Celluloid Screams Film Fest’s 2013 Line-up Laid Bare

Ian Folivor hasn’t left his apartment in months, choosing instead to spend his days languishing in his underwear with only Kent, his ancient wood-panel television set, for company. After a failed suicide attempt, Folivor finds himself talking to a patch of disgusting mold on his bathroom wall, and when the mold talks back it transpires that this newly appointed life-coach has a plan to help him turn his life around. Gradually Foliver begins to suspect that his fungal mentor might have more sinister and unwholesome intentions in mind. Motivational Growth is one of the most unique and compelling indie films to emerge from the USA in a long time.

Celluloid Screams welcomes director Don Thacker for a Q&A after the film

BASKET CASE DOUBLE BILL
Director: Frank Henenlotter | USA | 1982 / 1990
When Duane Bradley arrives in New York City and checks into the sleazy Hotel Broslin, he is repeatedly asked one question: What’s in the basket? Few would guess that the answer would be his hideously deformed twin brother Belial… Separated at birth, the two brothers are now out for revenge against the doctors who left Belial for dead and will stop at nothing on their vengeful path.

Basket Case 2 picks up straight after the gore-drenched finale of the first film. With their secret life unmasked and their cover blown, the brothers unwittingly become media celebrities…

Frank Henenlotter is Celluloid Screams’ Guest of Honour and will introduce this special double bill screening to participate in a Q&A afterwards

Saturday 26 October

PAINLESS
Director: Juan Carlos Medina | Spain | 2012
In this beautifully crafted horror thriller, David, a hard-working neurosurgeon survives a near-fatal car accident and discovers that he is adopted. He learns that his lineage stretches back to the 1930s to a group of children with a rare condition that prevents them from feeling physical pain. As he slowly uncovers the chilling fate of the children, David learns the reason why the truth about his past was kept from him for so long. Painless uses the backdrop of Spain’s troubled and brutal history to tell a story that is poignant, constantly inventive and utterly devastating.

CLAYMANIA: THE FILMS OF LEE HARDCASTLE
Director: Lee Hardcastle | UK
From the gory excesses of T is for Toilet – his winning entry in the ABCs OF DEATH 26 Director competition – to his outrageous film parodies such as The Raid, The Exorcist and The Evil Dead (and of course his legendary version of John Carpenter’s The Thing starring children’s’ favourite Pingu), animator Lee Hardcastle has established himself as a unique voice in the field of animation.

Lee Hardcastle will attend Celluloid Screams to present this showreel of his work (handpicked by the man himself) and to take part in a Q&A session after the screening.

THE BATTERY
Director: Jeremy Gardner | USA | 2013
If you’re sick and tired of run-of-the-mill zombie films, The Battery has come to reaffirm your faith…

Two former baseball players, Ben and Mickey, cut an aimless path across a desolate New England, steering clear of the shambling corpses that patrol the once bustling cities and towns. In order to survive, they must overcome the stark differences in each other’s personalities. Ben embraces an increasingly feral, lawless, and nomadic lifestyle while Mickey is unable to accept the harsh realities of the new world and longs for the creature comforts he once took for granted.

JUG FACE
Director: Chad Crawford Kinkle | USA | 2013
In a remote backwoods community, an ancient rite is carried out by its inhabitants, in which a blood sacrifice is paid to a mysterious entity residing in a pit in return for continuing protection and prosperity. The identity of the sacrifice is decided by the resemblance to a jug face: a clay head crafted in a trance-like state by the village’s resident potter, but when pregnant teen Ada discovers she is the next sacrifice she steals the jug face and hides it, invoking the wrath of the pit-dwelling deity.

Celluloid Screams welcomes director Chad Crawford Kinkle and lead actress Lauren Ashley Carter to introduce the film and participate in a Q&A after the screening.

CHIMERES (UK PREMIERE)
Director: Olivier Beguin | Switzerland | 2013
The vampire myth is revitalized once more in this chilling tale of fear, dependency and bloodlust. After a botched blood transfusion leaves him with tainted blood coursing through his veins, photographer Alex descends into a nightmarish void as he begins to comprehend the full extent of his new-found state. His girlfriend Livia veers from utter denial of the situation to resentment and anger. Like Let The Right One In before it, Chimeres focuses on the closer, more intimate facets of a descent into vampirism.

Olivier Beguin will be in attendance to introduce the film and to participate in a Q&A afterwards.

THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS
Directors: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani | Belgium/France/Luxembourg | 2013
After the sensuous and experimental Amer (as seen at Celluloid Screams 2010) Celluloid Screams presents the latest mesmerizing opus from directors Cattet and Forzani. When a husband returns home to find his wife is missing, a detective comes to investigate and the two begin to discover the secrets, deception and lies all secreted within the apartment building where the couple reside. As the detective begins questioning the building’s other strange tenants, the husband is drawn into a labyrinthine mystery of sex and murder that threatens to engulf him.

