Just when I was beginning to think July was going to be a quiet month, I realized that it's full of horror movies all over the City.
Rescheduled for Friday July 30th, the Paramount Theatre in Oakland presents the original 1933 version of
King Kong.
I've seen it on the big screen before, and if you haven't don't miss this opportunity to see a true classic as it should be seen. Besides, tickets are only $5 and there's plenty of fun beforehand. I'd get there early as the last few times I've gone the huge theater gets packed.
Starting tonight,
SF Indiefest presents
Another Hole in the Head, the annual horror/fantasy/sci-fi film festival takes place at the Roxie and Viz theaters from July 8th - 29th. There are 31 films in all and after going through the site I've chosen 16 that I think are worth checking out. Of course this is just my taste talking, so you should take a look at the
calendar yourself and make your own decisions.
You can get advance tickets here for everything. The whole deal for $150 seems like the best bet as you can get in to all 31 films, 7 music shows and a play. Not a bad deal.
These are the films that caught my eye:
Satan Hates You features 70's horror legends Angus Scrimm (Phantasm) and Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes). I'd have to see it just for that, but it looks promising regardless.
A Serbian Film was banned in Serbia. I want to know why, of course because how shocking must a film be that a country that has put itself through a genocidal war decides it's too much for its populace?
The Violent Kind and Shadow look to be more grindhouse/exploitation than horror, a genre explored in the documentary American Grindhouse and these kinds of movies are just too scarce to pass up, as are serious documentaries about them.
Fell looks to be a more psychological horror, like a gentle version of Argento's
Jenifer, which if you've never seen, is a genuinely creepy and disturbing horror movie.
Strigoi is a vampire flick that looks promising. I can't think of a decent vampire movie since Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 masterpiece
Near Dark, so it's about time one showed up.
Phasma Ex Machina is a straight-up ghost story- these are so hard to do right, but when they are, what's better?
There is a must-see documentary about the horror genre,
Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, that looks much better than any of those silly docs about the genre you see produced by AFI or organizations like that.
Symbol just sounds flat-out weird, but the bizarre premise holds some potential and this one is going to be my "okay, let's see if it's great though it will probably suck" choice.
Ticked-off Trannies with Knives. Having been educated on how the word "tranny" is a pejorative term that really should be retired for the same reasons people with any brains no longer use the words
fag and
nigger, I have mixed feelings about tacitly approving the use of it by seeing the movie, but I have to see this anyway. I do live in the Tenderloin- enough said.
Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre features the original Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen, and the trailer makes it look much better than the ridiculously lame title suggests. Icelandic horror- who knew? This one looks like a contender for best of fest.
So there you have it. Those are my choices. If you see one that you liked that's not on my list, please leave a comment about it.
Running concurrently during the festival are a few more performances of
Much Ado About Lebowski, which is described on the ticket site as "An adaptation of an adaptation of a parody of a farce. White Russians served at 7p. The Dude Abideth at 8p." and tickets for this are going pretty fast and you must be over 21 to get in. How this relates to a horror/sci-fi/fantasy film festival is beyond me, but I can abide with it. At the Off Market Theater
Also running in tandem is the
Summer Music Fest, taking place at the Parkside and the Bottom of the Hill with a ton of bands July 9th-13th.
Then there's the "when worlds collide" delight later this month when the San Francisco Symphony accompanies the original slasher-flick, Psycho, on Saturday, July 17th. See, some people get that high and low culture can be paired with great results, which has always been my belief.