News

In modern-day genre filmmaking, there’s always a pinnacle for all sorts of things. For example, in folk horror, Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) is considered the holy grail. Similarly, when it comes to AI robot stories, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2013) has become quite the cult hit now. Sure, there are shows like Humans or Black Mirror (I’m specifically referring to the episode Be Right Back here), but the Garland movie is the one that has inspired many similar things afterwards. The reason I brought this up here is that the central idea of Black Eyed Susan seems to come straight from Ex Machina. Yet, it stands on its own simply because it is quite well made in every possible way—the writing is solid, the direction is good, and the acting is on point. However, what elevates the whole thing into a complete experience is the rawness it brings to the table.

The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 2024 edition, which runs from Oct. 17-24. All films will be screened at Nitehawk Cinema’s Williamsburg and Prospect Park locations.

Opening with Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s crime thriller “Dead Mail,” Bhff will feature the North American premieres of Tiago Teixeira’s erotic body horror “Custom,” Phillip Escott and Sarah Appleton’s late ’90s horror documentary “Generation Terror” and Sasha Rainbow’s “Grafted” starring Jess Hong.

Films receiving their world premieres at Bhff include Izzy Lee’s directorial debut “House of Ashes,” the queer science fiction adventure “Psychonaut” and “Lilly Lives Alone” starring Jeffrey Combs.

“Fear in Focus” is set to return for Bhff 2024, with this year’s rendition centering around horror films from Spain. The sidebar program will feature a 35mm screening of “The Blood Spattered Bride” and a showing of the Spanish version of “Dracula” with...

Stars: Tobey Poser, John Adams, Maximum Portman, Aleksandar Trmcic, Olivera Perunicic, Marko Filipovic | Written by Tobey Poser, John Adams, Lulu Adams | Directed by Tobey Poser, John Adams

Hell Hole begins in 1814, somewhere in Serbia, where a bunch of Napoleon’s troops are lost and starving. A local woman wordlessly appears and offers them a horse. Since they aren’t in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth, they accept, and get ready to have their first meal in ages. Unfortunately for them, the gift horse is actually a Trojan Horse carrying a parasitic creature that appears to spread by sodomizing a potential host.

In modern-day Serbia, a fracking operation run by Emily and her foreman John finds itself cut off when the only road connecting them to civilization floods. With nothing else to do the crew, which also includes Emily’s nephew Teddy and a pair of...

Out Come The Wolves: "Retired hunter Sophie invites her fellow hunter and childhood best friend Kyle to her family’s secluded cabin deep in the woods. There, she plans for Kyle to meet and teach her fiancé Nolan how to hunt for an article he's writing and to share the news of their engagement. Tensions flare between Kyle and Nolan over their shared history with Sophie, escalating during the hunt that goes awry when they are ambushed by a vicious pack of territorial wolves. As alliances fracture under the pressure of survival, Sophie is forced to rely on her long-abandoned hunting prowess to face the deadly predators and save the one closest to her heart."

Director: Adam MacDonald Starring: Missy Peregrym, Joris Jarsky, and Damon Runyan Language: English Run Time: 87 Min

---

Disinter Comic Book Series: "Issue 1 was funded in January 2024 and shipped to customers in February. Copies are still available.

Best known for underground Sov staples Shatter Dead (1994) and Sixteen Tongues (1999), Scooter McCrae is back with his first feature in twenty-one years. Black Eyed Susan has all the makings of a truly nasty piece of work–aggressive full-frontal nudity, alarming gender politics, transgressive sexual violence, plot developments that flirt with real world conspiracies–but, in the end, this story of patriarchal sadism and the hypothetical moral quagmires surrounding artificial intelligence may just pull one too many of its gut-punches.

Damien Maffei (The Strangers: Prey at Night) stars as Derek, a struggling father who sees an opportunity to get back on his feet when a sleazy tech developer tasks him with testing his newest product: Susan (Yvonne Emilie Thälker) a lifelike robot companion built to receive and enjoy sexual abuse. Initially somewhat reticent, Derek eventually starts participating in the tests in earnest, but Susan’s rapid development soon has him questioning...

There’s a scene towards the end of Black Eyed Susan when the titular AI sex doll (played by Yvonne Emilie Thälker) is travelling in a car. The driver, Derek (Damian Maffei), turns on some music, and it emerges that she’s unfamiliar with the concept. Writer/director Scooter McCrae seems to be setting us up for one of those inspiring bonding moments when a robot breaks through a cognitive ceiling and suddenly learns to appreciate this truly human experience, but any hope that Derek had of such a moment are dashed when she says flatly that she prefers the noise of the engine. The take-away would seem to be that she’s just a machine after all. it’s only later, thinking about it, that you might realise she has expressed a preference, and not merely performed to please the man she was with.