NIGHT OF THE [UN]DEAD – ALL-NIGHTER

FRANKENHOOKER (with introduction from director Frank Henenlotter)
Director: Frank Henenlotter | USA | 1990
Kicking off the Celluloid Screams Allnighter for 2013, Frank Henenlotter’s gloriously excessive take on the Frankenstein story (with an introduction by the man himself!)…

When his fiancée is killed in a freak lawnmower accident, aspiring mad scientist Jeffrey Franken decides to reconstruct her and where else to source the very best random body parts than from New York City’s streetwalkers…

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
Director: Dan O’Bannon | USA | 1985
Do you wanna party? It’s party time… The classic 80s horror that put brains on the menu for flesh eaters everywhere, Return of the Living Dead unfolds when two inept employees at a Kentucky medical supply company unwittingly unleash a deadly toxic gas into the atmosphere from a stash of military barrels in the basement.

THE BEYOND
Director: Lucio Fulci | Italy | 1981
A rare big-screen outing for this gruesome epic from Italian master of horror Lucio Fulci. After she inherits an old hotel in rural Louisiana and begins the process of restoring it, Liza Merril (Catriona MacColl) is visited by a mysterious blind woman named Emily who refers to a 4,000 year old book of prophecies that foretells that Liza’s inheritance was built on one of seven gateways to hell.

BRAINDEAD
Director: Peter Jackson | New Zealand | 1992
Celluloid Screams inaugural All-nighter closes with Peter Jackson’s ultra-gory cult classic. Anxious mummy’s boy Lionel Cosgrove is ruled over by his evil, manipulative mother, who is furious when he falls in love with a local shop girl. Determined to sabotage her son’s future happiness, Lionel’s mother follows the young lovers on a date to the zoo and is bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey. She quickly succumbs to a deadly infection and transforms into a flesh eating zombie.

Sunday 27 October

DER FAN (aka TRANCE)
Director: Eckhart Schmidt | West Germany | 1982
Disturbed teen Simone is a fantasist who spends much of her time writing fan letters to ‘R’, a Gary Numan-esque synth pop star. Every day she awaits the postman for a reply but one never comes. As her obsessive fandom intensifies, Simone resolves to meet her idol. Unfortunately when they finally meet, R treats Simone like every other doe-eyed groupie. But Simone is not like the others, and when her dreams of love are shattered, her madness overflows in an explosion of violence.

BIG BAD WOLVES
Director: Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado | Israel | 2013
In this astonishing revenge thriller, Micky, a renegade cop, is convinced that the perpetrator of a series of brutal murders is mild-mannered bible teacher Dror and sets about following him in order to force a confession (despite having been officially removed from the case). His plan is interrupted, however, when Gidi, the grieving father of one of the murder victims, kidnaps the suspect. The three men embark upon a tense standoff from which none of them are likely to emerge unscathed.

CELLULOID SCREAMS SECRET FILM
The festival’s Secret Film screening is a popular fixture every year. Last year’s secret film was the wonderful CITADEL, which impressed festival-goers so much that they gave it the Audience Award for Best Film. What’s in store for 2013? You’ll just have to wait and see…

DELIVERY (UK PREMIERE)
Director: Brian Netto | USA | 2013
Kyle and Rachel Massy, a young couple expecting their first child, agree to document their pregnancy for a family-oriented reality show. The production spirals out-of-control after the cameras capture a series of unexplained events, leading Rachel to believe that a malevolent spirit has possessed their unborn child. Told via unaired footage and interviews with the couple’s friends, family and production crew, the terrifying story of the Massys’ pregnancy unfolds with ever-increasing dread as the strange phenomena grow in frequency and severity and they begin to suspect something is very, very wrong with their bundle of joy.
Director Brian Netto will join Celluloid Screams for a Q&A after the film.

CLOSING GALA: DISCOPATH (UK PREMIERE)
Director: Renaud Gauthier | Canada | 2013
New York City: the mid-70’s: Duane Lewis is a timid young man who leads an uneventful life working in a diner, until he is fatefully exposed to the pulsating rhythms of a brand-new genre of music: disco. Upon hearing this new musical sensation, Duane is gripped by an uncontrollable urge to kill and soon no dancefloor in the city is safe.
Director Renaud Gauthier will join Celluloid Screams for a Q&A after the film.

In terms of ticket costs, the Celluloid Screams Ultimate Pass comes at a cost of £80 (£70 Concessions) and includes access to Saturday’s all-nighter. For those not wishing to test the limits of their waking ability (and eyelids), a reduced rate pass is available at £65 (£55 Concessions) which includes access to all films except those shown during the all-night session. Finally, tickets for the all-nighter only can be snapped up for £25 (£20 Concessions). All tickets are available from the Sheffield Showroom Workstation booking site right now.

Keep an eye on the Celluloid Screams website for more, and of course follow them at sheffhorrorfest on Twitter and celluloidscreamshorrorfestival on Facebook for up-to-the-minute info.

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