Into The Lion's Den.

Last December, I lamented the fact I'd discovered this wonderfully crazy film from 1981 called Roar, and there was no way to view it. Well, as if by magic, Drafthouse Films heeded the call and released a restored version of the film to theatres last month. If you need a refresher, check out the trailer here.

Fortunately, Roar screened here at The Royal and boy oh boy did it ever live up to its promise. This film is insanity, pure unadulterated insanity. It's one of those movies where you just stare at it in awe that a group of people got together and not one of them thought to mention that this was a terrible idea.

For those who don't know, actress Tippi Hedren owned a Californian wildlife reserve in the seventies with her then-husband Noel Marshall. On this reserve, in addition to many other animals, were over a hundred lions, tigers and other large cats. At some point, one of them came up with the ill-advised notion to make a movie featuring all of these untrained felines. Marshall would star and the other members of the cast would be made up of their immediate family, including Hedren and their daughter, Melanie Griffith.

I can't understate how many cats are in this movie. They are everywhere! There's this great moment where Marshall's friend Mativo goes into the house to get away from the lions outside, only to find there are twice as many inside. There are so many parts where you can see the actors aren't acting, they're just doing their best not to break character.

Who let the cats out?

I feel I am not exaggerating when I say that this movie fucks with your head a little bit. It is not just the fact that every frame is dripping with danger - that no one died on this movie is a miracle in itself - but also that the movie feels like a contradiction. The way the movie starts, how Marshall interacts with his cats, the uplifting music, all makes you feel like you are watching a live-action Disney film of the era (like, say Escape To Witch Mountain) except all the characters are never more than a few seconds from death. It is so surreal. 

Case in point.

The movie is quite remarkable, but it is more of an experience, as the story is pretty threadbare. Regardless, seeing people one step away from death for ninety minutes left me a little out of breath I don't mind saying. Anyhow, I urge you to check this out if it comes to your neck of the woods. If anything just because such lofty assertions as “the most dangerous film ever made” are actually true in this case.

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Now that were finally in May and we've finally managed to string a bunch of double-digits temps together, I can finally relax and put that shitty winter behind us. It was a slow news week, but here are some bits & pieces for you to mull over.

Editor Blitz.

The guys over at Astron 6 recently unveiled a new poster for their giallo love letter, The Editor. 

The poster is courtesy of Blitz Cadet aka Brett Parson. There's so much crazy stuff in the movie and somehow this talented artist managed to cram most of in there. Great stuff.

Slashdance.

This video for Common Shiner's song Social Mediasochist isn't new, but I thought it was cute, so enjoy if you haven't seen it already.

Vamps Take Manhattan.

Here's the new trailer for the upcoming sophomore season of FX's The Strain.

I'm looking forward to this coming back this summer. The story isn't anything spectacular, but I do like the characters and, like Hannibal, it is fun seeing Toronto locations pop up every once and a while.

Strange Bedfellows.

The last thing I checked out at Hot Docs was Rodney Ascher's new documentary The Nightmare.

Rodney Ascher interviews sufferers of sleep paralysis about their experiences.

Though the assertion that this is the scariest documentary of all time is a bit of an overstep, there's certainly some creepy imagery within. The very idea of sleep paralysis is a horrifying one and the more solid re-enactments of the bunch do succeed in getting that across. The bit with the cat was pretty unsettling and the sudden violence of the one with the claw machine took me by surprise, as well.

Tonight's nightmare is brought to you by Dario Argento.

As you can guess by now, the re-enactments are the meat of the doc and, by far, its best asset. That being said, I have to wonder why Ascher didn't focus his attention more on those. In his previous documentary, Room 237, we never saw the subjects at all and that kept us rooted in the dream-like world of The Shining. Here, Ascher shoots back and forth between the eight interviewees, as well as shifting between us watching them tell their nightmares, and the accompanying dramatizations. It messes with the atmosphere that Ascher was no doubt trying to build. However, it also depends on the stories themselves, as they range from downright chilling to somewhat silly.

