The Last Horror Film | 1982 | USA | David Winters

Shot in a charmingly brazen guerilla-style at the Cannes Film Festival of 1981, this self-aware shocker reunites the beautiful pairing of Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro from Maniac for a similar premise with a wildly deviating finale. New York taxi driver Vinny has high hopes and aspirations of directing a horror movie, specifically starring his favourite actress Jana Bates who he’s developed a deep-rooted obsession for. Heading to the festival in Cannes, Vinny encounters Jana who is promoting her latest horror film release, only to be rejected by her for his increasingly bizarre antics. At the same time, someone is offing the cast and crew in an insidious bid to ensure Jana has made ‘the last horror film’... but is it actually Vinny? The film actually feels quite postmodern by today’s standards, foreshadowing the success of a horror film called Scream and eerily predicting the prize-winning result that Possession gained at the very festival it was shot at. The humour was lost on the DPP who had it seized for the violent death sequences.