I see another...review...

So another review came in. This time by Derrick Ferguson who runs a movie review blog - The Ferguson Theater.

Let's get straight to it...


Okay. Since I like to end on a upbeat note I'll get what I didn't like about ONE FOOT IN HELL out of the way first: where'd the second doll come from? Did the evil spirit of the first doll leave that body and jump into the body of the second doll? And if so, why did it go after Alice instead of Warwick? Because she was the one who nailed it down to be BBQ'ed? if so, that was a nice touch with the way the second doll nailed her down. But that part was unclear to me. As was the ending with Warwick mailing pieces of the doll to different people. Was it because he was afraid that the spirit would just jump into another doll's body and come after them again? Again, the wasn't clear to me.

And I realize there's only so much you can do in a short film but Charlie's death is a pretty big loose end hanging out there. Did Warwick and Alice go to the police with their wild story and found themselves charged with his murder?

Now to what I did like: you've got a very clean directorial style. I myself appreciate a director who trusts his actors and his story enough that he can let them do what supposed to do and not try a whole bunch of unnecessary camera tricks and angles just to show off. You didn't do that here. You put your camera down, put your actors in front ot the camera and let them work. I liked all three of your actors very much. They were quite natural and didn't come off as "trying to act" if you know what I mean.

And that stop-motion animation was simply great. I've a major fan of stop-motion animation and I heartily support anybody keeping it alive. In fact, stop-motion animation works better in a killer doll story such as this one as for me it's a lot creepier than CGI. And I liked how you got in a bit of humor with your horror when the killer doll is standing at the top of the stairs and gives Alice that cute little wave hello.

To sum up, I liked it. It's a respectable short movie that told a short, effective story. As i said, some of the motivations of Warwick and the doll confused me slightly there near the end but it didn't prevent my overall enjoyment of the film. You and your people should be rightfully proud of it and I hope to see more work from you in the future. I don't know if any of this helps but whether it does or not, you keep on making films. And definitely continue to use stop-motion! Can't ever get enough of that. 

Derrick

The first review...

So my understanding of how to get fortune and glory goes like this:-

1. Make/do something awesome;
2. Something happens;
3. Fortune and Glory!!

Now I'll all for stages 1 and 3, but it's part 2 that's still a bit hazy. Since completing One Foot I have been patiently waiting for stage 3, but I don't seem to be there yet. Then I had the idea (or just did what Bother Chris told me to do) and decided to contact a few horror themed blogs to tell them about my film.

And now reviews are starting to pour in.

The first comes from Ghost Hunting Theories; a blog by Sharon Day, a paranormal investigator and author from. You can find the review by clicking here.

So, we have our first review.

Surely I'm now well on my way to fortune and glory!

Release the Kraken...

Now if only I had a kraken.

So for now I will unleash One Foot From Hell.

Yes after 4 solid weekends of filming in October 2012, a year of editing, animating and compositing in 2013, and a finally year of successful film festivals (ok, not so successful. I need to work on marketing) the film is unleashed.

I can now point people in it's general direction. I can say, "I made a film. You can see it here!".

I can now be happy that people can finally watch the bloody thing instead of me keeping it locked up whilst I reject another festival as I don't have the funds for the entry fee.

So without going to crazy. For the first link of many; you can watch the film here:-

http://vimeo.com/79604811

Cheers

Rob Zombie stole my ears...

In a Brother piece to Brother Chris blog, which can be found here, I also felt the need to make you all wish you where with us last night. Rob Zombie was amazing. Seriously, I have proof.




During this next one at about 4:46 Rob Zombie left the stage an was a mere foot away from where we were standing. This was cool. Also at about 9:20 listen out for The Munsters theme. By this time Rob zombie was somewhere round the back.



These videos do make me wonder whether getting so close to front is worth it. The sound is a lot better on these videos than what we heard thanks to the giant speaker we were next to. Also we had a couple of strobe lights in our eyes. And were standing next to a large cannon. We didn't explode though thankfully.

Saying all that though, you can't the replace atmosphere of being close to the stage. I'm sure the next gig I'll have this same discussion, and still end up at the front.

That's the only way I can actually hear the music.

