Monday 30 November 2015

Welsh supernatural horror 'Crow' premieres tonight in Cardiff

Wyndham Price's new horror feature Crow premieres tonight at the Cardiff Cineworld, according to a story which I spotted today on the Cardiff University website.

Synopsis: Beginning life among a tribe of outcast travellers Crow is uprooted first by a police raid and then by gangsters. Crow has lived in the wood ever since the Crow tribe were brutally moved on from the farmstead nearby by ruthless developer, Tucker. Now Tucker wants the wood too and will stop at nothing to get it. 

Crow sees the protagonist defend the wood with his life.  Battle ensues between Tucker and Crow, but Tucker doesn’t realise that he is contenting with a man who has the power of nature behind him. Tucker and his men learn the real meaning of terror in this original supernatural thriller.

The script has been adapted by Tim Rhys , Lecturer in Creative Writing at Cardiff Uni, from his stage play Stone the Crows. The cast includes Andrew Howard (Agents of SHIELD, The Devil's Chair), Nick Moran (Lock Stock, Harry Potter), Emily Bevan (In the Flesh) and - holy cow! - Terence freaking Stamp!

Filmed in autumn 2014, Crow should have a proper release next year.





Sunday 29 November 2015

German DVD distributor gets confused

Here is the sleeve for the German DVD of Zombie Resurrection, scheduled for release by Edel Germany GmbH in January. It has been retitled Zombie Church but uses the same artwork as the UK sleeve. The page on Amazon.de lists the two directors as Jake Hawkins and Andy Phelps, which is correct.

But look again at this sleeve. What’s that underneath the ‘ie’ of ‘Zombie’?

“Ein film von Damian Morter”

What? No. This is ein film von Jake Hawkins und Andy Phelps. Damian Morter is the director of a completely different (but also very enjoyable) British zombie film, Book of the Dead aka The Eschatrilogy. Plus a short called Zombie Run. But he didn’t have anything to do with Zombie Resurrection (as far as I know). He certainly didn't direct it!

Occasionally artwork used for one film in one territory is used for a different one elsewhere (as happened with The Borderlands) but I’m pretty sure that this release is Zombie Resurrection. Everything else on that Amazon.de page checks out, including the cast and the synopsis.

I’ve seen some sleeve cock-ups in my time but: wow. Just wow.

[Update: The title was later changed to Zombie Priest - but with Damian still credited, - MJS]

Friday 27 November 2015

Films that sneaked out when no-one was watching no.2: Dark Night

Barely had I recovered from my surprise that Demon had been released after three years in limbo, than I found an even bigger shock. Daniel Grant's feature Dark Night was first shown way back in 2006, when it had a few screenings and then... it disappeared.

In July this year, after nearly a decade in limbo, Grant was finally able to make Dark Night available... via BitTorrent. I don't fully understand what that means, but it's further evidence, if any were needed, that 'cinema' as we know it is a dinosaur and that every distribution channel is as valid as any other.

Apparently it costs $5.00/£3.20 and you get 'extras' including character artwork and a poster.

Synopsis: Thrills and chills galore in this stylish shlock horror. Shot on a shoestring budget and with echoes of 'The Evil Dead' series and others from the genre, this is a true blood and guts experience! The group of teenagers get more than they bargained for at the abandoned house, pitting their wits against monsters, the undead and each other This is a British B-movie with big bite, definitely not for the faint of heart nor the weak of stomach! Will you survive the dark night?

It just goes to show that everything turns up eventually if you wait long enough.

Films that sneaked out when no-one was watching no.1: Demon

Mark Duffield’s Victorian gothic horror Demon was shot in 2010 and screened at the Festival of Fantastic Films in 2012, followed by couple of festivals in the States in November 2012 and February 2013. Since when it has been missing in action.

Imagine my surprise to discover that in June this year Mark self-released (through his Demon House Pictures company) a limited edition DVD of the film, available now from Amazon. Only 1,000 discs were pressed so get it while you can. It’s an all-regions PAL disc including a commentary and interviews.

Synopsis: Set in Victorian London, DEMON is a dark Gothic horror love story of a young man named Lorcan, who visits the London Hospital for treatment of a blood disorder. At the hospital Lorcan meets Amy, a young nurse and they have an instant attraction to each other and fall in love. 

