Schiavo runs a company called Strangewerks Films that specialises in producing independent horror films. The company’s been around for about three years. Previously, Schiavo was writing scripts on spec, mostly horror, mostly strange, “the kind of stuff you might watch with your buddies”, he says, “assuming they’re a bunch of wasted zombie Shriners who were a bit on the kinky side.” He likes to think of his work as “one part David Lynch to two parts Cronenberg, with a liberal dash of del Toro — add a twist of lime and shake violently”. So obviously he wasn’t getting produced in Hollywood and often felt his rejected scripts were being ripped off by even prominent creators. Becoming a tad disenchanted with the whole process, he decided to go out and make the kind of films he wanted to see for himself. Strangewerks’ first film, The Shriven (featuring Nina, a beautiful woman who can transform into a demonic killing machine and must survive by feeding on human flesh), came out about a year ago on the Shriek Show label.

‘The Shriven’ Trailer

Undead Backbrain’s news hellhound, Avery Guerra, tracked Schiavo down to get the inside story on Schiavo’s next effort — the messy way if necessary.

Avery Guerra: So what did you want to do after The Shriven?

Brian Schiavo: For our follow-up film, I wanted to “up the ante” in terms of effects, gore, nude people running around and screaming, that sort of thing — but I wanted to stay away from the sort of horror films everyone is tired of: “Guy runs around in a hockey mask/welding mask/William Shatner mask and severs peoples’ arteries for no good reason.” Horror fans are starved for original material — I know I am.

As to the exact origin of the film, entitled Lifeform, the idea came out of my fascination with genetic manipulation — it really is the evil genie waiting to leap out of its bottle and bite us on the ass. The real life horrors scientists are probably creating out of our DNA even as we speak will make anything Giger can come up with pale by comparison — and that scares the hell out of me. Then I read about a tiny species of jellyfish that is basically immortal — Turritopsis Nutricula. It can reverse its own aging process and return to a youthful polyp stage when living conditions become difficult, in order to survive — its cells are in flux. I thought: what if a person had this ability? Imagine where that could take us. With that as the basis, I came up with the concept of Lifeform — basically it’s about a scientist that creates transgenic human/animal stem cells that can become anything, in order to save his dying wife. He isolates the gene for transdifferentiation from jellyfish DNA, places it into a human stem cell and injects it into her. Of course she’s saved, but … she becomes a creature that can alter her shape to protect herself. She can grow spikes, tentacles, gills, claws, whatever the situation calls for. At the same time, her intellect becomes subsumed by the animal instinct to survive — and just a few errant cells from her body could doom the Human genome forever. The scary thing is that this will happen one day. They’ll wrest the genetic secrets from this creature and stick them in our bodies — so watch the film and catch a glimpse of our hideous future!

AG: What was your artistic inspiration for Lifeform?

BS: As far as inspirations go, I suppose the usual culprits: Altered States, Cronenberg’s The Fly, From Beyond, Eraserhead, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and Nightbreed. Films that deal with the issues of transformation and bodily horror, which are essentially asking questions about identity. I love Japanese horror, too, especially the manga work by Junji Ito and his ability to distort the human figure. Another influence is the work Stephen Bissette and Rick Veitch did with Alan Moore on Swamp Thing — the greatest run on a comic ever, if you ask me.

AG: Where was the movie filmed?

BS: The movie was shot in New York City as well as on Long Island, NY, with additional location work in New Jersey. We utilized a plethora of locations in the greater metro area: from street scenes, office settings, to warehouses and operating rooms and even brownstone apartments. There’s a wide diversity of looks, which I think provides an interesting aesthetic for the film.

AG: What type of budget are you working with?

BS: In the low six figures. We raised the money from a variety of sources — investors, deferred payments, donations — both in time, materials, equipment, services and a number of our locations. Making a movie is like being a ringmaster in a crazy three-ring circus and you have to be crazier than the clowns and hungrier than the tigers in order to survive it. (Wow, I just made that up!)

AG: It’s bound to be much quoted.

AG: How did you go about casting the film?

BS: We solicited actors over the internet, through one of the commercial casting sites, and then had several days worth of auditions at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. I was fortunate to have access to some of the most talented actors in the NYC area — including Virginia Logan (our female lead), Peter Alexandrou (our male lead) and Kate Britton. The other talented folks include Ken Driesslein, Joe Amato, Ree Merrill, Adam Cerny and Chad.

