The first lengthy synopsis for Guillermo Del Toro’s new monster film Pacific Rim certainly gives a clearer picture of what we’re in for than does the earlier mundane IMDb summary: “When an alien attack threatens the Earth’s existence, giant robots piloted by humans are deployed to fight off the menace.”
The following official summary was posted on Collider.com, hot off the cyber-presses:
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
Del Toro doing (a) kaiju, and (b) live-action mecha fills the Backbrain with joy!
See the Collider.com article for more production details.
To give those who don’t know what “mecha” is the general idea, here is a definition and some official mecha artwork for the anime Hyakujuu Sentai GaoRanger. [I’ve been corrected here — Hyakujuu Sentai GaoRanger is a live action series. Still, you get the idea.]
General Description: Though having a wider meaning that encompasses machines in general, “mecha” manga/anime/live action series tends to feature large battle robots that are piloted by humans (often youthful) whose relationship with the machine varies from mere pilot to a sort of psychic/symbiotic joining. Initially very practical in form, typical mecha have come to encompass all sorts of colourful and ornate designs (see below).
Official mecha artwork from Hyakujuu Sentai GaoRanger (Source):
The long-awaited second sequel to Men in Black — creatively titled Men in Black III (US-2012; dir. Barry Sonnenfeld) — opens this coming weekend. Check out this cool picture of some of the aliens from the film, wonderfully designed to suggest the SF creature features of the ’60s, which is where the film is set. Sitting up front, without make-up, is great make-up FX artist, Rick Baker, who designed the aliens (as always) and is in the film himself as the “Brain Alien”.
Click on the image to make it bigger and view the critters in all their detailed glory.
How many of the creatures can you “identify” from old movies? Suggested by the monster hunters on the Monster Fighters International Headquarters Facebook page are Robot Monster, Saucermen, the Man from Planet X, [the Mutant from] Metaluna from This Island Earth, and assorted pseudo Outer Limits critters.
Well, giant monster fans — and devotees of Guillermo del Toro — are well aware that his next big film, in the absence of backing for the much mourned In the Mountains of Madness, is Pacific Rim. Due out in July 2013, the film features alien monsters that rampage across the world and the giant robots piloted by humans that are built to deal with them.
It is likely to be classy and visually eccentric, in typical Del Toro fashion.
Less classy, vastly cheaper and much more clichéd (no doubt) will be the Asylum’s inevitable exploitation version of the unreleased blockbuster, named with unsubtle cunning Atlantic Rim.
Produced by Asylum alumni David Michael Latt (who will likely direct), David Rimawi, and the Asylum’s canny overseer Paul Bales, Atlantic Rim sounds not dissimilar to Legendary’s effort, though I’m sure the onscreen similarities will be superficial:
When giant monsters crawl out of the Atlantic Ocean and attack the Eastern Seaboard, the US Government is forced to trust A.I. robots to defend the country.
It starts shooting in December.
I haven’t been paying attention to what the Asylum is up to lately, but I notice that they’ve got American Warships (US-2012; dir. Thunder Levin) [Battleship], which looks at least credible in the trailer, though it will undoubtedly suffer at full length:
[youtube UJwgRY0r67k]
Also Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies (US-2012; dir. Richard Schenkman) [Abraham Lincoln, Vampite Hunter], which is more feasible as zombies movies can be made much more cheaply than SFX spectaculars:
and the older Almighty Thor (US-2011; dir. Christopher Ray):
Secret government/military experimentation, whether based on genetic manipulation and chimaera creation or research into the use of alien creatures or cryptids for military purposes is a major theme in modern cinema and TV, post X-Files.
A new film, currently two weeks into its three-and-a-half week shoot in suitably traditional London, England (and later Wales), fits right into this category. The main creature has a touch of the werewolf about it, though the director, Keith R. Robinson, says it isn’t a werewolf, merely “werewolf-like”. At any rate, something has become the subject of a convert government operation and it’s not happy about it.
