News Out of CES that you should care about...

Do any of you guys give a shit about CES?  If you don't, you really should...  and if you don't know what it is, it's the Consumer Electronics Show and it was in Las Vegas last week. Lots of celebrities hit it up and all the major technology and media companies make big announcements there.  For example, Tom Hanks was there announcing that he's partnered with Yahoo for his next creative venture, "Electric City".  He even went on to say that while feature films are "supposedly the top of the pyramid", the ecosystem is changing.  Since then, Hulu has announced that it's developing a series for online distribution, Netflix is already in the game with it's "Arrested Development" reboot and other big time online projects are popping up.  Online, as a distribution network, is just heating up... and I'm going to do a post on that soon.  Until then, there was some other news out of CES that I found interesting and it has to do with Ultra Violet and Blu-ray.

Everyone knows that the disc format is dying, right?  It's VHS, Beta and 8 tracks all over again, isn't it?  Well, apparently, Blu-ray boosted Hollywood's home video business in 2011, growing 20% and topping $2billion in sales.  That's pretty big news, considering that everyone keeps saying that the home entertainment business is in the dumper.  Sure, overall spending was down, but only slightly... 2%.  That's a far cry from what the studios would have you believe.  So, is home entertainment dead or is it just changing? This is interesting for us indie filmmakers because the theatrical market isn't an option for us... Online isn't going to be a viable option for at least a few years and with the DVD and home entertainment market dying, where are we supposed to turn?  Here's the thing...  I'd argue that a lot of Americans still put a disc into a player to watch movies and aren't going to stop soon... way more than you think, and that's good news for us.  Variety did an article on all the numbers, you can find that here.

The other thing that I found interesting, which they talked a lot about at CES, is Ultra Violet.  Have you heard of this?  Basically, there's a consortium of 70 businesses, called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, that back and are connected to Ultra Violet.  What is it?  Basically, the idea is, content (films, shows, whatever) is stored in the cloud and once you buy that piece of content, you get access to it on any device that you'd want... forever.  Read this article on CNET to read more about how it works.  What I like about this... and any online distribution format, is that, technically, if it catches on, the barriers for indie filmmakers to distribute their content should lessen.  Imagine being able to upload your film, make up a profile page and then it's up to you to market it.  You just collect on all the people who access it.  Think about what it would mean for the indie film festival market, too...  the future could be very bright.

We've got a few interviews with filmmakers to post this week, so stay tuned for that!

     

Inconsequential Weekend At The Box Office and A Great Week in Horror on DVD

Okay, seriously, I'm just going to whip right through the news from the box office because it's all of little or no consequence to anything that I give a rats ass about. "Shrek Forever After" won the weekend, but it was the least attended opening for a "Shrek" film... this being the fourth, if you lost count. I have a feeling that "Shrek" will live on, though... in some sort of incarnation. A kids show, video games, straight to DVD releases. Whatever. It's a good franchise. The other new nationwide release was an unmitigated disaster. "MacGruber". Wow. I mean, it took in around $4Million total. With "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" and "Sex and the City 2" coming out this week, it's done. "George Romero's Survival of the Dead" will probably do better and it gets a limited releases this Friday... so limited that I don't get it here, which sucks. Anyhow, let's look at the week in DVD horror. As usual, you can check out our Youtube Page for the trailers and click on the titles to go to their Amazon page, where you can read more and/or buy them.

I watched the first half of the first season of "True Blood", then it got away from me. Now, they're releasing "True Blood: The Complete Second Season" on DVD. Where does the time go? Are any of you big "True Blood" fans? If so, is this worth getting caught up on, really? The show has received great critical acclaim and even won a few awards, including a Golden Globe. However, I want to hear from the people that watch it.

They're rereleasing a special edition version of Lucio Fulci's "City of the Living Dead", otherwise known as "The Gates of Hell", on regular DVD and Blu-ray. Is it a classic? I think so. It was the first installment in Fulci's unofficial "Gates of Hell" trilogy, which also included "The Beyond" and "The House by the Cemetary".

The awesome indie horror, "The Landlord", comes out this week... officially. We actually spoke with the writer/director, Emil Hyde, a while back. Here's a link to the interview that we did with him. It's definitely worth a read and the film is definitely worth checking out.

Okay, I've mentioned this film numerous times and I highly, highly recommend it. If you've never been in to Japanese splatter films or you love them, but haven't seen "Machine Girl", here's your chance to go all in. This week, you can get the "Ultimate Machine Girl: Collectors Tin".

This looks like a bit of a hidden gem and I'll be on this one quick. Check out the trailer for "Babysitter Wanted" on our Youtube Page, it looks unreal. It had a very limited theatrical release in 2009, but won a ton of awards on the indie horror festival circuit.

The writer/director of "Someone's Knocking at the Door" is Chad Ferrin and he broke into the industry as a production assistant on "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" and "Hellraiser: Bloodline". He moved on to directing episodes of "Troma's Edge TV" and then started making films for Troma... with low-no budgets. "The Ghouls" was shot on Mini DV for $15K and "Unspeakable" was shot for $20K. This is his latest and, quite frankly, it looks pretty f'ing good. If you're going to go low-no budget, you might as well do something f'ed up. This fits the bill and I can't wait to check it out.

"The Shadow Within" looks really creepy, but mainly because I find twins creepy to start with. The film is about a twin that dies and the brother and family that grieve after his death. The surviving brother acts as a medium and they discover that the two of them want the same thing, their parents love. However, the dead one doesn't want to return to the living, he wants them all to join him in the afterlife.

The Weekend Box Office and The Week In Horror on DVD

So, the weekend at the box office went, sort of, as I predicted. "How to Train Your Dragon" toppled "Alice in Wonderland" and "Hot Tub Time Machine" came in third. The interesting story out of this weekend revolves around 3D films. Currently, there's three 3D films in the theaters: "How to Train Your Dragon", "Alice in Wonderland" and, of course, "Avatar". Now, a little backstory - modern 3D films use polarized 3D, which is different than, say... the 3D used in "Friday the 13th Part 3-D", which used the red/blue glasses. Polarized 3D requires digital projection that uses either two digital projectors fitted with polarizing filters OR a single digital projector used in conjunction with an adaptor in the front. IMAX, I believe, uses a slightly different and far more expensive method, but it's still based in polarized 3D. (If you're a tech guy and know this better, please elaborate) So, the interesting thing is that there's not enough screens to play all the 3D films now. So, with "Alice" being so successful and "Dragon" just opening, guess what happened to "Avatar"? Biggest drop yet, but the real reason is because it was booted off most of its 3D screens. Long and short is, it looks like 3D has hit the tipping point in a big, big way and, if that's the case, the theaters are going to need to do some serious upgrading. Now, here's where it gets interesting for us... the switch to 3D capable screens means that the theaters are going to go all digital.... which means that getting alternative content (ie. sports, indie and micro-budget film) on to the big screen will be a whole lot easier - no cost for prints, virtually zero distribution costs, blah, blah... unless, of course, there's four 3D films competing for all the spots in the megaplex. Oh, did I mention that "Clash of the Titans" opens this Friday and it's also in 3D? It's an interesting time to be in theatrical releases, for sure. Anyhow, let's get back down to earth and look at the horror that's coming out on DVD this week. As usual, head over to our Youtube Page by clicking HERE and you can see all the trailers. Otherwise, you can click on the title and be taken to the films Amazon page, where you can read more and/or buy the film.

