Chewers:
The Bigfoot Crest Theatre in Westwood and CHUD are partnering up to bring you a series of screenings for the remainder of May and June. Check out the info below:
Spirits in the Dark: Horror at the Crest is presented with the website, CHUD.com, and features fan favorites, tributes to legendary horror directors in-person, and sneak previews of works by exciting new genre filmmakers.
Singafest Asian Film Nights is a new monthly series for L.A. film lovers showcasing a broad spectrum of new and classic cinema from across Asia and the U.S.. (From September 29th – October 2nd, the Bigfoot Crest will host The Singafest Asian Film Festival, a 4-day event including features, shorts, 3D and animation, and in-person guests: www.singafest.com.
Spirits in the Dark: Horror at the Crest
MIDNIGHT MOVIE: THE KILLER CUT,2011, Bigfoot Entertainment, 82 min. Dir. Jack Messitt.
World Premiere Event – Presented with CHUD.com
CLICK TO MARGINALLY ENLARGE!
- Sunday, May 22nd – 12:35 AM
- Sunday, May 29th – 12:35 AM
- Sunday, June 5th – 12:35 AM
- Sunday, June 12th – 12:35 AM
“One of the best direct to DVD horror films ever made” (Huffington Post) comes to the Crest. Experience the World Premiere of Jack Messitt’s definitive director’s cut of his award winning horror film. MIDNIGHT MOVIE is “an entertaining rollercoaster-spookhouse-ride of a film!” (Examiner.com).
A group of friends go to a midnight screening of a cult horror movie. Sounds fun right? It is, until the killer from the film comes into the theater and turns the screening into a blood-filled massacre. Caught between reality and the screen’s flickering shadows, the audience becomes the unwilling stars of the very horror movie they were watching.
With new and enhanced visual effects, never before seen footage and extended scenes, what Movieweb.com called “a true modern day horror classic” just got better. With an “atmosphere that oozes dread” (Blu-Ray.com), MIDNIGHT MOVIE is “a gory and fast paced good time” (DreadCentral.com).
THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS, 2011, HPLHS Motion Pictures, 104 min. Dir. Sean Branney.
YEAH, YOU CAN CLICK IT!
WE ALREADY SCHOOLED YOU ON IT!
Presented with CHUD.com: Sneak Preview of Brand New H.P. Lovecraft Film. Discussion following with director, producer and co-writer Sean Branney; producer, co-writer and production designer Andrew Leman; producer, cinematographer and editor David Robertson, and other cast & crew.
- Thursday, May 19 – 9:15 PM
Gigantic flying mutants from other dimensions … disembodied brains kept alive in metal canisters … murky New England woods haunted by ancient legend and ritual: welcome to the world of author H.P. Lovecraft! From the same Los Angeles-based independent film team who brought you the terrific THE CALL OF CTHULHU in 2005 – widely hailed as perhaps the best Lovecraft film adaptation ever – comes a Sneak Preview of their brand-new feature THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS, based on one of the author’s most terrifying stories.
Skeptical folklore professor Albert Wilmarth (Matt Foyer) discovers a century-old manuscript describing weird creatures and demonic rituals in the remote Vermont hills – setting off a chain of events that will lead him deep into the mountains and to the very edge of madness as he confronts the true purpose of these shadowy visitors from the dark edges of the universe.
Shot on a shoestring budget with great creativity and imagination, WHISPERER is a loving homage to classic B&W supernatural horror films of the 1930’s (it’s deliberately set in 1931, the year Lovecraft first published “The Whisperer In Darkness” in Weird Tales magazine), and even features a sly cameo appearance by the godfather of cryptozoology himself, Charles Hoy Fort (!)
JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING, 1982, Universal, 109 min.
AIN'T CLICKIN'!
