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APRIL MOVIE THON 2: Spasms (1983)

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April 11: Upsetting — What movie upsets you? Write about it and share it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

There’s a moment in Spasms where Oliver Reed twitches and spits like a snake in a yellow cardigan sweater. It’s a quick cut at 1:07:50 and it’s why I love this movie. That and the design of the creature – an ancient, one-of-a-kind blue snake referred to by locals as “the serpent.” It’s pretty damn cool. 

Spasms was produced in Canada. It’s based on a book with two main heroes. The first, millionaire Jason Kincaid (Reed) whose brother was killed by said snake on a past hunting trip to Micronesia. The snake bit Jason as well, but instead of dying, he lived and, it appears, formed a telepathic connection with the animal as a result of the venom’s mutation of the brain cells responsible for extrasensory awareness. 

Kincaid pays a low-rent-Indiana-Jones-style poacher to capture the snake and bring it to his estate because he is plagued by images of the serpent continuing to kill people. Kincaid lives with his hot niece, Suzanne played by Kerrie Keane from The Incubus (1982.) I never thought I’d see Oliver Reed play a creepy uncle, but it’s the second reason I love this film. It’s pretty obvious he’s in love with her.

Kincaid seeks out the film’s second hero – ESP researcher and psychiatrist Tom Brasilian (Peter Fonda) in the hopes that he can assist him in permanently cutting off the unwanted psychic contact. Kincaid offers to finance all of Brasilian’s ongoing research in exchange. 

Suzanne falls for Tom. Who wouldn’t with lines like, “You shouldn’t say ‘crap.” It’s not lady-like.” Poor Kincaid is left alone with nothing but blue snake on his mind. Meanwhile, a snake-worshipping cult sends a heavy out to capture and bring them their god. Turns out he’s not so heavy compared to the snake. 

Of course, the snake gets out of its crate and starts killing people. Its venom is so strong that everyone bitten blows up like a balloon and then decomposes very quickly following death. 

 The shots of the snake are fast, few and far between, but the point-of-view sequences are pretty good, especially the shower kill and the greenhouse chase. 

It’s not a bad movie at all, although probably not exactly what people thought they were going to get when they first saw the trailer back in 1983. It’s a must-see for Canuck horror fans, Oliver Reed fans or snake film enthusiasts. I kind of felt bad for the creatures. There he was just chilling out in the jungle, the last of his kind, and all of sudden he’s in America in unfamiliar surroundings. I’d be pissed off, too! TSST!!!! 

You can watch the entire film here on YouTube.

One of These Days (2020)

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In a small town in Texas, an annual endurance contest in which contestants have to keep their hands on the body of a new pickup truck may offer entertainment to spectators and the chance of a lifetime to participants, but things spiral out of control.

If you’ve seen Hands On a Hard Body, you know how these contests work. German director Bastian Günther takes that idea and turns it into an examination of several people and their reasons for this test of will.

The player destined to win seems to be Kyle (Joe Cole), an unemployed local with a young wife and baby daughter. He seems obsessed to get the Nissan truck to the point that he begins to lose his sanity. There’s also a churchgoing woman named Ruthie (Lynne Ashe) who has her Bible and fellow worshippers on her side. They are amongst the twenty people gathered by Maria Parsons (Carrie Preston), the happy go lucky divorcee who has been doing this contest for years, but has never had one turn out like this.

The end of the film gets beyond dark, but it’s left to the viewer to wonder if it’s happening or the flashback shows what really happened. But real life is just as bleak. 24 year old Richard Vega threw a garbage can through the window of a K-Mart next door, walked to the sporting goods section and stole a shotgun. He was stopped by police before he could leave, at which point he shot himself. He had consumed six energy drinks over the past several hours and seemed like the most driven of all the people trying to win.

The idea of people doing anything for a prize while everyone watches won’t go away, particularly as the elite and lower castes grow further apart in America. The truck salespeople have already made it; they’re not giving an opportunity to the twenty people fighting against exhaustion to stand next to a truck. They’re giving us a way to stare and watch people fall to pieces.

