“I want my demon to have a soul and to feel and look as real as the actors in the scene with him. In a CGi creature dominated world, Steve and Doug are some of the top guys in the industry who are doing this kind of specialized, practical makeup work. But they’re not Luddites. Half of their characters start with a guy in a suit delivering a real performance, and that suit is designed to be enhanced by CGI. They understand that it’s not about the technology. It’s about the art delivering performance and character.”

Never ones to do things the simple way though, Peterson and Heder weren’t content with simply creating a film to tell their story, instead they decided to extend the entertainment experience and compliment their movie with an accompanying the video game. But what will this expansion into games add to The Visitant narrative?

“All of this is just the beginning of a much larger universe. The video game will lay the groundwork by telling us the origin story of the demon starting in the American Dustbowl era of the 1930′s when people were easily taken advantage of and desperate. Prime season for a demon with lots to offer people in exchange for certain things. But why tell it with a video game and not a film? A game like this will take about 2-3 hours to play through, basically the length of a feature film. At this point in time, it’s too expensive to tell in that format but I can make a video game right now and tell the story I want today.”

The pair are once again turning to Kickstarter to raise funds for their latest project and are aiming to raise $48,000 by May 29th, offering backers of the film a variety of interesting rewards. So if this project sounds like something you’ll enjoy, head over to kickstarter and show your support with some cold, hard cash.

And if you happened to be wondering why Hardcastle’s promo is billed as Pt. 2, well that’s because last year Mike Dahlquist put out a neon suffused, end of days splatter fest for Pt. 1, which is bat shit crazy fun.

Jed is starving, he hasn’t eaten for days. He’s lost and alone, wandering around a vast forest searching for the one thing that can satisfy his insatiable hunger… Human brains. Because Jed is dead, Jed is un-dead and he is on the hunt driven by an unnatural urge to devour living tissue. The problem is he can’t catch a thing. He is a loser, he was a loser in life and nothing seems to have changed now he is dead. But can the pity of recently dead/undead woman turn his luck?

T is for Toilet segment director of The ABCs of Death and claymation master, Lee Hardcastle returns with An Alien Claymation, a fast paced, gruesome homage to 1950s B-Movie horror complete with bucket loads of (green) blood splatter and an eerie soundtrack which urges you to think twice about inviting aliens for tea.

A father gets more than he bargained for when he invites Alien visitors into his home.

Update: Hardcastle has now released a brief making off to clue us into some of the animation techniques he used to create the film.

We spoke to Russian director Mikhail Segal’s at the London Film Festival about his second feature Short Stories; a collection of four narratives each playing out a different cinematic genre within the framing of a rejected manuscript which draws consecutive readers into its tales.

There is one common idea, one common thread that I wanted to say in my film, that is about the social & cultural situation in Russia.

Shot in a studio in Manchester for just £800, Endless from Matt Bloom is a visually stunning, inventive short that pushes the boundaries of horror to its limits. shot on Phantom Gold, a Sony HD Pro and iPhone cameras at frame rates of 400, 800 and 1,000 frames per second, the action of the story would only be 30 seconds if viewed in real time.

Director’s Statement – nxtdream.com

It’s rare when a director has the chance to make a film without creative restrictions. This film was one of those opportunities. Some time ago, Jon Heder and I were looking for a project we could make that would allow us to flex our creative muscles and make something truly unique and different. I had an idea – both a story and a clever shooting technique – that had been gestating in my head for about a year or so and soon after I pitched it to Jon we discovered Kickstarter.com. We made a video pitch and were fully funded within the 30 day window.

I loved making this film. It was months and months of hard, tedious work for myself and a hand-picked group of extremely talented people all working together towards a singular vision of making something never seen before.

And here’s a ‘behind the scenes’ video if you want to know more..

When W.C. Fields said “never work with children or animals”, he’d obviously never considered the prospect of working with animals and…..zombies! Horror directing siblings Andres and Diego Meza-Valdes bring a fresh new twist to the zombie film by setting a motley pack of dogs as the protagonists of their latest short Play Dead.

Painkiller – Mustapha Kseibati

With Paul Andrew Williams, writer and director of London to Brighton as his mentor, you’d expect good things from young up and coming director Mustapha Kseibati. His latest short Painkiller – the story of a convenience store robbery that quickly goes wrong – is not only a showcase of his confident directing style, but also of the writing talent of Selina Lim. Brimming with well considered dialogue, dramatic twists and the odd flash of comedy, Kseibati opts against quick edits and short takes to perfectly highlight Lim’s script and the strong performances from his cast.

