The Final Hex

Hello all. I know I've been slacking off recently, but my festival duties have been eating into my play time of late. I did want to make a point of saying good-bye to a fest near and dear to my heart though.

The Hexploitation Film Fest is calling it quits after fifteen years. After our last hurrah in Feb 2020, Hex head honcho Aaron Allen has decided to throw dirt on the coffin as it were. BUT not before going out with some kick-ass events collectively dubbed The Final Hex.

I took in Here For Blood a few weeks ago, starring "Wesker" himself Shawn Roberts. It's actually quite fun and I think the local FX crew The Butcher Shop's best work to date. Earlier this week though, I went to an absolutely delightful screening of the 80s Canadian banger Murder By Phone.

I have sung in praise of this film after discovering it during the pandemic, but seeing it with a crowd was a real hoot. Aaron also cooked up a little game with it, as well. Everyone in attendance gave him their phone number before the show, and when someone in the movie got a call, someone in the audience also did. Then you were DEAD. I sadly got offed at the same time as Lenore Zann, but I still made out like a bandit with all these runner up prizes courtesy of The Hearty Hooligan and Blood Opera.

A terrific evening. I wish Aaron the best, and hope the Crypt Cinema at Doors Pub (who hosted the screening) keep the horror flame alive in Hamilton.

HXFF Awards.

Today, we announced the awards for this Hexploitation Film Festival. Justin Harding & Rob Brunner's Making Monsters and Jason Axinn's To Your Last Death lead the way with four awards each. For the full list, click the pic above or right here. 

Come One, Come All!

This year's Hexploitation Film Festival kicks off tomorrow!

The festivities begin tomorrow night with prolific actor Art Hindle being presented with a Career Achievement Award. Hex weekend is jam packed with genre content, but don't take my word for it, behold this sizzle reel!

For more info, including festival director Aaron Allen's recent appearance on CHCH-TV, click here. I'll be there most of the weekend, including Saturday afternoon to introduce our bangin' shorts block. Hope to see ya there!

Hex Shorts 2020

We announced our short film line-up for this year's Hexploitation Film Fest yesterday. It's a pretty bangin' one if I do say so myself. Check it.

HXFF runs Feb 20-22 at Hamilton's Staircase Theatre. For more info, go here.

HXFF 2020

The eleventh edition of the Hexploitation Film Festival announced its feature line-up today. We got all sorts of goodies this year, including five Canadian premieres, as well as rockin' after party featuring Blood Opera.

HXFF runs February 20-22 at Hamilton's Staircase Theatre. For all the info, click here.

HexFest 2020

The event poster for next year's Hexploitation Film Festival dropped a few days ago.

Many thanks to artist Patrick Sparrow for the epic inks. HXFF runs Feb 20-22 at Hamilton's Staircase Theatre. For more info, click here.

HXFF Awards 2019

No short this week, but I did want to pass along the winners of this year's Hexploitation Film Festival that happened a bit ago. We had a strong line-up this year, but it was the following shorts that came away with the top honours.

For more info about the fest and the feature film winners, click here.

Hex Fest 2019

This year's edition of the Hexploitation Film Festival announced its lineup yesterday via the Rue Morgue website. 

This February 21-23, Hamilton's premiere genre festival will be showcasing seven features and fifteen shorts. Having had a hand in curating this year's crop of shorts, I can't wait to unleash them on some eager eyeballs.

For the full schedule and info on tickets, check out the HXFF site here.

What The Weekend!

Over the last few days, I've had an extremely busy and fruitful weekend splitting my time between two festivals. The inaugural Hexploitation Film Festival in Hamilton and the fourth edition of What the Film Fest in Toronto. All told I saw seven features and fifteen shorts. 

At Hexfest, we got some great feedback this year, especially for the shorts programme that made me very happy. It was great to see one of my current faves, Asaf Livni's My First Time, flourish on the big screen as well as screening the world premiere of Niall Shukla's trippy nightmare A Doll Distorted. 

As for features, I really responded to Eduardo Clorio's I Wish I Wish which is basically what you would get if the Monkey's Paw was an eighties style board game. Clorio even made the trip up from Mexico and was humbled by the overwhelmingly positive reception. 

