From low-budget filmmaker to the big time, get ready for Neil Marshall's "Doomsday" this March

I haven't seen a lot of coverage on "Doomsday" yet, but get ready... I think you're going to be hearing a lot about it soon. Written and directed by Neil Marshall, one of the members of the so-called splat pack, "Doomsday" is his third film after "Dog Soldiers" and "The Descent".



Neil Marshall hit the horror scene in 2002 with his film "Dog Soldiers", which went straight to DVD in North America, but did get a theatrical release in the UK. It marked his directorial debut and is an absolute 'must-see' for any low-budget horror filmmaker, as it was filmed on DV with next to no budget and no CG effects. It's tight script, cinematography and directing won it both the Golden Raven Award and the Pegasus Audience Award at the 2002 Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film. It also took the prestigious Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film at the Luxembourg International Film Festival/Cinenygma. It was an instant 'cult classic' and paved the way for Marshall to make "The Descent", which received a budget of 3.5Million pounds and went on to be a huge critical and box office success, which, subsequently, paved the way for "Doomsday".

"Doomsday" had a budget of 17Million pounds and gets a release from Universal Films in March of this year. Following "Doomsday", Marshall has six other projects on the go: "Outpost", "The Eagle's Nest", "The Sword and The Fury", "The Ninth Legion", "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Descent 2". Judging from his resume and that trailer, my guess is that "Doomsday" will be a big success and should put Neil Marshall in a position to make whatever films he wants.

It opens March 14th, 2008 - Here's the link to the official "Doomsday" site.

Link-apalooza - Feb 4, 2008

I'm a little hungover from the Superbowl, but I'll do my best to get through this post...

Robert Englund will not be playing Freddy Krueger in the remake - this was mentioned on a bunch of sites, I linked to the eSplatter.com story. Without question, this is a travesty and will doom the revitalization of the franchise. "Nightmare on Elm Street" IS Freddy Krueger and Freddy Krueger IS Robert Englund, it's that simple. What will "Nightmare on Elm Street" be without Robert Englund as Freddy? Could you imagine, say, a "Halloween" movie without Michael Myers? I can, it was called "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" and it sucked, so will this. Boo...

Pirate Bay says it can't be sunk - Wired had this article about how Pirate Bay, the web's most notorious P2P file sharing site, will never be shut down. The interesting thing, I think, is that the guys who run it all have day jobs and don't make much money off the site. What it really goes to show is that P2P file sharing isn't going anywhere and Hollywood just needs to accept that. I've been reading about how the distributors are going to try to make it harder and harder to rip movies and upload them, how they're going to track them with watermarks, how they're going to shut the P2P sites down, blah, blah, blah... Look, guys - if you can make it, they can break it. Give it up and learn to live with it. Now, figure out how to use it to your advantage and stop your whining.

"George Romero's Diary of the Dead" is starting to get a lot of play, some of it negative. A lot of the negative is stemming from the fact that it's done in first person's perspective, just like "Cloverfield". To set the story straight, "Diary of the Dead" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival WAY before "Cloverfield" came out in the theaters AND "Diary of the Dead" started filming on October 19, 2006, "Cloverfield" was filmed in mid-June, 2007. So, I'm pretty sure Romero had no idea that "Cloverfield" was doing the same thing... Further, I think you're going to see a lot of films done in that first person's perspective, so it's really not that unique of an idea. Regardless, fundementally, "Diary of the Dead" is supposed to more old-school Romero than, say, "Land of the Dead" and that's something to be excited about. Here's a clip from "Diary of the Dead" on Shocktillyoudrop.com and here's a link to the trailer on youtube, which has an intro by Romero. "Diary of the Dead" was produced independently through Romero's Romero-Grunwald Productions and Artfire Films on a fairly low budget, then premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was picked up by the Weinstein's four days later for $2.5 Million to be distributed through Dimension Films.

