News

Throughout history, horror films have always been social activities -- manageable mini-adventures to be experienced in kinship with a friend, a group, a date, a significant other. There's something perennially appealing about sharing a scary and disturbing movie with someone you love, seeing them react alongside you, feeling bound by a collective sense of dread, encouraging each other to shrug off the fight-or-flight instinct, and ride it out when a scene gets too horrifying. A good horror film can even bring people closer. But horror films are seldomly family events.

To be sure, there is a certain logic to watching specific horror movies with family members. The urgency of a survival adventure like "Train to Busan" or "A Quiet Place," the simmering intensity of a creature thriller like "Jaws" or "Alien," the roller-coaster-ride excitement of a game transformed into an exercise in terror in "The Conjuring," or the unspooling mysteries...

This month’s installment of Deep Cuts Rising features a variety of horror movies. Some selections reflect a specific day or event in August, and others were chosen at random.

Regardless of how they came to be here, or what they’re about, these past movies can generally be considered overlooked, forgotten or unknown.

This month’s offerings feature folk horror, killer animals, and more.

Dark August (1976)

Directed by Martin Goldman.

With August 22 being World Folklore Day, horror fans don’t ever have to look too far to find mysticism and superstitions. Right in their backyards are plenty of homegrown horrors that showcase the extraordinary. Martin Goldman’s Vermont-shot regional horror Dark August centers on the man who accidentally runs over and kills a little girl. While J.J. Barry‘s difficult character is found innocent in court, he still suspects the victim’s grandfather has cursed him. Now the protagonist...

Kenneth Dagatan's sophomore feature “In My Mother's Skin” is set in the Philippines during the last months of WWII, following the story of Tala, a young girl (Felicity Kyle Napuli) who strikes a deal with a flesh-eating fairy (Jasmine Curtis-Smith) in exchange for food for herself and her little brother Bayani (James Mavie Estrella), and a remedy for her mother Ligaya (Beauty Gonzalez), who fell sick with a mysterious illness. That this comes with a big price to pay, is no wonder.

“In My Mother's Skin” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

Dagatan leans on local legends about ghouls to build the plot, adding his specific touch to it with metaphors about the war and its impact on people's urge to survive and protect their closest ones. Written as the script for a short film in 2015 largely inspired by a self-canibalism story in Marina de Van's...

At the controversial intersection of graphic violence in pop culture and women’s liberation in politics, you’ll find the taboo and too often overlooked subgenre of feminist body horror.

These extreme scary movies wield over-the-top gore and violence like exacting scalpels, peeling away society’s thick skin of deference and niceties to reveal an insidious underbelly of gendered violence, gendered shame, gendered betrayal, gendered hell.

As with other body horror films, these themes can play out on the flesh of the hero, villain, or both. What sets them apart is not who wins and who dies, who suffers and who laughs, who has a penis and who doesn’t, but the emotional and sociopolitical motivations behind the filmmakers’ decision to shock — and even brutalize — their audiences with violent story pieces applied to specific characters. From puberty, sex, assault, and rape to conception, abortion, birth, and motherhood, literal arenas of...

With 2018 quickly winding down, it’s time to visit a new batch of international directors and auteurs who have been missing in action for five years or more. From our 2017 batch, there have been a few recent updates on completed and projected projects. The most notable resurgence was from Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, who broke a seven-year absence in 2018 with her Cannes Jury Prize Winner Capernaum. Meanwhile, French auteur Bertrand Blier is set to break a nine-year absence with Convoi Exceptionnel in 2019, reuniting him with Gerard Depardieu. And Marina De Van, who hasn’t released a project since her 2013 Irish co-pro Dark Touch, recently revealed plans for a feature set to star Charles Berling, which could perhaps be ready for 2020.…...

France has a rich history of horror. There’s the sadomasochistic novels of the Marquis de Sade as well as the blood and guts of Grand Guignol theatre. In cinema, the horror lineage runs deep. There’s Georges Méliès’ shorts and trick films (The Haunted Castle [1896], The Four Troublesome Heads [1898]); the eye-slicing of Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou (1929); Georges Franju’s nauseating documentary on slaughterhouses, Blood of the Beasts (1949), as well as his clinical and poetic Eyes Without a Face (1960); there’s Henri-Georges Clouzot’s nasty Diabolique (1955); and the rotting poetry of Jean Rollin’s collective work. Flash forward a few decades, to the mid-1990s and 2000s, where we find the intense and brutal "New French Extremity" films by Philippe Grandrieux, Bruno Dumont, Gaspar Noé, Marina de Van, and others. And there are the genre filmmakers creating work around the same time as the more...

