12/10/2024

Horror Fuel

https://horrorfuel.com/2024/12/10/spoiler-free-reviews-pater-noster-and-the-mission-of-light-and-party-of-darkness-another-hole-in-the-head-film-festival/#google_vignette

Spoiler-Free Reviews: PATER NOSTER AND THE MISSION OF LIGHT and PARTY OF DARKNESS (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)

By Joseph Perry

Pater Noster and the Mission of Light (U.S., 2024)

Official festival synopsis: Max, a young record store clerk, stumbles upon a rare vinyl LP and is drawn into the world of a 1970s hippie commune. An invitation to the remnants of the cult and its unholy spawn leads to grave circumstances for Max and her friends. The film is being made by and for horror fans, and is described as having lots of practical effects and a great soundtrack.

Director Christoper Bickel has made a name for himself by delivering the lower-budget, independent exploitation films The Theta Girl (2017) and Bad Girls (2021), and now he is back with full-on fear-fare feature Pater Noster and the Mission of Light. To paraphrase an old proverb, “For want of a rare album and the money it’s worth, several lives will be lost.” When will these horror movie protagonists learn not to get involved with cults? Hopefully never, if you are a fright-fare fanatic, and Max (Adara Starr), her fellow record store employees, her ex-girlfriend, and a metal band’s drummer see to it that the trend of trusting lives with cult members continues to be a poor decision, indeed. Bickel also wrote, shot, scored, edited, and executive produced Pater Noster and the Mission of Light, doing a super job on all counts, getting nice work out of his sizable cast. Special Effects wizard Joe Castro and Special Effects Makeup Artists Lisa Ashworth, Hayden Bogan, and Sean Krumbholz deliver the ultra-gory goods. Even seasoned horror movie aficionados and gorehounds are sure to find the third act a wild, mind-boggling experience. Boasting a love for music as well as horror, Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is a truly unique experience.

Party of Darkness (U.S., 2024)

Official festival synopsis: A horror/comedy anthology featuring 8 stories from 8 directors! Scary movie night gets wild when a group of horror fanatics tell stories around the campfire while inadvertently discovering a succubus and summoning a demon.

Horror anthologies are always a gamble, especially ones that feel like random shorts have been thrown together to make a feature-length movie. I’m happy to report that Party of Darkness is not one of those. With Randy Van Dyke helming three segments and producing the other five installments, this collection feels truly cohesive. From creature features (including a practical effects monster design so obviously working within a limited budget that you have to love it) to demonic doings to maniacal killers and beyond — even a straight science fiction segment — Party of Darkness is a quality independent portmanteau offering. There’s plenty of humor on tap, most of which lands well, with some straight horror on offer, as well. The main cast members in the wraparound, which plays a major part in the overall scheme of things, provide solid, amusing performances for their likable characters. Fright-fare favorites such as Glenn Plummer, Felissa Rose, and Sean Whalen bring experienced acting chops to the project. Party of Darkness is a lot of fun, offering eeriness, laughs, and general what-the-hell-ery served up with chutzpah, verve, and an obvious love for independent horror filmmaking.

You can check out the trailer here.

12/7/2024

Richmond Review

Local Filmmaker Premiers ‘Upstage’ at Neighborhood Film Festival

BySunset Beaconon December 6, 2024 • ( Leave a comment )

By Klyde Java

https://richmondsunsetnews.com/2024/12/06/local-filmmaker-premiers-upstage-at-neighborhood-film-festival/

The latest short film from San Francisco State University student and Sunset District resident Sam Goldberg premiers at the Balboa Theatre as part of Another Hole In The Head Film Festival’s Strictly Local lineup on Dec. 7. Fellow students Lee Ivy Voisin and Julia Li helped produce the film in conjunction with the school’s professional cinematic society, Delta Kappa Alpha.

The 10-minute dramedy follows college freshman Lillian – played by Aaliyah Gilliard – who is tasked with organizing a dysfunctional theater show. The film’s title is a double entendre, referring to the stage position and the act of upstaging someone, taking the attention away from someone and orienting it towards one’s self.

Inspired by Goldberg’s own experience as a student theater manager in high school, he is familiar with the challenges the protagonist faces in the film. An incompetent teacher and pretentious kids were some of the annoyances Goldberg had to deal with.

“In high school, I had a theater teacher and he sucked,” he said. “I knew I wanted to base a character off of him. Every single character in [the film] is basically a caricature of a theater archetype,”

Though the initial idea was conceived more than a year ago, writing the screenplay took a brief one to two weeks. The film was shot in the spring of 2024 on the campus soundstage, while post-production took place throughout the summer.

Despite the typical barriers such as budgetary restrictions and technical difficulties, the production schedule wrapped swiftly on time.

Goldberg credits the crew for their talents, although this was the first film many of them have worked on.

The 21-year-old director was particularly satisfied with the work of co-editor Ava Austin and composer James Olson.

“It was a bunch of people’s first time doing their jobs in post and they crushed it,” Goldberg said.

When audiences leave the theater after seeing “Upstage,” Goldberg hopes that the short is a reminder that filmmaking can be fun for both viewer and creator.

“I just want people to have fun with films,” he said. “Student films especially are losing that joy of making a film. You can make a film just for the sake of it being fun and I think I had to relearn that.”

