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Horrorphile's SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL picks

June 8th 2007 03:09

Okay, so it’s not the New York City Horror Film Festival, but there are several movies in the 54th Sydney Film Festival which opens tonight and runs until June 24th which look very interesting to say the least. Some are horror horror movies and some are films with distinct “horror” overtones or strong “horror” undertones.

Unfortunately only one of my picks was available to preview, the intense, yet dream-like Zoo. I’d seen Night Watch a year or so ago. The rest I’m selecting on the basis of what I’ve read about. I will aim to provide full reviews of my selection during and after the festival.

Black Sheep
Wednesday June 20 8:35pm – GU George St 1
Saturday June 23 7:15pm – GU George St 1
The Violence of the Lambs is what this New Zealand splat-stick horror-comedy has been tagged as. Written and directed by an acquaintance of mine Jonathon King it tells the rather absurd tale of ovine revenge down on the farm. It had to happen. Eventually a Kiwi filmmaker would make a movie about killer sheep. And, of course, Weta Workshop, provided the gloriously cheesy effects, lots of bloodied wool, gore-streaked hooves. And puh-lenty of baaaaad jokes. I’ll be there with gumboots on!

Out of the Blue
Thursday June 14 4.05pm – Dendy Opera Quays
Friday June 15 9:05pm – Dendy Opera Quays
A dramatization of the events which lead to sociopathic loner David Gray going on a murderous rampage in the sleepy hollow settlement Aramoana, south of Dunedin, New Zealand, in November 1990 where he killed 13 people. It shocked the nation. I remember watching the news myself, where police and media helicopters were flying over the township in the early hours of the morning and daylight began revealing all the bodies lying on the streets; the stuff of nightmares. It’s directed by established filmmaker Robert Sarkies.

Night Watch
Saturday June 23 2:00pm – Dendy Opera Quays
Made in 2004, this wild and wacked out sf-fantasy-horror flick from Russia, based on a bestseller, tells the convoluted tale of the forces of Light and Dark which patrol the world in an uneasy truce. The movie pulls references from every cinematic corner and conjures a realm of surrealist vampirism. It’s an existential horror movie for those who don’t care for existentialism. An ex-Communist slap in the face of contemporary mainstream horror flicks.

Day Watch
Saturday June 23 7.30pm – State Theatre
The hugely anticipated sequel to Night Watch, this is like a cross between the visual narrative of Fellini and the mood and feel of Blade Runner. Or maybe the other way round. This is the second part, still based on the same bestseller. Set in a Moscow in a parallel universe. Continuing the struggle between the Light and the Dark and the “others”, Day Watch has been considered a masterpiece in progressive horror, and one of those rare sequels which is better than the already great original.

Inland Empire
Wednesday June 20 8:30pm – GU George St 2
Thursday June 21 9:00pm – State Theatre
So it’s probably not considered a horror movie. In fact, it’s not even considered conventional by any stretch of the imagination. Maverick director David Lynch has made an experimental film which pushes him to the forefront of modern cinema auteurs. Following the similar non-linear narrative space-time continuum ploys which he invested in with such conviction in the movies Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, Lynch delivers a movie about the making of a movie. Laura Dern stars and co-produced. But don’t expect anything ordinary.

Teeth
Sunday June 17 9:30pm – State Theatre
Saturday June 23 9:15pm – GU George St 1
Any movie that has David Cronenberg and Alien mentioned as sourcse of inspiration or influence has my undivided attention. Writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein (whaddaname!) carves a uproarious parody of B-grade craziness and the classic coming-of-age story. Dawn is in the throes of sexual awakening, and various men around her discover her maturity has deadly consequences, including her weirdo brother. From all reports this is an immediate cult classic (but then aren’t most intelligent or outlandish horror movies?)

Taxidermia
Thursday June 21 8:35pm – GU George St 1
This is a visceral and grotesque, almost unclassifiable, body horror movie which tells the stories of three generations of men, including an obese speed eater, an embalmer of gigantic cats, and a man who shoots fire out of his penis. This is a Hungarian multi-award winning drama with obvious horror over-and-under-and-all-assund er-tones. It covers the gamut of emotion and packs enough bizarre and macabre ideas and images into its 90-odd minutes than you can shake a half-eaten kransky at.