The flesh-eating movie that had them requiring ambulance intervention in Toronto never lets up. It’s also a complex drama of adulthood, sex, conformity, hazing, body image and lust

Julia Ducournau is a 33-year-old first-time feature director who makes her worryingly brilliant debut with this saturnalia of arthouse horror. At the Toronto film festival, it had audiences dry-heaving and indeed wet-heaving in the aisles and the cinema lavatories. This is the sort of film which pundits are often keen to label “black comedy” as a way of re-establishing their own sang-froid. In the same tongue-in-cheek spirit, it has been called coming-of-age drama. There is a grain of truth in both of these labels. It is a film about cannibalism, and has clearly been influenced by Jorge Michel Grau’s We Are What We Are, John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, and perhaps especially Marina de Van’s body shocker In My...

Although relatively scarce, horror movies directed by women are out there. You may have to turn over a few rocks to know who they are and their material might be a little more difficult to get your hands on, but these directors deserve just as much attention and scrutiny as their male counterparts, who have long dominated the genre. The following discusses selections of female directors’ forays into the business of terror. (This post contains spoilers)

Antonia Bird

The late director Antonia Bird’s Ravenous is a bizarre amalgamation of humor and horror that explores cannibalism with warped nuance. The strangely cacophonous score builds up tension as craven outcasts face a glutinous and depraved attacker whose strength seems fortified by his consumption of human flesh. Set during America’s westward expansion, the metaphor of humanity’s insatiable appetite for power is plain to see, but its execution indulges in such...

After premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Belgian auteur Fabrice du Welz’s excellent fourth feature Alleluia went on to play in the esteemed Vanguard lineup in the Toronto International Film Festival before nabbing Best Actor and Actress awards at Fantastic Fest for superb performances from Laurent Lucas and Lola Duenas. Although this didn’t translate into notable box office profit for Us distributor Music Box Films (released in mid-July for a limited theatrical run, the title didn’t crack ten grand in its paltry five week run), du Welz’s beautiful cult-classic in the making will eventually secure a greater following. A recent Blu-ray re-release of Criterion Collection’s presentation of the 1969 Leonard Kastle film, The Honeymoon Killers, based on the same romantic killing spree, should funnel some attention to it, as well as du Welz’s break into English language in 2016 with his next title.

In the Mood For Love: Du Welz Returns With Gloriously Dark Rendering of Insatiable Passion

His first film since 2008’s underappreciated Vinyan, Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz debuts the second installment in his proposed Ardennes trilogy, Alleluia. His 2004 directorial debut, Calvaire (aka The Ordeal) depicted a rather hellacious account of a singer whose car breaks down in the middle of the woods, stranding him in the midst of a very strange and terrifying rural community. Here, Du Welz bases his latest madness on the true account of serial killing couple Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, a case that famously inspired the 1969 film The Honeymoon Killers and 1996’s Deep Crimson, amongst others. But Du Welz hardly unveils a simple account of unhinged, obsessive love. His is a demonic hymnal of passion, a darkly droll exercise in the delusory notion of love as an unhealthy obsession told with aggressive flourish. But...

Xavier Dolan, Sophie Marceau and Sienna Miller also among those on the Cannes Film Festival’s Competition jury

The Cannes Film Festival has named the jury for its 68th edition, comprising nine world cinema names from Canada, Spain, the Us, UK, France, Mali and Mexico.

Us filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, who won the Palme d’Or in 1991 for Barton Fink and the Grand Prize of the Jury in 2013 with Inside Llewyn Davis, were previously announced as co-presidents of the jury, which will include four women and five men.

The jury will select from the films in Competition, with prize winners to be announced on stage at a ceremony on May 24. The winner of the Palme d’or will be screened during the festival’s closing evening on May 25, in the presence of the jury and the entire team of the winning film.

Click here for full line-up of filmsTHE Jury

Joel & Ethan Coen (Presidents) Directors, Writers...

Xavier Dolan, Sophie Marceau and Sienna Miller also among those on the Cannes Film Festival’s Competition jury

The Cannes Film Festival has named the jury for its 68th edition, comprising nine world cinema names from Canada, Spain, the Us, UK, France, Mali and Mexico.