 

Breakout (2023)

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Vincent (Kristos Andrews) has been caught by the police thanks to undercover cop Chavez (Noel Gugliemi). He kills the turncoat and ends up in a maximum security prison, where his former special ops father Alex (Louis Mandylor) comes to speak with him. Meanwhile, a former cop turned criminal mastermind named Chandler (Brian Krause) is set to break out and add to his followers by bringing in fellow prisoners. He already has one dangerous henchman named Ruke (Howard McNair) and enough of his men on the inside to get away with almost anything.

He didn’t count on Alex being there.

As Chandler negotiates with Coleman (Tom Sizemore), Alex works on getting close all with the goal of saving his son, who at the same time is becoming part of the gang as the words he hears from Chandler mean more than his judgemental — and at times absent — dad.

Breakout isn’t going to be the most revolutionary action movie you see, but it’s just over 80 minutes, moves fast, has some great fights, one bad ass hero at its core and a bad guy who you want to see more of — and seeing as how this sets up a sequel, hopefully we get one — and that’s more than some big budget films deliver.

Brandon Slagle is a name to watch, as he knows how to build tension, deliver brutal brawls and make you want to see even more than he delivers. Well done. And the script he wrote with Robert Thompon (Crossbreed) and Devanny Pinn (who contributed stories to other Slagle movies like Area 51 Confidential and Vivid) may hit all the beats that you expect from a McClane clone, but somehow it’s way more gripping than ones that cost five times or more.

UNEARTHED FILMS BLU RAY RELEASE: Calamity of Snakes (1982)

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April 11: Upsetting — What movie upsets you? Write about it and share it.

I think that I’m unshockable and then I watch something like Ren she da zhan and man, I had no idea what being shocked was.

Directed by Chi Chiang (who was also the choregrapher for Bruce Lee: The Man, the Myth and directed China Heat and Bruce Lee’s Deadly Kung Fu), who wrote it with Kang-Nien Li and Kuo Jung Tsai, this is a movie that people who hate snaked will be horrified by and those that love them will be destroyed by, so there’s really no one who won’t be brutalized by what these guys put together. I’m not exaggerating when I say that tens of thousands of snakes appear and also not making anything up when I tell you that just as many snakes are murdered on screen, for real, in a movie that looks at Cannibal Holocaust and scoffs, “People are mad that you killed a turtle? Here, hold my San Miguel.”

This Hong Kong/Taiwan film (there’s also a South Korean version called War Between Man and Snakes that has five more minutes and alternate footage filmed in that country) starts with real estate boss Francis Chang ordering his men to kill all the snakes around his new luxury apartment building. What follows is a near-mondo orgy of human-on-snake violence as snakes are chopped, sliced and smashed by excavators and dumped into huge snake graves. This is not CGI, so turn back now, because no one visited this set to see if a movie called Calamity of Snakes was snake-friendly. It’s kind of like all those Italian cannibal movies that show man’s inhumanity to man that were made by being inhumane to man, which seems like, you guessed it, a snake eating its own tail, which is about the only bit of snake violence this movie doesn’t have.

After all that, you’ll hardly be mad that this steals music from Maniac and the same cues as Dawn of the Dead. There’s also some Alan Parsons Project and Keith Emerson, because we all know progressive rock is prime snake murder music. Taking music is the least of this movie’s sins.

It does have snakes run over, destroyed by a mongoose, gassed, hit with rocks, sliced apart with swords and even a giant snake participates in a kung fu battle against a man who lives inside a box of snakes, even keeping one inside his mouth and the snake makes the same sound effects as Godzilla.

What does work is that snakes non-stop kill humans, showing up in bathtubs, when people are making love, when folks are playing mahjong, whenever people do, well, anything. Snakes will show up — the big snake might even be psychic — wherever people are trying to just live their lives, including a moment where they spill forth from an elevator in the exact same way that blood spills out in The Shining.

Footage from this movie was edited into The Serpent Warriors, a movie that stars Earth Kitt, Christopher Mitchum and was the last role for Clint Walker. It was also released in Pakistan as Revenge of the Snakes — thanks Daily Grindhouse — with artwork that rips off The Beyond and let me tell you, I can’t love that enough.

For all the meanness toward reptiles, this movie does not treat its humans any better, as there are numerous scenes of people covered by snakes, snakes are thrown at them, snakes are in their faces and at the end, someone does a burn stunt that in no way looks safe or something that someone survived.