The film has the rather innocuous title Pounce, but the imagery is telling.
Something watched Marty and Laura’s small tent as it sat on the mountainside flapping in the wind, something that waited completely still in the shadows…
Pounce is a thriller/horror film about a group of conspiracy theorists bent on secretly watching a covert military base in the desolate Welsh mountains, looking for experimental and highly classified test aircraft to report to a Fortean-style magazine. In the midst of their vigil, they uncover evidence of a Top Secret and highly lethal creature (kept secret since its capture in the 1920s), which the military and Government are testing for its potential as a weapon: its fur has the ability to turn invisible in moonlight. The film follows the young group’s plight as they are hunted both by the creature (which the Army has nicknamed “The Silverhide”) and the military who will stop at nothing to keep their classified specimen a secret…
Below is the first teaser trailer, made before filming began as a demo:
[youtube WFocvz4wkBA]
The Facebook page of Pounce has an interesting way of displaying images from the film, accompanying them by descriptive text:
She’d been sitting alone and in the dark with a loaded gun and now a team of equally scared companions. What more could go wrong on this cold and dark evening? As she sat there pondering this thought, the radio beside her suddenly buzzed into life and a familiar voice of her friend Laura burst through the static.
“Sinead? Sinead, can you hear me?” Sinead knew that Marty had gotten back to the tent and had by now told Laura about the gun and about the people following her. It was time to come clean to her friend who sitting isolated on the side of a dark and barren mountainside was not going to be very impressed with this new and dark twist to this evening’s proceedings. Sinead sighed and picked the radio up.
A cold wind blew through the bunker, chilling Sinead’s already cold body some more as she started to speak…
Laura had checked outside in the crescent moonlight and seen nothing but the two slaughtered sheep; the mountainside was empty and silent in the misty dark, except for the mysterious heavy footsteps she kept hearing over the wind. She could see nothing that made these sounds as she scanned the moors from the open flap of the tent, then a deep growl suddenly shattered the silence right behind her… Laura looked around petrified! How could she not see it..?
Marty heard Laura’s screams echo across the dark mountainside…
Go to the Facebook page for more of these “extended captions”, and while you’re there register your approval.
Then check out the latest teaser, made while filming is in progress:
[youtube kCnm3Xlx0Qk]
Pounce is the first feature film produced by Other Dimension Films Ltd, a production company formed in 2011 by Keith R. Robinson for the purpose of producing low budget features, as well as commercial product. The film was written and is being produced/directed by Robinson and stars Kelly Wines, Lucy Clarvis and Sean Hayes, with Jordan Murphy and John Hoye. The cinematography on Pounce will be the responsibility of Toby Wilson and the film is currently being shot in S.E. London/Essex in England, followed by some location work in the “rugged mountains of Wales”.
Above: Director Keith R. Robinson at work lining up a shot
The Silverhide
On the creation of the monster, Robinson had this to say:
Two separate artists are producing the Special make-up effects. Nicholas Thompson is creating all the splatter effects whilst Dave Fox (of Fox Zumba Dark Art FXs) is creating the animatronic creature, a creature we have deliberately been keeping shrouded in mystery and hidden from public view — with a strict NO PHOTOGRAPH policy imposed on the cast and crew of Pounce.
In fact, not even the cast have been shown the creature. As Robinson explains: “The decision to keep the creature hidden from the cast was to heighten their fear and anticipation as they filmed their scenes, preceding their encounters with it.” Method acting at its horror-film best!
So we have not clear pictures of the beastie, but here is a conceptual drawing to whet your appetites:
Looks like man-into-creature pseudo lycanthropy is going on here, though I suspect what we’re looking at is a facial guide for applying the make-up. Still, that’s a form of man-into-monster…
The Backbrain is definitely scratching to see more of this film.
Source: Keith R. Robinson via Avery Guerra; Facebook page. Robinson will be posting more info via his Twitter account.
