The sardonic, somewhat bad-tempered ex-wrestler, now grumpy monster fighter, King! is back in issue 2 of writer Thomas Hall and artist Daniel Bradford’s new comic series, King!, created for Blacklist Studios. It is, I’m happy to say, even better than issue one, which was itself no slouch at all. Issue 2 begins in the aftermath of the zombie- and Death God-infested confrontation of issue one (see my review and an interview with Hall and Bradf0rd on Undead Backbrain). King is regaling a skeptical barmaid with his exploits when an undead leftover from those events turns up and violent jollity ensues.
Impressed patrons admire (and as it happens recognise) King’s modus operandi and beg for help, an appeal to altruism in a matter of vampires that is given greater force by wads of cash. The scene is now set for a titanic struggle in an isolated community between King and the extremely non-sparkly bloodsucker hordes. We also meet up with an unexpected visitor from issue one, whose presence and commentary on events is indicative of the fact that these are no isolated incidents, but steps along a continuing narrative line.
The textual/visual narrative flow is even smoother than in the previous issue and the humour more finely tuned, which makes King! issue 2 loads of fun and a pleasure to read. With the introduction of some of King’s personal history as a wrestler and as the arcing storyline ramps up, there’s no reason for any comic fan not to take the series in a loving stranglehold and clutch it to their metaphorical breast.
In all its 32-page, full-colour visual glory, it’s a “Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Monsterfest” that doesn’t disappoint. King! issue 2 becomes available on December 27 for US$3.99 from Blacklist Studios. Highly recommended.
Apothecary — noun: a druggist, pharmacist; (esp. in England and Ireland) a druggist licensed to prescribe medicine.
Origin: 1325–75; ME (< OF) < ML apothēcārius seller of spices and drugs, LL: shopkeeper, equiv. to L apothēc ( a ) shop, storehouse (< Gk apothḗkē; see apo-, theca) + -ārius -ary (Source)
Every generation of horror writer — and their cinematic equivalents, both writer and director — wants to come up with the next iconic monster. It’s not easy to create a cultural archetype, a creature so unique, and so multi-layered, that it takes on an identity of its own apart from the original story in which it was born. Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the Mummy, the Phantom of the Opera, the Candyman, Freddie Krueger, Romero’s apocalyptic zombies, the Joker, King Kong, Godzilla, Daleks, Pinhead (from Hellraiser) — these monsters have all, to varying degrees, done so, often against expectation. Perhaps we creators want all our creations to have that impact. However, I don’t believe it’s something you can deliberately achieve, even when what you do achieve is effective in its own right. Many great monsters and villains never reach that pinnacle. The apotheosis happens at a point where artistic intent and the unpredictable public imagination meet, where the zeitgeist suddenly latches onto a creation and becomes deeply obsessed with it, beyond its original incarnation. The reasons why it happens aren’t always clear either to creators or their audience. The transformation transcends both ability and artist success, and engages something much more elusive, more primal.
Still, we keep trying.
In this in-production horror film, The Apothecary, writer/director Kevin Lindenmuth intends to create a memorable monster of this kind. Will the Apothecary be the next Hannibal Lecter?
Synopsis:
A young man, Yanni, revisits his childhood neighborhood in Detroit soon after the death of his mother. Once there he falls back into his old life in Greektown and begins work for a mysterious pharmacist who concocts miraculous cures. But he also reunites with a childhood friend, who is infected with evil. When the pharmacist is brutally murdered a golem-like creature from Greek folklore begins wreaking havoc. Is this the pharmacist returned from the dead? And what, exactly, is Yanni’s connection to the magical store?
Conceptual Teaser:
As indicated in the above promo piece, The Apothecary will be both a comic and a feature film. The drawings featured in this article are conceptual illustrations created for the monster in both incarnations — though the relationship ends there. Writer/Director Lindenmuth explained:
A comic of The Apothecary is also being produced, with artist Vince Locke illustrating it. These sketches are the basic art for the monster, but the graphic novel and screenplay are different from each other. They are both based on the same source material (short story and 30-page outline), but me and Vince have independently come up with the actual story. I haven’t read his script yet, and he hasn’t read mine. Sort of independent projects.
Undead Backbrain asked Lindenmuth how the movie come about?
