Mac (Jim Sweeney) gets up-close and personal with a rotten zombie (Leif Phelps) in Zombie Resurrection

With its British accents and hints of thematic delving into some of the religious implications of zombieism, British splatterfest Zombie Resurrection (written and directed by Andy Phelps and Jake Hawkins) seems to be offering the kind of original take on old tropes that fans of the zombie sub-genre are keen to get their hands on (well, I am anyway!): staying within the tradition and retaining the best of it, while exploring some fascinating tributaries branching off from the clichés — and doing it intelligently. The filmmakers describe the film as “ambitious, gory and sometimes very funny” and as “one of those rarest of beasts – a completely new slant on the zombie story”.

From the look of the trailer, they might be telling the truth!

Synopsis:

Fifteen months after the zombie apocalypse, a small band of survivors are forced to take refuge in an abandoned school, where they discover a mysterious zombie with the power to raise the undead back to life.

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Undead Backbrain’s low-budget cinema sleuth, Avery Guerra, asked some probing questions in order to ferret out the truth about this film, which is now in post-production and looking for funding to help get it done.

Above: The Messianic zombie (Rupert Phelps) gets ready to deliver his “Sermon on the Mount”

How did Zombie Resurrection come about?

Andy Phelps: Originally, it was a conversation that I had with my son one dinnertime – what would happen if Jesus came back as a zombie? What would he be able to do? A couple of weeks later Jake and I hooked up for a drink, and by the end of the night we’d riffed the concept around to the point where we were too excited by the idea to not write the screenplay.

Jake Hawkins: At first we were planning on putting the screenplay up for sale on InkTip, but the further we got into the writing the more it looked like we could actually do this ourselves. Both of us have a background in short films, and tackling a feature project is a completely different animal, but at the beginning of 2011 we threw caution to the wind, unshackled ourselves from our respective day-jobs, and we’ve been working full-time on the movie ever since.

The crew prepare to film the end of a long battle between Sykes (Eric Colvin) and
Mac (Jim Sweeney) and the first supercharged zombie in the film (Leon King)

Where was Zombie Resurrection filmed and at what stage is the production right now?

AP: We shot the movie over 24 days (and nights) in August 2011, in three locations in Hampshire (in the South of England). We knew we had to work fast to get it all in the can on such a quick shoot. Not helping was the fact that we had a large ensemble cast (nine principal actors) and about seventy zombies to worry about, as well as all the in-camera blood gags and action sequences.

In the end, we used a fairly small crew of 23 people, but it got hairy on our big horde nights, having to process so many people through our costume and make-up teams.

JH: The film is currently going through post-production – final edits, sound, foley, grading and all our digital FX. We have an IndieGoGo funding campaign running at the moment to try and raise the money to get us through to distribution, so if you ever fancied watching two men squirm on the wrong side of the camera, the link is here.

Andy and Jake in an uncomfortably close encounter with their horde

Beyond the plot, what is the film about?

AP: Faith, and specifically the boundaries between science and faith. When is it reasonable for a logical man to take a leap of faith when presented with something that science can’t explain? This is the benefit of having such a large ensemble cast, in that you can give each character a different angle on the same theme. Collectively they have the big picture, but you get to seed in a lot of conflict and drama looking at where their beliefs and values clash.

JH: We felt it was massively important when we were writing Zombie Resurrection not just to turn out a generic movie where a bunch of attractive survivors get picked off one by one, and to try and get some social commentary in there. That’s the difference between the original Dawn of the Dead and Zack Snyder’s remake; the first is a really intelligent study of consumerism, while the remake is a just a pretty good zombie movie.

Asher (Georgia Winters) is bitten

What are the primary inspirations/influences behind the film?

AP: Well, I grew up through the UK’s “video nasty” era, so that’s where my filmic roots lie. Very generously, the government put together a list of all the horror video titles that were most likely to cause a breakdown in public order, so to every fourteen-year-old boy in the country this became a must-see movie template. I am very much in this early-80′s exploitation cinema mind-set, before too much CGI came along and made everybody’s life safer.

JH: But specifically, movies like Romero’s early zombie outings, as well as Evil Dead, Braindead, Re-animator. Films where the humans are often much more dangerous to each other’s wellbeing than the monsters are. Movies with a sense of humour, even when the cast play it completely straight.