Does it make you feel better that some of the snakes were eaten afterward and not wasted? Yeah, me neither. That said, good for Unearthed Films, who are giving a percentage of all profits from Calamity of the Snakes in all formats to Save the Snakes in continuation of their mission to protect snake populations around the world.

The Unearthed Films blu ray of Calamity of Snakes has the best looking version of this movie ever in three versions: theatrical release, cruelty-free and the absolutely uncensored version. It also has From Shaw To Snakes: The Venom And Violence Of Early Chinese Language Horror, an interview with Chui-Yi Chung and commentary from Nathan Hamilton and Brad Slaton. You can get this from MVD.

APRIL MOVIE THON 2: Antichrist (2009)

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April 11: Upsetting — What movie upsets you? Write about it and share it.

While I was watching this movie, my wife came downstairs, upset about our neighbor and the way he leaves garbage all over the street. In the middle of being upset that I don’t want to fight the guy, she looked at the screen and saw a moment of this movie and yelled, “Why are you watching something like that?”

I answered, “You know, I have no idea.”

He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) make love as their child climbs out of a window and falls to his death. She goes to pieces and he thinks that as a therapist, he can do a better job of healing her than all the doctors and takes her to a cabin called Eden, because she’s afraid of nature and he’s into exposure therapy and man, minutes into this movie I’m already upset between the fox tearing itself apart yelling “Chaos reigns!” and the deer with a stillborn baby sticking out of it.

Well, it’s going to get worse.

He and she have violent sex at the base of a tree after he learns that she thinks all women are evil and her greatest fear is Satan. Oh yeah — she’d also been putting their son’s shoes on the wrong feet to make him deformed, which she follows up by dropping a wood block right on He’s cock then — spoilers for those of delicate constitutions — jerks him off until he sprays blood, then bolts his leg into a grindstone. She follows that up by burying him and — are you still here? — cutting off her clitoris, which was the exact moment my wife decided to look at this movie.

Lars Von Trier started writing this when he was hospitalized for depression and obviously, he was working through some horrifying things. I mean, when people are visited by despair, grief and pain before a husband strangles his wife, burns her and then is faced by hundreds of women with blurred faces, there’s a lot there. Also: he has converted to being Catholic and man, these are the kind of images that being part of the church can give you.

John Waters had the best review of this movie: “If Ingmar Bergman had committed suicide, gone to hell, and come back to earth to direct an exploitation/art film for drive-ins, this is the movie he would have made.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Chattanooga Film Festival Celebrates 10th Year with World Premieres, a Tales from the Crypt Salute, and Ghost Stories Galore

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The Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF) will make its long awaited return this summer from June 23 – 29. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, after being named one of “The 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” by MovieMaker Magazine, the festival will return to the ground June 23 – 25, while still offering a virtual experience from June 23 – 29.

While the festival will have various locations around the city, the main venue will be Chattanooga’s historic and legendary haunted The Read House Hotel. The hotel’s 1920s beauty and the tale of Room 311, with resident ghost Annalisa, make it the perfect backdrop for the festival’s 10th Anniversary.

Opening the festival will be the Southeast premiere of Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls is based on director Andrew Bowser’s viral character Onyx, who has racked up over 300 million plus views online. Later that evening, Onyx the Fortuitous himself will preside over the CFF’s opening night party, the Black Magic Masquerade. This event has the festival collaborating once again with Chattanooga Whiskey for an evening of costumes and cosplay, mingling and madness, spooky tunes and killer signature cocktails.

This year’s CFF will see the world premiere of Sour Party from filmmakers Amanda Drexton and Michael A. Drexton, one of the programming team’s favorite debut features of 2023. The film centers around Gwen (Samantha Westervelt) and James (Amanda Drexton), two flailing thirtysomething besties that are as broke as they are self-absorbed. When circumstances set the duo out on a bizarre odyssey across Los Angeles to collect “debts,” featuring delightful appearances from the likes of Reggie Watts and Corey Feldman, you’re left with a feminist twist on the buddy comedy that you won’t be able to help but fall in love with.

On the other end of the spectrum is the world premiere of director Stephen Vanderpool and writer/star Sam Brittan’s Tearsucker. The plot is a dark and surreal journey that revolves around a psychopath that feeds on women’s tears. Filled with Lynchian tone shifts and dynamic performances that will make you squirm in your seat, Brittan’s haunting rumination on toxic masculinity and equally toxic power dynamics will lodge itself in the darkest corners of your mind.