The idea came from a 30 page outline/story by the film’s producer, Danny Johnston of Coil Studios, LLC. He had a lot of ideas for a movie and for the first one from Coil this one was the most viable, considering the budget. I took his idea and gave my own spin on it. It takes into consideration the “magic” movies like those of the Harry Potter franchise and Percy Jackson and the Olympians to appeal to that audience while also being a homage to 80s monster movies (like Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, which have their own distinct monsters). Danny had read my books years ago and was already familiar with my work. It coincided as I was looking for a directing gig and he wanted to produce his first feature.
How do you expect the film to be released?
For The Apothecary, we are seeking the widest release possible. I had wide success with my previous films in the US through Blockbuster, et cetera, but now that video chains are disappearing, it may make more sense to directly self-distribute. Annual horror series, as those from Ghost House and Lion’s Gate’s Screamfest, have shown it’s possible to get picked up by a distributor for a lump of cash, but I’ve always gone the self-distribution route, simply licensing my movies to different distributors, especially worldwide sales. I have a bunch of possible distribution companies that have expressed interest already, based on my established track record.
At what stage is the film right now?
We’ll be shooting the movie in early February and it will be completed Summer 2011. Right now, we’re in the casting phase.
This looks and sounds very promising to me and it will be great to see what eventuates. As always, Undead Backbrain will keep you informed.
Addendum: Apparently, according to Lindenmuth, the creature harks from Greek mythology and is called a Vrykolokas. He explained: “It’s a being that’s returned from the beyond. It can be the result of a violent sacriligeous death or burial, summoned as a tool of vengeance. Vince referred to it as ‘Meat Man’ in his sketches since that’s what it looks like.”
Film Details:
The Apothecary
Coil Productions, LLC & Brimstone Media Productions, LLC
Producer: Danny Johnston
Director/Writer: Kevin Lindenmuth
Makeup effects: Jason Hiltz
Cast: to be determined
Location: Michigan, Detroit-Metro area
Shooting: February 2011
About Kevin Lindenmuth:
Kevin Lindenmuth has worked in the film/video business for over 25 years. He received his BA in film/video production from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1987. Most of his professional life was spent working in New York City in all the major aspects of video production. He is a published author and also an independent film and documentary maker. His most popular genre title is the vampire/serial killer movie Addicted To Murder, which was widely distributed through Blockbuster video in 1996 and was named “Best Outlaw movie of ’96 by CINEFANTASTIQUE magazine. His films in the same vampiric vein, Addicted To Murder (see DVD cover art below), Addicted To Murder: Tainted Blood and Vampires & Other Stereotypes have just been re-released to DVD and can be bought via Amazon. (They’ve been unavailable for half a decade — and it’s the first time Vampires & Other Stereotypes has been released on DVD in the US.)
For the past ten years Lindenmuth has primarily been a documentary director/producer, with many of his documentaries broadcasting nationally on PBS. In fact, he is in post-production on a new documentary, The Life of Death, which interviews such genre authors/filmmakers as Jack Ketchum, Caroline Munro, Tom Sullivan, Debbie Rochon, Tony Timpone, Bob Fingerman. The horror movie The Apothecary marks his return to directing horror films.
Writer Michael May of Michael May’s Adventureblog — in itself a must-visit resource for those into comic art — is currently involved in a free web-comic called Kill All Monsters! It has nothing to do with Godzilla or the G-flick Kaiju soshingeki [aka Destroy All Monsters] (1968; dir. Ishirô Honda), but it does feature giant mecha-style robots fighting giant monsters of various shapes and political persuasions.
The comic is updated every Friday, with three new pages added then. So far there are 11 pages — all crammed full with tentacles, stomping feet, urban rubble and kaiju action, set against the backdrop of Paris. Why? We don’t know yet. Early days and all that. So far, we haven’t got more than a brief glimpse of the pilots of the robot fighting machines — except as disembodied “voices” — but there has been a heap of secondhand scrap metal created from various Parisian buildings. As the web-comic progresses, we will no doubt come to understand what’s going on, and in the meantime you can revel in artist Jason Copland’s scenes of monstrous black-and-white conflict.
Kill All Monsters! — written by Michael May, drawn by Copland and lettered by Ed Brisson — is hosted by the Review 2 A Kill website. Go there, bookmark it, and know you’ll have three new pages of giant monster action ready to stomp along to each weekend.
