Hello there, and welcome to The Stricken Land! Here I indulge my life-long love of genre movies, trash cinema and tv, the product of an 80's childhood inhabiting dingy video shops in the gloom of northern England. I'll be adding reviews, retrospectives and downright opinionated missives on all things cinematic in an irregular and haphazard fashion as and when the vicissitudes of modern life grant me the all too precious commodity of spare time. Enjoy!

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GRIMMFEST 10TH ANNIVERSARY LINE-UP ANNOUNCED

“I WANT MY CAKE!”
This year, GRIMMFEST, Manchester’s Festival of Horror, Cult and Fantastic Film, celebrates its 10th anniversary. Get ready for decimation, with the darkest, deadliest line-up yet of wild, weird, witty, thrilling, chilling, blood-spilling movies, every one of them a premiere or cult classic of one kind or another, many with cast and crew in attendance.

But Grimmfest will also be looking back, a little nervously over its shoulder, perhaps, at a decade spent delivering top-quality cinematic carnage to the movie-goers of Manchester, and beyond. Beginning with a return to its bloodsoaked origins, and an anticipation of the future, in a special Festival Preview show on Monday 1st October…

IT’S (STILL) GRIMM UP NORTH!
Originally, the festival was known as “Grimm Up North”, in sardonic acknowledgement of its location, and as a declaration of support for filmmaking in the region. So what could be more appropriate as an anniversary celebration than a special North-West programme, featuring three new shorts and a retrospective screening of the film without which the festival would not even exist… Festival Directors Simeon Halligan and Rachel Richardson-Jones’s debut feature, the dark psychological horror fable, SPLINTERED, fully remastered, and in a razor-sharp new cut. From Once Upon A Time… to …Happily Ever After? Only time will tell. For now though, a chance to reacquaint yourselves with this truly Grimm Fairy Tale.

This celebration of North-West talent will also feature a special family-friendly screening of CBBC and DHX’s horror anthology CREEPED OUT. Co-creators and showrunners Bede Blake and Robert Butler will present their favourite UK and favourite Canadian episode from Season One and, if we are lucky, share an insight into what’s in store for the new series.

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK…
Which might be why this year’s classic screening, opening the main body of the festival, is RE-ANIMATOR, presented and introduced by Grimmfest’s guest of honour Barbara Crampton, who will also be in attendance for 2 brand new films making their regional debuts: PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH and DEAD NIGHT. Barbara will also be receiving the first Grimmfest Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Horror Channel.

The Grimmfest Team are not ones to indulge too much in nostalgia, however. The past is dead and gone. Except when it refuses to die, of course. Or returns to haunt you. In an attempt to lay to rest any unquiet spirits, therefore, the festival is delighted to be welcoming back many of the fearsome filmmakers who have been such a major part of its bloody history over the past decade. Rob Grant (FAKE BLOOD, MON AMI) presents the UK Premiere of the truly outrageous ALIVE. Johnny Kevorkian whose THE DISAPPEARED screened at the very first festival, returns with the Northern Premiere of the claustrophobic sci-fi horror AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. There’s the UK Premiere of Gothic noir I’LL TAKE YOUR DEAD from Chad Archibald (ANTISOCIAL) and the Northern Premiere of SUMMER OF ’84, a bitter little antidote to all of the current nostalgia for the Eighties, from the talented trio behind Grimmfest favourite TURBO KID.

In keeping with the theme of welcome returns, the festival also presents a couple of startling cinematic reboots – or revenants if you will. Indonesian maestro Joko Anwar (MODUS ANOMALI) makes a Grimmfest comeback, with his unsettling reimagining of obscure cult oddity SATAN’S SLAVES, already a huge box office smash all over South East Asia, and now receiving its UK Premiere; while Scandinavian shock-auteurs Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund (WITHER) resurrect Charles Band’s cult classic series for a new generation with the mischievous PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH, a Northern Premiere (and Barbara Crampton’s second film of the festival), and also treat festival goers to the World Premiere of their latest short, MYSTERY BOX.

