House on the Witchpit / The Devil's Music

The Devil's Music widget is staying at the top of this blog entry because it's simply too cool not to. If you haven't already got involved, started making money or at very least watched the actual movie then now's the time to do it. Make 10% per referral through the affiliates plan (by clicking the 'share' bit in the player) or simply watch the flick right now. No software to install, nice and simple.

Right, sales pitch over. Well, at least it's one sales pitch over, because now it's time to talk about our beloved The House on the Witchpit and the cool teaser artwork that we've released this week. It's designed by the brilliant Paul Cousins and it looks a little something like this:



We haven't released all that much in the way of cast and cre details, but we did give a few plot details to friends like MJ Simpson and HorrorTalk, so you can read a bit more about it here and here.

There are two more things I can't tell you yet.

Not long now, though.

The Devil's Music is BACK!

Yes, simply by clicking in the widget above you can watch the brand new edit of the trailer for The Devil's Music (now featuring me) and then, once that's finished, you http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcan watch the WHOLE FILM on demand as a streaming rental, or pay a bit more and download it for keeps.

After years of being frustrated by the geographic boundaries of releasing movies on DVD, this is new ground for us. We've been keeping our eye on Distrify for some time, and now we're delighted to say that we've decided to use them for the re-release of The Devil's Music.

Not only does it provide a neat, easy way for people all around the world to watch the movie, but there's also a rather brilliant affiliate scheme whereby if you use the 'share' option in the player and set up your own account at the Distrify you can actually make 10% of the rental/download price as a referral fee. So you can plug The Devil's Music on your facebook site, and then actually make some money off the back of it. I think it's a fucking awesome system and, as the physical formats gradually die off, might well prove to be the way forward.

So watch it! Share it! Make some money out of it! It's possibly my favourite of the first wave of Jinx movies (although I love them all in different ways, bless 'em) so dig in and get your hands dirty.

Are you guys as excited as I am? Looks like the future's finally turned up.

A long time away..

And the year started so well. Loads of video blogs and fairly consistent updates, keeping you all up to date with the various goings on at Jinx and beyond. Now, here I sit, with a blog I haven't updated properly in absolutely months and a nagging sense that I've left you guys hanging.

So, where were we?

Well, the unfortunate suspension of operations over at Indie Movies Online had a couple of knock-on effects, including the delay and reorganisation of the Bordello Death Tales DVD release and the temporary unavailability in the UK of The Devil's Music. Both of these situations are close to being sorted out so stay tuned for further details (and I promise I won't just bugger off for three months again).

The House on the Witchpit shoot has also been a little delayed. It's a shame, but it's definitely worth delaying the shoot to make sure it gets done right rather than just getting it done quickly.

I've also been editing together some videos charting my experience with Strippers vs Werewolves over the course of two years, which I have culled from my nightly video blogs. I record these largely for my own amusement, (and don't usually make them public, given my various states of sleepiness/bedhead hair) but when you edit them together they can sometimes create an interesting portrait of a particular period of life.

Finally, there might or might not be another secret project in the offing. Long-time readers will know that there have been two in the past, one of which ended up being The Devil's Music and the other Bordello Death Tales. This one might or might not involve some shooting next month. We'll see.

Bottom line, though, guys... We really need to meet up more often. I've been neglectful, and I've missed you. I'm sorry. It won't happen again.

What have you been up to?

I'll be at this on Monday in Southend on Sea. Come along.

SO YOU WANT TO WORK IN THE FILM INDUSTRY?
Monday 18 July 1pm - 4pm

A three-hour master class, where the audience will hear new filmmakers talk about how they make their films, followed by a discussion with those who have made a career in the Film industry. 

The event will start with a screening of selected short films from the Southend-on-Sea Film Festival’s short film competition: 

Southend-on-Sea Film Festival Ident – Aaron Foster
Dream Builders – Focal Point Gallery
Spirit of Carnival – Chantelle and Shelby Ryan
No Strings Attached – Amanda Dube
Serendipity – Rob Shaw
Loss – John Ford-Crush
Ghosts – Luke Stazaker
The Confessions of.... – Kyle Springford
The Lonely One – Richard Laverick
Queensway – Gary Leon Bowyer

Running time: 53 minutes

Meet the Filmmakers: Some of the filmmakers of the previously screened short films will be invited on stage to discuss their work and talk about their future plans.

Meet the Professionals: Local professionals from the Film industry:
John Attwell - (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0041110/)
and Pat Higgins (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1664081/) 
will join Paul Cotgrove on stage to discuss their careers and to offer advice on how to make the move from being an amateur to a professional in the Film industry.

Solomon Monk’s Pump House, Chalkwell Park, Chalkwell Avenue

STOP PRESS - Bordello Death Tales release date

Having gone on about not having a release date for BDT yet, the flick seems to have quietly gone up for pre-order on Amazon.

August 8th.

Go get it!!

Bordello Death Tales Revisited

This week has been largely taken up with delivering final materials for the Bordello Death Tales DVD. The release date should be forthcoming very soon indeed, and you'll know as soon as I do. Well, that's not strictly true, I suppose. You'll know as soon as I do unless the distributors say to me 'and keep quiet about the release date for now', in which case you'll know as soon as I'm allowed to tell you.