Contract outlined in writers strike - It looks like the WGA strike is finally coming to an end and although it barely changed my viewing habits, I'm sure the writers are going to be happy to get back to work. Also, a lot of Hollywood was very anxious to have the strike over by the time the Oscar's rolled around, as a lot of the nominated movies were "indie" films that bank on getting their 'Oscar bump', which is when audiences check out the movies after it's announced that they're nominated, talked about at the awards, etc. On a side note, if you noticed, there were a lot of ads for upcoming movies during the Superbowl and I think that may have had something to do with the fact that they were concerned that the Oscars may not happen. Usually, they dump a lot of money into ads around the Academy Awards (which some call the female Superbowl), but maybe they hedged their bets and bought time during the Superbowl, which happened to be the highest rated Superbowl ever with 97.5 Million viewers. For interests sake, that's actually the second most watched TV show in history, the final episode of "M-A-S-H" being the first.

Michael Bay, please take note

My last post was about how Michael Bay is remaking "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Friday the 13th", "The Hitcher", etc... read all about it, the post is just below this one. I was pleading that Hollywood should look at the low-budget indie horror that's coming out at the festivals and being independently distributed, not just ruin old franchises. So, I decided to look around a bit and it didn't take long to find out that at least some of Hollywood is doing just that...

/film posted that Dreamworks bought "Paranormal Activity" and plans to remake it. Now, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You can read what I had to say about "Paranormal Activity" here, but it's a low-budget indie, shot in a week with a handicam that screened at Slamdance and it just sold for almost seven figures. Not only that, the director, Oren Peli, gets to direct the new version for Dreamworks. How about that?

Hollywood Reporter wrote that another Slamdance film, "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer" sold to Anchor Bay for a mid-six figures. Since both "Paranormal Activity" and "Monster Slayer" were Slamdance films, I actually wrote about both of them in the same post. "Monster Slayer" was helmed by first time director, Jon Knautz and you'd have to think that Anchor Bay kinda made his day.

So, maybe Hollywood's coming around a bit... still a ways to go, though.

Michael Bay... please stop.

Michael Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes, is the company that remade "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "The Hitcher" and "The Amityville Horror". In October, it was announced that he was going to helm a remake/new interpretation of "Friday the 13th", they're planning on remaking "The Birds" and now, just announced, they're planning on relaunching the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise... Michael, please. Listen to me. Put the checkbook down, come down off that high horse and let's talk about this.

Let's call a spade a spade, I understand why you're doing this - horror is cheap and easy to make and these franchises have built in audiences. I know you're guaranteed to make money on these films, usually at the expense of the franchises reputation, but I get it. I get why you're doing it, but let's consider some other options when delving into this genre, okay? Let's see if there's a way to avoid disasters like "The Hitcher", Rob Zombie's "Halloween" or "The Island". Okay, "The Island" had no reason to be included there, but... it was a disaster.

There's a huge gap between a low-budget indie horror and a low-budget Hollywood horror, but that gap is narrowing all the time. New forms of distribution and new outlets are leveling the playing field all the time, but Hollywood hasn't really noticed... nor do they seem to care. Instead of remaking an already successful and much loved film like "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street", why wouldn't you scour the world of indie horror and find some popular franchises and films out there? Pick up the rights to some film that most mainstream people haven't heard of, but has a buzz in the horror festival circuits and fans sites and remake it with a budget? Everyone involved would be excited... you'd be bringing something new to the masses, you'd be giving some up and coming filmmaker his break and you'd have an original film that doesn't destroy 20 years of built up reputation, not that "Jason X" did much for the "Friday the 13th" franchise, but you get my point. If these producers would just take a look below them and see the ocean of potential and just give a few people a break, we could make leaps and bounds in bridging that gap between indie horror and Hollywood horror and be bringing new, good content to audiences.