Zombie Bride (Mary Stone)

What are your plans for the film?

AP: Through post-production, and then out to the Cannes film market in May. The film was never intended for a theatrical release, but that’s not going to stop us blitzing as many horror film festivals across the planet as we can before the DVD and Blu-ray come out. It’s the thought of being sat at the back of a screening watching a horror-literate audience reacting to your movie that keeps us going through the long days and the vast amount of work it takes to pull a feature together.

So there you go. They sound rather convincing to me and are certainly able to talk intelligently about their inspirations and their intentions in creating this particular film. This augurs well for Zombie Resurrection and it will bring new life to the genre. Maybe the title will be prophetic!

Above: Beaumont (Danny Brown) makes a catastrophic wrong turn

Above: Sykes (Eric Colvin) carries the recently mauled Becca (Rachel Nottingham) to safety

Above: Some zombies get a final liberal coating in blood before shooting

Below is a video of the pair, spruiking the film’s IndieGoGo appeal and it includes some fascinating behind the scenes snippets — all of which makes me want to see this film get completed sooner rather than later.

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• Sources: Andy Phelps and Jake Hawkins via Avery Guerra; Official website; Facebook page; Andy and Jake’s Shameless Promotional Blog; Snakebite Horror article (includes lengthy plot summary).
• Remember the guys are looking for financial support to complete. If you’re interested in helping, go here.

Indie writer/director Terence Krey wants his next film to be a horror movie that is more than a horror movie.

Of course, this is the ideal in such matters. As a horror writer myself, I’m always conscious that unless a story is about more than the monster, unless it creates a genuine dialogue between real-life experiences and the fantastical elements contained in the narrative, then you haven’t created anything that will resonate with your audience and have lasting impact. It’s all about resonance. Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde tells the now-standard tale of a “mad scientist” who unleashes a monster, sure, but it works so well and has lasted so long because its central elements address issues that are basic to humanity, creating via its fantastical tale a powerful metaphor for the dual nature of Man — the perpetual struggle in humanity and in each of us between creation and destruction, good and evil, compassion and cruelty.

This is the sort of impact that Krey is hoping for.

Of his ambitions, 25-year-old Krey, creator of the critically acclaimed, New York Times-reviewed web series Oh, Inverted World, told Undead Backbrain:

I want to make a horror movie that also isn’t a horror movie. Not a Monster is a movie that could easily be identified as a monster movie, with gore and bloody kills, but at the same time it can be identified as a drama about a girl having to figure her life out. I think finding a common thread between those two plot-lines is challenging, unique, and, if done properly, will really connect with any audience.

My style has always been to use science fiction, fantasy and otherworldly elements to emphasize real-life issues. In this case, a girl who has been through a terrible accident and no longer feels like a person, now has to deal with something that isn’t a person. They are both searching for their identities, all the while dealing with the feeling that they are less than human.

Not A Monster was inspired, Krey says, by the story of Beauty and the Beast and the recent Let the Right One In (Sweden-2008; dir. Tomas Alfredson), where the horror elements offer a way of exploring genuine human emotions.

“Beauty and the Beast” was definitely an inspiration, as I wanted to do a modern retelling of a story just like it. In addition, unconventional, genre-blending horror films were also an inspiration — films such as Shaun of the Dead and Let the Right One In, which is a coming of age/love story, but built around these horrific elements. Earlier films of Tim Burton were also an inspiration, as I want to have a gothic romantic feel to the film to act as a contrast to the blood and gore.

Synopsis:

Chloe is a 26 year old graduate student who is returning to school after a horrifying incident: a car accident has rendered her paraplegic, confining her to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Along with her father Stan and her boyfriend Scott, Chloe begins the difficult task of reentering her life newly disabled. Unfortunately, on the day she returns her campus is turned upside down, as news spreads of two students being attacked by some kind of creature in the woods.

As animal carcasses start showing up and school personnel go missing, Chloe soon discovers the truth face to face: a monster, half man, half animal, with a clawed arm and a pair of broken antlers, is living in the woods outside the school. It attacks Chloe, scratching her leg and throwing her to the ground before running off. As Chloe composes herself, she discovers something extraordinary: the scratch on her leg actually hurts. She feels it.

