Shameless Plug: THE RED THING

This shameless post is to inform all readers of this blog that my short film, THE RED THING, is currently showing on the website www.50hourslam.com.

The short film was made as part of the 50 Hour Film Slam competition a couple months back. All participating teams were given a piece of music, a line of dialog and some other parameters and within 50 hours were required to deliver a completed short film. Here is my humble effort. I was writer/director and it was shot in the house where I live. Please give it a look , and if you like it, give us a vote.

The film stars Wes Deitrick, a veteran of many horror films, including Guyver 2. His daughter May is in it also, as well as my friend Chris Peterson. Another local film maker, Ray Biddle, was my partner on the project. He shot the short and handled post production.

Movie Review: Bianca (2011)

Tom Steeber's "Bianca" is that rare cinematic beast: something I have never seen before. It is at once thoughtful, disturbing, horrific and moving. The fact that this smart and disturbing tale is told in animnation only heightrens its creepiness, and gives it an atmosphere unlike anything else. It got under my skin.

Buy Bianca on DVD

Bianca tells the story of Glen, a regular, average-looking guy who catches the eye of Bianca, a beautiful but enigmatic girl that he meets at work. Bianca is sweet and sincere, and never thinks even for a second that she is out of Glen's league. But there is an oddness about her that is hard to peg. However, Glen, thrilled that such a beautiful woman is attracted to him, allows himself to be swept up. At their first sexual enounter he learns her secret. She has a bizarre sexual fetish that I don't think I've ever heard of before. It invovles a razor, and that is as much as I can say without giving too much awy. Suffice it to say that the sex scene is as distrubing as anything I have seen all year. It starts out making you laugh, and ends up making you cringe.

Article: Man Without a Saddle

You may or may not be aware of my work as a filmmaker. But to ste outside of my role as critic for a moment, I wanted to let you all know about my next project. It's a western with a horror twist, and a piece I am very excited about. 

MAN WITHOUT A SADDLE is based on Kipling's classic story, Mark of the Beast, transferred from colonial India to the American west of 1870. Three ex-Army regulars, Strickland, Fleete and Barton, are hired to convince a Shoshone shaman to move on to the reservation. The shaman, Tanupah, guards a stone petroglyph, sacred to his people. Fleete, in a drunken fit, urinates on the petroglyph and dishonors its spirit. In retaliation, he is cursed by Tanupah, turning him into a raging creature, half man, half wolf. After subduing the creature (an act which very nearly costs them their lives), Strickland and Barton torture Tanupah until he removes the curse. However, in so doing they all feel deep shame, and forced to examine their belief systems. This is especially true of Strickland, a deeply religious man, who finds his foundation (his "saddle") rocked to the core.