Here’s an interesting oddity: as part of a museum exhibition running from July 10 to October 8 at Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art titled Hideaki Anno’s Special Effects Museum, Anno is working with Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli to make a short live-action daikaiju film — Kyōshinhei Tokyo ni Arawaru [lit. Giant God Warrior Appears In Tokyo].
The film will have quite a nostalgic quality to it as it means that Hideaki Anno (famous as the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Hayao Miyazaki (one of the world’s greatest animation auteurs and founding director of Studio Ghibli) will work together on the film, with Miyazaki doing design work on the titular kaiju. The pair once worked together on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind [aka Kaze no tani no Naushika], which Miyazaki wrote and directed from his own manga and on which Anno was the head animator.
Nausicaä had its own fair share of giant monsters, all of which were manifestations of the violated ecological system. This includes Giant God Warriors, which Anno apparently used as an inspiration for the “angels” of Evangelion.
Here’s two of the not-so-humanoid giants from Nausicaä:
Centred around the arrival of a nuclear-spawned monstrous God Warrior in the much kaiju-visited Japanese capital, Kyōshinhei Tokyo ni Arawaru will be directed by Shinji Higuchi, who was a storyboard artist on Evangelion.
It will not be using computer graphics, but is intended to celebrate traditional filmmaking techniques, especially the use of miniatures. The God Warrior is apparently an updated version of the God Warriors from Nausicaä. You can get some idea of what he looks like from the following teaser clip:
[youtube yW7i6fj_ZJw]
In association with the film, figures makers Max Factory, Kaiyodo, and Good Smile have created a series of statues and figurines of the Mad God:
Here’s a curiosity. I don’t know what this is, but there’s a certain similarity to the design of the creatures, though the animation leaves much to be desired. It appears on YouTube after you run the Anno clip, but clearly has nothing official to do with it.
Filmmaker Brian Schiavo freely names Davids Lynch and Cronenberg, along with Guillermo del Toro, as major influences in his work — and in my book that’s pretty impressive name-dropping. By the time he adds Alan Moore’s run on the comic reboot of Swamp Thing I’m well-and-truly hooked. You just know that surrealistic absurdity, chimaerical monstrosities and body horror by way of gruesome transformations of the flesh are going to enter into proceedings somewhere.
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.
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.
Kaiju artist and Backbrain buddy Todd Tennant has finally hit us with the news we’ve all been hoping for — not simply the return of his long-time online project to create a graphic novel of the rejected American Godzilla 1994 script, but also the proposed official production of that graphic novel as a legit publication.
How did it come about? Here’s the news from Todd himself:
“Terry Rossio contacted me in regards to my American Godzilla ’94 graphic novel, and told me he was a fan (Terry is co-author with Ted Elliott of the 1994 rejected TriStar Godzilla screenplay, which you can actually read here. They also wrote the screenplays for Aladdin, Legend of Zorro, and the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series, among others). Now Terry has asked me to finish the G’94 graphic novel — and how could I refuse such an offer?
“Publication possibilities are being looked into, but job number one for me is getting it all finished.”
Todd has even sent the Backbrain some new artwork: three images of Godzilla rampant from page 80.
Great stuff!
For those who don’t know, Todd’s graphic novel adaptation has been running on his American Kaiju website for a long time, finally reaching as far as page 78. You can check it out here — and if you haven’t, you should. How can you resist reading 78 pages of a Godzilla graphic novel? Free!
This project continues apace — and you can follow developments on Todd’s blog. Meanwhile here are some images from this original — and awesome — comic series. This first one is PETT:
In this one, New York City prepares for the worst:
What is the worst? Something like this:
You can click on any of these to see them bigger.
Just so you know, Todd, I can’t wait for both these series to arrive!
Source: Todd Tennant, to whom all images are copyrighted, by the way. No reproduction without consent!
Schlock patriarch Ted V. Mikels, whose blood-drenched exploitation films were grindhouse regulars back in the 1970s, has revealed to Undead Backbrain that a third sequel to one of his classics is about to start filming.
