Tickets are available at www.sfindie.com
The movies at Another Hole in the Head
All screenings take place at the Roxie Film Center: (16th at Valencia.)
The Beast (La Bete)
Walerian Borowczyk
1975, France, 94 minutes
www.cultepics.com
French language with English subtitles
Screens on Friday June 9th at 11:30pm
This film contains explicit sexual content and no one under 18 will be admitted.
For a brief period in the mid to late 1970s the high-brow European art film had a head-on collision with exploitation cinema and hardcore pornography. Polish surrealist Walerian Borowczyk's infamous The Beast is the deliriously over-the-top wreckage situated squarely in the middle of that unholy intersection.
Banned for years all over the world (and still quite rare), Borowczyk's notorious take on the Beauty and the Beast deserves to be seen on the big screen. This is a one-of-a-kind exploration of the decaying European aristocracy, politics, perversion, the sexual desires of Priests, and animal husbandry - and a fitting tribute to a master filmmaker who passed away in February.
If one chooses to view the film as 'Art', it is a ribald, satirical exploration of family dysfunction that is reminiscent of the taboo-breaking films of Luis Bunuel. On the other hand, The Beast is one of the greatest sexploitation monster movies ever made. Art films rarely feature a giant hairy monster (with a huge erection that randomly spews gallons of spunk) running through the forest in pursuit of a nubile young beauty for hot sex (except in Japan). They dont make them like this anymore, so get your tickets early.
Blood Deep
Todd Kniss
2005, USA, 105 minutes
www.blooddeepthemovie.com
Screens on Saturday June 10th at 4:45pm
"Three may keep a secret... if two of them are dead." - Benjamin Franklin
In 1985, a missing boy's charred remains are found in a vacant field. 19 years later a group of childhood friends gather for a reunion. One of the group is a psychology student who is also a trained hypnotist, and she quickly becomes the life of the party with her unique skills. But the party is over when one of the hypnotized guests unwittingly confesses to the long-forgotten murder - and the killing begins again.
Don't be mislead by the title, Blood Deep is not an over-the-top gore-fest (look to other HoleHead selections to slake that particular thirst), rather it is a smartly plotted, stylishly filmed, character and plot-driven gothic thriller set in small-town America - with a healthy dollop of bloody mayhem and more than a few surprises.
Broken
Adam Mason & Simon Boyes
2006, UK, 92 minutes
www.hearteater.com or www.brandmason.co.uk
US Premiere
Screens on Friday June 9th at 9:30pm & Monday, June 12th at 4:45pm
The next wave of horror movies is in full flower, and it has been argued that this is the first new sub-genre in horror since Friday the 13th gave birth to the Slasher film in the 80s. These films (that an audience member at HoleHead last year coined 'Chop 'em Ups' - a particularly apt label) explore extreme sadistic brutality in search of visceral audience reactions, and are inspired to large degree by the excessive taboo-shattering films emerging from Japan. Thank you Takashi Miike! Films like Hostel, the Saw(s), Defenceless: A Blood Symphony and Broken exemplify this new horror cycle.
Co-directed by Adam Mason and Simon Boyes, Broken is a daring and uncompromising, ultra-nasty journey into the bleakest parts of a maniacs psyche. This is brutal, gory, hard-core horror and definitely not for the squeamish. Consider yourself warned.
A woman and her young daughter are abducted and taken to a remote, seemingly-endless forest by a mysterious nameless man. As she is forced to undergo humiliating, violent and degrading trials she fights desperately to escape and discover the fate of her missing daughter. When the man reveals that Hopes daughter is now dead, she plans to exact her revenge and escape. Sacrificing both dignity and humanity, she initiates a series of drastic events which send the delicate balance between captor and slave hurtling out of control.
Broken is a relentless and tremendously disturbing film, and was the co-winner of the Audience Award for Best Film at Scotland's acclaimed Dead By Dawn Festival when it premiered in April. See it if you dare!
The Chainsaw Massacres - Live!
To be performed at CellSpace 2050 Bryant Street, San Francisco.
