Charlie “Charles” Sheen filming on the streets of Glasgow
Albert Pyun is the prolific director of films such as The Sword and the Sorcerer, Dollman, Cyborg, Brainsmasher…a Love Story, and the 1990 Captain America. Matchbox Cineclub once screened a film of his, called Radioactive Dreams, and he graciously recorded us a short and charming intro for it, on his phone. Pyun is a sweetheart and a total workhorse who’s made many, many films, mostly low budget or direct-to-video. He’s one of those guys who’s always working, often wherever budgets and sometimes tax credits take him. And in the summer of 1997, between a film called Mean Guns (starring Ice T and Christopher Lambert) and another called Sorcerers, he made a wee movie called Postmortem, AKA Obit, which was filmed in Glasgow.
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How many people know Charlie Sheen made a film in Glasgow? It’s been suggested he took the role in Postmortem to attempt to get more serious roles, and that might explain why he’s billed as “Charles” Sheen. But of the four films he made as Charles Sheen, one was directed by Bret Michaels, lead singer of Poison, and collectively they don’t make a persuasive case for that argument.
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Postmortem was filmed in Glasgow, but also set in Glasgow – unusual even now – with a mostly local supporting cast. Joining Charles was a just-pre-Rushmore Stephen McCole (later of Orphans, Neds and River City), Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot, Neds) and Ivana Milicevic, a Sarajevo-born actress with a flawless Scots-Irish-American-Yugoslavian accent. Here’s the blurb:
The only way to trap a serial killer is to know what he thinks, what he feels and… when he’ll strike again! James MacGregor (Charles Sheen) is a brilliant but burned-out forensic detective who travels to Scotland in a desperate attempt to put his life back together. However, his best-selling book detailing his experience tracking serial killers in the US brings him immediate and unwanted notoriety. When a woman’s body is found in his garden following a mysterious faxed obituary, MacGregor is unwillingly pulled into the investigation to find her killer. As more faxes are received and the brutal murders increase, can he track down the man responsible?
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It was filmed in around 10 days (maybe 9, maybe 11), and Sheen’s work was done in six. As Pyun has explained elsewhere, “Charlie really made Postmortem the success it was with his talent and heroism. He worked only six days and had to do eighteen to twenty pages and fifteen to sixteen scenes per day! Wow!” And if you work that hard, it’s understandable – predictable, even – if you need to blow off a little steam. So, one day, Charles clocked out and Charlie took the night off.
The resulting stramash reads like an odyssey – let’s call it the Charliad – across Greater Glasgow. Mr Sheen started in the infamous city centre club Archaos, enjoying a little cocaine while rubbing shoulders with Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne and other footballers spending a small fortune on VIP lounge drinks. It’s claimed Charlie also fell afoul of a number of prospective drug deals, leaving him wary enough of the locals to later look for the reassurance of a locally-purloined gun (the cocaine brain can house such contradictions).
Archaos’ VIP Sky Bar in 1998
Charlie and his minder left the club at 2am, taking a taxi to the Hilton in Anderston, where he was staying. Sheen, however, refused to disembark, despite the protestations of his guardian. The star was determined instead to patronise the West End nightclub Cleopatra’s (affectionately known as Clatty Pat’s, but most recently as Viper), but – alas – it was closed.
Eventually, Sheen persuaded his minder to accompany him back out into the night, instructing the cabbie to “take us to the hookers”. He tried and failed to pick up several prostitutes, who refused him either because he was too drunk or because his abusive reputation preceded him. Finally, one of the women he accosted, Lorraine Brown, agreed to go with him, but brought her boyfriend (and alleged pimp), Billy McGeachin along. Sheen gave Brown £300, with a promise of three times that if she could get him cocaine.
They drove on to Easterhouse (which Sheen decided looked “like the Bronx”), where McGeachin had primed a local drug dealer for their arrival. Unfortunately, McGeachin later recollected, he’d let slip who was coming. “They wanted to get Charlie out the taxi and tie him up,” he told the Daily Record. And, worse, there were no drugs. Brown and McGeachin, both addicts in need of the promised cash, ground £30 worth of speed into sugar from a bowl. “We acted fast,” McGeachin remembered, “because the guys in the house were building up the courage to go down and kidnap him.”
Back in the taxi, Charlie handed them a mix of currency amounting to around £4,000 in 2018 money. Charlie then asked McGeachin to get him a gun. Sheen explained he’d feel safer with one, while his bodyguard ruefully shook his head. According to Brown, Charlie “kept calling everyone ‘n****r’ and saying he didn’t care if he got shot, and didn’t take any ‘n****r shit’ from anyone.”
