It’s not an odd thing — this darkening of fairy tales. The originals of most of the famous fairy tales were extremely dark and nasty — representing a sort of pre-industrial scare campaign targeting the overly naïve world-view of the young and dangerously innocent. Many of these mortality tales were “cleaned-up” during Victorian times when children were re-envisioned as nice, unsullied slates on which only good things should be written, little recognising the morbid curiosity that often drives them toward blood, guts and tales of violence. In fact, traditional fairy tales have a tendency to look at the dark side of life and death. So sex and mortality can quite easily retro-fit back into the censored versions:

As well as in comics such as the above and in anthologies such as Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales and its follow-ups (not to mention Aussie dark fantasist Margo Lanagan’s stunning novel Tender Morsels), fairy tales and original fairytale stories that are horrific in nature have been turned into horror films, some suitable for kids and some not. In 2007 South Korea produced both Bunhongsin [aka The Red Shoes] (dir. Yong-gyun Kim), based on the Hans Christian Anderson story) — see Undead Backbrain review — and a rather grim horror film based on the Hansel and Gretel tale,  Henjel gwa Geuretel (directed by Pil-Sung Yim).  Then there’s Spike (US-2008, dir. Robert Beaucage) in which “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” (see Undead Backbrain article). Add to that, Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm (2005) and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) [aka El Laberinto del Fauno]. All these (and more) could be styled as “dark fairy tales”.

Lisl and the Lorlok (US-2011; dir. Ignatius Fischer), which is currently in post-production, looks like another example, and a particularly classy one at that. Writer/director Ignatius Fischer, who before this worked in the SFX industry fabricating miniatures for films such as The Fifth Element, Titanic, Dante’s Peak and HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon, commented that his aim was to make a horror film that kids could watch with their parents — “a fairy tale, complete with an allegory”.

This is my first feature as a director and I knew I needed to make something on a very small scale, but I wanted an original story, something that could be, at the very least, a little unique. The film is not fast-paced, not fx-driven; there are no four-letter words, no gore and very little violence. But hopefully there are some very unsettling scenes and high levels of suspense… Ultimately I hope children and adults can enjoy the motion picture with a bowl of popcorn and the lights turned off.

The theme, he says, centers around issues of mortality and addiction (allegorically presented), “as seen through the eyes of a child and couched in a suspense/horror movie framework”.

Synopsis:

When tragedy strikes, 10-year old Lisl returns to the family estate to care for her ailing grandmother. She soon discovers a dark creature haunting the house and realizes she may be the only one who can save them. Believing is only half the battle …

Katerina Fischer as Lisl and Bobbye Louise Ames as Grandma

An odd stone, given to Lisl by her adventurer Grandfather

Long Synopsis:

Lisl Pratt is ten years old. Her mother, Mischa, is a nurse, putting off a career in photography to cover the family’s bills while her father, Harrison, the famous author, deals with writer’s block. When her adventurer Granddad dies mysteriously, Lisl and her parents travel to the old family estate to take care of Grandma. Lisl soon encounters a frightening creature, but is certain the adults won’t believe her. Eventually Lisl suspects Grandad might even be haunting the house. As the adults begin to withdraw into their own worlds, leaving Lisl to fend for herself, the little girl dons her grandfather’s adventure gear and sets out to track down the monster on her own. When she discovers what the creature is doing to her family, she must figure out how to save them and battle the Lorlok once and for all.

Ivan Borntrager as Harrison

Lisl and her mother, Mischa (Kimberly Parmon)

Adventuring

Check out the trailer:

Though director Ignatius Fischer and his crew are keeping the final monstrous Lorlok largely under wraps, he’s provided some hints. The Lorlok, he says, is “a magical creature that preys on the psychic energies of people, on what may be called the spirit or soul.” The real question, he adds, is “where does the lorlok come from?”

These screencaps (and others throughout this article) are largely raw stills, with no colour correction, etc. But they give some indication of the insectoid nature of the monster — and its size.

Fischer recounts how the Lorlok was created:

Initially we’d decided to create the lorlok as a 1:1 scale puppet that would be shot as a live action character interacting in real time with the actors. A creature fx designer was hired and plans were drawn up. On the first day of shooting…. there was no lorlok. The creature never showed up and we were faced with a major dilemma: scrap production until a creature could be fabricated by someone else or roll the dice, shoot the film and hope we could find a digital effects team who could work with our lack of budget and create a digital version of the lorlok. We rolled the dice and in the end, it was certainly the right decision. Sohail Wasif brought his amazing illustration and design skills to the table and sculpted a wicked lorlok in 3D space; Roger Wickes too that 3D model and breathed life into it with his animation prowess, working constantly against a production that was not at all prepared from a technical POV for CGI animation. Two years after production we have a finished film with a terrifying monster — it was worth the wait.

