Sunday, April 19, 2009
Interview of MIFFF Staff
Director of Programming for MIFFF 2009 Eric Morgret, was interviewed this past weekend at the Seattle Area science fiction convention Norwescon. The interview was conducted by the Seattle Geekly podcast and can be directly downloaded here. The interview starts at 31 minutes-15 seconds in and runs til 39 minutes-5 seconds.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Lars and Zack Present CINEMAPOCALYPSE West Coast Tour!
Lars and Zack Present CINEMAPOCALYPSE West Coast Tour!
This April 22-25, Fantastic Fest presents FOUR HUGE NIGHTS of white-hot exploitation thunder at some of the finest screening venues in the west!!! Austin’s Original Alamo Drafthouse Weird Wednesday programmer Lars Nilsen and Terror Tuesday curator Zack Carlson will bring the rampaging Cinemapocalypse road trip to the Pacific Coast, and will be presenting rare and absolutely unseen treasures from the American Genre Film Archive’s top secret subterranean 35mm archive, each film destined to peel the hair from your eyeballs, scorch the skin on your cortex and make you sterile for ninety weeks. From manic hicksploitation epics to bloodthirsty shoestring goreblasts, each movie is a railroad spike through the heart of limp modern cinema. Join us in shattering the wall between you and THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE!!!
Special thanks to American Genre Film Archive for making these screenings possible!
Wednesday April 22
Grindhouse Film Festival at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, OR
Cinemapocalypse VS. Grindhouse Film Festival in TRAILER WAR!!!
We’re setting our most violent, reprehensible and ungodly 35mm explosives for the absolute supreme Battle of Celluloid Insanity. Portland’s beloved Grindhouse Film Festival kingpin Dan Halsted will be going head-to-head with the visiting exploitationeer duo of the Cinemapocalypse Tour to present a dehumanizingly fierce barrage of classic film trailers featuring the very excruciatingest horror, kung fu, scifi, prison, nudie, cannibal, manimal, exploitation, hicksploitation, blacksploitation and sploitationsploitation! These miniature bursts of mankind’s most twisted and unhealthy brainwaves are destined to transform you into the next stage of human life after dyn-o-miting you through the back of the theater. Make no mistake…this show will pummel your fragile reality right in the nuts!
The Hollywood Theater
4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd
Portland, OR
www.grindhousefilmfest.com
* * * * * *
Thursday April 23
HICKSPLOITATION Double Feature
at the The Grindhouse Film Festival at the Clinton Street Theater, Portland
GATOR BAIT - NOT ON DVD!
Dir. Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, 1974, 35mm, 88 min, RPicture yourself on a state highway in the rural south in 1974. In the distance an apparition flickers on a drive-in screen. It’s a beautiful woman with long red hair and skin the color of mother’s milk. She lifts a 12-gauge to eye level and squeezes the trigger. It’s not a hallucination. It’s Claudia Jennings, a common sight on drive-in screens throughout the country in the 70’s and that rarest of things, a genuine female action star. The movie is GATOR BAIT, a huge hit that kept drive-in audiences coming back again and again. Like most movies that made it big on the chitlin’ circuit, GATOR BAIT really delivers. The story of a sexy swamp rat named Desiree who’s half woman and half savage, it features the scariest inbred hillbillies outside of the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and a revenge plot that builds to a thundering, foot-stomping climax. As an actress Claudia Jennings doesn’t have a great deal of range, but then neither does a sawed off shotgun. Under the right circumstances both can be devastating. Jennings, who was a Playboy Playmate of the year, had an outstanding career in low-budget exploitation films before dying in a car crash at age 29. There’s never been another one like her. GATOR BAIT is a true drive-in classic. Don’t miss it. (Lars)
PSYCHO FROM TEXAS
Dir. Jim Feazell, 1981, 35mm, 94 min, R - NOT ON DVD!
