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Left pane: Suspiria poster; Top right: David Gordon Green; Bottom left: Vibrant lighting in a scene from Suspiria.
Afternoon splatter fans! What is it with remakes that really enrage me this week? Today, Finger Lickin’ Indie has learnt that rising indie director David Gordon Green, known for his 2000 film George Washington and his upcoming flick starring Seth Rogen, Pineapple Express, is planning to remake 1977 slasher-classic Suspiria by Italian horror maestro Dario Argento.
Suspiria is an extremely stylised expressionistic film which is the first of a trilogy known as The Three Mothers, all focusing on evil/supernatural forces attempting to break through into our world. The film stars Jessica Harper as Suzy Bannion, a young American dancer who arrives at her prestigious German dance school to discover it is actually an evil witches coven. Suspiria is brilliant, with vibrant colours and dramatic lighting, and while some would dismiss his work as disgusting or depraved, I believe Argento should be considered alongside Hitchcock and Orson Welles.
The news that Green is planning to remake Suspiria is extremely unfortunate as the horror canon is already deluged with crappy remakes that do nothing to reinterpret the original and often copy the films frame for frame. Even worse, some of them attempt to explain the unexplainable. A perfect example being the case of Michael Myers in Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween. These films that try to provide a reasonable impetus to a formerly motivationally devoid killer baffle me! Anyway, it is true that these films have had some box office success but with torture porn fans crawling all over the horror scene, this is only to be expected. One thing I can say is that I don’t expect the same expressionistic flare to the lighting because lets face it, that really wouldn’t sell these days. It could only have been the 70s folks!
Finally, I want to leave you with this. Instead of going out and rampantly consuming all these horror remakes. Go online, go to your DVD rental shop, rummage through some old VHS and find the original and enjoy!
Here’s just a taste of what to expect from Suspiria:
US indie film festival the Cinema Eye Honors presented by Indiepix has announced that it is to add a new audience award that will utalise both online distribution and voting process. The festival have chosen the BroadRamp platform to distribute the films and is requesting that viewers cast their vote online after watching. Indiepix are said to have chosen BroadRamp’s Content Distribution System because it does not require the user to download a third party browser plugin. However, this is a claim that confuses me slightly because taking a look at BroadRamp’s site they seem to be very much utalising flash video in their player which of course uses the “third party plugin” Shockwave. Soooo… unless I’m missing a trick and I they’ve some swanky technology they’re not showing off on their website… you still need a plugin folks.
BroadRamp seem to be best known for their work in the field of interactive e-commerce video. What’s interactive e-commerce video I hear you cry. Well, the basic concept is that you’re sitting watching a video online, or wherever, and you see a t-shirt you really like. You hover your mouse over that t-shirt and a pop-up appears giving you information, price and an option to buy the shirt. An idea then that seems to be genius and utterly horrific all at the same time.S o the cynic in me is thinking, will the content from this film festival be used as a film testbed for this evil genius video creation? Or am I turning into a internet conspiracy theorist? Either way, I am delighted to see that festivals are recognising the problems in the industry and making steps to rectify it. It does however seem bizarre to me that they would not use a more well known platform, such as blip.tv, vimeo or even the big daddy YouTube. My jaded mind is still mulling over the marketing potential of the BroadRamp system in festivals to come – you’ve been warned!
Anyway, the festival selections have been made and announced, more information can be found at the Indiepix and Cinema Eye Honors websites and voting commences on March 1st.
Right, that’s enough from me. Good night Finger Lickers, I will see you in the morning.
K
Afternoon finger lickin’ fans. So I mentioned a while ago that horror legend George A. Romero was at Sundance discussing the democratization of filmmaking in a spout.com interview. However, I didn’t really get into the reason why he was at the festival. His latest installment in the “Dead” saga premiered at Sundance and, as any good film director should be, he was whoring the hell outta it. The flick is basically a Blair Witch shakey handy cam take on his other apocalyptic tales. I am a big horror fan but not especially into the living dead stuff I’m more of a slasher man, however this really took my fancy.
The trailer is ridiculous and there’s obviously some jolly good hammy acting going on, but of all the horror remake dirge out there it actually caught my attention. From what I’ve read Romero has always worked in a very independent fashion and his latest film is no different, he’s using web 2.0 marketing techniques with exclusive MySpace goodies as well as tapping into the wannabe-filmmaker You Tube revolution to inspire his craft. I for one wanna give it a chance!
Director/Producer Hunter Weeks co-creator of 10mph the conceptually brilliant comic-documentary that follows a pair of aspiring filmmakers as they travel across the United States on Segways. You’re no doubt wondering, what the hell is a Segway? Or perhaps if you’re a Californian police officer you know them well. Basically, these scooter devices, which you may have seen on YouTube, or TV, or around your local park go a max of 10mph. With these devices these two filmmakers travel across America and document the hilarious consequences.
Anyway, I haven’t seen this film but they seem to be generating a great buzz and I’m very keen to check the flick out. However, my reason for writing about this is to request that you all support these DIY filmmakers by signing up for ourstage.com. Just like Four Eyed Monsters, ourstage.com have been brilliant and offered to pay 10mph $1 for every sign up they get. This is an amazing model for independent film revenue generation and it deserves all the support we can give.
So, please, please, please, sign up for ourstage.com via http://www.10mph.com/ourstage to make a real difference to some great filmmakers. Likewise, please check out the video below where Hunter talks about the project and how you can help them make their next film.
First time director Roger Ingraham’s film Moonshine debuted at Sundance 2006 and has garnered much critical acclaim. Ingraham shot his first feature-length film for under $10,000 when he was only twenty years old. Set in small-town America Moonshine is a vampire film that focuses upon a young guy, Peter, who takes a job working in a convenience store in order to care for his dying parents. As Peter works this soul-destroying job a figure of darkness waits in the shadows to take his life. Interestingly Moonshine has yet to attract a distribution deal, which is a real shock to me given the quality of what I’ve seen so far. Yet another filmmaker finding that the festival route isn’t working?
According to online murmurings, like Four Eyed Monsters, Moonshine is due to be release in its entirety on YouTube. Ingraham’s film has also been submitted to From Here To Awesome and is currently awaiting your support on their website.
Check out the trailer below and keep your eyes peeled for Ingraham in the future because he appears to be a real talent.
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