Passing the Hat for ‘Bonesaw’

While working on a freelance piece this week, I came across the makers of a new slasher called Dr Bonesaw, which offers you the opportunity to play a victim in the flick for your contribution of $2,000 or more. Contributions of any size are welcome.

While this kind of cash is nothing to sneeze at, especially in these crappy economic times, you have to hand it to these guys for coming up with an interesting approach to low-budget filmmaking. They only have until the beginning of next month to raise their money, so if you’re at all interested, why not swing by their site and throw a few bucks their way.

‘Mother’s Day’ Not Policemen’s Day

A scene from Bousman's 'Mother's Day.' No wonder the Winnipeg constabulary came a runnin'.

Marketing is a very tricky business, especially when it comes to movies. While Paranormal Activity has pretty much won the Most Effective Meme-Passing Award for this year, it’s not the only movie making headlines.

As mentioned a few weeks back, director Darren Bousman (Saw II-IV, Repo) has been pimping the hell out of his remake of Mother’s Day, and doing a pretty impressive job of keeping that flick from slipping head first into the I-Could-Give-a-Rat’s-Ass pit reserved for most remakes. Despite a hectic schedule and countless details to pore over with the production, the dude’s been keeping the Twitter faithful apprised of everything that happens on set, working Facebook like a pro, and now…

Now we’re all a little red faced after the “balloon boy” fiasco of last week. It turns out that, after a long diet of reality TV, we’ll pretty much believe anything at this point. So it’s perfectly natural to question whether Bousman has the ability to pull off a fake police raid on his own movie production in Winnipeg. Personally, I would think even more of him if he did actually manage to make this happen.

What’s that? How did I find out about the police raid, you ask? Why from his Facebook page of course.

To better understand Darren Bousman and how he got his start in this business, check out the chapter on Bousman in The New Horror Handbook.

First Look at Natali’s ‘Splice’

Several sites this week posted the first clip from the keenly-anticipated Vincenzo Natali thriller Splice. While it’s nice to finally see any footage from this new movie from the director of Cube, it would really be great to actually see the extended 5-minute trailer that screened at Fright Fest in the UK recently. Here’s hoping we get to see more of this work before it finally arrives next year.

‘Paranormal Activity’ to Open Fantastic Fest

Paranormal Activity, the low-budget frightener that had a brief run at film festivals before disappearing down a black hole, finally sees the light of day again Sept. 24 at Austin’s Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse. (Also check out this trailer — much more effective than what was circulating before.)

Around the same time (it’s not clear if it will be the same night), it will show at theaters around the country including:

• Los Angeles (ArcLight Hollywood)
• New York (Landmark Sunshine Theater)
• San Francisco (The Castro)
• Chicago (The Music Box)
• Boston (The Coolidge)
• Atlanta (The Plaza)
• Seattle (Neptune)

After that, it looks like it’s going the roadshow route with sneak previews starting Sept. 25 in the following cities:

• Seattle (Neptune)
• Ann Arbor, Mich. (State)
• Durham, NC (Southpoint 16)
• Baton Rouge (RAVE Mall of Louisiana 15)
• Boulder, Colo. (Cinemark 16)
• Columbus, Ohio (Studio 35)
• Orlando, Fla. (AMC Universal Cineplex)
• Madison, Wis. (Marcus Eastgate 16)
• Santa Cruz, Calif. (Del Mar 3)
• State College, Pa. (Premiere College 9)
• Tucson (El Con)
• Lincoln, Neb. (Ross Media Center)

Finally, if you want Paranormal Activity to show in your neck of the woods, you can “demand” it at the official Web site.

OK…so what’s the big deal about this movie?

Other than a lot of word-of-mouth buzz from people who know horror movies, just this. In a year when the most interesting horror movie releases have been straight to DVD, and the cinemas are choked with by-the-numbers nonsense, it’s nice — scratch that, it’s vital to the genre — to have a small movie that hasn’t been workshopped into another banal vehicle for the startlet of the week.

Sure, there’s a few bucks behind the distribution of Paranormal Activity, but all appearances suggest that it’s the filmmakers themselves who are working to get the word out, which suggests there just might be a shred of integrity to this picture. (Kudos to Paramount if this is actually a well-calculated marketing tactic.)

After some pretty lean years for theatrical-release horror, there’s something heartening about looking forward to the Little Horror Movie That Could, rather than the Big Horror Movies That Shouldn’t.

Icelandic Saga of the Bloody Kind

Usually the  most intriguing horror movie titles find themselves attached to the most micro-budgeted of flicks, which makes this little beauty all the more interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, slip into your rain slickers, grab your trail mix, and push off for the Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre.

Judging by the trailer, what we have here is Dead Calm meets your typical redneck-family-gone-bad movie, with unavoidable comparisons to that other recent boatin’-fiasco flick, Donkeypunch.

Go on, throw a few bucks its way. It’s going to take more than Sigur Ros to tug Iceland out of bankruptcy.

Making of ‘Mothers Day’: Day by Day

Darren Bousman is one of the first directors to aggressively use social media to build excitement in his projects.

What you are about to read is a historical blog post, so gather the kiddies around the computer screen and bless this occasion with the solemnity it deserves. We are going to mention a horror movie remake without digressing into a bitter harumph about the sad nature of remakes.

This week, Darren Bousman, director of Repo! The Genetic Opera and Saw II-IV, began shooting a remake of the 1980 flick Mothers Day. How do I know this? Because Bousman has been tweeting about it and posting updates on his Facebook page.

For all I know, there may be many directors out there promoting their movie projects online in various ways. However, I’m not sure anybody (with the possible exception of Eli Roth) would be doing so with the same level of enthusiasm as Bousman.

For months, he has been giving fans a blow-by-blow, day-by-day account of his Mothers Day project, covering everything from casting to location scouting, and now, finally, actual shooting. The result is a fascinating bit of marketing that can do the seemingly impossible — make you give a rat’s buttock about a movie you might otherwise have had no interest in.

In short, Bousman is building interest in a movie that, on the face of it, would garner only token attention in the horror press otherwise.

In this, the director has some considerable practice. He spent much of 2008 and 2009 building momentum for Repo, a movie born of fringe theater and payed for by a studio that thought it was getting another easily-marketable horror flick, rather than a high-concept rock opera that has divided audiences like no other. The fact that Repo has a passionate following of people who’ve been holding Repo events and dressing up as the characters is as much down to Bousman’s infectious enthusiasm for the project as it is to the quality of the finished product.

So, what will this mean for Mothers Day? One thing’s for sure: Bousman has set a new benchmark for directors in the horror realm and beyond. If your next flick bombs utterly at the box office or on DVD, and you haven‘t been working the social media networks every spare moment, don’t expect any sympathy from horror fans, or your investors.

“Well, what if I just can’t work up the enthusiasm for my project like Bousman does for his,” a director might ask. If that’s the case, maybe it’s a project you should walk away from.

You will find an in-depth chapter about Bousman’s film work based on exclusive interviews in The New Horror Handbook.

‘Legion’: Birth of a New Sub Genre?

Guns, God, and gory glory -- Is 'Legion' a sign of things to come?

Hollywood sucks. All they do is remake stuff from abroad, stuff from our childhoods, and nothing good ever comes out of there. Right? OK, that’s been a pretty accurate account of things so far, but every once in a while, Hollywood likes to surprise.

I must admit I was a bit puzzled by Sony Pictures’ January 2010 offering, Legion. Yes, I know, January is where studio dogs go to die. But it’s more the approach this movie seems to be taking that gives me hope. Not so much for the movie itself, necessarily, but for the modern horror flick.

For those who haven’t stumbled across this one yet, Legion is about an angel who comes to Earth, dagger and machine gun in hand, to protect a pregnant waitress (yes, I know) and her happless co-workers from a deadly invasion of…angels. God’s lost his cool with mankind again, and he’s sent the heavenly posse to clean house.

And if you’re mouthing the words Left Behind series, you’re well ahead of me. But do us both a favor: check out the trailer here, and see what you think. It looks a tad cliche, I will admit — sort of The Punisher and The Matrix by way of Tremors — but I think there might be the germ of a good idea rolling around in there somewhere.

Yoga: Scares the Heck Outta Me

Always be leery of the leotard, especially in 'Yoga.'

I haven’t seen Yoga, the new horror flick coming out of South Korea (can we just say Korea from now on….what was the last flick you saw out of North Korea?), and I probably won’t. But I do so enjoy the fact that someone made a sinister bit of cinema about this health/lifestyle obsession.

Check out the trailer here — dig the subtle nod to Oldboy — and prepare yourself: It’s only a matter of time before somebody takes a stab at Pilates.

‘Grotesque’: A Closer Look

Since the BBFC banned the DVD of Koji Shiraishi’s latest flick, Grotesque (Gurotesuku) a few weeks ago, it’s become one of the most talked about (and certainly one of the most Googled) horror movies in months. And predictably, it has launched a new dialogue about the banning of horror films in general.

You can add the guys over at the HorrorEtc podcast to that list. In their latest episode (No. 99), Tony, Ted, and guest host Doug actually fire up a copy of Grotesque and combine some running commentary on the torture flick with well-thought-out observations about horror movie censorship in recent years.

This commentary is something really tailor-made for the HorrorEtc crew. While the odd factual error may tick-off the die-hard fright fans (e.g, pinku films are actually Japanese softcore porn flicks rather than torture or horror films), HorrorEtc’s strengths has always been in the avuncular, enthusiastic manner of its hosts. And when delving into the details of an extremely nihilistic piece of work like Grotesque, it helps immensely to have likable guides who also give the impression that they’re not the jaded, giggling schoolboys who often put together horror podcasts.

Check back soon for a wrapup of horror podcasts that just may rekindle your enthusiasm for the genre.

‘Paranormal Activity’ Finally to Screen?

There’s really no kind way to put this. You usually don’t get a lot of buzz about haunted house movies today. (Apologies to Tony at the HorrorEtc podcast…The Changeling is still a good film!)

Which is why it was so odd when horror audiences — hell, horror directors — were telling me about this intense little ghost flick that was was making the festival rounds back in 2007: Paranormal Activity.

But as quickly as it appeared, it promptly disappeared down that cinematic chasm of which we do not speak. Paramount had bought it, reportedly to remake the relatively low-budget flick, and that was that.

Now ShockTillYouDrop.com (via Examiner.com) is reporting that the original is probably going to be enjoying a limited theatrical release next month, albeit with a different ending.

I’ve never been one for ghost movies, but when you have the likes of Darren Lynn Bousman telling you that it made an impression on him, you really have to give it a chance.

Speaking of DLB, he’s set to begin shooting his Mother’s Day remake next week. Bug him on Facebook here. And if you do get through to him, would you please ask him where I should send his copy of The New Horror Handbook?

Addendum: After an amazing, viral PR push, Paranormal Activity is now opening across the country on 10/16/09. Click here to find a theater near you.