What's on the Graveyard Shift?

HERE’S WHAT ALL IS ON THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT!

I beg of you to attend.

Monday – 10/7/19

NINA at 4PM

Maria Winther Olsen's film NINA is a somber and restrained work of suspense and unease that deals with a gifted artist in an isolated space having marriage troubles. And a selkie may be involved... This is classier than Graveyard usually gets, but worthy of your time. It's screening with a great, Lynchian short called BOXES, from Tony Yang.

ROT at 8PM

Scandalous and grotesque and quite captivating. Showing with Josh Ethier's short film GUTTER.

THIS IS WRESTLING: THE JOEY RYAN STORY at 8:30PM

What can I say about the King of Dong Style? Showing with the short film UNFINISHED BUSINESS.

The DREAMS OF THE EXTREME Shorts Program at 830PM

Here’s what all lurks in this program. BELLS (short and sweet and creepy as hell), BLACK SHORE (an epic, emotionally focused apocalypse), BLOOD SPOOK (a haunted diabetic versus a serial killer), BOYS’ CLUB (a grand dirty joke for these troubled time), THE FOLLOWER (a devastating riff on Joyce Carol Oates’ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?), LUKEWARM LIQUIDS (so very, very gross), the time trauma of MEET YOU IN THE PARKING LOT, and Steven DeGennaro’s STOP (the suspense of being alive and at risk).

Tuesday – 10/8/19

SCREAM QUEEN: MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET at 6PM

Roman Chimenti and Tyler Jensen's SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is a big deal, telling Mark Patton's story as the first male scream queen and as a queer actor under siege in '80s Hollywood. It is an exceptional film and you need to see it. It is showing with the short film JEFF DRIVES YOU from Aidan Brezonick, which is also a film about how mass culture commodifies queer desire. The pairing is also showing Tuesday, the 8th, at 6PM.

The FRAYED SHORTS Program at 8PM

the FRAYED SHORTS block, which is the (slightly) more accessible shorts block on this year's Graveyard Shift. The films featured in this block are Montana Mann's ESTHER (an EC Comics Western with a delicious surprise), Mac Cushing's FULL MOON (a mystery with unspeakable comic undertones), Ryan Worsley's GOOD GIRL (absurdly cute and grotesquely violent), Katie Kapuza's HUNKS (a special kind of animation), Aidan Moretti's I SEE YOU (lovingly Lynchian both in terms of unease and absurdist humor), Dan Hass' MAGIC H8 BALL (a queer Fantasy about childhood magic colliding with adult sexuality), Alec Cohen's MOUNTAIN (a dramedy that pushes all the envelopes), Will Bakke's THE STUDY (a SciFi/Horror setup that's just irresistible), RJ Blake's TIKTOK (SciFi romantic comedy for this modern age), and Dan O'Brien's TRICK OR TREATMENT (horror icons in amazing puppet form).

There will be filmmakers in attendance.

YOU DON’T NOMI at 9PM

Let's talk about Showgirls, with friends and genius theorists Matt Baume and David Schmader among the countless amazing minds holding forth on one of Paul Verhoeven's endearing fusillades against complacency.

Wednesday – 10/9/19

CLIMATE OF THE HUNTER at 830PM

Mickey Reece and his crew are back again, after winning heaps of awards at last year's Nashville Film Festival. Classy sensual vampire nightmare, y'all.

The DREAMS OF THE EXTREME Shorts Program at 830PM

Here’s what all lurks in this program. BELLS (short and sweet and creepy as hell), BLACK SHORE (an epic, emotionally focused apocalypse), BLOOD SPOOK (a haunted diabetic versus a serial killer), BOYS’ CLUB (a grand dirty joke for these troubled time), THE FOLLOWER (a devastating riff on Joyce Carol Oates’ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?), LUKEWARM LIQUIDS (so very, very gross), the time trauma of MEET YOU IN THE PARKING LOT, and Steven DeGennaro’s STOP (the suspense of being alive and at risk).

HARPOON at 9PM

It is a vicious and hysterical film that gets at the absolute worst aspects of human behavior, and it delivers the same kind of sick joy you get from The War of The Roses, The Last of Sheila, Blood Simple, or The Champagne Club. 

HARPOON is showing with the short film TAYLOR IS MISSING, from director Mia Sorenson. It's a beautiful and brutal short about memory, trauma, and regret.

MAD? at 9PM

If you're ever wondering why nobody uses genre cinema to explore the twisted side of the mental health industry and how older women never get to have their own adventures in SciFi and Horror except as a glorified cameo to pass information on to some fresh-faced white teen, then this is for you.

Thursday – 10/10/19

YOU DON’T NOMI at 1PM

Let's talk about Showgirls, with friends and genius theorists Matt Baume and David Schmader among the countless amazing minds holding forth on one of Paul Verhoeven's endearing fusillades against complacency.

ROT at 8PM

Scandalous and grotesque and quite captivating. Showing with Josh Ethier's short film GUTTER.

The World Premiere of DEMENTER at 830PM

Chad Crawford Kinkle, the guy who gave the world JUGFACE, is back, with an amazing film about trauma, cults, and centering on the differently abled. Y'all ain't ready.

THIS IS WRESTLING: THE JOEY RYAN STORY at 830PM

Sleaze is back. Thankfully. Joey Ryan is a damn treasure, and you can see why here... Showing with the short film UNFINISHED BUSINESS.

Friday – 10/11/19

DEMENTER at Noon

Chad Crawford Kinkle, the guy who gave the world JUGFACE, is back, with an amazing film about trauma, cults, and centering on the differently abled. Y'all ain't ready.

