Film details
666
Best of Horror Shorts
North Carolina Premiere!
(US, NR, 2005-2008, 84 min)
There is no hope, no survivors, and no evidence of mankind’s decency toward his brothers in these six terrifying horror shorts.
These are some of the most mesmerizing and powerful films submitted to Nevermore. Those seeking to celebrate human accomplishment are advised to read the sports pages. This program is devoted to that side of the cinematic spectrum where lurk such classics as Rosemary’s Baby, The Mist, and Dawn of the Dead. This program is not about violence or gore, but is instead the antithesis to horror-comedies. These shorts are meant to invoke shuddersÉand perhaps truly disturb you. In Richard Gale’s squirm-inducing Criticized, Darian Stonehall is a film critic who awakens to a living nightmare. He's been kidnapped by an angry filmmaker who isn’t too pleased with Darian’s negative review of his new movie. Convinced the review has destroyed his film's chances at distribution, the filmmaker plans to teach Darian an eye-opening lesson to ensure he will never watch a movie the same way again. Set in 1847, Susan Bell’s The Resurrectionist is a compelling tale about a lowly gravedigger who can’t afford to buy food for his family. At his wife’s urging, he steals a recently buried corpse to sell to a local medical college. But as he sets off in his horse-drawn wagon through the foggy woods, Fredrick quickly realizes that the dead man has other plans. Based on a short story by Kealan Patrick Burke, Peekers is director Mark Steensland’s seemingly simple yet highly-effective adaptation about a man who’s invited into his elderly neighbor’s home to perform a very strange favor. And what might happen if two hitmen were hired to assassinate a child similar to The Omen’s demonic tyke? That’s the premise of Robert Glickert’s mesmerizing The Descendent. Horrifying special effects highlight Lucas Peltonen’s The Lycanthrope, a darkly exciting film about two best friends whose friendship and sanity are tested when one claims to have been bitten by a werewolf. And despite its title, Robert Cosnahan’s Psycho Hillbilly Cabin Massacre is not about a Deliverance-style weekend in the Georgia woods. Instead, this bleak, disarming thriller centers on an initiation ritual held by an Ivy League Secret Society. It’s the kind of shocker that proudly aims to blindside the audience and succeeds in the best grindhouse tradition!
Criticized (US, NR, 2007, 18 min); Viewer’s Guide: Graphic violence, gore, language, and brief nudity.
Official sites:
The Descendent (US, NR, 2006, 16 min);
The Lycanthrope (US, NR, 2007, 10 min);
Peekers (US, NR, 2008, 8 min);
Psycho Hillbilly Cabin Massacre (US, NR, 2008, 17 min);
The Resurrectionist (US, NR, 2005, 15 min)
www.the-resurrectionist.com (The Resurrectionist);
www.psychohillbillycabinmassacre.com (Psycho Hillbilly Cabin Massacre);
www.marksteensland.com (Peekers);
www.criticizedmovie.com (Criticized)
13 HOURS IN A WAREHOUSE
United States Festival Premiere!
(US, NR, 2008, 94 min)
Since the early 90s, films about assorted baddies, thieves and con artists and their complex heists have spawned a genre unto itself.
From the Ocean’s franchise to the films of Guy Ritchie to Sydney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, there’s something delicious about watching troubled souls in their American pursuit of the almighty dollar as their “perfect crime” swirls down the bloody plughole. 13 Hours in a Warehouse is a movie about these sorts of people and their problems. In the film’s opening scenes, we see five men committing a successful robbery. The men drive to an abandoned warehouse to await the buyer’s arrival in the morning. Sounds simple in theory, but in these kinds of thrillers, what’s planned in advance and what actually happens are very different things. Two of the men are brothers, and the warehouse once belonged to their father, who long ago used the place to shoot porn films. And as the men settle down for the evening, ruminating on the rich existence ahead of them, the warehouse awakens with the spirits of the dead. In other filmed versions of this material, the story would hurtle toward scenes where ghosts attack the living. As Roger Ebert has noted, “Today's slasher movies, in the sci-fi genre and elsewhere, are all pay-off and no buildupÉIt isn't the slashing that we enjoy. It's the waiting for the slashing.” In this regard, 13 Hours rewards the audience as, one by one, the men set out to explore the building, searching for whatever is whispering, giggling, and taunting them in the dark. The suspense is generated not by our fears about what we might see, but when we will see it. 13 Hours has been called “Reservoir Dogs with ghosts”, but it deserves much higher praise than that. It earns its scares by telling its story straight, without any of the jokey, self-referential stuff that drives most post-Tarantino crime movies. Director Dav Kaufman’s directorial debut vibrates with a dark and frightening intensity.
