THE EVIL DEAD IS NO EVIL DEAD

It took a long time and years of inner struggle but I’ve finally stopped rending my flesh and garments over remakes. It’s not like I can do anything to stop them and since nobody that matters asked for my opinion anyway. Reaching this peace required the recitation of the “Serenity Prayer” until my throat was raw. It also required my viewing, if not embracing, of less-than-stellar versions of classic horror “for the new generation”. I had to remind myself that The Maltese Falcon was shot at least twice before the definitive 1945 John Huston version, so was King Kong—hell, so was Casablanca, and there are always rumors of another coming our way. There always will be. Even though it’s counter-intuitive—your built-in audience, fans of the original, will always be disappointed in the new version and those younger viewers you’re aiming at don’t really care one way or another if the movie had previous incarnations—remakes and sequels are always considered safe money.

The best example, the one I always point to, is that they threw more money at James Gunn to remake Dawn of the Dead than they did for Romero to make an original franchise installment. The Dawn do-over was given more marketing money, more commercial time and it opened in far more theaters than Land of the Dead. Regardless of how you feel about either film, financially Dawn Redeux was the winner.

Therefore, when it was announced that instead of a long-desired Evil Dead 4 we were going to get a “reboot” of the first film, I met this news with neither surprise nor outrage. Maybe fleeting dismay at first, but once I learned that the guys who created the original film and made it what it was, Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell, were on board 100%, my unease got squashed beneath the boot of the inevitable. A new The Evil Dead was upon us and there was nothing I could do about it.

Besides, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, Evil Dead II, the film I saw before the original and fell in love with, was more or less a remake itself. So who was I to complain? My only concession was to check with Tom Sullivan, the effects master who gave the original’s deadites their DIY charm. Once I learned he had been originally approached to do some design work (turning it down for his own reasons) and had not been shuttered out in the cold, I gave myself permission to go.

Fortunately, I was able to see it in a safe space. Opening weekend coincided with the Thursday night pre-kick-off of the 2013 Spring Cinema Wasteland show and I’d be among loved ones. Almost 20 of us marched into that midnight screening. The white dread on the faces of those already in the theater were priceless to behold. “Oh, no—those people”, that thundering horde that will no doubt ruin the experience for everyone with their talking and laughing and gum-chewing and delinquency! 

 [CW invades The Evil Dead: Colin Rodgers, So Phıa, Cindy Mullins, Mike Baronas, Tyler Baptist, Allana Sleeth, Carri Natarelli, Mike Natarelli,  

Mike Watt, Ken Leicht, Amy Lynn Best, Gregg Olheiser, Ally Melling and Michael Varrati. Photo by Jill LiXonline,]

I was completely unfamiliar with the new director, Fede Alvarez, best known for his internet-sensation short film, Ataque de Pánico!, which I hadn’t seen. The script was by Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues, and some notoriously “uncredited”, and barely-noticable, “additional dialogue” from the unfathomably-famous Diablo Cody. It started well: a witch-burning in the basement by some Spanish-speaking hillbilly cultists slammed into your eyeball right off the bat, along with plenty of foggy-forest atmosphere. So, cool.

The plot was a little more plotty than I expected, given that both the original and Evil Dead II had premises rather than stories: friends visit a cabin and unleash some nasty, evil Evil. Insert gore and/or slapstick here. In this new one, a group of friends go to a cabin for the express purpose of giving Tessa from Suburgatory (Jane Levy) a much-needed, but oft-repeated, intervention. Beginning by pouring her drugs into the cabin’s well and, therefore, poisoning their sole water supply, the intervention comes to a rather abrupt climax a few minutes later with Mia/Tessa almost immediately relapsing.

Okay, cool, some urgency here. A legitimate reason not to leave the cabin once it starts Evil Dead-ing out. Not sure how the others fit in or even know each other—one of them is her brother and the hippie-schoolteacher guy was apparently once in love with him, I think. Before long, they’re downstairs in that notorious root cellar, but this time, instead of random hanging gourds, they find a room filled with suspended cat corpses. And, of course, the Book of the Dead—returning to the original movie’s nom de biblio, “Naturom Demonto”, instead of the better-known Necronomicon ex Moris (loosely translated “Book of the Dead of the Dead”) from the later movies. You know that this is the big bad book because it’s wrapped in thick black plastic and barbed wire. Now every other animal on Earth would see this as a natural sign of “don’t touch”, but lovelorn hippy guy decides that the barbed wire is obviously a ribbon and bow and can’t wait to open his present. Fine, he doesn’t, we don’t have a movie. Please proceed.

