Films
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(listed alphabetically)
CHERRY VALLEY
THE DEVIL DARED ME TO
THE DISTRICT
EXILED
MERCY
MURDER PARTY
THE SIGNAL
TRAPPED ASHES
THE VAMPIRE LOVERS
ZEBRAMAN
Sunday, October 14 at 7:30
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(2007) dir Patrick Steward w/Steward, John Legaretta, Srulik Wojnowich, Hans Holzer [73 min]
What makes you afraid? What makes you believe in ghosts? Are hauntings real or are they the figments of overactive imaginations spurred on by good storytelling? These questions and more are addressed by the filmmakers of CHERRY VALLEY, three NYU students who travel to Upstate New York to investigate the stories of one professor’s haunted house. What they find, however, is a town with more than its share of ghost tales. The filmmakers set out to both document the supposed ghosts and investigate the roots of the horror stories that permeate the small town of CHERRY VALLEY. Playing like an entertaining mix between The Blair Witch Project and a Discovery Channel show, CHERRY VALLEY alternates between footage of its participants putting themselves into increasingly dangerous situations and interviews with the residents of the town and noted paranormal specialist Hans Holzer. This documentary takes on its complex subject with an open mind, a clever eye towards skepticism and a flair for the dramatic.
THE DEVIL DARED ME TO
Friday, October 12 at 7:30
Monday, October 15 at 5:30
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(2007) dir Chris Stapp w/Stapp, Matt Heath [75 min]
This gleefully deranged comedy from New Zealand one-ups the guys from Jackass by adding a script and story to its bone-crunching stunts. Follow Randy Campbell as he attempts to follow in his father’s footsteps and become New Zealand’s greatest daredevil stuntman… No matter who loses a limb in the process. Randy’s archrival, Dick Johansonson, will stop at nothing to hold onto his title as top daredevil stuntman in New Zealand, which, the film would have us believe, is akin to being a NASCAR champion in the States. As Randy and Dick, Kiwi cult comedy team “Back of the Y” members, Stapp and Heath are hilarious and reckless in equal measure. Despite some totally homegrown in-jokes, DEVIL is unashamedly, absolutely one of the most entertaining movies of the year. Destined to be a cult classic in years to come.
THE DEVIL DARED ME TO Trailer | Official Site
Randy Campbell Stunt Compilation
THE DISTRICT
Friday, October 12 at 9:30
Sunday, October 14 at 5:30
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(2004) dir Aron Gauder [87 min]
THE DISTRICT has been astounding audiences on the festival circuit for a while now and we’re thrilled to be able to bring it to Boston. Described as the Eastern European South Park, Gauder and crew actually on up the American show with rude humor and a bizarre animation style that plasters photo-realistic faces to animated bodies. A group of kids from the wrong side of Budapest’s tracks cook up a scheme to get rich by traveling back in time and stocking a future oil field under their hometown by killing a bunch of mammoths. The idea sounds wild, but the crazy part is that they actually succeed! The distinctive animation style, biting comedy, and a plot that swings from “Romeo and Juliet” to a time traveling geo-political thriller, all combine to make this one of the most unique cinematic experiences of the decade.
THE DISTRICT Trailer | MySpace Page
EXILED
Monday, October 15 at 7:30
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(2006) dir Johnnie To w/Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Roy Cheung, Suet Lam, Josie Ho [110 min]
The amazing opening scene of EXILED sets the tone for what is one of director Johnnie To’s best films to date. A pair of hitmen shows up at an apartment with intent to kill the requisite gangster-trying-to-go-straight but they are sidetracked by the arrival of another pair of gunmen. The shoot out that ensues (culminating in a door being flipped through the air) is one of the most visceral put on to film in recent years… yet it ends with a group of old friends repairing the bullet-riddled apartment. It turns out that these 5 gangsters know each other well – in fact, they are childhood buddies – and the way they come together to try and protect one of their own is surprisingly touching. To’s virtuoso use of color and composition, plus a Macau setting that offers Portuguese-influenced architecture as a Speghetti Western backdrop, raise EXILED to early John Woo quality. Featuring note perfect performances from some of Hong Kong’s most soulful action stars (including the intense charisma of Anthony Wong).
EXILED Trailer | Official Site
MERCY
Saturday, October 13 at 5:30
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(2006) dir Patrick Roddy w/Gary Shannon, Shelley Farrell, Julie Ann Fay [85 min]
MERCY is the strange, Lynchian portrait of an aging ex-con trying to stay the straight and narrow but, sometimes quite literally, haunted by his past. The crisp black and white photography and crumbling urban landscapes recall Eraserhead but director Patrick Roddy brings his own distinct film noir style to the material. The film is highlighted by a remarkable, stoic performance by Gary Shannon in the lead role.