Already a cult favorite among the most discriminating hicksploitation connoisseurs, this cheap, sleazy slice of lone-star low-life is finally poised to infect the rest of the country. All Texans are familiar with this film but the very mention of its title is oddly taboo. It’s a little like the mentally deficient cousin with the weird ears who lives in the basement and eats bugs. We just don’t talk about it. Well, maybe now’s the time to start because there’s a lot to love about this movie. The titular psycho, Wheeler, is one of the most memorable characters in regional filmdom. John King III deserved an Oscar for his performance as the mommy obsessed killer with the weird laugh and the unorthodox fried chicken eating technique. But it may be Tommy Lamey as Wheeler’s toothpick-worrying sidekick Slick who provides the most memorable moments in the film, notably a long foot chase that takes up probably a third of the run-time and provides laughs galore - as you’ll see. PSYCHO FROM TEXAS features more scummy dialogue, K-mart fashions, mean rednecks, continuity lapses, incongruous BOING sound effects and country cuties than any film you can name. (Lars)
The Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton St
Portland, OR
www.clintonsttheater.com
www.grindhousefilmfest.com
Friday April 24
PSYCHOPATHS UNLEASHED! Triple Feature
at the The Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle, WA
VICE SQUAD
Dir. Gary Sherman, 1982, 35mm, 97 min, RA highly recommended descent into the sulfurous pit of hell known as Hollywood. Direct-to-video action god Wings Hauser burst onto the scene with his intense, over-the-top performance as the psychotic killer pimp Ramrod. Seething and ranting, a homicidal twisted nerve, Hauser is incredible. This is his show all the way, he even sings the theme song, “Neon Slime!” Along the way, Hauser jumps the fence from villain into full-on monster territory, making VICE SQUAD not only one of the most exciting films you’ll ever see, but one of the scariest as well. In this truly grim urban fairy tale, a hooker named Princess (Season Hubley) must make it through a long night in a very dark forest (the streets of L.A.) without being gobbled up by the big bad wolf (Hauser), who himself is being chased by the mighty hunter (the LAPD detective who earlier allowed him to escape.) Pure entertainment from the gifted director of RAW MEAT and DEAD AND BURIED. (Lars)
NIGHT WARNING a.k.a. BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER
Dir. William Asher, 1983, 35mm, 96 min, R - NOT ON DVD!
Listen up…this movie has the best opening scene in film history. Absolutely, without a doubt, no first 5 minutes of any other feature are more rip-rocious than what you’ll see tonight on this screen. By the time the opening credits roll, you’ll be peeling your fingernails out of the armrests. And here’s the kicker: the best is yet to come! Susan Tyrrell stars in her greatest performance as a tragic, spastic auntie with a more-than-healthy appreciation for her orphaned teen nephew. When folks get too close to this happy family, heads start to roll. Enter Joe Carlson (Bo Svenson), a tough-as-rusty-nails police detective who utters the word “faggot” with practically every breath. Easily among the most perfect and underappreciated slashers of the golden ‘80s. If you don’t go nuts for this one, get the hell out of my house. (Zack)
TOURIST TRAP
Dir. David Schmoeller, 1979, 35mm, 90 min, PG
Terror nerds are well aware that the American road holds myriad dangers. Many a frenzied sasquatch, invisible space vampire and/or cannibalistic madman has transformed our turnpikes into his personal open-air slaughterhouse, but in the great Halls of Highway Homicide, no film dares examine the darkest precipices of rural insanity like the crushingly inventive TOURIST TRAP. Rectangle-jawed screen ham Chuck “The Rifleman” Connors plays mysterious Mr. Slausen, a dubious yokel who leads a life of quiet isolation in the woods. When a couple carloads of recreation-hungry youths happen across his private property, Slausen introduces them to a bold new cavalcade of nightmares including — but not limited to — autonomous singing mannequins, gender-bent nutsoids and a telekinetic knife-throwing fiend. Goddamn! You may have watched a thousand car-broke-down-in-a-maniac’s-front-yard movies, but until you’ve seen TOURIST TRAP, you’re still wearing your horror Huggies. (Zack)
The Grand Illusion Cinema
1403 NE 50th St
Seattle, WA