You can also read a two-part interview with May starting here.
Here’s a teaser trailer for The Man Who Summons Kaiju [aka Kaijû wo yobu otoko] (Japan-2010; dir. Daisuke Andô), which we introduced on Undead Backbrain last week. It lacks subtitles, so the Japanese literate among you will have a better idea about what’s going on than us.
Below are a few more images from (or relating to) the film, showing some of the locations in Saga Prefecture where the short film was shot. Most feature leads Gen Hoshino (as the filmmaker Kouta Soejima) and Nao Nagasawa (as Nanae Fukami).
And there’s a shot of the ubiquitous kaiju mascot than followed the production around, here hiding among some of Saga’s produce:
Coulrophobia or fear of clowns is not an uncommon condition. And why not? Those grossly painted faces. That exaggerated behaviour. The comicbook violence that often attends their acrobatic slapstick performances. Whatever they represent must be something that lies deep in the human consciousness, a dark xenophobic reaction that sees in clowns something that is trying to be human but failing to hide the reality of its fearful “otherness” despite the gaudy face-paint and comical shoes.
With a simple twitch of facial expression, even “funny”, “friendly” clowns can veer into the creepily sinister for those who don’t actually exhibit clinical coulrophobia, let alone for coulrophobics themselves. No wonder evil clowns have become such an interesting subgenre of horror film and fiction. They’re everywhere. Batman’s key nemesis, the Joker, is, of course, one of the best known and most obsessive of comicbook villains, given new, super-sinister potency in Heath Ledger’s powerful rendition of the character in The Dark Knight. In novel form, Australian Will Elliott’s award-winning comic-horror tale The Pilo Family Circus (2006) gave new life (and death) to the circus environment in which clowns thrive. Then there are also such famous examples as Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, Stephen King’s Pennywise in his novel It and the film of the same name (in which Tim Curry gave an iconic performance as the clown), and who can forget the alien clowns of Killer Klowns from Outer Space?
I’m sure there’s a long article crying out to be written on this subject. But let the above serve as an introduction to John Lechago’s latest film — number three in a low-budget, so far rather uninspiring series of evil clown flicks — Killjoy 3.
Where the previous Killjoy films have been, frankly, rather lame both script-wise and visually, Lechago’s entry looks to offer a lush VFX landscape, with loads of bizarre imagery and buckets of blood, whatever the script might prove to be like. The director’s experience with slime, nasty make-up FX and gross bodily dismemberment has come to our attention through his upcoming Bio-Slime, now renamed Contagion for general release, and he appears to carry this extreme but classy grossness over into the low-budget environment of Charles Band’s Full Moon Entertainment franchise.
Synopsis:
The demon clown Killjoy is resurrected once again, but this time he is not given the name of his victim and is trapped in his realm. Using a magic mirror, he lures four unsuspecting college students into his domain where he can have his macabre way with them! And this time he is joined by the behemoth clown Punchy, the conjoined twins mime Freakshow and the seductive succubus Batty Boop.
Trailer:
Killjoy 3 is due for release on DVD on 14 December 2010, but before then, in fact today (in the US), there is a special open screening taking place. So if you happen to be in the vicinity of LA on December 3rd, grasp hold of your coulrophobic tendencies, don your polka-dot pants and head to the Capital City Sports Grill for some gross-out clowning around.
Friday December 3rd
Time: 8pm
Location: Capitol City Sports Grill
Address: 1615 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Los Angeles, CA. 90028 (between Selma Ave. & Hollywood Blvd.)
Admission is free, but Lechago says to “come thirsty”.
Below in the Gallery there are lots of pictures from the film and behind-the-scenes.
Sources: John Lechago; IMDb entry. Thanks to Avery as always. Written by Robert Hood
Here it is, the biggest [Asylum] battle since… well, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus:
Synopsis:
The massive prehistoric shark has survived the last battle, and the world is again threatened when a new, more dangerous foe is discovered in the jungles of Africa.
Source: Trailer from MTV via Arrow in the Head. Poster from the Asylum. Thanks Avery.
