A selection of shorts which straddle, splice, and smash together disparate genres, while offering some challenging contemporary riffs on classic WEIRD TALES style scenarios. Co-Presented by THE INDEPENDENT HORROR SOCIETY.
MIDNIGHT CITY (USA, 8 min 51 sec)
UK PREMIERE
Director: Bill Watterson, Producer: Brendan Bradley, Andrej Rattinger, Yuri Lowenthal, Tara Platt, Writer: Yuri Lowenthal, Cinematographer: Daniel Marks, Editor: Andrej Rattinger, Music: Kyle Terborg, Cast: Yuri Lowenthal, Tara Platt
Dutch Lazarus is a detective who specializes in strange cases. This one may very well be the strangest of all.
Bill Watterson, director of Grimmfest favourite DAVE MADE A MAZE, makes a welcome return with this pitch perfect pastiche of 1940s hardboiled private eye noir, with an added supernatural twist. Every visual detail, every cut and camera angle is bang on, evoking such genre classics as THE MALTESE FALCON and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, while Writer / Lead actor Yuri Lowenthal totally nails the rhythm, tone, and delivery of the dialogue, channelling such iconic noir leading men as Bogart, Dick Powell, and Fred McMurray, with perhaps a pinch of Alec Baldwin to add a contemporary edge. Smart, cineliterate, and unexpectedly moving in its mix of noir fatalism and supernatural regret, this is one you won’t want to miss.
THE BONES EXIST (USA, 14 min 20 sec)
REGIONAL / NORTH WEST PREMIERE
Directors: Kelsey Bollig, Matthew DuVall, Producers: Wendy Wang, Annalea Fiachi, Writer: Matthew DuVall, Cinematographer: Michael Moghaddam, Editor: Tyler Pharo, Music: Sylvain Kauffman, Cast: Alex Peña, Siya Maleki, Jack Campbell, Michael Mazanko
In the unforgiving wilderness of 1850s Alta California, a trio of gold prospectors encounters a feral boy who forces them to confront the horrors lurking in the woods and their own past sins.
A sharp and stylish fusion of Western Gothic and creature feature, exploring issues of guilt, retribution, faith and betrayal from Kelsey Bollig and award-winning VFX wizard Matthew DuVall (DEADPOOL, GAME OF THRONES, etc). If the protagonists of THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE had found themselves in THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, this might have been the end result.
FAVELA AMARELA (Brazil, 20 min)
GREATER MANCHESTER PREMIERE
Directors: Nícolas Lobato, Thiago Tuchu, Producers: Aruska Patrícia, Raphael Vieira, Writers: Nícolas Lobato, Thiago Tuchu, Cinematographer: Riva, Editor: Rodrigo Curi, Music: Duca Duarte, Cast: Giselle Batista, Richard Abelha, Sain Ktt
In the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, a reluctant drug trafficker, troubled by terrifying visions, becomes convinced that a group of mysterious yellow-cloaked figures congregating at a disused church poses a terrifying threat to the neighbourhood.
The King in Yellow comes to the City of God. Grounded, gritty social realism collides with dimension-spanning Cosmic Horror, to jarring, startling, surprisingly potent effect, as Robert W. Chambers’ classic story cycle is transposed to the slums of present day Rio de Janeiro, and dreams of lost Carcosa gradually impinge upon the struggle for survival among petty criminals, the poor, and the desperate.
THE ANCHORESS (USA, 16 min 42 sec)
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
Directors: Kevin Ray, Matthew Fisher, Producer: Corinne Lothers, Writer: Matthew Fisher, Cinematographer: Bryan Fowler, Editor: Kevin Ray, Music: John Wycoff, Cast: Erin Ownbey, Brett Brooks, Luke Mercer
A medieval hermit’s troubled faith is further challenged by a hideously disfigured visitor from somewhere impossibly distant.
A powerful parable of signs, symbols, and science gone wrong, this shifts from stark historical drama to spiritual, speculative science fiction in the tradition of Michael Moorcock’s BEHOLD THE MAN or Connie Willis’s DOOMSDAY BOOK. Intelligently written (much of the dialogue is in either Latin or Middle English, in keeping with the period setting), subtly played and beautifully crafted, with striking cinematography, and something of the feel of a classic Western, this builds quietly to a truly startling climax; haunting, disturbing, and yet oddly life affirming.
IL VECCHIO TERRIBILE [THE TERRIBLE OLD MAN] (Italy, 22 min 16 sec)
WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Jacopo Marchini, Producer: Silvio Tufanari, Martina Borzillo, Writer: Jacopo Marchini, Cinematographer: Diego Buonanno, Editor: Jacopo Marchini, Music: Armando Marchetti, Cast: Franco Nero, Marco Bullitta, Carolina Gonnelli, Tommaso Tampelloni
Three thieves on the run after a heist get lost on a back road and stop at a remote diner. There they encounter an old man who pays his bill with gold doubloons. Robbing him seems all too easy a job. But some treasures are protected by forces beyond human comprehension.
Italian screen legend Franco Nero, DJANGO himself, stars in this ferocious and fatalistic reimagining of the early Lovecraft short story, which relocates the action to contemporary Italy, and splices the basic, core idea into a classic “Predators become the prey” scenario, as three career criminals choose the worst possible victim. It’s a smart, slick, sharply played film, beautifully shot and staged, which makes good use of its longer running time to develop character and situation, even as events move towards their inevitably grisly climax.
ANAX (Spain, 14 min 25 sec)
UK PREMIERE
Directors: L.S.David, Miguel Solís, Producer: La Candela Producciones, Morfico Studio, Writers: L.S.David, Miguel Solís, Cinematographer: Leon Velasquez, Editor: L.S.David, Music: Afkar, L.S.David, Cast: Guillermo de Cordova, Alexandra Pino, Javi de Cordova, Alejandra Martinez de Miguel
Your name is Iván. You’ve come to an underground rave in an Asturian forest to celebrate the popular night of San Juan. The music thumps through the trees, the air smells of dampness and freedom, and Clara—the girl you like—dances like it’s her last night. A friend offers you a taste of something he’s brought for the occasion. You accept. You want to feel more. That’s when you start to hear that female voice repeating your name.
Rave culture collides with folk horror, Arthur Machen meets The Prodigy, in L.S. David and Miguel Solís’s slippy, trippy, woozily immersive POV portrait of disorientation, dissolution and loss of self.
We thank the Independent Horror Society for co-presenting this programme.
