Rising from Within

Yesterday (20) saw the world premiere of If They Came From Within: An Alternative History Of Canadian Horror, taking place as a special event as part of Fantasia International Film Festival.

The travelling art exhibition was created by Rue Morgue Magazine Editor-in-Chief Dave Alexander, who brought together a selection of Canada and Quebec’s most celebrated genre filmmakers - including the likes of Jason Eisener, Vincenzo Natale, Karim Hussain and George Mihalka - and paired them with some of the country’s best designers and illustrators to craft posters for genre films that don’t exist.

Such is the level of detail that has gone into the exhibition, each poster - all of them stunning enough to look at in their own right, wonderfully detailed so that the posters evoke the era they were meant to be released in - comes with a full synopsis of the film that never was from the filmmaker.

Some of the highlights include Blood Cabin proclaimed as “Quebec’s sick ‘n’ syrupy answer to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, Tundrasaur - one of a trio of films from Permafrost Pictures, which comes with its own miniature - and Emanuelle, Eh? which - for a lover of wordplay such as myself - comes with this glorious tagline: “Your favourite nymph is back, this time in the land of the beaver”.

The exhibition, which is backed by original soundtrack recordings from Montreal musician Conrad Simon, ends with a selection of movies that were never made, but were in development at some point at Cinépix - now Lionsgate - including Flight Of The Living Dead which urged you to “fly the flesh eating skies”.

If They Came From Within runs at Cinémathèque Québecoise as part of Fantasia until July 29, before embarking on a nationwide gallery tour. To find out more, visit its website.