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Be prepared for mayhem, menace and monstrosity as this year’s FrightFest three-day event, housed at the iconic Glasgow Film Theatre, presents a curated programme of new features and shorts which showcases the vibrant mix of talented filmmakers currently bursting onto the genre scene. The programme includes four world premiere features, while the short film showcase – a regular fixture at Frightfest London taking place for the first time in Glasgow – highlights filmmakers exclusively from the UK and Ireland, including two from Scotland.

FrightFest kicks off in mind-bending style with a special screening of Psyche, directed by Stephon Stewart (Bigfoot County). This thought-provoking sci-fi thriller boasts a riveting performance by Sarah Ritter, as Mara, who, with the aid of a vintage 1980s computer, embarks on a surreal journey where nothing is as it seems. Stephen will be attending the screening.

FrightFest’s traditional two-day pass event kicks off on Friday 7 March...

Pigeon Shrine FrightFest returns to the Glasgow Film Festival from 6–8 March 2025, celebrating its 20th anniversary with a thrilling line-up of horror, fantasy, and sci-fi. Hosted at the iconic Glasgow Film Theatre, the three-day event is set to deliver world premieres, UK debuts, and an exciting showcase of rising talent, reaffirming its status as a cornerstone of genre cinema.

Over the years, FrightFest has established itself as a powerhouse for horror and fantasy filmmaking, playing a key role in launching the careers of visionary directors such as Neil Marshall and Eli Roth. This year’s edition continues that legacy, boasting four world premieres and a spotlight on fresh talent from the UK and Ireland through an exclusive short film showcase.

FrightFest co-director Alan Jones praised the Glasgow audience’s unique energy, calling them “vibrant and welcoming,” and expressed excitement about sharing this year’s dynamic programme. Featuring a blend of unsettling tales,...

The world premiere of David Luke Rees’ UK horror thrillerByThe Throat andPedro Kos’ feature debut In Our Blood are among the 11 features in the line-up for UK horror and fantasy festival Glasgow FrightFest.

It will take place as part of the Glasgow Film Festivall from March 6-8.

By The Throattells the story of a housekeeper who is haunted by evil forces and stars Patricia Allison, whose credits includeSex Education.

Further world premieres areAdam Marcus’ documentary Hearts Of Darkness: The Making Of The Final Friday;Jack Lawrence McHenry’s 1940sThe Doom Busters; andAndy Edwards’ version of the Brothers Grimm fairytale,Rumplestiltskin.

The stars are descending on Tuscany. Ethan Hawke, Paul Schrader, Matthew Modine and Swedish auteur Ruben Östlund will walk the red carpet at the Lucca Film Festival, the annual event held in the picturesque Tuscan town, home to old-fashioned merchants, tailors, jewelers and some of the best olive oil on the planet.

The Hollywood Reporter Roma will become the official International Media Partner of Lff this year, providing daily coverage throughout.

The Llff, which kicks off on Saturday and concludes on Sunday, Sept. 29, is the vision of fest director Nicola Borrelli, who places an emphasis on uncompromising, unconventional cinema.

Also attending is Italian cinema legend Pupi Avati, fresh from premiering his gothic horror film The American Backyard in Venice. Francesco Costabile, the writer of of Familia, will also be in Lucca, along with the film’s lead actor, Francesco Gheghi, who recently won best actor in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Fest.

She’s survived xenomorphs, busted ghosts, lived among the gorillas, and co-starred in the top-grossing blockbuster of all time — and soon she’ll have a Golden Lion. Screen icon Sigourney Weaver, whose stately grace and steely will have captivated filmgoers for nearly 50 years, will be awarded the Venice Film Festival‘s top honor for lifetime achievement at the event’s glamorous 81st opening ceremony. But first, the three-time Oscar nominee met the international press in Venice on Wednesday afternoon for a wide-ranging conversation about her career and the art of cinema.

Within the first five minutes of the sit-down, Weaver was brought to tears by a female journalist’s personal thank you for her pioneering performances as strong women characters — most notably, as the heroine Ripley in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic Alien — which shifted perceptions in the industry about the kinds of parts women could play and empowered female viewers everywhere.

Italy’s Minerva Pictures has boarded Giovanni Dota’s High Stakes – A Night on the Ward which plays in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori sidebar.

The Italian comedy is set in a Naples hospital and centres on two nurses who bet their Christmas vacation whether a desperately ill patient will survive the night.

The film stars Carlo Buccirosso and Lino Musella. It is produced through Italian International Film with Rai Cinema. I Wonder Pictures is handling Italian distribution.

It plays in the Venetian Nights section of the Giornate degli Autori.