Another Hole in the Head Film Festival is screening at the Balboa and 4-Star theatres Dec. 1-25. For more information, visit https://holehead2024.eventive.org/welcome

12/6/2024

FOOTAGE FOREPLAY

#51 PETER HATCH (BALEFUL, DEFORMEDLUNCHBOX)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1qPGVjCGOxePmm7Nuwrdnw

Episode Description

On this week’s guest episode, the gang sat down with Peter Hatch and his brother Denman Hatch to discuss Deformed Lunchbox (a YouTube horror collective consisting of the Hatch brothers and their extended family of collaborators) and their new hybrid found footage movie Baleful, which will have a world premiere on December 13 at the Another Hole In The Head Film Festival in San Francisco, CA!

12/5/2024

The GOOD, The BAD, and The VERDICT (original article)

https://www.gbvreviews.com/2024/12/gbv-previews-another-hole-in-head-film.html

GBV Previews: Another Hole in the Head Film Festival Recommendations

Wednesday, December 04, 2024

San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head Film Festival is renowned for featuring unique cinematic offerings that range from the mind-blowing to the thought-provoking to the absurd, and beyond. This year’s edition runs December 1–25, at theaters and also On Demand via Eventive and live on Zoom for those who cannot attend the live screenings. For more information, visit https://www.ahith.com/

Following are some recommendations that Mike and Joseph have after early screening opportunities. Descriptions from Another Hole in the Head Film Festival’s website are in italics, followed by our verdicts on the movies.

They Call Her Death (U.S., 2024)

On the wild frontier of the American prairie, Molly Pray is on a bloody crusade against the criminal forces that have wronged her. She shows no mercy, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake on a mission that ultimately strikes at the heart of the American identity and the notion of manifest destiny. But for Molly Pray — who has the embodied specter of death on her side — this isn’t political. This is personal.

SHOT ENTIRELY ON 16MM FILM — UTILIZING EQUIPMENT FROM THE 1960’s FOR AN AUTHENTIC RETRO AESTHETIC AND FILMMAKING EXPERIENCE!

Joseph’s verdict: I had a blast with this throwback western/horror film, which had me smiling when my jaw hadn’t dropped to the floor, which happened often and suddenly! Writer/director Austin Snell’s indie force of nature instantly took me back to the heyday of regional films that screened at drive-in theaters.

Mike’s verdict: Snell’s compelling story of a widow seeking justice is a well crafted and blood-soaked throwback to the days of grindhouse and drive-in pictures. This horror-tinged western hides its low-budget well with skilled camera-work and interesting imagery. Sheri Rippel is excellent as the widow Molly Pray, bringing gravitas to her role that makes it easy to root for the violent anti-hero.

Itch! (U.S., 2024)

In this gripping survival tale, a horrific outbreak called the ITCH! transforms its victims into self-destructive shells. Jay, a widower grappling with grief, takes refuge in a seemingly safe department store with his estranged young daughter, Olivia. However, their sanctuary quickly becomes a nightmarish trap, revealing that danger lurks among them. As paranoia rises and the infection closes in, they must battle the outbreak and the darkness within themselves. With life-and-death decisions to make, they confront their fractured bond in a harrowing climax that challenges the true meaning of protection and love.

Joseph’s verdict: Bari Kang writes, directs, and stars in ITCH!, which boasts the feeling of 1970s/1980s lower budget horrors set and filmed in New York City (such as Alice, Sweet Alice and Basket Case). Kang performs his roles in front of and behind the camera admirably. He also balances the family drama, horror, and paranoia impressively, delivering a unique take on (spoiler redacted, because we don’t do those here!) fare calculated to make your skin crawl.

Mike’s verdict: ITCH! starts off full bore before pulling back and getting things set up as we see a father trying to deal with his daughter and the untimely passing of his wife and her mother. What seems like it might be a siege type of movie abruptly flips the script at the start of the second act and things take an unexpected turn for the father, daughter, and a handful of folks trapped in a NY city store.

Writer/director/star Kang does an admirable job at giving the film a 70’s aesthetic with some screen noise and camera shots evocative of films from that era, all of which adds to a successful and edge-of-the seat affair.

Abductee (U.S., 2024)

Abductee is a chilling "found footage" film set in the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. Terrifying in a way that few other horror films are, Abductee explores the bizarre and misunderstood world of alien abduction. Through a first person account, we come to know the fear and mental anguish that befalls a man as he attempts to unravel the mystery of what happens to him when he is alone in the middle of the night. Drew hasn't been sleeping very well. On numerous occasions he awakes suddenly, completely unable to move, a victim of a common, but terrifying disorder called Sleep Paralysis. After suffering from this condition for many years, Drew finally decides to take matters into his own hands and capture his nighttime episodes on video, in order to find out exactly what he is experiencing while he is frozen in his bed.

Joseph’s verdict: William Hopp’s feature film debut at the helm is impressive. He delivers a stirring, often chilling vision of the nightmarish situations that befall Drew Freeman (Dusty Sorg) and his sister Laurie (Virginia Newcomb) when Drew attempts to capture evidence that he is regularly being abducted by extraterrestrials. This blend of psychological thriller and science-fiction horror is driven by fine writing (from Hopp, Richard Meeker, and Ruth Palileo) including believable dialogue, and richly written characters brought to cinematic life thanks to the engaging performances of Sorg and Newcomb.

