Monday 7 December 2009

Down Terrace wins a BIFA!



Down Terrace won the Raindance Award at last night's British Independent Film Awards giving director Ben Wheatley the opportunity to swear in front of Michael Caine (sir), DD Lewis & the assembled throng of the UK movie great and good. Other notable winners we like include Moon, Let The Right One In & Bronson.

Big thanks to all concerned!

All the lowdown here.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

Franco 70 - Volumes 1-3 - coming 2010!

A while back we said we'd be announcing a set of releases from one of the legends of Eurocult... and any sort of cult for that matter... at last, and after literally years of negotiating, we can finally let the cat out of the bag!

Franco 70 will see the first ever DVD releases of some of the most important unreleased (up til now) films from the career of Jesus Franco. The first in what will hopefully be a long line of releases will be Lorna the Exorcist, Sinner (The Intimate Diary of a Nymphomaniac), and my personal fave; The Perverse Countess. All three were produced by Robert De Nesle’s Comptoir Français du Film Production and will be remastered over the coming months in glorious HD for the first time ever.

We're hoping the first volume will hit the virtual shelving around May 2010 ..... we'll confirm soon.... in the meantime here's a couple of pics to get you in the mood!





Goodnight, Mr Monster



Paul Naschy is dead.

The uncrowned king of Spanish horror passed into eternity on December 1st, 2009. He was 75 years old.

He’d already survived a heart attack but pancreatic cancer got him in the end.

Born Jacinto Molina Alvarez in 1934, Naschy (a pseudonym created for his first werewolf film La Marca del Hombre Lobo in 1968), was a lifelong horror fan and a man who never gave up on his dreams. He was active right until the end, with two films due for release in 2010.



He had many detractors, not least of all in Spain, but he had many fans too, all over the world, who loved his films and respected his fortitude, his talent and his vision.

Jacinto Molina may be dead, but his films are immortal.

Paul Naschy lives!

Monday 23 November 2009

JLVB - vol 1 cover art

Here's a sneak peek at the cover art for our Jean-Louis Van Belle double disc ... coming March 09 .... I know ..I know...it's a way off..but hey....you've got Thanksgiving & Xmas to take your mind off things for the next few weeks....



By the way - its drawn by all round genius of pen and ink, Gilles Vranckx. More of his very fine stuff here

and...for those of you who read all the way to the end... check out our twitters over the next couple of days....some very exciting news about some releases for the new year...... click this to follow us in twitterland

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Enter The 7 Doors Hotel



Just wanted to draw your attention to our friend Stephen Thrower' s new blog - 7 Doors Hotel. I'm sure you'll all know Steve's fantastic books, including the essential Nightmare USA. Not sure you'll all know that Steve is also an all round musical genius who's electro-accoustic vibrations have graced both our original features - Zibahkhana and Down Terrace.

The hot news is his new book: Sadomania: The films of Jess Franco!

Read it here.

Saturday 24 October 2009

Born of Fire - take our word for it!

Hi Folks -
there's been a cock up on the promo front with Born of Fire so you'll not be seeing reviews on this for a couple of weeks yet - apologies for that - in the meanwhile - it streets Monday 27th October! You'll just have to take our word for it that its a classic MM title - if you're a fan of Jodorowsky etc etc - it's got your name written all over it. We guarantee a wild ride with this one...



Get it now from our friends at Diabolik DVD

Monday 12 October 2009

Down Terrace wins Best UK Feature at Raindance!



Blood Hell! We won again!
Down Terrace scoops Best UK Feature at this years Raindance festival. All the lowdown here.
Woo Hoo

Thursday 1 October 2009

Down Terrace wins Fantastic Fest!



Down Terrace has just won Fantastic Fest's top prize - the next wave best feature. It also picked up the next wave for best screenplay. We had an amazing time at the festival - it really is as cool as everyone says - huge thanks to Tim & Karrie, Lars, Gill and Matt at the Drafthouse and everyone working at the festival ... someday all cinemas will be like this!



As well as sabring the top off champagne bottles by way of celebration we did actually get to watch some movies....
Highlights here included GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, REC2, DOGHOUSE, MORPHINE & HUMAN CENTIPEDE .... more on these later....

Monday 21 September 2009

Born of Fire - Trailer

Here's the great trailer for Born of Fire - streets 28th October 2009. "The most bizarre film of the decade!"
We couldnt have put it better ourselves!

Wednesday 16 September 2009

Down Terrace Raindance Tickets - get 'em now!



Tickets for the screenings of Down Terrace at this years Raindance festival are available here.

Screenings are Friday Oct 2nd - where loads of the cast & crew will be attending - and Weds 7th Oct - Both screenings take place at the Apollo Cinema, West End, London. Hope to see you there!

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Amer: The giallo is back!

Plenty have tried and plenty have failed to revive the spirit and essence of the classic giallo thrillers of the 60's & 70's - we just wanted to give you the heads up about the fantastic new film from French directing duo Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani - AMER - a movie that at last takes its influences from the classics but brings them bang up to date.