World premiere (sneak preview) on Wednesday June 14th at 9:30pm
The Chainsaw Massacres is a live theatrical parody that draws inspiration from both actual historical events of the late seventies as well as from classic horror movies such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The story follows five teenagers celebrating their last night together before college begins. When their car breaks down in the middle of the nowhere at the dead of night, they encounter a man who leads them down the road to one of the most terrifying experiences anyones darkest imagination could ever envision. Starring The Primitive Screwheads Theater Company, The Chainsaw Massacres is an original play filled with loud chainsaws, chaotic screaming, and multiple dismemberments that all lead to an extraordinary amount of spraying blood and belly laughs.
Dark Remains
Brian Avenet-Bradley
2005, USA, 91 minutes
www.darkremains.com
Screens on Tuesday June 13th at 9:30pm & Wednesday, June 14th at 4:45pm
"A genuinely creepy ghost story guaranteed to make you jump." - Fangoria
HoleHead alumnus Brian Avenet-Bradley (Ghost of the Needle) returns to San Francisco with his third film Dark Remains. His latest work is an incredibly well-crafted, multiple-award winning ghostly nightmare. And if this film doesn't scare the hell out of you, you're probably already dead.
Following their daughter's brutal murder, Julie and Allen escape the city to find solace and grieve in a solitary cabin on a remote mountain. Allens intentions are good, he wants his wife to get out of her depression by resuming her photography. Julie stumbles across an ancient prison and sees the perfect creepy, decaying setting for her photography,. But when the photos are developed they are full of dead people - and Allen quickly discovers the tragic history of suicide in their new mountain. Then it gets really scary.
Dark Remains won the Best Feature Film award at ShriekFest and the Rhode Island Horror Festival. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.
Darklands (Directors cut)
Julian Richards
1996, UK, 81 minutes
www.prolificfilms.freeserve.co.uk
US Premiere
Screens on Wednesday June 14th at 7:00pm & Thursday, June 15th at 4:45pm
"An assured debut that wears it's influences on it's sleeve, but still conveys a paranoia and tangible sense of evil all of its own." - SFX
Julian Richards is best known in the US for his disturbing (and often hilarious) cannibal serial killer mockumentary, The Last Horror Movie (which premiered in the US at the 2004 SF IndieFest). We are now delighted to unveil the director's cut of Darklands, Richards' extremely rare debut film.
Set in the industrial wastelands of Wales (which contributes to the pervading sense of menace and decay), Darklands follows a journalist as he investigates the mysterious death of his friend's brother. Delving deeper, he becomes convinced that the tragic death was actually a murder - and the evidence points to a fiercely Nationalist Politician with ties to an ancient Celtic Pagan cult.
This creepy and atmospheric thriller is a controversial, intelligent (and beautifully filmed) hybrid of the cult classic The Wicker Man and Rosemary's Baby - with a decidedly modern sensibility. Look for nods to techno-pioneers The Prodigy, industrial percussionists Test Department and the anarchic French circus Archaos, among others.
Preceded by:
Descent
Jay Holben
2004, USA, 15 minutes
www.adakin.com/descent
What would you do if you witnessed the brutal murder of your best friend, and found yourself trapped in an elevator with the killer?
Defenceless: A Blood Symphony
Mark Savage
2006, Australia, 90 minutes
World Premiere
Screens on Saturday June 10th at 11:30pm & Monday, June 12th at 2:30pm
"This is Marks most raw and shocking feature, more reminiscent of his early Super-8 work and is a real contribution to Australian underground cinema." - Melbourne Underground Film Festival
HoleHead is pleased as punch to host the World Premiere of Mark Savage's now-complete 7th feature film Defenceless: A Blood Symphony. It was shown as a work in progress two years ago in Melbourne where it won the Best Film award - although unfinished at the time.
Produced, directed, written, photographed and edited by the aptly-named Savage, Defenceless is a completely unique, stunningly beautiful, dialogue-free, zombie tale (of sorts) that is anchored by fearless performances, striking cinematography, a powerful musical score - and some of the most horrific, disturbing violence you are likely to see onscreen anywhere. Pure unrestrained brutality springs from a watery grave when a young mother and environmental campaigner returns from death to exact her vengeance on the greedy developers who plotted the extremely vicious demise of her and her family.
This is one of the most extreme examples of the Japanese-inspired next wave of horror cinema (the 'Chop 'em Up'). Savage's film will almost certainly be banned in its uncut form in almost every country on Earth (although it should come as no surprise that it already has a distribution deal in place for Japan). Doesn't this sound like a perfect Another Hole in the Head midnight movie? Hell hath no fury....