As CFF did with their 2022 fan-favorite film PUSSYCAKE, the festival is proud to partner again with our pals at Cinedigm and Screambox on a pair of must-see films that will please horror fans looking for exciting new voices in horror cinema. The first is Japanese filmmaker Keishi Kondo’s mind-melting debut feature, New Religion. Kondo mixes a surreal ghost story with body horror, resulting in a wildly atmospheric and gripping film.

Dark Star Pictures will present two special screenings for festival attendees. First, the opening film in the festival’s popular CFF After Hours block is Daphné Baiwir‘s masterful deep dive into the world of Stephen King film adaptations, King On. Screen,  Dark Star will also give CFF attendees a chance to see the terrifying psychological and body horror film The Elderly, from filmmakers Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez.

On the live event side of things, CFF leans deeper into darkness with special return appearances by bestselling authors. screenwriters and longtime festival favorites Clay McLeod Chapman (Whisper Down the Lane, Netflix’s “Wendell & Wild”) and Grady Hendrix (The Final Girl Support Group, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires).

Chapman will help kick off the festival’s opening day with an event that’s become a sacred tradition to CFF fans—The Pumpkin Pie Show, which showcases Chapman’s wild and unhinged abilities as a live storyteller. This year he’ll present Ghost Eaters and Other Stories, featuring readings from his latest novel The Ghost Eaters. It’s a perfect reminder to guests that there’s nothing better than curling up in a haunted hotel with one of the world’s foremost tellers of scary tales.

Hendrix returns with a brand new live show How To Sell a Haunted House, based on his recent novel of the same name. Those who’ve seen Hendrix break down the weird world of pulp horror paperbacks and rowdy dissection of the slasher film sub-genre during past editions of the festival know Grady’s shows are as hilarious as they are packed with fascinating information and occasionally even songs!

CFF will also pay tribute to the iconic horror anthology series Tales from the Crypt with a series of special events woven throughout this year’s festival. The celebration will kick off with a pop-up comic shop salute to the series’ bloody beginning in the pages of EC Comics, conjured from the depths of darkness by the folks at Infinity Flux Comics.

Next up is a special live episode of The How NOT To Make a Movie Podcast, hosted by two people that know the crypt all too well, longtime Tales from the Crypt writers, directors, producers Gil Adley and A L Katz. Their wild podcast, named one “The Best Film Podcast of 2022” by Entertainment Weekly, centers around the infamous hellish experience they had making Bordello of Blood.

The salute continues with Bordello of Blood: LIVE COMMENTARY, presented by Diabolik DVD, which will give insight from Adler and Katz about how they found themselves in the impossible situation of the studio forcing them make a film that not only nobody wanted, a situation that also ended their friendship effectively for over 20 years. Part cinema therapy, we’re sure this event will haul a few more skeletons out of the Bordello closet.

Finally, as we once returned Sam Jones’s voice to Flash Gordon, CFF aims to right yet another cinematic wrong with a live script reading of the pair’s never made true Demon Knight follow-up, Dead Easy. This event will have a cast of your genre film favorites, as they pay tribute to Adler and Katz.

The valuable lessons the festival learned about accessibility during its online editions cemented their commitment to making a virtual component a permanent part of the event each year. Of equal importance to festival director and film programmer Chris Dortch and his team, is that the festival’s virtual offerings will in no way feel like an afterthought. As with the last 3 years, the virtual component of this year’s festival will feel like a fully-fledged festival experience consisting of features, shorts, and exclusive live events.

Also coming to the virtual line up is the festival’s new Red Eye block, a series of seven lovingly selected secret screenings happening at the end of every day that are designed to squeegee your third eye and to help you avoid the tyranny of “good” taste.

The festival’s Fans and Filmmakers Discord Server makes its triumphant return as well this year..The server, which does everything from host channels for each year’s films, giving filmmakers the ability to answer questions and offer personal insight and additional context, as well as see instant feedback on their films from attendees. The server also will be home base for nightly watch parties for films and events, both of which have become extremely popular.

