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CONSUMER GRADE VIDEO PRESENTS: SYSTEMS RESEARCH

Posted on by David Williams

SYSTEMS RESEARCH
Dir. Trevor Bather, 2024.
United States. 75 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A, this event is $10

ADVANCE TICKETS

Agent Jones has just been briefed on his latest assignment: 24-hour surveillance duty of the paranoiac Unit Seven Four, a shut-in and writer that the agency have determined to be a threat to the populace. Jones spends his days simply enough at first. Sleeping, spying, and training in the EXPERIENCE SIMULATOR. Soon enough, Jones receives a mysterious call on a secure line: nothing is as it seems, and no one is to be trusted.

SYSTEMS RESEARCH is a hypnotizing sense-warping mind-altering dronescape mood tape wrapped in blood stained Tom Cruise tabloids delivered straight to your skull. A new breed of SOV, brought to you by the fine folks of the Delaware-based CONSUMER GRADE VIDEO. Join us March 23rd for the New York Premiere of SYSTEMS RESEARCH, followed by a Q&A with Trevor Bather, Caroline Kopko, Tyler Antoine, Justin Colatrella, and Tony Zweidinger. Only at Spectacle.

DISEMBODIED

Posted on by David Williams

DISEMBODIED
Dir. William Kersten, 1998.
United States. 78 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8 — 11:59 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 10 — 5 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 23 — 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 30 — 11:59 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS

WARNING: THE PRODUCERS OF THIS MOTION PICTURE ASSUME NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE COST OF PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT NEEDED BY ANY PERSONS WHO HAVE WATCHED DISEMBODIED

Languishing in the realm of sup-par VHS rips and ownership hell for decades, William Kersten’s bold and disturbing DISEMBODIED has returned to life through a special restoration and VFX facelift. Born in the deserts of Reno, Now it is set free. Turned loose upon the unsuspecting populace. On the hunt for fresh victims.

Inspired in part by the surreal black-and-white 50s feature DAUGHTER OF HORROR, DISEMBODIED is entirely its own monster, halfway between ERASERHEAD and BASKET CASE. You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll scream for your mommy! Run, don’t walk to see William Kersten’s… DISEMBODIED. This March at Spectacle. You have been warned!

On the run from her former employer, Connie Sproutz finds refuge in the basement of a derelict hotel. There, she reveals her secret: a mysterious brain being kept alive in a jar and an oozing, carnivorous, psychic pus bag on the side of her face.

NEKO-MIMI

Posted on by Ben Tuttle

NEKO-MIMI

NEKO-MIMI
(猫耳)
Dir. Jun Kurosawa, 1993.
Japan. 80 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles and English intertitles.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 19 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 25 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 30 – 7:30 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS

 

“Why this farce, day after day?”

NEKO-MIMI is the only feature-length directorial effort of by the prolific experimental filmmaker Jun Kurosawa (b. 1964), who also acts as cinematographer, editor, co-writer, and composer. Kurosawa set out to create “the most beautiful cinema crystal” that would remain after eliminating the usual things that make a narrative film “work”: “human emotions, time, space, and montage.”

The film begins with excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s ENDGAME and continues in the same absurdist and apocalyptic vein: Think E. Elias Merhige’s BEGOTTEN by way of Alan Schneider and Beckett’s FILM, but with lush color photography and a characteristic Kurosawa soundscape that undulates between drones, choral passages, field recordings and harsh noise (reminiscent of his one-time collaborator Merzbow).

NEKO-MIMI, which translates to “cat ear,” is the dreamlike tale of three girls and a boy whose existences are spent playing games in a space resembling the ruins of a laboratory. Endless repetitions distort their senses of past, present, or future. They playfully toy with a body, dissecting its eyeballs and other parts. Surrounded by cameras, photographs, film, and projectors, the subjects embrace their surveillance, predicting our present panopticon.

Rarely seen outside of Japan since being presented at the 1993 International Film Festival Rotterdam, Spectacle is excited to present NEKO-MIMI in a recent digital restoration from a 16mm print.

Special thanks to Kraut Film.