"I Sell the Dead" is the feature film debut from Irish director, Glenn McQuaid, and it finally comes out on DVD this week. It's a great film and it had a great run at the festivals. It was picked up by IFC for domestic distribution; Anchor Bay for Canada, the UK and Australia; and Screen Media for foreign. Not only that, it was popular enough to have spawned a comic book adaptation - always a sign of acceptance in the horror world. The film stars Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Ron Perlman and The Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm. A month or so ago, we talked with Jeremiah Kipp, the writer/director of the short film "Contact" and he happened to be the AD on "I Sell the Dead". We talked a bit about "I Sell the Dead" in the interview and if you'd like to go back and check that out, here's the LINK.

"Smash Cut" is a Canadian indie horror from Lee Demarbre and it's produced by Robert Menzies. The film is about an "Ed Wood" sort of director who starts killing people and using their blood and guts in his films for realism. It screened at Fantasia Fest and the London FrightFest, before getting a limited theatrical run in Canada. The cast is unreal, including David Hess from "The Last House on the Left", Michael Berryman from "The Hills Have Eyes", Ray Sager from "The Wizard of Gore" and porn star, Sasha Grey, in her second non-porno role. Not only that, the Godfather of the splatter film, Herschell Gordon Lewis, is in the opening credits, advising the audience to "watch if they must". There's a lot of good things going on here and I may have to check it out.

I can't find the trailer for "Bigfoot", but I'm assuming that's because too many videos pop up on Youtube when you type in "Bigfoot". In any case, this film was actually completed back in 2005 and has been trapped in indie film purgatory due to a snafu with another distribution company. Now, it's finally getting the release it deserves from Troma, who just recently picked it up. It's a low-budget indie, but reviews are fairly good and it looks like it's worth checking out.

"Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge" is a Japanese film, based on a novel of the same name by Tatsuhiko Takimoto. There's also a manga adaptation - a sign of acceptance in the Japanese horror world. The trailer that I found has no subtitles and I know nothing of the book, so I'm not really sure what it's about. Judging from the trailer, there's a love story, some motorcycle riding and a chainsaw wielding psychopath from space.

"Girly", AKA "Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly" is a cult horror-comedy classic that came out of the UK from British horror veteran Freddie Francis in 1969. It's been called one of the greatest lost films of British horror cinema and received great reviews at the time, although it was marketed poorly and was forgotten very quickly. The distributor gave up on the film and it all but vanished, except for an even more limited release on VHS in the early 80's. Then, during a Freddie Francis film festival in 2004, the organizers struggled to find even a VHS copy and the film was thought to have been completely lost... when copies began to surface on the web, people started talking about it, it gained some cult status and, low and behold, it's now out on DVD ready to be rediscovered.

RIP Blockbuster... All Hail VOD!

Is it a coincidence that in the same week that "a slew of Hollywood studios and cable companies are teaming up for a $30 million advertising campaign... to further promote awareness of movies available on cable VOD" (THR.com - "Studios, cable companies team for VOD"), we have "Blockbuster shares tumble after bankruptcy warning"? (Associated Press) Well, actually, it is a coincidence, I guess, but there is a very specific shift in the industry that's causing both events to happen...

Truth of the matter is, the DVD is dying. I don't think it'll ever fully go away, but it's definitely being devalued. According to Redbox, the subsidiary of Coinstar that specializes in the vending of rental DVD's via self-service/interactive kiosks, the rental of a DVD is worth a couple bucks, at best. Then, you have the Hulu's and Netflix's. Hulu is streaming content for free and Netflix is mailing DVD's out using a subscription model, which pushes the value of each DVD even lower. However, even Netflix sees the downside of DVD's and they're pushing heavily into VOD and streaming, by partnering with the likes of XBox, PS3 and even TiVo. Blockbuster tried to shift with the times, concentrating their outlets on being a retail experience and getting into mailing out DVD's and creating their own VOD experience, but, hey... it's a crowded marketplace.

Now, for fun, let's go back a few years. Back to the early 90's... the Worldwide web didn't exist, Mark Wahlberg was just a rapper, email was a few years away, we were anxiously waiting for "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday", after the disappointment that was "Jason Takes Manhatten", and computers were relegated to getting information from floppy discs. Your computer was used to play "Leisure Suit Larry" and write term papers, that was about it. However, there were a few visionaries out there that knew what was coming... This thing called the Internet was about to come along and with it would come massive changes in hardware, software and infrastructure. Fast forward to present day and we now have the ability to interact, download and stream the richest of content, instantly. We got here pretty fast, didn't we? Now, what does this all mean?

Well, really, it doesn't mean that much. Looking back, TV meant the demise of the movie theater. VHS meant the demise of TV. Cable meant the demise of the Networks. DVD meant the demise of VHS. Now, streaming and VOD mean the demise of DVD. Looking at it that way, VHS is the only thing that really got hooped... poor VHS. Well, that was bound to happen. Remember when you used to have your VHS tapes and you'd keep their boxes all clean and on display? Remember how proudly you displayed your DVD collection? I don't know about you, but I've lost most of my DVD boxes and I have scratched up, old DVD's everywhere. This is just a shift in the industry and shifts will keep happening. After streaming and VOD, my bet is that everything goes to a cloud system - pay once for the rights to view content, then you'll get it forever, on any device... but it'll only be streamed, you'll never actually hold the file itself. Imagine if there was only ONE file at the studio and everyone, from the theaters to Billy Joe Bob in Utah, all just streamed from that. That's next. Remember when you needed a hard drive? That's so early 2000's... Next up, fully ubiquitous devices that can handle all media formats, you watch.

For now, I think this shift is good for indie filmmakers, I've been saying that for a while... and I feel it's been a long time coming. We're inching forward and I like it. It lowers the barriers of entry for distribution and the barrier for content creation is already low. Now, there's no tapes, DVD's or film. No shipping, retail outlets or kiosks. You'll just have a file. Upload it to somewhere and people can get it. Now, we just have to sit back, watch this all unfold and hope that the infrastructure is put in place for us indie guys to use it and profit from it.

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

New Horror out on DVD this week, including The Zombie Diaries

It's a pretty good week for horror... well, indie horror, anyhow. There's no big-budget horror films coming out this week. In fact, there's no big-budget horror films coming out for a while, which is cool with me. So, as usual, if you want to buy the films and want to help us out, please click on the titles and buy the films off Amazon, through us. Also, be sure to head over to our Youtube page, where you can find all the trailers.

Here's one of those sad truths... At this point, this side of the pond, very few indie horror fans will have heard of "The Zombie Diaries" and when they do find out about it, most will just assume that it's a rip off of "Diary of the Dead". Well, Dead Harvey's here to tell you it's not. True, I have no idea of when Romero actually came up with his idea, but Kevin Gates and first-time filmmaker Michael Bartlett actually released "The Zombie Diaries" first AND completed it first. They come up with the idea in the Fall of '04 and it had its theatrical debut on October 29, 2006. The film, obviously, has a very similar premise to "Diary of the Dead" and it was shot hand-held on DV. Now, I don't want to start a fight or anything, but I will say that a lot of people think these guys did a better job than Romero did... but I'm not going to pick sides. So, you check it out for yourself and be the judge.

