Category Archives: Events and Screenings

Close-Up Cinema Opening

Close Up cinema opening party.docx

Date: Saturday 4 July 2015

Doors: 8pm

Venue: Close-Up

Address: 97 Sclater Street, London, E1 6HR

Price: FREE

Close-Up website

Join us in celebrating with our friends at Close-Up who have just opened their new independent cinema in Shoreditch. As other cinemas are converting to digital, Close-Up will continue to offer 16mm and 35mm reel-to-reel as well as digital projection, showcasing classic, contemporary, documentary, experimental and artists’ films. Plus, if you become a member, you can also enjoy 20% discount on cinema tickets for you and a guest, along with free unlimited access to their extensive Video Library and 10% discount in the cafe and bar.

Running from 8pm till late on Saturday 4 September 2015, there will be screenings of a selection of films throughout the night, while the door to the projection booth will be kept open so you can marvel at the two restored 35mm projectors in all their glory.

To mark the launch of the cinema Close-Up present six films by John Cassavetes during July, including Faces, Shadows, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, A Woman under the Influence, Love Streams and, of course, Opening Night.

For more information on the regular Close-Up cinema programme visit the Close-Up website.

Support Close Up’s new independent cinema

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Close-Up Cinema

Support our friends at Close-Up and their new independent cinema in Shoreditch showcasing classic, contemporary, documentary, experimental and artists’ films. As other cinemas are converting to digital, Close-Up will continue to offer 16mm and 35mm reel-to-reel as well as digital projection.

Your donation is vital to the success of their project! Please donate on the Close-Up website.

Electric Sheep at EEFF: Alucarda

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Alucarda

Alucarda

Screening date: Saturday 14 June 2014

Time: 3pm

Venue: Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London

Part of the East End Film Festival, 13-25 June 2014
Director: Juan López Moctezuma

Writers: Alexis Arroyo, Tita Arroyo, Juan López Moctezuma, Yolanda López Moctezuma

Original title: Alucarda, la hija de las tinieblas

Based on the short story ‘Carmilla’ by: Sheridan Le Fanu

Cast: Tina Romero, Claudio Brook, Susana Kamini, David Silva, Tina French

Mexico 1978

74 mins

East End Film Festival website

Electric Sheep is proud to present an afternoon of orphans and dark magic with a screening of Alucarda at the amazing Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London, on Saturday 14 June, as part of the Magic and the Macabre weekend at the East End Film Festival. Acclaimed writer and festival programmer Kier-La Janisse, author of House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (FAB Press), will introduce the screening.

Loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’, extravagant, sumptuous, macabre Alucarda hails from the golden age of Mexican horror. Raven-haired orphan Alucarda has been brought up in a convent to shield her from the evil influence of her diabolical father. But the devil in her blood cannot be suppressed and she draws the newly arrived Justine into her world. Thereon ensue copious amounts of nudity, wild-eyed hysteria, repressed desires, hints of lesbian love, religious exaltation, levitation, exorcism, self-flagellating nuns and unholy rituals, most of it set in a womb-like convent with nuns dressed in what looks like bloodied bandages. Part of the Panique movement co-founded by Alejandro Jodorowsky, director Juan López Moctezuma shared his interest in creating a magical and ritualistic kind of spectacle that would shake up audiences’ perceptions. He certainly succeeded with this astounding, surreal, eye-popping stunner.

review_moonbird

+ The Moon Bird (Brothers McLeod, UK 2010, 15 minutes)

A dark animated fairy tale in black and white, about an orphan girl kidnapped by a witch who wants her tears for a magic potion.

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Masonic Temple at Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street

Co-curated by Strange Attractor Press, this special weekend of EEFF screenings at the Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street’s Masonic Temple includes witches, ghosts and devilish mermaids, taking you from Wicca to haunted Mexican convents, and from British classics to a special evening with Dave McKean. Full schedule below.