Mike’s verdict: Abductee successfully merges a traditional filming style with found-footage elements to create an engrossing film detailing a man’s abductions by aliens and his sister’s attempts at helping him prove his claims or discover a more palpable explanation for what has been plaguing him since his teenage years.

Sorg and Newcomb are great in their roles as brother and sister, expressing love for one another one moment while switching gears on a dime to attitudes that border on all-out anger. While certainly a film about extraterrestrials, there are also a lot of allegories laid out that paint a picture of mental instability and the toll it can take on families — a message that we’re thankfully seeing more of in recent years.

12/4/2024

A Fearful Four: A Quartet of Recommendations for Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

original article https://horrorfuel.com/2024/12/05/a-fearful-four-a-quartet-of-recommendations-for-another-hole-in-the-head-film-festival/

San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head Film Festival is well known for curating unique cinematic fare each year that ranges from the mind-boggling to the outrageous to the philisophical, and beyond. This year’s edition runs December 1–25, at theaters and also On Demand via Eventive and live on Zoom for those who cannot attend the live screenings. For more information, visit https://www.ahith.com/

Following are four films from the fest that are well worth a watch. Descriptions from Another Hole in the Head Film Festival’s website are in italics, followed by my thoughts on the movies.

Voidcaller

Several people with amnesia realize they may have been involved in something sinister on a cosmic scale.

Director Nils Alatalo’s decidedly weird black-and-white Swedish English-language indie headscratcher Voidcaller (2024) is the kind of film that you experience more than just watch. H.P. Lovecraft and David Lynch inspirations meet head on, as industrial noise and a fitting synthesizer score accompany the surreal cosmic horror on display.

Tie Die

When a series of mangled bodies begin appearing in the park, Ranger Jones (Lloyd Kaufman, President of Troma Entertainment and creator of the Toxic Avenger) and a state trooper (Joe Bob Briggs, Shudder’s The Last Drive In) are baffled by the attacks. It’s been a long time since a black bear has gone rabid in the park and never to this degree. The timing couldn’t be worse as the area is filling up with young musicians, hippies, and earth children. Can they stop the killings before things get worse, or will Ranger Jones miss the encore? Featuring an onslaught for the senses with psychedelic oscilloscopes, one of a kind practical effects, and musical performances by DELAIN (J.B. Tenney), TIE DIE ensures to leave you as breathless as the dead!

Writer/director/editor Morgan Miller’s freaky West Virginia-set horror comedy hearkens back to the heyday of regional filmmaking flavor often seen at drive-in theaters in the 1960s and 1970s. Tie Die serves up oddball fun without laying on the camp too thick, which I appreciate. I don’t want to give away too much, so suffice it to say that Tie Die boasts one of the more bizarre fear-fare villains in recent memory.

Dooba Dooba

Amna expected a relaxed night of babysitting but when she arrives, she learns that her ward is not only a sheltered sixteen year old girl who goes by Moony, but that she is being watched at all times by in-home security cameras. It quickly becomes apparent that Moony is unaccustomed to socializing and that she has a grave misunderstanding of the term friendship.

In my review published here for Nightmares Film Festival, I wrote “Horror film festivals are made for films like Dooba Dooba, and films like Dooba Dooba are made for horror film festivals. I felt uneasy from its opening moments, and after that, matters just got increasingly weirder . . . Writer/director Ehrland Hollingsworth crafts a film heavy on the unease and unshakable sense of dread. His use of video, archival footage, and presentation slides — edited in such a way as to hold viewers’ attention for fear of missing a quick visual — give the feeling that anything could pop up on the screen at any time, and whatever that is won’t be comforting.”

Decibel

When a struggling singer-songwriter gets the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a tech-obsessed music producer, her art and life are put in peril as she is forced to help create the perfect AI music algorithm.

In my review published here for FilmQuest, I wrote “Few creatives will argue against AI sapping the soul out of the various forms of art, and director Zac Locke explores that notion winningly in his science fiction/horror hybrid Decibel . . . Locke, working from a screenplay by Stephen Christensen and Matt Wise, crafts a thought-provoking genre film that boasts fine performances, impressive original songs written by Caitlin Scholl, and atmosphere to spare.”

12/2/2024

https://localnewsmatters.org/2024/12/02/pass-the-remote-gore-and-more-at-another-hole-in-the-head-sundance-winner-porcelain-wars/

Pass the Remote: Gore and more at Another Hole in the Head; Fleetwood Mac meets ‘Twin Peaks’

by Randy Myers, Bay City NewsDecember 2, 2024

Around this time every year, movie buffs suffer from serious sugar overload due to the abundance of extra-sweet cinematic holiday-themed confections available to stream. To restore a semblance of balance, the upstart 21st Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, a bloody good alternative to the gooey sentimentality, runs Dec. 6-17 at the Balboa and 4 Star theaters in San Francisco, with many selections streaming through Dec. 24. The fest is a grab bag of often gory genre gems. We jumped at the chance to check out a few.

For a full schedule and to purchase tickets, visit https://www.ahith.com/.