A few weeks ago, I was commenting on how it's great to see Ken Foree making it into a bunch of indie horror films, now it seems like a week doesn't go by without seeing Ken Foree in some film. This week, it's "Splatter Disco", which gets my Best Title of the Week award. It's directed by Richard Griffin, who co-directed "Necroville" with Billy Garberina, whom we posted an interview with last week. Griffin has written, directed and edited a lot of quality indie horror, including "Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon", "Pretty Dead Things" and "Raving Maniacs". The plot for "Splatter Disco" revolves around a fetish nightclub that's under attack by a bunch of narrow minded moralizers. On top of that, now there's a psychotic killer targeting the club and killing the patrons. So, it's up to a pair of unlikey lovers, a drug-loving hippie attorney and the club's closeted bouncer to uncover the truth and save the club. Indie horror at it's best! Go check it out...

If you've been laying awake at night, anxiously waiting for the next installment into the 'gay horror' scene, you can finally get a good night sleep tonight. "The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror", which has apparantly become a bit of a fan favorite at gay film festivals, is finally being released on DVD this week. It's about a gay-friendly bed and breakfast, where a God-fearing mother/daughter team lure gays to either convert or kill them... It's more comedy than horror, with characters like the bastard child of a hundred Republican delegates, the lesbian nun who likes to seduce young women during bingo and the drag queen who hooks up with a butch lesbian... and, that's not to mention that everone's eating human mince meat muffins all the while. What can I say? If gay horror's your thing, you'll need to check it out.

"The Devil's Curse", which was originally called "Credo" in it's native UK, is the feature length directorial debut from director Toni Harman and writer Alex Wakeford. It's an indie horror that's set in London, England and it begins with a group of theological students who decide to test their faith by proving the existence of Hell. Then, years after they're all found dead, another group of students show up. However, these guys aren't there to prove the existence of Hell, they're there because they got evicted from their student digs... then they discover that they're not alone.

"Kreating Karloff" was written, directed, produced and edited by Vatche Arabian and it won him the Commendation Award at Festival of Fantastic Film in the UK and the Jury Prize for Best Experimental Film at the Honolulu International Festival. The film is a documentary where, for the first time in 75 years, a young actor (Conor Timmis) brings back to life two of Universal's iconic Karloff monsters, "The Mummy" and "Frankenstein" for an elaborate screen test and tribute to the legendary Boris Karloff. If you're into the old-school horror and horror history, it could be a fun film to check out.

"Km 31" was originally released in its native Mexico as "KM 31: Kilometro 31". So, for its North American DVD release, they dropped the "Kilometro 31" because there's no way that we're going to be able to figure out what that means. Written and directed by Rigoberto Castaneda, it won a few awards, including: Best Visual Effects, Best Costume Design and Best Sound at the Ariel Awards in Mexico. It's about a haunted stretch of highway, by the Km 31 marker, where supernatural accidents are caused by the ghost of a mother that lost her boy there years before.

I don't know much about it, but I figured I'd mention this "Indie Sinema (7-Pack)" that's coming out, as well. It's from Fat Cat DVD and it's a 6-disc set containing 7 films, including: Kingdom of the Vampire (1991 & 2007 versions), Genuine Nerd, Polymorph, Bent Volume Two, Eddie Presley and Townies.

Lastly, Trey Parker and Matt Stone's classic, "Cannibal! The Musical" is being rereleased as "Cannibal! The Musical: 13th Anniversary Edition". The 2-disc edition contains over an hour of new, in depth interviews and two full-length commentary tracks, including the infamous "Inebriated" commentary track, never-before-seen deleted scenes, production stills and more.

New Horror out on DVD this week, basically "Hellboy II"... and a few others

It's not the best week for horror releases, but you do get the big budget, highly anticipated, "Hellboy II: The Golden Army", from Guillermo del Toro. Quite honestly, it's the biggest release of the week, with "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" being the only other thing coming out of note. Anyhow, there are a few indie horror films to mention, as well. So, if you want to help us out and want to buy the films, please click on the titles and buy them off Amazon, through us. Also, you can go to our Youtube page and check out all the available trailers.

I'm not going to review "Hellboy II: The Golden Army", per se, but it's definitely a must mention... I don't really want to review it because, most of the time I'm just trying to encourage people to check out indie films that they normally wouldn't see... this, you're probably going to see. As for how it did, it had a budget of $85Million and made over $150Million Worldwide, which isn't bad at all. Further, it'll make a bunch more on DVD sales and they're extending the Hellboy brand into video games and other stuff now, so it'll make more than enough dough to warrant a third one. I will offer up that I liked it... and I'm not going to say more than that. It wasn't great, it wasn't bad, but I did enjoy it. For me, it's just really cool that the original "Hellboy" was basically a dream project of Guillermo del Toro's that he managed to get made. Then, not only did it do well enough, but his other projects kicked ass and he was subsequently given artistic license to go ape-shit on this one. And that's AFTER it switched studios, which you never see happen... Anyhow, you can really see his f'ed up vision when they go down into the troll village. I think that whole scene was worth the price of admission alone, but that's just me. Anyhow, pay respect to del Toro and check out "Hellboy II", if you haven't already.

I love to see that Tony Todd is busy... and he's back, again, in "Blood Wars", directed by Tom Shell. "Blood Wars" was originally called "The Thirst: Blood War" and, as I write this, I feel like I've seen this and/or covered it before. Maybe I just read about it somewhere, I can't remember... Anyhow, Tom Shell has had a wicked career in horror, spanning from acting in "Surf Nazis Must Die", the classic Troma film from 1987, to being a producer and production designer on various horror films over the years. You should all know who Tony Todd is, but the film also has Sean Connery's son, Jason Connery in it, as well as C Thomas Howell and a bunch of hot chicks. The film is about Will, who's a hippie college student that finds himself in the middle of a battle between vampires and a group of warlocks, but when he's bitten by a seductive vampire, he's forced to come to terms with his new state.

"Mister Foe", which was originally called "Hallam Foe" in its native Scottland, came out in 2007 and managed to get nominated for 11 awards and win 8. It's definitely not one for the hard core horror fans, as it's got a lot of dramatic and romantic elements. I haven't seen it, probably won't, but if you care, it's about Hallam Foe, who's a 17 year old weird teenager that misses his mother, who committed suicide, drowning in a lake by their house after OD'ing on sleeping pills. Hallam goes through some weird twists and turns, then ends up becoming obsessed with a girl because of her resemblance to his mother... they start a strange romance and Hallam reaches maturity in a very hard way.

"Point of Contact", originally called "Ghost Hunters: Point of Contact", was written by Buddy Dolan and was directed by Hank Stone and Roy Kurtluyan. Dolan is an actor, who's been in tons of TV shows, and this is his first produced screenplay. Stone is ALSO an actor, who's been in lots of stuff and you'd totally recognize him if you saw him... and this is his directorial debut. Kurtluyan spends most of his time as a cinematographer and co-directed this with Stone. The film is about a man who wakes up after 12 years only to find out that he has an unwanted ability to see the dead. It was originally shot as a 60 minute episodic, but I guess it didn't fly. I don't know.. but the producers decided to add 30 minutes of storyline to release this version as a feature.

