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“I don't know how much movies should entertain. To me I'm always interested in movies that scar. The thing I love about Jaws is the fact that I've never gone swimming in the ocean again.” --- David Fincher ::::::::::::: MY CRITERIA FOR DISCUSSION ENCOMPASSES THE HORROR GENRE AND BEYOND, SO I USE THE TERM "NIGHTMARE MOVIES". SPOILERS CAN OCCUR WITH OR WITHOUT WARNING. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
The Disappearance of Alice Creed movie poster
The cool folk at Icon have let me giveaway a few double passes to see the awesome new psychological thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2010) which opens in Australia next week (Thursday, September 9th).

Not only is this one of the best thrillers in recent years, with three stunning central performances and a brilliant screenplay, but it’s also one of my favourite movies of the year.

Send me a private message and tell me what you think is the most suspenseful movie you’ve ever seen. I’ll pick the best answers and send you the double pass, just like that!
The Disappearance of Alice Creed Gemma Arterton

NB: This giveaway is only available to Australian readers.
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SUFF
The Sydney Underground Film Festival returns for its fourth year, and it’s boasting the most transgressive, and no doubt controversial, program yet. Almost any and every fetish and perversion is catered for. Almost. There is a plethora of short films and around ten features, plus various festival talks and events in and around the screenings.

The festival kicks off early Thursday night September 9th (with a special screening of Luis Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou) to Saturday late, September 11th, at The Factory theatre in Marrickville. Visit the official website for complete listings, ticketing and other information.

I watched a small clutch of the SUFF screeners that fit the deep trash criteria of my Pleasure of Nightmares like a guttersnipe’s filthy hand in a glove lubricated with unctuous bodily fluids. The SUFF isn’t for subculture prudes or cine snobs, SUFF is for those who champion the truly independent filmmakers who dig deep into the bowels of maverick moviemaking in order to purge their dark, twisted desires, release their inner beasts, pay tribute to the great agent provocateurs of underground cinema, and generally make a nuisance of themselves.
Trash Humpers
Trash Humpers (2009)
Friday 10th, 7.45pm & Saturday 11th, 2pm
Harmony Korine jerks off and gets friction burns from wanking so fervently. I’ve never seen a flick (of the wrist) so blatantly self-indulgent and contemptuous to its audience. Watching this inexplicable 80-odd minute piece of God knows what was like being tied to a chair and forced to watch paint dry on a turd; experimental filmmaking taken to its appalling nadir. Supposedly following the lives of several sociopathic elderly people in Nashville, Tennessee, but really just several performers wearing full-head geriatric masks (one of them I believe was Korine himself) who spend their time smashing television sets, dry-humping large plastic trash bins, and generally being a pain in the ass. They’re filmed by a documentary crew who are shooting on an old VHS camcorder. This is a movie very much made on the smell of an oily rag. The quality of the picture is dreadful, enough to make your eyes water; tracking problems, picture loss, and super-low-grade focus; all the glorious hallmarks of amateur DIY home movies. I can only assume this is an attempt to create an anti-movie. There is no grimy street poetry on display, no intelligent social sub-text, only reprehensible idiots scratching each other’s skanky backs. If you thought Lars Von Trier’s Dogme manifesto had its fair share of questionable anti-pretense, then Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers will take your sensibility and spit in its face. This is the American Dream as shat upon nightmare. Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void might be considered the migraine movie of the SUFF, but Trash Humpers is the real difficult pill to swallow. An endurance test is putting it mildly.
Trash Humpers


