MINI MONSTER FEST MAKING BIG NOISE WITH WEEKENDER LINE-UP

Monster Fest is bouncing back from two years of COVID disruptions with a national screening program called ‘Monster Fest Weekender’. The three-day program, which acknowledges the loyal and hungry horror fanbase that have supported Monster Fest through good times and bad, includes new works from such genre greats as Dario Argento and Phil Tippett as well as the World Premiere of remastered Stephen King anthology.

Monster Fest Weekender has wrapped in Melbourne, where Cinema Nova hosted the Australian Premiere of Argento’s Dark Glasses as the opening night attraction. The next wave of Weekender dates are May 13-15, at Event Cinema sites in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. The following week sees the New Zealand debut of the Monster Fest brand, with 'Weekender' playing in Auckland from May 20-22.

Opening the Australia-wide and NZ legs will be Mad God (pictured, top), a nightmarish vision featuring insane scientists and pig warriors crafted to cinematic perfection by stop-motion animation legend, Phil Tippett. This dazzlingly dark work represents a decades-long obsession for Tippett, who began the film in the late ‘80s only to shelve it when CGI effects became dominant. Urged on by fan and industry support, he finally completed Mad God a whopping 35 years later and has spent much of the past year touring it around the international horror festival circuit to enormous acclaim.

Two of the most talked-about horror entries of 2022 will screen for Australian audiences for the first time. The feature debut of director Kate Dolan, You Are Not My Mother (pictured, above right) is a Dublin-set supernatural chiller in which a daughter (the terrific Hazel Doupe) begins to doubt whether the return of her mother (Carolyn Bracken) in the days before Halloween is such a good thing. And Finnish director Hannah Bergholm’s first film Hatching, one of the breakout hits of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, follows a young girl’s obsession with an egg that grows to dangerously foreboding dimensions.

Documentaries are afforded a high profile in the Weender title roster. Filmmakers John Campopiano and Chris Griffiths dive deep into the making of the landmark 1990 TV mini-series with Pennywise: The Story of It, honouring a small-screen production that defined horror for a generation of fans when they were exposed to the author’s sewer-dwelling clown-faced entity. Director Mike Schiff draws a direct line between horror films and heavy metal music with his rousing analysis, The History of Metal and Horror, featuring such fan favourites as actor Michael Berryman, muso Alice Cooper and crossover artist Rob Zombie.

Genre history is recounted with the screening of two highly-anticipated retrospective titles. From 1985, the Stephen King-penned anthology work Cat’s Eye has been afforded a 4K remaster courtesy of Studio Canal and will World Premiere on the big screen for Australian audiences. Featuring Drew Barrymore, Candy Clark and James Woods, it was an underperformer upon its initial release, but the Lewis Teague-directed film has developed a legitimate cult following in recent years.

And ‘80s C-grade action is afforded some fresh love and appreciation with the screening of the so-bad-it’s-great opus Miami Connection (1987), an all-but-forgotten schlockbuster from director Woo-sang Park and starring…well, nobody really. Rediscovered in recent years by the team at the Alamo Drafthouse, the plot follows, “a kick-arse rock band, whose members also happen to be martial arts masters, [who] decide to take on Miami’s seedy underbelly.”

Ticketing and session details for the MONSTER FEST WEEKENDER program can be found at the festival’s Official Website and via the Event Cinema page.

WILD EYE UNLEASHES VISUAL VENGEANCE WITH HARDCORE '90s HORROR DOUBLE

Wild Eye Releasing, one of the leading U.S. distributors of genre works since 2008, will launch the sister sub-label Visual Vengeance in July. A collector’s Blu-ray label dedicated to vintage, often overlooked micro-budget genre independents from the 1980s through to the 2000s, Visual Vengeance reinforces Wild Eye’s commitment to curating works from deep within the world of horror.

The upcoming slate of releases will span underground genre history, including films shot on SOV, Super 8, 16mm and 35mm lensed movies. However, the primary source of titles for Visual Vengeance will be the shot-on-video movies of the VHS and early DVD era, when filmmaking technology became digital and independent film output flourished.

The first two titles under the Visual Vengeance label indicate just how far the Wild Eye team are willing to go in the name of cult cinema curation. The first title is Shinichi Fukazawa’s 1995 Super-8 splatterfest, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (pictured, above), a legendary cult item often referred to as ‘The Japanese Evil Dead’. It tells the story of a muscleman who, while trapped in a possessed house, must survive a blood soaked night of insanity to save himself and his friends from a vengeful demonic ghost. 

