What happens when a deranged young man living in a hipster-infested LA neighborhood is pushed too far? HIPSTER HOLOCAUST, that’s what happens. HIPSTER HOLOCAUST is a short film starring Sean Wing as a man who’s been pushed too far. The film was written by Ian Shorr (SPLINTER) and Jonathan Danforth-Appell (Jon D.A.), who also directed the short. Check out the hilarious hipster massacre below!
Director: Toby Wilkins
Writers: Kai Barry, Ian Shorr, Toby Wilkins
Awards:
Splinter won six awards at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival: Best Editing, Best Score, Best Special Effects, Best Make-Up, Best Directing and Best Picture.
Splinter was nominated for Best Horror Film award by the 35th Annual Saturn Awards. Winners are due to be announced at a ceremony in Burbank, CA, on June 24th 2009.
A Brief Synopsis:
A young couple (played by Paul Costanzo and Jill Wagner) are out for an anniversary weekend of fun and camping. Having to head back into town, they are stopped at gunpoint by two hitchhiking criminals heading north (played by Shea Whigham and Rachel Kerbs). Things go from bad to worse as the group get a flat while running over a strangely active bit of roadkill. Pulling into a gas station to take care of a busted radiator, the night takes a horrific turn as a strange, parasitic SPLINTER creature with the ability to inhabit, completely distort human (and any other mammal) bodies to use as their own personal death vehicles to attack other creatures while it continues to devour the creature it inhabits from the inside out. CAN IT BE STOPPED? WHO WILL SURVIVE? WHAT WILL BE LEFT OF THEM? (Wait, can I use that last bit?)
This movie was fantastic. I can see why it won all of those freakin’ screamfest awards. The makeup was spot on, the story was spot on, and most importantly (and something that generally brings down a good independent horror flick) the writing and acting was great! I was drawn in by the story from the word go and the movie took hold and didn’t let go for the entire ride. For fans of the site, it’s no real secret that I’ve been excited by this film since I first heard about it some months ago. I mean, a movie set entirely in the backwoods, mainly a backwoods old gas station is sure to drag me in (look at the name of the site for cryin’ out loud), so when I found out that I was getting a review copy, I was stoked. I watched the film a few days ago and decided not to write a review right after I saw it in order to let it roll around in the ‘ol noggin’ for a while. I wanted to get over my initial excitement and see if the movie still had me after a while.
It does boils ‘n ghouls, without a doubt.
The only negative I can find with the movie would have to be with the monster itself. Though the last bit of the movie showed a good bit of the creature (in a way), I could’ve done with more. I understand that keeping it to the shadows was probably both a budgetary and asthetic necessity, but, as with any good creature feature, I want to see the monster! The hand gag, however, was freakin’ hilarious and reminded me of THE EVIL DEAD 2 a great deal. I could probably have used a little more on the gore as well, but that’s just personal bias there. What can I say, at times, I’m a gore hound. One of the best aspects of the film would have to be watching Owen (from THE BACKWOODS HORRORSHOW and THE LINUX BLOG) jump at all the right places. It’s great to see that kind of reaction from a horror film.
I look forward to the work Toby Wilkins will be doing in the future. We have the potential for a new horror great on our hands.
Source: SHOCK TILL YOU DROP
Here’s the scoop from the good ‘ol boils ‘n ghouls over at SHOCK TILL YOU DROP:
DVD release details have surfaced for Toby Wilkins’ Splinter. DVD Active got their hands on an early look at the official cover art (below), not to be confused with the leaked version a few weeks back. The disc streets on January 27th with behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.
Starring Shea Whigham, Paulo Costanzo and Jill Wagner, Splinter finds a young couple retreating to the wilderness for a camping weekend, but their romantic idyll is shattered when they are car-jacked by an escaped convict and his girlfriend on the run from the police. As the foursome travel the backroads together, each plotting their next move, they find themselves in deeper trouble than any of them could have imagined – a blood-crazed, parasitic creature that absorbs the corpses of its victims has laid claim to the woods, and the two couples are now in its sights. Finding shelter at an abandoned gas station, they must use their wits and every weapon at their disposal to stave off the onslaught, not only from the insatiable creature, but also each other…
Lookin’ forward to this one. Keep it Creepy!
Happened to be sent a link from a friend of mine about a zombified version of “tag” goin’ around the college campuses. Check it out:
By Matthew Daneman, USA TODAY
ROCHESTER, N.Y. –
Al Palmer has a slim build, an easy smile, and a near-insatiable hunger for human flesh.