Bordello Death Tales came about at the suggestion of Jim Eaves. He'd kindly invited me to the cast and crew screening of his great sci-fi horror flick Bane (which is itself heading for a UK DVD release on 18th July so be sure to check that one out). After the screening, we had a couple of beers and Jim mentioned that he rather fancied shooting an old-school anthology flick; a throwback to the 70s Amicus movies, or even Creepshow et al from the 80s.

I flat-out loved the idea straight away. I couldn't help feeling that an awful lot of anthologies from the 90s and 00s had been, at best, disappointments and, at worst, a dumping ground for unsold, unconnected shorts. I loved the idea of a proper anthology flick, with interconnected tissue but a separate vision behind each section. And that, pretty much, was that. I managed to coax Al Ronald on board with a trail of brightly coloured breadcrumbs, and suddenly we had our three directors. A brief meeting a couple of weeks later gave us an umbrella title of Bordello Death Tales and even some idea of a likely shooting window. Before you knew it, all three of us had scripts ready(ish) to go, (except my fledgling draft of Vice Day was actually called Wanking the Id at that point), and somehow we were actually shooting a couple of months later.

I've really never known a project come together quite so painlessly, to be honest. Maybe it was the fact that all three of us were used to helming full-length features rather than anything shorter, maybe it was because all three of us had amazing regular producers (thankyou Debbie, Laura and Pip) who were able to get the three stories off the ground with absolutely no mucking about. Well, at least in terms of getting them shot, anyway.. Somehow we pissed away over 18 months in post-production, meaning that the flick didn't actually show on a screen anywhere until its festival run last year.

Last week we reunited to do the commentary, which was a triumph of technology over location. Because getting all three of yus in the same room at the same time is notoriously difficult (and has only happened once since mid-2008) we opted to conduct the commentary as three separate local recording which would be mixed together, with us listening to each other via Skype headsets. Ridiculous, really, but apparently the end result sounds good. Elsewhere on the disc should hopefully be the notorious fake trailers that we played before the premiere, plus various other stuff that we've shot in the way of interviews, etc.

Hope you guys enjoy the disc when it turns up.. It was a really great experience to shoot and put together.

Cannibal Holocaust with only 15 seconds of BBFC cuts..

According to this post over on Cult Labs forum, the BBFC have just rated the long version of Cannibal Holocaust with only 15 seconds of cuts. For anyone who has followed the film's remarkable censorship history, this is an amazing situation.

Cannibal Holocaust is a brutal, unpleasant and difficult film to watch, and it crosses a line which many people (myself included) feel that films shouldn't cross with regard to the depiction of the killing of animals. The BBFC have decided that only one of these numerous sequences (the killing of a muskrat with a knife) actually represents animal cruelty, which boggles my mind a bit. The part of me that hates censorship collides with the part of me that really doesn't think that creatures should suffer or die in order to make a goddamn movie.

Regardless, I saw Cannibal Holocaust back in the early 90s, during a time when I was sharing a flat with a guy who was determined to watch every banned film that he could lay his hands on. I don't feel particularly moved to watch it again, but understand the point of view of those who praise it as a landmark film, and the unpleasantness with animals is clearly a big part of what makes the film as a whole feel so horribly transgressive. It blurs the lines of what you're watching, takes the viewer way out of their comfort zone and gives the faked violence against humans the uncomfortable air of something that might be real after all. The version I saw was a million-generation pirated VHS that had been Frankenstein-ed together from various prints, and whenever anything really unpleasant was about to happen, the screen tinted green (presumably these bits were spliced in from a fully uncut print with much worse picture quality).

Can't quite believe that those 'green bits' (as I shall always think of them) will now be legally obtainable in HMV. Amazing how much the BBFC has changed since their days of butchering the knockabout gore comedy in The Evil Dead.

There's a speech in the original script of The Devil's Music, (which ended up being shot but not used, and can be found in the deleted scenes short called 'The Last Tour' on the US Special Edition DVD) in which Erika Spawn explains her attitude to horror. 'Coincidentally', it mirrors my own.. Horror is a form of escapism, and when you mix real life shit into it the whole thing stops being fun.

The BBFC passing of Cannibal Holocaust almost unscathed is culturally significant, but that doesn't mean I'll be rushing out to pick up a copy. Not when I could spend that 90 minutes watching The Haunting for the umpteenth time instead.

Fake Blood on the Lens: TrashHouse Aftermath

I found this footage sitting in a drawer yesterday. It was filmed the week we wrapped TrashHouse back in 2004, just before we tore the sets down.

Elisabeth Sladen

I try not to let the deaths of people I've never met affect me too much. Life's big and loud and emotional enough when you're just dealing with the people who are physically there in your life, those wonderful people that you can hug and touch and punch. If you start letting yourself get overly emotionally affected by that other whole universe of people.. Those people of whom you are aware but who aren't aware of you, those spirits who dance within the tellies and across the cinema screens of our lives.. Well, the whole thing just becomes unmanageable. So, when one of those people dies I tend to just raise a glass and move on.