Shannon’s John Mercy is adrift in an uninhabited urban jungle. Except for the occasional encounters with bestial streetwalkers, grumpy hotel clerks, apathetic bartenders, and unsympathetic parole officers, he sees nobody. Nobody, that is, except for the femme fatale who has begun hanging out at the local dive bar and the ghostly girl who haunts his dreams. When his a nightmares start causing physical damage, John starts down a road that leads to danger and self-destruction.
MURDER PARTY
Saturday, October 13 at 9:30
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(2007) dir Jeremy Saulnier w/Alex Barnett, Macon Blair, Paul Goldblatt, Beryl Guceri, William Lacey, Stacy Rock, Skei Saulnier, Chris Sharp, Beau Sia, Bill Tangradi [79 min]
No one is spared in this hilariously biting, gleefully bloody horror film. It’s Halloween night, and Chris, a lonely and unremarkable man finds a mysterious invitation on the street. Following it to what he believes will be a fun costume party, he discovers that he’s stumbled into a lethal trap set by a gang of deranged hipster artists. Their plan is to ritually murder a stranger as part of an extreme artistic event.
“Laugh-out-loud funny… An onslaught of strange sex scenes, surprising deaths, shredding chainsaws and shocking confessions. A midnight movie classic in the making that virtually demands to be seen with an audience!” – Bloody-Disgusting.com
MURDER PARTY Trailer | MySpace Page
THE SIGNAL
Saturday, October 13 at 7:30
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(2007) David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry w/Anessa Ramsey, Justin Welborn, AJ Bowen, Scott Poythress, Chad McKnight [99 min]
This Atlanta produced, independent horror film has been heralded as the next big cult hit after screenings at Sundance and SXSW. A mysterious signal interrupts all transmissions on TV, cellphones, radios, etc and gradually drives those that hear it murderously insane. Although it sounds like a zombie movie, and, to some degree it is, the beautiful thing about THE SIGNAL is that the ‘infected’ are not mindless beasts – not at first – they still think and reason, even though that reasoning has become totally warped. A breathless, explosive thriller told in three parts, THE SIGNAL is not to be missed!
(PS: Incidentally THE SIGNAL’s script was written long before Stephen King’s Cell was released.)
“The big discovery of the Sundance Film Festival. This film will explode… It has cult classic written all over it.” – Ain’t It Cool News
THE SIGNAL Trailer | MySpace Page
Teaser Trailer
TRAPPED ASHES
Thursday, October 11 at 10:00
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(2006) dirs Joe Dante, Sean S. Cunningham, Joe Gaeta, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman [105 min]
If you were putting together a tribute to those great, schlocky horror compilation films of yore, who would you want directing? How about Joe Dante (Gremlins), Sean S. Cunningham (Friday The 13th), Joe Gaeta (The Matrix), Ken Russell (Lair Of The White Worm)? What if you could also score the first directing job from elusive cult director Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop) in over 15 years? Well, former American Cinematheque programmer Dennis Bartok got his wish when he put together this all-star tribute to Tales From The Crypt, The House That Dripped Blood and all of the other gothic anthology films of the past. The distinctive Henry Gibson (Nashville) serves as your guide in this carnival ride of terror, sex, laughs, Stanley Kubrick, and blood-sucking nipples as a group of visitors on a Hollywood studio tour become trapped in an infamous House Of Horrors.
THE VAMPIRE LOVERS
Monday, October 15 at 10:00
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(1970, color) dir Roy Ward Baker w/Ingrid Pitt, George Cole, Kate O’Mara, Peter Cushing [91 min]
This classic Hammer horror is rife with the British studio’s typical gothic sensibilities but flips the typical formula of charming male vampire comes on to pretty young thing by making it the pretty young thing who’s the vamp. Ingrid Pitt plays the busty seductress Camilla who preys on the pliable flesh of young women to keep her ageless beauty… that is until Peter Cushing enters the picture. Let’s hear it for sexy lesbian vampires!
ZEBRAMAN
Sunday, October 14 at 9:30
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(2004) dir Takashi Miike w/Sho Aikawa [115 min]
It almost wouldn’t be a Fantastic Fest without a Takashi Miike film. The anarchically creative Japanese director turns his hand to superhero films with ZEBRAMAN and comes up with a surprisingly family-friendly comedy about a nebbishy salaryman whose fantasy of being a superhero turns from dress-up to reality. Shinichi is not a very good teacher, nor a very good father, but he does love a failed TV show from his youth, “Zebraman.” He loves it so much he makes a homemade costume and begins to roam the city dressed as his favorite hero. Soon he begins to sense that something is amiss and discovers that an alien invasion is underway but that the government is hushing it up to avoid panic. What else is a loser in a paper maché superhero costume to do but try to save the world?
“Deliciously insane.” – The Village Voice
