To quote Wikipedia: “Midges comprise many kinds of very small two-winged flies found world-wide. The term does not encapsulate a well-defined taxonomic group, but includes animals in several families of Nematoceran Diptera.”

The short film, The Midge, directed with style by Rory Lowe, gives little back-story or explanation for its events, but uses sensuous, high-resolution photography and a subtly disturbing soundscape to forge a connection between sexual uncertainty and a horror scenario involving a new breed of insect. Flesh, sex, infestation and insemination are intertwined through superb close-up photography of insects and CGI imagery, as well as subtle performances from its two human principles.

Without being overly insistent, Lowe and his team fill the woodland in which a young woman and her sexually inexperienced boyfriend take part in a game of seduction with menace and a growing sense of dread — the external threat giving metaphorical force to the young man’s sexual fear. It is subtle, happening without the methodology becoming obvious, at least in most instances. Take a look at the film and I think you’ll see what I mean. The imagery is carefully chosen, so that the young man’s internal uncertainties are everywhere reflected and enhanced — until consummation brings sex and fear together in a bloody moment of conception.

Sound is used beautifully, too, giving the soundscape of the woods and the growing presence of the insects a music of their own. It is a quiet symphony, in which human dialogue seems almost discordant, and making the end even more inevitable.

Trailer:

The Midge trailer from Once Were Farmers on Vimeo.

Director Rory Lowe gave Undead Backbrain an insight into the making of the film:

It was quite an experience making the film, a huge learning process. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I’m proud of it and I’ve learnt a hell of a lot along the way!

In true horror film style we had some fairly major incidents along the way, too. On the first take of the first day the Steadicam guy had an accident and smashed the RED cam, not a good start but we managed to sort it out enough to tentatively continue. The actress — Amy — became ill on the second day of the shoot – something to do with swimming in that lake possibly… It was her 30th birthday and she was stuck in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere with no-one about and no phone reception. She got well enough to shoot again but for some of the Macro scenes we had to prop her up whilst we filmed around her in extreme Macro! We also nearly killed the boy — Sean — he hyperventilated shooting the scene at the end where you see his face upside down looking more and more freaked out. It was a great shot and we struggled to contain ourselves from bursting out with laughter as he performed it several times. We didn’t have the time or money to set any of that up in a studio so it was all filmed in a tent in the hot sun at the edge of a field. It got very, very hot in there and shooting the last part when Amy has her head on Sean’s chest, he is heavy breathing and the breathing suddenly stops. We’d done about 4 takes when Sean suddenly did it completely wrong. He went all floppy and lay down. He gave me a blank look as I called first positions again and got ready for another take. After a couple of blinks he asked if he could have a moment and it became apparent that he’d blacked out from hyperventilation. Imagine it from his perspective, as he told us afterwards: he woke up in a hot sweaty tent in the middle of nowhere, not knowing what was going on or how he’d got there — he didn’t know any of us before hand — he had a hot young scantily clad lady on top of him ready to ride him like a wild animal and a bunch of big hairy sweaty men around him filming it all! For a moment he wondered where his life had gone wrong and he’d got into porn!

We had a great time making and I’m hugely grateful to everyone who helped out. It was made for next to nothing, just enough for us to hire the camera and feed everyone! Just. I learned a massive amount in the process and I’m really looking forward to pushing it further in the future.

Lowe added that he hoped he might be able to turn The Midge into a feature film one day.

Note: Currently you can view The Midge on the website of I’ve Seen Films — International Film Festival 2011 Internet Short Film Contest. Go there now to watch the film and vote on it!

Gallery:

Sources: Rory Lowe via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.

Gitte Christensen

Congratulations, Gitte. The new region-B Blu-ray of Evangelion 1.11: You Are [Not] Alone will be heading your way first thing on Monday, courtesy of Madman Entertainment and Undead Backbrain.

But before I give you the details, read the Backbrain’s review of Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone (Japan-2007; dir. Masayuki Yamaguchi, Kazuya Tsurumaki and Hideaki Anno) here.

