News

Nearly 60 international and Canadian producers will head to the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s (Omdc) annual International Financing Forum in Toronto.

The 10th anniversary edition of Omdc’s International Financing Forum (Iff), a feature co-financing market for English-language projects, will run Sept 13-14 during Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20).

The projects include Drama, the third feature to be directed by Oscar-winning Us actress Helen Hunt, written by Justin W. Lo (‘Mistresses’).

Scroll down for more projects

The two-day event includes one-on-one meetings, an industry panel discussion, roundtable meetings, a networking luncheon, and a producers’ opening night networking reception.

Iff partners include Telefilm Canada, UK Trade and Investment (Ukti) and new sponsor Canadian Media Producers Association (Cmpa).

More than 750 meetings will be scheduled for the 37 producer teams (20 Canadian projects and 17 international projects).

In total, 56 producers have been selected to participate in the programme from countries including: Australia, Germany, India, Israel, Spain, Uganda...

Oct. 12

8:00 p.m.

Spectacle Theater

124 South 3rd Street

Brooklyn, New York 11211

Hosted by: InFEST Underground

The InFEST Underground screening series is hosting an epic night of dark and twisted short films, plus the acclaimed Brazilian horror flick Beyond the Grave, directed by Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro.

Beyond the Grave, a post-apocalyptic zombie western, has been tearing it up on the underground film festival circuit the past few years, winning the Best Horror Film award at the Arizona Underground Film Festival, and screening at the Montreal Underground and at the B-Movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival. In the film, a police officer in a desolate wasteland filled with freaks tracks down a possessed serial killer. Watch the trailer below!

But, before the feature presentation, is a 98-minute block of short films from a few of the masters of the form, including Brian Lonano, Kevin Lonano, Carey Burtt and more. The...

The 2nd annual PollyGrind assaults Las Vegas during an epic length film festival that runs Oct. 8-17 at Theatre 7 with enough sleaze and violence to make Sin City residents feel right at home.

Actually, the fest does open up on the 7th with a concert at Neon Venus with local acts like Monster Zero, Creepersin and many more.

However, the film portion of the fest opens on the 8th with Stuart Simpson‘s acclaimed Australian gorefest El Monstro Del Mar!, one of the best Russ Meyer/Roger Corman mash-ups with a Down Under twist. Read the Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film review of this gem here.

Other Bad Lit favorites in the lineup are Drew Bolduc and Dan Nelson‘s The Taint, which is still completely grossing out audiences on the festival circuit, and The Uh-Oh Show, the splatter-filled horror comedy by the Godfather of Gore himself Herschell Gordon Lewis.

For those of you unaware of Kody Zimmerman and his wildly successful short film The Familiar, you’re in for a hilariously dark treat. After nearly two years of festival haunts and with more nominations and wins than this writer can count, Zimmerman has posted the movie on-line, and I promise you the most fun 19 minutes you’ll spend today!

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

Check out my other column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp

Monsters - Review

First, the raw numbers: this is director and writer Gareth Edwards’ first feature, the movie cost a purported $15,000, internationally speaking the film has grossed over 1.5 million dollars, this is the one film you need to see this fall.

One of the spectacular aspects of a movie that is labeled sci-fi even though we only really glimpse the science of the fiction at the very beginning and then near the end which, really, is the crowning achievement of this little film that could, is that this movie exists at all. Actor Scoot McNairy, last seen in the very sweet and gentile film In Search of a Midnight Kiss, and his co-star Whitney Able are essentially starring in a film where...

And a drum roll, please, because here are the winners from the 2010 Sitges Festival.

Oficial FANTÀSTIC COMPETICIÓ Sitges 43

Jurat / Jurado / Jury

Francesco Barilli, Jaume Collet-Serra, Colin Geddes, Jan Harlan & Elena Manrique

Millor Curtmetratge / Mejor Cortometraje / Best Short Film

The Legend Of Beaver Damm de Jérôme Sable

Menció Especial pel seu original homenatge a una indiscutible obra mestra del cinema fantàstic / Mención Especial por su original homenaje a una indiscutible obra maestra del cine fantástico / Special Mention for its original tribute to one of the undisputed masterworks of the fantastic cinema

Vicenta de Sam Millor

Disseny de Producció / Mejor Diseño de Producción / Best Production Design

Yuji Hayashida per Thirteen Assassins

Millors Efectes de Maquillatge / Mejores Efectos de Maquillaje / Best Make Up FX

Vitaya Deerattakul & Andrew Lin per Dream Home

Millors Efectes Especials / Mejores Efectos Especiales / Best Special Effects

Gareth Edwards per Monsters

Millor Banda Sonora Original / Mejor Banda Sonora Original / Best Original Soundtrack

Seppuku Paradigm,...

