Waaaaay back last July, we here at Backwoods Horror told you about an independent successfully Kickstarter financed film titled HYBRID VIGOR. It seemed like a weird sort of film, original, and new, so we’ve been following little rumblings here and there, though the crumbs have been few and far between. But now, finally, an official trailer has been released for the film. Check it out after the break below!
Voted IndieWire’s PROJECT OF THE WEEK and with a twitter following of over 250,000 followers (good GAWD!), HYBRID VIGOR surpassed its initial kickstarter goal of $50,000. This is all incredible news as it is so incredibly difficult to get an independent film made these days, funding always being such a problem to get things off the ground. Fowler even had to leave the US, going to a country few people other than Latvians ever even think about to get the film made. That’s f-ing dedication if I’ve ever heard it. So what is HYBRID VIGOR?
SYNOPSIS:
HYBRID VIGOR is a feature film about life, death, violence, morality, immortality, love, and loss in the USSR during Soviet times and in present day Latvia. It opens on frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia during Soviet times. Most of the film takes place in present day Latvia. More details about the plot will be revealed in the coming months.
After the atrocious NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET REMAKE, I would shudder at even the slightest thought of anyone else touching the franchise. All that was left, aside from yet another sequel or remake, would be a film about the very beginning (touched slightly upon in the remake and spoken of throughout the original series). Folk often forget that Freddy Krueger was, as a child molester and murderer, just as horrifying before his death at the hands of the angry parents of Springwood as he was after.
Now, independent filmmaker Andrew Daniels has created a fan film that serves as a sequel to the franchise titled SON OF A HUNDRED MANIACS that goes into deeper into Freddy as the child defiling Springwood Slasher.
Yet another independent feature has flown, until recently, under our radar that looks as though it may be very interesting. Directed by Ryan Smith, AFTER stars Steven Strait, Karolina Wydra, Sandra Lafferty and Madison Lintz. AFTER is set for a limited theatrical release September 14, 2012.
SYNOPSIS:
When two bus crash survivors (Steven Strait, Karolina Wydra) awake to discover that they are the only people left in their small town, they must form an unlikely alliance in a race to unravel the truth behind their isolation. As strange events begin to unfold, they start to question whether the town they know so well is really what it seems.
Check out the two trailers and poster below and be sure to check back here, the official Facebook Page, and the Official Website for more information as it develops.
Recently I was introduced to an amazing independent horror short film titled NIGHT OF THE PUNKSand I was completely blown away. The punk rock score was incredible, the acting believable (with characters you actually care about), the story and script was well written, and the gore, while over the top at times…in a good way, was FANTASTIC! Shot in the fall of 2010 in Los Angeles, CA, NOTP was self-financed on a shoestring budget of under $10k using a Canon Mark II 5D camera and Final Cut Studio.
Directed by Dan Riesser who co-wrote the script with Mike L. Kinshella, the film starred Luke Edwards (perhaps best known as the child star of films such as THE WIZARD, LITTLE BIG LEAGUE, and NEWSIES), Nick Mundy(a member of Team Tiger Awesome, Cracked.com, Comedy Central, & Atom.com), Aubrey Wood, Mike L. Kinshella, Dominic Deleo, and John Bobek. Makeup FX and Creature Design was created by Bruce Spaulding Fuller (who’s work can be seen in RESIDENT EVIL, UNDERWORLD, ARMY OF DARKNESS, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY, among others, having worked alongside the Stan Winston Effects Group and KNB).
SYNOPSIS:
At their first big city gig, a small town punk rock band must do battle with a horde of bloodthirsty demon punks hell-bent on turning the band into their sacrificial meal.
The Brain Deads are a suburban punk rock band from Anytown, USA. With their adorable merch girl by their side, they head to their first big city show with visions of circle pits, tattooed groupies and punk rock rebellion in their heads.
Unfortunately, the venue is practically deserted, the promoter is a walking police sketch, and once the music starts, the punks in the audience reveal themselves to be bloodthirsty monsters out for blood. It turns out the venue is built on a portal to hell and our heroes are to be served up in a demonic ritual sacrifice.