Saturday 14 June

DAYTIME TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS
EVENING TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS

12:00 Witchumentary Double Bill + Discussion
with Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor) and William Fowler & Vic Pratt (BFI Flipside)

Legend of the Witches
Malcolm Leigh | UK | 1970 | 72 mins

Featuring Alex & Maxine Sanders, the spirit of the late 1960s magical revival is captured in this exploration of the currents of English witchcraft.

Secret Rites (in association with BFI Flipside)
Derek Ford | 1971 | Derek Ford | 47 mins

A rarely seen mondo-esque documentary sees a young West London hairdresser join a Notting Hill coven in a spectacular nightclub rite.

15:00 Alucarda
Juan Lopez Moctezuna | 1978 | Mexico | 74 mins

Alucarda has been brought up in a convent to shield her from her father’s evil influence, but the devil in her cannot be suppressed.

The Moon Bird
Brothers McLeod | 2010 | UK | 15 mins

An orphan girl is kidnapped by a witch in this dark animated fairy tale.

18:00 Possession Double Bill

Invocation of My Demon Brother
Kenneth Anger | 1969 | USA | 12 mins

Part of Anger’s Magick Lantern series with a soundtrack by a Moog-wielding Mick Jagger.

Night Tide
Curtis Harrington | 1961 | USA | 86 mins
+ post-screening discussion with Will Fowler (BFI Flipside) & Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor)

Seaman Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper) falls for Mora (Linda Lawson), who believes she’s descended from the sirens.

20:30 The Last Winter
Larry Fessenden | 2006 | USA/Iceland | 107 mins

Oil company employees, led by Ron Perlman, are building an ice road in the remote Arctic. When a member of their team is found dead, fears arise that nature may be striking back.

Sunday 15 June

DAYTIME TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS
EVENING TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS

12:00 British 60s Double Bill

Eye of the Devil
J. Lee Thompson | 1966 | UK | 92 mins

Vineyard owner (David Niven) returns to his castle, where he and wife (Deborah Kerr) are confronted by a witch, calling for a blood sacrifice.

14:00 Night of the Eagle
Sidney Hayers | 1962 | UK | 87 mins

A psychology professor discovers that his wife has been practicing witchcraft and presses her to stop. Then things begin to go horribly, supernaturally wrong.

16:00 Audrey Rose
Robert Wise | 1977 | USA | 113 mins – 16mm Screening
A young Anthony Hopkins is unnervingly obsessed with the idea that Ivy Templeton is the reincarnation of his daughter.

19:00 An Evening with Dave McKean

Illustrator and designer Dave McKean has created books and graphic novels of The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) and The Homecomeing (Ray Bradbury), worked with Richard Dawkins and Stephen King, designed characters for Harry Potter, and exhibited across the world. Join us for an evening with a truly unique artist, where Dave will discuss his work, and offer an exclusive first look at footage from his upcoming feature Luna. His other work can be seen on www.keanoshow.com

Mirrormask
2005 | USA/UK | 104 mins + Shorts + Dave McKean in conversation with SF Said

A collaboration with Neil Gaiman, Mirrormask is a dizzying journey into a complex fantasy world. 15-year-old circus worker Helena finds herself in a landscape filled with giants, monkeybirds and dangerous sphinxes. The mysterious Mirrormask is her only hope of escape.

The Week Before
1998 | UK | 23 mins

A card game between God and the Devil, inspired by jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.

[N]eon
2002 | UK | 28 mins

Bruised from a failed marriage, a man wanders around Venice finding old books, memories, and a momentary ghost.

Fabio Frizzi Live in London

Fabio Frizzi PosterSMALL
Fabio Frizzi Live in London

Fabio Frizzi Live in London

Date: Thursday 31 October 2013

Venue: Union Chapel, London

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For Halloween, soundtrack label Death Waltz Recording Company and Paint It Black are presenting a very special event: legendary Italian composer Fabio Frizzi will perform a selection from his scores, including Seven Notes In Black, Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, Manhattan Baby, live at the magical, atmospheric Union Chapel. In his first ever UK show Frizzi will be presenting his works in newly commissioned suites, accompanied by his seven-piece band and with an additional string section, the F2F Orchestra.