I seem to be having a bit of trouble doing that with regards to Elisabeth Sladen, the wonderful actress who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and cheerful CBBC spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures. I heard about her sad death from cancer last night, via the Grim Reaper's usual 21st century information service of choice; Twitter. It was one of those stories that seemed to have gained an awful lot of ground before it had actually been reported by a reliable news source, and for several minutes I hoped it was a hoax, or a mistake.

It wasn't.

See, I just can't seem to process Lis Sladen's death. Partly because she always seemed so energetic and vital, (not looking anywhere near her 63 years, but not looking like someone 'trying to look young' either), but also because she's always been there. I was so young when I first saw her in the role of Sarah Jane that I literally cannot remember life beforehand. She was the first companion that I ever remember seeing onscreen and although she'd left the role by the time I was old enough to watch Doctor Who without running away and hiding around the corner, when BBC video released Revenge of the Cybermen as their first ever VHS release of Doctor Who I rented it repeatedly. She left an indelible impression on me.

It's a tough gig doing the whole companion thing, especially in old-school Who. Elisabeth Sladen made it look effortless. By all reports she was as generous and kind in real life as one would dearly wish their onscreen heroes to be, a standard that precious few ever live up to.

I love the fact that she came back to the show, and that she gained a whole new generation of fans over the last few years. Can't help feeling for them too, today; if I'm left reeling by her loss, what effect must it be having on the legions of young fans who were eagerly awaiting the new series of Sarah Jane Adventures later in the year?

Rest well, Elisabeth, and thanks for the memories. You meant an awful lot to an awful lot of us.

(Tardis noise. Fade to black)

"Sale" at the video shop..

About a billion years ago, (1995), I worked in a video shop. It was part of a chain. I won't mention which chain, obviously, but it's probably the first one you thought of. Yes, that one. Yes, I suppose it does rhyme with 'cockthruster', now that you mention it, but I'd rather not think about that, thanks very much.

Look, can I get on with the bloody story?

The particular store I worked at, (which I'm sure wasn't policy across the chain, naturally), used to generally employ a single member of staff at the very bottom of the payscale (£3.01 per hour, I seem to recall. My only pay rise during my tenure brought this up to a dizzying £3.03) and would just leave them to it in the store on their own. This presented a few problems, since various day-to-day requirements of running the store revolved around use of management level passwords, on the assumption that the poor grunts on £3.01 wouldn't be left solely in charge for days on end. Which we were.

One day, I got a call from a 'regional' manager which I remember vividly to this day. He told me that the quarter's takings across his stores hadn't met targets. The store that I worked at had met them, but some stores in the middle of nowhere were dragging his average down and he wanted a quick boost of profit over the next week.

His instructions run thusly;

1) Tape up the 24 hour drop box with industrial tape, and put a sign reading 'Drop box out of order; please return films to counter' on it.
2) Whitewash out all of the windows in the store and write 'Massive Sale Now On!' in the whitewash.
3) Sit back and watch the cash roll in.

His logic about the dropbox ran thusly;

1) If a customer is forced to walk into the shop, they might buy something.
2) If a customer can't return a video in the middle of the night, they'll come back tomorrow and buy something.
3) They might not be able to come back tomorrow, and will thus accrue profitable late fees.

His logic about the whitewash/sale ran thusly;

1) Everyone loves a sale! Whitewashing the windows will increase the curiosity factor!
2) Once inside the shop, they'll forget why they came in and won't notice that there isn't a sale. They might buy something.

My objections were varied and manifold. A small selection might include;

1) People will notice that a sale doesn't exist.
2) No, honestly, they will.
3) They'll ask what's on sale. I will reply 'The usual fine selection of goods'
4) They might, at this point, stab me. I wouldn't entirely blame them.
5) How can a hole in the fucking wall be 'out of order'?
6) A customer who has accrued a late fee because we've removed his means of returning his video will refuse to pay it.
7) A customer who has travelled all the way to the store in the middle of the night to find that we've removed his means of returning his video will simply post the video forcefully through the letterbox instead.
8) A videotape being pushed through the letterbox with sufficient force will set off the motion detectors and summon the police.
7) The police will contact the keyholder to come out in the middle of the night to turn the goddamn burglar alarm off.
8) The keyholder is me. I hate you beyond my ability to express myself.

Funnily enough, I managed to express my rebellion at the whole plan by sticking to the company rulebook.

"Where can I obtain whitewash?"
"From the store down the road"
"Where can I get the money to purchase the whitewash?"
"Perform a disbursement from the till"
"I can't do that without a management level password"
"Look, I'm sure you know a management level password"
"For an employee to obtain the passwords of other employees is grounds for dismissal"
"Just take it without running it thorugh the system"
"That would also be grounds for dismissal. Besides, I can't close the store"
"Just put a 'back in 5 minutes' sign up"
"It's grounds for dismissal to close the store during opening hours"

and so on and so on.

Eventually, the horrible bastard got utterly fed up with my complaints and came down and did it all himself, which was at least more satisfying than me having to do it myself. It clearly made me the guy's number one enemy, though, and provided me with my first real glimpse of management level thinking.