Us filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, who won the Palme d’Or in 1991 for Barton Fink and the Grand Prize of the Jury in 2013 with Inside Llewyn Davis, were previously announced as co-presidents of the jury, which will include four women and five men.

The jury will select from the films in Competition, with prize winners to be announced on stage at a ceremony on May 24. The winner of the Palme d’or will be screened during the festival’s closing evening on May 25, in the presence of the jury and the entire team of the winning film.

The Jury

Joel & Ethan Coen (Presidents) Directors, Writers, Producers...

On My Skin: Barraud Explores the Essence of Monstrosity

There are moments within Antoine Barraud’s sophomore feature Portrait of the Artist that tend to feel enlivened with an arresting strangeness. There is the peripherally entertaining notion of provocative body horror shadowing us while we follow a filmmaker creating his latest project, simultaneously losing his grip on reality. But more often than not, the film feels like a thriller version of Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery. Barraud’s French language title, Le Dos Rouge (basically The Red Back) was perhaps too literal of a title, and the allusion to Joyce’s classic text (though this is really more ‘as a middle aged man’) gives it a certain extra textual density since Joyce’s novel is an allusion to Daedalus, the man responsible for constructing the Labyrinth which entombed the deadly Minotaur in Greek Mythology.

Bertrand (Bertrand Bonello) is a filmmaker...

Coming of rage! That’s so good! Psychic rage is coming back. Though the Carrie remake failed to ignite much passion, films like Marina de Van’s Dark Touch, Joe Begos’ recently announced The Mind’s Eye and L Gustavo Cooper’s upcoming June are keeping sorely missed subgenre alive. June, which has been a presence at Industry markets last summer and online with a very…

The post New Poster: Psychic Ability Horror June Makes a Killer Pun appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Stars: Missy Keating, Marcella Plunkett, Padraic Delaney, Charlotte Flyvholm, Stephen Wall, Robert Donnelly, Susie Power, Richard Dormer, Catherine Walker, Simon Boyle, Olga Wehrly, Mark Huberman, Katie Kirby, Clare Barrett, Art Parkinson | Written and Directed by Marina de Van

Dark Touch is the story of an eleven year old girl called Niamh (Missy Keating) whose parents and baby brother are killed when household objects seemingly begin to attack them of their own accord. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Niamh’s declarations of supernatural events occurring at the family home and goes to live with family friends but the mysterious occurrences start to happen again and the nightmarish horrors of Niamh’s past return to claim more victims.

Featuring a French crew and an Irish cast and one wonders if something drastic was lost in translation…

Dark Touch is apparently a film about child abuse but it misjudges...

Click here to read our french "Dark Touch" movie review, directed by Marina de Van with Missy Keating, Marcella Plunkett, Padraic Delaney starring.In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Niamh finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve's explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful neighbors Nat and Lucas take her in with the supervision of a social worker. Neve has trouble finding peace with the wholesome and nurturing couple, and horrific danger continues to manifest....

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

If Stephen King had written Matilda instead of Roald Dahl, it might look something like Dark Touch. This bizarre little movie is the creation of writer/director Marina de Van who became infamous after 2002's In My Skin, a film in which the protagonist eats her own flesh. Dark Touch is similarly not for the faint of heart, but for people with similar horror sensibilities, they will get more than they expected from this grade-school Carrie.

After her entire family is brutally murdered, Neve (Marie Missy Keating) goes to live with friends of her parents until a more permanent home can be found. Neve believes that her family's house was haunted and that evil spirits killed her parents and brother, but after leaving the house, unexplainable supernatural events keep happening whenever Neve is upset or frightened. Her foster parents try to be understanding, but they...

IFC Midnight just dropped the release details and artwork for one of their latest home video offerings, Dark Touch, and we have everything you need to see and know right here! Check it out!

Look for it on DVD this coming January 28th.

Synopsis:

After a mysterious and bloody massacre in her isolated country house leaves her parents and younger brother dead, 11-year-old Neve (Missy Keating, The Sea) is taken by police to friends of the family to be looked after.

When Neve tries to explain that an evil force within the house caused the deaths, she's met with disbelief from both the authorities and her new family. But before long it becomes apparent that whatever killed her family has followed Neve to her new home, and soon she and all those around her are in mortal danger of some malevolent power that seems to be tied to the unfortunate girl.

