GEN X-FILES
Trust no one. Fight the future. The truth is out there. Whatever.
Films in this Program
Gregg Araki
78 minutes
In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they’ll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien abductions that occur as one surreal day unfolds.
With a hyper-stylized production design, sun-soaked 90s fashion, and a shoegaze-inspired soundtrack, Araki encourages the audience to lose themselves in the absurd unshakable dread beneath it all. He captures the feeling of doom that consumes every young generation trying to make sense of an apathetic and careless world. But rather than take things too seriously, NOWHERE delivers a wild, Y2K-fuelled capsule of teenage riot and rot.
With a hyper-stylized production design, sun-soaked 90s fashion, and a shoegaze-inspired soundtrack, Araki encourages the audience to lose themselves in the absurd unshakable dread beneath it all. He captures the feeling of doom that consumes every young generation trying to make sense of an apathetic and careless world. But rather than take things too seriously, NOWHERE delivers a wild, Y2K-fuelled capsule of teenage riot and rot.
Abel Ferrara
87 minutes
Welcome to Abel Ferrara's grand vision of apocalypse. When an inspector for the Environmental Protection Agency goes to a remote military base to check for toxic substances, he takes his family with him. But when the inhabitants of the base begin to behave strangely, his teenage daughter (Gabrielle Anwar) becomes convinced that they are slowly being replaced by plant-like aliens. And the nuclear family proceeds to explode. The third adaptation of Jack Finney's novel THE BODY SNATCHERS is no longer the most recent, but it remains the most resonant in a contemporary sense — a perfectly paranoid counterpart to its 1956 and 1978 predecessors infused with deeply unsettling reminders of loss. With writing contributions from the legends Larry Cohen and Stuart Gordon!
Patrick McGuinn
74 minutes
If the B-52s collaborated with Negativland on an alt-Earth version of STAR TREK, it would feel a lot like SUROH: ALIEN HITCHHIKER—a mixed media hallucination from filmmaker Patrick McGuinn. The story follows Paul (Peter Gingerich), a skeptic who embarks on a spiritual, emotional, and sexual metamorphosis with an extraterrestrial named Suroh. Awash in LSD-tinged visuals and a pulsing acid-house soundtrack, this is a beautiful synthesis of experimental video art and queer exploration.
"An androgynous, existential, alien S.O.V. jam with a drone score that feels like mid-90s Liquid Sky rendered through avant-garde video art and something more innately horny -- like if Genesis P-Orridge remade STARGATE." - Justin La Liberty
"An androgynous, existential, alien S.O.V. jam with a drone score that feels like mid-90s Liquid Sky rendered through avant-garde video art and something more innately horny -- like if Genesis P-Orridge remade STARGATE." - Justin La Liberty
Trent Harris
80 minutes
From the filmmaker behind THE BEAVER TRILOGY and RUBIN & ED comes a ludicrous conspiracy involving esoteric (and horny) Mormon prophets, gold plates hidden in pizza boxes and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS-quoting partygoers that has absolutely nothing to do with the Ed Wood movie that inspired its name. Lucinda Hall discovers a century old book penned by a mad Mormon prophet. She deciphers this odd artifact and is sucked into a world where spacemen, polygamists, and angels run amuck. Is she nuts or has she uncovered a diabolical plot to change the world led by Nehor (Karen Black), a peeved alien from the planet Kolob? "It's Fellini on an Ed Wood budget," says director Trent Harris.
"Imagine THE ADVENTURES OF PETE & PETE meets TRUE DETECTIVE, with the unlikely backdrop of Salt Lake City and the Book of Mormon. For cult movie fans, there's plenty to love here." - Ryan McSwain
"Like Nancy Drew on acid." - Sundance Film Festival
"Imagine THE ADVENTURES OF PETE & PETE meets TRUE DETECTIVE, with the unlikely backdrop of Salt Lake City and the Book of Mormon. For cult movie fans, there's plenty to love here." - Ryan McSwain
"Like Nancy Drew on acid." - Sundance Film Festival
Craig Baldwin
Dean Alioto
114 minutes
TRIBULATION 99 (1991, 48 minutes, 16mm)
The propagandist’s art consists of a kernel of truth stirred into a stew of lies. Bay Area found footage maestro Craig Baldwin exposes and critiques the aesthetics of misinformation by messing with the ratios, seasoning heavy helpings of historical facts with a little pure crazy. Drawing on a wealth of fiction and nonfiction images spanning a spectrum from the professionally reputable to the cheapest grindhouse, TRIBULATION 99 weaves an alternate history of the Cold War and neocolonialism featuring all the usual players — the CIA, United Fruit Company, Howard Hunt, Ronald Reagan, Augusto Pinochet, et al. — working in cahoots with or under the control of a lesser-known villain: refugee space aliens living in Earth’s hollow center. The vast cosmic conspiracy is laid out by a gravelly voiced narrator over a montage moving at a velocity designed to overwhelm reason. Between real and unreal, Baldwin elevates a messianic, apocalyptic through line driving history gratefully toward an ultimate doom.