Ah, hell. I didn't have much in the way of life-fun back then, and small victories meant a lot. I also look back fondly upon completing a staff-improvement manual, which the same regional manager had to deliver to his superiors. My favourite questions (with my responses afterwards) from that manual were:


Q) Read the 'Health & Safety' information on the wall in the staff room. What have you learnt that you weren't previously aware of?
A) That the store is 5 degrees below legal minimum operating temperature.

Q) It is important for any store to listen to the concerns of its customers. Write down, exactly, the next question a customer asks you.
A) "Why is it so fucking cold in here?"

No pillow as soft as a clear conscience

I sometimes use the phrase 'My name is Pat Higgins and my conscience is clear' as a sign-off when I do live events (like the one coming up on Wednesday 27th April at Southend Film Festival) and have done for years. In fact, I gave the expression to a comedian in Hellbride as a catchphrase (although using the character's name, not 'Pat Higgins'. Otherwise that would be ridiculous. And confusing). The phrase started out entirely as a joke; a call-back to something that I tended to mention earlier in the evening. Over the years, though, I guess I've become fond of it.

Received an email yesterday, informing me that a distribution company that I have dealt with in the past are to cease activities. I won't name them, since their website hasn't broken the news yet and the last thing I want to do is leak the story if it's not public yet, but I feel that the demise of the company is particularly heartbreaking (above and beyond the usual sadness of a business closing its doors) because of one simple fact.

They were nice.

Actually, I'll expand upon that. They were honourable. They had excellent communication with people they dealt with, they were polite and friendly and they always delivered whatever they'd promised. I've been paddling around in the shallows of the movie industry for close to ten years now, and those sorts of qualities have seemed depressingly few and far between.

Is being nice really so tough? Because, if you want to be all hard-nosed and business-like about it, in terms of gaining loyalty and repeat business and all those other things that companies claim to seek, being nice is a pretty goddamn cost-effective way of getting those things. As either customer or co-worker, I'll put up with a much worse situation for much longer if I feel I'm being treated with empathy.

So why don't more people in the industry embrace being pleasant and honourable as the default way of doing business? I don't mean the fake smile, have-a-nice-day bullshit so favoured by soft-skills training courses; I mean genuinely treating people well for no other reason than it makes the whole experience much more rewarding for all parties?

There was a particular film set I visited a few years ago that sticks in my mind. The shoot was several budgetary notches above the films that I was making at the time, and in several respects it should have been the sort of shoot I was aspiring to. Didn't take long on set to work out that it wasn't. In fact, the atmosphere was borderline poisonous. Not only would cast and crew not talk to each another, but half of the crew wouldn't even talk to the other half of the crew. Conversation on set seemed to consist almost entirely of bitching. It felt like a state of arrested development; adolescent egos rubbing each other up the wrong way and constantly trying to get one over on each other. I thought about how it compared to the upbeat atmosphere that I try to foster on my shoots and I found it rather sad.

The film industry seems to attract assholes like moths to a flame. I understand the reasons for that, but that doesn't mean I have to like it and that doesn't mean that it's the only way things can be done. Yes, of course there's pressure.. But teachers dealing with classes of 5 year-olds are under pressure too, and they somehow manage to avoid using it as an excuse to treat people badly.

So, on a day when a rather lovely little company has closed its doors for the last time, I'm reminded of why I liked them so much and reminded that, no matter how long I stay in this business, I will never let it turn me into something I'm not. I will never run a set where the cast and crew won't speak to one another. I'll never put someone in a position where they'll regret signing a deal with my company. I'll never accept that behaving like (for want of a better word) a dick is somehow a norm, or something to be aspired to.

My name is Pat Higgins and my conscience is clear.

Scre4m (Or Scream 4 if you're not in marketing, or 12 years old)

The Scream franchise means quite a lot to me.

When the original hit the screens in the UK in May 1997, my life was changing in all sorts of ways. I initially saw Scream at the cinema with my friends, some of whom weren't used to horror films and found it pretty gruelling. By the time the run had finished, I had gone back to watch it again with the woman who would later become my wife. It was the first horror film we saw together at the cinema.

I approached Scream 2 with a certain amount of trepidation, but thought it was fantastic. For me it stands up as one of the great sequels; one that ratchets up elements of the original without ruining the feel of the cinematic world by doing so. The sequence in the trashed police car stands up as a fantastic bit of tension building, and the death of Randy remains one of the most heartbreakingly ruthless yet utterly necessary bits of business in any franchise. By killing Randy, the flick reminded you that, yes, this is a horror series, and people aren't going to be safe just because you feel affection for them.

Then along came Scream 3, which ruined the feel of the cinematic world and kept people safe just because you felt affection for them. Not only that, my enjoyment of the film on first viewing was also marred by the fact that I'd fallen victim to a spoiler.. Some twunt on a message board had posted the identity of the killer in caps on an unrelated thread, thus ruining my day and causing me to grumble endlessly. Except, funnily enough, the twunt hadn't actually posted the killer's identity; they'd taken a guess and got it wrong. Nevertheless, I spent the movie convinced that I knew the twist.. The tragic thing being, of course, that the actual resolution of Scream 3 wasn't even as imaginative as the twunt's fake spoiler. So I got the worst of all worlds, which probably didn't help pump any excitement into a film that was already pretty limp.