There are big movies and there are little movies. I mean that entirely in the sense of budget and release, promotion and theatrical scope. In the United States we talk most about our wide studio releases, then homegrown smaller independent films and the big-name foreign imports. But that leaves quality filmmaking to fall through the cracks. Movies that, for one reason or another, no one seems to be talking about. There are overlooked gems, and then there are the deep cuts. The homegrown niche dramas, the Irish horror flicks, the Latin American comedies, the Scandinavian experiments in nonfiction? This year saw some extraordinary unheralded work from abroad, alongside some excellent films that came from unexpected domestic places. Here are thirteen of them. Concussion There aren’t enough independent lesbian dramas (or comedies, for that matter) released in the United States. This is actually a mathematical fact, given the near impossibility of funding projects like Concussion. So...

Get ready for 10 truly terrifying nights when Washington, D.C.’s Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival haunts the AFI Silver Theatre on Oct 10-19 for the fest’s 8th annual edition.

Things really jolt alive on the 10th with the Opening Night film Willow Creek, a surprising genre entry by comedian-turned-director Bobcat Goldthwait, who tells the tale about a couple of amateur Bigfoot hunters who get in way over their heads in the woods. Goldthwait will be on hand for a post-screening Q&A moderated by Film Comment‘s Laura Kern. Also playing on this opening night are a program of scary short films and the feature An American Terror, a post-Columbine fright flick by Haylar Garcia.

As for the other nine nights, sticking true to the “International” in the fest’s name are movies such as the Ireland/France/Sweden co-production Dark Touch by Marina de Van about...

On the outside, the English-language debut of French director Marina de Van looks like a traditional supernatural thriller, complete with a requisite “creepy” kid, and mysterious telekinetic powers. On the inside, Dark Touch is a heartrendingly sad, unflinchingly intimate exploration of the trauma of abuse: a horror movie that draws its nightmares from the sordid, squalid corners of real life. While de Van is possibly best known for her 2002 art house self-cannibalism shocker In My Skin, her latest feature proves that her ability to viscerally assault and disturb audiences remains undeterred.

Set in a bleak, isolated Irish village, the film centers around eight year old Niamh (played by a mesmerizing Missy Keating). Niamh’s parents and younger brother are brutally killed after their home appears to turn on them when inanimate objects and innocuous furniture are possessed by a murderous, destructive rage. Niamh, the only witness to the tragedy, is...

The horror genre is rife with awful and evil parents permanently scarring their children, from Norma Bates and Margaret White to Pamela Voorhees, and several more. An intriguing new film from IFC, Dark Touch, touches on many of these themes, including a horrifying portrait of child abuse, as a girl is haunted by her past, and untold demons. The film, from Marina de Van, is now available on VOD and available on SundanceNOW.

We’re thrilled to offer you the chance to see this film for free by entering this week’s contest on FM. One lucky horror fan will get the chance to see this film for free. All you have to do to enter this unique giveaway, is tweet @FMWolfmandy your favorite (or least favorite) mother and/or father from a horror movie. A random winner will be selected by Wednesday 12 Pm Pt, and an online code for...

If Only They Knew She Had the Power: De Van’s Somber Telekinetic Exercise Lacks Verve

Previously a scribe and actress for Francois Ozon in some of his early works, Marina De Van has become a notable director in her own right, mostly due to a phenomenal debut with 2002’s In My Skin, in which she stars as a woman obsessed with cutting off parts of herself…and eating it. While she consistently delves into matters of the grotesque, she hasn’t quite matched the intensity of her first feature, though odd and offbeat often describe her works, such as the schizoid 2009 Bellucci/Marceau headliner Don’t Look Back. Her latest film, Dark Touch, set in Ireland and filmed in English, has her signature ambiguous menace in an otherwise straightforward genre effort focused on an abused preadolescent female with telekinetic powers. Unfortunately, the film will have you recall Carrie more...

Elegantly atmospheric indie horror drama plumbs typically unseen depths of children’s coping mechanisms in the face of terrible real-life experience. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

A young girl, Niamh (amazing and heartbreaking Missy Keating), is the only survivor of a violent attack on her family home in the remote Irish countryside, which kills her parents and her infant brother. The cops figure it to be the work of vandals, Niamh (pronounced “Neve”) insists it was the house itself… but we saw what happened, and damned if it didn’t look like some sort of telekinetic storm that the girl herself manifested. But why? We know, from our history with horror flicks, that this sort of event doesn’t happen out of the blue but as a reaction to something far worse. And we know,...

