Another Hole In The Head Film Festival Turns 20!

Ghost stories are just as much a part of winter celebrations as online website visits to buy holiday presents.  This year’s Another Hole In The Head (hereafter AHITH) marks the 20th such run up to Christmas (December 1-25) with another batch of ghost stories, horror, science fiction, fantasy, crime drama, suspense, and other indescribable independent cinematic weirdness from around the world. 

This year, there are many ways to enjoy AHITH.  For those who want to catch in-theater film screenings, the Balboa, Roxie, and 4-Star Theaters will be available for screenings from December 1-12.  For those who prefer streaming films, the virtual AHITH will run from December 1-25 with many (but not all) of the films that have been theatrically screened.  For those who like combining film with live musical performances, there will be a new SLEEPBOMB soundtrack for a certain Robert Wiene silent cinema horror classic (December 1) and a mashup of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” and “The Wizard of Oz” (December 10).  Finally, parody fans will want to check out the result of mixing “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with Freddy Krueger’s exploits (December 6-9 and 13-16).

As this preview is being written, AHITH eager beavers and gore hounds will have already checked out the 35mm screening of Eric Weston’s 1981 retro horror tale “Evilspeak.”  Stanley (legendary character actor Clint Howard) is a military school dweeb who seems doomed to be bullied by evil classmates and an elderly janitor who’s into homosexual rape.  Salvation of a sort arrives in the form of an evil Commodore 64 computer and a dot-matrix printer.  For this computer happens to be an incarnation of Satan that Stanley allies himself with.  The result: blazing decapitations, anti-Christian imagery, and clerical dismemberment.

AHITH officially opens with a screening of the silent Robert Wiene horror classic “The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari” paired with a live score from SLEEPBOMB.  The film concerns young Francis, who recollects what happened after he and his friend Alan visited the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  Among the wonders is the somnambulist Cesare, who seems to exist in a death-like sleep until he’s awakened by Dr. Caligari.

Bloody Bridget

Disturbing for more modern audiences would be something like Todd “Max” Carey’s “tOuch.”  It might be called a “Meet the BDSM practitioners” type of film.  The subjects range from a soccer mom embarking on being a Dominatrix to a Texas good old boy who’s the slave and property of a Dominatrix.  

One of the more unusual animated shorts offered at this year’s AHITH is J. Santos’ “NOHOMO.”  According to the program notes, it is the digitally enhanced result of Nintendo 3DS animation.  Its toxic neon look reflects the subconscious of young Dick.  He tells himself constantly that he’s not gay.  But his subconscious screams otherwise during a mundane commute to work.

The most oddly titled short at this year’s AHITH is Andy Cahill’s animated short “Today, I Will Be The Bread.”  The elements of this short include a naked boy, a loaf of bread, a room, a cloud of smoke, and a clock.  Think of the short’s structure as that of Russian nesting dolls.

Beck & Collin Stafford’s silent film “Red Night” might be called an experimental slasher film.  A queer chosen family of five monsters support each other through the daily grind.  Ash’s decision to go on a journey of self-discovery leaves the other family members unhappy.  But the reunion with Ash turns to horror when an evil being accidentally released on Ash’s journey starts stalking and killing each member of their family.  How can Ash protect their family when the foe doesn’t make mistakes?

Brothers Broken: The Story That Stopped The Music

An even worse scenario befalls the protagonist of Tacma Dan’s supernatural horror short “Hazard Lights.”  Imagine driving down a pitch black road at night.  Thanks to car trouble, the only illumination comes from the intermittent flashes of the car’s hazard lights.  So what happens when one such light flash reveals a prone human body suddenly appearing on the road in front of you?  

Joy, the undocumented Filipina protagonist of Paris Zarcilla’s “Raging Grace,” faces a different sort of unexpected problem in her new caretaker job in a posh London neighborhood.  She’s supposed to see to the bedridden and dying Mr. Garrett.  But Joy’s big problem is worse than her employer discovering she’s smuggled her daughter Grace into the house.  A discovery Joy makes will endanger the life she’s built for herself. 

