Richard Gordon and The Ask return to Manchester

This year's Festival of Fantastic Films looks set to be one of the best because there are some wonderful guests lined up. Dear old Richard Gordon (whom I interviewed for Video Watchdog many years ago) was a regular attendee but had had to miss the last few Festivals. This year, he's flying over from New York and will be signing copies of Tom Weaver's new book about his work.

And - The Ask is back! Robin Askwith (who worked with Richard on Tower of Evil and Horror Hospital) was the life of the party when he attended a few years ago and should be just as much fun this time.

Plus - Norman J Warren! David McGillivray! Darren Nesbitt! Derek Fowlds! Renee Glynne! CP Lee! Johnny Legend!

The festival runs 21st-23rd October in Manchester. See you there!

Langliena online

Emiliano Ranzani writes: "After several requests (and having discovered that the thing had also ended up in the pirate circuit!), I have decided to upload my multi-award winning short LANGLIENA - UNA STORIA MACABRA on both youtube and vimeo. Described by cult horror master Stuart Gordon as 'an impressive debut', it is an humble yet nasty piece of fiction that has given me some joy through the years."

HGL and JDW join forces - uh-oh!

The Uh-Oh Show is the new film from Herschell Gordon Lewis (who I interviewed for Video Watchdog a few years back), featuring Joel D Wynkoop and with a cameo by Lloyd Kaufman. It's about a violent, gory game show and is available for pre-order on Amazon. There's a Facebook thing apparently.

Theatre Bizarre link with Langliena

I've been hearing good things about The Theatre Bizarre, a new multi-director anthology created by David Gregory and starring Udo Kier. What I didn't realise was that the Richard Stanley segment 'The Mother of Toads' was co-written by Emiliano Ranzani, director of the great short film Langliena.

Emiliano also directed second unit on this segment, which apparently mostly involved shooting footage of toads!

Here's the trailer on Vimeo.

The Rig

The Rig comes to UK DVD on 8th August:

"As a hurricane rages outside, the small but experienced crew of a deep-sea oil drilling rig settles in to ride out the storm.  Isolated on the rig and a hundred miles from shore, their calm is short lived when a crew member goes missing and an extensive search proves futile.

"Slowly, they discover that a deadly creature is stalking the skeleton crew, eliminating them one by one.  Surrounded by nothing but raging ocean, their communication severed and no way off the rig, the roughnecks try to survive the stormy night with an unrelenting force of death hunting them down."

Directed by Peter Atencio and starring William Forsythe.

The Witches of Oz

This is a project that Leigh Scott mentioned a while back on the old Retromedia board, and it sounds great:

"A star-studded cast including Billy Boyd (Lord of the Rings), Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future), Sean Astin(Lord of the Rings) and Mia Sara (Legend) bring the much-loved magic of Oz into a modern day setting and the results are positively spellbinding.

"Dorothy Gale is a small-time author from Kansas who writes children's stories about Oz, a fantasy land that lies somewhere over the rainbow. When a New York agency offers to represent her books, Dorothy heads to the Big Apple and finds things are not what they seem... Although Dorothy has always believed that Oz was a fictional place created by her eccentric grandfather, strange happenings in New York soon prove that it's very real indeed! The inhabitants of Oz have come to our world to seek Dorothy's help in defeating the Wicked Witch of the West and her plans for global domination."

Scott previously directed a bunch of Asylum pictures including Transmorphers, Dragon and Pirates of Treasure Island. The Witches of Oz also features Jeffrey Combs and Lance Henriksen. The UK DVD is out on 8th August and runs a whopping four hours!

New trailers for Bane and Kill List

Bane is out on UK DVD this week and there's a new trailer on YouTube.

The DVD from Safecracker pictures includes an intro and a commentary by James Eaves, plus out-takes, deleted footage, a trailer and a Making Of.

There's also a trailer for new British horror Kill List available on YouTube. That's set for UK theatrical release on 2 September.

Unhappy Birthday

Oh sweet Lord Jesus! Oh Christ in Heaven! Oh Jesus Christ! Yes, it's a gay variant of The Wicker Man: Unhappy Birthday. Brilliant!

"UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY is the fictional story of three outsiders’ battles against the twisted morals of an antiquated community. Inspired by British cult classics such as THE WICKER MAN (1970) and HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR, UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY romps through themes of isolation and nature versus nurture with a knowing eye. Filmed entirely on location in Northumberland in the North East of England and on the stunning tidal island of Lindisfarne, UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY is led by a young British cast, including David Paisley (Holby City, Casualty) Jill Riddiford (Our Friends in the North), Christina De Vallee and Jonathan Keane, with a cameo by trash horror legend David McGillivray (House of Whipcord, Schizo)."


Could it get any better than that? How about that one of the two film-makers is a TV whose credits include Nigella's Kitchen and How Clean is Your House? How about that the preview screening (which I'll have to miss, alas) features a cast and crew Q&A hosted by Gok Wan?


You know, there are some films that you just have to see, and this looks like one of them. Here's the website. Here's the trailer on YouTube. Now cut some capers, man!

New review: Pickman's Muse

I've just posted a review of a new HP Lovecraft feature, Pickman's Muse which, despite the title, isn't based on 'Pickman's Model'.

Cowboys and ninjas and zombies and vampires

Left Films is releasing two great-looking movies next month in the UK. First up is Cowboys and Zombies which was originally called The Dead and the Damned but has been retitled to cash in on Cowboys and Aliens. Directed by Rene Perez, it stars David A Lockhart, Camille Montgomery and Rick Mora.

That's out on 1st August and three weeks later Left Films brings us Ninjas vs Vampires, Justin Timpane's sequel to his 2008 film - good grief - Ninjas vs Zombies. Later in the year Left Films (who previously handled sales on Colin) bring us eagerly awaited Doug Bradley-starring British horror Umbrage: The First Vampire, plus Aussie sci-fi/horror flick Alien Undead and - crikey - Blood Car.