All posts by El Rob Hubbard

366 UNDERGROUND: THE VAMPIRES OF NEW ORLEANS (2026)

October 20, 2026 El Rob Hubbard Leave a comment

FEATURING: Courtnee Carter, Linnea Gregg, Andrew Rakich, Benton Guinness, Monica R. Harris, Mekhai Lee, Josh Popa, Carl Sailor, Matthew Van Gessell, Kendra Unique

PLOT: When Brigitte Jackson’s sister is found dead under mysterious circumstances on the streets of New Orleans, she begins an investigation which leads her to a trinity of vampires; interspersed with this story is documentary footage exploring the city’s vampire heritage.

COMMENTS: “Y’all believe in vampires?”

It begins with the clap of a slate and an interview with “Sanguinarian Vampire” couple “Louis De Pointe Du Lac” and “Lestat De Lioncourt,” who found each other and moved to New Orleans’ French Quarter, in their words, “to live authentically regardless of society.” Then comes a series of interviews with various experts on “lifestyle vampires,” people self-identifying as vampires. This phenomenon appears to have started in the 1970s –80s in the NYC occult scene and grown in the1990s, with the Internet allowing more people to connect and converge on New Orleans to “live the Life.”

America has a love affair with vampires. They’re almost inescapable, everywhere you look.

Atun-Shei Film’s The Vampires Of New Orleans, a follow-up to their independent debut feature The Sudbury Devil, brings that same energy and cheek to a survey of tortured Americana that promises to be “the final word on the New Orleans Vampire as a pop culture figure.” It’s a big swing for an experimental docudrama. An epic one, in fact, clocking in at 159 minutes (including an Overture and Entr’acte, like a Hollywood roadshow picture). It will be interesting to see how audiences receive it.

The main narrative which hits the expected tropes of a vampire tale. Shania Jackson (Unique) is abducted by Nate Debney (Guiness), the human familiar for Jean-Louis D’Hemecourt (Rakich). D’Hemecourt has two sires: Josephine Macarti (Gregg) a Southern Belle turned vampire after her husband’s death in the Civil War, and the Axeman of New Orleans (Sailor), a (real) serial killer who preyed on Italian immigrants in 1918–19. This trio has been hunting and feeding in New Orleans for some time, with D’Hemecourt stressing that he “does not kill humans”—“humans” defined as “Whites.” Shania’s sister, Brigitte (Carter) crosses the path of the vamps while looking into the death, and with the assistance of her aunt Saffron (Harris) and street hustler/Voudon priest Dr. Tom (Lee) attempts to avenge her sister. It doesn’t play out as easily as they may hope.

It’s a straightforward narrative, but it’s all interspersed with those “expert” interviews—historians, tour guides, vampires (Sanguinarian and psychic)—who provide context and commentary on vampire folklore, specifically that which involves New Orleans: the LaLaurie Mansion, the Casquette (casket) Girls, Jacques St. Germain, and the Axeman. They also provide a critique. While there proves to be rich and horrific historical lore in New Orleans, most, if not all, pertaining to vampires stems from a single source: Anne Rice’s “Interview With The Vampire,” published in the early to mid 70s, which fed the fantasies of self-identifying vamps and their acolytes and created a cottage industry of ghost tourism goosing up dry historical facts with the hook of the lurid supernatural. As one interviewee states, they’re “very grateful to Anne Rice for the tourism she brought.” “Interview” also helped sanitize the image of the vampire from the bloated, pestilent corpse depicted in European lore into a dark romantic figure, the aristocrat of Southern Gothic tales.

The real history became superseded by fictional legend: “a form of cultural amnesia, because Americans don’t like to face their real history; fictional stories drag us away from facing reality,” as one interviewee states. Vampires uses the fiction of D’Hemecourt to tell the actual stories it wants to impart about the metaphorical vampires of New Orleans: corporate tourism replacing the soul of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; incarcerated labor as modern slavery, multi-generational poor communities turned into modern plantations. It may throw audiences expecting a more conventional vampire tale, but it’s rewarding for those willing to set expectations aside and go with the flow. The performances are good (most of the cast are veterans of Sudbury Devil). The length might be an issue for some, but the film doesn’t drag, helped immensely by Dillon Derosa’s score, which is as epic as the scope of the film.

The Vampires Of New Orleans is available to rent or buy via Atun-Shei Films’ website, and will drop on YouTube on 10/31: Halloween.

