Richard Stanley

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It was the movie that stunned audiences, shocked the MPAA and marked the debut of one of the most uncompromising filmmakers in modern horror. Golden Globe winner Dylan McDermott (The Practice) stars as a post-apocalyptic scavenger who brings home a battered cyborg skull for his metal-sculptor girlfriend. But this steel scrap contains the brain of the M.A.R.K. 13, the military’s most ferocious bio-mechanical combat droid. It is cunning, cruel and can reassemble itself. Tonight, it is reborn….and no flesh shall be spared. Stacey Travis (Ghost World) co-star – along with appearances by Iggy Pop, Lemmy of Motorhead and much by Ministry and Public Image Ltd. – in the kick-ass sci-fi thriller from Richard Stanley (Dust Devil) that Fangoria calls “gritty, trippy and frightening….Hardware is one of the best horror movies you’ve never seen!”Read More »

The Secret Glory tells the story of Otto Rahn (1904-1939), who worked in Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Society), a Schutz-Staffel division in the Nazi Germany. Rahn was convinced he knew where to find the Holy Grail and after being nominated an SS officer, he finally had the resources to pursue it.Read More »

Voice of the Moon isn’t that much of a documentary. It’s more of a 30 minute series of images Stanley recorded while he was in Afghanistan in the late 80’s with some Mujahadin rebels [and also the late war journalist Carlos Mavroleon (1958- 1998), who worked as a producer]. Voice follows the their daily attempts to survive in a country being torn to pieces by the Russian invasion. Originally made for UNICEF, children’s charity, and to be aired by BSB. The broadcaster passed the film due to its lack of any actual narration aside from a Sufi poem. Instead, the images are accompanied by Simon Boswell’s score, bringing the whole thing closer to a music video.Read More »

In The White Darkness anthropologist and cult film-maker Richard Stanley documents the practice and the oppression of voudou in present-day Haiti. In the tradition of his descendent Henry Morton Stanley, explorer and journalist who found Livingstone, but with the advantage of the hand-held camera, he presents an unflinching look at the often shocking practices of voudou. Richard Stanley sees his journey to Haiti – the first colonised country to declare independence – as a ‘closing of the loop’ of imperialist practices within his own family history. In the course of this journey, modern Haiti reveals itself as critically divided between opposing religious beliefs and forces. What becomes apparent is the centrality of voudou to Haitian culture, history, and politics and its ongoing importance in fighting against everyday American military oppression.Read More »

Here is a nice little student film directed by Richard Stanley (Hardware, Dust Devil). A future love story set amidst the decline of society and the rise of devastating mech wars. Stanley’s prototype for Hardware. The story and setting are consistent with Hardware for the first half, then diverge a bit more into the future wars behind the torrid love affairs and relationships of the story. Explains how Max’s (Moses’) robotic hand came to be. No killer robots, but there is a cameo of a Robotech action figure!Read More »

Here is a nice little Super-8 student film directed by and starring Richard Stanley (Hardware, Dust Devil). “Rites of Passage” feels like the result of what might happen if Derek Jarman attempted to adapt Kubrick’s 2001 into a short.

As a primordial man (Richard Stanley) wanders in the plains and forests of the Dark Continent, seemingly at the dawn of the human race, a narrator reminisces on past lives, all of which he remembers. These outspoken thoughts seem to be with the primordial man as he travels towards an unknown destination; the two co-exist simultaneously despite the gap of thousands of years. Their lives are intervowen – as they’ve always been…Read More »

Set on the planet Mars, The Sea of Perdition tells the story of a stranded astronaut (Maggie Moor), who discovers an ancient temple in the wilderness and whatever secrets it may hold.

The Sea of Perdition was shot in Iceland in mid-2006, as a part of Errant Films’ IBM Film project, which consisted of five separate short films, all based upon the composition “The Sky’s gone dim and the Sun’s gone black” by the Icelandic composer Johann Johansson. The featured music is from the fifth part of his album, IBM 1401 – A User’s Manual.Read More »