Evil (To Kako)
Yorgos Noussias
2005, Greece, 83 minutes
www.tokako.com
Greek language with English subtitles
Screens on Friday June 9th at 2:30pm & Monday, June 12th at 9:30pm
Sick, funny, and seriously gross, this one goes out to all you zombie fans and gore hounds. The first splatter flick to ever come out of Greece, Evil packs in over 40 gallons of blood and 400 disgusting make-up effects that'll have you cringing in your seat. If you think you've seen every way there is to messily kill a zombie, we guarantee you'll find something new in Evil. It's definitely not for the squeamish, to say the least.
When three unsuspecting construction workers discover a cave on their site, they accidentally unleash a devastating, unstoppable plague upon Athens. As the entire populace becomes a mindless horde of red-eyed, rampaging killers, seven survivors are forced to fight their way through the streets in hopes of eventually fleeing the city. With few weapons and fewer choices, the little band has to get creative, resulting in some of the goriest fight scenes ever shot on film.
Building upon the legacy of survival horror films like Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later, Evil takes the old favorites and adds its own spin. If this is the future of Greek horror cinema, we can't wait to see what they'll come up with next. -- Sherezada Kent
Feed
Brett Leonard
2005, Australia, 109 minutes
www.feederx.com
Screens on Thursday June 15th at 7:00pm
"Stomach-churning... serves up a horrendous climax that will have 'em hurling in the aisles." - Total Film
"Though its disgusting and unpleasant to the max, I could not tear my eyes away from Feed, one of the sickest films I have ever seen." Anthony Timpone, Fangoria.
The latest film from the director of The Lawnmower Man and Man Thing is far-and-away Leonard's best work, and it's our Closing Night Gala presentation. Feed is a remarkably intelligent satire, that also happens to be incredibly disgusting, sexually perverse to the Nth degree, often hilarious, possibly the grossest movie ever made, and it has a killer soundtrack. What more can you ask for?
Phillip is a hotshot cyber-crime investigator - one day, while policing the underbelly of the internet, amidst the usual porn and pedophiles, he finds a suspicious website of "feeders" and "gainers" - the weird world of fat erotica, a sexual subculture where fat admiring men ("feeders") seek out obese women ("gainers"). It seems the last "gainer" mysteriously disappeared after hitting 600 pounds. Phillip tracks down the site to Toledo, and goes to Ohio. Pushed over the edge and alone, and as the truly monstrous nature of what the Feeder is doing emerges, Phillip becomes an avenger beyond the call of duty - and sanity.
So if you want some positive reinforcement for your diet plan, or you just want to see a theater full of squirming people feeling nauseated by, and guilty about, the large popcorn sitting on their lap, this is the movie for you. Get your tickets early - and eat before you get to the show. Just keep repeating: Consumption is evolution.
Ghost of Mae Nak
Mark Duffield
2005, Thailand, 105 minutes
www.maenak.com
Thai language with English subtitles
US premiere
Screens on Sunday June 11th at 7:00pm & Tuesday, June 13th at 2:30pm
If creepy, grotesque ghost stories are your thing, then look no further. While based on an ancient Thai legend that has seen over twenty screen adaptations, Ghost of Mae Nak takes a decidedly contemporary approach to the fable - and to the horrors this vengeful spirit unleashes. Between subways trains, car crushers, and a really gruesome incident involving sheet glass, Mae Nak (a female ghost with a huge hole in her head) makes all of modern Bangkok her weapon, and she does it all for the oldest reason in the book: love.
Having lost her own lover over a hundred years ago, Mae Nak has taken to haunting Mak, a handsome young man on the verge of marrying his true love, Nak. Plagued with foreboding dreams and strange visions, Mak tries to move forward with his wedding plans nonetheless. When he and Nak buy a decrepit, old house, however, things take a turn for the worse for the couple. Suddenly, Nak finds herself thrust into her worst nightmare, and she alone must find the key to quenching the ghost's thirst for blood before it's too late.