AG: Beyond the basic plot, what is the film about?

BS: It’s about a research scientist whose wife suffers a brain embolism. In order to save her, he has to create stem cells that will heal her brain. Her resurrection and ultimate transformation set the stage for new horrors in their lives.

AG: What types of FX were incorporated to bring the creature to life?

BS: I’m blessed with a wife, Christine, who is both a talented makeup and computer artist. I’m also an artist, primarily a sculptor. We were able to create the huge number of prosthetics the film required ourselves, with the help of an accomplished mold-maker and makeup artist named Anthony Jones. We had silicone stunt tentacles, a full creature suit, twisted neck appliances, face pieces, various diverse wounds, mutated tentacle hands and face pieces, several types of monster tongues and appendages and even scalpings we did. We also had old school monster legs we could puppeteer — you name it. We were sculpting, casting, molding and pouring for months before the shoot. We were covered in silicone for several months, which ain’t as much fun as it sounds, unfortunately. I could’ve used some diversion to break things up!

We also used computer effects to accentuate the on-set ones, using a tremendous amount of AfterEffects tricks to highlight Virginia’s bodily transformations and the agony she’s going through. We also did a lot of green screen work with tentacles, creature heads, that sort of thing. In addition, we’re using Blender to create some computer-generated creature transformations. We basically applied every discipline there is to bring this creature to life.

AG: What would you like viewers to take from the film?

BS: Well, aside from the usual titillation, I think it’s a film about the necessity of becoming what you’re really meant to be, whether its a mutated creature from hell or your own distinct individual.

AG: When and where might fans be able to see it?

BS: The film is currently in post production and should be wrapped by mid-2012. After that, we’ll do some horror festivals and roll it out here and internationally in early 2013.

AG: So, what next for you?

BS: Another film of course — the fever never relents! I’m haunted by night terrors I feel compelled to foist upon everybody else. The goal is to ramp up production and shoot two more films in the next year. One of my aims is to create the next horror screen icon — right up there with Frankenstein, The Creature and Pinhead.

Good luck with that one, Brian! Keep us informed!

Source: Brian Schiavo via Avery Guerra. Addition text by Robert Hood.

Frazetta’s fantasy art, along with that of Boris Vallejo, provided a muscular, dynamically iconic vision of John Carter and Dejah Thoris, as his cover art also did for Conan the Barbarian (perhaps even more so).

With the imminent release of the new Disney fantasy blockbuster John Carter (US-2012; dir. Andrew Stanton), which is due to open in Australia on 8 March, the current generation will acquire, I suspect, a new vision of Burroughs’ characters — even if from the look of recent publicity there is a certain familiarity to it all (as there should be). Check out this latest poster, which ups the fantastical ante over previously released collateral:

Previous:

The stills below tell a similar story and the lush re-imagined familiarity of them makes me very keen to see the film. John Carter has been long overdue to make a big-budget appearance at the movies — one fitting Burroughs’ neglected importance in the genre.

If you haven’t already seen them, check out the trailers and the following clips:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

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:

Source: Quiet Earth via Avery Guerra

[Scratches arm, pats cat, removes some zombie detritus from under the table ... been meaning to get rid of that for a while ... oh, you're back? Cool looking movie, eh?]

Well, things have been moving along at the usual languid shuffle pace of the classic zombie, but two trailers have now surfaced along with more images and an 8-minute behind-the-scenes video. Check them out! They’re infused with irony and a wry humour. And zombies from outer space, of course!

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Behind the Scenes:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Gallery of Images: Click to view

Source: via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.

The Curse of the Phantom Shadow (US-2012; short [approx. 30 min.]; dir. Mark Ross)

Synopsis:

The year is 1948 and the United States has a new enemy, The Phantom Shadow. This dark figure has diabolical plans for captured scientist, Dr Hammond and his War Department weapons of mass destruction. When the Phantom Shadow launches a treacherous missile attack on key locations in the United States, the government takes action.

There is only one man to call, Agent 236, an elite government agent. Agent 236 has been dispatched to launch a rescue.

Along the way, Agent 236 is befriended by a  spunky, sarcastic gas-station attendant ,who just happens to have pinup-girl good looks.  She also just happens to be in the market for a little action and excitement. Luckily, Agent 236 is the man of her dreams. Agent 236 puts the station attendant and her tow truck into service in pursuit of the Phantom Shadow and together they take on the most diabolical villain the world has ever faced.

