Schedule Of Fear.

The schedule for next week's Festival Of Fear is now up on the Fan Expo website.  Here's a peek.

Right click to enlarge.

To get into the spirit of things I thought I'd make a Top 5, no screw it, Top 7 list of events I'm most looking forward to at Festival of Fear this year!

7. The Toronto After Dark Film Festival will be announcing the first ten films of this year's lineup at the Fan Expo, so be sure to stop by their booth and catch a sneak peek of what's on tap for October. For more info on the fest, click here.

6. One of my favourite things about the Fan Expo is meeting up with my buddy Schwartz and hitting all the regular vendor tables. It's always good to see familiar faces like Darryl of Twisted T's, Luis of Suspect Video and Mike from Hollywood Canteen. You can be sure they are equally glad to see us, as our wallets are certainly lighter after that weekend.

5. It seems like there are a lot more panels this year. A few that I will make a point to catch are "Collectible Poster Art", "Canadian Horror Revisited", "Gore, Girls and Godforsaken Cinema" and "Inside the Mind of Astron 6".

4. I'm looking forward to the Q&A with The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus & Jon Bernthal for another reason than just the obvious. This year will be my teenage niece's first Festival of Fear and right now she is beside herself with excitement to see & meet the man who plays Darryl Dixon; her favourite character on her favourite show. It's going to be fun to see that happen.

3. The Gillian Anderson Q&A. I had to wait almost twenty years for it, but better late than never. It's probably just as well. At the height of my obsession with The X-Files, I may not have been able to handle it.

2. In conjunction with Tony Todd's appearance at the Festival of Fear, there is a 35mm screening of Candyman at the TIFF Lightbox. This is going to be frickin' sweet!

1. Of course number one is reserved for the appearance of the guest of honour, John Carpenter. Finally, after a long absence - and a cancelled appearance at TIFF in 2010 - the master of horror returns to Toronto. It's gonna be magic.

And that is only a sampling of what is available at this year's Fan Expo. For more info, go here.

In Liebster.

I got a nice little email from PromoteHorror.com this morning. They were gracious enough to pass on a Liebster Award.

It's always lovely to know people are enjoying what you're doing, so I'm much imbliged to them for thinking of me. This honour apparently comes with several rules, but I'm way too lazy to follow them all. However, what I will do is answer their eleven-part questionnaire and forward a few links to some sites I frequent.

1. Who is your favorite Freddy, Jason, or Michael?

That's a tough one, but in a pinch, I'd go with the most prolific, Jason.

2. Death by fire or drowning?
Fire. Anything but drowning. And sharks.

3. Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?
I live in Canada, so Tim Horton's.

4. What was your favorite horror movie of 2011?

Adam Wingard's You're Next, though it still has yet to be released and may not be for a while. If we're only counting movies that were released theatrically, then I'll say Attack The Block.

5. If you could live in one country besides the one you currently live in, what country would that be?

Iceland. Though I don't know if, with all its recent economic woes, it is still the same place I visited back in 2001.  Perhaps England is an good alternate.

6. Horror remakes, love them or hate them?

I'm at a place now where I can deal. Unless they are made by Platinum Dunes. Those ones can fuck off and die.

7. Do you have any pets?
No. Though I did have a cat named Sebastian when I was younger.

8. What was the first horror movie you remember seeing?
The Legacy (1978)

9. Have you ever been to a horror, comic, or film festival/convention?

Yes, countless ones.  I just got back from Fantasia in Montreal, and the Festival of Fear is next week.

10. What was the last DVD you bought or rented?
I picked up The Raid on Blu-ray yesterday.

11. Are you more afraid of fast or slow zombies?
I can't outrun the fast ones, so definitely them.

Now, here are some sites that are just as deserving of a Liebster as I.

Final Girl
27 x 41
Entertainment Maven
Cartoon and Horror
Mermaid Heather
VHShitfest
Movie Moxie
The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse
Critical Condition
Giallo Fever
Basement of Ghoulish Decadence

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Hello all.  Some much needed rain has made it a bit of a drab weekend here, but I've got some videos to keep us both occupied while I wait for the sun to return.

NYZ.

Here's a video of a recent publicity stunt involving zombies walking among us in The Big Apple.