If you want to get a clearer view of the design of the creature, below are some conceptual illustrations by Sohail Wasif and Bimal Gorajia, who also designed the poster (click on the images to enlarge them):

Meanwhile, Lisl and the Lorlok is official selection at the upcoming 2011 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema in Idyllwild, CA, where the film will have its world premiere (on 12 January).

Hopefully we will all be able to see it before too long.

Check out more images from the film and its production in the Gallery below.

• Sources: Ignatius Fischer; Press release; Official website; Facebook page; production company Witness Pictures website.
• Information via Avery Guerra; written by Robert Hood.

Gallery:

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino took the idea one step further, of course, in their 2007 Grindhouse project — a double feature of two pseudo-80s exploitation films, Planet Terror and Death Proof, along with fake trailers for coming attractions by Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright. The full thing came complete with scratches and an “old-film” look, including breaks in the action that were supposedly the result of the film being split and haphazardly spliced back together in the projection booths of umpteen flea-pit cinemas. Ironically, Rodriguez’s fake trailer for “Machete” has turned into a real film — again adopting the retro-80s style. There were rumours of Zombie doing likewise with his “Werewolf Women of the SS” trailer, but as far as I know that one hasn’t come to fruition.

Now Ollie Bostock and his film partner Jonny Eveson have concocted something along the same lines — and it has the potential to grow.

The story goes:

In 1970s New York one cinema broke all the rules: The Hewitt and Walker Cineplex of Brooklyn, a cinema that played back-to-back hardcore horror and non-stop gut-wrenching gore.

The cineplex was burned to the ground by an angry mob in 1985, killing both the owners who were trapped inside.

Now for the first time in motion picture history, out of the ashes of time and the rubble of eternity, comes the last remaining film reel from the most infamous cineplex of all time.

Trailer:

Opening of the Film:

Bostok explained to Undead Backbrain:

The film came about after my filmmaker partner and I made a spoof 80s B-movie horror trailer called “Death Chair”. That film was so much fun to make, we decided to make another. “Killer Flies from Mexico” won a competition to be among the extras on the UK release of the Paranormal Activities DVD earlier this year.

Since making “Flies” we have made three more. A Vietnam war film trailer called “Hunter”, a horror called “The Return of Dr Mike Griffin” and another B-movie horror called “Sponge”.  These trailers now feature on the film we are in the final stages of editing: The Hewitt & Walker History of Cinema.

It’s about a fake Cineplex in the 80s Brooklyn called the Hewitt & Walker Cineplex. Our film is the last remaining film reel to come from the burned-down wreckage of that cinema.

You can see the posters for all the “fake” films in the Gallery below. But here’s Killer Flies From Mexico, followed by the trailer:

Bostock commented on this: “Killer flies could be a good feature. I might think about a script!” Let’s hope so.

• Source: Ollie Bostock via Avery Guerra. Pictures via MySpace site. Writing by Robert Hood.

Gallery:

Synopsis:

A slacker wakes up to find himself weak, wrapped in webbing and cocooned to the wall of his office. After realizing that the world has been taken over by giant alien insects, he wakes a ragtag group of strangers and together they fight for survival.

Infestation does for giant bugs what Shaun of the Dead did for zombies, pitting an “ordinary” bloke against an apocalyptic nightmare, with a comedic tongue wedged firmly in its cheek — and some romance thrown in as well. It stars Chris Marquette, Brooke Nevin, Ray Wise, Bru Muller, Deborah Geffner and Efram Potelle and is R rated for “violence, language and brief nudity”.

Kaiju Search-Robot Avery has gathered together so many shots from the film, you could probably make your own version of the movie by stringing the lot together in chronological order. If you’ve got some time on your hands, go for it! Otherwise, wait until tomorrow and pick up a copy from your favourite DVD emporium.

Check out the gallery below to see the lot!

Trailer:

Gallery:

• Source: MovieWeb; Official website; and elsewhere, collected by Avery
• Previous Undead Backbrain article, with a history of giant bug flicks!

The full title of this Modern Mechanics article from December 1930 read “Will Monster Insects Rule the World?” Though offered here as a mere speculative possibility, the idea that giant insects will eventually dominate life on Earth is one that may represent a valid scenario, according to cryptozoological historian Doug Ormsham.