So, here's my thought - Hollywood is lazy, I get that, too. They just do what they know and don't want to exert themselves to have to come up with something original. So, Micheal, I'll tell you what... pull out that checkbook now and write me a check. I'll scour the festivals, the internet and every nook and cranny out there and I'll find you something to remake, I'll find you a bunch of stuff to remake. I'll find you something that's original, something that's good, something that most people don't know about and, most importantly, something that won't make us all cringe and moan when we see the press release.

The MPAA is a bunch of liars

Not that anyone would remember (or care), but I wrote a post about how uploading your films to P2P sites can be a great marketing tool and I mentioned that the MPAA claimed that the film industry had lost $6.1 Billion due to piracy. My response was that "I'd really like to see how (they) came up with those numbers", as they seemed ridiculous. Well, guess what? It turns out that they just outright lied, here's the article in the L.A. Times... they had originally stated that 44% of the industry's losses came from illegal downloading, but now say that it's closer to 15%. Further, Mark Luker of Educause, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, says the figure is probably closer to a paltry 3%. By that math, instead of $6.1 Billion lost to piracy, you'd be looking at closer to $400 Million or just a bit more than what "Spiderman 3" grossed domestically. The MPAA and Hollywood are trying SO hard to push for legislation against P2P file sharing that they refuse to see any side that isn't this 'bad nasty side', a side that may not even exist. Here's the thing... it's like they say in the stock market, "the trend is your friend" and you can't fight the trends, if you do, you're just going to fall behind - think about what's happening in the music industry. However, if you can understand and appreciate the trend, you can stay ahead of the game and thrive.

Let's take a look at "American Gangster", which racked up $43.6 million on approximately 5,300 screens on it's opening weekend, despite the fact that you could download a free DVD quality copy of the film off the P2P sites over a week before it hit the theaters. Further, pulling in over $130 Million domestically, over $234 Million Worldwide, it was ranked the 18th biggest movie at the box office in 2007 and would have to be considered a huge success for Universal and everyone involved. So, the film leaked, was available 10 days before it hit the theaters, yet it still opened at number 1? If you asked the MPAA or Hollywood, there should have been some sort of travesty here. So, what happened? I don't know, here's a thought - the film was good. My personal thoughts are, the people who download movies off the P2P sites aren't the same people who pay $10 to go to the theaters and that's what Hollywood doesn't get. You're really not losing a paying audience, you're actually gaining an audience that isn't paying. This non-paying audience will, however, keep you honest. They talk... they talk a lot. Like I've said many times before, if your film is good, the P2P sites can work to your advantage by creating a word-of-mouth effect, if it's bad... well, you tell me why "AVPR" only did $10 Million on its opening weekend.

So, my point is, P2P really doesn't really eat into your box office profits because it's not the same audience. What P2P really hurts, is companies like Blockbuster, Netflix and DVD sales in general. It's tough to sell something for $20 when it's available for free, so the P2P sites definitely devalue your product... but, I've been looking into what those companies are looking to do and, I have to say, I think they're figuring it out... but I'll leave that for another post.

Jan 29, 2008 - New horror out on DVD today

There's a fair amount of new horror to go through today, so I'll just get to it...

I'll start with the big-budget flop, "The Invasion". Chances are that you're aware that this is a remake of the 1956 classic, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", which was based on the novel, "The Body Snatchers" and ended up spawning many a remake and rip-off, from the 1978 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to 1993's "Body Snatchers". The original novel and, subsequently, the 1956 version are truely good (I actually like the 1978 version, as well), but this version is a true cluster-F. Produced by Joel Silver, written by Dave Kajganich and initially directed by Oliver Hirschbiegl (real names, I swear), Warner Bros. later hired James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) to shoot scenes rewritten by the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix)... any time shit this happens, you know you have an unmitigated disaster on your hands. In this case, that stands true. It cost $65Million to make and only made $39Million worldwide...

