The seventh Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, San Francisco IndieFest’s annual celebration of slasher flicks and sci-fi fantasies, kicked off Thursday at the Roxie with the West Coast premiere of Death Kappa, a deliciously campy Japanese import about an atomically enhanced, city-stomping water goblin. Missed it the first time? No problem. You can catch it again Thursday, July 29, for the festival's closing night at the Viz. Until then, check out this year's crop of lowbrow highlights.

1. Nightmares in Red, White and Blue
Where:
Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., 415-863-1087
When: July 11, 12, 14
Why: Tracing the evolution of American horror films from 1910’s Frankenstein to the present, Andrew Monument’s fascinating, exhaustively researched documentary – featuring commentary by pioneering directors including John Carpenter and George A. Romero – examines the psychology that drives the genre, as well as the social conditions in which our nation’s most infamous Nightmares have thrived.

2. Metropolis 1984 Redux
Where:
Viz Cinema, 1746 Post St., 415-525-8600
When: July 24, 26
Why: Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent classic gets an extreme makeover – complete with colorization, re-editing and an ’80s soundtrack featuring Freddie Mercury, Adam Ant and the Canadian rock quintet Loverboy – in this long-forgotten but lovingly restored relic.

3. RoboGeisha
Where:Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., 415-863-1087
When: July 9, 15, 20
Why: Noboru Iguchi (Machine Girl) takes sibling rivalry to deliberately preposterous extremes in his tale of two sisters competing for the attentions of a wealthy steel baron. That he plans to wipe out Japan with his trained army of brainwashed cyborgs barely puts the brakes on their ever-escalating feud.

4. Alien vs. Ninja
Where:
Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., 415-863-1087; Viz Cinema, 1746 Post St., 415-525-8600
When: July 21 at the Roxie; July 25, 28 at the Viz
Why:
The title says all you need to know about Seiji Chiba’s latest, a delirious geek show featuring better-than-you’d-expect effects and a generous helping of severed flesh.

5. The Violent Kind
Where:Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., 415-863-1087
When: July 11
Why: San Francisco’s Butcher Brothers, whose chilling 2006 debut, The Hamiltons, earned them the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Gold Vision Award, return here with an unsettling tribute to the majesty of gore: blood-soaked bodies, unadulterated evil and, as Alex DeLarge might say, a bit of the old ultra-violence.

6. Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives
Where:
Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., 415-863-1087; Viz Cinema, 1746 Post St., 415-525-8600
When: July 22 at the Roxie; July 23 at the Viz
Why: Israel Luna’s controversial homage to the grind-house cinema of the ’70s finds Bubbles (Krystal Summers) and her crew of blade-wielding divas out to avenge a savage beating. The resulting mayhem is delightfully dirty, gratuitously gruesome and definitely not for the faint of heart.

7. The Exterminator
Where:Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., 415-863-1087
When: July 10
Why: One of the few films to receive Roger Ebert’s less-than-coveted no-star rating, The Exterminator (1980) follows a crazed vigilante determined to clean up New York by mutilating one criminal at a time. Improbably, it returns to the big screen in time to celebrate its 30th anniversary, giving a new generation of moviegoers the chance to witness what Ebert dismissed as an “exercise in shame.”