Hybrid and Virtual VIP badges are on sale now. For guests that pick up one of the festival’s Hybrid VIP passes, an entire weekend of in-person screenings, events, and parties await June 23 – 25, and when the on-the-ground days are over, there’s still a lot more festival left to explore from June 26 – 29. Those that opt for virtual will have access to films and select live events from June 23 – 29. Please note that virtual access is only for those in the US. For more information, head to chattfilmfest.org.

FEATURES

King On Screen: Director Daphné Baiwir  |  France, USA, 2022

Presented by Dark Star Pictures

Synopsis: 1976, Brian de Palma directs Carrie, the first novel by Stephen King. Since then, more than 50 directors have adapted the master of horror’s books, in more than 80 films and series, making him the most adapted author still alive in the world. King On Screen reunites filmmakers that have adapted Stephen King’s books for cinema and TV.

*In-person and virtual.

New Religion: Director Keishi Kondo  | Japan, 2022

Presented by Screambox

After her daughter’s death in an accident, Miyabi gets a divorce, starts working as a call girl and moves in with her new boyfriend. In a meeting with a new customer, he asks to take a picture of her body — first her spine, then, her feet, and after that, he begins to photograph her every time they meet. One day, while at home, Miyabi feels a small hand touching her leg and soon realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed she can feel her daughter’s spirit reaching closer and closer. Soon, only her eyes remain to be captured, leading to the outcome which defines this unique art-house fantasy from a culture-shocking Japanese voice.

*In-person and virtual.

Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls: Director Andrew Bowser  |  USA, 2023

Opening Night Film

The story follows fledgling occultist Marcus J. Trillbury (Onyx) as he attends a once-in-a-lifetime ritual at his idol Bartok the Great’s dark mansion. Once there, Marcus meets a group of other occultists and they are led in a series of rituals meant to “better them.” But as terrible things begin to happen, it soon becomes clear that Bartok’s intentions are more nefarious. As Onyx and his new friends battle to keep their souls, a question of great destiny looms over Onyx’s head: is he doomed to be a nobody or will he rise to defeat Bartok and save his friends from damnation?

Sour Party: Directors Amanda Drexton, Michael A. Drexton  |  USA, 2023

*World Premiere

Sour Party follows Gwen and James, two broke, flailing 30-somethings on a quest to scrounge money from a collection of low lives and failed artists in an attempt to show up to Gwen’s sister’s baby shower with a proper gift.

Tearsucker: Director Stephen Vanderpool  |  USA, 2023

*World Premiere

Emotionally vulnerable women are preyed on by a charming psychopath who wants to suck their tears.

The Elderly: Directors Raúl Cerezo, Fernando González Gómez  |  Spain, 2022

Presented by Dark Star Pictures

After his beloved wife suddenly commits suicide, octogenarian Manuel starts behaving strangely, much to the distress of his family and his increasingly independent granddaughter. He becomes aggressive, still believes that he’s talking with his dead wife, and even tries to implant a radio receptor into his chest. His family are confused and angry, and as the temperature in Madrid literally rises due to a summer heat wave, it appears that Manuel isn’t the only senior citizen preparing for something big. All the elderly folk are acting suspiciously, and they all seem to know something the young ones don’t.

EVENTS

Black Magic Masquerade: Opening Night Party

In honor of our CFF 2023 Opening Night film Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, we’re proud to partner with our buds at Chattanooga Whiskey for a sinful salute to the dark arts. Join CFF and Onyx himself for an evil evening filled with costumes and cosplay, creepy cocktails, death-obsessed DJs, freaky and fantastic pop-ups by our pals at Infinity Flux Comics, Yellow Racket Records, Snapdragon Hemp, and Liquid Death Mountain Spring Water, plus even more sinister secrets we can’t yet divulge. So grab your favorite mask, costume or cosplay attire, remind your parents that hell has cooler records, and prepare yourself for mayhem, as soon the dark ritual that is CFF’s 10th birthday celebration begins…

*In-person only.

Bordello of Blood: Live Commentary

*Presented by Diabolik DVD

After the success of Demon Knight, the first Tales From the Crypt feature, filmmakers Gil Adler and A L Katz were busy preparing a follow-up, set in New Orleans, that was to be called Dead Easy. Sadly Dead Easy never got made, and instead, the pair were forced to adapt filmmaker Robert Zemeckis’s student screenplay Bordello of Blood into the second Tales from the Crypt feature film.