“I Voted”: An unspecified police activity locks down a disparate group of 14 voters and volunteers in a tense polling place during a volatile presidential election. Sound too plausible and relevant? Director Tyler Mann and co-screenwriter Rachel DeRouen’s slap-in-the-face premise doesn’t tap a frayed nerve; it stabs at it, showing how constant feuding in our polarized nation can lead to bloodshed. “I Voted” makes you question your own strident opinions and consider how outrage is crippling democracy today. A slow burner, the movie would have been more effective if it were trimmed a bit. Yet Mann and DeRouen pull no punches, particularly with a disheartening, explosive finale. Forget polls and analysis pieces—“I Voted” is both astute and observant, setting up stereotypes, then breaking them down. The large cast is uniformly good as well. This one’s a hot ticket. Unavailable to stream, it screens at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 17 at the 4 Star with the filmmakers slated to attend.

“Chainsaws Were Singing”: Irreverent, goofy and gory, this scrappy Estonian genre mashup is appealingly bonkers. Shot in 2013 and just now released, this cult-movie-in-the-making so unabashedly embraces its ridiculousness, you can’t help but become captivated by the buoyant insanity. It’s partly because filmmaker Sander Maran is in love with all the genres he’s skewering: musicals, slasher films, even romcoms. All are thrown into the blender for this boy-meets-girl-meets-serial-serial killer story about a suicidal guy (Karl Ives) falling for a potential romantic savior (Laura Niils) who gets abducted by a chainsaw-wielding maniac who breaks out in song. Though “Chainsaws Were Singing” is hit-or-miss sometimes in the comedy department, it cuts to the genre grain so well, you just won’t care. It screens at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 9 at the Balboa and is unavailable to stream.

“Fleetwood Peaks: A Visual Album”: Devout “Twin Peaks” and Fleetwood Mac fans won’t want to miss this weird but hypnotic experimental project that pairs images and scenes from David Lynch’s cult classic 1990s TV series with music and videos of the iconic rock band. The result hews surprisingly true to the surreal spirit and style of Lynch’s influential creation. And it cleverly mixes Angelo Badalamenti’s unique, evocative score—one of the best made for a TV show—with Fleetwood Mac tunes. Dan Noall’s 60-minute feature is indeed geared to fans; it casts quite the visual and auditory stoner-like spell. It screens at 7 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Balboa and streams.

“Evil Dead Live: Deadite the Halls”: Sam Raimi’s gonzo horror classic serves as the impetus for this live-onstage “special reimagining” of the undead splatterfest. In what’s certain to be a far cry from Christmas chestnuts such as “The Nutcracker,” lead protagonist Ash — slayer of the undead — tries to summon up the true spirit of Christmas. That I’ve gotta see! The production, co- presented with Dreams on the Rocks, is at 7 p.m. Dec. 4-7 and Dec. 18-21 at San Francisco’s Eclectic Box, 446 Valencia St. Tickets cost $35.

12/2/2024

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/12/02/head-in-a-hole-another-hole-in-the-head-film-festival

A guy gets a job watching a hole in psychological horror flick airing at upcoming film festival

Could a movie have a better title than ‘Head Like a Hole’ to screen at the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival?

by John Seal

I’m not sure where 2024 went, but here we are in December and time once again for the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival. This year’s festival (taking place in person and online between now and Christmas Day) includes perhaps the most appropriately titled film imaginable: Head Like a Hole, a slow burning Canadian psychological horror flick from filmmaker Stefan MacDonald-Labelle.

An ultra low-budget film (according to IMDb it only cost $10,000 to make, though I’m not sure whether those were US or Canadian dollars), Head Like a Hole punches well above its weight. Steve Kasan stars as Asher, a down on his luck working stiff whose badly overdue phone bill compels him to take the first job he’s offered: the task of watching and measuring a 15 centimeter hole in the wall for eight hours a day.

Hired by unctuous boss Emerson (Jeff McDonald, not the guy in Redd Kross) to watch ‘the anomaly’ (as Emerson refers to it), Asher must measure the hole every hour on the hour throughout his shift and make note of any changes. Unsurprisingly, months pass without anything changing, but Asher sticks with it because the pay is surprisingly good.

Shot in black and white, Head Like a Hole is nowhere near as boring as it sounds; to the contrary, it’s a captivating watch that doesn’t tip its hand until the film’s final ten minutes. I promise it’s way more fun than watching paint dry. Highly recommended!

Just as good is writer-director Mike Hayhurst’s And Through the Portal We Go, a Groundhog Day-style comedy about three members of a new age cult desperately trying to transcend to the next level via the titular glowing gateway. Unfortunately, the threesome (brilliantly depicted by Sarah Goeke, Joseph Lymous, and Taylor Dalton Curtis in hideous matching sweaters) find themselves stuck in a loop, as the portal takes them back to the start of their ‘final day’ over and over again.

Their journeys back and forth continue, and tempers begin to fray as the trio suspect each other of making subtle mistakes that are setting back their spiritual pilgrimage. The coffee was made incorrectly! The finger sandwiches should have been cut into squares, not triangles! That spot on the living room table needs a more thorough cleaning!

One generally doesn’t associate AHITH with subtle comedy, but And Through the Portal We Go is the proverbial exception that proves the rule. It’s very, very funny and (along with Head Like a Hole) a festival highlight.

