Since 2011, Monster Fest has been Melbourne’s leading genre festival event; in 2019, it returns to the Cinema Nova complex from October 11^th to 13^th for the 8^th edition of the festival. This will be five full weeks ahead of the traditional late November dates usually occupied by Monster Fest, a move deemed necessary to accommodate the new national screening roster. It is anticipated that the first round of the Event Cinema sessions will coincide with the Halloween trading period before rolling out through November.

Monster Fest director Grant Hardie (pictured, right) has overseen successful ‘Travelling Roadshow’ events beyond the Melbourne base in recent years and views this new plan as the natural progression in the organisation’s relationship with exhibition giant. “Since we started the festival our plan has always been to take it nationally and make it the largest and best known genre festival in this part of the world,” Hardie said. “This continued partnership with Event Cinemas in 2019 makes this a reality.”

Claire Gandy (pictured, below), Event Cinema’s General Manager for Content, attended Monster Fest 2018 to discuss with Hardie his vision for a national horror festival rollout. “Having seen the continued growth of Monster Fest Melbourne in the last few years we at Event wanted to bring that experience to some of our major sites around the country,” said Gandy, “and we are very excited to see how we can work together to make that a reality.” In 2018, the 100 year-old cinema chain paired with the horror festival to turn a limited release run of the Nicholas Cage shocker Mandy into an old-fashioned late night cult movie smash. 

Last November, Monster Fest unveiled some of the most controversial genre titles of the year, including Craig Zahler’s Dragged Across Concrete with Mel Gibson, Jonas Akerlund’s Lords of Chaos and the latest provocation from Lars von Trier, the serial killer epic The House That Jack Built. The festival prides itself on supporting local talent, with Caitlin Stoller’s 30 Miles from Nowhere and Matthew Victor Pastor’s MAGANDA! Pinoy Boy vs Milkman having their World Premieres at Cinema Nova last year; it is envisioned these types of films will enjoy an unprecedented level of national exposure under the new initiative in large-scale auditoriums they may not otherwise occupy.

“In 2018 submissions increased by over 100%, and we had the strongest shorts program since the festival began,” says Hardie. “The interest internationally for Monster Fest is beyond our wildest dreams.” Submissions are now open for features, short films and expanded cinema projects for the expanded 2019 program.

Further information detailing the 2019 Monster Fest program and participating Event cinemas will be announced in the months ahead.

Ahead of the Australian Premiere of Devil Woman at Monster Fest VII, Douglas (pictured, above; with actor Peter Healy) spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about her film's origins, aims and place amongst the all-too-rarely explored genre of female-focussed transformative eco-horror…    

SCREEN-SPACE: Devil Woman is a modern spin on classic werewolf mythology. What other influences and inspirations helped gel the concept in your mind?

DOUGLAS: I got the original idea back in 2007, when I was involved with the Tasmanian forest campaigns as a documentary filmmaker [at the time] the Tasmanian Devil facial tumour outbreak was discovered. It’s a horrifying, fatal disease; brutal in the way its cancerous ulcerations are transmitted via biting. I was travelling regularly through backwater logging towns that had a very ‘gothic frontier’ nature and almost post-apocalyptic blockade-style camps, and would witness violent confrontations between loggers and activists. 28 Days Later was the biggest stylistic influence to the original concept, and then I discovered Night of The Living Dead and Dawn of The Dead, which have the tradition of a zombie/contagion film with social issues as subtext. The werewolf/ transformation narrative was originally inspired by the analysis of folk tales in Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With The Wolves. Women transforming into animals to discover their true animalistic strength and power - I love that type of mythic storytelling. (pictured, above; actress Marigold Pazar as 'Eddy')

SCREEN-SPACE: Like all great horror films, Devil Woman tackles bigger issues as well as delivering the frights. You explore toxic masculinity, wide-eyed conservationists, and gender stereotypes across both sexes. Did you go with an attack plan?

DOUGLAS: I wanted to show the tough-as-nails women at blockade camps, which I had never seen represented on screen. Their isolation when up against these burly, angry loggers in real life is very scary and very loaded. The lead character ‘Eddy’ is a fish-out-of-water science student based on my own experience turning up to my first blockade as a student filmmaker, at Timbarra Gold Mine back in 1999. The film’s coda hints that we need to look beyond gender or any other political divides, because if we continue on a path of environmental destruction an apocalypse won’t discriminate. I’m thinking of the 1000 people still missing in the Californian wildfires right now. That is real life horror, real tragedy. Yet President Trump still denies climate change. (Pictured, above; Peter Healy as 'Reilly')

SCREEN-SPACE: The film is both a down’n’dirty bushland yarn and an extremely polished piece of filmmaking – shot in widescreen, against beautiful locations. Tell me about crafting the film’s aesthetic.