Sheen and his entourage then voyaged to a 24-hour shop on Argyle Street (the now-closed Mo’s), intending to buy baking powder, spoon and tinfoil to make crack. Thwarted, Charlie grabbed a packet of biscuits and walked the aisles eating them. Asked to pay, he reportedly retorted, “Where we come from, we kick the shit out of guys like you.” If you’re struggling for a visual, the taxi driver remembers Sheen wearing a green baseball cap and a Hawaiian shirt under a beige tweed jacket. They returned to the hotel.
What happened next is lost to history, though we can assume Charles was back in charge the next day, and production on Postmortem concluded without further incident.
❧
As a Hollywood film that lets Glasgow play itself (albeit with some imaginative geography), Postmortem remains a rare curiosity and completely enjoyable on its own terms. Albert Pyun is still making films, often taking on several crew roles at once, a vocation which helps offset his early onset dementia. Billy McGeachin, at last notice, was sober and a full-time carer. Lorraine Brown sadly died in 2002. Charlie…well, it’s very easy to find out what Charlie did next. He’s never returned to Scotland, though. Not yet.
One of these days… Scotland!! RT @TIParmy ~ forever wanting @charliesheen to tweet me ~
Tara Judah and Ti Singh bring their sell-out show to Cage-a-rama 2019
We are beyond thrilled to bring Going Full Cage, the extremely popular, sell-out event from Bristol’s Watershed, to Glasgow for Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged. In January, two of the UK’s foremost film experts will explore the phenomenon of Nicolas Cage and debate the case for and against the best/worst actor of our times.
Nicolas Cage has been nominated for more Razzies than he has Oscars (The Golden Raspberry Awards recognise the worst in film), and yet he remains an Academy Award winning actor, thanks to his outstanding performance in Leaving Las Vegas. But just how can one man be recognised by both the industry’s most esteemed and most mocking award ceremonies? As fascinating as he is baffling, who is this enigmatic man? Is he utterly brilliant – in on the joke – or is he an overrated actor taking whatever pay check comes his way?
Whatever your opinion, we can say for sure that this member of the Coppola clan has worked with both the best and the worst in the business. From the Coen Brothers to the Kaufmans, with David Lynch and Neil LaBute, Nic Cage has entertained cinema audiences for almost forty years. Famous for his outlandish purchases, including oddities as wide-ranging as a castle in Bath (where he used to live!) and an illegal dinosaur skull, it’s no wonder he’s earned a reputation for eccentricity.
Nic Cage super fans Tara Judah (Watershed Cinema Producer) and Timon Singh (Bristol Bad Film Club Founder), will be diving deep into the bottomless abyss of the enigma. Presenting their cases for and against his brilliance in back to back presentations with clips, quotes and context, before discussing and debating their findings. Join us on Saturday 5th January as Tara and Ti dare to go Full Cage.
Whether you’ve seen the best or the worst of his career, this session will equip you with the tools, anecdotes and arguments to understand the curious career and big screen allure of one of Hollywood’s most unconventional A-listers.
Tara Judah is Cinema Producer at Watershed in Bristol, and has worked in programming and editorial for the cinema’s archive, classic and repertory film festival, Cinema Rediscovered since its inception in 2016. Tara is also a freelance film critic and has contributed to Senses of Cinema, Desist Film, Monocle and Sight & Sound. Tara is a director on the board of trustees at one of the UK’s longest continuously operating cinemas, Curzon Cinema Clevedon. Tara’s favourite Nic Cage movie is Wild at Heart and her least favourite is City of Angels. (WHYYYY?) She especially loves it when Nic Cage sings.
Timon Singh is Campaign Managers for Film Hub South West and also runs Bristol Bad Film Club and Bristol Sunset Cinema in… well, Bristol. He has previously written for Den Of Geek UK and Cineworld Magazine and his first book Born To Be Bad: Talking to the greatest villains in action cinema is out now. Timon is also the writer/producer on the upcoming documentary film In Search of the Last Action Heroes. His favourite Nicolas Cage film is Wings of the Apache. His worst is the first Ghost Rider. At the least the sequel had the decency to go Full Cage…
Going Full Cage, Saturday 5th January 2019, CCA Glasgow, part of Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged. All tickets on sale via our online store, here.
Matchbox Cineclub present the UK premiere of Nicolas Cage’s newest film, Between Worlds, with director Maria Pulera in attendance
Nicolas Cage in Between Worlds (Maria Pulera, 2018)
Between Worlds is the film where Nicolas Cage makes love to women while reading aloud from a book entitled “Memories by Nicolas Cage”. That’s to say, it’s the perfect closing film for Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged, our second annual Nicolas Cage film festival. We’re delighted to welcome writer-director-producer Maria Pulera to present her film at Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, on Sunday 6th January, 2019.
