Artist and actor Andrey Iskanov was born in 1976 in the climatically brutal Russian town of Khabarovsk, 20 miles from the Chinese border. There he cut his teeth in medicine, where his love of photography developed into an award-winning career in advertising and filmmaking. His fascination with the human body no doubt influenced his HalluCinoGeNnN series, some of the most brain-bending psychedelic industrial horror from Russia’s Extreme East.
This March, join us for a mind-melting presentation of two HalluCinoGeNnN titles: cyberpunk freakout thriller NAILS and VISIONS OF SUFFERING, a truly soul-crushing exercise in pain and ecstasy. Only at Spectacle!
NAILS
(ГВОЗДИ)
Dir. Andrey Iskanov, 2003
Russia, 62 min
In Russian with English subs
MONDAY, MARCH 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 14 – MIDNIGHT
SUNDAY, MARCH 23 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 29 – MIDNIGHT
Experiencing increasingly agonizing headaches and frightening voices, an unnamed hitman turns to the only relief he hasn’t tried: hammering nine-inch nails into his skull. His self-trepanation colorizes his black-and-white Siberian world, causing vivid hallucinations and torturous waking nightmares. Fighting tooth and nail for his sanity, our hero soon learns that the only way out of Hell is through.
Iskanov’s directorial debut and the beginning of the HalluCinoGeNnN series, NAILS is one tight-n-tense cerebral hell ride, THE MATRIX for edgy self-surgery enthusiasts or TETSUO: THE IRON MAN with a lobotomy.
VISIONS OF SUFFERING (FINAL DIRECTOR’S CUT)
(ГВИДЕНИЯ УЖАСОВ)
Dir. Andrey Iskanov, 2006
Russia, 85 min
In Russian with English subs
SATURDAY, MARCH 8 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, MARCH 13 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 28 – MIDNIGHT
A man experiencing disturbing phone calls receives a visit from a Don-Quixote-quoting telephone repairman. His arrival shatters the barrier between reality and nightmare, unleashing a series of vampires, succubi, and demonic forces into existence.
The second film in the HalluCinoGeNnN series, VISIONS OF SUFFERING is the experimental art horror equivalent of falling victim to a gas leak while also becoming a victim of fashion inside an abandoned Hot Topic. Originally released as a two-hour cut in 2006 and reconstituted in 2016, Iskanov’s final director’s cut boosts the ick factor into the stratosphere while completely reimagining Hell on Earth. Don’t eat beforehand.
WARNING: EXPLICIT VIOLENCE, UNSIMULATED SEX, AND CADAVERS THROUGHOUT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!