THE MASTERS OF ITALIAN EXPLOITATION: LUIGI BAZZONI

Posted on by spectacletheater

The Masters of Italian Exploitation series returns to Spectacle this March to showcase Luigi Bazzoni, one of Italy’s unsung masters of genre cinema. Bazzoni began his career as the assistant director to Mauro Bolognini before stepping into the director’s chair in 1963 with the short films DI DOMENICA and UN DELITTO. Two years later, Bazzoni would direct his first feature film, THE POSSESSED, and follow it up with four more. Even though he only directed five feature films in his career, they are regarded as some of the best Spaghetti Western and Giallo movies ever made.

LE ORME, Bazzoni’s final feature, played throughout 2023 at Spectacle, returning for the best of Spectacle in January 2024. This series will focus on his earlier Giallo films, THE POSSESSED and THE FIFTH CORD.

THE POSSESSED
(AKA LA DONNA DEL LAGO)
(AKA THE LADY OF THE LAKE)
dir. Luigi Bazzoni, Franco Rossellini. 1965.
Italy. 94 mins.
In Italian with English Subs.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8TH – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13TH – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 23RD – 5 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 28TH – 7:30 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Upon returning to a sleepy lakeside town, a writer learns that the woman he had been infatuated with has died by suicide. Devastated by the news, he investigates her death and soon discovers a dark secret.

Bazzoni’s first feature-length film, THE POSSESSED, is a mastery of slow-burn mystery and suspense. The film delivers classic Noir tropes – a sad investigator, a mysterious woman, and a dead body – with flashes of excessive violence and a hint of the supernatural, foreshadowing the future of Giallo.

Thematically and tonally similar to Bazoni’s later film LE ORME, THE POSSESSED plunges the audience into a familiar tale of deception and self-doubt. Whereas LE ORME relied on color to create the film’s dream-like aesthetic, Bazzoni shot THE POSSESSED in black and white. The cinematography gives THE POSSESSED a haunted quality that accentuates the ominous atmosphere, resulting in a tone closer to a nightmare than a dream.

THE FIFTH CORD
(AKA  GIORNATA NERA PER I’ARIETE)
(AKA BLACK DAY OF THE RAM)
dir. Luigi Bazzoni, 1971.
Italy. 93 mins.
In Italian with English Subs.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8TH – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 12TH – 10 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 18TH – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 24TH – 5 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Andrea, an alcoholic journalist, is thrust into chaos after a killer targets his acquaintances. As the prime suspect, he must race against the clock to discover the killer’s identity and clear his name. 

Where Bazzoni’s other thrillers inspired or drew inspiration from Giallo films, THE FIFTH CORD falls squarely within the genre. Even though the Giallo genre is often synonymous with eccentricity and violence, which this film has incredible flourishes of, Bazzoni doesn’t stray too far from his signature slow burn, reserved style. This combination makes THE FIFTH CORD an anxiety-inducing fever dream that will keep you guessing until the last moment.

With cinematography by Vittorio Storara (APOCALYPSE NOW, LE ORME), a score by Ennio Morricone, and a killer performance by Franco Nero, THE FIFTH CORD is widely considered one of the most visually and audibly stunning Giallos ever made.

TWO FILMS BY NEVILLE D’ALMEIDA

Posted on by Spectacle
In collaboration with the Cosmic Shelter: Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida’s Private Cosmococas exhibition—on view until March 30th at the Hunter College Art Galleries—please join us at 124 s. 3rd street for a beyond-rare chance to see the first two films directed by Brazilian filmmaker, artist and holy madman Neville D’almeida. Each screening will be followed by a remote discussion with D’Almeida, moderated by Cosmic Shelter curator Daniela Mayer.


JARDIM DE GUERRA
(WAR GARDEN)
dir. Neville D’almeida, 1967
Brazil. 92 mins.
In Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16 – 1 PM followed by a discussion with Neville D’almeida
ONE SCREENING ONLY!

Set in Rio de Janeiro under the military dictatorship in the 1960s, JARDIM DE GUERRA follows a young leftist Edson and his love interest, aspiring filmmaker Maria, played by Joel Barcellos and Maria do Rosário, respectively. The plot takes a dark turn when Edson, in an attempt to raise fast money for Maria’s film, is baselessly arrested and tortured for his suspected involvement in a plot to overthrow the regime. Ironically, JARDIM’s seditious content led to its interception by the real Brazilian military government, which used the infamous 1968 Ato Institucional Número Cinco [Institutional Act Number Five] to censor the press, music, film, theater, and television for inflammatory political and moral content. JARDIM was barred from public screenings and some scenes were destroyed or lost forever.