I also like Chad Archibald's The Heretics. The trio of actors in the piece (Nina Kiri, Jorja Cadence & Ry Barrett) really brought it, as well as some fantastic effects work. I've been saying for a while that each subsequent Black Fawn title increases in quality and this one is no different.

The second half of my weekend was taken up by Peter Kuplowsky's WTF Fest. His showcasing of weird, offbeat cinema continued with the likes of Terry Chiu's Mangoshake, Armando Lamberti's Green House and Takehide Hori's Junk Head.

It was a terrific three days of fringe cinema.

Hexes & Lasers.

Two things I wanted to share with you. First, the full line-up of this year's Hexploitation Film Festival was announced yesterday.

There are several titles I'm intrigued by including Eduardo M. Clorio's I Wish I Wish, Preston DeFrancis's Ruin Me & Toor Mian & Andy Collier's Charismata, as well as the Hamilton Premiere of Chad Archibald's The Heretics.

We're also serving up some terrific shorts, running the gamut between festival favourites like Justin Harding's Latched and Mike Marrero & Jon Rhoads' Buzzcut and world premieres Niall Shukla's A Doll Distorted and Mike Pereira's Zandavi Lives. I'm also fond of Isreali import My First Time from Asaf Livni.

HexFest goes down at The Staircase Theatre from March 23 to 25. For more info, click here.

Secondly, I wanted to make you aware the Laser Blast Film Society (of which I am a card carrying member) has a spiffy new website. Check it out by clicking the image below.

Coupla Things!

I'm just dropping in with a few announcements. The 58th edition of Little Terrors will be happening January 31st and has a ton of great shorts, including my latest project, The Good Samaritan!

Art by Darryl Shaw

Also, HexFest unveiled the new poster for this year's event and it is pretty, pretty, pretty... pretty sweet!

Art by Susana Vilchez.

For info on HXFF, click here. See you tomorrow for a new VHS Friday.

Hex Rex

Last Friday, The Hexploitation Film Festival (previously Fright Night Theatre) held its first event under its new banner, a screening of Kino Lorber's restoration of Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex.

This was a movie I hadn't seen in upwards of twenty-five years (I honestly couldn't remember a single thing about it past the image of the coverbox) so I was interested to revisit it. After seeing it though, I realized I wasn't able to remember it because it's not particularly memorable. Time has not been kind to this movie.

The creature design of Rawhead Rex looks good in photographs, but onscreen he's not quite as magical. There's not a lot of articulation in the face, so the roaring seems almost disembodied at points. Presumably the actor Heinrich von Schellendorf was looking through the neck (if he could see at all) so when he rushed forward the head would ride up. It would be endearing if it wasn't so comical, but the issue is that under the close scrutiny of 4K I can really see how much more personality the designs of Rex's contemporaries, namely The Predator and Pumpkinhead, had. Though in Rex's defense, those other creatures had way better films built around them.

Rawhead Rex is certainly not the worst Barker adaptation out there – we can give that distinction to director George Pavlou's other Barker adaptation Transmutations – but it is certainly rife with miscues. I can see why Barker made sure he got behind the camera for subsequent adaptations of his more signature properties like Hellraiser and Nightbreed. I mean, the movie did have its moments. The rural Irish location set the mood and that stained glass window with the red eyes was pretty bad-ass. Though it seems odd that no one in the parish ever inquired about it. Oh, and Rex pees on a priest.

In addition to the movie, the event had some awesome pre-show vids, including trailers and vintage video from Barker's appearance on the UK talk show Open To Question.

Barker was a boss in this. He spent thirty minutes being grilled by people who just didn't get it, yet remained composed and offered up intelligent and well-thought out responses for every grenade lobbed his way. This was during a pretty volatile time in the UK and he unapologetically stands up for his brand of fiction.

Director Greg Lamberson was also in attendance to give us some insights about independent filmmaking during the eighties. It was a fun night and many more will follow in the Hammer and the HXFF. Stay tuned for more updates as the festival nears.