If the term ‘unhinged mount’ means something to you, you should make time for Cover, perhaps the first philately-related thriller since Stanley Donen’s Charade in 1963. It’s the story of traveling stamp salesman Trevor (writer-director-producer Cameron Francis), who’s traveling to Cape Cod to sell five extremely valuable Sieger Covers to a wealthy collector. Things get complicated when a woman on the run from an abusive boyfriend begs him for a ride, and the film takes several tricksy and entertaining turns before arriving at is final destination.

Also worth a look: Angel of Light, a grim drama in which a used car salesman makes a deal with – if not the devil, a devil; and I’d Rather Be Turned Into Cat Food, which blends animation and puppetry into a cynical philosophical discussion trying to tease out the truth about life, love, and God.

12/1/2024

https://www.sfarts.org/event/21st-another-hole-in-the-head-film-festival-1UcE5DFV7Qy6Z8InbFy4kh

21st Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

By Sura Wood

Contributing Writer, Film

A ton of great new indie horror, science fiction, fantasy and genre films from around the world and around The Bay! San Francisco’s ‘Another Hole in the Head’ Film Festival is a cinematic excursion into the realms of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and assorted other genres. Screenings and performances will take place at the historic BALBOA and 4 STAR movie theaters as well as the live theater venue ECLECTIC BOX in San Francisco, CA. It will also take place On Demand via Eventive and live on Zoom for those who cannot attend the live screenings.

11/29/2024

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/a-hole-in-the-head-sf-19941892

An appreciation for Fleetwood Mac at San Francisco’s genre film festival

By Pam Grady

“Fleetwood Peaks” came to George Kaskanlian’s attention as just another submission to Another Hole in the Head festival’s 21st edition, unreeling first online before live events hosted in San Francisco theaters in December. The event’s founder breezed through it the first time he screened it, not paying much attention. But then he sat down with it to give it a real watch and found himself blown away by the mashup between the music of Fleetwood Mac and David Lynch’s eerie celebrated series “Twin Peaks.”

“I teared up a couple of times watching it, I don’t know why. Maybe because when I was younger, I used to watch ‘Twin Peaks,’ and I love Fleetwood Mac,” Kaskanlian told the Chronicle.

“‘Fleetwood Peaks’ just sucked me into this other thing. I was mesmerized.”

The visual album that screens Wednesday, Dec. 11, at the Balboa Theater as part of the festival’s run from Sunday, Dec. 1 through Christmas Day, is the work of British audio/visual artist Dan Noall. His medium is sampled material. Previous projects include “Jeanne Dielman: On / Off,” a video essay extracted from Chantal Akerman’s celebrated “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” and “Between Frames,” a found footage work constructed out of shots from Alfred Hitchcock movies.

“It only in the last five to eight years where I’ve decided that this is my specialty and something I should stick with and I think it came out of being some who enjoys tinkering with stuff in their own time and not necessarily having access to huge amounts of budget and huge amounts of resources to be able to film stuff,” Noall said of his style, speaking from his home in London.

The artist is interested in culture and in learning more about it. His work allows him to reinterpret and articulate ideas about culture. To Noall, his methods are an efficient way to work as a solo filmmaker that also allows him to express his ideas in ways both quasi-academic and quasi-artistic.

“Fleetwood Peaks” began as a birthday present for Noall’s partner, Kim. It was 2020 and the world was in lockdown. The couple couldn’t celebrate her birthday anywhere but at home and Noall wanted to do something special for her. Kim loves Fleetwood Mac and “Twin Peaks,” so he made her a short film, using a single song. But there were images stuck in Noall’s head and music in his ear that encouraged him to keep going until “Fleetwood Peaks” emerged as a full-blown visual album.

“Landslide,” “Rhiannon,” “Dreams” and “Go Your Own Way” are among the Fleetwood Mac songs that make their way into “Fleetwood Peaks,” Noall leaning largely into the songs of Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and Christine McVie for his soundtrack. For the visual element, he intertwines footage of the band performing with scenes and images drawn not just from Lynch’s original series but also the prequel film “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” and the 2017 series “Twin Peaks: The Return.”

In the world of “Fleetwood Peaks,” Fleetwood Mac and the “Twin Peaks’” characters exist simultaneously, sometimes apart, sometimes side by side, sometimes melding together with trippy, psychedelic images adding another layer of visual flair. At times, the Fleetwood Mac songs comment on the action in “Twin Peaks” and at others, they appear to be part of it. There are also moments where the band’s music and Angelo Badalamenti’s score seem to melt into one, although Noall admits there is a bit of sleight of hand involved.

“I spent a lot of time trying to trick the ear into thinking that they were really listening to the ‘Twin Peaks’ soundtrack, but a lot of it is things that I sort of re-built myself,” he said. “I spent a lot of time figuring out what sort of synthesizers and instruments and stuff were on the original ‘Twin Peaks’ soundtrack and emulating those to rebuild that sound from the ground up. I used that to create my own arrangements of the songs that weaved in bits of melodies from Fleetwood Mac. Then I had a lot more freedom to create moments where suddenly things click.”

Noall is a longtime “Twin Peaks” but while he liked Fleetwood Mac, he had never really given their songs a close listen. He found it fun to take a show that he loved and give it a new interpretation but mixing it with that music gave him a new appreciation of what Fleetwood Mac accomplished.

“The project really opened my eye to this amazing songwriting,” Noall said. “I feel now that I’ve sort of gotten under the hood of those songs a little bit, I have a new respect and admiration for them.”

