Chris Lee to voice new animated tribute to Tim Burton

Tim, Burton, that tragic old Cure fan and gothic nonsense creator, is to be tributed in a new stop motion animation, providing the makers can scrape together the funds via interested people on t'internet. Interested in parting with your cash? Thought not.
Of more interest than Burton and his Hammeresque filmings is that Chris Lee will be lending his chocolatey tones to proceedings. That man just never stops, does he?

Dead Island trailer - pretty bloody good!

I'm not ashamed of it - I spent much of my late 20s playing Resident Evil, then Resident Evil 2. And, erm, Resident Evil 3. And I would have played them a lot earlier in my life in the Playstartion had been invented in the 80s. I bloody loved those games, but these days there seems to be too much to do to spend my time shotgunning zombies and magnuming those green lizardy buggers that appeared when you thought the game had ended. However, this looks very interesting indeed - it's a trailer for a NEW survival horror zombie game, and it's effing lovely.

The Drummond Will

This looks rather awesome, actually - anything that makes me chuckle through the trailer has got to be worth a look... if you like your comedies dark and involving a will, a-la What A Carve Up!, then this could be just the thing...



Shot on the Red One in black and white, the winner of 5 international awards, ‘The Drummond Will’ is a collision between old and new. A black comedy set in decaying rural England. It marks director Alan Butterworth’s first feature film, who is currently best known for winning the BFI 24-hour SHORT film challenge for ‘Not So Perfect World‘. Alan is writing his second feature film and lives in London with his dog Dave.


The film stars two up and coming actors, Philip James (Danny) and Mark Oosterveen (Marcus). ‘The Drummond Will’ is Phillip’s second feature film as lead. His previous feature, ‘Lovelorn’ was shown this year at the Cannes Independent Film Festival and for his starring role in it he has received numerous Best Actor Awards, including ones from the LA Reel Film Festival and the New York International Independent Film Festival.


For Mark Oosterveen this marks his first feature film, he is best known for his work on the London Stage, receiving glowing reviews at the Edinburgh Festival in 2009 for his performance in the UK debut of ‘Pythonesque’. He also featured in Alan’s award winning short ‘Not So Perfect World‘.


Crabtree Films are proud and excited to have this cracking British independent film on their distribution label and will soon be announcing their distribution plans, along with a release date.


“…it is a fantastic film!” – The Huffington Post


“…flaunting an agreeable Ealing-meets-Farrelly feel…” - Variety


Synopsis


“Howard Drummond has passed away. On checking out his decrepit estate, his sons, Marcus and Danny find one of their dad's ancient friends hiding in a closet with a bag full of money. Whilst they decide what to do, the pensioner is left to suffocate to death in the closet, thus leaving them with a much bigger problem to deal with; tell the police, or take the body and leave it in his own home and pretend nothing has happened (keeping the money for themselves in the process, of course!)?






This opens their world up to a series of bizarre incidents resulting in the village's quirky population gently decreasing during their short stay. The brothers soon realise they’ll need to rely on each other if they are to survive and it quickly becomes clear that inevitably, nothing is what it seems…”

Waste Disposal - new UK short

Unfortunately the laptop I'm currently working on doesn't like YouTube for some reason, so I'm posting this blind, but here's a recently released UK horror short which you may enjoy, or not. Let me know if it's any good! It looked okay from the first two minutes, which was the point at which my laptop stuck two fingers up at me and waltzed off to the pub for a pint.

Vampire Vixens Of The Wehrmacht - come on, what's not to like?

I've given Wasted magazine a wide berth, as it always looked like the kind of tedious pro-drugs nonsense that just makes you want to stick forks in your eyes. However, tonight I chanced on this, which is a promo for a new comic strip within said magazine, and the artwork is so astonishing I wanted to share it with you. The little video, too, is an great piece of design. And Mr Alex Ronald, I salute you sir, you're an amazing artist.



VixenVert from Nicola Blackmore on Vimeo.

Now, someone make a film of this, so I can report on it with a clear conscience!
You can find out more about Wasted here: http://badpressltd.com/index.php

Friday night is black and fright night

Just noticed in my TV guide that this coming Friday evening (that's the 18th, fact fans) there are not one but two dusty old black and white Brit horrors on the UK box. They're both on pretty late, mind, so you might want to set the old recording facility for 'em. Luckily they're both worth watching. First up is The Damned, or to give it it's full title, These Are The Damned, a great little Hammer sci fi thriller featuring a teddy boy Ollie Reed. Then later on there's Seance On A Wet Afternoon, a slightly more sedate affair but still great, which features Richard Attenborough giving it some beans as a cuckolded buffoon forced to kidnap a young girl by his batty psychic missus. It's a bit like a 60s version of Yvette Fielding's private life, if she had ever kidnapped a young child and was psychic. In fact, it's nothing like Yvette Fielding's private life. Not too sure why I wrote that. Anyway, enjoy the films. I won't be (I've already got 'em both on DVD).

The Dead - will it be dead good or dead in the water? You'll get the chance to find out soon...

UK produced Afro-zombiethon The Dead will get a cinema release later this year... that's the news I've got here in an email they have literally sent me today. For the past couple of months I've been getting regular bulletins from the makers on the hardships they've had to endure making the thing - that's REAL cannibals(?), gangsters of the scary, machine gun wielding kind you usually see in films like The Wild Geese, not to mention dysentery and malaria. Personally I think they're just showing off to make themselves look hard. Whether all that mither will have helped them make something worth watching is anyone's guess. But let's hope so...


Global Cinema Distribution and Starz Anchor Bay have acquired North American and UK theatrical rights to the Ford Brother's “THE DEAD” distributing throughout cinemas beginning with the US theatrical release summer of 2011.


Anchor Bay Starz UK Managing Director Rod Smith who snapped up all UK rights and will be releasing the film in cinemas in England followed by DVD by Halloween 2011.


All other rights for North America have been purchased by Anchor Bay Starz, who will release the film on DVD later in the year.


Shot on locations across Burkina Faso and Ghana, West Africa on 35mm including many never before committed to celluloid locations, THE DEAD is unlike anything horror audiences have ever experienced. Centered around the journey of an American mercenary, the sole survivor of a plane crash, who has to run the gauntlet across the terrains of Africa, battling against the living dead. Along his journey he finds an ally in a local military man who is desperately searching for his son amongst the chaos. They must band together to make their way through this brand new horrific world of the dead. The film stars Rob Freeman (“Saving Private Ryan”), and African up and coming star Prince David Osei, making his US Theatrical debut.


The making of THE DEAD turned out to be an incredible journey on its own. As producer/director Howard J. Ford revealed:


“We encountered real death on a daily basis and were also held up at gun point several times, encountered real cannibals, arrested, endured dysentery and the lead actor Rob Freeman very nearly died after contracting Malaria in the middle of filming”..


TriCoast Worldwide negotiated all sales for the producers of THE DEAD and are subsequently closing deals in many other territories.