IFC will release Dark Touch on September 27th and writer/director Marina de Van took part in a brief Q&A with us to discuss her work on the movie.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Can you tell our readers how Dark Touch came to be your latest project? Why was this a story that you wanted to take on as both a writer and director?

Marina de Van: Because It’S A Very Personal Subject, A Subject Which Touches Me Deeply, And I Always Want To Direct The Movies That I Write When It’S About A Subject That Touches Me. I Don’T Know Why I’M Touched By It, Maybe Because The Damages Of Child Abuse Are Permanent, According To Me, And Bring Obstacles To Feel Free And Well In The World, To Feel In A Good Place And Safe, Which...

A family experiences some extreme paranormal activity in an exclusive clip we have received for Dark Touch.

IFC is bringing the UK thriller to the States this Friday. Check out the clip after the jump.

In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve’s explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful neighbors Nat and Lucas take her in with the supervision of a social worker. Neve has trouble finding peace with the wholesome and nurturing couple, and horrific danger continues to manifest. Haunted objects, an eerie score and a moody, oneiric look complement this intense and frightening peek into child abuse and the searing imagination of writer/director Marina de Van.

Read more...

Marina de Van's latest thriller Dark Touch hits selected theaters, VOD, and SundanceNowon September 27th and you could see the film for free!In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve's explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful neighbors Nat and Lucas take her in with the supervision of a social worker. Neve has trouble finding peace with the wholesome and nurturing couple, and horrific danger continues to manifest. Haunted objects, an eerie score and a moody, oneiric look complement this intense and frightening peek into child abuse and the searing imagination of writer/director...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

If you wanted to describe the excellent new horror film from Ireland called Dark Touch as "Carrie Junior," you wouldn't be all that much off the mark, at least not on a surface level. But there's a lot more to the film than just one angry young girl and a bunch of flying furniture. Despite a handful of familiar components and a whole lot of telekinetic mayhem, Dark Touch is not so much a Carrie acolyte as it is one seriously frank and powerful horror film about the disastrous and irrevocable effects of child abuse.

  Written and directed by Marina de Van (In My Skin, Don't Look Back), Dark Touch opens in an oddly disconcerting fashion -- a strange little girl wanders into a neighbor's house with all sorts of bizarre injuries -- slowly settles into a fairly conventional tale of well-meaning foster parents and their insidious new charge. But...

It seems like every few years we get another one of these scary kids movies and while Marina de Van's Dark Touch doesn't seem to offer anything new, the trailer suggests that this one may be worth keeping an eye out for. It certainly helps that de Van's track record is quite solid.

The story unfolds in a remote Irish town where a young girl is the sole survivor of a massacre. Neve is adamant that the house is responsible for the deaths of her family (or more accurately, something supernatural in the house) while the police think it was the work of homicidal vandals. Neve is taken in by the neighbours but of course, bad things start to happen there too.

Yeah, been there done that. I know. But the trailer is very effective with its music, visuals and effects.

Dark Touch [Continued ...]...

Prepare yourself for suspense with IFC Midnight’s latest film, Dark Touch. French filmmaker Marina De Van’s (In My Skin) latest eerie and intense thriller dives straight into the darkness that can possess a child’s heart.

In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve’s explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful neighbors Nat and Lucas take her in with the supervision of a social worker. Neve has trouble finding peace with the wholesome and nurturing couple, and horrific danger continues to manifest. Haunted objects, an eerie score and a moody, oneiric look complement this intense and frightening peek into child abuse and the searing imagination of writer/director Marina de Van.

The film stars Missy Keating,...

What’s creepier than creepy kids and a creepy house? A creepy kid In a creepy house. That’s what you get in “Don’t Look Back” director Marina De Van’s very creepy new horror flick “Dark Touch”. I got goosebumps watching the trailer for this thing. A good night kiss has never been, well, creepier. Check out the trailer for “Dark Touch” and some images, including a poster below. In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve’s explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful neighbors Nat and Lucas take her in with the supervision of a social worker. Neve has trouble finding peace with the wholesome and nurturing couple, and horrific danger continues to manifest.

