The 2017 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival returns to New York City October 12th till the 15th, announced the first wave of the line-up, which boasts exciting films, dynamic events and more venues, expanding the festival’s activities.
“This year we’ve grown to a four-day festival and are very excited to be extending our reach to audiences beyond North Brooklyn, into Downtown Brooklyn and Crown Heights,” says fest director Justin Timms. “Starting with our opening night at the new Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Brooklyn we’ve also added Nitehawk Cinema, LIU Kumble Theater, Film Noir Cinema & Video Revival this year to go along with our key theaters from last year Wythe Hotel Cinema, Videology Bar & Cinema and Spectacle Theater.”
Opening the festival is the North American Premiere of HOUSEWIFE, the newest film from director Can Evrenol who showed immense promise with his brutal 2015 breakthrough BASKIN. HOUSEWIFE tells the tale of a woman – haunted by a horrific childhood incident – who struggles with separating her nightmares from reality after she meets a charismatic psychic with a secret agenda.
This year BHFF will present the inaugural FEAR IN FOCUS program! Fear in Focus shines a spotlight on various themes or ideas that are important today. With the current political and global climate, the festival is “beyond excited” to launch this with the Mexican horror program.
FEAR IN FOCUS: MEXICO will showcase the hotly anticipated North American Premiere of horror anthology follow-up MEXICO BARBARO 2. Segment director Sergio Tello will be in attendance.
Also in the block is the US Premiere of VERONICA, the erotically charged mystery with echoes of early Polanski by directors Carlos Algara & Alejandro Martinez Beltran in which a twisted battle for psychological dominance ensues between a retired psychologist and her patient whom she treats in her isolated home in the woods.
Not to be missed is the East Coast Premiere of Victor Dryere’s genuinely unnerving found footage film 1974 which reveals the bizarre and terrifying fate of a missing young couple through a collection of 8 mm tapes and home movies. A much-needed shot in the arm for a tired horror style, Dryere’s film deserves mention alongside found-footage gems like [REC] and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.
BHFF also announced an additional five competition features, starting with Tyler MacIntyre’s highly acclaimed TRAGEDY GIRLS.
Status obsession has a body count when BFFs Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand, DEADPOOL’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp, X-MEN APOCALYPSE’s Storm) capture a serial murderer whose exploits they’ve been chronicling on their blog. How do they keep the slaughter spree going so they have more to report on? The answers are both giggly and grisly in a film also featuring a fun supporting turn by comedy big-timer (and producer) Craig Robinson.
Festival fans may remember Graham Skipper, star of last year’s Audience Award Winning BEYOND THE GATES, who now returns to BHFF to share his directorial debut, SEQUENCE BREAK, a surreal, absorbing homage to the body-horror cinema and video games of the ’80s. Chase Williamson plays an arcade-game repairman who finds love with a customer (Fabianne Therese) and terror from a mysterious game with a lot more powering it than pixels. Director Graham Skipper will be in attendance for the screening.
Surrounded by heightened paranoia and superstition, an evil presence threatens a mother and her infant child in the Alps of 15th century Austria in HAGAZUSSA – A HEATHEN’S CURSE. Is this ancient malevolence an outside force or a product of her psychosis? With stunningly gorgeous photography and atmosphere for days, Lukas Fiegelfeld’s gothic horror fever dream illustrates the dangers associated with dark beliefs and the infestation of fear.
A young woman traumatized by a savage attack from her husband begins to hear voices in her apartment. CLEMENTINA, Jimena Monteoliva’s solo directorial debut expertly builds tension, maintaining a sense of unease from the start that creeps higher until the frightening and suffocating shocker of a third act. Cecilia Cartasegna delivers with a classically terrifying portrait of a woman on the edge. Lead actress Cecilia Cartasegna and screenwriter Diego Fleischer will be in attendance for the screening.
Take a stroll into despair with the East Coast Premiere of José Pedro Lopes THE FOREST OF LOST SOULS, as two suicidal strangers explore the dark woods together, looking for the best spot to commit suicide all the while debating, what’s the best way to kill yourself? It soon becomes clear that one person isn’t who they say they are. This Portuguese black-and-white-shot nightmare is a unique and disturbing modern take on the slasher film.
To start off the 2017 STAGE FRIGHTS program the festival announced two of this year’s live events where the panels of experts will be dissecting fear with sharp wit, whether they’re intoxicated or not.
Even the best slasher villain has a better half — a final girl. Final girls are a crucial part of the horror ecosystem, but which one is the best? Which is the funniest? And which has the most questionable taste in weapons? Come hear horror experts make the case for everyone from Jamie Lee Curtis in HALLOWEEN to Neve Campbell in SCREAM to Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN.
Participants: Aja Romano (Vox), Kristen Kim (GQ/Village Voice/Vice), Hazel Cills (Jezebel), and Teo Bugbee (Daily Beast).
Hosted by Eric Thurm (The Guardian/GQ/The A.V. Club), Drunk Education (the show formerly known as Drunk TED Talks) is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: writers/comics/artists make slideshows about stuff they’re really into, get drunk, and deliver them. Whether it’s the horniness of St. Augustine, the history of mansplaining relayed through the plot of Love Actually, or the way teen girl organizers could have prevented the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Drunk Ed has you covered.
To celebrate the release of Canadian micro-publisher Spectacular Optical’s new book about French fantastique filmmaker Jean Rollin, the book’s curator and editor Samm Deighan will be on hand to introduce a special screening of Rollin’s 1971 LE FRISSON DES VAMPIRES, recently restored in HD by Kino Lorber.