Boris Karloff narrates my work.

Ok, so that title is only part true. Being part of the week long Boris Karlof Blogathon, celebrating Mr Karloff's birthday on 23rd November, I'm given a chance to drag out a film I made during the first year of my animation degree. Before I get into it, please remember to take some time to check out all the contributing blogger's posts, a full list can be found on Frankensteinia's blog. There are some great additions on there honouring a great man.

So back to my animation degree and the year 2002. The task was to complete a short narrative piece, an animatic to be precise (An animatic is basically a filmed storyboard)to teach us how to tell a story with pictures. After thinking long and hard I decided to base mine on the story 'An Appointment in Samara" Not only is it a cool little story but I could also get Boris Karloff to narrate my film. Obviously as this was a project and I made no money from it (copyright notice covered there) I lifted said narration from the Peter Bogdanovich film "Targets" in which Karloff, as Byron Orlok, recites the story.

So I edited down the narration, created the storyboard and presented my work. Unfortunately it was under appreciated as the lecturers felt I was relying too much on the the narration rather than the visuals. In hindsight, they may have been right, but who cares. With Boris Karloff telling the story, you're guaranteed to end up focusing more on him than my rough sketches.

so for your pleasure, and if you can bear through a couple of my early works, you can watch the animatic I created for "An appointment in Samara"



And below is the scene from which the narration was taken, from the Peter Bogdanovich film Targets.



To finish off with here's a clip from The Bride of Frankenstein. It is the end so hopefully you've already seen the film. It's just a really cool moment in film and one of my favourites



On that pleasant note go and check out Brother Chris blog and, the rest of the participants, to share the love for a movie legend at Frankensteinia's blog.

Happy Birthday Mr. Karloff.

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day Two

Day Two -

After watching a bizarre kids program (in which one character gave another a moustache as a present) whilst we woke and got ready, we set off for breakfast at the festival. We sat and ate when who should come over and join us but Uwe Boll. Awesome.

We talked about films and the state of the world, and the state of films in the world, until it was time for the first screening of the day, Side Effx. This film has problems. It was followed with a Q&A by the director, who was brought on to edit the film into something watchable after the first director was let go. He was aware of the problems with the film, mainly due to the pacing. It was a good try, but did suffer from random corridor wanderings. Good fights though, and wire work.

This was followed by The Disappeared. Described as an urban ghost story it didn't fail to deliver. There were a couple of creepy moments but towards the end it fell into run of the mill story telling, getting a little predictable. Still, I felt it was well shot and acted.

After this was the Star Hyke series preview and cast Q&A. Star Hyke is an independent comedy, drama, sci-fi series with obvious comparisons to Red Dwarf and Hyperdrive. It kind of stands on its own, the CGI is well done and Jeremy Bulloch (of Boba Fett fame) is awesome as the ships doctor, providing most of the laughs. However, we were shown episodes 4 & 5 so it was a little hard to follow having missed half of the series. Brother Chris has seen the whole series and did say that it's best to see the first three in one block in order to grasp the concept. I'd still watch it when it airs on TV though, and think it would probably get better as the series goes on. The Q&A afterwards was cool, with cast keeping things lighthearted, and of course the awesome Jeremy Bulloch.

Then was the "dinner break" a long gap between films in order to get something to eat, so of course we just ended up chatting with friends. It was good to hear some industry speak and see how easy/difficult it is to get films released these days. So no food was had. Whoops.

The penultimate screening of Saturday was The Passage, directed by Mark Heller and written by and starring Neil Jackson, who attended the screening for the following Q&A. This film surprised me. It does have a slow build up as you get to know the characters, but does deliver towards the end. When it was introduced, Neil Jackson explained it was based on true events, so I thought it would just be him wandering around Morocco. Which does happen to a degree, but let's just say, if all of it was true, he wouldn't have been able to introduce the film. Neil then held a Q&A which was awesome, especially as I asked a decent, Creative Screenwriting style question about treatments and such. If you didn't know, Neil has been in a bunch of stuff including the Blade TV series and more recently Push and this was his first produced screenplay. He seemed to love writing and said in a way he used that to get into acting in the first place. Anyway, it was really interesting talk and he's a nice guy.