And so Chloe descends into the mystery that is The Monster, all the while secretly needing to feel again what she felt that night, something that only the murderous Monster can do. Is feeling normal again worth risking her life? As the entire town, and the people close to her, become involved in the hunt for The Monster, Chloe must figure out who she wants to be, as well as who the real monsters are.

Right now Not A Monster is in the pre-production phase. Recently, Krey shot a trailer for fundraising purposes, which he and his crew plan to go about through crowd-sourcing such as Kickstarter as well as finding independent investors. They hope to launch the full trailer sometime in the next month or so, though you can check out a teaser below.

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Krey says the film will be shot independently in the New York area, using the current “inexpensive-yet-impressive technology” of DSLR filmmaking. Krey himself harkens from from Long Island, New York.

In addition, the distribution model of Not a Monster will be just as independent as the production of the film itself. Initially, Not a Monster will be self-distributed as a digital HD download through our website, notamonsterfilm.com. For less than the price of a movie ticket, viewers will be able to watch Not A Monster on their computer, phone, tablet, or video game system.  This model will blend the world of new and old media by making a full-length feature film available through the Internet straight from the creators to the audience.

Not a Monster stars Elysia Segal as Chloe (pictured below), Rob Hinderliter (Scott), Rich Vience as Hudson (second image below), Jacob A. Ware (Aleister), and Alexander Longo (The Monster). Makeup/Effects are by Robert Doyle. Director of Photography is Daniel Fox and the film is being produced by Terence Krey, Daniel Fox, and Jacob Cohen. It was written and will be directed by Krey himself.

“Not a Monster will be a natural addition to the genre-blending horror films that have become so popular of late, such as Shaun of the Dead and Let the Right One In,” Krey commented. “If the online release turns some heads (or if someone sees its potential before that), we are absolutely interested in exploring other distribution channels, whether theatrical, home video, or cable.”

Not a Monster is scheduled for shooting in  the US Summer 2012.

• Source: Terence Krey via Avery Guerra. Official website; Facebook page. Written by Robert Hood.

Life gets difficult enough when you’re a hitman just trying get the job done so you can make it to your kid’s birthday party on time. But things get worse after you stumble across an alien parasite that’s turning the extras into zombies.

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You can only hope you get Overtime (US-2011; dir. Matt Niehoff)…

Synopsis:

Raph (Al Snow) and Max (John Wells) only kill bad guys, and only after their boss Sam, a high-powered attorney, has cashed a nice paycheck for getting her sleazy clients off the hook.

When Sam sends our heroes on a routine hit, they find themselves caught up in a conspiracy they never imagined. But whatever trouble they’ve gotten themselves into is nothing compared to the wrath of Raph’s wife if he doesn’t make it home in time for his son’s birthday party.

Being a good hitman is tough; being a good dad is killer!

The Interview

To find out more about Overtime, the Backbrain’s News Hound, Avery Guerra, spoke to Brian Cunningham — the film’s Writer, Director of Photography and Producer:

Tell us a bit about yourself, Brian.

I’m a freelance director of Photography and producer working in Louisville Kentucky.  I’ve done work for clients such as GE, McDonalds and Papa John’s, but my real passion is filmmaking.  I ran a movie news and reviews blog for three years and have self-published two books about movies and pop-culture. The next project is a documentary about the Haunted House industry entitled “Monsters Wanted.”  (Check out MonstersWanted.com for more info).

Why this particular movie, Overtime?

The idea to make the movie came from my partner, Matt Niehoff.  We really wanted our first movie to be something fun and even a little bit silly. So many young filmmakers seem obsessed with creating work that is going to lead to awards and prestige, but when Matt and I talked about it we realized that the movies we loved as kids were the crazy comedies of the ’80s and the action films of the late ’90s (like Terminator 2 and Aliens).  We wanted to make those kinds of movies because we love escapist cinema, and we wanted the audience to be taken on a journey.  Plus it’s always more fun to blow things up than to shoot people talking.

Above: The movie stars WWE Superstar Al Snow, who gets bloodier than usual…

Any specific influences?

