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It’s a Bloody World After All – Cinema from the U.S. and Beyond

Taking the retro approach to filmmaking has — not surprisingly — shambled into the zombie film genre. DR. S BATTLES THE SEX-CRAZED REEFER ZOMBIES: THE MOVIE (US-2008; dir. Bryan Ortiz), filmed in black-and-white, features that curious mixture of 1950s celluloid gormlessness and modern cynicism that is becoming a subgenre in its own right. With a definite Iron-Curtain-era, B-flick feel to it (with a dash of ’30s reefer madness), the film follows a heroic scientist as he takes on zombies spawned through Government experiments to produce the ultimate weapon against the Russians.

STRIGOI (UK-2008; dir. Faye Jackson) is a movie that goes rigorously back to the roots of the vampire mythology of Romanian folklore. Shedding a fantastic light on post-communist Romania, we are introduced to Vlad who is investigating a mysterious death in his grandfather’s village. The trail points to ex-communist bully Constantin Tirescu and his wife, but when Vlad confronts them, he discovers that the richest landowners in the village have become real bloodsuckers.

What would you do to bring someone back? How far would you go? PHASMA EX MACHINA (US-2010; dir. Matt Osterman) explores the grey area between life and death and how science may be the bridge between the two. A young man named Cody, tasked with raising his younger brother James after the death of their parents, plunges himself into the murky science of the supernatural. Ignoring his responsibilities as a caretaker, Cody invents a machine he intends to be a conduit to the other side. In his pursuit to build the device he befriends an affable electrical engineer named Tom who has his own tale of love and loss. Cody eventually reaches an unintended level of success that not only threatens his safety, but also the well-being of James and Tom. He quickly learns that the supernatural isn’t all that super and human nature can even be worse.

SATAN HATES YOU (US-2008; dir. James Felix McKenney) is inspired by Christian “scare” cinema of the 1950′s through ‘70′s and tells the tale of two troubled teens who find themselves on the fast track to losing their immortal souls! This film takes the audience to hell and back with TV evangelists, Dungeons and Dragons geeks, a lesbian tarot card reader, born again church goers and an absolute odd couple of bible thumpers who run the local motel called “The Viking.” Nothing is sacred here and SATAN HATES YOU takes that path to damnation and showcases every aspect of sinning, beatings, rapes and blood splattering murders possible. A straight-up brutal film from start to finish!

After pushing the boundaries at SXSW, A SERBIAN FILM (Serbia-2009) will continue its taboo-shattering narrative experience at this year’s festival. The film centers around a veteran porn star named Milosh who, in order to take care of his family, returns to the business to star in a progressive work of pornography by a supposedly genius filmmaker. When he shows up on his first day of shooting, he is followed by bodyguards holding video cameras and reluctantly subjects himself to a few despicable acts only under the assumption that everything he’s involving himself with is staged, but he quickly finds himself in too deep in a plot by the director to manipulate Milosh into performing horrendous acts that that re-define the term “unspeakable.” Director and screenwriter Srdjan Spasojevic describes his shocking film as an angry reaction to the country’s rampant censorship laws and that the film, which has yet to play in its native country, was born of nearly 20 years of conflict, genocide and a systematic military campaign of rape as a tactical weapon.

MACABRE (Singapore 2009; dir. The Mo Brothers) follows two newlyweds Adjie and Astrid who, along with 3 of their best friends decide to have an interstate road trip as a last attempt to reconcile Adjie with his estranged little sister Ladya. Their trip is abruptly interrupted when they run into Maya, a strange girl out of nowhere, who wanders aimlessly into their path. “I’ve been robbed” is all she has to say. The friends unanimously decided to give her a ride to her isolated house by the end of the woods. Maya introduces Adjie and friends to her blue-blooded mother Dara, a woman of ageless enigma and few spoken words. Dara insists that their kindness should be repaid with a dinner feast. This is where the night turns into a crimson-hell for the 6 friends, who find themselves trapped and hunted down by Dara and her cult-like family of her three deadly protégés, born and raised to systematically eliminate unsuspecting passers-by for one nefarious reason. Slaughtered one by one, everybody will bleed, the darkest of nights never looked so red.

Girls just want to have fun, and God help anyone who rains on their parade in TICKED-OFF TRANNIES WITH KNIVES (US – 2010; dir. Israel Luna). A group of transgender women are violently beaten and left for dead. After regaining their consciousness the violated vixens turn deadly divas and with their new-found confidence and courage, slice their way to vengeance. A homage to the exploitation films of the 70’s, this film sets out to create a new and unique genre called transploitation. Loaded with titillating dialog, bodacious bods and extreme violence, this fantasy film shows that it takes balls to get revenge.

In SHADOW (Italy-2009; dir. Federico Zampaglione ) a young soldier returning from Iraq goes on a high mountain adventure in a desolate place in Europe to forget his past. However, he gets more than he bargained for as he learns truth about a mysterious local legend and discovers that reality can truly be sicker than nightmares.

On the heels of THE COVE comes REYKJAVIK WHALE WATCHING MASSACRE (Iceland-2009). Part BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, part TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE but with the humor of EVIL DEAD, Director Júlíus Kemp’s epic tale follows an unsuspecting group of tourists who set sail in hopes of setting their sights on some of Iceland’s legendary whale population. But when they run into a family of crazed “Fishbillies,” things take a decidedly bloody turn as the fishbillies are so distraught over the death of the whaling industry they have taken to killing off any and all tourists and activists that cross their path!

Two Twisted Docs Show a Twisted Society

NIGHTMARES IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE: THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN HORROR FILM (US-2009; Andrew Monument) is a feature-length documentary based on the book of the same name by Joseph Maddrey. It examines the idea that horror films reflect the times and places in which they are made – illustrating how classic monster movies exploited the anxieties of war-time generations, and how more savage modern horror films stem from the psychic fallout of America’s counterculture movement and the subsequent rise of increasingly political forces. At the same time, the documentary explores the timeless, universal appeal of horror movies by examining the pervasive theme of The Outsider. From the silent films of Lon Chaney to the box office reign of Hannibal Lector and his peers, the history of the horror film is a story of the individual at odds with any organization that threatens his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Also representing in the documentary category is AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE (US-2009; dir. Elijah Drenner). The documentary utilizes interviews with genre luminaries including Joe Dante, John Landis, David Hess, Herschel Gordon Lewis, and many others to take a long and detailed look back at the history of exploitation cinema, from its earliest days to its triumphant resurgence in the last decade, and shows how it is really the history of all cinema. Covering a wide array of exploitation sub-genres, including film noir, teen beach party films, nudie cuties, gore and blaxploitation, AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE is a documentary not to be missed!