Primal (Australia-2009; dir. Josh Reed) is a new horror film that gets down-and-dirty with what appears to be a supernatural viral infection/demonic possession scenario. Some will call it “zombie”, but going on the teeth, I’ll stick with “possession” for the time being.
Synopsis:
12,000 years ago: the surviving members of a decimated aboriginal tribe perform a sacred ritual to bind an ancient evil that has infiltrated their tribal land. As the carnage ensues, an artist paints the story of their demise on a nearby rock face, warning of the dangers interred within…
The Present: Anja, a young university student, and four friends accompany Dace, an anthropology major, on a journey in search of the now legendary rock painting. The only evidence of its existence is the diary of a pioneer who saw the painting over one hundred years ago, before going mad and murdering his family.
Their excitement on finding the painting is soon undercut by disquiet as one of them, Mel, becomes delirious after skinny-dipping in the nearby billabong. Her condition rapidly worsens, and she regresses to a predatory, primal state and viciously attacks her friends.
The group is strained to breaking point as their trip fast becomes a desperate fight for survival. When Anja discovers that a nearby tunnel may harbour their only hope for escape she inadvertently draws closer to a final confrontation with the evil deep within the mountain.
The full trailer is set to premiere at Cannes in May, but here’s a teaser to be going on with:
There’s lots of good reasons to be interested in the about-to-be-released Star Trek movie, but I’m happy to go with one that fits in nicely with the Backbrain’s obsession with giant monsters.
Some conceptual sketches have surfaced as creature-designer Neville Page — the man responsible for the Cloverfield monster — discusses how he made the creature he describes as “looking literally like ass.” [That’s arse for the non-American English speakers].
Apparently all those black dots that cover the monster are eyes, and one of the hard parts of Page’s job was getting them to move and blink independently.
Get a full perspective on the anal critter on i09.
Well, to catch up with the Hairy One you can watch his entire debut short film online here.
Apparently G and Gehara had a bit of a newcomer grudge match in February at the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, at least until they were interrupted….
Here are some promotional stills:
Maybe we’ll see an actual cinematic meeting of the two independent film kaiju sometime!
Weekend Fright Flick on Undead Backbrain is sending a triple feature your way this weekend. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but if sexy zombie chicks and giant ticks tweak your interest (and seeing as you’re reading this blog they probably do), you’re in for a treat.
First up there’s a couple of music videos, one at least with a minimalist storyline: “Fashion Freak” by Naked Ape (directed by Eric Althin), which features sexy zombies in a carwash, complete with undead chihuahua (I make no comment on the music itself — this is all about the zombies); and the band’s follow-up, “Undo Redo” — same appeal with higher disgust factor. What is it about sexy corpses with blood and scabby spots of decay all over them anyway? The film Zombie Strippers (US-2008; dir. Jay Lee) explored the same necrophilic obsession, rather effectively, I thought.
Fashion Freak
Undo Redo
Our third feature this week is one of Kaiju Search-Robot Avery’s no-budget finds — a giant monster film with SFX that are so basic that they work through sheer curiosity value:
Attack of the Giant Tick
(Germany; directed by Holger Sontag)
Through his Mercury Productions website, where there appears a whole series of genre-related short films, Sontag seems to be exploring basic animation techniques, each geared to slightly different aesthetic ends. I have to admit, this minimalist giant monster B-flick does achieve a sort of indefinable poignancy.
Sources: Thanks to Chuck Mckenzie and of course the ever-vigilant Avery.
Todd Tennant has sent along an image from It Came From Beneath the Sea … Again — the Harryhausen-inspired comic he is currently working on for Bluewater Comics (see previous Backbrain article). He calls it “Lunch on the Pier!”
Todd kindly provided the following “caption”:
Run, you little crumb-cruncher, you .. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! Or this atomically-mutated Cephalopod shall “own thee” for his lunch!
Yeah, our 6-legged pal lacks a bit in the size department right now, but he is just a young “crumb-cruncher” (human-flavored crumbs, that is!) himself. However, he and his many siblings will grow larger each time you see them, and they all will be carrying a grudge against mankind for blowin’ up their Mama.
Be sure to click on the image to see it full-size!
This Weekend’s Fright Flick is a loving replication of the style and limitations of 1950s B films films. Creator and director Benjamin J. Heckendorn (as “Alexander B. Kressel” and producer “Herbert Clay”) is a man with a passion. He loves monsters — and hey! don’t we all?
His repertoire of small independent films is full of the beasties — and we’ll be taking a look at more of them soon.
Today you’re offered a giant lizard for your delectation, in black-and-white and replete with deliberately corny dialogue, cheesy SFX and cinematic limitations worthy of Bert I. Gordon himself.