DOUGLAS: I looked at the way 28 Days Later and Children of Men were shot, to create that immediate, visceral, documentary-like experience of being in the world with the characters. I used scale in the frame to emphasis power, and colour palette to underlie transformation. Because my background is in documentary and editing I think in terms of coverage and how it will cut together, whilst Director of Photography Meg White (pictured, right) ensured it was also cinematic. We looked at Australian colonial art to think about representation of the forest in daylight, and what makes the Australian forest landscapes unique and scary. We used smoke haze on set in the camp to create texture. For the colour grade I was inspired by Deliverance to subtly reinforce humans as animals within the wilderness. The score was inspired by Dead Man using sparing rawness to imbue an isolated frontier feeling. The location is a main character in the story, so getting that right was very important. I couldn’t shoot it in Tasmania so I had to find a suitable location in regional NSW. Nerissa Davis and Alice Cregan, who brought first hand experience in logging blockades in Tasmania, ran the Art Department. They nailed the production design, which was important for authenticity.

SCREEN-SPACE: It’s an intrinsically Australian film, yet it’s travelling well, finding favour with festival programmers worldwide, having played London's FrightFest and Fantasia in Montreal, to name just two. The terrifically staged horror sequences aside, what are the elements that are resonating?

DOUGLAS: The thought provoking themes, the gritty score by my brother Ben Douglas, Meg White’s superb cinematography, the twists and turns in the plot. Audiences come away wanting a feature version, which is encouraging. There are some amazing films in the eco-horror sub genre such as The Birds, Godzilla, The Thing and Jaws. I reckon it’s a sub genre that’s ripe for modern exploration, and the reaction from audiences, film programmers and the film industry to Devil Woman suggests I’m right.

DEVIL WOMAN will screen Friday November 23 at Monster Fest VII at Carlton’s Cinema Nova. Full ticket and session details are at the festival’s official website.

Of the 15 features to play the four-day event, two in particular arrive having stimulated some of the year’s most heated critical debate over the nature of violence in cinema. Monster Fest 2018 opens with Dragged Across Concrete, a bad cop/very bad cop thriller from writer/director S. Craig Zahler. The current enfant terrible of genre films, Zahler’s previous efforts Bone Tomahawk (2015) and Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) reset the boundaries for on-screen violence; in his latest, Mel Gibson (pictured, top) and Vince Vaughan play disgraced cops who descend into society’s criminal sub-level to make end meets.

Critics have been largely on Zahler’s side; Dragged Across Concrete currently sits at 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, with BirthMoviesDeath.com calling it “outlaw cinema at its finest”. But left-leaning press have gone after it; The Daily Beast published an op-ed piece under the headline, “Mel Gibson’s New Police Brutality Movie is a Vile, Racist, Right-Wing Fantasy”. Zahler also penned Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, a resurrection of producer Charles Band’s killer puppet franchise of yore, its Nazi-themed nuttiness adding fuel to the ‘right/left’ debate (it screens November 24).  

The festival then doubles down on controversy with The House That Jack Built, an epic study in homicidal sociopathy from Lars von Trier. Matt Dillon is mesmerising as a 1970s serial killer (heading a cast that includes Uma Thurman, Bruno Ganz and Jeremy Davies) in the 2½-hour film, a typically divisive, discomfiting drama from the Danish provocateur that inspired derision and walkouts at Cannes in May yet has been lauded as, “art without the boundaries of morality and reason” (SlantMagazine.com).

Two films will have their world premieres at this year’s festival - 30 Miles from Nowhere, a stylish and creepy addition to the ‘cabin-in-the-woods’ sub-genre from Caitlin Stoller, and Matthew Victor Pastor’s MAGANDA! Pinoy Boy vs Milkman, which the director describes as, “a bloody, milky, balls out, castration revenge tale.”

The roster of nine Australian premieres in the feature film line-up includes Jason Stone’s At First Light, a thrilling drama that melds teen angst energy with alien abduction mythology (trailer, above); Daniel Goldhaber’s online-sex/stolen identity thriller, Cam; the psycho-sexual chiller Pimped, from David Barker and featuring a searing lead turn from actress Ella Scott Lynch; and, from producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator; Aliens), Gregory Plotkin’s theme-park set love letter to 80s slasher pics, Hell Fest, featuring Amy Forsyth (pictured, right). Closing out the festival will be the Oz debut of Jonas Åkerlund’s Norwegian death-metal horror/comedy, Lords of Chaos.

Monster Fest 2018 will also celebrate the works of those that helped define the horror genre with one of the most comprehensive retrospective strands in the event’s history. With the blockbuster sequel to his genre-defining classic Halloween still in cinemas, digitally-restored prints will be screened of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981) and The Fog (1980); star Nicholas Hope will be present for a Q&A following the 25^th anniversary presentation of his cult shocker, Bad Boy Bubby; and, Sam Raimi’s masterwork Evil Dead 2 will come alive via a 4K restoration print (trailer, below).

Fred Dekker’s fan favourite The Monster Squad will screen ahead of Andre Gower’s documentary Wolfman’s Got Nards, a light-hearted examination of the cult following enjoyed by the 1987 creature feature. And the Australian premiere of the anthology pic Nightmare Cinema, featuring five films from directors (pictured, below; from left) David Slade, Mick Garris, Ryûhei Kitamura, Joe Dante and Alejandro Brugues, will be the inspiration for this years All-Night Marathon, with specially selected works (kept secret until the night) from the five filmmakers playing the popular midnight-to-dawn slot on Saturday November 24.

