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Horrorthon 2023;

This year’s IFI Horrorthon once again celebrates the most deliciously dark treats to have surfaced in the genre over the last twelve months. This year’s offering includes a number of in-depth documentaries that will thrill fans, as well as rare screenings of classics including Bigas Luna’s Anguish on 35mm and, on its fortieth anniversary, Psycho II, as well as this year’s Secret Film, a fan favourite never before screened in Horrorthon. Irish horror is well represented with Ian Hunt-Duffy’s Double Blind, while the rest of the programme features everything from alligators to zombies. We look forward to welcoming you to this year’s festival.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26TH

WE ARE ZOMBIES (18.30)
Directors : FRANÇOIS SIMARD, ANOUK WHISSELL, YOANN-KARL WHISSELL
The new zom-com from the directors of Turbo Kid (2015) imagines a world where the non-threatening ‘living-impaired’ have been integrated into society, before an evil corporation’s dastardly plans lead to chaos. Bound to become a cult classic !

THE HAUNTING (20.30)
Dir : ROBERT WISE
Robert Wise’s spine-chilling classic, screening on the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary, has been praised by directors from Spielberg to Scorsese as one of the most frightening films ever made.

SUITABLE FLESH (23.00)
Dir : JOE LYNCH
Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton star in this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation written by Dennis Paoli. Fans of his work with Stuart Gordon will know what to expect, and are in for a treat. An absolutely late night blast !

THEY WAIT IN THE DARK (23.10)
Dir : PATRICK REA
A woman and her young son on the run from her abusive partner hide out in an old farmhouse where a new threat appears in the form of a supernatural presence.

RIVER (23.20)
Dir : JUNTA YAMAGUCHI
From the director of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020), River is another brilliant mind-bender in which the staff and guests of an inn must escape from a temporal loop.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27TH

ENTER THE CLONES OF BRUCE (13.20)
Dir : DAVID GREGORY
From the director of previous Horrorthon hit documentaries on Al Adamson and Richard Stanley’s Island of Doctor Moreau comes this typically entertaining look at the world of Bruce Lee exploitation films. Another winner by Director David Gregory !

PSYCHO II (15.20)
Dir : RICHARD FRANKLIN
Underrated, little seen despite being a box office hit in 1983. Over two decades after audiences first checked in to the Bates Motel, Norman returns home, seemingly cured of his murderous impulses. However, when waitress Mary (Meg Tilly) moves in, ‘Mother’ soon comes calling. (40th Anniversary screening)

MONOLITH (17.40)
Dir : MATT VESELY
A disgraced journalist trying to rebuild her career through podcasts is drawn into an alien invasion conspiracy when investigating mysteriously decorated bricks in an increasingly intense and unsettling film.

THE BLACK MASS (19.40)
Dir : DEVANNY PINN
Devanny Pinn’s gritty true-crime horror-thriller covers a 24-hour period on a US college campus in 1978 when a serial killer whose identity becomes apparent stalks and attacks members of a sorority. Not for the faint of heart !

WHAT YOU WISH FOR (21.30)
Dir : NICHOLAS TOMNAY
Nick Stahl (Terminator 3, Carnivàle) assumes a friend’s identity to escape gambling debts, an act that puts him in new danger when the ruse works too well in this dark comedy.

DOUBLE BILL: THE WELL / TRANSMISSION (23.30)
Dir : FEDERICO ZAMPAGLIONE / Dir : MICHAEL HURST
The Well sees an art restorer suffer an evil curse when bringing a medieval painting to its former glory. Transmission’s clever, interweaving collage sees a channel-surfing viewer realise that humanity is at risk.

DOUBLE BILL: RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD III / WISHMASTER (23.40)
Dir : BRIAN YUZNA / Dir : ROBERT KURTZMAN
This double bill evokes the spirit of the heady days of Vestron Video releases with these fan-favourites starring genre staples such as Melinda Clarke, Robert Englund, Ted Raimi, and Angus Scrimm.

DOUBLE BILL: THE GHOST WRITER / THE WITCH GAME (23.50)
Dir : PAUL WILKINS / Dir : FABIÁN FORTE
In The Ghost Writer, a struggling writer resorting to plagiarism must pay an unexpected cost.
The Witch Game follows a young woman who can only save her family by learning the secrets of witchcraft.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28TH

MASTERS OF THE GRIND (12.30)
Dir : JASON RUTHERFORD
This epic documentary, almost twenty years in the making, is an exhaustive survey of exploitation cinema featuring a veritable who’s who of alumni from the 42nd Street scene and beyond.

ALLIGATOR (16.40)
Dir : LEWIS TEAGUE
Co-written by John Sayles, Alligator is a witty take on the urban legend of baby alligators flushed down the toilet growing to huge size after exposure to growth hormones flooding through the sewers.