Actor David Clennon, Producers David Foster and Lawrence Turman,
and Cinematographer Dean Cundey In-Person for discussion (schedules permitting)
- Thursday, June 23 – 7:00 PM
A team of unsuspecting scientists at an isolated research station in the Antarctic are confronted by a hideous, mutating alien organism in director John Carpenter’s bleak, brilliant vision of the horror within. Kurt Russell is at his very best as sarcastic, sombrero-wearing helicopter pilot MacReady, joined by a terrific cast including Wilford Brimley, Richard Dysart, T.K. Carter, David Clennon, Keith David, Richard Masur and Donald Moffat. Gorgeous, chilling cinematography by longtime Carpenter collaborator Dean Cundey (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, HALLOWEEN) perfectly captures the frozen Antarctic wastelands – and master make-up F/X artist Rob Bottin’s mindbending alien horrors are among the most surreal and disturbing ever put on film. Adapted from writer John W. Campbell Jr.’s classic story “Who Goes There?” (earlier filmed by Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby in 1951 as THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD), Carpenter’s vision of THE THING easily ranks as one of the finest American sci-fi & horror films of the past three decades.
Singafest Asian Film Nights Premiere
YOJIMBO, 1961, Janus Films, 110 min, 35 mm. print of Akira Kurosawa’s Samurai Masterpiece
- Thursday, May 19 – 7:00 PM
What better way to kick off Singafest Asian Film Nights than with one of Japanese cinema’s greatest classics: Toshiro Mifune stars as an out-of-work swordsman who wanders into a town torn apart by a bitter feud between two rival clans – and sees a chance to dispense a little justice, and make a little money, by selling his services to the highest bidder. Remade several times – most notably by Sergio Leone as A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS with Clint Eastwood in the wandering assassin role – the original YOJIMBO remains a high point of the collaboration between director Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune, and one of the greatest samurai films ever. Look for the great Tatsuya Nakadai (SWORD OF DOOM) as Mifune’s psychotic nemesis, Unosuke.
THE GOD OF CLAY, 2009/2011, Marbling Fine Arts, 13 min. Dir. Koichi Kawakita and Nobuaki Sugimoto.
CLICK THIS SHIT!
CLICKABLE!
CLICK TO UNMINIATURIZE!
GOTTA CLICK THIS ONE!
JUST CLICK IT FOR GOD'S SAKE!
World Premiere – Japanese Monster Mayhem!!
- Thursday, June 23 – 9:30 PM
A legendary, never-before screened project created as a labor of love by some of Japan’s best-known F/X artists, THE GOD OF CLAY is a loving homage to classic 1960’s-era Japanese kaiju giant monster movies. This short film, adapted from the anti-war children’s book by author Masamoto Nasu, revolves around a boy named Ken-chan whose parents are killed in WWII, and who creates a tiny clay god to punish those who profit from war. Fifty years later, Ken-chan has become president of an arms company – and his forgotten God Of Clay grows to enormous size, wreaking havoc and destruction until it confronts its maker.
Co-director Koichi Kawakita is best-known as VFX director on the 1990’s GODZILLA Heisei Series (BIOLLANTE etc.). Produced by miniature F/X company Marbling Fine Arts, THE GOD OF CLAY was the last film shot on the now-vanished Toho Built sound stages where Kurosawa made THE SEVEN SAMURAI, and features contributions from Eizo Kaimai’s company (who created the original 1954 Godzilla suit), production designer Tetsuzo Osawa (ULTRAMAN TV series), background painter Fuchimu Shimakura (DESTROY ALL MONSTERS) and many others. (In Japanese with English subtitles.)
Immediately after THE GOD OF CLAY:
GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER (aka EBIRAH, HORROR OF THE DEEP), 1966, Toho Co., 87 min., 35 mm, English-dubbed version
CLICK FOR GOJIRA AWESOMENESS!
DITTO!
CLICK FOR GOJIRA AWESOMENESS!
DITTO!
Short discussion following THE GOD OF CLAY on the making of the film and the history of Japanese giant monster movies with producer Norihiko Iwasaki of Marbling Fine Arts, Godzilla expert Steve Ryfle and film restoration expert Oki Miyano.
One of the most entertaining of the mid-1960’s Toho giant monster films – and the first directed by Ishiro Honda’s successor, Jun Fukuda – this features one of Godzilla’s best-loved rivals, the giant lobster known as Ebirah, along with Mothra and a terrorist group known as Red Bamboo. Coincidentally, this was the very first Godzilla film that THE GOD OF CLAY co-director and VFX master Koichi Kawakita ever worked on. (On 35 mm. English dubbed version).
So, lot’s of good stuff going down over the next month or so. We hope to catch you guys there. If he can schlep his ass from Atlanta, Nick is going to try to catch a screening. And If I can schlep my ass from the Valley (that’s a hell of a drive), same here.