The invaluable contribution of the short film auteur to horror will be exalted, with 62 shorts programmed including four separate strands celebrating mini-features. The Saturday line-ups are bannered ‘After School’, with the best student works on offer, and ‘Final Girls’, showcasing the baddest of the genre’s femme fatales; then, on Sunday, the ‘Dead Things’ session presents a grab-bag of eclectic horror visions before the Southern capital’s off-kilter icon Dick Dale presents his revered, revolting potpourri of ‘cinematic atrocities and disasterpieces’, Trasharama A-Go-Go.

MONSTER FEST 2018 runs November 22-25 at Cinema Nova, Carlton. Full session and ticketing information can be found at the official website.

“Horror has always been a genre that got extra piss poured over it,” De Roover delicately informs SCREEN-SPACE from his Skladanowsky Films office in Leuven, 30 kilometres east of Brussels. “You get a sense of absolute rebellion in many of the films and because a lot of them were made without proper funding, there is nothing which couldn't be shown. Typically, Flemish horror cinema has boatloads of nudity and everything nasty one could think up, just to piss off the establishment.” He cites Rob Van Eyck’s wildly successful Afterman trilogy (1985; 2005; 2013) as representative of his homeland’s approach to horror. “This ‘Mad Max from Belgium’ is full of typical Flemish activities of the old days like farming and hunting, but with a side of boobs, impalings, cannibalism and necrophilia.”

This determination to rattle the cages of conformity is central to Forgotten Scares, which takes as its starting point a claim from ill-informed journalists that Jonas Govaerts’ 2014 boy-scout/monster hit Welp (Cub; pictured, right) was “the first Flemish horror film”. De Roover exhaustively researched an industry that as far back as the mid 1970s was exploring cinema’s darkest, most challenging genre; films that existed in defiance of the nation’s cinema-going trends. Says De Roover, “I do think that this struggle [brought] a lot of extra creativity and an ever bigger drive to succeed.” De Roover admits to drawing inspiration from Australian director Mark Hartley's Ozploitation doc Not Quite Hollywood (2008), which covered a similarly undervalued Australian horror movement.

In an interview with The A.V. Club site, Baby Driver director Edgar Wright calls Daughters of Darkness, “a great movie, one [that] bridges the gap between the arty Roman Polanski or Ingmar Bergman horror movies, and the more campy, sexy vampire films of the time”. Its high brow vampiric eroticism is not often spoken of as 'classic' in its homeland, where it rarely screens. Kümel's masterpiece is given its due by De Roover, who calls it “an exercise in grandeur,” admitting, “It was the very first DVD I ordered online from the US.”

Also featured in Forgotten Scares is Kümel’s follow-up film Malpertuis (1971), starring Orson Welles, along with further works from Afterman auteur Van Eyck (Mirliton, 1978) and their contemporaries Guy Lee Thys (The Pencil Murders, 1982), the enigmatic Luc Veldeman (The Antwerp Murders, 1983), and Johan Vandewoestijne (Lucker, 1986).

The VHS boom years proved fertile ground for Flemish horror, says De Roover. “A lot of the popular films were made with the American market in mind, sometimes even as cheap copies of American cinema trends,” he says, citing The Antwerp Killer and Lucker (pictured, right) as Belgian entrants in the 80s ‘slasher pic’ craze. In addition to the insanity of Kervyn’s hilariously nightmarish Rabid Grannies (“I was in awe of the fun, bloody mayhem of that film,” says De Roover), this was also the era of Léon Paul de Bruyn’s tawdry splatter romp Maniac Nurses (1990) and his ultimately unrealized foray into Nazi-sploitation excess, SS Torture Hell. The documentary features previously unreleased footage from the set of the sado-masochistic epic, which ground to a halt when funding dried up.

Many of the sector’s most influential and revered genre personalities responded to the Forgotten Scares project, happy to step before the camera and recall half a century of Flemish horror inventiveness and artistry. In addition to Kümel, De Bruyn, Vandewoestijne, Govaerts and Van Eyck, De Roover secured the insight of actors Eric Feremans (The Antwerp Killer), Evelien Bosmans (Cub; pictured, below, with De Roovers) and Sven De Ridder (The Flemish Vampire, 2007); director Jeroen Dumoulein (short film De Vijver, 2014); and, the opinionated industry figurehead Jan Verheyen, director of Alias (2002).

De Roover acknowledges that in recent years Belgian horror has edged dangerously close to arthouse, even mainstream acceptance. Pieter Van Hees’ 2008 Antwerp-set chiller Linkeroever (Left Bank), starring Eline Kuppens and Matthias Schoenarts, tackled social commentary within its genre parameters; The Hollywood Reporter compared it to Rosemary’s Baby, The Wicker Man and J-horror classic Dark Water. “Left Bank shows the bleakness of some of the lower-class neighbourhoods in Flanders,” says De Roover, who considers the award-winning a step towards the mainstreaming of Belgian genre cinema. “We have only been finding our own identity in cinema over the last couple of years. It took years to earn respect for our complete cinema output and to be taken seriously [by Belgian media],” he says. Veteran horror helmer Johan Vandewoestijne continues to produce quality work, including the black horror/comedy Todeloo (2014) and the serial killer romp Laundry Man (2016).

