FanTasia Festival 2013

The 2013 edition of Montreal’s FanTasia International Film Festival kicks off this Thursday, July 18, and runs for three delirious weeks in venues all over the city. In its 17th year, FanTasia is not only the largest genre film festival in North America, it has claimed its rightful place among the great festivals and film markets of the world. With over 120 feature films and countless shorts, this year’s offerings fill a 320-plus page program book. The full schedule is online now!

FanTasia walks the cutting edge of genre films, screening subversive horror, mind-blowing science fiction and fantasy, animation, a smattering of rediscovered classics, and the just plain unclassifiable, with many of the showings introduced by their creators. Filmmakers and actors from the world over attend, participate in panel discussions and party with the fans.

Richard Raaphorst’s Frankenstein’s Army — a project that has been percolating for six years — finally gets its North American premiere on July 20. Here’s the film’s schedule page, complete with a demented trailer. Also intriguing is the Canadian feature The Dead Experiment, about returning from the dead… and its alarming side effects.

Among the films and events I’ll be looking out for is Québécois writer-director Éric Falardeau’s Thanatomorphose, a transgressive horror film in which a young woman is “trapped in the irreversible process of human decomposition.” Then there’s a 75th anniversary celebration of Orson Welles’ broadcast of The War of the Worlds featuring audio excerpts from the radio show, a revival of the 1975 TV movie The Night That Panicked America, and a rarer-than-rare showing of a split-screen, condensed version of George Pal’s War of the Worlds of 1953 originally custom-created as an installation for Montreal’s World Expo in 1967.

Finally, the festival’s most anticipated live event this year — the legendary late-night parties aside — is Clive Barker’s play The History of the Devil, staged by Title 66 Productions at the prestigious Place des Arts Theater.

Keep up with this year’s FanTasia Festival on their daily News Blog.

Related:
Frankenstein’s Army

The Art of Frankenstein : Donald Caron

The Monster springs to sudden life in Premature Birth, a digital painting by Donald Caron. Who is more surprised, Creator or Creation?

The beautifully detailed art is worth a closeup look...

Caron’s fantasy illustrations have graced film posters, games, advertising and comics. He has produced a number of posters for Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, including this year’s 15th Anniversary edition depicting the Cheval Noir of Québécois legend, the festival’s prize for Best Film.

As a double treat, Caron also produced a spectacular poster for Fantasia’s gala showing of 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera, screening this coming weekend at the prestigious Place des Arts concert hall. The film will be accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra performing an original score by Gabriel Thibodeau.

Here’s a shot of the Concordia University lobby, home base for Fantasia, dominated by a giant copy of Caron’s Phantom. You can see the poster in all its considerable glory on my companion blog, Monster Crazy.

Donald Caron’s website and gallery.

Fantasia Fest Premiere: Monster Brawl

In an abandoned and cursed cemetery, eight legendary monsters go skull to skull in the squared circle. Who will be left standing as the most powerful monster of all time?

Here’s a trailer, narrated by a gravel-gargling Lance Henricksen, for Monster Brawl, the Canadian-made horror-comedy that gets its world premiere today, July 23, at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

That’s New Brunswick-born Robert Maillet as “Frankenstein”. A WWF star turned actor, he was the giant Uber Immortal in 300 (2006) and Dredger, the juggernaut who smashes Robert Downey around in Sherlock Holmes (2009). As our favorite monster, he’ll be using his special Monster Chokehold and Ogre Rampage moves against the brain-eating Zombie Man. It’s a rastling match where one combatant will go from Undead to just plain Dead.

The Official Website for Monster Brawl is well done, with lots of info and a nice photo gallery. Early Concept Art shows The Monster in classic flattop and bolts mode.

Report from Fantasia

Proud to say I’ve got a guest post up at the Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire, covering the Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal and my review of Jean Rollin, The Stray Dreamer.

More from Fantasia coming up here and elsewhere. I’ll keep you posted.

Fantasia Festival 2011

The world class and world-beating Fantasia International Film Festival opens its fifteenth anniversary edition in Montréal today, July 14, and runs an incredible three weeks through August 7.

You can begin to appreciate the scope of this event by scanning the jaw-dropping schedule of features and shorts on view, all wrapped up in panels, live events and parties. Some of the highly anticipated films this year include Finland’s Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale — you’ll never think of Santa Claus the same way ever again — and Norway’s The Troll Hunter ­—you’ll never think of trolls the same way ever again, either. Director John Landis will present Burke and Hare, whose cast includes Christopher Lee, Jenny Agutter, and Ray Harryhausen! Robin Hardy will also be on hand to present The Wicker Tree, also featuring Sir Christopher, evoking — 38 years later — the spirit of the classic The Wicker Man.

Among the major events of Fantasia 2011 will be the world premiere of The Theatre Bizarre, a Grand Guignol anthology, in the presence of its seven directors (including Tom Savini) and cult star Udo Kier, and the feverishly anticipated official closing film, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, produced by Guillermo del Toro. This last one, in fact, is already sold out!

The Festival’s penultimate event is a showing of The Phantom of the Opera, with Lon Chaney, quote the Festival program: “Special gala event featuring a pristine 35mm print screened with a live original score composed by Gabriel Thibaudeau and performed by a 30-piece orchestra at the prestigious Théâtre Maisonneuve concert hall at Place des Arts!”