What comes next is 19 minutes of outrageously over-the-top 80?s style horror. We?re talking practical gore effects, huge scares, big laughs, gratuitous nudity, chainsaw decapitations, drumstick eye gouges, disembowelments, face-melting guitar solos… sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. It?s gonna be one helluva show.
NIGHT OF THE PUNKS is a love letter to the bygone era of 1980′s splatterpunk horror. It echoes classics like Return of the Living Dead, Demons and The Evil Dead and will sport a killer 80?s punk rock soundtrack. The film will have the visual style of filmmakers like Walter Hill, Joe Dante, Sam Raimi and John Carpenter
First, CONGRATULATIONS to Brandon Fowler, the writer/director/producer of the upcoming Latvian horror/drama HYBRID VIGOR on successfully achieving, in fact surpassing, his fundraising goal on kickstarter to get this film made, no doubt through a remarkably successful internet crowd sourcing campaign and the hard work of everyone involved in the film! This is always incredibly exciting news for independent filmmakers.
I have been seeing news of the film HYBRID VIGOR for a few weeks now but had yet to post anything about it until I had a clear understanding of everything involved. All I had gathered up until this point was that it was a genre film made in LATVIA of all places, which had me assuming it was a Latvian film. I was dead wrong. So now, boils ‘n ghouls, you’re going to get the full story.
Recently voted IndieWire’s PROJECT OF THE WEEK and with a twitter following of over 250,000 followers (good GAWD!), HYBRID VIGOR has surpassed its initial kickstarter goal of $50,000 and filming has already begun. This is all incredible news as it is so incredibly difficult to get an independent film made these days, funding always being such a problem to get things off the ground. Fowler even had to leave the US, going to a country few people other than Latvians ever even think about to get the film made. That’s f-ing dedication if I’ve ever heard it. So what is HYBRID VIGOR?
Excerpted from the Press Release:
Hybrid Vigor Films, LLC announced that Brandon Fowler, the director of the upcoming Latvian horror/drama HYBRID VIGOR, has just surpassed his fundraising goal on crowd funding platform Kickstarter raising additional funds from a wide Twitter fanbase. The film stars an emerging Latvian cast that includes Velta Buka in her feature film debut and also co-stars Jevgenija Mirosnicenko and Aleksandr Ivanov. All three actors are native to Latvia and no other parts have been officially cast. Fowler (Executive Producer of “Loren Cass”), who wrote the script, is also serving as the film’s producer.
The film, which began principal photography in March, has already shot large portions on Lake Peipus in Estonia, and also in several locations in Latvia. The film is scheduled to complete shooting later this year. Specific release dates and markets will be announced shortly thereafter.
HYBRID VIGOR is a feature film about life, death, violence, morality, immortality, love, and loss in the USSR during Soviet times, and in present day Latvia. It opens on frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia during the Soviet era, but most of the film takes place in present day Latvia. More details about the plot will be revealed in the coming months.
HYBRID VIGOR offers unique perks to its members who sign up to pledge money to the production. Donors will have their photo added to the film’s photomosaic movie poster as well as have their names listed in the end credits. With over 250,000 followers on Twitter, the production raised a majority of the funding directly from their followers.
“We are at the beginning of what will be an independent filmmaking renaissance period. Crowfunding/crowdinvesting coupled with open access social media sites and affordable, professional quality cameras are going to empower a whole new generation of indie filmmakers,” said Fowler.
HYBRID VIGOR is a feature film about life, death, violence, morality, immortality, love, and loss in the USSR during Soviet times and in present day Latvia. It opens on frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia during Soviet times. Most of the film takes place in present day Latvia. More details about the plot will be revealed in the coming months.
Velta Buka, the star of Hybrid Vigor, has something she wants to tell you…
With the premiere of THE PENNY DREADFUL PICTURE SHOW happening at the Fright Night Film Festival, I was provided with information by …Picture Show star Devanny Pinn to share with all of us who are unable to make the screening. And let me just tell, I wish I was in Louisville, Kentucky tonight because this film looks amazing!
