Recently uploaded to YouTube, Sleepless is a silent short film intended as an exercise in shot types for filmmaker EvilIggy. The short stars Shaunté Tabb, with music and sound effects by Than van Nispen and Paddy Uglow...
(Thanks to EvilIggy)
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Gordon and Combs talk Poe...
Click here for FEARnet's recent interview with long time collaborators Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs, where they discuss, among other things, the possibility of a Nevermore film adaptation...
"Yeah, absolutely. I would love to make a movie based on Nevermore. It'd be great. We've been talking about doing more Poe projects."
-Stuart Gordon
(Thanks to fearnet.com)
Die Farbe premiere announced...
Huan Vu's Die Farbe, an adaptation of The Colour Out of Space, will premiere Saturday, October 30th at the Delphi cinema theater in Stuttgart, Germany...
Contact Huan through die-farbe.com for details...
(Thanks to Huan Vu)
The Lovecraft Chronicles...
Novelist Matt Warner and filmmaker John Johnson have teamed up on a three-movie anthology called The Lovecraft Chronicles: Vol. 1 that will be available exclusively through Darkstone Entertainment. Warner wrote the segments Dumas and Leviathan, and a tie-in short story called The Lovecraft Chronicles: Raven that will be included as an insert in the collection...
The Lovecraft Chronicles stars Mariah Smith as Harriet Lovecraft, an illegitimate descendant of the pulp writer H.P. Lovecraft, who joins a group of descendants of other famed writers to hunt down rampaging monsters...
Check out the segment Juggernaut below (please note: contains nudity)...
Juggernaut from Darkstone Entertainment on Vimeo.
(Thanks to augustafreepress.com, matthewwarner.com and darkstone-ent.com)
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Seattle's Open Circle Theater Does it Again
Since 2002 Seattle’s Open Circle Theater has made their fall season something for any well-read horror fan to look forward to. Every year, from mid-October to mid-November they adapt a story by master-of-weird-horror H.P. Lovecraft and perform it on stage at their Belltown location. I only learned of the tradition two years ago and by that time the shows were selling out well in advance. To be honest, given the region’s predisposition to sneer at the genre, I have been surprised at the warm reception the productions receive. Despite the fact that I am just another horror fan in the area I’m quite proud of their work.
So when I was asked to help spread the word for this year’s show I leaped at the chance. Then they told me what they were doing and I deflated. Pickman's Model.
Really? That? As any fan of Lovecraftian movies can tell you, it's a story that's been committed to film and digital storage more times than possible to count. Ok, so it is possible but it's a lot of work and suffice it to say, there are a lot of versions out there.
So I really wasn't sure what to expect and was not exactly looking forward to sitting through yet another rendition of the same story. But I had faith. In the past they had delivered and so I would give them a chance. I am very glad I did.
John McKenna's vision of Lovecraft's classic tale is revisioned in a stunningly original and fresh way. The play opens in a modern Seattle gallery where Richard Upton Pickman (played by Simon Astor) is set to unveil his latest piece of work, Ghoul Feeding. Main characters Vivian (Marianna De Fazio) and Eliot (Kenna Kettrick) scramble, each in their own way, to ensure that Pickman’s vision goes off as planned -complete with an elaborate performance art piece- in spite of a frazzled curator (Jennifer Pratt) and the dire warnings of Eliot’s conspiracy-theorist ex-boyfriend, Adam (Colin Scheirber). However, no amount of planning could help overcome the unexpected death of a dancer at the finale of The Music of Eric Zann (a word for word recounting and performance, expertly woven in to the play that adds depth and flavor to a deepening plot; executed by the talented Liz Cortez and Cassandra Moselle) or the crimes that seem to follow Pickman’s colleague, the offensive Dr. Reed (Don MacEllis), around like a polluted halo. As Vivian and Eliot pry further into the mysteries surrounding the night they uncover hidden histories of the city, long repressed, visions best left unseen, and find themselves trapped within a danger greater than they ever could have imagined.
