Weekend Fright Flick: StopMo

Posted on Saturday, July 25, 2009 by Robert Hood

The Backbrain’s Weekend Fright Flick presentations have been veering into double features lately, largely because some great short films have been turning up and I’m too impatient to save them for later.

This weekend is no exception. Expect a follow-up.

Firstly though we have a brilliant piece of CGI animation combined with stopmotion to produce a film that celebrates that greatest of stop-motion characters, King Kong, and gives him an opponent created via the technology that replaced the one that bought the greatest of giant apes to life in the first place.

StopMo (US-2008; short [5:42 min]; dir. Adel Ben Abdullah, Brice Boisset, Anouk Eyraud, Romain Hua and Vincent Secher)

Made by five students at Supinfocom Arles in 2008, StopMo follows the adventures of a future archaeologist who “gives life back to an FX cinema studio” that has been buried under ice — in the aftermath of global warming, no doubt. This awakening results in a battle between a stopmotion animated King Kong (1933) and a computer-animated T-Rex from Jurassic Park (1993). Who will win this time ’round?

StopMo The Movie from AdelBen on Vimeo.

Fantastic!

  • Source: via Todd Tennant
Posted in Animation, Giant Monsters, Weekend Fright Flick | 1 Comment

New Retro: House of the Wolf Man

Posted on Friday, July 24, 2009 by Robert Hood

From writer-director Eben McGarr (of Sick Girl fame) comes House of the Wolf Man, a retro horror film that may define quality independent retro filmmaking for the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Starring Ron Chaney, Dustin Fitzsimons, Jeremie Loncka, Sara Raftery, Cheryl Rodes and Jim Thalman, House of the Wolf Man is shot in black-and-white in the appropriate “academy ratio” (1.33: 1), featuring Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and a cast of characters straight from the 1940s. This is, perhaps, what the Sommer’s over-budgeted Van Helsing movie should have been.

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What’s more, the make-up FX and production design appears to have upped the ante on the original inspiration (say, Erle C. Kenton’s 1944 House of Frankenstein, to which it could be a delayed sequel), modernising it while maintaining a proper fidelity to the spirit of the past.

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Synopsis:

Dr Bela Reinhardt (Chaney) has invited five people to his castle to see which of them will inherit his estate. He has arranged for a competition of sorts, the victor shall be determined through process of… elimination. (McGarr)

So, check out the trailer (slightly stretched from its 1.33:1 ratio) and a gallery of images below:

Or go to Bloody-Disgusting News to see it in proper aspect ratio.

Image Gallery:

Posted in Film, Horror, Independent film, Monsters in general, Trailers | 3 Comments

Of Sand “Whales” and Assault Girls

Posted on Friday, July 24, 2009 by Robert Hood

assaultgirls04Think Dune meets Tremors meets any number of Japanese movies featuring combatic female warriors in a futuristic setting!

It has been announced that Mamoru Oshii — most famous for the iconic hi-tech anti-cybernetic-terrorist anime Ghost in the Shell and the live-action VR scifi film Avalon — is writing and directing another live-action feature about a trio of heavily-armed (and armoured) female hunters who have come to a wasteland in their “angelic” mecha-suits to deal with the giant “Suna Kujira” (literally, sand whales) that have left the planet a ruin. They battle the creatures, “including the biggest of them all, the Madara Suna Kujira (spotted sand whale)” (AnimeNewsNetwork).

Titled Assault Girls, the film is based on two shorts that Oshii made for a pair of anthology films, Assault Girl: Kentucky no Hinako (which was part of the 2007 anthology Shin Onna Tachiguishi Retsuden or “Women of Fast Food” and is viewable below — or was until They took it down) and Assault Girl 2 (from Kiru or “Kill” from 2008).

Oshii’s best work has been characterised by intelligent plotting, the complex metaphysical exploration of AI technologies and emotional depth. Whether or not he can bring these qualities to a film abou women battling sand worms, we can only wait and see. Either way, the film is likely to be a visual treat.

Assault Girls is scheduled for release in Japan on 19 December 2009.

Posted in Film, Giant Monsters, Japanese | 5 Comments

Mixing Bikinis and Monsters

Posted on Thursday, July 23, 2009 by Robert Hood

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In director Terence Muncy’s demented vision of bikini-clad beach babes and summer madness, there are plenty of reasons to stay out of the water — in fact, to run for the hills.

Here’s one:

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An independent film about an ethically unstable scientist who uses genetic engineering, murder and a wardrobe of female swimwear in his quest to bring his concept of ultimate beauty (a mermaid) into being, Bikini Monsters uses a murder-investigation narrative structure to explore its themes of sexual deviance and obsession.

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Bikini Monsters, due for release in 2010, has been filming through July. As you can see from the pictures below, it involves little by way of wardrobe but required a major effort in terms of make-up.

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It’s interesting the way sexual attraction can be made grotesque, the result becoming a curious mixture of eroticism and fear. It has definitely been done with zombies, in films such as Zombie Strippers (2008; dir. Jay Lee) — and resonates with the snake-women film phenomenon I wrote about a while back. Bikini Monsters reminds me less of the 1984 Daryl Hannah mermaid flick Splash! and more of the profoundly disturbing Hideshi Hino Guinea Pig film, Mermaid in a Manhole (Manhôru no naka no ningyo) from 1988. At any rate checking out the babes on the beach will never be the same!

