Issue ten

Our focus this month is on the wondrous world created by French animation master René Laloux. Although Fantastic Planet and Gandahar have been hugely influential they have been rarely screened in the last two decades. Eureka have now released all three of Laloux’s features in the UK, making their other-worldly visual delights and philosophical musings finally accessible to a wider audience.

Unsurprisingly, it’s all ghosts and ghouls in cinemaland this month, with the BFI dusting off Terence Fisher’s 1958 Dracula, Eureka bringing Nosferatu back to life, while elsewhere The Black Cat and The Raven, two Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, are resuscitated. Among new releases, Weirdsville provides a different twist on Satanists and we review a dramatised reconstruction of the life of infamous Edwardian magus Aleister Crowley. To complete this ghastly feast we have an interview with Rigoberto Castañeda, the young director of KM31 (released next month), who tells us how he was scarred for life by 70s Mexican horror movies.

For less horror-inclined cinema-goers we also review Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, Tsai Ming-liang‘s The Wayward Cloud and I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, released simultaneously this month, as well as Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Theorem and paranoid cold war thriller The Mind Benders. We also have an interview with Iraqi director Mohamed Al-Daradji, whose film Ahlaam, made just after the start of the war in 2003, paints a heart-rending picture of a country caught in a hellish nightmare. In our Short Cuts section we have a feature on last month’s Rock’n’Roll Cinema event.

Picking films in our Jukebox are purveyors of horrorifying punk-rock Zombina and the Skeletones. Guitarist Doc Horror takes us on a hilarious ride through hardcore Z-movies and reveals a particular fondness for wrestling Japanese girls in spandex costumes as well as films that have ‘living dead’ somewhere in the title.

And in our Last Word column, a documentary on the air guitar world championship gives CJ Magnet food for thought.

Every month we’ll give you the chance to get your cinephile hands on a film prize – all you have to do to win is spin the Film Roulette! We’re pleased to announce that our Halloween Dracula competition winners are Andrew Rogers and Raewyn Yee. We still have one pair of Dracula tickets to win – closing date Monday 5 November (see here for the full list of participating cinemas). This month we have a DVD of Sigur Ros’ film Heima (reviewed next month) + their latest CD + a poster to win. We also have a CD + poster for the runner-up. To enter the competition just spin the Film Roulette! Closing date for entries: Sunday 25 November.

The next Hectic Peelers film club, organised jointly with Resonance FM, will be on Tuesday 6 November at the Roxy Bar and Screen, London. We’ll be showing Takashi Miike’s twisted horror-comedy-musical The Happiness of the Katakuris (courtesy of Tartan Video). The night starts at 6:30pm, film at 7:30pm, admission is free.

Resonance FM have now re-launched from their new studio so check out their website for a full list of the new programmes. Check out details of forthcoming programmes and podcasts of previous shows here.

Electric Sheep exists in print too! Pick up a free copy of the magazine at selected cinemas, cafes, arts centres and universities. Details of stockists here.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team