As Kaskanlian prepares for the opening of the latest Another Hole in the Head, “Fleetwood Peaks” has become not just part of the festival but a constant companion.

“I’ve watched it three times a night,” he said. “I still don’t get sick of it. I’ll sing those songs throughout the whole day. The tunes at ‘Twin Peaks’ speeds, it’s beautiful.”

Pam Grady is a freelance writer.

11/28/2024

https://48hills.org/2024/11/screen-grabs-farewell-au-revoir-french-noir-hello-hole-in-the-head/

By Dennis Harvey (Read full article in the link above with links, trailers and stills)

Screen Grabs: Au revoir, French noir—hello, Hole in the Head

A flurry of femmes fatales bids adieu to 'The French Had a Name for It,' while horror Hole fest sees many more buckets of blood.

The long Thanksgiving weekend is a big one for moviegoing—people have time, inclination, and are carrying too much turkey weight to do anything more athletic—which this year will no doubt largely be devoted to newly arrived commercial behemoths Wicked, Gladiator II, Red One, and Moana 2. For grownups in search of something less soaked in Roman Coliseum blood than G-II, there are two of the year’s best movies, A Real Pain and Anora. (The very R-rated latter is not recommended as an outing for visiting Bible Belt relatives, however.)

It’s the 21st year for this SF indiefest offshoot, whose virtual elements will be accessible Sun/1 through Christmas Day. Among the tantalizing features available that way only (they won’t be publicly screened) are American Expendables, a documentary about North American Pictures, which cornered the US market in martial arts action flicks during the peak VHS era; “paranormal polyamorous romcom” Dead in Love; found-footage fright Abductee; live action-animation-puppetry whatsit I’d Rather Be Turned Into Cat Food, and Lovecraft adaptation Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep.

Also starting this Wed/4 with performances through Sat/21 is a theatrical component to the festival, Evil Dead: Live On Stage! (more info here). Its eight splattery performances at Eclectic Box on Valencia are sure to leave you laughing, and quite possibly in need of a laundromat.

The in-person onscreen part of Hole Head will take Fri/6 through Wed/18 at the Balboa and 4 Star Theaters—content that will generally not be available for streaming. Shorts are plentiful, including in 11 themed programs. There are also a number of revivals, starting with perennial Night of the Living Dead on Fri/6, George A. Romero’s original 1968 zombie classic this time accompanied live by Sleepbomb. Those golden days of watching what you probably shouldn’t have at home while the parents were away can be communally revisited via showings of franchise-starters Leprechaun (on VHS, Sat/7), The Toxic Avenger (uncut on 35mm, also Sat/7) and The Terminator (on 16mm Tues/10).

Fear not, there are lots of new features for those who prefer their horror/sci-fi/cult intake to be served fresh like sushi. Stepping outside those categories is the official closing night selection on the 18th of Martin O’Brien Between the Beats, a documentary flashback to the SF Bay Area rave scene of the early 1990s.

Other movies manage to combine an equal musical emphasis with genre narrative content. The indisputable highlight among them is Sander Maran’s Estonian musical comedy slasher saga Chainsaws Are Singing, a frequently hilarious heap of gory silliness much in the vein of Cannibal: The Musical. Tongue is at least partly in-cheek for Christopher Bickel’s Pater Noster and the Mission of Light, wherein the quest to locate a secretive hippie cult that once released psychedelic rock records turns out to be a very, very bad idea.

Not joking at all is Zac Locke’s Decibel, whose aspiring singer-songwriter heroine gets lured to a wealthy producer’s desert compound = where creativity, technology and control make an unholy alliance. Then there’s Dan Noel’s Fleetwood Peaks, an hour-long mashup “visual album” of elements from the cream of two crops: 1970s SoCal soft rock, and David Lynch’s shortlived TV sensation.

In our semi-kinda-not-really-post-COVID era, several new entries unsurprisingly deal with social isolation, whether the cause or result of madness. In Robert Dossa’s The Lonely Ones, a young couple realize that the world has inexplicably disappeared—only an inky blackness remains outside their apartment. Ehrland Hollingsworth’s Dooba Dooba finds a woman’s overnight babysitting gig taking some very disturbing turns. In Stefan MacDonald-Labell’s Head Like a Hole, a desperate man accepts another dubious job in a remote house, doing mind-numbing “research” watching a hole in a basement wall that never changes…until, of course, it does.

Denman Hatch’s Canadian Baleful, Nils Alatalo’s Swedish Voidcaller, and Brian & Laurence Avenet-Bradley’s US The Protos Experiment are all phantasmagorias of hallucinogenic harm, involving diverse people thinly connected by memory loss, alarming violence, and blurred lines between reality and fantasy. The threats are more tangible if likewise contagious in Bari Kang’s Itch!, a polished variation on your basic Night of the Living Dead premise, this time with refugees from a deadly (and un-deadly) plague hiding out in a big-city dollar store rather than a farmhouse. it gets ugly, natch. Still, that entrapment seems preferable to the one in Tyler Mann’s I Voted, where already-quarrelsome staff and citizens at a polling locale during a bitterly divisive election quickly turn on one another once the facility undergoes a temporary lockdown.

