Cinehouse: film4 frightfest

Press release:

From Friday Feb 24 to Saturday Feb 25, the UK’s favourite horror fantasy festival returns to its second home at the Glasgow Film Festival for the 8th year with an impressive slate of the hottest new horror films, plus the hit Norwegian TV series HELLFJORD, stripped across the two days.

Some of the genre’s biggest hitters take centre-stage this year, with UK premieres for Eli Roth’s re-calibrated Disaster Movie, AFTERSHOCK, Neil Jordon’s surreal vampire myth, BYZANTIUM and Rob Zombie’s darkest horror yet, THE LORDS OF SALEM. Plus the mother of all anthology movies THE ABCs OF DEATH, receives its first showing in the UK and there’s the chance to sample red-hot Chilean grindhouse in BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE MACHINE GUN WOMAN. Then there is the creepiest found-footage feature of them all - THE BAY, the best US documentary of the season AMERICAN DREAM and the Scottish-based SAWNEY: FLESH OF MAN, which was a surprise hit at the August FrightFest event., Also, there are UK prems for zombie splatter-fest DETENTION OF THE DEAD and the newly restored edition of Mario Bava’s classic horror anthology BLACK SABBATH.

Finally, FrightFest is proud to present Norwegian TV sensation, HELLFJORD, in which seven of Norway’s finest directors team up for writer/producer Tommy (DEAD SNOW) Wirkola’s Nordic Noir fusion of HOT FUZZ and TWIN PEAKS. All seven episodes will be screened as supporting features to the main FrightFest line-up with the last two parts showing as a stand-alone event.

This year’s guest line-up is headed by the Guru of Gore himself, Eli Roth, making his first ever appearance in Scotland. Eli is taking time off from finishing his latest directorial assignment THE GREEN INFERNO to present the UK premiere of AFTERSHOCK, which he produced, co-wrote and headlines as leading actor. And he’ll be bringing with him director Nicolas Lopez and his co-star Lorenza Izzo.

Film4 FrightFest also welcomes the legendary director Neil Jordon, who will be presenting the UK premiere of his latest film BYZANTIUM. He will be accompanied by two of his leading cast members Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan

Also attending, to introduce the UK premiere of THE ABC’s OF DEATH, are directors Simon Rumley, Lee Hardcastle and Jake West, plus Jake’s ‘S is for Speed’ star Lucy Clements. And to help us celebrate out unique presentation of HELLFJORD we have director Patrik Syversen (MANHUNT) and stars Stig Frode Henriksen and Zahid Ali in attendance.

Finally, to celebrate the first Scottish showing of SAWNEY: FLESH OF MAN. director Ricky Wood, writer Richard Wood and stars David Hayman and Gavin Mitchell will be in the house to celebrate their gory serial killer thriller.

Alan Jones, FrightFest co-director says, "Film4 FrightFest is thrilled to be part of Glasgow Film Festival for its eighth straight year, defining horror fantasy for our lovely neighbours north of the border. 2013 sees Team FrightFest building on the massive support our Scottish fans have consistently given us to make this shock-around-the-clock event the must-see brightest and best ever. And our 2013 edition is no exception to that heady mix of mirth, menace, monsters and mayhem that has now come to characterize the exhilarating and exciting Film4 FrightFest Glasgow experience".

With surprises on screen and off, and the festival’s unique community feeling, FrightFest at the GFF has now become a must-attend occasion on the horror fantasy fan's calendar.

To book tickets:
+44 (0)141 332 6535 / boxoffice@glasgowfilm.org

For full programme & timetable log onto www.frightfest.co.uk

The full line-up

FRI 22 FEB

13:30   THE AMERICAN SCREAM (UK Premiere)

From Michael Stephenson, director of the BEST WORST MOVIE, comes another charming and hugely entertaining documentary. Meet the Brodeur, Souza and Bariteau families who live in the seaside town of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Every year they spend fortunes turning their homes into stunning haunted houses for the Halloween holiday, determined to dazzle and impress their neighbours through their imaginative uses of quaintly simple and clever scare tactics. Watch them as they plan, slave, obsess and suffer trying to outdo each other in the fearful fun-ride department. An engaging, inspiring, heart-warming examination of creativity, community and love of Halloween horror.