The movie is currently playing festivals around the globe including Lund & Sitges in the not too distant future. Be sure to try and check it out! Here's a sneak peak at the fantastic new poster.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

Down Terrace vs Boosh at Raindance '09


The european premiere of our new original movie Down Terrace will take place at this years Raindance film festival - held in London at the end of September. Go here for the full lowdown. There's loads of great stuff taking place including the world premiere of The Mighty Boosh tour movie, Wayne Kramer Live & the jury includes Armando Ianucci, Jon Ronson, billy Childish and Tom Waits (!)
Can't wait to see what they all make of it!

Tuesday 25 August 2009

Gradiva - streets today! Aug 24th

A quick post to remind you that Gradiva - our latest DVD and the last movie by Alain Robbe Grillet - streets today - well... we say street but you all know by now that looking in stores is probably a waste of time.... we recommend Diabolik DVD or Hong Kong Flix for all your online requirements! Links to your right....



The movie is getting fantastic reviews - like this one from DVDSavant

More reviews and release specs at the website here.

Monday 17 August 2009

Grossmann 09 Film Festival



Karol Grossmann was a doctor and film pioneer who, in 1905, made the first Slovenian movie. He also inspired his one time house guest Fritz Lang, who back then was intent on being a sculptor, with the idea of making films instead. And we know what that led to…

In commemoration of the centenary of the good doctor’s first film and of the wine making tradition of his home town of Ljutomer, the Grossmann Film and Wine Festival was inaugurated in 2005 to bring together the two great traditions of wine making and film making – with a special emphasis on films with a horror or fantastic flavour. Might look strange on paper, but I can tell you it works wonderfully well in practice. We just spent a few very happy days in the beautiful countryside of Prlekija watching movies and drinking wine (with the odd pivo here and there). A huge thanks to all the team for making us feel so welcome.



Other guests included Trent Haaga, of Deadgirl infamy (a movie that just gets better & better with each viewing), Ruggero Deodato (who surely needs no introduction), the guys behind the Norwegian Nazi Zombie movie Dead Snow (Stig Frode Henriksen & Ørjan Gamst), and German auteur Jorg Buttgereit. Films are screened at a number of venues around the small town and every evening there is an outdoor show in the central square. The spectacle of several hundred curious Ljutomer residents (including more than a few very young kids) engrossed in the likes of Sauna and Kill Buljo projected onto a huge screen in the open air was - well, an interesting one. Although I did feel sorry for the guy who had a flat in the block right behind the giant screen who could be seen from time to time staring bleakly down at us as the screams echoed round the ancient buildings.

We were sponsoring several shows there, including a five film “Torture Garden” experience, where you got in free, but had to pay to get out. The amount decreased as each film finished. Amazingly, there was still a large crew of dedicated film hounds at the end of the staggering nine hour marathon. Film fans of Slovenia, we salute you.

Among the films we saw were:

ZONE OF THE DEAD



Widely touted as “the first Serbian Zombie move” this was great fun on the big screen. We were lucky enough to enjoy a private projection in the company of Slovenian film maker and all round good bloke, Andrej Kosak, who was head of the jury for the Vicious Cat awards. Apparently a Vicious Cat is local lingo for a hangover. A particularly bad one is a Vicious Tiger. (Talking of which, Andrej showed us a great example of Slovenian hospitality by knocking on a total stranger’s door and asking if they had any spare wine… of course they did, it was home made, delicious and they were happy to share it round!)

The makers of Zone of the Dead have managed to create, whether they intended it or not, a sort of visual time machine. Watching this movie took me right back to 1979. The tail end of the Italian movie boom; the glory days of the low budget zombie/horror rip off. With its patchwork plot, “English as a second language” dialogue delivery from the mostly Serbian cast, hilarious non acting from a couple of cute babes who had to be the various producers’ girlfriends and appearances by solid genre imports such as Ken Foree, this one had all the elements of those long ago exploiters. The zombie make up and some of the sfx were excellent. Kudos to local make up man Miroslav Lakobrija and his team.

Expect to see this in a video store near you soon. It’s such a shame that they can’t revive the VHS format for this one, It really cries out for the big box treatment.

DEAD SNOW



Had heard good things about this Norwegian “Nazi Zombies in the snow” outing and it lived up to expectations. A bunch of kids (medical students for some reason) go up to a cabin in the snowy mountains for a weekend break. Things don’t pan out as they expect. They should have listened to the movie geek member of the team and his discussion of how many horror movies have started with a bunch of friends heading for a cabin in the woods.

The film take its time to get going but, the final half hour or so of PeterJacksontwentyyearsago zombie mayhem more than makes up for the wait. The snowy backdrop, reminiscent inevitably of the likes of Cold Prey and (to me) Blood Tracks, is still different enough to lift this one out of the ordinary and make it a must see for those in the mood for fast paced zombie action.

KORPUS CRISPI
This was a co-production of Plan 9 – the team behind the festival – and included starring parts and cameos for many of the organisers and their gang. The film was screened in a large marquee in the midst of a torrential downpour, which certainly helped to give the whole event a memorable “spirit of the blitz” feel for the huge crowd of locals who turned out to cheer on the home team. A complicated plot involving “Jesus’s Teeth” was mixed up with a lot of satirical references to local cultural, religious and political concerns - sort of Dan Brown meets QT...Slovenian style. Some spirited performances and splattery sfx helped keep this one moving.