“Our film takes place in 1948,” explained director Mark Ross. “We have professional actors, some of which have been in Hollywood productions.” The Backbrain asked him  what inspired him.

As a kid growing up in the 1970s/1980s I was a huge Star Wars fan. After I learned that Star Wars was influenced by pulp magazines and movie serials, I started to track them down and soon fell in love with the source material. I have always had a huge affinity for the 1940s, as my father was a 16mm film collector. Growing up, my dad screened classic movies in our basement. Before there were VCRs or DVD players, our family watched full length movies on a cold New England night.

My father was both an engineer and cinematographer. He gave me my first movie camera when I was in grammar school. By the time I was in 4th grade my father had already taught me stop motion animation. He had also introduced my to radio dramas, decoder badges, and his vintage 1940s Gilbert Erector set. Before I knew it, I was already trying to find a way to combine all of these interests.

The short film is well underway, and looks great (as you can see from the promotional video below) but more money is need to complete the task. Hence, like many others before him, Mark is making a play for backing through the Kickstarter website. “Until recently,” he explained, “we were 100% self financed from my personal savings. We are now trying to raise money to finish our production.”

The Backbrain asked Mark what he was aiming to achieve through this film:

I’m trying to put together a concept film that will demonstrate the skill and talent of my cast and crew. It is my hope that someone will see this movie, and fund us to shoot either a feature-length film or television pilot based upon these characters and story situations. I would like to be able to bring back my entire cast and crew for a full-length movie, and beyond that a series of films based upon these characters.

If you think you’d like to help Mark complete his film and fulfil these ambitions, check out the Kickstarter site to see what rewards your pledge will get you.

Source: Mark Ross; Kickstarter. Written by Robert Hood

The series is described thus by Davis: “MORAV: Missions plunges you in to the middle of World War III with a giant robot crew and an embedded news correspondent as they fight for survival in a terrifying robotic war.  MORAV examines the human condition under the most extreme life and death situations.”

If that sounds like your cup-of-tea (or coffee or motor oil or whatever beverage you prefer), go to the Kickstarter site and pledge them some money. There’s plenty of information there to show you what you’re backing. Frankly, it looks superb.

Davis has already achieved an enormous amount, in terms of background development and franchise building, having completed an excellent graphic novel set in a world caught up in a massive near-future war, with action, drama and giant robots as well as developing many of the robotic stars. Take a look at this appeal video to get an idea of the quality he is aiming for.

Go read about it — and put your money where your enthusiasm is. You’ve got about 8 hours from… now!

More details about MORAV, the franchise, on Robot War Espresso. I’ve been meaning to do a piece on the excellent graphic novel, which I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed. Must get to that. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: MORAV: Missions succeeded in obtaining the funds targeted through KickStarter. Congratulations to Fon Davis and crew! Looks like the giant robot wars really begin now!

Then George Lucas gave us Tatooine, Luke Skywalker’s desert planet.

Seeing that image in Star Wars, many scoffed and said it was impossible to have a planet orbiting two suns. How often have you heard that kind of nit-pickery in the aftermath of a science fiction film viewing?

Now there’s this, an artist’s impression of Kepler-16(AB)-b:

Yes, astronomers have discovered a binary system with an orbiting planet — Kepler-16(AB)-b or “Tatooine” as it is being dubbed.

So much for the nit-pickers.

• Written  by Robert Hood

In the cinema the best known versions of Wells’ novel have been:

1. the 1953 creature-feature directed by Byron Haskin and starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, in which the plot is moved to the States, the key POV character becomes a fairly typical 50s scientist rather than a low-level journalist, and the Martian tripods are re-imagined as flying saucers on legs of invisible energy; and
2. Steven Spielberg’s much-maligned 2005 blockbuster, still set in the US, with Tom Cruise as the POV character — this time a working-class heavy-equipment operator with poor family skills who finds some redemption through adversity — and beautifully rendered Martian machines with the appropriate three legs but a rather logically flawed if visually spectacular “origin”.

Among the film versions that have appeared over the past few years, one of the more interesting was made for Pendragon Pictures by Timothy Hines in 2005 and subsequently released to DVD. It remains faithful to Wells’ novel, by setting the story in England at the turn of the century and not playing around with the Martians and their machines, or with the main characters. The film grossed US$7 million — not bad for a low-budget independent that didn’t have a major cinema release — yet the director considered it a failure. “The 2005 film was both rushed and severely over-scaled with highly compressed post-production deadlines,” Hines told SFcrowsnest.com.

