Last week we brought along the flipped-out trailer for the horror anthology THE THEATRE BIZARRE, which comes from a talented array of cult directors, each telling a creepy tale of perverse terror. Why wouldn’t we love that?!
Today we wanted to hand you a group of stills from the flick, which is about to be screened at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest. (For ticket info, click HERE.) Some of them may just give you nightmares, so try and proceed with caution. (Alright, they probably won’t.)
From Fantasia’s official site, a description of the film’s thesis and what each chapter is about: The mandate was simple. Take six of the genre film universe’s most fascinating independent auteur figures. Give each of them an identical production budget. Turn them loose to craft a short film with no further rules or boundaries. The result is THE THEATRE BIZARRE, a shocking Grand Guignol anthology feature shot in four countries that encompasses new work from Richard Stanley (HARDWARE, DUST DEVIL), Karim Hussain (SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY, LA BELLE BETE), Buddy Giovinazzo ( COMBAT SHOCK, LIFE IS HOT IN CRACKTOWN), Tom Savini (special make-up effects genius, director of the 1990 NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD), Douglas Buck (CUTTING MOMENTS, SISTERS remake) and David Gregory (PLAGUE TOWN, founder of the Severin Films label), with a wraparound segment (featuring none other than Udo Kier!) from Jeremy Kasten (THE WIZARD OF GORE remake).
The individual plots, tones and styles are as dissimilar from one another as could be possible. Stanley’s THE MOTHER OF TOADS is an atmospheric and perverse Lovecraftian chiller shot in France starring Lucio Fulci vet Catriona MacColl. Buck’s THE ACCIDENT is a peacefully disquieting meditation on death that evokes Malick over mayhem. Shot in Berlin, Giovinazzo’s ominously titled I LOVE YOU details the psychosexual agony of a bad romantic pairing taking a turn for the worst, starring ANTIBODIES’ André Hennicke. Savini’s WET DREAMS showcases Debbie Rochon as a housewife getting wise to her cheating husband’s ways and features grisly FX by Toetag Pictures (AUGUST UNDERGROUND). Hussain’s gruesome Montreal-lensed VISION STAINS is a surrealistic nightmare starring THE WILD HUNT’s Kaniehtiio Horn in a tour-de-force performance as a special kind of writer with a work methodology that will shock your senses – along with hers. Gregory’s stylish SWEETS is a theatrically comic, Burtonesque gorefest of bad love, worse eating habits and very distasteful social practices.
Severin Films will release the film on DVD sometime in the near future; we’ll update you with a specific date when we can.
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