Viewer’s Guide: Language, violence, gore and drug use.
Official site:
www.13hoursmovie.com (See the trailer)
BRAIN DEAD
•North Carolina Premiere!
•Best B-Movie, 2007 ShockerFest Film Festival
•Best Film, 2007 Rhode Island Internat'l Horror Film Fest
•Best Visual Effects, 2007 Internat'l Horror & Sci-Fi Film Fest
•Best Make-Up/Special Effects, 2007 B-Movie Film Festival
•Best One-Liner, 2007 Thriller! Chiller! Film Festival
•Best Screenplay nominee, 2007 Terror Film Festival
(US, NR, 2007, 92 min)
From director Kevin Tenney (Witchboard, Night of the Demons) comes this blood-drenched, hilariously over-the-top horror-comedy.
It doesn’t waste our time re-imagining the slithery critters of Night of the Creeps, the gloomy setting of Evil Dead 2 or the madcap irreverence of History of the World Part I. Not when it can force-feed those classic movies to a slobbering, alien-infected, mutant amoeba-controlled zombie and plug six hollow points into its chest at the same time! There is rip-roaring good reason why Brain Dead has been racking-up the awards at horror fests across the country. Guess what happens when a pair of escaped convicts (including the incredibly likable Joshua Benton), two lusty hikers, a horny televangelist and his busty disciple find themselves trapped for the night in a deserted fishing lodge, miles from civilization? Faster than you can shout “This is my boomstick!”, the lodge is attacked by waves of alien-controlled zombies, eager to suck out our curvy cast’s juicy brains! Guaranteed to have the theatre rolling in the aisles (cheering at the gratuitous nudity as well shrieking at the super gory, head splitting, brain-gobbling special effects), Brain Dead is a genuinely funny crowd-pleaser of wonderfully gut-busting proportions!
Viewer’s Guide: Graphic nudity, violence, language and gore.
Official site:
10ebrothers.com/BrainDead.html
YouTube Trailer
BREATHING ROOM
United States Premiere!
(US, NR, 2008, 100 min)
NEVERMORE thanks Travis Stevens and Imagination Worldwide for the U.S. premiere of John Suits’ Breathing Room, an ingeniously clever whodunit-thriller in the tradition of Battle Royale, My Little Eye and Clue.
Fourteen strangers find themselves held captive in a desolate room. Each is restrained by a lethal electronic collar. Any attempt to remove the collar or leave the room and---zap!---you’re dead. To their horror, the group soon realizes they have been kidnapped as contestants in a deadly game. Every move and conversation is being scrutinized via overhead surveillance cameras. Were they randomly selected? Or is there a link between them? And why is there a boxful of weapons in a box mounted on the wall? Now, they must gather their wits to unravel the hidden clues in the room (and sometimes in their clothes) to find both an escape and a reason for their abduction. Each time the lights go out, a terrified player is eliminated in vivid, grisly fashion. And with each dead body, comes another clue. And each new clue leads them closer and closer to the realization that the killer is…one of them.
Viewer’s Guide: Violence and language.
Official site:
breathingroomthemovie.com (See the trailer)
FRAYED
• Southeastern U.S. Premiere!
• Official selection, 2007 Screamfest Horror Film Festival
• Winner, Best Cinematography, 2007 Internat'l Horror & Sci-Fi Film Fest
(US, NR, 2008, 111 min)
Every now and again, a movie comes along that genuinely blindsides you with an updated telling of a well-known story. In this case, the well-known story is John Carpenter’s Halloween.
You may think you know where Frayed’s plot is headed, and you may be partially right, but if it’s true that the best tales are worth repeating, then it’s even more true that execution separates legitimate work from the rip-offs. Seeing Frayed, we were reminded of Roger Ebert’s review of Halloween in 1978, writing, “Credit must be paid to filmmakers who make the effort to really frighten us, to make a good thriller when quite possibly a bad one might have made as much money.” The same is true when re-working a familiar storyline. It’s easy to pay homage to a horror classic, but it’s hard to do it well. Frayed is a blithely spectacular psychological horror film about family demons that deserves favorable comparisons to Halloween, yet also earns its place alongside it. The plot: A boy brutally murders his mother and is locked away in a psychiatric hospital. Thirteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown to find his sister. And while the sheriff and a hospital security guard pursue the killer, he springs back into action. Frayed is the first feature film for lifelong friends Rob Portmann, Kurt Svennungsen and Norbert Caoili. With a great cast of mostly-unknown actors and a primo performance by Aaron Blakely as the tortured security guard, Frayed is taut, nerve-wracking proof that a storyteller’s filmmaking vision is sometimes more unique than the story he tells. To merely call it a terrifying slasher film is to coarsen its achievement, but if that’s what it takes to encourage a larger audience, fine. Frayed is the surprise of the festival.