At first I was confused by the 'put zombies back on TV' tagline.  The Walking Dead is one of the most popular shows on TV right now - and shows no signs of being buried anytime soon - so what the hell was this all about?  Upon investigation, by going to putzombiesback.com, I found out that US cable provider DISH has dropped AMC from their network. Now I understand the ire, as that decision seems like a colossal clusterfuck. Not only does AMC carry The Walking Dead, but also other massively popular shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. I have a theory. Perhaps when DISH acquired Cockbuster, they also inherited some of their boneheaded business sense. Well, good luck with that, guys.

The Olympic Spirit.

With the Olympic closing ceremonies happening in London tonight, I wanted to share perhaps the coolest thing - at least from a horror fan's perspective - that happened over the last few weeks.  Russian synchronized swimming duo Natalia Ishchenko and Svetlana Romashina performed their gold-winning routine to Goblin's Suspiria theme.

That footage above was taken from a 2011 performance, but you get the idea. It just goes to show how far the tendrils of Dario Argento's 1977 masterpiece have unfurled.

Vids!

Lastly, I just wanted to show a couple of videos that were recently brought to my attention.  My friend Mike turned me onto a video for Keane's latest single Disconnected.  Directed by J.A. “The Orphanage” Bayona, it is a visual feast recalling several classic horror films from the seventies and eighties. Enjoy!

Then, my friend Karen linked to this clever little short on her Facebook feed called Too Late.

Black Sunday (#13)

The last of the Mario Bava films on the Time Out Best 100 List that I had yet to see was his 1960 debut, Black Sunday.

Black Sunday (aka The Mask of Satan, the original version I watched) tells the story of Princess Asa (Barbara Steele) & Javuto (Arturo Dominici), two evil souls put to death for heresy, attempting to claw their way back to the land of the living on the two-hundredth anniversary of their execution.

Bava had been working in the film business as a cinematographer for many years and had already stepped in as director on a few projects prior to Black Sunday, but this one is considered his official start as a director. As evidenced by the journeyman quality of this picture, he was clearly ready and up to the task.

You may think that a man who became so renowned for his use of colour, would’ve been somewhat limited by black & white, but that was not the case at all. As with his giallo The Girl Who Knew Too Much in 1963, he still manages to do marvelous things with shadow and in camera effects. This film has more of a traditional Gothic narrative to it, seemingly emulating the popular Hammer films of the era, as well as the Universal classics before them. Those sensibilities mixed with Bava’s raw visual flair made for a very interesting hybrid.

Star Barbara Steele holds nothing back, showing us why she was dubbed a Queen of Horror. She does a great job playing two characters that are exact opposites, and I implore you to take your eyes off hers when she is onscreen. I find it sad that this was unfortunately the only time she ever worked with Mario Bava.

Barbara Steele in Black Sunday.

For a film made in 1960, I found it remarkably more gruesome than I expected. Italian horror’s obsession with eye trauma – in addition to Un Chien Andalou of course – can likely be traced back to this film. Apparently, I’m not the only one who noticed the gore, as Black Sunday’s distributor, the iconic American International Pictures, also had several reservations about the content. For its domestic release, a full three minutes was cut from the film, but it has since been fortunately restored in subsequent video releases.

As with Black Sabbath – and most Bava pictures for that matter – there is barely a single scene in Black Sunday that didn’t influence scores of filmmakers. It's certainly not hard to see why the opening sequence, where Steele is violently put to death, was burned into the minds of many an artist.

Black Sabbath (#14)

After a nice little break, I continued on with my viewings of the unseen titles on the Time Out Best 100 List. The two remaining entries to which I’d been most looking forward, were a pair from Italian maestro Mario Bava, Black Sabbath and Black Sunday. Today, I’ll be talking about the former.

Black Sabbath (aka Three Faces of Fear, the original Italian version that I watched) spins three spine-tingling tales in this 1963 anthology hosted by Boris Karloff.

One of the most dependable constants in horror is Mario Bava. He rarely, if ever, disappoints and Black Sabbath is a shining example of that. In Italian genre film, you often get the beautiful visuals of the surreal and interesting, grounded narratives, but rarely in the same picture. You usually get one or the other, but I find that Bava balances the two effortlessly. The structure of Black Sabbath is very well laid out, sandwiching a supernatural story between two contemporary thrillers, involving revenge and greed.