We recently brought you news that IFC will release Marina de Van’s Dark Touch on September 27th. Here’s a look at the newly released Dark Touch trailer:

“At night, an isolated house deep in the countryside takes on a monstrous life of its own.

Objects and furniture run riot against the inhabitants, leaving 11-year-old Neve the only survivor of a bloody massacre that destroys the bodies of her parents and culminates in the death of her little brother, Ciaran.

Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve when she tries to tell them about the murderous rage of the house. She is taken in by friends of her parents who, with the help of a local social worker, try to ease her trauma by surrounding her with love and rebuilding the semblance of a normal life. But Neve doesn’t find peace. Far from it…

All around her,...

IFC debuted the trailer for Dark Touch, which opens in limited release on September 27th. Head inside for a look!

In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve’s explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful neighbors Nat and Lucas take her in with the supervision of a social worker. Neve has trouble finding peace with the wholesome and nurturing couple, and horrific danger continues to manifest. Haunted objects, an eerie score and a moody, oneiric look complement this intense and frightening peek into child abuse and the searing imagination of writer/director Marina de Van.

Read more...

Watch the trailer, check out an eerie poster and browse through these new photos from Marina De Van's (In My Skin) intense thriller starring Missy Keating, Marcella Plunkett, Padraic Delaney, Catherin Walker, Richard Dormer, Charlotte Flyvholm, Stephen Wall, Susie Power, Ella Hayes, Robert Donnelly, Art Parkinson, Mark Huberman, Olgy Wehrly, Laoise Murphy and Clare Barrett, "In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve’s explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful...

Dark Touch is an international film which was shot in Ireland. This horror title deals with the parental abuse of a young child. The film's disturbing matter is alluded to in the early promotional material for Dark Touch (left). The film's story follows Niamh (Missy Keating). She is the sole survivor of a brutal massacre, which leaves her parents dead. Niamh believes that her own home is responsible for their deaths, but no one will listen. Who is responsible for her parents' murder and can they be found before more violence finds Niamh? IFC Films will distribute Dark Touch in North America. The release date for the film is September 27th, 2013 on Video-on-demand. Fans of psychological horror titles can preview the available info' on the film here: a film poster and early still. Release Date: September 27, 2013 (VOD) Director/writer: Marina de Van. Cast: Padraic Delaney, Robert Donnelly, Charlotte Flyvholm, Ella Hayes,...

IFC will release Marina de Van’s Dark Touch later this month and we’ve been provided with a new poster and photos. The film will be released in the Us simultaneously on VOD, digital outlets, and select theaters on September 27th:

“At night, an isolated house deep in the countryside takes on a monstrous life of its own.

Objects and furniture run riot against the inhabitants, leaving 11-year-old Neve the only survivor of a bloody massacre that destroys the bodies of her parents and culminates in the death of her little brother, Ciaran.

Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve when she tries to tell them about the murderous rage of the house. She is taken in by friends of her parents who, with the help of a local social worker, try to ease her trauma by surrounding her with love and rebuilding the semblance of a normal life.

IFC Midnight acquired the UK thriller Dark Touch out of the Tribeca Film Fest earlier this year and, today, we're learning that the film is arriving on September 27th.

Written and directed by Marina de Van, you can find stills from the film via this link.

In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve’s explanation that the house is the culprit. To help ease her trauma, dutiful neighbors Nat and Lucas take her in with the supervision of a social worker.

Read more...

Monday

The fifth and final day of Frightfest mercifully began a little later than the preceding days, a boon to many now slightly flagging and delirious film fans. Unfortunately, the first film on the main screen was the single worst feature I caught at the festival. Dark Touch (Marina De Van) features a French crew and an Irish cast and one wonders if something drastic was lost in translation. It’s the story of an eleven year old girl called Niamh (Marie Missy Keating) whose parents and baby brother are killed when household objects seemingly begin to attack them of their own accord. She goes to live with family friends but the mysterious occurrences start to happen again.

It’s apparently a film about child abuse but it misjudges its take on this very difficult subject so badly, it’s borderline offensive. It’s also just stupid. If I were...