CAPTAIN BERLIN VS HITLER



An international premier for this long awaited new feature from Jorg Buttgereit. Before the screening, Jorg gave a fascinating in depth interview, very well moderated by Serbian writer Dejan Ognjanovic. He explained how the project initially grew out of a desire to have a visual record of a stage show that he had directed in Berlin. This was then mixed in with some extracts from earlier super 8mm shorts and specially filmed inserts to make the final product.

It sounded like a strange hybrid and one was apprehensive. In fact it turned out to be a hugely enjoyable and very spirited black comedy. In many ways it’s a return to the territory of his early shorts like Horror Heaven, and reminds us that humour has always been a component of even his bleakest films. Dracula makes an appearance, alongside Hitler’s brain and the fictional Captain Berlin – Germany’s “first costume super hero”. Buttgereit’s knowledge of and affection for old B movies, serials and a general trash aesthetic run right through this one. The perfectly pitched performances, in particular by Claudia Steiger as the fanatical but curiously innocent Ilsa von Blitzen, make this a fun ride.

The festival programme was wide ranging and there was much that we didn’t get to see, including a number of short films, but special mention for the 2008 Finnish short English Lessons. Highly original and very entertaining. Worth looking out for.

Besides films, the festival also includes music events (we missed Septic Scum!), book launches and wine tastings. A highlight was an exhibition of polemical film leaflets from the 1970’s created by famed Serbian film maker Slobodan Sijan. (As the man says…what you can’t say on a side A4, probably isn’t worth saying.) It was a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a man who had done so much for Serbian film and to see the roots of his aesthetic in these iconoclastic hymns to popular cinema. He deserves praise for even making a film called “How I Was Systematically Destroyed by an Idiot” .



It reminds you that film making - and film watching - is not (or shouldn’t be) a competition but rather a process of discovery.

As Slobodan Sijan wrote in his introduction to the exhibition: “I found more inventiveness, new ideas and raw truth in obscure American B production or even in the films intended for the mass public, than in the praised works of the seventh Art.”

Forty years ago, against the backdrop of State funding and socialist realism, such an affirmation was a real act of faith.

For all things Grossmann - click here

Monday 10 August 2009

Down Terrace - World Premiere Announced!

Down Terrace's world premiere will be at this years FantasticFest in Austin Texas. Here's what festival director Tim League has to say about it: "Even more than the galas, I love sharing our discoveries with the audience. Some of my personal favorites in this announcement are DOWN TERRACE – a very smart and very black comedy which will have its world premiere at Fantastic Fest"

Read all the lowdown about DT and all the great line up of movies at this years FF -here

We'll be announcing the UK premiere very soon too..... stay tuned.



Monday 20 July 2009

Down Terrace: teaser trailer & news blog online



The first teaser trailer for our new movie Down Terrace is online. We've also set up a news blog to let you know about screenings etc etc We'll be announcing the US and UK premiere's very soon.

Visit the blog and follow us here.

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Born of Fire - Cover and screen grabs

We're just putting the final touches to our Born of Fire DVD - here's some frame grabs and the cover to get your appetite whetted!










Wednesday 24 June 2009

Great Films You've Never Heard Of…. (PART 45)

Tumbling right off the top of our in-tray comes exclusive news of a forthcoming Mondo Macabro DVD release.

Out “some time later this year” will be the very first ever DVD release of Born of Fire. Pretty much unseen anywhere since its 1986 release, BOF is an hallucinatory journey into cosmic consciousness, in the spirit of Jodorowsky’s El Topo or The Magic Mountain. But comparisons are always ill advised, so let’s just say that it’s pretty much unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Starring Peter Firth (Lifeforce; Highlander), Suzan Crowley (The Draftsman’s Contract) and Stefan Kalipha (Superman 111; Indiana Jones), and lensed in some of the most incredible natural landscapes in the world, this is a film we’re delighted to be bringing back to a wider audience.

The film was written and directed by Jamil Dehlavi, who went on to make the fascinating Jinnah, a film about the founding of Pakistan, which was controversial for featuring Christopher Lee as the titular Quaid-e-Azam. In fact it was one Lee’s finest ever performances, as he acknowledges here:



Born of Fire will feature an exclusive interview with Jamil Dehlavi about his career and the making of the film.

Here's a few pics to whet your appetite.




Tuesday 16 June 2009

Villa Estrella Trailer

Our friend Rico Ilarde (Killdroid) has been busy over the last few
months shooting a glossy, romantic horror movie for Star Cinema
ABS/CBN, one of the biggest producers in the Philippines.

The first full trailer is finally up:



Some nice Bava-esque lighting, a scary child and a doll decapitation.
Looks like a winner.

Rico and his team are working flat out to get the movie ready for its
premier on July 1st. Good luck guys!

Friday 5 June 2009

Gradiva - Cover Art & Stills (NSFW)

Coming late August.... here's the cover back & front




and here's some stills (click to enlarge)