Sure, family-friendly films, "green" cinema and the corresponding warm-fuzzies you get from caring about your lil' ones and The Earth are nice. But historically, motion pictures have always been driven by violence, outlandishness and the public's insatiable and prurient interest in watching things on film that they don't necessarily want to see in real life. In this hallowed vein, the AFF Dark Matters Series explores subject matter ranging from blood-spattered vegans to Korean hillbilly gangs to "a horrible situation involving death, hippies, and uni-brows."

Bloody Aria | Dir. Shin-yeon Won
Thu, Oct 11
9:15 PM, Dobie Theatre
Mon, Oct 15
8:00 PM, Dobie Theatre

Like a Greek tragedy (or fellow Korean director Park Chan-wook's Vengeance trilogy), the mood transitions from ominous to spectacularly fucked up in this hyper-violent tale of bad choices and worse luck.

While driving home from an audition, a big-shot opera singer attempts to rape his pupil somewhere in the Korean backwoods, where his immaculate white Mercedes catches the attention of a sublimely crazed gang of inbred toughs. The hillbillies just happen to have whiled away the sunny afternoon torturing a hostage of their own, so they're all fired up to torment the stranded city folk with rat eating, baseball-bat swinging, and xxx-treme psychological bullying.

This movie was one of the best we've seen all year, despite our normally low tolerance for graphic (unrelenting, pulpy, bloody, head-smashing) violence. Maybe because the isolated setting and dramatic tension match the intensity of the beat-downs. Maybe because we sort of liked the Korean gang, with their creepy, smiling leader and twisted comedic flourishes. Maybe because the line between good and evil turns out to be totally shifty, Freudian, and barely there. Whatever; Bloody Aria is sick operatic fun.

Blood Car | Dir. Alex Orr
Saturday, October 13
11:55 PM, Dobie Theatre
Thursday, October 18
9:30 PM, Dobie Theatre

In the immediate future, gas prices have risen to hundreds of dollars a gallon, and a mild-mannered vegan schoolteacher just wants to create an earth-friendly car. When he discovers that human blood makes a great alternative fuel, he must reconcile saving the planet with the unbridled killing sprees necessary to power his eco-car. It's like Little Shop of Horrors minus the musical numbers and with a lot more social allegory! Bonus: Anna "My Girl" Chlumsky co-stars in this timely black comedy and boy did she grow up to be hot.

The Secret Lives of the Bathroom Attendant
Thursday, October 11
11:00 PM, Hideout Theatre
Sunday, October 14
9:30 PM, Dobie Theatre

This five-minute short, playing with Street Team Massacre, reminds us that you should always tip the attendant, if you know what’s good for you.

Street Team Massacre | Dir. Adam Deyoe, Eric Gosselin
Thursday, October 11
11:00 PM, Hideout Theatre
Sunday, October 14
9:30 PM, Dobie Theatre

Those aforementioned prurient desires? Street Team Massacre promises to satisfy them all in this 80's-style horror/schlock/comedy that seems vigorously devoted to being an 80's-style horror/schlock/comedy. Accordingly, the cast includes TROMA Films founder Lloyd Kaufman and George Hardy of Troll 2 fame, and the plot involves zombies, a sports drink called Jock Juice, and of course, fountains of gore.

Trail of the Screaming Forehead | Dir. Larry Blamire
Sunday, October 14
9:30pm, Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek
Tuesday, October 16
3:00pm, Hideout Theatre

In this goofy riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the residents of Longhead Bay (GET IT?!) are terrorized by soul-sucking bigheaded creatures from outer space.

A sexy scientist formulates an extract called Foreheadazine, the ginormously-domed monsters besiege the town, and you have to wonder: Why couldn't the townspeople have solved the problem by just giving everybody bangs?

The Ungodly | Dir. Thomas Dunn
Saturday, October 13
9:30pm, Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek
Monday, October 15
10:30pm, Dobie Theatre

Wes Bentley, the kid who loved filming windblown plastic bags in American Beauty, reappears as yet another filmmaker with serious issues in The Ungodly. This time around, he plays a documentarian on the trail of a serial killer (played by the film's writer, Mark Bokowski) . After accidentally catching one of the killer's murders on film, he tries to blackmail him into being his next documentary subject, and the ensuing cat-and-mouse play creates a toss-up regarding which dude is actually creepier.

Year of the Fish | Dir. David Kaplan
Sunday, October 14
7:00pm, Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek
Thursday, October 18
8:30pm, Hideout Theatre

Dark matters, indeed. This animated re-imagining of the Cinderella fairy tale--shot entirely on location in New York's Chinatown and then digitally painted á la Waking Life--follows a young Chinese girl who lands in New York only to wind up as a slave to an evil woman who runs a "massage" parlor in Chinatown. She finds hope in a magical fish given to her by a benevolent hunchback and in stolen moments with a jazz musician, with the spectacle of Chinese New Year festivities acting as a visually arresting backdrop.