So, we have the approach of Scream 4. I'm torn; on one hand, I'm concerned that it's going to feel like that piss-awful Blackadder reunion show they did for the millennium, but on the other hand Scream 3 wasn't exactly closing the series on a perfect note, so maybe the creative team will come back with batteries recharged and all guns blazing.

I've just got to make it through the next few days without seeing any spoilers, fake or otherwise. Plus, I'm a bit apprehensive about viewing the flick with an audience, which is kind of a shame.. It's been given a '15' over here in the UK (a first for the series) and whereas seeing a horror movie with a pumped up crowd of fans can be fantastic (just go and see a screening at Frightfest if you need convincing), watching a '15' rated horror movie in Essex can be a truly punishing experience. It just takes one nervous teenage boy blurting out endless 'jokes' to show how not scared he is and the whole experience takes a tumble.

Still, sod it, I'm in. Optimism engaged.

Thrill me, Wes.

Into the Pit

Non-disclosure agreements can be the enemy of decent blogging, but trust me.. The one I'm under at the moment will be well worth it. Can't tell you much at all about the upcoming shoot for House on the Witchpit, for reasons that will become apparent once things kick off.

We're unlikely to be advertising for cast and crew through our regular channels, however we have set up a special email address for interested parties (for either cast or crew) to get in touch. I realise that this is all frustratingly vague at the moment, but the details we can give are as follows..

House on the Witchpit is a feature film shoot taking place in the UK later in 2011. The creative team have a proven track record for producing critically acclaimed, internationally distributed genre features. It's a full-tilt supernatural horror with a decent helping of wit and intelligence; it's not a body count movie or a torture flick, but instead sets out to genuinely freak out the viewer.

If you've got something unique to bring to the flick, either in front or behind the camera, feel free to contact the production team at..

intothepit@jinxmedia.co.uk

Can't guarantee individual responses, (it's just not realistic I'm afraid, and a standard cut and paste response has always struck me as oddly pointless) but we can reassure you that we're grateful for your interest!

And, for those of you who are just interested in watching the thing rather than making it.. There should be some news soon. I know I've said it before, but it'll be worth the wait.

New Workshop Date

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be running another workshop at the Southend Film Festival this year.

On Wednesday 27th April at 6.30pm, I'll be chatting about micro-budget filmmaking at an event called "DIY: Making a Feature Film to Launch Your Career". Places are really limited, but can be reserved on 0845 5212345 or by emailing learning@southessex.ac.uk

More details can be found over at http://www.southendfilmfestival.com/film_schedule.php

Bringing it all together.

Keeping everything together in the sprawling age of Facebook, YouTube et al has proven a bit of a headache for me. Working out what leads where, and following how the hell people ever find out about us are challenges that face any small business.

With this in mind, we've just whacked some fucking great big buttons on the front page of http://www.jinx.co.uk which will hopefully point you towards whatever it is you're after.

For example, we've been updating our official Facebook page with never-before-seen photos by the brilliant Debbie Attwell from the shoots for KillerKiller and Hellbride

We've put together a nice, convenient list of our stuff over on Amazon that features all our flicks so far, (we'll be adding Bordello Death Tales very shortly, of course), which can be found over here..

Plus, there's other stuff too.. Ah, hell. Just go to the main site and click the buttons. The first step in a long process of keeping all our stuff together rather than being scattered all over the web..!

Fake Blood on the Lens: Remakes, remakes everywhere..

Fake Blood on the Lens: Re-edits from Bieber to Blade Runner (plus Vamp ...

Fake Blood on the Lens: Radiohead, The King of Limbs and Digital Distrib...

Fake Blood on the Lens: Screenwriting, Celtx and Final Draft

Fake Blood on the Lens: BBFC fees, classification and The Devil's Music

Fake Blood on the Lens:2003 Flashback

Fake Blood on the Lens: Witchpit Meeting

Fake Blood on the Lens: House on the Witchpit.divx

Fake Blood on the Lens: Collecting VHS

Fake Blood on the Lens: Marketing and publicising independent films usin...

Fake Blood on the Lens: Beating Writer's Block with Software

Fake Blood on the Lens: Titles for Horror Movies

Fake Blood on the Lens: Film Censorship

Kevin Smith, Red State and self-releasing

In 2002, Pip and I drove 26,000 miles around America. We didn't have a grand plan and went pretty much wherever we felt like. I did insist, however, that we stop in a tiny town called Leonardo in New Jersey. I tracked down the Quick Stop convenience store where Kevin Smith shot the movie Clerks. I bought 2 decks of Marlboro Light and two bottles of Mountain Dew, and marvelled at just how goddamn tiny the place was. Amazing how the camera can make things look bigger and more important. The only indication that this was anything remarkable about this particular convenience store was one tiny press cutting about Clerks blu-tacked up behind the counter.

