2023 BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL: PREVIEW

The 23nd annual Boston Underground Film Festival (BUFF) returns to Harvard Square’s arthouse hub The Brattle Theatre with five days of vanguard cinemania from March 22-26. This year’s lineup is stacked with fearsome folk horror, mendacious miscreants, godless god-complexes, eco-chillers, sensational sci-fi, and all manner of midnight madness.

BUFF will host the World Premiere of the Massachusetts-based horror thriller The Unheard (pictured, below) for a homecoming heroes’ welcome on Opening Night. Starring Lachlan Watson, director Jeffrey A. Brown’s haunting feature follows a deaf young woman ensconced in a signal-to-noise mystery of dueling truths and realities. Brown (The Beach House, 2019) and local screenwriters Michael and Shawn Rassmussen (Crawl, 2019) will attend a post-screening Q&A.

Fresh off its world premiere at Sundance, Eddie Alcazar’s retro-sci-fi, singularly WTF masterpiece Divinity (pictured, top) will have its U.S. East Coast premiere at BUFF. Starring Stephen Dorff, Scott Bakula, Bella Thorne, and produced by Steven Soderbergh, this deranged, drug-addled, dystopian vision, where beauty and grotesquery abound, is 100% uncompromising underground cinema.

Also fresh from a SXSW debut is writer/director Bomani J. Story’s The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. Teen science genius Vicaria (The Equalizer’s Laya DeLeon Hayes) plays god when she embarks on a quest to find the cure for death; a disease, she theorizes, versus an inevitability. Breathing new life into Frankenstein’s monster, Story’s electric feature debut challenges conceptions of mortality and monstrosity through a Black lens.

BUFF will present a double-dose of international folk horror with both Tereza Nvotová’s Nightsiren (pictured, below), which examines the chokehold grip of toxic patriarchal structures on a remote Slovakian village, and mark Jenkin’s sumptuous cinematic stunner Enys Men, which follows the sole inhabitant of a craggy Cornish island’s descent into madness. 

Other BUFF highlights include Daniel Goldhaber’s high-stakes, heist-style thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline, the story of young environmental activists and their mission to sabotage a Texas pipeline; Quentin Dupieux’s French dark comedy/quasi-horror superhero sendup Smoking Causes Coughing; Kristoffer Borgli’s Scandinavian unromantic comedy Sick of Myself, which takes toxic relationships to the next level..

Off-kilter factual filmmaking is repped by Kiwi journalist David Farrier’s Mister Organ, a chronicle of his encounters with multi-hyphenate scammer Michael Organ, an extortionary, mercenary antique shop parking lot enforcer with a wild history of false identities and insane lawsuits, and Ryan Worsley’s latest Stand By for Failure: A Documentary About Negativland a history of the culture jamming, plunderphonic prophets.

BUFF’s commitment to the beautifully weird and otherworldly continues with Berlin-based visual artist Ann Oren’s sensuous debut Piaffe, which follows the story of Eva (The Untamed’s Simone Bucio), an introvert who discovers the joys of foreplay and horseplay when she starts growing a tail. Equally allegorical and hypnotizing is Ryan Stevens Harris’ gorgeously photographed Moon Garden, which follows a comatose child on a dark Gilliamesque odyssey back to consciousness. 

BUFF’s 2023 program teems with the topical themes of families in crisis, most notably the inclusion of Kirby McClure’s atmospheric debut Spaghetti Junction (pictured, right), a deft blend of sci-fi, fantasy, and social realism in a tale of a Southern family grappling with life after a devastating loss. 

To close out the festival, BUFF will screen Belgian directing duo Adil & Bilall’s personal and challenging feature, Rebel. Known for the recently-shelved Batgirl production, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s poignant, and bold melange of action, drama, and musical centres around a Muslim family caught in the crosshairs of jihadist radicalism. Having premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, the film earned waves of critical support; Cineuropa called it a, “fascinating work [that] proves why it's essential for cinema to have a diverse range of voices,” while Slashfilm said the film is, “An emotional gut punch.”

THE BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVALOfficial Program details and ticketing information can be found here.

