Excuse the short notice but some SA favourites are screening at London’s National Film Theatre tonight as part of the excellent Flipside series:
THE ART OF EXPLOITATION: ANTONY BALCH NIGHT
BFI Southbank Thursday 25th June – TONIGHT
NFT1 at 8.15pm
As a director, distributor of lurid European horror movies, collaborator with William Burroughs, and cinema manager, Antony Balch distinctively straddled the divide between film art and exploitation. Tonight we celebrate the diverse talents of this key figure in the alternative film scene of the 1960s and 1970s.
HORROR HOSPITAL
UK 1973. Dir. Antony Balch. 91 mins.
Groovy pop songster Jason Jones – chirpily played by Britain’s first man of saucy sex comedy, Robin Askwith – gets a whole lot more than he bargained for when he books a stay at a strange ‘health hotel’ in the country. Manhandled by leather-clad biker boys, and subjected to Frederick the dwarf’s cruel taunts, Jason – accompanied by the beautiful Julie – slowly learns the awful plan of sinister Dr Storm (Michael Gough, in his finest mad-scientist mode). Intelligent and rich with cinematic parody, this blood-spattered black comedy somehow works both as genre horror film and experimental spoof.
TOWERS OPEN FIRE
UK 1963 Dir Antony Balch 11mins
This vibrant mix of exotic symbols and playful violence vividly illustrates William Burroughs’ cut-up novels – and features the resonantly-voiced beat author in a starring role, too.
KRONHAUSEN’S PSYCHOMONTAGE
UK 1963 Dir Eberhardt and Phylis Kronhausen 9mins
Balch contributed footage to this bizarre, extremely rare psychiatric test film. Strange noises – many emanating from agitated monkeys – mesh with images of women frolicking with dogs, probing insects and a human tongue to increasingly uncanny effect.
TICKETS
Tickets £9.00 (£6.65 concessions)
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