Gifrific: Door To Hell

Source: Hellbender (2021)

COT at BITS

Last weekend, the film that I worked on earlier finally had its premiere. At The Blood In The Snow Film Fest, Chamber of Terror played in front of a packed, enthusiastic house. It was such a great time and almost everybody involved was able to come out.

The Cast & Crew of Chamber of Terror

The movie turned out pretty good, and was actually a lot funnier than I was expecting. Truth be told, it's the ladies (Jess, Storm and Sigourney) that really make this thing pop.

I'm not sure where its going to go from here, but I'm so proud of my buddy Mikey for making it happen. 

Sunday Short.

Hey all. Here's a local short film that just dropped online. The Four People Who Call You At The End of the World is directed by Kenzie Yango and stars the lovely and talented Storm Steenson who you may remember from my 2017 short The Good Samaritan. Enjoy!

 

Nailed It!

Check out this sick new poster for Mike Pereira's new film Chamber of Terror.

Matt Therrien seriously killed it with this one. CoT premiere on November 20th at BITS has already sold out so you know I'm not the only one excited to see it.

Enter The Chamber!

I've got good news! My buddy Mike's movie Chamber of Terror is premiering next month at the Blood in the Snow festival.

All involved worked really hard on this and I was glad to be a small part of it. So awesome to see it's going to screen in front of a packed house of appreciative fans. If you happen to live in the GTA, come on out!

Oh It's A Party All Right!

I'm relatively recovered from last weekend's 24-Hour Mind Melter on Twitch.tv. There were many highlights over the course of the marathon, but one that is likely going to become an October staple is David Skowronski's Halloween Party. Essentially, it's a SOV slasher shot by high-schoolers in 1989 that is every bit as endearing as it sounds. I believe it even aired on public access in Connecticut. Check it out below.

The thirty-eight minute runtime includes a blooper reel - which adorably has the director yell, “Mommmm you're in the shot!” - and a post credits Monster Mash lip synch performance. This is perfect to double bill with Chris LaMartina's WNUF Halloween Special.

Chamber of Terror

Behold the new teaser trailer for The Chamber of Terror, the production I worked on this past March. Look for it next year at a festival near you.

On the Road Again...

I'm off to Oshawa for a week to work on my buddy Mike's new feature.

Gonna be nice to see a bunch of old set-mates again, some of whom I haven't spoken with in years. Also, funny how working twelve-to-fourteen hours a day for food and gas here is much more pleasurable than eight hours at my day job.

More Frankenstein Than Dracula

With the recent passing of Sid Haig, I dived into his early career for this week's pick. Since I posted about Spiderbaby – the obvious choice – back in 2010, I went with 1966's Blood Bath.

A string of disappearances in a seaside town may have something to do with an eccentric artist named Sordi (William Campbell) known for painting portraits of “dead red nudes”.

At just over an hour long, Blood Bath was an entertaining enough slice of cult Americana. It featured all the hallmarks of Roger Corman & Jack Hill's sixties oeuvre, along with sprinkles of House of Wax and H.G Lewis' Color Me Blood Red, the latter of which was released a year previous. I also detected perhaps the finale may have inspired Bill Lustig when it came to end his seminal flick Maniac. Additionally, I was struck by the scenery and locale that I later learned was Yugoslavia. This was one of the few times that I have wished a black & white picture was filmed in colour.

I found it funny that even in the sixties, people were making fun of the art world's latent pretentiousness. It was amusing to watch and you can tell they were having fun with it. However, I cannot fail to mention that a good chunk of the movie is scantily clad women running around on the beach. Because, you know, it is a Corman/Hill production. Those swimsuits on Lori Saunders were hanging on for dear life, but truth be told what made more excitable was watching her try to cut bread.

I was a little taken aback when the vampire showed up, as it seemed to come out of nowhere. Of course, I found out later that this picture was really three movies in one. Originally, it was an unreleasable picture from Yugoslavia called Portrait of Terror, for which Jack Hill then shot new scenes (including the stuff with Sid Haig) and became Blood Bath. Then, Corman employed a director named Stephanie Rothman to add in all the vampire stuff. This all resulted in it being a somewhat disjointed, yet still watchable affair.