MINI MONSTER FEST MAKING BIG NOISE WITH WEEKENDER LINE-UP

Monster Fest is bouncing back from two years of COVID disruptions with a national screening program called ‘Monster Fest Weekender’. The three-day program, which acknowledges the loyal and hungry horror fanbase that have supported Monster Fest through good times and bad, includes new works from such genre greats as Dario Argento and Phil Tippett as well as the World Premiere of remastered Stephen King anthology.

Monster Fest Weekender has wrapped in Melbourne, where Cinema Nova hosted the Australian Premiere of Argento’s Dark Glasses as the opening night attraction. The next wave of Weekender dates are May 13-15, at Event Cinema sites in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. The following week sees the New Zealand debut of the Monster Fest brand, with 'Weekender' playing in Auckland from May 20-22.

Opening the Australia-wide and NZ legs will be Mad God (pictured, top), a nightmarish vision featuring insane scientists and pig warriors crafted to cinematic perfection by stop-motion animation legend, Phil Tippett. This dazzlingly dark work represents a decades-long obsession for Tippett, who began the film in the late ‘80s only to shelve it when CGI effects became dominant. Urged on by fan and industry support, he finally completed Mad God a whopping 35 years later and has spent much of the past year touring it around the international horror festival circuit to enormous acclaim.

Two of the most talked-about horror entries of 2022 will screen for Australian audiences for the first time. The feature debut of director Kate Dolan, You Are Not My Mother (pictured, above right) is a Dublin-set supernatural chiller in which a daughter (the terrific Hazel Doupe) begins to doubt whether the return of her mother (Carolyn Bracken) in the days before Halloween is such a good thing. And Finnish director Hannah Bergholm’s first film Hatching, one of the breakout hits of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, follows a young girl’s obsession with an egg that grows to dangerously foreboding dimensions.

Documentaries are afforded a high profile in the Weender title roster. Filmmakers John Campopiano and Chris Griffiths dive deep into the making of the landmark 1990 TV mini-series with Pennywise: The Story of It, honouring a small-screen production that defined horror for a generation of fans when they were exposed to the author’s sewer-dwelling clown-faced entity. Director Mike Schiff draws a direct line between horror films and heavy metal music with his rousing analysis, The History of Metal and Horror, featuring such fan favourites as actor Michael Berryman, muso Alice Cooper and crossover artist Rob Zombie.

Genre history is recounted with the screening of two highly-anticipated retrospective titles. From 1985, the Stephen King-penned anthology work Cat’s Eye has been afforded a 4K remaster courtesy of Studio Canal and will World Premiere on the big screen for Australian audiences. Featuring Drew Barrymore, Candy Clark and James Woods, it was an underperformer upon its initial release, but the Lewis Teague-directed film has developed a legitimate cult following in recent years.

And ‘80s C-grade action is afforded some fresh love and appreciation with the screening of the so-bad-it’s-great opus Miami Connection (1987), an all-but-forgotten schlockbuster from director Woo-sang Park and starring…well, nobody really. Rediscovered in recent years by the team at the Alamo Drafthouse, the plot follows, “a kick-arse rock band, whose members also happen to be martial arts masters, [who] decide to take on Miami’s seedy underbelly.”

Ticketing and session details for the MONSTER FEST WEEKENDER program can be found at the festival’s Official Website and via the Event Cinema page.

WILD EYE UNLEASHES VISUAL VENGEANCE WITH HARDCORE '90s HORROR DOUBLE

Wild Eye Releasing, one of the leading U.S. distributors of genre works since 2008, will launch the sister sub-label Visual Vengeance in July. A collector’s Blu-ray label dedicated to vintage, often overlooked micro-budget genre independents from the 1980s through to the 2000s, Visual Vengeance reinforces Wild Eye’s commitment to curating works from deep within the world of horror.

The upcoming slate of releases will span underground genre history, including films shot on SOV, Super 8, 16mm and 35mm lensed movies. However, the primary source of titles for Visual Vengeance will be the shot-on-video movies of the VHS and early DVD era, when filmmaking technology became digital and independent film output flourished.