I also felt that The Nightmare was a little light on the science.. I'm sure that there must have been some studies done on sleep paralysis, but we don't get any further than, “the doctors couldn't do anything for me.” If the American health system is really that flawed... well then, my condolences. In the absence of science, Ascher goes just short of suggesting a supernatural angle, in that he spends time listing all the mythical creatures around the globe that were believed to attack people in their sleep. One of his interviewees goes so far as to say that invoking Jesus' name cured her of her affliction. Hey, whatever lets you sleep at night, I guess.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

I think for me, the scariest thing about The Nightmare was the insinuation that sleep paralysis can be contagious. On a few occasions the doc talks of people being told about sleep paralysis and then experiencing it themselves. This was obviously psychosomatic, but that doesn't change the fact that it could happen. I think everybody in the theatre took that connotation with them afterward. I know I may have watched a couple of extra episodes of junk on Netflix to delay hitting the sack that night.

The Nightmare may stumble in its execution, but it's still worth a watch, as it covers a fascinating topic and does offer up some genuinely unnerving moments. Until next time... Sweet dreams! 

Analog Synchronicity.

There's something I saw at Hot Docs last weekend that has been kicking around my brain ever since. Ross Sutherland's hour-long piece entitled Stand By For Tape Back Up is, well, something really special.

I find it a little difficult to describe. It is part spoken word performance, part nostalgia and part memoir, as Sutherland shares the contents of an old video tape that featured all manner of things taped off the TV by his grandparents, whom he visited every summer as a kid. With accompanying narration by Sutherland, which is, at times, incredibly profound, he is able to map out a good portion of his life. The tape has become not only a sentimental symbol of his relationship with his late grandfather, but also his sole connection to his past, as a hard drive crash wiped away pretty much his entire life pre-2010.

Sutherland introduces the tape beautifully by bringing up the well known phenomenon of the Dark Side of the Rainbow. He maintains that humans are wired to seek out patterns, even when none exist. This informs the rest of this piece, as he lines up things as random as an old tampon commercial to run parallel with his prose. Even after a certain piece has been replayed multiple times, Sutherland still manages to keep in sync with it, much like the Pink Floyd album appears to with The Wizard of Oz.

But the real magic here is how this transfers to the viewer. You will connect with it and recognize your own patterns, some of which will be there, and some will be imagined. I found this whole thing to be incredibly hypnotic, and just a joy to watch. All the pieces seem to fit together perfectly.

I found an early section of Stand By on Vimeo from a live performance Sutherland did in 2012 if you want to get an idea of what its all about.

Nothing Indeed.

Hot Docs, Toronto's yearly documentary film festival wrapped up last weekend and thanks to a friend, I was fortunate enough to catch a few screenings.

I feel compelled to sound off on a short doc by Charlie Lyne called Copycat. The eight-minute piece poses that the idea for Wes Craven's 1996 self-aware slasher Scream was stolen from another filmmaker. A man named Rolfe Kanefsky made a film called There's Nothing Out There six years previous and Lyne draws a thread between the two films using a combination of narration, an interview with Kanefsky himself and supporting video clips.

It would be easy to peg Craven as the bad guy, a nefarious has-been who, looking to revitalize his career, came across someone else's property and passed it off as his own. It wouldn't be the first time it happened in the film industry. The problem is that, in this particular case, Lyne's (and Kanefsky's) theory doesn't hold water under scrutiny.

The crux of the argument is that at some point when Kanefsky's film was making the rounds, it came across the path of Wes Craven's son, Jonathan. Then, before Kanefsky could say “I'll be right back”, Craven began production on Scream. Diabolical! Only that Wes Craven didn't write Scream; a guy named Kevin Williamson did. His script, originally called Scary Movie, was conceived after hearing about the Gainesville Ripper murders in Florida.

Okay, well perhaps Williamson saw There's Nothing Out There beforehand? That too is unlikely, because we all know he has a certain style of writing that has remained consistent his entire career. It was there before Scream (in a script called Killing Mrs. Tingle that was written in the early nineties and finally made in 1999) and it was there in the projects following, from Dawson's Creek to Cursed.

