Matchbox Cineclub follow up the sold out Cage-a-rama 2 with KeanuCon…the world’s first Keanu Reeves film festival?
KeanuCon illustration by Vero Navarro
On Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th April, we’re bringing 9.5 Keanu Reeves classics to Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow for the inaugural KeanuCon. Our broad theme is following Keanu’s career from babe to baba yaga, and we have an eclectic programme that takes us from his earliest Canadian roles to his latest world-smashing franchise.
Along the way, we have cult classic My Own Private Idaho, the “criminally underappreciated” Permanent Record and an extremely rare screening of Keanu’s first film role, the National Film Board of Canada short One Step Away. We have his action classics Speed, The Matrix, John Wick and his directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi. We have Constantine, where Keanu is weirdly suited to playing a Liverpudlian occult detective originally modeled on Sting. And – best till last? – a most non-heinous double of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, followed by a very special Keanu-themed closing party.
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Guests and other bonus content will be announced at a later date, but suffice to say we’re working very hard to make this inaugural KeanuCon as stellar as humanly possible. We have weekend passes, day passes and a Bill & Ted double bill ticket, as well as limited single tickets – all on sale via our online shop, here.
The film schedule is as follows:
Saturday 27th April
Permanent Record (screening with One Step Away) My Own Private Idaho Speed The Matrix John Wick
Sunday 28th April
Man of Tai Chi Constantine Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
Keep up to date with our Facebook event page here, or join our mailing list here.
At its best, it captured the hilarity and horror of human existence in six second intervals. With Auld Lang Vine, we mourned the passing of a short-form video hosting service.
Our Auld Lang Vine #RIPVine audience
On Sunday 27th January, 2018, we gathered 150 mourners in the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, to remember and celebrate Vine, “a short-form video hosting service where users could share six-second-long looping video clips.” As the audience filed in, every seat in CCA’s theatre was laid out with an order of service, and the screen displayed the classic DVD player screensaver. After local band Joyce Delaney, all decked out in Victorian mouring attire, struck up Chopin’s funeral march, Matchbox Cineclub offered a brief eulogy.
At its best, we suggested, Vine captured the hilarity and horror of human existence in six seconds. Its main tools were angry animals, children in jeopardy and basic human stupidity. Its primary modes were lip syncing, shade and screaming. After Vine, of course, you can still loop weird videos and share them. But Vine celebrated being weird, being creative and being funny. Most of all, it celebrated brevity, so perhaps it’s fitting that, in the end, its life was cut so short.
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After a six-second silence in honour of the passing of this legend, we introduced the first of two 45-minute compilations of the best Vines, originally curated by Pilot Light TV Festival, debuted in Manchester and also showcased at the BFI Southbank. The Glasgow audience spontaneously recited their favourite Vines, before holding their phone torches aloft for Puke’s interval rendition of Lady Gaga’s I’ll Never [Vine] Again.
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Then, after a second 45-minute compilation passed in the blink of an eye, Joyce Delaney once more took the stage for a short but typically wonderful set, unfortunately curtailed by a broken guitar string (please do check them out at the earliest available opportunity).
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Matchbox Cineclub would like to say a solemn thank you to Greg Walker and Pilot Light TV Festival, Live Cinema UK, BFI, Film Hub Midlands, CCA, Joyce Delaney, Puke, the ever estimable John Pooley and our stalwart volunteers (who couldn’t make it). Most of all, we’d like to say thank you to the audience and all the Vine fans who made the event so very special. 🙏
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ONE LAST THING! We’d like to note tickets for this event were sold on a sliding scale, which we would recommend to anyone with a similar screening or event. We believe in full accessibility in principle and always try to keep tickets as low as possible (or free, when we can) but the support of BFI emboldened us to try the sliding scale for the first time. Normally we’d fret about that since, as an independent exhibitor with no institutional support (barring CCA’s in-kind venue support), we have to cover costs. Making a profit, however small, allows us to keep programming films and producing events, while losing money clearly jeopardises that. However, this event proved a sliding scale approach can also be economically viable, even without support, since the uptake on £6 and £8 tickets covered any potential loss from the cheaper tickets. It won’t always be possible for us to employ a sliding scale for ticket sales, but whenever we can, we will. If you have any questions about it, please get in touch: info@matchboxcineclub.com.
Matchbox Cineclub present a funeral tribute to Vine, the dearly departed platform for 6-second comedy genius
Dearly beloved, join us to mourn the passing of the 6-second wonder that was Vine. Expect a funeral-turned-party featuring over 500 of the greatest Vines and a very special eulogy. Full guest line-up to be announced soon (follow our Facebook event page here for announcements and up-to-date details)
Auld Lang Vine is a tribute to the 6-second icons that have given so much joy to millions the world over. The event centres around two big-screen compilations of the all-time greatest Vine loops, curated by our friends at Pilot Light TV Festival.