THE MCPHERSON TAPE (1989, 63 minutes, digital)
A decade before THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT redefined the horror landscape, there was THE MCPHERSON TAPE. On October 8th, 1983, the McPherson family gathered together to celebrate the 5th birthday of Michelle, the littlest member of their household. Everything was captured on VHS by Michael McPherson and his new camcorder. Including the alien invasion. Shot for $6000 by first-time filmmaker Dean Alioto in 1989, this movie blends the production design of a Jaycees haunted house with a dead serious tone to forge a fun, hypnotic nightmare that upends the concept of reality. Due to a warehouse fire at the original distribution company, THE MCPHERSON TAPE was never legitimately released. But AGFA and Bleeding Skull! have rescued this important milestone from the flames.
The propagandist’s art consists of a kernel of truth stirred into a stew of lies. Bay Area found footage maestro Craig Baldwin exposes and critiques the aesthetics of misinformation by messing with the ratios, seasoning heavy helpings of historical facts with a little pure crazy. Drawing on a wealth of fiction and nonfiction images spanning a spectrum from the professionally reputable to the cheapest grindhouse, TRIBULATION 99 weaves an alternate history of the Cold War and neocolonialism featuring all the usual players — the CIA, United Fruit Company, Howard Hunt, Ronald Reagan, Augusto Pinochet, et al. — working in cahoots with or under the control of a lesser-known villain: refugee space aliens living in Earth’s hollow center. The vast cosmic conspiracy is laid out by a gravelly voiced narrator over a montage moving at a velocity designed to overwhelm reason. Between real and unreal, Baldwin elevates a messianic, apocalyptic through line driving history gratefully toward an ultimate doom.
THE MCPHERSON TAPE (1989, 63 minutes, digital)
A decade before THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT redefined the horror landscape, there was THE MCPHERSON TAPE. On October 8th, 1983, the McPherson family gathered together to celebrate the 5th birthday of Michelle, the littlest member of their household. Everything was captured on VHS by Michael McPherson and his new camcorder. Including the alien invasion. Shot for $6000 by first-time filmmaker Dean Alioto in 1989, this movie blends the production design of a Jaycees haunted house with a dead serious tone to forge a fun, hypnotic nightmare that upends the concept of reality. Due to a warehouse fire at the original distribution company, THE MCPHERSON TAPE was never legitimately released. But AGFA and Bleeding Skull! have rescued this important milestone from the flames.
Philippe Mora
105 minutes
On December 26th while on vacation with his family, novelist Whitley Strieber (Christopher Walken) has a strange nightmare. In the following days, plagued by painful headaches, his behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Later, under hypnosis, he realizes that his dream was not a dream at all. Whitley Strieber's bestselling (third largest paperback sales for 1988) account of his abduction by aliens is brought to hallucinogenic life by renegade Austrialian filmmaker Philippe Mora, director of THE BEAST WITHIN and HOWLING 2 & 3. Walken delivers one of his most unsettling(!) performances of all time, channelling the phenomenon of "high weirdness" directly from the screen into viewers' souls.
"What if CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was directed by a horror specialist, starred Christopher Walken and was actually written by the guy who claims he met aliens?" - Filipe Furtado
"Takes itself seriously in the right ways, and doesn't take itself seriously in the right ways. The group of abductees talking through whether or not they should perceive themselves as victims, alongside everything that implies, hits very hard. Still great. Night terror hive rise up." - Michael DeForge
"What if CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was directed by a horror specialist, starred Christopher Walken and was actually written by the guy who claims he met aliens?" - Filipe Furtado
"Takes itself seriously in the right ways, and doesn't take itself seriously in the right ways. The group of abductees talking through whether or not they should perceive themselves as victims, alongside everything that implies, hits very hard. Still great. Night terror hive rise up." - Michael DeForge