One of the many unforgettable sequences in Forgotten Scares: An In-Depth Look at Flemish Horror Films concerns the 2013 vision The Miracle of Life from directors Joël Rabijns and Yves Sondermeier, a mother/son drama that US distributor Troma thought would work better under the title The Thingy: Confessions of a Teenage Placenta. With Steve De Roover flying the tri-coloured flag of his nation’s horror directors, the glorious madness of such flagrant Flemish film excesses as Rabid Grannies and Maniac Nurses will live forever.

FORGOTTEN SCARES: AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT FLEMISH HORROR FILMS is currently playing the film festival circuit. It can be pre-ordered on DVD from Zeno Pictures.

THE RANGER (Dir: Jenn Wexler | 2018 | USA | 80 mins)
What the Program says: “Chloë Levine gives a dynamite lead performance as Chelsea, a clever cookie who leads her snotty pals to a supposedly safe haven. But this leafy locale holds dark memories for Chelsea and is home to a demented public official who really doesn’t like littering or young non-conformists.”
What the Critics say: “…strong performances from our leading lady and central psycho — not to mention several kick-ass punk tunes — and you’ve got a post-modern splatter flick that most horror fans should appreciate.” – Scott Weinberg, Crooked Marquee
Festival Cred: SXSW endorsed; also playing strong with both genre and arthouse crowds (Indy Fest XV, Indianapolis; Cinedelphia Film Festival, Philadelphia; Overlook Film Festival, New Orleans; The Newport Beach Film Festival). Bound for Montreal’s Fantasia event in August.
Key Player: Levine, a cult favourite in the making after smart genre parts in The OA and Cannes 2016 entry The Transfiguration. 

GHOST STORIES (Dirs: Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman | 2017 | UK | 96 mins
What the Program says: “Philip Goodman is a professional debunker of all things paranormal. (When he) receives a package from an academic he once idolized, he is propelled into a series of investigations that force him to confront everything he doesn’t believe in. And it gets worse, much worse."
What the Critics say: “In adapting their Olivier-nominated supernatural stage play for the screen, writing/directing duo Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman have lost none of the impact of their darkly effective vision.” – Nikki Baughan, Screen Daily
Festival Cred: Premiered to receptive hometown audiences at the London Film Festival; proved its Brit heritage could travel after strong showing in Busan.
Key Player: The reputation and enormous following of the blockbuster live theatre experience.

WHAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE (Dir: Colin Minihan | 2018 | Canada | 98 mins)
What the Program says: “The latest film by multitalented genre maven Colin Minihan (Grave Encounters, 2011) takes familiar horror-thriller ingredients and forges them into a story that upends convention and expectation. There’s the happy couple skipping off for a romantic weekend in the wilderness. Then there’s the old family cabin with its history and secrets. And of course the neighbours across the lake seem to know…something.”
What the Critics say: “A thriller with a truly clever turn…Just don’t spoil it for anyone.” – Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com.
Festival Cred: SXSW premiere; Toronto LGBT fest. Picked up for US distribution by genre savvy IFC Midnight.
Key Player: Minihan’s moxie. Takes a lot to not only attempt, but nail the Act 3 twist.

THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL (Dirs: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, Katrin Gebbe, Calvin Reeder, Agnieszka Smoczynska, Peter Strickland, Yannis Veslemes, Can Evrenol, Ashim Ahluwalia | 2018 | USA, Poland, Hungary, India, Germany, New Zealand, Austria, Turkey, Greece | 117 mins )
What the Program says: When the producers of Field Guide… went searching for directors to adapt scary folk tales specific to their own countries, they struck pure gold. Ranging in tone from Franz and Fiala’s exquisite Austrian mood piece to Evrenol’s Turkish evil spirit shocker and Strickland’s hilarious Hungarian pantomime, Field Guide… truly has something spooky and stylish for everyone.
What the Critics say: “The segments vary as much in degrees of successful realization as they do in content and stylistic approaches, though each segment benefits from excellent visuals throughout.” - Jacqui Griffin, Film Inquiry
Festival Cred: After SXSW World Premiere, it’s played Seattle and Neuchâtel Fantastic Film Fest; bound for Fantasia.
Key Player: New Zealand producer Ant Timpson (a Freak Me Out alumni after Deathgasm and Turbo Kid), who corralled repertory mecca Alamo Drafthouse as a backer. 

UPGRADE (Dir: Leigh Whannell | 2018 | Australia | 100 mins)
What the Program says: “Logan Marshall-Green (The Invitation, SFF 2015) is Grey, an old-school mechanic in a near-future where Artificial Intelligence does almost everything. After low-life scumbags murder his wife (Melanie Vallejo) and leave him paralysed, Grey is implanted with STEM, a miracle-performing microchip. Soon, he’s transformed into a super-warrior bent on revenge.
What the Critics say: “Upgrade is a pure adrenaline shot of sci-fi body horror thrills.” – Jonathan Barkan, Dread Central
Festival Cred: Winner of Midniters Audience Award at SXSW.
Key Player: Whannell’s crowd-pleasing credentials (the blockbuster Saw and Insidious franchises) 

PIERCING (Dir: Nicolas Pesce | 2017 | USA | 82 mins)
What the Program says: “Reed is a seemingly ordinary husband and father. Except for his uncontrollable urge to kill. On a ‘business trip’, Reed checks into a hotel and calls an escort service. His plan to murder sex worker Jackie turns out to be anything but straightforward. Pesce’s lusciously filmed adaptation of Ryū Murakami’s 1994 novel delves into the darkest domains of human nature.”
What the Critics say: “A psycho-sexual horror show which lifts the lid on the twisted urges of two very troubled characters. It's great, if grisly, fun.” – Wendy Ide, Screen International
Festival Cred: Rattled the IFFR crowds in Rotterdam in February
Key Player: Fearless lead actress Mia Wasikowska, and Pesce, hoping to capitalise on the critical love for his 2016 debut, The Eyes of My Mother. 