Alejandro Brugués, director of another Grimmfest favourite, the riotous JUAN OF THE DEAD, joins fellow masters of the macabre, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Ryûhei Kitamura, and David Slade for the much-anticipated all-star horror anthology NIGHTMARE CINEMA, another UK Premiere, and Lora Burke, powerhouse star of POOR AGNES returns in the Greater Manchester Premiere of Justin McConnell’s emotive body-horror love story LIFECHANGER.

NEW FACES IN HELL…
But just in case you thought this year’s Grimmfest was simply one big reunion party, there are also some Grimmfest first timers…

The festival is delighted to host the European premieres of Daniel Robbins’ nail-biting PLEDGE and Olivier Afonso’s outrageous GIRLS WITH BALLS. Also screening are UK Premieres of the hilariously twisted BROTHERS’ NEST from Australia’s Clayton Jacobson, the gruesome FRAMED from Spain’s Marc Martínez Jordán and Lin Oeding’s savagely satirical OFFICE UPRISING.

The line-up also features a raft of regional Premieres, including the Northern Premieres of Jon Knautz’s unsettling THE CLEANING LADY, Aislinn Clarke’s chilling THE DEVIL’S DOORWAY, Andy Mitton’s eerie THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW, and Issa López’s magical TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID. Also screening are the Greater Manchester Premieres of Nicolas Pesce’s perverse and discomforting anti-Rom-Com, PIERCING and Bradford Baruh’s demented DEAD NIGHT, again starring Grimmfest’s very special guest Barbara Crampton.

All this plus a brutal brace of short film programmes, which sees a focus on female creators and the return to Grimmfest of Faye Jackson, director of STRIGOI, another classic film from the festival’s opening year, with her new short THE WOMAN WHO HID HER FEAR UNDER THE STAIRS. 

And to close… Christmas comes early, with the Greater Manchester Premiere of zombie high school musical extravaganza, ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE, guaranteed to send you dancing off into the night…

All selected films are in the running for the previously announced GRIMMFEST AWARDS. Grimmfest recently revealed that it is partnering with film financing group BCL to offer £40,000s worth of post-production services to each of the winners of the BEST FILM and BEST DIRECTOR awards categories.

Grimmfest’s 10th edition will take place from the 4th to the 7th October at the ODEON Manchester Great Northern, UK, with a Preview Night taking place on 1st October at the Plaza Cinema, Stockport.

The full line-up can be accessed via grimmfest.com, where full festival passes, day passes and individual film tickets can also be purchased.

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Good evening film fiends! Hopefully this unseasonably warm September day finds you all in fine fettle and ready to explore the celluloid wonders winging their way on to our screens soon…


Running tire marks around Ghost Rider…
More vengeful than the Crow…
Johnny Gruesome grants y’all a death wish this fall.
This October, Johnny Grissom returns for revenge.

High school students Eric Carter and Johnny Grissom are best friends. Johnny is a heavy metal rebel nicknamed “Johnny Gruesome” by his classmates. When Johnny is murdered while on a drunken joyride, his killer persuades Eric and Johnny’s girlfriend to help him make the murder look like an accidental death. Johnny returns from the grave as a murderous, wisecracking zombie hell bent on revenge. Based on the award-winning novel by Gregory Lamberson (Slime City, Killer Rack), who also directs, JOHNNY GRUESOME stars Anthony De La Torre, Byron Brown II and Michael DeLorenzo. From Uncork’d Entertainment, JOHNNY GRUESOME on VOD 10/16 and DVD 1/1/2019.

 