"Hasta El Viento Tiene Miedo (The Wind of Fear)" is a remake of the classic Mexican horror film of the same name, which came out in 1968. The original was directed by Enrique Taboada, this one is done by Gustavo Moheno. It's about a ghost that seeks revenge in a school for girls... The original has become a bit of a cult classic, although I haven't seen it. Then again, I tend to stick to movies in English. Reviews are mixed for the remake, especially from those who were fans of the original. But, whatever...

Lastly, I'll mention that Raw Feed, the Warner Premier label that does all the direct-to-DVD horror stuff for Warner Home Video is coming out with the "Raw Feed Horror Collection", which is just a three pack that contains "Rest Stop", "Sublime" and "Believers". They're all films that have come out before and, quite frankly, they all are pretty good.

New Horror Out On DVD This Week, Including Trailer Park of Terror!

Surprisingly, there's not a ton of new horror films coming out this week, although with "Poultrygeist" and "Zombie Strippers" coming out next week, I anticipate NEXT week to be pretty big. Either way, that's a week away... let's concentrate on this week. "The Strangers" is the biggest film of the week, but for our purposes, I'm going to declare "Trailer Park of Terror" as the pick of the week. So, here's a bit of info on what's coming out... and if you're planning on buying them, why not help us out a bit by clicking on the titles and buying them off Amazon, through us? Also, feel free to go over to our Youtube page and check out all the trailers.

Like I said, for us, the big release of the week is "Trailer Park of Terror", which was based on the Imperium Comics title and is written by Timothy Dolan and directed by Steven Goldmann. It had a wicked run at the horror festivals and has lots of good buzz around it... the story revolves around Norma, a "damned redneck reaper with a killer body who dispenses vengeance and death aided by her cursed companions, a bloodthirsty brook of Undead trailer trash". Really, I'm not sure what else I can add to that. Like, after reading that, I think you get a pretty good idea of what you're in store for. Having said that, you should know that the FX and gore are unreal and there's a lot of it to go around.

So, although a step down from "Trailer Park of Terror" in our minds, "The Strangers" would definitely be the biggest Hollywood horror release of the week. Written and directed by Bryan Bertino, is stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. By Hollywood standards, it had the fairly modest budget of $9Million and since it grossed close to $21Million in its opening weekend, it would be considered a box office success. "The Strangers" continues on that whole home invasion theme that we've been seeing lately in films like "Them" and "Funny Games", although "The Strangers" probably gets the award for creepiest invaders. Apparently the film is inspired by an event from the director's childhood, where a stranger came to his home asking for someone who wasn't there... but he didn't mention if that stranger wore a bag on his head and beat the fuck out his Mom and Dad. Anyhow, as you can guess, since it was a box office success, Rogue Pictures has confirmed that there is a sequel in the works.

Tokyo Shock, the guys who distribute Japanese horror/shock films to North America are coming out with the 2-Pack, "Taxi Tonight & Diecovery". "Diecovery" is about a couple that goes on their honeymoon in a remote part of Thailand, where they encounter a restless spirit that's been unable to seek revenge from being brutally murdered 25 years before. "Taxi Tonight" is a Thai horror-comedy about a penniless, would-be taxi-driver, who purchases a used vehicle to hire out patrons... however, the cab is possessed by a host of evil spirits.

Also, low budget horror producer David S. Sterling appears to be releasing a couple of his films in 3D, namely "Blood Sisters 3d", "Camp Blood 3D" and "Apartment 51-Devil Bat 3d". Now, to be honest, I KNOW that "Blood Sisters" and "Camp Blood" are produced by David Sterling (they're a couple of low-budget classics), but I can't find ANY information on "Apartment 51 - Devil Bat". I'm just assuming it's from him... or associated with him, as there's no way that two different people are releasing 3D versions of camp films on the same week. However, I've been wrong before. If someone can (or wants to) correct me, please do.

I also want to mention the "Paul Naschy Collection", for those readers that may actually study horror or be interested in the origins of horror. Naschy is probably best known for playing the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky, having played him in 12 films. He also played a hunchback, Dracula and a mummy. He's basically the Spanish version of Lon Chaney. This collection contains "Exorcism", "Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll", "Human Beasts", "Horror Rises from the Tomb" and "Vengeance of the Zombies".

Interview with Brian Thomson, writer/director of Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned

"Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned" is a great indie-horror flick. It knows what it is, what its limitations are and delivers. It gives you all the boobs, blood and laughs you'll need with a great cast, including Monique Dupree, Zoe Hunter and the quintessential cameo from Lloyd Kaufman. For a debut feature, it's unreal. You need to check it out.

I'm not going to say much more about the film because I want to get to the interview that we did with writer/director/editor, Brian Thomson. It's a long interview... but he had a lot to say. I know I say this a lot, but I really mean it this time. If you're setting out to make a film or are in pre-production right now, this is a must read. He really spills his guts on how he got the film made. You'll save yourself a lot of time and effort down the road if you read this now...

Tell us a bit about yourself. What are your influences, where did you get started and what brought you to filmmaking?

I turned to filmmaking because I got sick and tired of being an ‘aspiring writer’. Breaking in can be a bitch, so with Bachelor Party I decided to see if maybe I could make my own luck and hack the system. I’ll let you know if it works!

In college I had the good fortune of rooming with a guy who was in film school and he basically gave me a crash course in world cinema. Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers is probably my favorite movie of all time. Maybe that’s why I originally tried to get my start a few years ago by doing a short comedy about an IRA bank heist. It fell apart during production because the gardai in Dublin didn’t seem to like actors in balaclavas running around the Irish Financial Services Centre with bulging duffle bags…

So I guess you could say that I finally got my start with Bachelor Party, since it was the first time I truly tried to make a movie. I’d certainly watched a hell of a lot of them, but there wasn’t much horror in the mix until I finally caught Night of the Living Dead in Dublin. My background is Brit-lit so I was probably a bit of a snob, but NOTLD knocked me on my ass and showed me that you could do really smart things in the genre. Since I’m basically a comedy guy, I got a kick out of Evil Dead, Dead-Alive, and Shaun of the Dead once I started paying attention. BPITBOTD’s debt to all of these is huge.

Film School: Yes or No?

That would have to be a big, fat NO. As somebody who spent eight years at NYU studying English and working in the bookstore’s shipping department, I have to say that film school seems like one of the worst things that can happen to a budding filmmaker. It’s right up there with psychoanalysis. I wish that I’d had the technical skills you can pick up from film school when I started BP, but if I’d gone to film school I probably would have ended up as an insurance salesman or something. Nobody I know who went to Tisch for film ever made any movies, for one of two reasons. Either they got themselves into so much debt making their thesis films that they couldn’t afford to slog it out in the industry trenches, or else they became so infatuated with their own (often imaginary) talent and ‘vision’ that they produced projects whose pretensions stood in the way of finance.