I then attended the final screening of the day, Mark of the Devil., directed by Michael Armstrong, who also attended for the Q&A. This is a film from 1970, starring Udo Kier and Herbert Lom about witch-finders. As with Witchfinder General, it's not really a horror but I feel always comes across more like an educational video but just a little bit nastier. It was also described as an early example of "torture-porn", a concept taken to extremes with the likes of Hostel and the umpteen thousand Saw sequels. Mark of the Devil is ok. Not a brilliant film but it still made me squirm in places, plus it was good to see something from a different era on the bill. The following Q&A was excellent. Again, Michael Armstrong is a director form a completely different time of filmmaking and due to this questions were few. He was a friendly guy and did have a passion for films, even if he was a little tipsy at the time. He also mentioned the original Haunting as one of the scariest films made, a point I definitely agreed with.

It was time to leave and find Brother Chris, who had left to seek his fortune. I said my goodbyes to friends and to Neil and Michael and left. Meeting up with Chris in a shouty Italian restaurant we left for the hotel. Once there we took pleasure in the Ice Cream vending machine once again, I'd yet to have any dinner so a mint magnum would have to do. Excellent.

-Today I also bought a book called "I Am Batman" which was awesome. I'll give a little excerpt:
My name is Bruce Wayne.
My home is Gotham City.
I live in a big apartment.
I own a boat and a plane.

I have nice clothes.
I have a fast car.
And I have lots of other fancy toys and gadgets.
...

The Joker is a tricky foe.
His jokes are never funny.
Sometimes they hurt people.
...

Fighting crime is not easy.
But my gear and gadgets help make it all possible.
I am not just Bruce Wayne.
I am Batman!

Awesome!

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day One

These days it's getting pretty hard to beat the awesome-ness of past events. This past weekend is so high up on the scale I doubt it will ever be knocked off the list.

Last weekend Brother Chris and I attended the Phantasmagoria Film Festival held in Swindon. A great showcase of independent genre films from horror to martial arts. For us this was just the beginning.

Day One -

We took a train. So far so good, then found our lodgings in the form of the Travelodge. Then the weirdness began. I'm convinced that the girl checking us in was called Jens. Which just conjures up images of Blade Runner-esqe androids. So we took our key, gave warning to keep away from any Harrison Ford looking types, and made out way up to the room. Brother Chris settled in easy enough. I on the other hand was disturbed by the freaky Dark Water-esqe drip stains on the wall, just above my bed. I did not want to be dragged away in the middle of the night by a long haired Japanese ghost girl.

For the time being I managed to suppress my fear and we left for the festival. Well, sort of. We left on the hunt for dinner, where we passed a pub. At which point we stopped as Uwe Boll was inside with two people. We decided to go in, find something to eat and stare at him. Instead, we went in, Chris recognised one of the people so we went over and joined them. Having a drink with Uwe Boll. Awesome.

We later left for the Arts Centre for the first film of the first day, Gnaw. A good horror film. It was a little predictable at times but the effects and acting were good enough. After a brief Q&A with director Gregory Mandry. We had a time for a quick drink before the last film of the evening. In this time I was introduced to Julian Richards, director of The Last Horror Movie and Darklands as he'd met Brother Chris before. We then went in to see Uwe Boll's film Rampage. It's a brilliant film. Well shot and edited. Uwe Boll comes under a lot of bad press because of his video game movies, which aren't that great but as he pointed out, still sell a hell of a lot more than his regular films, which are always better. Rampage should definitely be checked out though, and Brendan Fletcher is quite convincing as the young guy whose is tipped over the edge to go on the titular rampage.

So a great first day. Now we really needed to get some food, and head back to the Dark Water room. After an encounter with take away food we got excited by the Ice Cream machine in the travelodge, with the the futuristic method in which fridge opened and suckers gripped the ice cream to dispense out of the front of the machine. We were still in Blade Runner territory. Thanks to that machine, and watching the end of The Howling, I could ignore the evil water stains and went to sleep, ready for the next full day of films.

Some good stuff...

