Spunky and rebellious, Becky (Lulu Wilson) is brought to a weekend getaway at a lake house by her father Jeff (Joel McHale) in an effort to try to reconnect. The trip immediately takes a turn for the worse when a group of convicts on the run, led by the merciless Dominick (Kevin James), suddenly invade the lake house.
Review:
May I start off by saying how I was really hesitant to check this movie out with an open mind, I typically can’t stand anyone from Sandler’s clique except for Kevin Nealon and on occasion David Spade. When I first turned on the movie I was thinking ”Okay, let’s see how terrible this could be”. Then something happened I wasn’t expecting.
I ended up really loving this movie! So much, in fact, it may make my top five thriller films of the year! Kevin James is against type and nails it. Think Owen Wilson in The Minus Man. I wish Kevin James will continue channeling his darker side in the roles he chooses.
Lulu Wilson’s performance will be talked about for years to come with genre fans. She does something extraordinary and rare in her performance that is buzz-worthy among the indie circuit. Joel McHale also gives an admirable outing that should get him cast in more movies. He seems to be really picky with his feature film outings.
I would highly recommend this movie to our readers and I hope you will enjoy as much as I did.
Fulci for Fake is a new documentary highlighting the work and life of legendary filmmaker Lucio Fulci who directed Zombi, The Beyond, City Of The Living Dead, The House by The Cemetery, The New York Ripper and much, much more.
He is a cult director so it’s rather you love his films or find them overrated. I enjoyed most of his work over the years getting into the horror genre. This documentary however is really touching and thought provoking. His daughter is completely lovable in how they portray here.
It’s really heartwarming to see what his work meant to so many people, while this may not be my favorite documentary of the year it is worth seeking out for many Fulci die hard fans out there in the horror community as there is many. Most of you will enjoy this documentary thoroughly.
Thanks to Chattanooga Film Festival I had the chance to speak to Chad Crawford Kinkle to talk about his excellent slow-burn atmospheric horror movie. One of the best films at the festival. Hope you all enjoy this interview and if it interests you please check it out.
AJ: Thank you for joining me today at infamoushorrors.com. First off, congratulations on how “Dementer” turned out. I thought it was so fantastic that [inaudible 00:00:26] was really moody and ominous and the acting was terrific. How did you become involved with Dementer?
Chad: Well, it was an idea that I had. I’m trying to remember exactly when I thought about it. It was… I guess I’d gone to Sundance one year and I had seen a movie called “The Tribe” and it’s a movie that I think, I don’t know, Yugoslavian or something like that, but it takes place in a school for the deaf and all the actors are death and there’s no subtitles. It’s all sign language.
AJ: Oh, wow.
Chad: And I was just re… Yeah, and I was just re… And it won Con that year. So I was really just blown away by that movie particularly, and what he could do in that environment. And I’d always thought about doing a project with my sister. So, the main girl or the down syndrome girl that the main character trying to protect in the movie is my own sister. I’m not sure if you realize that or not.
AJ: Oh, no, I did not realize that. That’s very cool.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah. So, I had… So that’s my sister. So, when I first went to film school, I kind of always thought about, “Oh, I should do a story or short on my sister,” but then I was always like, “Well, what would I be saying? Or what would be the purpose?” Because I didn’t just want to make something to make people feel sorry for her or something because that’s just not how I feel about her.
AJ: Right.
Chad: So I just never thought of anything that would work until I saw that “The Tribe” and I thought, “Oh man, what if I can go into my sister’s world and make a story there? And what would that be like?” I was like, “What would a horror movie be like with my sister in it?” And I was like, “Okay.”
I was like, “So how would I even approach that?” And for a little bit, I was thinking of doing more of a mock documentary and then I thought, “No.” And then I thought, “Okay,” I would follow her in her normal day and then try to then craft a story into the footage I had of her and recreate some things. And I was like, “That could work, but it’s going to take a long time and I need to… I only have so much money to do it.”
AJ: Right.
Chad: Because I paid for the movie as well. But so anyway, so I just came with the idea of this of doing a normal sheet and my sister would be the secondary character, not the main character, but a secondary character. And we would just shoot it normally and I’d come up with this idea. And just a little bit of backstory about where I am and where I was. I’d made “Jug Face” and it came out, I guess 2013.
And after that, I wrote many scripts and I had still been trying to get those movies made, but things just haven’t worked out. And about three years ago, or two years ago, actually about three, my wife and I decided to move to LA because I felt that’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t getting these opportunities that kind of happen was because I wasn’t present enough in Los Angeles.
AJ: Right.