The making of Bordello is well-known to horror fans as one of the most horrifically troubled shoots in the genre’s history, with Adler and Katz facing impossible odds, impossible egos, and studio nonsense at every turn. CFF is proud to help them further exorcise these past cinematic demons with a very special 2023 edition of our live filmmaker commentary series. We join Adler and Katz as they watch the film that neither has been able to sit through in nearly 25 years, and we learn firsthand How NOT to Make a Movie.

*Virtual only

Tales from the Crypt Comic Pop-up Shop

Hello, Kiddies!!!. Kicking off our Tales from the Crypt salute is a pop-up comic shop dedicated to the series’ bloody beginnings in the pages of EC Comics, conjured from the depths of darkness by the folks at Infinity Flux Comics. Join us at our opening night party, the Black Magic Masquerade, to grab a few classic Tales from the Crypt comic books.

P.S. If you bring them to the live podcast, Gil Adler and A L Katz will be signing memorabilia.

*In-person only.

Dead Easy: Live Script Reading

Featuring an “all-scar” cast of genre cinema fan favorites, CFF is proud to have Gil Adler and A L Katz join us for a live script read of Dead Easy — their never filmed follow-up to Tales from the Crypt’s first feature film Demon Knight. If you’re a Tales from the Crypt fan, you know what a treat this is going to be, and if you’re a CFF fan, you’ll know we’ve got a few tricks for you too.

*Virtual only.

The How NOT to Make a Movie Podcast (Live Recording)

There’s simply no way to pay tribute to the incredible gateway to the world of horror that Tales from the Crypt was to so many of us, without paying tribute to longtime series stalwarts Gil Adler and A L Katz. Our salute wouldn’t be complete without a live episode of the podcast that brought these two legendary filmmakers back together. Our CFF exclusive live episode will allow longtime fans to ask Adler and Katz about the making of the classic series, get even more of a window into the creating, writing, and heartbeat of the classic HBO Series. 

*In-person only. Adler and Katz will also be signing memorabilia.

How to Sell a Haunted House in a Challenging Market

New York Times bestselling author, Grady Hendrix, is back and he’s bringing a circus of chaos!  Presenting another of his one-of-a-kind, one-man shows, in association with his latest book, How To Sell a Haunted House, this time he’s tap-dancing through the haunted hallways of spooky houses from Downton Abbey-sized country homes to split-level suburban ranchers as we try to figure out why we’re so obsessed with the world’s worst roommates — ghosts. This is the seminar that will change your life…guaranteed!

*In-person only. Book signing will take place after the event.

The Pumpkin Pie Show: Ghost Eaters and Other Stories

Horror author and performer Clay McLeod Chapman returns with a fresh batch of macabre tales fresh out of the oven. To celebrate the paperback release of his most recent novel, Ghost Eaters, Clay will regale audiences with a reading… and a few new spooky stories, to boot. Tales of madness, human monsters, and ghosts abound. Copies of Ghost Eaters will be sold by A Little Bookish.

*In-person and virtual. Book signing will take place after the event.

About the Chattanooga Film Festival:

The Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF) loves everything about cinema: the films, filmmakers, and the open-minded cinephiles that have watched films with us since early popup screenings as the Mise En Scenesters film club. The club evolved into the first-ever Chattanooga Film Festival, which began in 2014 and over the past 10 years has made a name for itself among film lovers, filmmakers, and the entertainment industry. Over the years the festival has been hailed as the “Southern Sundance” by Southern Living Magazine and was chosen as one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” by MovieMaker Magazine in 2022  and made their “Bloody Best Genre Fests in the World” for 2020 and 2019. In addition, the festival has been included in “Dread Central’s Best Horror Festivals in the World” for 2021 and 2022.

CFF shares films and events that are unique, challenging and significant and showcase a diverse roster of up and coming filmmakers from all over the world. CFF   ultimate goal is to remember, discover, and cultivate cinema worthy of everyone’s love and respect. As always, CFF is proudly continuing its mission to “Respect Cinema,” in hopes of increasing film exhibition, education, and production in the state of Tennessee.