However, Lorcan soon discovers that he is cursed from birth, a curse that should he love or be loved, he will transform into a demon. Soon, the Demon appears and causes bloody havoc. It is only Amy who can restore Lorcan and destroy the Demon.

Thursday 26 November 2015

Should you invest in the Blade Hunter Indiegogo campaign?

On 4th December, Richard Driscoll will launch an Indiegogo campaign to raise funding for his film Blade Hunter. Actually, let me qualify that. Richard Driscoll says he’s going to launch an Indiegogo campaign on 4th December. But as he has a long track record of saying he’s going to do things that he then doesn’t (or in some cases, claiming he’s done things that he certainly hasn’t, his grip on reality being somewhat tenuous), any announcement like this must be taken with a grain of salt.

The Man Himself, rocking the baseball cap look.
In fact this is what it says on the film’s website:

The Blade Hunter crowd funding campaign will start Friday 4th December 2015 on Indiegogo Where you will get the opportunity to become involved with this exciting project. Become a member of the “Secret world of Blade Hunter” and receive a weekly update of all that is new with the film. Receive free gifts and get your chance to meet the stars and buy exclusive merchandise that will not be available in any store.

Now let’s assume for a moment that he does indeed launch his Indiegogo campaign next month. The question is: should you contribute? Let’s consider the pros and cons.

  • PRO: There is a chance we might get to see a new Richard Driscoll film, and they are never less than hugely entertaining. It’s been too long since Eldorado.
  • CON: There is a chance we might get to see a new Richard Driscoll film, and they are never less than completely, jaw-droppingly, astoundingly awful.
  • CON: Richard Driscoll and his business partner, Ronald Bassett-Cross, are both convicted fraudsters recently released from prison. They have set up their company in Ireland because they are banned from holding company directorships in the UK. Do you really want to give them money? Danger, danger, Will Robinson.
  • PRO: To be fair, Driscoll and Bassett-Cross have paid their debt to society (though not, I think, their debt to the taxman) and received due punishment. Should they not now be given another chance? Perhaps one or other of them has turned his life around. To forgive these two men their past sins and support them in their enterprise would be the Christian thing to do.
  • CON: The artwork on the Blade Hunter poster has been used without the artist’s permission. That doesn’t bode well for a Damascene conversion…
  • PRO: For a very small investment, you’ll be able to get a ‘thank you’ in the end credits of Blade Hunter (and potentially the IMDB credit that goes with it). For a bigger investment you could get an official sounding credit like ‘Associate Producer, ‘Co-producer’ or even ‘Executive Producer’.
  • CON: You could potentially end up with a Richard Driscoll film on your IMDB page, bringing shame and disgrace on your family name and causing film fans across the globe to openly mock you.
  • CON: There is absolutely no guarantee that Driscoll and Bassett-Cross will honour their side of the bargain and include your name on the film.
  • CON: Richard Driscoll has a long history of spelling people’s names wrong so even if you get in the credits, there is no guarantee your name will be spelled correctly.
  • PRO: You will “receive a weekly update of all that is new with the film”.
  • CON: There is every chance that there won’t be anything new with the film. Or no weekly update.
  • PRO: You will “Receive free gifts and get your chance to meet the stars and buy exclusive merchandise that will not be available in any store.”
  • CON: Bull. Shit.
  • PRO: A very small investment is surely worth it for the fun of seeing how long this pretense can continue.
  • CON: If the film does actually get made, you will be facilitating the employment of naïve film school graduates by Richard Driscoll, and historically that has often not gone well.
  • CON: Blade Hunter has been in and out of ‘production’ for at least 13 years. What reason does anyone have to suspect that it might get made now?
  • CON: As and when the rights holders to Blade Runner get wind of this, they will most likely slap it with a cease and desist order faster than you can say ‘Voight-Kampff Machine’. 
  • CON: If the rights holders take legal action, anyone with an official sounding credit like ‘Associate Producer, ‘Co-producer’ or even ‘Executive Producer’ runs a risk of being named in the lawsuit.
  • CON: Although Ireland is a friendly country with attractive tax schemes that encourage film-making, they do nevertheless have actual laws against things like not paying your employees, not returning borrowed equipment, and claiming you have paid money to a dead actor.
I would say the CONs have it. Much as I would love to see another Richard Driscoll movie, Blade Hunter is never, ever going to get made so save your money.

