Pick your poison
On the 24th of October, Filmfest Aachen will kick off with its first event in the EDEN PALAST. One week before Halloween, we will take you into a world of clowns, witches, vampires, and other nightmares with PICK YOUR POISON. The event consists of two themed slots which run simultaneously in two halls, as a spectator you can choose between them. Our themes are FEMALE RAGE and NEW FLESH, covering a wide spectrum of possibilities from feminist imperative to post-humanist body horror.
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014)
This film is a Persian-language small-town neo-noir vampire thriller that breaks up the patriarchal role of the vampire, following the example of Vampyr (1932). A film that mixes femme fatale with the pale tones of the night. While terrifying in one moment, the film creates comfort and finds love as an answer to the rage.
SUSPIRIA (1977)
Suspiria is a classic – perhaps the best film by cult director Dario Argento – who explores the space between horror, thriller, colour, and blood with his giallo and black glove-clad murderer. Hardly any other film has such powerful imagery as Suspiria. The witch as a misogynistic symbol gets reversed into a position of power.
KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (1988)
Horror can be fun. And that’s exactly where this American B-movie picks up. What if the earth was attacked by aliens, but they turn out to be silly (but no less deadly) clowns? Well. The film takes us on a journey beneath the surface of body horror and finds there no philosophical dimensions but even more surfaces. The new flesh is the clown mask
TETSUO (1989)
Tetsuo is a pearl of film history, the centerpiece of Japanese underground cinema that also looks at what lies beneath our humanity. With avant-garde imagery and blood no less, this film explores the obsession with self-improvement as a fetishist is transformed further and further into metal. The film has already been read as queer, anti-capitalist, or surreal; a Japanese-Eraserhead.