Watch The Snow Turn Red With Blood At The Whistler Film Festival

Get your ski and horror film obsessions on as Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada has a strong presence at the 12th Annual Whistler Film Festival, one of the industry’s fastest growing film festivals. The 2012 Festival’s Late Night Terror Fest, Sponsored by Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada, is packed with exciting new acquisitions such as American Mary and The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, and legendary genre films Battle Royale and El Topo from the catalog of this horror industry leader.

American Mary

When and where: Wednesday, November 28, 11:00 p.m., Whistler Conference Centre
Special guests in attendance: Star Katharine Isabelle, Directors Jennifer and
Sylvia Soska

American Mary is the story of Mary, a medical student growing increasingly broke and disenchanted with school and the established doctors she once idolized. The allure of easy money sends a desperate Mary through the messy world of underground surgeries that leave more marks on her than the so-called freakish clientele. From the Vancouver-based creative team that brought you the indie-smash film Dead Hooker In A Trunk, American Mary stars twins and writer/director duo Jennifer & Sylvia Soska. The film also features Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps), Julia Maxwell (Hot Tub Time Machine, Charlie St. Cloud), and Antonio Cupo (“Bomb Girls”) and has recently celebrated multiple award wins at LA’s Screamfest and Toronto After Dark film festivals.

Battle Royale

When and where: Thursday November 29, 11:00 p.m., Whistler Conference Centre Screen B

In the near future, the economy has collapsed, unemployment has soared and juvenile crime has exploded. Fearful of their nation’s youth, the Japanese government passes The BR Law: Each year, a 9th grade class is sent to a remote island where they will be locked into exploding neck collars, given a random weapon, and forced to hunt and kill one another until there is only one survivor. Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill) and screen legend Takeshi Kitano (Boiling Point, Brother) star in the movie that has been argued, acclaimed and banned around the world. More than a decade later, it remains one of the most savage, shocking and emotionally powerful films of all time.

El Topo

When and where: Friday, November 30, 11:00 p.m., Whistler Conference Centre Screen A

It was the landmark cult film that began the whole Midnight Movie phenomena of the counter culture crazy 1970s. El Topo was the most talked about, most controversial quasi-Western head trip ever made, transforming the way risk-taking audiences, seeking mainstream Hollywood alternatives, watched edgy underground films. Classic Americana and avant-garde European cinema sensibilities meet Zen Buddhism and the Bible as master gunfighter and cosmic mystic El Topo (played by writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky) must defeat his
four sharp-shooting rivals on an ever-increasingly bizarre path to allegorical self-enlightenment and surreal resurrection.

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh

When and where: December 1, 11:00 p.m., Whistler Conference Centre Screen A
Special guests in attendance: TBC

The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh tells the story of Leon (Poole), an antiques collector who inherits a house from his estranged mother Rosalind (Vanessa Redgrave) only to discover that she had been living in a shrine devoted to a mysterious cult of angels. As night falls, Leon comes to suspect that his mother’s oppressive spirit still lingers within her home and is using items in the house to contact him with an urgent message. Multiple-award winning filmmaker Rodrigo Gudiño has crafted a terrifying new film with a strikingly original narrative technique that looks at the psychology of ghosts.