On the other hand, there are lots and lots of great little movie projects on Indiegogo and Kickstarter that you could invest in, which will get made, aren't based on ripping off the copyright of major Hollywood Studios and aren't produced by convicted fraudsters.

Wednesday 25 November 2015

Can’t wait to see… My Guardian Angel

Here’s one I came across recently, that looks very promising. It’s a new supernatural horror (with social horror themes) from Mumtaz Yildirimlar, director of Quanna, Crossland and Cold Blood, starring Holly Jacobson.

Holly’s a local star, best known to horror fans for Ben Tillett’s 2012 short Suckablood. A couple of years ago my son Thomas was in a short with her, and she was great as the psychotic school bully in Kenton Hall’s comedy A Dozen Summers. In My Guardian Angel she plays twins, one of whom is dead…

Synopsis: When Hannah’s parents took her to a new school, they said it was to give her a new start. However, Hannah is 11, autistic, and due to her condition, unable to speak. She had a twin called Angel, but when Angel died, Hannah was forbidden to grieve by her abusive parents and punished when she sought comfort from her sister’s things. So now Hannah lives locked inside a silent life of despair, which she fears, will soon end at the hands of her parents. However when a knife keeps appearing under her pillow, and a voice that she thinks is inside her head, won’t leave her alone, Hannah begins to realize that just maybe, she may have an ally not of this world, but fear paralyzes. Could it be Angel who, from the ‘other side’, has come to seek justice for all the abuse she has suffered? And can Hannah overcome her fear, enough to let her in?

Maria Figgins (Paul Knight’s Dead Wood) and Adrian Annis (Art of Darkness, Survivors) play the girls’ parents, and the other cast include Petra Bryant (The Disappearance of Lenka Wood), Tova Leigh (Once Upon a Time on Earth) and Silvana Maimone (Red Kingdom Rising).

Find out more at http://myproduction.co.uk



Poster, trailer, stills, synopsis for The Other Side of the Door

The trailer and poster have both been released for The Other Side of the Door, the awesome-looking new film from Johannes Roberts (F, Storage 24). Co-written with Ernest Riera, who worked on some of Jo’s early pictures like Forest of the Damned (and also co-wrote his upcoming underwater thriller 47 Metres Down), the pictures was shot in India. It was produced by no less than Alexander Aja, of Switchblade Romance, Hills Have Eyes remake, Horns etc.

The film stars Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead), Jermy Sisto (Six Feet Under, Law and Order), Javier Botet ([Rec] and sequels) and Suchitra Pillai-Malik (from the Indian version of 24). Dan Martin (Aaaaaaaah!, Nina Forever, The Stomach etc) designed the make-up effects.

Synopsis: Grieving over the loss of her son, a mother struggles with her feelings for her daughter and her husband. She seeks out a ritual that allows her say goodbye to her dead child, opening the veil between the world of the dead and the living. Her daughter becomes the focus of terror. She must now protect against the evil that was once her beloved son.

As well as the trailer below and the poster above, you can see a selection of cool photos on the USA Today site.

The Other Side of the Door is scheduled for theatrical release in the States on 11th March next year and in the UK a week later. Can’t wait!

Sunday 22 November 2015

Oh the irony: Driscoll's website has been hacked

Yesterday, Richard Driscoll's Blade Hunter website at www.bhmovie.club disappeared. No 404 error; just a plain white screen.

Speculation began as to whether the legal gorillas at Warner Brothers had issued him with a cease and desist notice (as they most assuredly will). But if that was the case, why were his Facebook page and Twitter account still active.

But no, it seems that Driscoll's site has been hacked by some evil sorts. Here is the message that currently appears there. A quick google has turned up a few other sites with similar messages.

Language: English
If you want to decrypt files in your server, you should pay us $50 with BitCoin. You have 7 days. When we receive money, we will public in pastebin.com program, key and instruction to decrypt files.
Just will search in pastebin.com by url of your site
Thanks :)
Our BitCoin wallet is 13PNyVryLDizBgAf1nFkWtUawkVkxRL1Hy
P.S. If your site will stay encrypted in long period, Google and other Search Engines will ban it.
P.P.S. Just pay us and be happy :)
(c)Saint777

This is priceless. It couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. I wonder what he'll do.

