San Francisco’s Fifth Annual Another Hole in the Head Film Festival ("Holehead08") had its press conference this morning where the line-up was announced and Noboru Iguchi’s The Machine Girl was screened. Boasting its West Coast premiere, The Machine Girl is the kind of date movie that will see blood-frenzied couples rushing out of the Roxie Film Center hungry for tempura or at least some finger food at a house party. Is it really true that revenge is a dish best served cold? Not when there’s a wok with bubbling oil around!
Leave it to Iguchi to capitalize on Rose McGowan’s machine-gun-sporting leg from Grindhouse: Planet Terror and amplifying it into a no-holds-barred vengeance-inspired blood bath. We’re not just talking buckets of blood here; we’re talking shower nozzles of blood. There’s more spurting severed limbs in this film than you can count and the only thing missing is a Teledyne shower pik for adjustable blood flow: from a smoke-like spray to a pat-pat-pat pulsing massage. Perhaps in the sequel?
Let alone that fashionistas will tremble in their seats appreciating the first drill bra that lifts and (I mean it) separates.
Continue Reading "HOLEHEAD08—Kataude mashin gâru (The Machine Girl, 2007)"...
Following on the success of their first foray into production with Pakistani splatter flick Hell’s Ground cult DVD label Mondo Macabro are jumping full bore into the production pool. We brought news last week about Karim Hussain’s upcoming exploiter Filthy and today we got the first word on upcoming Filipino scifi splatter exploiter Killdroid. From director Rico Maria Ilarde the film tells the story of a high school girl who becomes the lover of an abandoned killer android, part of an abandoned military project.
Given that it’s coming from Mondo I expect this one to be every bit as splattery as the recent Fever Dreams productions - Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police - with no opportunity to shock ignored. We’ve got a detailed project announcement below the break and you can check the first images at the link below.
Continue Reading "It’s Filipino Killer Robot Love In KILLDROID!"...
Are the killers lesbian? Are the vampires? Does it matter? We’ve mentioned this one before but upcoming UK horror comedy Lesbian Vampire Killers is back on the radar due to principal photography launching May 19th, which is next week. Hurray!
In the near future...The Tokyo Police force has been privatized and incorporated. The new force has their hands full with a new type of genetically engineered mutant stalking the streets and brutally taking human lives. Luca, the top level officer at Tokyo Police has special law enforcement skills but her dark past makes her vulnerable. She is determined to hunt the mutant known as “Engineer” until the day she can find and destroy the mysterious “Key-Man”.
We debuted the first footage from upcoming cult flick Tokyo Gore Police here at Twitch a while back, a four minute reel of footage cut together for use at Japan’s Yubari Fantastic Film Festival. True to it’s name it was nasty, gorey stuff, with Audition star Eihi Shiina hacking and slashing her way through a series of bizarre mutants. Only down side to that promo was that it was cut together early enough in the film’s life that it wasn’t entirely through post production yet and was still a little rough around the edges. Well, no more! The official trailer has just been released and the blood has been buffed and polished to a high sheen. There’s not really anything in the way of new footage in this one but things have been tightened up considerably with some of the more bizarre moments - hello, crocodile girl! - moved up front and center ... You’ll find both trailers in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Second TOKYO GORE POLICE Trailer"...
He seems like such a pleasant young man in person but then, that’s what they say about all sorts of deviants, now isn’t it? Canadian writer-director Karim Hussain has just announced his latest project, the aptly titled Filthy, a film revolving around garbage fetishists. And that’s fetish in the true, deriving-sexual-pleasure-from sense, I make sure to point out. Fresh of the success of their Pakistani splatter picture Hell’s Ground, Filthy is the first of a slate of new pictures to be announced from the Mondo Macabro lads and they’ll be touting the picture to prospective investors in Cannes with a nasty little promo teaser in tow. You’ll find details below the break and a larger version of the poster linked below.
Continue Reading "Karim Hussain Has A FILTHY Mind"...
[Twitch-O-Meters will remain at the top of the page during the duration of the day they were published. Please scroll down for today’s film news]
Recently we got a nice mainstream genre (yes, they exist!) surprise in the cinemas with the horror movie “The Ruins”.
Doesn’t automatically sound like the best of movies, does it: obnoxious American students on holiday in Mexico visit an uncharted archaeological dig and encounter something which starts to pick them off one by one.
A rather lame set of trailers didn’t exactly help…
But what made it actually a nice surprise was the amount of detail lavished upon characterization, acting and the general portrayal of how a small group of people (might) react in an extremely stressful situation.