Viewer’s Guide: Violence, language and gore.
Official site:
frayedthemovie.com (See the trailer)
HIGHLANDER
• The last surviving 35mm print!
• Back on the Screen in 35mm!
(USA/UK, R, 1986, 116 min)
If you’re wondering why this epic masterpiece from the 80's is appearing on Nevermore’s slate, it’s because there is only a single 35mm print available for theatrical exhibition in the United States.
All other prints have been lost, destroyed or stolen since 1986. And why wait til the film’s 25th anniversary in 2011 to celebrate one of the most beloved, often-quoted, uproarious special-effects spectacles of all time? Not when you see it in a theatre for the first time in your life before something terrible happens to the last surviving 35mm print! And really, that soundtrack by Queen is phenomenal. There’s really no point in discussing the plot. By now, the story is as well-known as to be part of film history. Twenty-two years ago, this is how Highlander was pitched to audiences: “He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536. He will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York City in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal.” Highlander is one of the best reasons to believe in magic as has ever been captured on film.
Viewer’s Guide: Language, violence, and brief sexuality.
NOBODY
• North Carolina Premiere!
• Official Selection, 2007 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
• Official Selection, 2007 NYC Horror Film Festival
• Official Selection, 2007 Sao Paolo International Film Festival
• Official Selection, 2008 Brussels Internat'l Festival of Fantastic Film
• Official Selection, 2007 Sacramento Horror Film Festival
• Winner, Best Cinematography, 2007 Internat'l Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival
• Official Selection, 2007 Erie Horror Film Festival
(Canada, NR, 2007, 88 min)
Shawn Linden’s beautifully-scripted directorial debut is part mystery, part gangster film, part time-travel paradox, and part extraordinarily ambitious supernatural thriller.
Think Angel Heart crossed with a dash of Goodfellas and a good helping of Twelve Monkeys. It feels like a fascinating, newly discovered episode of The Twilight Zone, but with a very modern twist. Its plot is almost indescribable without giving away its secrets. Set in the 1950s on a cold winter night that never seems to end, Nobody concerns a black-faced assassin named Mortemain (Costas Mandylor) who’s been hired to commit a murder at the behest of a mob boss. The film opens with Mortemain having already committed the murder and now preparing to collect payment. But the paranoid mobster refuses to accept Mortemain’s word that the hit was a success. No, he instead wants the victim’s decapitated head as proof that the job was done right. Soon, Mortemain is fleeing into the chilly night, a mysterious brown package under his arm, being pursued by a shadowy assailant who seems to anticipate his every move. And bit by little bit, Nobody brilliantly reverses on itself; sometimes showing us the same scene from a different perspective, adding new insights about what’s truly happening (or about to happen), and further causing the terrified hitman to suspect that whomever is now following him…is not human. Radical in concept, risk-taking in execution, and almost obsessively challenging in its quest for originality, Director Shawn Linden creates a nerve-wrecking, audaciously entertaining suspense film for grown-ups. Nobody is a devilish changeling that warrants repeat viewings.
Viewer’s Guide: Language and violence.
Official site:
nobodymovie.com (See the trailer)
PAPER DOLLS
• North Carolina Premiere!
• Official Selection, 2007 Erie Horror Film Festival
(US, NR, 2008, 98 min)
Bigfoot attacks!: That’s as good a hook as we’ll ever come up with.
This is the most dynamic-looking, throat-gripping and inspired vision of Sasquatch we’ve encountered since the ‘70s, in good part because Paper Dolls wasn’t made by witless hacks but rather by filmmakers who have genuine affinity for the legendary creature and its myth. This is a smart, resonant and confident film that juxtaposes the beautiful landscape of Montana’s Glacier National Park against the rising desperation of two best friends who take one very wrong turn down a logging road in the mountains. When one of the men is captured by the beasts, the other will stop at nothing to get him back. But Paper Dolls has much more on its mind than a simple chase-and-rescue, it’s also the tale of flawed, likable people caught in situations that slide from bad to worse, of sins that spin out of control and come racing back for brutal vengeance. More than that, though, directors David Blair and Adam Pitman have crafted a rock-on vision about one of America’s greatest disputed legends, with a truly fascinating and original look to the creature, and with a twist ending that’s as credible, and haunting, as it is unexpected.
Viewer’s Guide: Violence, language and gore.
Official sites:
badfritterfilms.com
myspace.com/paperdolls06 (trailer)
SACKCLOTH AND ASHES
North Carolina Premiere!