Friday 20 November 2015

Darkest Day: film-makers Q&A at Leicester zombie fest

Unfortunately I had to miss the Festival of Zombie Culture at Leicester Phoenix this year (I was acting in a little film that day darling, dontcha know?). Which meant I missed the screening of Darkest Day and the Q&A afterwards with director Dan Rickard and producer Simon Drake.

Not to worry, because someone videoed it and it's now on YouTube. The picture quality is lousy but there's nothing really to see: it's just three geezers sitting on a stage talking. The sound's alright and that's what matters.


I'll be adding my own interview with Dan to my main website soon.

Also, I just came across this - the sleeve for the Spanish DVD, Invasion de los Malditos!


Wednesday 18 November 2015

Final selection of great Doghouse images

Many thanks to the always-cool Jake West for sending me these great on-set photos from Doghouse. See previous selections here: Doghouse Photos Part 1, Doghouse Photos Part 2, Doghouse Photos Part 3

Here's Neil (Danny Dyer) living out his fantasy. Sorry, I don't know these actresses' names.

A close-up from that scene. She's a keeper!

Here's Joanne Marie Cutts as 'The Butcher', Lorry O'Toole as 'Foxy' and Emily Booth as 'The Snipper'.

Alison Carroll as 'The Teen' and Joelle Simpson as 'Zimmer Granny'.

I love this amazingly atmospheric shot of Bouff as 'The Snipper'!

And finally, here's Jake West himself, talking with scriptwriter Dan Schaffer.

Sunday 15 November 2015

Still more images from Doghouse

Here's a third selection of the cool on-set pictures from Doghouse that Jake West kindly sent me. This time, here are some snap of the fellas. See more at Doghouse Photos Part 1Doghouse Photos Part 2Doghouse photos Part 4

Mikey (Noel,Clarke), Patrick (Keith-Lee Castle), Neil (Danny Dyer), Graham (Emil Marwa) and Vince (Stephen Graham).

Sgt Wright (Terry Stone) meets Mikey in the boutique.

Neil finds himself the centre of female attention. I don;t know the name of the actress playing this particular zom-bird. Anyone?

The sixth member of the gang, Matt (Lee Ingleby) at the mercy of 'The Witch (Nicola Jane Reading).

The Magnificent Seven.

The final shot of the film, as the assembled zom-birds chase our heroes out of town.

Richard Driscoll's new business partner is (also) a convicted fraudster

As part of his sentence in 2013, Richard Driscoll was banned from being a company director (but sadly, not from being a film director). So how has he been able to set up his new company ‘DRagon’ (sic)?

The crafty devil has simply relocated to the Republic of Ireland. The company address of ‘Dragon Film Limited’ is Unit 3, South Court, Wexford Road Business Park, Carlow. It was set up on 25th September 2014 (when I’m pretty sure Driscoll was still in prison), presumably by his new business partner.

This is a sprightly septuagenarian with the magnificent name of Ronald Sinclair Bassett-Cross who lives in Kent and whose previous company directorships include something called ‘Megabucks Corporation Ltd’(!). Is he a trustworthy individual? Well, here’s a story about him, originally from the Mail on Sunday. Let me quote you the opening sentence:

Ronald Bassett-Cross answering the door.
A financial adviser who stole money from his wealthy clients and their children  – first reported by the Mail on Sunday in 2009 – has been sentenced to 24 months in prison. Ronald Bassett-Cross, 70, from Bromley in Kent, was sentenced on May 17 at the Old Bailey.  He had pled guilty to six charges of theft and three of fraud concerning four family trusts where he was the sole trustee.

You know what’s interesting? That was in May 2013, just a few weeks before Richard Driscoll himself was sent down. Which raises the very real possibility that these two crooks met each other in prison...

It just gets better and better.

Richard Driscoll's new film - the gory details

Richard Driscoll, widely acknowledged as the worst film-maker in Britain (and consequently someone whose films I thoroughly urge you to buy and watch) was sentenced to three years in prison for fraud on 1st July 2013. If you would like to be reminded of the details of the case, you can’t do better than this fantastic article in the Telegraph.