Together with Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai and Riz Ortolani to name but a few, Frizzi was one of the maestros who developed the art of soundtrack in Italy in the 1960s-80s, mixing rock, jazz, classical music, lounge, funk, psychedelia and electronica. He is best known for his work on some of godfather of gore Lucio Fulci’s most memorable films such as Seven Notes In Black, The Beyond, Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead and Manhattan Baby. Frizzi’s ominous, dark synth scores add a whole new dimension to Fulci’s disturbing visuals and their seminal import has been re-apparaised in recent years, as musicians such as Umberto and Boards of Canada have acknowledged his influence – not to mention that the ubiquitous Quentin Tarantino used the theme music from Seven Notes in Black in Kill Bill Vol 1.

Phase IV + guest speakers

Phase IV
Phase IV

Phase IV + talk

Date: Wednesday 18 September 2013

Doors: 7pm

Venue: Horse Hospital

Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD

Price: £7 on the door /£5 in advance

Horse Hospital website

WeGotTickets

As part of Scalarama, Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor are excited to present the brilliant dystopian science fiction tale Phase IV, the only feature film directed by genius designer Saul Bass + special guest speakers art historian Petra Lange-Berndt and director of SCI-FI-LONDON Louis Savy.

Famed as a graphic designer of posters and title sequences, Saul Bass only got one shot at directing a feature, and the resulting film is a period masterpiece that is both a microcosm of contemporary environmental issues and a beautiful, intelligent science fiction film.

Read the Reel Sounds column on Phase IV here.

After an unusual planetary alignment in our solar system exposes planet Earth to anomalous electromagnetic fields, ants start preying on larger animals, including humans, marching across America and destroying whole towns. In an attempt to try to stop them, English entomologist Dr Ernest Hubbs (a frothingly good Nigel Davenport) and American mathematician James Lesko (Michael Murphy) set out to observe a colony of the super-intelligent ants from the apparent safety of a geodesic biosphere in the Arizona desert. What follows is a long, tense stand-off between ants and humans.

Although its interiors were shot at Pinewood, Phase IV‘s arid, ant-ravaged locations convey a convincing sense of a dying America and, as you’d expect from a first-class designer, the film looks exquisite. A brooding score, featuring eerie synthesiser sounds from White Noise’s David Vorhaus, further accentuates the mood of alienation and impending ant-nihilation.

Nobody can have expected this enigmatic, philosophical and ultimately rather downbeat film to be a commercial success, but Paramount still tried to exert control over the final cut, leading to a quarrel over its ending. We are very excited to present Bass’s intended ending after the film.

We’re also thrilled to have art historian Petra Lange-Berndt, author of Animal Art, and Louis Savy, director of SCI-FI-LONDON, in attendance, who will be talking to Mark Pilkington and Virginie Sélavy after the screening.

Buy advance tickets from WeGotTickets.

Scalarama is a UK-wide film season dedicated to all forms of cinema exhibition that will run from 31 August to 29 September 2013. Check the Scalarama website for the full programme and follow them on Twitter for updates.

Watch the trailer for Phase IV:

Electric Sheep presents Tombs of the Blind Dead at EEFF

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Masonic Temple at Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street

Tombs of the Blind Dead

Screening date: Saturday 29 June 2013

Time: 8:45pm

Venue: Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London

Part of the East End Film Festival, 25 June – 10 July 2013
Director: Amando de Ossorio

Writers: Jes&#250s Navarro Carri&#243n, Amando de Ossorio

Original title: La noche del terror ciego

Cast: Lone Fleming, C&#233sar Burner, Mar&#237a Elena Ar&#243n

Spain 1972

86 mins

East End Film Festival website

Evil Knights Templar rising from their graves, riding skeletal horses in pursuit of tourists gone astray, ruined monasteries and deserted villages: Amando de Ossorio’s creepy, atmospheric Tombs of the Blind Dead has some of the most memorable imagery of the Spanish horror boom of the 1970s. Influenced by George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, de Ossorio nevertheless makes the returning dead his own: having had their eyes pecked out by crows after being hanged for their wicked ways, the Knights rely on sounds to hunt their preys. Released in the final years of Franco’s dictatorship, Tombs of the Blind Dead is not only a terrific eerie chiller, but also a subversive allegory for corrupt military and religious power oppressing and persecuting ordinary people. Tombs of the Blind Dead was followed by another three films on the blood-sucking Knights, all directed by the prolific de Ossorio.

Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor are proud to present a rare screening of Tombs of the Bind Dead at the Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London, on Saturday 29 June, as part of the East End Film Festival. Jim Harper, author of ‘The New Regime: Spanish horror in the 1970s and the end of the dictatorship’, published in The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology (Strange Attractor Press), will introduce the screening.

The screening ends a whole day of cult classics around the theme of secret societies at the Masonic Temple starting from 2pm: Sherlock Holmes hunts Jack the Ripper in British classic Murder By Decree, introduced by critic and novelist Kim Newman; a woman begins seeing strange apparitions in 1970’s giallo The Perfume of the Lady in Black; Jodorowsky’s Mexican circus grotesque Santa Sangre is introduced by its composer Simon Boswell; and finally, we descend into the Tombs of the Blind Dead.

Schedule:

2.00pm | Murder By Decree | Dir. Bob Clark
4:30pm | The Perfume of the Lady in Black | Dir. Francesco Barilli
6:15pm | Santa Sangre | Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky
8:45pm | Tombs of the Blind Dead | Dir. Amando de Ossorio

In association with Titan Books, Cigarette Burns Cinema, Electric Sheep Magazine and Strange Attractor Press.

£3.50 per film | £10 for the day

Tickets available from See Tickets.

In May 2011, Electric Sheep took part in the East End Film Festival’s first celebration of Secret Societies at the Masonic Temple. Read our feature on the Freemasons and their connection to Jack the Ripper and listen to a podcast of our radio show on Jack the Ripper, the Freemasons in cinema and the links between crime and the occult with guests Strange Attractor Press publisher Mark Pilkington and Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor contributor Richard Bancroft. You can also listen to a podcast of a panel discussion on Jack the Ripper, witches’ covens and religious cults in film recorded at the Masonic Lodge. Speakers include Electric Sheep editor Virginie S&#233lavy, assistant editor Alex Fitch, Nollywood scholar Nicola Woodham, filmmaker and horror specialist Jennifer Eiss, and Jim Harper, author of Flowers From Hell: The Modern Japanese Horror Film. Includes clips from Murder by Decree, Season of the Witch, The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby.

Electric Sheep presents Mondomanila at Flatpack Festival

Mondomanila

Format: Cinema

Screening date: Friday 29 March 2013

Time: 22:45pm

Venue: Custard Factory, Birmingham

Director: Khavn de la Cruz

Writers: Khavn de la Cruz, Norman Wilwayco

Based on the novel How I Fixed My Hair after a Rather Long Journey by: Norman Wilwayco

Cast: Timothy Mabalot, Marife Necesito, Palito

Philippines/Germany 2012

75 mins

Flatpack website

Electric Sheep are proud to present a screening of Khavn de la Cruz’s Mondomanila at the Flatpack Festival in Birmingham on Friday 29 March.

A joyfully outrageous slice of life in the slums set to a punky soundtrack, Mondomanila is a slap in the face of Western expectations of politely miserabilist depictions of the downtrodden. A hyper kinetic, super stylised wild carnival of the destitute, it follows a midget, a one-armed rapper, a ‘day-glo fairy’, a disabled pimp and their friends as they try to get as much sex and drugs as they can and tackle a racist white paedophile. A toothless showman opens this exuberant bad taste spectacle, promising something horrible and creepy, but the Mondo-style shockumentary aspect is underpinned by the crude reality of life in Manila, making the film vital and energising.