As you’ll recall, the Tom Sullivan-designed Books of the Dead in the previous films are inked in human blood and wrapped in shriek-faced human flesh. Now, do you remember when Madonna put out a photography book called Sex and outraged the Tipper Gores of the world? Okay, remember when Linnea Quigley did something similar with a book called Skin, and the book cover looked like the stitched-together inside of Leatherface? Well, the new-and-improved Naturom Demonto looks just like Linnea’s book. The cover was a simple flesh-quilt that could have been made by any deranged first grader for his Phonics Book. Wrapping in plastic, barbed wire, in a room full of rotting cats, the most evil of all evil books not written by Harold Robbins, this Naturom Demonto was hardly impressive. Do better, movie.

Now comes the fun part, we’re all thinking. In the original, it was Scotty who plays a tape recording of Professor Raymond Knowby (played by Turner Movie Classic’s original host, Bob Dorian) reading the Kandarian incantations. In the subsequent sequel/remake it’s Bruce Campbell’s rock-headed Ash who lets the deadites out of the bag. But it seemed like those guys had an excuse. Ash didn’t know what he was doing; Scotty thought it was “wild” and a joke. Lou Taylor Pucci as Eric is feeling pretty sullen and broody at this point in the film. Judging by the very first few pages of the book—nowhere near as cool as Sullivan’s, which anyone with the special DVD releases can tell you—this Naturom Demonto seemed to have been illustrated by some high school kid in shop class. You know, one of those guys who was “really into” death metal vomit rock but didn’t really know anything about the genre. Screaming women engulfed in flames, missing limbs, etc., all rendered in colored pencil and surrounded by inscriptions in a foreign language. And on top of all that, scribbled in big angry letters, are dire warnings like “DO NOT READ THIS OUT LOUD!” and “QUIT READING THIS OUT LOUD!”

So what does long-haired hippie-freak Eric do? He does a few pencil rubbings to find some key words (presumably on pages torn out because the physics teacher caught the student doodling instead of taking notes) and, quite petulantly and with a voice booming with “Screw you, I’m doing this!” reads the key gibberish we all know and love so well—including the “Kanda” trigger word that means “Demons, c’mere!”. And his pronunciation is terrible. Then, as if on cue, the Shakicam rises from the mist and leaves and zips towards the house. I’ll be honest, my inner Evil Dead geek’s heart thrilled a little to this homage to Raimi’s spirited camerawork.

Now, for months, we’ve been hearing about a “female Ash” this go-around. I was totally cool with this and naturally assumed that Mia/Tessa would be said nigh-invulnerable hero/ine. But in a twist, she’s the first to feel the dead kiss of possession. She’s the one who has to be hurled into that root cellar, the door chained to the floor. Mia/Tessa is now Ellen Sandweiss’s Linda, taunting them from below. Neat.

Except now we’re left with her weak sister of a brother, Shiloh Fernandez as David, who is, in another knowing nod to the original, dressed in an approximation of Ash’s “undateable” look (i.e. the jeans and brown moccasins—in this case, work boots—that Raimi felt would never look dated). Up to this point, David’s been a wussy schnook, but to be fair, so was “Ashley” (as Cheryl called her brother) in the original. Remember, Bruce Campbell spent the majority of the first film trapped beneath a variety of book cases.

By this time, we’re all aware that the other characters, Jessica Lucas as Olivia and Elizabeth Blackmore as Natalie, are there simply to serve the movie as the recipients and delivery-mechanism of gore. Now that the titular Evil Dead force has been unleashed, the movie doesn’t skimp on the much-touted practical gore effects. There are hints of CGI but mostly in service of limb removal. Overseen by Jason Durey, the damage sustained to the human body is beautifully cringe-inducing. In particular, a shot where demon Mia licks the edge of a utility knife and slits her tongue down the middle, I flinched noticeably.

Once the gore really gets going—and it doesn’t take too long to arrive—the audience perked up, thrilling and cheering and laughing like the anti-social murder monkeys they were. Our group was no different, mocking it, lovingly for the most part, pointing out the little in jokes and gags peppered throughout, particularly the appearance of the Raimi “Classic” rusting away behind the cabin. Further down on either end of our row, though, I could feel some growing impatience.