The movie draws heavily from ideas in movies like Aliens and From Dusk Til Dawn.  There’s a lot of Shaun of the Dead in there, tonally, and of course the Hit Man aspect will remind people of Boondock Saints and Pulp Fiction (mind you, I’m not comparing us to those movies … I’d never dream of going toe-to-toe with Tarantino).  What you might not think of, however, is the influence movies like Lethal Weapon had on Overtime.  When it gets down to it, this is a fun 1980s action comedy about two guys trying to balance work and family.  The zombie-alien side of things is almost incidental.

Above: Sebrina Siegel finds herself at the wrong end of a Shooter’s Party rally

Above: Stuck in a corner with blood and cake: John Wells, Sebrina Siegel, Erica Goldsmith and Al Snow

How did the project develop between you and Matt?

The idea for the movie came from Matt.  He wrote a rough draft of the script and asked me to take a look at it to see if I was interested in shooting it for him.  When I read it, I loved the whole conceit. I asked Matt if I could take a crack at changing some things, and he agreed. After that, it really became a 50-50 partnership. We went through a good twelve drafts together before shooting, and we worked together on casting, finding locations and testing out the makeup and effects. It was a really rewarding collaboration with each of us pushing each other every day.  We would rewrite entire scenes the night before the shoot, trying to make things a little more organic, a little funnier, and to take advantage of the talents of the awesome cast.

Above: Avri Ant’juan considers whether to shoot ‘em or… um… shoot ‘em

Check out this Behind-the-Scenes video:

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What are you plans for Overtime?

Our plans for Overtime are to get it in front of as many people as we can. We’ve started a pretty aggressive festival strategy (and it’s recently been announced that it will be  screening in Louisville on February 18 at the Derby City Film Festival), and we’re in the process of contacting distributors directly to try and make a deal.  We know from feedback from screenings and our website that there is a good market for this movie, and people who see it seem to have a really good time with it.

And if hitmen, alien parasites, blood and zombies aren’t enough, don’t forget there are tentacles as well!

Check out lots more pictures and a couple of alternative posters in the gallery below:

Sources: Brian Cunningham via Avery Guerra; Official website/blog; Facebook page; IMDb entry.

Addenda:

Earlier (slightly longer) Official Trailer:

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Outtakes:

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A while back, the Backbrain interviewed writer, director and all-round auteur Loup’Rah Garomore about his in-production film The Demon’s Rook. Frankly the teaser released then, and all the pictures — not to mention Garomore’s discussion of the film’s genesis — looked unusually exciting for those with a love of ’80s exploitation horror movies. If you don’t believe me, check it out here.

Now the Backbrain has been given permission to release the official trailer, and honestly, it does nothing whatsoever to diminish the excitement and a lot to raise the ante.  You get first look at it below:

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With the film still in development, this very impressive trailer was made on a mere $15,000 budget. Writer/director Garomore hopes to raise further funding soon in order to push the project forward. “We’re trying to get a total budget of $190,000, preferably by February so we can re-enter a state of pre-production and begin principle photography again by Spring,” he told the Backbrain.

Let’s hope the money will be forthcoming in time to meet the company’s timetable. With work of this quality produced on a budget of just $190,000, I can’t see investors regretting their involvement. Check out the investment-to-profit ratio of a range of cult horror films that appears later in this article.

It’s obvious from the trailer that The Demon’s Rook is being put together with love by its creators, whose devotion to the film’s inspirations is abundantly clear in everything they say. Less commonly, work produced so far shows their strong technical expertise and a definite handle on the aesthetics of the genre. As they have said themselves: “[we] know what [we] love and know what it takes to create something that will be instantly embraced by the ever-growing horror film community”.