It’s always good to see another giant monster film arise from the spiritual home of the genre, even if it’s not full-length. The Man Who Summons Kaiju [aka Kaijû wo yobu otoko] (Japan-2010; dir. Daisuke Andô) is a 25-minute television drama produced by NHK and the Saga Film Commission and distributed by NHK BS Hi-Vision. Due to air on Friday 10 December on Japanese TV, the short drama takes a rather self-reflective (and dare I say postmodern) approach to the subject, featuring a filmmaker whose ambitions to make a kaiju eiga take a somewhat unexpected turn.
Kouta Soejima (Gen Hoshino) works for the Saga Film Commission. One day, approached by an old school friend now working in the film industry, Kouta is given the opportunity to make a monster movie and eagerly takes up the challenge. He begins scouting for locations, seeking the perfect shoot location — which turns out to be the hometown he had left years before. As elements of his past start to catch up with him, he finds that something else — something big — is about make an appearance…
When asked whether a daikaiju actually makes an appearance, a spokesperson for NHK gave a definitive “Yes!” Moreover, the film foregoes traditional suitmation techniques — the “rubber” suits and miniature cityscapes of Godzilla, Gamera and his buddies — in order to use computer imaging to create the monster. So the monster below (engaged in examining some of the publicity surrounding the making of the film) isn’t actually what you’ll see on the screen!
This “plush” toy is actually a mascot version of the film’s kaiju star that travelled around with the crew and can be seen sticking his muzzle into many of the location shots appearing on the film’s production blog. Here he is with some friends:
But is this what the monster in The Man Who Summons Kaiju will look like? When Undead Backbrain asked, the spokesperson commented:
As for the daikaiju that is in the film, its appearance is based on a fish known as “Odontamblyopus lacepedii”, which looks a little like H.R. Giger’s Alien design.
Odontamblyopus lacepedii is in fact a species of eel goby found in muddy coastal waters off China, Korea and Japan. It has a long, slender body — and nasty teeth. Apparently it digs elaborate burrows that are tunnel-shaped, vertical, and extend to depths of 50-90 cm into the sea-bed. It grows to a maximum length of 30.3 cms and is considered harmless to humans (reference).
Quite a charmer, eh? It’s not hard to imagine this critter mutated into an upright, bipedal kaiju (with arms), as suggested by the silhouette that appears on publicity.
The film stars Gen Hoshino (as the filmmaker Kouta Soejima), Nao Nagasawa (as Nanae Fukami) and Tetsu Watanabe (as Toshiya soejima — Kouta’s father?).
Tetsu Watanabe is a long-time veteran of film and television, with a CV that includes a voice role in Hayao Miyazaki‘s classic animation Princess Mononoke (1997), Takeshi Kitano‘s violent noir Hana-bi (1997) and Takeshis’ (2005), minor roles in the Godzilla films Gojira tai Mosura [trans Godzilla vs. Motha] (1992; dir. Takao Okawara) [aka Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth] and Gojira tai Mekagojira [aka Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla] (2002, dir. Masaaki Tezuka), and a major role in the TV series Ring: The Final Chapter [aka Ringu: Saishuu-sho] (Japan-1999, dir. Hiroshi Nishitani, Hidetomo Matsuda, Yoshihito Fukumoto) — which was based on the same novel that inspired the influential Ring [aka Ringu] (Japan-1998, dir. Hideo Nakata).
Nao Nagasawa’s main genre credits include the 2010 remake Daimajin Kanon TV series and Geisha vs Ninjas (Japan-2008; dir. Gô Ohara).
Location seems to be a big aspect of this film, with much of the associated marketing collateral focusing on those parts of Saga Prefecture where it was shot. Here are some of the places visited, including streets, a fishery, a school room, the harbour — and a very surreal underground complex:
The last two rather evocative images are of a flood-control channel — one that is of daikaiju proportions in its own right. It brings to mind a scene from the Ultraman movie Ultraman: The Next (Japan-2004; dir. Kazuya Konaka), where the hero faces off an early incarnation of the lead kaiju, just before it absorbs a swarm of rats and begins to grow larger. I wonder if the same location was used there. Certainly a great place for a daikaiju-sized battle….
When?
As I said above, the film premieres on Japanese TV on 10 December 2010. On 26 November, a “production diary” style documentary on the making of the film aired on NHK General in the Saga region — running 55 minutes 30 seconds, edited from some 50 hours of footage! Maybe that’ll be of the final DVD edition. Who knows when we in the West will get to see the film, but many recent “small” diakaiju eiga have come to DVD/Blu-ray lately, so hopefully it won’t be too long.
