Editor’s Note: For those with shorter memories or who might be newcomers to our site, Midnight Syndicate are old friends of NightmaRevue, having allowed us to use their music in our past audio programming and kindly allowing yours truly an interview on their experience concocting the fantastic soundtrack to the film The Rage.

Now, Midnight Syndicate moves from audio to video with the release of their first full-length feature film, The Dead Matter, at all Hot Topic stores, Amazon.com, and Midnight Syndicate’s own website at www.midnightsyndicate.com.

So, from the mouths of the titular duo themselves, here’s the info on the 3-Disc Special Edition of The Dead Matter…

Read all »

By Michael Mitchell

Compared to filming a movie, one benefit of mounting a stageplay is that you can debut it in front of an audience, and then it can still be reworked and reworked time and again—in front of audience after audience—until the weaker elements are stripped out and you’ve got a more polished creation. And sometimes it’s only an audience that can show you what the defects in the work are. Which is the function test audiences perform for major movie releases. They don’t like the ending to “Fatal Attraction” so the studio gets all the talent back together for a weekend and they film the home-wrecking bitch getting shot in the bathtub. Great! Done! Ship it out! But that’s if you have the budget for it, and if the script is strong enough that all that is required is a touched up scene to send it out into the merry world. Sadly, you usually don’t have the luxury of reworking an entire movie if the whole thing is a bit off the mark. I think the standard course of action is you either live with it and try to make what money back you can, or, to use the same word in another capacity, you simply can it.

Read all »

by Jo Satana

Playing catch up here, and the line between sleep and slumber is getting thin indeed. Week three just kicked off and I’ll take this brief opportunity to catch up, recount, and mend my wounds. This is the week that was…

Read all »

By Michael Mitchell

To get it out of the way, EVE’S NECKLACE, by Daniel Erickson, features the use of department store mannequins in place of actual actors…

Read all »

By Michael Mitchell

Like reading Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” or watching early silent films, the best part of experiencing some works is simply being able to say you saw/read them afterwards, because they don’t often offer much else that makes the endeavour an entirely worthwhile use of your time. They carry more social currency than they do artistic.

Such is the case with Djordje Kadijevic’s A HOLY PLACE or, rather, as it was titled in the version I saw, THE SACRED PLACE. (Now, it’s not uncommon for a film that whips around the globe to have a few different titles to it: “Haute Tension”/”Switchblade Romance”/”High Tension”; “Day of the Woman”/”I Spit on Your Grave”, etc., but when the title on the film differs from all the current promotional material associated with it, what kind of omen can it be?)

Read all »

by Michael Mitchell

Attempting to sell a zombie movie to the paying public today is setting yourself up for a tall task indeed. May as well just make a vampire movie set in middle-America teenland. Oh, or make a movie about a young magician at a wizard-school. Let’s face it, not only are you dealing with a hell of a lot of competition, both historical and current, you’re also dealing with a fair bit of fatigue. That better be some dang good snake oil, mister!

Yet Yorgos Noussias’ EVIL: IN THE TIME OF HEROES may just be GREAT: IN THE TIME OF GENERALLY CRUMMY…

Read all »

by Jo Satana

[Insert Loud and obnoxious greeting here], Nightmarevue is proud and privileged to present its first entry in a series of accounts direct from Montreal’s 2010 FanTasia film festival…

Greetings from Montreal`s underground, this is Joey Jo Jo Satana.

On Thursday, July 8^th 2010, the 14^th edition of Montreal’s premiere international genre film festival opened its mighty jaws to welcome cinephiles and critics alike into its cavernous belly, in which we will all be swimming for the next 3 weeks. I’ve decided to skip the requisite, excitable introductory preamble (see insert above) for a more….straight to the point approach: you need to be here, now. Opening weekend saw the premiere of Disney’s SORCERER’S APPRENTICE, H.G. Lewis documentary THE GODFATHER OF GORE, French film RUBBER, a rare screening of a 35mm print of BLOOD FEAST, the premiere of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE(!!!), Serbian film LIFE AND DEATH OF A PORNO GANG, and much more. So, in no particular order, other than chronological, I’ll deftly skip THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE to bring you the following…

Read all »

As supporters of the Fantasia film festival, NightmaRevue would like to take a pause to look at what this year’s iteration of the venerable Montreal film festival has to offer, thanks to the Fantasia staff’s various press…

Greetings, cinephiles! Welcome to July 2010, Fantasia style. Get your neurons sparked for the biggest, most spectacular fest we’ve mounted to date. For the next three weeks, Montreal is going to crumble under the weight of over 120 feature films and several hundred shorts, many being screened for the first time on this continent, some showing for their first time anywhere in the world. You will experience new works from living legends of world cinema and discover brilliant emerging talents from a multitude of countries. You’d better be excited, because you’re about to step into weeks of mind-altering revelations.

Read all »

Reviewed By David “Killah Tomater” Finn

Tamura is your average successful Japanese salaryman: he is well-liked by his co-workers and boss, he is hard-working and polite, and he is on the cusp of landing a major Korean account for his pickle manufacturing and distribution company. Although he is divorced, and still misses and thinks about his ex-wife, he is blessed with a loving and understanding girlfriend. Yes, life is pretty good for Tamura. One might say he is living the dream, truly the luckiest koala alive.

“Koala?”

But when Tamura’s girlfriend is reported murdered, Tamura is the prime suspect. He must enlist the help of his psychiatrist, whom he is seeing for gaps in his memory regarding his missing ex-wife, and his boss, a white rabbit, to discover the truth behind his girlfriend’s death. Has he been framed by a jealous co-worker? Is he the victim of a corporate conspiracy? Or is Tamura truly a psychopathic killer koala? And how does the friendly frog convenience store attendant figure into all of this?

No, wait. “Koala?” “White rabbit??” “Frog???”

Click here to check out the Executive Koala trailer…

Read all »

by Jo Satana

First and foremost I’d like to acknowledge that, yes, we took some time off… so what? Sue us or or something. It felt good to focus on other things for a while but, like the best case of genital herpes, we’re back with a vengeance. Well, we’re down there anyways.

Summer is upon us here at Satana home base and for Montrealer’s that means only one thing: unbearable humidity, drunk Americans, and a fucking shitload of festivals… and what better way to resurrect “mein column” here than to tip my hat off to the festival that is kicking off all festivals: the 20^th annual Fringe festival (http://montrealfringe.ca/en)?

Montreal Fringe fest is, if anything, indescribable as it brings avant-garde stage, music, and cinematic experiences to a ready and willing public. There is but one guiding principle that binds all the activities together: anything goes… and for the closed minded interloper that means stay the hell outta the way.

However, if a blood-lusting horror fiend were to ask me to characterize this year’s Fringe events so as to suggest something with a dark tint-like sensibility, I would point them to Michael Mitchell’s FEAR LIATH.

FEAR LIATH - “Four women. An isolated farmhouse. A monstrous terror clawing to get in” - runs  on  Jun 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, and 20 at Théatre LaChapelle in Montreal.

NightmaRevue has sat down (virtually) with published author, writer, playwright, and director Michael Mitchell (but more importantly, he’s a NightmaRevue contributor!) to shed some light into his bleak and gripping theatre production…

Read all »