Horror Highlights: Fantaspoa 2019, Miskatonic’s THE SHADOW OVER LOVECRAFT: INTERROGATING H.P. LOVECRAFT’S RACISM, DOWN TO HELL Game, TRAIL OF BLOOD on Audible

Fantaspoa 2019 ― which will take place from May 16th through June 2nd in Porto Alegre ― has announced its first wave of films! The complete lineup will be revealed in early May. Also: The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies - NYC presents The Shadow Over Lovecraft: Interrogating H.P. Lovecraft's Racism, Down to Hell game release details, and Trail of Blood's release on Audible.

Fantaspoa 2019's First Wave of Films Announced: "Brazil's Fantaspoa, the largest genre film festival in Latin America, is proud to reveal the first wave of films selected for their upcoming fifteenth edition, running from May 16th through June 2nd, 2019. The celebrated film fest, which takes place annually in Porto Alegre will announce their full line-up, consisting of more than 100 films, on the first week of May.

The whimsical poster for the festival's 2019 edition pays homage to Lewis Carroll’s Alice, one of literature and cinema's most memorable fantasy characters, who became an icon of pop culture and psychedelia. The image was drawn by filmmaker Elizabeth Schuch, with a design by Thalles Mourão. Alongside numerous other events and activities, FantasMercado, the film production market for Latin American filmmakers created last year, will have its second edition during the festival.

Twenty in-competition features are being announced today, as well as the festival's opening and closing night films. Fantaspoa 2019 proudly kicks off with the World Premieres of Deodato Holocaust, a documentary from Brazilian filmmaker Felipe M. Guerra that celebrates the career of exploitation legend Ruggero Deodato as the infamous director turns 80, and Drew Thomas’ incredible new action thriller The Mongolian Connection. Closing out the festival is the World Premiere of the stunning sophomore effort from Greek filmmaker Konstantinos Koutsouliotas, The Fear of Looking Up.

Attending filmmakers will include Fernando Alle, Daniel-Konrad Cooper, Daniel de La Vega, Jordan Downey, Kapel Furman, Rob Grant, Konstantinos Koutsoliotas, Josh Lobo, Justin McConell, Juan Francisco Otaño, Julian Richards, Demian Rugna, Elizabeth Schuch, Koldo Serra, Kevin Stewart, Drew Thomas, and JJ Weber - with many more to be announced.

The first round of fantastic features selected for Fantaspoa 2019 are:

70 Binladens (Koldo Serra, Spain) – Latin American Premiere

A Young Man with High Potential (Linus de Paoli, Germany) – Latin American Premiere

Alive (Rob Grant, Canada) - Latin American Premiere

Dead in a Week: Or Your Money Back (Tom Edmunds, UK) - Latin American Premiere

Deadtectives (Tony West, U.S.) - Brazilian Premiere

Deodato Holocaust (Felipe M. Guerra, Brazil) - World Premiere

I Trapped the Devil (Josh Lobo, U.S.) - Brazilian Premiere

Lifechanger (Justin McConnell, Canada) - Brazilian Premiere

Model Home (Patrick Cunningham, U.S.) - Latin American Premiere

Mutant Blast (Fernando Alle, Portugal/U.S.) - Brazilian Premiere

O Barco (Petrus Cariry, Brazil) - Regional Premiere

Punto Muerto (Daniel de la Vega, Argentina) - Brazilian Premiere

Rebobinado, la Película (Juan Francisco Otaño, Argentina) - Brazilian Premiere

Reborn (Julian Richards, U.S.) - Brazilian Premiere

Starfish (A.T. White, U.S.) - Brazilian Premiere

Tejano (David Blue Garcia, U.S.) - Brazilian Premiere

The Fear of Looking Up (Konstantinos Koutsoliotas, U.K./Brazil) - World Premiere

The Head Hunter (Jordan Downey, Portugal/U.S.) - Brazilian Premiere

The Hoard (Jesse Thomas Cook and Matt Wiele, Canada) - Latin American Premiere

The Russalka (Perry Blackshear, U.S.) - Latin American Premiere

You Have No Idea Who You're Talking To (Demian Rugna, Argentina) - Brazilian Premiere

Last Sunrise (Wen Ren, China) - Latin-American Premiere

The Mongolian Connection (Drew Thomas, Mongolia) - World Premiere."

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Miskatonic NYC's The Shadow Over Lovecraft: Interrogating H.P. Lovecraft's Racism "Our school, Miskatonic, is named after the fictional University that appears throughout the work of early 20th-century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Though there is a personal reason for this, the decision to name our school after anything related to a horror writer now widely known to be a racist is frequently questioned.

There is no denying that H.P Lovecraft was a racist. In his earliest years as a writer, he was an outright white supremacist, later supposedly softened into a cultural elitist. Though racism was not uncommon in his day, and some have argued that this excuses his attitudes, his racism and xenophobia was especially vehement, even for his time. These attitudes are directly apparent not only in an infamous 1912 poem denigrating those of African descent but in journal entries and personal correspondences, as well as indirectly discernable through allegorical descriptions of non-human races in his fiction. This latter point is the most tricky, as it is not discernible to everyone (sometimes a fish-person is just a fish-person) and this has on occasion made fans of his work defensive when it comes to this line of questioning.

Often held as Lovecraft’s most racist horror story, The Horror at Red Hook was addressed, revised and reclaimed by writer Victor LaValle in his brilliant, multiple award-winning novella The Ballad of Black Tom in 2016, which reconfigures the perspective of the story to that of African American protagonist Charles Thomas Tester, which Locus magazine praised for “co-opting Lovecraft’s epic-scale paranoia into the service of a trickster tale.”