Giovanni Dota worked as an assistant director on Gomorrah. His...

The Venice Film Festival is just over two weeks away, bringing starry talent back to the Lido in water taxis after a year off for many due to the strikes in 2023. The Biennale has unveiled its Conversations and Masterclasses lineup, with a richer program and in a new and larger (250 seats) location at the Match Point Arena, set up at the Tennis Club Venezia on the Lido.

Four Masterclasses will be held by directors and performers, including the actress Sigourney Weaver (recipient of the Golden Lion for Career) on Thursday, August, 29; filmmaker Peter Weir (Golden Lion for Career) on Sunday, September 1, and his 2003 film “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” also screens during the festival; actor/filmmaker Ethan Hawke on Monday, September 2; and Pupi Avati, director of closing night film “L’orto Americano” on Friday, September 6. All can be followed via live stream at labiennale.org.

Organized by Cartier,...

Venice Film Festival attendees will be treated to masterclasses from Ethan Hawke, Sigourney Weaver, Peter Weir and more.

As previously announced, both Weaver and Weir are receiving Golden Lion for Career Achievement awards at this year’s festival. Oscar-nominated actor Weaver is best known for her roles in the “Alien” and “Avatar” franchises, while retired director Weir has collected various accolades for his films like “Dead Poets Society,” “The Truman Show” and “Master and Commander.”

Hawke had his breakthrough performance in “Dead Poets Society,” and went on to star in Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy and “Boyhood” as well as Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed.” Also set to give a masterclass is director Pupi Avati, who helmed Venice’s closing film “L’orto Americano” and is also known for his horror films “The House With Laughing Windows” and “Zeder.”

Three conversations will also take place, organized by festival sponsor Cartier. These will comprise composer Nicola Piovani,...

The Venice Film Festival unveiled its lineup of master classes and conversations for 2024. Highlights include talks with triple Oscar-nominee Sigourney Weaver and Australian director Peter Weir, both of whom will receive honorary Golden Lion awards in Venice this year for lifetime achievement.

Actor-director Ethan Hawke and Italian filmmaker Pupi Avati will also give master classes at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.

Venice’s conversations series, organized in collaboration with Cartier, includes sit-downs with Richard Gere, Oscar-winning composer Nicola Piovani (Life Is Beautiful) and French director Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman).

The master classes will be held at the Match Point Arena at the Tennis Club Venezia across from the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido from Aug. 29 to Sept. 6. They kick off with Weaver’s master class Thursday, Aug 29 at 4:30 p.m. local time. Weir’s master class is at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1. Hawke’s at 10 a.

While we might still be on the fence about what is being described as a first-person shooter-type experience in Harmony Korine‘s Baby Invasion, but the Venice Film Festival’s Out of Competition section lineup could be just as daring as the films selected for the competition. We have established filmmakers giving another go at it from Pupi Avati‘s gothic-friendly L’Orto Americano to Claude Lelouch‘s latest feature which caps off a trilogy in Finalement, and then we have a burst of Asian cinema auteurs from Kurosawa Kiyoshi in Cloud to a just over one hour narrative from Takeshi Kitano in Broken Rage to Lav Diaz once again testing our patience with the over four hour journey in Phantosmia.…...

We’re just about five weeks away from the opening of the 81st Venice International Film Festival, the oldest such celebration of international cinema and the official kickoff to awards season in earnest. A gondola loaded with news about this year’s titles washed up on our shores this morning, and this year’s competition slate is packed.

It’s no surprise that Todd Phillips will bring his “Joker” sequel, “Joker: Folie à Deux,” back to the late-summer Italian event. The first dark comic book film won the top prize there in 2019, slapping a huge international halo on it released to the public, eventually netting Joaquin Phoenix the Best Actor Oscar, as well as a Best Original Score trophy for Hildur Guðnadóttir and nine other nominations, including Best Picture. The sequel, which was not a foregone conclusion when the first movie was made, but a Mack truck of Warner Bros....

Just a day after New York Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival made major announcements, Venice Film Festival is here with their full lineup ahead of the festival taking place August 28 through September 7.

Highlights include Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud, Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements, Harmony Korine’s Baby Invasion, Pablo Larraín’s Maria, Takeshi Kitano’s Broken Rage, Errol Morris’ Separated, Lav Diaz’s Phantosmia, Thomas Vinterberg’s Families Like Ours, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April, and more.

Check out the lineup below with a hat tip to Cineuropa.