Join us as we celebrate the life of one of the biggest comedy phenomenons of recent times and move along to the final stage of grief: acceptance.
Tickets, on sale in our shop here, are priced on a sliding scale, based on your circumstances. These are in three tiers: Free/£2, £4/£6 and £8. Read our PDF guide on what to pay here (with thanks to Scottish Queer International Film Festival), or in text here:
Sliding Scale: What Should I Pay?
FREE or £2
• I frequently stress about meeting basic* needs and don’t always achieve them.
• I have debt and it sometimes prohibits me from meeting my basic needs.
• I rent lower-end properties or have unstable housing.
• I sometimes can’t afford public or private transport. If I own a car/have access to a car, I am not always able to afford petrol.
• I am unemployed or underemployed.
• I qualify for government and/or voluntary assistance including: food banks and benefits.
• I have no access to savings.
• I have no or very limited expendable** income.
• I rarely buy new items because I am unable to afford them.
• I cannot afford a holiday or have the ability to take time off without financial burden.
£4 or £6
• I may stress about meeting my basic needs but still regularly achieve them.
• I may have some debt but it does not prohibit attainment of basic needs.
• I can afford public transport and often private transport. If I have a car/access to a car I can afford petrol.
• I am employed.
• I have access to health care.
• I might have access to financial savings.
• I have some expendable income.
• I am able to buy some new items and I buy others second hand.
• I can take a holiday annually or every few years without financial burden.
£8
• I am comfortably able to meet all of my basic needs.
• I may have some debt but it does not prohibit attainment of basic needs.
• I own my home or property or I rent a higher end property.
• I can afford public and private transport. If I have a car/access to a car I can afford petrol. • I have regular access to healthcare.
• I have access to financial savings.
• I have an expendable** income.
• I can always buy new items.
• I can afford an annual holiday or take time off.
*BASIC NEEDS include food, housing, clothing and transportation.
**EXPENDABLE INCOME might mean you are able to buy coffee or tea at a shop, go to the cinema or a concert, buy new clothes, books and similar items each month, etc.
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.
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.
It’s with a very heavy heart that we have to announce the postponement of KeanuCon 2018 until 27th +28th April 2019.
Due to the GSA fire and CCA Glasgow‘s subsequent closure, it’s not possible for us to hold KeanuCon on the original dates, and the next workable dates for CCA (and for us, due to Cage-a-rama 2 in January) are in 2019, which we are glad to confirm.
All our efforts to find a suitable alternative location have sadly failed. Although we did come extremely close, trust that we worked very hard to exhaust all the possibilities.
We hope you’ll accept our apologies and realise we are as gutted as anyone to have to postpone KeanuCon. We had the line-up and a lot of the supporting programme locked-in and we were so excited to share it with you. The date change *does* have some positive implications for the programming and for other aspects of the weekend, but that will become clear in due course – ASAP. KeanuCon will be even more awesome for the date change, we promise.
On a more positive note, we still be taking part in the Scalarama Glasgow 2018 programme this September, with these events and at least one more TBA:
We had such a great time with Jaws 3D at Nice N Sleazy that we’re returning with Friday 13th Part III – in 3D! What will henceforth be known as the World’s Greatest 3D Film Club presents the second sequel to the horror classic, in classic red/blue 3D, on Wednesday 25th July.
Jason Voorhees dons the hockey mask for the first time in this classic sequel. Time Magazine’s review said, “The way the eyeball of one of Jason’s victims pops out of his skull and seems to sail over the audience’s head is alone worth buying a ticket and putting on funny glasses.” YES.
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Now you can see Friday 13th Part III (Steve Miner, 1982) as it was always meant to be seen – on a summer’s night in the basement of NICE N SLEAZY, through flimsy cardboard glasses. Our £3 ticket price includes a free pair of red/blue anaglyph 3D glasses.
Friday 13th Part III – in 3D! screens at Nice N Sleazy, Wednesday 25th July
Filmed at a landlocked water park, it’s been described as “a terrible, stupid movie that is easily the lowest point in the Jaws series and arguably one of the worst atrocities mankind has ever visited upon itself.”
The second Jaws sequel started life as a parody, to be directed by Joe Dante (Piranha), with a script entitled Jaws 3, People 0. The studio ultimately decided a spoof was the wrong way to go, and Jaws 3D was…the right way to go? Ultimately, they recruited Manimal himself, Simon MacCorkindale, Marty McFly’s mom, Lea Thompson, the mom from My So-Called Life, Bess Armstrong and Dennis Quaid, by all accounts the highest he’s ever been (off his tits on coke in “every frame”), for what may be the worst film in the franchise.
And now you can see it as it was always meant to be seen – on a summer’s night in the basement of NICE N SLEAZY, through flimsy cardboard glasses.
Jaws 3D – in 3D! screens at Nice N Sleazy, Saturday 7th July.
