Pregnancy revenge flick Prevenge, and four more reasons to check out the Rio Grind Film Festival

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Good news, fans of horror, sci-fi and other-types-of-genre movies. The Rio Theatre (1660 E. Broadway) is bringing back its Rio Grind Film Festival, which features some of the most buzzed-about indie (and occasionally big-studio) flicks from festivals around the world, some of which are screening in Vancouver for the first – and possibly last! – time.

So get some friends together, check the schedule (at riotheatretickets.ca), and block off some time Nov. 4-6 to see these wild, often deranged and definitely not-ready-for-the-multiplex movies, including our picks.

The Girl With All the Gifts (Nov. 4 at 9 p.m.) – A hit on the highbrow (VIFF, TIFF) festival circuit, The Girl With All the Gifts is… well, let’s just say that, the less you know about it going in, the better. Suffice it to say, reviews have been (mostly) positive, with the Guardian calling the Warner Bros movie “provocative and imaginative.” Watch the trailer here.

Prevenge (Nov. 5 at 7 p.m.) – The Rio Grind presents the Western Canadian premiere of a British film by writer/actress Alice Lowe, here making her directorial debut. Lowe not only wrote the screenplay and directed the film, but she stars as a pregnant woman whose unborn child is commanding her to kill. Variety calls it “a scrappy but excitingly singular directorial debut” for Lowe.

The Greasy Strangler (Nov. 5 at 11:30 p.m.) – See what the New York Times recently called “the weirdest movie ever.” Watch the trailer here.

Nova Seed (Nov. 6 at 3:30 p.m.) – Original sci-fi fantasy that’s drawn comparison to the work of innovators like Ralph Bakshi (Wizards, Fritz the Cat) and Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away). The hand-drawn animation took over four years to craft and was created by a single human, Hamilton, Ontario’s Nick DiLiberto. “There aren’t too many small budget, full-length animated films that have this level of ambition, and Nova Seed does a fine job with its ambitions in terms of narrative structure and visuals,” says a forcesofgeek.com review. Watch the trailer here.

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24×36: A Movie About Movie Posters (Nov. 6 at 5 p.m.) – If you’ve ever fallen in love with a movie poster, this documentary is for you. First-time director Kevin Burke’s doc explores the birth, death, and resurrection of the illustrated movie poster, which many had thought had died in the mid-2000s, when Hollywood abandoned the form. Director in attendance.

Headshot (Nov. 6 at 9:30 p.m.) – An Indonesian action thriller starring Iko Uwais, who appeared in the popular 2011 film The Raid as well as its sequel. Says Variety: “Fans of the Raid movies will be on happily familiar turf with Headshot, in which the Indonesian star/action-choreographer of those films, Iko Uwais, teams with directing duo Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel (a.k.a. The Mo Brothers) to fill another two hours with terrifically visceral fight scenes.”

Other films in the three-day festival include I Am Not a Serial Killer, which is based on Dan Wells’ cult novel of the same name and stars Max Records from Where the Wild Things Are; Don’t Kill It, a tongue-in-cheek demon-killing gorefest starring Dolph Lundgren; Rats, a “horror documentary” by Morgan Spurlock; and Sadako vs. Kayako, a Jason vs. Freddy-type horror fest in which the ghostly demons of the Ju-on and Ringu series of Japanese horror films face off against each other.

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