Autumn has finally descended, and for moviegoers who like a nip of the dark stuff, that means one thing: horror movies. You’ll find plenty of classic creature features on TCM all month or yet another Saw marathon playing elsewhere, but if you want to see something truly unique, you’ll have to venture to the movie theater to get your fix.
Since 2004, independent filmmaker, cult movie expert and entertainment journalist Andrew Shearer has been hosting the Gonzoriffic film festival in various spots in town (though this will be the fifth year at Ciné), showcasing enthusiastically lowbrow shorts in the tradition of past exploitation filmmakers such as Ed Wood, H.G. Lewis, Doris Wishman and Ray Dennis Steckler. In other words, it’s good, trashy fun.
The horror genre has long had a disturbing strain of misogyny running through it, but Gonzoriffic has turned that on its rear and many contributors to the Gonzoriffic collective are women, working behind and in front of the lens. Sex tends to be shunned in most horror movies, too, or at least if it’s shown there’s a strong interjection of Old Testament morality to dampen the buzz. Not with Gonzoriffic, however, which regularly mixes a little bump and grind naughtiness with the bloodletting.
Some of the titles on tap for this year’s festival include the premiere of the burlesque barn-burner Pajama Nightmare, the psycho psyche-out of Travel Size, plenty of promised space boobs in Space Boobs and lesbian robots in Completely Defective. Local sonic miscreants Los Meesfits and the lovely cabaret showgirls from Effie’s Club Follies also helped with the production of Pajama Nightmare. The festival kicks off Oct. 19 with a midnight show (appropriately enough) and continues with another show the next night at the same time. Admission is $5.
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