LOST GIRLS is the first book about the director to be written entirely by women critics, scholars, and film historians. This collection of essays covers the wide range of Rollin’s career from 1968’s LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE through his 2010 swansong, LE MASQUE DE LA MÉDUSE, touching upon his horror, fantasy, crime and sex films—including many lesser seen titles. Before the film, Samm will give a brief introduction examining Rollin’s core themes: his focus on overwhelmingly female protagonists, his use of horror genre and exploitation tropes, his reinterpretations of the fairy tale and fantastique, the influence of crime serials, Gothic literature, the occult and more.
HOUSEWIFE (NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE)
Turkey / Dir. Can Evrenol
Sponsored by Birth.Movies.Death
Haunted by the bloodstained memories of a horrific childhood incident, Holly’s struggles with separating her nightmares from reality derail after she meets charismatic psychic with a secret agenda. Capitalizing on the immense promise shown by his brutal 2015 breakthrough BASKIN, writer-director Can Evrenol solidifies himself as horror’s future with this hypnotic and gruesome ode to Bava-esque Italian horror.
1974 (EAST COAST PREMIERE)
Mexico / Dir. Victor Dryere
Sponsored by El Buho Mezcal
Shortly after getting married in 1974, the young couple Altair and Manuel disappeared without a trace in Mexico. Through a collection of 8 mm tapes and home movies, the newlyweds’ fates are revealed in all of their bizarre and terrifying glory. A much-needed shot in the arm for a tired horror style, Mexican filmmaker Victor Dryere’s genuinely unnerving 1974 deserves mention alongside found-footage gems like [REC] and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.
MEXICO BARBARO II (NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE)
Mexico / Dir. Lex Ortega, Sergio Tello, Diego Cohen, Fernando Urdapilleta, Michel Garza, Carlos Melendez, Ricardo Farías, Christian Cueva, Abraham Sanchez
Sponsored by El Buho Mezcal
In 2014, the truly demented Mexican filmmaker Lex Ortega assembled his country’s best horror filmmakers for the shocking anthology MEXICO BARBARO. But if you thought that film was gnarly, wait until you get a load of this crazier and wonderfully unhinged follow-up, helmed by an all-new lineup of on-the-rise Mexican horror voices and touching on cannibalism, porn, and historical demons.
VERONICA (US PREMIERE)
Mexico / Dir. Carlos Algara & Alejandro Martinez Beltran
Sponsored by El Buho Mezcal
A retired psychologist agrees to take on one more patient under the condition that the young lady move into her isolated home in the woods. A game of secrets and lies ensues as the two women battle for psychological dominance. Mexican co-directors Carlos Algara and Alejandro Martinez-Beltran’s feature debut is an erotically charged mystery with echoes of early Polanski.
CLEMENTINA (NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE)
Argentina / Dir. Jimena Monteoliva
A young woman traumatized by a savage attack from her husband begins to hear voices in her apartment. Jimena Monteoliva’s solo directorial debut expertly builds tension, maintaining a sense of unease from the start that creeps higher until the frightening and suffocating shocker of a third act. Cecilia Cartasegna delivers with a classically terrifying portrait of a woman on the edge.
THE FOREST OF LOST SOULS (EAST COAST PREMIERE)
Portugal / Dir. José Pedro Lopes
Two suicidal strangers explore the Forest of Lost Souls together, looking for the best spot to commit suicide all the while debating, what’s the best way to kill yourself? It soon becomes clear that one person isn’t who they say they are. This black-and-white-shot nightmare is a unique and disturbing modern take on the slasher film.
HAGAZUSSA – A HEATHEN’S CURSE (EAST COAST PREMIERE)
Germany / Dir. Lukas Fiegelfeld
Surrounded by heightened paranoia and superstition, an evil presence threatens a mother and her infant child in the Alps of 15th century Austria. But is this ancient malevolence an outside force or a product of her psychosis? With stunningly gorgeous photography and atmosphere for days, Lukas Fiegelfeld’s gothic horror fever dream illustrates the dangers associated with dark beliefs and the infestation of fear.
SEQUENCE BREAK (NY PREMIERE)
USA / Dir. Graham Skipper
Sponsored by Brooklyn Fireproof Stages
Busy genre actor Graham Skipper (RE-ANIMATOR: THE MUSICAL, BEYOND THE GATES, THE MIND’S EYE) makes his feature writing/directing debut with a surreal, absorbing homage to the body-horror cinema and video games of the ’80s. Chase Williamson plays an arcade-game repairman who finds love with a customer (Fabienne Theresa) and terror from a mysterious game with a lot more powering it than pixels.
TRAGEDY GIRLS (NY PREMIERE)
USA / Dir. Tyler Macintyre
Co-Presented by Nitehawk Cinema
Status obsession has a body count when BFFs Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand, DEADPOOL’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) capture a serial murderer whose exploits they’ve been chronicling on their blog. How do they keep the slaughter spree going so they have more to report on? The answers are both giggly and grisly in a film also featuring a fun supporting turn by Craig Robinson (also a producer).
THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1971)
France / Dir. Jean Rollin
In conjunction with the launch of Spectacular Optical’s LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN, book editor Samm Deighan will host a special screening of Rollin’s SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES. Originally released in 1971, the French auteur’s psycho-sexual masterwork demonstrates all of Rollin’s cinematic touchstones: erotic scares, drop-dead-gorgeous bloodsuckers, and ornately shot kink. It’ll turn you into a Rollin disciple if you aren’t one already.
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