I actually interviewed to become a secretary for the Tisch film school at NYU. All went well until I asked if many of the students were choosing to shoot their projects on DV. ‘Students come to Tisch to make films,’ the interview hissed. Served me right! That attitude is why film school has always struck me as being a system of indoctrination, convincing kids that only certain types of movies are really worth making, and that they must be made in a certain way, with certain production values—or else they aren’t worth making. The most frightening thing of all is that some of these kids are today’s so-called ‘Independent Filmmakers’! Is there a single genre that is more tired, boring and clichéd than the indie drama? Seriously: when I see a quirky family, I reach for my gun…

Spend your tuition on your movie. And try to make something that people want to see.

Where did the idea for “Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned” come
from and what made you actually get off your ass and go out and make it?

The location preceded any inspiration. I was really inclined to do something about a wedding, but even an inexperienced producer like myself could figure out that it would require a big cast—as well as a big crew to wrangle all those extras. A bachelor party seemed more manageable. I don’t know what I was thinking!

I decided early on to do a horror movie because the genre has a loyal fan base even at the no-budget end of the spectrum. That might sound mercenary, but when you’re dead broke and asking other people for money you’re kind of obliged to try and make some of it back for them. I knew that I wanted man-eating boobies, a face-melting snowball, and intestines getting sucked into a hot tub. Working out how to get from sequence to sequence gave me the structure of the second act—which I always find the most difficult. The central story of the best man, Sammy, owes a big debt to the Korean revenge movie, Oldboy. I loved the idea of a guy who is unexpectedly confronted with the ramifications of a seemingly insignificant event in the distant past. Once again, the locations I had access to really determined the way that I set up that central storyline in the first act.

I got off my ass and made it because I really despise teaching. When I finished my PhD in English I had a negative revelation: I just couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life trying to give a bunch of snotty kids a collective hard-on for Chaucer. So I took a step back, mulled over my options (or lack thereof), and decided that I’d make a movie if it killed me.

How did you go about securing financing and what was the approx budget?

I originally budgeted BP for $150,000 but quickly discovered that this is a terrible budget. It’s far too cheap for a major financier to take an interest in (because you’re still going to be working with no-name actors and relatively low production values) and it’s far too expensive for friends and family. Unless your last name is Gates, in which case go out and do a remake of Heaven’s Gate. Maybe if I hadn’t spent so many years in Ireland I could have torn a page out of Sam Raimi’s playbook and raised the money from local dentists and lawyers, but it’s not that much of a stretch to say that I was a stranger in my own hometown when I started trying to raise money.

I thought about increasing the budget, but even I could read the writing on that wall. Assuming I could have found some name-brand actor willing to peg his fortunes to what is ultimately a vampire stripper flick, there’s no way in hell I would have been allowed to direct it. So I did the only thing I could and cut the budget to an absolute minimum. $10k: the whole she-bang earmarked for production, and not a red cent for post. The IMDb says $20k, but I have no idea where they found this figure. Brain Damage, maybe. Certainly not from me.

The first thing I did to get it was to send the script out to a few ladies with cult followings, trying to get a genre star to appear in the movie. I received a few favorable responses, so I grabbed their publicity stills, got some photos of the location, worked with a friend to produce some storyboards, and put together a prospectus. I took a job at Borders for three months to raise the money to a) buy hosting for a production company site and b) cover the fees for starting an LLC—about $500 in NY—and then I ended up raising all the money from friends and family and friends of friends and family anyway.

What did you shoot on and how long was the shoot? …and did I notice some ‘day
for night’ shooting in there?

We shot with a DVX100A and dual system sound (on DAT) for a total of twelve days and three hours. We spent about nine of those days at the titular bungalow, each one a soul-destroying exercise in sleep-deprivation. We broke up the shooting into three weeks: two three-day weekends, and one six-day slog during which I lost 16 lbs. from pacing. This wasn’t some improvised romantic comedy: as I repeatedly told the troops, this was a goddamn special effects extravaganza and we were doing it in twelve days!

The day for night was really unfortunate. The location didn’t have lights and the production didn’t have the cash for a generator. As a first-time filmmaker, I was foolish enough to think that we didn’t need a production monitor and could get away with a cheapo car seat screen. This was fine for framing shots, but was not at all up to the task of calibrating color on a D4N shoot. Things got really ugly when one of the guys kicked the DVX’s LCD off the camera during a stunt sequence: I really tied both of my fantastically talented DP’s hands behind his back.

I did everything I could on those D4N shots, including a month spent rotoscoping 3,000 frames of sky. (It didn’t work.) Eventually, I just tried to make the picture during those sequences as stylized as possible. The screen goes almost completely black at times, but most of the people who’ve seen the movie at various stages agree that it’s less distracting than the original footage. Which isn’t to say that I’m happy with it, but…

Personally, I'm a horror-comedy fan. However, I find that making something funny is almost harder than making it gory or scary. Talk about making sure the humor came through.

When I sent out screeners to all of the actors at the end of post, I received one reply that literally made me shit. This was from one of Bachelor Party’s stars. ‘I just finished watching the movie—LOVED IT—but I never realized that it was supposed to be a comedy.’ Fuck me!

In retrospect I think it’s a good thing that he/she didn’t realize that a movie called Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned was supposed to be a comedy. If you want the humor to come through, you’ve really got to play it straight: no mugging to the camera for the sake of mugging, and no winking to the audience. You might get a laugh, but it takes the audience right out of the story. They may appreciate the actor, but they’re no longer going to buy the character. BP’s got a lot of broad humor, but it comes from the awful situations these ludicrous characters get themselves into. If you’re going to get an honest laugh from the audience, it’s going to come from these characters being true to their inner assholes and digging their personal holes deeper and deeper.

There were actually a whole bunch of great effects, great monsters and some damn good gore. Talk about making the effects. What was your favorite and how was it done?

I was very lucky to hook up with Jay Alvino of WickedFX early on in preproduction. I’d talked to a few effects houses, and they’d all laughed when I told them what I wanted to do on the budget I needed to do it at. Jay didn’t laugh. I think his exact words were, ‘We gotta make this fucking movie, bro!’

Monique Dupree’s demonic boobies are the highlight, of course. When she walked into the casting call, I sort of had a hunch that we’d eventually get a distributor. Well, within a week of signing up she was in Jay’s basement with Vaseline slathered all over her chest, getting a lifecast so Wicked could get work to work on modeling the prosthetic. What they produced was just so far beyond my expectations of what was possible that I’m thinking of calling my first kid Mandible.

But for practical reasons I think that my favorite effect in the movie was the splinter. It was supposed to be a short scene, the whole point of which was to show a little blood on Chuck’s [Joe Riker’s] finger. On the day of the shoot—and bear in mind that this was the first day of shooting—I had a brain fart and asked Wicked if they thought they could do a gi-normous splinter. ‘Sure,’ they said, and half an hour later Joe was in the bathroom with the monstrosity you see in the movie stuck in his index digit. I tell him to do it slowly, and we end up rolling for a minute and a half in extreme close-up as he’s squeezing out all the blood. Then I called ‘Cut’ and the last thing you hear on the DAT is Jay’s voice: ‘Dude, that gave me a boner’ and everybody on the set explodes in laughter. When everybody on the set saw the effect work as well as it did, they started to trust their totally inexperienced first-time director. I deserve maybe 1% of the credit for the effect, but I reaped a huge reward because of it.

