Screen Anarchy

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Brooklyn Horror 2024 Review: HOUSE OF ASHES

Mia’s under house arrest for the crime of miscarriage, but must also contend with the lingering, suspicious death of her husband Adam. He was found dead in the vet clinic they once ran together.  Mia was exhonerated from any murder charges but there are still suspicious locals and shock radio podcasters looking for delicious sound bytes lurking outside her door.    Mia has reconnected with Marc, an old friend who has popped back into her life. Marc loves Mia and wants to protect her. But then suspicious things begin to happen inside her house. Marc’s things go missing and Mia’s feels like she is being attacked by an unseen force. Mia is confident that the culprit is supernatural, but Marc’s convinced that humans are the…

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Montreal Nouveau 2024 Review: SCHIRKOA: IN LIES WE TRUST, Anonymous Dystopia to Queer Utopia

Authoritarian dystopian futures, as imagined by writers, artists, and filmmakers, often have familiar tropes, usually about the neutralization of individuality, the importance of conformity, and how it eventually becomes impossible to keep the brightness and individuality of the human spirit contained. Something of the hero’s journey is often followed by a protagonist (or two), though it’s how these stories find their own unique perseptive and cultural specificity that makes them stand out. First a graphic novel, then a short film, now a feature length story, Ishan Shukla’s Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust tells such a story, but with that different perspective that is often lost in more western dystopian tales. Focusing more on how elements of community, queerness, and embracing the strange and wild, and…

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DALIA AND THE RED BOOK: Argentine Animated Film Lands Multiple Territories in World Sales Spree

Our friends at FilmSharks have been hard at work securing territorial rights for the Argentine animated film, Dalia and the Red Book (Dalia y el Libro Rojo) since screening at Sitges this year.    When Dalia is a little girl, her father includes a character in the novel he’s writing as a tribute to her: a goat. Years later, after her father dies leaving the book unfinished, Dalia is kidnapped by the book’s main characters, who introduce her into the world of fiction through a portal. The only ally she has there to overcome the challenges she faces is her faithful goat.   ScreenDaily has the rundown of territories sold so far.    Warner Bros Discovery has picked up East European rights, Alfa Pictures and…

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BLIND PARADISE: Argentine Cosmic Horror Heads to AFM Under Firebook Entertainment Sales Banner

Our friend at Blood Window Javier Fernandez has brought something to our attention that deserves yours. An Argentine cosmic horror flick called Blind Paradise has been acquired by sales outfit Firebook Entertainment who will takes worldwide sales into AFM soon.    From ScreenDaily who broke the news the other day:   Set against the haunting backdrop of the vast Patagonia region in Argentina, Blind Paradise centres on a young man who believes he is an orphan and follows the call of a mysterious messenger who assures him his father is living on an unknown island in the southern part of the country.   Upon his arrival, the man discovers he has been lured as part of a plan to replace his dying father in an…

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STOCKHOLM BLOODBATH: Action-Adventure Comedy in Theaters and On Demand on November 8th

A ruthless political struggle between Sweden and Denmark turns bloody under the tyranny of the mad King Christian II. Caught up in this deadly war, two sisters seek revenge on the men who brutally murdered their family. This looks like a hoot. Mikael Håfström’s action-adventure comedy Stockholm Bloodbath is coming to cinemas and On Demand on November 8th from Brainstorm Media. It just looks like one big rollicking adventure flick with big set pieces and smaller melees. Perfect to dive into without much effort. The official trailer and poster have been released, check out the trailer down below.  Inspired by one of the bloodiest and darkest events in Scandinavia, making it an epic portrayal of history. Featuring a star-studded cast of international actors, including Sophie Cookson (Kingsman-The Secret Service), Claes Bang (The…

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Morbido 2024: CDMX Genre Fest Announces Lineup, Local Hit PARVULOS Will Open

Mórbido, my Mexican home away from home, has announced the lineup for this year’s festival. As expected there are a tonne of great films coming to CDMX at the end of the month and I’m super sad that I’m not going to be there to experience it con mi familia Morbido.   Local lad Isaac Ezban will open this year’s festival with his terrific horror hit, Parvulos. Other local and LatAm offerings include Edgar Nito’s A Fisherman’s Tale, A Mother’s Embrace from Christian Ponce, 1978 from Nico Loretti, Portraits of the Apocalypse from Fabien Forte, and I’m really curious to see how Catholic Mexicans respond to Pedro Cristiani’s Deus Irae. Really curious.    Morbido alumni Alexandre O Philippe’s Venice-winning documentary Chain Reactions will play at the festival along with…

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Friday One Sheet: THE ORDER

I am generally indifferent to collage style posters, particularly when designers transitioned from hand-painted to photoshop. However, I do admire the commitment to verticality taken by design house, Fable, for Justin Kurzel’s neo-nazi procedural, The Order. The pull quotes, the above the line credits, festival laurel, the title, even the American flag, and Nicholas Hoult’s pump action all emphasize the top-down approach here. The only outlier here is Jude Law pointing his firearm off screen. As an aside, Law is giving a magnificently haggard character-actor performance here, riffing on a specific kind Nick Offerman americana. Given its early 1980s setting, the poster here goes with a burnt cream (not sepia!) colour palette, which I am also digging here. The whole package comes together without looking too busy…

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DIE ALONE Review: The Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Sub-Genre Gets a New, Fresh Spin

Every genre, sub-genre, and micro-genre eventually exhausts itself. But genres typically don’t end; they expand, they evolve, and adapt, drawing on new ideas from outside the genre, mixing elements from other genres, and ultimately resurrect themselves, reborn on the ashes of the old. Someone, somewhere, is thinking far too much about the current state of the undead sub-genre. Fresh, bold, new ideas are what the exhausted zombie/undead sub-genre desperately needs. Instead, longtime fans of the sub-genre George Romero reinvented in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead have been subjected to the never-ending Walking Dead spin-offs and the occasional standalone straight-to-streaming, straight-to-the-memory-hole entry made on a micro-budget and D-level actors. Writer-director Lowell Dean (the Wolf Cop series) provides more than a few in his latest…

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SMILE 2 Review: Effective, But Overlong and Obvious Horror Spectacle

Smile 2 picks up right where Smile left off. Well, “six days later,” as onscreen text tells us. It’s a bold move from writer/director Parker Finn that combines with a bravura long-take opening sequence to announce that Smile 2 is going to be a lot. The movie pulls from a variety of sources, from the gaudy pop pageantry of Vox Lux to the sometimes shocking gore of Hollywood’s flirtation with extremity in the 2000s, to deliver an often effective horror film that bites off more than it can chew. Or perhaps it just chews too long? The narrative moves smoothly enough from the first movie to the second, as we follow the trail of the communicable entity at the center of the Smile universe in…

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