ISSN 1712-9559
Keyword Category : Horror and the Fantastic
Alexandre Aja Anthony Wong Asia Argento Augustin Villaronga Barbara Steele Body Horror Brian Yuzna Category 3 Clive Barker Coffin Joe Cult Cinema Dario Argento David Cronenberg Douglas Buck Eurofest Eurohorror Exploitation Fantasia Giallo Gore Gag H P Lovecraft Hideo Nakata Horror J Horror Jillian McWhirter John Carpenter Joon Jo Bong Jorg Buttgereit Jose Mojica Marins Karim Hussain Kiyoshi Kurosawa Larry Fessenden Lost Highway Lucio Fulci M Night Shyamalan Mario Bava Mexican Cinema Mind Fuck Mondo Nacho Cerda Nakagawa Nobuo Pang Brothers Paracinema Peter Jackson Ray Harryhausen Richard Stanley Roshell Bissett Sergio Martino Serial Killer Spanish Horror Survivalist Horror Troma Violence Wes Craven Zombie
1.
A speculative analysis on some of the reasons behind Dario Argento's post-career decline.
2.
An analysis of French cult vampire maestro Jean Rollin's elegiac Two Orphan Vampires, a film which invokes both Rollin's previous works and the avant-garde tradition which influenced him.
3.
An analysis of the formalist experimentation in gialli lexicon, Amer.
4.
An interview with the co-directors, co-writers of the fascinating Belgian-France co-production, Amer, Hélène Cattet et Bruno Forzani.
6.
A contextualisation of the giallo The Sister of Ursula as a terza visione film.
7.
An interview with co-founder of Severin Films DVD company, David Gregory.
8.
A analysis of Fulci's first true giallo, recently released on DVD by Severin Films.
9.
An interview with Maurice Devereaux on his latest and most ambitious film, End of the Line.
10.
An essay on Jonathan Levine's interesting take on the slasher film, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.
11.
An essay comparing Pascal Lugier's Martyrs (2008) with Georges Franju's 1959 classic, Les yeux sans visage.
12.
Argento attempts the impossible: following in the footsteps of his own masterful supernatural diptych. Many have attacked Argento for failing to live up to his exacting standards, but Totaro argues that the film should be looked at within today's changed horror landscape.
13.
Writer Michael Bloom looks backward from George Romero's latest (and fifth) zombie opus, Diary of the Dead, to understand how Romero once again reconfigures the zombie film he helped formulate.
14.
A review of the fascinating Chinese reworking of Gaston Leroux' famous story The Phantom of the Opera.
16.
An interview with Thai directors Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom, Youngyooth Thongkonthun, and Paween Purikitpanya, on the presentation of 4bia and Alone at the 2008 Fantasia Festival.
17.
A report on the 2008 edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival.
18.
An impressionist look back at some of the defining moments of Fantasia 2008.
19.
An in-depth interview with Frank Henenlotter on the release of his first feature film in 16 years, Bad Biology.
20.
A comparative analysis of the German expressionist classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Clive Barker's feature debut, Hellraiser.
22.
Steffen Hantke reviews a book on David Cronenberg by Mark Browning which attempts to read Cronenberg through a literary rather than cinematic landscape.
23.
A review of the much anticipated recent Severin Films DVD release of a difficult to see giallo, Sergio Bergonzelli's In the Folds of the Flesh.
24.
With the recent release of Inside/A l’interieur France has released yet another impressive horror film, signalling yet another boost in the arm to the genre and French cinema in general.
26.
An analysis of Freddie Francis' minor masterpiece in psychological and supernatural horror.
27.
An exclusive look at one of the lesser known Hammer films from its peak period, starring Christopher Lee and directed by Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher.
29.
A thematic and formal analysis of the environmental thread across a group of mainly low budget, independent horror films that showed at Fantasia 2007.
30.
An essay on the Soviet Science Fiction films which played at the 2007 Fantasia International Film Festival.
31.
An examination of trends in the recent horror film, focusing on the intimate relationship that exists between viewer/film in the venerable horror genre.
32.
The end of the world is hot on US screens of late, culminating in the intriguing technological experiment, Cloverfield.
33.
An interview with Philippe Spurrell, director of the Canadian supernatural mystery, The Descendant (2007).
34.
