Steven Kostanski and his Crazy Creatures

In just over a decade, Steven Kostanski has earned himself a privileged place in the pantheon of contemporary Masters of Horror.

While embarking on his career as a makeup artist and prosthetics expert, Canadian Steven Kostanski was also starting out as a director, clearly demonstrating his fascination with practical effects. He juggled making several short films with his work in the makeup departments on films such as The Haunting in Connecticut, until 2011 saw the release of his debut feature, Manborg. That same year, he was also part of the team of directors from the legendary Astron-6 collective who made the irreverent Father's Day.

Since then, he has continued to alternate between directing feature films and participating in anthologies of the caliber of The ABC's of Death 2 and V/H/S/94, as well as series such as Day of the Dead. He has also continued to demonstrate his excellence in the field of makeup, an area where his résumé includes work on the Wrong Turn and Resident Evil sagas, as well as the series Hannibal, Crimson Peak, Suicide Squad, It, and the more recent In a Violent Nature.

With the arrival of his new film as director, we take this opportunity to pay tribute to the legacy he is leaving all fantastic genre lovers through his most iconic productions.

1 MANBORG (2011)
Half man, half cyborg, Manborg was Steven Kostanski's zany tribute, along with his friends from Astron-6, to Charles Band's B-movie science fiction and the Filipino Mad Max exploits made by the great Cirio H. Santiago. With madcap English dubbing and delightful bargain-basement special and visual effects, Kostanski's debut is one hell of a party.

2 THE VOID (2016)
Steven Kostanski's masterpiece, co-directed and coscripted with his creative partner Jeremy Gillespie, features a dreamy collection of Lovecraftian monsters inspired by The Thing, created with mind-blowing old-school practical effects. Near the end of the film, a recent pinnacle of cosmic horror with a nod to Lucio Fulci, an anthology-worthy apocryphal cenobite appears.

3 PSYCHO GOREMAN (2020)
The Archduke of Nightmares (with the body of Matthew Ninaber and the voice of Steven Vlahos) is a dangerous alien warrior who was on the verge of destroying the galaxy. As punishment, he was imprisoned on Earth along with a shining gem, whose bearer can give him orders.  The gem is accidentally found by Mimi and Luke in their garden, freeing the alien they will nickname Psycho Goreman.

4 FRANKIE FREAKO (2024)
If Psycho Goreman was a love letter to the monsters that appeared in the two Guyver installments, the hilarious and brilliant Frankie Freako recaptures the festive spirit and creatures of the Puppet Master and Ghoulies sagas, with creations that pay a well-deserved tribute to makeup FX wizard John Carl Buechler. Kostanski's new film offers an orgiastic crescendo of madness reminiscent of the equally brilliant Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires.

[Article taken from the Festival Daily from October 3 and 4, 2024, written by Xavi Sánchez Pons and Javier Parra]