Starring international action star Alexander Nevsky  (SHOWDOWN IN MANILA) MAXIMUM IMPACT won Best Action Film of the Year Award at the 14th annual Action on Film International Festival in Las Vegas. MAXIMUM IMPACT also won in Best Action Sequence and Best Special Effects categories. Mr. Nevsky was honoured with the festival’s 2018 Breakout Action Star Award and his co-star Matthias Hues received an Icon Award.
Written by Ross LaManna (RUSH HOUR) and directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak (ROMEO MUST DIE), the MAXIMUM IMPACT cast includes Kelly Hu (THE SCORPION KING), William Baldwin (THE PURGE: THE TV SERIES), Tom Arnold (TRUE LIES), Mark Dacascos (JOHN WICK 3: PARABELLUM), and Danny Trejo (MACHETE).
MAXIMUM IMPACT will be released in North America in theaters on September 28, 2018, and On Demand, DVD, Blu-ray and Digital Video on October 2, 2018. Distributors are Unified Pictures and Sony.
When the granddaughter of the US Secretary of the State is kidnapped in Moscow, an agent of the Federal Security Service of Russia (Alexander Nevsky) and the US Secret Service are forced to put aside their differences and work together to prevent a full-scale international crisis.
MAXIMUM IMPACT is produced by Nevsky through his Los Angeles-based production company Hollywood Storm.  Nevsky is a former Mr. Universe and is an established movie star in Russia. His credits include MOSCOW HEAT, UNDISPUTED, TREASURE RAIDERS, SOMEWHERE and BLACK ROSE, for which he also directed. Nevsky represents Russia as a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and votes for the Golden Globes.


Nevsky says, “MAXIMUM IMPACT is the biggest film in my career and I’m so glad it was recognized in such a great way at the Action on Film Festival! I’m also happy to receive the ‘Breakout Action Star Award’ and would like to thank ‘Action on Film International Film Festival’ and it’s president Mr. Del Weston for this honor! But I couldn’t be here without my idols Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ralf Moeller and Matthias Hues so I would like to thank them as well for all the inspiration and support over the years!”

 

From filmmaker and film historian Chris Espenan comes THE COOLEST GUY MOVIE EVER — a fascinating forensic documentary about the making of the classic World War II adventure film THE GREAT ESCAPE — to DVD and digital HD from Virgil Films available now, after a special screening earlier this year at Marché du film in Cannes.
Before Evans, Hemsworth, and Downey Jr. there was McQueen, Garner, and Bronson. These men represented what it meant to be tough guys in the 1960s, and they had the acting chops to play the toughest characters around – including the real life airmen who pulled off one of the most improbable escapes in war history.
The filming locations of the enormously popular World War II adventure THE GREAT ESCAPE have become enshrined over the years by film buffs and historians alike, forever changing the landscape of the small German towns that once played host to these Hollywood heavyweights. Now for the first time, filmmaker Chris Espenan set out to visit all of the locations in Germany where the 1963 film was made, while compiling facts, behind-the-scenes stories, and inside information on how the film was produced.
From visiting Geisel Gastag Studios in Munich to the Bavarian town of Füssen, Espenan assembled a unique team of cameramen, historians, film buffs, and local experts who painstakingly found the exact spots where actors Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, David McCallum, and others toiled in the summer of 1962.
Uncovering treasures such as footage from a German television news shoot — which included a rare interview on the set with Steve McQueen — to getting first person interviews from the locals who were there during filming, THE COOLEST GUY MOVIE EVER is a true labor of love, fashioned by filmmakers who exult THE GREAT ESCAPE as one of the most memorable World War II movies ever made, featuring one of the greatest casts ever assembled, and for many, indeed, THE COOLEST GUY MOVIE EVER.


“THE GREAT ESCAPE is my favorite film of all time,” said Producer Steve Rubin.   “It is the first film I started researching for my book Combat Films 1945-2010, the subject of my 1993 documentary Return to The Great Escape, and the reason I was nominated for Best Classic Commentary in 2004 for The Great Escape: Special Edition. When filmmaker Chris Espenan came to me with the idea for THE COOLEST GUY MOVIE EVER, I literally dropped everything to help him.”
Executive Producer and Virgil Films CEO Joe Amodei echoed Rubin’s sentiments when he said “As a young boy exploring the big wide world of motion pictures for the first time THE GREAT ESCAPE excited me, thrilled me and cemented a love for movies that has stayed with me forever. This is the film that started it all.”