Ghost of Mae Nak is as much a classic love story as it is a modern horror film, building slowly and delivering visceral punches when you least expect them. Originally written in English and translated to Thai for the screen, British writer/director Mark Duffield makes a powerful debut to the genre. With its blend of eerie imagery, unbelievably gory effects, and a score that would make Hitchcock proud, this film will freak out audiences in any country. -- Sherezada Kent
The Gravedancers
Mike Mendez
2006, USA, 99 minutes
http://gravedancers.com
Screens on Saturday June 10th at 7:00pm & Wednesday, June 14th at 2:30pm
"Director Mike Mendez keeps The Gravedancers firmly planted in a kind of horror classicism, foregoing much of the tongue-in-cheek postmodernism that one might expect from a 'new-school' horror filmmaker." - TriBeCa Film Festival
Do you want to see something really scary? Look no further; the vengeful spirits unleashed in Mendez's deadly serious follow-up to The Convent is exactly what the mad doctor ordered. Fresh from its highly acclaimed premiere at the TriBeCa film festival, The Gravedancers is a most-welcome addition to the tradition of ghostly horrors.
Three college friends reunite at a funeral, and the subsequent night of drinking leads them to the cemetery for a final farewell to their deceased friend. The trio find a strange black card resting on the grave that recommends celebrating the living by dancing on death - big mistake. They have invoked and an ancient curse which leads to a month of supernatural visitations that are designed to end in death. Scary as hell, without relying on excessive brutality, buckets of gore or horrific violence, The Gravedancers is old-school horror for the new millennium. Get your tickets early.
The Hamiltons
The Butcher Brothers
2006, USA, 87 minutes
www.sffilms.tv/thehamiltons
Screens on Monday June 12th at 7:00pm & Thursday, June 15th at 2:30pm
"The Butcher Brothers have deftly crafted a horror film that has an honest storyline about family and growing up. Take out the incest, kidnapped and tortured girls and the downright shocking violence and you have a typical family drama. However all those extra elements keep you on your toes and make The Hamiltons one of the best indie horror films in a great long while." - Film Threat
There's (almost) nothing the HoleHeadites like better than the home team hitting one out of the park (with or without steroids - doesn't matter to us). So the tremendous success of the debut feature from local filmic madmen, The Butcher Brothers, tickles us pink. We are truly honored to bring The Hamiltons home to San Francisco.
The Hamiltons is the twisted tale of a picture-perfect American family. David, Wendell, Darlene and Francis Hamilton are siblings who have recently moved to a quaint town in Northern California. They are struggling to settle in and adjust to the new area, while still grieving the recent death of their parents. They are hardworking community members; giving to their local charities, attending Town Hall meetings, and always respectful to their neighbors... except the ones that end up chained in the basement. Some Family Secrets Never Die.
The Butcher Brothers grew up in San Francisco, and made their first film after finding a camera near a car accident. Their influences include Truffaut, Cronenberg, and Lynch.
Haze "original long version"
Shinya Tsukamoto
2005, Japan, 49 minutes
http://theres.co.jp/tsukamoto/haze/index.html
Japanese language with English subtitles
Screens on Sunday June 11th at 4:45pm
Director/Actor Shinya Tsukamoto is one of the leading lights of Japanese cinema, and one of global cinema's true visionaries. He is probably best known in the West for directing Tetsuo: The Iron Man and for his acting role opposite Tadanobu Asano in Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer, but his body of work since the mid-80s is staggering. His latest film is pure Tsukamoto - a claustrophobic Kafkaesque nightmare of a man trapped by concrete walls, steel pipes and random sledgehammer blows.
An injured man wakes up in a small room and begins to explore the narrow confines of his prison. Crawling around the maze-like room, he sees hellish visions and is forced to endure seemingly random torments until he meets a woman in a mysterious room filled with rotting corpses. The man and the woman both try to recall where they came from, but their memories are so uncertain that they are not even sure they want to return. The man is ready to give up but the woman insists on going forward. Neither of them can imagine the incredible end to the journey.
