July 30, 2014 - History in the making at the 2014 edition of the FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal. Legendary director Tobe Hooper will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award followed by a screening of the Dark Sky 40th Anniversary Restoration of Hooper's Masterpiece, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. As if that's not enough, you'll have to choose between that and a screening of the terrific South African Crime Thriller FOUR CORNERS - BOTH TONIGHT AT #FANTASIA2014 - Reviews By Greg Klymkiw

Original 1974 Poster

La Belle Province is the place to be today, so head on down to the true capital of Quebec (and Canada), Montreal, la ville aux cent clochers.

History is in the making today. It will rival that of the Seven Years' War, the moronic Tory-led burning of the Parliament Buildings, Mayor Camillien Houde's brave protest against Anglo-enforced conscription, the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway and, of course, Expo 67.

Tonight, July 30, 2014, you will be forced to CHOOSE between TWO great EVENTS happening AT THE SAME TIME during the 2014 edition of the FantAsia International Film Festivals. At 9:40 PM in the DB Clarke Theatre, you can see the terrific South African crime thriller by Ian Gabriel entitled Four Corners and FIVE FUCKING MINUTES LATER at 9:45 PM in the Concordia Hall Theatre, the legendary filmmaker Tobe Hooper will be on hand IN THE FLESH to received FantAsia's Life Achievement Award, which will then be followed by a screening of Dark Sky Films' astonishing 40th Anniversary Restoration (from the original 16mm reversal negative) of Hooper's masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Below you will find capsule reviews (with links to the full reviews) of Four Corners and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Read 'em and weep. If you can't be in Montreal tonight, just weep, sucker!

A tattooed prison lifer knows all,
because he's seen all and stays alive
with his constant hawk-like gaze.

Four Corners (2013) ***½
Dir. Ian Gabriel
Starring: Brendon Daniels, Jezriel Skei, Abduragman Adams, Irshaad Ally, Lindiwe Matshikiza,

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Four Corners (as harsh and brutal as much of it is) compares to being a kinder, gentler and more straightforward South African version of Amores perros by Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu, though it never feels like homage, nor is it derivative. Ian Gabriel's finely crafted film focuses on a handful of inter-connected characters as we follow the amalgamation of their individual stories into each other. There's a sense of melancholy and tragedy running through this beautifully acted film, but there are also touches of an eventual new world for all the characters and a strong sense that perhaps their children and their children's children will be the ultimate beneficiaries of their pain, struggles and sacrifices in a country still hurting from the hideous legislation of segregation and racism. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

It's ALWAYS about the MEAT!!!

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Dir. Tobe Hooper *****
Starring: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen, John Dugan, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Robert Courtin, John Henry Faulk, John Larroquette

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"There are moments when we cannot believe that what is happening is really true. Pinch yourself and you may find out that it is." - A horoscope read aloud during The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

What hit me when I first saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is how brilliantly the movie is sectioned into two separate, yet inextricably linked halves, the first being a simple narrative set-up for its especially harrowing second half. Creepily building during the first 40 minutes, with occasional exclamatory jolts of violence, the picture delivers a solid bedrock from which it plunges you headlong into the second 40 minutes, a relentless nightmare on film. This is not a passive experience - you're slammed deep into the maw of pure, sheer, unrelenting terror.

Beg all you like. The nightmare never seems to end. When it finally does, the utter dread and revulsion generated by the whole experience stays with you forever. This, of course, is not because of the gore, or the extremity of the violence, but rather because the tone of the movie is so unlike anything you will have experienced. Even with all the slasher films, torture porn and moronically graphic remakes that have assailed contemporary audiences over the past decade, none of them come close to the disquieting power and intelligence with which The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is so astonishingly infused with. As they say, this one's for the ages. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

FOUR CORNERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Shattering South AfricanCrime-Drama @niagaraFilmFest2014

Brilliant chess prodigy Ricardo (Jezriel Skei)
can't escape the influence of criminal gangs.

A tattooed prison lifer knows all,
because he's seen all and stays alive
with his constant hawk-like gaze.

Four Corners (2013) ***½
Dir. Ian Gabriel
Starring: Brendon Daniels, Jezriel Skei, Abduragman Adams, Irshaad Ally, Lindiwe Matshikiza,

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Though over twenty years has passed since the dismantlement of racial segregation in South Africa, the brutality of the White minority's policy of Apartheid continues to assert its damaging effects over this country struggling to accept that the shackles are gone and that freedom is, sadly, a learned experience.

The repercussions of racism as official governance prior to the election of Nelson Mandela as President in 1994, forced poverty and crime to reign over certain segments of Black African society. This shameful blight, flagrantly and meretriciously foisted upon the nation's majority continues even today. The prisons overflow with black inmates whilst rival gangs, in front and behind the walls of incarceration, perpetuate a perverse self-identify through criminal activity, much of it against each other.

Ian Gabriel's finely crafted film Four Corners focuses on a handful of inter-connected characters as we follow the amalgamation of their individual stories into each other.

Farakhan (Brendon Daniels) is a General of a vicious gang. Upon his release from prison, he seeks to cut ties with the criminal organization, extract revenge upon the rival who murdered his father, reclaim his family home (now smack in the middle of the rivals' territory) and painstakingly seek out the son he's never met. Along the way he meets Leila (Lindiwe Matshikiza), a London-educated doctor who has returned to her Cape Flats home to settle her recently deceased father's estate. The couple are immediately attracted to each other, but their diametrically opposed worlds have the potential to drive a wedge between them.

Tito (Abduragman Adams) is a detective obsessed with solving the case of numerous missing children who might well be victims of a serial killer as opposed to gang warfare. He also takes a gently patriarchal interest and approach to keeping a watchful eye over Ricardo (Jezriel Skei), a fatherless teen chess master who is constantly faced with the inevitability of joining the criminal gang presided over by Gasant (Irshaad Ally), a handsome, power-hungry young crime baron whose mesmerist qualities are exactly what the doctor ordered to attract juveniles to the cause (whether they're "delinquent" or not).

It won't take long before these four disparate souls intersect and though there's a feeling that Four Corners (as harsh and brutal as much of it is) compares to being a kinder, gentler and more straightforward South African version of Amores perros by Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu, it never feels like homage, nor is it blatantly derivative. Given the poverty and corruption within both countries, it seems like a perfectly acceptable approach to telling its tale(s).

Four Corners also manages to achieve this without an accent on aping Iñárritu's cerebral qualities and especially in its favour is the film's lack of didactic qualities many other filmmakers on their sophomore effort might be prone to. Gabriel is a fine meat-and-potatoes director and clearly fulfills the promise he displayed with his first feature, the powerful Forgiveness from 2004. Here, he more than ably renders the solid screenplay (from his story) by Terence Hammond & Hofmeyr Scholtz which never blatantly references the effects of Apartheid, but certainly always keeps it present in the subtext.

If anything makes the film stand out from many other crime pictures of a multi-character structure is that at its core, the film is about family - seeking family and restoring family. This notion, so ever-present, touches all the characters and again, is tied to the slavery-like policies of Apartheid which did so much damage in separating people from their homes and those they loved.

There's a sense of melancholy and tragedy running through this beautifully acted film, but there are also touches of an eventual new world for all the characters and a strong sense that perhaps their children and their children's children will be the ultimate beneficiaries of their pain, struggles and sacrifices in a country still hurting from the hideous legislation of segregation and racism.

Four Corners is playing at the Niagara Integrated Film Festival (NIFF 2014). For tickets visit HERE.