GOOD MANNERS (Dirs: Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas | 2017 | Brazil, France | 135 mins)
What the Program says: “Clara (Isabél Zuaa) is poor, black and unemployed. Against the odds, she lands a live-in nanny job in the posh São Paulo apartment of Ana (Marjorie Estiano), a pregnant white woman whose rich family have disowned her. As Ana’s delivery date approaches the women become lovers. But Ana has begun to act very strangely when the moon is full...”
What the Critics say: “An ambitious work not only in scope but design, influenced by Jacques Tourneur’s psychological horror noirs.” – Jay Weissberg, Variety
Festival Cred: Among the most lauded films at SFF 2018. In addition to Locarno’s Special Jury honour, it has trophies from Austin Fantastic Fest, Rio De Janeiro, Sitges, Torino LGBT Fest, Oslo, Biarritz and Buenos Aires.
Key Player: DOP Rui Poças and production designer Fernando Zuccolotto, who combine with other below-the-line talent to conjure a mesmerizing ambience.

Valdivia holds specific significance in the week ahead for Chilean horror fans determined to see local and global horror on the big screen. From Monday April 16, the city will stage the 15^th CineTerror Film Festival, a celebration of modern genre cinema that presents dark visions of the imagination from Asia, Europe and, of course, South America. The six-day event, comprising 14 features and three short film strands, will screen at the Lord Cochrane Theatre in the city centre.

“This year, our program of films are absolutely independent,” says CineTerror producer Nino Bernucci, “and we hope that audiences support this decision. We have sought films that are currently travelling the international film festival circuit, works that we believe represent the essence of what we are trying to achieve.”

Opening night honours have been bestowed upon Javier Attridge’s Wekufe The Origins of Evil (pictured, right; star Paula Figueroa), a locally-shot effort that explores the relationship between the high rates of sexual assaults in southern Chile and the mythical spirits that are said to inhabit the region. In a statement released by the festival organisers, Atteridge says, “I felt fascinated by this universe of myths and legends, stories told by our grandparents for generations. As I grew older I questioned the real origin of these stories.”

Equally challenging works across the 2018 program reinforce the belief that selection for CineTerror means the ‘horror’ in your horror film is legitimate. Also from Chile is Jorge Olguin's woodland-set chiller Gritos del Bosque; other works from Latin America include three features from Mexico - Juan de la Peña’s rural estate shocker Barrancas, the heightened pseudo-reality of Omar Jacobo’s La Puta es Ciega and the horror anthology México Bárbaro II (pictured, top); two Argentinian pics - the richly-coloured palette of the Giallo-inspired Mirada de Cristal, co-directed by Ezequiel Endelman and Leandro Montejano, and brothers Luciano and Nicolás Onetti’s Los Olvidados (a co-production with New Zealand); and, from Brazil, Samuel Galli’s demonic possession romp, Mal Nosso.

International works are flying in from France (Vincent Orst’s zom-com Le périple); Japan (Yoshihiro Nishimura’s mega-monster lark Tetsudon: The Kaiju Death Match); and Spain (Carles Jofre’s splatter epic Verano Rojo, bearing laurels from several festival triumphs including the Los Angeles Horror Competition).

Earning an honorary double-feature session at CineTerror is Indonesian genre master Joko Anwar. The prolific 42 year-old, who recently enjoyed blockbuster success in his homeland with Satan’s Slave, will be represented in Valdivia by his 2009 Puchon-honoured hit Pintu Terlarang (The Forbidden Door) and his blood-splattered 2012 jungle-set thriller Modus Anomali (Ritual).

The Closing Night film is the work of another local filmmaker made good, Chilean horror maestro Lucio A Rojas. His latest nightmare, Trauma (pictured, right), will screen to those brave enough to front a film that has been compared to Srdjan Spasojevic’s infamous A Serbian Film for its depiction of sexual violence and brutality in the service of political allegory (Screen Anarchy called it, “…one of the most savage and brutal horror films to debut in the recent era.”)

“It is not an easy film to watch,” understates Rojas, via the festival. “In fact, many of the crew could not watch it more than once, which may be how viewers react, too. We knew from the moment we wrote the script that it would be controversial.”

XV CINETERROR Festival Internacional de Cine de Terror de Valdivia is presented in conjunction with Corporacion Cultural Municipal Valdivia and Ilustre Municipalidad de Vadivia; it will run from April 16-21 at The Lord Cochrane Theatre. Tickets are available at the venue or via the events official website.