The first two titles under the Visual Vengeance label indicate just how far the Wild Eye team are willing to go in the name of cult cinema curation. The first title is Shinichi Fukazawa’s 1995 Super-8 splatterfest, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (pictured, above), a legendary cult item often referred to as ‘The Japanese Evil Dead’. It tells the story of a muscleman who, while trapped in a possessed house, must survive a blood soaked night of insanity to save himself and his friends from a vengeful demonic ghost. 

Also in the July release is Matt Jaissle’s The Necro Files (pictured, right), the notorious 1997 underground epic that became known as ‘America’s Video Nasty’ upon release. The corpse of a cannibal rapist rises from the grave as a flesh-eating zombie, and it will take two Seattle cops, a satanic cult and a flying demon baby to stop the lust-crazed ghoul before he can kill again.

Both titles are Blu-ray premieres; it will be the first official North American release for Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell, a title that was a hot bootleg title in the late ‘90s. Both releases will include participation on new bonus features with the original creators and stars of the movies, and be released in deluxe collector’s editions with limited edition ‘Slipcase packaging’ – as well as being loaded with special features.   

While future releases remain a closely-guarded secret, the label has confirmed that restored works from enduring fan-favourite directors such as Todd Sheets, Bret McCormick, Mark Polonia, Brad Sykes, Kevin Lindenmuth and Donald Farmer are scheduled, with many of the featured movies feared ‘lost’ or out-of-print for decades.

No Australian distributor or release date has been confirmed for the Visual Vengeance catalogue.

ALTITUDE HIGH ON WOLF CREEK 3; RACHELE WIGGINS TO DIRECT

CANNES: Global sales agent Altitude Films has secured Wolf Creek 3 for the worldwide market (excluding Australia and New Zealand), it was announced overnight. Launched as part of the company’s Marche du film slate, the third bigscreen instalment of the popular serial killer franchise will see John Jarratt reprise his role as iconic villain ‘Mick Taylor’.

Making her feature directing debut will be Rachele Wiggins, one of the local industry’s most respected production designers and producers. Her past credits include overseeing design elements on the features A Night of Horror: Volume 1 (2015), Event Zero (2017) and Skinford: Chapter 2 (2018) as well as an extensive short-film roster; as a producer, she has shepherded the acclaimed shorts Slice of Life (2019), Brolga (2019) and Sammy (2019) and the anthology pic, Deadhouse Dark (2019). In 2020, the stylish horror short Ciere, her long-gestating directorial calling-card, was released (see below).

The original script, by fellow feature debutant Duncan Samarasinghe, follows an American family undertaking their dream trip to the outback, a journey that soon draws the attention of Jarratt’s notorious serial killer. A horrific fight-for-survival ensues as the two children escape, only to be hunted by Australia’s most iconic bigscreen psycho.

Creator Greg McLean, director of the 2005 original and its 2013 follow-up, will produce the third film under his Emu Creek Films shingle, with collaborators Bianca Martino (The Darkness, 2016) and Kristian Moliere (The Babadook, 2014). Cameras are set to roll in South Australia in late 2021.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the creative team we’ve assembled to realise the next chilling chapter in the Wolf Creek franchise,” said McLean, via press release. “Duncan’s compelling, suspense-filled script combined with Rachele’s exciting directorial vision for the film will deliver a horror roller-coaster ride sure to delight genre fans around the world.” 

It is unclear at this stage how the third film will align at all with franchise canon established over two seasons of the popular television spin-off ‘Wolf Creek’, a local hit for streaming service Stan and profitable international property for Emu Creek, or the two novels that explored the formative years of Taylor’s unhinged psychology.

Altitude Film Sales has exhibited a tremendous faith in the Australian sector with a 2021 Marche du film line-up that also boasts a new Sam Worthington pic, Transfusion, to be helmed by Matt Nable, and the Oz-shot Zac Efron thriller, Gold, co-starring Susie Porter and directed by Anthony Hayes. The slate will be spruiked at the Cannes Online market by Altitude’s Mike Runagall, Vicki Brown, Olivier Brunskill and Karina Gechtman.

CIERE from Rachele Wiggins on Vimeo.

