Goosebumps

Sorry about the lack of activity lately. The blog's been pretty quiet since Halloween last year and is probably going to stay that way for a while. It's not that I've been keeping secrets - I just haven't done any prop-work since The Backs. Still not quite sure what's happening this Halloween. I know I'm not going to be doing any sort of public display. I've got a short video planned that I'd like to get started on soon, and hopefully by Halloween I'll have one or two props built and photographed to accompany it in some sort of disjointed blog post. Can't really guarantee anything at the moment.

One thing I do have to show for my absence is 'If It Were Stine' - a Tumblr blog I set up several weeks ago. I have a special place in my heart for R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series, and I thought it would be fun to turn some of my favorite horror films into Goosebumps covers. Well, the first one came out much better than expected and I decided to set up a blog. Tumblr is rife with fan-made posters, movie barcodes and cinematography palettes, so I figured my Photoshop experiments would fit right in.

Click here to check it out: If It Were Stine

The Woods Themselves

It's dark, it's crazy, it's gritty, it's wildly creative, and while some will say it's impact has faded over time, I still find it shockingly violent. Sam Raimi's 'The Evil Dead' is one of my favorite films, and when I saw the Deadite Of The Day Contest post on bloody-disgusting.com I immediately set to work. I hauled an old prop out of the attic and gave it a complete makeover. A new head, a new arm, a new paint job and a whole lot of angry molesting tree roots. On the weekend, I took it into the forest and filmed it. I got eaten alive by mosquitos and nearly smashed the camera into several trees, but it was great fun. And since The Evil Dead was one of the movies that inspired me to try out filmmaking, I felt I owed it to it.

I quickly edited the footage together with audio samples from The Evil Dead, uploaded it to Vimeo, and sent it off to bloody-disgusting.com for consideration on Monday night. My parents woke me up early on Wednesday morning with exciting news. The article pretty much speaks for itself, so click below for the link:

Needless to say, it was incredible to see myself of Bloody Disgusting. I've been checking their site daily for two years, so it was nothing short of surreal to see my name and prop on their headlines. And I keep thinking about all the people that may or may not end up seeing it (do horror directors check Bloody Disgusting?).

Anyway, here's the video, titled 'The Woods Themselves' - my love letter to Sam Raimi's original 'The Evil Dead'.

Skeletons

I've always been a huge movie fan, and I've always been fascinated by the film-making process. I never rent a DVD without watching the special features. I love reading interviews with my favourite directors, and I'll often rewatch movies with the commentary on as I work on props or other such things. I never really thought about making my own movies until I saw The House Of The Devil. I've warbled and raved extensively about this film before, but for whatever reason, it really struck a chord with me. I made a few (very) short films since then, mostly just shot by myself on one night. And I found that I liked doing it quite a lot.

Over the past while, I've been working on making a 'proper' short film. I wrote a script, drew out a storyboard, built props and makeshift camera dollies, and convinced my dad to play the lead (and only) role. We worked till late many nights - it's worth noting that it's summer over here, which doesn't help when you have to film everything after dark (a quick shout-out to my mother and sister, who'd let us kick them out of the living room nearly every night for filming). After many, many hours of filming, re-filming and re-re-re-filming, we finally finished. I've spent the last week or so writing and composing music for it. When I say writing, I mean poking at the piano keys until something nice came out, and when I say composing I mean putting my sister's laptop on top of the piano and recording from the tiny in-built microphone straight into iMovie. Overall, it's been a fantastic and fun experience, albeit with an enormous amount of help from my dad, who happily and enthusiastically complied with my stupid perfectionism, proved to be quite knowledgeable about film-making and let me advertise him as a remorseful child murderer on the internet.

I'm thrilled to announce the beginning of my (very) amateur 'production company' Geisterbahn Pictures, and to debut my first film - Skeletons. It's set on the night before Halloween, and revolves around a reclusive haunter who gets a late-night visit from what appears to be a trick-or-treater.

Get yourself comfortable, put on some headphones and enjoy...

Dear Ti West

I first heard of 'The House Of The Devil' via Pumpkinrot's blog. I decided to look up the film and was blown away by the awesome posters, and then again by the awesome title sequence, and then again by the awesome limited-edition VHS. I went into a state of what the youngsters these days call 'extreme fangurlin' - wailing, falling over, hyperventilating, crying, etc...
I managed to sway my parents, and quickly bought a copy of 'The House Of The Devil'. I didn't even rent it first to make sure it was good. Popping it into the DVD player, I knew I was in for a real treat. And I was.

From the first frame, 'The House Of The Devil' is a piece of art. The film is styled to look, sound and feel like the low-key horror films of the 70s and 80s - every last detail of it. While the opening credits proudly and loudly announce the retro style early on, it is never overblown, and it never distracts from the actual story. 'The House Of The Devil' is a slow-burning horror flick, with not much happening for most of the running length. Regardless, I never find myself bored watching it. The long, drawn-out sequences feel oddly comfortable, which I feel is helped by the wonderful colour palette and cinematography. Many reviewers and horror fans criticize the film's climax, saying that it is a let-down due to the suspense and build-up beforehand. I couldn't disagree more. The crazy and dizzying final act is the highlight of the film, and something which I have watched over and over.

For many years, I never understood the role of a film director. I always pictured them as someone who bosses the cast and crew around. Of course, I worked out what a director actually does long ago, but I never really understood a director. Watching 'The House Of The Devil', I made a sudden connection. It was a truly epiphanic moment. I realized that 'The House Of The Devil' was not constructed by a myriad of writers, producers and co-directors. Every aspect of the film felt like it was carefully crafted by one singular person. Like the horror-fueled dreams of a creative genius had sprung to life on my TV screen. For the first time, I felt a real connection with the director of a film. I had to find out who this guy was.

This wonderful portrait (couldn't find out who the artist was) pretty much sums up the way I feel about Ti West. He is the writer/director/editor of some of the 2000's finest horror films - The Roost, Trigger Man, The House Of The Devil and The Innkeepers. He is surely one of the best horror directors of the past few decades.

I have yet to see 'Trigger Man', but I can wholeheartedly recommend 'The Roost' and 'The Innkeepers' to any and all fans of horror. 'The Roost' is a crazy and imaginative Evil-Dead-esque affair, presented as part of a late-night horror show. 'The Innkeepers' is an old-fashioned ghost story, full of screams, shivers and (surprisingly) laughs. So get off my blog and go check out his movies. They're awesome.

To round off a post of gushing and adulating:

Dear Ti West,

I LOVE your movies and old-school style.

You make me want to become a horror director.

Keep making movies, man.

Sincerely, Adoring Fanboy