Have you read it?

Good.

The Details:

To win a copy of this Madman Blu-ray edition of Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone, simply send your name and postal address to: backbrain@gmail.com. Put the words EVANGELION BLU-RAY in the subject header. The only proviso is that you must live in Australia. Oh, and you can only enter once. One week from now all entries received will go into the draw and I will get my cat Pazuzu to randomly pick a winner from the box. He’s become quite good at it and hardly ever cheats. The prize comes courtesy of Madman Entertainment.

Go for it!

Why? Read on.

Peter Watts has written some of the best hardcore science fiction available today. On reading his first Rifters novel, Starfish, I became an instant admirer, blown away not simply by the detailed and convincing tech and the compelling story, but by his ability to integrate real science into his fiction without turning the prose to stodge and while allowing vivid characterisation to drive the narrative. His work is dark, technological and grim, yet it is also profoundly humanistic, and thus ultimately a source of light and hope. It is smart and original, rather like the man himself.

As a example, check out Peter’s brilliant take on John Carpenter’s classic SF monster flick, The Thing — entitled “The Things” — a re-telling of the story written from the point-of-view of the alien itself. Unbelievable! It’s available on Clarkesworld here.

Apart from anything else, Starfish and its sequels would make a great movie franchise in their own right. Are you listening, Hollywood? Critics often comment on all the unimaginative SF remakes and sequels that are hitting our cinema screens these days. Why not consider these books for something both new and thrilling?

But I digress.

As you may or may not know, Peter Watts recently found himself at the receiving end of an example of law-enforcement gone berserk. After being bashed by US border guards and spending a fearful six months dealing with the US justice system, Peter was cleared of most charges but found guilty of failing to comply with an order quickly enough — despite the fact that almost everyone concerned considered him the victim in the affair. It’s a scary story for those of us who consider ourselves decent folk who, like Watts, deserve to be protected, not victimised, by our respective governments’ representatives.

The experience drained Peter emotionally and financially. My partner, Australian writer Cat Sparks, wants to help him get to Australia for this year’s World SF Convention, Aussiecon 4, which is being held in Melbourne in September — especially as his story “The Island” has been nominated for a Hugo. I’m certainly right behind her endeavour, for Peter’s sake and my own — hey, I’d love to meet the guy. So listen up and if you’d like to help as well, you’ll learn how you can do so.

Cat writes:

Many of you will be familiar with this story already but for anyone who isn’t:

Last year Canadian marine biologist and science fiction writer Dr Peter Watts underwent a terrifying ordeal at the hands of over zealous border crossing guards in Port Huron, USA. While leaving the United States on December 8, 2009, he was subject to an exit search, then beaten, maced and arrested when he tried to find out what was going on.

A full account of the incident and what was to follow is up on Tor.com.

Or hear him interviewed about his experience, podcast at Starship Sofa.

Even though all he did was fail to promptly comply with border guards’ instructions, he narrowly escaped a prison sentence and is now officially a convicted felon and therefore no longer able to attend US conventions.

Peter’s short story ‘The Island’ from The New Space Opera 2, edited by Gardner Dozois and our own Jonathan Strahan, has been nominated for a Hugo award. What with Worldcon being on Aussie soil in September this year, I thought it would be a good thing if he could fly out here for both the Hugos and Aussiecon itself.

To that end, with Peter’s permission, I’m conducting a raffle to raise money for his airfare and accommodation. First prize is tuckerisation [inclusion of your name] in his next novel State of Grace. Peter says:

“make sure that all entrants realize that their namesakes will most likely come to a really painful and unpleasant end. And they may not be especially cuddly as characters before then…”

The Aussiecon committee has very kindly donated Peter’s membership. The rest is up to us. If you think the guy deserves a break, how about taking part in the raffle or making a donation?

I’ve never met Peter face-to-face but we’ve been email buddies since I sent him a gushing fan letter after reading his first novel Starfish some years back.