For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

APRIL MOVIE THON 2: Enter the Void (2009)

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April 11: Upsetting — What movie upsets you? Write about it and share it.

Enter the Void was director and co-writer (with Lucile Hadzihalilovic) Gaspar Noé’s dream project for  years and made possible after the commercial success of his just as upsetting — if not more so — movie Irréversible.

Drug dealer Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and exotic dancer Linda (Paz de la Huerta) are siblings who have pledged to remain together after the deaths of their parents. After tripping out in a bar called The Void — after discussing the Tibetian Book of the Dead, Oscar is gunned down by cops and has to use his spirit to go through reality to live up to his promise to never leave Linda. As he floats through life, he experiences everthing from seeing how he was set up, how his parents died and oh yeah, what it’s like to both have sex with his sister and to be his sister having sex and then be a sperm that fertilizes her and being born again, living this life as an endless loop.

In his early twenties and totally out of his mind on mushrooms, Noé’ saw the first person movie Lady in the Lake and came to the decision that if he ever made a film about the afterlife, he would make it like that film. While he took ayahuasca to prepare for this movie, most of the cast didn’t have the same drug experiences, so he had to find media that explained the feelings of being high to them.

Why is this film upsetting? Well, as a kid, I never slept because when I closed my eyes, I felt like I would die and I couldn’t imagine it, even if I often planned my funeral in my head all the time. Maybe I was a goth before anyone knew what that was. But this movie would have sent my younger brain into absolute panic mode, starting with those buzzing aand throbbing credits.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Craving (2022)

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Al Gomez, a producer and actor in this movie, sent it to my attention with an interesting premise: What may seem like your typical micro-budget attempt at horror, Craving is a much bigger film comparable to the horror movies made in the 1980s.

Well, I’m in.

And yeah, when your title sounds like the American name for Paul Naschy’s Night of the Werewolf, well, I’m also in.

It all starts the night after the story we’re about to watch, as a rural bar is covered with blood, internal organs, a several foot and one frightened survivor. What happened to get everything to this point?

As Les (Felissa Rose!) and Shiloh (Rachel Amanda Bryant) tend bar, four strangers — all obvious addicts, all very armed — show up and barricade the bar. It feels like Feast, but the story moves in its own direction quickly.

Will (Xavier Roe), Mac (Kevin Caliber), Frenzy (Ashley Underchuffler) and Gail (Holly Rockwell) and Gail (Holly Rockwell) take over the bar and tell the assembled patrons — including Travis (Gregory Blair), Hunter (Al Gomez), Rudy (Frankie Guzman) and Rylee (Miranda Bourke) — that something horrible is tracking them. Meanwhile, a man outside by the name of Red (Greg Tally) is shouting on a megaphone that one of the four is a monster and everyone is in danger.

There are a ton of people — nearly too many to keep track of with all the flashbacks, yet they all get their own unique moments and have characters instead of just being fodder — all gathered around just one location. And then, when the gore happens, wow. This movie in no way skimps or holds back or the tension, as the addicts inside start going through withdrawal while whatever group lies in wait outside gives them an hour to give up the monster.

Director J. Horton (VHS Violence), who co-wrote this with Gregory Blair, knows how to film a horror movie and washes this all with bright red and blue light directly from the promised 80s. It looks incredible and the monster looks awesome, which it better, because it’s on screen for such an extended period of time. I also loved the end credit sequences and that the title comes up just like Demons. So much of the cast and crew worked on The Campus together and that’s good, because the ease with which they worked together created something really fun here.

Craving is now available on VOD and digital on demand from Indie Rights Movies. To learn more, you can check out the official Facebook page.

APRIL MOVIE THON 2: Crazed (1978)

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April 10: Nightmare USA — Celebrate Stephen Thrower’s book by picking a movie from it. Here’s all of them in a list.

Also known as Slipping Into Darkness and Bloodshed and shot as The Paranoiac, this movie is like a young and scrappy cover band playing Psycho in a small club and you’re like, well, they’re derivative, but that’s a totally different bass part and that singer has some charm, you know? It’s ramshackle and cheap in the best of ways, set in a boardinghouse, as so many of the best horror movies are — particularly regional and low budget examples — where aspiring journalist Karen (Beverly Ross) gets a cheap from Mrs. Brewer (Belle Mitchell). Yet, as always, everything comes at a price, as her new neighbor Grahame (Laszlo Papas) is beyond obsessed with her.