Chad: Even though I was going out there and doing meetings quite a lot. And so anyway, we moved out there. It didn’t really work for my wife and my daughter as our family situation, so we ended up moving back. And I was pretty devastated at that time because I felt like, “Oh, okay, now I understand how to get a movie made within the system here in LA,” but I needed to be out there to do that. So then when I came back to Tennessee, I was like, “Okay, well what can I do here by myself, practically, and that people will pay attention to?” Not just do some sort of haunted house movie. I needed something that really has some teeth behind it. And I kind of had remembered my idea with my sister. And I was like, “Oh crap. Well maybe now is the time to try to do this idea.”
AJ: And myself, I’m on the spectrum of autism, so I really appreciated how you intertwined all these characters with real life disabilities, I’m assuming. So how was it like casting the actors and actresses you had in this movie? How did you go about with casting and did you have any difficulties in that perspective?
Chad: Oh yeah. Well, when I started thinking about how the movie would feel, I always knew that it needed to feel realistic.
AJ: Yeah.
Chad: And so I wanted to use… Everyone’s is a non-actor, almost, in the movie. The main lead, she’s an actress. Larry Fessenden, who’s the leader of the Cult, he’s of course an actor. And then there’s a very small role where the guy who runs the meat processing place, he’s an actual actor because there was a supply in the script that involved the guy at the meat place that I ended up cutting out completely. But so, 90… So much of the movie and everyone else in it is, they’re all non-actors and I wanted that just to make it authentic.
AJ: Right.
Chad: And then I also knew that you can’t have a bunch of actors come and play opposite, like my sister and other people at her house or had the skill center where she goes in the daytime, because there was no repertoire. They’re not going to… My sister’s not going to respond to them because she doesn’t know them. And so I just knew I had to get the people who work there to be in it, even though they were like, “Are you serious?” And I’m like, “Trust me, you’ll be fine.” It’s just…
And then working with non… It’s obviously difficult because they don’t know how to act and we’re on a very limited shooting schedule too. But, I mean, it’s all about getting the best out of them and however you have to do that is what you have to do. But I guess what I didn’t anticipate was like with my sister and some of the other clients that work, that live with her, I didn’t really… because normally when you shoot, you can do a scene 10 times if you need too, right?
AJ: Right.
Chad: But, with them their nobility was so limited. I didn’t really think about that. Even with my sister, I couldn’t really ask them to come inside from outside more than twice because at that point it was just cruel.
AJ: Yeah.
Chad: Because they move slowly anyway, it’s so hard for them. It was just wouldn’t be right because I’m just making a movie, so. So, I didn’t anticipate that, but it was cool. I mean, it’s intense because you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. And when I was writing the script, it was very strange too because I wrote every scene thinking, “Well, I’m not sure if it’s going to actually turn out like this,” but I at least need the essence of the scene to happen and how I can make that work is how I’m going to make it work on the set.
And so I didn’t use any storyboards or anything like that. Once I got to set, I just changed the script. And really, like I said, the essential part of the scene was what I was always trying to get and pretty much I could do that. I was able to accomplish that, but it was definitely a different sort of challenge than I had worked with before. But, on the flip side, there was no drama.
AJ: Right.
Chad: Where you have drama on a normal set with egos and stuff like that. There was none of that. They were just also happy to be doing it and just loving every minute of it. That was really easy and same thing with the crew. I mean, none of them, to my knowledge, was really exposed to people who have disabilities like this. They may have seen a few in real life, but they’re not like… They don’t live around them or they’re not exposed to them like this.
And so for them, it was eye opening, but I think they really just loved that experience too. But the first day that we shot in what’s the center, they call it the skill center where my sister goes in that daytime. And that scenario with that many people, that [inaudible 00:09:33] that many people. Once we got through shooting, I looked at my DP later and I was like, “That was absolutely crazy.” And he laughed and he was like, “Yeah, it was,” just because it’s just not the way a normal set works where everything is controlled. This is almost nothing that’s controlled and you-
AJ: Right.
Chad: And you’re just having to go off of whatever’s happening, which is exciting, but also nerve wracking.
AJ: I’m wanting to talk to you a little bit about the score on the movie because the score almost acting like a character of its own too, which I think really helped in terms of the atmosphere and how moody it felt. Did you have any input about how you wanted the score for the film to sound or did the composer just kind of give you ideas of how he thought, or she thought, it should sound?
Chad: Right. It’s Sean Spillane did the music and I’d worked with him before on “Jug Face” and so I got him to do this and of course I was barely paying him anything to do the music. And it took a really long time for me to communicate what I wanted to him, but once I did, it was like a light bulb went off.
AJ: Right.
Chad: Same thing happened, happened with “Jug Face” even though we got there a little bit quicker. But what normally happens is, he comes up with the theme, the theme track, right?
AJ: Yeah.
Chad: And so then he starts basing all the other pieces of music off of that one, off the theme and we’ll come up with whatever fits the certain scene. And with this, since it was taking him so long to come to music, he basically just gave me the theme track. Well, there was three variants of that theme track and gave me the stems, which are just the parts of the song.