All these things were fleshed out to the extent that, in general, people were shocked to discover that this wasn’t just a funny B-movie but a pretty serious drama.
It might even have been one of my all-time favorites if not for some big issues I had with the “monster”, but I digress.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s a big spoiler when I tell you the big threat in the movie is (beside human nature) a big flesh-eating member of the “flora”, instead of the traditionally popular “fauna”.
Which brings me to my top 5 movies featuring extremely aggressive plants.
Read on!
Continue Reading "When Plants Attack!"...
Thai director Ekachai Uekrongtham has quickly built a reputation as one of his country’s very best thanks to his films Beautiful Boxer and Pleasure Factory, a pair of films that combine sensational storylines - a transgender boxer in one, sex trade workers in the other - with sensitivity and serious dramatic chops. So it drew a lot of attention when word came out that his next feature would be a horror film, more attention still when it turned out that the film would be his first in English. Starring Shutter‘s Ananda Everingham - whose English is probably better than my own, as I learned when I met him in Cannes last year - the film is based on the actual Thai ritual of lying in a coffin before it is used for good luck.
Entitled The Coffin, the English-language film tells a spine-chilling story about a man and a woman who are confronted by a series of paranormal and terrifying incidents after going through the bizarre death-before-dying ritual. Thrilling, mysterious and ultimately moving, it’s also a tale about the beauty of life and death, living and dying.
Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Ekachai Uekrongtham (Beautiful Boxer, Pleasure Factory), The Coffin stars Hong Kong actress Karen Mok (So Close, Shaolin Soccer) and Thailand’s heartthrob Ananda Everingham who was the lead in the original Thai horror hit Shutter. Other cast members include Napakpapha Nakprasitte (Art of Devil 2 & 3), Andrew Lin (The Heavenly Kings) and newcomer Japanese actress Aki Shibuya.
We’ve got the first three stills released form the film so far, you’ll find tham at the link below.
Yes, kids, everybody’s favorite transplanted Brits are back with the fourth episode of their Twitch Podcast. In this episode Broken and Devil’s Chair writer-director duo Simon Boyes and Adam Mason deliver lots of naughty words! Samantha Fox! A brush with the law! The UK age of consent! Answers to listener questions and a discussion of Swarez’ gender! Onwards!
[This one posted over the weekend and it’s far too good to let it slip through the cracks because of when it came in so I’m bumping it back to the top of the page for now.]
We have been big supporters of Finnish director AJ Annila in these pages, from his debut film - the wuxia oriented fantasy Jade Warrior - through to covering the development process of this, his sophomore effort. A hard-edged horror film following brothers fleeing their part in a horrific crime, everything that has been seen from the picture so far promises something special: beautiful, atmospheric and loaded with some truly disturbing imagery. And today we’ve got something special from the film: the world premiere of the full theatrical trailer. This will be appearing on the official website sometime in the next day or two but Twitch readers are being given a special advance look and it looks simply stunning.
A cruel horror film bathing in the Finnish sauna culture, in the no-zone between Christianity and paganism. A story of two brothers, who leave a young girl to die and become haunted by her, as she follows them in supernatural form, her face pouring with endless filth. The brothers escape with a commission marking the border between Russia and Finland to a Russian-Orthodox village. In there they find a sauna - The sauna where all sins are washed away. Seeking for forgiveness, the brothers step into the sauna…
Sauna is a horror film about sins, repentance and forgiveness. The story leads us into the core of darkness, where there is no forgiveness, no hope, no salvation.
You’ll find both the trailer and the original teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "An Exclusive First Look At The Full Trailer For AJ Annila’s Finnish Horror SAUNA!"...
The city of Marfa, Texas, is always the kid in the back of class that wildly raises its hand when anyone states Texas is one long flat state. Sitting at an elevation of 4,685 feet, its picturesque mountain ranges and sparse signs of modern human fixtures make it an oasis and retreat from everyday life. Where else can you revel in such land that would make any Spaghetti Western fan drool with awe at the surrounding landscapes that encompass them from all sides as if they had just stepped back into time. Years ago when Paul Thomas Anderson was at his wits end trying to find a place in California to film There Will Be Blood, his location scouts came across the nearly 60,000 acre plus McGuire Ranch that sits several miles south of Marfa. It not only provided a perfect backdrop with its horizon-to-horizon views void of any modern signs of life, but it also had an unused railroad track that ran through its property. It wasn’t California yet it certainly could evoke the Bakersfield, California circa the early 1910’s that Paul Thomas Anderson envisioned for his film (view Twitch exclusive pictures from the set and day one of the Marfa Film Festival here).