Competition

The Room Next Door – Pedro Almodóvar

Campo di battaglia – Gianni Amelio

Leurs enfants après eux – Ludovic & Zoran Boukherma

The Brutalist – Brady Corbet

Jouer avec le feu – Delphine & Muriel Coulin

Vermiglio – Maura Delpero

Iddu (Sicilian Letters) – Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza

Queer – Luca Guadagnino

Love – Dag Johan Haugerud...

The lineup for the 81st Venice International Film Festival is here. Artistic director Alberto Barbera and Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco revealed the complete list of titles across sections early on Tuesday, July 23. Watch the live stream here or on YouTube.

Competition highlights included, as expected, Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie à Deux,” Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” with Angelina Jolie, Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” with Daniel Craig, and Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door.” Other gems in the lineup include “April,” from Georgian “Beginning” director Dea Kulumbegashvili; Brady Corbet’s “Fountainhead”-inspired epic “The Brutalist,” which runs a whopping 215 minutes and will present in 70mm; Aussie auteur Justin Kurzel’s thriller “The Order”; “Chevalier” director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Harvest” with Caleb Landry Jones; and Halina Reijn’s psychosexual thriller for A24, “Babygirl,” starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson.

Out of competition across series and features, there’s new work from Harmony Korine,...

Venice Film Festival has revealed the programme for its 81st edition, featuring a 21-strong Competition that includes new films from Todd Phillips, Pedro Almodovar, Luca Guadagino, Pablo Larrain, Brady Corbet and Justin Kurzel.

Scroll down for full line-up

The selection was unveiled by festival president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and artistic director Alberto Barbera. It marked Buttafuoco’s first time at the annual press conference, after replacing Roberto Cicutto in October 2023.

Further filmmakers in Competition include Wang Bing, Luis Ortega, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Dag Johan Haugerud, Athina Rachel Tsangari and Walter Salles.

The line-up also includes Jon Watt’s Wolfs, starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney,...

Exclusive: Following recent confirmation from Amazon MGM Studios and Lionsgate that A Simple Favor 2 is a go, the film has added seven new cast members: Elena Sofia Ricci, Michele Morrone (365 Days), Elizabeth Perkins (Minx), Alex Newell (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist), Taylor Ortega (Grand Death Lotto), Lorenzo de Moor, and Aparna Nancherla (The Drop).

While Nancherla reprises her role as Sona, all other roles are new and under wraps for now.

Deadline was first to report on the sequel two years ago, as stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively and director Paul Feig signed on to return. Others set to reprise include Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho, and Kelly McCormack.

Released by Lionsgate in 2018 to critical acclaim and more than $97 million at the worldwide box office, A Simple Favor is a mystery thriller that adapts the same-name novel by Darcey Bell. The first film introduces...

Italian actor Sandra Milo, known for memorable roles in Federico Fellini’s “8½” and “Juliet of the Spirits” as well as her work with Roberto Rossellini, died on Monday at her Rome home. She was 90.

News of Milo’s death was announced on social media by her daughters, Debora and Azzurra, and son Ciro, who said Milo died in her sleep on Monday morning.

Italian deputy culture minister Lucia Borgonzoni mourned the passing of Milo as the loss of a “protagonist of Italian cinema … a great, talented artist with an overwhelming charisma” and “the muse of great directors such as Federico Fellini who won the hearts of millions of Italians.”

Milo, whose work spanned several genres, made her big screen debut in 1955 alongside popular comic actor Alberto Sordi in Antonio Pietrangeli’s “Lo Scapolo” (“The Bachelor”). Other comedies followed such as “Totò in the Moon” (“Totò Nella Luna”), one of...

Equal numbers of Chinese and Japanese titles adorn the main competition section of the Toyo International Film Festival, which was announced on Wednesday – three each.

Among the Chinese films is “Snow Leopard,” the last feature by the late Pema Tseden, and “Dwelling by the West Lake,” directed by Gu Xiaogang, the surprisingly inexperienced joint recipient of this year’s Kurosawa Award.

The full competition with 15 titles, set to play between Oct. 23 and Nov. 1, includes the world premiere of Russian director Alexei German Jr.’s “Air” and Filipino director Sheron Dayoc’s “The Gospel of the Beast.”

The trio from Japan are: “(Ab)Normal Desire,” by Kishi Yoshiyuki; “A Foggy Paradise,” by Kotsijui Yohei; and “Who Were We,” by Tomina Tetsuya.

The festival’s gala selection appears designed for entertainment pleasure. In addition to the previously-announced “Perfect Days” and “Godzilla Minus One,” set as the festival’s opening and closing films,...