He is well-known as an excellent-value panelist and would be a fantastic asset to the ‘hard science fiction’ end of the Con’s literary stream. He has also consented to participate in Dudcon where he will hand out the Ditmars and generally partake of other silliness as required.

To participate in the State of Grace tuckerisation raffle send AUS $10 via Paypal to watts2aussiecon@gmail.com.

Email me privately if you’d prefer to buy a ticket via some other medium: cat [at] catsparks.net.

If you’re not into tuckerisation but would like to sling a few bucks into the pot, that’s awesome, too.

Any funds raised surplus to requirements will be donated to a reputable charity of Peter’s choice.

Feel free to re-post this message on your own blog if you consider this to be a worthy project.

Thank you!

Source: catsparx Livejournal site

To celebrate the coming of Ninjaz With Attitude to Canberra — where they did irreparable damage to the minds, souls and virginity of attendees at Conflux 6, an annual speculative fiction convention held in Australia’s national capital, as well as disposing of a few politicians on the side — Cat Sparks, their most ardent scifi devotee, ran a Ninja flash fiction competition. The winner has been declared. It’s Crisetta MacLeod. Crisetta will now be transported to the Ninjaz’ home planet where she will undergo a grueling ten-year training program before being “initiated” into the Ninjaz’ official retinue as a “pleasure drone”.

Meanwhile, here’s her story. It is, of course, unfit for delicate minds.

Ninja Nemesis

by Crisetta MacLeod

— winner of the Conflux 6 Ninja flash fiction writing competition, 2009

Ninjas don’t collect their super. Can’t have a ninja wearing glasses, complaining about rheumatism, so other ninjas kill them off. I found myself slowing down. I dropped a throwing star – a shuriken – on my foot. I was wearing my wooden animal paws but it went right through. Then later as I snuck into a ninja-free zone, an urchin said: “That man’s pretending he’s hiding!”

The shame! I was bound for ignominious involuntary retirement. Time to disappear.

I became a Sydney taxi driver then. I was making a living selling secrets discussed in the back of my cab, but my hearing started to go. Can hardly say: “Would you mind repeating that, I didn’t quite catch what you said?”

By then I was pushing ninety, so I bought myself a retirement unit. When Doris Darkly complained in the dining room:

“Pass the salt, why do you hog it at your end?” I ran up the wall, did a back flip on to the table, and booted the salt into her disgruntled face, making a condiment-shaped hole. Fred bumped me with his walking frame, so that I poured a spoonful of hot soup painfully into my trousers. I twisted his frame into an insoluble metal puzzle, strangling him.

OK – I just imagined those incidents. But I did like scaring them into heart attacks if they ventured out after dark. And little ninja bombs, with lots of smoke, kept the maintenance people busy looking for fire hazards.

Deeds perhaps unworthy of our founder, Prince Yamoto. But fun, and they kept my hand in.

The other residents asked about my life. I muttered about military involvement, until a real ex-military bloke asked about campaigns, and ranks. Couldn’t allow that, so he had to die. I snuck into his unit and suffocated him. They thought sleep apnoea got him, nosy fat bastard.

“I’m a retired ninja. I can undertake mercenary malevolence,” I once proclaimed over a game of Rumikins.

“Don’t be ridiculous, young man, that’s a species of turtle,” snorted Gladys Whipplethorpe. The insult! She had to die. I used kendo stick techniques, as she negotiated steps in the gardens. Her rickety little legs snapped, she cracked her head satisfyingly and became quite messily dead.

Later, Fred Featherstonehaugh told me about his daughter-in-law, who had shoved him into the retirement village and taken his home. I stabbed her with my kunoichi. I took her handbag, her watch, and her dignity. I melded into the walls with ninja cunning.

Plenty of ninja opportunities, even in retirement, you see!

I started venturing out at night. I set the dogs barking hysterically; I terrified virgins by peering through their bedroom windows.

Four thugs surrounded me! I back-flipped and broke the first one’s neck, slipped my ninja-to sword between the ribs of another. Tripped two others with my shoge, sickle on a chain, then put out their eyes. My old heart gave out with joy! I died happily amongst the bloodied dead, ninja to the end.