So today I saw a woman carrying a severed head. Ok so it wasn't a real severed head, well, not real as in from a human. This was all resolved after I reapplied my glasses to my face and saw the head for what it was, however it did scare me for those few brief seconds. What has this to do with anything? Absolutely nothing, which is what this post is all about really.

Although not mentioned in full last time, I'm still working on my E4 entry for this years Estings, and I'm about half way through. If all is well it should be good. However I'm going to have to make it longer than the 10 second limit and cut it down afterwards which hopefully won't detract from the final piece.

This is stopping me from looking for a new job, which is an almost inconceivable task in the current climate, however I shall persevere and hopefully come out the victor. (that is if working actually makes you the victor, or some kind of sheep like being. But hey, I need to eat)

This paragraph is used to sing the prises once again of Scott Pilgrim. My obsession is fueled by the daily photo updates on Edgar Wrights blog here. Nothing much has been given away yet. There are a few cool videos featuring the cast, but nothing as to how the film will finally look. There's a long way to go just yet, set for release in 2010 (that's Twenty-Ten by the way) but I must say I'm looking forward to it. The unfortunate thing is I'm currently on volume 3 of the comic ans therefore only have another 2 before I'm out. I think there's to be a sixth and final volume set for release with the film. I'm just gonna have to keep my eyes peeled.

Now I'm going to talk about a great film form my childhood, Young Sherlock Holmes. This has still stood the test of time as far as I'm concerned. We were going to watch it as part of a double bill with the Dolph Lundgren starring Masters of the Universe but time was against us. I'd forgotten most of what Young Sherock was about. I could remember the classic moments like the stained glass knight (which by the way looks as good , if not better , than any modern CGI) and Watson seeing cakes come alive and force themselves into his mouth. Which come to think of it is pretty weird. But what I could not remember was how terrifying the character Elizabeth Hardy's hallucination was. I remembered that there were zombies, ok I was somewhat prepared, but not for her falling into her open grave. not only this, but a laughing, screaming skeletal zombie carves her gravestone whilst her dead uncle begins to bury her. This honestly scared me. I'm sure they must have cut this from any previous version, or I happened to block it from my memory. Young Sherlock Holmes is good stuff, as good as Congo even. Check out this trailer for the film taken from some random American TV station.




Finally I'm going to post a video that Brother Chris is most likely posting at the moment here.
It's a video my Dad's friend made for one of their old songs.

Screaming till the Sun Goes Down from Extra Familiar on Vimeo.

The song featured on the locally produced LP Cry Havoc by the Stoke Musicians collective. A lot of the tracks still sound cool today as I did give it a listen the other day. Altogether "Do the East Berlin. Do it again!"

Anyway I like the video and I'm glad the song has not been forgotten.

In a final link the same people were behind the song Elasto which I have posted here before, and do so again as I think it gets ignored too much. Now I've got to buy even more extortionate train tickets. Until next time...

You Can't Dance on Someones Grave!

The remainder of the weekend was occupied with a variety of films of varying quality. We began with black & white version of The Mist. How good is this film? Rhetorical by the way as we all know The Mist is amazing. I'd forgotten how good it, and everyone in it, was. This is only emphasised when viewed in black and white. I captures the atmosphere of the mid-fifties horror/sci-fi films and also makes the creature effects more believable. The end is still one of the best I've seen in a long time, and possibly the only true horrific moment in the whole film.

This was followed by The Gravedancers. This film was chosen based on the delivery of the line, "You can't dance on someones grave!" Unfortunately I can't post it here as it only seems to be part of the trailer on V-Plus. The film stars Dominic Purcell of Prison Break fame, Clare Kramer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame and the always watchable Tcheky Karyo. The film begin as a rum of the mill haunting film. Friends get drunk, dance on graves and get haunted. About half way in though things started to get interesting. The ghost effects were pretty creepy, and by the end things get quite insane. Not to give anything away, but basically a giant head chases a car though the house. It's a pity the film takes so long before it gets interesting. So based on the 'matter of fact' delivery of one line, this film was pretty much a winner.