Sig Haig (2nd from left) in Blood Bath.

Gifrific: Horsing Around

Source: Rise of the Animals (2012)

Pulled From The Ashes.

This week's VHS was Paul Rinehard's super obscure 1993 flick Ashes To Ashes.

A grieving family moves into an old house/diner only to realize it is inhabited by some pretty angry spirits.

A cool cat by the name of Ben Ruffett has been screening rare VHS flicks at a bar in Hamilton for the past few years and this was his latest offering. Ashes To Ashes is a movie so rare it doesn't even have an online footprint so alas, gifs will not be present this week.

So this movie is by no means good, but it was still an intriguing watch. I could dwell on the father's bizarre hand gestures, the daughter's ill-timed facial expressions or the son's weird almost Canadian accent, but instead I'll focus on the positives.

A Google image search for “Ashes To Ashes 1993 VHS”

Interestingly, Ashes to Ashes was actually quite progressive in that I can't recall any other horror films where the lead character is a mute paraplegic. She spends most of the movie listening to her father and brother bicker over who should be taking care of her, but during the climax in the attic – even though from the exterior shot there clearly isn't one – she's the one who ultimately saves the day.

I did catch an Evil Dead vibe in the middle act. This had, of course, one-tenth the ingenuity of Raimi's debut, but I appreciated seeing another example of what can be done with a single location and a handful of enthusiastic comrades.

Ashes to Ashes is worth seeking out just for its scarcity alone, but I think fans of bargain basement yarns might also get a kick out of it.

R.I.P. Larry Cohen 1941-2019

We lost another icon this weekend in writer/director/producer Larry Cohen. He was 77. I have spoken a lot about Cohen over the years because there really aren't many people who were as important to indie horror as this guy was. 

R.I.P. Larry Cohen 1941-2019.

It wasn't just the wonderful output that features fantastically weird and wild titles like Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff and God Told Me Too, but also that he was one of the genre's purest filmmakers who never put anything but his unadulterated vision up onscreen.

I was extremely lucky to see him (and his regular cohort Michael Moriarty) a few years ago at Fantasia premiere lof Cohen's biodoc, King Cohen where he picked up a lifetime achievement award.

Cohen accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award at Fantasia 2017.

He was also prolific in that he directed twenty films, but wrote at least ten more that weren't even produced. Cohen deserves a grand farewell and I can think of nothing better than to have Moriarty serenade his buddy into the great beyond.

What The Weekend!

Over the last few days, I've had an extremely busy and fruitful weekend splitting my time between two festivals. The inaugural Hexploitation Film Festival in Hamilton and the fourth edition of What the Film Fest in Toronto. All told I saw seven features and fifteen shorts. 

At Hexfest, we got some great feedback this year, especially for the shorts programme that made me very happy. It was great to see one of my current faves, Asaf Livni's My First Time, flourish on the big screen as well as screening the world premiere of Niall Shukla's trippy nightmare A Doll Distorted. 

As for features, I really responded to Eduardo Clorio's I Wish I Wish which is basically what you would get if the Monkey's Paw was an eighties style board game. Clorio even made the trip up from Mexico and was humbled by the overwhelmingly positive reception. 

I also like Chad Archibald's The Heretics. The trio of actors in the piece (Nina Kiri, Jorja Cadence & Ry Barrett) really brought it, as well as some fantastic effects work. I've been saying for a while that each subsequent Black Fawn title increases in quality and this one is no different.

The second half of my weekend was taken up by Peter Kuplowsky's WTF Fest. His showcasing of weird, offbeat cinema continued with the likes of Terry Chiu's Mangoshake, Armando Lamberti's Green House and Takehide Hori's Junk Head.

It was a terrific three days of fringe cinema.

The Bad Man Cometh

The Kickstarter campaign for Scott Schirmer's latest opus, The Bad Man launched today. As you can see from the trailer below, it has just the level of depravity you would expect from the director of Found and Harvest Lake. Maybe more!