For those in Seattle, your in luck. The 2nd edition of the The Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival is this coming weekend (September 17th - 19th) and has not only a few films to satisfy, but a couple we really love.

Our own agentorange called Adam Mason's Blood River, which will be playing, a tour-de-force. You can read our review here..

A Serbian Film may have run into a few problems elsewhere, but play here in the states is never an issue.

You can check out further details and buy tickets off the official website.

Full lineup after the break.

Blood River

USA - Director Adam Mason - 104 min

A newlywed couple are pushed to the limit during a chance encounter with a mysterious drifter in a deserted ghost town.

Mørke Sjeler (Dark Souls)

Norway, France - Directors César Ducasse, Mathieu Peteul - 97 min

A revengeful father embarks on...

The 7th annual Atlanta Underground Film Festival is like having four different fests crammed into an exhaustive three days on Aug. 27-29. It’s an outrageous underground fest, an animation festival, a documentary fest and a horror movie festival: The culmination of a month of fests run by Atlanta’s Festival League. There’s tons of short films, documentaries, features and more.

There’s lots of great stuff to recommend, too. On the last night of the fest, there will be a screening of Chris Hansen‘s second feature film, Endings, which tells the touching story of three people spending their last day on Earth together. The film was reviewed on Bad Lit a few months ago. On the short film front, there’s Loretta Hintz‘s wild lesbian bestiality (sort of) tale, The Sheep and the Ranch Hand and two films by the perpetually awesome Neil Ira Needleman, Meeskit...

I have to admit that I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the trailer for Kody Zimmermann’s short film The Familiar. Sure, it looked good and had a fair bit of comedy but with everyone and their mother trying to cash in on the vampire craze, trailers can be deceiving but I was definitely intrigued.

This is one of those instances when the trailer doesn’t disappoint. Written and directed by Zimmermann, The Familiar is the story of Sam, a guy obsessed with vampires. He’s recruited for a job as a familiar to Simon, a centuries old vampire, a job which basically has him doing the work of a personal assistant. He hates it but stays on, bidding his time until Simon turns him because that’s what he wants: to be one of the undead. After a run in with a vampire slayer, Sam’s...

Director/writer: Kody Zimmermann.

The Familiar is a twenty-two minutes horror short that is very comedic and tongue-in-cheek. The Familiar has played at the Screamfest Film Festival in Los Angeles and the New York City Horror Film Festival. Now, the film will be at the Nevermore Film Festival. Luckily, before the festival starts, a review of the the film is here and The Familiar is entertaining, punchy, efficient and worth more than twenty-two minutes of your time.

The Familiar involves, well yes, a vampire's familiar who goes about the mundane tasks of removing limbs, bathing his vampire master, and basically becoming disillusioned with life. Sam (Torrance Coombs) has the boss from hell! Simon Bolivar (Paul Hubbard), an ancient vampire, keeps Sam wrapped around his narcissistic little finger and things go from bad to worse when Simon steals his new girlfriend's blood and soul.

The Familiar, while short, is an example...

This scribe hit Rachel Belofsky’s Screamfest La in Hollywood, CA, last night (as I do every night – extensive video and stills below), where Ti West, the director of The House of the Devil (review here) (screening as the fest’s "Centerpiece Film"), talked up his new series "Dead and Lonely", which begins airing on IFC Monday, October 26th, as well as the dust-up surroundng his Cabin Fever 2 (sort of).

Star of The House of the Devil Jocelin Donahue chimed in about her role in West’s legitimate recreation of early 80’s horror as seen in The House of the Devil , and Icelandic director Julius Kemp of the Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre (the film plays at Screamfest La tonight) spilled on the distribution of that film (which will be at Afm – hopefully American audiences will see it soon).

Perennial badass and actor Marc (The Lost, Cabin Fever 2) Senter showed up...

Phobia Friday: Hemophobia or Hemaphobia or Hematophobia - Fear of blood. The Familiar is a short film written and directed by movie 'grunt,' Kody Zimmermann. In it, a young man leaps at the chance to be a vampire's "familiar" – basically, his assistant – thinking that it will put him on the fast-track to immortality. Kody was inspired to write The Familiar during a particularly gruesome stint as a personal assistant. Kody's 4am runs were for Cocoa Puffs, not blood bags, but the sentiment remains the same. FEARnet: This short was inspired by a horrible assistant job you once had. Was it so bad you hoped to become a vampire? How did one inspire the...