FILMS 2015

Alleluia Alléluia

Fabrice du Welz, Belgium/France, 2014, DCP, 2.35, colour, 93′, in French with English and Slovene subtitles

 

alleluia_01A masterly mixture of psychological drama, suspense and very earthly horror, the visually stunning (shot in glorious 16mm) Alleluia delivers a contemporary adaptation of the real-life story of the ‘Lonely Hearts Killers’ Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, which shook America in the late 1940s and inspired Leonard Kastle’s cult classic The Honeymoon Killers (1969). The latest film by Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire, Vinyan), the Belgian exponent of the New French Extremity and a master of contemporary horror cinema, is the winner of European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation’s Méliès D’Or for Best Feature Film of 2014. Read more…

Child of God

James Franco, USA, 2013, HD video, 1.85, colour, 104′, in English with Slovene subtitles

 

child_of_god_1Set in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee, Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard (Scott Haze), a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as “a child of God much like yourself perhaps.” Ballard’s life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard descends literally and figuratively to the level of a cave dweller as he falls deeper into crime and degradation.

An utterly raw, visceral and grim adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s chilling novel about a necrophiliac loner in backwoods Tennessee, directed by Renaissance man and Hollywood wonder “boy”, actor, director, writer, poet, musician James Franco.Read more…

What We Do in the Shadows

Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, New Zealand/USA, 2014, DCP, 1.85, colour/ b&w, 86′, in English with Slovene subtitles

 

What_We_Do_in_the_Shadows_01The vampiric mockumentary by comedy duo Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) chronicles the daily strife of the modern vampire. What We do in The Shadows is one of the wittiest and funniest horror comedies of recent years and one of those films you simply want to see more than once, preferably with a chipper crowd. Read more…

RETROSPECTIVE: MARIO BAVA 101

Black Sunday
La maschera del demonio

Mario Bava, Italy, 1960, 35mm, 1.66, b&w, 87′, in Italian with Slovene subtitles

 

la_maschera_del_demonio_01Cited by Francis Ford Coppola for Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Tim Burton for Sleepy Hollow, Bava’s Black Sunday stands as the first fully fledged example of Italian horror cinema, and considered by many as its absolute pinnacle. An undisputable horror classic, it marked the birth of the Italian Gothic, launched Mario Bava’s directing career and established Barbara Steele as horror film’s iconic scream queen. Read more…

Black Sabbath
I tre volti della paura

Mario Bava, Italy/France, 1963, 35mm, 1.85, colour, 92′, in Italian with Slovene subtitles

 

i_tre_volti_della_paura_01With this sinister trio of tales featuring legendary Boris Karloff as vampire and host, which inspired the name of the seminal heavy metal band and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Bava returns to the literary pedigree of his directorial debut Black Sunday,this time in a more contemporary and at times spine-chilling guise, full of wit and sexual innuendo. Read more…

Kill, Baby…Kill! Operazione paura

Mario Bava, Italy, 1966, DCP, colour, 1.85, 85’, in Italian with Slovene subtitles

 

operazione_paura_01Although the story goes that Bava made this visually stunning and eerily uncanny gothic masterpiece on a bet that he could finish a film in merely twelve days, Kill, Baby…Kill! remains one of the director’s most influential films, cited by Fellini (Toby Dammit, 1967), Martin Scorsese (The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988), and David Lynch (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, 1991). Read more…

Blood and Black Lace Sei donne per l’assassino

Mario Bava, Italy/France/West Germany, 1964, 35mm, colour, 1.85, 88′, in English

 

sei_donne_per_l_assassino_01 (2)Shot several years before the early thriller classics of Dario Argento and merely a year after the still restrained, black and white The Girl Who Knew Too Much (La ragazza che sapeva troppo, 1963), the seed of the genre, Blood and Black Lace is at once the origin, milestone and apex of the Italian giallo thriller, which singlehandedly established the standards and conventions of the indigenous genre: the striking, phantasmagorical colour scheme and the accumulation of marvellously inventive, surreal and stylized murders. Read more…

Twitch of the Death Nerve (aka A Bay of Blood)
Ecologia del delitto (alias Reazione a catena)

Mario Bava, Italy, 1971, 35mm, 1.85, colour, 84′, in Italian with Slovene subtitles

 

reazione_a_catena_01Before Hooper’s cult movie The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Carpenter’s legendary Halloween (1978), and a whole decade before the dawn of Friday the 13th horror franchise Mario Bava shot the first and ground-breaking ‘body count’ slasher. One of the most imitated and influential films within the genre, Twitch of the Death Nerve combines Bava’s macabre humour with the explicitness and extremity only the Italian genre output could afford. With special effects by Carlo Rambaldi (Alien, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and Roberto Rossellini as second unit director. Named one of the 50 greatest horror films of all time by Total Film magazine in 2005. Read more…

Rabid Dogs Cani arrabbiati

Mario Bava, Italy, 1974, HD video, 1.85, colour, 96′, in Italian with Slovene subtitles

 

cani_arrabbiati_01A brutally nihilistic, gritty and gripping suspense thriller, which grabs you by the neck and doesn’t let go until its chilling finale, presents a radical departure from Bava’s earlier work: a realistic crime thriller, shot in real time, entirely on location, confined to the interior of a car under the scorching Italian sun. Bava’s ultimate film maudit, would have surely gone down in history as one of the undisputed cult masterpieces of the popular and prolific poliziottesco genre of the 70s, if not for the bankruptcy which stalled it in post-production and the legal battles that ensued. Read more…

SPECIAL SCREENING: LAMBERTO BAVA

Demons Dèmoni

Lamberto Bava, Italy, 1985, 35mm, 1.66, colour, 88′, in English with Slovene subtitles

 

demoni_lamberto_bava_01Directed by horror maestro Lamberto Bava, son of Italian horror legend and godfather of giallo Mario Bava, co-written and coproduced by genre giant Dario Argento with special effects by virtuoso Sergio Stivaletti, Demos are a baroque triumph overflowing with buckets of blood and slime. Read more…