Unlike Sickle, which only cost a single British pound, but was just poor. It was filmed on digital so it looked bad, and not a lot happened. Shots were repeated, characters reappeared in scenes even though they'd just left, and there was a hell of a lot of walking. I should really be careful here, I don't want to just sound mean as the issue of reviews is hitting close to home since the DVD release of Ten Dead Men. However, Sickle was pretty rubbish. However, on the DVD was a trailer, fortunately not for Sickle, but for Skinned Deep, a 2004 horror film directed by Gabriel Bartalos, the special effect/make-up artist on films such as Leprechaun and Basket Case 2. It also stars Warwick Davis as a guy called Plates, and, you guessed it, he throws plates at people. This film looked mental, and was worth the pound spent on the DVD.

We ended on Earth Alien, starring Eric Roberts and Arnold Vosloo. This was also only a pound, but far better than Sickle. It's about a cop who teams up with an alien to hunt down another alien who is killing humans for their skin. Poacher style. I don't have much more to say on this. It was ok, things exploded, cars were chased, guns were shot. Pretty straight forward really.

In between these viewings we seemed to watch the trailer for Clifford over and over. For some reason this film only seems to be available on Xbox Live and nowhere else. It still looks bizarre and will be tracked down eventually. If only to fit in with a screening of Shakma.

Anyway the weekend came to a close, and onto the trains we went. And what a crappy journey. The train I was on somehow let off the emergency brakes stopping the train only after about an hour of travel. Then we couldn't get the brakes off and just had to wait for a technician. Finally we moved to the next station, all got off and awaited the replacement train, which then had to alter its journey to include all the stops form the original train. I ended up getting in about two late. Which nicely brings my February tour of Britain to a close, and fuels my temporary hate for trains. I know Brother Chris eventually had some problems also on his journey. It just goes to show, no one should travel on a Sunday.

Oh, and you can't dance on someones grave.

I swallowed my soul...

I've just returned from an exciting weekend of Theatre and Film with Brother Chris visiting one of his friends from University, Mr Geraint D'arcy. The reason for this visit, The Evil Dead. Well sort off. Geraint was involved in the combined theatre production of The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 by the drama students of University of Glamorgan, and this being my favourite film, was excited to have been invited. You can see the stage design and a couple of other pictures at Geraint's blog here. So anyway, only a day after returning from Brother Chris' I was off on another train journey.

The show, entitled Dead By Dawn to avoid and copyright issues, was preceded by a cautionary notice in the pub before we went across to the theatre. This was not going to be The Evil Dead we all knew and loved, but more like a re-imagining, set in the Welsh Valleys. Hearing this I wasn't quite sure what to expect. So we buy our tickets and wait in line ready to hopefully enjoy Dead By Dawn.

And enjoy I did. Being a part student production not everything was perfect, but then, if you start looking closely, not every part of Evil Dead is perfect. The stage design was simple yet effective, there are only two settings in the film really, inside the cabin and outside the cabin, and the stage and its surroundings were used to great effect. Every major aspect of the films featured in the production, Chainsaw, possessed humans, Henrietta and yes, even the tree rape, handled perfectly as the character is dragged beneath the stage and thrown out the other side, battle damaged. Unfortunately there was no possessed hand ans therefore no arm mounted chainsaw but cuts had to be made somewhere. So excellent stage design, but what about the acting.

The acting was pretty strong across the board. Nothing perfect mind, the fights did seem pretty loose at times, but the characters were believable. Unfortunately the lead playing Ash managed to get the cowardly Evil Dead Ash down, but failed to grasp the coolness of Evil Dead 2 Ash. There were a couple of other problems with certain actors but I rather not start nit picking.

So finally, the effects. No Evil Dead production would be accurate without a shed load of gore, and this production had it. Brains exploded, heads cut off, intestines ripped out. Obviously all done in a stylistic fashion. No one got hurt. One of the highlights was definitely seeing the possessed Henrietta emerge from the cellar, long neck and all. This scene was so manic that it resulted in excited audience applause.

I may have missed stuff out but I can't remember everything. It was a cool show though, a lot better than a couple of professional productions I've attended in the past. It's a pity it only ran for three days, and now it's over with, never to be seen again. I doubt those involved will ever forget it and they all should definitely be proud of what they achieved.

Groovy!

Big monsters? Yes. Boring miserable characters? NO.