Chad: So like the drums is a stem, the synths would be a steam, a guitar or a piano or whatever, or bells or whatever, they’re all separate stems. And so I basically came up with… I used his three songs and his basic arrangement of the theme track and made a new theme track. Okay? And then I took the stems and did the score of the movie basically. It’s his music, but it’s me manipulating it for when I wanted it to come in, what pieces, and how. So in the beginning, I have a little bit of experience with a dance music, electronic music.
AJ: Right.
Chad: So I wasn’t completely not familiar with what to do, but it was definitely daunting in the beginning because I was like, “Oh my gosh. How do I put this together? Come up with a theme that I like with what he’s done and make it work.” And then it was just… It felt insanely daunting in the beginning because I was just like, “I don’t know how I’m going to make it to the end of the movie,” but it was just for me creatively, another way I could put exactly the emotion into the scenes that I wanted it to be there. So, on that sense, it was really great, but it took me like a month to do.
AJ: Well, Chad, thank you so much for joining us at Infamous Horrors today. It’s been really fun talking to you.
When Jake and his dream girl, Amanda, contract a mysterious zombie virus, they end up on the run from Cass, a teen psychic sent by the government’s top-secret Necrotic Control Division to track them down as they search for a cure.
My favorite film out of the Chattanooga Film Festival has to be Eat Brains Love the new film directed by Rodman Flender(Idle hands) this is looking to be an instant cult classic in the zombie horror-comedy sub-genre.
The acting is so fantastic and believable. Sarah Yarkin as Cass is a revelation that is a sight to behold. Her performance in this really holds the movie together like glue. Angelique Rivera is so damn good as well.
The direction from Rodman Flender is astounding, I haven’t seen Idle Hands but this makes me really want to seek it out. This was a fast-paced horror-comedy that most will enjoy.
Scare Package is a new horror anthology that tries too hard to be tongue in cheek with how it all unfolds. To me, it was just one big giant eye roll. I’ve seen some people like it from the Chattanooga Film Festival, me however it was like a chore to get through.
It is being released by Shudder so it is bound to find it’s audience for sure. One of my biggest issues with Scare Package is that to me it felt like it was made ironically. This is a thin line to cross when making a movie. It’s rather people trying to rip off The Room style of acting and directing or ripping off Troma.
In the end Scare Package was a huge mess even a big cameo in the horror community just made me roll my eyes and I love the guy. This is in the running for the worst horror anthology of the year.
IFC Films is releasing Dave Franco’s directorial debut film The Rental on July 24th in select Drive-Ins, theaters, and On-Demand. We are personally really intrigued by the star power and the story of The Rental. How about you?
Directed by: Dave Franco Written by: Dave Franco and Joe Swanberg Starring: Alison Brie (GLOW), Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) Sheila Vand (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), Jeremy Allen White (Shameless)
Synopsis:
Two couples looking to celebrate their seed money from a new business venture, embark on a weekend getaway to a seemingly perfect house they’ve booked online. But what begins as a festive weekend for the four close friends turns into something far more sinister as secrets they’ve kept from each other are exposed and paranoia grows that they may not be alone. Co-written by Dave Franco and Joe Swanberg, THE RENTAL features an all-star cast including Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, Sheila Vand and Jeremy Allen The film also marks the directorial debut of Dave Franco. IFC Films will release THE RENTAL in theaters and on demand July 24th.
Vaughn Stein: Not too bad, thanks, AJ, how are you?
AJ Friar: Good. So how long have you been involved with Inheritance?
Vaughn Stein: Mid-2018, I first read the script. It got sent to me through my agent and friend [inaudible 00:00:21], just kind of fell in love with it the first time I read it. I just, I love thrillers. I love beautifully conceived and complex thrillers. And this one, the way that this one sort of blended those kind of, sort of dark folklore into this satire about the monster in the basement or the skeleton in the closet. I found it really unique and really exciting. So yeah, I started on it mid-2018. Introduced Simon Pegg to the project and he loved it and we started working, and sort of building his character up, and I met Lily who plays Lauren Monroe, this sort of fiercely, excuse me, fiercely independent DA, who’s kind of eschewing her family money, and sort of striking out forging her own path, who’s then pulled back into the sort of tangled webbed of lies that the Monroe dynasty has created. Yeah, it was an amazing, amazing journey [inaudible 00:01:28].
AJ Friar: And let’s talk about the cast as you brought up, you have Simon Pegg, you have Lily Collins, who both delivered powerhouse performances in this. How was it like seeing Simon Pegg transform into this character, because it looked like he lost a ton of weight to be able to portray his character in this?
