Who Can Kill A Child? (¿Quién Puede Matar a un Niño?)

Few films are as dark and unforgiving as Who Can Kill A Child?
Sadly unknown, one of those films that falls behind the dresser, cherished by the dust and those that know it's there, but forgotten, overlooked and ignored by all the rest.
A Spanish production but the two main characters are native English speakers, a Aussie and an English woman, so while the locals they encounter on their, supposedly, relaxed Spanish holiday speak, well Spanish, the majority of the film is spoken English. In and of itself an oddity.
A slow burner, but like the warmest of fires, it may take a while to get there, but once it's there... it's a scorcher!
One not easily forgotten.
Unreleased in the digital age until 2007 and again in 2010, both fairly limitedly and quietly, building a vocal and passionate fanbase, Who Can Kill a Child is now due to be released fully uncut in the UK from Eureka on 23rd May.
But you can see it with us, for the first time fully uncut in the UK on the 14th May at the Rio Cinema.

East End Film Festival starts smoking.

As you may have heard, we've been invited to host a screening at the East End Film Festival. Quite flattering if I'm honest and pretty damn exciting.
The EEFF are hosting a series of horror screenings, which we are just a small part of.
Check this out:

Julia’s Eyes (Los Ojos de Julia) Dir. Guillem Morales Spain, 2010, 114min RIO Cinema Monday 2 May 23.30 From producer Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), this Orphanage-esque chiller sees Julia travel with her husband to visit her sister, who is near blind because of a degenerative illness. Discovering that her sibling has taken her own life, she begins to investigate while going blind herself, only for things to become even more dark and mysterious, as nothing is what it seems. Starring Lluís Homar (Broken Embraces) and Belén Rueda (The Orphanage), this is a superior mystery that was a huge hit in its native Spain, seen by more than a million people.


Agnosia Dir. Eugenio Miro Spain, 2010, 97min RIO Cinema Friday 29 April 23:30 A young woman suffering from a rare neuropsychological disorder that impairs her senses is manipulated by two dangerous men in pursuit of a strange secret. A ravishing mystery with a dark, atmospheric early twentieth century setting.


Then on the 2nd, we'll be pitching our screen up at the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch for a Movie Mayday.
Electric Sheep Magazine will be screening shorts from midday, followed by the classic Jodoworsky mindfuck Holy Mountain, followed by Argento classic and CB favourite Suspiria.
Complete with intros and conversation from Kim Newman and Cine Excess's Xavier Mendik.
The EEFF is working on a theme of Secret Societies and asked if we had anything in mind that might work with the aforementioned... and by fuckery have we!!!
But, in keeping with the secret theme... we ain't telling you.
We promise it's strong enough, engaging enough, weird enough and visually striking enough to hold it's own beside these giants.
So take a punt and a pint and join us at the Old Blue Last as we screen our Super Secret Special Screening at 6pm on Monday the 2nd.


We have had to skip our normal Mucky Pup evening this month in order to do the EEFF, but we'll be back there on the 6th June.

Shogun Assassin: The Shirt

Look, it's even got a nifty little tag on it and everything!

We still have a few of these left and will be sorting out an online shop thing soon. But if you want one now, contact us via Facebook or twitter they are £20 each including postage.

Details:
30 hand printed shirts using discharge ink were made.
We have some Mediums, Large's and X Large's left.

Shogun Assassin: The Mix Tape

Graham Murphy of Flashback Records is Cigarette Burns resident DJ. He's been working in used record shops for longer than most of us have had decent musical taste. I'm often asked what Graham played and this little number -



Became quite a little twitter hit - probably because it's FUCKING AWESOME!

So I thought it might make sense to ask him for his playlist.
We'll start with Shogun Assassin, but he's promised to put pull together the tracks from a few of the previous nights.

Acid Mothers Temple - La Novia (excerpt)




The Spacemen - Flowers of the South


The Astronauts - Banzai Pipeline




Moon Stars - Guitar Music LP Track 5, side 1


Carnabeats - Chu! Chu! Chu!




Takeshi Terauchi & the Blue Jeans - A Poor Woman Who Does Watertricks

The Whitefield Brothers - Taisho

Jean Francois Engel - Expo in Tokyo

Pierre DuTour Et Son Orchestra - Elephant Theme

Pop off Tuesday - This Old Lady 7" Version

John Cooper Clarke - Kung Fu International

Takeshi Terauchi & the Blue Jeans - Music for a Local Festival

The Golden Half - Movin'

Teddy Robbin & the Playboys - Norman's Family




Wanda Jackson - Fujiyamma Mama




The Vapors - Turning Japanese

Guitar Wolf - Red Rockabilly




Takayuki Hijikata - Magic Water

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Firecracker




Ultrafunk featuring Mr Superbad Freddie Mack - Kung Fu Man

Curtis Mayfield - Kung Fu




Fugi - Red Moon

Flower Travelling Band - Satori Part 2




Nishinihon - Super Station




Ghost - Hypnotic Underworld Part 2: Escaped and Lost Down in Medina


So there you have it.
Graham's remit is fairly simple: Keep to the film... somehow.

It's pretty simple, really.

I often get asked "Are you screening it on 35mm."

In short, unless it has been stated, regularly, no.

If we had a 35mm, we'd be screaming about it, and you'd know it.

The first film we screened at the Rio Cinema was Danger: Diabolik, at the time I was super excited, and looked over the Atlantic, at the New Beverly and the Alamo Drafthouse, and what they were doing and said "We must have the 35mm of Danger: Diabolik."

I threw a bit of a fit, I'll admit it. Fortunately I knew where one was and we were able to source it without tooooo much trouble.

As the night got nearer and I was doing more research about DD, I found out that a scene was cut from the original UK prints. I started to get nervous...

We can't show a cut film! And who'd have thought DD was cut?!? Why hadn't I checked earlier!?

Well, we had the print, it was there and a test was run and the print was damaged, it showed signs of previous breaks and broke about 5 minutes into the test screening and the sound was pretty poor.

Balls!

Ok, fall back plan.

Hearts heavy with defeat, we screened the DVD.

After the screening, there wasn't a single person who complained. Fellow film geeks were stunned, the DVD looked and sounded great! Morricone wowed us with Deep Deep Down and Bava made us dizzy with his swirls and colours.

Success!

Second screening.

A big one this time, one you just don't fuck with.

Suspiria.

Right! Now. We must get the 35mm.

Ok... it's cut... hmmmm.... and every single review regarding previous screenings with this same print are dire and filled with venom....

But ho! what have we here? A gorgeous BluRay, fully remastered with love and care, over seen by the folks at Cine Excess?

Well... What choice have we got really?

We love the films we screen and we love being able to screen these films. Simple really.

Sure our whole world is becoming digitised and I hate that as much as anyone. But when the point is to share fantastic films with friends, who may or may not know them, they need to look and sound as good as they possibly can.

And it's that simple.

First port of call will always be, where is the best possible source, be it 35mm or DVD or BD.

Also, Cigarette Burns will never knowingly show a cut film.

If that means we can't show certain films, then so be it, sorry Ilsa.

That said, find me print collectors who want to show their films.