More images below:

Sources: Terence Muncy via Avery; Monster Island News

Posted in Film, Horror, Independent film, News | 3 Comments

Gehara Becomes Geharha On DVD and Blu-Ray

Posted on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 by Robert Hood

And the good news is that Kiyotaka Taguchi’s short daikaiju eiga Chohatsu Daikaiju Gehara [Long-haired Giant Monster Gehara] (Japan-2009) is being released in Japan on DVD and Blu-Ray, but with English subtitles, under the Anglicised title Geharha, the Dark and Long-Haired Monster. Though the film ran at 17 minutes when it premiered on TV, this new release will include a 21-minute “Director’s Cut”, along with a slew of extras.

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Though we were able to watch the film online (check it out here), the thought of seeing it longer and clearer and being able to understand what was being said makes this an exciting prospect.

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You can check out the full details on Scifi Japan.

Posted in Daikaiju, Film, Giant Monsters, Japanese, News, Update | 4 Comments

All Singin’, All Rockin’ Creature

Posted on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 by Robert Hood

I guess if it becomes iconic enough, anything will be turned into a musical. I have to admit, however, that it would never have occurred to me that The Creature From The Black Lagoon would be a likely candidate.

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This incarnation seems to have developed Predator-like dreadlocks, too.

And somehow we end up with a daikaiju version of the titular monster in the finale:

Amazing!

Posted in It's True! Really!, Monsters in general, Music, Weird stuff | Leave a comment

Weekend Fright Flick Bonus: Just Add Water

Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2009 by Robert Hood

Kaiju Search-Robot Avery wanted you to have the short film Just Add Water (US-2007; short [5:30 min.]; dir. Hank Carlson) as a bonus this week, even requesting that it be given its own post. He’s very keen. Who am I to argue with someone as huge and robotically fearsome as a humanoid search-engine in a frenzy?

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If you haven’t guessed from the title this cute short film spins off from those intriguing ads that used to, and sometimes still do, appear in the back pages of comics and monster magazines, offering you the opportunity to grow your own monsters-in-a-water-jar. It’s the second we’ve come across lately. There’s another with a similar theme called Water Monsters Attack … though that one’s rather different… but I’ll tell you about that another time.

Posted in Monsters in general, Weekend Fright Flick | 2 Comments

Weekend Fright Flick: Treevenge

Posted on Saturday, July 18, 2009 by Robert Hood

This weekend we have a nice pleasant family film for you, a Christmas special about the trees that are forced to take part in that annual festival of horror — and how they finally get back at their tormentors.

Treevenge (US-2008; short [16 min.]; dir. Jason Eisener)

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Be warned, though. This film is very bloody. It contains images like this:

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Treevenge received a Short Filmmaking Award – Honorable Mention at Sundance Film Festival and has taken other awards at festivals everywhere, including Fantastic Fest, Fantasia and Toronto After Dark.

Now, watch the film!

This film comes to you courtesy of Twitch and by request of Kaiju Search-Robot Avery.

Posted in Horror, Monsters in general, Weekend Fright Flick | 2 Comments

Fightin’ Giant Metallic Bugs in the West

Posted on Saturday, July 18, 2009 by Robert Hood

Mixing genres can be an effective way of adding interest to stories that would otherwise seem a little tired and overdone. Writer Richard Beattie and director Kristoffer Tabori appear to have taken the classic High Plains Drifter (plus all the iconic westerns that it drew upon) and allowed it to be invaded by an old scifi favourite: a horde of giant bugs. Yes, it’s Clint Eastwood meets Them! (with a suggestion of those Martian tripods from War of the Worlds).

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High Plains Invaders (US-2009; dir. Kristoffer Tabori)

Synopsis:

The hanging of honorable Indian-fighter Sam Phoenix in a small western town is cut short by the unexpected invasion of uranium-based insectoid creatures, forcing Sam and a small band of survivors to take refuge in a church. They’ll need more than a prayer and a pistol to survive, as a Wild West landscape is inundated by a killer force of alien pioneers.

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Throw in Buffy’s favourite bad-boy vampire, James Marsters (“Spike”) and some decent-looking SFX and they might just have a winner.

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Here Marsters comments on the genre mix:

And here he tells us why the film will be better than Buffy:

And here’s a scene from the film:

Lots more clips can be found on this Czech James Marsters fan site.

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If they got it right, this could be the new Tremors. The film has been available on the RHI website as an OnDemand download, but it comes to the SyFy Channel on 30 August. Then to DVD, one assumes.

Posted in Film, Giant Bugs, Giant Monsters, Trailers | 3 Comments

Update: New Trailer for Bio-Slime

Posted on Friday, July 17, 2009 by Robert Hood

Writer/director of the independent blood-slime-and-tentacle film Bio-Slime (which is currently in post-production) has just released a new trailer. Here it is:

More information on the slimily good-looking low-budget sci-fi horror film can be found on Undead Backbrain (where there’s lots of great pictures) and on the Fangoria website, where you can check out some new images of the central slime-thing.

  • Source: Fangoria via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery
Posted in Film, Horror, Independent film, Trailers | 3 Comments