Nicolas Cage is Joe, a man obsessed by the death of his wife and daughter. At a way station on a lonely highway, Joe meets Julie (Franka Potente), a spiritually gifted woman who enlists him in a desperate attempt to recover the lost soul of her comatose daughter, Billie (Penelope Mitchell).
The full Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged film programme features Mandy, Army of One, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The Wicker Man, Mom and Dad, Zandalee, Vampire’s Kiss, Wild At Heartand Between Worlds.
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Confirmed guests/contributors include: Maria Conchita Alonso (actor, Vampire’s Kiss, The Running Man, Predator 2), Skype Q&A; Lindsay Gibb (author, National Treasure: Nicolas Cage), video essay premiere; Barry Gifford (author, Wild At Heart, screenwriter, Lost Highway, Hotel Room), pre-recorded interview; Tara Judah (Bristol’s Watershed) and Ti Singh (Bristol Bad Film Club), Going Full Cage; Casper Kelly (Too Many Cooks) and Shane Morton (Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell), creators of Mandy‘s Cheddar Goblin sequence, Skype Q&A; Maria Pulera (director, Between Worlds), live Q&A; Brian Taylor (director, Mom and Dad, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Crank), Skype Q&A.
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Film experts Tara Judah and Ti Singh bring their sell-out Going Full Cage live event from Bristol’s Watershed on Saturday 5th January. Canadian Cage academician Lindsay Gibb will also premiere a brand-new and exclusive video essay at the festival.
With 11 Nicolas Cage films and events over three days, a counter-Cage cool-off area will be provided for those who need a break – this VHS “Hanks-a-rama” station will loop the reassuring presence of America’s Dad Tom Hanks throughout the festival weekend.
Local brewers Innis and Gunn sponsor Cage-a-rama for the first time this year. The annual Nicolas Cage Birthday Quiz will run on Sunday 6th, with prizes provided by Arrow Video and a huge pile of Cage merchandise up for grabs. A wide range of Cage-related publications and merchandise will also be on sale in the festival pop-up shop.
Cage-a-rama weekend pass holders get a personalised Blockbuster-style membership card. All tickets are on sale via our online store: matchboxcineclub.bigcartel.com.
31 of our favourite wonderfully weird horror films
We’re celebrating the run up to Halloween with some of our favourite odd and awesome horror films. Mostly we’re doing this on our Facebook page here, but we’ll update this post as we go too. We’d love to know your favourite weird horrors too – or what you think of ours…
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1/31 | DEAFULA (Peter Wechsberg, 1975)
A theology student finds himself turning into a vampire and hunting other students for their blood, in the first feature film produced in American Sign Language (or “Signscope”). Writer-director-actor Peter Wechsberg lost his hearing during Nazi Germany’s World War II bombing of London and had grown dissatisfied with his work as a videographer for a financial institution. His Deafula inexplicably incorporated a giant rubber nose, of which producer Gary Holstrom explained, “The deaf loved it, the hearing didn’t.” Read Cashiers du Cinemart’s interview with Holstrom here.
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2/31 | NEON MANIACS (Joseph Mangine, 1986)
“They’re the Neon Maniacs—an unstoppable, hideous incarnation of evil zombies terrorising the residents of San Francisco. ‘Neon,’ because they can only be seen in the dark; ‘Maniacs,’ because they kill at will!”
The Neon Maniacs include Ape, Archer, Axe, Decapitator, Doc, Juice, Mohawk, Punk Biker, Samurai Warrior, Slash, Soldier, Stringbean and Thing. They each, for some reason, have their own in-film tarot/trading card.
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3/31 | INKUBO (Leslie Stevens, 1966)
Marc, a soldier of pure heart, becomes the target of a beautiful demon who wants his soul.
Starring a pre-Star Trek William Shatner, Incubus is one of only two films produced entirely in the constructed language of Esperanto. At the premiere, a group of 50 to 100 Esperanto enthusiasts “screamed and laughed” at the actors’ poor pronunciation of the language. Once thought lost, the only remaining print was discovered in France in 1996. You can read more about Esperanto in cinema here.
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4/31 | VLČÍ BOUDA (Věra Chytilová, 1987)
AKA Wolf’s Hole or Wolf’s Lair, this is a science fiction horror hybrid in the vein of The Thing, from the director of Daisies (Sedmikrásky).