Preceded by:
The Call of Cthulhu
Andrew Leman
2005, USA, 47 minutes
www.cthulhulives.org
"The Call of Cthulhu was absolutely fantastic, and one of the best Lovecraft adaptations I've seen to date... A watershed event for Lovecraftian cinema." - Andrew Migliore, Director: H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
"I loved the movie. The movie was better than the story." - Stuart Gordon, Director: Re-Animator
A young man finds himself in charge of his great-uncle's estate. While going through his papers he comes across a box containing files on the 'Cthulhu Cult,' a series of newspaper clippings concerning strange, supernatural phenomenon, and an account of his great-uncle's meeting with a young artist suffering from horrific nightmares of strange creatures. The further he investigates his great-uncle's notes, the more he realizes that there is something greater and very evil at work, involving an ancient race of creatures lying dormant for years deep in the ocean, waiting to be summoned so that they may rule the world.
His global investigation unearths the story of a gathering of archeologists in 1908, a police raid on a cult ritual in a Louisiana swamp, and finally the doomed expedition of a group of sailors to an unknown island in the South Pacific. Bit by bit he pieces together the incredible horrors lurking just beyond the fringes of perception, and in a classically Lovecraftian style, it proves more than his sanity can bear. This b&w silent epic was made with the MythoScope process.
The Last Eve
Young Man Kang
2005, South Korea/USA, 88 minutes
http://youngmankang.com/thelasteve.htm
Screens on Friday June 9th at 4:45pm & Wednesday, June 14th at 9:30pm
"The Last Eve can be described as the worlds first avant-garde theological martial arts love story. Taking the story of Western civilizations first eviction recipients and spinning it across a bizarre variety of unlikely landscapes, the immensely gifted filmmaker Young Man Kang has brought forth a production which is so astonishing and original than it is impossible to compare it to anything that has ever been made." - Film Threat 5 stars
If an unclassifiable genre-bending, time-travelling, religious epic with kick-ass Muay Thai fighting, sexy evil seductresses, severed genitals, planetary death by comet, kung-fu demons, and the baby Jesus shows up at our doorstep - we simply have to play it.
Journeying backwards through history while telling, re-telling and re-imagining the story of Adam, Eve and that pesky snake (with a distinctively Buddhist spin on the proceedings - and New Testament quotations appear in a series of intertitles). The Last Eve consists of three contrasting tales (Eve's Secret, Cain & Abel, Snake's Temptation) which reveal the dark tragedies at the heart of all romance, the temptations of the flesh and the spirit, the loss of innocence - and amazingly choreographed old-school martial arts mayhem. Filmed in Death Valley and South Korea, Kang's film is (as you may imagine) quite a weird ride, and will surely find a cult following as it is seen more widely. Catch it here while you can.
The Lost
Chris Sivertson
2006, USA, 115 minutes
www.thelostmovie.net
Screens on Tuesday June 13th at 7:00pm
"Far more unsettlingly savage than many horror thrillers, Chris Sivertson's The Lost is a potently pulpy and purposefully lurid drama that probably will prove too brutal (and brutalizing) for both mainstream audiencess and arthouse habitues. Even so, small-budget indie is undeniably fascinating and deadly serious from start to finish, with nary a trace of the wink-wink irony common to tongue-in-cheek crime stories by Tarantino wannabes. Much like the Jack Ketchum novel on which it's based, pic could attract a fervent cult." - Variety
Ray Pye has gotten away with murder. After four years, local police still cant pin him down for the cold-blooded shooting of two teenage campers, and the gimpy, make-up wearing pretty-boy remains free to prowl his sleepy California town. This just burns up detective Charlie Schilling, who is so convinced of Ray's guilt that he is willing to work outside the law to uncover the truth. But between an emotionally cowed girlfriend, an endless supply of drugs and a parade of eager young girls on the side, Ray's at the top of his game. Once two very different women enter his life, however, Ray slowly slips into an obsessive, coke-addled spiral. With the heat closing in and his empire in demise, Ray becomes a ticking time bomb, and its only a matter of time until he unleashes hell on everyone he knows...
