The bluffer's guide to the Rio Grind Film Festival

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      In a city of perpetual film festivals, the Rio Grind distinguishes itself by being the one that wants to punch in you in the face repeatedly.

      The mandate is midnight festival hits, pref-fab cult extravaganzas, blood, genitals, and defiantly proud bad taste—with a bit of gratuitous art thrown in (we are a civilized community, after all).

      Considered through a late-night bong darkly, here are some of the Straight's pics for this year's third edition, running at the Rio Theatre from Thursday to Sunday (October 23-26).

      Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (Japan)
      A group of young filmmakers called the Fuck Bombers, rival Yakuza gangs, and an embittered former child-star collide with each other in this enthusiastically mental dollop of ultraviolent madness from Japanese director Sion Sono. Somewhere behind all the crazed humour and fountains of blood is a valentine to moviemaking. The film’s giddy final shot is what you might get if Cinema Paradiso had been made by somebody whose love affair with cinema began with Hausu. (October 23)

      Suburban Gothic (US)
      Matthew Gray Gubler takes his tits-useless MBA and moves back to Small-and-Stupid Town, USA in this cheerfully trashy horror caper. There he's beset by the visions and other paranormal events that plagued him as a kid. He's similarly beset by the asshole bullies who also plagued him as a kid (including his football coach dad, played by Ray Wise—the best thing in the movie) except that now Gubler is a deadpan hipster nerd dreamboat with asymmetrical hair (therefore: fag) instead of a persecuted chubbo.

      The story—a kind of Scooby Doo affair including wiseass goth barmaid Kat Dennings—isn't all that important. It's the frequently hilarious confrontations between Gubler and Wise that make this one worth catching, especially if goofball American comedy is your bag. You'll be looking up "Dwart Farquar" on IMDB immediately afterward. Appearances by John Waters, MacKenzie Phillips, Jeffrey Combs, and Sally Kirkland don't hurt. (October 24)

      The ABCs of Death 2 (Various)
      This sequel to 2012’s anthology is more consistent overall but doesn’t hit the exhilarating heights of the first flick (Noboru Iguchi’s "F Is for Fart" or Jon Schnepp's "W Is for WTF", anyone?). But there’s lots to love, with E.L. Katz’s “A Is for Amateur” and Mighty Boosh-man Julian Barrett—here playing a puffed-up Brit TV presenter in “B Is for Badger”—providing a nice one-two punch right off the top. The most lunatic of the bunch might be Jim Hosking’s “G Is for Grandad”, which has something like the antique surrealism of Viv Stanshall going for it.

      The goriest entry is the last, a generally brilliant tale of 13-year human gestation called “Z Is for Zygote”. Vancouver's Soska sisters get straight to the rape-revenge point when they send Tristan Risk into a sleazy modelling assignment in “T Is for Torture Porn”. Bruno Samper and Kristina Buozyte also deserve special mention for the gorgeous “K Is for Knell”, although the best of the bunch might be from Manborg’s Steven Kostanski. “W Is for Wish” starts as a note-perfect parody of an ‘80s toy commercial, at least until the child actors get sucked into the real thing. It’s a tiny masterpiece of funky good-bad taste and unacceptably amusing sexual menace. Looks like Astron-6 wins again! (October 24)

      Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau (US)
      This nifty and straightforward documentary tells the story many of us have been dying to hear in full for almost 20 years. Tales from the painfully protracted shoot that leaked from the tropical wilds of Western Australia while The Island of Dr. Moreau was in production back in the '90s had us slavering in anticipation, in particular the firing of visionary writer-director Richard Stanley (to be replaced by a down-on-his-luck John Frankenheimer) and the reportedly insane behaviour of stars Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. The finished movie was too magnificently fucked up to disappoint. Turns out matters behind-the-scenes were even more demented than we ever imagined.

      Lost Soul is a tale of Hollywood machinery crushing a butterfly on a wheel. In the background is black magic—of both the Sufi shaman an Australian aboriginal variety—turbo-boosted industry stupidity, and the unhinged antics of two overindulged “stars” competing to utterly sabotage the film they’re being paid millions of dollars to make. And wait until you get the skinny on Moreau’s tiny partner, Majai, given his enhanced role in the film because Brando was so taken with 17-inch tall actor Nelson de la Rosa. “Nobody’s going to care about anything in this movie except this little man,” he reportedly told costar Fairuza Balk. “He’s fascinating. He’s human artwork.” Brando might have been a nutcase, but he was right about that much. (October 25)

      The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (US)
      Do you really need me to tell you to go and see Tobe Hooper's masterpiece, shown here in its remastered 40th anniversary edition? An inspired and furious affront to the peaceful easy feelin' '70s—back when a horror movie could really count—TCM has only grown more potent with age, and now defines a kind of rare nightmare quality on film that's never been equalled. (October 25)

      Spring (US)
      Spring, like the recent Afflicted, wants to be the rationalist's horror movie. Twenty-something American Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) is chilling out in a tiny Italian coastal town when he hooks up with Louise (Nadia Hilker). He's a likeable if depressed cook who recently lost his job and both of his parents. She's a super-hot Euro genius with a seriously fucked up secret.

      With the Mediterranean setting, washed-out pallet, and satisfying spasms of gore, Spring often looks like an old Joe D'Amato flick, if it wasn't for the amazing (and maybe too frequent) gliding aerial shots that break up some otherwise low-key action. With its attractive performances and unusual warmth, the only real beef you might have with the film is the way it oversells, with odd determination, the confusing "science" behind the supernatural. (October 25)

      The Tribe (Ukraine)
      To reveal too much about this pummelling Cannes-sensation would be unfair. A teenager enters a boarding school for the deaf and is swiftly recruited into the institution's incredibly brutal criminal hierarchy. The entire film is performed in Ukrainian sign language—without subtitles—which turns out to be much, much more of a recommendation than you'd ever imagine. A big screen experience for sure, The Tribe will leave you wondering what in the name of God you just saw, probably for the rest of your life. (October 26).

      Follow Adrian Mack on Twitter @AdrianMacked.

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