Production Designer Jack Frisk and Paul Thomas Anderson scoured the McGuire Ranch dreaming up ideas for where to plant Little Boston, only to return to a location close by an old water tank that ran by the railroad track. It was at this location that Little Boston sprang to life. The current set while still standing is looking like it’s feeling the effects of the very dusty and cross heavy winds that rake across the plains. Electrical wires you would expect to see dotting around the set are nowhere to be found. When it came to building the set they found ropes looked much better onscreen.
Continued after the link bump >
Continue Reading "Marfa Film Festival 2008 – There Will Be Blood on the set of Little Boston"...
For a low-budget Austrian movie which STILL hasn’t gotten a distribution deal in its home country, Peter Koller’s “Auf Bösem Boden” (On Evil Grounds) has had a remarkable amount of success. So far it has been an audience favorite at every single festival it played at, and it even managed to win some awards for itself.
Not bad for a… for a…
...damn, this one is rather hard to describe. Is “cleverly wicked” a genre?
“Auf Bösem Boden” tells the story of a young couple who stumble into a seemingly vacated factory, only to get caught by a brutal psychopath who imprisons them, then plans to have a long leisurely session of torture, rape and murder. But before you can yell “Hostel rip-off!” it has become apparent that you wouldn’t wish these victims on any psychopath, no matter how deranged…
Double-billing “Auf Bösem Boden” with “The Machine Girl”, the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival had made sure that there weren’t any faint-hearted people in the house during its one and only screening. Maybe this helped create the perfect mood for this picture, because the audience had an absolute blast with it!
Read on after the break.
Continue Reading "AFFF 2008: ON EVIL GROUNDS Review"...
A chilly examination of decaying hope, Zack Parker’s Quench exemplifies the drive and spirit that embodies truly independent filmmaking. Shot for a song in the Midwest, the film infuses its bleak tale of a damaged prodigal’s return home with some much needed black humor and a resonant call for acceptance of its characters’ unconventional attitudes and beliefs. Brimming with the sort of honesty afforded only to pictures made on truly individual terms, the film sticks to its kinky guns throughout to consistently surprising returns.
Continue Reading "IIFF 2008 - QUENCH review"...
“You never forget the man who killed you the first time ...”
We’ve been tracking the progress of Andrew Goth’s Gallowwalker in one form or another here for longer than I care to admit and after a long, long wait it’s finally done and the first trailer has arrived. Wesley Snipes stars as a steely eyed old west gunslinger with a cursed weapon - anyone he guns down comes back from the dead. And they’re not so happy about it. Goth is putting an interesting spin on both the western and the zombie film here and while Snipes is less than expressive in the trailer the thing is loaded with impressive make up and effects shots. Guilty pleasure? You betcha.
I’ve been saying for a while now that genre film fans need to keep an eye on Chile and here is yet another example of one compellingly strange picture coming from the South American nation. Titled Humanimal it is being directed by Francesc Morales who did some work on Jorge Olguin’s zombie picture Solos and is described by Moreales as a “fable-horror”.
“It’s a horror story told from the point of view of a group of animals. The story starts when Turtle and Fox, two animals that live on a abandoned house, must learn how to act like humans. It will feature known Chilean actors Ramón Llao and Sebastián Layseca on the main roles, they will be dressed as animals on child-like costumes.”
With a premise like this it could go either way, obviously, but Morales’ connection to Olguin - one of the best the nation has to offer - is reassuring as is the fact that he’s using credible actors. Done right this could be creepy as all hell - Orwell’s Animal Farm is an obvious example of how this sort of premise can be played effectively for adults - and judging from the series of concept images that Morales sent in he’s certainly not aiming to make his characters cute and cuddly. You can check out a gallery of images at the link below.
I suppose at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival Midnight Madness screenings we’ll all have to start referring to programmer Colin Geddes as Mr. Producer Man. Yep, in a deal that’s been brewing for a while - and that Geddes has been involved with from day one - ultra-gorey Thai horror film Art of the Devil 2 have been picked up for English language remake by Cerenzie-Peters Productions. Don’t let the fact that it’s the second film in the franchise that’s been picked up throw you - the first part isn’t much good at all and the far superior second film actually has no story relationship to the first whatsoever, so this will be starting from the beginning of a story rather than the middle. No word on how hard they plan on making the remake but, really, this is all about the splatter so I can’t imagine why anybody would by it to strip the gore out ...
You’ll find trailer for the recent third installment in the Twitch Player below the break. And Geddes ... next time we go out, you’re buying.
Continue Reading "Thai Ultra-Gore ART OF THE DEVIL 2 Getting The Remake Treatment …"...
