Undead Backbrain

I keep seeing this title as “Killmelon” — a giant monster with a loathing for rockmelons, perhaps?

“A giant 30-foot chameleon discovered by a rogue scientist in the jungles of Madagascar, escapes from a plane crash while being smuggled into the United States. Hungry, the giant creature goes on a rampage through the countryside, devouring everyone in its path and laying waste to small towns. The military, along with the scientist’s daughter, must destroy the giant lizard before it reaches Los Angeles. In pre-production.” (Foywonder)

Apparently the above poster isn’t the “real” one, just a doodle by the filmmakers. The tagline — and the fact that the monster is a chameleon — suggests that budgetary limitations might be dealt with, at least in the SFX area, through invisibility.

Man: I was attacked by a huge monster. It ate my car.

Policeman: What did it look like?

Man: Um, well, a bit like Claude Rains actually…

The technique was previously used on the cheapie El Sonido prehistório [aka The Sound of Horror] (Spain-1964; dir. José Antonio Nieves Conde):

When a group of isolated people in the Greek mountains set off a cave explosion, they are menaced by an invisible shrieking dinosaur that had been buried for eons. (IMDB)

You won’t see it when it comes to a theatre near you!

What is $quid? Well, there are a couple of answers to that question — and here’s the first:

$quid, then, is an short film directed by Daley Pearson and Luke Tierney, and starring Josh Lawson and Ed Kavalee. It was released in 2007, runs for 7 minutes and is about a giant squid in the Brisbane River — a squid seeking revenge and money. Hey, who isn’t?

But that’s not the end of it. Pearson and Tierney have now expanded the award-winning short into a feature length film of the same name.

What’s it about? Well, it features “a giant squid that terrorises a New Year’s Eve cruise on the Brisbane River.” We’re urged to think Anaconda directed by the Coen Brothers.

Commented the filmmakers, “We’re calling it a Romster Comedy. That’s a genre we invented which is a romantic, monster, comedy.”

Kaiju Search-Robot Avery asked Daley Pearson a few questions about the project:

Avery: When do you plan on releasing this film?

Pearson: $quid is set for release late this year, early next year.

Avery: Is there a distributor?

Pearson: A few international distributors are currently looking at the film for cinema release. And we are hosting test screenings in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne City in Australia in the coming months. This is to gauge an audience reaction to the film.

Avery: Do we get to see a Squid?

Pearson: Yes. You get to see a giant squid in the film.

Here is a still from the film, showing the Brisbane River in all its creepy glory:

We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.

• Official website
• The Making of $quid, a 15-part doco (start here)

Rumour has it the Too Many Monkeys Production Company made this fake trailer for the Sci-Fi London 2003 film festival fake trailer competition.

It’s for a [non-existent] film called Attack of the Giant Radioactive Robot Women from Venus (2003), which is “a grim film noir homage that brilliantly questions accepted gender roles and male superiority in a pre-feminist age”.

Another rumour has it that a remake of this trailer has gone into production for release in 2010, directed by Michael Bay [no relation].

• Source: Too Many Monkeys website via Avery

The film: Gator (US-2008; short; 25 minutes; dir. Robert Howell)

The Poster:

The Technique: Stop-motion animation, dedicated to Ray Harryhausen

The Film: Part One

The Film: Part Two

The Film: Part Three

• Source: via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery

At the instigation of Mysterious Pants, the Backbrain scouted out Attack of the Giant Gull (US/Canada-2002; dir. Jonathan M. Parisen), which does appear on the Internet Movie Database as a video release, though no release date is actually given.

After a bit of a search, I found a conceptual poster mock-up that was done for the film by Shawn L. Fratis:

Fratis is a digital artist who “created many models and test shots” for the film, “including fire/explosion effects”. He also did “effects and animations of the giant seagull attacking New York”. [ref] In his resume, he lists the film as an “uncompleted project”.

Here are some test SFX shots [ref]:

This independent film is listed as being produced by Parivision Entertainment. I think it fair to say that it was a low-budget project that may or may not have been completed.

There’s a giant monster bird movie out there that is more recent than the infamous The Giant Claw (US-1957; dir. Fred F. Sears).

It’s called Big Bird — but it’s not this one by artist Jonni Good (click here to view Flash movie… it’s very short).

Nor does it have anything to do with this guy:

Kaiju Search-Robot Avery asked me if I’ve ever heard of the film that goes with the  poster on the right. Supposedly it’s a Thai film, and Avery says he first became aware of it via a 2005 issue of Fangoria, where it was mentioned — along with Deep Sea Monster Reigo and Mega-Snake — in an article on the American Film Market for that year. It is also mentioned by Foywonder (which is where the poster comes from).

But it still hasn’t … um… flown in.

Anyone heard of it? Details, please?

I guess it’s a spoof, if it even exists…

Director Jim Wynorski has just emailed notice of the Cleavagefield trailer. Follow the link below and you can see:

and

… not to mention this:

and plenty of…

See all this and more here.