I’m also very proud of the skull on the fireplace, simply because I should never have been able to do it. I personally ended up shooting backplates, doing motion tracks to solve the camera moves, importing that data into a 3D program, modeling 3D shadowcatchers for the room’s architecture, rigging a dynamcs simulation on the skull so it would bounce on the mantle, rigging a particle simulation so the brains would push the eye out through the socket, and compositing the whole thing so that the final render would match the colors in the background plate. I’d never touched a 3D program before doing it. I figured out how to do it by watching the awesome documentary on Pete Jackson’s The Frighteners, and got the technical prowess by lurking around various chatrooms. Total cost for the shot was about $10 for the skull model, which I picked up from DAZ3D.

I noticed that you did the score… It was simple, yet very effective. It definitely kept the flow of the film and set the tone. Talk about the process of scoring the film.

My only prior experience as a musician was as the bassist of an awful punk band called The Snot Cowboys whose only vaguely listenable opus was a little ditty called ‘I’d Kill the Pope for a Pack of Smokes’. The big problem in terms of scoring was (and is) that I can’t play keyboard to save my life. I ended up composing the entire score with a MIDI controller that had 25 keys—out of which I used one. I would fire up my sequencer (Reason 3), then tap out the melody I had in my head along with the metronome. When I was done, I’d shift around the notes until it sounded like I wanted it to. Then I’d copy and paste for the other notes on the chord, and move on to writing another part. I chose Reason because a) it behaves like analog equipment and b) there’s a $20 plug-in that lets you synch your composition to picture.

I’m actually going to release the soundtrack through CreateSpace. Even I’m not naïve enough to think that people will put the whole thing on their iPods and relive their fond Bachelor Party memories. But since I kept the copyright to all the music, I thought it might be nice to release it as a dirt-cheap royalty-free collection. I had to use canned music for the sex scenes (which naturally won’t be on the soundtrack) and I was shocked and awed by how much this stuff costs. If anybody can use the bits I wrote for BPITBOTD on their own projects, more power to them.

You also edited it yourself… and there were some interesting transitions. What did you edit on and what was that process like?

I cut BP on an ancient G4 running Final Cut Pro. By the end, I’d filled up my hard drives and spun them down so badly that I ended up picking up a dual G5 on eBay instead of replacing them. But Apple’s customer support is so snarky and incompetent that I recently pulled up the stakes and built my own workstation. It’s faster than a quadcore Mac Pro and when it breaks at least I know how to fix it without breaking the bank.

Editing BP wasn’t a huge challenge. I’d slashed and burned about a quarter of the script during the shoot because of time constraints and since we shot the movie with one camera there wasn’t exactly a bulging bin of coverage to choose from. (We still managed a near-suicidal seven hundred set-ups in twelve days!) I finished the camera audio rough cut in about two weeks, then synchronized our DAT audio using a consumer-grade, nontimecode deck—a nightmare of tedium that sucked up more time than the cut itself. After that, I probably spent about six more weeks refining the cut.

The problem with this cut was that whole sequences were inadequate, unusable or just plain missing. Monique’s death scene consisted of her leaning against the fireplace. Useless stuff, really. That’s why I had to learn a thing about CG: without it, there wouldn’t have been a movie. It wasn’t clear that the intestine was spooling out of Zoe Hunter’s ass, so I had to animate an ass and figure out how to get intestines to spool out of it. You couldn’t see the jizz on the snowball shot—time to bone up on fluid dynamics! I had a shot with Lloyd Kaufman and the Fish [Dan Rusu] but where the hell were they and what the fuck was going on? Answer: a crane shot using stills from iStockphoto ($6) and a bit of AfterEffects pixel dust. A credit sequence? Shit—hadn’t thought of that… I’d love to say all of this went smoothly, but I had no idea what the hell I was doing when I started. Post ultimately took a year and change. On the positive side, I now know how to do every job listed in the end credits of any movie ever made!

I only made one drastic change during post-production. There was a trippy flashback shot in which Sammy [Gregg Aaron Greenberg] actually ate the heart of his nemesis, Gordon [Joe Testa]. I wanted to suggest that Sammy had turned Gordon into the vindictive little shit he is in the story. But when I previewed the movie, people didn’t get it. The shot confused them because they took it literally. I cut it half a dozen different ways and it didn’t matter. It bugged them. I was pulling my hair out, and then I had another brain fart and completely cut it out of the movie. After I did that, people not only liked the movie better: they understood the point I was trying to make. I guess it just goes to show that you don’t always have to beat people over the head!

You managed to get Lloyd Kaufman to do a cameo. How’d you get him?

He got me, actually.

I ran into a snag in the early days of pre-production. I’d gotten a genre starlet to sign on to BP only to discover that her rate card was out of date and that she’d relocated. I was going to have to fly her in from Phoenix. As a producer, I needed to decide whether the added expense would be offset by better distribution potential. I had devoured all of Lloyd’s books and figured that he might be willing to give some advice to a schmuck like me, and so I wrote to him and explained my situation. Much to my surprise I received an honest and comprehensive reply the next day. At the end of his letter he said that he’d be in the movie if I had a part for him. I finished writing his scene about four minutes later!

Tell us about some of the hurdles you overcame to get the film done. Any advice you can pass on to other indie filmmakers who might be just setting out to make a film.

I think that filmmakers—and particularly indie filmmakers—are very creative people. Which is lovely and honorable and all, but absolutely useless as preparation for making a movie. Filmmaking is a business from start to finish, and the sooner you start thinking like a producer, the better your movie will be. Work out the logistics of your shoot beforehand, and you’ll compromise fewer of your shots during principal photography. Think about everything in practical terms. It’s a hell of a lot easier to move from INT to EXT on paper than it is on a set, where it entails heavy lifting, resetting lights, laying dolly track—not to mention wagering that an act of God isn’t going to change the weather and screw up your continuity.

Unfortunately, the best piece of advice that I can offer is one that doesn’t sit well with my Trotskyite soul: don’t trust anyone you aren’t paying. I’ve read dozens of books about low-budget filmmaking, and 99% of them contain a fallacy along the lines of ‘Everybody gets very excited when you tell them that you’re making a movie’. Well, yeah...except that they also tend to get very resentful of the fact that while they’re out busting their asses doing some crap job that they despise, you—the artist—are off being artsy-fartsy with a bunch of melon-breasted actresses in various stages of undress. (Can’t say I blame them, either.) I don’t think it’s a conscious thing, really, but most people would probably prefer to see you fail because it would make them feel better about the disappointments in their own lives. It’s natural, I suppose, but when the meal somebody promised to bring never materializes, or when the van a friend was going to lend you suddenly has a flat…you’re the one who’s fucked.

After it was all said and done, what would you have done differently?

I would have hired an Assistant Director. Every moment that I spent making sure people were where they needed to be was a moment not spent making a better movie: working with an actor, choosing a better angle, tweaking the lighting, etc. If you’re not making the best movie possible, then you’re letting down not only yourself (which is almost irrelevant) but also the people who are working their asses off for you (probably for nothing) as well as the folks (probably friends and family) who trusted you with their money.

I also would have sold a kidney in order to rent a generator and not shoot day for night.

Did you enter it into any festivals? If so, how’d that go and what can you pass on to other indie filmmakers who are thinking of entering their film into festivals?

If you’re going to hit the festival circuit, you better have a strong stomach. BP premiered at the I-Con sci-fi convention in New York. Watching an audience respond to your movie is amazing—when they respond. I got lucky this time and the applause gave me a better buzz than a barrel of Murphy’s. But some of the other indies at the convention didn’t get lucky, and had to watch as row after row emptied out.

Festivals are expensive to enter (except for Tromadance, of course), expensive to attend, and of questionable benefit to your bottom line unless they’re attended by folks higher up on the industry food chain. Now that BP has a distributor, it makes a bit more sense to go to festivals because there’s at least a chance that I’ll be able to pay for the trip through DVD sales. But until you’ve got copies to sell (or an honest-to-god shot at being picked up by Lionsgate) you’re probably better off hitting cheap festivals within driving distance. BP is scheduled for the Atlanta Horrorfest on October 25th and I’m still trying to figure out if I can afford to go!

What about distribution? How’s that going? Are there any lessons that you would pass on to other indie filmmakers who’ve just finished a film?

The best time to worry about distribution is during pre-production. DO your homework and figure out the sort of deliverables you’re going to have provide. Start thinking about your Music & Effects mix before you get to the set. Even small distribution outfits license films for international sales, and most of them are going to ask you for an M&E mix (and time-coded dialogue cue sheets) for dubbing. This means that you can’t rely on sound recorded while your actors are doing their thing. When they’ve done the ‘magic take’, get your shotgun (or even a Zoom H4, which I’ve found to be very handy for impromptu foley) and have them walk it through again, miming their dialogue and performing all their actions. I didn’t do it this way, and it cost me nearly two weeks of foot-stepping, sheet-rustling, and zipper-pulling once we had a distributor.

Just remember that distributors aren’t magical. If you don’t expect anything from them, then you probably won’t be disappointed with what you get: cheap producer copies and a release notice in Fangoria (if you’re lucky).

Where can people find out more about “Bachelor Party…” or, better yet, buy a copy?

You can buy the DVD on Amazon. Just shoot over to meaculpapictures.com, click on the DVD pic and it’ll take you there. On the site you’ll also find ridiculously extensive production notes that dig deep into the technical challenges of making Bachelor Party. (Along with trailers, some music, and other fun stuff.) People can watch the big fight scene between Gregg and Monique over at my other site, Red2Media.com-- although I had to censor Monique’s (non-demonic) boobies to make the clip ‘SFW’. Just click on the link to Video Services.

What’s next? Do you have any projects in the works?

The next feature I hope to direct is a fabulously blasphemous, pitch-black splatter comedy called ‘Bible-Belt Vixens of the Apocalypse.’ The script’s finished and it’s a lot more ambitious than BP, but the “Second Coming Christian-Zombie Sex Comedy” angle isn’t exactly a soft sell. I’ve recently finished two mainstream scripts and am about two-thirds of the way through a guide to no-budget filmmaking based on my experiences making BP, so if I can sell and/or option at least one of them, I’ll kick-start preproduction. Believe me: it’s going to make Dogma look like The Song of Bernadette!

Exclusive Interview with Geno McGahee, writer/director of Evil Awakening

I don't know about you, but when I'm watching a big budget Hollywood horror film, I find that they all look and feel the same. Especially if it's a Platinum Dunes film. So, what differentiates them tends to be a character (maybe), a unique story (hopefully), stuff like that... Long and short, it's never about production values and they tend to be formulaic. One of the things that draws me to indie horror is that fact that I could be holding a few films in my hand, knowing nothing about them, and they could be so different from each other in all aspects, yet I'm going to dig all of them. One could be from a veteran that's done 40 films on low-budgets, one could be from a recent film grad who had a bit of funding or one could be from someone who's just getting started... Hell, I like them all. And there's something about the micro-budget directorial debuts that I really like. It's like watching the minor leagues, where people are honing their talent. For example, I recently had the opportunity to watch "Evil Awakening" from Geno McGahee and it was his first film, even though he's now gone on to make another, plus he's in production on a third.

"Evil Awakening" is the type of film that the general public wouldn't understand. However, for an indie-horror fan, it's a kick-ass, micro-budget slasher flick. Obvious budget constraints aside, McGahee puts together a great story with various interweaving plotlines. It's a great debut effort and who knows what he could've done with a bit more budget? We had a chance to discuss the film with him and if you're a micro-budget filmmaker who's setting out to make a film for pocket change, the interview is definitely worth the read.

First off, tell us a bit about yourself. What are your influences and what got you started in indie filmmaking?

My parents bought this 1980’s clunky camcorder and it collected dust for the most part. I was slowly becoming a horror fan and when I was 12 or so, I wanted to make a horror short and got together with my buddy, Mike, and shot a horrible 10 minute skit about aliens, and then we shot one about a monster rising from the ground, which is where Evil Awakening stemmed from. I began filming countless skits and they were all adlibbed…and I still have them all, but they are so bad that I doubt that they will make it beyond my collection.

My influences to go into filmmaking are many but none more than the great Don Dohler and his film “Galaxy Invader.” In Galaxy Invader, I saw a no budget film that had heart and humor and it was really entertaining. Not only that, Dohler went against the grain and got a no budget film out there to the masses. He set the standard and gave me hope that I could follow in his footsteps and get out there and perhaps, get a fan base, even if it would be smaller. It wouldn’t really matter. I appreciate Dohler and I thought that people would appreciate my work one day should I get it out there.

I am a creative person...sort of obsessive when it comes to writing or filming or just about anything. I usually can’t just sit still. I have to be writing or drawing. I currently manage and write for a boxing website called Ringsidereport.com, and have been covering boxing for five years. Boxing and horror are my two loves, outside of my wife (Dani) and my son (Geno, JR., aka: “Munch”). After managing the boxing site, I started Scaredstiffreviews.com and that helped immensely with distribution of my films. I’m a little on the crazy side and my humor can be offensive, but if you see Evil Awakening, you can probably figure that much out.

Film School: Yes or No?

No. I went to college for Marketing, getting my Associate’s from Springfield Technical Community College in Massachusetts in the USA. Had I known then what I know now, I would have gone to film school, I think. I have been improving on the job and I think that the rawness that you see and the technical problems that you might notice in Evil Awakening have been improved in my second film Rise of the Scarecrows and improved greatly in Scary Tales the film that I am nearly done filming.

“Evil Awakening” is your first feature, where did the idea come from and what was your motivation to get this project done?

In 1996, my good friend Jeremy Weiskotten and I were at a Pizza Hut and were deciding just what we were going to do, and I had been filming stupid skits for the longest time, so I proposed filming a skit. Being a big Friday the 13th fan at the time, I thought that we should go in that back from the dead slasher direction. So we got together with several friends and filmed it and it was a blast and it was about as ridiculous…it’s also an extra on the Evil Awakening (2003) DVD. We screened it at my birthday party and everyone was laughing and asked for copies of it. I realized then that we had the skill to entertain. Well, we continued with skits but they got crazier and better and that’s when I began thinking about a full length low budget horror film.

