London’s Raindance Film Festival announced its line-up this week and amongst its offering of social issue and world cinema fare is an impressive splattering of genre films receiving their World premiere. Embracing the mutant has become a trend of late with many mainstream festivals launching a genre window, so it’s great to see Raindance coming up with the goods for fans of the dark heart of cinema.
Serial killers are a recurring theme in Julian Richards work, which includes The Last Horror Movie and Shiver. Set in the deep south, DADDY’S GIRL is a psychological horror that follows the plight of Zoe, a young woman held captive by her stepfather after the suicide of her mother. An Iraq war veteran and serial killer, he uses Zoe as bait to lure new victims until a rookie cop and a female vigilante come to her rescue. The cast includes Jemma Dallender (I spit On Your Grave II), Costas Mandylor (Saw), Britt McKillip (Trick r Treat) and Jesse Moss (Still/Born).
Action / martial arts director Chee Keong Chung whose previous films include Bodyguard and Underground has moved into the horror genre with REDCON-I, a post apocalyptic sci-fi about a special forces unit on a mission to rescue a scientist from a horde of intelligent zombies. Not only can the zombies move fast but they also have memories and are able to use weapons. REDCON-I was executive produced by Patrick Ewald and Shaked Berenson (JeruZalem) and edited by Chris Gill (28 Weeks Later)
Editor turned director Rudolph Buitendach has crafted a classic supernatural horror with HEX, the story of a holiday romance in Cambodia which goes terribly wrong when a sensitive young British man discovers that his lover has a dark past linked to a local witchdoctor. Christian Piers-Bentley wrote the screenplay under the mentorship of Hammer Films regular Tudor Gates, hence the films She-like retro denouement.
Serbian director Lazar Bodroza’s award winning sci-fi ERDELEZI RISING will receive its UK premiere at Raindance and tells the story of a cosmonaut on a mission to Alpha Centauri accompanied by a female android played by former porn actress Stoya. The question posed is the need for reciprocal love; does the android genuinely have feelings for him, or are they merely programmed.
Chilean director Inti Carrizo-Ortiz’s THE NIGHT is an apocalyptic nightmare about two students struggling to maintain their morality after an eclipse plunges the world into endless darkness creating unrest and social disorder. THE NIGHT has been selected to participate in Blood Windows, an incentive to promote the best Latin American genre films worldwide, and is a strident metaphor for Chilean history and the collapse of social order under the pressures of a totalitarian regime.
Raindance will run between September 26th and October 7th at Vue Piccadilly in London’s West End. Each film will have two screenings, will be attended by the film-makers and include a Q&A.