Wake in Fright (Australia/US-1971; dir. Ted Kotcheff)
Reviewed by Robert Hood
A movie that is generally considered by film historians to be a classic of Australian cinema, but which has only existed in poor-quality later-generation prints for many decades and was thought lost otherwise, has just been released by Madman Entertainment, looking better than ever.
Wake in Fright (directed by Canadian Ted Kotcheff) is a grim, relentless descent into an antipodean hell, made in 1971 just as the Australian film industry was on the brink of a major revival. An intense piece of cinema, it gives a dusty, sweaty, rather confronting picture of small-town outback life that explores the violent and repressive nature of this isolated wasteland culture — a culture that displays antagonism toward the “outsider” (that is, anyone who isn’t “a good bloke” and willing to conform to its norms), sexual segregation and domination, bizarre mateship rituals (including the infamous bloody, shocking and almost surreal kangaroo hunt), and an oppressive air of violence and debilitation.
Bonded school teacher John Grant (played by English actor Gary Bond) — who looks and sounds a bit like a young Peter O’Toole — leaves his one-room school in Tiboonda for the end-of-year holidays, demoralized and looking with longing toward Sydney and the coast. He doesn’t get there. Instead, a stop-over in a country town known to the locals as “The Yabba” results in his initiation and absorption into a rough, oppressively matey and ultimately brutalizing male society. Fueled by alcohol, the dominance rituals and violence drag him into nightmare — and even his end-game attempts at redemption may come too late.
Is it a horror movie? Well, though naturalistic in approach, it replicates a classic horror trope: a civilised man who finds himself exposed to a brutal alien environment infested with monsters and demons that inexorably drag him into their maw, chew him up and spit him out — morally broken and mortally wounded by an awareness of his own essential monstrosity. It’s Lovecraft without literal tentacles, and Wake in Fright is still, after all these years, a shocking experience for its sense of awful authenticity.
Is it an accurate depiction of Australian society? Audiences at the time didn’t think so, but now, rescued from oblivion by the fortuitous discovery of original elements and a magnificent restoration effort on the part of the National Film and Sound Archive and AtLab Deluxe, it is startling how relevent an “outsider’s” reflection on a major aspect of Australian culture it seems, with themes that have universal applicability.
From the opening panoramic 360° sweep over a flat, outback landscape — the only sign of humanity a railway line and two small buildings — to focus on a small railway station in the middle of nowhere, designated TIBOONDA, and a clock with no hands, to its end shot of the same locale, as the camera pans back on a scene that hasn’t changed, it looks stunning, with a visual clarity it probably never had before this. At the premiere showing of the restored version at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival, the director commented that he’d never seen the film looking so good — ever. A brief extra comparing scenes from the original negative with those on the digital restoration clearly illustrates this.
Wake in Fright is a powerful and significant Australian film that deserves to be better known, featuring excellent and surprisingly subtle performances from the likes of Chips Rafferty (his last), Jack Thompson (his first), Donald Pleasance and John Meillon. Back in the 1970s, Wake in Fright was released overseas under the title Outback, to some critical success — though it didn’t do well in Australia. Now it’s back. If you haven’t seen it, do so. If you saw it back then, take another look — it might surprise you.
The high-definition Blu-ray image is superb, bright (when appropriate) and clear while retaining enough filmic grain and over-exposure to accurately capture its dusty, often sun-bleached character. Though it doesn’t have the startling colours and universally clear lines of modern HD digital cinematography, it is exactly what it should be for the film and incredible for its age. The package includes an interview with Ted Kotcheff, an audio commentary from Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley and other features examining the film and its re-discovery. It comes with an excellent full-colour 32-page booklet about the film and its history.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Madman Entertainment.
This review was originally published on Horrorscope.
A B-film from the 1950s or 60s, right? Wrong! It’s Zombies from Outer Space (Germany-2010; dir. Martin Faltermeier), though the retro vibe seems to be the intention. Writer/director Martin Faltermeier’s Zombies from Outer Space clearly references the low-budget science fiction horror flicks of Hollywood’s past, with its period setting and melodramatic scifi approach. The creators describe it as “the first folkloristic Bavarian 50’s B-Movie ever made”. Beautiful woman, local cop, visiting square-jawed US military hero, alien invasion, flying saucers, zombies…. in fact… zombies from outer space….