MOTHER SUPERIOR (18.40)
Dir : MARIE ALICE WOLFSZAHN
A young woman acting as nurse to an ageing baroness whose work on a Nazi breeding programme may solve the mystery of her birth and heritage is drawn deeper into her client’s occult world.

DOUBLE BLIND (20.20)
Dir : IAN HUNT-DUFFY
One of the best Irish genre films of recent years sees Pollyanna McIntosh supervise the trial of an experimental drug that deprives participants, led by Millie Brady, of sleep.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ian Hunt-Duffy, writer Darach McGarrigle, and actor Pollyanna McIntosh.

HERE FOR BLOOD (22.50)
Dir : DANIEL TURRES
A pro-wrestler acting as a stand-in babysitter is forced to defend his charge from a group of masked marauders in a very funny film filled with knowing nods.

HOW TO KILL MONSTERS (22.50)
Dir : STEWART SPARKE
Expanding on the world of Book of Monsters (2018), this not-a-sequel sees its unfortunate cast forced to defend a police station from an attack by a legion of otherworldly monsters.

CORA (23.00)
Dir : SONNY LAGUNA, TOMMY WIKLUND
Decades into the future, after a deadly mist has destroyed the planet and all but annihilated humanity, Cora works for a mysterious organisation striving to undo the mist’s effects.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 29TH

MANCUNIAN MAN: THE LEGENDARY LIFE OF CLIFF TWEMLOW (12.30)
Dir : JAKE WEST
This loving tribute to an actor-writer whose career largely consisted of trying to follow the small success of his debut, G.B.H. (1983), makes for entertaining and occasionally melancholy viewing. Not to be missed !

SECRET FILM (15.00)
Over the years, Horrorthon has screened numerous classics of the genre. Sadly, many have been overlooked. This slot attempts to redress the balance by screening an undisputed fan favourite. Come and see.

BLACK MOLD (17.00)
Dir : JOHN PATA
Two photographers whose art involves trespass into abandoned buildings break into an old government testing facility, where they encounter a dangerous derelict and an hallucinogenic mould, with frightening consequences.

EIGHT EYES (19.00)
Dir: AUSTIN JENNINGS
Vinegar Syndrome’s debut production is a dark, disorienting tale of a troubled, travelling couple burdened with an unofficial tour guide. Screening with To Fire You Come at Last, Sean Hogan’s new folk-horror film.

THE DEEP DARK (21.35)
Dir : MATHIEU TURI
A group of miners accompanying a professor (Jean-Hugues Anglade) underground to collect samples are trapped by a cave-in that awakens something in the dark in this claustrophobic chiller. A terrific monster movie that won't disappoint !

MUTE WITNESS (23.35)
Dir : ANTHONY WALLER
When Billy (Marina Sudina), a young, mute make-up artist, is inadvertently locked into a Moscow film studio overnight, she witnesses the after-hours production of a snuff movie.

BEATEN TO DEATH (23.40)
Dir : SAM CURTAIN
Jack (Thomas Roach) survives a brutal assault by killing his attacker, only to be found by the dead man’s brother, who now wants to extract a prolonged, bloody vengeance.

SOCIETY (23.40)
Dir : BRIAN YUZNA
Brian Yuzna’s brilliant black comedy, a still-relevant satire of class and the liberties and comforts afforded by wealth, has lost none of its power to shock and disgust.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 30TH

THE DARKSIDE OF SOCIETY (13.00)
Dir : LARRY WADE CARRELL
This documentary on Brian Yuzna’s film focuses on its writer, Woody Keith, now known as Zeph E. Daniel, and the traumatic upbringing he transformed into an enduring chiller.

ANGUISH (14.50)
Dir : BIGAS LUNA
Screening from 35mm, this overlooked, intricately constructed film from the director of Jamón, Jamón (1992) stars Zelda Rubenstein (Poltergeist, 1982) as an overbearing mother who forces her son (Michael Lerner) to kill. A first time cinema screening in Ireland !.

THE SEEDING (16.45)
Dir : BARNABY CLAY
A photographer lost in the desert seeks refuge in a house at the bottom of a crater. The following morning, he finds himself trapped with its mysterious occupant (Kate Lyn Sheil).

THE SACRIFICE GAME (18.45)
Dir : JENN WEXLER
Christmas, 1971. A quartet of demon-worshipping cult members head for a girls’ boarding school where two students with nowhere to go for the holidays must fight back if they are to survive the night.

THE MOOR (20.40)
Dir : CHRIS CRONIN
A woman haunted by the disappearance of a friend in childhood is persuaded by the missing boy’s desperate father to keep the search alive, enlisting psychics to help search the moors in this eerie film.