So far, the movie wasn’t the “dick slap in the face” (to quote either Don May, Jr. of Synapse or Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures, who’d attended the previous screening) that we had been dreading. Good gore, decent pace. Nothing too overtly stupid to provoke a walk-out. Things started to get a little ridiculous towards the end—something about the Big Bad needing five souls sacrificed in order to gain access to our world, but the movie had stopped playing by those rules by the third-act twist. I called bullshit on a character’s ability to pull her hand off—not severing it via any tool, that had already happened—but freeing it from a crushing object by just pulling free of all tendons, muscles, bones—in movies, you’re really only held together by pipe cleaners anyway. Look how easy a head comes off in a horror movie? Champagne corks are harder to pop!

Thanks to Don May, who’d read the screenplay beforehand, the ending was supposed to be very different than what wound up on the screen. The Big Bad beast that arose on paper consisted of parts of all the friends, similar to the giant face that confronted Ash at the end of Evil Dead II, but less Audrey II. The beast we got was more Sadako, all elbows and hair. I didn’t know how it figured into the story—was it the girl burned alive at the beginning, some shadowy aspect of Mia/Tessa? Whatever. It was a fine climax but it wasn’t the one I’d been waiting for. Even if Don hadn’t told me of what he’d read, it still wasn’t quite what I felt the movie had been building towards.

If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’ve already heard about or saw the post-credits tag. The nonsensical shot of Bruce/Ash turning to the camera and delivering his famous “Groovy” line. As I’ve learned, there was an original post-tag that had Mia wandering down the road and getting picked up by Ash, thus visually “passing the torch”. This bit was removed after a deal was inked not only for a sequel to this (Evil Dead 2 or 5?) as well as an Army of Darkness 2 that would link everything together. Okay. So Bruce’s little appearance at the end was basically his seal of approval and a nod to future things. Honestly, I was more jazzed at hearing the return of Bob Dorian’s voice-over during the credits. The Bruce thing seemed cute and unnecessary but it didn’t bother me.

It bothered a lot of other people. Not just the folks I saw it with but horror fans globally. Many of the people I talked to later that weekend felt it was a personal insult, an attack on the most loyal of fans.

Ultimately, I didn’t have an emotional reaction to the film one way or another. It certainly did nothing to supplant my affection for the original. Its existence, obviously, does not negate the existence of the original and I have three different formats to choose from whenever I want to revisit. As we filed out of the theater, discussing what we liked and/or (mostly and) what we hated about it, I found that I barely had an opinion about it.

When you get right down to it, The Evil Dead 2013 has some great gore effects. Really top-notch, cross-your-legs and keep-looking, the kind of which I hadn’t seen in quite a while. But there were no people in that film, just actors playing characters born of maybe a paragraph. When one died, I felt nothing. When one survived, I felt the same way.

The original Evil Dead is far from a perfect film but it had, as I said, charm. It had that do-it-yourself (and do-it-to-yourself) spirit that every at-any-cost indie movie has. You can see on screen the hell the filmmakers and actors put themselves through to bring this movie to you. Raimi and company made The Evil Dead because otherwise they would have died trying. There were no such stakes in this new one. Little thought had gone into it except to make it “extreme”. “The most extreme horror movie you’ve ever seen!” It wanted to live up to that boast and nothing more. So it didn’t try to do anything else.

Perhaps the film’s biggest fault lies not with what it is but with what came before it. The Evil Dead did for demonic possession what Night of the Living Dead did for zombies. It created its own sub-genre and thousands of filmmakers have followed in its path. Like Romero, Raimi created a style that could be imitated, lovingly or cynically. Before Burn Notice, Bruce Campbell was merely a working actor who was worshipped all over the world, because he was Ash and he put in the time to bring Ash to life. He’d inspired other lanky weirdoes to try their hands at becoming action/horror/comedy heroes. Most failed, of course. But the point is, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of cabin-in-the-woods movies in the wake of The Evil Dead, including one produced by our current Fanboy Messiah, Joss Whedon, called Cabin in the Woods.

This new Evil Dead wasn’t anything new. It had a few clever tricks but to me it just felt like another homage to The Evil Dead. It wasn’t its own thing and it never once really tried to be. It wanted to be extreme and on that level it succeeded. It’s a perfectly serviceable, empty-calorie party movie. As far as in-name-only remakes goes, it’s a little better than most. It’s very well-made. The actors do their jobs. The camerawork is Raimi-esque. They could have done better than to desaturate the footage for “grittier” appeal, but that’s a stylistic choice and it remained consistent. I’d probably get it through Netflix when it’s released and I’ll probably moderately enjoy it, but probably less unless I can get my fourteen fellow-travelers back to recreate the experience.