An earnest, DIY account of a sighted creature in the New Orleans, Louisiana area.
35.
A textual analysis of the variant versions of Sergio Martino's excellent giallo, All the Colors of the Dark.
36.
A psychoanalytical analysis of the unique Greek cult film??Singapore Sling??, a postmodern melange of classic film noir tropes, melodrama, gothic horror, Expressionism, and exploitation cinema (extreme gore, explicit sex).
37.
An theoretical analysis of what makes the cult film fan tick, from a psychoanalytical standpoint.
38.
A review essay of one of the most intriguing low budget American horror films ever made, taking into account production history and how director Herk Harvey uses the film's technical limitations to its benefit.
39.
A tribute to the Hammer great Freddie Francis, cinematographer par excellence and director of countless horror films, including the film given extensive analysis here, The Creeping Flesh.
40.
In-depth review of the Fantasia International Film Festival's first DVD release, a compilation of outstanding shorts shown at the festival over the past several years.
41.
An in-depth analysis of David Lynch's animated series Dumbland that convincingly argues for its likeness to Dadiast art and Absurdist drama.
42.
A festival report on the 20th installment of the Leeds International Film Festival.
43.
A report on the 2006 edition of the Festival of New Cinema in Montreal, with a preamble on the etiquette of big theatre experience in the era of the multiplex experience.
44.
A broad survey of the trends and patterns of the American horror film since 1991, the year Silence of the Lambs won several Academy Awards.
45.
An interview with director, cast and select production people of the refreshingly original indie horror film, Shallow Ground.
46.
A look at how two recent documentaries on the slasher/stalker film signals a paradigm shift in the horror genre.
47.
An analysis of how the representation of the modern male plays out in visceral dynamics of Alexandre Aja's The Hills Have Eyes, while also comparing it to Wes Craven's original.
48.
An analysis of the representation of the disabled across the broad spectrum of fantastic cinemas.
49.
A report on Fantasia Film Festival 2006, discussing issues related to form-content, style for style's sake, and short films featuring man eating cats.
50.
An interview with the director of Strange Circus and The Suicide Club, Sion Sono.
51.
A report on the 10th Year Anniversary of Fantasia, focusing on films featuring particularly nasty male pyschos.
52.
A review of British documentarian James Marsh's excellent feature film debut The King, a haunting piece of Southern Gothic which has earned comparison to Terrence Malick, David Lynch, and David Cronenberg (A History of Violence.
53.
A review essay of a multi-author reader on one of the greatest of Scottish films, The Wicker Man.
54.
Using the critical status of Stanley Kubrick, David Church analyzes how the films of a revered art film auteur can also be held up examples of cult cinema.
55.
An interview with David Grieco, Italian director of serial killer film Evilenko.
57.
A psychoanalytical defense of Dario Argento against claims of misogyny.
58.
An analysis of how Jane Campion negotiates the conventions of the sex-noir thriller with more auteurist designs exploring female sexual desire and 'art film' aesthetics.
59.
An overview analysis of Spain's enfant terrible, unique auteruist Agustin Villaronga, director of In A Glass Cage, 99.9, and others.
60.
An in-depth review essay of the notorious horror film In a Glass Cage, released on DVD by Cult Epics.
61.
An overview of all the best of Canadian, American, and International cinema screened in Montreal during 2005.
62.
An in-depth interview with co-writer and co-director of the Canadian noirish horror film Eternal.
64.
An in-depth report on the Fantasia International film festival, with a focus on the Thai films, the shorts, and some impressive US films.
65.
Writer Randolph Jordan weaves through a thematic pattern of pregnancy/death/rebirth which left its mark on FanTasia 2005.
66.
Montreal's animator/filmmaker Rick Trembles interviews the living legend of fantastic cinema, stop-motion animator extraordinaire, Ray Harryhausen.
67.
An interview with the director of the indie reality-based melodrama (in the good sense) Firecracker.
68.
An interview with director Tomoko Matsunashi on her film The Way of the Director.
69.
A theoretical analysis of the value of Gus Van Sant's Psycho.
70.
Dario Argento lives up to his often noted and inappropriate monicker, The Italian Hitchcock.
71.
An in-depth interview with Brazil's horror master Jose Mojica Marins.
72.
An review of the Jose Mojica Marins DVD box-set.
73.
