News

By Lee Pfeiffer

When I received an unsolicited screener of a new film called The Scarlet Worm from Unearthed Films, I let it languish for weeks. Finally, primarily because it is a Western, I got around to viewing it. It's a gritty, grim affair that ranks among the best independent movies I've seen lately. However, I was curious about the cast members because, as talented as they are, I had not heard of any of them. The reason why became clear when I looked at the "making of..." extras on the Blu-ray. Incredibly, this ambitious movie was put together by a team of virtual strangers who met each other on-line. They conceived of the plot and shot the movie on such a low budget that they had to live in an abandoned house that had been foreclosed by a bank. When viewed from this context, The Scarlet Worm is an even more impressive achievement.

Just over two weeks away from the start of the Lund International Fantastic Film Festival in Lund, Sweden and the organizers have unveiled their full lineup and it is a good one, chock full of Twitch favorites! Have you noticed a lack of Japanese splatter gore in the line up so far? Fret no more because Yoshihiro Nishimura's Helldriver is in the mix! The Western genre stands tall with Michael Fredianelli's The Scarlet Worm. You get your daily dose of swordplay with Donnie Yen in The Lost Bladesman. A little home grown talent will grace the screen with Filip Tegstedt's Swedish thriller Marianne. We have all sorts of love for Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins. The frantic Japanese flick Milocrorze: A Love Story and Argentinian horror flick Cold Sweat are...

Westerns have their constants -- drunken brawls, gunfights, cowboys, barren landscapes -- but the genre is rather malleable and can support all kinds of interesting narrative and thematic angles.  For example, consider the indie western called The Scarlet Worm. It's about, of all things, abortion.

The Scarlet Worm seems to be going for a Spaghetti Western vibe as evidenced by the trailer, its gritty subject matter -- John Ford didn't make movies about cathouse abortions -- and a cast that includes actors such as Dan van Husen (Sartana, A Bullet for Sandoval) and Montgomery Ford aka Brett Halsey (Cut Throats Nine). 

The description provided by the filmmakers is as follows: 

Based on an original screenplay by Western historian David Lambert, the story concerns a cruel brothel owner (van Husen) who mandates abortions on all his prostitutes, seeming to derive some sick pleasure out of the act. A rancher (Ford) with...

The B-Movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival is an annual celebration of the most outrageous, most exploitative, craziest and downright weird cinema that the world has to offer. The latest edition will unspool in the heart of the city of Breda in The Netherlands on Sept. 8-12.

This is truly a global exploitation fest with films from Spain, Indonesia, Canada, the U.S., Australia, Italy, Japan and more countries. Also, each year Butff celebrates the work of a particular living legend. This year, their guest of honor is German extreme filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit who will be present at screenings of his classic necrophiliac film Nekromantik, Schramm, a program of his short films, plus his latest shocking effort, Captain Berlin vs. Hitler.

There will also be a few Bad Lit favorites on hand, such as Spanish underground filmmaker Carlos Atanes‘ newest surreal masterpiece, Maximum Shame; the dark Australian drama Hole in...