The film showcases D’Almeida’s signature style as an auteur: he breaks the fourth wall of his fictional narratives with shots of political propaganda and photographs to communicate subversive (and ironic) ideological concepts to the audience. These elements reportedly impressed Oiticica, who met D’Almeida at a private screening of JARDIM DE GUERRA in Brazil, initiating the duo’s artistic relationship. The scenes on view here showcase D’Almeida’s radical political commentary, with his ideas and imagery of Latin America, war, race, and drugs foreshadowing his later collaboration with Oiticica on the Cosmococas.


MANGUE BANGUE
dir. Neville D’almeida, 1971
Brazil. 62 mins.
No dialogue.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16 – 3 PM followed by discussion with Neville D’almeida
ONE SCREENING ONLY!

D’Almeida originally imagined MANGUE BANGUE as a collaboration with Oiticica, but the latter’s transcontinental move led D’Almeida to complete the film himself, editing the project in London to avoid censorship. The silent film’s story loosely follows a stockbroker as he devolves into a primitive creature that raves between Rio de Janeiro’s financial center and Mangue, the neighboring red-light district, before disappearing into the jungle. Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, D’Almeida integrated long sequences of actors and real people performing common tasks, from laundry to drug use, to capture the ordinary lives of criminal and marginalized figures in Brazil. The film was shown for the first time on March 9, 1973, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to a handpicked group of Brazilian and North American artists and critics. Oiticica was taken immediately with the film’s adept visual representation of the minutiae of everyday life, writing that “MANGUE BANGUE is not a naturalist document of life-as-it-is or a search on the part of a poet-artist for what’s fucked up in life: it is rather the perfect measure of the film-sound gaps-fragments of concrete elements.”

The raw authenticity of the film and its extended visual sequences were key forerunners to the Cosmococas, the first of which was created only four days after the screening of MANGUE BANGUE.

NEVILLE D’ALMEIDA was born in 1941 in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He became devoted to cinema at age sixteen, when he joined the film club at the Estudos Cinematográficos de Belo Horizonte [Center of Cinematographic Studies of Belo Horizonte] and was exposed to various global cinema movements. The artist moved to New York during the 1960s to continue his cinema studies before returning to Brazil, where he created experimental films that gained a reputation for their frequent censorship. His early feature films JARDIM DE GUERRA (1967), PIRANHAS DO ASFALTO (1971), NIGHT CATS (1972) and SURUCUCU CATIRIPAPO (1973) were intercepted by the Brazilian military government, who destroyed scenes and prevented the movies’ public display.

D’Almeida found commercial and critical success with his erotic drama A DAMA DO LOTACAO (LADY ON THE BUS, 1978) starring actress Sônia Braga, which remains the sixth highest-grossing movie in Brazilian cinema history. His subsequent movies in the same genre, OS SETE GATINHOS (THE SEVEN KITTENS, 1980) and RIO BABILONIA (RIO BABYLON, 1983) were also national box-office hits. In 1991, he was awarded best director both at Festival Brasília do Cinema Brasileiro (Brasília Festival of Brazilian Cinema) and Festival de Cinema de Gramado (Gramado Film Festival) for MATOU A FAMILIA E FOI AO CINEMA (KILLED THE FAMILY AND WENT TO THE MOVIES, 1991). D’Almeida currently lives in Rio de Janeiro, where he continues to make films.

DANIELA MAYER is a New York based Brazilian-American researcher, educator, and curator focused on transnational artist networks across the Americas. More on her projects here.

GOIN’ ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS: THE FOLK MUSIC OF APPALACHIA

Posted on by spectacletheater

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – 7:30 PM with Director Q+A (This event is $10.)