Also in the July release is Matt Jaissle’s The Necro Files (pictured, right), the notorious 1997 underground epic that became known as ‘America’s Video Nasty’ upon release. The corpse of a cannibal rapist rises from the grave as a flesh-eating zombie, and it will take two Seattle cops, a satanic cult and a flying demon baby to stop the lust-crazed ghoul before he can kill again.

Both titles are Blu-ray premieres; it will be the first official North American release for Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell, a title that was a hot bootleg title in the late ‘90s. Both releases will include participation on new bonus features with the original creators and stars of the movies, and be released in deluxe collector’s editions with limited edition ‘Slipcase packaging’ – as well as being loaded with special features.   

While future releases remain a closely-guarded secret, the label has confirmed that restored works from enduring fan-favourite directors such as Todd Sheets, Bret McCormick, Mark Polonia, Brad Sykes, Kevin Lindenmuth and Donald Farmer are scheduled, with many of the featured movies feared ‘lost’ or out-of-print for decades.

No Australian distributor or release date has been confirmed for the Visual Vengeance catalogue.

ALTITUDE HIGH ON WOLF CREEK 3; RACHELE WIGGINS TO DIRECT

CANNES: Global sales agent Altitude Films has secured Wolf Creek 3 for the worldwide market (excluding Australia and New Zealand), it was announced overnight. Launched as part of the company’s Marche du film slate, the third bigscreen instalment of the popular serial killer franchise will see John Jarratt reprise his role as iconic villain ‘Mick Taylor’.

Making her feature directing debut will be Rachele Wiggins, one of the local industry’s most respected production designers and producers. Her past credits include overseeing design elements on the features A Night of Horror: Volume 1 (2015), Event Zero (2017) and Skinford: Chapter 2 (2018) as well as an extensive short-film roster; as a producer, she has shepherded the acclaimed shorts Slice of Life (2019), Brolga (2019) and Sammy (2019) and the anthology pic, Deadhouse Dark (2019). In 2020, the stylish horror short Ciere, her long-gestating directorial calling-card, was released (see below).

The original script, by fellow feature debutant Duncan Samarasinghe, follows an American family undertaking their dream trip to the outback, a journey that soon draws the attention of Jarratt’s notorious serial killer. A horrific fight-for-survival ensues as the two children escape, only to be hunted by Australia’s most iconic bigscreen psycho.

Creator Greg McLean, director of the 2005 original and its 2013 follow-up, will produce the third film under his Emu Creek Films shingle, with collaborators Bianca Martino (The Darkness, 2016) and Kristian Moliere (The Babadook, 2014). Cameras are set to roll in South Australia in late 2021.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the creative team we’ve assembled to realise the next chilling chapter in the Wolf Creek franchise,” said McLean, via press release. “Duncan’s compelling, suspense-filled script combined with Rachele’s exciting directorial vision for the film will deliver a horror roller-coaster ride sure to delight genre fans around the world.” 

It is unclear at this stage how the third film will align at all with franchise canon established over two seasons of the popular television spin-off ‘Wolf Creek’, a local hit for streaming service Stan and profitable international property for Emu Creek, or the two novels that explored the formative years of Taylor’s unhinged psychology.

Altitude Film Sales has exhibited a tremendous faith in the Australian sector with a 2021 Marche du film line-up that also boasts a new Sam Worthington pic, Transfusion, to be helmed by Matt Nable, and the Oz-shot Zac Efron thriller, Gold, co-starring Susie Porter and directed by Anthony Hayes. The slate will be spruiked at the Cannes Online market by Altitude’s Mike Runagall, Vicki Brown, Olivier Brunskill and Karina Gechtman.

CIERE from Rachele Wiggins on Vimeo.

WHEN ALEX MET BONNIE: NEW TALENT, NEW TECH IN PROYAS' FUTURE

Internationally acclaimed director Alex Proyas is driven by the unlimited potential of modern movie making in all its forms. His latest work, the horror short Mask of The Evil Apparition, will reveal his latest exercise in filmmaking forethought - the visionary images being crafted in his state-of-the-art studio, Heretic Foundation, and the big screen luminescence of his leading lady, Bonnie Ferguson.