As a result the same crew has taken a new approach to the material, having made a re-make of/addendum to the first — War of the Worlds: The True Story:

The movie goes the route of Welles and the Mercury Theater of the Air production, adopting a mock-documentary approach, using footage ostensibly taken during the invasion — which occurred as Wells described it but knowledge of which was subsequently suppressed by the world’s governments.

“It’s not a documentary. It’s a mock-documentary, like a CNN documentary on steroids with action and horror.” (Hines)

The Premise:

A 1965 film crew captured the memories of the last living survivor of the war between Earth and Mars that took place c1900. The filmed memoirs, discovered in a vault in 2006, were found  with hours of previously unknown footage of the alien/Earth apocalypse, the actual Martian invaders and their war machines. This is the motion picture presentation of that eyewitness account. (Source: Official website)

Trailer:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Early Teaser:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

This looks like a potentially exciting film to me, with a rationale and an air of authenticity that takes it well beyond many of the “found footage” (camera-verité style) pseudo-dramas that have haunted cinemas and DVD stores since The Blair Witch Project was a huge, and hugely unexpected hit, in 1999.

Hines began a Special Engagement tour on 23 July this year, in Seattle, Washington. He is currently touring the film through the US and Canada — a tour that will last well into 2012. Check out the huge list of remaining engagements here. If the Martians are coming your way, think yourself lucky. The rest of us will have to wait for the DVD release.

Sources: Official website; Facebook; Pendragon Pictures. Via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

Reviewed by Robert Hood

There is a distinctly steampunk — or perhaps more accurately retro, post-Industrial — aesthetic  to Hayao Miyazaki’s typically luminous fantasy anime, Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Technological imagery combines with more fantastical elements to create the sort of magical ambiance  quintessential to Miyazaki’s grandmaster status in the field of animation. Though science fiction in general appearance, replete with flying machines, robots and advanced, if ancient, technology, much of the film feels like magic. The combination makes for a wonderful two-hours of family entertainment — profound simplicity, darkness wrapped in auras of light.

After an opening scene in which a young girl (Sheeta) falls from a huge dirigible while trying to escape both a mysterious enemy and air-pirates, the action shifts to Pazu, an engineer’s apprentice at work in a vast mining construct, clearly well past its prime. He sees the young girl not so much falling as floating down from the sky, apparently carried to safety by the glowing pendant she wears around her neck. He catches her in his arms.

This encounter is the beginning of an adventurous journey that involves spectacular chase scenes, pseudo-fascist troops, air battles, puzzles to be solved — and a mythical flying castle that is what remains of an ancient civilisation whose power had been vast but has long since been lost to ground-dwelling humanity. Many seek the source of that power, however, and Pazu must not only help Sheeta escape them, but also unravel the mystery of who she is and how she is connected to Laputa.

Though the sinister pirates convincingly turn into eccentric comrades during the unravelling of the narrative,  and the overall tone of the film is one of well-meaning optimism, there is a dark and melancholy undercurrent as well. It is this that creates the film’s complexity and gives an effective texture to the story. If nothing else, evidence of human civilisation here is in various stages of decay — from the mining township of Slag Ravine, which appears to be living under the shadow of economic decline, to Laputa itself, which is the last evidence of an advanced civilisation that has now all but disappeared. Parts of it are overgrown, crumbling, with only the natural reserves — kept up by a strange and strangely endearing robotic ecologist — surviving to the end. In that end the island in the sky becomes more or less a huge tree (the Tree of Life?), with the debris of greatness entangled in its roots — a significant symbol of the continuity of the natural world and the ephemeral nature of humanity’s creations, no matter how magnificent.

This new Blu-ray edition of Laputa: Castle in the Sky is absolutely beautiful, evidence, if any were needed, that traditional cel animation can stand up to scrutiny against CGI and in some areas perhaps even surpass it. Apparently 69,262 traditional “cels” and 381 colors were needed to give Laputa its radiant splendor, and there is no stinting on the quality of the animation itself. The luminosity of this transfer to Blu-ray has to be the best the film has ever looked and is more than worthy of this great work of animated cinema.

If you love Miyazaki’s work, you will need to upgrade to this edition, which you can watch with its original Japanese soundtrack or with an effective English dub. If you don’t love Miyazaki’s work… what’s your problem?

Laputa: Castle in the Sky is released on DVD and on Blu-ray by Madman Entertainment.