REGULAR TICKETS HERE

Q&A TICKETS HERE

The Appalachian region of America stretches from northern Alabama to central New York and is home to countless artistic traditions, from quilting to clog dancing, dulcimer crafting to wood flute carving. Centuries of crisis, beginning with the displacement of native communities by white settlers, then the Civil War, industrialization and the labor struggles that followed, to the present-day opioid epidemic and rustbelt economic policies, have formed stories and traditions that are at once isolated from, yet central to, the broader history of the United States. In the two documentaries BLUEGRASS ROOTS and APPALACHIAN JOURNEY , Spectacle presents a sampling of these stories, traditions and ways of life found in the hills to the West.

BLUEGRASS ROOTS
Dir. David Hoffman, 1965
United States. 44 min.
In English

In his first film, David Hoffman traversed the Blue Ridge Mountains, searching for and documenting the unique musical tradition of American Appalachia. Guided by the folklorist Bascom Lunsford and his wife Nellie, we are introduced to banjo pickers, dulcimer slappers, clog-shoed steppers and moonshining yodelers. In contrast to the Alan Lomax documentary, Hoffman is a one-man crew, shooting on 16mm film and opting to let his guides conduct the interviews.

APPALACHIAN JOURNEY
Dir. Mike Dibb, Mark Kidel, Alan Lomax, 1990
United States. 56 min.
In English

In this short documentary originally produced for television, Alan Lomax delves into the culture of Appalachia, demonstrating his deep knowledge of instrumentation, folk art and American anthropology. While mostly focusing on the musical traditions of the region, Lomax also turns his attention towards broader socio-economic issues such as prohibition, strip-mining and land theft, first from indigenous peoples and now those living in the mountains in the twentieth century. A quarter decade separates Hoffman and Lomax’s films. As a result, APPALACHIAN JOURNEY is able to document the effects of economic decline in the last few years before the opioid crisis began its decades long devastation of the region.

Robert Ashley’s PERFECT LIVES

Posted on by Dan Scanlon

PERFECT LIVES

PERFECT LIVES: AN OPERA FOR TELEVISION BY ROBERT ASHLEY
dir. John Sanborn, 1983
United States. 183 min.
In English.

FULL PROGRAM with Q+A (This event is $10.)
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17 – 5 PM

EPISODES 1-3 (79 min.)
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – 10 PM

EPISODES 4-7 (104 min.)
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28 – 10 PM

FULL PROGRAM WITH Q&A TICKETS HERE

EPS 1-3 REGULAR TICKETS HERE

EPS 4-7 REGULAR TICKETS HERE

This February, Spectacle Theater is thrilled to present this series of screenings commemorating the 40th anniversary restoration of Robert Ashley’s seminal seven-part television opera, PERFECT LIVES. Commissioned by The Kitchen in 1978 and produced over the span of four years, the piece was adapted for television in 1983 in collaboration with video artist, John Sanborn. The resulting seven-episode series stands as one of the most unique and ambitious projects to in the history of broadcast television, intertwining spoken-word narratives, musical textures, and hypnotic analog video compositions to form what Ashley has described as a “comic opera about reincarnation”.

In a loose sense, the series follows lounge singer, “R” (Ashley), and his friend “The World’s Greatest Piano Player”, Buddy (“Blue” Gene Tyranny), as they hatch plans to commit the perfect crime (“metaphor for something philosophical”) alongside the son and daughter of the local sheriff, Isolde (Jill Kroesen) and “D” (David van Tieghem). Yet to say that Ashley’s opus is “about” one particular narrative or theme or even medium, would be a disservice to its beautifully digressive nature. Ashley’s narration, accompanied by Tyranny’s and Peter Gordon’s musical soundscapes, flows effortlessly between settings and subjects, sincerity and satire, to create a constantly unfolding image of 20th century Americana.

PERFECT LIVES has been been described as “the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s”. A quintessentially “American” work of art, not just in its vernacular language and skewering of Midwestern ennui, but also in its television format— described in Fanfare as catered specifically to American attention spans— in which Ashley adopts similar editing techniques and effects used in commercials to appeal to the viewer’s subconscious association between the comforts of consumerism and the broadcast television format.

Join us on Saturday, February 17th for a marathon screening of the full program, followed by a Q&A with director, John Sanborn, and editor/video image processor, Dean Winkler.

“What about the Bible? And the Koran? It doesn’t matter. We have PERFECT LIVES”
– John Cage

This program would not be possible without the generous support of Lovely Music and Performing Artservices.