In an old mountain cottage called the Wolf’s Lair, 11 carefully selected teenagers participate in a skiing workshop. Tension and suspicion mount as the strange instructors insist that one of the 11 is an intruder…
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5/31 | PURA SANGRE (Luis Ospina, 1982)
An old, bedridden sugar tycoon, who communicates with the outside world by CCTV, consumes constant supplies of blood plasma from kidnapped and murdered children.
Pure Blood is a prime example of the Tropical Gothic genre, mainly associated with Colombian cinema of the 1980s. A flurry of productions were based in the country’s third largest city, Cali, where a very intense cinephile culture was flourishing. The most emblematic of these cinephile filmmakers were fans of Roger Corman as well as cinéma vérité documentarists, and part of a politically radical art scene.
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6/31 | ŞEYTAN (Metin Erksan, 1974)
A 12-year-old girl living with her mother in cozy Istanbul high society plays with a ouija board and becomes possessed by Satan himself. A troubled psychiatrist and an archaeologist become the girl’s only hope for salvation.
AKA Turkish Exorcist for obvious reasons, Erksan’s film is a classic remakesploitation in the bold shot-for-shot-copy category. William Friedkin’s original was banned in Turkey, so the filmmakers traveled to a London screening and transcribed the script. However, the audacious “theft” – Turkey actually had no copyright laws to speak of – belies the numerous ways Erksan (who won the Golden Bear in 1964) adapted The Exorcist to reflect Turkish culture.
Read more about Şeytan and other Turkish remakes here.
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7/31 | 狂った一頁 (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926)
A retired sailor becomes custodian at a mental hospital to be closer to his estranged wife, one of the patients at the facility. Their daughter is soon to be married, but the father’s fear and pain surrounding his wife’s mental state threaten the future happiness of the family.
Completely lost for 45 years, the print of Kurutta Ichipeij (A Page Of Madness) discovered in a rice bin in Kinugasa’s garden shed in 1972 was only 2/3 of the original print, which would also have screened with live narration and musical accompaniment.
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8/31 | PARENTS (Bob Balaban, 1989)
Meet the Laemles. Dad, Mom and little Michael…they’re the all-American family of 1954. With one small exception. Michael can’t figure out why they are eating leftovers every night, but he’s got a scary suspicion. Dad’s bringing home the bacon and a whole lot more!
Character actor Bob Balaban (a familiar face for Christopher Guest and Wes Anderson fans) made his directorial debut with this black comedy horror. Too strange and deadpan to go over commercially, its deliberate tone, pace and aesthetic help it linger in the corner of your mind, like a childhood nightmare.
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9/31 | A RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT (Larry Cohen, 1987)
A weird horror hiding in plain sight, this is so much more than a straight-to-video Stephen King sequel. For one thing, it has nothing at all to do with Stephen King, or even the original Salem’s Lot. What it does have is the unmistakeable Larry Cohen touch, since the writer-director created this “sequel” basically from scratch. The cast features some of Cohen’s signature players (particularly Michael Moriarty and James Dixon), a young Tara Reid and…Samuel fuckin’ Fuller, the iconic director playing a gun-toting Nazi/vampire hunter. Watch it for the Larry Cohen joint it is, and it’s 10/10.
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10/31 | BLOOD AND DONUTS (Holly Dale, 1995)
“There is a place between the living and the dead…and it’s open 24 hours.”
This comedy horror follows a vampire, napping since the Moon landing, who’s woken with a bump into 1990s Toronto. Eschewing human blood, he falls in with a donut shop waitress and a taxi driver needing protection from a Crime Boss (David Cronenberg!). Also his 1969 girlfriend is quickly on his trail…
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11/31 | BEGOTTEN (E Elias Merhige, 1990)
“A godlike thing dies giving birth to a quivering messiah thing; then the villager things ravage and bury them, and the earth renews itself on their corpses.”
The debut of writer/director Merhige, better known for directing Shadow of the Vampire (2000), and even better known for directing the music video for Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar (1996).
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12/31 | MIRROR MIRROR (Marina Sargenti, 1990)
“Megan (Rainbow Harvest) is experiencing the usual problems of adolescence, magnified by a change of home and school. Stranded and outcast, she retreats into a world of insecurities, craving a means of comfort and escape from the depths of her own fantasies. In her new home, the desolate and eerie Weatherworth House, Megan finds a curious-looking mirror, which entices her into a dream world where her imagination can stray. At first, the mirror seems magical, but once the innocence of her initial fascinations fade, it begins to take on a more sinister and evil dimension. Its power combines with her adolescent mind and sucks her into a nightmare from which she cannot escape!”
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13/31 | DUST DEVIL (Richard Stanley, 1992)
“He came from the beginning of time to take your soul.”
