Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Fantasia 2010 Offers Some Darker Film Highlights in the New Blood and Between Death and the Devil Categories


The Fantasia Film Festival is hosted throughout Quebec each year and the event is in to its 14th showing. This year the festival gets under way July 8th and a slew of darker, horror fare will be highlighting this creative extravaganza. Included in this year's film line-up are Black Death, The Devils, Heartless, The Last Exorcism, Possessed, The Shrine, A Serbian Film, The Life and Death of Porno Gang, Tears for Sale, Technotise and several more under the categories "New Blood" and "Between Death and the Devil." A short synopsis for each of these films is provided below, with more info' on the films to be launched at the Fantasia homepage shortly

The synopsis for Black Death here:

"With the Black Death sweeping across England, a witch-hunting knight (Sean Bean) leads a pack of mercenaries across the country in search of a village that has somehow been spared the plague, allegedly due to the inhabitants practicing satanic rituals. BLACK DEATH is a nightmarish morality play that frequently shifts concepts of right and wrong as good characters do inexcusable things, bad characters do good, acts of violence are at once justifiable and indefensible, and ideals give way to instinct, then back again" (Dread).

A synopsis for The Devils:

"The bravest, most powerful, most ferociously confrontational film ever to lay assault on the criminal opportunism and hypocrisies of the Church, THE DEVILS remains one of the most widely banned and controversial pictures ever made. Starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, directed with theatricality, wit and rage by the great Ken Russell, this is an utterly terrifying, wholly unforgettable masterpiece unlike anything you’ve ever seen" (Dread).



The synopsis for Heartless:

"Philip Ridley, iconoclastic director of THE REFLECTING SKIN, is back with his first film in 14 years, a satanic odyssey whose tones settle somewhere between the haunted universes of Clive Barker and David Lynch, filtered through the horrific truths that have spiked every work in his filmography. Jamie Morgan (Jim Sturgess) was born disfigured with a heart-shaped birthmark pulling across one side of his face. Taunted and alone, he agrees to do some very grisly favours for the Mephistophelian “Pappa B,” who promises to remove his birthmark in exchange for…we’ll say no more!" (Dread).

A plot summary for The Last Exorcism:

"A celebrity priest who also happens to be a fraud of an exorcist has a massive crisis in ideals when he comes across a genuine case of demonic possession in this eerie, subjectively shot shocker by Daniel (A NECESSARY DEATH) Stamm, co-produced by Eli Roth. This is a tight, effective indie horror film that writhes with hair-raising sights and sounds, built on the foundation of a compelling spiritual conflict. It will creep you out. It may well haunt your soul" (Dread).

The synopsis for Possessed:

"Big sister Hee-jin is trying desperately to find her missing sister. According to inhabitants of the apartment block, the girl is possessed by spirits. Meanwhile, her evangelical mother believes her to be the chosen one. When several neighbours commit suicide, it gets increasingly difficult to stay rational. Staged with precision and loaded with strong performances, POSSESSED arrives like a fresh gust of wind across the South Korean horror scene, instantly infusing hope and maturity into a genre that was believed to be at death’s door" (Dread).




A synopsis for The Shrine:

"The cruelty of religion and the horrors of the supernatural combine to ignite a powder keg of punishment in this harrowing nail-biter from the maverick writing/acting/producing/directing team behind JACK BROOKS MONSTER SLAYER. Turning completely away from the comedy-horror sensibilities that made his previous film an international cult hit, Knautz and his pack have crafted a diabolically effective, deadly-serious shocker of pagan practices and ritual murder in a forgotten Polish village" (The Shrine).

The synopsis for The Life and Death of a Porno Gang:

"This razor-sharp and often perversely comic metaphor about the social pathologies of Serbian life in the 1990s was a major hit at the Rotterdam Film Festival. A travelling “porno cabaret” journeys from village to village across rural Serbia, performing live sex acts in radical framings as a means of sexual confrontation, often provoking violent responses from the locals. Situations take a turn for the darker when the troupe are approached by a shady foreign war correspondent who makes them an offer they struggle against refusing—a ton of money in exchange for shooting actual murders, theatrically “performed” on willing, consensual victims who no longer care about living" (Dread).

Other plot summaries can be seen at the links below:

Fantasia on Dread Central

Fantasia on Twitch Films

The Fantasia film line-up will be shown here later today"

Fantasia Blog/Homepage

Fantasia on Facebook:

Fantasia on FB

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