But as far as the movie goes, I’d already seen it before a single frame appeared on screen. There was nothing new. It was just another Evil Dead-type movie. We’ve all seen dozens of those. This just had more money behind it.

To paraphrase one web reviewer, I’d give it a ‘meh and a half’.

Original EVIL DEAD (1983)

 

EVIL DEAD (2013)

 

The Return From Wasteland

Last week, I sent out three copies of Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut, started teaching at the Savini School of Digital Photography, wrote more of my new book, copied almost a hundred DVDs - none of that compared to the excitement of a new pending Cinema Wasteland.

Yes, this is another of those blogs that begins, "As you all know, Wasteland is our favorite show..." The Cleveland convention has always been a highlight of our year and this past April show was no exception. In fact, it was one of the best times we’d ever had, particularly as no one emailed me on Saturday to tell me that a company I was working for was no longer in business. Not losing a job first thing in the morning is a terrific way to ward off depression.

Wasteland is our "family" show. While we generally have an awesome time at every show, Wasteland is the show where we feel completely comfortable and welcome. The antithesis of the high school gym feeling you often receive at biz gatherings. If you’re a regular reader of this online screed, then you know how we feel about this show, Ken and Pam Kish the promoters, the staff, the hotel, the atmosphere, the humidity, etc. At the risk of alienating the new reader(s), I think I’ll forgo the Romper Room roster ("I saw Damien and Ed and Jill and Greg and Carrie and Mike and...) and just hit the highlights:

I somehow managed to con William Wright, one of my head writers at Sirens of Cinema, to drag his wife and young child (the amazingly friendly (clingy? Needy?) Harlan Hunter) 600 miles from Tennessee to join us in the insanity. Which was awesome. Hell, half the staff of Sirens was in attendance at this show, which was also, you know, awesome. Within seconds, Harlan had lept from mom Olivia’s arms into Amy’s, and then into Mink Stole’s. Mink’s response: "I love that fans are always giving me things at conventions."

I also loved that Mink loved the issue of Sirens containing her interview. (11, incidentally, with the Joe Jusko cover, still available through the site.) I hadn’t heard from her after what I considered to be the best interview I’d done all last year, so I was terrified I’d insulted her, etc. Turns out there was a family tragedy that kept her from responding. (What a relief!) So my terror was immediately replaced by, okay, guilt. Still, she liked the issue and that made me do the little "Happy Mink Stole Liked the Issue Dance". Not to be confused with the "Happy Wasteland Dance" and the "Happy Doughnut Dance". We do a lot of dances at Happy Cloud Pictures.

Five minutes before the dealer’s room opened on Friday, Ilsa herself, Dyanne Thorne, appeared in the doorway to introduce herself to the room and to wish everyone a terrific show. She looked amazing and that was a classy thing to do. One dealer grumbled, "Sure, that’s because she’s going to make all the money." He was summarily killed and eaten. We did the "Happy Devoured Grumpy Dealer Dance".

Sid Haig walked through the door and shook my hand instead of stabbing me in the throat with a letter opener. Not that he’s ever done this, but it always feels good when he doesn’t.

Henrique Couto arrived with a friend of his from New Jersey. Her name was Regina. She was dressed as a school girl. Eventually, she overcame her shyness and joined in on the fun. Henrique had dropped 30 pounds or so from the last time we’d seen him. He also never wore pants the entire time he was there.

Low Budget Pictures was represented this trip by Chris Seaver (genius director of Mulva 2), Travis (genius actor of Carnage for the Destroyer) and Josh (genius star of Film Crew and now legally allowed to travel within the state of Ohio once again). They yelled a lot and refused to give me a copy of Ski Wolf. No matter how much blow I hooked them up with.

We presented Tom Sullivan with the very Grendel mask he wore in Splatter Movie. He was pleased. Then he went back to constructing a seven-foot-tall manniquin of The Dread, from the film of the same name. Later, we learned he’d exchanged the Grendel mask for a taco and some duct tape. His partner, Pat Reese, stole the mask back and ate the taco.

Our executive producer, Fred Obermiller, gave us a copy of "Cinema Skin" that contained a rave review of A Feast of Flesh and two screen grabs of the ever-topless Rachelle Williams. I conned William Wright into going up to her in the bar to have her sign it. (Jeez, I can get him to do anything.) It was funny. She only slapped him twice before autographing it. He only slapped her once in return. Now they are legally married in Dubai.