Devanny Pinn did not disclose full details on this film, but she gave me enough information to hopefully entice an audience into attending any future screenings. First and foremost, she shared with me the absolutely amazing cast that headline this horror flick. The Penny Dreadful Picture Show will star Sid Haig (Devil’s Rejects), Jeffery Combs (Re-animator), Devanny Pinn (Nude Nuns With Big Guns), Josh Hammond (Jeepers Creepers 2), and Eliza Swenson as the title character Penny Dreadful. Supporting cast members include former WWE Superstar Al Snow, Kristina Hammond (American Girls), Brandon Stacy (Dead Men Walking), Alexis Iacono (The Black Dahlia Haunting), Barry Ratcliffe (Vivid), and Collin Galyean (House of Bones).
Synopsis:
The Penny Dreadful Picture Show is a unique horror film experience. Join the delightfully demented Penny Dreadful as she takes you through the history of horror movies… one scream at a time! The short films featured in …Picture Show include Slash-In-The Box, which is written and directed by Nick Everhart; The Scout, which is also written and directed by Nick Everhart; The Slaughter House, which is written and directed by Leigh Scott; and The Morning After, which is written and directed by Eliza Swenson.
Here’s a teaser the PENNY DREADFUL IMAGINARIUM group put out just in time for Christmas last year. And don’t forget to check out their official Facebook Page for further information…
The first art and trailer for writer/director Robert Conway’s violent opus SICKLE has hit the web. Created as a tribute to the grindhouse splatter mayhem of the 70′s and 80′s, SICKLE stars Kane Hodder, Tiffany Shepis, Rena Riffle, Dustin Leighton, Tarin Carter and Owen Conway.
SYNOPSIS:
A group of punks rob a strip club and head for the border but when they enter the town of Red Stone, they find that crime is a dish best served cold.
Check out the official site for more information, and be sure to check back here at Backwoods Horror for future details as they develop.
SCREEN is somewhat a road/horror movie which has the potential to be something really great indeed. Below we have the first teaser trailer for David Paul Baker’s SCREEN which he plans on showcasing at actual drive-ins. The film stars Nicole Alonso & Leslie Andrews.
If you have any drive-ins local to your area, check out the official site and request a drive-in screening. Also be sure to go over to their Facebook page for more information and a chance to help independent horror. Remember, keep America strong…watch horror movies!
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME Produced/Directed by Ryan Cavalline Story by Ryan Cavalline and Jason Senior
Well…let’s begin with a summary of this flick from what will probably be the back of the DVD (coming from Brain Damage Films on 05/05/2009):
“Somewhere, in a sleepy rural area, an underground organization is operating. People are being kidnapped, beaten, and tortured beyond comprehension. They are then reprogrammed to succumb to the will of their vile captors for their sick games and sold for the highest price. Along with his accomplice, a member of this evil group is having second thoughts about his role in this field and will do whatever it takes to leave the horror behind. Meanwhile, a young man and his pregnant wife take shelter in a run-down motel while on a road trip, unaware of the sheer terror that will soon befall them. All three will soon come to realize that in this kind of business….NO ONE ESCAPES”
Colorful, I’m aware. That is the kind of writing that your Joe Blow movie guy would read on the back of a dvd in your local movie-rental-plex…well, those that actually take the time to read the back of a Brain Damage “film”.
Let me talk about Ryan Cavalline. I have to give him…what do the kids say these days?…Mad…Props? Yeah, that’s it, I have to give him Mad F-Ing Props for forming his own production team at the ripe old age of eight-freakin’-teen and proceeded to push ahead, churning out movies like a b-flick factory. That’s tough work, and I respect that.
However…
Stockholm Syndrome is a mess. A bloody, afterbirth of a mess. Terrible is too haughty a word for the thing. I have to be honest, I just couldn’t make it through the entirety of the movie; 3/4 is about as far as it went. Normally, I never do this, but I just could NOT, BY ANY MEANS GO ON. There was nothing even remotely redeeming about this one. I’ve read some good reviews of the flick, and I’m happy that there’s a market out there for STOCKHOLM SYNDROME, but we (by that, I mean ME) just don’t dig it at Backwoods Horror.
First of all, it’s not even remotely MY kind of horror flick. In fact, it’s a matter of symantics as to whether or not the film could be categorized as horror at all. More or less, what you have here is the dreaded “psychological thriller” with a shit ton of “torture porn” thrown in for good kicks. If that were all the problems related to STOCKHOLM SYNDROME, I’d be willing to let it slide…but I digress.