• Ninjaz With Attitude homepage

Streetlights flickered and coughed as she passed. For a while, hope was a euphoric drug that changed her subtly, slowly — the rhythms of breathing, the flow of blood in her veins falling into a pattern that was in harmony with the world’s. For the first time in her life Leah was beginning to feel as though she belonged in the world — and in herself. Was this the transmutation she’d hoped for?

Yet hope is a fragile thing.

This is the beginning of my section of a “round-robin” horror story, written in conjunction with a bunch of other Australian horror writers a while back. The story was created for a competition run by the Australian Horror Writers Association. Now the final phase of the competition is upon us and below is the information you’ll need to be part of it.

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The AHWA and ‘Nameless’ competition director Stephen Studach are thrilled to announce that the “Nameless” competition will be judged by multi-award winning master of dark fiction Ramsey Campbell.

In honour of Mr Campbell’s involvement, the competition’s deadline has been extended to the 13th of March, 2010.

Read the story here. Come up with a conclusion and a title! Make your $10 donation and enter the competition here.

Competition prizes include a $500 winner’s cheque, and a prize pool of horror goodies:

• A manuscript version of the story signed by as many of the writers involved as can be tracked down.
• A copy of The Australian Writer’s Marketplace 2009/2010.
• A copy of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 19th annual collection (edited by Datlow, Link and Grant.)
• Free 1-year membership, or 12-month renewal, to the Australian Horror Writers Association.
• Books: Signed limited editions — Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge; Wild Things by Douglas Clegg; Prodigal Blues by Gary A. Braunbeck.
• A boost to any personal horror library — Development Hell by Mick Garris; Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill; Infected by Scott Sigler; The Nature of Balance by Tim Lebbon; The Dark Descent edited by David G. Hartwell; a pre-loved copy of The Books of Blood (vols 1-3) from Marty Young’s own collection.
• A first edition of The Last Days of Kali Yuga, Paul Haines’ forthcoming collection of stories; published to impeccable standards by Brimstone Press, and slated for release in December 2009.

The six best endings will be featured at HorrorScope – The Australian Dark Fiction Weblog.

All proceeds from this competition go to award-winning author Paul Haines, to assist Paul and the Haines family, while Paul undergoes treatment for cancer.

• Source: Stephen Studach

Our long-running series of articles on the Top 20 Craziest Kaiju — with titles chosen by Kaiju Search-Robot Avery — is about to end. This time tomorrow I’ll be posting Avery’s Number One choice.

So you have approximately 24 hours to submit your guess at Avery’s Number One Craziest Kaiju and potentially win a great prize.

See here for the details.

With the chance of winning a unique, artist-signed art poster featuring Todd Tennant’s great King Komodo comic kaiju, what have you got to lose?

Leave your choice as a comment to the competition announcement page.

24 hours from… now! Go for it!

YOU could win an artist-approved, limited edition print of Todd Tennant’s King Komodo in action (see image below)!

In the lead-up to the announcement of Kaiju Search-Robot Avery’s Top 20 Craziest Kaiju Countdown Number 1 spot, I thought we’d have a contest.

The winner must guess Avery’s Number 1 pick (subject to rules set out below).

If you’ve forgotten the parameters of the Top 20 Craziest Kaiju Countdown, read Avery’s introduction here!

For a complete listing of the films that have appeared to date, go to the Category listing.

The Rules

1. One entry per person.

2. The entrant who picks Avery’s Number 1 choice wins the prize (subject to the following conditions).

3. Designation of the Number 1 choice should include title, director and year of first release so that we’re all clear on exactly which film you are talking about.

4. If more than one entrant picks Avery’s choice correctly, the names of all those with the correct answer will be placed in a box and a final winner drawn at random.

5. The judge’s choice will be final and no annoying correspondence will be entered into.

6. The judge in case of dispute will be Pazuzu the Cat, as always.

7. Entries should be sent as a comment to this post. Entries will not be accepted in any other way.

8. Entries close the moment I post a Backbrain announcement that the Top 20 Craziest Kaiju Countdown Number 1 choice is about to be revealed.