Although Filipino director Khavn de la Cruz has made 33 feature films and 100 shorts, British festivals have tended to ignore his prolific output, and the Flatpack screening provides a rare opportunity to discover his provocative work.

Read our interview with Khavn de la Cruz at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June 2012.

The Keep and Nazisploitation

The Keep

I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP, Friday 15 February, 5-5:30pm, Resonance 104.4 FM

Writer and comic artist Mark Stafford talks to Virginie Sélavy about Michael Mann’s dark, atmospheric 1983 movie, in which German soldiers stationed in an old Romanian castle during WWII are faced with an ancient evil, and the use of Nazis in exploitation and horror films.

Cigarette Burns and Electric Sheep are proud to present a very special and rare 35mm screening of Michael Mann’s 1983 lost classic The Keep, never released on DVD, making it nearly as mythical as Molasar himself, on Thursday 21 February, Prince Charles, London.

The Keep on 35mm at the Prince Charles

Poster for the Cigarette Burns/Electric Sheep screening of The Keep

Format: Cinema (35 mm)

Certificate 18

Screening date: Thursday 21 February 2013

Doors: 6:30pm

Venue: Prince Charles Cinemal

Address: 7 Leicester Place, London

Price: £6 (members)/£8.50 (non-members)

Advance tickets: Prince Charles website

Director: Michael Mann

Writer: Michael Mann

Based on the novel by: F. Paul Wilson

Cast: Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, Alberta Watson

UK 1983

96 mins

Cigarette Burns and Electric Sheep are proud to present a 35mm screening of Michael Mann’s 1983 lost classic The Keep.

Screw your VHS.
Sod Laserdisc.
Smash your TV.
And bollocks to streaming.

We got THIRTY FIVE MILLIMETREs of celluloid, jam-packed with THE KEEP!

Deep within the borders of Romania lie mountains that were once home to folklore of the most terrifying nature, from dragons to werewolves to vampires, creatures of our nightmares have always called these mountains’ peaks and passes home.

In Michael Mann’s ‘lost’ second feature, a Nazi unit have unwittingly awaken an ancient evil, Molasar. Nestled in his Keep for years, he has risen and is hungry.

Ian MacKellen, playing a Jewish theologian, is freed from a concentration camp to help send Molasar back from whence he came.

Tangerine Dream provide the dark atmospheric score.

Cigarette Burns have teamed up with Electric Sheep Magazine to bring a very special and rare screening of a film never released on DVD, making it nearly as mythical as Molasar himself. Join the Facebook event.

The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein + guest Stephen Thrower

The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein

The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein + talk

Date: Wednesday 19 September 2012

Doors: 7pm

Venue: Horse Hospital

Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD

Price: £7 / £5 concs

Horse Hospital website

WeGotTickets

WeGotTickets concession tickets

As part of Scala Beyond, Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor present Jess Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (La Maldici&#243n de Frankenstein, 1972) + guest Stephen Thrower.

Bizarre even by the exotic standards of Spanish exploitation maestro Jess Franco, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is a lurid high point in his monumental filmography. Attempting to summarise the plot will only scramble your mind, but this rich, wild, cross-genre cocktail features a tortured, silver Frankenstein’s monster, the mesmeric Count Cagliostro and his screeching feather-covered birdwoman lover, hordes of undead sadomasochistic zombies, mind control, torture dungeons, beautiful women, beefcake men, gorgeous locations, and a storming soundtrack of free jazz, library music and synth-burble. Bring a spare brain in case yours burns out after this one.

We’re also thrilled to have Stephen Thrower in the house – the author of Beyond Terror, Eyeball and Nightmare USA will talk to Virginie Sélavy and Mark Pilkington about Jess Franco’s life and films as a taster for his new book on the filmmaker, forthcoming from FAB Press.

Scala Beyond is a 6-week nationwide film season dedicated to all forms of cinema exhibition that will run from 8 August to 29 September 2012. Check their Scala Beyond website for the full programme and Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Buy advance tickets from WeGotTickets.

Buy advance concession tickets from WeGotTickets.