Due to the unique set up of the theater’s seating I actually did find myself quite frightened during the play’s harrowing climax (it should be noted that I ENJOY being scared) and while the friend who accompanied me to the rehearsal was disappointed that there wasn’t as big a pay off at the end scare wise, I’m not sure that I could have personally handled one. (Ok, I could have and would have loved it but I would have shrieked loud enough to embarrass myself and I am NOT ok with that) It was plenty scary to me.
My only real complaint is that I felt as though the plot could have explored a lot more, given us more time to savor the mysteries and experience the fear the two women feel as they uncover more and more connections leading from their former employer to a terrible brutality that spread up and down the west coast. But to pull that off the play would have ended up being twice as long and it was wonderful just the way it was. The writers (Dustin Engstrom, Vince Kovar, John McKenna and Ron Sandahl) took a story we’ve seen brought to life numerous times and showed us something so new that I can’t wait to go see it a second time! As a paying customer no less! And that is really saying something.
So when I was asked to help spread the word for this year’s show I leaped at the chance. Then they told me what they were doing and I deflated. Pickman's Model.
Really? That? As any fan of Lovecraftian movies can tell you, it's a story that's been committed to film and digital storage more times than possible to count. Ok, so it is possible but it's a lot of work and suffice it to say, there are a lot of versions out there.
So I really wasn't sure what to expect and was not exactly looking forward to sitting through yet another rendition of the same story. But I had faith. In the past they had delivered and so I would give them a chance. I am very glad I did.
John McKenna's vision of Lovecraft's classic tale is revisioned in a stunningly original and fresh way. The play opens in a modern Seattle gallery where Richard Upton Pickman (played by Simon Astor) is set to unveil his latest piece of work, Ghoul Feeding. Main characters Vivian (Marianna De Fazio) and Eliot (Kenna Kettrick) scramble, each in their own way, to ensure that Pickman’s vision goes off as planned -complete with an elaborate performance art piece- in spite of a frazzled curator (Jennifer Pratt) and the dire warnings of Eliot’s conspiracy-theorist ex-boyfriend, Adam (Colin Scheirber). However, no amount of planning could help overcome the unexpected death of a dancer at the finale of The Music of Eric Zann (a word for word recounting and performance, expertly woven in to the play that adds depth and flavor to a deepening plot; executed by the talented Liz Cortez and Cassandra Moselle) or the crimes that seem to follow Pickman’s colleague, the offensive Dr. Reed (Don MacEllis), around like a polluted halo. As Vivian and Eliot pry further into the mysteries surrounding the night they uncover hidden histories of the city, long repressed, visions best left unseen, and find themselves trapped within a danger greater than they ever could have imagined.
Due to the unique set up of the theater’s seating I actually did find myself quite frightened during the play’s harrowing climax (it should be noted that I ENJOY being scared) and while the friend who accompanied me to the rehearsal was disappointed that there wasn’t as big a pay off at the end scare wise, I’m not sure that I could have personally handled one. (Ok, I could have and would have loved it but I would have shrieked loud enough to embarrass myself and I am NOT ok with that) It was plenty scary to me.
My only real complaint is that I felt as though the plot could have explored a lot more, given us more time to savor the mysteries and experience the fear the two women feel as they uncover more and more connections leading from their former employer to a terrible brutality that spread up and down the west coast. But to pull that off the play would have ended up being twice as long and it was wonderful just the way it was. The writers (Dustin Engstrom, Vince Kovar, John McKenna and Ron Sandahl) took a story we’ve seen brought to life numerous times and showed us something so new that I can’t wait to go see it a second time! As a paying customer no less! And that is really saying something.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Plushies apparently popular
As reported here in the Yehuda blog, Cthulhu plushies seem to be quite popular, and there are a large variety of them, including the new Midnight Reaver Nyarlathotep and several other items here at Toy Vault.