The wait is over... finally, the long awaited sequel to Steve Miner's, "Lake Placid" comes out. "Lake Placid 2" was originally made for TV, starring John Schneider of "The Dukes of Hazzard" fame and was produced by Sony Pictures and the Sci Fi Channel. It aired as a Sci Fi original movie on April 28, 2007 and... I don't know, no one saw it. What you see here, available on DVD today, is the unrated edition... which means they added nudity.

Judging by the cover art, you may pass off "Deadly End" as a rip-off of "Rest Stop" or "Wrong Turn 2: Dead End", but if you did, you'd be missing out. "Deadly End" was originally called "Neighborhood Watch", written and directed by Graeme Whifler and completed in 2005. One of the writers of "Dr. Giggles", Whifler spent the bulk of his career directing music videos and "Deadly End" marks his feature-length directorial debut. It was in tons of film festivals throughout 2006 and has finally been picked up for distribution with this alternate title. Morbid and disturbing, the film is about Adrien, who has a dark obsession with poison and self-mutilation and within the walls of his rancid home, hides pure madness.

"The Unknown Trilogy" is written, directed and stars Sal Mazzotta, who's a consumate independent filmmaker. He's played bit parts in lots of big time movies, such as "Twelve Monkeys" and "Fallen", but since 1998, he's been concentrating on independent filmmaking. "The Unknown Trilogy" might not be for die-hard horror fans, as it's more of a thriller than anything else, but I like to promote it because Sal looks like a true indie kind of guy. "The Unknown Trilogy" - 'Somewhere between the boundaries of life and death, lays the darkest places in the human heart. In these dimly lit recesses crouch fears older than mankind itself. Yet only by visiting this netherworld from time to time can we hope to unearth what lurks just beyond the grasp of our imaginations. The Unknown Trilogy dares to navigate these shadowy passages in three chilling tales that will make you glad you decided to come along for the ride...' sounds pretty heavy-handed.

I'll bet you didn't know there was a "Punk Rock Holocaust 1", did you? Well, here's "Punk Rock Holocaust 2". Doug Sakmann wrote it, directed it, produced it, acts in it, was the cinematographer, as well as the editor. Now THAT is a true indie filmmaker, but where would you learn to do all that? That's right, Sakmann comes from the world of Troma films, thus the cameo by Lloyd Kaufman as Satan. "Punk Rock Holocaust 2" is about a slasher running loose during the Vans Warped tour and it's everything that you'd expect from a graduate of the school of Troma, plus you get some kick-ass music from the tour.

"Aftermath/Genesis" are two short films from director Nacho Cerda from Spain, who shoots his movies with no dialogue, using classical music to enhance elaborate camera movements. It's actually suspected that Cerda made the famous sequence "The Roswell Alien Autopsy" because it has many similarities to the short included here, "Aftermath".

I can't find much out about "1942", except that it's distributed under the Tartan Asia Extreme label, which comes out with all the J-Horror films that the crappier North American ones are based on, such as "The Eye" and "Ringu", but they also come out with one's that just couldn't or wouldn't be remade, like "Oldboy" and "A Tale of Two Sisters".

You have to commend Justin Channell, writer and director of "Die and Let Live". At only 20 years old, he's written and directed three feature films. At 15, he founded The Mini-Cinema Film Festival, at 17, he raised most of the budget for his first feature film, "Raising The Stakes" by pocketing money from a trip to Disney and he's currently the webmaster for the Troma fan site, Tromatized! Influenced by Troma and shooting on an ultra-low budget, you should already know what you're getting, but... come on, if you're ever going to support indie film, this is a film to pick up.

"Greenhouse Gore Two-Fer" is actually two old films brought to you from Subversive Cinema, "The Gardener", originally called "Seeds of Evil" in 1975 and "The Freakmaker", originally called "The Mutations" in 1974. "The Mutations" is a so-called horror classic about a guy who turns students into man-eating plants and "Seeds of Evil" is about a gardener who sleeps with rich women then poisons them with plants. More interesting would be the documentary short called, "The Distribution of Low Budget Films or The Gardener's Seeds of Evil Killed My Million Dollar Dream" from 1980, which is about the struggles that James Kay had when distributing "Seeds of Evil". I'd love to get my hands on that...

