News

Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski are likely best known for their work in Canadian indie collective, Astron-6, the crew behind such mad movies as Father’s Day, Manborg and amazing faux trailer Bio-Cop. For their next venture, The Void, the two filmmakers and FX artists (including Hannibal and Pacific Rim) are breaking away and attempting to…

The post Father’s Day Filmmakers Get Serious in The Void; Crowdfunding Creatures appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Attention Canadian filmmakers! The lads at Raven Banner Entertainment want a cracking Canadian short film to open the May 29th screening of Cabin Fever: Patient Zero so they are having a contest! You have until April 14th to submit a four-to-six-minute short film with a theme of your choosing. Raven Banner will choose a winner and their short will screen across Canada that night. You will also get ten passes to the cinema closest to you to share the experience with family and friends. "We've always strived to bring a festival-like experience to our Sinister Cinema presentations," said Raven Banner's Andrew Hunt. "Part of that experience is to open each screening with a unique short film, preferably by a Canadian filmmaker. Steven Kostanski's Bio-Cop, Josh MacDonald's...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Directed by: Steven Kostanski

Written by: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski

Starring: Matthew Kennedy, Adam Brooks, Meredith Sweeney, Connor Sweeney, Ludwig Lee, Jeremy Gillespie

The warped geniuses at Astron-6, the collective responsible for the irresponsible beauty that was Father’s Day, have unleashed yet another jolt of cinematic insanity. Manborg is a goofy/smart satire of bargain basement sci-fi spectacles, CD-rom games and any number of junky toy-based Saturday morning cartoons. A direct descendent of Charles Band '80s-era exploitation fare such as Metalstorm: the Destruction of Jared Syn and Eliminators, it’s an unabashed love letter to kid-friendly "exploi-tainment."

Manborg begins, as most of these spectacles must, with a post-apocalyptic Earth. Hell has literally taken over the planet with armies of ferocious Nazi demons bent on destroying mankind. Led by the evil (natch) Count Draculon (a hilarious Adam Brooks), the armies have decimated cities throughout the world. A small...

Anchor Bay Entertainment and Raven Banner Entertainment will release producer, writer, director Steven Kostanski's sci-fi action horror feature "Manborg" on DVD, April 16, 2013:

"...'Count Draculon' (Adam Brooks) and his vampire forces seek to take over Earth during the 'Hell Wars'. 

"A soldier (Matthew Kennedy) is killed attempting to fight the Count, then transformed into 'Manborg' after his body is fitted with robotics.

"After Manborg becomes active in 'Mega-Death City', he meets with resistance fighters against Count Draculon.

"Fighters include 'Justice' (Conor Sweeney) a gunfighter who resembles Billy Idol with an Australian accent, joined by his sister 'Mina' (Meredith Sweeney) and martial arts expert 'Man' (Ludwig Lee, voice-dubbed by Kyle Hebert)..."

DVD Bonus features include  commentaries with director Steven Kostanski, actor/writer Jeremy Gillespie and executive producer Peter Kuplowsky, deleted and alternate scenes, bloopers, behind-the-scenes, stop motion montage, VFX montage, interviews, premiere Q&A and the short film...

The mighty Boston Underground Film Festival celebrates their impressive 15th edition this year on March 27-31 at the Brattle Theatre. Here’s some highlights to be on the lookout for:

Opening night film: I Declare War, a childhood parable about war and brutality, directed by Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson.

Closing night film: Big Ass Spider!, a raucous giant arachnid vs. the military flick, directed by Mike Mendez.

Other Feature Films: Both Drew Tobia’s first feature, See You Next Tuesday; and the punk documentary A Band Called Death by Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett recently won awards at the 20th Chicago Underground Film Festival and will now kill it at Buff. Sion Sono, a Buff regular, will be screening the last of his “Trilogy of Hate,” Guilty of Romance; while Calvin Lee Reeder has the gross-out feature-length version of his gross-out short The Rambler. And Zach Clark, a Bad Lit favorite,...

For those of you who are not familiar Astron-6 Video is a collective of five filmmakers who met at a short film festival and decided to pool their limited resources to create a production company that specialises in horror and comedy with their targets set on lampooning a lot of the straight to VHS dreck they enjoyed in their childhoods.

Their first feature Father’s Day has had a lot of buzz at film festivals and was released by Troma earlier this year. Their website seems to hint at a lot of films we haven’t seen so far with titles like Punch Out, Cool Guys, Gore Blade, Insanophenia and Lazer Ghosts 2. You know what Jason Eisener did with Hobo with a Shotgun that has become an aesthetic choice? Yeah they do that…all the time…..

Their second film to get a proper release of sorts is Manborg which has...