The Crazy Family, Sogo Ishii’s provocative, oddball satire, hasn’t screened in Scotland for 30 years
Having just relocated to a comfortable new home in suburbia, the Kobayashi family – Katsuhiko, his wife, Saeko, and their two children, Masaki and Erika – appear to be the picture of middle-class success. But the family’s comfortable bourgeois veneer begins disintegrating when grandfather Yasukuni and white ants infest their home, eating away at the woodwork. As the Kobayashis’ house begins to crumble, so does the sanity of its inhabitants. Katsuhiko takes it upon himself to keep them from the asylum…at any cost.
The Crazy Family (逆噴射家族, Gyakufunsha Kazoku) Sogo Ishii’s provocative, oddball satire, hasn’t screened in Scotland for at least 30 years. Born Toshihiro Ishii, now known as Gakuryū Ishii, the avant garde filmmaker spearheaded the Japanese New Wave with his early punk features Panic In High School (1978), Crazy Thunder Road (1980) and Burst City (1982). Ishii’s reputation arguably rests on these early films, although he’s still active and his influence can been seen in the filmmakers whose international success has surpassed his own.
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Described as “one of the most genuinely demented movies to ever emerge from Japan,” The Crazy Family‘s original title (literally “The Back-Jet Family”) was a reference to an incident at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in the early 1980s. The pilot of a short, internal flight fired the plane’s back-jet just before landing, crashing the plane and killing many of its passengers. Pressure of work was blamed for the pilot’s action. “With Crazy Family,” Ishii later claimed, “I wanted to show the Japanese family as I saw it.” Co-writer and manga artist Yoshinori Kobayashi, now a controversial, conservative figure in Japan, told Monthly Film Bulletin in 1986:
Kramer vs Kramer, Ordinary People and The Family Game are all admirable films dealing with family problems. They are serious films, much praised by critics, and some people regard them as masterpieces. But some of us think differently. We consider them timid films, more or less like the TV family dramas made for middle-aged audiences, and the critics like them more than we do. And so Sogo Ishii and I decided to make a more radical film on the same subject. We wanted film about the family that would be filled with fun and poison… There are four things that traditionally frighten the Japanese: earthquakes, thunder, fire and fathers. This list is as valid now as it ever was.
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Though it didn’t lose money, The Crazy Family was, perhaps unsurprisingly, not hugely popular domestically. “Everyone in Japan just complained that they didn’t understand my films,” Ishii later reflected. Though the film made a bigger impact abroad, according to writer David Cairns, “Most western critics found it wearisome and baffling”. As related by Shock Cinema’s Steven Puchalski, “its New York City engagement consisted of a one-week run at an upscale arthouse theatre, and a sparse, thoroughly confused audience of blue-haired Upper West Siders.”
In the UK, however, critic Tony Rayns saw its value immediately, noting “a major step forward for Sogo Ishii”. Writing in early 1986, Rayns observed that The Crazy Family “is a live action comic strip, each sequence shattered into component images like panels on a page and edited to rock rhythms.” Rayns continued:
The stylistic attack is matched, blow by blow, by the ruthlessness and cruelty of the humour: satire, slapstick, pain and black comedy are primary elements, but the film goes beyond them all into an area harder and more vicious than anything seen on screen since the early days of Monty Python. Its triumph is that it is (a) consistently funny, and (b) sustained as a narrative, rather than collapsing into a series of sketches.
if…. director Lindsay Anderson was also a fan. As recorded in Michael Palin’s diaries, Anderson preferred it to the then-recent A Room With A View, An Englishman Abroad, and even the Python’s own Private Function. Ishii’s film was the only one he’d liked recently, Anderson told Palin, since “the violence is so productive!”
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Though it’s never been released on DVD in the UK, The Crazy Family is a landmark in Ishii’s ouevre and Japanese cinema. It was his first commercial work, following the trio of dystopian punk films that made his name, but was immediately followed by an almost 10-year gap before his next feature, the thriller Angel Dust (1994). Thwarted from making the films he wanted to make, Ishii concentrated on experimental short films, music documentaries (notably Half Human, with Einstuerzende Neubauten) and TV movies. The next phase of his work would be his self-proclaimed psychedelic years, before a slight return to his roots with Electric Dragon 80.000 V (2000). In 2010, he announced his “artistic rebirth”, Bowie-style, as Gakuryū Ishii, before returning to features once more with 2012’s Isn’t Anyone Alive? With his latest,Punk Samurai Slash Down, due this year, it’s the perfect time to (re)discover his weirdest.
Sean Welsh
The Crazy Family screens at Matchbox Cineclub’s Weird Weekend on Sunday 3rd June. Tickets from £5, day and weekend passes are available. All tickets available from CCA’s box office, 0141 352 4900, or online: bit.ly/weirdweekend.