The highly-anticipated film premieres for cast and crew at a private screening in Sydney next week, ahead of festival screenings and an online release via Proyas' YouTube channel, Mystery Clock Cinema. 

Inspired by the director’s love for Britain’s Hammer Horror classics, the plot synopsis for Mask of The Evil Apparition reads, ‘A young woman lost in a nocturnal, dreamlike city, with twin psychic brothers, who try to help her find her way home as she is pursued by a shadowy cult known as The Mysterious Ones’. With Ferguson (pictured, above) as lead character ‘Olivia’, the cast also includes Dean Kyrwood (The Flood; Beast No More) in the dual role of mysterious brothers; Alex King as the enigmatic Sandra; and Goran D. Kleut (Hacksaw Ridge; Nekrotronic) as a vast number of cult members.  

Having met initially through family friends, Proyas and Ferguson have proven to be a potent creative force. “She’s incredibly smart, of course, but she is also what some people call an ‘old soul’,” says the director (pictured, right), whose credits include the Australian cult classic Spirits of The Air Gremlins of the Cloud and Hollywood blockbusters The Crow, I-Robot and Knowing. “She’s got wisdom beyond her years and I think that will serve her well. For me, that’s always important in an actor, having someone who gets beyond the surface level narrative, and she’s one of those rare talents.”

For Ferguson, the mentorship provided by Proyas has been invaluable, citing a 2019 photoshoot with the director as a turning point. “During that shoot, he worked on creating a supernatural mood, crafting this ethereal environment, which I absolutely loved and responded to and we promised to work with each other again,” says the actress, who has built an impressive resume with roles in Book Week, Moon Rock for Monday, the series Made for This, the soon-for-release feature Just Ruby and the currently-in-production film R.S.V.P.

Mask of The Evil Apparition is the second short that the pair have shot together; in 2019, their mood piece Phobos became a web sensation. “We shot Phobos over five hours, in Sydney peak hour, jumping on and off of trains,” says Ferguson, fondly recalling the guerilla-style production. “Alex started shooting with a very clear vision, which is exactly what you want as an actor. And his eye for capturing the most beautiful images [by] managing natural light is wonderful. Alex has a wealth of knowledge and experience on massive productions, but he was so enthusiastic about just scaling it back.”

Proyas agrees, saying “[We] basically went out one day, just me and a camera and Bonnie and surfed the inner-city railways. It was great fun, we enjoyed working together, so I got her to come back in for Mask…” (Pictured, right; Ferguson on-set, at the Heretic Foundation facility)

Proyas has acknowledged that Mask of The Evil Apparition has become an extension-of-sorts of his cult classic, Dark City. In March 2020, he told If.com.au, “When Liz Palmer, my brilliant costume designer on Dark City and nearly everything I’ve done, started dressing our gorgeous cast in these hybrid neo-1940s fashions, that’s when this notion began to present itself. Filmmakers are often doomed to repeat themselves; the same concerns and obsessions keep reappearing in our work.”

The current wave of production activity for Proyas is a crucial element in his expansion plans for Heretic Foundation, the virtual-studio facility providing photo-real 3D backdrops for Mask of The Evil Apparition. The director told if.com.au, “This short is R&D for the technology as well as the economics of eventually producing features in this way. This allowed us to shoot very fast and to achieve a polished finished product set in a stylised ‘German-Expressionist’ city,” he says. (Pictured, left; Goran D. Kleut as 'The Mysterious Ones')

Since shooting Mask... with Ferguson, Proyas has employed his green-screen studio and Unreal Engine 3D creation software to film a teaser for his proposed 2021 project Box, with Nicole Pastor and the feature Sister Darkness, a gothic ghost story with Lauren Grimson and Rodger Corser.

PREVIEW: 2021 FINAL GIRLS BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

The premier German showcase for horror films directed and produced by women and non-binary filmmakers will return for its 6th edition in 2021, marking its first iteration as an online event. The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival will run from February 4-7 and present a digital line-up consisting of five features, five short blocks, and sidebar events that include panel talks, a screenwriting workshop and special podcast episodes.

Listed as one of MovieMaker Magazine’s Top 50 Genre Festivals in the World and named among Dread Central's Best Horror Festivals, Final Girls Berlin has firmly established itself as a leading international destination for genre fans and filmmakers alike. In 2021, festival co-directors Eli Lewy and Sara Neidorf have curated works that reflect the new world in which we find ourselves. 

