SplatterPornSpecial

Men, Women and Chainsaws

To show, reveal, fragment - the aesthetics of splatter film and pornography have much more in common than the first sight reveals. While already in the late 80s feminist film academics such as Linda Williams ("Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible") or Carol J. Clover ("Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film") were researching the structural similarities of these two body genres (Williams) in the USA, such blended thoughts were unheard-of in Germany's often rather firmly structured film science and film journalism. Katharina Klewinghaus' documentary "Science Of Horror - If The Chainsaw Was A Penis" sparks up the fire of this old love affair, using a great number of interviews with filmmakers and academics complemented by film excerpts in a both informative and entertaining fashion. And that is a good enough reason for us to dive deep in the abyss of these two still banished genres with a theme focus section - and discover some buried Exploitation, Trash and Avantgarde gems.

The lecture on "Vampires, Zombies, Mummies and other Sex-Monsters" by Stefan Höltgen (Bonn) serves as an essential guide both to the wild world of Horror Porn and the festival's SplatterPornSpecial as well as a colourfully illustrated ride into a filmic parallel history - and if after that you haven't had nearly enough, you can spend the next 90 minutes dipping your fingers in the obscure trash universe of Edward Penishands! Guaranteed trash fun! The spectrum of the SplatterPornSpecial widens with "Forced Entry" (a true rediscovery and a festival must-see) and "A Gun For Jennifer"; two bright examples of maybe the most controversial and clearly most sexually charged subgenre of the splatter genre: the Rape-and-Revenge movie. Films that unravel the darkest tales of violence and counter-violence through the eyes of offenders ("Forced Entry") and victims ("A Gun For Jennifer"). Misogyny or extreme feminism? The decision will be yours... Sex and Horror literally meet each other, diguised as the filmmakers Pierre Woodman and Brian Yuzna, in a long and revealing, but also entertaining night in Prague: "Into the night with… Pierre Woodman & Brian Yuzna". The SplatterPornSpecial is completed by two very different films of the subgenre Vampire Porn: While Matthew Saliba's highly aesthetic homage to Jess Franco's classic "Vampyros Lesbos" needs a mere 20 minutes and a series of still images to narrate its bloody fairy tale, our last year's winner of the short film competition, New York porn auteur Joe Gallant, takes us one step further with "Hell's Kittens" - a feverish ride through an urban vision of hell. While the winter claws its way back into the city, our cinema screens are painted blood red - taking the spectator for a series of intense trips... the nights will be long and wild!

A Gun For Jennifer NX
26.10., 22.30 Uhr, Eiszeit 2
USA, 1996, 91 minutes, Todd Morris, English original version with German subtitles
A gang of raped women takes revenge against the chauvinist, violent male world around them.


Durch die Nacht mit… Pierre Woodman & Brian Yuzna H NX D SW
26.10., 16:15, Moviemento 2, with Matthew Saliba's "Vampyros Lesbos"
Germany, 2007, 52 minutes, Hasko Baumann, English original version
"One city, two artists, one night" is the formula for the meeting between the French pornographer Pierre Woodman and the American splatter director Brian Yuzna in Prague.


Edward Penishands H X
24.10., 22:15, Eiszeit 1, with "Filthy"
USA, 1991, 83 minutes, Paul Norman, English original version
A trashy, pornographic homage to Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" and a true party film.


Filthy L X F
24.10., 22:15, Eiszeit 1, with "Edward Penishands"
Brasilia, 2008, 17 minutes, Queer Fiction, Brasilian original version with English subtitles
The film shows the relationship among two girls that together discover the pleasures of the "flesh". "Filthy" is a dirty parody about innocence and the discovery of violence.


Forced Entry H X
23.10., 22:30, Moviemento 3
USA, 1973, 82 minutes, Shaun Costello, English original version
with an introduction by Stefan Höltgen (Bonn)
A traumatised war veteran turns into a brutal rapist and serial killer until he meets two hippie girls who shake up his world and show him sexual liberation.


Hell's Kittens. A Vampire Supermodel Love Story (Director's Cut) H X
25.10., 22:15, Eiszeit 1
USA, 2008, 82 minutes, Joe Gallant, English original version
Vapid model-trash find themselves fucked, bitten and turned by a new race of future-humans. The government is hot on everyone's trail, eager to wipe out this new breed. Anarchist polemic and hot, nasty, anal / atm throughout…


Science Of Horror - If The Chainsaw Was A Penis (Science of Horror - Wenn die Kettensäge zum Penis wird) D
24.10., 20:15, Eiszeit 1
Germany, 2008, 81 minutes, Katharina Klewinghaus, English original version with German subtitles
Horror films are pornographic and eroticise the abject. Yet, they relieve, they are humorous and challenge cultural taboos. "Science Of Horror" is the first documentary to analyze horror film from the perspective of feminist film critique. Carol Clover discovers the "final girl" in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", an androgynous but clearly feminine hero. Therewith, Clover delivers an essential formula of the genre and the foundation for further assumptions. Women are horror's favourite victims but also its heroes. The phallus, indicator of social power, becomes a flexible object in horror: The chainsaw in the "final girl's" hands allows a different look on the cultural norms of Western societies - the genre undermines heterosexual attribution. It is with that theory in mind, that Judith Halberstam develops a queer reading of the genre and illustrates along the "Chucky" series how explicitly sexuality runs through horror and which sexual vicissitudes the genre offers. Those theoretic assumptions are proven with citations from well-known horror films and confronted with statements of renowned filmmakers. Thus, the documentary is the first to lead a discourse between film theory and film practice. Wes Craven, John Carpenter and Tom Savini comment on their films and their fans. Bruce Campbell explains why he depicts a male victim in the "Evil Dead" movies. Joe Hill criticizes "torture porn" because of its shallowness, whereas Neil Marshall elucidates why "The Descent" consciously plays with audience's expectations. The documentary concludes that there is more to the genre than the sum of its effects. Horror is utterly unique.


Vampyros Lesbos H X
26.10., 16:15, Moviemento 2, with "Durch die Nacht mit … Pierre Woodman & Brian Yuzna"
Canada 2008, 20 minutes, Matthew Saliba, no dialogue
Linda is a bored and lonely housewife whose excursion into a world of sexual liberation with her lover Countess Nadine is tragically cut short when her cuckolded husband Omar brutally murders Nadine and then proceeds to give Linda what she really needs... a good "deep-dicking!"


Lecture with film clips (in German)
25.10., 20:30, Moviemento 3
Vampire, Zombies, Mumien und andere Sex-Monster. Über die Vermischung von Pornographie und Horrorfilm.
Stefan Höltgen, Bonn

Seit den 1970er Jahren, also der Blütezeit des Pornofilms, hat es immer wieder Versuche gegeben, diesen mit anderen Filmgenres zu kreuzen. Neben zumeist Kriminalfilm- und Thriller-Hybriden sind es vor allem Horrorstoffe, die besonders häufig in erzählenden Pornofilmen zu finden sind. Der Vortrag versucht einen Blick auf einige Vertreter dieser Horror-Porno-Hybride zu werfen und dabei vor allem die Monsterfilme, in sich denen die klassischen Figuren des Horrorkinos unversehens in Pornotopia wiederfinden, vorzustellen. Im Zentrum steht die Frage: Was haben die Monster und der Sex als filmische Phänomene gemeinsam und warum ist ihr Aufeinandertreffen im Pornofilm so überaus plausibel?

Stefan Höltgen (Jahrgang 1971) studierte zwischen 1996 und 2000 Germanistik, Philosophie, Soziologie und Medienwissenschaften an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. Seit 2003 lebt und arbeitet er in Bonn als freier Journalist und betreibt dort ein Dissertationsprojekt zu "Medien- und Gewaltdiskursen im authentischen Serienmörderfilm" an der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn. Neben Buchpublikationen und Herausgeberschaften schreibt er regelmäßig Kritiken, Rezensionen und Artikel für Magazine und Zeitschriften wie epd Film, Der Schnitt, telepolis, IASL u. a. Seit 2001 gibt er das Magazin F.LM - Texte zum Film heraus und betreibt seit 2003 das kulturwissenschaftliche Internetforum www.filmforen.de.

Abbreviations:
H = Heterosexual, S = Gay, L = Lesbian, T = Transgender, NX = does not contain explicit sex scenes, X = contains explicit sex scenes, D = documentary film, FT = Fetish, SW = Sexwork (films on sex work and prostitution), F = films made by female directors, A = animation