His 1971 camp horror classic The Corpse Grinders tells the gruesome tale of pet food made from human corpses and the domestic pussies who by eating it develop a taste for human flesh. Number two in the franchise, to similar effect, hit the video shelves in 2000.
“Now The Corpse Grinders 3 is under way in Spain,” Mikels told the Backbrain. “A new spin on one of my older success stories. I am the executive producer of Corpse Grinders 3, with approval over the shoots and edits. I’m sure it will be as successful as my original and Corpse Grinders 2.”
Directed by Manolito Motosierra and written by Motosierra and Marc Gras, it will be filmed in English and released worldwide, full of cats, fresh corpses and a touch of the monstrous.
Gras, who is also producing along with Mikels, José M. Rodriguez, Sr. Guijarro, Kiko Underground and José Vicente Tomás for Tyrannosaurus Entertainment in association with TVM Global Entertainment, told us: “The film is the official third part of the Ted V. Mikels’ franchise and will be filmed in Spain over three weeks. We hope to have the movie finished and edited by September.”
Just like its predecessors it will be “a low budget camp horror-comedy” sporting a plot that is basically a re-interpretation of the original movie but “with a ‘monster’ touch”.
Synopsis:
An American entrepeneur comes to Spain to build a new Lotus Cat Food factory and establishes the company in a small Spanish town. The new Lotus doesn’t do too well until they accidentally add a special ingredient to the food — human flesh, ground up into a mash. Soon the cats that eat Lotus not only attack people, but also transform into hideous mutated cat-monsters.
As a Backbrain exclusive, Gras has sent some conceptual artwork — an early incarnation of the monster cats:
Cats are notoriously difficult to herd and films that feature them en masse — even the evil cat episode of The X-Files, “Teso dos Bichos” — resort to a lot of tossing of the indignant feline stars at hapless actors and close-ups of pussies that look like they’re more interested in the off-camera tuna supreme than in biting off the heads of their human victims. These days, CGI would allow for considerable advancement in the conviction department, even for low budget productions — so it will be interesting to see if this new one will come up to scratch — assuming, of course, that the monster cats will be digitally rendered. Who knows, maybe they’ll be cats in rubber cat-monster suits!
Source: Courtesy of Ted V. Mikels, Marc Grass and Manolito Motosierra via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood. Official website; Facebook page.
Bonus 1: A Lotus Cat Food factsheet (click to make bigger)
Bonus 2: In case you aren’t familiar with Mikels’ earlier work, here’s a classically 1970s trailer to The Corpse Grinders that will give you some idea as to what we’re in for:
Actually, it’s not very new, and even if you could find a copy, it probably wouldn’t be what you expect. This one is from 1921 and I’ve so far been unable to hunt down much information on it. The following intriguing poster came to me via early film aficionado Michael Organ.
The title Auf den Spuren des weissen Sklavenhandels. II. Teil Durch Schiffbruch zum Strande translates as “On the Trail of White Slave Traders, Part 2: The Stranded Shipwreck”. It is a German film from 1922 [according to KinoTV] and was directed by Edmund Linke. The website KinoTV, which references its source as Der Film #19, 1922 (Kritik), claims that the film was also written by Linke and stars Herbert Hübner, Kadja Lana, Anna Perra, Robert Pirk and Fritz Reiff. That seems to be the extent of available information, though the “Part 2” in the subtitle suggests that it is part of a serial or series.
Filmportal references a film called Auf den Spuren des weissen Sklavenhandels. I Teil (1921) by Edmund Linke, which is presumably the precursor. Its production company is given as Orient-Film, Linke & Co. (Leipzig) and the producer as Oskar Linke. It does not list a Part 2.
Referring to the poster, Michael Organ commented to me: “It is very much German Expressionism, so the monster probably relates to the evil of the slave trade, rather than actually being a monster/dragon as in Lang’s Nibelungen (1924). The image is very cool, though.”
It is indeed. If anyone out there has more information on it, let us know.