(Various countries, NR, 2007, 94 min)
There are no happy endings in this brutally dark anthology, just the sweat-inducing knowledge that the supernatural does exist… and should not be taken lightly.
Rodrigo Gudino’s The Demonology of Desire is, at its base, a terrifying love story about one young woman’s wish to find the man of her dreams, but don’t expect flowers and romance in this Canadian art-core shocker. Instead, pray for the boy on whom Ramona sets her eye. Eric has no idea of the dark, fantastical depths that a boyhood crush can lead him. And what is to be said of the nice young Australian son in Dalibor Backovic‘s The Ancient Rite of Corey McGillis? Unlike like his American counterpoint, Norman Bates, who had a bittersweet relationship with his Mum, Corey has similar affections, but only for Daddy. They’re the best of friends. But, what’s a boy to do when his father selfishly passes away of natural causes? With a little help from the dark side, Corey learns to reanimate the dead. Now, he and Daddy play all sorts of games together. Especially on the nasty relatives and other authorities who try to keep them apart in this horrific, shocker from Down Under. Josh Lee Kwai’s ELI is a brilliant, futuristic tale in the tradition of Logan’s Run, The Island, and The Clonus Horror. When an amnesiac patient awakens on an operating table, he escapes the doctors trying to sedate him. Over and over, a single memory flashes before his eyes — a beautiful and mysterious woman on a sunset beach. Is she real or merely a memory implant? And who is Eli? The answers are more than you first suspect in this haunting, medical thriller. And then there’s sweet, angelic, six-year old Lilly White in C. Mark DeGaetani’s The Dollhouse, a dead-on tribute to the brilliant (and often ridiculous) Italian slasher flicks of the 70s and 80s. Lilly enjoys playing with her dolls as her sexy mother delights in toying with the men she draws to her door. But things aren't always what they seem. You see, deep down inside, Lilly and her mother are very bad girls.
The Ancient Rite of Corey McGillis (Australia, NR, 2007, 28 min); Viewer’s Guide: Gore, language, sexual content, and violence.
Official sites:
The Demonology of Desire (Canada, NR, 2007, 22 min); ELI (US, NR, 2007, 18 min);
The Dollhouse (US, NR, 2007, 26 min);
The 20+ minute short, THE DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE is part of the Sackcloth and Ashes anthology and its website and trailer can be found at rodrigogudino.com/films.
rudderpostfilms.com (The Dollhouse),
youtube.com (Ancient Rite of Corey McGillis);
ELImovie.com (ELI)
SHROOMS
North Carolina Premiere!
Official Selection, 2007 Frightfest
Official Selection, 2007 Edinburgh Film Festival
(Ireland, R, 2008, 84 min)
Nevermore thanks Matt Cowal and Magnolia Pictures for the premiere of Shrooms, a scary and foreboding film from Irish filmmaker Paddy Breathnach that gives new meaning to the term, "bad trip."
Five American college students arrive in Ireland for a camping trip in the forest. They’ve been told that Ireland has the best magic mushrooms in the world. On their first hunt, they unfortunately stumble across the dreaded Death’s Head, a legendary mushroom that only grows every decade or so. The ancient Irish druids believed that eating the mushroom was akin to peering into the portal of Hell itself, giving one the power to communicate with the dead, shape-shift, and the gift of premonition. Suddenly, and with rising panic, the trip turns horribly wrong for this group of innocent, attractive twenty-somethings. One of them has made the na•ve mistake of eating the dreaded fungi, and is now seeing the future…a future that includes blood, depravity, madness and murder. And in the deepest, darkest part of the forest, a horrible figure, cloaked in black, rises from the forest floor and begins stalking and killing the terrified friends, one by one. But when you’re having a bad trip on shrooms under the full moon, what’s real and what’s imaginary? Creepy, intense, and unsettling, this is a tragic horror film filled with darkness, mayhem and dread.
Viewer’s Guide: Violence, nudity, language and gore.
Official site:
shroomsthemovie.com (See the trailer)
Dario Argento’s TENEBRE
Exclusive United States Screening!
Back on the Screen in 35mm!
(Italy, R, 1982, 110 min)
Nevermore proudly invites you to witness Dario Argento’s giallo masterpiece, presented for the first time *uncut in 35mm in the United States!
