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Every year, San Francisco gets into a frisky, gory mood as the annual Another Hole in the Head film festival rears its ugly head. Presented by the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, this offshoot little fest contains some of the best in independent and foreign B-movies. Though billed as a celebration of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, in truth it’s a place for all types of cult films in the making, as indicated by this year’s diverse programming.

Now in its sixth year, the two-week long circus of strange mixes horror, comedy, drama, action, documentary and even porn in its schedule. The only requirement is to be trashy and exciting. Blood, please, if you can.

Cult icon Takashi Miike gets two films in, first with the opening night film Crows: Episode Zero, then with his special take on the private eye genre, Detective Story. At first, it’s hard to imagine why the film is even playing here, as it appears to be the usual Japanese high school delinquent drama—but the inclusion becomes more apparent as Miike gets, well, more Miike (translation: more awesome). Logical consistency goes out the window as the film shows its manga roots, with realistic yakuza violence suddenly transitioning into Looney Tunes physics. This is definitely not a film to be missed, and should kick off the fest nicely. Detective Story is slightly more uneven, but still a hoot, especially when Miike indulges his mischievous side in the third act, as he often does. What starts as a gruesome and disturbing murder case overcomes the weakness of its mystery by transforming into a broad dark comedy seemingly out of nowhere—vintage Miike—sure to baffle those unfamiliar with the Japanese master’s infamous body of work.

Acting as a great companion to Crows: Episode Zero is another entry in the high school delinquent genre, the even more comic booky Be a Man! Samurai School. This is the directorial debut of Tak Sakaguchi, the recurring star of Ryuhei Kitamura films, performing behind the camera as well as in front (as an ubercool swordsman, as usual). Sakaguchi models his own style closely after Kitamura, so fans of Versus really don’t want to miss this one. Stateside, we have our own boisterous samurai film also starring its director, the Western-Fantasy hybrid epic Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf, in which a blind swordsman takes on dangerous ninjas, rednecks, go-go dancers, zombies, cowboys and gangsters in a Sergio Leone landscape to avenge his slain wife. Think El Topo meets Zatoichi meets Grindhouse.

There are instantly provocative films like Black Devil Doll, a local Bay Area production that—let’s be honest—is little more than a softcore skin flick, its entire cast made up of huge plastic-titted ladies, with a little black comedy (in both sense of the term) tacked on. Adding blaxpoitation flavor to the Child’s Play formula, it’s a purposely offensive little film that disgusts more than it tickles, but I'm sure there's an audience for this kind of thing. A more successful slasher-comedy is Audie and the Wolf, about a wolf that turns into a murderous man during a full moon. Both films take place almost entirely in one house and are redundant in their own ways, but the former’s charm overstays its welcome much quicker.

The softcore motif continues in Sex Galaxy, the world's first green movie, since cobbled together entirely from clips of old sci-fi and stag films. A novel (and noble) idea, but whatever humor is there in the silly dubbing wanes after the first 15 minutes. Those who want even more porn are in luck, because Holehead continues Indiefest’s Pink Film retrospective, showcasing the wild Japanese porno films of the 80’s. These are not your typical softcore films, however—these are films from ambitious independent filmmakers who can only fund their bizarre sci-fi/fantasy projects through porn investors. They were given free reign to make whatever film they want, so long as there’s smut inserted every X amount of minutes. It’s a great way to work, if you think about it.

Something else besides movies that should be fun: the Primitive Screwheads theater company will be performing two sets of live shows in conjunction with Holehead. Come see Conanator the Barbarian and Brain-Dead Alive (you can probably guess which movies inspired those plays), two shows that encourage you to bring a poncho or a change of clothes, since you'll most definitely going to be soaked in fake blood during the performances.

In the coming week I’ll have full reviews of many of the films featured. The full schedule is here, and I'm linking it instead of just posting a list because their site is very helpful in that it allows you to build your own schedule and then download it as an .ics file, for those of you with iCal or similar calendar applications.