The advent of the horror genre was at a time when cinema was in its infancy, around the end of the 19th century, but some horror movies have withstood the test of time to be the scariest of all. With myriad popular, contemporary Gothic literature to draw its inspiration from – alongside a growing interest in the supernatural – horror was pioneered throughout the silent era by European filmmakers like Robert Wiene, F.W. Murnau, and Rupert Julian. The genre was revolutionized in the 1960s by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), which popularized psychological horror, while at the same time, low-budget indie horror flicks were on the rise, spearheaded by George A. Romero with his zombie film Night of the Living Dead (1968).

What was left of the 20th century saw a surge in popularity for the genre and increased Americanization. Slasher films with memorable villains became forever a part of popular culture, with new...

The title “Poker Face” suggests a droll, methodical cunning that unfortunately proves elusive everywhere else in Russell Crowe’s sophomore effort as writer-director. As handsomely produced as his first, 2014’s historical drama “The Water Diviner,” it offers an even more overstuffed narrative whose myriad elements barely have time to register before we arrive at a nearly 10-minute end credits crawl. This Australia-shot mix of intrigue, soap opera, thriller and tearjerker never quite gels, despite enough surface gloss and cast expertise to hold attention. Screen Media is releasing theatrically to a couple dozen U.S. screens this week and to digital formats on Nov. 22, with other territories following.

A prologue finds our protagonists as teenage besties in what looks like the late 1970s: five rural Aussie lads already obsessed with poker. After a swim in an idyllic quarry, they’re challenged to a game by a local bully, who naturally is enraged by his loss.

Italy’s Minerva Pictures has taken international sales on veteran director Pupi Avati’s Dante Alighieri biopic “Dante” starring Sergio Castellitto as the Florentine bard.

Minerva will be introducing “Dante” to buyers at the Venice Film Festival’s informal market and then at Rome’s Mia Market in October. Pic is set for release in Italy on Sept. 29 via Rai Cinema’s 01 Distribution.

Over the course of his long career, Avati has shot more than 40 films in a wide range of genres, including the cult horror pic “The House with Laughing Windows”; romancer “The Heart Is Elsewhere,” which went to Cannes; the biopic “Bix” about American trumpet player Bix Beiderbecke; psychological drama “Giovanna’s Father” with Alba Rohrwacher; and the 2019 thriller “Il Signor Diavolo,” to name a few.

Castellitto, an Italian A-lister who starred with Penelope Cruz in “Don’t Move,” which he also directed, plays the Renaissance poet during the...

In February, “Mission: Impossible 7” was forced to halt production in Italy days before its planned shoot in Venice, as the country contended with one of the highest coronavirus death rates in Europe.

Cut to September. The Venice Film Festival is the first top-tier fest physically taking place, and Tom Cruise is expected back in the lagoon city later this month to resume shooting, according to multiple sources.

The Paramount production is getting logistical support from Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, where “Mission: Impossible 7” currently has an operational office. And, barring complications, Cinecittà is gearing up for a boom.

At the iconic – and recently revamped – facilities outside the Italian capital, cameras resumed rolling in early July on high-end British TV series “Domina,” the Sky original looking at power of women in Ancient Rome, which had shut down production in early March.

This lavish period piece co-produced by Sky Studios with the U.

Italian state broadcaster Rai, the country’s long-time major film and TV industry driver, is seeking to placate concerns being voiced by the country’s producers as it navigates the coronavirus crisis amid mounting criticism and shrinking resources.

As the pandemic paralyzes the economy in Italy — which at present is suffering the world’s highest coronavirus death toll, at upwards of 16,500 — the mammoth pubcaster, which has more than 13,000 employees, has revealed that its long-gestating organizational overhaul and 2020 budget approval have been frozen.

Meanwhile, Rai’s ratings are oscillating as it scrambles to reprogram slots of its more than 20 channels amid appeals to provide the country’s captive audience in lockdown more “culture” and “quality” programming, as veteran film director Pupi Avati (“Il Signor Diavolo”) put it in a recent open letter to national daily Corriere della Sera.

In another appeal to Rai’s top management, last week Italy’s indie documentary producers org.

Well, we’ve officially made it to April, which means we’ve got more home media releases to look forward to as well. In terms of new horror headed to Blu-ray and DVD on Tuesday, Joe Begos’ badass siege flick Vfw arrives on both formats, and Jennifer Reeder’s Knives and Skin is coming home via a Blu/DVD combo release as well. If you’re in the mood for a mind-blowing Exorcist ripoff, be sure to pick up Arrow Video’s 2-Disc Special Edition release of Beyond the Door, and Terror Train is being shown some love this Tuesday with a brand new Blu-ray, too.

Other releases for April 7th include Supernatural (1933), Dead by Dawn, Reflections on the Living Dead, The Devil’s Fairground, Impact Event, and The Wind Walker.

