
Johan Vandewoestijne
Directing
Biography
Johan Vandewoestijne was born on August 26th 1961 in Kortrijk Belgium (Europe) At very young age he showed interest for television and cinema. He studied chemistry and afterwards he went to a filmschool in Brussels.The filmschool was a great disappointment since he always said and today more than ever, that cinema is much more entertainment than it is art. At the filmschool they claimed the opposite. So very rapidly he understood that this was not a place for him to stay. So he left after two years. He joined a video production team by the name of Acces Video and assisted with the lighting of corporate videos. In 1985 he left the company to start up a feature film project entitled " Lucker " which became a cult classic very soon. In 1988 he produced " Rabid Grannies ". Troma inc picked up the film and did the distribution upon this day. It was a 20 year contract and when that was expired Michael Herz asked him to prolonged it with another 20 years. In 1988 Lloyd Kaufman from Troma Inc asked him " to do something about his name ". " Vandewoestijne " means " from the desert " Lloyd said that " Vandewoestijne " for others than Flemish or Dutch, was difficult to pronounce so Johan changed his name into " James Desert " Till today Johan ( or James if you like) is producing and directing low budget horror and exploitation films, always English spoken. That's why some people also name him " The Roger Corman " of the low countries " a surname he seems to like. For many years his films were distributed by Troma Inc but the last five years he has a collaboration with Jeffrey Swanson of SGL entertainment located in Concord California.
Known For

A large family gathers in the country side for their very elderly grannies' birthday. One gift happens to be from their ostracized, black sheep nephew, and upon opening it, the two loveable grannies turn into rabid, flesh-eating monsters.
Rabid Grannies

The feature-length documentary "Forgotten Scares" goes back to the birth of Flemish horror in the '70s and shines a bright light on the future of horror in Belgium. The viewer gets a chance to discover long forgotten - and even unfinished - genre gems and learn in-depth info about underrated 'splatter and gore'-fests, post-apocalyptic movies, slasher-films, nazisploitation, women-in-prison and other fantastical Flemish genre benders through the eyes of the directors, producers, composers, principal actors and genre experts. "Forgotten Scares" is illustrated by rare behind the scene footage, classic film scenes, production stills, promotional art and even never before seen videos out of the vaults of the filmmakers.
Forgotten Scares: An In-depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema

Beyond the front door of an old, decrepit house is buried a horrible and tragic past. One horryfing and gory night a family of four is brutally hacked to pieces. The only survivor is the young and beautiful housekeeper, Ella. When she steps out of the house one day, she has no idea that she is about to be snatched by failed bank-robber Jason Goodis. Goodis, however, could not have imagined that the innocent hostage he is dragging back inside, has an unquenchable thirst for blood!
Parts of the Family

A toilet lady gets an undercover visit by a tax collector, who notices several infractions and sends her an invoice of more than 300.000 Euro. While in the public restroom, the tax collector also finds out someone has been dealing drugs and starts selling powdered sugar to the local junks, pretending it is cocaine. In the meantime, a serial killer has been trying to flush his victims' body parts down the drain.
Todeloo

When friends Sandra and Rebecca become stranded in the middle of nowhere, they have no choice but to split up. Sandra heads back to the rural gas station and Rebecca stays with the car. When Sandra doesn't return, Rebecca becomes worried. It soon becomes clear the gas station is really a trap, and the women are now the playthings of JUNIOR!
Junior

On an obscure chat site, Jeff pretends to be an SM mistress who’s looking for a sister to her slave Julie. That way Jeff manages to gain the trust of his victims and lure them to his flat, where a gruesome fate awaits them.
Laundry Man
An unsettling journey into the darkest corners of human desire. EROS & ARTHANATOS, directed by Domiziano Cristopharo and Cristo Gil Diaz, is an unfiltered documentary exploring the taboo world of necrophilia. Through historical accounts, psychological insights, and cinematic representations, the film dissects the intersection of love, death, and obsession. Blending expert interviews, archival footage, and artistic interpretations, EROS & ARTHANATOS challenges conventional morality, delving into the disturbing yet fascinating realm where eroticism and mortality collide.
Eros & ARThanatos

With a duration of 150 minutes, GORE TAPES includes trailers for films distributed by the label from 2019 to today, but also those of some of the new releases arriving in the coming months. Among these we remember the trailers for Orozco the Embalmer, Lucker the Necrophagous, The Life and Death Of a Porno Gang, Trypophobic Possession, films by Aldo Lado, Marian Dora, Andrey Iskanov, Jonathan Doe, Domiziano Cristopharo, Scott Schirmer, Brett Mullen and many other titles among the most extreme in the catalogue.
GORE TAPES

Inspired by the mysterious final days of Edgar Allen Poe, a writer becomes a prisoner of his own macabre work in mid-1950s Western Europe.
The Brides

The year, 1978, in a Catholic school, pupils in detention. Billy is missing from the roll-call. Detention has barely begun, as Billy drops in with some friends. All are armed to the teeth. Billy takes revenge on his classmates for the constant harassment. Morgan, another pupil, still has a reckoning with the senior pastors in connection with sexual abuse.
Detention

Jessica is shot by police after the double murder of her friend and love rival. Yet she manages to escape from the ambulance. She steals a car and blindly follows the GPS to the terminus Terminal Hotel. Mr. Raileb receives her as if she were a scheduled guest, but soon it becomes clear that the asylum for the night is not what it seems.
Terminal Hotel

A serial killer awakens from a coma and escapes from a mental hospital to kill a survivor of his slayings years ago, all the while stalking, terrifying, and killing women on the way.
Lucker the Necrophagous

Colin Zsigmond is a middle-aged novelist suddenly turned wealthy and famous after decades of hardship and poverty. One evening during a literary lecture, the recently divorced man meets Phoebe Lee, an exotic woman with whom he starts a steamy romance. At first, it seems he has found himself the perfect muse. Phoebe is young, ravishing, madly in love, and an English major student to top it off. But slowly her mysterious behavior starts to trouble him. Something isn’t quite right, as she appears to be leading a secret life. When Colin starts to investigate, it turns out his past is coming back to haunt and terrorize him in a rather unexpected way.
Soul Copyright

After seven years of confinement in a psychiatric hospital for being declared insane after murder, Kristen is released on supervised parole by her doctor. As part of her therapy, she is allowed to return to the house where she committed the murder. However, a stalker living in the neighborhood appears to have it in for Kristen...
Purgatory

Detective Paul Wolfs is an older cop and one week before his retirement it seems he has caught alleged serial killer Robert Clarck. The evidence is overwhelming and a confession would be the icing on the cake of his career.
Rotten Fruit

It all begins in 1816, the “Year Without a Summer,” when Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and friends—trapped indoors by volcanic ash-cloud weather—entertained themselves by writing ghost stories. What emerged was Frankenstein, the spark that ignited two centuries of macabre imagination. From there, the film traces the genre’s evolution: Poe and Stoker, Edison and Méliès, German Expressionism and Universal Monsters, Hammer Films and Giallo maestros like Argento and Bava. Horror’s heartbeat pulses through Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, Daughters of Darkness, and the outrageous rise of Troma with The Toxic Avenger.