VHS Tracking Newsletter #15
Dogtooth at Goolugatup gallery, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 at Luna Leederville, Kiyoshi Kurosawa lecture, and more!
Welcome to the VHS Tracking Newsletter!
11:55, almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before 12:00, just to keep us warm. One more newsletter from VHS Tracking…
Dogtooth (2009) at Goolugatup gallery
Wednesday 15 October 6:30pm
Please join us for the next edition of VHS Tracking Presents - Goolugatup’s film club. Cash bar, free popcorn, BYO snacks, and free entry! You just need to register through the Goolugatup website.
Dogtooth (2009): A father, a mother and their three kids live in a house in the outskirts of a city. The kids have never left the house. They are being educated, entertained, bored and exercised in the manner that their parents deem appropriate, without any influence from the outside world. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness) and starring Angeliki Papoulia, Michele Valley and Christos Stergioglou. Greek language with English subtitles.
Warning: This film contains animal cruelty, and violent and sexual acts that may be upsetting and/or offensive to some viewers. Rated R18+.
Andrew Varano is an arts worker from Boorloo (Perth) on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar. Andrew has worked as a curator at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and delivered numerous touring, group and solo exhibitions, including Remedial Works, a major group exhibition he curated in 2017. Andrew also enjoys collaborating with others in the founding and running of independent gallery spaces and was a co-director of OK Gallery (2011 – 2013), a co-conspiracist with Pet Projects (2016 – 2017) and a board member and eventual treasurer of Cool Change Contemporary (2019 – 2020). He is currently a board member of Art on the Move and Gallery Director of ava gallery.
A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) at Luna Leederville
Friday 31 October 9:00pm
It’s a Trash Classics Halloween! The horror franchise is back with one of its most acclaimed sequels! Directed by Chuck Russell (The Blob, The Mask), and co-written by Wes Craven (director of the first Nightmare On Elm Street), the story focused on a group of teenage psychiatric patients all having the same dream, about the evil Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Only the return of Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) and group solidarity can find a way to defeat the monster of their nightmares. Also starring Patricia Arquette, Lawrence Fishburne and Craig Wasson. With creative special effects and a heavy metal theme song by Dokken, this is an enduring example of 1980s horror movie excellence! Get your tickets now!
Get into the spooky movie spirit, and dress up as your favourite horror movie character! Best dressed will receive prizes, including a special edition Blu-ray of the horror smash Terrifier 3 (2024) (thanks to Umbrella Entertainment).
Make it a double feature, and see the freaky sci-fi new film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia (2025), which is screening Friday 6:30pm at Luna Leederville with a special launch event! DJ and special ‘Alien’ themed drinks! Details on Luna’s Halloween night here.
Chime (2024) and a lecture on Kiyoshi Kurosawa at Palace Cinemas
Sunday 23 November 3:30pm
The Japanese Film Festival is happening in November, and the program includes a spotlight on director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, screening the three films he released last year: Cloud, Serpent’s Path (a remake, the original is one of my favourite Kurosawa films), and Chime. As Chime is a short film, they have scheduled a lecture afterwards and I’m delivering it in the WA edition of the screening. The talk is called ‘Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Spaces of Unease’ and will look at how as a filmmaker, he is phenomenal at crafting dread and unease throughout his movies, often conveying themes of psychological and/or economic anxiety.
Alongside his critically acclaimed horror movies like Cure and Pulse, Kurosawa has a varied, extensive filmography and over the past two years, it’s been great tracking down and seeing as many as I can. All of the three movies he made recently are great, and it’s excellent that they’re finally being screened in Perth cinemas thanks to the Japanese Film Festival.
For more information on the Kiyoshi Kurosawa Spotlight, including details about the Chime and my lecture, visit here.
Review: The Grapes Of Death (1978)
When choosing something to watch, there’s often a scene early on that clinches for me whether I’ve made the right choice or not. For The Grapes Of Death (1978), directed by French exploitation filmmaker Jean Rollin, when the protagonist Elizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) is running for her life through the French countryside, completely alone within the greenery, scored to the eerie, melancholic synth by Phillippe Bissmann, I knew this film was for me. Many horror movies work on the trope of a scared woman running away, and in this example, it’s all about the atmosphere and tone.
Rollin’s movies are slow and dream-like, helped by their low budgets, locations and splashes of violence and nudity. Most of Rollin’s filmography involves vampires, and The Grapes of Death is an outlier in focusing on zombies, or something like zombies (comparable to George A. Romero’s The Crazies). An experimental pesticide used on a vineyard (hey, this is French zombie movie after all) has an unfortunate side-effect: people are turning into mad killers, with a side order of leaking sores. Travelling to meet her boyfriend, the owner of a winery, Elizabeth is attacked and spends the movie searching for help in an isolated landscape. Along the way, Elizabeth encounters dead bodies, zombie killers and survivors. Two in particular add so much to the film’s vibe, including Mirella Rancelot as a blind girl named Lucie and adult film star Brigette Lahaie as a woman in white.
The Grapes of Death was great. Within its low budget and exploitation demands, there is a strange and stark mood. Vaguely cult-like or apocalyptic, a village with flames and dead bodies, ordinary people stumbling through the night looking to attack, and Elizabeth’s fraying nerves. Kanopy has a great selection of Jean Rollin’s work available to stream; I’m also a fan of Requiem For A Vampire and The Iron Rose. Recommended.
Other Recommendations:
All The Colors Of The Dark (1972) at Luna Leederville. Sunday 12 October, 8:10pm. The last classic giallo being screened at the Italian Film Festival. Tickets!
Fright Night (1985) at Palace Cinemas Raine Square. Wednesday 15 October, 6:30pm. One of my favourite horror movies for Halloween! Tickets!
Cinema Politica #002 at The Naval Store. Wednesday 15 October, 6:30pm. Check out the monthly program of documentaries at The Naval Store gallery. Information and tickets!
Black Maria Film Collective present A Bucket Of Blood (1959) at The Moon. Projected from VHS Tape. A Roger Corman classic starring the great Dick Miller. Tuesday 28 October, 7:30pm. Tickets!
Great movie t-shirts at Hollow Bones. Love their Alien, Aliens and Point Break t-shirts, and they just dropped a new Con Air one. Store!
7 Nights of David Lynch at The Revival House. Revival House have announced they’ll be screening seven films from director David Lynch on 35mm film during January 2026. Check out the program!
Reminders - pick up a copy of the new VHS Tracking zine, listen to the Movie Squad podcast, and get your tickets for Trash Classics at Luna Leederville! Otherwise, I’ll see you at the movies!
Sincerely,
Tristan Fidler
Trash Classics | VHS Tracking