Dad’s Fragile Doll (Iran) (2014)
A young girl uses imagination to mentally work through her family situation. The film by Ali Zareghanatnowi has an interesting animation style that looks like moving sketches. The style is visually appealing but can become too much in scenes with more action, which is unfortunate. The film shows the horrors that humanity can do and how a young girl uses the power of imagination to help herself. This short shows that imagination liberates you, frees you of your cage, of your oppressor. The use of dolls and animation as surrogates for reality brings forth the message and the emotions.
Category Archives: Halloween Horror Month
King Kong (1976)
I’m not against contemporizing “King Kong,” but director John Guillermin shows us how to take a very simple concept like “King Kong” and completely botch it from minute one. It’s not like “King Kong” has a complex story. It’s a fairly exciting adventure about a giant monster, the woman he loves, and New York being torn to shreds by this out of place animal. Apart from being utterly abysmal, “King Kong” is also way too long, with a premise retrofitted for the seventies that stretches the limits of suspension of disbelief. For a movie about a giant ape climbing the Twin Towers, it’s sad that the whole plot to get King Kong in to New York is the most far fetched element I had difficulty buying in to.
Stay Alive (2006)
This dry as a bone “horror” entry is part “Dream Warriors”, part “The Ring”, with neither of the characters is developed beyond your basic concepts upon which they’re established. And there are also your usual under-developed back stories that Bell limps along with for no reason. Here’s the hero who has a fear of fire. Why? Well—who cares? Look! A ghost! How can we root for characters whom are basic morons? Perhaps it’s Bell’s allusion that gamers in general, are morons. Not that hard to believe, when you think about it. The characters that are supposed to die die.
Demons 2 (Dèmoni 2) (1986)
Playing October 29th in a double screening with “Demons,” at the Anthology Film Archives, NYC [Tel: (212) 505-5181]. “Demons 2” star Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni is set to appear and present both films. Check theater times and ticket prices here.
Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento bring us quite an interesting universe where all elements of their narrative and concept tend to transcend reality and common sense and the realities kind of intercept one another. In either case, “Demons 2” much like the original, is a film where you basically buckle up and take the ride without picking apart too much of the ideas. When dissected nothing makes much sense, but it’s at least a fun tour through some genuinely fun shocks and creative moments of horror cinema. Unlike the first film, “Demons 2” lacks the novelty of the movie theater setting. Wherein the original had demonic forces infiltrating a safe haven for movie lovers, director Bava and producer-writer Dario Argento confine their victims to a locked down apartment complex.
Other Shorts From Horrible Imaginings [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2016]
L’Ours Noir (The Black Bear) (France) (2015)
Written and directed by Méryl Fortunat-Rossi and Xavier Seron, L’Ours Noir is a film based on a safety pamphlet about black bears in the north of Quebec. A group of hikers go in a forest to explore the land, when they meet a black bear for which they were supposed to learn the rules before going. The film they build is absolutely hilarious and gory, sporting a talented cast with a great sense of timing. The cast is composed mainly of Francois Neycken, Jean-Jacques Rausin, Terence Rion, Catherine Salée, and Jean-Benoit Ugeux who all give great performances in the crazy circumstances they are thrown in. The film also boasts fantastic special effects that fit just right with it. The bear used might be cuddly looking but his attacks are vicious, funny, and bloody. This short is possibly the funniest horror-comedy this reviewer has seen this year and in a long while. It’s absolutely fantastic and must be watched if you get the chance.
ClownTown (2016)
If you think Rob Zombie is the only director releasing a schlocky survival horror film about evil clowns, you’d be mistaken. Here comes Tom Nagel’s “ClownTown,” a film a group of hapless travelers that wander in to an abandoned town ruled over by psychotic clowns that want to kill them a lot. After an unusual and tacked on prologue that copies John Carpenter’s “Halloween” almost shamelessly, we enter in to the actual tale of a group of friends heading to a concert. When they’re accidentally run off the road in a seemingly abandoned town, they and two other travelers find themselves being victimized and terrorized by psychotic and murderous clowns.
The ReZort (2015)
A woman dealing with the aftermath of her father’s death in the war against zombies decides to go on a zombie safari on a remote island. Written by Paul Gerstenberger and directed by Steve Barker, this zombie film doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre, it uses a few newer, or less used, ideas and freshens it up a bit. Their zombies are fast moving zombies, the bad people are clearly so, but the good guys are decent and easy to watch with a few you can root for. These characters are a bit basic and a bit predictable but they work in the story and are decently entertaining.