Mike and Carolyn Haushalter joined us for dinner at Applebee’s on Friday, which rocked. The company and the food. As we were leaving, there were two hosts at the door talking as we left. As we passed the first one, he said, "Have a great night." The second one, thinking he was speaking to her, said "What?"

I said, "He said ’have a good night’."

She said, "Oh, no - I thought -"

"Oh, so I’m not allowed to have a good night?" I said. "Jeez, the service at this place."

She turned beet red. I did the "Happy Embarressed and Confused Applebee’s Hostess Dance".

David and Tara joined us on Saturday. They were supposed to join us Friday as well, but, fortunately, they were not killed on the way. Just delayed. We did the "Happy Still Alive David and Tara Dance" (that joke never gets old). Tara had created a Tara-sized shirt out of the Happy Cloud shirt we’d given her for Christmas. She’d snipped away almost three yards of material. Now it’s useless as a bed sheet. Jeez. Amy dragged them all over the dealer’s room to introduce them to all of our con friends. Tara met Unky Lloyd Kaufman and got all verklempt. (Tara gets star-struck during card tricks, though. She once met that guy who dresses in question marks and tries to sell you a phone book-sized tome on Free Money. It took her two hours to blink or breathe again, she was so impressed. She bought six books.) Unky Lloyd followed her around for several minutes trying to convince her to be in Troma’s new "Pornogeist". He wrote his number on the back of David’s head for her. Next week, we all drive up to New York to write our names on the side of the Troma building and then run. They’ll be awestruck by our penmanship!

Saturday night, Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut (what I thought was the final version, but I found four bad sound cues) screened to a packed room. We were astounded at the amount of people in there. Some of them weren’t even in the movie! There were three guys in the back row talking back to the movie the whole time and were actually 93% as funny as the movie itself. Amy and I introduced the movie by saying "Not in the face," and then drinking every time we had a panic attack. It’s like "Quarters" for neurotics.

Al Tuskes, from Precinct 13, joined us for the screening and claimed to have enjoyed it immensely. He obviously wasn’t lying because he joined us for drinks afterwards. A lot of drinks. Apple Juice, ice water and bible passages.

"Bible Passages" is made with vodka.

At one point, I was talking to Regina and this dumb blonde dressed like Milia in Resident Evil came over to my table, looked at me, then took Regina’s arm and said "I HAVE to interview you for my show." Then proceded to yak at her in front of my table while I shouted "No, that’s okay. Ignore the guest and interview the attendee. Very classy, Queen of the Peroxide!" Actually, I didn’t shout the latter. But I thought it loudly. Later, said woman was found in the lobby covered in sperm and shame. I may have made that last part up too, depending on whether or not it can be construed as libel.

By Sunday, we’re usually ready to come home, but not this time. We were exhausted, from the drinking, the revelry and the corridor beer pong competition (combining man’s love of both beer and pong), but we weren’t ready to leave. But finally, we tore ourselves away. It took us over an hour to say our goodbyes - To Lixx Online, to Ken and Pam, to Charlie and Tim and Kate, to Carrie and Mike, to the Toe Tag folks, Art and Allana, Rob Lucas, Xploited, the Professor, Mary-Anne... A wonderful time was had by all. Or, at least, by us. And isn’t that what’s really important?

Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut - first trailer!

It took a while, but I was finally able to upload the first trailer for Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut.

Don't forget that you can check this out for yourself at Cinema Wasteland, Saturday, April 5 at 10:00 PM! Ken and Pam are screening the finished cut of the film in all its glory. We're not ready to start selling it from the site yet, as we're currently shopping it around, but we'll have a few copies available at Wasteland, while supplies last.

Feel free to grab this and imbed it on your own page!

SPLATTER MOVIE update

The Splatter Movie odyssey continues to continue. This past weekend seemed oddly relaxed, perhaps due to the fact that we were all aware that it was our last big weekend. This shoot’s guest star was Tom Sullivan, effects wizard of The Evil Dead and co-star of The Absence of Light. Like Debbie Rochon weeks ago, Tom plays himself in Splatter Movie, so it wasn’t a stretch for him to get into character. He and his nephew, Sean, came in Thursday night, allowing for an easy, leisurely shoot on Friday.

Saturday, as we wrapped Tom’s scenes, we completed a crucial sequence with a Steadicam, thanks to Patrick Desmond. He and Rich Conant of New Illusions Studios came down to help out, making the trek from Ohio to lend a hand. In this sequence, Stacy Bartlebaugh-Gmys, our star from Abattoir, gets hung up a few feet in the air by one leg wrapped in barbed wire. To her credit, she never complained nor batted an eye when six large men lifted her from her ladder perch and helped her into position. Granted, she was more afraid of the ladder, but that’s beside the point.