Writer-director Richard Stanley followed his debut, the 2000AD inspired Hardware, with this unsettling South Africa-set slasher arthouse folk horror. Dust Devil, described at the time as “Tarkovsky on acid”, spent just a week in cinemas before being released to home video. Stanley’s 2-hour cut had been brutalised by balking financiers down to just 87mins, leaving early audiences confused. Stanley’s Final Cut is now available, best resembling his original vision.
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14/31 | HOUSE (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)
“A schoolgirl travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home, only to come face to face with evil spirits, bloodthirsty pianos, and a demonic housecat.”
No weird horror countdown could possibly skip Nobuhiko Obayashi’s psychedelic, phantasmagoric, absurdist masterpiece, quite possibly the weirdest and best film ever made, any more than words could do it justice – just watch it, IMMEDIATELY.
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15/31 | SCREAMPLAY (Rufus Butler Seder, 1985)
“Aspiring screenwriter Edgar Allen’s best attribute is his wild imagination. He imagines scenes so vividly for the murder mystery he is writing that they seem to come to life…and they do! As mysterious murders pile up, Edgar Allen must confront ageing actresses, rock stars, and the police in the bleak setting of broken dreams in Hollywood.”
Shot in black and white, this budget weirdo comic-melodrama recollects Forbidden Zone in its expressionistic sets and John Paizs’ Crime Wave in its meta themes. Screamplay was a one-and-done from writer-director-star Seder, who also managed to recruit underground legend George Kuchar for a rare role outside his own productions.
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16/31 | THE MASK (Julian Roffman, 1961)
“After the shocking death of a disturbed patient, a psychiatrist comes into possession of the ancient tribal mask that supposedly drove the young man to his doom. When Barnes puts on the mask, he is assailed with nightmarish visions of monsters, occultists, and ritual torture. Believing that the mask has opened a portal to the deepest recesses of his mind, the doctor continues to explore this terrifying new psychic world – even as the mask reveals a latent violence in Barnes’ nature that threatens those closest to him.”
Canada’s first horror feature, a remarkable, surrealist black and white B-movie, that integrates its 3D elements into the narrative – when you heard “put the mask on NOW”, the film erupts into vivid abstraction.
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17/31 | MESSIAH OF EVIL (Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck, 1973)
“After receiving a series of chilling letters from her reclusive father, Arletty drives to the remote seaside town of Pointe Dune to discover the reason for her father’s developing madness. Upon her arrival, she encounters a mysterious trio of strangers investigating a local legend known as ‘The Blood Moon’, a curse that has transformed the inhabitants of the town into a terrifying horde of blood-thirsty maniacs!”
From the husband and wife team who wrote Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (and later directed Howard the Duck), this atmospheric showcase for the creeping uncanny was also released under the titles Return of the Living Dead, Revenge of the Screaming Dead, The Second Coming and Dead People.
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18/31 | THE KILLER SHREWS (Ray Kellogg, 1959)
“On a remote island Dr Marlowe Craigis has been performing well-meaning research using test animals. The doctor wishes to shrink humans to half their size in order to reduce world hunger, but unfortunately, his experiments have created mutant giant shrews that are now reproducing in the wild, growing larger and more voracious day-by-day.”
The Killer Shrews took fear of large rodents to a level which cinema had never reached before or has since. Limited in budget and ability, but not in imagination, the mutant shrews are simply dogs in costumes – but perhaps that only adds to the terror.
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19/31 | THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (Ken Russell, 1988)
“Peak District archaeologist Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi) unearths a mysterious skull, believed to be that of the legendary creature knows as the D’Ampton Worm. When a wealthy local recluse, the smouldering and sinister Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe) gets her hands on the skull all hell breaks loose. Soon the Derbyshire locals, including Lord of the Manor James D’Ampton (Hugh Grant) whose ancestors were said to have slain the mythical beast hundreds of years ago, come to realise that the D’Ampton Worm may be more than a legend after all.”
Uproariously funny, boldly experimental and genuinely shocking, The Lair of the White Worm is a bizarre, psychedelic masterpiece that defies categorisation.
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20/31| BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (Panos Cosmatos, 2010)
Held captive in a specialised medical facility, a young woman with unique abilities seeks a chance to escape her obsessed captor.
The debut of Mandy director Panos Cosmatos. Set in the strange and oppressive emotional landscape of the year 1983, Beyond The Black Rainbow is a Reagan-era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons.
