News

We're back with another edition of Horror Highlights! In today's installment, we have news of Dark Sky acquiring Before the Fire, details on the digital edition of the Etheria Film Festival, a look at the trailer for Two Heads Creek, and details on the We Summon the Darkness soundtrack release:

Dark Sky Films Acquires Before The Fire: "Dark Sky Films today announced it has acquired all North American distribution rights to the timely new pandemic thriller Before The Fire, the debut feature from director Charlie Buhler and written by and starring Jenna Lyng Adams of The Kominsky Method.

Nicola Goelzhaeuser, Mpi/Dark Sky's VP of Sales & Acquisitions, negotiated the deal for the Madfire Picturesproduction with John W. Bosher and Chris Charles of Throughline Films and Michelle Chang of Ramo Law on behalf of the filmmakers, including producer Kristen Murtha. Dark Sky plans to release the film in theaters and...

It took Blake Calhoun more than two years to turn Continuum from an original idea into a full-fledged web series. Luckily for fans of the series, the gap between seasons one and two is not nearly as broad. Calhoun has released nine new episodes of Continuum through pay-to-view platform Jts.TV, where they can be seen by purchasing a monthly pass for $3.99 The entire first season is available for free viewing on Jts.TV; more conveniently, it also has a home on YouTube, where the second season will end up during the summer. The original run features sterile, 2001-esque sci-fi visuals and solid acting from web series notables such as lonelygirl15's Melanie Merkosky and industry vet Taryn O'Neill. If that sounds like your kind of show, expect season two--which begins at the cliffhanger that ended episode nine--to provide more of the same. Calhoun is best known as the creator of Pink,...

Today the slice-of-life hipster comedy Squaresville launched on YouTube, after a well-attended premiere at the NerdMelt Theater at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood on Tuesday. It's about time. Tubefilter gave you a sneak peek at the Squaresville minisodes back in October 2011—and then we waited. But Matt Enlow, creator-producer behind Squaresville and cult favorite Mountain Man (which earned him three Streamys noms), has been busy, busy, busy. Enlow has teamed up with top online producer network Big Frame to develop an audience around the show. Big Frame has collaborated with web series creators in the past, including Mystery Guitar Man's Once Upon featuring Mark Gantt and Taryn O'Neill—but the Squaresville deal marks the first time that an independent web series has reached out to become a part of the larger network. Even before the deal, Squaresville had been gaining traction on its own, earning over $12,000 with a fundraising campaign for the project on Kickstarter.

Joe Penna, one of the most creative forces on YouTube, is launching a new orignal series on the MysteryGuitarMan channel featuring Mark Gantt, Taryn O'Neill, and Princesstard from Shaytards. Watch It Now The new series, Once Upon, features Penna as "MysteryGuitOldMan," a character introduced earlier this month, who tells the story of the origins of his little brother, "Teeny Joe," who was featured in a June 2010 MGM video. The series is full of all the creative effects we've come to expect from MGM, including an infant that sprouts from a plant bulb delivered by an exotic bird. "YouTube is all about trying new things and constantly re-inventing yourself," Penna told Tubefilter. "Plus, it's a great way to get immediate, honest feedback on your work. So, I'm excited to be trying out this 5-episode miniseries on my channel." Once Upon is MysteryGuitarMan's first web series—though Penna humbly noted, "Can it...

On the heaviest day of Comic-Con, one might think that having a major off-site event, to be held in the midst of some heavy hitting panels, might not be the strongest plan ever conceived. Showing up early to the event at the Bristol Hotel, I watched as some of the finishing touches were applied to the set-up. This was not the last-minute, throw-something-together-in-four-days event from this past April. Nor was it the end-all, be-all of panels. This was simply the next logical step for the web series industry, in a long road to having an entire section of the convention marked out for us. Run by Jenni Powell, Taryn O'Neill and Stephanie Thorpe, Celebrate the Web 2 came together with a different tone from the previous outing. Where the original event did so out of a need to heal some wounds, this time around the tone was stronger: “We’re here to stay,...