Nostalgic yet progressive, The Demon’s Rook embodies the spirit of the cult horror classics that precede it: Suspiria, Zombi, Evil Dead 2, Pan’s Labyrinth; yet still holds its own ground as a truly original vision. With this project, the filmmakers are creating something that horror fans have been yearning for — an ambitious, uniquely identifiable film with classically powerful practical special effects, deep roots in the historical spirit of the genres it encompasses, and a bold, forward-thinking vision. (Press release)

Synopsis:

A young boy named Roscoe finds a portal to another world where he is taught magic by an elder demon known as Dimwos. Dimwos raises the boy into manhood, revealing to him many secrets. Though, there is one dark secret that Dimwos keeps from Roscoe. When Roscoe discovers what his master has been keeping from him all these years, he revolts against him, inadvertently unleashing three malevolent demons. Through desperation, Roscoe is forced to escape the demons’ wrath by way of the portal leading back to our world. Unbeknownst to Roscoe, he leads the demons to discover the portal for themselves. Once the demons pass through, a nightmarish foray of summoned monsters are unleashed. One demon possesses the minds and will of all whom she crosses, another transforms a man into a murderous beast, and the other summons an army of the dead to do his bidding.

Predicting success in the film industry isn’t easy. Predicting how independent horror films will fair once released into the cultural zeitgeist is even less certain. Generally speaking, perfectly good movies disappear under the weight of their own obscurity. But occasionally the opposite happens. Sometimes they become a cult classic. When this happens, it usually means there is something unique and very special about the film concerned.

Consider these rough figures:

• Night of the Living Dead (US-1968; dir. George A. Romero): made for $114,000. Lifetime gross $30,000,000. (Source: Black Rider Production press release)
• The Evil Dead (US-1983; dir. Sam Raimi): made for $375,000. Lifetime gross $29,400,000. (Source: Black Rider Production press release)
• The Blair Witch Project (US-1999; dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez): made for $60,000. Lifetime gross $248,639,099. (Source: Box Office Mojo)
• Paranormal Activity (US-2009; dir. Oren Pelli): made for $15,000/ Lifetime gross $193,355,800. (Source: Box Office Mojo)

And these figures (admittedly open to argument in the case of Night of the Living Dead and The Evil Dead in particular) probably don’t include ongoing video/DVD/BD sales.

From the new trailer for The Demon’s Rook, I think it’s safe to say that the film offers something unique and is looking like a definite candidate for admittance to these exulted ranks. At the very least, it may be worthy to be mentioned in the same chapter of the next generation’s horror film Best Of as The Evil Dead and Fulci’s Zombi. I look forward to finding out.

• Source: Loup’Rah Garomore and Tim Reis via Avery Guerra. Black Rider Productions press release. Official website. Backbrain interview with the author (includes pictures). Written by Robert Hood.

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The Millennium Bug is a flat-out, gore-filled, kaiju celebration — deviant love-child of Ishiro Honda and Rob Zombie. You won’t understand the sheer perverse geek joy of this film without actually seeing it, so head for the official website and blog to check for festival appearances. Or wait for the upcoming DVD release.

While you’re waiting, you can get a feel for things from this highly amusing interview, in which some of the actors give their reactions to the film’s extreme weirdness, and actress Ginger Pullman tells all about her first day of filming, which involved a prosthetic vagina and giving birth to something nasty…

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For more on The Millennium Bug, see previous Backbrain articles on the subject.

• via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.

Well, New Zealand director Patrick Gillies is righting this reprehensible wrong in a short film called Huhu Attack!

In Cold War-era rural New Zealand, two social misfits – a mousy spinster and a traveling magician – find love against a backdrop of small-town prejudice and 40ft-high mutant man-eating Huhu grubs!

Click to enlarge (so you can read the details!)

It’s Baz Luhrmann meets Peter Jackson in what the director describes as “an audacious 1950s-style comedy-horror musical extravaganza, featuring a spectacular score performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.”

Song, dance, romance and…

… giant grubs!

Synopsis:

Rural New Zealand, 31st October 1957.  A Sputnik satellite crashes into the edge of a forest, irradiating the nearby flora and fauna.  When the Army is called in to investigate, their soldiers are inexplicably attacked by a 40ft-high mutant Huhu grub.  At the nearest township, two-bit traveling magician, Miles, falls for the charms of his mousy volunteer, Ngaire, whilst putting on a Halloween magic show for the locals.  Their blossoming romance is interrupted when the giant Huhu grubs invade, decimating the townsfolk.  Knocked unconscious, Miles awakes to find Ngaire nursing him back to health in a makeshift infirmary.  Citing Miles’ knowledge of pyrotechnics, she pleads her reluctant hero to lead the surviving townsfolk in their fight against the man-eating huhu grubs.  However, her faith in him is shattered when local agitator, Derek, arrives with soldiers to accuse Miles of being a Soviet spy, directly responsible for the Huhu grub menace.  Armed with supposed proof of his Eastern Bloc origins, the soldiers proceed with their intention to execute Miles.  After an impassioned and heart-wrenching plea of innocence, Miles is released and the united community rejoices in its new-found tolerance and enlightenment… but not for long!

