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Silent Night Deadly Night (1984)

Silent Night Deadly Night poster (1984)

Tis the season…for BLOOD and Christmas! Ok, more Christmas and not so much blood. This week we move into the Christmas season and so we’ll focus Silent Night Deadly Night.

Silent Night Deadly Night was directed by Charles E. Seller Jr. and released in 1984. It stars Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Robert Brian Wilson, H.E.D. Redford and of course, Linnea Quigley. It’s about a teenager that is tormented (as opposed to a normal teenager) that dresses as Santa and kills people.

In the 80s, Silent Night Deadly Night was very controversial because of the Santa Claus clad killer. The PTA fought to remove this film from theaters because of this. I guess they didn’t want kids thinking of children to be scared of Santa not to mention some people may not think of Christmas as the horror movie season. The film created serious controversy. The commercial with an axe wielding Santa was protested then removed after a week. Siskel and Ebert did not care for it and bashed it on their show (which I found the video of…Check below). Apparently it offended a lot of people.

Watch the trailer, the Siskel and Ebert review, and more after the leap!
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My Band is Called Mutantville

This past week with the cancellation of one shoot and aggravation of some misunderstandings about a pickup shoot schedule have served to  remind me of just how much like a music band or even a family our group of merry guerrilla film makers really is. I can only speak for myself when I say that I love these guys I work with. They are my best friends on the planet Earth. I really do think that I have more in common with my partners than really anyone else. Sometimes, just like in a band, the singer might think that the guitar is walking all over his lead, or the bass player can’t hear himself and insists on turning up his amp until everyone gets nauseous.

The core members of MVP have been working together for the better part of a decade and that hard work is starting to pay dividends, but from time to time myself or one of the other fellas will slip into a little bit of burn out and get caught up in a quagmire of interpersonal B.S. I want to jump up like Valentine McKee , Kevin Bacon’s character in Tremors, and yell at the top of my lungs, “No! No! No! We HAVE GOT TO GET OUT.” Get out of the muck and drive on. Why? Because that’s what we do. Another shoot, another script, another project. I feel that remaining productive is the key to success as any sort of actor or film maker. George Romero himself advised Streebo this way. “Finish that first one and the rest will come.”

So, if any of you Mutantville Players are missing the invigorating G.H.O.S.T. shoots in the Albemarle Opera House, or feel your creative yen waining, remember this, if it was easy to make movies, anyone could do it. It’s not and and not just any group of people can hold the band together. You are a rock star already for being active creating your art!  Above all else remember that Johnny Brento loves ya BABY!

I Heart Horror: The Gimmick.

From Wearemoviegeeks.com:  This past weekend, Netflix delivered me a documentary that I have been wanting to see ever since I missed it at SLIFF back in 2007. The film was ‘Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story’. For those of you that don’t know who William Castle is, I implore you to check out ‘The William Castle Collection’ that was recently released on DVD (click here to see it at amazon.com) which also includes said documentary. While the meat of the story is how a man who turned some B-Movies into Grade-A events at movie theaters by offering a thousand dollar life insurance policies to attendees of one of his films if they die of fright. While I have always been a fan of Castle and his gimmicks/promotions, this really made me reflect advertising of film past.

homicidalWhen films really started becoming mainstream, the majority of the films were carried by the actors and actresses who headlined or had top-billing for a film. While Castle never had this courtesy, he knew of a way to get people in the seats. He created gimmicks. Believe it or not, PSYCHO by Hitchcock had a gimmick of – which the documentary points out as well – not allowing anyone after the first 15 minutes of the film has been shown. William Castle’s audience participation gimmicks ended in 1965 with ‘I Saw What You Did’ where seat belts were installed in seats to keep you from jumping out of your seats from fright. His ideas made movie watching a bigger thing. He wanted you to experience the film, to make the film fun. He also showed Hollywood and other film makers on how they could promote a film regardless of the content and quality.