Streamy-winning director Blake Calhoun (Pink) has announced his latest web series project today, a sci-fi drama set in space called Continuum. The series will star Harper's Globe and loneylgirl15 star Melanie Merkosky (left) as Reagen, a young woman who awakes on a space ship without any memory of what she is doing there. Her only companion on board is the ship's computer, a female spin on 2001's "Hal," voiced by Taryn O'Neill (Compulsions, After Judgment). Also announced for the cast is Brad Hawkins (Pink) as Tipton. Calhoun and co. are calling the project "a futuristic thriller in the noir-ish tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien." Loud Pictures, Calhoun's production company is producing along with Alternative Fuel, a multiplatform company he co-founded with Pink producer Mike Maden. Also producing is Cjp Digital Media, with Wilson Cleveland involved on distribution and marketing of the series, as it does for The Fall of Kaden,...

Riese has inked a deal with Fireworks, a division of ContentFilms, to distribute the steampunk-infused drama web series. Fireworks is the same firm that is distributing MTV New Media's (and Electric Farm's) Valemont as well as Endemol UK's sci-fi series Kirill for international television. They also released much-awaited Chapter 2 online this week (above). New cast members in this season include Ryan Robbins (Sanctuary), Emilie Ullerup (Sanctuary), Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Gallactica) and Allison Mack (Smallville). [Riese] Ex-Conan O'Brien staff writer Aaron Bleyaert is in fact developing his own web show with fellow axed Tonight Show staffers, but it won't be affiliated with Conan or his former show, despite what TMZ might say. [Screenology, Bam! Bam! Bam!] Live video streaming site UStream scored $75 million in additional capital in their latest investment round by Softbank Corp, Japan's third-largest mobile operator. The cash will be used to grow the service internationally in mobile-heavy countries like Japan, China, Korea and India.

Web series and online video tid-bits worth clicking today: Compulsions Episode 4 (below) came out today, with After Judgment's Taryn O'Neill taking a seat in Craig Frank's empty warehouse of fun. And is it just us, or is Annemarie Pazmino the best looking office It Tech we've ever seen? [Dailymotion] Private the series is giving away a gaggle of free swag just in time to give to your 13 year-old cousin. T-shirts, novels and a signed posted from the teen queen cast. [Alloy] Planet Green, Discovery Channel's offshoot cable network, is launching its own daily web series, Planet 100, which will blaze through the top environmental stories of the day in 100 seconds or less. [C21 Media] Hidden Valley Ranch is jumping in the branded entertainment scene by sponsoring NBC Universal Digital Studio's new original web series, Garden Party, which will be getting featured placement on iVillage.com [MediaPost] Good Magazine's Big Ideas web series on...

Hype can be a dangerous thing. Is it after all a fickle critter that once rattled can never really be sent back to its cage. So when Bernie Su and his team behind Compulsions began their late summer teases for their dark web thriller, they knew this day would come. The internet's day of reckoning. Today the 8-episode series debuts exclusively on Dailymotion, having signed a deal with the site granting it a month-long exclusive window on Compulsions. Already the popular video site had been featuring the trailer for the series front and center, and it now leads with the first episode surrounded by some custom front page skinning. Last night in Los Angeles, in a packed screening premiere at Cinespace a room full of some 200 or so lucky ones had a chance to collectively writhe and squirm through the first 4 episodes. "I know the expectations are high," wrote creator...

A few months back, After Judgment, the post-apocalyptic indie thriller web series from Captain Films launched with an ambitious multi-narrative format that meant running two separate web series simultaneously—After Judgment and its prequel series Before Judgment. It's hard enough building an audience from scratch and getting people to notice one web series, let alone two. But people did notice, or perhaps the right people noticed. Irvine, CA-based broadband television network KoldCast TV signed After Judgment to a revenue-sharing distribution deal and relaunched the series this week on its site, bringing its full marketing resources to bear to promote the series. Known for distributing such shows as Poor Paul and The Midwest Teen Sex Show, KoldCast has been aggressively building up its stable of quality web series, including a number of the new series from writers-portal Strike.TV. There's also a soon-to-be announced distribution partnership with Tivo, which will bring...