I think this movie is weirder than average

I think this movie is better than average

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ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS: A COMPENDIUM OF FOLK HORROR, VOLUME 2

October 28, 2025 El Rob Hubbard Leave a comment

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Severin Films. 13 disc set.

Severin Films continues their groundbreaking folk-horror “college course in a box” set with the second semester. Expanding and exploring on themes and offering more selections to discover and debate, this time around it has 24 features representing 18 countries, along with tons of extras. Acknowledging the literary roots of the genre, Vol. 2 also comes with a 250 page book, “A Folk Horror Storybook,” a collection of 12 short stories by noted writers in the genre—Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman, Cassandra Khaw amongst them—with an introduction by Kier-La Janisse, who returns as producer/curator of the whole shebang. The “expansion of themes” may cause some to feel cheated, as there are only a handful of films that fit the expected parameters of “horror” here. But that objection may be more of a failing of the viewer. There are elements of the frightful in all of the selections, and although perhaps “uncanny” or “spectral” would be better terms, “horror” makes for a good umbrella.

Still from To Fire You Come At Last (2023) — To Fire You Come At Last

Disc 1 features the UK with a film by writer Sean (“England’s Screaming”) Hogan, To Fire You Come At Last (2023), a knowing homage to BBC shows like “Dead of Night” and “Ghost Stories For Christmas.” Four men carry a coffin to a graveyard along a “corpse road” and encounter dangers: from each other, and from something else. Bonus features include commentary by Hogan and producers, along with an earlier short by Hogan, “We Always Find Ourselves In The Sea,” also with commentary, and a separate featurette on corpse roads.

Paired with To Fire is Psychomania, a 1973 B-movie by Don Sharp involving juvenile delinquent bikers whose leader (Nicky Henson from Witchfinder General) learns the secret of returning from the dead—and promptly does it! He then starts recruiting the other members to follow suit. There’s witchery/devil/frog worship, George Sanders (in his last role), a sappy ballad, and lots of cycle action, making for some fine British cheese. This was a previous Severin release with featurettes about the actors and music, all which have been ported over, along with a new commentary by Hellebore Magazine editor Maria J. Perez Cuervo and a new short documentary on stone circles and standing stones.

Disc 2 focuses on two American features: The Enchanted (1984) with Julius Harris and Larry Miller (acting under the name Will Sennet), directed by Carter Lord, and 1973’s Who Fears The Devil? (AKA The Legend of Hillbilly John), with Hedges Capers and Severn Darden, directed by John Newland. Based on a story by Elizabeth Coatsworth, Continue reading ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS: A COMPENDIUM OF FOLK HORROR, VOLUME 2 →

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CAPSULE: GWEN AND THE BOOK OF SAND (1985)

July 16, 2025 El Rob Hubbard Leave a comment

Gwen Et Le Livre De Sable

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DIRECTED BY: Jean-François Laguionie

FEATURING: Voices of Michel Robin, Lorella DiCicco, Armand Babel, Raymond Jourdan, Jacques Ruisseau

PLOT: Sometime “After the gods have left…”, what remains is a desert landscape in which a few animals and nomads make their home; the only danger being the Makou, something that drops objects of various size onto the desert floor, forcing the nomads to live underground. Gwen, an orphan, falls in love with a strange boy, Nokmoon, who is taken away one night by the Makou. She and Roseline (a 173 year old woman) set off on a journey to retrieve him; in doing so, they encounter a mysterious cult.

Still from gwen and the book of sand (1985)

COMMENTS: The post-apocalyptic tale is a genre of its own, but when you take post-apocalypse and desert and put them together, you get The Road Warrior. It’s practically the template followed by its own sequels and countless homages/ripoffs. And when it comes to non-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy, the template is Dune. These stories are usually heavily plot-driven, with a relentless forward momentum.

Gwen is desert post-apocalypse in a poetic mode. The title might make one surmise that the title character will undergo a series of adventures and challenges for the next hour or so, but it’s not so. The movie is gentler than that. It’s paced leisurely; there is a plot, but it drives lightly. Instead, the film focuses on visuals: characters walking across the sands on stilts, landscapes littered with objects such as oversized utensils and eyeglasses, close-ups of the pincipals. And it’s all the more striking for being animated with a gouache paint palette, which softens things, giving the impression of a dream. (One visual reference that I twigged was Henri Rousseau’s “The Sleeping Gypsy.”)

