Sunday 11 December 2011

The Collector...

I thought I knew what to expect from The Collector. It looked the the usual guy in the basement with a mask torturing people with household implements film. Turns out I was wrong.


From the opening credits you can tell that this film has a style of its own. It reminded me of watching the opening credits of Ginger Snaps - that moment of revelation when you realise that what you thought was a typical straight-to-DVD horror film might actually be better than that. But while The Collector is brilliantly shot and directed, what really makes it work is the writing.

There are two things that make it great.

1) The main character is very well written. The film takes its time getting into the main story, so we get to know the guy and we get to understand why we should care about him even though he's a thief. And for once we have a slasher film in which the protagonists aren't dumb teenagers.

2) The bad guy is smarter than everyone else. This is what really makes the suspense in the film work. The bad guy is always three steps ahead of the other characters in the film, meaning he's also three steps ahead of the audience.

It's a bit on the nasty side, and if it wasn't so intelligently written would definitely be dismissed as torture porn, but it's further proof of what good writing can do for a standard genre film and I really enjoyed it.

Saturday 10 December 2011

Jenny Ringo Review Round-up!

Over the last few weeks a number of horror/film bloggers have been kind enough to watch my short film Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw and write about it on their blogs. It's been useful to get some unbiased feedback on the film and to find out what works and what doesn't, and it's certainly given me a few things to think about for the next one. For the most part the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive which is a huge relief. 


By the way, if you want to see the film you can do so by signing up to the mailing list at http://www.jennyringo.com/

You should get an e-mail asking you to confirm and when you click the link in that e-mail you will be directed to a confirmation page which has a link to the film and the password required to view it. Signing up just means that we'll send you an update every month or so with news about the sequel, but you can unsubscribe anytime you want.

If you do watch the film please feel free to post your comments or write a review as I'm still very keen on getting feedback and trying to get more people to see it. There's a facebook page, an imdb page or you can leave me a comment on one of the posts here. And if you have any problems watching the film or would like to contact me directly please e-mail whatwritesatmidnight[at]googlemail.com

So here's a list of all the reviews that have appeared online so far. Thanks very much to everyone who wrote about it:







These last two feature extra ramblings from me...


Thursday 1 December 2011

A few days of awesome horror films in Brighton...

There are a few film screenings going on in Brighton over the next few days and they all happen to be horror-related. Which is awesome.

Firstly, on Friday there is a screening of Carnival of Souls with a live score. You can find out more about the screening here. If I had the time and energy to properly work out a list of my favourite horror films I can guarantee this would be in my top 5. I like it so much it inspired the ghosts in my short film...



Here's the trailer...


If you haven't seen it and aren't anywhere near Brighton this Friday I seriously recommend you check it out. Look, I'll even make it easy for you...


And then on Saturday Brighton gets its own one-day horror festival with Frighten Brighton! Fellow horror bloggers Cyberschizoid and Scare Sarah have been doing a great job promoting classic horror films recently and always put on fantastic events so I'm really looking forward to this one. They're screening Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974), The Entity (1981) and Night of the Living Dead (1990) at the Rock Inn starting at 12pm. 
Then on Saturday night, my short horror/comedy Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw (did I mention I made a short film?) is screening at the Nightingale as part of the Cine-City festival.

And finally, on Monday evening it's Christmas MovieBar, but I couldn't find any Christmas short films so I'm mostly showing horror films again! Check out the full line-up here.

I'm planning on being at all of the above so if you're in the area and coming along to any of the above I'll see you there!