Exorcisms, Monkeys, Podcasts and the Devil...

I'd heard really bad things about The Last Exorcism but I watched it the other night and have to say I really enjoyed it. The story is about an evangelical preacher who makes some extra money on the side performing faked exorcisms. He decides to quit when he loses his faith and takes a film crew along on his last job with the aim of debunking the whole practice. Only this time he may have come across a genuine case of demonic possession. Which is an awesome setup.

What makes it work so well is that the filmmakers (and the actor Patrick Fabian) do a great job setting up the lead character, particularly on the subject of him losing his faith. The typical and over-used way to do this is to have some tragedy occur that makes the preacher character question God etc. But in this film, he loses his faith when doctors save his son's life and realises he's thanking them rather than God. He questions his faith because of a miracle. This adds a level of complexity to the character you wouldn't otherwise have and I think it's a stroke of genius on the part of the writers.

Once you set up a character like that then if you've got an actor strong enough to carry it off the audience will go with you no matter how absurd it gets. At least I did. I know a lot of people had problems with the ending but I thought it was okay in a Race with the Devil kind of way.

And speaking of the Devil (how many times do you get to say that literally?) I recently came across this while googling projects I'd worked on ages ago on the off chance one of them has miraculously been finished (something I do on a pathetically regular basis)...

This was a student project I wrote something for last year; a portmanteau film about the Devil in Dublin called The Satan Project. I'm looking forward to seeing it finished (and this will make me sound like a dick) because it was a really good script. I just read it again to make sure and I'm still really happy with it, especially considering I wrote it in one evening. At the moment I have no idea whether they stuck to the script or whether they managed to pull off the ridiculously challenging special effect I'd made central to the story, but let's hope so. It was about a freak show, as a lot of my things are, and I think that part with the people on stage near the end is from my story. Hopefully there will be more to report in the not-too-distant future.

In other news I was on a podcast this week! The Filmsploitation podcast is run by Phil Hobden who produced Ten Dead Men what I wrote and also features Richard Blanchette who used to co-host the AMR Movie Show. It's been a while since I did anything like this so I may well be terrible on it, but there are some good rants about 3D and remakes, and I had a go at explaining why everyone needs to see Dellamorte Dellamore right now (Answer: Because it's an existential art-horror film with the best ending ever and Rupert Everett is super-cool in it). I'm on Episode 4.

Finally, what are you doing on Halloween? If you're in Brighton you are presumably coming to Halloween MovieBar. Because that way you'll get to see what this is all about:

It is very important that you know why this monkey has a gun. It may well save your life one day. All will be revealed at Halloween MovieBar.

Incoming filmmaking diary...

I'm going to start up the filmmaking diaries again soon, if only as a way to keep myself motivated (if you don't know what I'm talking about the diaries for Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw are here. Speaking of which, have you signed up for the mailing list yet? You really should. We've been sending out e-mails and everything). We're aiming to shoot the next Jenny Ringo film in February which isn't all that far away. We've started signing people up, we've been looking at locations...stuff is happening! Stuff I can write about in a sometimes amusing fashion!!

Meanwhile, if you want an idea of what the Entertainment Media Show I went to a couple of weeks ago was really all about, check out this video:

And if you pause it around the 6.43 mark you can see our table for a split-second! It's not at all sad that I'm pointing that out, I'm just making up for the fact that we didn't take any photos on the day and...actually, it is quite sad but at this point I'll take any exposure I can get.

So far all the feedback we've had from the people we gave the film to has been overwhelmingly positive...we just haven't had that much of it. We sent out our first e-mail which generated a bit more of a response but that seems to have slowed down now. Then again, I bought an indie comic at the show which I keep meaning to review on here and haven't done yet. Plus I'm hopeless at watching stuff - Brother Pete finally lent me his copy of Solomon Kane which I'd been bugging him about for months and it's been sitting on top of my TV unwatched for a week, and will probably remain so for a while. The point is I am taking comfort in my own laziness.

Meanwhile I'm preparing for an online release, which will probably happen after the Cine-City screening in December.

While I'm here, if you are in Brighton on Halloween you should definitely come to the MovieBar Halloween Special. We're showing short horror films all night and dressing up as monsters and stuff. Look, I made a new logo and everything...

I'm still working on the rather epic line-up, but there are some awesome films on there so far.

One last thing - here's the trailer for John Dies at the End, the first trailer I've seen in a long time that's actually made me really super-excited about an upcoming release...

Well, that and the trailer for A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas...

Why you should buy the Last House on the Left soundtrack right now...

I try not to write about famous dead people on here too often these days as it prompts internal debates about why I find it perfectly okay to write about dead people I never met but won't ever mention people I know who died in real life. Then I start to question why the things I write about on here don't seem like real life and find myself speeding towards a head-on collision with a major existential crisis...

But I'm ignoring such concerns today to talk about David Hess who sadly passed away over the weekend. Hess was most famous for playing the ultimate bad guy, Krug, in The Last House on the Left. Which is a film I don't like very much (although I don't think it should've been remade either). The point is, Last House on the Left has an amazing soundtrack. And it's not at all scary. In fact, it's just really, really sad. Example 1...

I first saw the film in my early twenties and have never felt the need to watch it again. But I have listened to that soundtrack a thousand times since, easily. Example 2...

It's the kind of album that shouldn't work out of context, but it actually works best that way. Oddly it does suit the film too, and the moments that really work are the moments that are accompanied by Hess's haunting tunes. It's the soundtrack I will always keep coming back to. If you haven't heard it in its entirety I can't recommend it enough.

That's why it's worth mentioning who David Hess was. Because in 1972 he wrote and performed the greatest horror film soundtrack ever produced.

News and stuff...

So after ranting about how much I hate film festivals I am hypocritically excited to announce that Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw will be screening in Brighton on the 3rd of December as part of Cinecity. Which is okay because that was one of the free ones so I would have been happy even if I'd been rejected. As it happens they actually want to show the film and I'm genuinely excited about it. I'll post further details closer to the time, and possibly a reminder every week...perhaps even daily reminders...

Have you signed up to the Jenny Ringo mailing list yet? You really should! Depending on whether I get into any other festivals I think I've decided how to release the film. I'm a bit excited and also a bit scared. I'll post full details here eventually but it will involve signing up to the mailing list at some point. You can't avoid it forever...well,  you can, but then you probably won't be able to see my film. Unless you come to the screening in Brighton on the 3rd of December. Did I mention that yet?

Just came back from seeing Red State with Brother Pete. Loved it. I was going to try to explain why I loved it, but there's no way without spoiling it. You should definitely see it, that is all.

I don't have much other news, apart from the fact that I enjoyed the varying accent of Colin Farrell in London Boulevard.Which wasn't very good, but it was nice to see MovieBar regular Nick Bartlett looking particularly mean as Ray Winstone's bodyguard.

Speaking of MovieBar, the website has been updated with details of how it went down on Monday, which makes it sound like it all ran really smoothly! You can see a couple of the films there too. Luckily the photos were taken after all the people had arrived -

We've also posted A.M. Esmonde's Q&A on existential vampire epic Terminus as I didn't get chance to read the whole thing out on the night. Ever wondered how a Welsh horror novelist gets an LA-based special-effects expert to direct his short film in the States? Find out here. And check out A.M. Esmonde's blog too where he often talks about cool films and stuff as well as his own work.

Speaking of films, Luther Bhogal-Jones has updated his blog on the making of Creak which we also screened at MovieBar on Monday. Further proof that post-production on short films is never easy.

And while we're on the subject of people updating websites, my dad finally went to Poundland again!