ROCATERRANIA
Dir. Brett Ingram, 2009
USA. 74 min

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14th – 6:30 PM *BRETT INGRAM Q&A*
ONLINE TICKETS • FB EVENT (This event is $10.)
also:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17TH – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22ND – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, OCTOBER 29TH – 7:30 PM

A documentary feature exploring the secret world of scientific illustrator and self-taught artist Renaldo Kuhler (American, 1931–2013). For thirty years, Kuhler created hundreds of plates for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, illustrating diverse flora and fauna for scientific journals, reference books, and exhibits. Unbeknownst to family, friends, and coworkers, Renaldo was also a prolific self-taught artist.

The son of Otto Kuhler, a renowned industrial designer, Renaldo was bullied and ridiculed by classmates, teachers, and headmasters simply for being different. When Otto moved the family from upstate New York to a remote cattle ranch in the Colorado Rockies, teenaged Renaldo found the isolation unbearable. He escaped to the private fantasy world of his notebooks, inventing an imaginary country he called Rocaterrania. For the next 60 years, Renaldo illustrated the nation’s history, a coded, metaphoric account of his own life. Situated on the border of New York and Canada, populated mostly by European immigrants, Rocaterrania has a unique government, language, religion, railroad infrastructure, movie industry, prison system, and a fully mapped geography of cities, mountains, lakes, rivers, and farmlands. It also has a political history fraught with turmoil, one that mirrors Renaldo’s own struggle for independence and freedom.

Featuring an eclectic original score by Merge Records recording artists Shark Quest, Rocaterrania unveils Kuhler’s stunning creation, intricately dovetailed with the powerful story of his life. —brettingram.com

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MONSTER ROAD
Dir. Brett Ingram, 2004
USA. 80 min

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14TH – 9:00 PM *BRETT INGRAM Q&A*
ONLINE TICKETS • FB EVENT (This event is $10.)
also:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18TH – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23RD – 10:00 PM

MONSTER ROAD is a documentary feature exploring the wildly fantastic worlds of legendary animator Bruce Bickford. Bickford’s collaborations with rock musician Frank Zappa in the 1970s established him as an international cult artist. Decades later, the reclusive animator works alone in a basement studio near Seattle, producing films for no apparent audience. Enchanted forests, maniacal torture chambers, hamburgers that morph into mythical monsters, and epic battles between giants, fairies, and anachronistic historical figures populate just a small corner of Bickford’s animated universe.

Bruce is the sole caretaker of his father George, a retired aerospace engineer of the Cold War era who faces the tragic onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Struggling to pierce the fog of his painful memories, George considers the suffering of a life spent disengaged from his family and centered on the imperfections in those around him. His wondrous musings on the mysteries of the universe reflect a deep admiration for the implicit architect of such splendor while atheism prevents him from admitting the possibility of a God.

While the Bickfords lived a normal suburban life by all outward appearances, the brutality of Bruce’s obsessive childhood drawings and subsequent animations hints at a darker underbelly. Questions are raised for which there are no easy answers. MONSTER ROAD untangles myriad personal, artistic, and philosophical strands from the Bickfords’ lives to reveal an intricate web of motivations and influences fueling Bruce’s cinematic visions. —brettingram.com

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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14 – 4:00 PM *Q&A WITH BRETT INGRAM*
ONLINE TICKETS • FB EVENT (This event is $10.)
also:
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21ST – 5:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24TH – 10:00 PM

SHORTS PROGRAM:

SPENT
Dir. Brett Ingram and Christina Clum, 1994
USA. 7 min

SPENT is a dark stop-motion tableau about chaos, control, and destiny featuring an unlikely cast of puppets. Set to a mantra-like score resembling a self-help tape from hell, trapped demons and prisoners of monotony populate a craggy subterranean purgatory, each driven to its own course of destiny by an apocalyptic cyclist. —brettingram.com

PANIC ATTACK
Dir. Brett Ingram, 2000
USA. 13 minutes

“Imagine your body telling your brain it doesn’t want it in there anymore,” says Reade Whinnem, “and then doing everything it can to try and make it leave.” Whinnem suffers from Panic Anxiety Disorder, and in Panic Attack, we are taken full-throttle into Whinnem’s living nightmare. Juxtaposing stark monochromatic interviews with colorful home movies, stop-motion animation, and hyperkinetic time lapse cinematography, this short film illustrates with expressionistic force the physical and emotional roller-coaster ride Whinnem calls daily life, affirming the courage and determination it takes to survive battles no one else can witness. —brettingram.com