During it’s late 2017 pre-production period, the brother’s sci-fi/horror/comedy mash-up had the international horror community buzzing when it was announced Italian actress Monica Bellucci (L’appartement, 1996; Malèna, 2000;  Irréversible, 2002; The Passion of the Christ, 2004) would headline the Australian production, opposite local talent Ben O’Toole (Hacksaw Ridge, 2016) and Tess Haubrich (Alien: Covenant, 2017). (Pictured, below; Bellucci, as 'Finnegan', in conflict with 'Luther', played by David Wenham)

Although the shoot and plot details have been kept under wraps, a synopsis accompanies Screen NSW’s funding approval page: “Howard North, electronics genius, is dragged into a conflict between The Tribe - a family of powerful demon hunters, and Asgaroth - an evil demon possessing the world’s internet, assisted by his devil-worshipping corporate acolytes. Molly, a Tribeswoman and warrior, is desperate to destroy the demon and is sure that Howard has the right stuff to become a true hero. They must learn to work together to exorcise the fiend from the web and blow him back to Hell.” (Pictured, below; co-stars, l-r, Bob Savea as 'Rangi', and Ben O'Toole as 'Howard')

The production shot at Sydney’s largest soundstage facility, Fox Studios, located in the inner city suburb of Moore Park, as well as at various locations around the Harbour city. The local sector was rife with genre film production at the time of Nekromancer’s principal photography; director Abe Forsythe’s zom-rom-com Little Monsters, which imported international names Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther, 2018) and Josh Gad (Beauty and The Beast, 2017) to star opposite local talent, was also shooting at several Sydney locales. (Pictured, below; hero 'Howard' with, l-r, nekromancers 'Torquel', played by Tess Haubrich, and 'Molly', played by Caroline Ford)

DOP duties fell to the brother’s Wyrmwood lensman, Tim Nagle. Other key production duties were filled by top tier talent from the local sector, including line producer Sam Thompson; production designer Nicholas Dare (Down Under, 2016); composer Michael Lira (The Hunter, 2011); costume designer Xanthe Huebel (The Loved Ones, 2009; Ruben Guthrie, 2015); veteran casting director Nicki Barrett (Somersault, 2004; Australia, 2008; Mad Max Fury Road, 2015); concept artist Dane Hallett (Jupiter Ascending, 2015; Aquaman, 2018); and, 2^nd unit director James Chappell (director of the acclaimed short, Proceeds of Crime, 2017).

Nekromancer is a co-production between Hopscotch Features and the Roache-Turner’s Guerilla Films outfit; financing was sourced via Entertainment One (eOne), Screen Australia and Create NSW; eOne will partner with Sierra/Affinity for the international sales market.

SCREEN-SPACE: Before the narrative amps up into some truly nightmarish moments, you have a lot of fun with the target audience’s appreciation of familiar horror set-ups…  

SPIEL: Brad (Leigh Scully) and Ashley (Georgia Chara) play a young American couple travelling through the heartland of Germany when their car breaks down in the middle of the countryside, forcing them to find protection in an abandoned property nearby. But, once inside, they find it is the home of a dead Nazi and his deceased family. So they go through a far amount of torment from that point on. It goes deeper and we use a great deal more psychological elements to flesh out the story, but that’s a basic outline.

SCREEN-SPACE: As the chilling ‘Officer’, actor Andy McPhee brings to life a truly memorable screen villain. What inspired the creation of such evil personified?

SPIEL: When I set out to write the film, I thought hard about whom the antagonist should be. I am really quite fearful of military iconography, that sort of grand authority figures, and the most frightening of all those types are the German SS officers of World War 2. So I threw all the familiar aspects of that imagery into the mix and the villain and the narrative grew from there. We use war footage in the film, because I wanted to acknowledge that we understood and were deeply respectful of the horrors of that period. But this is not any type of political statement at all; we just set out to make a solidly entertaining horror film. (Pictured, right; Andy McPhee, as Officer, with Georgia Chara in Living Space).

SCREEN-SPACE: Is horror a passion of yours, or was there one-eye on the genre’s international sales potential when you were deciding on your debut feature?

SPIEL: Well, it’s both actually. I’ve always been very passionate about horror. It’s a genre I have always enjoyed watching and I think when anyone sets out to make a film they should strive to make a movie that they would also like to watch. The characters, the arc have to be something that I would find intriguing. It is as crucial to the writing of the story as it is to the watching of the finished film.

SCREEN-SPACE: I’m assuming the indie-horror budget didn’t stretch to shooting in Germany…

SPIEL: We shot in Geelong, in Victoria, over a 12-day period. We got the whole cast and crew accommodated in Geelong, somehow. All the aerial footage, the countryside, everything that you see in the film is regional Victoria doubling as Germany. I worked very closely with our cinematographer, Branco Grabovic, and the post-production colouring team, both researching the look and feel of the German landscape and applying that knowledge to the final colour grading on the film. Being an independent film, we couldn’t get everyone over to Germany, which would’ve been ideal (laughs) but I think we executed it pretty well. (Pictured, left; cinematographer Branco Grabovic, left, with his director)

SCREEN-SPACE: You’ve stated that you don’t really want Living Space labelled ‘Nazi-exploitation’, despite your clever use of the iconography. What are the genre films and filmmakers that have influenced the story and mood of Living Space?