Synopsis:
Bavaria in the late fifties. One day the life of Maria, a young girl, changes when she stumbles upon the dead body of an woman. Scientist Dr. Robert Hölzlein and the American lieutenant John Welles, stationed in Bavaria, are commissioned to solve what is obviously a murder case. But trouble seems inevitable as both are interested in the beautiful Maria.
As more and more dead women are discovered in the area, along with mysterious sightings of unidentified flying objects, fear and mistrust grows among the inhabitants.
While inspecting a crop circle Lieutenant Welles finds a dead alien, and an autopsy of the strange corpse leads Hölzlein to a terrible conclusion. Too late he discovers the connection between the dead women and the inexplicable UFO visitations. Before he can alert the population, however, undead aliens rise from their tombs beneath crop circles throughout the district, their aim to destroy humanity. Will the two rivals, Robert and John, realise in time that their only chance for survival is to work together?
Check out the trailer. It’s in German, but that flying saucer crosses all language barriers!
[Just added: now in English, with subtitles]
Currently in post-production, Zombies from Outer Space will be released with English subtitles and will run in several Festivals in 2011. A new trailer is in the works and will be released on YouTube before the year’s out. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, check out this great set of images from the film:
There are more in the Gallery at the end of this article.
Giantess fetishists out there can prepare to get excited. Coming in 2011 (probably the second quarter) is Apocalypse, CA (written and directed by Chad Peter) — a dark comedy with cult status pretensions (not a bad thing) that includes an asteroid apocalypse and — though the connection is unclear at this point — a 300-foot woman. Don’t let your imagination get too R-rated though, guys. Sure, there’s several beautiful women, but however the giantess got embiggened, it seems from the trailer to have affected her clothes, too. So you can forget Attack of the 60-Foot Centerfolds (US-1995; dir. Fred Olen Ray). This one looks much classier than that.
Synopsis:
The world is doomed. Wry, cynical and full of off-beat humor, Apocalypse, CA is the story of ill-fated friends as they prepare for certain death at the hands of a massive asteroid, sex-inducing drugs, a three-hundred foot giant, and a horde of other unfortunate problems. Apocalypse, CA is an indie cult film of catastrophic proportions. (Facebook)
But it gets stranger.
Mysterious radio personality and apparent part-time genie, ‘Sassy Boots’ (Elizabeth Sandy) takes it upon herself to grant John Parsons (Nick Mathis) a few wishes five days before the world is to be destroyed by an asteroid. Only problem is John’s wishes aren’t exactly calculated, or even planned — the end result of which is a situation far worse than before.
Accompanied by his brother Hank (Alexander Cardinale), Hank’s friend Renee (Anne McDaniels) and John’s childhood crush Jacklyn (Erin Bodine), John and friends take the high road to Palm Springs — otherwise known as the ‘epicenter’, where the asteroid will first strike Earth. With a ‘bite the bullet’ approach, John and friends learn a little more about life and each other, all leading up to a wild climax of booze, fantasy, and guns-a-blazin’ desert adventure. (Press Release)
I guess we’re dealing with surreal comedy-drama here. At any rate, the trailer reveals a good-looking film with effective photography, a classy indie ambiance and decent SFX:
Apocalypse, CA stars Nick Mathis, Erin Bodine, Anne McDaniels, Alexander Cardinale, Elizabeth Sandy and Sarah Smick (pictures of whom can be seen in the Gallery below). However, here’s Anne McDaniels, Erin Bodine, Alex Cardinale, Elizabeth Sandy and Nick Mathis making a valiant attempt to squash themselves into one giant entity:
Visual effects are by artists Ryan Wieber (Ryan vs. Dorkman) and Teague Chrystie (The Pacific), Apocalypse, CA is the feature film directorial debut by Chad Peter (behind popular Internet short films, Sex, Drugs & Natalie Portman and Roleplayed). When asked for more giant-related details, Peters replied: “With the exception of the trailer, I’m trying to hide as much of the rest of the movie’s VFX as possible.”
