Screen Anarchy

A founding member of the “New Extremity” movement that brought French horror filmmakers to the attention of international audiences in the early oughts, writer-director Alexandre Aja (Oxygen, The 9th Life of Louis Drax, Haute Tension) parlayed his fearless, uncompromising approach to the horror genre into a filmmaking career into an international career outside of his native France. Beginning with a promising collaboration with Wes Craven, the 1976 remake of The Hills Have Eyes, through middling efforts (Mirrors, Maniac, Horns) and the one-off standout, Piranha 3D, Aja overcame mid-career stagnancy with Crawl, a bloody, gory, pulpy “animals amok” eco-horror. Aja’s latest horror film, Never Let Go, shifts the setting from the alligator-filled, riverside Florida town of Crawl or the terrors of outer space in Aja’s last film, Oxygen, to a post-apocalyptic forest somewhere in the…

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Dreamworks Animation presents Chris Sanders’ adaptation of Peter Brown’s popular children’s book.

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Fabrice du Welz’s latest film revisits a notorious real-life crime through a tense psychological action thriller that intertwines vintage aesthetics and sanity-challenging obsession.

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Orlando Bloom, Caitríona Balfe and John Turturro lead Sean Ellis’ sports drama.

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Benjamin Barfoot’s horror flick Daddy’s Head has its world premiere at Fantastic Fest this Sunday, and swiftly moves to streaming on Shudder on Friday, October 11th.   The official trailer arrived today. Check it out down below.    In the wake of his father’s untimely death, a young boy is left in the eerie solitude of a sprawling country estate with his newly widowed stepmother. Struggling to navigate the overwhelming task of parenthood, his stepmother grows distant, leaving their fragile bond at risk of collapse. Amidst the growing tension, the boy begins to hear unsettling sounds echoing through the corridors, and is soon haunted by the presence of a grotesque creature bearing a disturbingly familiar resemblance to his late father. As the boy’s warnings are…

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Leandra Lea and Irandhir Santos star in Fernando Coimbra’s third feature, a contemporary noir based in Rio.

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SLASH Filmfestival is currently underway in Vienna, Austria, having launched their latest edition yesterday. One time Anarchist Tom Kiesecoms is part of the team there and they’re very proud of the shorts programmes that have been put together this year. They asked us to highlight them for you, check them out below.    SLASH Filmfestival 2024 – short films in focus    The programs    Five carefully curated programs and a select number of shorts before features bring a total of 41 short films from all corners of the world to Vienna. With a total of 32 Austrian, European, International or World premieres the 15th edition of SLASH Filmfestival once more celebrates the short form in its own right.   Kicking things off with a…

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Delightfully low-fi and textured, the key art for Joe DeBoer’s and Kyle McConaghy’s Dead Mail not only is a great reflection of the analog style of the film, but also offers a significant amount of information about the plot. The bloody letter that kicks off the story, the captive prisoner, and the electronic keyboard synthesizers that all form the slow-burn, but quite wild ride that is the film. Furthermore, the setting is in the early 1980s, and the Polariod photo-framing of the poster, along with the CRT terminal font, quietly placed in the upper middle circuit board space, just feels so damn satisfying.  This was my favourite of the 10 Midnight Madness films that played this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and it was nice…

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MotelX has wrapped up this year’s edition of the festival. As per usual, the festival had a program packed with local and international talent. In that regard everyone is a winner but when it comes to to the awards handed out at the end of the festival, well, we know how that goes.     Damian McCarthy’s Irish screamer Oddity won the Best European Feature Film award and if it hasn’t already won that award elsewhere on the Méliès d’argent/European festival circuit it is now guaranteed a spot in the Méliès d’argent competition, coming soon at Sitges. Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance took home the Audience Award.    The other Méliés d’argent award for short films went to Eros V’s Meat Puppet. On the home front, Chico Noras’ short…

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For those who like a good dose of honesty and chaos, the 1984 punk cult classic debut from Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy, Straight to Hell), Repo Man is out in a 4K/Blu-ray combo. The release is beautiful; from the physical booklet to the actual restoration, this is a release you’ll want to pick up. Repo Man follows the raucous Bud, played by the legendary Harry Dean Stanton (Alien, Seven Psychopaths, Twin Peaks), RIP. He takes young punk Otto (a young Emilio Estevez) under his wing, and together, the two of them are nihilistic urban cowboys on the brink of annihilation, of both themselves and the other criminals and punks they collide with in Los Angeles.  Otto and Bud get into trouble ¾ a lot. They fight…

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