Director: Michael Stephenson   USA 2012   84 mins

Cast: Matthew Brodeur, Victor Bariteau, Manny Souza

15.00   SAWNEY: FLESH OF MAN (Scottish Premiere)

Religious psychopath Sawney stalks Scotland abducting unholy souls for his communion of sacrifices. With his insane family of inbred killers, Sawney tortures and eats their victims saving the best morsels for a chained-up figure in their cavernous Highlands lair. As the Missing Persons list rises investigative crime journalist Hamish MacDonald writes sensational and damming headlines against the police, due to their incompetence in handling the case. After his fiancée is kidnapped Hamish investigates the heinous crimes on his own with disastrous results. For there’s something he doesn’t know about the case that’s crucial to solving it…

Director: Ricky Wood Jr   UK 2012   89 mins

Cast: David Hayman, Samuel Feeney, Gavin Mitchell

17.30   THE LORDS OF SALEM (UK Premiere) + HELLFJORD Ep 1

Hard rock Boston DJ Heidi Hawthorne co-hosts a late-night radio show. One day she receives a promo record from a mysterious band called The Lords whose music is strange and sinister. It transpires the droning tune was composed during the Witch Trials to turn all the local Salem women into satanic acolytes. When she plays it on the air Heidi spirals into drug addiction and starts having nightmare hallucinations about the demon seed. Cult director Rob Zombie returns with his darkest horror – a journey to the unfathomable depths of terror.

Director: Rob Zombie   USA 2012   101 mins

Cast: Sherri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Judy Geeson

20:15   BYZANTIUM (UK Premiere)

From Neil Jordan, director of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE and THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, comes a haunting, visually sublime, unique take on ancient undead mythology. Clara is a 200-year-old vampire who works in sleazy strip clubs and prostitutes herself to support her vampire daughter, Eleanor. But this deadly duo are no ordinary vampires; Clara drains the scum of the earth and Eleanor

acts as an angel of death preying on the suffering elderly. When the two daughters of darkness open up a bordello in the seedy Byzantium seaside guesthouse, shocking secrets going back through tortured centuries must be suppressed.

Director: Neil Jordan   UK 2012   118 mins

Cast: Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan, Jonny Lee Miller

23.00   DETENTION OF THE DEAD (UK Premiere) + HELLSFJORD Ep 2

When there’s no more room in hell, the Dead will go to Detention! SHAUN OF THE DEAD meets THE BREAKFAST CLUB in a ‘School’s Out Completely’ knock-down, drag-out fight for survival when a student body gather in detention just as a zombie plague kicks off in the outside world. Packed with full-bore splatter moments to keep even the hungriest of gore-hounds satisfied - no more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks, just the flesh-eaten Walking Dead on the hunt for more brains and Class body parts to feast on! Bloody perfect as late-night scream-and-shout-out-loud entertainment.

Director: Alex Craig Mann USA 2012   87 mins

Cast: Christa B. Allen, Jacob Zachar, Alexa Nikolas

SAT 23 FEB

11.00   BLACK SABBATH (Retrospective Premiere) + HELLFJORD Ep 3

FrightFest proudly presents the newly restored edition of Mario Bava’s classic horror anthology BLACK SABBATH, for the first time ever in English. A beautiful woman is terrorised by her psycho ex-lover…. A family becomes a feeding ground when their wounded father returns from vampire hunting… A thieving nurse is haunted by the spirit of a dead medium… Join horror icon Boris Karloff as he hosts and stars in a trilogy of terror from the Golden Era of Italian Shockers. You’ll be absolutely amazed by how scary it still is in this stunningly pristine presentation.

