25NOV2019
Varda By Agnes
Want to minimize treacly films from your cinematic December? Cinemagoers in the S.F. Bay Area craving more offbeat fare are in luck. This month offers both the new edition of a genre film festival from the S.F. Independent Film Festival folks as well as a twisted Christmas slasher tale from the director of “A Christmas Story.” But adventurous viewers can also see famed Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman in person, the restoration of a great concert film, and even a low-budget horror film that might turn you off frozen food. So dive in and take a look!
December 1-15
Another Hole In The Head Film Festival—The English tell ghost stories around Christmastime. Here in S.F., we go one better. Those lovable weirdos from the S.F. Independent Film Festival bring eager viewers their annual festival dedicated to genre films and beyond. Yes, there’s a ghost story here (The Deeper You Dig), as well as such familiar staples as serial killers (Artik) and zombies (Eat Brains Love). But wilder fare is included as well, such as the story of a masked sex party that turns into a power struggle between the party’s voyeuristic hostess and a burlesque dancer from her past (X) or a documentary about the Canadian city where the commercial bomb “Phantom Of The Paradise” became a local pop culture phenomenon (Phantom Of Winnipeg). Definitely be sure to make time for:
Stay Out Stay Alive
“Stay Out Stay Alive” (when Yosemite hikers unexpectedly discover a gold mine, they face both their own personal greed and the mine’s vengeful spirits);
“1974: La Posession de Altair” (this take on the found footage genre involves home movies capturing young newlyweds’ being destroyed in part by a possessed young woman);
“Black Circle” (an innocuous 1970s-era hypnotherapy record unleashes the positive aspects of two sisters’ personalities at a sinister cost);
“The Wretched” (a killer tree spirit which can possess people and wipe out memories of loved ones seriously livens a teen’s disciplinary summer);
and “Senior Love Triangle” (a semi-delusional World War II veteran is determined to save the two elderly women he loves from retirement home isolation…and maintain his sexual relations with them). (New People Cinema)
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