Sunday consisted of a tricky decapitation attempted with only digital removal. Half the shots in the sequence had to be shot with multiple layers, to be combined later in Photoshop and After Effects. If it worked as well in practice as it did on paper, it should be a fairly sweet – if extremely bizarre – sequence.

Just before that, however, through a series of fortuitous events, we sweet-talked our way into using a cherry picker and got an awesome aerial shot for the opening of the film. Despite my abject hatred of heights, I found myself leaping into the bucket of the crane, belting in and shooting the shot from 60 feet in the air. Two keys: never taking my eye from the camera eye piece and never, at any point, actually thinking about what I was doing. Neither DP Jeff Waltrowski nor Amy could look at me while I was up there and not just because they were in the shot below. They were certain that the second they glanced in my direction, I’d spill from the bucket, the crane would fail and slam me into the ground, I’d drop the camera… None of those catastrophes actually happened and, eventually, I was returned to Earth. It’s not an experience I’d care to duplicate but the shot turned out sweet.

One thing I’d like to bring up for the education of other indie filmmakers out there: when Amy and I arrived at the site on Sunday, we discovered that all of the power was out. Saturday, the Department of Public Works was installing new telephone poles and making a god-awful amount of noise, but they didn’t disrupt the power. Sunday, they were still installing and, at this point, were disrupting power. Fighting down the panic of having to cancel the indoor shooting (already made complicated by the ongoing construction going on at the Hundred Acres Manor), we were just about to go up to the workers and ask if power would be restored when a woman in a little sports car drove up, leapt out and started screaming at the guys working. We couldn’t make out what she was saying, but there was much arm waving and hysterical body language. After a minute, she stomped back to her car, slammed the door, gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot. This presented a terrific opportunity for us to not do that. Instead, we brought the guys doughnuts and water, talked about the weather and asked how things were going. The foreman volunteered the fact that the power would be on in a few minutes and to let them know if their noise interrupted shooting.

The morale of this story: don’t be a dick. Most people are generally interested in being helpful. If there’s a result you’re looking for, and the people before you are the most likely candidates of helping you achieve that result, not screaming at them tends to make all the difference. The second morale: be on the lookout for dicks and try to time your non-dickhead approach to directly follow their inappropriate behavior. There’s no better opportunity than looking good in comparison to someone worse. With so many assholes in the world, with so many terrible filmmakers/athletes/etc., sometimes showing up and not being horrible is all the effort needed. Not taking part in the World’s Biggest Cocksucker Competition, an on-going reality show, is usually the smartest move.

Anyway, we’re in the home stretch on the film now. For all intents and purposes, we’re about three days away from completion, and we’re not even talking three full days. One day of scene and two half-days of pick-ups. Then we’ll have a finished film. One that some people will be completely unable to make head or tail of, one that many others will find both satisfying and pretentious at the same time, but ultimately, one that people will look at and say “Only Happy Cloud Pictures would have done this movie.” (“Would”, not could. The distinction is considerable.)

So make sure to keep checking both the Splatter Movie Myspace and the Amy Lee Parker Tesseract Myspace. Fun stuff is coming all the time.

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Moving Forward...

I spend much of my life in dread of the Big White X.

In the cartoons, that's the "x" painted on the ground where the anvil is intended to drop. Usually, a coyote is standing on the X, watching as the shadow grows above him - right before the inevitable "Wham!"

The problem with my Big White X is that I'm never quite sure when I'm standing on it - or how long that whistling sound will last before I realize I'm hearing it.

The future, to me, is something sharp and pointy and very, very heavy and rushing at me at a frightening speed. Always. It's not the change I fear, it's the impact that change will make. And the problems that come riding on its back.

As you've no doubt read from Amy's blog, after a month of finagling, chasing, begging and calling calling calling, I finally found an insurance agent that would provide us with th policy we were seeking in order to shoot Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut. We were seeking this to not only protect the owners of the Hundred Acres Manor and ourselves but also to insure--hence the word--that our friends and family would be protected in this unfamiliar locational space. If, Film Gods Forbid, someone would actually get hurt, we know now that they'd be taken care of.

For weeks, it was the runaround from this agent, the cold shoulder from that, an attempt at rip-off from the third. But today that came to an end. I even got an emailed proof-of-coverage to show the haunt's owners in case the policy takes a while to come via mail. So we're set to schedule, plan and finally shoot(!). Which is very exciting.