The Bad Man was a project that had long been in the pipe so it's great to see it finally coming to fruition. As with previous campaigns, The Bad Man is already almost finished and these pre-orders will facilitate the rest of the production.

For more info on the campaign, click here.

Bless The Child

On Saturday, Blood in the Snow screened two creepy kid flicks, the first of which being Jennifer Phillips' debut effort, Blood Child.

After suffering a miscarriage in Singapore, Ashley (Alyx Melone) with the help of her maid Siti (Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie) make a pact with a witch doctor to bring forth a “ghost child”. But as time goes by, it becomes increasingly difficult to control, especially when Ashley becomes pregnant again.

I am hoping that Phillips is the beginning of a new cycle of bringing lesser known South East Asian folklore to the West (much like up-and-comer Larica Pereira did with her short film Tik-Tik last year). I found the whole concept of the ghost child fascinating, especially when Phillips explained at the Q&A that this is an actual practice in Singapore. When not filtered through the lens of a studio (like say last year's The Forest), delving into these customs comes off as a lot more sincere.

Alyx Melone as Ashley in Blood Child.

Blood Child was definitely at its strongest when it was dwelling on its lore. It was when Phillips fell back on generic horror conventions – and the usual trappings and logic gaps that plague these kind of supernatural thrillers – that it was less interesting to me. I liked it well enough though, even if it did end rather abruptly in a manner I wasn't crazy about.

Something I found unique was the pairing of the housewife and the maid. In most horror films, the maid would be played as an antagonist, but this duo were intrinsically linked by the pact they had made. Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie accomplished a lot with very little dialogue beyond “yes ma'am” and I spent most of the film trying to place why the lead Alyx Melone seemed so familiar. It finally dawned on me that she possessed both the looks of fellow Canuck Tristan Risk and the mannerisms of Heather Lankenkamp. Everyone else in the film just seemed to be circling in an ineffectual orbit around these two the whole film.

Cast & crew of Blood Child. Photo courtesy of Joe MK.

I think the core of Blood Child, built around its compelling folk tale and two strong leads, was solid, even if some of the interstitials fell flat at times. I'm all for the effort though. We need an infusion of new things that go bump in the night beyond the usual revolving door of CGI apparitions, flesh eaters and dudes in animal masks.

Blurring The Line.

Next up on the Blood in the Snow docket was Rob Grant's documentary Fake Blood.

An attempt to make a documentary about whether cinematic violence inspires the same in real-life pulls two filmmakers (Grant & Mike Kovac) into some very dark places.

Fake Blood was a very clever documentary. It was not only a piece about violence in film, but also the nature of filmmaking itself in that often you set out to make one thing and it, seemingly on its own, morphs into something else entirely. This was a perfect example of people chasing a story and falling down a rabbit hole into imminent danger. I found it very difficult to discern – without any context – how much of this documentary was fact, and what was fiction. I mean, I know it must have been, as there are three credited writers on the project, but it was so well crafted.

As storytellers, Grant and Kovac do a commendable job of setting the stage, using a weird fan video they received about the correct way to dismember a body (in response to seeing it done in Grant's previous film Mon Ami) as a jumping off point for their exploration into their responsibility as filmmakers when dealing with violent material. This was all very natural with nothing showy about it.

Later on in the film when they encountered a, let's say shady, individual, the ensuing dramatizations were consistent with every true crime show you've ever watched. Just when I had been sucked in by them, Grant, in a stroke of genius, pulled back the curtain to remind you that you were watching a recreation of a recreation. My brain was constantly trying to access how much of this was real and that's the mark of a good film.

Director Rob Grant with John Doe.

Fake Blood was definitely the most realistic doc I've seen in on this topic since J.T. Petty's 2006 faux-snuff doc S&Man. Unfortunately with Grant's film, I didn't get the luxury of having Petty point out his on-screen antagonist in the front-row after the screening. Until someone tells me definitively and I can breathe the sigh of “well of course that wasn't real”, this doc will be clanking around in my head for sometime.

Red & White

This year's Blood in the Snow Festival kicked off last week with the world premiere of Jeff Sinasac's Red Spring.