I love an awful lot of Kevin Smith's work. Not all of it, but a lot of it. More than that, though, I love what Kevin Smith represents. Even more than Sam Raimi with his cabin, even more than Peter Jackson with his DIY gorefest, to me Smith represents the 'fuck it, I'll do it anyway' spirit. The idea that a guy working in a shop could do a day's work, then close the shutters and shoot a feature film that would go on to be distributed all over the world is an idea that I find vital and exciting. Hell, even if you can't stand Smith's work, if you don't find something to applaud about the methods and determination by which he got that work to a global audience then something inside you just ain't working right.

I've seen Kevin Smith doing live Q&As a couple of times.. The last time he came onstage at 7.30 and was still going strong well over 4 hours later with no interval. The guy can chat, endlessly. It's kind of remarkable to watch.

As you've probably already heard, this week KS used the Sundance festival to launch his new flick Red State, and (after a fake auction) sold himself the distribution rights. He gave an impassioned 25 minute speech about what's wrong with the Hollywood distribution model (specifically on how much is spent on marketing vs how much is spent on the movie) which you can check out over on YouTube, and explained how he's going to tour Red State prior to conventional release and bypass regular marketing by using word-of-mouth, social networking, podcasts and so on. Funnily enough, the reaction to this has been strangely hostile in certain parts of the internet. Anti-Smith articles and message-board diatribes have been popping up, saying that Smith's speech was spitting in the face the community he was purporting to be supporting.

Personally, I love seeing someone work outside their comfort zone and I love the fact that KS is trying to approach the distribution model in a different way. Yeah, of course his plan of four-walling works rather better when you've got a huge built-in audience like Smith has, but where did that audience come from in the first place? This was a guy who had no contacts, no industry experience, nothing but a shitty job in a convenience store and some black & white film stock. At this point, the man can do whatever the fuck he likes, and good luck to him.

I couldn't help but be fascinated by the bored-looking dude slumped behind the counter at that Leonardo Quick-Stop when I bought the smokes and sodas. I wondered about him all day. A wannabe filmmaker? Someone who was an acquiantance of Smith's crowd back when Clerks was shot? Or just a guy working in a shop for minimum wage, vaguely aware that someone once something there?

"Yeah, someone filmed something. Some movie with a load of dick jokes. I dunno. Listen, d'you wanna hear my band's demo? We're gonna be huge one day"

What's Going On..?

There have been a bunch of news reports lately about Strippers vs Werewolves, (a pretty typical example of which can be found over at Arrow in the Head) detailing various exciting new details about the project including the additions to the cast of Sarah Douglas (Ursa from Superman and Superman II) and Barbara Nedeljakova (from Hostel).

The more eagle-eyed of you may also have noticed the announcement of Jonathan Glendening (director of 13 Hrs) in the director's chair.

Yes, indeed, for the first time I'm entrusting one of my scripts to somebody other than me.

At the point that SvW starts shooting (April 18th), I'm going to be up to my neck in House on the Witchpit.

It's been a project close to my heart for years and years. Even in this rather endearing local press cutting from 2005 I was listing it as one of my next projects. That was back before TrashHouse had even been released. Yeah, me and the pit go back a long way, and the script has changed a great deal over the years (as I've rabbited on endlessly about in various previous blog entries). But the time was never right to shoot it.

Sometimes the stars just kind of align and the right circumstances arise, and 2011 is finally the point where everything has dropped into place for the Witchpit shoot. If I didn't take advantage of the moment, I'd always regret it. We'll be shooting in the first half of this year and, (as I've already promised), further details will be along soon.

For those of you who prefer the actual scary bits in my flicks to the trashy bits, this movie is going to be an all-you-can-eat buffet. The script still creeps me out. I shall be directing with one hand over my eyes.

Plus, this way, I get to settle down and watch Strippers vs Werewolves as a completed movie with everyone else.

2011 is going to be an amazing year.

Stop! Hammer Time..

Actually took a moment to breathe over Christmas, and started making my way through a boxed set of Hammer films which I'd been given. Much as I'd like to think that my horror film knowledge is full, comprehensive and encyclopedic.. There are gaps. And one of those gaps, without doubt, has been Hammer shaped.

This fact has been even more evident to me during the last year or so, where the re-emergence of the long-dormant studio has made me ponder exactly what Hammer should mean in 2011 (and, by extension, what it meant last century too). The remake of The Woman In Black, in particular, has been pinging on my radar as an object of interest, and whatever mentality the studio shows when dealing with that property is likely to be an indication of the way they're going in general.

But, what of the Hammer of old? Over Christmas, I checked out five films: The Devil Rides Out, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Quatermass & The Pit and The Nanny. Of these, my favourite by a considerable margin was The Devil Rides Out; a full-blooded black magic flick with some terrific set-pieces and an unusually 'good guy' turn from Christopher Lee. It summed up everything that I'd enjoyed about the handful of Hammer flicks I'd seen previously and would have easily gone down as the best horror movie I'd seen over the holiday period, had I not also checked out the sublime Night of the Demon.. (Not being a Hammer flick, I don't want to digree too much and talk about NOTD here, but it was a real gem and made me feel incredibly remiss for not having watched it previously).