www.grandillusioncinema.org
* * * * * *
Saturday April 25
at the The Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle, WA
THE SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR NIGGER a.k.a. SUPER SOUL BROTHER
Dir. Rene Martinez, 1979, 35mm, 80 min, R - NOT ON DVD!We can’t believe the title either. But that’s why they called him Wild Man Steve. We all love Rudy Ray Moore but he wasn’t the only comedian working the chitlin’ circuit back in the day. Get ready to laugh your ass off at Wild Man Steve. Wild Man Steve can say anything and make it funny. He has a slow, stoned delivery that makes even the stupidest dirty jokes gut-bustingly hilarious. In a way, Wild Man Steve is the ultimate cult comedian and this is an actual WILD MAN STEVE STAR VEHICLE! It’s about a midget mad scientist (with a full-sized D-cup girlfriend) named Dr. Dippy who helps the mob develop a formula that makes users super-strong, bulletproof, and, after about two days, super-dead. Obviously it’s hard to get sensible people to sign up for this treatment, so the mobsters grab the nearest wino, played to perfection by Wild Man Steve. Steve is hilarious, ad-libbing like crazy, stepping all over his costars’ lines. He even gives a little speech in favor of legalizing pot that’s a small masterpiece of reason and logic. If you are easily offended please stay away from this theater! (Lars)
THE DEADLY SPAWN
Dir. Douglas McKeown, 1983, 35mm, 81 min, R
McKeown’s low-budget backyard scifi terror epic is the defining accomplishment in the mighty ‘80s Homemade Horror genre. An alien meteorite unleashes a hideous, carnivorous beast that gorges insatiably on the unwitting denizens of a New Jersey town. The massive meatmonster grows exponentially while it casts off knife-faced leechlets to further the annihilation. No one is off limits; old ladies and adolescents and everyone in between are all fair game for this unstoppable eating machine. From unbelievable creature creations to some of the best dialogue ever captured, no shoestring production before or since has contained a fraction of the fearless filmmaking on display here. Shot for the cost of a new washer/dryer combo, THE DEADLY SPAWN is a bona fide, undeniable fuck-you to major studio exploitation crammed with an impossible amount of ambition, masterful latex effects and unbridled, flesh-ripping satisfaction. (Zack)
The Grand Illusion Cinema
1403 NE 50th St
Seattle, WA
www.grandillusioncinema.org
* * * * * *
…That’s it for now! But do stay tuned for more developments as we ANNIHILATE THE UNIVERSE.
Love,
Lars and Zack
This April 22-25, Fantastic Fest presents FOUR HUGE NIGHTS of white-hot exploitation thunder at some of the finest screening venues in the west!!! Austin’s Original Alamo Drafthouse Weird Wednesday programmer Lars Nilsen and Terror Tuesday curator Zack Carlson will bring the rampaging Cinemapocalypse road trip to the Pacific Coast, and will be presenting rare and absolutely unseen treasures from the American Genre Film Archive’s top secret subterranean 35mm archive, each film destined to peel the hair from your eyeballs, scorch the skin on your cortex and make you sterile for ninety weeks. From manic hicksploitation epics to bloodthirsty shoestring goreblasts, each movie is a railroad spike through the heart of limp modern cinema. Join us in shattering the wall between you and THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE!!!
Special thanks to American Genre Film Archive for making these screenings possible!
Wednesday April 22
Grindhouse Film Festival at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, OR
Cinemapocalypse VS. Grindhouse Film Festival in TRAILER WAR!!!
We’re setting our most violent, reprehensible and ungodly 35mm explosives for the absolute supreme Battle of Celluloid Insanity. Portland’s beloved Grindhouse Film Festival kingpin Dan Halsted will be going head-to-head with the visiting exploitationeer duo of the Cinemapocalypse Tour to present a dehumanizingly fierce barrage of classic film trailers featuring the very excruciatingest horror, kung fu, scifi, prison, nudie, cannibal, manimal, exploitation, hicksploitation, blacksploitation and sploitationsploitation! These miniature bursts of mankind’s most twisted and unhealthy brainwaves are destined to transform you into the next stage of human life after dyn-o-miting you through the back of the theater. Make no mistake…this show will pummel your fragile reality right in the nuts!