The effects were terrible, beginning with the “preggers” chick at the beginning with a very obvious Basketball under her skirt. Ok, if you listen carefully (I had to rewind to make sure what I was hearing was, indeed, what I was hearing) when the woman pats her “pregnant” belly, you can hear, quite audibly, that “thump” one gets when slapping or flicking a basketball. That sort of hollowed out thump. COME ON, SERIOUSLY? Then there’s the makeup effects. Not too terribly bad if made by retarded monkeys throwing blood spattered poo at people. Unfortunately, however, this doesn’t seem the case…unless chimps are taking credit. And what about that cabbage patch doll baby? How over the top does it get? Was this meant as a joke? You couldn’t create a synthetic laytex or foam rubber baby mold so that it at least has that squishy element to it? I mean…a plastic doll? COME ON. Then we have all other types of zaniness. Fake puke that didn’t look like puke, a chick pissin’ herself that was a poorly done riff from Last House On The Left, the list goes on and on.
Then there’s the sound design. The levels were OUT OF FUCKING CONTROL. I’d have to turn my receiver up and then BAM, VOLUME’S BACK UP TO 11. What the hell? So the time I DID waste watching this film was spent mostly with the remote, vainly attempting to manually equalize the audio.
For the final nails in the coffin, let’s look at the “acting,” the “cinematography,” and the overall “direction.” Let’s look at the acting first. I couldn’t find any. I found a bunch of people stumbling through their lines as if they were, in some way, constipated and just trying to make it through to the cut so they could eventually drop a giant load (an apt metaphor for this “film” I think). It was atrocious. I’ve seen bums on fire act more convincingly (of course…you know…when they’re on fire). I didn’t give two shits about any of these characters. Then there’s that horrific of cinematography…or lack thereof. Ok, it was shot on tape, miniDV from the quality. That’s ok. 28 Days later (though shot with some nice Cannon Pro-Sumers) was still just miniDV, proving in a way that miniDV has it’s time and place. Not here. It just accentuated the overall cheap-ass feeling of the film with more artifacting than an antique shop. The film was dark (c-stands, clamps and lighting aren’t all that expensive, nor are filters and gels), so at times you couldn’t very well see what was going on. And the feeling of “in your face reality captured by talented miniDV (or digital in general) users was less than applicable here and one finds oneself wondering why all of the terrible Raimi-wannabe camera angles and extreme, obscuringly so, unnecessary close ups. This was due in no small part to the directorial mind behind it.
The…plot…was a veritable clusterfuck of cliches, bad dialogue (and bad carrythrough from the actors), and overall story. Because I can only guess that much of the original story was thrown out, we have, for our viewing displeasure, a series of torture porn riffs that never live up to whomever they were trying to emulate. Heaven forbid, I even saw a bit of Eli-fuckwad-Roth’s school of “COVER A SHITTY MOVIE UP WITH GORE GALORE and TITTIES AND YOU’LL BE FINE” school of chicanary. Oh, this flick had gore…bad, atrocious, terrible gore. A girl (after exposing us to some barely-theres) pisses herself and is made to lick it up. And what about this mafioso boss that looks like Ron Jeremy? …I can’t go on, I really can’t.
This flick made me, in all actuality…angry. I became literally pissed off that I was wasting my time with STOCKHOLM SYNDROME (a word, by the way, not even used corretly within the context of the film, so, they have butchered an English word to boot. I…
No…that’s it. I can’t go on any longer. To Mr. Cavalline, I’m sorry, but if I were you, I’d take whatever negative or final product you have (be it tape or whatever) and destroy it. I know it won’t stop this film from being released onto an unexpected audiance but, for your own sake, DESTROY IT. That said, I would be interested to see some of your other films just to see if STOCKHOLM SYNDROME was just some horrible drunken mistake you made this time. Perhaps this was just the bad bunch in that slowly rotting basket of film apples.
So would I be willing to give Ryan Cavalline another shot to show me that he’s more than this sordid, horrible mixup of piss-poor storyline, poor lighting, editing camera and sound work. Anyone with the brass balls enough to strike out and work towards doing what they love best I have all the respect in the world for. I just cannont recommend STOCKHOLM SYNDROME to anyone unless they are into really bad torture porn, horrendous acting and writing, and less than par direction.
