The Electric Sheep Film Show October 2015

Hardware
Hardware

In the October Electric Sheep Film Show, Virginie Sélavy and Alex Fitch present a two-part Halloween special:

audioIn this extended first part of the show, Alex Fitch talks to director Richard Stanley and composer Simon Boswell about their legendary 1990 sci-fi tale Hardware, the former’s plans to direct an adaptaion of H.P.Lovecraft’s The Colour out of Space and the latter’s scores for other genre classics such as Sante Sangre and Shallow Grave, while director Jeff Lieberman discusses his 1976 worm horror Squirm during his visit to last year’s Cine-Excess at the University of Brighton.

audio In the second part of the show, Virginie Sélavy talks to Canadian writer Kier-La Janisse about the new anthology book she has edited called Satanic Panic, which explores how the fear of a Satanic conspiracy spread through 1980s pop culture, followed by a round-up of this year’s London Film Festival with film critic and cartoonist Mark Stafford.

The Electric Sheep Film Show is broadcast every third Wednesday of the month, 8-9pm at Resonance FM 104.4. Next date: Wednesday 18 November 2015.

A condensed version of this show was first broadcast on Wednesday 21 October 2015.

Clear Spot – 21 October 2015 (Electric Sheep) by Resonance Fm on Mixcloud

Shadows and Fog: The Forgotten History of the German Edgar Wallace Krimi

krimi2-640x420
Dead Eyes of London

Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies – London

Instructor: Jim Harper

Date: 12 November 2015

Time: 7-10pm

Venue: Horse Hospital

Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD

Prices: £10 advance / £8 concs / £11 on the door

Miskatonic website

Between 1959 and the early 1970s, German film companies released more than fifty low-budget crime thrillers inspired by the works of British writer Edgar Wallace. Featuring some of Europe’s most well-known cult and horror actors (including Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski and Gert Fröbe) the Edgar Wallace krimi combined fast-paced action, surprising violence and zany humour. Sold en masse to US television and shown in an edited and badly dubbed form, these films have rarely received the attention they deserve. Jim Harper explores the background and history of the Wallace krimi, from their beginnings to their long-term influence in Germany and beyond, discussing the charm and appeal of these quintessential European cult favourites.

About the instructor:

JIM HARPER is a writer and film critic specializing in cult cinema from around the globe. He is the author of Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies (Headpress, 2004) and Flowers from Hell: The Modern Japanese Horror Film (Noir, 2008). His work has appeared in many publications and websites, including Midnight Eye, MYM, Electric Sheep, Necronomicon, V-Cinema, Deranged, Alternative and Scream, and he has contributed to Intellect’s ground-breaking Directory of World Cinema series, writing for the Spanish and Japanese volumes. Currently Harper is working on a revised and updated edition of Flowers from Hell, and preparing the first English-language book about the German Edgar Wallace films of the 1960s.

About the Miskatonic Institute:

Named for the fictional university in H.P. Lovecraft’s literary mythos, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies is a non-profit, community-based organization that started in Canada, founded by Kier-La Janisse in March of 2010. The school currently has branches in Montreal and London, with Miskatonic London operating under the co-direction of Kier-La Janisse and Electric Sheep Founder/Editor Virginie Sélavy.

All classes take place at the historic Horse Hospital, the heart of the city’s underground culture. Individual class tickets are £10 advance / £11 on the door / £8 concessions and will be available 30 days in advance of each class.

The last course date of the autumn semester is 10 December. For the full details of the course please check the Miskatonic website. For all enquiries, please email Miskatonic.london[at]gmail.com.

BFI London Film Festival 2015 Preview

LFF 2015

59th BFI London Film Festival

7 – 18 October 2015

London, UK

LFF website

Running from 7 to 18 October with screenings spread across central London and a number of participating local cinemas, the 2015 edition of the BFI London Film Festival opens with Sarah Gavron’s women’s rights drama Suffragette and closes with Danny Boyle’s biopic of Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender as the tech-wizard and former Apple CEO. In between, the line-up is packed with oddities, thrills and freaks, and some fine visceral horror.

Our top picks this year include festival hit The Forbidden Room, the latest offering from Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson, who co-directed this busy, chaotic and occasionally perplexing nightmare in which plot, characters and locations constantly flow into one another enigmatically. We also highly recommend Green Room, Jeremy Saulnier’s impressive follow-up to Blue Ruin, the dazzling 140-minute one-take-wonder Victoria, directed by German director Sebastian Schipper, and Eva Husson’s striking first feature Bang Gang, which premiered in Toronto last month.

Other titles seen on the festival circuit include Robert Egger’s underwhelming The Witch, Yorgos Lanthimos’s bizarre first English-language film The Lobster, Alex van Warmerdam’s twisted contract killer comedy Schneider vs Bax and Takashi Miike’s new action fantasy Yakuza Apocalypse.

We look forward to Sion Sono’s spaced-out Love & Peace, along with Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel High Rise and Evolution, the long-awaited second feature by Lucile Hadžihalilović (Innocence). Also worth checking out are German body horror Der Nachtmahr, Spanish necrophilia drama The Corpse of Anna Fritz, horror Western Bone Tomahawk, Danish chiller What We Become, and The Invitation, a disturbing chamber piece from Jennifer’s Body director Karyn Kusama. Plus, screening as part of ‘Sonic’ strand, we’ll be taking a look at Ruined Heart: Another Love Story between a Criminal and a Whore by punk filmmaker Khavn De La Cruz and John Pirozzi’s compelling documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock’n’Roll.

The archive screenings include Make More Noise, a selection representing women on film in the first decades of the 20th century, alongside a restoration of Edward Dmytryk’s stylish 1959 Western Warlock, Jean Cocteau’s Gothic fantasy La Belle et la Bête (1946), Thorold Dickenson’s Gaslight (1940), and Joan Fontaine in her last big-screen appearance in the Hammer production The Witches (1966).

On 9 October 2015, there will be a special screening of three new 35mm prints of films by the Brothers Quay, alongside a new short by Christopher Nolan featuring the twin filmmakers ever inspiring work. Plus, in the Experimenta strand, Anthology Film Archives offer a sampler programme of an eclectic array of artists active in New York City from 1975-1990.

For more information about the programme and how to book tickets visit the LFF website.

Pamela Jahn