Tickets: www.ifi.ie/horrorthon/

Tickets cost €13.00 for members, €14.50 for non-members. Passes and film bundles will be available to purchase directly from the IFI Box Office in-person or over the phone on (01) 679 3477: 5 films for €60;/ 10 films for €100/ Early Bird 5-Day pass for €140 (available until Monday, October 9th at 21.00)/ full 5-Day pass for €170.


https://ifi.ie/horrorthon/
 
Horrorthon 2023 DHS Events.

MONOLITH (17.40) 27 Oct

Dir : MATT VESELY
A disgraced journalist trying to rebuild her career through podcasts is drawn into an alien invasion conspiracy when investigating mysteriously decorated bricks in an increasingly intense and unsettling film

MOTHER SUPERIOR (18.40) 28 Oct
Dir : MARIE ALICE WOLFSZAHN
A young woman acting as nurse to an ageing baroness whose work on a Nazi breeding programme may solve the mystery of her birth and heritage is drawn deeper into her client’s occult world.

EIGHT EYES (19.00) 29 Oct
Dir: AUSTIN JENNINGS
Vinegar Syndrome’s debut production is a dark, disorienting tale of a troubled, travelling couple burdened with an unofficial tour guide. Screening with To Fire You Come at Last, Sean Hogan’s new folk-horror film.

THE DEEP DARK (21.35) 29 Oct
Dir : MATHIEU TURI
A group of miners accompanying a professor (Jean-Hugues Anglade) underground to collect samples are trapped by a cave-in that awakens something in the dark in this claustrophobic chiller. A terrific monster movie that won't disappoint !

THE SACRIFICE GAME (18.45) 30 Oct
Dir : JENN WEXLER
Christmas, 1971. A quartet of demon-worshipping cult members head for a girls’ boarding school where two students with nowhere to go for the holidays must fight back if they are to survive the night.

More details: https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/
 
Upcoming Event.

The Outcasts.

Meet
in IFI Foyer 6.20 pm, film 6.30 pm, Tuesday, December 12.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/297745464/

This screening is free but ticketed. €1 booking fee online. Seating is unallocated. Book Now.
https://ifi.ie/film/from-the-vaults-the-outcasts/

The Outcasts (1982).

Much talked about and, until now, impossible to find, The Outcasts has in recent decades assumed cult status among Irish film enthusiasts and international folk horror fans. Set in rural, pre-famine Ireland, a time when poverty and magic were accepted as facts of life, this is the haunting tale of a young girl’s discovery of her own powers through a ‘a wild, ungodly man’ (Mick Lally) and the passage it offers her into a magical world of imagination and beauty. When Maura (Mary Ryan) is accused of witchcraft by her friends and family, she uses her magic as protection against the community

Writer/director Robert Wynne Simmons* combines horror, comedy, tragedy and supernatural beauty to produce an intelligent and visually stunning directorial debut.

This 2k restoration has been created by the IFI Irish Film Archive through IFI’s Digital Restoration Project funded by Screen Ireland / Fís Éireann with support from the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) and the EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme.

The screening will be introduced by writer/director Paul Duane, whose forthcoming film All You Need Is Death was influenced by The Outcasts.

95 mins, Ireland, 1982, Digital

* The screenplay for the film The Blood on Satan's Claw was originally written by Robert Wynne-Simmons as an anthology of horror stories set in a small village, and had the working title of Satan's Skin. After director Piers Haggard was hired for the project, he and Wynne-Simmons reworked the screenplay into a singular cohesive narrative.
 
Upcoming Event.

Night Swim

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 6 pm, film 6.10 pm, Tuesday, January 9.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/298333642/

Atomic Monster and Blumhouse, the producers of M3GAN, high dive into the deep end of horror with the new supernatural thriller, Night Swim. Based on the acclaimed 2014 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire.

The film stars Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) as Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, who moves into a new home with his concerned wife Eve (Oscar nominee Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin), teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle, this fall’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren, Fear the Walking Dead).

Secretly hoping, against the odds, to return to pro ball, Ray persuades Eve that the new home’s shimmering backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for him. But a dark secret in the home’s past will unleash a malevolent force that will drag the family under, into the depths of inescapable terror.

This is the 2014 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire which Night Swim is based on:

 
Upcoming Event.
The End We Start From

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 5.20 pm, film 5.30 pm, Tuesday, January 23, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/298652877/

When an environmental crisis sees London submerged by flood waters, a young family is torn apart in the chaos. As a woman (Jodie Comer) and her newborn try and find their way home, the profound novelty of motherhood is brought into sharp focus in this intimate and poetic portrayal of family survival.
 
Upcoming Event.
The End We Start From

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 5.20 pm, film 5.30 pm, Tuesday, January 23, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/298652877/

When an environmental crisis sees London submerged by flood waters, a young family is torn apart in the chaos. As a woman (Jodie Comer) and her newborn try and find their way home, the profound novelty of motherhood is brought into sharp focus in this intimate and poetic portrayal of family survival.
I like Jodie Comer.
 