Presumably he was released early for good behaviour as he is back online and back in the film-making business. Or, if he is still inside, then he has an accomplice on the outside handling his website and social media. Tricky Dicky’s ‘next’ ‘production’ is an absolutely shameless rip-off of Blade Runner entitled Blade Hunter, which you can read all about at http://bhmovie.club – here’s the synopsis:

The year is 2069, the place is San Angeles. A city made up of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Brought together after the nuclear explosion of 2021 where a nuclear reactor belonging to the Tenebre Corporation exploded after the death of its founder Dr Christopher Tenebre. After an investigation it was found out that the explosion was the work of synthetics, better known as Androids out to destroy North America and position themselves as the true leaders of the New World and distance themselves from the Off World colonies. With the city in ruin and the whole west coast covered in a dystopian red mist a group of ex-police officers are formed to hunt down these synthetics and eradicate them. These officers are called Blade Hunters. Enforcers for the Tenebre Corporation. McMillan is one of those men. A rough tough officer originally from Chicago who has been assigned to track down a group of these synthetics who have formed a modern day cult similar to the Golden Dawn of the 19 hundreds, once run by the occultist Aleister Crowley.

Lying in bed after a serious accident is the writer of the graphic novel, that is Blade Hunter. Over the next few days the images and thoughts of Carney delve deeper into his Blade Hunter world that he has created as he lies on the edge of death.

You don’t need me to tell you that this rips off Blade Runner in numerous ways (apart from at the end when it all gets a bit bizarre!), or that the logo on the poster is literally the Blade Runner logo – the famous silhouette of Harrison Ford – with a couple of letters changed. That fabulous film poster is a Blade Runner-inspired digital painting by a brilliant artist named Chris Ostrowski. I wonder whether he has been paid for its use as a film poster design, or is even aware that it’s being used in this way. [Edit. I checked with Chris Ostrowski and no, he knew nothing about this. - MJS]

So who is going to star in this blockbuster? The credit block in the poster lists Michael Madsen, Steven Craine (Driscoll’s acting name), Bai Ling, Lysette Anthony, Patrick Bergin, Oliver Tobias, Dudley Sutton, Sylvester McCoy, Robin Askwith with Daryl Hannah and David Carradine. Driscoll has worked with, or claimed to be working with, all of these actors in the past. It may be that they know they’re attached to Blade Hunter, it may be that Driscoll is planning to use stock footage of them from previous projects, or he may just be fantasising again.
The alert among you will have noticed that David Carradine is dead.  This was not a problem for Driscoll when he made Eldorado as he simply lifted footage of Carradine from someone else’s film (and told the taxman he had paid the star £400,000 for 13 days’ work – two weeks after his death). A tweet on the Blade Hunter Twitter account reveals how Driscoll plans to get around Carradine’s noncorporeality this time, although realistically it’s more likely he’ll just lift some old footage and tweak it in post.
There is one other name in the credit block, editor Richard Colton. He doesn’t appear to have worked with Driscoll before but he has edited several recent British films including Kill Keith, Strippers vs Werewolves, UFO and Paul Tanter’s White Collar Hooligan trilogy. Interestingly, the credit block on the lobby-card-style images of the actors (example below) includes another name, DOP Mike Muschamp. He is currently working in Malaysia but has been linked in the past with unmade Driscoll titles including When the Devil Rides Out and Grindhouse 2wo.

Now interestingly, this is not the first time that Richard Driscoll has tried to make this particular film. Here's a product listing from the Hollywood Reporter's special issue for the American Film Market in February 2002:
('Voss Anderson' is of course a typo for Vass Anderson.) In the noughties Driscoll had a 'studio' just outside Brighton and certainly began production on Blade Hunter, as well as a number of other projects. One of my correspondents told me:

"We basically lived together near Brighton for over nearly four months with the aim to build a studio. Richard hired a big industrial compound with a little adjacent forest with space for one biggish and two small studios and we had post production facilities on the site. Everything was obviously very improvised, but geared to produce a slate of cheap low budget crappy films. At any time between 15-30 people worked on building the studio or preparing the production. We already were very much into the prep of a science fiction film, which had uncanny resemblence with Bladerunner. There were detailed plans and models for the set, which wasn't small."