About Virgil Films – Virgil Films & Entertainment was founded in 2003 by Joe Amodei to acquire, market and distribute DVD, TV and Digital Product in the feature film, documentary, special interest and sports categories. The company has built partnerships with OWN, Sundance Channel Home Entertainment, National Geographic Cinema Ventures, Pure Flix Entertainment, Major League Baseball Productions, Morgan Spurlock’s Warrior Poets and other high-profile entertainment brands since their inception. Releases from Virgil Films include the Oscar-nominated documentary Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me; the award-winning documentary Miss Representation; the critically acclaimed, timeless, best-selling Forks Over Knives; and the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo and its sequel Korengal. They have also released the compelling Facing Darkness, I Am Chris Farley, I Am Heath Ledger, Blood on the Mountain, Legends of the Knight, The Winding Stream and others. Follow them on Twitter @virgilfilms
www.VirgilFilms.com

On a final note –  to any aspiring independent filmmakers, podcasters or film related writers out there out there reading this, let me know if you’d like me to publicize and/or review your projects, The Stricken Land is always happy to promote new talent and ideas! And as ever, please feel free to share this post and any others on here that you like, far and wide.

Spread the Word!
Ian

 

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Good morning film fiends! And a very merry bank holiday wherever you are (hope that sun is shining!) Straight down to business; I’ve got three splendid looking indie releases coming up, so let’s check out the previews below –

First up is e-DEMON from director Jeremy Wechter. The story centres on an  escaped demon on a dark and twisted mission that manipulates a group of friends hanging out on a video-chat. The film is craftily structured – it takes place completely on a computer screen via the webcams being shown.

Kendra, AJ, Mar and Dwayne are old college friends who find themselves growing apart. Attempting to hang on to their good old Ohio State days, the gang gets together online for a night of stories, pranks and drinking via web-cam. As the evening progresses, they unknowingly release a deviously clever demon that had been trapped for centuries in Salem, Massachusetts. Since the demon can possess multiple people at once, the group of friends must determine who they can still trust in order to survive the demon’s dark and twisted mission.
e-DEMON gets its US theatrical and digital release on September 14 2018.

AFI Winner David Field (THE INBETWEENERS 2, THE ROVER, CHOPPER) “goes brilliantly against type”* in Kosta Nikas’ critically acclaimed SACRED HEART, out from Gravitas Ventures.

SACRED HEART chronicles the journey of a religious man, who rejects God and his faith, after the tragic death of his pregnant wife and then challenges the Devil. He receives a visit from his priest, who pushes him to question his own beliefs. The Priest turns out to be a mirror of his own insanity, pushing the boundaries between heaven and hell.

David Field, Kipan Rothbury (WATER RATS) and Lizzie Schebesta (SLEEPING BEAUTY) star in a Kosta Nikas film.
“A hard-hitting journey of revenge and redemption”**, SACRED HEART is available now on VOD/DVD and BluRay from Gravitas Ventures.
*FilmInk **FilmInk

Sometimes the blood just won’t wash away. This summer, Wild Eye Releasing makes hearts bleed when Colin Floom and Greg Nemer’s highly anticipated horror DEAD LOVE premieres on VOD.  

Brandon is a young train engineer whose world is upended when his mother suddenly takes her own life. At the funeral home, he meets Fiona, a beautiful and mysterious mortician who takes a strong interest in him. Soon they discover they share a passion for music. And when Fiona serenades him with an ancient folk song, their lives become entwined for eternity.

Acclaimed actress Kate Linder (THE YOUND AND THE RESTLESS, MISS MEADOWS) features alongside Nicole Elizabeth Olson, Grayson Low, Bob Buckley, Elias Harger, and Deborah Curtis in a classy, haunting and effective festival favorite available now on VOD, followed by a DVD release this October.

Unrelated to new film releases, but should be of interest to comicbook fans; The Stricken Land has become the proud backer of the independent graphic novel Minding Mama via Kickstarter –

Minding Mama is a comic book series written by Elaine Jackson, Illustrated by Dan Schaefer and colored by Grant Kempster.
Mama, her infant son and Cyril the Farmbot live on Earth several hundred years into our future. Decades of intense solar flare activity have left the surface uninhabitable. Only robots such as Farmbots Cyril and Celia can spend any time on the surface, where they attempt to cultivate UV-resistant crops. But the Farmbots are old, and starting to break down…
The project has some wonderful and evocative art reminiscent of the more ‘european style’ found in publications like Metal Hurlant and our own much loved 2000AD. Check out their page (with a great live action short starring the wonderful and very talented Kate Davies Speak) and website and see if you can’t throw a few quid their way, God knows British comics need all the help they can get!