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21/31 | THE WITCH (Robert Eggers, 2016)
New England, 1630. Upon threat of banishment by the church, an English farmer leaves his colonial plantation, relocating his wife and five children to a remote plot of land on the edge of an ominous forest—within which lurks an unknown evil. Strange and unsettling things begin to happen almost immediately—animals turn malevolent, crops fail, and one child disappears as another becomes seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, family members accuse teenage daughter Thomasin of witchcraft, charges she adamantly denies. As circumstances grow more treacherous, each family member’s faith, loyalty and love become tested in shocking and unforgettable ways.
A slowburn classic of witchcraft, black magic and possession in the New England wilderness.
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22/31 | BLOOD DINER (Jackie Kong, 1987)
“First they greet you, then they eat you.”
The Tutman Brothers run the most popular restaurant in town. Popular, that is, if you’re the county coroner. The ‘Head’ chef has a real human touch with this special recipes – a killer line-up of delicacies made from human flesh!
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23/31 | ETERNAL EVIL (George Mihalka, 1985)
“Paul, a young television director, feels his life has become too routine – he’s tired of his job, his family and himself. Janice (KAREN BLACK!) will change that forever. As a worshipper of black magic and the occult, Janice teaches the infatuated Paul the art of astral-projection: the ability to travel outside one’s body! A disbelieving Paul begins to experience bizarre nightmares where victims are brutally beaten right before him. But these are not dreams. He is projecting his visions outside of himself and HE is doing the killing! The key is Janice – the link to the murderous mayhem. Will her secret identity cost more innocent lives or will she cast a spell of ETERNAL EVIL?”
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24/31 | ARCADE (Albert Pyun, 1993)
“All the kids in town are dying to play the hot new video game ARCADE. Trouble is once you play the game you can kiss reality good-bye. Arcade has seven levels of excitement, adventure and terror for its players. The game transports you to another world with its stunning graphics, thrilling sound effects, and virtual reality simulation. It is the ultimate experience in a video game. But excitement like this doesn’t come cheaply – when you battle with ARCADE you’re putting your life on the line. The kids have accepted the challenge and are absorbed into the game. Only Alex (Megan Ward) realises that their mysterious disappearances are linked to ARCADE. She must battle the game, alone. Too bad she’s never been very good at games…”
Directed by Albert Pyun (Dollman, Radioactive Dreams), written by David Goyer (the Dark Knight trilogy, Blade) and produced by Charles Band, this post-Tron, pre-Lawnmower Man straight-to-video sci-fi horror had to be re-configured before release, either when Disney spied familiar-looking light-cycles in a trailer or when the Pyun and Band weren’t happy with the original CGI.
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25/31 | BAD RONALD (Buzz Kulik, 1974)
“When Ronald is locked away by his mother in a secret room to escape the police he has only his world of fantasy in which to escape. His mother’s death leaves Ronald alone still hiding in the house. Fantasy turns to evil when a new family moves in and Ronald falls in love with their daughter, Babs. When the girl is left alone one weekend, he strikes. The terrified girl has nowhere to hide. Bad Ronald has killed once before. Will Babs become his next victim?”
A made-for-TV thriller/horror, Bad Ronald is a rare cut – perhaps the choicest – of the hider-in-the-house/peephole genre, containing an iconic climactic moment that will make sure you never believe “that’s just the house settling” ever again.
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26/31 | THE STUFF (Larry Cohen, 1985)
“The Stuff is the new dessert taking supermarket shelves by storm. It’s delicious, low in calories and – better still – doesn’t stain the family carpet… What’s not to like?! Well, for a start it has a life of its own, and we’re not talking friendly live bacteria…
Larry Cohen’s masterpiece was one of our very first screenings and our love for it is undimmed. Truly unpredictable and mad as a spoonful of shaving foam. Features career best turns from Michael Moriarty as industrial saboteur Mo Rutherford and Paul Sorvino as the slathering, jowl-shivering jingoist he was born to play.
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27/31 | SUGAR HILL (Paul Maslansky, 1974)
The chief of the underworld sends some of his minions to muscle in on a successful nightclub operation. When the owner pays no heed, he is beaten to death. His beautiful fashion model fiancee, Diana “Sugar” Hill enlists the aid of a retired voodoo mamaloi and Baron Samedi’s army of zombies to get revenge!
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28/31 | THERE ARE MONSTERS (Jay Dahl, 2013)
“The world is being taken over – slowly, quietly and efficiently – by creatures that look exactly like us. A graduate-student film crew on a work-related road trip discover evidence of these doppelgangers.”
A Glasgow FrightFest closer, this found footage-y, Body Snatchers riff was arguably stronger in the form of the short it originated from. Nevertheless, its gonzo jump scares par excellence, mixing in an absurdist body horror element, stick in the brain pretty effectively.