“[The] program includes a number of films about loneliness, technological reliance, and confinement that reflect our present-day reality in chilling ways,” says Lewy. For Neidorf, staging a festival in a global pandemic simply presented fresh challenges. “These times are grim, but they bring an opportunity to virtually connect with an international feminist horror community that otherwise couldn’t normally make it to Berlin,” she says, “so we hope more folks will come join us!“

Three features will have their German premieres at Final Girls Berlin. Italian filmmaker Emanuela Rosi’s Buio (Darkness), featuring Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival Best Actress winner Denise Tantucci (pictured, right), presents a chilling spin on patriarchy and female empowerment set against a dystopic future world; US indie The Stylist expands upon the psychotic mindset of hairdresser Claire (a terrific Najarra Townsend; pictured, top) that director Jill Gevargizian initially explored in her acclaimed 2016 short film; and, Brea Grant’s bloody, blackly hilarious 12 Hour Shift, in which a strung-out nurse (genre favourite Angela Bettis) trading in black-market organs struggles for balance as her life spins out of control.

Screening in the German capital for the first time will be local filmmaker Sandra Mertens’ ‘70s-set dramatic thriller Fellwechselzeit (Time of Moulting), an atmospheric study in oppressive and repressed family dynamics, and Laura Casabé’s Los Que Vuelven (The Returned), an Argentinian creature feature steeped in the horrors of still birth and resurrection.

Australia’s single representative at Final Girls Berlin will be Kodie Bedford, whose short film Scout will screen in the strand ‘An Eye for An Eye’ alongside works from Spain (Carlotta Pereda’s There Will be Monsters; Amy Farjado’s The Hunt); Norway (Marja Bål Nango & Ingir Bål’s The Tongues); Indonesia (Indira Iman’s Rong); and, France (Kelsey Bollig’s The Fourth Wall). They are just a few of the huge selection of global short films on offer, with a whopping 36 works available to the global online audience (features are to be geo-blocked to German territories).

Also streaming to international audiences will be the 2021 panel strands. These include:

• WRITING YOUR FIRST HORROR SCREENPLAY: Hosted by Alison Peirse, Author and Film Academic, Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre. An interactive and supportive workshop focussing on creating horror films led by women and nonbinary characters.

• IF ROSEMARY COULD RUN: WOULD YOU KNOW IF YOU WERE IN A CULT?: Hosted by Seriina Covarrubias (pictured, right) & Susie Kahlich. An exploration of cults in horror narratives and in real life, how they actually work, and how to know if you're in one (and what to do about it).

• GHOULS TO THE FRONT: RETHINKING WOMEN’S HORROR FILMMAKING: Hosted by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Author and Film Critic, 1000 Women in Horror. Rather than presenting a singular alternate history of women’s horror filmmaking, Heller-Nicholas seeks to deconstruct the way we think about this subject, reassessing the history of horror to be more inclusive, more representative, and more fun.

• GIRLS GONE WILD: AUTONOMY, SEXUALITY, AND RESISTANCE IN REPRESENTATIONS OF YOUNG WOMEN IN HORROR FILMS: Hosted by Dr. Kate Robertson, Author and Academic, Devil’s Advocates: Trouble Every Day. An exploration of women-led horror films featuring young women who take active roles in their stories, maintaining control of their bodies, choices, and lives.

• HER HUNGER: THE LESBIAN VAMPIRE AND QUEER IMMORTALITY, SUICIDALITY, AND CODEPENDENCY: Hosted by Annie Rose Malamet. The voice of the popular podcast Girls, Guts & Giallo traces the history of the lesbian vampire in film.

In online audio content, The Gaylords of Darkness podcast will present THE NECRONOMOLOGUE, with hosts Stacie Ponder and Anthony Hudson naming their top ten Final Girls in this first-ever animated countdown video from your favorite queer feminist horror podcast. And 'the Spinsters of Horror' from the popular I Spit on Your Podcast presents SATANIC FEMINISM: EMBRACING THE DARKNESS, an exploration of the representation and importance of Satan as the image of an anti-patriarchal idol and source of empowerment for women with specific reference to the films Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971), Alucarda (1977), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and The Witch (2016).

For full program and streaming details visit the event’s official website.