Marina de Van's poem of telekinesis and terror Dark Touch took home the H.R. Giger Narcisse Award when all was said and done at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival this past Saturday. Twitch's Joshua Chaplinsky's feelings were decidedly mixed when he reviewed it in April, noting: [de Van] certainly knows how to make a good looking film, and is adept at setting up an atmosphere of dread and delivering visceral bursts of violence. But after you hook the audience with a visually arresting setup you have to follow it up with this pesky thing called a story, and this one just didn't work for me.The film also took the Mad Movies award for "Maddest" film, and the Youth Award to boot. You'll just have to...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Marina de Van’s horror movie has won the top prize at the 13th Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff).See below for full list of winners

Dark Touch, a supernatural horror film that centres on an 11-year-old girl, was handed the Hr Giger Narcisse Award for best feature in the international competition, which includes a $10,500 (10000Chf) prize.

The international jury said it “appreciated the original way in which the horror genre was combined with a moralistic fairy tale. The director was able to use the supernatural in order to reach a certain truth that revealed an invisible aspect of reality.”

The film, sold by Wild Bunch, also won the Denis-de-Rougemont Youth Award and Mad Movies Award.

A special mention went to Swiss horror Chimères by Olivier Beguin.

The international jury was headed by French producer François Cognard and comprised Frederike Dellert, Kim Newman, Orson Scott Card and Jean-François Rauger.

The festival...

The full Fantasia 2013 lineup has now been revealed, and we have here the third and final wave of titles to share. Prepare to drool!

From the Press Release:

The Fantasia International Film Festival is proud to announce the rest of our 120-feature lineup that comprises our 2013 event, along with a string of additional details that mark our 17th edition as a standout. Fantasia will engulf the city of Montreal from July 18-August 6, 2013. Be sure to visit the Fantasia Film Festival website for detailed essays on every title announced here, as well as all films previously disclosed over the last weeks.

Before we get started on titles... Meet Our 2013 Juries

Main Competition For The Cheval Noir Award For Best Film

Jury President: Laura Kern (Critic, Curator, managing editor, Film Comment)

Jean-Pierre Bergeron (Actor, Director, Screenwriter)

Samuel Jamier (Co-Director of the New York Asian Film Festival, Programmer at Japan Society)

Jarod Neece (Senior Programmer and Operations Manager,...

The Fantasia Film Festival is taking place from July 18th to August 6th in Montreal and will feature over 100 films from around the world. We gave you a look at the initial lineup last month and now have an additional list of Fantasia 2013 films that will be screening, including Curse of Chucky, You’re Next, and Frankenstein’s Army:

Horror Is Child’S Play – Don Mancini’S Curse Of Chucky (World Premiere)

A rarity among genre franchises, the Child’S Play series (begun in 1988) has retained the sure-handed guidance of original screenwriter/creator Don Mancini throughout killer doll Chucky’s decades’-long reign of horror. Mancini, who will be hosting our “scar-studded” world premiere, graduated to the director’s chair with 2004’s Seed Of Chucky, after having co-written or written every entry in the series. His longevity with the project is, of course, matched by the fiendish voiceover work by...

A fresh crop of new images from several of the flicks playing at this year's Film4 FrightFest have come our way and we're dishing 'em right here to ya! Check out new eye candy for Cheap Thrills, Odd Thomas, The Conspiracy, and Wither.

From the Press Release:

Are you ready for a spine-chilling global avalanche of Indian zombies, Israeli oldboys, vengeance-crazed Vikings, Swedish mesmerists, Irish telekinesis, Argentine undead, Aussie bone-crushers, murderous Mormons and Chilean assassins?

Film4 FrightFest 2013, returning for its 4teenth year, is delighted to unveil its biggest lineup in history. From Thurs 22 August to Monday 26 August, the UK’s leading event for genre fans will be at the Empire Cinema in London’s Leicester Square to present 51 films on three screens. Empire 1 will house the main event while the Discovery strands will play in Empires 2 & 4. The new FrightFest Xtra strand, also in Screen 2, will allow fans to catch up...

From the press release:

Are you ready for a spine-chilling global avalanche of Indian zombies, Israeli oldboys, vengeance-crazed Vikings, Swedish mesmerists, Irish telekinesis, Argentine undead, Aussie bone-crushers, murderous Mormons and Chilean assassins?

Film4 FrightFest 2013, returning for its 4teenth year, has unveiled its biggest line-up in history. From Thurs 22 August to Monday 26 August, the UK’s leading event for genre fans will be at the Empire Cinema in London’s Leicester Square to present 51 films on three screens. Empire 1 will house the main event while the Discovery strands will play in Empires 2 & 4. The new FrightFest Xtra strand, also in Screen 2, will allow fans to catch up with sold-out performances of the most popular attractions.