Long Distance Information – Douglas Hart

Not content with being the first bassist and founding member of the band The Jesus and Mary Chain and director of almost 30 music videos for the likes of The Stone Roses, Primal Scream, The Horrors and more, Douglas Hart has now expanded his repertoire with his first foray into short film with the black comedy Long Distance Information. Starring Peter Mullan, one of the UK’s most underrated actors, Hart’s semi-autobiographical short explores the relationship between an emotionally distant father and his son.

Skirt – Amanda Boyle

Commissioned by Mulberry, recent winner of the fashion category at the Vimeo Awards 2012 Skirt from director Amanda Boyle, is the odd yet heartwarming tale of a couple sharing an apartment. As time goes by, one impromptu tidying of the other’s belongings soon develops into a bizarre routine of possession stacking and a way for them to baffle, fight, flirt and maybe even fall in love with each other. Largely dialogue free, Boyle’s short has the feel of the art-house about it and could have easily come from the mumblecore school or even from the new wave of Greek cinema we’ve recently witnessed with Dogtooth and Attenburg.

The zombie apocalypse happened — and we won.

But though society has recovered, the threat of infection is always there — and Los Angeles coroner Tommy Rossman is the man they call when things go wrong.

This is what we were given:
Title: Shy Girl
Line: “I cracked it! It says, “”Stop wasting your time!”"”
Prop: “Page numbers: We see a character look in a book, turn to a page with a turned corner. They then write the page number down, next to a sequence of other numbers.”
Optional Science: Day in life of last living woman

Hartmann’s currently crowdsourcing funds on Indiegogo for his new short Deadlock, a black comedy action thriller short film about small time crooks dreaming of big money.

Sixty-four horror movies in a five-minute montage; the perfect project to work on until 2 a.m. and then return to an empty, dark, cold apartment.

The last few nights have had some really, *really* twisted dreams.

DYE “Fantasy” Official Video by JEREMIE PERIN from TIGERSUSHI on Vimeo.

First up on the Sunday I managed to catch The Whisperer in Darkness. The HP Lovecraft Historical Society is an organisation that seems to have been started for the purpose of live action role playing with a Lovecraftian theme. Since then they seemed to have turned into a mini-industry for the acclaimed horror writer. In 2005 they made their first film, a silent version of The Call of Cthulu. Now they’ve followed it up with another low-budget gem based on the novella of the same name.

University folklore expert Albert Wilmarth (Matt Foyer) is investigating reports of carcasses of bizarre creatures found floating after recent floods in Vermont. He starts receiving letters from a local famer, Henry Akeley (Barry Lynch) describing these creatures haunting his land and harassing the farmer and his son, George (Joe Sofranko).

Wilmarth is fascinated by old legends in a sociological and historical context but is too intellectually detached and cynical to believe the accounts. Wilmarth’s interest grows as the events grow weirder and the evidence gets stronger until eventually Akeley, having apparently made his peace with the phenomena, invites him down to the farm to experience it for himself.

You have £350k. You want to film a science-fiction horror. You want to film a science-fiction horror by an author who is notoriously difficult to adapt successfully. How are you going to pull this off without having the low budget reduce the film to just another schlocky creature feature? The Whisper In Darkness’s trick is that it’s a homage to 1930s science-fiction.

Filmed in black and white and mimicking the pace of the genre, The Whisperer in Darkness builds slowly as we are immersed in Wilmarth’s life of academia. The film’s success lies in its straight-faced approach. Even when laugh-out loud funny, it’s because the deliberately corny dialogue is so in keeping with the period being recreated. It’s faking being dated but in such away that helps rather than hinders the narrative. The first half of the film would feel slow in a different setting, but freed of quick edits and the information overload of modern dialogue, the pace feels relaxed and comfortable.

The supporting cast are clearly having the time of their lives with the script, particularly a malevolently mischievous Stephen Blackehart as the rich kid Charlie Tower who funds Wilmarth’s investigation.

The last act of the film ups the ante with chases and aerial battles that utilise CG effects which seek to resemble authentic models of the monsters rather than realism. This ending is where the film differs most from the source material and whilst first time director Sean Branney doesn’t quite pull it off you have to admire the audacity when a less ambitious climax would have felt more even. It’s far more fun to watch the filmmakers ignoring common sense and come up with something memorably absurd.

In fact the whole film is one gloriously stupid idea. So stupid it’s hard not to be won over.

The Killing Joke is a 15 minute suspense/fiction short film about a mysterious woman that finds a red balloon tied up to a curious little box on an eery derelict street. Using classic elements of suspense and working within a seventies aesthetic, The Killing Joke is an action packed film that pays homage to some of the horror movies from that era.