The Hollywood Theater
4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd
Portland, OR
www.grindhousefilmfest.com
* * * * * *
Thursday April 23
HICKSPLOITATION Double Feature
at the The Grindhouse Film Festival at the Clinton Street Theater, Portland
GATOR BAIT - NOT ON DVD!
Dir. Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, 1974, 35mm, 88 min, RPicture yourself on a state highway in the rural south in 1974. In the distance an apparition flickers on a drive-in screen. It’s a beautiful woman with long red hair and skin the color of mother’s milk. She lifts a 12-gauge to eye level and squeezes the trigger. It’s not a hallucination. It’s Claudia Jennings, a common sight on drive-in screens throughout the country in the 70’s and that rarest of things, a genuine female action star. The movie is GATOR BAIT, a huge hit that kept drive-in audiences coming back again and again. Like most movies that made it big on the chitlin’ circuit, GATOR BAIT really delivers. The story of a sexy swamp rat named Desiree who’s half woman and half savage, it features the scariest inbred hillbillies outside of the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and a revenge plot that builds to a thundering, foot-stomping climax. As an actress Claudia Jennings doesn’t have a great deal of range, but then neither does a sawed off shotgun. Under the right circumstances both can be devastating. Jennings, who was a Playboy Playmate of the year, had an outstanding career in low-budget exploitation films before dying in a car crash at age 29. There’s never been another one like her. GATOR BAIT is a true drive-in classic. Don’t miss it. (Lars)
PSYCHO FROM TEXAS
Dir. Jim Feazell, 1981, 35mm, 94 min, R - NOT ON DVD!
Already a cult favorite among the most discriminating hicksploitation connoisseurs, this cheap, sleazy slice of lone-star low-life is finally poised to infect the rest of the country. All Texans are familiar with this film but the very mention of its title is oddly taboo. It’s a little like the mentally deficient cousin with the weird ears who lives in the basement and eats bugs. We just don’t talk about it. Well, maybe now’s the time to start because there’s a lot to love about this movie. The titular psycho, Wheeler, is one of the most memorable characters in regional filmdom. John King III deserved an Oscar for his performance as the mommy obsessed killer with the weird laugh and the unorthodox fried chicken eating technique. But it may be Tommy Lamey as Wheeler’s toothpick-worrying sidekick Slick who provides the most memorable moments in the film, notably a long foot chase that takes up probably a third of the run-time and provides laughs galore - as you’ll see. PSYCHO FROM TEXAS features more scummy dialogue, K-mart fashions, mean rednecks, continuity lapses, incongruous BOING sound effects and country cuties than any film you can name. (Lars)
The Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton St
Portland, OR
www.clintonsttheater.com
www.grindhousefilmfest.com
Friday April 24
PSYCHOPATHS UNLEASHED! Triple Feature
at the The Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle, WA
VICE SQUAD
Dir. Gary Sherman, 1982, 35mm, 97 min, RA highly recommended descent into the sulfurous pit of hell known as Hollywood. Direct-to-video action god Wings Hauser burst onto the scene with his intense, over-the-top performance as the psychotic killer pimp Ramrod. Seething and ranting, a homicidal twisted nerve, Hauser is incredible. This is his show all the way, he even sings the theme song, “Neon Slime!” Along the way, Hauser jumps the fence from villain into full-on monster territory, making VICE SQUAD not only one of the most exciting films you’ll ever see, but one of the scariest as well. In this truly grim urban fairy tale, a hooker named Princess (Season Hubley) must make it through a long night in a very dark forest (the streets of L.A.) without being gobbled up by the big bad wolf (Hauser), who himself is being chased by the mighty hunter (the LAPD detective who earlier allowed him to escape.) Pure entertainment from the gifted director of RAW MEAT and DEAD AND BURIED. (Lars)
NIGHT WARNING a.k.a. BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER
Dir. William Asher, 1983, 35mm, 96 min, R - NOT ON DVD!