This exclusive U.S. screening is the result of many hours of negotiations between the festival, the Danish Film Institute (who owns the print) and Intramovies (the Italian distributor who owns the rights). Prior to its debut at Nevermore, this 35mm version of Tenebre has never-before been exhibited in theatres in the United States. Tenebre was briefly released in America in a heavily-edited version as Unsane in 1987. The plot: Anthony Franciosa plays an American murder-mystery writer who comes to Rome to promote his latest novel. Unfortunately, his arrival triggers a serial killer’s wrath. Now, a psychopath is killing innocent women in gruesome ways, using the novel as a “how to” manual. And so Neal soon finds himself conducting his own investigation, as the bodies continues to pile up around him. Along with Deep Red, this is easily the most plot-driven of Argento's films, and there's a terrific twist that genuinely surprises. The lavish camerawork and striking set design (white and metallic) are still what the director is most interested in, but Argento doesn't sacrifice story for visual fireworks. Tenebre is considered by critics to be Argento’s most bloody film, with most of the splatter kept for the still-shocking climax. If you’re an Argento fan, this is a screening that you absolutely must not miss!
*(There are 10 seconds missing from the infamous arm-severing scene. This footage was cut from all known 35mm prints in existence. Nevermore’s presentation is as uncut as Tenebre will ever be seen on 35mm.) Viewer’s Guide: Gore, graphic violence, and brief nudity.
TIMECRIMES
(Los Cronocrímenes)
North Carolina Premiere!
Winner, Best Film, 2007 Fantastic Fest
(Spain, NR, 2008, 88 min)
Nevermore thanks Matt Cowal and Magnolia Pictures for the East Coast premiere of Timecrimes, Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo’s tense, brilliant feature-debut of science and natural law gone awry.
As you might guess, Timecrimes involves time travel, but first and foremost it's a suspense thriller. Hector and his wife are spending the afternoon at their new house in the country. As he lounges in the backyard with binoculars, he catches a glimpse of a topless woman in the woods behind their yard. Deciding to explore the wooded area, Hector is brutally attacked with a pair of scissors by man with a pink-bandaged face. Terrified and bleeding, he soon finds himself hiding in the darkened rooms of what seems to be a deserted hospital in the woods. But this is no empty medical building. Instead, Hector has accidentally stumbled into a secret government research facility. And what is being researched at this strange facility may forever change the course of mankind. Every scene in Timecrimes is later re-referenced in the film. It's the kind of movie where more than once, you end up thinking, "Oh! So that's why we saw -- ah, I get it now." Much like Nevermore’s other time-traveling film, Nobody, it's challenging to convince a reader that this is a great movie when we’re being vague about the specifics. You’ll just have to take our word.
In Spanish with English subtitles. Viewer’s Guide: Violence, brief nudity, and language.
Official sites:
loscronocrimenes.com
YouTube Trailer
THEY’RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBRA!
Best of Comedy-Horror Shorts
North Carolina Premiere!
(Various countries, NR, 2007, 72 min)
There’s a wink, scream and a giggle in every juicy, blood-splattered frame of these four wonderful shorts.
From France comes Guillaume Tunzini’s Fathers-in-Law, a goofy tale about two old codgers sharing a hospital room, each hating the other so much that they invoke the Grim Reaper’s wrath. In Michael Simon’s Gay Zombie, a sexually confused flesh-eater from West Hollywood meets a special someone named Todd. Everything is peachy until his flesh eating appetite can no longer be subdued. Will his bloody ways be too much for a boy to bear? From Florida State University Film School comes Frederick Snyder’s Prombies!, a clever primer for high school girls about what guys really want on prom night. It also happens to be plain hilarious. And what can be said about Zombie Love, the world’s first zombie musical? It’s an amazing rock opera that’s not only the wildest comedy of the year, but also the most inspired. Part heart-wrenching love story and part heart-ripping horror movie, Zombie Love pulls off something miraculous. It encourages you to applaud the way that only a great musical can. Its true love from the moment that lonely zombie Dante spots Claudia, a beautiful but equally-lonely human. And yet, he can’t bear to lose her by revealing his terrible nature. Director Yfke van Berckelaer’s wee gem of a romance has more in common with, say, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer’s musical episode (Once More With Feeling) than big-budget powerhouses like Sweeney Todd or Phantom of the Opera, yet it ranks up there alongside them. It’s sweet, funny and utterly original. And Dante’s journey is guaranteed to break your heart…if he doesn’t eat it first.
Fathers-in-Law (France, NR, 2007, 8 min); Viewer’s Guide: Language, violence, and gore.
Official sites:
Gay Zombie (US, NR, 2007, 20 min);
Prombies! (US, NR, 2007, 7 min);
Zombie Love (US/Netherlands, NR, 2007, 37 min)
http://www.tunzini.net (Fathers-in-Law),
gayzombie.net (Gay Zombie),
zombielovethemovie.com (Zombie Love)