In a lighter vein, Mike Hayhurst’s And Through the Portal We Go puts the time-loop concept to clever use as the last three remaining members of a New Age religious cult try to “transcend” like their brethren—only to find themselves stuck in an eternal “be here now.” Broader yoks can be had from Austin Snell’s They Call Her Death, an over-the-top nod to Sixties spaghetti westerns and Seventies female-avenger exploitation epics. Party of Darkness has eight directors making a linked-anthology stab at horror spoofage a la Dude Bro Party Massacre III as some guys swap scary stories while spending the inevitably ill-fated weekend at a cabin in the woods.

For full info on Another Hole in the Head’s schedule, venues, tickets, and streaming options, go here.

11/27/2024

https://brokeassstuart.com/2024/11/27/ahith-film-festival-december/

By Peter Wong

SF’s Wildest Film Festival Is Back This December

Isn’t having a science fiction/horror/fantasy film festival in December aka Material Acquisition Madness Month tres crazy? Not really. Crazy (and stupid) is unwisely returning the spectacularly unqualified Orange Fascist Rapist to the White House. Compared to that, having this year’s Another Hole In The Head Film Festival (hereafter “AHITH”) in December is simply continuing a tradition.

This year, AHITH is now at age 21, old enough to have a drink at The Kilowatt after a Roxie Theater screening. That is, if the festival were being held in the Mission. Instead, this year’s edition runs from December 1-25, 2024 in person at the Balboa and 4-Star Theaters and also online as well. The latter option means that viewers exhausted from a day of making offerings to Mammon via buying stuff can use a night watching an AHITH offering to imagine horrible hideous deaths befalling the obnoxious people they encountered earlier in the day.

Sander Maran’s “Chainsaws Were Singing,” for example, would make a wonderful tension reliever after a day of fighting with aggressive people. It’s a love letter to exploitation cinema loaded with lots of comic violence and more than a few musical numbers. What’s more, this Estonian oddity has finally seen the light of day after 10 years in post-production.

For a different sort of labor-intensive film-making how about hand-drawn animation and live action puppetry put in the service of discussing existentialist philosophy? Don’t say “nah” until you take a look at Walter Santucci’s “I’d Rather Be Turned Into Cat Food,” which stars the voices of punk rock legends Jack Grisham and Keith Morris. AHITH calls the results “a strange confluence of ‘My Dinner With Andre,’ ‘Sid And Nancy,’ and ‘Sesame Street.’”

A far different sort of TV watching experience can be found in Senda Maud Bonnet’s short film “Turn It Off.” A woman fleeing an unknown menace seeks refuge by hiding in a house. The only occupant is a girl watching her TV…whose screen is showing the same film the viewers of Bonnet’s film are currently watching. Is there a connection between the on-screen events and what’s happening in the real world? And what happens if the TV gets turned off?

A supposedly easy baby-sitting job turns into something far more disturbing in Ehrland Hollingsworth’s found footage horror tale “Dooba Dooba.” Sitter Amna learns her charge is a 16-year-old girl named Moony, for whom such things as socializing or the nature of friendship are alien concepts. And why are the two of them constantly monitored by in-home security cameras? It’s safe to say Amna is unlikely to enjoy the answer.

A different but no less disturbing job in a home can be seen in Stefan MacDonald-Labelle’s outsider no-budget science fiction horror film “Head Like A Hole.” A man in dire financial straits is compelled to take a weird yet high-paying job. All the protagonist has to do is move into a home and measure the size of a hole in a basement wall to determine whether the hole’s growing. But as a still from the film shows, things get messy in more ways than one very quickly.

Quite a few more resources and a lot of help brought the 1940s-set Diana Grant and Jacob Pappo’s 3D/2D animated horror short “The MenHeim Clinic” to life. Paperboy Dadrian Hahn’s search for his missing brother Elias leads him to a clinic run by the renowned Dr. MenHeim. But finding out what’s going on soon puts the boy’s life in danger.

For those more interested in high body counts, why not try Austin Snell’s horror Western “They Call Her Death?” The titular “her” is one Molly Pray, who’s on a personal and very bloody vendetta across the American prairie against the criminal forces that screwed her over. But she’s not doing this alone, as the literal embodiment of Death is by her side. Shot on 16mm film using 1960s-era film equipment for that retro visual feel.

Speaking of things retro in nature, why not try an AHITH genre revival? “Night Of The Living Dead” gets a music score performed live by Sleepbomb. For those who haven’t seen George Romero’s O.G. zombie classic, it’s the tale of a group of strangers trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse under siege by a seemingly endless wave of murderous cannibalistic corpses. Can these strangers survive until an armed posse arrives to rescue them?

Two other genre classics are having 40th anniversary screenings. In Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s “The Toxic Avenger,” ordinary janitor Melvin gets dumped into a vat of radioactive toxic waste and is reborn as the titular superstrong seven-foot tall superhero of New Jersey. This 35mm screening will be uncut. Meanwhile, the James Cameron action classic “The Terminator” screening is on a 16mm print in excellent condition. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is supposedly fated to birth the future leader of the human resistance to the post-apocalyptic supercomputer tyrants. But the titular cyborg assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has been sent back in time to stop this event from happening. To allow history to proceed as expected, a lone warrior is sent to protect Connor. But how can you foil a near-indestructible killing machine?