Director: Mario Bava Italy 1963   92 mins

Cast: Boris Karloff, Mark Damon, Michele Mercier

BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE MACHINE GUN WOMAN (UK Premiere)

+ HELLFJORD Ep 4

Get ready for a real blast! After accidentally overhearing Argentine gangsters talk bloody assassination, a nightclub DJ and video game addict avoids execution only by offering to kill the object of their hatred himself. But the scantily clad, femme-fatale bounty hunter Machine Gun Woman is not going to become a sitting target that easily, especially when her favourite fashion accessories are shiny multiple weapons. The most ruthless killer to ever wear stilettos, she’s Hell-on-Heels in an all-guns blazing, sexy, violent slice of neo LatinXploitation. Flashy and trashy grindhouse fare the way they used to make ‘em.

Director: Ernesto Diaz Espinoza Chile 2012   74 mins

Cast: Fernanda Urrejola, Matias Oviedo, Sofia Garcia

15.45   THE BAY (UK Premiere) + HELLFJORD Ep 5

Trust Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson to embrace the found-footage genre and give us its scariest spin EVER! The sea is the livelihood of a small coastal town in Chesapeake Bay. But even when an extremely high level of toxicity is found in the water, the mayor refuses to halt the Independence Day celebrations to avoid spreading panic. Too late: a plague of flesh-melting, tongue-chewing, stomach eating parasites is about to contaminate the population with devastating blood-vomiting consequences. Gross, disturbing, creepy and chilling, yet punctuated by a dark sense of humour, THE BAY is true issue-raising nightmare horror.

Director: Barry Levinson   USA 2012   84 mins

Cast: Will Rogers, Kristen Connolly, Kether Donohue

18.45   THE ABCs OF DEATH (UK Premiere)

A is for Ambitious, B for Brilliant, C for Courageous: 26 letters, 26 directors, 26 ways to die in a lightning-paced anthology showcasing death in all its vicious wonder and brutal beauty. The idea is simple; a range of international genre filmmakers given a letter of the alphabet, $5000 and total freedom to create a short film about dying. From sex-fuelled murder and claymation toilet humour to artful giallo orgasm and sobering drug orgies, the twisted visions are funny, bad taste, controversial and confrontational. But all provide bloody, provocative and shocking fun on a carnival ride to the other side.

Directors: (UK) Ben Wheatley, Jake West, Simon Rumley USA 2012   129 mins

21:00   AFTERSHOCK (UK Premiere)

Producer, co-writer, star and genre guru Eli Roth becomes the new Master of Disaster. Four tourists and their two Chilean guides head to Valparaiso for the last days of their South American vacation. But as they dance the night away in a crowded nightclub, a massive earthquake hits the area causing wholesale death, destruction and urban anarchy. Who will survive in this dark, intense, and unpredictable mix of disaster flick and horror thriller that looks fantastic, grips with the excitement of those classic Irwin Allen 1970s epics and delivers the bloodiest of shocks as buildings collapse along with society.

Director: Nicolas Lopez   USA 2012   90 mins

Cast: Eli Roth, Nicolas Martinez, Lorenza Izzo

23.15   HELLFJORD - THE FINALE – Eps 6 & 7 (PLUS Q &A ) (UK Premiere)

Seven of Norway’s finest directors team up for writer/producer Tommy (DEAD SNOW) Wirkola’s Nordic Noir fusion of HOT FUZZ and TWIN PEAKS. Now you can see all seven episodes of this Scandinavian TV sensation as supporting features to the main FrightFest line-up with the last two parts showing as a stand-alone event. MANHUNT’s Patrik Syversen and COLD PREY’s Roar Uthaug are among the talented helmers focusing on the weird adventures of disgraced Sergeant Salamander posted to Hellfjord, a small town where family restaurants double as strip clubs, the average age is 67 and the sun never, ever goes down.

Directors: (Include) Patrik Syversen, Roar Uthang, Sebastian Dalen Norway 2012   7 X 30 mins

Cast: Zahid Ali, Stig Frode Henriksen, Ingrid Bolso Berdal