And I'm forcing my head to not look down. I don't want to see the X if I am standing on it. I know in the back of my mind that this was the inevitable conclusion to a very frustrating task, but I worry when things go smoothly - even if they hadn't up until this point.

This, my friends, is what is known as "being crazy".

So I'm trying to break myself of habitually feeling dread every time something goes my way. I'm trying very hard. Positive thinking was never a superpower I possessed. I'm trying to convince myself that sometimes things work out without incurring the wrath of the universe. In short, move onto the next dreadful task and celebrate that I can do so with all ten fingers.

And I understand, too, that there are plenty of new Herculean tasks to undertake - ever movie comes equipped with an endless number, naturally. So plan ahead and, as the cliche goes, hope for the best, prepare for the worst. And appreciate when something goes right.

And then turn around widdershins and spit on a rock, just to be safe.

Pirates, Rednecks and Insurance Companies

So Film Threat put up my review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I don't normally write reviews of mainstream stuff - they have Pete Vonder Haar for that - but I felt compelled. We saw it again yesterday and sat through the credits for the epilogue (not sure why we didn't the first time). While the first two movies had brief "gag" post-credit sequences, this one actually served as a cap for the story and actually expunged the few negative feelings I had towards the movie. The epilogue, truly, makes the Elizabeth and Will Turner story very satisfying. So much so that you'll be shocked that Disney had the balls to end it that way. Go see it, sit through until the very end - when the ushers come in and start giving you dirty looks - and then come back and discuss.

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We're trying desperately to get Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut off the ground. We just signed our last few actors--I'll make the formal announcement soon--the set is fantastic and ready to go. Our effects are being covered by two very talented men. I have my second cameraman lined up. Our investors are sending us money, enabling us to fly some folks in and feed the rest. Tom Sullivan is on board and anxious to get started! So what's the hold up?

Insurance.

We need to get liability insurance to make sure that - Film Gods forbid - if anyone gets hurt, we're all covered. It's not a lawsuit concern. I'm working with a lot of friends. I want to make sure my friends will be safe.

However... we've spoken with three different insurance companies. One didn't get back to us until late last week saying that no one would underwrite our claim. Of the other two, one guy is on vacation and the other seems to do all of his business from his car. The lowdown seems to be that what we want isn't worth anyone's time. We're not asking for a lot of coverage, we're not looking for a million dollar policy. So no one wants to handle it. Apparently, our money just isn't good enough.

It'll happen and it'll probably happen soon. But the wait is frustrating. Here we are trying to do everything right and the easier route seems to be to just screw it all, damn the consequences. We're not about to call it quits, but the waiting sure is aggravating!

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Last week, I spent two days working an auction. The focus of the auction was heavy machinery of the construction variety. Lots of backhoes and tractors and steam rollers and enormous things whose sole purpose seem to be terraforming planets. This meant, for me, waiting on literally hundreds of contractors and construction workers and businessmen, most of whom had a net worth in the millions, getting them registered and then cashing them out when their auctions were won.

Now, you think "millionaire" and your mind conjures Donald Trump, right? In this case, try "Larry the Cable Guy". There was a guy leaning on the counter counting out stacks of hundred dollar bills. He had, from what I could see, seven teeth. Apparently, an asphalt mixer was more important than dentistry to this entrepreneur.

And yeah, I spent most of the day - the fourteen-hour-on-my-feet-one-break day - dropping what I did for a living and offering these backwoods Rockefellers my business card. And what I was talking about was as foreign to them as the world of Bearcats and backhoes were to me.

So, I contented myself to counting the hours until I was allowed to go home and restraining myself from pummeling those fine examples of maleness who were sexually harassing my female co-workers like it was still the 1850s. Actually, there was one guy who was acting like one of the cave people in Quest for Fire - literally sniffing one of the female account reps. Apparently, Arthur C. Clarke was wrong - you can evolve to the point of using tools without ever having touched the Monolith.

New gee-whiz-bang news!

Okay, so some of you may not have seen this on Amy's blog yet. For those of you sub-rock dwellers:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Happy Cloud Pictures is proud to announce their next production:
Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut.

An independent production company sets up at a haunted attraction to shoot both a horror movie and the simultaneous making-of documentary, unaware that the set is being stalked by a killer masquerading as one of their own performers. As filming progresses, the line between what's real and what's fiction begins to blur—and then vanishes entirely! Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut takes a time-honored storyline and gives it a Happy Cloud Pictures twist, resulting in a veritable tesseract of a film. The end result will be as much a deconstruction of the slasher subgenre as it will be a new entry in horror history.

