Halloween is around the corner and store shelves are piled up with monster masks and plastic pumpkins, but Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3017 is still a few weeks away. The largest genre film festival in the Nordics will be arriving with fantastic force as Guillermo del Toro‘s Shape of Water opens the festival on the 22nd of November.

Shape of Water

Shape of Water is an other-worldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962. Mute and lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) works in a hidden high-security government laboratory, leading a life trapped in isolation. Her life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover the labs’ top-secret classified experiment: a humanoid underwater creature. Sounds like definite Del Toro, right?

The buzz and hype surrounding The Shape of Water is well deserved, and the film already won the Best Picture award at the Venice Film Festival. Trailer and poster for the film look nothing but amazing – just take a look below:

shape of water

Cult legends visiting the festival

As customary, Night Visions brings to Helsinki legendary people behind the films we all love. This fall we will be introduced to the works of American genre director-producer Mark L. Lester and the Swedish actress Christina Lindberg.

Mark L. Lester, best known for high-action cult classics, has at least 100 productions and distributions under his belt. He started his career in the 70’s with road movies designed for the drive-in market. In 1984 he had his breakthrough with the Stephen King adaptation Firestarter.

The following year he hit the jackpot with action cult classic Commando (1985), starring none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Commando is one of those cult movies that seems to stand the test of time, I still try to watch it every year and it never lets me down. The campy one-liners, hero named John Matrix, a great arch-villain Bennet – a real gem of a movie down to the tiniest of details!

And frickin Christina Lindberg! An actress on numerous erotic films in the late 60’s and early 70’s, Lindberg’s most acknowledged role has been the eyepatch wearing avenger in Bo Arne Vibenius’ revenge movie Thriller – en grym film (1973). Later, the role served as an inspiration for Daryl Hannah’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003). This is quite amazing as back in the 70’s swedish feminists used to hold a picture of her and throw darts at it!

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