The Prize

King Komodo is a rampaging behemoth created by kaiju artist Todd Tennant. He is lead mon-star of a graphic serial, Tales of King Komodo, written by Mick Bogue and drawn by Todd, that is currently appearing in the long-running giant monster magazine, G-Fan. If you haven’t seen it before, you should pick up a copy of G-Fan from your local newsagency, comic store or online, and find out what you’re missing (and if you’re into giant monster movies and don’t subscribe, you’re definitely missing out bigtime)!

The print, titled “King Komodo Poster III”, comes on high-quality art paper and is 8.5″ X 11″ in size. It is signed and numbered by the artist.

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Feel free to spread the news of this contest to friends and enemies alike.

Good luck!

Check out all the entries here.

Over the next month, Undead Backbrain will be running a special feature put together by Kaiju Search-Robot Avery. The Backbrain has a propensity for lists and that’s what Avery has created — a Top 20 list that has sparked his imagination and will hopefully spark yours. Follow the progress of the list as we work our way toward Number 1 on the hit parade — and stay on the look-out for a competition the Backbrain will be running in conjunction with it. Welcome to:

Introduction by Kaiju Search-Robot Avery

What scares you? This is a question that cinema has been asking since the lights first dimmed and the celluloid started to roll. Perhaps you’re most afraid of a vengeful spirit, or a corpse resurrected from the dead and craving the taste of human flesh? Maybe it’s an incredibly charming Count with an unnatural appetite for human blood? Or the hideous creation of a mad scientist, brought to life through the use of body parts from the deceased and a good dose of electricity?

Or is size the thing? Perhaps massive scale scares you — the helplessness that comes from feeling small and insignificant? What of the giant that could stomp his massive foot and destroy with ease the very place that you so fondly call home, your safe haven? What of the huge monstrosity that, with the slightest flick of its humongous tail, could reduce an entire city block to rubble? For such a beast to appear anywhere would cause the masses to flee through the streets in panic, trying to escape its unnatural hugeness. Over the years filmmakers have exercised their creative talents in bringing these fearsome gargantuans to life using the SFX magic of cinema, whether it be a giant hairy ape or a skyscraper-sized scaly reptile. Cinema offers the perfect means to create the illusion that such creatures are possible and, given half a chance, the filmmakers went for it, claws and all!

At times, though, some of these creative scaremongers have let their imaginations run riot and have brought to life some very ‘unique’, if not insane, monsters.

The Top 20 Craziest Kaiju Countdown is a list that pays tribute to the most bizarre behemoths, honours those over-sized creations that display an excess of imagination (or a massive amount of drug use). Whether head-shakingly outlandish or mind-bogglingly inconceivable, some of cinema’s most awe-inspiring goliathan stars will be showcased in the coming days.

However, in order to keep the list manageable there had to be rules. This is a list to honour those monsters that have graced the big screen and towered over us as we cringed in fear at their massive size. Hence, I have included only big screen stars — no TV titans. Those small-screen giants deserve a list all in their own, but for the sake of this particular exercise I decided to leave them out. Also these are the daikaiju that carried their own starring vehicles or were able to steal the show in their on-screen cameo debuts; no supporting nemesis that took second billing in another more upmarket daikaiju’s film. Again, this list is to honour ‘creativity’ and ‘inventiveness’ on the filmmaker’s behalf, not to reward those that simply took a pre-existing idol or myth and used its design in creating their own monster. Hence, I have included only original creations.

Most importantly, you should remember that we are not evaluating the artistic value or significance of particular films here. This isn’t the Top 20 Best Giant Monster Films, or the Top 20 Most Important Kaiju. I wanted to probe the heights of the Bizarre, to spotlight the Weird and the Wonderful…

This is Kaiju Search-Robot Avery’s Top 20 Craziest Kaiju Countdown.

Enjoy!

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• Crazy Kaiju Number 20!