YOU KILLED ME AND I FORGOT TO DIE: PALESTINE IN LEBANON

Posted on by spectacletheater

This February, Spectacle continues with our Palestine fundraising series, spotlighting films from across the Arab world with two programs of documentaries made within the context of Palestine-solidarity filmmaking in the tumultuous decades of the 1970s and ‘80s. Each of these films were directed by Arab women, and with the exception of Jocelyne Saab’s BEIRUT, MY CITY, were all made in collaboration with, or with support from, the Palestine Cinema Institute (PCI) in Lebanon and the General Union of Palestinian Women.

Films from Khadijeh Habashneh, founder of the General Union of Palestinian Women, and Jocelyne Saab describe the situation for the women and orphans of Palestine, while films from Lebanon by Jocelyne Saab and Randa Chahal Sabbag document that nation’s sprawling and drawn-out civil war and its intersections with contemporaneous events in Palestine.

All proceeds raised will benefit relief efforts. Special thanks is given to Samirah Alkassim for her assistance in assembling this program.

Content warning: These programs contains explicit images of war and death.


PROGRAM 1: TWO FILMS BY JOCELYNE SAAB

Jocelyne Saab began her career as a documentarian at the outset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. She would spend the next decade and a half documenting the many splintering conflicts of the war and its effects across her homeland. Following her experience working as second unit director on Volker Schlöndorff’s Circle of Deceit (1981), Saab began to work in fiction and would only rarely return to documentary, stating in a 1982 interview that, “This documentary phase wasn’t only linked to my personal history; it was determined by my country’s political situation and Lebanon’s cinema history. My trajectory is a bit like that of other Lebanese filmmakers. If I decided to move to fiction it’s because, after speaking in a ‘militant’ manner, I now want the image to speak as much as possible.”

Spectacle is proud to present two of Saab’s early documentaries: the French television-commissioned Palestinian Women (1973) and the second installment of her masterful Beirut Trilogy, Beirut, My City (1983).

PALESTINIAN WOMEN
(LES FEMMES PALESTINIENNES)
Dir. Jocelyne Saab, 1974.
France, State of Palestine. 15 mins.
In Arabic and French with English subtitles.

This early work by Saab finds her interviewing Palestinian women (students and soldiers, mothers and children), giving these often unheard voices a chance to speak to their conditions and experiences of the occupation. This early work by Saab was commissioned by French television, but was never aired and long thought lost. In it, one can see the stirrings of her investigations into the twin themes of liberty and memory that she would follow for the rest of her career.

screening with
BEIRUT, MY CITY
(بيروت مدينتي)
Dir. Jocelyne Saab, 1983.
Lebanon, France. 38 min.
In Arabic and French with English subtitles.

Near the start of the film, Saab and her co-writer, Lebanese playwright Roger Assaf, consider their ambivalence towards their native Beirut before the war; “A supermarket of fishy business and betrayal, that’s what Beirut was.” But the affection for the city evident in Saab’s images – of its architecture and its coastline, to say nothing of its people – betray these feelings. Later, Assaf’s gentle voiceover describes Beirut as a utopia, and because of what Saab has shown us, it is easy to believe him. 

These conflicting feelings over a place and its history are what Saab and Assaf pry at in this short but profoundly moving masterwork. Assaf considers the corruptibility of memory, lamenting that, “Man always believes what he sees, and what he sees ends up cheating him.” Saab’s footage is intercut with news coverage of the war – occupying soldiers, bombings, entire families of corpses. Yet Saab’s own scenes of life in Beirut assert the power of the image to correct memory. If memory is produced by bearing witness, Saab entreats us to look with her, and to consider which images we choose to remember.

TICKETS HERE
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10 – 5PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25 – 5PM


PROGRAM 2: CHILDREN, NEVERTHELESS & STEP BY STEP…

Paired together, Khadijeh Habashneh’s Children, Nevertheless and Randa Chahal Sabbag’s Step by Step provide a micro and macro view on neighboring Lebanon and Palestine’s history of solidarity and discord, both motivated by the Arab Nationalist movement.

CHILDREN, NEVERTHELESS
(أطفال …ولكن)
Dir. Khadijeh Habashneh, 1979.
State of Palestine. 22 mins.
In Arabic with English subtitles.