During the course of an on-again, off-again project to catalog and hence validate the vast personal writings of his monster-hunting great-grandfather Hugo Drakenswode, Ormsham has remained in patchy correspondence with Undead Backbrain author Robert Hood — and has remarked on the frequency with which giant insects appear in his great-grandfather’s journals. When questioned on the subject, Ormsham wrote:

My great-grandfather was certainly of the opinion that as ordinary insects hold, by virtue of sheer numbers, a vast dominance over all other species on Earth — representing something like 90% of all life-forms — the frequency of the appearance of monstrous insects in the past suggests that mega-insecta are likely to become an increasing problem for human survival in the future.

He added:

Even a superficial study of the sources suggests that human society has suffered under giant insect attacks of varying scale for a long time.

The Blakean Effect

Ormsham is currently developing a theory he calls “The Blakean Effect” (named after English mystic poet William Blake, who believed that the separation between objective and subjective reality was a metaphysical misunderstanding of the nature of reality). Ormsham’s theory is based upon ongoing research in regards to the synchronicities that exist between Drakenswode’s historical investigations into reported mega-fauna incidents and fictional cinematic depictions of giant monster attacks. In brief, Ormsham suspects that whether by conspiratorial intent or through some kind of unknown influence exerted over the imaginations of writers and filmmakers, actual historical attacks by mega-fauna are frequently translated to both print and screen — not accurately perhaps, but with various degrees of metaphysical relevance. If his theory is correct, Ormsham suggests, we are in big trouble.

Entomological historian Gustav Kraphot agrees. “They’re out there,” he wrote in 2005 in his little-known volume Notes on an Insect Apocalypse (Antennae Press).

They’re out there and they’re waiting to make their move en masse. There have been many hints, many incursions by rogue elements and by coordinated single-species armies — all of them testing the limits of human capability. As a race mankind is somehow compelled to forget these incursions, though memory of them lingers on in our fiction. “But the time will come when the Queen of Insectoid Queens will gather her troops for an all-out infestation of the planet and when she does there will be no hope for mankind. (pages 232 and 241)

Madness and absurd paranoid delusion? Perhaps. Kraphot points to rumours of sightings of huge insects that crop up from time-to-time, such as a “well-documented” report of giant mantises on a certain South Pacific island in the late 1960s. He claims there is evidence, too, of “events” from as recently as the year 2000, when an attack was said to have been made on monster-ridden Tokyo by a gargantuan prehistoric insect. In this instance, there was a “massive cover-up”, but locals willing to speak out claim that only the intervention of a reptilian deity saved the city from total destruction!

Tokyo has many times suffered visitations from a giant moth god, it is said — the first of these being in 1961. This creature is believed to be relatively benign, though massive destruction ensued because, according to Kraphot, humans persistantly failed (and still fail) to heed the warnings that presage its coming.

Cinematic Versions

Do the above examples sound familiar? They should. These events, which Kraphot claims he can document, describe the scenarios of several Toho daikaiju eiga featuring the iconic monster Godzilla (Gojira) and his rival Mothra. While Ormsham is unwilling to accept the literal extremes of Kraphot’s approach to the subject, he sees how it relates to his own view. He said:

I’ve never met the man, so I can’t comment on the accuracy of his research. Certainly my great-grandfather’s near-century of reports and memoranda represents a unique resource in the field and very little of that has been released as yet. Dr Kraphot could not have seen it. Though his approach somewhat lacking in well-considered detail, he is clearly on the right track.

If we grant any sort of validity to the cautious theories of Ormsham or the full-on paranoid panic-mongering of Kraphot, there is ample scope for alarm. Cinematic history alone tells a grim tale. There are isolated instances of single sightings from the earliest days of cinema. Perhaps the first full-scale infestation as “recounted” on film, however, would have to be from Them! (1954), when giant ants arise from the irradiated deserts of New Mexico and end up causing trouble Los Angeles, having spawned a colony in the sewers of LA.  Though dealt with, giant ants are still making an appearance as recently as 2003, according to the low-profile GiAnts.

Then there was a reign of insectoid terror undertaken by a single gargantuan preying mantis in The Deadly Mantis (1957) and by a swarm of giant grasshoppers in The Beginning of the End (also 1957). Coincidence? 1957 saw even more mega-insect terror with a giant scorpion (and large-scale, only-slightly-smaller comrades) running riot, as well as a deadly swarm of giant wasps. Mantises also feature in Meet the Applegates (1991) — the humorous approach of which makes the threat of alien infiltration all the more sinister, while the mega-scorpion terror returned in 2001 and again as late as 2008 with an amphibian mega-stinger that targeted a major city.