Let me just start, for those that don't know the United States DVD release of Ten Dead Men, the film Brother Chris happened to write one day, was today. Yay. Go and buy it, if you can, here.

Now to the point, I'm supposed to be working on something else, but I only really get stuff done at weekends. So I just watched Jack Brooks - Monster Slayer. It's alright, not that great. Far too much time is spent setting up the monster, and the fact that he's a "monster slayer" he doesn't get slaying until about 15 minutes from the end. So yeah, it could have been a lot better, but was kind of what I was expecting.

What bothers me though is that the people behind the film mention that they grew up on '80s horror, the link with this post's title. Yes there were many a horror film in the 80's but Evil Dead this is not. The Thing this is not. It's not the first time this reference has been made. There was a film out last year called Hatchet. It was supposed to start a new franchise so had a new slasher guy in. But it wasn't very good. And had a weird featurette about how it was made because the directer wanted to see Twisted Sister and then he befriended vocalist Dee Snider and they saved each other from cancer or something, and that made him make Hatchet, cause he was inspired by 80's horror films. But again, effects aside, that film was boring and the characters weak.

Now I know lots and lots of films get made, and there were a fair share of bad 80's horror. (The Lamp springs to mind) but why would you want to recreate those. You can have your gory effects, fair enough, but gory effects does not a great movie make. Throw in a fun character, a cool character, any kind of character, just not your token run of the mill, characters.

Jack Brooks fails because, as mentioned, it takes too long to set up. Yes we realise he gets angry, and from then on you work out he can fight monsters to "relax", so why spend an hour getting there. It should go more like: Jack gets angry. Oh Shit, monsters have come. Jack can fight monsters because he's angry. Jack has now become monster slayer, much slaying and wise cracking later Jack wins, film ends.

Instead it was more like: Jack gets angry.......he's a plumber.....an angry plumber......why's he learning science at night school.....chekovs gun......he's angry.....monster brewing.........he's still angry........comedy Englund...........angry......Englund.......angry......Englund.....Monster.....Angry...Fight..End.

And I sped up the Robert Englund comedy for you as well.

Cool seems to be lost on films these days. I finally got some feedback today for a script I wrote. They said the end was cheesy. I always thought it was cool. "I'd like to see that in a film" I thought. If Jack Brooks is what passes as cool today. I think I'll stick to cheesy thanks. It's more fun.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

This may sound strange but I have an irrational fear of the sea. I'm not a swimmer, in fact I despise the activity, but this has nothing to do with my fear. I've also been on boats, and have yet to get see sick; again not a cause.

This fear has a little to do with the unknown. I like to think, that as the sea is relatively unexplored, that there are things down there that we have yet to see. Take those evil neon fish for example. How mental are those things. All fangs and lights. Those and the fabled giant squid, which only ever seems to wash up in bits (Does this not imply there's something even bigger...?)

Anyway, my irrational fear mainly comes from video games. And of those, mainly Tomb Raider. Whenever there is an instance where you have to swim a great distance my fear is released. I think it comes down to the fact that you can be attacked from any direction. I remember being scared in the midst of a red sea level on Shadowman 2 I think, and then going to see Saw at the cinema. Back to the point. Tomb Raider is the main culprit though, and more specifically Tomb Raider 2. There's a whole section base at the bottom of the see, getting attacked by sharks and sneaky eel things that dart out at you from the black rocks. Cue pant change.

There havn't been many other instances over the years but I recently begun playing Tomb Raider Underworld on Xbox 360, and again, I had to change my pants. As you may or may not know, the first level takes place, once again, at the bottom of the sea. You've got scuba gear so air isn't a problem. But this time around, the Hi Def graphics don't help to ease my fear. All I'm saying is at one point I literally had to pause the game to catch my breath, and then there's this thing just watching you and you think "Will it get my if I swim past it? It is blind after all". I still don't know the answer to that question, too scared was I to try.

So I guess, to make a point with this post, Tomb Raider is still ace, video games can have an emotional effect on the players, and the sea is scary.

Procrastination over.

How NOT to plan a Halloween playlist...