The Taint movie poster
The Taint (2010)
Friday 10th, 9.30pm
Imagine early John Waters and early Peter Jackson combined and you might have an idea about what Drew Buldoc and Dan Nelson’s outrageous splatter comedy is capable of. The Taint is a perverse and surreal flick that indulges in extreme acts of bloodletting and ejaculation whilst masquerading as a commentary on misogynist representation of women in cinema. Umm, I don’t think so. The Taint just enjoys crushing young women’s heads with large rocks frequently and with graphic glee. This super-low-budget ode to shock legends Waters (think Pink Flamingos) and Jackson (think Bad Taste) is so shamelessly over-the-top that it demands to be seen in a packed cinema of like-minded freakazoids. Vomit, blood, shit, semen; it’s all there in buckets. This is a movie about penile envy, taken to the most absurd extremes. Buldoc and Nelson handle almost every department; Buldoc having written the screenplay and Nelson having shot it. Buldoc stars as Phil O’Ginny, the movie’s protagonist, while Nelson delivers some impressive CGI gore effects (considering the budget). Colleen Walsh plays Phil’s sidekick, Misandra, a gung-ho mercenary. There’s something in the water that’s turning the men into women killers. Will Phil and Misandra get to the bottom of it, or will the bottom of it get to them first? The Taint is very much an acquired taste. Personally, it’s not my cup of sick, but I know there’s a definite audience for this kind of deviant and degenerate shocker, and SUFF is the perfect springboard to dive deep into the bukkake.
The Taint Drew Bolduc
Drew Bolduc as Phil O'Ginny


El Monstro del Mar! movie poster
El Monstro del Mar! (2010)
Saturday 11th, 4pm
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! meets The Creature from the Black Lagoon and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Writer/director Stuart Simpson’s B-movie 60’s-stylistic tribute to buxom femme fatales and beasts from the deep is a hoot and a guffaw. His second feature, El Monstro del Mar! (with its tongue-in-cheek mock-foreign title: The Monster from the Sea), sees Beretta (Nelli Scarlet), Snowball (Kate Watts) and Blondie (Karli Madden) arrive in a tiny seaside village after offing two eager young men. They hole up in a beachfront abode and are befriended by local girl Hannah (Kyrie Capri), who warns them not to swim in the water. Hannah’s grandfather Joseph (Norman Yemm) isn’t too fond of the wayward women’s presence, but the lasses are dead-set on having a debauched good time. That is until the Kraken awakens. Simpson certainly knows his mise-en-scene, and the movie is well shot, and sports some amusing stop-motion animation and decent gore effects. There’s also a very cool nightmare sequence. The performances, however, leave a lot to be desired, and don’t do the movie any favours. And there’s no gratuitous nudity either, which is a shame really, since the schlocky, exploitative nature of the movie demands the ante be upped when the acting isn’t that crash hot. Still, I’m sure Stuart Simpson will go on to bigger and better things.
El Monstro del Mar!
Femme fatales

I’m hoping to get to the screening of Gaspar Noe’s dark odyessy Enter the Void (2010) on Friday, September 10th, 11pm, as I know that his unique and demanding movie demands to be experienced on the big screen.

Trash Humpers trailer:


The Taint trailer:


El Monstro del Mar! trailer:

El Monstro del Mar! Nelli Scarlet

El Monstro del Mar! Kate Watts

El Monstro del Mar! Karli Maddon

El Monstro del Mar! Kyrie Capri
Kyrie Capri as Hannah


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Saw VII 3D movie poster
According to Reuters:

The Saw horror movie franchise is getting a place in the Guinness World Records as the Most Successful Horror Movie Series.

“I'm still in shock," said Mark Burg (producer), "The fact that we beat out Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a testament to our cast, crew and our partners at Lionsgate.”

Saw VII 3D movie poster
Collectively, the Saw films have made over $US73O million at the worldwide box-office and sold more than 30 million DVDs, according to distributors Lionsgate.

Burg said it was during the production of Saw 2, that the producers decided to “etch out” one long story spanning seven films. Therefore, after the seventh movie, there will be no other movies, including spin-offs or prequels. “We are done; this is it,” he said. “We don't want to be that boxer who fought one too many fights.”