Cthulhu even seems to be popular with the lego crowd as seen in the following:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=166054
http://gnomesteadstump.blogspot.com/2008/07/boys-and-their-toys.html
http://infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2006/02/lego_cthulhu_pa.html
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2006/04/25/more-lovecraftian-lego-from-mark-stafford/
And of course there are the somewhat famous Action Figures by SOTA.
Hard to believe there's so much cutesy Lovecraft inspired stuff.
With luck this weekend I'll have that first movie review I've been promising...
Cthulhu even seems to be popular with the lego crowd as seen in the following:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=166054
http://gnomesteadstump.blogspot.com/2008/07/boys-and-their-toys.html
http://infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2006/02/lego_cthulhu_pa.html
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2006/04/25/more-lovecraftian-lego-from-mark-stafford/
And of course there are the somewhat famous Action Figures by SOTA.
Hard to believe there's so much cutesy Lovecraft inspired stuff.
With luck this weekend I'll have that first movie review I've been promising...
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Updated: New Whisperer in Darkness trailer...
Check out the new trailer for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's The Whisperer in Darkness, their highly anticipated follow-up to The Call of Cthulhu...
Update: Sean Branney tells Unfilmable.com that YouTube altered the aspect ratio, so he removed the trailer. He is currently compressing a new version and will post it soon...
Update: The trailer for The Whisperer in Darkness has returned! Check it out below...
(Thanks to Sean Branney and Shawn Francis)
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Edgar Allan Poe remembered...
Edgar Allan Poe died on this day in 1849, at the age of 40...
(Thanks to Mark Redfield and Chris Perridas)
Monday, October 4, 2010
Re-Animator: The Musical...
Coming soon to the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, California, Re-Animator: The Musical is Stuart Gordon's return to the material that started it all! Written by Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli and William J Norris, with music by Mark Nutter, the musical stars Chris NcKenna, Sarah Glendening, William Atherton and Graham Skipper...
A stage reading of "She's Dead Dan, and Dead is Dead!" recorded live at the Steve Allen Theater screened at this past weekends H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon...
More as it becomes available...
(Thanks to reanimatorthemusical.com)
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Double Feature Press...
Sarah L. Covert has announced the launch of Double Feature Press, a small indie press that will release books based around the concept of old double feature drive-in flicks! Each book will contain two authors, with each author contributing either short stories, poems, or novellas to make up their half of the book. Each book will be limited edition, the first of which is due out in 2011. Joe Pulver and Robin Spriggs (see below) are already hard at work on the first Double Feature Press publication...
Head over to the DFP Kickstarter page for more information...
Robin Spriggs - The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom
The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom, according to arcane legend, is a collection of stories and poems about a collection of stories and poems by (if titles can be trusted) a certain Ozman Droom. But who is Ozman Droom? Or what is Ozman Droom? And when, where, why, and how is Ozman Droom? The answers to these and countless other questions of equally perilous rank await the curious seeker within the collection itself...provided such a book does indeed exist. And perhaps even if not. Caveat lector.
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. - Night Begets
Night burns and burrows, vast as any idea it declares its bottomless truth -- Terminus. The players and observers come, absorb and discard atoms, fill moments with ripples they call magic, or love, or chance, heartache, and fate. For knowledge and pleasure they steal editions, wait for, or take, more. Night loves nothing...and, finally, it takes all.
Joe Pulver's, Night Begets, is a collection of tales and poetic texts about lovelorn ghouls and other night-bound creatures as they discover sin and ashes bloom and echo in the noir labyrinths and pitch black, dungeon skirts of Night. It is a work that provokes and will leave an indelible mark on anyone who picks it up and comes through on the other side, painting a world that is as much brutal as it is beautiful and imploring readers to reconcile these seemingly antagonistic aspects of existence.
(Thanks to Sarah L. Covert)
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