Read the rest of the article at the link below.

via I Heart Horror: The Gimmick | We Are Movie Geeks.

Perkins 14 is the First Internet Created Mass Collaboration Horror Film.

From an article at Ars Technica:

The Internet has democratized information and given us the ability to “poke” each other on Facebook. Now it has brought that same decisive dissemination to filmmaking, as the first feature film created entirely by an Internet community is set to debut in January.

The film, called Perkins’ 14, is a horror story about kidnapped children who are dehumanized for evil. Whether or not a horror flick is your cue to break out the popcorn, Perkins’ 14′s more interesting story lies in its creation. The film is the product of Massify, a film production community that provides tools for members to share ideas, collaborate on projects, post résumés and portfolios, secure funding through grants, and ultimately find an audience through distribution companies.

Massify gave its members control over Perkins’ 14 every step of the way, from voting on the initial concept pitches, to picking the cast, and even a contest for the poster. Pitches were solicited in February this year, and Massify members were allowed to vote on them through the middle of March. Once Perkins’ 14 was chosen by the community, casting auditions began in March, screen tests followed the next month, and pre-production began at the end of May.

Massify partnered with After Dark Films, the production company behind the yearly HorrorFest (warning: link resizes browser), to bring Perkins’ 14 to life. The film will debut in just a few weeks during HorrorFest III, which runs from January 9-15 ,2009.

Cofounder Brett Icahn (son of Yahoo’s outspoken investor-turned-board-member Carl Icahn) told the New York Times in March that Massify is “more a production network than a social network, because it’s driven by a creative purpose.” The company is making a name for itself in part for being a useful collaboration tool for film makers and various talent, but Kenneth Woo, Massify’s other founder, hopes to also make money from advertising by “building an audience before the film is made.”

Fangoria has a trailer for Perkins’ 14, and Massify features a number of behind-the-scenes clips and information about the film’s production and its actors. Even if only mildly successful, it is almost certain that more projects like this are on their way, harnessing democratic tools like Massify’s to produce major films.

via First Internet-created feature film debuts next month – Ars Technica.

Of Hauntings Past

Johnny Brent on the C4C Set

In anticipation of next months plans for shooting a new short horror film, “G.H.O.S.T.”, I’ve taken a little trip down memory lane, back to a time of friends pulling together to create something larger than themselves. A work of art that will stand the test of time and live a life all it’s own is something that, despite the sacrifices required is clearly worth doing. At least to this artist.

I stopped by TonyRogers.biz and browsed through his collection of snaps from the making of “C For Chaos”. When I see myself, Streebo, Geo and the rest of the MVP’rs staring back at me in not so clear 2 mega pixel clarity, I don’t remember any of the hardships, only that it was one hell of a lot of fun.

Streebo, Johnny Brento & Philsando

During the 4 years of shooting, “C for Chaos” we had so much fun. We ran haunts at 2 Shriners Haunted Trail Benefits shows (Some of the most fun I have personally ever had), kicked off the Mutantville Players YouTube Channel with celebrity interviews, developed no less than 3 versions of Mutantville.com, laid the foundation for the Mutantville Guerilla Film Makers Cookbook you’ll be hearing about soon, built the Mutantville theater aka Perfection Cinema, entertained about a million Youtube viewers and won several short film contests and forgotten more about indie film production than many will ever learn. It has truly been a blast.

For those of you lucky enough to be part of the cast and the crew of G.H.O.S.T., I hope you will all fully embrace and appreciate living in the artist moment. Being a part of it all. Accomplishing the creation of a film, short or otherwise is such a rare and wonderful thing. It’s something most people never even come to. So years from now after all the awards, contest wins and accolades are in the past you and look at the Mutantville archives on the DVD extras and see yourself, smiling back at you, happy to be a part of the golden time making true art. Can you EAR what I am saying here people?

Tony on the Set of Zombie Hunter