Beyond the Door: 2-Disc Special Edition

Legendary filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose Tentacles and Piranha II sought to...

” Come on, you filthy pig-lick the vile whore’s vomit! “

Legendary filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose Tentacles and Piranha II sought to cash in on the killer fish craze spawned by Jaws, first hit pay dirt in 1974 with Beyond the Door – a gloriously bonkers riff on The Exorcist featuring Emmy Award-winning actress Juliet Mills and distinguished British actor Richard Johnson.

Set against the backdrop of San Francisco, Beyond the Door stars Mills as Jessica Barrett, a young mother who starts to develop strange behaviors whilst pregnant with her third child. Before you can say split pea soup , Jessica is displaying signs of full-blown demonic possession – complete with projectile vomiting and fully-rotating head! Could it be that she s carrying the child of the Antichrist himself?

Described as disgusting , scary trash and maddeningly inappropriate by film critic Robert Ebert and subject to a lawsuit by Warner Bros. (who claimed copyright infringement...

Arrow Video isn't joking around when it comes to their April Blu-ray releases, with an eclectic physical home media lineup that includes the beloved, the obscure, and one of the more buzzed-about indie films from last year's festival circuit.

In April, Arrow Video will release Beyond the Door, Why Don't You Just Die!, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, and The Wind on Blu-ray via Mvd Entertainment Group.

You can read the full release details below (including the new announcement of an illustrated collector’s booklet for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark), and to learn more, visit the links for the following Blu-rays:

Beyond the Door Why Don't You Just Die! Elvira: Mistress of the Dark The Wind

"Spring into April with Five Exciting New Releases from Arrow!

While the world faces difficult, uncertain times the small comforts like movies can mean so much more. Arrow knows this and has you...

Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art with Istituto Luce Cinecittà’s Camilla Cormanni, Alice Rohrwacher, and Alba Rohrwacher Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

At the Istituto Luce Cinecittà opening night reception for The Wonders: Alice and Alba Rohrwacher at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Julian Schnabel circulated through the crowd, Sony Pictures Classics Michael Barker chatted with Magari (If Only) director Ginevra Elkann and Rome Film Festival Artistic Director and Le Conversazioni founder Antonio Monda held court.

Alba Rohrwacher on Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders: “I can say it's my life, but from her point of view.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

There is only one actress linked to Gianni Zanasi’s Troppa Grazia (Lucia’s Grace); Giorgio Diritti’s L’Uomo Che Verrà (The Man Who Will Come); Luca Guadagnino’s Lo Sono L’Amore (I Am Love) and Part...

The 21st edition of the Neapolitan event is running from 23 September-1 October and will feature tributes to German film, to the New Wave movement and to new Spanish cinema. Nine days dedicated “to all things cinema”, involving upwards of 150 screenings, 30 close encounters with special guests and 5 competitions feeding into the Vesuvio Awards, not to mention a raft of other prizes geared towards ensuring greater visibility for first and second works... The 21st edition of the Napoli Film Festival kicks off today, 23 September, based this year at the Institut Français Napoli, with events also unspooling at the Instituto Cervantes, the Goethe-Institut Neapel and the Castel dell’Ovo. Until 1 October, the Neapolitan event directed by Mario Violini will play host to huge guests along the lines of Pupi Avati and Gianni Amelio, who will be handed the Lifetime Achievement Award; French director Benoît Jacquot, whose most recent...

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s Bulgarian family drama is screening in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema strand.

Urban Distribution has acquired French rights to Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s Bulgarian family drama The Father, which is screening in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema strand.

It won the Crystal Globe for best film at Karlovy Vary earlier this summer.

Wide has also sold Pupi Avati’s Italian horror title Il Signor Diavolo to Rocket Releasing for Russia and the Cis.

Cannes — Loic Magneron’s Paris-based Wide, a production-distribution boutique, has acquired international sales rights to “Il Signor Diavalo,” the latest -and 40th – feature from Italian horror icon Papi Avati,

Avati is best known for 1976’s “The House with Laughing Windows” and 1983’s “Zeder” which crowned him as a master of Italian giallo horror-thriller cinema.

Starring Gabriel Lo Giudice and Alessandro Haber, produced by Duea Films and Rai Cinema, and framed as a tribute to horror classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s, “Il Signor Daivalo” adapts Avati’s own novel. Set in 1950s Italy, it turns on a 14-year-old boy, Carlo, who kills Emilio, a special needs ward of the local priest. “Il Signor Diavalo” asks why. It receives a Cannes Film Market screening on Sunday.

