sufferings or the use of their body as an object. Beyond this squalid news item, the refinement of the shooting and of the photography highlights the subject of the movie at the expense of almost absurd scenes like when the victim to be reads Mallarmé and Nerval’s poetry to her murderer.
Written and directed by Dick Maas (Silent Witness; The Shaft), the cult classic action-thriller AMSTERDAMNED comes to DVD for the first time ever in the UK this September, totally uncut, courtesy of Nouveaux Pictures and Cine-Excess.
In a very rare instance, the British Board of Film Classification has refused to grant an 18 certificate to Japanese horror movie “Grotesque” due to the amount of unacceptable content featured throughout the film.
Nina is the voluptuously alluring girlfriend of Johnny, a charming but delusional crook.
After ten years helping other genre filmmakers bring monstrosities to the screen, special FX makeup artist Teresa Fahs says she is ready to breathe life into her own undead creations. The CEO of Gorify.com, a one-stop special effects make-up resource for the do-it-yourself zombie, has written and is currently seeking funds for “Haunting Kira,” which she plans to direct in November and release theatrically on Mother’s Day next year.
Awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, BAD BOY BUBBY with its hard hitting content of deprivation, mental illness and incest, shocked its audiences to become one of the most daring and controversial cult films of the 1990s.