WHEN ALEX MET BONNIE: NEW TALENT, NEW TECH IN PROYAS' FUTURE

Internationally acclaimed director Alex Proyas is driven by the unlimited potential of modern movie making in all its forms. His latest work, the horror short Mask of The Evil Apparition, will reveal his latest exercise in filmmaking forethought - the visionary images being crafted in his state-of-the-art studio, Heretic Foundation, and the big screen luminescence of his leading lady, Bonnie Ferguson.

The highly-anticipated film premieres for cast and crew at a private screening in Sydney next week, ahead of festival screenings and an online release via Proyas' YouTube channel, Mystery Clock Cinema. 

Inspired by the director’s love for Britain’s Hammer Horror classics, the plot synopsis for Mask of The Evil Apparition reads, ‘A young woman lost in a nocturnal, dreamlike city, with twin psychic brothers, who try to help her find her way home as she is pursued by a shadowy cult known as The Mysterious Ones’. With Ferguson (pictured, above) as lead character ‘Olivia’, the cast also includes Dean Kyrwood (The Flood; Beast No More) in the dual role of mysterious brothers; Alex King as the enigmatic Sandra; and Goran D. Kleut (Hacksaw Ridge; Nekrotronic) as a vast number of cult members.  

Having met initially through family friends, Proyas and Ferguson have proven to be a potent creative force. “She’s incredibly smart, of course, but she is also what some people call an ‘old soul’,” says the director (pictured, right), whose credits include the Australian cult classic Spirits of The Air Gremlins of the Cloud and Hollywood blockbusters The Crow, I-Robot and Knowing. “She’s got wisdom beyond her years and I think that will serve her well. For me, that’s always important in an actor, having someone who gets beyond the surface level narrative, and she’s one of those rare talents.”

For Ferguson, the mentorship provided by Proyas has been invaluable, citing a 2019 photoshoot with the director as a turning point. “During that shoot, he worked on creating a supernatural mood, crafting this ethereal environment, which I absolutely loved and responded to and we promised to work with each other again,” says the actress, who has built an impressive resume with roles in Book Week, Moon Rock for Monday, the series Made for This, the soon-for-release feature Just Ruby and the currently-in-production film R.S.V.P.

Mask of The Evil Apparition is the second short that the pair have shot together; in 2019, their mood piece Phobos became a web sensation. “We shot Phobos over five hours, in Sydney peak hour, jumping on and off of trains,” says Ferguson, fondly recalling the guerilla-style production. “Alex started shooting with a very clear vision, which is exactly what you want as an actor. And his eye for capturing the most beautiful images [by] managing natural light is wonderful. Alex has a wealth of knowledge and experience on massive productions, but he was so enthusiastic about just scaling it back.”

Proyas agrees, saying “[We] basically went out one day, just me and a camera and Bonnie and surfed the inner-city railways. It was great fun, we enjoyed working together, so I got her to come back in for Mask…” (Pictured, right; Ferguson on-set, at the Heretic Foundation facility)

Proyas has acknowledged that Mask of The Evil Apparition has become an extension-of-sorts of his cult classic, Dark City. In March 2020, he told If.com.au, “When Liz Palmer, my brilliant costume designer on Dark City and nearly everything I’ve done, started dressing our gorgeous cast in these hybrid neo-1940s fashions, that’s when this notion began to present itself. Filmmakers are often doomed to repeat themselves; the same concerns and obsessions keep reappearing in our work.”

The current wave of production activity for Proyas is a crucial element in his expansion plans for Heretic Foundation, the virtual-studio facility providing photo-real 3D backdrops for Mask of The Evil Apparition. The director told if.com.au, “This short is R&D for the technology as well as the economics of eventually producing features in this way. This allowed us to shoot very fast and to achieve a polished finished product set in a stylised ‘German-Expressionist’ city,” he says. (Pictured, left; Goran D. Kleut as 'The Mysterious Ones')

Since shooting Mask... with Ferguson, Proyas has employed his green-screen studio and Unreal Engine 3D creation software to film a teaser for his proposed 2021 project Box, with Nicole Pastor and the feature Sister Darkness, a gothic ghost story with Lauren Grimson and Rodger Corser.