In 1976, the Tel al-Zatar refugee camp came under siege from right-wing militias looking to expel Palestinians from Lebanon. The violence peaked with a massacre in which hundreds of children died and 15,000 residents were forced to flee — half of them children, some of them too small to be able to say their own names. Produced by the PCI and the GUPW, Children Nevertheless (also known as Children Without Childhood) shows the lives of the orphans of those killed in the massacre now living in Bait El-Somoud, a housing facility which was established for them by the GUPW. Habashneh’s film discusses the contradictions between the International Declaration of Child Rights and the reality of the living conditions of Palestinian children suffering in diaspora camps and under the Israeli occupation.

screening with
STEP BY STEP…
(Pas á pas…)
Dir. Randa Chahal Sabbag, 1979.
Lebanon, France. 80 mins.
In Arabic and French with English subtitles.

Shot between February 1976 and March 1978, Step by Step compacts the chaos of the Lebanese civil war into its short run time using archival images, news broadcasts, interviews, and raw documentary footage. Sabbag’s work is sprawling, brutal, and poetic in its approach and clarity even as the span of history it attempts to communicate is long and winding. In the lead up to the civil war, Palestinian refugees spilled in increasing numbers through the Lebanese border and the PLO’s operations within Lebanon alarmed the conservative Phalangist Party. Formed in 1936 by Pierre Gemayel after visiting Germany, the Phalangists were a right-wing Maronite Christian political group that dominated the Lebanese civil war, collaborated with Israel, and fought against pro-Palestinian forces. Sabbag’s film places the Palestinian struggle for liberation in the context of this broader conflict, tracing the dismemberment of Lebanon and the shifting balance of powers in the Middle East as the United States (via Henry Kissinger) manipulated the region during this time.

TICKETS HERE
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11 – 5PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 5PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26 – 7:30PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ALL GOLDEN

Posted on by Spectacle

THE ALL GOLDEN
dir. Nate Wilson, 2023
65 mins. Canada.
In English.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12 – 7:30 PM followed by an in-person Q+A with filmmaker Nate Wilson moderated by film critic Nick Newman
(This event is $10.)
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

BUY TICKETS

Nate Wilson’s THE ALL GOLDEN is a thriller about an injured bicycle courier who discovers a scandalous secret in her boyfriend’s apartment, BUT WAIT… it’s also non-linear experiment about identity and sexuality, BUT WAIT… it’s also a treatise on the trials and tribulations of no-budget filmmaking, a movie that splinters and becomes the subject of itself, BUT WAIT… it’s also VERY funny!

“Absolutely nuts. Never seen anything like it. Extremely low budget, deconstructive, intense, honestly annoyingly experimental at times, and 100% nonlinear YET engaging, hilarious, sexy, disgusting, and somehow follow-able (like the movie feels like you’re having a literal dream – you have no idea what’s “actually” happening linearly or logically but you FEEL understand  and know everything that is happening…it’s wild). My favorite kind of movie. Need to see more Lea in movies. Need to watch more movies directed by Nate.” – Vera Drew, director of THE PEOPLE’S JOKER

“Formal fuckery of the highest order. Hard not to admire the film’s economy and conviction in forging its own way, constantly reinventing the lens in which it should be viewed. Must be something in the water out there in Canada.” – Tuck The Suck Man, letterboxd

NATE WILSON is a filmmaker based in Toronto. His past credits include FUCK BUDDIES, BONEFIRE and the 2022 Fantastic Fest selection THE STRAIGHT BALL.

screening with

THE TAKING OF JORDAN (ALL AMERICAN BEAUTY)
Dir. Kalil Haddad, 2022
7 mins. Canada.
In English.

Jordan, an amateur adult performer, recalls the horror of his many former lives.

DEATH x METAL

Posted on by Dan Scanlon

DEATH x METAL

Heavy metal and horror movies have always been a match made in hell. From the moment Black Sabbath christened themselves after a Mario Bava film, to the graphic iconography of GWAR and Cannibal Corpse in the 90s, up through whatever the hell Glenn Danzig is directing these days, the two genres have historically operated with a similar penchant for the violent, the primal, and the macabre.