Gorgeous at times, grisly at others, The Lost weaves the bleak beauty of Badlands, the teen tension of The Rivers Edge and the brutality of Straw Dogs into a tangled web of sex, drugs, and serious violence. Based on the novel by award-winning horror writer Jack Ketchum (Ladies Night), this portrait of a killer as a young man is an unflinching study of genuine savagery; one that will stay branded in your mind long after the last credits roll. --Sherezada Kent
Meatball Machine (Mitoboro Mashin)
Yudai Yamaguchi & Junichi Yamamoto
2005, Japan, 90 minutes
Japanese language with English subtitles
Screens on Sunday June 11th at 9:30pm & Thursday, June 15th at 9:30pm
"Meatball Machine makes the early aggressive cyberpunk endeavors of directors Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and Sogo Ishii (Burst City) look like models of restraint and tranquility." - Travis Crawford: Philadelphia Film Festival
Yudai Yamaguchi's follow-up to the irresistible high-school zombie sports epic Battlefield Baseball (which we played in 2004) is a remake/expansion of Junichi Yamamoto's 1999 cult short of the same name, and is co-directed by the creator of the original. It starts out nicely enough as two lonely factory workers experience the first blush of love. Just as Yoji and Sachiko begin their heart-warming romance, their lives alter forever as tiny aliens invade the earth. These hostile little creatures from beyond parasitically implant themselves into tumor-like growths on human shoulders, penetrate their eye sockets with alien technology and turn them into alien-slave warrior-cyborgs called 'Necro-Borgs' who must battle each other to the (jaw-dropping) deats to survive. Soon the aliens have targeted Sachiko. Uh oh, it's going to get messy.
Movies like Meatball Machine inspired us to start Another Hole in the Head in the first place. If we're in the mood to watch quiet, thoughtful films about the plight of the midwestern farmer, camel herders in North Africa, Iranian children or the next crappy Hollywood remake, we'll wait to rent them on DVD. However, outrageous, mind-boggling, splatterific, gross, genre-bending, hardcore horror/science-fiction/action must be seen on a big screen with an audience of like-minded HoleHeadites. The staff has already saved seats for ourselves - so we'll see you inside the Roxie (at both screenings).
Rampo Noir (Rampo Jigoku)
Suguru Takeuchi, Akio Jissoji, Hisayasu Sato & Atsushi Kaneko
2005, Japan, 134 minutes
www.rampojigoku.com
Japanese language with English subtitles
US Premiere
Screens on Friday June 9th at 7:00pm
Rampo Noir is a reminder of many of the things that attracted many of us to Japanese exploitation cinema in the first place: its unabashed eroticism, its remarkable visual inventiveness, and its willingness to plunge into the dark realms that so many other movies fail to explore. (The) hallucinogenic approach to narrative and visuals is nothing short of invigorating. While its frequent forays into the boundaries of bad taste mean we'd all be advised not to hold our breath waiting for the Hollywood remake, the vivid imagination of Japan's literary master of the macabre has never been served better. - Midnight Eye
Another Hole in the Head kicks off in high gear with our Opening Night Gala presentation: the US premiere of Rampo Noir, a masterpiece of horror cinema that ranks with the best films to emerge from Japan in many years.
This daring, astoundingly beautiful, big-budget production adapts four stories by the author who established the foundations of modern Japanese mystery and horror novels, Edogawa Rampo (a transliteration of Edgar Allan Poe and the nom de plume of Taro Hirai). Akio Jissoji and Hisayasu Sato, two of Japanese cinema's most extreme and visually expressive cinematic reprobates, join newcomers Suguru Takeuchi and Atsushi Kanekoto to craft surreal and often disturbing adaptations of classic stories and give vibrant new cinematic life to this overwhelming and unforgettable display of love, insanity and shocking grotesquery. This magnificient film is anchored by the performances of two of our favorite actors; Tadanobu Asano (Ichi The Killer, Naisu no Mori, Zatoichi) who plays Akechi, Rampo's fictional detective (and others), and Ryuhei Matsuda (Blue Spring, Gohatto) portraying Taro Hirai himself.
In Mars Canal, a naked man (Tadanobu Asdano) wanders a silent, moonlike landscape before his transformation begins. Mirror Hell is the tale of a mysterious hand-mirror discovered with women whose faces and skulls are burnt and charred. The Caterpillar is a war hero who returns without arms, legs, speech or hearing and is 'cared for' by his sadistic wife - while Taro Hirai watches from the apartment above, and Crawling Bugs rounds out the program as Asano plays the obsessed limousine driver for a beautiful actress. Till death do us part....