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29/31 | BLACULA (Paul Maslansky, 1974)
“In 1780, African prince Mamuwalde pays a visit to the castle of Count Dracula in Transylvania, seeking his support in ending the slave trade. Instead, the evil count transforms Mamuwalde into a vampire, imprisoning him in a coffin to suffer the unending thirst of the damned. Released nearly two centuries later by a pair of luckless interior decorators, Mamuwalde emerges as Blacula, to wreak unholy havoc on the mean streets of LA.”
“Dracula’s soul brother” sparked a wave of black-themed horror films – the sequel Scream Blacula Scream, Blackenstein and Abby (AKA “The Black Exorcist“)
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30/31 | PATHOGEN (Emily Hagins, 2006)
“Do you know what happens when you drink the water?”
This middle school zombie contagion epic was directed by 12-year-old Emily, who also wrote, produced, shot and edited. The production was documented in the 2009 documentary, Zombie Girl: The Movie.
“Francesco Dellamorte is a cemetery watchman whose job is to slaughter the living dead when they rise hungry from their graves. But following a tragic tryst with a lusty young widow, Francisco begins to ponder the mysteries of existence. Is there long-term satisfaction in blasting the skulls of ‘returners’? Will his imbecile assistant find happiness with the partial girl-corpse of his dreams? And if death is the ultimate act of love, can a psychotic killing spree send Dellamorte to the brink of enlightenment?”
You may have seen the existential/nihilist comedy zombie horror AKA Cemetery Man recently on blu ray, or you may have first seen it in its wilderness years, broadcast on C4 in the wee hours one random night, but its weird quality endures no matter how or when it first casts its spell.
We’re very fond of Dellamorte Dellamore, though this Halloween list has been in no particular order – see you next year!
Our 2018 #WeirdHorror countdown is complete, but Like us on Facebook or join our mailing list here to stay up-to-date.
Europe’s longest-running Nicolas Cage Film Festival returns to Glasgow
Matchbox Cineclub present Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged, a two-day film festival celebrating the wild, weird world of Nicolas Cage. Europe’s longest running Nic Cage film festival returns on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of January 2019, to the Centre of Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.
Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged fully unleashes the wild side of Cage with eightfilms, classic and brand-new, featuring the Oscar-winner’s most iconic meltdowns, freak-outs and outbursts. The festival also features a range of bonus content, including Cage’s 55th Birthday Brunch + Quiz and Going Full Cage, a live event hosted by Tara Judah (Watershed Cinema producer) and Ti Singh (Bristol Bad Film Club founder and author).
The full programme will be announced on Wednesday 24/10.
Programmer Sean Welsh says, “People flew in from across Europe to attend the first, sell-out Cage-a-rama in January 2018. We wanted to raise the stakes with this sequel, so Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged is going to be an even more intense experience for fans. Last year, our campaign to #BringCage2Glasgow netted his official stand-in, Marco Kyris, so this year we’re upping our game to get him.”
Weekend passes for Cage-a-rama 2: Cage Uncaged are on sale now in our online shop. Limited day passes and single tickets will be on sale Friday 26/10.
Sign up to Matchbox Cineclub’s mailing list to get updates on Cage-a-rama and more: eepurl.com/duX1R9.
A mind-bending predecessor to the modern mash-up, The Movie Orgy (1968) is also the Rosetta Stone for Joe Dante’s oeuvre and a must-experience for movie fans and cinephiles alike.
Before Gremlins, before The Howling, before he started his career cutting trailers for Roger Corman, Joe Dante hosted the 7.5 hour All Night Once In A Lifetime Atomic Movie Orgy. An ever-evolving edit, it was a communal experience – a mind-bending predecessor to the modern mash-up with no definitive version. Matchbox Cineclub programmer Sean Welsh charts the evolution of The Movie Orgy through five key dates.
October 9th 1965, The Playboy Theater, Chicago
The first screening of An Evening With Batman and Robin, one of two key inspirations for The Movie Orgy. The other was Susan Sontag’s Notes on “Camp” (1964), which popularised the term and inspired the repackaging of the 1943 Batman serial as a single 4.5-hour programme. Audiences laughed at its phony climaxes, marveled at its blatant xenophobia, and it began touring college towns. When Dante caught it, at the World Theater in Philadelphia, he was particularly struck by the camaraderie of the crowd, who “came out into the lobby as if they’d just gotten off a sinking ship.”