It was inevitable then, that the two would repeatedly cross paths throughout the 80s and 90s with the exploding popularity of both slasher fare and radio-friendly hair and glam metal. You could line up any 80s slasher next to a document of the era’s metal scenes like HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT or DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 2, and what you’re bound to find are overlapping imagery and themes dealing with teen angst, anti-conformity, music as an antidote to suburban ennui, and of course, the occult.

This Rockuary, Spectacle presents this series celebrating the unholy union of metal and the macabre, featuring four low budget headbanging horror gems that give whole new meaning to the term “grindhouse”.


DEATH METAL ZOMBIES

DEATH METAL ZOMBIES
dir. Todd Jason Cook, 1995
United States. 82 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – MIDNIGHT

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“They like their music loud and their victims fresh!”

Sometimes a movie is generous enough to tell you everything you need to know about it with just its title. Skater-slash-SOV horror maestro, Todd Jason Cook (aka Todd Falcon), does just that with DEATH METAL ZOMBIES: A movie featuring lots of death metal, and also lots of zombies.

The film follows a young metalhead named Brad who comes into owning a one-of-a-kind tape by legendary metal band, Living Corpse (foreshadowing!). Unbeknownst to him, the tape contains a special track titled “Zombiefied” (more foreshadowing!) which turns its listeners, including Brad and his headbanger friends, into flesh-eating zombies. As the zombies begin to multiply and attack, it’s up to Brad’s girlfriend, Angel, to find the tape and stop them before it’s too late.


ROCKTOBER BLOOD

ROCKTOBER BLOOD
dir. Beverly Sebastian, 1984
United States. 100 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – MIDNIGHT

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“He’s back from the dead with a message from hell!”

Heavy metal frontman, Billy “Eye”, is put to death after going berserk during a recording session, killing two studio engineers and attempting to murder his girlfriend, Lynn. Years later, Lynn, now the frontwoman for Billy’s former band, is about to embark on her debut tour, but finds herself stalked and terrorized by a masked man claiming to be Billy, come back from the dead for revenge.

An SOV trash-terpiece made at the height of the 80s slasher and heavy metal booms, ROCKTOBER BLOOD strikes the perfect balance between the two, serving up ludicrous kills (including an all-timer of a finale) alongside some solid headbangers courtesy of hair metal band, Sorcery.


AFTER PARTY MASSACRE

AFTER PARTY MASSACRE
dir. Kristoff Bates & Kyle Severn, 2011
United States. 74 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25 – 7:30 PM

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After being attacked at a death metal show, Scarlett snaps and goes on a bloodthirsty killing spree indiscriminately targeting the Cleveland metal scene. Pretty soon everyone in her way— friends, fans, bands, and foes alike— finds out what happens when you push an already damaged mind too far.

Released in the 2010s but oozing with 80s regional SOV charm, AFTER PARTY MASSACRE is by far the most capital-M Metal of the films featured in this series. Set in and around the late, legendary Cleveland underground venue, Peabody’s, the film places the music front-and-center, featuring a sprawling soundtrack with over 25 death/grind/industrial/noise bands and live performances by Soulless and co-director/writer Kyle Severn’s own Incantation.

But make no mistake that the film more than delivers on the gore goods, featuring plenty of gnarly kills and inspired practical effects work that are sure to make even the most seasoned Blood Brunch-ers squirm.


LONE WOLF

LONE WOLF
dir. John Callas, 1988
United States. 97 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 7:30 PM

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The quiet town of Fairview, Colorado is rocked by a rash of gruesome killings that the locals blame on packs of wild dogs. Meanwhile, recent Chicago transplant and heavy metal frontman, Eddie and his fellow students learn that they must take matters into their own hands to end the madness, when the token nerd among them discovers an eerie moon-related coincidence between the killings.

Written by the late experimental horror maven, Michael Krueger (NIGHT VISION, MINDKILLER), LONE WOLF is an underseen and underrated gem among the 80s bumper crop of werewolf movies. A grisly DTV creature feature featuring some of the oldest looking “teenagers” ever put to film, and enough hair— human and lycanthrope— to flesh out at least a dozen other werewolf features.

Come for the kills but stay for the killer original soundtrack featuring all your favorite subtly-titled hair metal classics, including “Let It Rock”, “Rock You All Night”, and “Raised on Rock n’ Roll”.