In a world overrun by vampires, a group of human survivors forage for supplies by day and stay on the run at night.

I was really stoked for this, as I know Jeff and his producing partner/wife Tonya Dodds very well. They've acted in several projects of mine and I know Red Spring has been a passion project of theirs for years. This movie has had a long history, starting with his script that was a optioned a few times and even almost produced with modest budgets and A-listers over the last ten years. When all that fell through, Jeff & Tonya just committed to making it themselves.

I have to say I was pretty impressed with what they achieved on such a tiny budget. Red Spring was a really ambitious project, not just by design, but also in scope. Filmmakers have made post-apocalyptic tales on a shoestring before, but most have been content to just have them be morose, insular affairs that take place in one location. Sinasac reaches higher by employing many locales with several action set pieces.

Using Richard Matheson's I Am Legend as a jumping off point, Sinasac quickly builds his universe by having his survivors flee Toronto via an abandoned Gardiner Expressway. Starring Sinasac himself, he also mined several great talents from within the local web series scene, including Elysia White and Lindsey Middleton, as well as genre up-and-comer Adam Cronheim (who previously tread similar terrortity in Jeremy Gardner's 2012 festival darling The Battery).

Rather than going for a stylistic tone to gloss over their meager budget, Red Spring takes a more grounded approach. The character's know they are living on borrowed time, but that doesn't stop them from fighting all the same. And the world may have ended, but that doesn't mean you can't still crack a corny joke once and a while – including one random reference to a Maple Leaf Foods ad from like forever ago.

Maybe the most jaw dropping piece of trivia was that Red Spring boasts over four-hundred visual effects shots. The first act has a few that aren't so hot, but there are also some subtle and understated ones that I didn't even notice. I should mention that in addition to being actor/writer/director/producer/editor, Sinasac also did every single one of those effects shots himself over the course of a year-and-a-half. That's one dude! What's your excuse Justice League?

Cast & crew of Red Spring.

Red Spring concluded in true Dawn of the Dead fashion, which means that there are definitely more stories to be told within this universe. And I'd watch them. I just hope it doesn't take another ten years for them to see the light of day.

DKTM 357

Hello all. I'll use this opportunity between IFFF and BITS to get in a little Don't Kill the Messenger post - well that and watch eight Freddy movies but more on that later. Here's what I've got.

Stranger Pulp.

Artist Butcher Billy is at it again, this time envisioning each Stranger Things 2 episode as its own pulp paperback novel.

Click to enlarge.

He also did some sweet Atari cartridges that you can see here.

I might as well sound off on the second season while I'm on the subject. I liked it well enough, but I feel like The Duffer Brothers kind of doubled down on the less desirable aspects of the show, as they hit the “look it's the eighties” vibe even harder this time around. I get that they were often using it to mirror thematic elements - Dragon's Lair foreshadowing the Max/Lucas/Dustin love triangle for instance - but it was decidedly distracting, especially when I'd seen it done less sensationally in It this summer.

I dug the new characters Max and Kali, but never felt they weren't given as much to do as they should have been. Mainly, I just have to echo Max's statement to Lucas in episode five - something to the effect of “I liked it, but it was derivative in parts and I just wish it had a little more originality”.

Sadie Sink as "Mad" Max Mayfield.

I mean, did they think that re-staging the battle scene from Aliens (with Paul Reiser no less) was going to be met with anything but chuckles at best and eye rolls at worst? Anyway, moving on.

Vamp's Gotta Eat.

I wanted to plug a Kickstarter campaign for a local short project called TiCK.

Burke and Wessel are both local film community fixtures, so I'd like to see this succeed. Twenty-Four by Thirty-Six was a really entertaining documentary and Wessell's last short Ink had a really unique energy to it. If you feel like dropping some coin, click here.

Housesitting Woes.

Here below is the newest trailer for Gabriel Carrer's Death on Scenic Drive.

I'm looking forward to this, as not only does it feature some of my favourite people, but it looks like Carrer has gone full-Refn, something that I know he has been wanting to do for quite sometime. I believe this is set to be released in the coming months, so keep your eyes out.

Endless Possibilities.