The first story entitled The Telephone, is a wonderfully orchestrated piece of suspense. It features the beautiful and curvy Michelle Mercier terrorized by an unknown caller who seems to know her every move inside her apartment. Likely knowing they were the strongest of the trio, Bava puts the emphasis on the dialogue and performances for this one. However, even with this part being the most reserved visually, it is still gorgeous to look at. I was quite astonished to discover that this segment was apparently the first Italian thriller to be shot in colour. Bava had always been a master of lighting – just a way a shadow falls across a characters face can speak volumes – but I find it amazing that he could become so quickly adept at using colour in this context.

Michelle Mercier in Black Sabbath's The Telephone.

The second part of Black Sabbath is a period piece called The Wurdalak, and is about vampires that feed on the blood of those they loved while they were alive. It stars genre great Boris Karloff as the title character and Mark Damon. Damon, who in addition to his successful acting career, went on to become a legendary producer and is the man we have to thank for introducing Clint Eastwood to Sergio Leone. It is during this story that the visuals and mood kick into another gear. As I've stated before, it is impossible to watch a Bava film and not see something that was subsequently reappropriated by other filmmakers. I wager that director – and coincidentally Best 100 panelist – Guillermo del Toro was a big fan of this film.

Black Sabbath (left) & del Toro's The Devil's Backbone.

Getting back to the use of colour, I have noticed that Bava tends to choose one and then use it to punctuate an entire piece. In 1965's Blood & Black Lace, that colour is red – the crimson mannequins and velvety curtains literally spring from the screen – and in Black Sabbath it is purple, which makes for some breathtaking shots.

The last story, and my favourite, is The Drop of Water. It has a fantastic hook and a wonderful urban legend quality to it. It is the kind of story, involving Jacqueline Pierreux being haunted after stealing from the dead, that you can imagine yourself telling while sitting with friends around a roaring campfire. This story is also the most visual of the three with an antagonist that is the stuff of nightmares. Again, it was hard not to think of how many filmmakers this affected.

Mario Bava's Black Sabbath (1963)

Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977)

James Wan's Insidous (2010)

Not to sound like a broken record, but there can be no overestimating the importance of Bava’s work on modern horror. The Time Out crew were obviously aware of this, as Bava has four titles on the list, tying him with George A. Romero as the most prolific director on there. Check back tomorrow when I share my thoughts on Bava's 1960 debut, Black Sunday.

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Nursing a hangover with some couch & Olympics coverage today, so I'll keep this one brief.  Here's some cool horror tidbits I found on the Web this week.

Blue Midnights.

Video distribution company Blue Underground began rolling out a new line of double-and-triple feature DVD's this week.  Here's a trailer showing the great titles they have on tap.

Volumes one through four were released this week with the next three coming out August 28th. I made sure to get number four on order, as I love me some gialli.  For more info, check out the Underground website here.

Disasterland.

Super Punch directed me to go a cool art show in Los Angeles called Disasterland.  Artist José Rodolfo Loaiza Ontiveros' latest show splashes some blood and sinew on Walt Disney's most beloved figures.  Here's a sample.

For more of Loaiza's offerings, click here.  Disasterland runs from August 3rd to September 2nd at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery.

SL4D.

Lastly, here's what looks to be a Left 4 Dead fan film by filmmaker Jason Forge.  Enjoy!

What Is A Ferox, Anyway?

Since the opening of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, it has become a vertiable hub for all manner of film-related events. As Toronto continually plays host to countless filmmakers working in the city, it makes sense that such an environment would lead to some very special and unique events. This spring saw an extremely successful run of Alfred Hitchcock films presented by director Guillermo del Toro, and things have snowballed from there.

The latest of these events was Monday's screening of Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox, presented by director Eli Roth. Roth is currently in town working on his upcoming project for Netflix called Hemlock Grove and spent some time speaking with Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes about the film and its infamy. Say what you will about the man and his movies, but there can be no question that Roth knows his shit. He is a horror film scholar and during his intro broke down the origins of one of horror's most shocking genres.

He also took a moment to dedicate the screening to Sage Stallone, who recently passed away. Stallone was co-founder of the video distribution company Grindhouse Releasing, which was instrumental in the restoration of such horror classics as The Beyond, Pieces and the film we were there to watch that evening, Cannibal Ferox.

Below, is the Q&A that followed the screening. He delves deep into the mystique of the cannibal genre, as well as giving you a good idea of the stuff he is planning over the next few years. Enjoy!