Listen up…this movie has the best opening scene in film history. Absolutely, without a doubt, no first 5 minutes of any other feature are more rip-rocious than what you’ll see tonight on this screen. By the time the opening credits roll, you’ll be peeling your fingernails out of the armrests. And here’s the kicker: the best is yet to come! Susan Tyrrell stars in her greatest performance as a tragic, spastic auntie with a more-than-healthy appreciation for her orphaned teen nephew. When folks get too close to this happy family, heads start to roll. Enter Joe Carlson (Bo Svenson), a tough-as-rusty-nails police detective who utters the word “faggot” with practically every breath. Easily among the most perfect and underappreciated slashers of the golden ‘80s. If you don’t go nuts for this one, get the hell out of my house. (Zack)
TOURIST TRAP
Dir. David Schmoeller, 1979, 35mm, 90 min, PG
Terror nerds are well aware that the American road holds myriad dangers. Many a frenzied sasquatch, invisible space vampire and/or cannibalistic madman has transformed our turnpikes into his personal open-air slaughterhouse, but in the great Halls of Highway Homicide, no film dares examine the darkest precipices of rural insanity like the crushingly inventive TOURIST TRAP. Rectangle-jawed screen ham Chuck “The Rifleman” Connors plays mysterious Mr. Slausen, a dubious yokel who leads a life of quiet isolation in the woods. When a couple carloads of recreation-hungry youths happen across his private property, Slausen introduces them to a bold new cavalcade of nightmares including — but not limited to — autonomous singing mannequins, gender-bent nutsoids and a telekinetic knife-throwing fiend. Goddamn! You may have watched a thousand car-broke-down-in-a-maniac’s-front-yard movies, but until you’ve seen TOURIST TRAP, you’re still wearing your horror Huggies. (Zack)
The Grand Illusion Cinema
1403 NE 50th St
Seattle, WA
www.grandillusioncinema.org
* * * * * *
Saturday April 25
at the The Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle, WA
THE SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR NIGGER a.k.a. SUPER SOUL BROTHER
Dir. Rene Martinez, 1979, 35mm, 80 min, R - NOT ON DVD!We can’t believe the title either. But that’s why they called him Wild Man Steve. We all love Rudy Ray Moore but he wasn’t the only comedian working the chitlin’ circuit back in the day. Get ready to laugh your ass off at Wild Man Steve. Wild Man Steve can say anything and make it funny. He has a slow, stoned delivery that makes even the stupidest dirty jokes gut-bustingly hilarious. In a way, Wild Man Steve is the ultimate cult comedian and this is an actual WILD MAN STEVE STAR VEHICLE! It’s about a midget mad scientist (with a full-sized D-cup girlfriend) named Dr. Dippy who helps the mob develop a formula that makes users super-strong, bulletproof, and, after about two days, super-dead. Obviously it’s hard to get sensible people to sign up for this treatment, so the mobsters grab the nearest wino, played to perfection by Wild Man Steve. Steve is hilarious, ad-libbing like crazy, stepping all over his costars’ lines. He even gives a little speech in favor of legalizing pot that’s a small masterpiece of reason and logic. If you are easily offended please stay away from this theater! (Lars)
THE DEADLY SPAWN
Dir. Douglas McKeown, 1983, 35mm, 81 min, R
McKeown’s low-budget backyard scifi terror epic is the defining accomplishment in the mighty ‘80s Homemade Horror genre. An alien meteorite unleashes a hideous, carnivorous beast that gorges insatiably on the unwitting denizens of a New Jersey town. The massive meatmonster grows exponentially while it casts off knife-faced leechlets to further the annihilation. No one is off limits; old ladies and adolescents and everyone in between are all fair game for this unstoppable eating machine. From unbelievable creature creations to some of the best dialogue ever captured, no shoestring production before or since has contained a fraction of the fearless filmmaking on display here. Shot for the cost of a new washer/dryer combo, THE DEADLY SPAWN is a bona fide, undeniable fuck-you to major studio exploitation crammed with an impossible amount of ambition, masterful latex effects and unbridled, flesh-ripping satisfaction. (Zack)
The Grand Illusion Cinema
1403 NE 50th St
Seattle, WA
www.grandillusioncinema.org
* * * * * *
…That’s it for now! But do stay tuned for more developments as we ANNIHILATE THE UNIVERSE.
