IN PRODUCTION: 

WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR – feature documentary
Directed by Kier-La Janisse | Produced by Kier-La Janisse, David Gregory and Carl Daft

WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED is the first feature-length documentary on the history of folk horror, exploring the phenomenon from its beginnings in a trilogy of films – Michael Reeves’ The Witchfinder General (1968), Piers Haggard’s Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) – through its proliferation on British television in the 1970s and its culturally specific manifestations in American and international horror, to the genre’s revival over the last decade.

While exploring the key cinematic signposts of folk horror – touching on hundreds of films, television plays and episodes as well as early inspirational literature – the film also examines the rise of paganism in the late 1960s, the prominence of the witch-figure in connection with second wave feminism, the ecological movement of the 1970s, the genre’s emphasis on landscape and psychogeography, and American manifestations of folk horror from Mariners’ tales and early colonial history to Southern Gothic propecia for women hair loss and backwoods horror. Finally, the film navigates through the muddy politics of folk nostalgia. The term ‘folk horror’ is a loaded one, and WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED explores the many ways that we alternately celebrate, conceal and manipulate our own histories in an attempt to find levitra buying spiritual resonance in our surroundings.

WRECKLESS – short film
Directed and Edited by Kier-La Janisse

A super-8/animated documentary in which indie rock iconoclast Wreckless Eric reflects on the various 33s and 45s that inspired him to become a musician.

PAST PRODUCTIONS:

WE ALWAYS FIND OURSELVES IN THE SEA – short film (2017)
Written and Directed by Sean Hogan

A lonely http://www.spectacularoptical.ca/2021/02/canada-cialis-no-prescription/ recluse prepares to celebrate Christmas alone when a figure from his past unexpectedly reappears. But are the old ghosts stirred up by her arrival just bad memories or something more? In this windswept tribute to the classic English ghost stories of M.R. James and the 1970s A Ghost Story for Christmas series they spawned, writer/director Sean Hogan reteams with his co-producers on Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD (2014) and The Devil’s Business (2011) star Billy Clarke to bring this Christmas horror short made especially to coincide with Spectacular Optical’s Yuletide Terror book.

EUROCRIME! THE ITALIAN COP AND GANGSTER FILMS THAT RULED THE 70s – feature documentary (2012)

Kier-La Janisse co-produced Mike Malloy’s comprehensive documentary on the sleazy, brutal and action-packed Italian Poliziotteschi films of the 1970s. Available on Amazon HERE >>

IN DEVELOPMENT:

HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN – series (in development with Rook Films)
Based on the FAB Press book House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films by Kier-La Janisse

Based on film critic Kier-La Janisse’s acclaimed memoir of the same name, House of Psychotic Women is the dramatized tale of a 15 year old horror fan named CARLY who is abandoned to the child welfare system in 1980s Winnipeg after a violent incident.

The series follows CARLY as she is hurled through a broken system – from lock-ups to foster homes to the much-coveted ‘independent living program’ – attempting to find stability in the dysfunction, and forming ephemeral connections with the troubled youth whose journeys parallel her own. As CARLY is prodded to tell her story in obligatory counselling sessions, her memories are filtered through the terrible but strangely comforting imagery of horror cinema – offering warnings, and in some cases, reinforcements – metaphorically and stylistically – that will help her transcend her past.