My other buddy, Steven Joseph Adams, came to me in 2002 and said that he wanted to film something because Evil Awakening (1996) was so much fun, so I came up with the idea for Evil Awakening 2…a mere skit, but this one was not going to be adlibbed like the first one. As I wrote it, I elected to not call it a sequel and not make it a skit either. This was the moment and this was the movie that was going to be our introduction to the horror world. I wrote it in about six weeks and we filmed it in 3 months. My motivation for finishing it was basically who I am, I guess. I can’t see starting something and not finishing it and one way or another, it was going to be done. It would bug the hell out of me if I had footage of a movie that was 60% done or whatever and it was never completed.

What was the approximate budget for the film and how did you secure it?

The budget for Evil Awakening was, maybe, 500 bucks. It was basically a no budget horror film that was done with very little money and a lot of ambition. I paid for the fake blood and pizza for the crew and such, but realistically, there wasn’t a lot of money behind it.

What did you shoot on and how long was the shoot?

We used a Sony Digital Video Camera…nothing special for the first time around. Rise of the Scarecrows was the same and Scary Tales is shot on a digital video camera, but a better camera and shot better. Evil Awakening was shot in 3 months, Rise of the Scarecrows took 2 ½ years for various reasons, and now Scary Tales is nearly done and when the dust settles, it will have been 3 months of weekend shooting. I’m organized now and that has made a big difference.

I thought you did a great job of creating little storylines and weaving them all together around the main story of the Cock Monster. (I’ll assume I’m spelling that right?) Talk about keeping continuity. I’m assuming that on a low-budget and shooting out of sequence, with all the stories and characters involved, continuity can be problematic. How’d you handle that?

Thank you! The actual spelling is “The Coch Woods Monster” but it’s pronounced “Cock Woods Monster” so you are basically correct. Continuity and low budget are not friends of each other and it’s very hard to shoot when people are not getting paid and when they change their looks. Hair grows quickly, people gain and lose weight, and people lose clothing that they need for the next film. I think that I’m more in tune now and continuity is now a lot better. Evil Awakening did pretty well because it was shot quickly and most people understood that they needed to keep their look. Rise of the Scarecrows was tougher because it almost didn’t come and took over two years to complete and there are some continuity problems there but they aren’t that obvious unless you really look for them and you see continuity problems in big productions like Rocky IV when Apollo Creed is wearing boxing gloves and then pointing at Ivan Drago without a glove in the same scene. It is very tough and tough for me because I’m not as organized as I want to be, but we’ve done pretty well and I think that we’re on the right track.

What were some of your biggest hurdles in getting the film finished?

I guess just dealing with nonpaid actors that didn’t take it as seriously as I did and would often miss shooting days. Other than that, the rest is easy…time consuming but easy. Weather in New England is also difficult and can throw a wrench in the works.

Did you enter it into any festivals? If so, how did it do and what did you get out of the experience? If not, why?

I did enter both Evil Awakening and Rise of the Scarecrows into film festivals and neither one was ever allowed to compete. I don’t get it and I’m not convinced that they even watched them. I’ll be doing the same thing with Scary Tales with no expectations. I see the movies that win these film festivals and I know that my films belonged there in the running. It’s so frustrating, but it’s part of the business. They expect a certain look and sometimes want that artsy stuff instead of what I provide. So, I’m hoping that they will look at Scary Tales and give it a shot and if not, so be it. There are more than one way to skin a cat.

Talk about distribution. What was the process like for you and how’s that going?

Distribution was the toughest thing in the world. I had sent Evil Awakening everywhere and the few replies I got were either negative ones or they loved it and wanted to run with it, BUT they wanted the rights to the film, the money, and no guarantees on anything! How’s that for a deal. In other words, Evil Awakening 2 could come out without me and I would get nothing for the sales of Evil Awakening. F that. I thought that the best way, perhaps, to get a distributor was to start a horror site and interview them so that they know me when they see my submission and my chances would increase greatly. JR Bookwalter, a great filmmaker and now a distributor, gave me my shot and picked up both Evil Awakening and Rise of the Scarecrows.

I have a tentative deal for Scary Tales, which will probably be released next summer, and Rise of the Scarecrows is supposed to be released in January/February 2009. I have found that most distributors are ruthless and use filmmakers to line their own pockets while not throwing a crumb to the people that have done all of the work. I sat on Evil Awakening for five years before I found the right guy (Bookwalter) to see my work and give me a shot and a very fair deal as well.

After it’s all said and done, what would you have done differently?

I would not have put a deadline on the movie to complete. There were scenes that were cut out so we could finish and make a film festival that they didn’t allow us to compete in. I will never do that again. I would have shot it differently…fix some technical things, but all in all, for what it is, I like Evil Awakening. It’s got some problems, sure, but if you can look beyond the technical flaws, you will find the fun in it.

I would have developed more characters, rather than focus primarily on Sam Adams (Steven Joseph Adams), although I love that obnoxious and crazy guy!

Where can people find out more about “Evil Awakening” and your other projects and, better yet, buy a copy?

Anyone can go to scaredstiffreviews.com or xposse.com for details and can go to Amazon.com to purchase Evil Awakening. They can find my myspace page and become a friend with the Coch Woods Monster. Or anyone that wants to contact me directly can email me at genobambino69@gmail.com. Good or bad, I love to hear from the horror fans and any fans that I may have out there.

What’s next for Geno McGahee and X Posse Productions?

The continued promotion of Evil Awakening and the future promotion of Rise of the Scarecrows and Scary Tales are on the agenda as well as the planning for the fourth movie which will be filmed next summer. I am hoping that we can make a dent in this horror world and that the people give me a chance. You won’t regret it.

Lastly, talk about the indie horror scene. What do you think about where it’s at now and where do you see it going?

The indie film scene is pretty good, although it does get saturated with bad movies because the digital video camera and editing programs have leveled the playing field and has allowed many to make a movie when they probably shouldn’t. The Campbell Brothers are great and when they come back to horror, they could easily make their mark on a huge level, my friend Jim Haggerty is a great filmmaker and has a lot of ambition and knows how to network very well, and another friend of mine, Polly Frost, is not only an exceptional writer but she also excels at filmmaking. She has a great web series called “The Fold” that I really think is fantastic.

The fact of the matter is Indie Horror is where the heart is and where the originality is coming from. There is vision and love there and when you rent or buy a film made on a shoestring budget, you are getting something special. I think that Indie Horror now has an advantage over it in the past because of technology and we are now getting more and more indie films and I LOVE watching them because when you don’t have money, you need a good story and ingenuity. I see Indie horror going into the mainstream more than ever because it has to. How many Asian transfers, remakes, bad sequels, and PG-13 fluff horror movies will the public stand for before they begin looking elsewhere?

I do want to thank you for the time Ted, and I thank everyone that have purchased Evil Awakening and have written me to give me their thoughts. I sincerely appreciate the support and keep an eye out for Rise of the Scarecrows and Scary Tales.

Exclusive Interview with Actor, Writer and Producer Joshua Nelson

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