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Hey all. I'm just checking before attending a friend's movie marathon all day. Here's some interesting stuff for the week.

My Head Is Killing Me.

Ahead of the anticipated second season of their horror series Channel Zero, SyFy has released this teaser.

Creepy shit, and so simple! The second season will focus on the Creepypasta story No-End House and will premiere on October 1st. I can't wait!

Bava Bound!

Remember when I was incredibly jealous of the Mario Bava retrospective that was happening in NYC and desperately hoped that it would somehow make it to Toronto? Well, my prayers have been answered! From August 11th to 13th, The Royal Cinema & Horror-Rama are bringing four of Bava's classics here.

I am so stoked for this. Planet of the Vampires and Kill Baby, Kill are two of the most influential pictures out there, Black Sunday features one of Barbara Steele's most striking performances and I've not even seen Hatchet For A Honeymoon, so this is a real treat. For more info, visit The Royal's website here.

For The Birds.

I saw this cool little construct on Bloody Disgusting this week. Reddit user murdrfaze has fashioned themselves a birdhouse replica of the cabin from the Sam Raimi classic The Evil Dead.

Apparently due to the demand, murdrfaze has decided to build ten for sale on his Etsy page. No word on when that will be, but if you'd like to read the original BD article, click here.

That's it for me kiddies, I got me some movies to watch. Have a great rest of the weekend! 

Shorts Fantasia

As with previous years, I am wrapping up my Fantasia coverage with a rundown of the best shorts I saw while at the fest. This year was particularly strong and I wish I could have seen all of them, instead of just a sampling. Fortunately, I was there for not one, but two short programmes (Small Gauge Trauma & Born of Woman) so I did get the catch more than usual.

I saw a pair of creepers that really impressed me this year in Nico Van den Brink's Sweet Tooth and Adam O'Brien's Banshee. The former was super tight, had a brilliant setup and utilized some chilling beats involving technology. Banshee had some awesome effects and a conclusion where I was actually glad it went on after I thought it had ended. Scary shorts are the hardest to pull off and both these guys did some great work.

A short I saw a few months ago and was glad to see play here was Amelia Moses' Undress Me. With its university coming-of-age backdrop, it reminded me of Julia Ducournau's Raw and its university, only leaning more toward body horror than cannibalism. It ended rather abruptly (Moses revealed at the screening she only had ten minutes to get the last shot), but I think she got her point across.

A couple of films that featured great performances from young leads were Andrea Naida's Home Education and William Boodell's Born of Sin. Naida's piece takes the title's idea to the next level and, whether intentional or not, becomes a comment on the dangers of ignorance. Born of Sin took the mundane situation of a child waiting for their neglectful parent and turned it into something darkly whimsical.

On the animation side of things, there was the pitch black awesomeness of Marc Riba & Anna Solanas' Dead Horses. I loved the little creative touches in the stop-motion, like the shimmering of the boy's eyes and the look of the explosions. This was one that stuck with me.

Short films often offer glimpses into worlds that would make interesting features, as was the case with Santiago C. Tapia & Jessica Curtright's It Began Without Warning. Its Who Can Kill A Child? vibe packed a lot of madness into six minutes.

Lastly, my favourite short film of my trip was definitely Natalie Erika James' Creswick. It had pitch perfect tone, great performances and the best use of sound design I've seen in ages. Toward the end, there was a sequence in a workshed that was just terrific. Hopefully, you will get to catch this - and all those aforementioned - at a festival near you, or at least eventually online.

So, that's another year in Ol' Montreal done. Hope you have earmarked some of the titles I wrote about for future reference, as there were some corkers. I'll be taking a little break, but see you back here next week.

Double Docs

I caught a pair of terrific documentaries while at Fantasia this week.

I wasn't able to see Alex Phillipe's 78/52 during its run in Toronto, but it was fortuitous because the filmmakers were in attendance for this screening in Montreal. This doc examines one of the most infamous scenes in all of cinema - the shower sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. So named for the seventy-eight cuts and fifty-two second run time, this doc is extremely comprehensive, almost breaking the material down frame by frame with the help of filmmakers and scholars alike.

