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Author: Daniel Goodwin

From its bleak but stunning opening shot of an ominous evening sky, Australian director Steven Kastrissios builds an immediate, prevalent sense of foreboding for his second feature, Bloodlands. Kastrissios’ first film in nearly ten years (since 2008’s The Horseman) charts the tale of a penurious Albanian blood feud between a lowly local family and a coterie of cannibals, witches and ghosts.

For a film which so accurately depicts such raw, rundown communities, the paranormal elements meld surprisingly well with the realism, even when accentuated to be predominantly weird and gothic. Slabs of floating meat, cloaked, mystical figures and delirious nightmare scenes make Bloodlands resound like a lunatic’s fever dream instead of a slice of social commentary about Albanian culture and society. The subject of Balkan blood feuds have previously been tackled in fictional cinema in Joshua Marston’s The Forgiveness of Blood, among other more conventional Albanian features,...

Ahead of the World Premiere of his latest film Bloodlands at Horror Channel FrightFest Glasgow, Steven Kastrissios discusses the challenges of making the world’s first Albanian/Australian horror film.

So what have you been doing in the eight years since making your amazing debut with The Horseman, a FrightFest favourite?

Writing. I was just 24 when I shot The Horseman and it was only my second feature script, so I wanted to expand my horizons and I wrote many scripts in completely different genres and styles. I developed other little projects and came close to doing other features with other people’s scripts but for various reasons they fell through, usually over the script. I also stumbled into music and that bled into my film work too.

How did Bloodlands come about as the first Australian/Albanian collaboration?

Coffee with my Albanian-Australian friend, Dritan Arbana. He told me about the...

His reimagining of the song "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" is currently haunting gamers playing Resident Evil 7, and in our latest Q&A, we caught up with composer Michael A. Levine to discuss his key contribution to the game. In today's Horror Highlights, we also have a Comet network contest, an excerpt from Stuart R. West's Demon with a Comb-Over, and a Q&A with Bloodlands writer/director Steven Kastrissios.

Q&A with Composer Michael A. Levine: Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, Michael. How did you get involved with creating the theme song “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” for Resident Evil 7?

Michael A. Levine: The makers of the game, Capcom, were familiar with a track I produced (with Lucas Cantor) for Lorde: a dark and mysterious reimagining of the ’80s classic "Everybody Wants to Rule The World," which was used in Hunger Games: Catching Fire...

Horror Channel FrightFest celebrates 12th year at Glasgow Film Festival with record-breaking fourteen titles – including Ten premieres and a screening of the 4K restoration of Phantasm!

FrightFest Passes are £70 and available from noon on Mon January 16th 2016. Passes cover all films on Fri 24 and Sat 25 Feb Only. Tickets for A Cure for Wellness and Phantasm: Remastered. Individual tickets for the Fri/Sat films are on sale Mon January 23rd from 10am.

To book tickets: +44 (0)141 332 6535 / boxoffice@glasgowfilm.org / www.glasgowfilm.org/festival

From the press release:

Monstrous stories, unspeakable urban legends, brutal acts and fearsome folktales dominate as the UK’s favourite horror fantasy event returns to the Glasgow Film Festival with a record fourteen films, including ten UK premieres, screening from Thurs 23 Feb to Sat 25 Feb 2017 at the iconic Glasgow Film Theatre.

Kicking off with a special screening of A Cure For Wellness, an intense psychological ride from Gore Verbinski,...