SPIEL: One that immediately springs to mind is Christopher Smith’s Triangle, with Melissa George. It’s a fascinating film that is both structurally complex and very entertaining. I’d also say Scorsese’s Shutter Island. These are films that explore the darker corners of psychology, unfold as engrossing mysteries, and end with a twist of some kind. All of my short films have that twist in the end, some sort of development that catches audiences off guard, and they have all informed what I’ve done in Living Space.

LIVING SPACE will screen in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Geelong as part of the 2018 Monster Fest Travelling Sideshow. For venues, dates and session times, check the official Monster Fest website.

The Melbourne-based film society Cinemaniacs, long the champion of underappreciated genre works, launches a 2-day celebration of hags-cinema on January 12 under the moniker, ‘You’re A Vile, Sorry Little Bitch! A Celebration of Hagsploitation’. Four films that define the beautiful bravado of ‘Grand Dame Guignol’ will screen, programmed by passionate hags advocates Sally Christie and Lee Gambin. Of course, the Opening Night attraction could only be the spectacular 1962 psycho-thriller that dragged modern cinema kicking and screaming into the delirium of Hagsploitation… 

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (Director: Robert Aldrich; 1962)
Why is it HAGnificent? The majestic madness of Bette Davis, sparring with longtime industry rival Joan Crawford.
What is it about? In the 1920's, 6-year-old ‘Baby Jane’ Hudson was a huge vaudeville child star, her hit song “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy” defining her young stardom. Older sister, Blanche, having lived in Jane’s shadow most of her life, develops into a famous film actress in her own right, all while Baby Jane’s celebrity fades. At the height of her career, Blanche is crippled in an automobile accident for which the alcoholic Jane is thought responsible. As the years pass, the two sisters become virtual recluses in an old mansion, where a bitter and increasingly unhinged Jane cares for the helpless Blanche. When she learns Blanche is planning to sell the house and perhaps place her in a home, Jane plots a diabolical revenge.
CINEMANIACS says, “Along with Sunset Boulevard, it exposed the ugly underbelly of the throwaway machine that is Hollywood. It one of the most important horror films of the sixties and Bette Davis and Joan Crawford should be up on the genre’s mantle alongside the likes of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.”

STRAIT JACKET (Dir: William Castle; 1964)
Why is it HAGnificent? Having redefined her industry standing with …Baby Jane, Joan Crawford goes all in with some spectacular onscreen psychosis.
What is it about? With her 3 year-old daughter Carol looking on, Lucy Harbin offs her cheating husband with an axe. After twenty years locked in an asylum, Lucy is released and seeks out her daughter, now are famous sculptress with a loving beau. Carol wants her dowdy mother to look as she once did, persuading her to wear makeup, a wig and youthful clothing. But the horror of her upbringing soon begins to intrude on Carol’s new life, as it seems Mother is up to her old axe-wielding tricks when things don’t go her way. Yet, with that history of family violence, might Carol be playing a part in her mom’s re-emerging mania?
CINEMANIACS says, “Joan Crawford is on top of her game here, a performance that sings with nervous energy, relentless zeal and a “I will prove that I am the greatest and most hard working actress of the decade” vibe." 

THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK (Dir: Robert Altman; 1969)
Why is it HAGnificent? After a career of sweet, cherubic ingénues, Sandy Dennis finds fresh acting reserves as lonely, possessive spinster Frances Austen.
What is it about? A wealthy thirty-something spinster takes pity on a young man huddled in the rain on a park bench. Strangely attracted to him, she invites the young man into her home and pampers him as he listens to her incessant chatter. Her sexual advances are spurned, however, with Frances instead providing a young prostitute for her guest’s pleasure. But after locking the two in a room, Frances unleashes her twisted possessiveness in all its grim fury.
CINEMANIACS says, “In the grand cinematic tradition of ‘the psychotic woman and the kept man syndrome’, That Cold Day in The Park shares wonderful thematic and narrative constructs with Sunset Boulevard, The Beguiled and Misery. It focuses on a young woman as its ‘gorgon’, but we decided to screen the film to examine the concept of the ‘hag-to-be’”.

FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC (Dir: Jeffery Bloom; 1987)
Why is it HAGnificent? Having won an Oscar as one of cinema’s rare A-list hags, Nurse Ratched, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Louise Fletcher was primed for melodramatic hag infamy as ‘Grandmother’ in this adaptation of Victoria Andrew’s trashy family saga.
What is it about? When their father is killed, teenagers Cathy and Chris and young siblings Cory and Carrie are put in the care of their religious-zealot grandmother. Grandma has never approved of the kids' mother Corinne, who had the children with a blood relative, and her bitterness now extends to her grandkids. The four children are locked in their grandmother's attic, far from the view of their unforgiving grandfather, and begin a desperate life trying to cope with the cruel discipline and unforgiving matriarchy wrought by their nana.
CINEMANIACS says, “Relentlessly trashy and proud of it! Louise Fletcher came to represent stoic and unfeeling authority throughout her career. Flowers in The Attic permits her to overplay the monstrousness and she revels in doing so, with delectable and dedicated vehemence.”

'YOU'RE A VILE, SORRY LITTLE BITCH! A CELEBRATION OF HAGSPLOITATION' screens January 12-13 at Melbourne's Backlot Studios. Session and ticketing details can be found at the Cinemaniacs website and the venue.

SCREEN-SPACE: When did the mythology of The Swagman, Australia's most iconic bush figure, strike you as the inspiration for a horror film?

