News

Nowadays, there is a standardized formula for countless Christmas movies. Recurring themes range from stories of redemption to emphasizing the warmth of a strong family bond and festive cheer. Yet, it is always fascinating to see flicks that depart from the usual holiday tropes and instead focus on an issue that may be too challenging for casual moviegoers, who prefer a more sanitized portrayal of reality for the holidays. Shutaro Oku's unusual yet effective feature, “Death of Domomata,” uses the happiest time of the year to explore recovering from drug addiction and the harsh realities that come with a dysfunctional rehabilitative environment.

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

As a filmmaker, Shutaro Oku is still relatively unknown to many but has made a decent amount of films, a notable one being “Seiza.” Generally, he's more active in theater, having directed various theatrical presentations, including...

Stars: Nao Ômori, Lindsay Hayward, Mao Daichi, Hairi Katagiri, Gin Maeda, Suzuki Matsuo, Hitoshi Matsumoto, Eriko Satô, Shinobu Terajima, Ai Tominaga | Written by Hitoshi Matsumoto, Mitsuyoshi Takasu, Tomoji Hasegawa, Kôji Ema, Mitsuru Kuramoto | Directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto

Hitoshi Matsumoto is a director who, though I can’t say I know a great deal about, only that he is a comedian known for his surreal and crazy style, I have enjoyed greatly in the past with his films Symbol (2009) and Big Man Japan (2007) so I was intrigued and excited to see that R100, Matsumoto’s latest, was going to be a part of Frightfest in 2014.

A stiff bodied and reticent office worker, Takafumi, joins a strange club which has one rule, the rule being that, under no circumstances can you cancel your membership within the year in which the membership runs for. Simple. No. What this results in is hard to quite explain,...

The line-up for this year's Film4 FrightFest in London has just been announced – and boy, is it a doozy! Sporting a record-breaking 38 UK/European premieres and 11 world premieres, this August is going to be an exciting time in the genre calendar.

Check it all out right here, including lots of new images!

This year Film4 FrightFest will be moving from its previous home at Leicester Square's Empire Cinema to the nearby Vue Cinema (also on Leicester Square), prompting an ingenious reshuffle of the screening arrangements.

All main screen films will be presented at different times across three different screens, with two extra screens reserved for single-slot screenings of the various films hitting this year's Discovery Screens.

Here's the full list of goodies:

Main Screens (5, 6, 7)

Thursday Aug 21

Opening Night Film - The Guest (UK Premiere)

Director: Adam Wingard. Cast: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Sheila Kelley, Leland Orser. USA 2014. 99 mins.

Film4 FrightFest 2014, returning for its 15th year, unveils its biggest line-up ever. From Thurs 21 August to Monday 25 August, the UK’s leading event for genre fans will be at the Vue West End, Leicester Square, to present sixty-four films plus twenty shorts across five screens. There are sixteen countries representing five continents with a record-breaking thirty-eight UK or European premieres and eleven world premieres.

Are you ready for a monstrous and memorable mayhem of killer claws, cannibalism, cult classics, murderous musicals, chiller thrillers, graphic novel action and sick celluloid masterpieces? Then prepare yourself for the biggest, strongest and most eclectic must-see programme in Film4 FrightFest’s history.

From the opening night turbo-driven thrill-ride The Guest to the UK premiere of the closing night mesmeric sci-fi fantasy The Signal, FrightFest has netted the latest works from genre big-hitters such as Eli Roth (The Green Inferno), Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins (Show...

Shine on, kids! The full schedule for the Stanley Film Festival, which runs at the iconic and historic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Co, April 24-27, has been announced; and we have all the details you need right here. Dig it!

From the Press Release

The Stanley Film Festival (Sff), produced by the Denver Film Society and presented by NBC Universal's Chiller, announced today its Opening Night film and several special event highlights and experiences taking place at the four-day event (April 24-27, 2014).

The Stanley Film Festival celebrates the best in independent horror cinema at the hotel that inspired The Shining. The Festival will host a full slate of films, panels, competitions, and special events - all at the beautiful and historically haunted Stanley Hotel.

The Stanley Film Festival will open Thursday, April 24, with a Gala Presentation of an original documentary from EPiX, Doc of the Dead. Directed by Colorado...

The Stanley Hotel launched its first annual Stanley Film Festival last year and put together an impressive group of horror films and guests. After initially announcing Doc of the Dead as their opening film, we now have the full programming list, which includes screenings of The Sacrament, Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead, and much more:

“The Stanley Film Festival (Sff) produced by the Denver Film Society (Dfs) and presented by Chiller, announced today its full line-up and schedule. As previously announced, Doc of the Dead will open Sff. The festival, taking place April 24-27, will close with the mockumentary from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), What We Do In The Shadows, about a house of vampires trying to get back in touch with modern society. Throughout the four-day celebration of the best in horror cinema, Sff will showcase a full slate of features, shorts, panels,...