FREAK BOX
Dir. Brett Ingram, 1999
USA. 1 min

What do an organ grinder monkey, camera-headed robot, and two numbed out teenagers have in common? The symbiotic processes of the idiot box, as it turns out. Freak Box is a stop-motion satire of the lulling effects of television, an insidious electromechanical circus where viewers project – and find – themselves in the deceivingly homogenous pixel array. —brettingram.com

MOON PLOW
Dir. Brett Ingram, 1992
USA. 1 min

Moon Plow is an abstract experiment in line animation, loosely inspired by Native American creation myths with a dark, contemporary twist. —brettingram.com

MARS 1 & MARS 2
Dir. Brett Ingram, 1996
USA, 7 min

Short film pieces originally designed to run as loops as part of a large multimedia installation in a gallery environment, repurposed and combined for the Spectacle’s screen.

ARMOR OF GOD
Dir. Brett Ingram and Jim Haverkamp, 2001
USA. 13 min

Ear-splitting improvisational noise sculpture and Christianity are rarely mentioned in the same breath, but for percussionist Scotty Irving these twin passions form the core of his one-man act, Clang Quartet. Inspired by biblical verse and utilizing homemade instruments, costumes, and found objects, Irving serves up dramatic aural and visual symbolism at unfathomable volumes, challenging his audience to rethink traditional ideas of music and spirituality. When Irving’s motivations for walking so far out on musical and theological limbs are revealed, “the armor of God” becomes a metaphor for the courage to create and the power to silence one’s inner critic. —brettingram.com

LUCK OF A FOGHORN
Dir. Brett Ingram, 2008
USA. 28 min

Luck of a Foghorn is a documentary featurette about Seattle underground animator Bruce Bickford, former collaborator of musician Frank Zappa and creator of Prometheus’ Garden, one of the most original stop-motion films in animation history. Interweaving Bickford’s pulsing, violent, magical, and mesmerizing clay animation with atmospheric 16mm and Super 8mm cinematography, home movies, and sparse interviews, Luck of a Foghorn takes viewers behind the scenes and deep into the garden of Prometheus. —brettingram.com

TUESDAY OCTOBER 16 – 7:30 AND 10 PM (Ticket info below)
FB EVENT

The Imagine Science Film Festival returns for the third year with an evening at Spectacle. The theme of the 11th ISFF is SURVIVAL:

Crisis. Entropy. Extinction. Last year we celebrated the past ten years of the Imagine Science Film Festival’s existence, but this year we take a hard look ahead at the high stakes for all life on an Earth facing climate change, species loss, nuclear proliferation, the imminent exhaustion of our energy resources. Existence itself is not assured.

But wherever we consider such direly high stakes, we can also aspire to a better world. New technologies constantly open new possibilities and sociopolitical change opens the way for new ideas to take hold. For every dystopia, a corresponding utopia may be within reach. It may be a struggle, but the record of all life is that of an eon-spanning fight to stay alive.

This year, send us your speculative hopes and fears, your studies of tumultuous natural history and startling feats of adaptation, all your endings and new beginnings. Apoptosis versus immortal cell lines. Half-lives and radical life extension. Obsolete inventions inspiring crucial breakthroughs. Illness and regeneration. The deaths of stars and the necessary paths to SURVIVAL.

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SHORT FILM PROGRAM: SIGNALS, TRANSMISSIONS, VOICES
Various directors, 2016 – 2018.
85 min.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS HERE

Glitching cats, phone sex with aliens, crystal healing, the mysterious universe. Each year, ISF reserves some of the wildest and most outré takes on scientific filmmaking for a recurring program at Spectacle Theater. Not so incidentally, many become favorites. These films, though rooted in scientific principles, transform traditional sci-film expectations with abstracted narratives, form-breaking documentary concepts, mind-bending visuals, and other essential experiments at the outer edges of our festival program. These techniques are no rarity in the rest of the festival, but never in such a concentration as here. This year’s program investigates communication in all its forms.