I spent a little while wondering whether the straight-faced approach of The Devil Rides Out would translate easily to the 21st century Hammer flicks and whether it would be wise to attempt to do so. Looking back to The Woman in Black in particular, both the stage play and the masterful 1989 TV movie rely on something that contemporary cinema seems positively allergic to; the slow burn. The devastating shocks in the original WIB depend entirely on the *lack* of scare tactics in the rest of the movie. Likewise, Quatermass & The Pit represented a slow ratcheting of tension building towards a single, large-scale set-piece. Is a 2011 audience prepared to accept that dynamic? Is Hammer going to be comfortable taking that approach? After all, their name may be synonymous with horror, but the word itself has very different connotations for a contemporary audience than it did in the company's heyday. The average viewer of Saw 3D will have genre expectations which the majority of my shiny Hammer boxed set is unlikely to coincide with.

As for me, I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the box has to offer. My last stop was cleavage-fest Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, a rip-roaring tale of a resurrected Egyptian Mummy with fantastic tits, which was probably closer structurally to a contemporary horror flick than any of the other examples I've mentioned thus far. So maybe the new Hammer doesn't need to differ from the old so much after all; it just needs to cherry pick the elements that'll work in this new century.

Speaking personally, I can't wait to see the results.

2010 - The Year in Films I Watched

Well, that's 2010 done.

2011 is going to bring a lot of interesting stuff (not least of which being the shoots for both Strippers vs Werewolves and House on the Witchpit) but before we dive headlong into all that, let's take a quick look back at all the flicks that I watched in 2010. As usual, if I know someone involved with a shoot I'll usually decline to give it a rating. Ratings are subjective. No refunds will be issued. Etc. Etc.

These are the flicks..

January 8th
Gremlins (with commentary #1, 80-something viewing) - *****/5

January 9th
Moon - ****/5

January 11th
Mirrors - **/5

January 12th
The Princess Bride (?th viewing) - *****/5

January 15th
Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist - ***/5
Sorority Row - **/5

January 16th
Terminator Salvation - ***/5
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - **/5

January 19th
Rear Window - (4th-ish viewing) *****/5

January 23rd
Joy Ride 2: Dead End - ***/5
Sunshine Cleaning - ***/5
Road Trip: Beer Pong - **/5
Tormented - ***/5
Bride Wars - */5

January 24th
Antichrist - ****/5
The Visitor - ***/5
wAz - **/5

February 2nd
Super Size Me (2nd viewing) - ***/5

February 4th
Lesbian Vampire Killers - (Not rated as I know people involved)

February 8th
Bowling for Columbine (2nd viewing) - ****/5

February 9th
Up In the Air - ****/5

February 11th
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2nd viewing) - ****/5

February 13th
Isolation - **/5

February 15th
Timecrimes - ****/5

February 18th
Precious - ***/5

February 20th
The Hurt Locker - ****/5

February 23rd
March of the Penguins - ***/5
A Serious Man - ****/5

March 1st
Crazy Heart - ***/5

March 2nd
Minority Report (2nd viewing) - ****/5
An Education - ****/5

March 6th
The Lovely Bones - ***/5

March 7th
Dragonslayer (?th viewing) - ****/5

March 16th
Stand by Me (?th viewing) - *****/5
Shutter Island - ***/5

March 19th
I Love You, Beth Cooper - **/5

March 20th
The Fourth Kind - **/5
Ghoulies IV - */5

March 21st
Triangle - ****/5

March 23rd
Pan's Labyrinth (2nd viewing) - *****/5
I Love You Phillip Morris - ****/5
Infestation - ****/5

March 25th
Paranormal Activity (2nd viewing) - ****/5

March 28th
Eliminators - **/5 (***/5 for entertainment value)

April 2nd
Kick-Ass - *****/5

April 5th
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - ****/5
Lips of Blood - ***/5

April 6th
Class of 1999 (4th-ish viewing) - ****/5
A Bucket of Blood - ****/5

April 7th
Starsuckers - ***/5
Nosferatu the Vampyre -***/5

April 8th
Fear(s) of the Dark - ***/5

April 9th
Clash of the Titans (2010) (3D screening) - **/5

April 11th
Phantoms (1990) (2nd viewing) - **/5
His Girl Friday - ****/5

April 13th
2012 - **/5

April 14th
The Men Who Stare at Goats - ***/5
The Box - **/5

April 15th
My Boyfriend's Back (2nd viewing) - ****/5

April 20th
Blade Runner (Final Cut, ?th viewing) - *****/5

April 27th
12 Angry Men (2nd viewing) - *****/5

April 28th
Critters 3 (2nd viewing) - ***/5
Hot Tub Time Machine - ****/5

May 3rd
The Imaginarium of Dr Parnasuss - ***/5

May 6th
Night of the Comet (2nd viewing) - ***/5

May 8th
Erasing David - ***/5

May 9th
The Last House on the Left (2009) - **/5

May 10th
The Sixth Sense (2nd viewing) - ****/5

May 15th
Four Lions - ****/5

May 18th
The Truman Show (2nd viewing) - *****/5
Iron Man 2 - ***/5

May 20th
Dr No (2nd viewing) - ****/5

May 27th
Sherlock Holmes - ***/5

May 29th
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (3rd viewing) - ****/5
Alice in Wonderland (2010) - ***/5