Here's a few technical matters, just for the record. The domain bhmovie.club was registered on 14th October through a domain registration company in Middlesex. The registrant name is ‘gideon quin’, one of Driscoll’s common aliases, and the address is Higher Nanpean Farm in Cornwall. Driscoll doesn’t live there any more – he sold the place in 2012. Presumably he hasn’t updated his contact details on his account with the domain registration company. He also registered rylett.info with them on 26th July.

The @BHmovie15 Twitter account launched on 28th October, since which time he has tweeted 52 times, almost all of which were basically this. A few have been favourited or retweeted by individuals. The account has 583 followers and follows 2,286 other twitter users.

There is also a Facebook page which has had 30 likes. Most of the posts are simply sharing other movie, actor or sci-fi pages, including (because Driscoll’s not coy about acknowledging his ‘inspirations’) the pages for ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’, ‘Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human’ (an absolutely awful official sequel to the PKD book which I reviewed for SFX many years ago), ‘Blade Runner sequel’, ‘Blade Runner fans’, ‘KippleZone; (a Blade Runner fan fiction site), ‘Blade Runner 2: Do Androids Dream’, ‘Blade Runner Lovers’ (a clothing site) and of course ‘Blade Runner’ itself. The Facebook page gives a putative release date of ‘August 2016’ (yeah, right) and a contact email of BHmovie2015@gmail.com

More to come, including the promised Indiegogo campaign for Blade Hunter and whether you should invest in it.

It's good to have Richard Driscoll back on the film-making scene. It's not been the same without him.

Richard Driscoll is out of prison and wants you to fund his next movie!

It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Richard Driscoll has walked free from prison, having paid his debt to society. And what the first thing he' has done? That's right - resurrected one of his old rip-off projects.

For years, Driscoll talked about making something called Blade Hunter that was so shamelessly plagiarised from Blade Runner it would make Philip K Dick turn in his grave. Well, now he's trying to get it off the ground again, but instead of a dodgy tax deal, he's going to crowdsource the movie via Indiegogo!

He's set up a whole freaking website. Look, it's here: http://bhmovie.club

bhmovieclub? More like bsmovieclub.

It's late and I need to go to bed. I'll blog about this tomorrow, and discuss why you should or should not consider contributing to this project.

But for now, let's just welcome back to the cinema industry the worst film-maker in Britain, the UK's own answer to Ed Wood, the man, the legend, the lawsuit - Mr Richard Driscoll!

Friday 13 November 2015

Incredible unseen images from Doghouse (Part 2)

Here are some more on-set photos from Doghouse kindly supplied by Jake West. See more at Doghouse Photos Part 1Doghouse Photos Part 3Doghouse photos Part 4

Here'a Annie Vanders as 'Bubbles' in the infamous 'finger food' scene. She was also in Hush.

Here's a close-up look at Karl Derrick's make-up that Annie had to wear. Apparently it took five hours to apply!

This is Joanne Marie Cutts as 'The Butcher'.

Here's another shot of 'Lara Croft' actress Alison Carroll as 'The Teen'.

Don't know who this is, sorry.

And this is Nicola Jane Reading as 'The Witch'. She is also a stunt performer and was in Casino Royale.

Thursday 12 November 2015

Incredible unseen images from Doghouse (Part 1)

My mate Jake West recently sent me a bunch of awesome on-set photos from Doghouse. A lot of these have not been published before, including some great close-ups of the incredible make-up that Karl Derrick created for the zom-birds. Jake very kindly said that I could publish them here on my blog, so here's the first batch. See more at Doghouse Photos Part 2Doghouse Photos Part 3Doghouse photos Part 4

Victoria Hopkins as 'The Bride'. Victoria was also in Zombie Women of Satan, Le Fear 2, Bloodless aka Vampires and of course The Devil's Music.

Lorry O'Toole as 'Foxy'. Lorry is a production designers whose credits include The ABCs of Death, The Theatre Bizarre and Adam Mason's Pig.

Joelle Simpson (no relation) as 'The Dentist'. Joelle was also in Warrioress and was one of the infected in 28 Days Later.

Alison Carroll as 'The Teen'. Alison was also in Devil's Tower and has played Lara Croft in commercials.