There's a slew of other old films being rereleased for the first time on DVD, most notably: "The Val Lewton Horror Collection with Martin Scorses Presents Val Lewton Documentary", which may be worth seeing just for the documentary. The rest of them just look like cash-grabs, but I do like the title, "Barn of the Naked Dead". Here's the rest of what's available: "42nd Street Forever Vol. 3: Exploitation Explosion", "Tragic Ceremony", "Eugenie de Sade", "Ants/Tarnantulas", "Euro Trash: Triple Feature"

New on DVD today:

Link-apalooza - a couple horror related links with some thoughts

A few links that I came across and my thoughts on them... I think I'll do this every Monday from now on.

'Spartans' win box-office battle - "Meet the Spartans" beats out "Rambo" and helps push "Cloverfield" to fourth, just behind "27 Dresses". I'm sorry, but... seriously? I have posted before on why I think stuff like this is happening, mainly because I don't think people are done with R-rated movies.... I just think that the R-rated audience is looking elsewhere for content, but this is sad... really, really sad. "Meet the Spartans" Wow.

Veoh Inks Deal With FearNet - FearNet will be launching a branded channel on Veoh in an attempt to reach a larger audience, as they don't have much of an audience as is. Veoh is, according to their website, "a diverse, virtual community of indie publishers coming together with their new audiences" and FearNet is, according to their website, "a cutting edge network that brings horror fans uninterrupted FEAR 24/7 wherever and whenever they want". FearNet, by the way, is a joint venture between Comcast, Sony Pictures and Lionsgate, which doesn't sound like an "indie publisher" to me... to be honest, I'm not a fan of FearNet, mostly because it's just a huge marketing tool and it could be much, much more, but I do like that this is happening... because it could work, if they did it for the right reasons, but they're not.

3-D, Zombies and Secrecy: Geekiest Films at Sundance 2008 - Wired covered Sundance and wrote a blurb about their 12 favorite films at Sundance. I like Wired... and zombies, so... I like this link.

Horror Movie Razzie Nominations - esplatter.com wrote a list of all the horror movies that were nominated for Razzie's, which... if you didn't know, are the "worst of" awards. Lindsay Lohan's "I Know Who Killed Me" received a LOT of nominations this year.

The Kentucky Horror Show - The orginal name of the film was "The Kentucky Fried Horror Movie", but they changed it because KFC threatened to sue. A few blogs and websites were all pissed off because the "corporation" was suing the "little guy", but you can't buy that kind of promotion! These guys haven't even started filming yet and they've got a huge buzz about the film. If I was them, I'd be jumping for joy when I got that email from their lawyers. Not to mention, the site and artwork look fantastic. Can't wait...

Who to root for at the Academy Awards... from a horror perspective, of course

The Academy Awards usually doesn't offer much for horror fans to root for, until they get to sound editing, special effects and awards like that. So, knowing that most industry people have skeletons in their closets, so to speak, I figured that, just for shits and giggles, I'd look into all the big Academy Award nominated films and see what kinds of ties to horror they have....

"Michael Clayton" (Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Directing, Music, Best Picture, Original Screenplay) - There's the easy connection in that Clooney is, and always will be, Seth Gecko from "From Dusk Till Dawn". I don't know much about this "Michael Clayton" film, but with quotes like, "Alright vampire killers, let's kill some fucking vampires" and "Your best better get a whole lot fucking better or you are going to feel a whole lot fucking worse", "From Dusk Till Dawn" should've won an award or two. That's not the best tie to horror, though... "Michael Clayton" was shot by Robert Elswit, an award winning DP, who also shot "Return of the Living Dead II" and "Trick or Treat" with Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne. You remember "Trick or Treat" - "what are you afraid of? It's only rock and roll"

"There Will Be Blood" (Best Actor, Art Direction, Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Best Picture, Sound, Adapted Screenplay) - Surprisingly, this one's a bit tougher... Daniel Day-Lewis has played some gritty roles, but never in a horror. Further, Paul Thomas Anderson, the director, hasn't done much horror... So, I'm liking the supporting actor in "There Will Be Blood", Kevin J. O'Connor, who was the prisoner from "Flight of the Living Dead", Igor from "Van Helsing" and that general nuisance from "The Mummy". Surprisingly, he hasn't been nominated for anything, ever.