Upcoming Event.

Baghead

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 6.05 pm, film 6.15 pm, Tuesday, January 30, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/298756954/

Following the death of her estranged father (Peter Mullan), Iris (Freya Allan) learns she has inherited a run-down, centuries-old pub. She travels to Berlin to identify her father’s body and meet with The Solicitor (Ned Dennehy) to discuss the estate. Little does she know, when the deed is signed she will become inextricably tied to an unspeakable entity that resides in the pub’s basement – Baghead – a shape-shifting creature that can transform into the dead. Two thousand in cash for two minutes with the creature is all it takes for desperate loved ones to ease their grief. Neil ( Jeremy Irvine), who has lost his wife, is Iris’ first customer. Like her father, Iris is tempted to exploit the creature’s powers and help desperate people for a price. But she soon discovers breaking the two-minute rule can have terrifying consequences. Together with her best friend Katie (Ruby Barker), Iris must battle to keep control of Baghead and figure out how to destroy her, before she destroys them.
 
Upcoming Event.
Blade Runner : The Final Cut

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 7.05 pm, film 7.15 pm, Tuesday, February 20, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/299056891/

The definitive version of Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece starring Harrison Ford. In the rainswept, neon-lit LA of 2019, former cop Deckard (Harrison Ford) is charged with tracking down and eliminating a bunch of advanced android 'replicants' who've escaped from an off-world colony. It's a difficult task because they're almost impossible to distinguish them from humans. One of the replicants, Rachael (Sean Young), has even been implanted with a set of false memories and believes herself to be human. Meanwhile, their leader, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), is determined to track down his creator to discover his own 'termination date'. Adapted from a Philip K. Dick novel, Ridley Scott's dazzlingly original, noirish sci fi thriller was originally released in 1982. Several versions of this much acclaimed, hugely influential film have been seen on screen since then. But on its 25th anniversary, Scott was given complete creative freedom to create this final cut, fully restored from the original negative.
 
So do I but I prefer the original cut with the voice-over.
I have seen several cuts of the movie, including the one with voiceovers. I don't like the "happy" ending made for American audiences - the US theatrical release 1982, according to wiki. I think it's the Final Cut 2007 that I've also seen, but the versions of the film are confusing.

Wiki lists 5 versions:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versions_of_Blade_Runner
 
Upcoming Event.

Double Blind

Meet
in IFI Foyer 6.20 pm, film 6.30 pm, Monday, February 12, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/299109432/

Irish director Ian Hunt-Duffy’s debut film, from an admirably lean screenplay by Darach McGarrigle, is a supremely tense thriller, effective and efficient in its execution. Claire (Millie Brady) has volunteered for a pharmaceutical trial with a lucrative payoff. Sequestered in the drug company’s austere facilities, the usually reticent and introverted young woman finds herself part of a group that includes chatterbox Alison (Abby Fitz) and medical student Amir (Akshay Kumar), supervised by the no-nonsense Dr. Burke (Pollyanna McIntosh). Once the trial is underway, it is quickly discovered that one of the side-effects of the experimental drug the group has taken is death, if they fall asleep. Forced to stay awake and work together to escape their predicament even as tempers fray and grips on reality slip due to exhaustion, the building paranoia makes for a gripping and unsettling experience.
 
Upcoming Event.

Lisa Frankenstein

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 6 pm, film 6.10 pm, Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/299509311/

A coming of RAGE love story from acclaimed writer Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body) about a misunderstood teenager and her high school crush, who happens to be a handsome corpse. After a set of playfully horrific circumstances bring him back to life, the two embark on a murderous journey to find love, happiness… and a few missing body parts along the way.
 
Upcoming Event.

Imaginary

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 6 pm, film 6.10 pm, Tuesday, March 12, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/299640530/

From Blumhouse, the genre-defining masterminds behind FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S and M3GAN. When Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister. As Alice’s behaviour becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.
 
Upcoming Event.

Late Night With the Devil

Meet
in Cineworld Cafe (floor 1) 8.40 pm, film 8.50 pm, Wednesday, March 20, 2024.

https://www.meetup.com/dublin-horror-society/events/299814696/

Presented in a found footage style, David Dastmalchian stars as Jack Delroy, the host of a fictional 1970s variety and late-night talk show titled Night Owls with Jack Delroy. The film purports to be derived from a rediscovered master tape of an episode from the show's sixth season, broadcast on Halloween 1977. During this live television broadcast, havoc unfolds when Delroy interviews a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) and the subject of her recent book, a young teenager (Ingrid Torelli) who was the sole survivor of a Satanic church's mass suicide.
 
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