To complete this elaborate project, Happy Cloud Pictures is teaming up with the Hundred Acres Manor, Pittsburgh's only 100% volunteer based tri-themed haunt benefiting Homeless Children's Education Fund and Animal Friends. This immense attraction will virtually be a character itself in the film, providing a wonderfully-macabre landscape for the characters to play.

With a script from Mike Watt (The Resurrection Game, Dead Men Walking), Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut will star and be directed by Happy Cloud Pictures co-founder Amy Lynn Best (Abattoir, Severe Injuries) and will co-star legendary special effects artist and actor Tom Sullivan (The Evil Dead)! Also joining the cast are Elske McCain (Poultrygeist) and Best's Abattoir cast-mates Sofiya Mina Smirnova, Rachelle Williams (Jess Franco's Take Away Spirit), Alyssa Herron, Nic Pesante, Stacy Bartlebaugh-Gmys Jeff Waltrowski (Project Valkyrie) and Don Bumgarner.

Keep checking back at happycloudpictures.net or www.myspace.com/happycloudpictures for updates and news about this exciting project.

Now then, this is something we're extremely excited about. The project was inspired by a short film Amy shot with Devi Snively and Jane Rose back in March called, I kid you not, I Spit on Eli Roth (read all about it in Sirens of Cinema #7 - on sale now!). The shoot was set at the aforementioned Hundred Acres Manor - which is about a mile long of twisting, turning corridors and spooky rooms (not to mention an enormous maze that had us all lost for about twenty minutes when we visited with Mike and Carolyn and Anders Erikson and Melinda Kreuger at Halloween).

While shooting the short, I knew I wanted to shoot something of our own there. The place was begging for something bizarre and sinister and violent, but... what? A slasher movie seemed obvious - too obvious. Plus, we already did a slasher movie, albeit a comedy (i.e. Severe Injuries for those not paying attention). But the idea kept gnawing at me every time I'd head toward the upstairs make-up room, inevitably turn the wrong way and slam my shin into a coffin hidden in a room where we hadn't located the lights yet.

Multiple times over the weekend, I creeped myself out. I always found Haunted Houses to be cheesy fun, where you laugh when the high school volunteers leap out at you, their over-sized masks covering their eyes. Being in this enormous haunt pre-season, and having a lousy sense of direction, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, the distant sense of panic of getting lost (which stems from a tragic Boy Scout woods retreat), etc. So, okay, I knew the story was going to be a slasher movie. But how the hell do you make an original slasher movie? If the recent Hollywood offerings were any indication, you apparently can't. This latter theory is also backed up by the slew of indie fare I've suffered through recently (not everything - don't scream at me - you guys know who did the good stuff).

So the movie-within-a-movie idea came to me - also not terribly original, but I thought I could figure out a unique twist to the entire thing. Both Amy and I have been answering a lot of interview questions lately regarding what makes a horror movie, etc. So if I took the opportunity to actually explore the genre while recreating it at the same time, we just might have something here worth making.

I realized around page 10 that this script was going to be a royal bitch to write. The disjointed nature of the thing dictated that its structure was going to be difficult to find. At the same time, I knew I wanted to incorporate real documentary and interview footage into the narrative, which made things even slipperier to beat into shape. All in all, Splatter Movie was the hardest script I've ever written, and took me the longest ever for a first draft. I was literally averaging about three pages a day. Not to brag, but I usually write MUCH faster than that.

But the resulting draft really felt satisfying once completed. I really do feel like we have something here. It is, if nothing else, very weird. Everyone we've shown it to really likes it. Fred Obermiller, our executive producer, told me he thinks that it's my best work to date, so now I have THAT to live up to. Thanks, Fred. People are coming out of the wood work, too, to help out. Not the least of which Ted Sobek, one of the owners of the Hundred Acres Manor, but also Erik Molinaris at the Douglas School(aka The Savini School) and his team of intrepid and starving students, as well as Mark Marsen and Scott Tyson at Specter Studios, who are donating some props for us to use. So thanks all around to all of these fine folks!

So, we'll see. We have to finalize our production insurance, since we'll be shooting on property not owned by us. Usually, our homeowner's insurance covers us for damage and injury, but there's only so far we can take the idea of "mobile business", so we want to have the policy in place before we shoot to make sure everyone will be safe and protected. But once that's ready, we're set to go. And, as usual, we'll keep everyone posted as things progress.