Early 1966, Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia
Inspired, Dante, a second year student but already a programmer at PCA, decided to host his own Camp Movie Night. The exact date is lost to history, but Dante and collaborator Jon Davison rented the only complete serial available on 16mm in Philadelphia, The Phantom Creeps (1939). They stretched it to seven hours with serials, clips, ads, industrial films and cartoons from their 16mm collections. Its success meant several follow-ups, each a step towards what would shortly become The Movie Orgy, then variously The Movie Orgy 2, The Movie Orgy Strikes Back, Son of the Movie Orgy, Escape to Movie Orgy and Son of Movie Orgy Rides Again.
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March 8th 1970, Filmore East, New York
Although 1968 is commonly held as the term “The Movie Orgy” was first used for Dante and Davison’s project, the performance that film archivist and Orgy expert David Neary describes as “the most important Movie Orgy of all” came in 1970. 1970 was peak Movie Orgy for the pair, who employed dueling projectors (tipping their hats to Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls). Davison’s would show various features – in lieu of new serials – and Dante’s would interject, drawing on his panoply of 16mm weirdness. They took their cues from the audience, so no two screenings were alike. Press coverage of the Filmore Orgy drew the attention of Schlitz Beer, who sponsored Orgies to tour colleges for years. But when the new material the Orgy drew upon to keep it alive began itself to be infected with self-referential camp, it was time to call it a day. Dante, already in Hollywood, sold syndication rights for “The Video Orgy” to be screened on college campuses’ closed circuit TV networks.
Credit: Dennis Cozzalio
April 22nd 2008, New Beverly Cinema, Los Angeles
The grand finale of Dante’s Inferno, a two-week retrospective at LA’s legendary rep cinema. Joining the scores of curious film fans were Davison, Allan Arkush, Bill Hader, Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino. Dante enjoined the crowd to move about, go outside, have a smoke, grab a pizza and wander back in. The Movie Orgy was always intended as a movie to be walked out on. But the director was curious to if it would play – have any relevance – after years in his vault. It brought the house down.
September 9th 2018, The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow
We’re screening the digital version Dante made for the New Beverly (not the 90min “UK cut” previously screened in London). It’s 4.5 hours long, the official Movie Orgy, “distilled, recaptured and re-curated”, according to archivist David Neary. It’s not the full, wild 16mm experience, of course, but there’s also no Blu Ray coming. “It’s more like a concert in a way,” Dante says, “It’s something that you really have to be there for.”
Sean Welsh
Joe Dante’s The Movie Orgy screens at The Old Hairdressers, Sunday 9th September
Matchbox Cineclub team with Remakesploitation and Neon Harbor to tour Turkish Star Wars 2K around the UK for Scalarama 2018.
Graham Humphreys poster for Turkish Star Wars 2K (on sale here)
When you become a fan of cult film, or maybe a person for whom films naturally become a cult, three things happen – first, you go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole looking for stranger and more unusual films. Second, your affinity multiplies with curiosity to make you want to find out as much as you can about them. Thirdly, you want to share what you’ve found with as many people as possible.
Turkish Star Wars is the perfect film in that regard. Most people know it from terribly subtitled clips drawn from fourth generation VHS dubs. Its strangeness and its audacity, coupled with the absurdity of the supposed dialogue, will hook anyone’s attention. That version of Turkish Star Wars was one of the first films Matchbox Cineclub screened, and Turkish Remakesploitation one of the first topics I wrote about seriously – because I wanted to know just what the fuck was going on with these films.
Meanwhile, Ed Glaser and Iain Robert Smith separately pursued their passion for cult film inexorably toward Turkish Star Wars. It makes me very happy that our curiosity about incredibly strange films has brought us to the point that we can share the best possible version of Turkish Star Wars and tell people the incredible story behind it.
Notorious for the ways in which director Çetin İnanç edited footage from Star Wars into his own film, along with music from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Flash Gordon, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (1982) is the “holy grail” of remakesploitation cinema. The Man Who Saves the World revolves around two Turkish space pilots who crash-land on a desert planet enslaved by an evil wizard. Memorable sequences involve the heroes battling robots inspired by Battlestar Galactica and Forbidden Planet – plus mummies, skeletons, and multi-coloured yetis. Another sees them in starfighter “cockpits,” wearing motorcycle helmets, as footage from the Star Wars Death Star battle is projected behind them.
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For many years, the film circulated only in those low-resolution bootleg copies, but in 2016 a 35mm print of the film was discovered, and a 2K digital scan has been made so that the world can finally see the film the way it was intended. Because of the obvious rights issues around the film, there are currently no plans for a home DVD/Blu-Ray release so this Scalarama tour is the only way to see this new 2K version of Turkish Star Wars. Get yr tickets before they sell out!