On Thursday, Toronto After Dark screened Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson’s newest film, The Endless.

Two brothers (Directors Moorhead & Benson) return to the commune of a mysterious cult they left several years before.

I was very much looking forward to this movie because frankly, these two make great films. During their intro, Moorhead & Benson explained that they had many offers after the successful festival run of their sophomore effort Spring, but they ultimately decided to go back to their roots after those all stalled. While it's true that decision meant smaller budgets, it also provided the fair trade of more control. And believe you me, they'd need it for a project like The Endless.

I don’t want to say too much about the movie itself because – like their debut Resolution – it is best to just let it happen, but these two movies do heavily tie into each other. The Endless shared a similar format as its predecessor, in that the entry point was something fairly standard and then went completely sideways from there. I really dug this. Moorhead & Benson vastly expanded the universe that we only glimpsed a tiny piece of in Resolution to the point that it was like getting two films in one.

Justin Benson (left) & Aaron Moorhead in The Endless.

Moorhead & Benson say they have a concise mythology written for these films and I believe that, as their movies do reveal more with each subsequent viewing. Stepping into the lead roles themselves, the directors seem to have even more focus toward their unique vision.

I liken The Endless to David Lynch's Fire Walk With Me. Not in subject matter of course, but just in how it related to what came before it. Twin Peaks, like Resolution, exists on its own – coincidentally both end in cliffhangers – but is significantly broadened in scope by the additional material. There were even thematic similarities between the fates of their characters and Lynch’s pre-Return Dale Cooper. I also adored that the communication through vintage media was carried over from the previous film, as well.

I am really glad that Moorhead & Benson are not only making films, but also dedicated to producing original content that smashes the norm. Even more admirable is that they had the opportunity to sell out and decided not to make movies by committee. I have a tremendous amount of respect for these guys and can’t wait to see where they go from here.

Making the Impossible Possible.

Next up on the Toronto After Dark docket was a movie to which I was much looking forward in Justin Decloux’s Impossible Horror.

Two strangers named Lily & Hannah (Haley Walker & Creedance Wright) team up to investigate an unexplained phenomena taking place in their neighbourhood.

So full disclosure. I’ve known the people behind this movie for years and I contributed to the Indiegogo campaign, but bias aside Impossible Horror was a really fun watch and a special treat to see friends and locations with which I was so familiar on the big screen.

Decloux is a ravenous cinephile and it shows, as this movie was rife with influence, the bulk of which coming by way of the Asian horror movement, most notably Kyoshi Kurasawa, Takashi Miike and Shinya Tsukamoto. Yet even though he used many iconic moments in cinema as jumping off points, Decloux always seemed to land somewhere far from expectation.

Haley Walker (left) & Creedance Wright in Impossible Horror.

During his intro, Decloux confessed that he had always wanted to make a Lovecraft movie, but of course having no money meant there would have to be a distressing lack of monstrosity. To cleverly subvert this, he came up with the scream hunting angle and went from there. The resulting mystery and the energy with which it was portrayed were the real strengths of Impossible Horror.

To compensate for the low budget production values, Impossible Horror had some great sound design and the score was legit fantastic. Emily Milling wore many hats on the project, but this was her best contribution. On many occasions, I found myself being aware of how bangin' it was. I'd stack it up against some of the best soundtracks in recent memory.

After watching this, and his previous film Teddy Bomb, I've keyed into something unique about Decloux's style. His characters speak in a particular and calculated cadence that is very distinct. That requires a level of discipline that very few filmmakers possess. He is also very good at juggling genres, as in addition to J-Horror and Lovecraft, he also managed smatterings of kung-fu, buddy comedy, surrealism and, perhaps most resonant of all, a movie about making movies. I'm reminded of a scene in an alleyway where Lily walked by a random pile of tapping screws and used condoms. It's a bizarre combination that immediately makes you wonder how it came to be.

Director Justin Decloux (left) with cast & crew of Impossible Horror.

Decloux (and his equally talented co-writer/co-producer Nate Wilson) have continually showcased they can impress with micro-budgets, so imagine the horrors they will unleash if (when) they get some serious money behind them.