So Halloween didn't quite go to planned, and in no particular order I'm listing "How not to plan a Halloween playlist"

1. Don't have anybody staying with you. In my case I had to wait until people went out before I could begin my playlist.

2. Don't watch anything scheduled at a particular time, i.e. on TV. This means that you either have to wait until after it's finished, or fit something in before it starts. This brings me onto...

3. Don't waste free waiting time for scheduled programme by visiting Xbox Live. This encourages the downloading of demos. Again bringing me onto...

4. Don't then play the downloaded demo after the scheduled programme. This just delays the watching of any planned films, and reduces the time you can watch.

5. Don't get comfy in bed thinking you'll resit the warm covers, even when you "just rest your head for a while".

6. Finally, and maybe the most important. Don't go to work on Halloween. Getting up early just means you'll end up falling asleep in the middle of your playlist.

Now I broke all these rules. I waited for Dead Set in E4, which was quite good, especially as it was a quite depressing end to the series. Whilst this was on I was downloading the Mirror's Edge demo form Xbox Live, which I proceeded to play after Dead Set. This demo has no horror related element, therefore needlessly cut into my awake time. So I began watching The Lady in White at about 11pm. I had no idea how long it was, I'm guessing about 90 minutes. But it didn't finish until about 1:20am due to an unplanned pausing and falling asleep session in the middle. Thinking I was now awake, and not wanting to be disturbed by the guests returning I vacated to my bedroom to watch Night of the Comet. This is a cool, little known film about a comet which happens to kill everyone exposed on earth. Those who don't die instantly are slowly turned into zombies. Even though I enjoy this film, I've never managed to stay awake throughout the whole film. The first watch I managed to pause and nap, then continue when I woke. This time I full on fell asleep, I think only 15 minutes from the end, waking just in time to see the Digital Protection logo at the end of the DVD. I could have backtracked but I surrendered myself and called it a night. Next year, maybe I'll get it right.

It's November now, and I've got a busy month ahead. Busy in the sense of gigs and visits rather than work related.

Although I've begun the journey into outlines, making the first notes for my long awaited horror script; which in my head is amazing and will survive the transition on to the page.

Only time will tell.

A jovial Halloween to you all...

Everyone else has used "happy". Anyway, I'm really posting this now is to ensure I have it on the 31st. As with Brother Chris, I have no plans. Or do I. For as long as I can remember I've stayed in on Halloween. I tried dressing up a couple of times, and as much as I'd like to, I always tend to feel stupid and abandon the whole charade. So my plan is to stay in and squeeze in as many horror films as possible, even if that means going into the earlier hours of Saturday. If I don't go to sleep, it still counts as Halloween, see!

So what's on the agenda tonight. Well I've got The Lady in White in front of me at the moment which I hope to get around to. There's the final part of Dead Set. I'm also tempted by The Wolfman, or Werewolf of London for a change. I may also start playing Dead Rising, or watch the Dawn of the Dead remake. But again, I think I may have had enough of zombies by now. The Haunting is always a good choice, and still manages to scare me. I haven't seen Evil Dead II in a while. Now I'm blatantly just listing films. All I know for sure is The Lady in White and Dead Set will get a watch, the rest is up in the air. I'll let you know tomorrow probably.

As there are links on other blogs out there I feel the need to post something myself, so here are a selection of horror related films that I've made over the years.

First of all my graduate film Jonny The Pessimist: A Faustian Fable. (I just added that subtitle)




Secondly a weird music video for the song Elasto by The Western Trio.




And finally, my zombie defense instructional film. In Case of Zombies.




Happy Halloween

Two in one evening...

So I could have just edited the original but I thought it best to post a whole new...well...post. It also isn't really the same evening as it is now 3 in the morning.

To pick up where I last left you I've just seen The Strangers. Now the confusing thing here is, despite what other people have told me, it is strikingly similar to Them. Granted there are slight differences between the two, but on the face of it they are one in the same. Even the reasons for the terrorizing is the same. I've been told that the writer-director Bryan Bertino stated he hasn't seen the french film, and that this film was conceived completely independently. Now I'm not saying he's made that up, but the similarities between the two films are there. Go see the film (on DVD though, it's not worth the ticket price) and then watch Them and you will count the differences on one hand.