Somnium Lapidum
Dir. Emily Pelstring, 2017.
Canada, 3 min.

A stop-motion 16mm audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. Inspired by pseudo-scientific texts of the 15th and 16th centuries, when it was believed that a given gem’s powers could be absorbed through focused viewing, the film proposes an analogy between this belief and attraction of cinema. The title, Somnium Lapidum, or Dream Stones, is a reference to the imaginative content of the “Speculum Lapidum” and the dreamlike experience of cinematic viewership.

Long Distance Relationship
Dir. Carolina Markowicz, 2017.
Brazil, 5 min.

In Brazil, where all things are possible, a man takes part in an extraterrestrial phone sex operation.

In Glass Houses
Dir. Ariana Gerstein, 2017.
USA, 8 min.

An interview is conducted exploring methods used to facilitate a real research project whose aim it is to capture and analyze human micro-expressions for use by a variety of industries (including lie detection and entertainment/animation). But the particular research or the use of human subjects is really just a point of departure. This film takes a moment to touch on our use of technology and vice versa.

Persistence of Memory
Dir. Natalie Tsui, 2016.
Canada, 15 min.

A skilled programmer commences work for Galatea, a robotics company launching the next generation of personal companions. Unlike generic robot companions, the C-1000 is made to a client’s precise specifications, which either give the companion a unique personality and complex individuality, or replicate those of someone else. Against the backdrop of activist protests over outsourcing emotional connection, the programmer brings a C-1000 “to life” through trial and error.

Wherever You Go There We Are
Dir. Jesse McLean, 2017.
USA, 12 min.

In this experimental travelogue, efforts to sound human and look natural instead become artificial. The scenery is provided through photo-chromed vintage postcards, displaying not only scenic North American landscapes but also the rise of infrastructure and industry. Aspiring to look more realistic by adding color to a black and white image, the postcards (already a vulnerable method of correspondence caught between private and public) are instead documents of the fantastic. The road trip is narrated by an automated correspondent (all dialogue is taken from spam emails) who is both seductive and mercurial, his entreaties becoming increasingly foreboding and obtuse, in a relentless effort to capture our attentions.

Forest Paths
Dir. Michiel van Bakel, 2018.
Netherlands, 3 min.

A warped stroll through a forest. Animated still photographs reveal movement and light on the forest paths that are otherwise invisible to the human eye. Van Bakel made a ‘scanner-camera’ that extends human vision to near-infrared light in an other-worldly way. What’s this thing called vision? What’s the fundamental difference between what a robot discerns, what a flying insect detects or man’s observation?

Ugly
Dir. Nikita Diakur, 2017.
Germany, 12 min.

An ugly cat struggles to coexist in a fragmented and broken world, eventually finding a soulmate in a mystical chief. Choreographed in digital simulation errors and inspired by a story found on the internet, this could be the definitive melodrama of our times.

Phototaxis
Dir. Melissa Ferrari, 2017.
USA, 7 min.

Phototaxis draws parallels between Mothman, a prophetic and demonized creature in West Virginia lore, and Narcotics Anonymous, the primary treatment program in West Virginia’s addiction epidemic. Rooted in nonfiction, this experimental animated documentary contemplates synchronicity and the role of belief systems in perception and pseudoscience; the tendency to assign supernatural meaning to tragedy and the unknowable; anonymous and apocryphal oral histories; and the moth to the flame. To visualize these narratives, natural materials and pastel-on-paper palimpsest animation are woven together using a multiplane and analog overhead projection.

Sore Eyes for Infinity
Dir. Elli Vuorinen, 2016.
Finland, 12 min.

An optician’s workday is filled by a line of extraordinary customers, who, one by one, use the optical equipments in suspicious ways.

Poliangular
Dir. Alexandra Castellanos Solis, 2018.
Mexico, 8 min.

Searchers pursue mysterious and seemingly unreachable objects. And what will happen if they are found?