Zoo
Friday June 15 6:45pm – GU George St 1
Saturday June 16 9:30pm – Gu George St 1
Undoubtedly one of the festival’s most controversial and provocative films, this is docu-drama taken to a new level. Made by the director of last year’s dreamily resonant Police Beat, Robinson Devor, it is a powerfully evocative film full of visual poetry and a compelling ethereal soundtrack (echoes of Police Beat abound). The subject matter is the difficult part; tracing the real case of a man who died as a result of a ruptured colon from having sex with a horse. Although it deals with the aberration of bestiality, specifically the thoughts of those who knew the man and the reactions of the media, the movie touches on so much more. Like a strange dream the movie lingers in the mind and on the retina long after the final image fades. It’s not a horror film per se, but Zoo transcends the genre by dealing with such transgressive and disturbing material with sincerity and a quietly ferocious intelligence.

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The SHAPE of Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN

May 31st 2007 00:59

It’s one of the most highly anticipated horror releases in years, but the older horrorphiles are grinding their teeth with mixed emotions. They’ve only announced a North American release date at this stage: August 31st. It’d be kinda cool if Australasian audiences got it released down under on October 31st, y’know to soften the blow of expectation a little …

Michael admires his deadly handiwork

Despite my initial contempt at one of my all-time favourite horror movies being remade, I am now slowly and steadily embracing the inevitable. Perhaps embrace is the wrong word. More like I’ve resigned myself. I’m not really a fan of Rob Zombie’s horror movies, House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil’s Rejects (2005), although I appreciate the passion he has for the genre and his take-no-prisoners approach.

Your neck reminds me of my sister's!

Co-writer and director of the original Halloween (1978), John Carpenter is Consulting Producer on Rob Zombie’s version. Does that mean Carpenter has final approval over any of the scripting changes? What about the casting? What about the music? Tyler Bates is the film’s composer, an accomplished scorer who has down the soundtracks for Dawn of the Dead (2004), Devil’s Rejects, Slither (2006), 300 (2006), as well as the upcoming remake of Romero’s Day of the Dead (arghh! noooo!) and Resident Evil: Extinction (2007). One would assume Carpenter has insisted upon Zombie and Bates using his original theme (it’s used in the trailer …)

Daeg Faerch as young Michael

From the stills being released it looks as though many of the original movie’s scenes are being faithfully re-staged, but is this a good thing? Not really. Gus Van Sant’s Psycho (1998) was an utter waste of time and a squandering of Hitchcock’s imagination. Supposedly Rob Zombie’s Halloween is a re-imagining (the trailer spouts that he’s re-inventing a legend); a hybrid remake-cum-prequel, delving into the whys and hows which Carpenter never disclosed, yet apparently had written in his original treatment. Daeg Faerch has been cast as the young Michael Myers, with Zombie’s version having him killing his teenage sister Judith at the age of 10, instead of age 6 in the original movie.

Danielle Harris as Annie, Scout as Laurie and Kristina Klebe as Lynda

Scout Taylor-Compton is playing Laurie Strode, with Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Sam Loomis. Zombie’s wife Sheri Moon plays a character called Deborah Myers (presumably another sister??), while Hanna Hall plays the doomed Judith Myers, Dee Wallace Stone has been cast as Laurie’s mother Cynthia (whom was never seen in the original movie) and Brad Dourif is Sheriff Leigh Brackett.

Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis

Other cult horror actors have been cast in small parts such as Udo Kier, Ken Foree, Danny Trejo, Adrienne Barbeau (once married to Carpenter), Clint Howard, Sybil Danning and Richard Lynch.

Have kitchen knife, will travel

The original tagline of “The night He came home.” has been replaced by “When darkness fell, He arrived.” Hmmm, I’m not sold. And just how much bloodshed will there actually be in Zombie’s version? Carpenter’s original very cleverly avoided any overt bloodletting, pushing the film into a highly respected, yet unusual, league of its own.

Well, the trailer looks okay, the cinematography is good (Dean Cundey’s camerawork in the original is brilliant), the opening murder looks quite different, but possibly just as effective. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the movie offers as a whole. I call it baited breath, yet my head still moves side to side …

Destination Haddonfield, Illinois

Here by thy hallowed trailer:

* images on this page are courtesy of www.bloody-disgusting.com

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Lowdown on the IRONY of GRINDHOUSE

May 25th 2007 03:26

THIS is what we wanna pay to see!

If you’re a down under or British fan of either Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez and have been waiting with baited breath for the Grindhouse double feature exploitation experience, prepare to be disappointed.

The movie in its entirety (all 190-odd minutes, which includes the fake trailers) opened in the America last month and did reasonably dismal business. The total cost of Grindhouse was around $60 million, and so far its returned $24 million in box office. As far as the big boys were concerned (executive Weinstein brothers) this was not the dog’s bollocks, it simply wasn’t up to scratch. So to try and re-coup some of their losses they insisted the double feature be split up into two individually released features.