I suppose with this though you could say, for example, that all zombie films are the same as they all feature zombies. All slasher films are the same. And I guess you'd be right. It's about the journey, but Them had a better ending. The design and music used in The Strangers was good as well as the choices in masks for the intruders. It did have the feel of an older film such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the early Wes Craven films.

In short, had I seen this before Them I most likely would have said that Them was ripping off The Strangers. Its kind of like Dante's Peak and Volcano, Armageddon and Deep Impact, The Illusionist and The Prestige. One is always better than the other. Even Congo had its rival in Primal Force; and that wasn't as good as Congo despite killer baboons and Ron Perlman.

In other news concerning my recent trip to the cinema. I was impressed that Disaster Movie (again I will now have to wash my mouth out) had no reaction from the audience. Not a single laugh. Hopefully this is a sign that the makers of these excuses for spoofs will now just STOP.

In other trailer news, Death Race, the remake of the Roger Corman produced 1975 Death Race 2000, actually looks quite good. Now I am a sucker for explosions and the like, and despite his questionable accents Jason Statham is watchable, and it even has Lovejoy in it. But i think most of all the draw is in the trailer itself. This trailer just looks cool. There was a time when trailers used to be exciting. Nowadays, in most cases, they've just become lazy, showcasing the coming movie, not caring how many twists are given away. But with Death Race, it serves its purpose. The trailer makes me want to go and see this film.

Burning once again...

If I'm not careful this is going to become a habit. I'm once again burning music for my MP3 player, mainly CDs I've just bought this time, which I hate doing cause I'd like to listen to the actual CD before the MP3, but at the moment I'm just not doing enough writing to get through all these CDs.

Special mentions today go to Along Came A Spider by Alice Cooper. This is a cool record. A lot better than his last outing Dirty Diamonds. With this one, Alice Cooper has returned to the concept album, which in this case is the diary of 'The Spider', a serial killer. Its good old dark and twisted stuff, just where Alice belongs.

Another album of interest, Deep Blue: Chaos from Darkism by Balzac, a Japanese punk band inspired by The Misfits. I came across this band from The Misfits website, they recorded a split single with each other entitled The Day The Earth Caught on Fire. As with the few Japanese bands I listen to I have now idea what they are singing, unless its in English, but you can't help singing along, especially with all the whoa's. Good stuff.

The rest is the usual stuff from within my CD collection, but I'll leave this short review with She & Him. This is the work of M Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel. Each track is different so I can't really label it nicely.

I can't really review music, mainly because it's all subjective. Even more so than films. So these CD reviews end here. This blog has basically turned into a massive mess of me talking rubbish. So to bring it back someway back on track, using notes from the last update.

Why are all the best horror films of recent years foreign. Naturally we have to excuse the British film industry as horror does not mean romantic comedies or period pieces with Keira Knightly. But even American horror isn't good. Their problem is they seem too hung up on wither gore or slasher films. Granted the main reason to see a slasher film is the gore but I'm separating the two.
Gore wise they continue to churn out Saw films. Now in the grand scene of things, the original Saw was a low budget, clever film. Yes it had the nasty elements but when I originally saw (ha ha ha) it I would never have thought a sequel would be made. And as usual the Law of Diminishing Returns prevails. Although they do have nice touches by the ends of each sequel, the bulk is mainly more of the same.
Slasher wise, Hatchet was an attempt to revive the horror icon. I think they were intending to start some kind of franchise but it just wasn't very good. The only English language film in recent years I can remember actually scaring me was Fragile, and that was directed by the Spanish Jaume Balagueró, and his films continue to be freaky. Take [REC] for example. This film also had its scary moments, and guess what. Hollywood has remade it, and I can easily predict, people will go in droves to see it, and it wont be as good as its Spanish original.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to cut this short, despite really combining two entries into one. I think I'm off to see The Strangers, which despite what people tell me, looks exactly like French film Them (Ils). I have tried to remain open minded about this but I think I'm going to need some convincing.

By the way, this was all brought on by The Orphanage. Not as jam packed with scares as expected, but due to subject matter and the odd creepy moment has convinced me that if I ever need a good scare again, I'll need my reading glasses.