Room 6
Michael Hurst
2006, USA, 94 minutes
World Premiere
Screens on Sunday June 11th at 2:30pm
Times are changing in the film and video world. The amount of time between a film's completion and video release is getting shorter and shorter, and many worthy films that would have received a limited theatrical run in the past are dumped directly to video every Tuesday. One of the things we like to do occasionally (at IndieFest and HoleHead) is to take an interesting film, briefly divert it from its straight-to-video destiny and show it in a movie theatre. The filmmakers get a chance to see it play like a 'real' movie with an audience (as they originally intended), and the movie will be a far-more entertaining experience than it would be in your living room. Join Director Michael (The Darkroom, House of the Dead 2) Hurst, and writer Mark Altman for the World Premiere (and only theatrical screening) of their supernatural hospital-themed thriller Room 6.
Amy Roberts (Christine Tayler) has her world turned upside down when her fiancé Nick is involved in a serious automobile accident. Almost immediately, a mysterious ambulance crew arrives on the scene to transport him to the Hospital. However, reality begins to crumble when she meets Lucas (Jerry O'Connell), a fellow victim-seeker who is also trying to track down a loved one taken by the same emergency crew. It seems that the Hospital they were taken to may have burned down five years earlier. Completley devastated, yet always aware that time is running out for Nick, the pair continue to search for the mysterious Hospital that should not exist. By the time the Demons arrive, reality shatters completely.
Room 6 is a good low-budget B-movie with an interesting script, solid cast (including genre veterans Taylor, O'Connell and Kane (Friday the 13th) Hodder), atmospheric cinematography, sexy nurses with big needles, imaginative make-ups and special effects, and more than a few plot twists and turns. Once upon a time, it would have been great to see at the Grindhouse downtown, or at Carload Night at the Drive-In. But those days are ancient history. Sigh.
Simon: King of the Witches
Bruce Kessler
1971, USA, 91 minutes
Screens on Sunday June 11th at 12:30pm
"My name is Simon. I live in a storm drain. When it rains, most people go in. I go out."
This rarely-seen (and never released on DVD) 1971 indie starring Andrew (Barn of the Naked Dead) Prine is occult psychedelia at it's best. It's clever, funny, bizarre, contains awesome psychedelic effects (just like 2001: A Space Odyssey but cheaper), and the script is far more literate concerning magickal esoterica than one could possibly expect. Add self-awareness, pointed satire, incredible dialogue like "Magnetic. Electric. Magnetic. Electric. Magnetic. Electric.", and colorful 1971 California occult-hipster ambience - and you've got a huge win. So, our Sunday matinee presentation will be a perfect palate cleanser for the more serious HoleHead horrors to come.
Simon is a cynical warlock who lives in a storm sewer (which is a fine place to crash as long as it doesn't rain), and wants to rule the World (but who doesn't?). Simon befriends a hustler named Turk in jail, and the two of them enter the wild world of rich parties to make some money and gain unlimited power. But things never run as smoothly as planned - particularly when the plan involves world domination- so Simon has a series of misadventures with rain, a floating red light, pot dealers, evil Wiccans who don't like to be teased (led by Andy Warhol 'Starlet' Ultra Violet), and a big tree. It's really hard not to love this movie! Fun fact from the Wikipedia: the character of Simon was reputedly based on the public persona of the ceremonial magickian and occult author Poke Runyon, a well-known figure in the Southern California Neo-Pagan scene at that time. Runyon acknowledges the likeness, but insists that he "never lived in a sewer".
The Slaughter
Jay Lee
2006, USA, 90 minutes
www.theslaughtermovie.com
World Premiere
Screens on Saturday June 10th at 9:30pm
In an old school camp-o-rama bloodfest, IndieFest alumnus Jay Lee (Noon Blue Apples, The Affairs of God), returns to San Francisco and slashes, drowns, spears, rips, squishes and burns people in The Slaughter. With his tongue so firmly in cheek that it nearly rips a hole, Lee delivers a perfectly pitched horror-comedy romp that never takes the easy road, and respects both the audience, the characters, the zombies and the Demon.
When six college students take a job cleaning up an abandoned house their plans are to work hard by day, and play hard by night. However, their careful planning is disrupted when they discover and ancient Tome and (wouldn't you know it) awake Cthulha, an ancient female demon.