There is a bitter irony at work here. The whole point of the two Grindhouse movies – Planet Terror and Death Proof - being screened as a double feature is because ithe concept pays tribute/homage to the grindhouse movie experiences the directors grew up on in the mid-70s. These were once plush movie theatres that turned to grinding out (thus the name) numerous sessions a day; all day matiness and all night marathons of usually low budget exploitation flicks; those off-kilter, ultra-violent, lurid and sexually-charged cinema beasts such as biker flicks, cannibal flicks, blaxploitation flicks, chop-socky flicks, sexadelic flicks, etc.

Never has a gun-leg looked so hot!

While out in the suburbs the grindhouse experience was duplicated in the form of drive-ins. Another term to describe some of these pioneering cinematic excesses was “midnight movies” (there’s a doco on these I’ll be reviewing in the near future).

Tarantino and Rodriguez even garnered the talents of other directors to direct fake trailers which were to be played before the first feature and during the “intermission” to further capture the grindhouse experience (as cinema managers would always cram as much advertising for other movies they had during a screening). And apparently both Tarantino and Rodriguez even purposefully edited out “reels” from the features to add a further dodgy aspect to the viewing experience (movies could sometimes be missing anything from ten to twenty minutes), in addition to the “ageing” process they digitally stamped onto all the movies, including the trailers.

Rodriguez’s fake trailer is Machete featuring a mean looking Danny Trejo (apparently it is being expanded into a straight-to-video DVD release to tie in with the DVD release of Grindhouse). Rob Zombie has made Werewolf Women of the S.S. with Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu. Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) has made Don’t (spoof on the more conservative British horror), while Eli Roth has made Thanksgiving (which the MPAA complained about due to its nudity so the “ageing” process was put to use to strategically cover up the naughty parts … ho hum!)

Here are two of those fake trailers: Machete and Don’t (by the way these are work dodgy, not work safe):

So, back to the point of my post: the irony, that is. The European audiences didn’t have the sensibility to understand the double feature concept. The impatient American audiences couldn’t deal with the 3 hour plus running time (and so fewer screenings per day). So British and Australasian audiences, and assorted other countries, are getting the two features distributed individually, probably without the fake trailers. The only plus factor (the sweet side of bitter) is that both directors have added scenes (Tarantino has re-inserted a lapdance to salivate over) to boost the running time, which according to Harvey Weinstein is a good thing. “"You're going to see Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino do their thing and it will dwarf Grindhouse, trust me."

Now that's some seriously sleazy firepower!

Yeah right. Whatever makes the buck bounce back right? One can only hope there will be a super-deluxe DVD edition which includes the Grindhouse double feature on one disc, then two separate discs containing the extended separate features of Planet Terror and Death Proof, and perhaps a fourth disc of extras. They might even release “restored” versions of the features without the digital “ageing” process.

Tarantino’s Death Proof screened at Cannes on its own in an extended two hour version. Rodriguez’s Planet Terror may premiere in an extended version at the Venice Film Festival in September. Australia will probably see Death Proof in September and Planet Terror in December (dates yet to be confirmed).

Fingers crossed that somehow Australasia and the rest of the unfortunate countries having to bow to the executive scissors have the opportunity to watch the Grindhouse experience as it was intended on the big screen.

Here’s something to get your teeth into, a mighty gruesome car crash indeed from Death Proof:

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Tracing the tears of Argento's THE THIRD MOTHER

May 24th 2007 05:08

Promo art shown at Cannes

The anticipation is heating up, Dario Argento’s third and final installment in his witchcraft trilogy known as "The Three Mothers" is in post-production with an Italian release date set for late October (no Australasian dates as yet). It’s all very exciting as the reports from Cannes indicate this could well be a return to true Argento form; a wild and surreal plot, lots of dark eye candy, and stunningly violent set pieces.

Mater Lachrymarum

As I reported earlier, some months ago, Argento enlisted two American screenwriters, Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, to help him tell the story of the final witch, Mater Lachrymarum (Mother of Tears), played in the movie by the bewitchingly drop-dead gorgeous Moran Atias (Argento has never had a problem casting stunning European women as pure homicidal evil). Anderson and Gierasch were assisted by Walter Fasano (also the movie’s editor) and Simona Simonetti (possibly related to the movie’s veteran composer, Claudio Simonetti, of Goblin fame

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