MAD? at 4PM

If you're ever wondering why nobody uses genre cinema to explore the twisted side of the mental health industry and how older women never get to have their own adventures in SciFi and Horror except as a glorified cameo to pass information on to some fresh-faced white teen, then this is for you.

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT 3D at 830PM

A sensuous haze of a film where it takes a 56-minute continuous 3D tracking shot to unmake one's traditions of toxic masculinity. A box office phenomenon (under wonky circumstances that uncool people complained about) in China, and a magical journey for the adventurous viewer.

CLIMATE OF THE HUNTER at 9PM 

Mickey Reece and his crew are back again, after winning heaps of awards at last year's Nashville Film Festival. Classy sensual vampire nightmare, y'all.

If you make it to this point, I commend you. Hopefully we all made it here...

Talking Showgirls with David Schmader.

Last Thursday, in the hallowed halls of the Belcourt Theatre, David Schamder held court with an epic screening of Paul Verhoeven's 1995 film Showgirls. It was a transformative experience, and all who attended left theatre as different people than they arrived as. I had the chance to talk to Schmader a week before, to hype up the event, and we teased a couple of different pieces out of it. There were some online bits that couldn't fit the print edition, then the print edit itself. Well, in commemoration of the event, my fearless editor and I have placed the entire* piece online, and it's yours to read and enjoy. So please do enjoy it.

* - Entire, that is, minus the epic mini-discussion we had about Rena Riffel's Showgirls 2: penny's From heaven, which I hope to let loose on the world at a later date for a screening of that film.

What's New in the World of NSFW Movie Trailers?

First and foremost, nothing in this post is appropriate for viewing by anyone with any sense of decency or a well-adjusted moral compass.

As a critic and media prophet, it's my job to be aware of what's coming your way in the world of transgressive cinema. It's also something that I- well, let's not say enjoy, but it's something that I'm more than willing to do.

I don't endorse violence and degradation in real life.

Movies are not real, but they can express aspects of the human condition just as any art form does.

And now that we have that out of the way (and seriously, this is your last chance warning; if you don't regularly discuss contemporary art cinema, please skip this piece and move on to the photography and the section where I talk about Tyler Perry), here we go...



SHOWGIRLS: THE RETURN

This film's director Marc Vorlander is apparently battling it out with Rena Riffel (you know, Penny/Hope from the original) for dueling Showgirl movies.

I say "please, y'all, may I have some more." Everyone should make a Showgirl movie. Quentin Tarantino, Claire Denis, Philippe Grandrieux, and Gaspar Noe should all make Showgirl movies. Because I have no idea what to think of this. It's just under five minutes, and has been trimmed from the unending ten minute monstrosity at the film's official website. And the music feels like a riff on John Carpenter's Halloween music over the beat from Schooly D's "PSK (What Does it Mean?)."

Notable fan of timeless American values and human decency Erik S pointed out, quite accurately, that this totally looks like a Fantom Kiler movie.
Also, just for comparison's sake, here's Rena Riffel's trailer for her own Showgirls sequel.

"How bad do you want it? Bad..."



ENTER THE VOID ("Soudain Le Vide")

Gaspar Noe is kind of awesome. A few years back, he hosted a night at the IFC Center in NYC where he showed 35mm prints of Seul Contre Tous and Salo, and in between the two I got to talk to him for a couple of minutes about his work, Kubrickian motifs, and Bruno Dumont's Flanders; he even signed my ticket, so full props to him.

He's made two beautiful misanthropic masterpieces (the aforementioned Seul Contre Tous and the staggering Irreversible), and now here comes his third feature, with an inordinate amount of sex and drugs and pinballing through the streets of Tokyo. Music by Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk, no less. Here's the Japanese trailer.

The colors... I've actually talked to people who have seen this, and I am super-pumped, especially since (unlike every other film discussed on this page) it actually has U.S. distribution from the lovable freaks at IFC Films. And seriously, how can you not love one of the most twisted characters in the world cinema game who confesses to crying when they killed HomeTree in Avatar?



KINATAY (which, for some reason has been given the English language title of "The Execution of P")

This film, like Enter The Void, premiered at Cannes '09, where its director Brillante Mendoza (who made the porny, atmospheric Serbis a couple of years ago) won the Best Director Award and Roger Ebert lost his mind about it. It's about corruption, Catholicism, misogyny, dehumanization, and the darkest parts of physical space and the human heart.

There's no English-friendly trailer yet, but this French-subtitled one gets the point across (though I actually think it soft-pedals the film's brutality and experimental quality- this could easily be an American trailer for a foreign film, the way it focuses on aspects of family and moral choice).

Kinatay sur Comme Au Cinema

The actual translation of the title is "Butchered" or "Slaughter." You probably guessed that, though.



and that brings us to the big nasty.

This film hit Texas this week with the force of several hundred dropped jaws, countless buckets of tears and vomit, and dozens of spontaneous religious awakenings. I'm talking, of course, about...



A SERBIAN FILM ("Srpski Film")

If even an eighth of what has been said about this film is true, I fear it may cause crops to wither, pregnant ladies to explode, and sex to stop happening across the board. Explicitly political and super-upsetting, this is currently the most scandalous film in the world.

Now my question is this- what is the song used in the latter half of the trailer? Y'all know I love squelchy synth drones as a counterpoint to shock and horror.

So, that brings us to the end of this compendium of What's New in the World of NSFW Movie Trailers. Many thanks are due the lovable freaks at Twitch Film and Zack H for bringing some of these to my attention, and big ups to you for making it this far.