Grahame spies on her through the ventilation system and we soon learn that he was molested not once, but twice in his formative years, leading to him being quite off today. The kind of off where — spoiler, except that by me saying this is so very close to Psycho you should know what’s coming but this goes further — when Karen drowns in the tub, he keeps her body in his room and tries to preserve what little he has of her, all while her ex-boyfriend and a classmate she’s grown biblically close to try to find out where she’s gone.

There’s a detail early on where it’s revealed that Karen is diabetic and suffers from seizures and by the time she’s in her death throes in a bathtub, you realize that this isn’t a movie that just throws out small details. It’s a movie that forces you to empathize with its killer — again, third mention, Psycho — while having its main female character neither be the final girl nor the heroine.

Either you’re going to feel that this is way too long and drawn out or you’ll be fascinated by it, feeling like you’re just like Grahame, watching lives that are not our own, seeing damaged people attempt to escape their dismal fates. In a different story, the way that life has turned both of the leads into shells of people — Grahame haunted by multiple moments of childhood trauma and a lack of being able to connect to anything resembling intimacy and Karen unable to even face her ex-boyfriend as she leaves him and continually being inappropriately approached by nearly every man in this movie — who in a different story may have met cute and worked together to solve their issues.

Instead, the one moment when Grahame’s voyeurism could have been used for good and saved Karen, he’s called away by Mrs. Brewer and misses out on his would-be love’s lonely demise. For a movie that seems to present itself as a slasher, that’s a big idea.

Director and writer Richard Cassidy sadly didn’t do much after this, directing and writing — before being removed and replaced by editor Adrian Carr — the 1983 Danielle Steele adaption Now and Forever, as well as writing The Edge of Power and directing The Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of the Bible Unravelled, which his based on Dr. Barbara Thiering’s book, The Qumran Origins of the Christian Church, which introduces the theory that the unnamed figures in the Dead Sea Scrolls are John the Baptist and Jesus.

An even bigger shame is that this hasn’t been released on blu ray, as there are plenty less deserving movies that have been given plenty more attention.

APRIL MOVIE THON 2: The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie (1972)

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April 10: Nightmare USA — Celebrate Stephen Thrower’s book by picking a movie from it. Here’s all of them in a list.

Most folks know Jack Starrett from playing his Gabby Hayes-like character in Blazing Saddles. Or maybe they know him from all the biker movies like The Born Losers and Hells Angels on Wheels. Or maybe some of the other movies he directed, like Run, Angel, Run!, Nam’s Angels, Slaughter, Race with the Devil, Cleopatra Jones and Hollywood Man.

That said — I’ve never heard of this movie and it kind of blew my mind.

Virgil (Ken Howard, The White Shadow) is a traveling salesman who thinks, at first, that he’s going to have some easy sex with a girl he meets on the road, Rosalie (Bonnie Bedelia). But she’s too young, he’s too nice of a guy and, well, things feel too strange. They’re only going to get stranger.

Based on The Chicken by Miles Tripp, this was written by SAS soldier and sculptor Anthony Greville-Bell, who also wrote the script for Theater of Blood, another movie produced by his co-writer, John Kohn. Rosalie is a character who can only come out of fiction, a feral wild child who is also hopelessly gorgeous, yet starts the film burying someone and spends most of this movie decimating Virgil, leading him to break his leg and live out Misery years before the book was even written.

She claims that she had a dream that her grandfather had this house, a place where she has made Virgil into a near-invalid and where only one other person encounters them, Fry (Anthony Zerbe), a total scumbag who just wants the gold buried somewhere near the house. And by house, I mean falling apart shack somewhere in the dusty and abandoned American Southwest.

Also known as Someone to Watch Over Me, this movie somehow finds you cheering for Rosalie, as Virgil is the white upper class man who is brought low by sex appeal and, well, the ability for her to at once appear helpless and capable. For a movie with only one extended location and two characters taking up most of the running time, it works and Bedelia is incredible. Is it any wonder why she ended up in Needful Things and Salem’s Lot? Maybe King was karmically paying her back for outright stealing so much of her character in this movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.