Love,
Lars and Zack
Seattle Gets Deep Red
Festival programmers Shade Rupe and Chris Bavota announce their first collaboration: the Deep Red International Festival of Fantastic Film, or DRIFFF, debuting in Portland, Oregon at the Clinton Street Theater, April 24-25, and in Seattle at the historic Grand Illusion Cinema, May 8-9. Intent on rescuing genre films from premiering on video store shelves, Shade and Chris set out to unearth classic and contemporary 'cult movies' that deserved to be showcased on the big screen, and thus, DRIFFF was born. Presented by Rude Shape Productions and Oddity Cinema, DRIFFF 2009 features northwest premieres, special guest Q & As, award-winning shorts, door prizes and more gore than you can stab a stake through.
We are proud to present the northwest premieres of several feature films including David Gregory’s nightmarish PLAGUE TOWN (USA), Martin Weisz's GRIMM LOVE (Germany) based on the homosexual cannibal killer Armin Miewes, Jonathan Lewis’ BLACK DEVIL DOLL (USA), a microbudget film with a big kick, Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento's DEADGIRL, Justin Johnson and Aaron Marshall's ZOMBIE GIRL: THE MOVIE, the Bryan "RE-ANIMATOR" Yuzna--produced anthology film, TAKUT: FACES OF FEAR (Indonesia) and Frank “BASKET CASE” Henenlotter’s late-night 'comely' shocker, BAD BIOLOGY (USA). We will also be serving up the 1970s grindhouse classic INGLORIOUS BASTARDS (Italy), the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s latest epic.
Featured short films include DEAD BONES (Switzerland) starring Ken Foree, Richard Gale’s festival favorite THE HORRIBLY SLOW MURDERER WITH THE EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT WEAPON (USA), Carl Morano and John Carchietta's THE PICK UP, and Jason Eisener's tale of Christmas carnage TREEVENGE (Canada), and as a special treat, we're opening the festival with & TELLER and & TELLER2, two short films co-directed by Teller, the quieter, smaller half of famed magic duo Penn & Teller, and a special performance by the composers of the soundtracks for the shorts, the remarkable 3 Leg Torso, with Larold Will as a special guest performer on theremin!
Stay tuned for final films and other updates on Deep Red site, and be sure to drop by to meet directors Jonathan Lewis and David Gregory in Portland, and GRIMM LOVE screenwriter T.S. Faull in Seattle.
We are proud to present the northwest premieres of several feature films including David Gregory’s nightmarish PLAGUE TOWN (USA), Martin Weisz's GRIMM LOVE (Germany) based on the homosexual cannibal killer Armin Miewes, Jonathan Lewis’ BLACK DEVIL DOLL (USA), a microbudget film with a big kick, Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento's DEADGIRL, Justin Johnson and Aaron Marshall's ZOMBIE GIRL: THE MOVIE, the Bryan "RE-ANIMATOR" Yuzna--produced anthology film, TAKUT: FACES OF FEAR (Indonesia) and Frank “BASKET CASE” Henenlotter’s late-night 'comely' shocker, BAD BIOLOGY (USA). We will also be serving up the 1970s grindhouse classic INGLORIOUS BASTARDS (Italy), the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s latest epic.
Featured short films include DEAD BONES (Switzerland) starring Ken Foree, Richard Gale’s festival favorite THE HORRIBLY SLOW MURDERER WITH THE EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT WEAPON (USA), Carl Morano and John Carchietta's THE PICK UP, and Jason Eisener's tale of Christmas carnage TREEVENGE (Canada), and as a special treat, we're opening the festival with & TELLER and & TELLER2, two short films co-directed by Teller, the quieter, smaller half of famed magic duo Penn & Teller, and a special performance by the composers of the soundtracks for the shorts, the remarkable 3 Leg Torso, with Larold Will as a special guest performer on theremin!
Stay tuned for final films and other updates on Deep Red site, and be sure to drop by to meet directors Jonathan Lewis and David Gregory in Portland, and GRIMM LOVE screenwriter T.S. Faull in Seattle.
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