This year there are eleven countries representing five continents with a record-breaking thirty-three UK or European premieres and ten world premieres.

The world premieres include our opening night attraction The Dead 2: India from the Ford Brothers,...

If you've been jealous of our UK brothers and sisters in years past because of the incredible lineup offered by the Film4 FrightFest, well, you ain't seen nothing yet! Check out what they have on the menu for 2013 along with a ridiculous amount of new images from several of the films.

From the Press Release:

Are you ready for a spine-chilling global avalanche of Indian zombies, Israeli oldboys, vengeance-crazed Vikings, Swedish mesmerists, Irish telekinesis, Argentine undead, Aussie bone-crushers, murderous Mormons and Chilean assassins?

Film4 FrightFest 2013, returning for its 4teenth year, is delighted to unveil its biggest lineup in history. From Thurs 22 August to Monday 26 August, the UK’s leading event for genre fans will be at the Empire Cinema in London’s Leicester Square to present 51 films on three screens. Empire 1 will house the main event while the Discovery strands will play in Empires 2 & 4. The new FrightFest Xtra strand, also...

Are you ready for a spine-chilling global avalanche of Indian zombies, Israeli oldboys, vengeance-crazed Vikings, Swedish mesmerists, Irish telekinesis, Argentine undead, Aussie bone-crushers, murderous Mormons and Chilean assassins? Film4 FrightFest 2013, returning for its 4teenth year, unveiling its biggest (and we mean Huge) line-up in history. From Thurs 22 August to Monday 26 August, the UK’s leading event for genre fans will be at the Empire Cinema in London’s Leicester Square to present 51 films on three screens. Empire 1 will house the main event while the Discovery strands will play in Empires 2 & 4. The new FrightFest Xtra strand, also in Screen 2, will allow fans to catch up with sold-out performances of the most popular attractions. This year there are eleven countries representing five continents with a record-breaking thirty-three UK or European premieres and ten world premieres. The world premieres include our opening night attraction The Dead 2: India from the Ford Brothers, Banshee Chapter,...

Female writer director Marina de Van has crafted a powerful take on the Carrie inspired horror film. De Van who earlier helmed the gruesome underrated and Cronenberg inspired In My Skin gives us a very different movie to that one. Dark Touch is an emotionally searing film one that shatters your emotions and leaves you with a deep sense of sadness. At its heart Dark Touch is about the long lasting effects of child abuse and the scars that it leaves both physical and emotional. This gives it a heavy weight that makes the movie mature and complex. Its not a lighthearted fun romp by any stretch of the phrase.

Believe me, I get it. I didn't especially want to see a movie about a little girl being sexually abused either. Honestly if I'd known that was the plot, I probably would have skipped the film entirely. But that's the beauty of any film festival-- it encourages you to step into a theater to see a film you know almost nothing about, and allows you to push your own comfort zone by encountering a director you've never heard of, and a film unlike almost anything else. Well, that's not entirely true. Dark Touch, the fourth feature from French director Marina de Van, owes a great debt to Carrie, unspooling a story about a young girl who's experienced severe trauma and develops kinetic powers to cope. Neve (Marie Missy Keating) is a luminously pretty but reserved 11-year-old who shows up at the neighbors' house one night covered in blood and screaming,...

Toward the end of Dark Touch, a girls-gone-Carrie nightmare of flying knives and pencil-porcupined corpses, director Marina de Van offers up an unsettling vision of just what it is decent people enjoy about the kind of just-pretend pain and disfigurement that this film so adeptly exploits. A flock of little girls sit on the lawn at a birthday party, playing with their dollies, plastic-craniumed babies with just the kind of dead eyes you might expect. The group is creeped out by the weird girl, Neve (Marie Missy Keating), a pale and brooding brunette invited to the party by concerned mothers, and whose eyes--wouldn't you know it!--also are deadened to the point of spookiness.

The girls, discomfited, begin abusing their dolls: slapping them together, denting the skul...

The day after her film Dark Touch premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, I got the chance to sit down with the film's writer and director Marina de Van and ask her a few questions about the film and her philosophy toward filmmaking. Why does she tackle such dark subject matter? What was her favorite scene to film, and which one was just painful? Why does pop culture love telekinetic girls like Carrie, Matilda, and Neve? All these questions answered and more.

Read more...