Interview with makers of the poetic science-fiction parable The City without Windows (La Dernière Voix).
74.
Mondo film, ethnographic film, Mondo Cane, Russ Meyers
75.
Festival report on the 15th edition of the San Sebastian Horror fest.
76.
As I said in my most recent Fantasia International Film festival report, the director of “Bottled Fool”, Hiroki Yamaguchi, is a good bet to become the next big thing out of Japan. After making a prize winning short in 1999 at the age of 21 (“Shinya Zoki”/“Midnight Viscera”) he soon completed his first feature film in the same year, “Hateshinai tameiki” (1999).
77.
On the occasion of Fuon (The Crying Wind, Japan, 2004, 106 mins.) showing in competition at the 2004 Festival des Films du Monde (World Film Festival), in Montreal, the director of the film, Higashi Yoichi, along with principal actor, Uema Muneo, and Yamagami Tetsujiro, the film’s producer were interviewed by Peter Rist for Offscreen.
78.
I was fortunate to catch this low budget chiller at a late night screening at Montreal’s Cinema du Parc theatre on April 23, 2004. It had been a long time since I had seen this film, but for reasons soon apparent, it has remained finely etched in my memory.
80.
Part-two of Fantasia Festival report.
81.
Fantasia is back after a one year hiatus, stonger than ever.
83.
With Gus Van Sant currently on the hard road back to relevance - the gnomic, impressive achievement that was Gerry (2002) having been so closely followed by his Cannes triumph with Elephant (2003) - the time may be ripe to revisit one of his most eccentric and reviled (and very nearly forgotten) projects, his 1998 near-shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
84.
Gus Van Sant's re-appropriation of Hitchcock's classic is given another (close) look.
85.
Cult classic of the 1970s rediscovered and gets a small theatrical and DVD release.
86.
Our man in Italy visits Spain's horror and fantasy festival extravaganza.
88.
Offscreen is pleased to announce the recent publication of a book co-written by author Tommaso La Selva and Offscreen’s man-in-Italy, Roberto Curti: Sex and Violence: journey into the cinema of the extreme. Totaro reviews this important Italian contribution to horror film scholarship.
89.
A thematic-based analysis of Shyamalan's narrative structure, with an emphasis on temporality.
90.
Donato Totaro looks at Shyamalan's visual style in his extensive two-part analysis of Shyamalan's (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs).
91.
Donato Totaro looks at Shyamalan's visual style in his extensive two-part analysis of Shyamalan's 'trilogy' (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs).
92.
Randolph Jordan stretches his writer's arms in his two-part Fantasia 2003 report, using part one to reflect on cult cinema spectatorship.
93.
Jordan uses part two of his report as an extended mediation on Fantasia (and Jordan) favorite Takashi Miike.
95.
The long wait is over. After a one year hiatus for economic and logistical reasons, the FanTasia International Film Festival is back (July 17-August 10, 2003).
96.
Sometimes it is a fine line between homage and imitation. With the plentiful allusions to George Romero’s classic zombie trilogy (Night of the Living Dead, 1968, Dawn of the Dead, 1979, and Day of the Dead, 1985) the line is perilously treaded in Danny Boyle’s latest pseudo zombie, science-fiction action thriller 28 Days Later.
98.
Director Teruo Ishii was a featured director at the 5th Udine Far East Film Festival. Curti analyzes Ishii's ero-guro (erotic-grotesque) cinema.
100.
Political analysis of Alfonso Arau's Like Water for Chocolate.
101.
The home video revolution, especially with the success of the DVD format and the massive availability of alternative cinemas in this format, has, for better or for worse, altered the function of the repertory theatre.
102.
Iran has Samira Makhmalbaf and a famous father named Mohsen. Italy has Asia Argento and a famous father named Dario. The parallels pretty much stop there.
103.
Splashy, wild, sexy, and stylish describes the world of the Italian fumetti ('black' adult comic books). But what happens to the fumetti when translated to the screen? A distant cousin to the giallo ('yellow' serial thrillers), the fumetti neri have been mainstays of Italian pop culture since their inception in the early 1960's. Curti traces their lineage from comic strip to movie screen.
104.
Perhaps not the best giallo ever made, but an interesting entry into the female paranoia film.
105.