Check out the trailer:

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 Huhu Attack! was shot on the Red One camera. Principle photography took place in Christchurch, New Zealand, over the course of four-and-a-half days in late November 2008.

Rather than using 3D (computer) animation, the producers resorted to the more traditional techniques of puppetry and over-cranked miniatures to achieve the illusion of the giant man-eating Huhu Grubs.

When asked about how the project got made, Gillies commented: “Some interesting facts for you: in its path to the big screen, the project received 21 funding rejections. Approx 80% of those people who read the script, rejected it. Conversely, about 80% of our funding was received from people who hadn’t read the script!” Then he added with due irony: “The moral = when making a monster film, don’t show people the script!”

So how was the Monster created?

I set out to create the film’s giant mutant Huhu grub monsters via 3D animation, but then early on, decided it would take too much time and effort, so opted for the (overcranked) miniature/arm-puppet route. Ultimately, the puppet also fitted with the aesthetic of 50s horror films … In the end, we did use two 3D animation shots, though: a shot of grubs on a log and then our epilogue shot of a giant … [actually, we might save that bit of spoilage for readers to experience for themselves when they see the film - Ed.]

Above: Early 3D conceptual drawings (aborted)

Above: 3D Huhu grub model stage 2

Above: Huhu puppet stage 1

Check out the gallery at the end of this article for more images of the Huhu puppet and early 3D model. The Gallery also includes more screenshots — and there are even more pictures on the film’s Facebook page.

So where can readers see the film?

Festivals at the moment. Only five festival laurels feature on the poster, but we have been selected for eight fests in total: Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (Panorama), Beverly Hills Shorts Fest (Official Selection), Seattle International Film Festival (Official Selection), Palm Springs ShortFest (Official Selection and Best of Fest 2011: Audience Favourite Comedies), New Zealand International Film Festival (Homegrown: Flights of Fantasy), Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (Official Selection), Traverse City Shorts Festival (Official Selection) and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.

Addendum: Sample Storyboard Sequence:

Source: Patrick Gillies via Avery Guerra; Facebook page. See this article for more Behind the Scenes pictures and images of the location shoot. You can download director Gillies bio and filmography here in PDF form.

Gallery:

“The Nest” is a short horror film by Tim Zwica, who, auteur-fashion, undertook the roles of writer, producer, director, editor, and visual effects coordinator. Zwica harkens from Austin, Texas, and this seems to inform the atmosphere and general ambiance of the “The Nest”.

Synopsis:

A rancher must fight to survive when a swarm of over-sized flesh-eating bees escapes from a beekeeper who depends on their honey to keep her diner in business.

The never-before-seen trailer below reveals “The Nest” to be strong on atmosphere and of a high professional standard in terms of its cinematography, thanks to the work of Zwica’s Director of Photography, Kendal Miller, and Production Designer, Katie Darsaw — not to mention the soundscape created by Audio Supervisor, Chris Hite, and Sound Designer, Michael Caisley. Music is by Willem Van der Broeck.

Trailer:

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I love the near-sepia look of the film. Very cool, and very evocative. Zwica spoke to the Backbrain about the cinematography of “The Nest”.

“We shot ‘The Nest’ on a RED One camera. I had planned to shoot it on a Canon XH-A1 that I owned. But I hired Kendal Miller to shoot the picture and he brought in his friend Chris Gerhart, who owned a RED and offered to let us use it for free. Both of those guys were fantastic on the set. I couldn’t imagine working on any future project without them.”

As for the FX, Zwica commented: “With the exception of one shot, I did all the vfx at home on nights and weekends.”

The story of “The Nest” goes like this (illustrated with stills from the film — and be warned! Though we don’t give away anything crucial to the climax, this image sequence is a little spoilerish):

Hank, a horse breeder, has discovered one of his mares lying dead in his pasture, reduced to a skeleton overnight.