Palmer, 27, of Litchfield, Maine, is an industrial-design student at Rochester Institute of Technology. He wears in his headband the IDs of 17 students who had been humans until he tagged them, turning them into zombies.
“I get the biggest kick out of walking up behind someone who’s looking all around except behind them,” he says as his group prepares to head out into the night. “It gets your heart pumping, that exhilaration.”
Welcome to the world of Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ), a tag-like game that is the latest trend in campus entertainment. An HvZ game typically involves hundreds of students and runs 24 hours a day for days on end; dwindling numbers of humans try to fend off and outlast growing legions of zombies.
The rules are fundamentally simple: Zombie tags human, human becomes a zombie. Unlike movie zombies, with shambling walks and undead makeup, zombies in the game just wear headbands to distinguish them from armband-wearing humans. And they are free to sprint.
Humans ward off zombies with Nerf guns or by hitting them with a balled-up sock – a defensive move that stuns the zombie, usually for 15 minutes. The goal is to still be a live human at the end.
A group of students at Goucher College in Towson, Md., is credited with starting the game, which has spread across the USA. Addicted to the first-person shooter video game Splinter Cell, the students wanted to create a live version of it on campus; it turned into tag and then became zombie-fied, says Goucher graduate Brad Sappington, one of the creators.
“It just unfolded like that: ‘We like zombies. Let’s find a way to make real zombies at college.’ It was alcohol-induced, I’m sure.”
The Internet has played a big role in the spread of the game. Goucher students created a website (hvzsource.com) that is a repository of information about and rules for the game. And YouTube videos of the game being played at Goucher have found fans at other schools.
Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., hosted its first student-organized HvZ game last fall after one student stumbled across online video footage of the game and brought the idea there, says Jason White, 23, a senior from Indianapolis who is organizing a tournament there this week.
RIT hosted its first HvZ game last fall after Zack Bessler, 21, a computer science major from Lyman, Maine, said he came across information about the game.
“It just sounded like ridiculous amounts of fun,” Bessler says. “Does it get any better than zombie-themed tag?”
That’s fuckin’ sweet. Check THIS LINK for more on the game…. Sounds like a cool-ass Halloween party game to me…. Once again…sweeeeeet…
Check it out boils ‘n ghouls!
For those that don’t remember what SPLINTER’s all about check out the official site, or clicky on this link!
Keepin’ that independent horror movie makin’ spirit alive…that’s what I’M talkin’ about!
Picked up this bit of news from the boils ‘n ghouls over at Shock Till You Drop:
“This morning we were requested by Magnolia (where Magnet is housed) to remove all copies of it from ShockTillYouDrop.com. According to our studio contacts, the MPAA has come down on them over the one-sheet. We cooperated, but now, unfortunately, some of you who haven’t seen it won’t be able to see what the fuss it about.
The one-sheet was simple. Plenty of weathered, white negative space with the title “Splinter” splattered in red. Below that, near the credits block, you see a hand coming over what appears to be a window frame. The hand is blackened (like a frostbite victim) and has giant, sharp splinters jutting up from the knuckles. Nothing too gruesome. Very subtle.
Our reps tell us the issue wasn’t so much over the artwork as it was about the timing of the poster’s release and various “approval” business – nothing too exciting.
So, a new poster is coming shortly, I just wanted to give you a heads-up as to why it’s no longer on the site.”
–My question is, since when has the MPAA been all cock ‘n balls about posters for cryin’ out loud? I mean, I’ve seen nastier, bloodier one sheets, let me tell ya, and it didn’t seem like anyone gave two shits about them. Could it have something to do with the fact that this is an indy flick? We all know the MPAA gets down on its knees for STUDIO pics and let’s ‘em get away with, ahem, murder, but they’ve always been assholes to the independents. Well, fuck ‘em, they haven’t contacted me, so in case you’re wonderin’, here’s that poster they’ve got their panties in a wad about:
Picked up news of the new horror flick splinter from all corners of the horror side of the internets. The basic rundown is this, from Horror Movies.ca:
Splinter is set in and around a quiet gas station on a lonely freeway, where a terrifying virus-like monster inhabits the bodies of its victims and drives them with a relentless lust for blood. The virus monster is said to twist the bodies of its prey into the shapes best suited to pursue its unrelenting desire to infect more victims and kill again.
Seems pretty dern interesting. Click on the two teaser posters below for a link to the official site, either one’ll do the trick, and keep checking Backwoods Horror for more info on this upcoming indie creepshow!