The Lizard of Death (US-2000; short [41 min.]; dir. Benjamin J. Heckendorn as “Alexander B. Kressel”)
The director commented:
My loving emulation of a bad 1950’s horror movie. Filmed in black & white DV with vintage costume, props etc. Computer filtered to look old. This is still one of my favorite projects, since I had a relatively easy time filming it and was quite pleased with the results. The fact we did the entire thing in 9 months didn’t hurt either!The basic idea was, a bankrupt movie studio made LOD in 1959, but wasn’t able to complete it due to lack of funds, therefore making the film very short (and bad).
He explains that he and his comrades decided they would “ghost make” this film, putting fictional actors and directors names in the credits. “In theory, if someone didn’t know anyone or any of the places in the film, it would look like it came from the 50s.”
… LOD is an emulation, not a parody, of a bad 50’s horror movie. For everything “bad” in the movie we had to decide why it was bad. Did the producers not have enough money? Time? A clock on the wall is more likely to just not run/change at all, rather than change with every shot (see “Destination Mars”).
The most important source of badness, however, was the writing. I was a huge Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fan back in the day, and I drew upon that as a source. Whenever I put something *questionable* in LOD, I thought “what would the robots say about this?” Often I would put sub-notes in the script to give the actors clues as to what was specifically supposed to be bad about the shot, mostly to make them laugh and help them ‘pre-visualize’ what we were shooting for. A few bad things snuck through on accident, naturally, such as Mayor Stone holding a bundle of dynamite while smoking a pipe.
He identifies Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and “that supreme film of crappiness” Robot Monster as central inspirations.
So sit back and enjoy!
Note: you can download the film in higher resolution from Heckendorn’s website if you have the bandwidth to spare.
Kaiju Search-Robot Avery has discovered that Bakersfield, California country blues player Hank Ray is making a movie about giant ants.
Taking the classic truth-in-advertising approach to titles, it’s called Giant Ants Eat Bakersfield. It will be about 30 minutes long and the director hopes that it will be available online after a run at the Kern Country film festival. He’s billing it as:
The first Country Music Horror Film ever! It’s A Musical And It Has Giant Ants Eating Bakersfield.
Apparently, filming began about a year ago. Hank commented to Avery: “I filmed this all over Bakersfield. We almost got busted filming on the roof of the old BUCK OWENS recording studio. The film is not finished, and I sort of put it on the shelf. I have had some really good feed back lately so I will start on it again this weekend. Yours was the best feed back so far. I will keep you updated.”
So Avery’s enthusiasm for no-budget independent monster flicks may have caused a potential renaissance in the Bakersfield Giant Ant film industry.
Below is a conceptual image for the film (NOT the real advertising poster), which Hank bodgied up from a classic poster from one of his film’s inspirations, the greatest giant ant movie of all time — Them!
According to Hank, the giant ants are a metaphor for the way the New Country music has come in and taken control of the Old. Now that’s a metaphor that hasn’t been explored in giant monster films before this. He told the Backbrain:
Well, Bakersfield used to stand for an underground or rebellious response to Nashville country Music. When Buck Owens passed away a while back, I went to his funeral. I later wrote some songs about that and one was called “Giant Ants”. It was as though corporate music was like giant ants that took over country music and Bakersfield was one of the things the corporate ants ate. I suppose I am a nut.
Here are the lyrics of Hank’s song on the subject:
ACT ONE SONG:
The old country music is gone
The old country music is gone
You know it never had a chance
The old country music is gone
Corporate music killed it just like giant ants.
Corporate music came to call
Like some giant ants they killed it all
I’d like to hear more like Clarence and Hank
But big corporate music owns all the money in the bank
The old country music is gone
You know it never had a chance
The old country music is gone
Corporate music killed it just like giant ants
America has sold it’s music out
They forgot what Bakersfield and Nashville was all about?
Watch ’em on TV become a Nashville star
I can’t believe it’s gone this far.
The old country music is gone
You know it never had a chance
The old country music is gone
Corporate music killed it just like giant ants.
The film is meant to be a take-off of those really old B-moster movies where the monsters are so fake that they are cool. Like the tree monster and some of the ones on the old Star Trek.
Anyway, I went to Buck Owen’s ranch and made a mini film of Buck’s son’s band BUCKSHOT for Brighthouse. It showed on cable. That’s how it started. I have others that are helping — Dr. B.L.T., a local song writer, and some local hot-rod club members. My friend Ron Ramos, who almost got pinched on the Buck Owen’s studio roof, helped a lot.
The reason we had to get on the roof was, the studio had just sold, so we made a sign — like the studio was still open and put it on the marquee . Then we took a giant ant off an old pest control truck and painted it with rubberized undercoat, so it looked better. After that I bought some fake human skulls at the holloween store in Bakersfield and some dry ice for smoke.
One night I was wrestling the ant under the giant Bakersfield Arch sign at Buck Owen’s Chrystal Palace. It was so bizarre a sight that the 99 Freeway slowed to a crawl above the Palace.
A lot of the film footage got ruined when I spilled beer on it at a local honky tonk where I’d been filming.
Ah, the unique difficulties that come with country music monsterdom!
Below is a clip of Hank singing a song about a mastodon:
