GALA PRESENTATION:
(Passholders and Invite Only - Public screening on Oct. 30)
DIRECTOR LEE SOO-YEON IN PERSON!

THE UNINVITED
D. Lee Soo-yeon Korea 2003 123 min. 35mms
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"The Uninvited stands among the strongest paranormal films of the genre, its atmosphere humid with slow-burning tears and otherworldly pain...a richly textured masterpiece." (Mitch Davis, Fantasia Film Festival)

A young engineer on the verge of marrying his longtime fiancée falls asleep on the train one day after a particularly hectic day at work. When he wakes up with a jolt just in time for his stop, he notices two sleeping children further down the car, without an adult in sight. Disoriented, he does nothing but watch as the train speeds away, taking them to an unknown destination. The next day he reads in the paper that two little girls were found poisoned to death on a subway train. Consumed by visions of the dead children, he has difficulty working and sleeping, and his fiancée starts to worry about his inexplicable emotional distance. Her suspicions are aroused further when his chance meeting with a disturbed young woman becomes the catalyst for unearthing a horrible, repressed tragedy from his past. Jeon Ji-hyun (My Sassy Girl) delivers a powerful, almost ethereal performance as the woman, a young narcoleptic struggling to overcome an unspeakable trauma.

Lee Soo-yeon's haunting feature debut has drawn comparisons to Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now and Richard (Slade in Flame) Loncraine's Full Circle, and it is undeniably a ghost story of the same affecting calibre, punctuated by some of the most horrifying imagery you will see all year. And I'll warn you now: this film takes some figuring-out. Its odd structure has led some reviewers to dismiss it on the grounds that it is 'muddled' and 'confusing', while others reveled in its deliberate pacing and understated performances. An audience-divider like none I've seen in a while, I maintain that The Uninvited is the most breathtaking example of Asian horror to emerge in the last five years, a paroxysm of grief and an elegiac tale of ghosts -- supernatural and otherwise.
(Kier-La Janisse)

PRECEDED BY:
LA FIN DE NOTRE AMOUR
D. Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet Belgium 2004 35mm 10min
A ten-minute experimental giallo-singe of mutilation, touch and geometry. Told through animated still photography with intense red/blue lighting and packing a number of cringe-inducing images, Amour is the boldest work yet from CineMuerte favorites Forzani and Cattet. Love hurts and rejection is murder.
(Mitch Davis)

GUEST BIO: Korean director Lee Soo-yeon has already built a firm reputation at a whole range of international film festivals with remarkable short films such as Nobody Knows what Happened at the Beginning, Survival Game, Refrigerator Tale, La and The Goggles. A graduate from the Korean Academy of Fine Arts and the Film Studies Department of the Chung-Ang University, she won the Best Director Award at Sitges for The Uninvited.

HAIR HIGH
D. Bill Plympton USA 2004 80min. 35mm Unrated.
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"The man definitely has his own style and nobody can fuck with it. He's been smoking the weed that we've all been looking for since the dawn of time. Somehow he found it and his films are a result."
(Film Threat)

Oscar-nominee Bill (I Married a Strange Person) Plympton's latest animated feature may be his most ambitious and fully realized to date. An outrageous gothic myth from the 1950s, Hair High is the legend of Cherri and Spud, a teenage couple who are murdered on prom night and left for dead at the bottom of Echo Lake. Exactly one year later, their skeletal remains come back to life and return to the prom for revenge and their justly deserved crowns. A former cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Penthouse and Screw, as well as a longtime animator and documentarian, Plympton is known for his satirical wit and surrealistic animation style (and he hand draws every frame of these films, folks), but Hair High is probably his most cohesive and accessible narrative yet - while still eliciting the typically-Plympton gross-out groans and giggles we've come to know and love. With killer original music and an all-star voice cast - including David and Keith Carradine, Martha Plimpton, Dermott Mulroney, Tom Noonan, Beverly D'Angelo, Ed Begley Jr., Michael Showalter, and even fellow animators Don Hertzfeld and Matt Groening - Hair High is kind of like what you would get if you crossed Grease 2 with Night of the Creeps - but transformed through Plympton's unique talents into something altogether more original and fun.

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GUARD DOG
D. Bill Plympton USA 2004 5 min. 35mm Unrated
Why do dogs bark at such innocent creatures as pigeons and squirrels...what are they afraid of? This film answers that eternal question.

ONE HOT ROTTING ZOMBIE LOVE SONG
D. Christophe Davidson Canada 2004 17min. mini-DV
Jonas, a kind-hearted zombie, is sick and tired of killing and eating people. One night at the bar, upon reflection after eating someone's brains, he decides to become a vegetarian and pursue his dream of becoming a famous singer/songwriter. It's the feel good zombie movie of the year!

LONG WEEKEND
D. Colin Eggleston Australia 1978 92 min. 35mm Unrated
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"It combines the sun-drenched rugged terrain of Nic Roeg's WALKABOUT, the nagging ambiguity of Peter Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, and the unrelenting dread of Narciso Serrador's ISLAND OF THE DAMNED, into a truly unnerving experience."
(Mobius Home Video Forum)

One of the best and least-seen 'nature's revenge' movies, Long Weekend is an excellent launching point for an appreciation of the largely ignored Antipodean horror film. Written by Australian genre staples Colin Eggleston (Innocent Prey) and Everett De Roche (Patrick, Razorback, Roadgames). A bickering husband and wife decide to go for a peaceful beachside camping trip. Ever the outdoorsman, he has every camping gadget ever invented, and sets up a veritable fortress of tarps and bunson burners while she protests about the hotel amenities she would have preferred. Estranged from eachother and the environment they've just invaded with their loud, unwelcome presence, the two argue, litter, and indiscriminately chop down trees. "A meditation on the disconnectedness and alienation of modern life...both of them fail to interact with either their environment or each other in anything but a destructive way" (Tabula Rasa). But little do they know that the forest, the ocean and all the inhabitants therein are watching...and waiting. I'm not going to elaborate on the plot any further, but let me just say that the film is expertly paced, and builds up to a shocking climax. And a BIG thank you to Richard Brennan for allowing me access to an archival 35mm print of what I consider to be an unsung masterpiece of the genre.
(Kier-La Janisse)

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THERE'S SOMETHING OUT THERE
D. Brian Pulido USA 2003 16min. DVD
Life is going pretty well for Brad and Penny until Brad brings home a smiling garden gnome. According to legend, the gnome will protect their garden. But this gnome is different. From Chaos comics founder Brian Pulido, this modern spin on Trilogy of Terror's legendary Zuni fetish doll segment is a terrifying exercise in pint-sized mayhem. You will believe that gnomes can kill!

TOOLBOX MURDERS
D. Tobe Hooper USA 2004 95min.
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INTESTINE EATING CONTEST BEFORE THE FILM!
There is always something magical about historic Hollywood hotels. Virtually without exception, their walls bore witness to extravagances and excesses beyond imagination. That much can certainly be said of the Lusman Building, a dazzling art deco monument to the majestics, built in the 1940s, nearly bankrupted in modern times and currently being restored to its former glory. Barely able to afford its renovation costs, the Lusman has been forced to remain open throughout the work period, renting out rooms as apartments to anyone willing to sign up at the desk. Unfortunately, as walls begin to be knocked down and floorplans are rearranged, a darker and much less celebrated aspect of the hotel's history begins to resurface, rooted in the black arts and still very much a current event. It is an occult force that nobody wants to deal with , let alone acknowledge, but through a series of horrifically savage acts, it will make its presence known to even the staunchest of naysayers. The fluids in the Lusman's plumbing are about to turn a distinct shade of red, and more than a few drains will be clogged with hair, tooth and bone. With his seminal TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, Tobe Hooper reshaped every convention of the genre. Now, with THE TOOLBOX MURDERS, a film which, it must be said, is neither a remake nor a re-imagining of the 1976 grindhouse classic that shares its name, Hooper has delivered his nastiest, wittiest and most atmospheric film in well over 15 years; a blood-spattered old-school slasher film with bizarre mystical overtones. It also features a return to the gloriously baroque art direction stylings last seen in TCM 2 and LIFEFORCE. The sets in TOOLBOX are a fantastical sight to behold, perfectly suited to the film's extravagantly nightmarish tone. Add to this an intense lead performance by rising star Angela Bettis (who fronted both MAY and the CARRIE remake), wire-cutter tight direction and spectacularly anti-social uses of power tools and you've got a visceral cinematic experience that would make Bob Villa swallow an entire pharmacy.
(Mitch Davis)

PRECEDED BY:
THE CRYPT CLUB
D. Miguel Gallego Canada 2003 23 min. Super-16mm
A dark, cautionary tale of three teenage girls who drive a vintage hearse out to a deserted country cemetery for a midnight initiation that will challenge each girl's conscience with horrific results. Starring Allison Pill from Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen!

BLOODSHOTS FILMMAKING CONTEST SCREENING
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See the results of our first 48 hour filmmkaing contest. See what the results of making a film over one weekend look like. Celebrity judges include LYNN FERO (Vice President of Paramount Pictures) and EDWIN NEAL (the Hitchhiker from the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE). Prizes and more. Check out the Bloodshots site if you want to register.

GUSHER NO BINDS ME
(AKA Bottled Fools)
D. Hiroki Yamaguchi, Japan 2004 97 min. DV Unrated
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The surprise hot of this year's Fantasia Festival in Montreal, Gusher No Binds Me (translated as 'Bottled Fools') is the debut feature from young Japanese prodigy Hiroki Yamaguchi. Not since Vincenzo Natali's Cube have a meager budget and limited sets been so creatively employed. With a crew of student volunteers and a barrage of industrial scrap, Yamaguchi has created a striking and bleak future-world, and "conjured up a unique and intense vision of abstract, psychologically-charged sci-fi/horror" (Rupert Bottenberg). Set almost entirely in a transport elevator that shuttles citizens between towns stacked on top of one another, the film's oppressive paranoia is built-in and expertly utilized. When two policemen board the elevator with a pair of convicted homicidal rapists in tow, the stage is set for certain doom. The other passengers - a young mother, a sketchy scientist, a group of businessmen, a silent kid with massive headphones and a teenage schoolgirl who is haunted by a violent incident in her past - can't help but count down the floors between them and escape. They are understandably disturbed by the presence of the two prisoners, who are obviously deeply psychotic and seem capable of effortlessly overtaking their captors should they so choose. Which, of course, they do. When the elevator suddenly stalls and communication with the outside world is cut off, the accusations fly, the shackles drop, and utter bloody chaos ensues. With terrific sets, detailed characterization and outbursts of excessive violence, Gusher No Binds Me is an inspirational independent film.
(Kier-La Janisse)

PRECEDED BY:
EL CICLO
D. Victor Garcia Spain 2004 10min.
A naked, blood-soaked man throws a corpse into a dimly lit basement. The cadaver lands against another body and we realize that corpses are not exactly scarce here. Everything we see seems to suggest a pattern, a cycle. Just wait. Talk about a debut that demands to get noticed. This 10 minute dose of bravaura filmmaking stands two steps between Clive Barker and David Cronenberg, with stunning cinematography and editing, artery-crushing sound design and grotesque FX from DDT (Aftermath). (Mitch Davis)

SUBVERSIVE CINEMA presents
MILLIE PERKINS and MATT CIMBER IN PERSON!
THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA
D. Matt Cimber 1976 83min. Rated R
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Matt Cimber's The Witch Who Came From the Sea gives new meaning to the term 'psychosexual thriller'. A truly bizarre viewing experience, this is still an unsettling, disturbing film which sticks in the mind long after viewing. The plot follows Molly (Millie Perkins of The Shooting), a young woman who has a thing for picking up guys, having sex with them, then castrating them with a razor. As the film progresses, her mind disintegrates further, and some fantastically disturbing flashbacks attempt to explain her behaviour. The effectiveness of a film like this rests on the shoulders of its central character, and Millie Perkins is great as Molly. Throughout, she maintains a certain sense of innocence, and although the viewer never really sympathizes with her, the character never degenerates into psychotic farce. The Witch... is a very graphic film, and there are several razor blade sequences guaranteed to make male viewers squirm. The effects are pretty convincing, and the killings are made all the more effective by Perkins' apparent indifference to her victims' suffering. Interestingly, Perkins may be recognizable to some as having played the title role in The Diary of Anne Frank, though of course with a great deal less nudity and screaming.
(Beggar James)
PRECEDED BY:
WHO KILLED TARGET 1967?
D. Angie Kwong Canada 2003 11min.
A sci-fi requiem for Jean-Luc Godard's star actress and muse, Anna Karina. Drawing on the myths of Frankenstein and Narcissus, the film sets out to deconstruct contemporary cinema's voyeuristic obsession with female beauty.

GUEST BIO: MATT CIMBER - Matt Cimber is a drive-in legend. He directed the classics Single Room: Furnished, Candy Tangerine Man, The Black Six and Hundra, won a Golden Raspberry for Butterfly with Pia Zadora, and created the notorious Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. He's also the finest director who was ever married to Jayne Mansfield. In the words of one of his cinematic ladies of leisure, he's a sweet mack.

GUEST BIO: MILLIE PERKINS - Teenaged model Millie Perkins was brought to Hollywood in a torrent of publicity when she was selected over hundreds of other applicants to play the starring role in George Stevens' The Diary of Anne Frank, which would remain the most mainstream film of her career. She turned to independents with Monte Hellman's Ride the Whirlwind (1965) and The Shooting (1967), Wild in the Streets (1968), which was scripted by her second husband, Robert Thom (her first was Corman regular Dean Stockwell), and would rejoin Hellman and co-star Warren Oates for Cockfighter in 1974. While she has continued working continuously, The Witch Who Came From the Sea is her most extreme role to date.