I also took issue with the fact Lyne & Kanefsky brand There's Nothing Out There as the first self-aware horror film. Again, not true. There were a number of films made before it that deconstruct the genre, including Return To Horror High and Unmasked Part 25. Mickey Rose's Student Bodies was made a full decade before There's Nothing Out There, for God's sake.

Mike (Craig Peck) shares a moment with the camera.

I understand why Kanefsky is sour. His movie is solid and didn't get the recognition it deserved. Lyne points out that its obscurity upon release in 1992 was due to several factors, including Super Bowl weekend and the Rodney King video, but they come off sounding like excuses. Donnie Darko's initial release was buried by 9/11, but that film eventually found an audience. I like to think that good films get noticed, regardless of the odds. It just might take time.

And therein lies the thing to take away from Copycat. Though its argument is paper thin, at least it will create awareness of the film itself. There's Nothing Out There is actually a very entertaining movie. It's funny, clever and deserves a larger audience for which it may now receive. And who knows? If enough people see it, Kanefsky may get to make that sequel, aptly titled, This Isn't Funny Anymore!

There was another short doc I wanted to speak about, but I prattled on about Copycat a little longer than expected, so I'll leave it until tomorrow...

Trailer Tuesdays: Spookies

Last weekend, I went to a friend's place for a horror movie marathon. In addition to viewing some well-worn installments of Friday the 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street - and a round of the enjoyable, yet strangely complicated, board game Betrayal at House On the Hill - we also watched THIS little ditty.

This movie is a mess, apparently stitched together from two different productions, but damn if it isn't chock full of creatures that the filmmakers were at least smart enough to stuff in the promos.

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Hello all! It's been a few weeks since I've been in town to do one of these things, so let's get right to it. I just realized that this week's DKTM is going to be heavy video-game centric and, since I've been absent for a while, quite large. Here we go!

First, there's this cool video for Night, one of the pieces on John Carpenter's new album, Sacred Bones.

Pretty cool. Knowing what a big nut JC is for video games, I wonder what he thinks of the Oculus Rift.

I've been seeing some really great video games on all formats in the last few weeks, so figured I'd give them all some love. A few weeks ago, I came across this 8-bit representation of The Shining.

I love the little flourishes, like the sound of Danny's big wheel going from carpet to hardwood and the act of mimicking the exhaustive typing of Jack's one iconic phrase, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Click the image above to try it out. But dress warmly.

Another neat little thing I came across was Ian Tuason's interactive short 3am. The short itself is pretty simple fare, but the hook is that you can control the camera for a full 360 degree view of the action. Best viewed in Chrome and using headphones, here it is below.

Perhaps the most distressing news of the past week or so, is that the new Silent Hill game that everyone was excited for is no longer happening. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising as the two gentlemen involved aren't the most reliable on following through on projects they fleetingly announce, but this one had an incredibly intense and robust teaser attached to it. It was pretty much all gamers were talking about the week P.T. (now Silent Hills) was released.

Norman Reedus in Silent Hills.

The point is that they shouldn't be able to back out at this point and the gaming community has already reacted. Since the teaser was taken off the PSN, PS4's including the game on their hard drives are going for a mint on Ebay, and a petition to developer Konami has already reached 60,000 signatures in mere days.

So, Konami, whatever the issue is, sort it out! To sign the petition, click here.

Lastly, the most exciting new thing I saw this week was the Indiegogo campaign for Night Terrors.

Currently we are on the precipice of a new age of gaming. It is no longer an issue of degrees, as the Oculus Rift and Sony's Morpheus are about a year away from hitting the consumer market and possibly revolutionizing the industry. However, some are going a different route and offering an experience utilizing a device that everyone already owns - a Smart phone.

How fucking cool is this? You can have ghosts in your very own home. The functionality of this is very provacative indeed. The project has already raised $20,000 in four days and considering a mere five bones buys you the app, that's very affordable indeed. To contribute, and get more info, click here.