A different sort of life-threatening scenario can be found in the hot new online murder game known as “Sweet Relief.”  Players of the game name someone they want to see die.  The teachers and parents in Nick Verdi’s film naturally freak out over this dark amusement.  Three teens play the game as a joke, not realizing their homicidal whims will return to chomp their posteriors.  Meanwhile, Jess does not know that confidential police informant Gerald is also a sadistic child killer.

Haitian sybarite Baron Samedi also has a big secret.  His long disappeared wife Maman Brigitte was also Haiti’s adopted Goddess of Death as well as the Celtic goddess Brigid.  This goddess served as the protector of women and the dispenser of justice.  And the Baron sees in Van Nuys waitress and burlesque dancer Bridget O’Brien the reincarnation of Maman Brigitte.  O’Brien doesn’t see herself that way at first, as she’s been driven to suicide thanks to her being exploited and abused by the men in her life.  But thanks to the Baron’s help, she gets reborn as a “valentine vampire” who regularly feasts on her unfortunate victims’ still beating hearts.  See the hilariously blood-spattered results in Richard Elfman’s horror comedy “Bloody Bridget.”    Music by Ego Plum and the director’s brother Danny Elfman.

Raging Grace

In 1968, Geoff Levin and his brother Robert’s group People created the hit record “I Love You.”  But when both brothers joined the Scientology cult, their membership would result in People’s destruction and the creation of a rift between Geoff and Robert that would last for 28 years.  Geoff Levin and Lily Richards’ documentary “Brothers Broken: The Story That Stopped The Music” recounts what happened and how both brothers eventually reunited.

Need your kawaii with a heavy dose of gore?  Then you need to see Kenichi Ugana’s dark comedy “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”  Wakaba is an incredibly kawaii grade schooler with a strong sense of righteousness.  When her defending dorky Koki from two bullies leads to the boy having a crush on her, Koki later repays her by pushing the two bullies to their deaths.  The passage of seven years has not diminished Wakaba’s kawaii qualities.  She’s now a groupie traveling with wannabe rock star Kohei and his band of douchebags.  Kohei and his bandmates figure a little barbecue will result in some groupie sex.  But wherever Wakaba goes, lots of corpses soon follow. 

You’ve seen the story many times: a couple moves into a new home only to discover something creepy and sinister inside the house.  In this case, it’s an old haunted baby carriage trying to scare the couple.  So what happens when the couple essentially takes a “whatever” attitude towards the carriage’s scare tactics?  That’s the setup for JT Seaton’s offbeat comedy “The Haunted Baby Carriage From Hell.”

For those who need more crazy in their movie diet, why not try Jesse Thomas Cook’s “The Hyperborean?”  It begins with a whiskey magnate who summons his dysfunctional family home for a very special tasting of Scotch aged 170 years.  That the booze was recovered from a ghost ship in the Canadian Arctic is the first sign that something will go wrong.  But for the seasoned crisis manager called in to fix things, events take a turn for the bizarre with a triple homicide, intergalactic booze, and a laser-blasting Arctic ice mummy.

Over the course of his many decades in popular media, Batman has seen his share of crazy and bizarre events.  But a different sort of crazy event can be found in Jorge Torres Torres’ new fan film-like mashup “The Batman Revision 2024.”  The film is the result of mating the soundtrack from Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” with footage from the various animated Batman adaptations made over the decades.  

The Hyperborean

Is Antonio R. Cabal’s adventure film “End Of Trip – Sahara” a real life found footage tale?  The festival description references the source material as 25,000 meters of film negative made in 1983, but gives no further details about its provenance.  All the viewer knows going in is that this is a 1970s-set adventure about two young Spanish men named Javier and Rafa, who’ve gone into the Sahara Desert searching for adventure.  There, they will find danger from the notorious “Desert Pirates,” the wonders of the Tuareg culture, and emotional turmoil from the presence of the captivating Frenchwoman Florence.