Burg said the seventh chapter was always “anticipated” by fans as the final one. “In every Saw movie, we left questions open and in this movie we answer every question the audience has ever had,” Burg said, adding that even new viewers will be able to follow and “get caught up to speed.”
The seventh, and final, installment is due out October 29th and will be screened in 3D.

Hmmmm, looks like Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) who supposedly died in the first movie might have been in cahoots with Jigsaw … But hey, not that I really give a flying fuck.

Game over.

Here’s a teaser trailer:


Saw VII 3D movie poster

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FREE TICKETS TO SEE SPLICE!

July 29th 2010 02:29
Splice alternate movie poster
The lovely folk at Madman Entertainment have given me ten free tickets as giveaways to see the new sci-fi-horror-thriller, Splice (2010), which opens in Australia in a couple of weeks.

If you're keen to see the movie drop me a comment telling me your favourite sci-fi-horror movie. The first lucky ten comments will receive two tickets in the post, just like that


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VAMPIRES SUCK

July 27th 2010 07:04
Vampires Suck
I actually discovered the trailer to Vampires Suck (2010), a super-trash spoof of the Twilight series and other pop-culture, purely by chance. It's from the same guys who gave us the Scary Movie/Date Movie/Epic Movie/Disaster Movie, etc lampoons ... Ummmm, yeah, I know.

Hey, maybe you'll smirk some, you might have a chortle, indulge in a snigger even, hell, you might even laugh out loud


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TRAILER MUNCH'N'CRUNCH!!!

June 30th 2010 00:11
The Horde
It’s time for a little chaos, mayhem, carnage, and all-round insanity: a mass of flesh-tearing zombies, a legion of savage Picts, a couple of psychopaths, and a depraved pervert. It’s trailer crunch time for the horrorphiles! Man, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into these international nightmares, the blood of which has yet to reach the shores down under. Fingers crossed they're as good as the trailers suggest ...

Mutants (France


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The Killer Inside Me Casey Affleck
I’m very excited about the nightmares included in this year’s Sydney Film Festival programme! The Festival opens Wednesday June 2nd and runs until Monday June 14th. Not only is there a thematic category called “Freak Me Out”, but there’s also a retrospective of cult classic vampire movies, "Immortal Seduction", plus assorted other dark and wicked treats. I’m like a boy in a toy store at Christmas time!

The Loved Ones Robin McLeavy
“Gross. Scream. Cult. Schlock.” spurts the tagline for the Freak Me Out section of the Festival. Amongst the selection are three Aussie debut features guaranteed to pack a punch; Red Hill is a fusion of Western and cop thriller that tilts its hat to the suspense of Carpenter and the excesses of Tarantino. The Loved Ones is a blackly comic, gruesome and insane nightmare that channels The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) via Carrie (1976). Caught Inside is terrifying Dead Calm (1989) territory that echoes the recent kickass Donkey Punch (2008


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MACHETE TRAILERS!

May 10th 2010 01:00
Machete movie teaser poster
One of the things I really liked about Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s original Grindhouse (2007) double-feature release were the couple of fake trailers that proceeded Planet Terror and the several more that played during the “intermission” before Death Proof. My favourite was Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (and I demand to see the feature!), but other favourite was Rodriguez’s Machete starring pizza-faced Danny Trejo as the titular anti-amigo.

Rodriguez had so much fun making the “fake” trailer that he decided a feature was on the crooked cards. Three years later the feature is about to be unleashed, and it’s now apparent Rodriguez has garnered a motley crew of A-listers slumming it with has-beens; Michelle Rodriguez (no relation to the director), Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, and Steven Seagal. Rose McGowan reprises her role as Cherry Darling from Planet Terror, as does SFX guru Tom Savini as Deputy Tolo, and the Avellan twins, Electra and Elise, return also, this time as Nurse Mona and Sexy Nurse #2, respectively


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LET ME IN - teaser posters

January 12th 2010 21:58
Let Me In teaser poster
With a scheduled release date of October this year in the States, director Matt Reeves’ re-envisioning of the masterful Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In (2007) has already had four distinct teaser posters released. The American version is called Let Me In (probably because the literal English translation of the original title, Låt Den Rätte Komma In, is too obscure for the average American moviegoer; Let the Right One In. Which one is that? Sounds like a non sequitur of sorts.)