On a final note –  to any aspiring independent filmmakers, podcasters or film related writers out there out there reading this, let me know if you’d like me to publicize and/or review your projects, The Stricken Land is always happy to promote new talent and ideas! And as ever, please feel free to share this post and any others on here that you like, far and wide.

Spread the Word!

Ian

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GENRE FILM FESTIVAL GRIMMFEST REVEALS FIRST LOOK AT 2018 PROGRAMME AND AWARDS PRIZES

Manchester-based genre film festival GRIMMFEST is delighted to announce the first 3 of many UK premieres lined up for this year’s 10th anniversary edition. The festival can also now reveal details of some very special awards prizes on offer for films in the official selection. 

Simeon Halligan, festival director and founder of Grimmfest, says “2018 is a very special year for us and to celebrate this we are proud to welcome back a number of talented filmmakers and actors who’ve shared their work with us over the past decade. We’re also pleased to introduce plenty of new talent to the festival, who we hope to see more work from in the years to come!”

The full festival programme is due to be unleashed on Monday 3rd September 2018, but Grimmfest is whetting audiences’ appetites with an early sneak preview of 3 of this year’s titles.

Grimmfest is thrilled to be hosting the UK Premiere of the much-anticipated NIGHTMARE CINEMA, a weird, wild and most welcome throwback to the classic EC-comics-inspired horror anthologies of the 1970s, from genre giants Alejandro Brugués, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Ryûhei Kitamura and David Slade. Fresh from its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival, the film stars Mickey Rourke, Elizabeth Reaser, Richard Chamberlain and Annabeth Gish.

Mickey Rourke stars in ‘Wrap Around’, one of the segments featured in brand new anthology horror NIGHTMARE CINEMA
 ‘Mashit’, another of the segments featured in NIGHTMARE CINEMA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Director Rob Grant (FAKE BLOOD, MON AMI) will be making a welcome return to the festival with the UK Premiere of Canadian shocker ALIVE. Tense, creepy, darkly funny, and quite spectacularly gory in places, with a truly baroque performance from Angus Macfadyen (BRAVEHEART, SAW III/IV), this offbeat gem cements Rob Grant’s reputation of one of genre cinema’s true mavericks of morbid mischief.

Tom Camille stars in Canadian horror ALIVE directed by Rob Grant

Finally, Grimmfest is proud to announce the UK Premiere of the hilariously twisted Australian comedy BROTHERS’ NEST, courtesy of Signature Entertainment. Written and directed by Clayton Jacobson, who also stars in the film along with his brother Shane, this SXSW hit is an emotionally-charged pitch-black farce of squabbling siblings, filial ingratitude, thwarted ambition, broken dreams and brutal murder.

Clayton and Shane Jacobson star in black comedy BROTHER’S NEST

These and all other selected films are in the running for the previously announced GRIMMFEST AWARDS, which will be judged by a fantastic all-female jury consisting of some of the brightest lights in contemporary Genre cinema. 

Grimmfest can also now reveal that it is partnering with film financing group BCL to offer special prizes for the winners of the BEST FILM and BEST DIRECTOR awards categories. The winning films will each be awarded £40,000 worth of post-production services, which can be used against a future film.

Festival Co-Director Rachel Richardson-Jones says, “Our hope is that these awards will really help to boost productivity within the independent genre film sector, as well as demonstrating our commitment as a festival to supporting rising film talent. We intend to expand these awards further still in 2019.”

Michael Laundon, Managing Partner at BCL, adds “All of us at BCL are delighted to be one of the prize sponsors for Grimmfest 2018, especially in their 10th anniversary year. BCL was established with a quest to truly help independent movies to not only get made but to be finished. We hope to continue our support of Grimmfest in the years to come.”

Grimmfest previously announced actress and producer Barbara Crampton (RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND) as the recipient of their 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Horror Channel. Barbara will be attending the festival in person to receive the award, where she will also present a special screening of 80’s horror classic RE-ANIMATOR.  

Grimmfest’s 10th edition will take place from the 4th to the 7th October at the ODEON Manchester Great Northern, UK. 

Full festival passes are on sale now from grimmfest.com. Day passes and individual film tickets will be released on 3rd September 2018, along with the full festival programme.