May 30th
Prince of Persia - ***/5

May 31st
Capitalism: A Love Story - ***/5

June 1st
Speed - ****/5

June 2nd
Waxwork (?th viewing) - ****/5

June 3rd
Botched - ****/5
The Woods - **/5

June 5th
The Babysitters - ***/5

June 6th
Boogeyman 2 - **/5

June 7th
Exam - (Not rated because I know people involved)

June 8th
Alien - (?th viewing, Director's Cut) *****/5
RoboGeisha - ***/5 (**** for entertainment value)

June 14th (ish)
The Wolfman (2010) - ****/5

June 15th (ish)
April Fool's Day (2008) - **/5

June 23rd
Shaun of the Dead (4th viewing) - *****/5

June 24th
The Room - */5 (*** for entertainment value!)

June 28th
Fired Up! - **/5

June 29th
Solomon Kane - **/5

July 6th
American: The Bill Hicks Story - ****/5

July 12th
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - **/5

July 17th
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (3rd viewing) ****/5

July 19th
Inception - *****/5

July 24th
Bruno - ***/5

July 28th
Predators - ***/5

July 29th
When Harry Met Sally (?th viewing) - *****/5

July 30th
The Boondock Saints - ***/5

August 4th
The Odd Couple - ***/5

August 7th(ish)
Go (2nd viewing) - ***/5

August 8th(ish)
Wall Street (2nd viewing) - ****/5

August 9th(ish)
Clerks 2 (4th viewing) - *****/5

August 15th
Botched (2nd viewing) - ****/5
Toy Story 3 (3D version) - *****/5

August 17th
Youth in Revolt - ***/5
Whip It - ***/5

August 18th
Away We Go - ***/5

August 20th
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - ****/5
Piranha (2010, 3D screening) - ****/5

August 21st
Orphan - **/5

August 22nd
Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream - ***/5

August 25th
Confessions of a Shopaholic - */5

August 27th
Scott Pilgrim vs The World - *****/5

August 29th
Dagon - ***/5

August 30th
The Last Exorcism - ****/5

August 31st
Snatch - ****/5

September 3rd
Heartless - ***/5

September 4th
The Trouble with Harry - ****/5

September 5th
Tamara Drewe - ****/5
Godzilla: Final Wars - ***/5
American Grindhouse - ****/5

September 6th
The Awful Dr Orlof - ***/5

September 13th
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - ***/5

September 18th
Date Night - ***/5

September 20th
Citizen Kane (?th viewing) - *****/5
Cop Out - **/5

September 22nd (ish)
Just for the Record - (Not rated as I know people involved)

September 27th
Following - ***/5

October 2nd
Buried - ****/5

October 3rd
Dead Cert - (Not rated as I know people involved)

October 11th
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - ***/5

October 12th
Burning Bright - **/5

October 13th
Dance of the Dead - ***/5

October 15th
The Human Centipede - ****/5

October 16th
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - ****/5

October 17th
The Assassination of Richard Nixon - ***/5

October 18th
Get Him to the Greek - ****/5

October 20th
It's A Wonderful Afterlife - ***/5
The Social Network - ****/5

October 23rd
The Abominable Dr Phibes - ***/5
Scream (4th-ish viewing) - *****/5

October 25th
Couples Retreat - **/5

October 26th-ish
O Brother Where Art Thou? (2nd viewing) - ****/5

October 31st
An American Werewolf In London (?th viewing) - *****/5

November 1st
Creepshow - ****/5
Black Death - ****/5

November 6th
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - **/5

November 7th
The Faculty (2nd viewing) - ***/5

November 15th
Forrest Gump - **/5

November 18th
The Woman in Black (1989) (2nd viewing) - ****/5

November 25th
Devil's Playground - (Not rated as I know people involved)

November 29th
The Naked Gun (3rd-ish viewing) - ****/5

November 30th
Eat & Run - **/5

December 1st
The Muppet Christmas Carol - ****/5

December 3rd
The Lord of the Rings (1978) (?th viewing) - ***/5

December 4th
The A-Team - ***/5

December 6th
Four Christmases - **/5

December 11th
A Golden Christmas - */5

December 12th
Natural Born Killers (Director's Cut) (?th viewing) - *****/5
The Rocker - ***/5

December 18th
Christmas with the Kranks - */5
If.. - ***/5
Trading Places (3rd viewing) - ****/5
Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story - ***/5

December 20th
The War You Don't See - ***/5
Tron Legacy - ***/5

December 23rd
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (2nd viewing) - ***/5

December 26th
The Devil Rides Out - ****/5

December 27th
Catfish - ***/5

December 28th
Night of the Demon - *****/5

December 29th
Dracula: Prince of Darkness - ***/5
Quatermass and the Pit (1967) - ****/5

December 30th
Love and Other Drugs - ***/5

December 31st
The Nanny - ***/5
It Came from Beneath the Sea (4th-ish viewing) - ****/5