Writer/Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto

Starring: Nao Ohmori, Lindsay Kay Hayward, Hairi Katagiri

I'm going to be completely upfront with you... I have no idea how to review this movie. It made absolutely no sense at all! I don't think it's supposed to. There's always one movie at Sundance that catches you off guard and punches you in the face. R100 left me with a bloody nose, and you know what? I think I liked being punched in the face, but I'm still not sure. This movie was so strange, so weird, and so whacked out insane!

The basic plot of the story follows a man who signs a contract with an S&M company called Bondage. The contract states that their dominatrixes will appear at any given time to put him through hell and beat the shit out of him. It gives him a euphoria high that oddly transforms his face into a happy state.

The Sundance Institute has released the movie line-up for their Spotlight, Midnight and Sundance Kids selections for The Sundance Film Festival 2014. The Midnight selection has always been my favorite because its always packed with really crazy, fun, and messed up films. It looks like another great collection of films this next year! They include films such as Cooties with Elijah Wood, Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead and more. Sundance Kids is a new addition this year which, if you couldn't tell, is meant for younger audiences.

The Festival takes place January 16-26 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah, and we will be there to cover as many of the films as humanly possible. Director of Programming, Trevor Groth, had this to say in a statement.

“The films in the sections announced today round out our 2014 Sundance Film Festival program and further reflect the depth and...

Sundance’s Spotlight section works as a sampling of quality items that dug their knees in the sand of the Croisette, or hit the asphalt payment in Toronto. It’s an acknowledgment of U.S film distributors (in this case: Radius-twc, Magnolia, Music Box Films, A24, Sony Pictures Classics, Strand Releasing) who’ve all contributed to my favorite disease – one that is called cinephilia. It’s also a look into 2014 – which is when they’ll be unveiled theatrically. And finally, it’s a way in which to receive the extended Sundance family once again such as Richard Ayoade (preemed his debut feautre here – Submarine) and Jeremy Saulnier (was at the fest as a cinematographer for Matthew Porterfield’s I Used to Be Darker). Here are the eight selections:

Blue Ruin / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Jeremy Saulnier) — A mysterious outsider’s quiet life turns upside down when he returns...

When Sundance announced the films in competition for the 2014 festival yesterday, its organizers noted that they were impressed by the caliber of cinematic artistry — mostly due to technology — that freed up filmmakers to experiment with different genres. No category of the festival is more rooted in genre than Park City at Midnight, the late-night section that specializes in horror and the supernatural, and this year’s slate has several potential breakouts. “The Midnight lineup came together in a way that is about the strongest group we’ve ever had, top to bottom,” says Trevor Groth, Sundance’s director of programming.

Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow sequel, Adam Wingard’s The Guest and Xyz Films’ Killers from The Mo Brothers are among the Park City At Midnight line-up as festival heads also unveiled Spotlight selections and the inaugural Sundance Kids section on December 5.

The Sundance Kids strand is programmed in cooperation with Utah children and youth festival Tumbleweeds, and will premiere Ernest And Celestine starring Forest Whitaker and Lauren Bacall and Zip & Zap And The Marble Gang with Javier Gutiérrez.

“The films in the sections announced today round out our 2014 Sundance Film Festival programme and further reflect the depth and diversity of modern independent film-making that will satisfy everyone from festival fledglings to fanatics,” said director of programming Trevor Groth.

The Sundance Film Festival is set to run from January 16-26 2014 in Utah. Organisers will showcase 117 feature selections, of which 96 are world premieres, representing 37 countries and 53 first-time film-makers, including 34 in competition.

The selections...

Yutaka Takenouchi and Asami Mizukawa are set to co-star in a new comedy by “Gs Wonderland” director Ryuichi Honda called Ohkike no Tanoshii Ryoko: Shinkon Jigoku-hen. This will mark the first pure comedy film roles for both actors, with Takenouchi’s character being described as the “boke” (funny man) of the pair to Mizukawa’s “tsukkomi” (straight person).

The new film is based on a novel by Shiro Maeda, who also handled the screenplay. Maeda has won numerous prestigious awards during his young career, including the Yukio Mishima Prize, Galaxy Award, and a nomination for the 2005 Noma Literary New Face Prize. Although this will be his first work to be adapted to film, his style is already drawing comparisons to established Japanese comedy writers Koki Mitani and Kankuro Kudo.

Takenouchi and Mizukawa will play Nobu and Saki, a married couple who have already grown tired of their life together even though they’re still newlyweds.

Japanese distributor Vap, Inc. will be releasing Naoko Ogigami‘s Kamome Diner (Kamome Shokudo, 2006) on region free Blu-ray with English subtitles in September, almost 4 years to the day after the original DVD release.

Based on a novel by Yoko Mure, Kamome Diner stars Satomi Kobayashi as a woman named Sachie who has started up a new cafe in Helinski, Finland serving Japanese food. However, it has yet to attract any customers. Eventually, a Finnish anime fan comes in for coffee and becomes the fledgling cafe’s first regular. Soon another Japanese woman in Helinski named Midori (Hairi Katagiri) meets Sachie and begins working at the cafe alongside her. Later, an older Japanese woman named Masako (Masako Motai) finds her way to the cafe after the airport loses her luggage and also begins working there as more customers start to show up daily and chat with these three unique women.

Specs: Region free Blu-ray,...