A well-known sales agent, Wide has moved into production. It is bringing two own productions onto the Cannes market: “Negative Numbers,” which receives a private market screening,...

Italy’s top film organizations on Tuesday announced a concerted initiative to lure more local moviegoers into theaters during summer months, just as the country’s box office continues to plunge after a disastrous 2018.

The country’s motion picture association Anica, which comprises reps from the Hollywood majors as well as Italy’s distributors, producers and exhibitors said they are jointly launching a push to release more movies between May and August, when Italians traditionally hit the beach en masse.

The dearth of summer releases in the past has been known to cause a glut of releases the rest of the year and is considered a major local impediment to market growth.

Italian distributors’ chief Luigi Lonigro called the country’s 2019 summer lineup the “biggest ever,” noting that “the big [Hollywood] blockbusters will finally be released day and date with the main European territories, along with titles by major Italian and international directors.

Italian horror movie was originally called Zeder

The post Pupi Avati’s Revenge of the Dead Returns in October appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

Horror Channel are set to kick off 2017 in horrific style, with seven fearful film premieres in January alone! Premieres that include the UK TV premiere of Ted Geoghegan’s terrifyingly taut ghost story We Are Still Here, starring horror icon Barbara Crampton. There are also network premieres for Roman Polanski’s supernatural biblical puzzler The Ninth Gate, starring Johnny Depp and Daniel Stamm’s possession nightmare The Last Exorcism, produced by Eli Roth.

Horror Channel are also giving a UK TV premiere to Daniel Stamm’s intriguing remake of 13 Beloved, 13 Sins, starring Ron Perlman. Other UK TV firsts include Quilez’s Colombia-shot supernatural suspenser Out of the Dark; and Steve Wolsh’s monster mayhem thriller Muck. Lluis David Brooks’ siege thriller Atm also debuts on Horror, receiving its Network premiere on January 20th.

Fri 8 Jan @ 22:55 – Muck (2015) * UK TV Premiere*

After escaping from a possessed ancient burial ground underneath the Cape Cod marshes,...

"It's showtime, Daily Deaders, Betelgeuse, here. You know what you could do for me, well, besides saying my name three times, is, uh, check out these photos of my Cavity Colors shirt at the top of this Horror Highlights thing." Okay, that was weird... seems like Betelgeuse somehow took over for a hot second. We're all good now! Readers can also look forward to details on the Demons 2 screening in NYC and Film4 and All 4's Fright Bites short films.

Cavity Colors' Beetlejuice-Inspired Bio-Exorcist Shirts: From Cavity Colors: "Our newest *limited edition* clothing release arrives! We've teamed up with artist Kyle Hotz (@kylehotzcomics) to re-create everyone's favorite cartoon Bio-Exorcist, but in a gloriously grotesque and spooky manner for Halloween! I did the colors, and he did the linework. Set those reminders! These are limited to 300 only, on T-shirts, Tanktops, and Crewneck Sweatshirts! Once it's gone, it's gone forever!"

To...

While horror films have been dominated by American directors and films, most casual horror fans seem to forget that some of the most unique, frightening and innovative horror films spawned from countries other than the Us. Italy of course played a great part in this, bringing forth some of the most innovative directors. Started by Mario Bava (“Black Sabbath” 1963) and Riccardo Freda (“The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock” 1962) in the 60s, who inspired a list of great directors such as Dario Argento (“Profondo Rosso” 1975), Lucio Fulci (“The Beyond” 1981), Michele Soavi (“Deliria” 1987), Pupi Avati (“The House With the Laughing Windows” 1976), Lamberto Bava (“Demons” 1985) as well as the more exploitative cinema of Ruggero Deodato (“Cannibal Holocaust” 1980), Umberto Lenzi (“Cannibal Ferox” 1981)...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

This is the undubbed Italian trailer for Pupi Avati’s atmospheric pseudo-giallo, set in a small Southern Italian village. Though the film was never released theatrically in the Us, the advent of home video has opened up a whole new appreciation for such influential but generally unheralded genre films, only a fraction of which were seen outside Europe up until recently.

Special Mention: Dead Ringers

Directed by David Cronenberg

Written by David Cronenberg and Norman Snider

Canada, 1988

Genre: Thriller / Drama

Dead Ringers is one of David Cronenberg’s masterpieces, and Jeremy Irons gives the most highly accomplished performance of his entire career – times two. This is the story of Beverly and Elliot Mantle (both played by Irons), identical twins who, since birth, have been inseparable. Together, they work as gynecologists in their own clinic, and literally share everything between them, including the women they work and sleep with. Jealousy comes between the two when Beverly falls in love with a new patient and decides he no longer wants to share his lady friend with Elliot. The twins, who have always existed together as one, have trouble adapting and soon turn against one another. Unlike the director’s previous films, the biological horror in Dead Ringers is entirely conveyed through the psychological...