What do you get when you use the Pink Floyd classic “Dark Side Of The Moon” as your alternate soundtrack to the 1939 classic “The Wizard Of Oz?”  The answer is “The Dark Side Of The Rainbow 2.0 Live,” which features a soundtrack of cuts from Pink Floyd and other artists selected by SF musician and DJ Tasho Nicolopulos aka Its Own Infinite Flower.

Who knew AIs can have musical tastes?  That fact gets demonstrated in Charles Dillon Ward’s experimental short “sing.ai.”  It concerns a retired virtual AI assistant which talks about their favorite singers by drawing from texts, found sound on phones, and images from public surveillance cameras.

Robbie Martin and Kelly Porter’s “THTHNG: Desolation Unknown” might be called the first feature film created with generative AI.  The new technology created the sound effects, voices, music, and 4K widescreen imagery.  Call it the initial installment of a trilogy homage to 1980s science fiction and horror.  The results are not for the sensitive or the faint of heart.

Tired of celebrating the holidays with yet another singing of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?”  Freddy Kruegar’s here to help find the meaning of the holidays.  That’s what’s on offer with the live stage show “A Nightmare On Elm Street Holiday Special Parody.”  Attendees are encouraged to wear old and/or cheap clothes to attend these shows because there will be BLOOD, and splashing the audience is very highly probable.

Hippo

Sam Chou’s animated horror film “Red Iron Road: In The Heat” adapts a story by Russian horror writer Anna Starobinets.  Is the bruised and battered man who’s been arrested for a child murder really Santa Claus?  The skeptical cops interrogating their suspect don’t think so at first.  But the arrestee tells a horrifying tale of a battle between good and evil whose result hinges on a decades-old promise. 

In Idan Gilboa’s stop-motion animated dark comedy “Deadline,” the friendship and solidarity of two cat-loving old ladies gets pitted against the power of bureaucracy.  It doesn’t promise to be a balanced contest given that the two old ladies have had it with social disregard and disrespect.  

Kelly Lou Dennis’ suspense short “Good Girls Get Fed” gets its title from its protagonists’ dire situation.  They’re three women trapped in a windowless room and deliberately left to starve.  The only way to get food is to complete objectifying misogynistic challenges for a camera’s unseen audience.  Desperation forces these three women to work together on a very uncertain escape plan.

Bertrand Mandico’s “She Is Conann” might be called a feminist biography of a barbarian.  Rainer the underworld dog recounts the six stages in the life of the barbarian known as Conann,  which includes her contentious relationship with the barbarian Sanja.  This micro-budgeted film takes its titular character from the Sumerian Age to the 1990s, where along the way she encounters cannibalism, a death which makes a person blush, and hot foreplay with a revved-up car.

She Is Conann

Martin Gerigk’s experimental short film essay “Demi-Goddesses” offers a thought experiment regarding gender, power, and social change.  If the genders were reversed in our world, would humanity still repeat the same patterns of discrimination and oppression found in patriarchal society?  Or could these patterns be overcome by rethinking humanity’s assumptions about gender?    

Why not close things out with Mark H. Rapaport’s “Hippo?”  It might be based on the Greek tragedy “Hippolytus.”  But its weird set pieces and utterly maladjusted characters makes it its own creature.  The title is the nickname of the lead character, a maladjusted video game addicted teen who believes he’s a literal god on earth.  Ethel, Hippo’s mother, essentially satisfies Hippo’s bizarre whims, such as buying a crossbow as a birthday present .  Buttercup is Hippo’s adopted sister, a Hungarian Catholic immigrant whose big loves in life are classical music, Jesus, and Hippo.  Trouble erupts when Buttercup answers a Craigslist ad and invites Darwin, the man who posted the ad, to her house for a family dinner.

(For further information about the above-mentioned films as well as other AHITH 2023 films, go here.)