He finds Ray, a county farm inspector, in the local diner and enlists him to help solve the mystery. Eleanore, the owner of the diner is wary of their mission. She catches a pair of goth girls stealing her honey from the table and orders her mute son Dizzy to detain them.

She sentences them to death and has Dizzy dump them into a well in the backyard of the diner. The well is infested with a swarm of savage flesh eating bees who awaken with Dizzy’s banging on the hatch and soon devour the girls in a matter of seconds. However, Dizzy has damaged the hatch and one bee escapes before it can be repaired. The bee finds Hank working in his field and chases him into his barn where he receives a call from Ray, who is driving to Hank’s ranch. The rest of the swarm escapes and chases another of Hank’s horses out onto the road where they devour it in mid pursuit, leaving its bones scattered on Ray’s windshield.

Ray relates the event to Hank after retreating to the diner lot. Hank hears him being abducted by Dizzy and sets out to the diner to rescue him.

Hank is caught off-guard by Eleanore and knocked unconscious. He and Ray both end up in the well where they must fight for their very survival.

“This movie came about as a calculated first project for me,” Zwica told the Backbrain.

“I figured I should make something relatively short to cut down on production costs as well as the potential for something going wrong.  A longer shoot equals more time and with it more cost and potential calamity.  I also thought a scary story often works well in short form, like a ghost story. You get in, you scare the audience and you get out, leaving them to ponder what they just saw. There are plenty of examples of short form horror/sci fi like the Twilight Zone, Tales From the Crypt and the old half-hour radio shows like Inner Sanctum.”

Why mutant bees?

“I chose the black swarm as the “monster” because I thought it best to write about something that actually scares me. One day when I was a kid I was suddenly attacked by a bumblebee. He came out of nowhere and gave me a shock I have never forgotten. To this day, I am terrified of bees, especially bumblebees, even though I have very rarely been stung.”

Two Production images: The Capture of Hank

What is Zwica’s background?

“I’ve worked in the video game industry as a 3D artist for about 13 years. Before that I did animation and effects for various projects, including the National Geographic production of Asteroid. I still work in games, but this picture marks a return to my first love, which is film. The advent of truly cinematic digital cameras made it feasible for me to finally make my own movies. Previously I could not afford to shoot film, nor could I justify pouring a lot of time and money into a project that would ultimately be shot on video and wind up looking like a soap opera. I am also a musician of sorts. I play upright bass with Scott Angle and the Cold Cold Hearts here in Austin, Texas.”

Where can our readers expect to see “The Nest”?

“My plans for the picture are no more ambitious than to screen it at a few festivals and see where that leads. The options for short films are rather limited.  I would be thrilled to have it included in some anthology or made available on Netflix.”

Below we’ve included the end-credit scroll, so we can give everyone involved due credit, including the excellent actors.

Source: Tim Zwica via Avery Guerra.

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The Backbrain mentioned it back in 2008. Kaiju Search-Robot Avery (in that squeaky mechanised voice of his) commented:

Remember this? We thought it might’ve been the trailer for David “The Rock” Nelson’s films, “Killer Cicadas” and “Attack Of The Giant Cicadas”, which are still forthcoming … Well, we know now that it wasn’t, huh? It’s still a faux trailer for a non-existent film but all of our enthusiasm, plus the endless commenters on the vid’s YouTube page and the director’s love for classic 50′s atomic monster flicks, has convinced the director to expand on it. He hopes to turn it into a feature film and is still attempting to secure funding. Any interested investors should contact him through his two websites [linked below]. Awesome, huh?

Awesome? Sure! Director Jeff Barklage has provided us with some neat images and new test footage that looks like it came straight from a 1950s low-budget exploitation studio — actually it looks better than the output of many original films of this kind.

First off, here are some new miniature effects shots that Barklage and his crew have been shooting for their retro creature feature about “giant insects attacking mankind, what else?” [Note: If the following video doesn't run on this page, go here to view it.]