"Atonement" (Supporting Actress, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Original Score, Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay) - It's a bit of a stretch, but the Academy Award winning screenwriter is Christopher Hampton, who also wrote "Mary Reilly", but that's barely a horror. The only other tie would be that one of the producers, Tim Bevan, also produced "Shaun of the Dead".

"The Diving Bell and The Butterfly" (Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Adapted Screenplay) - I thought it would be a lot harder, but Max von Sydow's in this, who's probably best known for being Father Lankester Merrin in "The Exorcist" and "The Exorcist II", but he's also been in "Conan The Barbarian", "Dune", "Needful Things", "Judge Dredd" and... I think that's it, I think that's all the movies he's ever been in, ever. Oh, and the 1957 classic "The Seventh Seal", but that's it, though... no more. He's done basically nothing in his career but horror and now "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly".

"Juno" (Best Actress, Directing, Best Picture, Original Screenplay) - "Juno"'s written by Diablo Cody, who's next script is "Jennifer's Body", a sci-fi thriller about a possessed cheerleader turned killer, but I can do better than that. How about the fact that it's edited by Dana E. Glauberman, who also helped cut... yup, you got it, "Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence".

"Sweeney Todd" (Best Actor, Art Direction, Costume Design) - This one's low hanging fruit. First off, it actually is a horror film, secondly it's got Johnny Depp, most famously known for playing Glen Lantz in the original "Nightmare on Elm Street", but let's go obscure... "Sweeny Todd"'s unit publicist was Sarah Cark, who was also the unit publicist on "28 Days Later"... coincedence? I don't think so.

"No Country for Old Men" (Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Best Picture, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Adapted Screenplay) - There's a few easy one's, like Woody Harrelson was also in "Natural Born Killers", the Coen's did "Blood Simple" or even that one of the Coen's first scripts was "Crimewave", Sam Raimi's follow up to "Evil Dead". Side note: If you're a Bruce Campbell, Coen brothers or Sam Raimi fan and you haven't seen "Crimewave", go find it. You'll watch it and think, the Coen brothers and Sam Raimi did THIS? Jesus, if they can make it, I can make it. Regardless, my horror connection from "No Country for Old Men" will be from Stephen Root, who's character is the "guy who hires Wells". He's probably best known as the guy from the TV show, "News Radio"... but, his second role ever? Dean Burbage from "Monkey Shines".

"Ratatouille" (Best Animated Feature, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Original Screenplay) - Wow... uh, the editor, Darren T. Holmes was the apprentice editor on "Wolfen".

There, done. Now you know who to cheer for.

Streaming vs. downloading and what it means for indie film

One of the big issues in Hollywood right now is content distribution on the web, it's one of the roots of the current WGA strike and probably the biggest concern for the media companies right now. If you look at sites like: Fancast, Hulu, Joost, MeeVee and Veoh, it would seem that the industry is going with the streaming video model. It's definitely easier for the older demographic to figure out (say, 40+), you just find content on one of those sites, then push play. Also, the media companies like it because it's not that much different than traditional TV and it's easy to monetize through advertising. There's a lot of money behind all these streaming video sites, but guess what? They should be looking at the alternative to streaming video, they should be looking at downloading sites. Ipsos Insight did a study, here's the link, and younger consumers actually lean towards the free downloads model, while older consumers lean toward the free streams. While that younger, tech-savvy generation gets older, it should mean that the future is in downloading, not streaming. Faster computers, wider broadband and advancing technologies will all enable users to download huge media files faster and faster. So, where does this leave indie filmmakers?

