Cine-Excess, the international film festival that casts a critical eye over cult cinema traditions returns for its online Distinctive Visions mini-festival. Championing cinema’s diverse voices and highlights work by talented filmmakers worldwide, the Distinctive Visions event – which runs March 25th to 27th – features a strand devoted to New Disruptive Visions of Cinema alongside a range of Cult Classics of Cinema curated in collaboration with Arrow Films. Complimenting cult film releases from the USA, UK, Mexico, and Argentina, the programme also features exclusive Q&A’s with the filmmakers themselves, hosted by the Cine-Excess directors, Paul McEvoy of FrightFest and acclaimed film critic and author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
Some of the screening highlights from the New Disruptive Visions of Cinema strand include:
Wedding 93 (Paul Zagaris, USA, 2021)
Paul Zagaris’ found footage film recounts the bizarre events that unfolded in 1993 during a traditional Cambodian wedding. Here, a future bride suffered the symptoms of demonic possession, as captured on the wedding videotape that forms the film’s unsettling basis. This is the first time the dramatic story has been told to the general public.
The Parker Sessions (Stephen King Simmons, USA, 2021)
Stephen King Simmons powerful new film explores the complex and contradictory relationship between analyst and patient. In The Parker Sessions, a troubled young woman with a disturbing past goes to see a counsellor about her night terrors with unexpected results.
Wild Bones (Jack James, UK 2021)
Jack James’ film takes cult cinema to new atmospheric and experimental territories through its use of gendered conflicts and family traumas. Wild Bones focuses on Fay, who reconnects with her stepsister, as she tries to piece together the cause of her father’s mysterious disappearance.
The Unsettling (Harry Owens, USA, 2021)
Harry Owens’ debut feature film is a powerful vision of diasporic horror underpinned by a showstopping central performance from actor Zephani Idoko. The Unsettling focuses on an African couple who travel to Los Angeles to recover from a devastating tragedy, only to find themselves terrorised by demons both real and supernatural. Alongside its festival screening, The Unsettling also features as an April 2022 release on the Cine-Excess Digital Film Channel devoted to diverse visions of horror.
Some of the screening highlights from the festival’s Cult Classics of Cinema strand include:
Hellraiser (Clive Barker, UK, 1987)
Based on his own novella The Hellbound Heart, Clive Barker’s influential cult film introduced the world to the iconic Pinhead and his sadistic band of Cenobites, Hellraiser became an instant genre classic upon release and remains one of the most frighteningly original visions in horror.
The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, USA, 1977)
‘The lucky ones died first’ in Wes Craven’s 1977 cult horror classic about a suburban family waylaid in the desert by a marauding group of cannibals. Alongside the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead, Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes remains one of the defining classics of American horror cinema.
The Last Matinee (Uruguay/Mexico/Argentina, 2020)
Uruguayan director Maxi Contenti provides a stylish love letter to classic slashers in a film that also uses its urban cinema setting to chilling effect. When Ana takes over projection duties from her ailing father, she doesn’t expect anything worse than a broken reel or a burned-out bulb. But there’s a sadistic killer in the auditorium, and soon blood is running in the aisles as he starts picking off the audience members one by one…
The Distinctive Visions film festival runs from between March 25th – 27th. Tickets are priced at only £5.99 for all three days. All films are rated over 18 only, and screenings are geo-locked to the UK region unless specified.
To pre-book tickets go to: https://www.cine-excess.co.uk/distinctive-visions.html