Sebastián López wrote and directed the story, and was also responsible for all the impressive post and composition work.

The Killing Joke from sebastian lopez on Vimeo.

And if you’re not too freaked out here’s the Making Of The Killing Joke:

Making Of The Killing Joke from sebastian lopez on Vimeo.

Things get messed up pretty damn quickly, so it’s very much NSFW.

Q.G. – Bomb disaster ( official video ) from Shaker Production on Vimeo.

I was skeptical I’d ever come across another zombie short worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as the classic I Love Sarah Jane, that was until I got a sneak peak at Omar Hauksson’s Undying Love. Omar joined me to discuss the Icelandic film industry and pulling in favours to make a jaw dropping debut short on a shoestring.

I’m actually not a big fan of short films because short films can be really really slow & I lose the attention rather quickly if the story doesn’t get moving.

Undying Love Materials
Behing the Scenes Stills

Showlinks
Undying Love Facebook Group
@Oswarez
Omar Hauksson Vimeo
Twitch
Canon 5D MKII
Adobe After Effects
Video Copilot

Undying Love (2011)
What lengths does a man go to hold on to love.

Paul jerked off in the shower. Paul just impregnated his bath tub.

That short turned out to be TUB, a brilliantly weird, at times comedic, at times horrific film from The Bobby Miller. I tracked Bobby down amidst the rowdiness of Austin’s 6th Street during SXSW for an interview, but never had the opportunity to share TUB with you the DN audience. That is until now…

TUB – A Short Film from Bobby Miller on Vimeo.

Laura (Florencia Colucci) and her father (Gustavo Alonso) settle down in a cottage which seems to be off the beaten track in order to update it since its owner (Abel Tripaldi) will soon put the house on sale. They will spend the night there in order to start the repairs the following morning. Everything seems to go smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder in the upper floor of the house. Wilson goes up to see what’s going on whilst Laura remains downstairs alone waiting for her father to return.

The plot is based on a true story that happened some time ago in a small village in Uruguay. “La Casa Muda” focuses on the last seventy eight minutes, second by second, when Laura intends to leave the house which hides an obscure secret and she hopes to leave unharmed.

For once, the most interesting aspect of this latest scare isn’t its plot, or the fact that it’s ‘based on true events’, instead where Hernández’s debut really captivates is in its production methods. Billed as Real Fear in Real Time, The Silent House is filmed in one continues shot, with no cuts. Shot entirely on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR, Pedro Luque’s camera stalks our protagonist Laura as she timidly creeps around the supposedly empty house, trying to understand what is happening. At first the camera hangs eerily behind her, floating in the distance like a scared child, but as the story develops and we’re plunged into Hernández’s terrifying on-screen universe, the camera bravely ventures forward, sometimes circling Laura, adding to the disorientating feel of the film. The Silent House lives up to its tagline, with no cut-aways from the action and no break from the tension, this is a film that generates Real Fear as the Uruguayan filmmaker has literally made a film you don’t dare take your eyes off for one second.

Unfortunately, as much Hernández’s impresses with flair and technique, he disappoints with nonsensical narrative. Too concerned with providing the inevitable twist at the end of the tale, The Silent House abandons cohesion and instead opts for a conclusion that just doesn’t make sense in the context of the proceeding scenes. It’s a bitter end after a bright beginning. If Hernández’s film was to be judged solely on its ability to unnerve, then it is without a doubt a success. However, taking the film as a whole, it’s hard not to feel a little unsatisfied; a little more attention to the story and we could have witnessed a modern day classic of the horror genre. Instead what we’re left with is an impressive example of how to develop tension and a nice advert for the Canon 5D.

via videos.antville

MONTI FIORI – BELLA from Sunny Side Up on Vimeo.

RED BALLOON from Alexis Wajsbrot on Vimeo.

Mace and Wajsbrot have also posted a VFX breakdown video you can watch below:

Making the VFX of RED BALLOON from Alexis Wajsbrot on Vimeo.

Mike Flanagan’s missing persons, horror feature Absentia does away with cheap jump scares in favour of a character study on the tolls absence takes on those left behind, with some deftly executed ‘less is more’ frights to boot. Mike joins us to discuss building a film from your available resources and keeping an audience engaged and entertained even during the funding stages.

Selling the movie is the only thing that’s going to really help you make another one.

Showlinks
Mike Flanagan
Absentia
Absentia Facebook
Kickstarter
Canon 5D MKII
Phase 4 Films