A turn of the century ritual to raise the feminine evil goes horribly awry and leaves a she-demon dormant on the ceremonial grounds waiting for the conclusion of the arcane ceremony. Sixty years later a young couple moves into a house built on the ancient grounds and their young daughter's murder leaves the house abandoned for yet another forty years (and fulfills the next part of the ritual). Now, six college students are hired to clean up the house for a greedy real estate mogul and his hemchwoman who plan to sell it for a huge profit. When they unwittingly complete the century long ritual and fully awake the demon from her ancient slumber, it is literally Hell on Earth - and only the ultimate sacrifice can save the world from a future of unspeakable evil.
Starslyderz
Garrin Vincent
2006, USA, 84 minutes
www.starslyderz.com
World Premiere
Screens on Saturday June 10th at 2:30pm & Tuesday, June 14th at 4:45pm
"Starslyderz is the greatest film that has ever been made, and it is likely the greatest film that ever will be made. The sheer genius of "auteur" Garrin Vincent is evident in every frame, every subtle nuance from every actor, every line of dialogue, every wrinkled backdrop, every special effect, everything on the craft table, every sock puppet alien, and every musical extravaganza about backdoor love. When one is lucky enough to see this incredibly magnificent masterpiece, it is a life-altering event and the newly converted invariably fall to their knees to worship "auteur" Garrin Vincent." - "auteur" Garrin Vincent
The year was 2420 (or maybe it was just 420? - the dates are fuzzy), and the dashing Captain Johnny Taylor and his trusty crew scour the furthest reaches of the galaxy in pursuit of his arch nemesis: the evil Gorgon!
As poignant as it is profound, Starslyderz depicts in light and sound what is unquestionably one of the greatest stories ever told. It is a story so important it demands to be experienced. A story that will grab you, penetrate you, and leave you tender and longing for more. A story which becomes all the more amazing when you learn that it was painstakingly recreated from actual true life events. Fun facts: "auteur" Garrin Vincent went to SFSU film school; several pounds of weed, acid, mushrooms, and DMT helped create Starslyderz; and the music is by legendary Santa Cruz band, Estradasphere.
preceded by:
Zombie-American
Nick Poppy
2006, USA, 9 minutes
www.zombie-american.com
This educational documentary will help audiences understand the challenges zombies face in our society. As a plea for tolerance, it aims to clear up many of the terrible stereotypes and misconceptions we have about zombies. Starring the legendary Ed Helms from the The Daily Show.
Zardoz
John Boorman
1973, UK, 105 minutes
Screens on Saturday June 10th at 12:30pm
"The Gun is Good. The Penis is Evil." - Zardoz: the giant flying stone head and the God of the Exterminators
"Zardoz is a genuinely quirky movie, a trip into a future that seems ruled by perpetually stoned set decorators. It's set in an Ireland of 2293 that looks exactly like the Ireland of today, until you get inside the Vortex. And then suddenly everything is shimmering gowns and futuristic throne rooms and beautiful young people who glide around at an endless debutante ball.
Outside the Vortex, a barbaric civilization survives. Slaves till the land and gather the crops, ruled over by sadistic masters who sometimes gallop around killing off the surplus population. One of the barbarians is Zed, played by Sean Connery as a cross between Tarzan and Prince Valiant. Zed has himself smuggled aboard the giant floating head of Zardoz, which rules hinterlands, and finds himself inside the Vortex. Here he is an object of great interest, because the Immortals, you see, having lost the ability to die have also lost the drive to procreate and are doomed to an eternity of detumescence. Zed labors with no such difficulty.
The movie is an exercise in self-indulgence (if often an interesting one) by Boorman, who more or less had carte blanche to do a personal project after his immensely successful Deliverance. I remember standing in the rain once outside a theater that was playing Last Year at Marienbad. Now there was a movie so complex and personal no one claimed to be able to understand it -- no, not even Time magazine. The people coming out from the previous show were shaking their heads and admitting that they, too, didn't have a clue. And then it was our turn to go in and be mystified. Every once in a while, a movie like that comes along; a movie you've got to see so that you, too, can be in the dark about it." - Roger Ebert: edited from his January 1, 1974 review
"If your idea of perfect science fiction consists of space battles and droids, youre probably best advised to steer clear of John Boorman's ultra-trippy cult classic Zardoz. If, however, you can enjoy an ironic and entertaining fantasy mind-bender, then this one might be right up your alley. While overlooked by general audiences, Zardoz is one of the most feverishly adored cult movies ever." - Scott Weinberg