“We’re still getting used to this post-lockdown world, and being in a cinema with other people watching films on the big screen is something that’s really special and should be celebrated,” says Michael Coull, programmer of the annual Dundead horror film festival at the DCA.
“Especially with horror, I feel there’s an aspect of community that comes with that, so I hope it all plays a part in people’s experience of the festival.”
This year’s four-day, twelve-film edition of Dundead will be the eleventh in twelve years – it sat out 2020 – and it features one European premiere, one UK premiere and three Scottish premieres.
There will also be a four-film retrospective of Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, whose Dead Ringers has recently been adapted by Amazon Prime.
DCA will be showing the original alongside Scanners, Videodrome, The Brood and The Fly.
“It’s Videodrome’s 40th anniversary this year,” says Michael.
“The new edition of that will be screening. Cronenberg also turned 80 this year, and returned to the horror genre for the first time in years last year, so it felt like the time was right.
“It’s also Dead Ringers’ 35th anniversary and we’re screening it on 35mm, which I think is a nice serendipity.
“Cronenberg packs his films with themes and ideas,” Michael goes on.
“He’s interested in society and the human condition, in people and how they relate to each other, but he’s also interested in bodily destruction and disease and decay, and in psychology, in medicine.
“Nobody else makes films quite like him, and they lend themselves really well as metaphors for certain aspects of society. They have universal themes, but done in an interesting and often quite disturbing way.”
DJCAD graduate set to feature at festival
The programme also includes a preview of the Highland-shot The Origin, by Scottish Duncan of Jordanstone graduate Andrew Cumming, who will be in conversation after the film.
“It follows a group of hunter-gatherers as they arrive in a new land,” says Michael.
“They’re trying to survive, they’re up against the elements and something hiding in the darkness is picking them off. It looks and sounds amazing, it’ll be great on the big screen.”
Elsewhere, Abruptio (the European premier) is an eclectic animation featuring the voices of genre icons like James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Jordan Peele and Robert ‘Freddy Krueger’ Englund.
Dark Nature is a film about a wilderness retreat and female solidarity using horror movie genre tropes, and No More Time is about a pandemic.
Polaris, says Michael, is “as if Mad Max was set in the snow, and Max was a twelve-year-old girl raised by a polar bear,” Satanic Hispanics is a Latin anthology film and Messiah of Evil is showing in 50-year retrospective.
“It doesn’t get talked about as much as it should. It’s got a strange, dreamy atmosphere, it’s one of the best examples of that surreal, stylish 1970s horror.
“I want audiences to have a good time, that’s the main thing,” he continues.
“I hope some people who haven’t been to Dundead before come along, everybody’s welcome.
“And I hope everybody leaves feeling they’ve seen some really interesting and special films on the big screen.”
Dundead 2023 is at Dundee Contemporary Arts from Thursday 11th until Sunday 14th May.
Conversation