Susan is the latest in...

Black Eyed Susan Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival

Probably the most divisive and challenging film at Fantasia this year, Scooter McCrae’s Black Eyed Susan tells the story of Derek (played by Damian Maffei), who is offered a job working for a tech company. The company sells increasingly realistic AI-powered sex dolls, and wants his hand-on assistance with testing and developing a doll who will deliver a satisfying response to being beaten – a doll marketed to potential domestic abusers. Towards the end of the festival, I got the opportunity to chat to Scooter, Damian, and Yvonne, who gives an uncanny performance as the robot, nicknamed ‘Susan’. I asked if they saw such products as an inevitable consequence of technological advances and capitalism.

“Yeah,” says Scooter. “I mean, what doesn't capitalism eventually take a hold of and try to squeeze money out? So of course this is next. And, you know,...

Legendary underground filmmaker Scooter McCrae returns after a 21-year absence from feature filmmaking with the bold, vulgar, and deeply thought-provoking Black Eyed Susan. Simultaneously brutally challenging and deeply vulnerable, the latest from the New York-based provocateur appropriates bleeding-edge science fiction concepts to address the seemingly endless lengths that men will go to satisfy their darkest impulses without questioning the consequences of their actions.

In the film, down-on-his-luck Derek (Damien Maffei; The Strangers: Prey at Night) is hired by a shady tech industrialist to “test” Susan, a lifelike robot built for the purpose of receiving and “enjoying” sexual abuse. Initially hesitant to take part, Derek accepts, but quickly finds himself drawn to Susan’s developing personality and inquisitive nature. As the robot’s expanding humanity chips away at him and he learns more about his own secret desires, he questions if what he’s been tasked to do – even to a robot – should ever be condoned.

"I want you to punch me now." Take a peek at this eerie sci-fi horror film by director Scooter McCrae titled Black Eyed Susan. Presented by Vinegar Syndrome, Not The Funeral Home, and Moose + Squirrel - this is premiering at the 2024 Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal next month. It's almost a spin on Ex Machina, with a much darker take. Desperate for work, Derek accepts a job replacing his dead friend at a tech startup. Continuing to develop the company’s innovative project means working intimately with Susan, a bleeding-edge Bdsm sex doll meant to receive and "appreciate" punishment as an integral part of her evolving AI. Derek will soon test the limits of his own desires and explore the nature of man & woman, pleasure & pain, and life and death in a morally uncertain future world. Legendary underground filmmaker Scooter McCrae returns after a 21-year absence from feature filmmaking with the bold,...

Corpse Crusaders: "In the popular imagination, zombies are scary, decomposing corpses hunting down the living. But since the 1930s, there have also been other zombies shambling across the panels of comic books—zombies that aren’t quite what most people think zombies should be. There have been zombie slaves, zombie henchmen, talking zombies, beautiful zombies, and even zombie heroes.

Using archival research into Golden Age comics and extended analyses of comics from the 1940s to today, Corpse Crusaders explores the profound influence early action/adventure and superheroic generic conventions had on shaping comic book zombies. It takes the reader from the 1940s superhero, the Purple Zombie, through 1950s revenge-from-the-grave zombies, to the 1970s anti-hero, Simon Garth (“The Zombie”) and the gruesome heroes-turned-zombies of Marvel Zombies. In becoming immersed in superheroic logics early on, the zombie in comics became a figure that, unlike the traditional narrative uses of other monsters, actually...

The director of cult films Shatter Dead (1994) and Sixteen Tongues (1999), Shooter McCrae is getting set to unleash his third feature film, titled Black Eyed Susan.

The upcoming genre film, which is being described as a takedown of toxic masculinity, will World Premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on Friday, August 2nd.

Exclusively watch the official trailer for Black Eyed Susan below and read on for more.

A Vinegar Syndrome Production in association with Not the Funeral Home and Moose + Squirrel, the erotic sci-fi drama was filmed on Super 16mm film and features a luscious musical score from legendary Italian composer Fabio Frizzi.

In the film, down-on-his-luck Derek is hired by a shady tech industrialist to “test” Susan, a lifelike robot built for the purpose of receiving and “enjoying” sexual abuse. Initially hesitant to take part, Derek accepts, but quickly finds himself drawn to Susan’s developing personality and inquisitive nature.