Randolph uses Clive Barker's The Forbidden to explore how the Faustian myth of immortality persists in contemporary attempts at reproduction and regeneration through the intersections of art and science, art and nature, and music and film.
107.
Sándor Lau treats us to coverage of New Zealand's wackiest and most challenging festival
108.
A long overdue look at Zulueta's lost cult classic, Arrebato.
109.
Just when you thought it was safe to go to the movies, actor turned director Bill Paxton turns in an unsettling religious horror film.
110.
A report on the fourth edition (2002) of one of the fastest growing Asian film festivals around.
111.
An interview with Montreal-based filmmaker Roshell Bissett on her first feature, the horror film Winter Lily.
112.
Offscreen welcomes Italian freelance writer Roberto Curti as he analyzes the work of lesser known Italian cineaste Cavallone.
113.
Should feminist scholarship be looking beyond American horror for a more varied representation of female desire and sexuality?
114.
A relatively new breed of film comedy hybrid has emerged in the past 20 or so years, the 'mockumentary.'
115.
Randolph Jordan summarizes Fantasia 2001 in light of the tragic event of 9/11, an event which may perhaps change how reality-based violence is treated in films and other forms of entertainment.
116.
Fantasia, in its 6th year, continues to grow and mature as an important and eclectic film festival.
117.
Offscreen presents for the first time in its orginal English language, this revised version of an essay that appeared in a French translation in Séquence magazine in 1995. Read on to see how Peter Jackson revolutionized horror (or comedy?) with his startling early feature films.
118.
Offscreen welcomes Randolph Jordan with his first of a two-part festival report on Fantasia 2001.
119.
Image Entertainment presents for the first time in North America, the uncut, English dub version of Mario Bava's gothic masterpiece, The Mask of Satan (re-titled Black Sunday by AIP for its US release in 1961).
120.
The definitive interview on one of Montreal's most notorious independent feature films, Subconscious Cruelty. Enough said.
121.
An in-depth festival report on the fifth installment of the Fantasia Film Festival (2000).
122.
Using the theories of Lacan, Freud, and Zizek, Gullatz explores the depth of psychic horror across a selection of classic and contemporary horror films.
123.
Interview with Republic of Korea director Park Ki-Hyung on his smash debut horror hit Whispering Corridors (1998).
124.
One of the most influential and important horror magazines, Fangoria horror magazine, selects Spanish director Nacho Cerda as one of the 13 rising Horror stars to keep on eye on.
125.
A look back to Fantasia 1999 and a look forward to Fantasia 2000.
127.
An in-depth interview with the director of the smash horror hit series Ring.
129.
Canadian director Atom Egoyan discusses his existential serial killer film Felicia's Journey.
130.
Historically, Halloween has its origins with the ancient Druids, who believed that on the eve of All Saints' Day, the lord of the dead, Saman, would summon a host of evil spirits. In modern days the only evil spirits called on during Halloween (excluding all those little tyrants running around in costumes!) are those emanating from movie screens.
131.
My curiosity about a film entitled Burn, Witch, Burn has been peaked since the day I purchased an original one-sheet of the film in the mid-1970's. With the film still unavailable on video, I had written off the likelihood of every seeing the film.
132.
During the 1999 Fantasia Film Festival Montrealers were “graced” with the presence of Grace Quek (alias Annabel Chong), in town promoting a documentary about her life entitled SEX: The Annabel Chong Story, directed by Canadian filmmaker Gough Lewis.
133.
Brain Yuzna was one of many invited guests of the Montreal Fant-Asia 1998 Film Festival (July 10-August 9). Yuzna's two most recent films were featured in the festival's International section, Progeny and The Dentist 2.
134.
Brain Yuzna was one of many invited guests of the Montreal Fant-Asia 1998 Film Festival (July 10-August 9). Yuzna's two most recent films were featured in the festival's International section, Progeny and The Dentist 2.
135.
Brain Yuzna was one of many invited guests of the Montreal Fant-Asia 1998 Film Festival (July 10-August 9). Yuzna's two most recent films were featured in the festival's International section, Progeny and The Dentist 2.
136.
Brain Yuzna was one of many invited guests of the Montreal Fant-Asia 1998 Film Festival (July 10-August 9). Yuzna's two most recent films were featured in the festival's International section, Progeny and The Dentist 2.
137.