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THE MAN WITH THE MAGIC BOX
Dir. Bodo Kox, 2017.
Poland. 103 min.
NEW YORK PREMIERE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS HERE

A man without a memory and a woman seeking more than contemporary life seems to offer grapple with a dystopian future Warsaw and are drawn into the 20th-century past. But such an escape may not be allowed. A unique love story unfolding under omnipresent crisis and totalitarian oversight, crossing between collapsing near future and Soviet history, The Man with the Magic Box nods to genre classics while remaining very much itself. The pleasure of viewing, as much as in the mysterious storyline and strange, perfectly strange performances by the leads, is in the subtle, meticulous detail of the world. Here, people are relentlessly cut off from one another, terrorism is either inescapable or a real-estate development tool, advertising uncomfortably personal, and all aspects of life metered by a credit chip implanted in the hand — all so unfortunately plausible as to flash by as almost-familiar background texture here. At turns bleak, absurd, unsettling, and oddly affecting, the film defies synopsis while advancing with effortless imagination.

Preceded by:

Expire
Magali Magistry, 2017.
France, 14 min.

A toxic fog blankets the planet forcing people to live confined. But when you are fifteen like Juliette, real life truly begins outside.

CRUEL INTENTIONS 3
dir. Scott Ziehl, 2004.
USA, 85 min.
English.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24th
ONE NIGHT ONLY – 7:30 PM
ONLINE TICKETS
FB EVENT

CRUEL INTENTIONS 3 is a 2004 American teen drama film directed by Scott Ziehl and released direct-to-video in 2004. Despite its name, the film has almost no relation to the previous films in the series, except for the shared themes and the lead character in this film, Cassidy Merteuil, who is a cousin of one of the characters from the first film, Kathryn Merteuil.

Plot keywords: teen angst, sex, betrayal, wager, jealousy, love triangle, preparatory school, manipulation, sexual assault, seduction, infidelity, sequel, lust, bikini, leg spreading, cunnilingus

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, IMDB

MATCH CUTS is a weekly podcast centered on video, film and the moving image. Match Cuts Presents is dedicated to presenting de-colonialized cinema, LGBTQI films, Marxist diatribes, video art, dance films, sex films, and activist documentaries with a rotating cast of presenters from all spectrums of the performing and plastic arts and surrounding humanities. Match Cuts is hosted by Nick Faust and Kachine Moore.

Can you believe it? You survived another miserable year on this wretched Earth, which can only mean one thing – it’s time for The 8th Annual Spectacle Shriek Show! A chance to reward all your hard work by allowing your brain to slowly turn into a big, wet blob and leak out of your ears as you subject it to sights so unholy, you’ll never be the same. You earned it, champ. So settle in to what one person (probably) called “the only comfortable chairs in any theater in New York City” for 12 to 14-ish hours of mutant cats, Filipino vamps, real (?) snuff footage, possessed psychics, lots of zombies, and one rampaging bear. We’ll have the usual cavalcade of shorts, music videos, and more and, as always, tickets are $25 for the full day or $5 for individual films!

NOON: THE DEAD TALK BACK

1:30 PM: THE BLOOD DRINKERS

3:00 PM: DR. BENDERFAX

4:30 PM: EFFECTS

6:00 PM: UNINVITED

7:30 PM : BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL

10pm: FEAR NO EVIL

MIDNIGHT: TERROR A LA MUERTE

ONLINE TICKETS HERE
FB EVENT

POSTER!

Poster Art by Benjamin Tuttle

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THE DEAD TALK BACK
dir. Merle S. Gould, 1957.
USA. 65 minutes.

After a model is murdered **WITH A CROSSBOW** on the porch of her boarding house, metaphysical philosopher Henry Krasker (Aldo Farnese, best known as Philly UHF children’s show host “Dickory Doc” and “Adam Android”) uses the weapon as a means of communicating with the dead to find out who killed her! Toiling in his lab he sets up a seance so the spirits can speak…with, like, car horn sounds for some reason? Also, there’s a cool scene in a groovy record store featuring some heady bongo work. Meanwhile the murderer is still at large in their shared apartment complex – who can it be? The religious zealot? The pervy German? The local DJ? The old-ass landlord?

Made in 1957 but shelved until 1993, when it aired as part of beloved cult show MST3K, the film was originally set to be released by Headliner Productions, who were responsible for bringing such cinematic gems as Ed Wood’s THE VIOLENT YEARS and THE SINISTER URGE into the world. It was also one of the first movies to utilize Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) recording, now a staple of ghost-hunters everywhere.