Well, here's the problem... streaming video is easier to monetize, but much like the current system, the sites that distribute your content will be getting most of the ad revenue. Just ask any member of the WGA what they think. Besides, it's been proven that people may watch a few minutes on their computer, but a feature length film? So, I really don't see streaming video as much of an opportunity for indie filmmakers. However, downloading content is a different story. Downloading content means you're not confined to your computer, that user can take that content anywhere - they can put it in their portable media player, watch it on their computer or burn it to DVD. So, this is a viable distribution method for indie filmmakers... Now, where do you upload your film for distribution? Well, right now the popular place would be a P2P site. As I've mentioned before (link), P2P sites can offer indie filmmakers a great marketing opportunity, but you are offering up your film for free as the cost of that marketing. So, how can you make money off of downloads? The first way is by charging people to download it, which would be like the iTunes model. In fact, iTunes, Amazon and Netflix are all going to be offering paid download models soon. What would be a great idea for them is to offer an uploading feature, where people with feature films can upload their films and make it available to all users, then they share revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if you do see that one day. However, it's widely known that people generally don't like paying for their downloads, so I think there's another way... and it's advertising.

In 2006, "Akeelah and the Bee" was released in the theaters and was funded mainly by Starbucks. The film was heavily promoted in Starbucks, as well as sold in Starbucks. The budget was fairly low and it grossed over $18Million, which is a low gross by Hollywood standards, but huge by, say, indie horror standards. Without writing a novel, I think there will come a time when there's an agency that finds advertisers willing to fund movies. In exchange, the advertisers will get branding on everything, an ad that runs before the movie, product placement in the film, a bunch of PR, etc. If your making a movie with a budget of $100Million, this isn't going to work, but if your budget is $500,000, this is definitely a system that would work. The advertiser is happy with getting exposure and the filmmaker would've gotten a paycheck just for making their film... all revenue after the fact would just be gravy.

This is just one idea and I have lots more on where things are going, but where Hollywood is scared of the future, I think indie filmmakers should be rubbing their hands in anticipation.

Richard Poche's "Crimson", a true indie horror.

I had the chance to watch Richard Poche's "Crimson" a few days ago, which is definitely worth checking out. It's about a group of nursing students that stumble upon a bloodied up girl named Sammi, whom they drag back to their sorority house, only to find that Sammi's on the run from a vampire cult... which they, subsequently, get caught up in. It's a great story, it's really well acted and it's cut together very nicely. I thought it could use some nudity and a bit more over-the-top gore, but... that could just reflect my own personal preferences. In the end, it's a true indie horror and you should check it out. Here's a link to Poche's site where you can buy yourself a copy. Also, there's a 10-minute special feature of outtakes, which you'll get a good laugh at, if you've ever been on the set of a low-budget film.

This does, however, give me an opportunity to bring up something that consistently bugs me. Filmmakers, such as Richard Poche, are out making films like "Crimson" on a shoestring budget, they're marketing it themselves and, in a lot of cases, distributing it themselves. As far as I'm concerned, this is what independent film is about. When I see the news, reviews and reports out of festivals like Sundance, which happens to be going on right now, where they talk about indie-this and indie-that, Paul Giamatti, Sam Rockwell, blah, blah... Are you really talking about independent films? In the actual context of term, sure - you're making a film independently of the studio system, but these "independent films" have big-time funding and most of them have some sort name talent attached. Compared to most indie horror films, these are big-budget movies with serious names behind them.

Anyhow, that's why I love seeing a well made, true indie film like "Crimson" and will always promote films like it. So, support indie film and pick up a copy of "Crimson", once again, here's the link and if you've made an indie film that you need to promote, let me know about it... I'm more than happy to discuss it on the site.