Beryl Nesbitt as 'Mikey's Nan' (with Terry Stone as Sgt Wright). Beryl has been acting for 60 years and can be seen in Dark Corners, Night Junkies and Little Deaths.

And introducing... Miss Emily Booth as 'The Snipper'.

Tear Me Apart premieres in Austin

Alex Lightman's debut feature Tear Me Apart had its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival on Halloween.

"In the wasteland of post-apocalyptic rural England, two young brothers turn to cannibalism to survive, only to fall for their prey, a teenage girl… and possibly the last girl alive."

The Austin Chronicle gave it a great review, saying "With post-apocalyptic shades of The Walking Dead and Y: The Last Man, writer Tom Kerevan also folds in the quirky menace of the early novels of late, great Scottish novelist Iain M. Banks."

You can find out more on the film's Facebook page or www.cannibalfilms.co.uk

Monday 9 November 2015

Horror-on-Sea mocks me once again with an incredible line-up of films I can’t watch

I often get asked if I’m going to this or that film festival and the answer is invariably no. I don’t go to film festivals. I would love to, but I have a day-job and a family, and consequently I have neither the time nor the money to go to festivals. But if I could go to just one, it would be Horror-on-Sea, which is stuffed full of great movies and most of my friends. Here’s what I will be missing over the weekend of 22nd-24th January 2016:

  • Definition of Fear (James Simpson) - Four beautiful girls at a charming holiday cabin. But all is not what it seems…they are not alone 
  • Banjo (Liam Regan) - A young man is manipulated by his imaginary friend to take revenge on his tormenting co-workers
  • Survivors (Adam Spinks) - A virus sends the UK into a state of emergency. Without laws, how far would you go to survive?
  • The House on the Witchpit (Pat Higgins) - World Premiere! No advance details: This is ‘Secret Cinema’, Pat Higgins-style! Just be amazed!
  • The Snarling (Pablo Raybould) - World Premiere! A village hosts the cast and crew of a zombie film. But the horror turns real…
  • Nina Forever (Ben Blaine and Chris Blaine) - Nina, Rob’s deceased girlfriend, returns to torment him whenever he has sex with his new girlfriend  
  • Bacchanalia (Gary Meyer) - A wine tasting turns into wicked, murderous debauchery, with the morning after still to be faced [Formerly The Winedancers - MJS]
  • Cleaver: Rise of the Killer Clown (Mj Dixon) - In 1990, Carlton the Clown slaughtered his unfaithful wife and her lover. Now ‘Cleaver’ is back…
  • Art of Darkness (Steve Laurence) formerly Art House Massacre - A lunatic is hell-bent on transforming a captive woman into his latest blood-splattered masterpiece
Plus all these British shorts:
  • FestEvil (Paul Taylor) 
  • Lab Rats (David 'dwyz' Wayman) 
  • Terry and Brenda (Jamie Hooper) 
  • The Wager (Joss Maines) 
  • Blanche Dumas from B to Z (Walter Martyn Cabell) 
  • Red Wolf Pines (Mike Tack) 
  • Beyond Redemption (Andrew Gilbert)
  • Cephalopod (Lewis Peake)
  • The Weird World of Molly Brown (Molly Brown)
  • The Man Who Walked Too Far (Peter Bluck)
  • Blue Moon (Martyn Pick)
  • The Outer Darkness (Ben Franklin and Anthony Melto)
  • Cyme Styrung (Alex Wylie)
  • Slaypril Fools Day Part V: The Last Laugh (Mj Dixon)
  • Stained (Phil Haine) 
  • Beachcomber (Richard Elson)

Plus some great non-UK stuff including Debbie Rochon’s Model Hunger.

And then the next weekend, just to rub it in, there’s all this too:

  • The Apostate: Call of the Revenant (Andy Dodd) - A man is found with four bodies. Flashbacks and interviews slowly piece the story together
  • My Horrible Love (Charles Edmond) - Four foul mouthed family members attempt to settle their differences at a caravan park in Essex
  • Hollower (Mj Dixon) - Agoraphobic Nathan keeps to himself. When he meets Izzy something awakens…something evil

And a load more non-UK stuff including Dave Campfield’s hilarious Caesar and Otto’s Paranormal Halloween.

I hope you all have a great time. If any of the film-makers want to send me a screener, I'd love to watch it. On my own,