THE BLOOD DRINKERS
(aka KULAY DUGO ANG GABI, BLOOD IS THE COLOR OF THE NIGHT)
dir. Gerardo de Leon, 1964
Philippines. 88 minutes.

Ronald Remy plays a bald, hoity-toity doctor (who also happens to be a vampire) who’s heartbroken by the deteriorating health of his wife Katrina. And so he sets forth to traverse the countryside with his dwarf assistant, sexy vampiress, and floppy rubber bat in search of blood to aide her revival. They also have to obtain her twin sister’s heart; you know how twins are.

When it comes to THE BLOOD DRINKERS, the devil truly is in the details. Though it’s often touted as the Philippines’ first color horror film, THE BLOOD DRINKERS’ rich tapestry is ironically due to full-color film stock being scarce in the region. To compensate, many scenes were color coded with rich tints of red (during vampire attacks) and blue (when things are safe), adding visual depth to a film already rich in symbolism.

Director Gerardo de Leon had an actual medical license he eschewed to become a filmmaker and racked up over 80 directing credits in his career, including the stellar MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, also starring Remy. Producer Cirio H. Santiago and actor Vic Diaz went on to be involved in the 1978 chef-kiss worthy John Carradine film VAMPIRE HOOKERS.

DR. BENDERFAX
Dir. Tom Hosler, 1997.
USA. 85 min.

Special thanks to director Tom Hosler!

The titular Dr. Benderfax (Nigel Hazeldine) is an esteemed researcher (read: mad scientist) willing to go the extra mile for his experiments investigating a rare psychic phenomenon known as the “Telefaximial Field.” Unfortunately for the good doctor and his lovely assistant Nurse Clench (Caroline Hazeldine), many of the “volunteers” end up in the morgue. Actually on brief reflection, it’s probably more unfortunate for the patients. After some finagling the medical duo end up in a local nuthouse and use this fresh batch of patients to further their research. Just as they’re on the verge of a major breakthrough, in saunters Dr. Andrew…

Fresh out of college in 1992 Tom Hosler decided to make his “first and only feature script worthy of production.” Armed with a savings account and several credit cards, the film was shot over the course of many weekends. After multiple years of post-production, the film finally saw the light of day in 1997. Fans of last year’s Joe Sherlock double-up MONSTER IN THE GARAGE/DIMENSION OF BLOOD take note – DR. BENDERFAX is a true-blue Shriek Show entry if there ever was one, and it’s chock full of schlock, gore, yuks/yucks, and a genuine feeling of fun.

EFFECTS
Dir. Dusty Nealon, 1980.
USA. 84 min.

Special thanks to American Genre Film Archive. 

RIP producer Pasquale Buba (April 16, 1946 – September 12, 2018)

Deep in rural Pennsylvania (aka Romero Country), a film crew is holed up making a low-budget horror movie. Helmed by director Lacey Bickel (real-life filmmaker Tom Harrison of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE fame), the crew is plagued by scheduling hiccups and close quarters. At first, not everyone is having a bad time, as the cinematographer and gaffer begin a romantic entanglement.

Suspicions arise when, during a late night hang session fueled by cheap beer and plenty of cocaine, some of the director’s early work gets passed around. The gritty footage shows what appears to be an actual murder of a woman by a man in an executioner’s hood. Tensions flare up and the line between fiction and reality blurs – is anyone safe?!

A cinematic love letter to practical effects and regional horror, EFFECTS is the product of many Romero Regulars with ties to MARTIN, DAWN OF THE DEAD, and CREEPSHOW. Though the material enters some very dark territory, it’s clear the crew were friends having fun covering each other in as much stage blood as they could handle. An underseen gem that, like THE DEAD TALK BACK and BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER FROM HELL, was shelved for almost 25 years (due to a distribution error), until it was finally released by Synapse on DVD and later picked up by our friends at American Genre Film Archive.

THE UNINVITED
dir. Greydon Clark, 1988.
USA. 90 min.

Strange things are afoot at the lazily named Genetic Laboratories when two chowderhead scientists discover a mysterious growth in their test subject – A CUTE CAT! The cat escapes and while trying to make its way out of the lab attacks many a security guard with some help from the grotesque mutant living up in its guts.