Then there was the rise of the Empire of the Ants in 1977, oversized mutant bugs causing trouble in a hospital in Canada in 1987, a plague of giant ticks in 1993, a bloodsucking giant mosquito horde in 1995, and a variety of monstrous Japanese bugs in 1997. In the same year, another film, Bugged, featured a host of different oversized bugs, this time in the US, perhaps representing some sort of worldwide conspiracy — a conspiracy that continued in 2005.

Mutant Conspiracy!

Mutant cockroaches crop up quite often, too, in 1988, 1997, 2001 (twice) and 2003. Every now and then a lone insect causes trouble by becoming hybridised with human DNA. The Fly (1986), The Fly II (1989), The Wasp Woman (1960 and 1995) and Mansquito (2005) seem to substantiate Kraphot’s claim that “the mega-insect overlords are more than willing to resort to genetic manipulation in order to further their Queen’s plans for conquest”.

Ormsham notes that the above mentioned films only represented the most obvious evidence of mega-insectoid activity. There are many more films that he could name — and beyond celluloid fiction, literary fiction offers tales that go back much further.

It is also worth mentioning [he added] that though they represent a different biological genus, spiders get lumped in with our six-legged enemies by the general public and there’s been an abundance of mega-activity on that front.

The Latest Giant Insect Attack!

Now comes intelligence that the conspiracy continues in a big way in the present. A new film, Infestation (US-2009; dir. Kyle Rankin), presents the worrying possibility of invasion by a horde of hideous mutant monstrosities with the ability to absorb and hybridise their human victims. Check out the pictorial evidence below:

We can only hope that this one is fiction…

• Source of images: DeVil Dead via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery
• Previous Backbrain article on Infestation
  
• Infestation trailer
• Ormsham’s personal blog

List of Films (in order of reference):

• Kaiju to no kessen-Gojira no Musuko [trans. Battle of Monster Island - Godzilla's Son] (1967; dir. Jun Fukuda) [aka Son of Godzilla (US, 1969)]
• Gojira tai Megagirasu: Jii Shômetsu Sakusen [trans. Godzilla vs. Megaguiras: G-Eradication Command] (2000; dir. Masaaki Tezuka)
• Mosura [trans. Mothra] (1961; dir. Ishiro Honda) [aka Mothra (US, 1962)]
• Them! (US-1954; dir. Gordon Douglas)
• Une Nuit Terrible [A Terrible Night] (France-1896; 65 feet; dir. Georges Méliès)
• GiAnts (US-2003; dir. David Huey)
• The Deadly Mantis (US-1957; dir. Nathan Duran)
• The Beginning of the End (US-1957; dir. Bert I. Gordon)
• The Black Scorpion (US-1957; dir. Edward Ludwig)
• Monster from Green Hell (US-1957; dir. Kenneth Crane)
• Meet the Applegates (US-1991; dir. Michael Lehmann)
• Deadly Scavengers (US-2001; dir. Ron Ford)
• Amphibious (US-2008; dir. Brian Yuzna)
• Empire of the Ants (US-1977; dir. Bert I. Gordon)
• Ticks (US-1993; dir. Tony Randell)
• Baguzu [aka Bugs] (Japan-1997; dir. Nishikiori Yoshinari)
• Bugged (US-1997; dir. Roland K. Armstrong)
• Insecticidal (Canada-2005; dir. Jeffery Scott Lando)
• Mosquito (US-1995; dir. Gary Jones)
• Blue Monkey [aka Insectoid] (Canada/US-1987; dir. William Fruet)
• The Nest (US-1988; dir. Terence H. Winkless)
• Mimic (US-1997; dir. Guillermo del Toro)
• Mimic 2 [aka Mimic 2: Hardshell] (US-2001; dir. Jean D. Segonzac)
• They Crawl (US-2001; dir. John Allardice)
• Mimic: Sentinel (US-2003; dir. J.T. Petty)
• The Fly (UK/Canada/US-1986; dir. David Cronenberg)
• The Fly II (UK/Canada/US-1989; dir. Chris Walas)
• The Wasp Woman (US-1960; dir. Roger Corman)
• The Wasp Woman (US-1995; dir. Jim Wynorski)
• Mansquito [aka Mosquitoman] (US-2005; dir. Tibor Takács)
• Infestation (US-2009; dir. Kyle Rankin)

Addendum: These images from a French ad campaign against unprotected sex and AIDS represent a very worrying possibility indeed, in the light of Ormsham and Kraphot’s mega-insect theories.