Special Mention: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Directed by Jim Sharman

Screenplay by Richard O’Brien and Jim Sharman

1975, USA

For the unfamiliar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the film adaptation of a popular musical stage production composed and written by Richard O’Brien, a struggling actor at the time who was best known for his performances in such musicals as Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. For O’Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was an homage to drive-in double features and science fiction B-movies of the fifties, and ironically, the film itself went on to become the ultimate midnight movie. To this day, screenings held in and around its anniversary as well as on Halloween sell out. It has never been pulled by 20th Century Fox from its original 1975 release, and it continues to play in cinemas four decades after its premiere, making it the longest-running theatrical release in film history.

Stars: Barbara Crampton, Andrew Sensenig, Lisa Marie, Larry Fessenden, Monte Markham | Written and Directed by Ted Geoghegan

As a kid growing up in the 80s there were only a handful of women who, at least for this young horror fan, could sell a film on their name alone. For T&A terror it was the likes of Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley; but for the real stuff, the truly horrorfying movies it was Barbara Crampton. To this day I will watch any film to which her name is attached, he presence in a movie, especially a horror movie, always elevates the production. Which is why We Are Still Here was pretty much a given at this years Frightfest!

But it’s not just the presence of Crampton that attracted me to this particular slice of New England horror.

Back in 2009, Ti West’s The House of the Devil...

We return with another edition of the Indie Spotlight, highlighting the recent independent horror news sent our way. Today’s feature includes a trailer for Bloodsucking Bastards, Phantasmagoria, and The Scarehouse, The Boston Horror Show lineup for 2015, Zombie with a Shotgun episode details, a Q&A with Ninjas vs Monsters director, Justin Timpane, and much more:

Bloodsucking Bastards Trailer and Premiere Details: “An Office Space meets Shaun of the Dead action-packed vampire comedy, Bloodsucking Bastards stars Fran Kranz as Evan Sanders, a dutiful and overworked employee stuck at a soul-killing corporation with his beautiful co-worker and girlfriend Amanda (Emma Fitzpatrick) and his slacker best friend Tim (Joey Kern). Evan’s world begins to crumble when Amanda dumps him and his boss Ted (Joel Murray) hands his coveted promotion to his nemesis Max (Pedro Pascal). When his officemates start going through disturbing changes and bodies begin to pile up, Evan must...

TwitchFilm has been given early access to the new international trailer for the horror anthology Phantasmagoria. It takes a minute to kick in and show some gore but it gives you a fair glance at each director's style. 3 shocking tales of horror that takes you beyond fear. With its typical Italian atmosphere and vintage photography, Phantasmagoria evokes the spirit of cult films directed by Mario Bava, Pupi Avati and also William Castle.The film has been selected for over 25 international film festivals around the World and will make a pit stop at NY Horror Show Filmfest this Saturday, January 17th. ...

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We return with another edition of the Indie Spotlight, highlighting the recent independent horror news sent our way. Today’s feature includes release details on Amnesiac, The Atticus Institute, and Alien Outpost, multiple trailers, premiere details for Head, and a Q&A with the founder of The Philip K. Dick Film Festival:

Amnesiac Distribution and Release Details: “Amnesiac tells the story of a man (Wes Bentley) who wakes up in bed suffering from memory loss after being in an accident, only to begin to suspect that his wife (Kate Bosworth) may not be his real wife. The web of lies and deceit deepen inside the house where he soon finds himself a prisoner.

XLrator Media has acquired North American distribution rights to the psychological thriller Amnesiac starring Kate Bosworth (Still Alice, Superman Returns) and Wes Bentley (The Hunger Games series, Interstellar). XLrator Media will release the film in Summer 2015 on its acclaimed “Macabre” genre label.

Sharon Stone's experience filming The Golden Boy was anything but. The Avati Brothers (consisting of director Pupi Avati and his producer Antonio Avati) claim the 56-year-old Basic Instinct star had some diva-like demands while shooting in Italy! Per the Hollywood Reporter, it was the film's director's idea for Stone to "an actress from the '90s who becomes a book editor."He "knew there are American actresses more capable than her," said Pupi, "but I wanted a film icon. Everyday on the set I was telling her: 'But do you realize that you are Sharon Stone because of that day when you crossed your legs?'" According to Pupi, his brother Antonio "asked me if I...

The Avati brothers aren't enchanted by Sharon Stone's attitude. Pupi and Antonio Avati — who worked with the actress on the upcoming film Golden Boy — are claiming that Stone was a difficult diva on set. The Italian filmmakers went into detail about her alleged outrageous demands during a recent press conference in Rome. Director Pupi Avati wrote the role of Ludovica, an actress-turned publisher, specifically for 56-year-old Stone. The brothers were surprised when she took the part, but not as shocked as when they met her [...]...

Sharon Stone’s Italian cinema debut hit theaters on Thursday — and the brothers behind the film are painting the American actress as a diva who was difficult to work with. The film, Golden Boy, comes from celebrated director Pupi Avati and his producer-brother Antonio Avati. Casting Stone for the low-budget film was a big win for the duo. In Golden Boy, Riccardo Scamarcio plays Davide, a copywriter whose father Ettore was a B-movie screenwriter. After his father dies in a car accident, Davide leaves his job, city and girlfriend Silvia, played by Cristiana Capotondi. He moves to

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Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time around for one reason: that is, the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. Enjoy!

Special Mention:

Outer Space

Written and directed by Peter Tscherkassky

Austria, 2000

Outer Space has gained a reputation over the years as being a key experimental film alongside the works of such legends as Stan Brakhage and Michael Snow. Horror buffs will recognise the actress in the short as Oscar nominee Barbara Hershey.

Hard at work on her latest project, Sharon Stone showed up on the set of “The Golden Boy” in Rome, Italy on Monday (July 22).

The “Casino” cutie looked lovely in a white blouse and black skirt as she sat on a park bench and conversed with her costars while the cameras rolled.

And at one point, Sharon leaned in for a flirty kiss with one of her younger, handsome Italian costars.

“The Golden Boy” (“Un Ragazzo D’Oro”) is written and directed by Pupi Avati and features actors like Riccardo Scamarcio, Cristiana Capotondi, and Giovanna Ralli.

By 1976, giallo cinema had already reached its peak, and different postwar paranoia icons increasingly replaced the black-gloved killers of the past. Coming off a co-screenwriting turn (uncredited) for Pier Paolo Pasolini's controversial masterpiece Salò, director Pupi Avati brought Italy's social and political unrest from the period to the countryside for his community terror tale, The House with the Laughing Windows. The filmmaker wanted to channel the pastoral, Catholic fears from his childhood for his low-budget horror film, but the influence of previous rural-set gialli like Sergio Martino's Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling are present. Avati introduces us to Stefano (Lino Capolicchio), who has been sent to an Italian village to restore a church fresco that depicts the death of Saint Sebastian — or so he thinks. A strange cast of characters greets him, including the mayor...

Versatile Italian actor known for her roles in Lina Wertmüller's films

Mariangela Melato, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 71, was one of Italy's most versatile and vivacious actresses, working in theatre and cinema with some of the leading directors of her time. She won international cult status for three films directed by Lina Wertmüller in which she co-starred with Giancarlo Giannini: The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973) and Swept Away (1974), in all of which the controversial Wertmüller mixed sex and politics. Melato had no qualms about submitting with great good humour to the sometimes humiliating situations and explicit dialogue inflicted on the two stars.

Those Wertmüller films made Melato well-known, but she liked to be recognised as an actor rather than a star. Born in Milan, she trained at the city's Brera Academy. One of the first companies to sign her up was that of the...

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.

****

Special Mention:

Shock Corridor

Directed by Samuel Fuller

Written by Samuel Fuller

1963, USA

Shock Corridor stars Peter Breck as Johnny Barrett, an ambitious reporter who wants to expose the killer at the local insane asylum. In order to solve the case, he must pretend to be insane so they have him committed. Once in the asylum, Barrett sets to work, interrogating the other patients and keeping a close eye on the staff.

Taken together, the above two cues underscore the opening 5 minutes of Pupi Avati's The House with the Laughing Windows (1976).

It’s a miracle that any movie would even have the guts to attempt an unironic shift between such irreconcilable emotional tones as these in under 30 seconds, but Avati's giallo sleeper classic is just that kind of miracle. The film's first cue accompanies the material perfectly. Visually, the opening title sequence is a punishingly blunt, unannounced salvo of graphic violence. Grainy, sepia-tinted, stuttering slo-mo photography obsesses over a bloodcurdling depiction of an aestheticized ritual torture. Though what else would you expect from Avati? He co-wrote Salò! Considering the intensity of these images, he was lucky to find a fittingly sadistic composer to compliment them. Amedeo Tommasi crafted a soundscape that is proportionally grisly to Avati’s titles, utilizing little more than a simple piano refrain, one repeatedly sampled scream, and...