Meanwhile, it’s Spring Break, baby; time to get wild with Suzanne (Sharri Shattuck from DEATH SPA) and Bobbi (Clare Carey from WAXWORK) in that famous party city – Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The two get kicked out of a fancy hotel for loitering and are “saved” by  wealthy Wall Street tycoon Walter Graham (TV star Alex Cord), who invites them aboard his yacht. The ladies meet up with some bozo dudes (including SILK STALKING’s Rob Estes!) who they invite along for the ride. On the way to the yacht, they just happen to pick up a stray cat…and carnage ensues.

As evidenced by past programming we here at Spectacle are suckers for a killer cat movie, so when you combine that with director Greydon Clark and the one-two punch star power of George Kennedy and Clu Galager – you know you’ve got something special on your hands.

BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL
(aka JIGOKU NO CHIMIDORO MUSCLE BUILDER)
dir. Shinichi Fuzakawa, 1995
Japan. 62 min.
In Japanese with English subs.

Heartbroken over a recent breakup Naoto (director Shinichi Fuzakawa) turns to working out to soothe his worried soul – and to get jacked in the process. One day mid-workout, his photojournalist ex-girlfriend calls him up with hopes he’ll help her investigate a haunted house.

Joined by a local psychic, the trio make their way to the property once owned by Naoto’s deceased father, who decades ago murdered someone on the grounds! Upon their arrival the presence of evil is all around them, and soon after demons take hold of the psychic. It seems the angry spirit of Naoto’s stepmother isn’t going to let them off easy – or maybe at all!

Another entry in this year’s lineup that almost never was – BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL was made in 1995, edited in 2005, finished in 2009, and not released until 2012. Clocking in at just over an hour, BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL doesn’t waste any time getting to the bleeding heart of the matter. Although it’s often compared to 1977’s HOUSE or described as “the Japanese EVIL DEAD,” the film manages to subvert all expectations and take viewers on a ride unlike anything they’ve ever seen. Truly one of a kind.

Special thanks to Wild Eye Releasing.

FEAR NO EVIL
dir. Frank LaLoggia, 1981.
USA. 99 min.

“One can only say that if George Eastman had lived to see the use to which his cameras and film, which brought prosperity to the city, have been put, he might have gone into another line of work.” – Tom Buckley, The New York Times (Feb. 6, 1981)

Outside a castle in upstate New York, Father Damon kills a man he believes to be Lucifer, but not before he promises to return. Flash-forward to the early 60’s when a child with the unhallowed name of Andrew is born, paralyzing his mother in the process. A local priest is visited by a woman named Margaret claiming to have knowledge of the late Father Damon, saying not only did he strike down Lucifer but that he himself was the angel Raphael. Could another angel be in their midst?

Now a senior in high school, Andrew is an awkward nerd who gets constantly bullied. In his daydreams he feels drawn to the looming castle set to be demolished to make way for a new golf c(o)urse. Strange things begin happening to Andrew’s tormentors – their guts explode, they’re plagued by terrible nightmares, they feel…inclined to…make out with him in the showers of the locker room.

The night of the big dance Andrew finally makes his way to the castle, where he summons undead monsters and wreaks havoc on his classmates. Margaret arrives with backup wielding the cross of Father Damon, and the battle to save the world is ON!

The debut writing/directing/producing effort of then 26 year old Frank LaLoggia, FEAR NO EVIL certainly doesn’t get as much praise as it deserves. A psycho bible study with wild effects work (that cost $250,000 to produce!), and a soundtrack featuring the likes of Patti Smith, The Rezillos, The B52’s, The Talking Heads and more!

TERROR A LA MUERTE
(aka: MIEDO A LA MUERTE, SCARED TO DEATH)
dir. Mario Alcantara, 1989.
Mexico. 98 min.
In Spanish with English subs.

Famed martial arts instructor (and one-time Chuck Norris student) Ruben Gonzalez plays famed martial arts instructor Ruben Gonzalez, whose daughter is mauled to death by a bear while meeting her boyfriend. A loco local named Nestor becomes convinced she’s his lost love, so he takes her body home and puts her in a dress. Nestor whiles away the hours talking to the corpse and feeding the ghoulish undead creatures he keeps locked in his basement.