SCOTT: Ten years ago, I was working in the Macquarie Marshes as a research assistant.  I had been struck by the landscape’s filmic nature and that it was an Australian environment that audiences never see. I had a fair amount of discontent with how we manage our landscapes, which fed into the story process. From local level water resource management through to global level climate issues, you could say I was gripped by fatalistic sense of horror. [So] horror was the only genre in which the narrative symbolism would have the power and plasticity I desired. And the fact that it was a landscape of billabongs and Coolibah trees brought Waltzing Matilda to mind. Once those elements had come together the story took on a life of it’s own.

SCREEN-SPACE: You pull a skilful bait-&-switch on your audience; the film opens with familiar genre tropes but then begins to deconstruct its own reality. What influences and inspirations did you draw upon?

SCOTT: My observations of the difference between people’s perceptions of the world they inhabit and the reality helped form that structure. To capture that, I drew upon films such as The Cabin In The Woods, Deliverance, 12 Years A Slave, The Descent, Onibaba, The Shining, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Upstream Colour, Under the Skin, Walkabout and Sampson and Delilah. Also non-film sources such as the art of Alexis Rockman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Terra Incognita. (Pictured, above; the the three leads of The Marshes, on-set) 

SCREEN-SPACE: One way you defy horror traditions is by finding terror in broad daylight. What specific challenges did that hold?

SCOTT: Trying to create tension and horror without darkness meant we were relying more heavily on performance, pacing and psychology. Deliverance is a film that does this particularly well. Lighting was still an issue, of course. Giovanni (Lorusso, DOP) is experienced at shooting against the light, aided by Andy (Robertson, gaffer) who has decades of experience lighting in tricky locations, so he was able to create great images despite the limitations. Once the characters became lost in the reed beds I wanted the light to remain ‘mid-afternoon’ for the entire time they were lost. It reinforced that sense of being trapped in a maze-like timeless limbo. This added a scheduling headache for Elisa (Pascarel, 1^st AD); there was a lot of ‘cheating’ of shoot times to achieve this. Going into the grade I was hoping for enough latitude in the images for our post team to balance. Thanks to Giovanni’s skills, we were able to balance them. (Pictured, above; Mathew Cooper, left, and Sam Delich)

SCREEN-SPACE: The Marshes continues our strong cinematic tradition of being fearful of the 'The Bush', of city folk being at the mercy of the mysteries of this huge land. How did the location influence your storytelling?

SCOTT: It is common for directors to say that the location was one of the characters in the film, but this is only true when changing locations changes the story. This landscape is entwined in the story. The physical features of the land effect the movements and decisions of the characters. It provides both ‘Pria’s world and the socio-political context for the story. It also gave us a beautiful sort of eerie Australian gothic. Audiences have come to expect that when characters in an Australian movie drive inland that they will arrive in a dry red environment, so being in the marshes immediately confounds those expectations. In some ways, the story continues the cinematic tradition you refer to, but in other ways, less so; it is more about being at the mercy of the mysteries of the mind. I hope that different audiences view it in different ways.

SCREEN-SPACE: Does The Marshes further demonise country types? That the 'hillbilly horror' genre takes a condescending 'city-vs-country' approach?  

SCOTT: The fact that The Swagman is a 19th century symbol makes it harder for audiences to draw parallels between him and country people today. A character such as [Wolf Creek’s ]Mick Taylor looks and sounds like people you can find in any small town. What is unavoidable is the idea that the bush is full of monsters, but then so too is the human mind. What is so great about The Swagman is that he is deeply ingrained in the national psyche. Demonising The Swagman makes it more difficult for people to use him as a lazy stereotype to refer to the bush or country people or nationalism or any of the purposes for which he is invoked. I wanted to disrupt the familiar symbols and structures people use to think about these things, to challenge their perceptions. (Pictured, above; Scott directing actress Dafna Kronental)

SCREEN-SPACE: 'Pria' is an unconventional female horror lead; from the first scene, she's a strong, determined, intelligent woman that clearly won't be a victim easily. Tell us about creating her and what Dafna Kronental brings to the role?  

SCOTT: I spoke to a lot of women in science to develop a character formed by the wealth of her experience, providing her with particular strengths and weaknesses. I was cautioned a number of times to maintain her likability in a way that doesn’t happen for male characters. I needed a very knowledgeable person at the heart of the story that wasn’t fearful of the bush. Dafna brought her own strength and intelligence to ‘Pria’ and worked hard to define the character’s vulnerability, because her failings and vulnerability are just as important to the narrative arc as her strength. And Dafna showed great physical aptitude, performing as she did day after day in the waders, the reeds and the cloying mud. Just traversing that landscape was no mean feat, let alone performing too. (Pictured, above; Kronental, as Pria)

SCREEN-SPACE: The opportunity exists for your villain to spawn a new horror franchise; were you conscious of the 'origins' factor in your narrative? 

SCOTT: We actually joked about it a bit as we were making the film, about what The Swagman’s next “adventure” might be but there was no grand plan in terms of a franchise. Telling this story well was my primary concern.

Read our review of The MARSHES here.

THE MARSHES will have its World Premiere at A Night of Horror Film Festival. Ticket and session details are available at the event's official website)