The same year saw the release of Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country – currently in production as an HBO series with Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams – which similarly explores issues of race in Lovecraft’s work through its tale of an African American science fiction fan named Atticus Turner, traversing through New England during the heyday of the Jim Crow laws in search of his missing father.

The release of both of these books prompted renewed questioning into the legacy of Lovecraft’s fiction for a legion of fans and fellow writers who have found magic in his Mythos and Cosmic Horror, easily one of the most influential strands of horror in literary history. But does Lovecraft’s racism overshadow his incredible contributions to the field? Should Lovecraft be demoted in the pantheon of horror writers based on his personal ideologies? Can people of those races and ethnicities Lovecraft directed hate towards still find value his work?

Come join us as we hash it out Town Hall-style, with our special guest speakers, Lovecraft scholar Peter H. Cannon and authors Victor LaValle, Matt Ruff and Ruthanna Emrys – whose debut novel Winter Tide (2017) was called “A mythos yarn that totally reverses the polarity on Lovecraft’s xenophobia, so that in the end, the only real monsters are human beings.” The panel will be moderated by author and festival programmer Rodney Perkins.

Panel includes:

Matt Ruff was born in New York City in 1965. He is the award-winning author of six novels, including Fool on the Hill, Bad Monkeys, Set This House in Order, The Mirage, and Sewer, Gas & Electric. His most recent novel, Lovecraft Country, tells the story of two black families fighting both supernatural horrors and the more mundane terrors of racism in Jim Crow-era America. Lovecraft Country is being adapted as an HBO series by Jordan Peele, Misha Green, and J.J. Abrams. Author Photo by Lisa Gold.

Peter Cannon is a senior editor at Publishers Weekly, where he assigns and edits the reviews in the Mystery/Thriller category.

He’s the author of H. P. Lovecraft, a critical study; Sunset Terrace Imagery in Lovecraft, an essay collection; The Chronology out of Time: Dates in the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft; and Long Memories: Recollections of Frank Belknap Long, a memoir. He’s the editor of Lovecraft Remembered and the co-editor with S. T. Joshi of More Annotated Lovecraft. His fiction includes Pulptime, a novella in which Lovecraft meets Sherlock Holmes; Scream for Jeeves: A Parody, a mix of Lovecraft and Wodehouse; Forever Azathoth, a story collection; and The Lovecraft Chronicles, a novel in which Lovecraft dies in 1960 instead of 1937.

He and his wife and three children live in New York City.

Rodney Perkins is a lawyer and writer who has been involved in the film and entertainment industry in various capacities for over a decade. Rodney has worked with film productions, film distributors, video game companies and other entertainment-related businesses. He is currently on the board of directors of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror. Rodney has held numerous positions at film festivals, including lead film programmer at Fantastic Fest and director of Fantastic Fest’s film market. Rodney’s website Dark Docs (darkdocs.net) is devoted to the outer edges of documentary film-making. Rodney is also the co-author of ‘Cosmic Suicide: The Tragedy and Transcendence of Heaven’s Gate.’ Rodney currently resides in Austin, Texas.

Ruthanna Emrys is the author of the Innsmouth Legacy series, including Winter Tide and Deep Roots. She also co-writes Tor.com’s Lovecraft Reread series with Anne M. Pillsworth, reviewing weird fiction from those who inspired Lovecraft to those reconstructing it today. She lives in a mysterious manor house on the outskirts of Washington, DC with her wife and their large, strange family. She makes home-made vanilla, gives unsolicited advice, and occasionally attempts to save the world.

Victor LaValle is the author of seven works of fiction and one graphic novel. His most recent novel, The Changeling, won the World Fantasy Award and the British World Fantasy Award in 2018. His novella, The Ballad of Black Tom, was a finalist for the Nebula, the Hugo, the World Fantasy Award and won a Shirley Jackson Award. He teaches creative writing at Columbia University and lives in New York City with his wife and children.

Date: April 16th, 2019
Time: 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Venue: Film Noir Cinema
Address: 122 Meserole, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Prices: $12 advance / $15 on the door / $50 Full semester pass
https://www.miskatonicinstitute.com/events/the-shadow-over-lovecraft-interrogating-h-p-lovecrafts-racism-nyc/

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Down to Hell Early Access Coming to Steam: "Red Dev Studio, an up-and-coming game developer from Poland, had confirmed that their game Down To Hell will launch in Steam Early Access on 18th April.

Down To Hell is 2D slasher game with challenging difficulty and unique style inspired by metal music. The game will go through Early Access period in an episodic format: after the first episode premieres next Thursday, next episode is scheduled to come in 2-3 months release window.

Down To Hell is a game with a heavy metal heart. It’s inspired by the best elements of Metroidvania conventions, but it’s also a 2D answer to the combo-heavy fight style of such games as Devil May Cry and brutal difficulty of Sous-like genre.

All of the experience is enhanced by the grim, but evocative art style, inspired covers of metal albums, the darkest of dark fantasy and classic references such as legendary manga Berserk. The dark atmosphere is punctuated by a truly metal soundtrack. Decapitated and KORONAL are onboard with their music, with more renown metal bands joining the score soon.

The game will be published in episodic format on Steam, with Switch and possibly other platforms to come.

The Early Access version of the game will be priced at 9,99 USD/EUR. The first episode offers up to three hours of high-octane action including four spectacular boss battles. Later this year Red Dev Studio will also unveil details of a Switch version of the game."

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Trail of Blood Audible Release Details: "Occult investigator Sam Logan receives a cryptic call about a man’s missing son that leads him and his partner, Carter Mason - a disabled veteran - into a small town infested with vampires. With each hour they spend in town after dark they discover just how deep the infestation runs and just how unlikely father and son will be reunited.

Trail of Blood is an exciting, blood-soaked, pause-resister for fans of The Lost Boys and Hellblazer."

For more information, visit Trail of Bloods' Audible page.