Here’s a horror film shot in 1959 and then released in 1961 about a group of young people who find themselves prey for a sadistic hunter on an island. It is quite obviously a rip-off of ‘The Most Dangerous Game‘ which was filmed in the thirties as a warm up for the sets and special effects of King Kong.
Oh that lucky fellow, Saint Antoine! To find myself in his shoes as he is ‘tormented’ by the temptations popping in and out of his little cave! My oh my! What a lucky guy! This is Georges Méliès experimenting with making people appear and disappear magically.
Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin made this short film which is inspired by an 1882 illustration by Odilon Redon that was in turn inspired by the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. It has a kind of wild sinister fantasy about it that fascinates me. I like the way Maddin builds little sets that end up looking almost like illustrations. He also does a quick visual quote of a great old French film called L’Atalante by Jean Vigo. This is a frightening and beautiful dream film.
Pacific Standard Time, the roaringly cheerful celebration by Southern California of its own art from the late 40s through the early 80s is releasing short videos to pump everyone up for its brand of art. I should be horrified by this silly video, but I’m not. I kind of like Baldessari’s big ass head on the wall. It works all the way up until he says ‘Art should be fun.’ Yeah, really? I dunno. Sounds like the kind of thing you say to an idiot.
But whatever. I’m going to see a lot of the exhibitions that are part of this festival. Should be really great.
ADULT CONTENT
Here’s an awesome horror short that’s a very professional grade fan film based on Ben Templesmith’s ‘Welcome to Hoxford’ comic book. It’s bloody impressive and has a nice creepy psychotic edge to it. The film was directed by Julien Mokrani. Just what the warden ordered for Halloween’s month of October!
Here’s the fan film web site.
Let’s begin the creepy festivities of October with this short film by Pixar’s Rodrigo Blaas.