• Source: Jim Wynorski
• Information on Cleavagefield

Stu Hiatt has sent Undead Backbrain this very early test reel for a Godzilla fan film he is working on. Stu is creating the monster business using stop-motion animation — a challenging approach but not one without precedent. I have already posted footage created by Toho for the film Gojira tai Biollante [aka Godzilla vs. Biollante] (1989; dir. Kazuki Omori), and stop-motion animation was used in a few very brief scenes in the original Gojira (1954).

Check back here for updates on Stu’s progress.

Amazing revelation! The skeletal remains of not one but two giant spiders that rampaged through Lincoln County, Wisconsin, in the US in 1975 have been discovered by arachnid wrangler Bill Rebane. Rebane was responsible for recording the twin mega-spiders’ murderous assault on Gleason and the city of Merrill in The Giant Spider Invasion, one of last century’s many celluloid arachnophobic attacks. The 10-metre spiders were said to harken from another dimension, entering our reality through a black hole and some rather dodgy special effects.

One of the spider skeletons — in reality metal framework that had been built around a VW Beetle by a welder named Carl Pfantz in order to create an ambulatory life-size giant spider — was located in a junkyard in Gleason. Rebane apparently plans to excavate the carcasse and sell it on eBay.

Rebane had the critter made when the film’s distributor insisted that his film include creature SFX to rival the shark in Jaws, which was then in production. Commented Rebane: “We had a VW sitting at the studio and a friend of mine said ‘Can we make a spider out of that?’ Carl Pfantz figured it out.”

“Pfantz’s steel framework was covered with black Fun Fur to make the spiders both hairy and scary. The mechanical nature of the beast required seven people to be stuffed within the cramped confines of the VW floorpan - a driver and six children to work the spider’s legs.

“It was about 100 degrees under there,” Rebane said.

The second, non-animated spider is being refurbished as a roadside  tourist attraction in Gleason.

The Giant Spider Invasion, filmed on a $300,000 budget, grossed $22 million according to Rebane, placing it among the top 50 grossing films of 1975, “when creature features ruled the drive-ins”.

Inspired by all this arachno-activity, Rebane is now planning a sequel film, though whether it happens or not is dependent on funding. He wants this film, should it eventuate, to feature CGI spiders rather than mechanical ones.

“We don’t ever want to recreate the VW Beetle,” Rebane said.

Read more about the earlier film and Rebane’s current plans on his website.

• Source: via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery

Addendum: The Trailer (Thanks, Avery)

Sometimes fairy tales make excellent (or at least interesting) horror films. Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) [aka El Laberinto del Fauno] is something of an epitomé of the approach, of course; but others, such as Michael Cohn’s Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997) and Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm (2005), do a good job of translating the imagery and sensibilities of Faerie into a horror genre context. Another recent film that springs to mind is M. Night Shyamalan’s rather awkward Lady in the Water (2006) — but the less said about that, the better, I suspect.

A new independent horror film that purports to use fairy-tale elements to weave its dark magic recently premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, taking the award for “Best of the Fest”.

Spike (US-2008; dir. Robert Beaucage)

Synopsis:

A young woman finds herself trapped in a nightmarish fairy tale come true, and must rescue her friends from a strange creature who idolizes her and will have her at any cost.

“There is always some madness in love….”

Director Robert Beaucage readily lists the influences that have driven his interest in fantasy tropes as a means of examining the undercurrents of our ordinary lives. He says:

“Dreams, fantasy, and mythology have fascinated me since my early childhood. From the exploits of Theseus, Perseus, and Odysseus to the works of C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll; from my own vivid childhood dreams rife with werewolves, witches, and dragons to the writings of Joseph Campbell and James Frazer, I have viewed fantasy and fairy tales as vital tools to understanding life.”

These cultural influences form the basis of his film’s thematic core.

“With Spike,” he commented, “I have set out to tell a fantasy story exploring dark and dangerous possibilities of a condition we have all experienced in one way or another: romantic love. Why do we love? What causes us to love particular individuals? What is love? Can we control it, or does it control us?”

Given my usual obsessions, I’m intrigued to know what form the romantically inclined titular creature might take, and the following image from the film suggests something both unique and literally described by its name.

Creature creator Jordu Schell’s design background speaks well for the possibilities. His resumé includes Men In Black, Planet of the Apes (2001), Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, X-Files: The Movie, Predator II, Galaxy Quest, Evolution, My Favorite Martian, Alien: Resurrection, The Guyver and Bedazzled.

Check out the website for more pictures, bios, storyboard images, behind-the-scenes stuff and clips from the film.

Afterthought:

I note the following statement from the director’s bio with even greater excitement: “His plans for a second feature will not include a monster, but may involve ghosts, time travel, and clockwork dinosaurs.” Clockwork dinosaurs? Very cool indeed!

• Source: the website via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery