The Trailers of TIFF (part two)

Sexykiller
Spain

From the trailer, Sexykiller looks like Sam Raimi and Pedro Almodovar had a baby and let John Waters raise it. The story follows a fashionista medical student who moonlights as a serial killer. Zombies are involved. Looks like a lot of fun.

Chocolate
Thailand

The team that introduced Tony Jaa to the world thinks they've found a new star in JeeJa Yanin and they might just be right. Chocolate's storyline could be be a bit dodgy for Western audiences (an autistic girl becomes a martial arts expert through a lifetime of watching Kung Fu movies) and we're almost guaranteed a few scenes of eye-rollingly over-the-top sentimentality, but hey, nobody watches these films for the plot. JeeJa looks pretty amazing and in the trailer you can see they're going for Jackie Chan-style "does her own stunts and has the scars to prove it" filmmaking.

Acolytes
Australia

After finding a dead body, a trio of Aussie teens suspect their local neighborhood psychopath and attempt to use the body to blackmail him. As it always does, the blackmail backfires and they find themselves caught up in a nightmare come to life.

Sauna
Finland

Taking place on the Finnish-Russian border in the 16th Century, Sauna follows two brothers who are haunted by the spirit of a girl they allowed to die. Taking refuge in a sauna they find it's not so easy to wash some sins away. If nothing else, Sauna certainly looks like it could be a unique and intelligent change from typical horror fare.

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JCVD
Belgium

There's a lot of buzz around JCVD if for no other reason than it stars Jean Claude Van Damme playing a washed up action star named Jean Claude Van Damme who is dealing with tax problems and custody battle for his daughter and returns to his home country of Belgium where he is caught in the middle of a bank heist and has the chance to be a real life action hero. Got that?

Not Quite Hollywood
Australia

Crikey. After watching this trailer I realize I've got a lot of catching up to do on Australian genre movies. Not Quite Hollywood is a documentary covering the "Ozploitation" movies of the 70's and 80's that featured enough sex, violence, horror and action to fill a whole section of a 1980's video store. (Warning: trailer is awesomely NSFW. It also features Quentin Tarantino getting overexcited.)

The Rest

Just a few of the other films you might want to keep an eye out for are The Wresler, Darren Aronofsky's film about an aging wrestler that's already generating a lot of Oscar buzz for Mickey Rourke, Deadgirl, a coming-of-age film about a couple of teens who find a body that may or may not be dead, and Pontypool, the new film from Canadian cult director Bruce McDonald with the very William S. Burroughs-esque premise of a virus that is transmitted through speech.

John Shelton

Editor-In-Chief/Homeless Professor

Born and raised in the back of a video store, Shelton went beyond the hills and crossed the seven seas as BGH's foreign correspondent before settling into a tenure hosting Sophisticult Cinema. He enjoys the finer things in life, including but not limited to breakfast tacos, vintage paperbacks and retired racing greyhounds.