Gonzalez sets out with a team to get his daughter’s body back, managing to piss off law enforcement and biker gangs alike along the way. Upon their arrival, Nestor won’t go down without a fight and sets the zombies on the rescue team. Luckily for everyone (but especially Gonzalez), the zombies also know martial arts. Don’t worry, the bear shows back up too.

TERROR A LA MUERTE is listed in some places as a sequel to Gonzalez’s earlier film GARRA DE TIGRE, but information on either film is hard to come by, making this rare screening a must-see!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 5 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY! FILMMAKER Q&A!
(This event is $10.)

THE SHORT FILMS OF CHRISTOPHER JASON BELL
Various. Approx 80 mins.
In English.

FB EVENT

Critic, programmer and longtime Spectacle comrade Christopher Jason Bell has been a fixture of the NYC independent filmmaking scene for the better part of this last decade. This selection of short films (hand-picked by Bell, promising a few surprise inclusions) features a Manhattan-set meet-cute with a remarkable slice of real talk at its core, a magic-realist meditation on loneliness inspired by a racist remark made by Ridley Scott to The Hollywood Reporter, a single-take metamovie called THE MOVIE, a hilarious paean to American society’s brain-pureeing embrace of the STAR WARS franchise starring Carl Kranz, a docudrama (?) about one man’s mission to turn his 60th birthday into a live reenactment of the courtroom scenes from MY COUSIN VINNIE, and a lot more.

For whatever reason (probably related to his fidelity to the “slow cinema” techniques of Tsai Ming-Liang, Abbas Kiarostami and many more), Bell is underrated; among critics and programmers, the lion’s share of the hype has transferred instead to directors whose quirk-tastic output is littered with obvious cinephile signposts, and who may also be the children of millionaires. That’s a damn shame: Bell counterbalances a rib-bruising sense of humor with a startling humanism, and his prolific output suggests a filmmaker restlessly experimenting with finding new ways to reconcile cinema with that crazy problem known as “real life” and the people who live within it.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY! FILMMAKER Q&A!
(This event is $10.)

THE WINDS THAT SCATTER
2015. 79 mins.
In English, and in Arabic with English subtitles.

In just a few years, Bell’s feature debut THE WINDS THAT SCATTER (named from an obscure Qu’ranic verse) would prove eerily prescient: it’s the story of a Syrian immigrant named Ahmad (Ahmad Chahrour) who resettles in New Jersey, but struggles to find a steady job. While the film chronicles his boredom and alienation, Ahmad’s diffidence in search of employment belies a greater despair, the creeping awareness that everything available to him is entry-level at best, the kind of work that was once made available to teenagers. Ahmad’s paralysis gives way to a sad and low-key majestic meditation on the disjunction between highfalutin American ideals and the reality facing people without the privilege of being born here. Set against the landscape of the anonymized corners of the tri-state area, THE WINDS THAT SCATTER is transformed by the cajoling, caustic humor of Ahmad’s friend Mohammad (played by Mohammad Dagman), and Bell’s sensitivity to working with these unconventional leading men, both of whom contributed to the film’s screenplay.

“In casting Ahmad Chahrour, Bell hit a proverbial goldmine of actorly riches; but not only does Bell deserve credit for this casting decision, he also deserves kudos for providing us with such an honest prospective of an abundantly plain, Muslim man. All the while, Bell forges intelligent comments about the impoverished economic state of rural America. Sure, Ahmad’s ethnicity and citizenship limit his employment opportunities, but The Winds That Scatter reflects more than just the Muslim immigrant experience. Sadly, this is a story of modern day working class existence in the United States.” – Hammer To Nail

CHRISTOPHER JASON BELL is a former critic for the blog The Playlist and an active filmmaker. His first feature THE WINDS THAT SCATTER premiered at Northside Festival and went on to play in Madrid, South Korea (winning Best International No Budget Feature Film at the KIXFF), Cambodia, Chile, Argentina, and numerous places in the USA. His latest short film, MOHAMMAD SO-AND-SO, premiered at Sarasota Film Festival in 2017 and can now be viewed on Amazon Prime. He has completed his second feature INCORRECTIONAL and hopes to premiere the film in 2018.