I loved this documentary because it concentrated on the pathos of the film and how much of an influence it had on cinema as well as the public at large. In doing so, 78/52 was not only a film about film, but also pop culture itself. I also really liked the range of subjects they brought in for the film that included the old guard like Peter Bogdonavich, the new blood like Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead & Oz Perkins (who has an obvious connection with the material) as well as denizens in between like Mick Garris and Guillermo del Toro.

The crowd was also riled up when the filmmakers announced their next project. I haven't seen it announced online yet, so I won't keep quiet, but they are planning on giving the same treatment to equally iconic moment from late-seventies science fiction.

The second documentary, Steve Mitchell's King Cohen was a deep dive into the world of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen. It was extra special to not only have him there, but also his long-time collaborator Michael Moriarty to present him with a lifetime achievement award. These two were a dynamic duo and wasted no time hamming it up with each other.

Photo courtesy of Kurt Halfyard.

I've always said that Larry Cohen is one of the purest horror filmmaker out there. His oeuvre is not only extremely vibrant and unique, but also uncompromising. Q: The Winged Serpent, It's Alive, God Told Me To, The Stuff, I mean the list goes on. As does the list of filmmakers that sing his praised within like Martin Scorsese, John Landis & Joe Dante. Cohen is also a prolific writer, having penned over a hundred pieces of work for film and television. I was honoured to be in his presence.

If you are into documentaries about the craft of film, then I highly encourage you to seek out this pair of docs. You'll learn a lot, and do it with a grin.

Hells Yeah!

Moving now to across the pond, I checked out Cold Hell, the new thriller from German director Stefan Ruzowitzky.

A Muslim taxi driver named Özge (Violetta Schurawlow) becomes the target of a serial killer after she witnesses him disposing of his latest victim.

I loved this film. Thrillers are a dime-a-dozen, but it is rare where all of its components come together as well as they did here. Cold Hell was the perhaps the closest thing to a giallo I've seen in quite some time. It has several elements, including the mysterious serial killer, a protagonist that is unwittingly brought into the investigation and the cat-and-mouse game that ensues.

This time however, the formula was cleverly subverted by flipping the gender roles. Usually, the female is a companion to the main character that helps to a certain degree, but often ends up needing to be rescued (Daria Nicolodi in some of Dario Argento's films for instance). In Cold Hell, Özge was the main character who was not only strong, but also took no shit and never let herself be a victim. It's also important for me to point out that her strength felt well established and organic. It wasn't an empty plot device, her actions were spurred on by years of being trodden on by the world.

Which brings me to Schurawlow, who was just fantastic. I could see the weight of the rage she carried around inside her quiet demeanor. It was almost as if she had been waiting for someone to come along she could unleash all her anger onto. I never once thought Özge couldn't do all of the kick-ass stuff Schurawlow did in this film. On top of that though, there were a lot of other moments like altercations with her estranged family and the socio-political hurdles of xenophobia that really added to her character. Ruzowitzky made a perfect casting choice here I can only hope that Schurawlow's career skyrockets like Franke Potente's did after he put her in his 2000 flick, Anatomy.

Violetta Schurawlow as Özge in Cold Hell.

Cold Hell was a well paced thriller, but it also had its share of really kinetic action sequences. Özge was a trained Thai boxer and I really liked the true-to-life nature of the fight sequences. They were not the highly choreographed bouts we see from Hollywood and the Far East, but realistic get-them-down-and-hit-them-in-the-face-as-many-times-as-possible affairs. It was extremely visceral and I was super pumped after the credits rolled.

Cold Hell will likely be my favourite film at the festival this year. It was a very well executed thriller anchored by a complex and spirited female lead. We need more thrillers (and lead characters) like this one.

Mind The Doors!

One of my most anticipated screenings at this year's Fantasia was the new Blue Underground restoration of Gary Sherman's 1972 horror Death Line.

This screening was a treat for a number of reasons. First off, the transfer (which was struck from the original camera negative) was wonderful. Up until this point, Death Line, under its alternate title Raw Meat, was only available through a dark and muddy release from MGM. It was so great to able to actually see the inside of the underground lair during that lengthy tracking shot toward the beginning of the film. Also, Death Line still remains one of my favourite performances by Donald Pleasance. He was clearly having so much fun in this.