Frankenstein will pop up a few times through the festival. I’ll be reporting later this month on the Canadian-made Monster Brawl, a wrestling horror-comedy where our Monster goes up against a who’s who of horror creatures. Then there's a panel on “Hammer Film Mythology” followed by Terence Fisher’s Frankenstein Created Woman (1967).

An extended tribute honoring Canadian producers John Dunning and André Link will include a rare big-screen showing of Frankenstein 2000/The Vindicator (1986). Other Dunning & Link films shown include cult classics Shivers (1975), Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS (1975) and Les lèvres rouges/Daughters of Darkness (1971).

Too much to see — three weeks is too short a time! — but I’ll definitely get in line to catch the new documentary about director Jean Rollin, Le rêveur égaré (The Lost Dreamer). The screening includes a three-minute promo reel of Throat Sprockets, directed by the formidable Tim Lucas!

Time and sanity permitting, I’ll be reporting back on Fantasia 2011 in the days to come.

Wish you were here!

The Fantasia International Film Festival website carries the full schedule, film info and trailers.

The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry

Not a Frankenstein movie, but a great title for a film I can’t wait to see… The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry: Paul Naschy, The Life and Legend of a Horror Icon.

The intriguing title comes from an anecdote reported by Naschy (1934-2009). On February 25, 1966, Naschy was hired as an extra on a Spanish location shoot for the American television series I Spy with Boris Karloff in a memorable guest part as a Quixotic scientist. Though Naschy’s scenes were edited out, he had the opportunity to observe the elderly actor, hobbled by leg braces, at work in very difficult circumstances. Late in the day, in bitter cold and piercing winds, Naschy saw the suffering Karloff weep as he waited for transportation that was late arriving. “I am one of the very few,” Naschy wrote, “perhaps even the only man who saw Frankenstein’s Monster cry.”

The 60-minute documentary was directed by Naschy’s biographer, Angel Agudo. Mick Garris serves as host and narrator, and the film features rare archival footage of Naschy and interviews with Naschy friends and colleagues, including Christopher Lee and Caroline Munro.

The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry is scheduled for various film festival stops through the summer. It will premiere officially, and most appropriately, at the 43rd Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia in October.

In other Festival news, the extraordinary — and amazingly successful —Fantasia International Film Festival wrapped up in Montreal on July 28 and we note that Matthew Saliba’s Frankenstein Unlimited (which I blogged about here) walked away with a Bronze Award in the Best Canadian or Quebecois Feature category. And, by the way, I was knocked out to see Frankensteinia quoted by the Festival blog!

Paul Naschy website.

Frankenstein at FanTasia

The torrid summer of 2010 just got hotter: The 14^th edition of the excellent FanTasia International Film Festival, the largest genre festival in North America, kicks off today, July 8, in Montreal.

Among the offerings this year is Frankenstein Unlimited (2009), an anthology film by local filmmaker Matthew Saliba. The director’s Dark Fury is one of the six short films included in the compilation that, according to a press release, “takes the themes and mythos of Mary Shelley's creation in bold new directions via some of the most dynamic, innovative and mind-blowing shorts you've ever seen!”

You can read about the individual films, see the official trailer and even purchase the DVD on Saliba’s comprehensive website. And here’s the FanTasia page for the film.

There’s another Frankenstein connection to this year’s festival. Jury President Jean-Claude Lord, a Québécois film critic turned filmmaker who has proved himself as comfortable with social commentary as he is with B-movie thrillers, directed the 1986 Robocop precursor, The Vindicator, about a dying man turned into an indestructible killing machine. The film’s shooting title was Frankenstein ’88. The production company was identified as “Frank & Stein Film Productions" and the main character’s robotic costume was referred to as “the Frankenstein Suit”.

The Festival runs until July 28. Feast your eyes on the program, the guests and all the goodies on the FanTasia website. There’s also a FanTasia Blog this year.

The Posters of Frankenstein : Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, Alternate Poster

Frankenstein Girl is featured, at last, on this new, variant poster for the notoriously gore-festive Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl.

The film will be shown, with director Yoshihiro Nishimura in attendance, at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. The festival opens July 9. Full program is now online.

Related:

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl Poster
Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

Here’s a trailer that has been a bit of an Internet sensation this week. Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is the straightforward title for a very twisted film by special effects expert Yoshihiro Nishimura of Tokyo Gore Police fame. Co-directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu, and based on a manga by Shungiku Uchida, it’s a transgressive love triangle story featuring teenage girls with special powers vying for the love of a boy.

Eri Otoguro plays Keiko, the Frankenstein Girl, stitches and screws holding her face together.

Please be warned, the trailer features way over the top gore with exploding heads, hacked limbs and industrial strength arterial spray. It’s something like a live action Itchy and Scratchy cartoon and all very funny if you’re in the right mood. The only really offensive thing about it is the blackface character.

The film is currently in production and should premiere in North America at Montreal’s Fantasia film festival in July.

Here’s the trailer, on YouTube. NSFW.

Fangoria Online has a set report and a gallery of stills.