Of course the real reason the remake has been made is because executive producers smelled a potential cash cow after the Swedish version received enormous critical acclaim and did great international box office ... and Joe Average American doesn't like having to read subtitles


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The Wolfman 2010 movie poster
Apart from Wilderness by debut director Scooter Downey, and Jennifer Lynch’s Hissss, the other flick I’m hotly anticipating for release in the New Year is The Wolfman remake (originally made in 1941, and not to be confused as a remake of the 1961 Hammer movie The Curse of the Werewolf which was known as The Wolfman in the U.S.). The remake is directed by Joe Johnston, with a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en) and David Self, and special effects make-up by the legendary Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London). The movie is scheduled for release in the U.S. on February 12.

A nobleman, Lawrence Talbot, returns to the family estate in Victorian-era Blackmoor on the request of his brother’s distraught fiancée Gwen to help look for his missing brother. A suspicious Scotland Yard inspector joins the search. The movie stars Benicio Del Toro as Talbot, Anthony Hopkins as his estranged father, Emily Blunt as Gwen, Hugo Weaving as Inspector Alberline, and also features Geraldine Chaplin. Now, that’s a cast


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WILDERNESS looks wild!

November 10th 2009 09:57
Orble movie colleague Jason King over at Salty Popcorn sent me the link to a fantastic looking trailer to new American horror-thriller Wilderness which is still in post-production and will be released in 2010.

I discovered whilst looking into the release dates another horror movie called Wilderness, a UK production which was released in 2006. That looks quite good too. It stars Sean Pertwee and deals with violent juvenile delinquents sent to an island as punishment, only to find the island is inhabited with something much more terrifying than each other


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Fantastic Planet international film festival
Paying tribute to the dark spirits of Hallowe’en, the organisers behind Sydney’s A Night of Horror international film festival are giving the horrorphiles amidst the sci-fi crowd a taste of blood at the inaugural Fantastic Planet international film festival at Dendy Cinemas, Newtown, which opens this weekend, Friday October 30th and runs until Friday November 6th.

Strigoi movie poster
Friday night, 9pm, is a screening of Strigoi (2009), a UK production shot on location in Romania; classic vampire territory. But this is no pedestrian vampire flick! This is a movie that digs deep to the dark essence of vampirism. The mythology behind the title is the belief that a person can rise again after death to seek justice if they’ve been wronged, their appetite and quest intensified by their thirst for blood. A Canadian short, Initiation, screens beforehand


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Theatre of Blood Alison Meredith, Brendan Taylor
Grand Guignol rises from the dead in Sydney! As part of the Under the Blue Moon Festival the Newtown Theatre is staging Theatre of Blood, channeling the grotesquely imaginative theatrics of the infamous French thespians of histrionic horror. If you're keen to see actors suffering for their craft, this is exactly the place to be!

Theatre of Blood
The Grand Guignol was a Parisian theatre that operated between 1897 and 1962. It produced, almost exclusively, one-act plays from 10 to 40 minutes in length, and was renowned for its perverse and violent content. The theatre itself was a converted chapel in the heart of the red light district, so patrons to the theatre would pass garish neon signs, streetwalkers loitering in doorways, and other shadowy behaviour in the dark alleyways near the theatre


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A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) teaser movie poster
A good seven months before its release comes the trailer to the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), produced by supertrash producer Michael Bay (uh-oh), directed by Samuel Bayer, a music clip director (another dubious sign), and co-written by Wesley Strick, who penned the screenplays to Arachnophobia (1984), Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991), and Wolf (1994), and Eric Heisserer, who is currently on board the re-remake of The Thing (2010).