Source

First up there’s a couple of music videos, one at least with a minimalist storyline: “Fashion Freak” by Naked Ape (directed by Eric Althin), which features sexy zombies in a carwash, complete with undead chihuahua (I make no comment on the music itself — this is all about the zombies); and the band’s follow-up, “Undo Redo” — same appeal with higher disgust factor. What is it about sexy corpses with blood and scabby spots of decay all over them anyway? The film Zombie Strippers (US-2008; dir. Jay Lee) explored the same necrophilic obsession, rather effectively, I thought.

Fashion Freak

Undo Redo

Our third feature this week is one of Kaiju Search-Robot Avery’s no-budget finds — a giant monster film with SFX that are so basic that they work through sheer curiosity value:

Attack of the Giant Tick

(Germany; directed by Holger Sontag)

Through his Mercury Productions website, where there appears a whole series of genre-related short films, Sontag seems to be exploring basic animation techniques, each geared to slightly different aesthetic ends. I have to admit, this minimalist giant monster B-flick does achieve a sort of indefinable poignancy.

• Sources: Thanks to Chuck Mckenzie and of course the ever-vigilant Avery.
• Mercury Productions

Taking the classic truth-in-advertising approach to titles, it’s called Giant Ants Eat Bakersfield. It will be about 30 minutes long and the director hopes that it will be available online after a run at the Kern Country film festival. He’s billing it as:

The first Country Music Horror Film ever! It’s A Musical And It Has Giant Ants Eating Bakersfield.

Apparently, filming began about a year ago. Hank commented to Avery: “I filmed this all over Bakersfield. We almost got busted filming on the roof of the old BUCK OWENS recording studio. The film is  not finished, and I sort of put it on the shelf. I have had some really good feed back lately so I will start on it again this weekend. Yours was the best feed back so far. I will keep you updated.”

So Avery’s enthusiasm for no-budget independent monster flicks may have caused a potential renaissance in the Bakersfield Giant Ant film industry.

Below is a conceptual image for the film (NOT the real advertising poster), which Hank bodgied up from a classic poster from one of his film’s inspirations, the greatest giant ant movie of all time — Them!

According to Hank, the giant ants are a metaphor for the way the New Country music has come in and taken control of the Old. Now that’s a metaphor that hasn’t been explored in giant monster films before this. He told the Backbrain:

Well, Bakersfield used to stand for an underground or rebellious response to Nashville country Music. When Buck Owens passed away a while back, I went to his funeral. I later wrote some songs about that and one was called “Giant Ants”. It was as though corporate music was like giant ants that took over country music and Bakersfield was one of the things the corporate ants ate. I suppose I am a nut.

Here are the lyrics of Hank’s song on the subject:

The film is meant to be a take-off of those really old B-moster movies where the monsters are so fake that they are cool. Like the tree monster and some of the ones on the old Star Trek.

Anyway, I went to Buck Owen’s ranch and made a mini film of Buck’s son’s band BUCKSHOT for Brighthouse. It showed on cable. That’s how it started. I have others that are helping — Dr. B.L.T., a local song writer, and some local hot-rod club members. My friend Ron Ramos, who almost got pinched on the Buck Owen’s studio roof, helped a lot.

The reason we had to get on the roof was, the studio had just sold, so we made a sign — like the studio was still open and put it on the marquee . Then we took a giant ant off an old pest control truck and painted it with rubberized undercoat, so it looked better. After that I bought some fake human skulls at the holloween store in Bakersfield and some dry ice for smoke.

One night I was wrestling the ant under the giant Bakersfield Arch sign at Buck Owen’s Chrystal Palace. It was so bizarre a sight that the 99 Freeway slowed to a crawl above the Palace.

A lot of the film footage got ruined when I spilled beer on it at a local honky tonk where I’d been filming.

Ah, the unique difficulties that come with country music monsterdom!

Below is a clip of Hank singing a song about a mastodon:

Woody’s Dream

Good luck with the film, Hank.

• Source: Hank Ray via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery
• Hank Ray’s Journal
• Hank’s MySpace page (where you can hear more of his music)

Justice For All (short 11.40 min; directed by Francesco Gastel)

By way of introduction, here is a behind-the-scenes picture of one of the bugs being created in the Lee Romaire Studios (Creature and Character Effects Artists):

And now, click here to watch Justice For All. Note that you need to have Quicktime to view it.