Gwen is about mood and atmosphere: the surreality of the landscape, how the nomads live in this world, how they hunt, how they travel. There’s little explanation of how this desert came to exist, other than the oblique “the gods have left,” or of the Makou. And that’s to the film’s advantage, especially as things get more surreal and the introduction of the Makou Cult (which includes pointed satire of religion). Although there are what could be referred to as “antagonists,” there’s no outright villain, as there would be in a more standard treatment. The music of Pierre Alrand, a longtime collaborator of Laguione’s, adds to the moody atmosphere.

Fantastic Planet, another French animation with a similar mood and adult approach, is Gwen‘s closest relative. Planet, however, is much more brutal in approach. Gwen is made for adults, but it’s family-friendly—although it’s probably way too slow and not antic enough for young children (although the visuals may attract them). Older kids could get more out of it, though again it’s paced much slower than current animated films. Fans of Hayao Miyazaki, and especially of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, might also get into the film’s rhythm and mood.

Gwen‘s first ever U.S. release on 4K and Blu-ray comes from Deaf Crocodile, in a limited or standard edition. The movie has a commentary by Samm Deighan, along with an interview with director Laguionie by Dennis Bartok and an intriguing video essay by Dr. Will Dodson and Ryan Verrill. The Limited Edition includes a 60 page booklet with essays by Laguionie, film historian Jennifer Barker, and critic/DC house writer Walter Chaw, as well as a slipcase with new art by Beth Morris.

(This movie was noimated for review by Russa03, who said it was “a surrealist, post-apocalypse animation and it’s beautiful to boot.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Gwen And The Book Of Sand (4k UHD + Blu-ray)

A teenage girl and her 173 year old companion take an epic journey in French director Jean-François Laguionie's hauntingly poetic animated classic.

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CAPSULE: FRECKLED MAX AND THE SPOOKS (1987)

June 9, 2025 El Rob Hubbard 1 Comment

Pehavý Max a strašidlá

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DIRECTED BY: Juraj Jakubisko

FEATURING: Viveca Lindfors, Eddie Constantine, Ferdinand Mayne, Gerhardt Karzel, Martin Hrebeň, Barbara De Rossi, Jacques Herlin, Mercedes Sampietro, Flavio Bucci, Milan Lasica, Julius Satinsky

PLOT: Orphan Max ditches the traveling circus and ends up at a castle just as Victor Frankenstein is preparing to animate his new creation, “Albert”; Count Dracula, water and fire spirits, Igor, the White Lady, and the Wolfman also haunt the premises.

Still from Freckled Max and the Spooks (1987)

COMMENTS: At first glance, the clunkily-titled Freckled Max and the Spooks hits all the marks as more-than-decent family entertainment, with a plucky orphan who falls in with a bevy of misfit monsters, leading to wacky adventures. Those of a certain age (OK, 60+) may be reminded of the Saturday morning show “Monster Squad” where the “Love Boat”‘s Fred Grandy solved mysteries with Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolfman. Young Frankenstein and 1972’s The Girl on a Broomstick are also similar in tone. Freckled Max‘s comedy isn’t quite as broad as those, but there is a fair amount of slapstick, mainly involving Martin Hrebeň’s monster Albert, in a performance that’s sort of a proto-Jason Segel. A slight element of European bawdiness intrudes from time to time, but the characters have an underlying sweetness—as well as a bittersweet sadness, notably in the backstories of Igor and The White Lady. As Count Dracula tells Max, “When someone ends up alone, he turns into a ghost.”

Freckled Max is stacked with a cast of stellar actors: Lindfors, Constantine, Mayne (who also played a vampire in The Fearless Vampire Killers), and familiar faces from Italian (De Rossi and Bucci) and Czech cinema (Lasica and Satinsky) cinema. If there’s one criticism about the film, it’s that you wish that you could spend more time with the characters. Freckled Max is a drastically reduced theatrical version of a 7-episode Czech miniseries, “Frankenstein’s Aunt” based on a book by Allan Rune Petterson. That it holds up as a satisfying viewing experience even in its truncated version is a testament to the skill of everyone involved.

Juraj Jakubisko was an acclaimed Czech New Wave director (1969’s Birds, Orphans and Fools) who, like most of his contemporaries who remained in the country after the post-Prague Spring crackdown, fell into disfavor. When allowed to make films, their projects skewed towards non-problematic fare: documentaries or family-friendly subjects like fairy tales. Jakubisko did a magical realist miniseries, “The Millennial Bee” (1983, based on a novel by Peter Jaroš), which also got a reduced theatrical version, and the feature The Feather Fairy (1985, based on the Brothers Grimm tale “Mother Hulda” and starring Giulietta Masina.)

Restored by the Slovak Film Institute, Freckled Max gets its first ever U.S. Blu-ray release via Deaf Crocodile in limited and standard editions. Extras include a commentary by Samm Deighan and a visual essay “Frankenstein’s Faster” by Ryan Verrill and Dr. Will Dobson. Deighan digs into the differences between the mini-series and movie while Verill and Dobson examine the source material. The disc also includes interviews with director of photography Jan Duris, assistant director Petra Galkova, and director of the Slovak Film Institute Rastislav Steranka; a short (5 minutes) behind the scenes featurette; and “Portrait of a Film Director,” a 45 minute documentary about Jakubisko. The limited edition comes in a slipcase with art by Beth Morris and a booklet with essays by writers Walter Chaw and Stephen Peros.

The full miniseries got a DVD release in Germany (“Frankenstein’s Tante”), but with no English subtitles. It is not currently on any streaming services. However, the curious, motivated, and bilingual might find a Spanish language version (“La Tia de Frankenstein”) out on the interwebs.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a surreal fantasy film that’s reminiscent of Federico Fellini and Terry Gilliam.”–Michael Den Boer, 10K Bullets (Blu-ray)

Freckled Max And The Spooks [Blu-ray]

Director Juraj Jakubisko's Gothic horror comedy about an orphan who hides out in Frankenstein's castle with a lovable rogues' gallery of monsters

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE CATHEDRAL OF NEW EMOTIONS (2006)

June 4, 2025 El Rob Hubbard Leave a comment

Die kathedrale der neuen gefühle

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DIRECTED BY: Helmut Herbst

PLOT: Members of a Seventies Berlin commune travel through space aimlessly in a shipping container clutched in a giant fist, until an amnesiac stowaway divulges information on the location of the commune’s founder.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Even in the world of animated psychedelic European science-fiction—a small niche, admittedly—there aren’t many projects that open with a naked figure trampolining on a small patch of bell peppers as the titles scroll by in the background. That turns out to be practically the baseline of “normal,” in light of what follows.

COMMENTS: Various members of the commune/spaceship frequently repeat the phrase “My eyes are cast down in awe,” and it’s a fitting description of the experience of watching The Cathedral of New Emotions. Expanded from director/co-writer Herbst’s 1971 short, Cathedral follows the antics of a 1970s commune repurposed as soft 1970s sci-fi in the vein of Harlan Ellison or Samuel Delany. It’s like an animated Dark Star with sex and drugs, with a slight element of The Final Programme in the mix. When the spaceship is contained in a fist, hard science is not going to be a primary element, especially when the spacecraft has windshield wipers that sweep off detritus such as bugs and a Hawkman from “Flash Gordon.” The journey through space isn’t just physical. The main space of concern is the metaphysical: one character remarks that “he lives in his head,” and upon his rediscovery of commune founder Madson, a self-described “merchant of images,” he tells another that they are “also just fiction.” There’s a political element, with May ’68 and the Vietnam War referenced both directly and indirectly through the disaffected and somewhat aimless behavior of the “crew.”

Cathedral comes across as a smarter and hornier version of an Adult Swim offering made for stoners with brains. There is a lot of sexual imagery and content, both hetero and homo (a cocooned threeway, a visual pun regarding “blowjob”). If it’s still not clear, the lyrics of the Krautrock-styled theme song at the beginning and end of the film feature the chorus “You’re inside of me/Deep, deep inside of me, ohhh.” In keeping with the Adult Swim comparison, the closest (watered-down) equivalent might be “Superjail!” (although that show features more grotesque cruelty and violence than sex.) Cathedral even has a pair of indeterminately gendered twins who serve roughly the same function as similar “Superjail!” pair, providing a mocking chorus and running commentary on the action. The TV cartoon’s design is also more grotesque than Cathedral‘s, although Herbst includes an element of grotesquerie related to sexual body horror.

Cathedral made its home video premiere courtesy of Deaf Crocodile as a (now sold-out) limited deluxe edition with a booklet including essays from Walter Chaw and Alexander McDonald and slipcover. The standard edition includes a commentary by German film historian Rolf Giesen that is as much a history of German animation as a discussion of this film (description is somewhat pointless because the film is experimental, Giesen says upfront, but he does talk about Cathedral and Herbst in the latter part of the commentary); a visual essay by filmmaker Stephen Broomer; “Container Interstellar,” the 7-minute short that was expanded into Cathedral; a 25-minute documentary examining Herbst’s work (mainly television shorts and an acclaimed documentary on the DADA movement); and an interview with Herbst, who died in 2021.