He explained: “I shot this with my RED ONE camera… .yet went totally old school in the way it was shot: real living cicadas crawling on and around miniature set pieces I constructed, shot outdoors using real backgrounds and skies in a forced-perspective manner to integrate the miniatures into reality and to meld the illusion together. They were also overcranked to give a sense of scale in the insect’s motion.”

Like this….

Check out more of the great production shots in the Gallery below.

Links:

• Official website: www.barklage.com
• Agent: TDN ARTISTS
• online reel
• Vimeo Reel

Source: Jeff Barklage via Avery Guerra

Gallery:

In fact, in refers to an undertaking of filmmaker Joseph Nanni — the production of, in the first instance, a short teaser film that involves Shub-Niggurath, or “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”, who is a little-mentioned deity from the Cthulhu Mythos of New England horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft. The second part of the project is more ambitious: to make of full-length version of the teaser.

So what is Shub-Niggurath?

In the Backbrain article A Lovecraftian Invasion 1: Dirt Dauber, we drew attention to a film that also references that particular deity, though in a quite different way. Nevertheless it would be worth your while to go and read the article, because it includes information on Shub-Niggurath and speculations relating to her, and I don’t intend to repeat it all here. So, off you go! We’ll still be here when you get back.

The following image is a visualisation of Shub-Niggurath by “verreaux“. It attempts to capture both the Satanic “black goat” aspect of the name and the vaguer descriptions of Lovecraft’s appropriation of the epithet.

Writer/director Joseph Nanni’s “Black Goat” takes a similar approach to the depiction of Shub-Niggurath. The atmospheric landscape, with its ghostly tree-lines and the ritualistic elements are all designed to create the sort of dread that is a characteristic quality of Lovecraft’s work.

Synopsis:

Jacques Cowan is what the French call “a runner of the woods.” He may be a foreigner in the new world but Jacques quickly learned the ways of the native people, their language, their routes, and their skills. But he didn’t leave his life in another land for adventure, freedom, and wealth — he had much more in mind than trading pelts and cheating death. Jacques had listened intently to the stories that had crossed the ocean, extraordinary tales of mystical creatures and unknown forces. Black Goat finds Jacques mid-hunt, as he closes in on what others thought was a legend. What he doesn’t realize is that the legend is on a hunt of its own.

Check out the teaser/short film for yourself:

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Some Production Shots:

Adam Wilson as Jacques

Attacked by “green-screen” tentacles!

Next step is the full-on production of the feature-length film (which will, one assumes, involve a LOT more sloshing around in the snowbound landscape). Nanni explained: “We’re currently in development and have a rather major distributor working with us. We haven’t talked cast yet, although Adam Wilson (Manson, Ending The Eternal) is locked in to play the lead. Production design has started, but I still may reach out to some Lovecraft luminaries for concept design.”

One such “luminary” is already on board. Lovecraft artist Dave Carson will be (as Nanni puts it) “helping us realize some Elder God nastiness for the upcoming feature Black Goat.” Check out Carson’s work here.

Below is one of his earlier renditions of Shub-Niggurath:

Nanni also noted that Guillermo del Toro called the trailer “impeccable” and said, “I love Black Goat. I cannot say it enough.”

Anyway, going on the quality of the “teaser” short, a feature-length version of The Black Goat is something to look forward to. It might not be a replacement for Del Toro’s abandoned multi-million-dollar At the Mountains of Madness, but it may very well be a more-than-decent piece of Lovecraftian cinema.

• Source: Joseph Nanni via Avery Guerra; Official blog; website; IMDb entry.
• Previous “Lovecraft Invasion” articles.

Before we begin, however, check out previous Undead Backbrain articles on this new independent film: the initial announcement of the upcoming premiere and a run-down on the film itself, and an Exclusive Glimpse Behind-the-Scenes.

In a moment, the Cinema of the Backbrain will be open for business as this exciting new creature feature makes its debut. But before the doors open, check out the following “Storyboard”-style sequences taken from key FX moments from the film:

There are more in the following Gallery. Click on each image to enlarge it.

Now, the doors are opening.

Undead Backbrain is proud to present the world premiere of THE EMERGENCE.

Collect your ticket below. Click on it to enter the cinema.

• This premiere is brought to you by director Jeff LeBlanc and Undead Backbrain researcher Avery Guerra. Site owner Robert Hood reporting.