Interview conducted by Donato Totaro, Mitch Davis, and Jason J. Slater in Montreal, Canada during the 1999 Fantasia Film Festival. Photos taken by King-Wai Chou.
138.
Interview conducted by Donato Totaro, Mitch Davis, and Jason J. Slater in Montreal, Canada during the 1999 Fantasia Film Festival. Photos taken by King-Wai Chou.
139.
In two years short years, American Independent director Douglas Buck has becomes a Fant-Asia fan favorite for his uncompromising brand of “domestic horror”; Douglas Buck was back at Fant-Asia '98 with his short film Home , a companion piece of sorts to last year's Cutting Moments (the film that had people crying OUCH).
140.
The extreme levels of violence found in Hong Kong and Japanese films confounds many Western viewers because Western culture, unlike most Eastern cultures, tends to moralize violence. Read on for a cultural contextualisation of violence Asian style.
141.
Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival returns for its third successful year, presenting challenging Asian and International films. Read here for in-depth converage of Montreal's most popular (populist?) film fest.
142.
“The film image is an alienated reflection -an imitation of life perilously similar to the original.”
144.
Every now and then a horror film comes out that reaffirms one's tenuous faith in the Hollywood “major” Independent studios. The Prophecy is one such film.
145.
Germany has a rich tradition of serial killer films, going back to Fritz Lang's classic M (1931), but not much will prepare you for serial killer condoms!
146.
Freaked is an offbeat, somewhat juvenile contemporary rehash of Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932) and Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932).
147.
Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, though not based on any specific work of H.P. Lovecraft, is one of the most Lovecraftian films ever made.
148.
This is by far the best Freddie film since the original in 1984. Only a fresh comparison between them would decide which of the two is better.
149.
The Untold Story: Bun Man is a cracker of a serial killer film, Hong Kong style.
150.
For the uninitiated (which included me) Eurofest is a one-day smorgasbord of European horror and sleaze that has included over its four-year life-span zombie mayhem, giallo madness and action-adventure.
151.
Since late September the “software” of Offscreen has moved across the Atlantic to the UK, where I have temporarily set up office at the University of Warwick to begin doctoral studies in Film & Television studies.
152.
The whirlwind that was Fant-Asia has come and gone, leaving in its wake some 70,000 spectators and a trail of cinematic blood and bullet-ridden body parts.
153.
The affable, soft-spoken Nacho Cerda is perhaps not what you'd expect from the director of one of Fant-Asia's most notorious films, Aftermath. But perhaps after reading this interview with Cerda you may feel that there is certainly more than meets the ...
154.
A Gun for Jennifer is a ballsy, energetic feminist revisionist take on the traditionally male revenge action film. After a successful festival run, it has seen comparisons to such female revenge films as Ms. 45 and Thelma and Louise, though...
155.
The inimitable Richard Stanley's films thus far include the cyper-punk cult science-fiction film Hardware (1990), the poetic experimental documentary on the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Voices of the Moon (1991) and the oneiric horror film...
156.
Fantasia ’97 promises to be as spectacular as last year’s edition, Montreal’s first festival of commercial (Fantasy and Action) Asian cinema, Fantasia, which was arguably the city’s most popular film festival of all time.
157.
Both the Canadian Kissed and Spanish Aftermath deal with the taboo subject of necrophilia. However, the respective filmmakers Lynne Stopkewich and Nacho Cerdà are as far apart in approach as there native countries are geographically.
158.
I'm writing this nine days into Fant-Asia , Saturday the 19th, and one thing is clear, any doubts the organisers may have had concerning year two can rest in peace: the fest is a success far beyond their wildest dreams.
159.
The Love God is easily one of the most wildly inventive, original American genre films of recent years.
160.
With a healthy majority of Fant-Asia's International section devoted to Italian horror I thought it would be appropriate to get things rolling with some thoughts on Italian style horror.
161.
During the Hollywood Studio period (roughly 1920 to 1950), the demarcation line between the majors and the independents was quite clear. The majors, the “Big Five” (Warners, MGM, RKO, Paramount, Fox) and “Little Three” (Columbia, Universal, United).
163.
Lucio Fulci's archetypical Italian zombie epic The Beyond plays at Fantasia in a pristine 35mm print.
164.
Last summer’s surprising smash-hit festival Fant-Asia is back with the same look, location and principal organizers, but with an added International component.
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