A less well-known film by a major horror talent is Tobe Hooper’s “Toolbox Murders.” This film is a loose remake of the 1978 film “The Toolbox Murders.” Nell and Steven Barrows are new tenants at the Lusman Arms, a former luxury hotel undergoing renovations. However, something sinister is going on at the Lusman. There’s a mysterious ski-masked man in a balaclava murdering the other tenants. Nell is directed to rooms that don’t exist. And what connects the Lusman with a bizarre cult trying to mix science and magic?

For those who prefer their cultish behavior with a touch of comedy, try Mike Hayhurst’s offbeat “And Through The Portal We Go.” Katie, Craig, and Mikey are the last three members of a cult dedicated to perfecting its members so they can achieve spiritual transcendence. Now that they’ve completed their final duties, the trio can step through a portal and achieve their final goal. Except that when they do so, they find themselves starting the previous day over again. Why? Is it because they haven’t been following the cult’s teachings closely enough? Or do they need to learn more about themselves – and each other?

Renee A. Penaloza and Hitoshi Inoue’s music video “Life Is Too Short” may offer the familiar (but always welcome) message of enjoying every moment of life. But it’s hard to hate on this video too much given that it draws its visual style from the 1960s and 1970s and features people at different stages of life finding enjoyment in ways big and small.

Martin O’Brien documentary “Between The Beats” may be a late addition to the AHITH lineup. But it’s still a wildly entertaining portrait of the early days of San Francisco’ Rave dance scene of the early 1990s. The Balboa Theatre’s sound system may make the film’s music pop out better for those who don’t have a fancy soundbar for their home video set-up. However, in-person attendees should still bring their own “Vitamin E” pills.

What do you get when you mix together the music of Fleetwood Mac with David Lynch’s enigmatic classic “Twin Peaks?” The answer is Dan Noall’s visual album “Fleetwood Peaks,” which uses footage from Lynch’s TV series to reinterpret Fleetwood Mac’s music.

Where else but at an SF Indie Film Festival will you see a Danish tribute to Chinese horror films? The short film in question, Christoffer Sandau Schuricht’s “The Curse Of The Velvet Vampire,” concerns a pair of Chinese horror movie aficionados whose screening of the titular film goes off the rails when the film’s reality and the fans’ reality begins to merge. Other influences to be found in Schuricht’s short include 1970s giallos and Euro trash films as well as contemporary Korean films.

Instead of having dreams about sugar plum fairies, why not go for dreams about a worm-like creature with jagged teeth popping out of your chest? That’s one of the images to be found in Chad Ferrin’s H.P. Lovecraft adaptation “Unspeakable: Beyond The Wall Of Sleep.” It’s the story of renowned oneirologist Dr. Ambrose Lordon’s investigation of Arkham Asylum patient James Fhelleps. Supposedly, the patient is possessed by the personality of long vanished primitive man Joe Slater, who lived in the Catskill Mountains. But Dr. Lordon’s use of his Dream Machine to investigate Fhelleps’ dreams accidentally releases into the world an alien entity with world-destroying capabilities.

A different sort of nightmare can be found in the highly-charged election that forms the backdrop of Tyler Mann’s suspense tale “I Voted.” In Mann’s fictional setup, a polling location is forced into lockdown, trapping a group of strangers together. Talking to pass the time is one thing, but talking about politics turns out to be a great way of cranking up the interpersonal tensions dial.

Speaking of passionate people getting their panties in a bunch, DC or Marvel fanboys who hate superhero fiction acknowledging the existence of LGBT characters will loathe Tom Paul Martin’s short film “Where Are All The Gay Superheroes?” For the rest of us, it’s the story of two superheroes (Sterling and Meridian) who finally have a rare moment of downtime. But after their suits come off, their self-delusions also come off as well.

Eric Millikan’s experimental short “The Dance Of The Nain Rouge” concerns a Detroit folk legend whose dances foretell the oppressed successfully rebelling against their oppressors. This short film, video, soundtrack, and voiceover may have been made with a trained A.I. However, in keeping with the class warfare spirit of this piece, the hardware used was “a hacked-up second hand MacBook laptop.”

(For further information about the 21st AHITH and to order advance tickets, go here.)

11/07/2024

Exclusive: “THE PROTOS EXPERIMENT” sets festival debut, releases trailer

By MICHAEL GINGOLD

The sci-fi shocker will be unveiled next month.

Filmmaker Brian Avenet-Bradley sent along word that his new film THE PROTOS EXPERIMENT, which he directed with Laurence Avenet-Bradley and scripted with horror novelist Simon Clark, will have its festival premiere at San Francisco’s Another Hole In the Head on Saturday, December 14. The fest’s full schedule will be posted today at its official website. The latest genre feature from the creators of ECHOES OF FEAR, DARK REMAINS and others stars Anja Akstin, Fred Thomas Jr., Ricky Herrera, Trista Robinson, Corey Landis and Micheal Ferguson star. The synopsis: “Kyra and John wake in a strange prison… They’re not alone. They discover they are chained and are utterly vulnerable in the presence of nightmarish, prowling figures controlled by unseen captors. Soon, both are plunged into a terrifying and dangerous struggle where they can trust no one, not even their own fragmented memories. Somehow, they must evade the Protos and then escape their cruel master–or risk losing their minds forever.”

A novelization by Clark is now available; see details on that here. Go here for exclusive comments on the movie (under its original title PROTOS).