The biggest draw of this event though, was that director Gary Sherman was in attendance and sat down with filmmaker Bill Lustig for a lengthy discussion about the film. Here below is audio from that night, where he talks about working with Pleasance & Christopher Lee, the lamented A.I.P. release and exploring subtext within genre film. Enjoy!

Initiate Sequence.

Next up on the Fantasia docket was Graham Skipper's Sequence Break.

After playing an old arcade game that mysteriously shows up at his repair shop, Oz's (Chase Williamson) hold on reality begins to slip.

Skipper is part of a collective of filmmakers that have made several indie horrors (Almost Human, The Mind's Eye) in the last few years that I wasn't struck by, but this premise was just too intriguing to pass up. I'm glad I did because I liked this one quite a bit. When the instantly recognizable ships from Galaga flashed across the opening credits, I was like, okay I'm in, whatcha got?

If 2015's The Mind's Eye was a take on David Cronenberg's Scanners, then Sequence Break was Skipper's interpretation of Videodrome, switching out VHS & TV's with arcade games. However, I believe that this piece succeeded where the former failed. Even with some Lovecraftian and cyberpunk elements mixed in with the Cronenberg, Sequence Break did not overextend itself past its means. Boasting only five characters and largely one location, it allowed itself to be intimate, yet visually stimulating at the same time.

The practical effects (once again recalling Videodrome) were well executed and tactile and the synth score by Van Hughes was perfect. The indie horror scene has been saturated with eighties homages, but this one came off to me, as one of the most sincere. These retro efforts largely tend to rely on nostalgia and while they are often fun, do come off a bit surface-y. In Sequence Break, those aforementioned elements were complimentary, but it was the relationship between Oz and Tess (Fabienne Therese) that kept me invested.

Chase Williamson as Oz in Sequence Break

Which leads me to Williamson and Therese, reunited after working together in 2012's John Dies at the End. I thought their chemistry here was fierce and their relationship endearing. Maybe it was just the hope that someone like Tess exists in the world. I'm not necessarily convinced of that. My friend tells me I don't know enough women. Perhaps that is true. All I do know is that Therese is racking up an impressive list of genre credits so a breakout role is surely imminent.

Sequence Break was a solid indie sci-fi romance that is by far the best thing his crew have put out into the world. It rose beyond mere homage where retro-gaming was an entry point, but not the only driving force of the story. If Skipper's compatriots are smart, they will follow his lead going forward.

Only Skin Deep.

Fantasia continued with a screening of Norbert Keil's body horror piece, Replace.

When Kira's (Rebecca Forsythe) skin starts to inexplicably decay and flake off, she discovers she can replenish it with that of other women.

I wasn't crazy about this movie, but I'll start with the positive. I was really impressed with the look of this movie and how it visually represented Toronto. Kira's apartment had this really strange layout that could only exist in a movie and I kind of dug that. Odd at first was the relationship between Kira & her neighbour Sophia (Lucie Aron), actually reminding me of those awkward dubbed conversations you see in old gialli, but even that kind of grew on me after a while. It could also be that Aron reminded me of Asia Argento.

The Big Smoke.

I think scene to scene, Replace just felt uneven to me. I was slightly confused in that it seemed to exist out of time. Kira rocked an ancient flip phone, yet Sophia busted out a futuristic projection screen. As soon as the movie started escalating, it didn't really flow together as well as it should have. A few revelations toward the end helped to alleviate some of my grievances, but not all. I would wager that the more surrealist qualities of the movie were perhaps the contribution of co-writer Richard Stanley, but I was lukewarm on how that mixed with the science here.

Due to these distractions, I didn't feel nearly as connected to the characters as I was supposed to. That's a problem because body horror is all about its visceral nature and response. The special effects were solid, but even with those I often experienced a strange disconnect. Barbara Crampton showed up and gave the project some gravitas, but not enough to anchor the movie down once it started meandering in the middle.

Rebecca Forsythe (left) & Barbara Crampton in Replace

Visually I thought Replace was a success, but I just wish the other elements came together as well.