Freddy Krueger is played by Jackie Earle Hayley, who looks more like a child-murderer than Robert Englund, and actually played a pedophile in the drama Little Children. However his voice doesn’t possess the same nightmarish tone (but that’s after years of Englund’s voice echoing along the cult fabric of our cine dreams). Relative unknown Rooney Mara plays the role of Nancy


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Rue Morgue Festival of Fear 2009 poster art
Every year around this time I wish I was a Toronto native. Unfortunately I live on the other side of the world, and flying to Canada for three days is simply out of the question. Rue Morgue, the essential horror in art and culture publication hosts a national expo every year called Festival of Fear. For three days – Friday August 28 to Sunday 30th - horrorphiles can indulge in all manner of the weird and grotesque, the sublimely frightening to the exquisitely gruesome.

I’m so envious of what’s going to be projected, exhibited, discussed and displayed; including screenings of Jacques Tourneur’s original Cat People (1942) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943), special screening of Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) with Barbara Steele introducing, Q&As with legendary makeup whiz Tom Savini, guerrilla filmmaker Roger Corman, and splatstick superstar Bruce Campbell, a fact and fiction panel on vampires, a workshop on how to make a short horror film, and not forgetting the official festival party "Dance of the Deadites", and an appearance from wurgin blood lover Udo Kier


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THE STATE OF THE BAIT

July 21st 2009 00:21
Zombieland
There are comin’ in thick and fast; Halloween is not too far off and American distributors know this is a time to make a killing at the box office for horror flicks. So without further bloody adieu here are five trailers of varying calibre with my two or three cents thrown in for bloody measure.

Halloween II 2009 movie poster
First up is Rob Zombie’s continued travesty; Halloween II (2009), or H2 as some of the stupid marketing refers to it. As if Zombie’s dire remake of John Carpenter’s seminal slasher flick wasn’t enough, which single-handedly ruined any kind of nightmarish mystery associated with the boogeyman we know as Michael Myers. Donald Pleasence eats Malcolm McDowell for breakfast. And Tyler Mane is no Nick Castle


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Embodiment of Evil

I’ve been attending film festivals since I was fifteen. For many years I enjoyed the programme of the Wellington Film Festival of which Bill Gosden was the director. I noticed this year the Wellington Film Festival which kicks off in a few days (now under the umbrella of the multi-city New Zealand International Film Festival) is screening several exciting movies that didn’t play here at the Sydney Film Festival. I'm very much looking forward to seeing these movies in the near future, and hopefully on the big screen!

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56th Sydney Film Festival banner
I love this time of year: Sydney Film Festival. Fifty-six years old and going strong. Kicking off this Wednesday June 3rd and going through until Sunday June 14th. It’s twelve days of cinema heaven. Although the pickings are a little slim on the hardcore horror front, the lean selection promises to be intense, visceral, memorable, and destined for cult status (with one already holding that honour). Here are the six titles worth checking out.

Coraline movie poster
Coraline
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THE DESCENT: PART 2 ...??!!

May 10th 2009 23:51
The Descent: Part 2 Shauna MacDonald
What a blatantly ill-conceived excuse for a movie: The Descent: Part 2 (2009). If you haven’t seen Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2005), then read no further: big-time spoiler alert!

The Descent is one of the scariest, most intense horror movies of the past ten years. There haven’t been many horrors in the past decade that have genuinely impressed me, and left a lasting impression. The Descent was one and Ils (2006) was another


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WHETTING YOUR BLOODLUST

March 24th 2009 23:34
Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body
Here’s four trailers to salivate over, being released either on DVD or theatrically during the year; Martyrs (2008), a savage French revenge “chick-flick”, The Last House on the Left (2009), a slick Hollywood remake to a capital B-grade revenge flick, Pandorum (2009), a stylish sf shocker, and Dead Snow (2009), a Norwegian Nazi-zombie comedy (yup).

Martyrs:
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