Tag: Horror

Ed’s Top 10 Picks of the 2016 Vancouver International Film Festival

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By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

The 2016 Vancouver International Film Festival starts today and their selection of animated films and nerdy delights is fantastic! From a few television spotlights to films, this year’s event is of particular interest to me because the industry is paying attention to the coming thing  — virtual reality. From an industry exchange and VR pass to a discussion on how it affects storytelling in a cinematic medium, I am interested. This new technology to immerse audiences into a virtual world is challenging, and just how storytellers and filmmakers can use the medium certainly needs to be discussed. Does the story work like a choose-your-own-adventure book or is the narrative just that much more difficult to curtail? If the viewer is in total control, they can navigate anywhere. This industry panel will certainly explore it all for much of the day.

With a unique catalog of horror and animation films, I just wonder if I can see it all? or will I have to limit what my budget can allow? At least I have this top ten list of what I has my eye in this year’s programme:

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Charles Band on the Remastering of The Lurking Fear & Upcoming Full Moon Titles

charlesbandFilmmaker Charles Band listenins to his fans, and in response, he is re-releasing his catalogue of old classics from his Empire/Full Moon days onto Blu-ray. The trend has been going on for a while now, starting with Doctor MordridCharles Band, and this producer will keep it going. C. Courtney Joyner’s The Lurking Fear, inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, is now available (released Jun 15, 2016).

Band kept the original 35mm prints of many of the films he’s either produced or directed. In what he gets done, there’s hardly ever any pixelation. Of course, there will be the usual dust and scratches, and to get all that fixed takes time. No Photoshop plug-in can do the job. Like a film projectionist, each frame has to be analysed and colour corrected for the best image possible. He notes that it’s really expensive to go back to the original negative in order to make an high-definition (HD) master, but unless you have fantastic technical talent who truly appreciates the work — to bring the product back to its original lustre — the thought of putting it out to HD for those collectors is a gamble.

“The key ingredient to any of these transfers is to have an excellent colorist,” noted Band. “We have a guy who has been doing most of our work for the last 4-5 years. When he’s busy, I wait because he’s the only guy I trust.”

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A Guide to The Enfield Poltergeist’s Influence on The Conjuring 2 & Beyond

Conjuring_2* Spoiler Alert

James Wan’s The Conjuring 2 is very loosely based on the real-life Enfield Poltergeist incident and I believe Wan depends on the tropes (established in his previous works, especially Insidious, and other filmmakers, namely Tobe Hooper / Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist and Richard Donner’s The Omen), far too much. The setting, plot and set pieces felt too familiar and this storyteller rarely deviates from it. As effective as he is in mastering what’s tried and true, I really hoped he would try new ideas out with this sequel.

The story is accurate in terms of revealing that the activity started when the girls started playing with an Ouija board. When you start communicating with ghosts with this device, they will want to talk back. Unless the proper precautions and sign-offs are used, they will stay until heard! The production team probably only went as far as looking at the Wikipedia entry on this case to add to the tale. While Wan’s production team said they talked to all the people involved in the case, not every incident was used or made important in this film.

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Dark Horse’s Death Head TPB is Pecking at your Shoulders

28194By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Urban legends can become the stuff of new nightmares and when there’s a mysterious figure by the name of Plague Doctor creating the terror, I’m hoping that he does not come knocking at my door! Dark Horse Comics‘ trade paperback release of Death Head by Zack and Nick Heller came out at the beginning of June, and I had to work up the nerve to read it in one go. There’s a sense of unease to wondering who is wearing that beaked mask, and there’s only one way to find out. I could have bought the individual issues when it originally came out, but there’s some serials I just do not have the patience for. To read this story all in one go was more satisfying.

At the start of this journey, Niles and Justine are introduced. They are out on a backtracking trip at a national park searching for Death-Head Hawkmoths. If that doesn’t sound ominous enough, young ‘Bee’ Burton meets a ghost of a murdered young girl. She saves him from falling to his death. Not every spirit has to be bad, and for her, the many long years of loneliness seems to have come to an end. For Maggie, her tale at living at an all-girls school sounds like a formula for a slasher flick. Readers will not clue in right away that these four are a family. Three tales are introduced and how it all converges makes for some good late night fun.

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Vancouver Expo Announces Two New Guests Aug 5-7, 2016!

Vancouver Expo LOGOA new convention on the Pacific Northwest scene is Vancouver Comic and Entertainment Expo in British Columbia (which will take place August 5-7th, 2016) and they have announced today their next round of guests: Bill Moseley and Michael Berryman. These two are horror film veterans with a bevy of credits which make them recognizable nearly everywhere they go! Both performers have been on the scene since the 70’s, and have their own legion of followers who enjoyed watching their special brand of terror over the years.

Bill Moseley Promotional Picture

Moseley is best known as Chop Top in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) and since then, he’s appeared in many cult films like The Blob (1988) to cement his status in the world of genre films.

He played the Deadeye Captain in Army of Darkness (1992), and appeared in Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) and The Devil’s Carnival (2012), two films by prolific director-producer-writer Terrance Zdunich. Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival (2015) is a sequel Moseley is involved in and perhaps he may offer some clues as to what’s next in this set of films.

Berryman’s unique looks makes him a lovable terror in such products like Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and Weird Science (1985), but who doesn’t remember his role in Mötley Crüe’s music video “Smokin’ in the Boys Room?” This actor can do humour very well, but he does not get the opportunity as much.

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Exorcising Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies lacks bite, and it needed to pay attention to Jane Austen’s world more instead of a coming zombie apocalypse.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Movie PosterThe gimmick of marrying Victorian age attitudes with pop culture is nothing new. Neither is trying to sell Shakespearean stylized takes on Star Wars, but woe be thy author who tries to find innovation in this weird mash-up. The movie version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies does not add upon what Seth Grahame-Smith wrote in his twist of Jane Austen’s classic. A few minor changes exist to make the on-screen version palatable, including tossing every single variation of a zombie (from a baby to a butcher) into the presentation, but they feel minuscule when compared to the concept that’s being presented at large.

Burr Steers provided the screenplay adaptation of an action-comedy adventure where Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) refuses to marry. Like the book, to improve their station in life, both she or her sisters should marry well-to-do men. Liz quite simply does not like the idea. Jane (Bella Heathcote), Kitty (Suki Waterhouse), Lydia (Ellie Bamber) and Mary (Millie Brady) are more receptive than her, and when the world is in the onslaught of being taken over by zombies, to court an easy life in this new world is neigh tough.

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