Vaughn Stein: I mean, it was slightly terrifying to watch him go through it. I mean, he’s a very trim guy. He keeps himself in good shape, but he surely lost 14 kilos to sort of take on this skeletal, emaciated, monster in the basement, as it were. But we talked early on about the idea of what captivity does to people, and how people cope. And we talked about him sort of developing this prison guard physique, this idea of relentless press ups and sit ups, and just doing anything to keep active and the body engaged, in a confined space. His discipline in doing that was just astonishing, the physical transformation made. It’s a unique opportunity to cast someone, a world renowned actor in that new role that audiences haven’t seen him, and then I’m really grateful for him for doing that, for putting himself out there.
AJ Friar: Right. And that’s another thing about this is a lot of people in the genre haven’t seen Simon Pegg do something like this serious. They’ve seen him do Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but they haven’t seen him really playing like the straight man in a thriller yet, which was incredible to watch. I want to give Patrick Warburton some love for this too, because even though he just had like an extended cameo, you finally gave him something that he can chew into and is not his every day role and that he has. And it was just fantastic to see him play a straight man in this also.
Vaughn Stein: AJ, I’m so glad you brought him up, because Patrick, I mean, it was such a pleasure to work with him. And of course I know him from, as we all do, as this universally renowned and loved brilliant comedy actor.
AJ Friar: Right.
Vaughn Stein: Playing the comedy bit man is, you need gravitas and poise and presence to do that. Patrick Warburton and [inaudible 00:04:00], and people who are able to lean into their natural gravitas to do comedy, and to use that, Patrick plays Archer Monroe, this sort of billionaire patriarch of this huge like old money, New York family. To be able to use his strength and his resonant voice and his physique, just his amazing acting ability to do something that hopefully audiences won’t necessarily have seen him do before [inaudible 00:04:34] in a job. We really wanted Archer to haunt the movie, and he did, he was able to play that, that sort of scepter that hangs over it, it was amazing.
AJ Friar: And how was it like, I mean, to get this performance out of Lily Collins also, who was a young actress, up and coming. For her to kind of stand head to head with Simon Pegg throughout all of this must have been just incredible to watch unfold right in front of you.
Vaughn Stein: I mean, yeah. She’s well classed. I mean, she is a truly special talent really. And she is so giving and so open and incredibly disciplined and hard working. And, I’ve loved some of the stuff she’s done and [inaudible 00:05:29], it was amazing to, again, like to have an opportunity to work with her in a role that she hadn’t done before. That in a sense learn some extremely complicated character, on one level, this independent, confident, unassailable, public defender trying one of the biggest cases in the history of New York state. And on the other hand this fragile, bereaved daughter, who’s being dragged back into this dark family secret, who’s watching her world unravel and her family being threatened. To sort of have that duality in her performance and to be so emotive and so nuanced, it was just amazing. .
Lily Collins and Patrick Warburton in inheritance
AJ Friar: And I want to get your thoughts on kind of the new landscape of cinema going on now with all the cinemas pretty much closed and this won’t have an opportunity to play at theaters, but it’s getting like a home premiere date. How do you feel that cinema is going to evolve during all this COVID-19? And is this a glimpse of what could happen in the following years with movies to come like Scoob! home premiering on videos on demand and Trolls and possibility of Halloween and Candyman premiering at home now because AMC and Regal said they will no longer show Universal movies at the cinema, what is your take on what’s going on right now?
Due to COVID19 theaters are temporarily closed
Vaughn Stein: Well, I mean, we should preface this, AJ, by saying that cinema is a collective experience. It’s theatrical in nature. There is no better place to watch a horror film than in the company of a load of other people that are full of the same adrenaline, who are when someone screams, everyone jumps.
AJ Friar: Right.
Vaughn Stein: It’s an amazing feeling, but I would say that sitting at home with the lights turned off on your couch and a big TV, having that same experience with loved ones and friends, make a very, very close second. Like I love cinema. I love the experience. I love the smell of it. The feel of it. But I love being able to sit on my couch with my wife and watch amazing films with just [inaudible 00:07:45], and with what’s going on with the world, I think there is no reason that the two can’t co-exist moving into the future. And I think for the short term, while cinemas sadly can’t, they can’t be part of the cultural experience like us watching it on VOD or whatever, and showing it, like everyone’s talking about it, everyone’s getting hyped on whatever social media platform they’re on, and people talking about it, it’s not the same, but it’s a close running second, I’ll tell you that.
AJ Friar: Well, Vaughn, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been really fun.
Vaughn Stein: Oh, it’s a pleasure, AJ, thanks so much.
Inheritance is a stunning thriller starring Lilly Collins and Simon Pegg in a role you’ve haven’t seen him yet and he actually lost an astounding amount of weight for this role and he commands the screen which was very admirable to see him do.
Simon Pegg’s weight transformation for Inheritance.
Lilly Collins also gives a breakout performance standing head to head with great actors such as Pegg and Patrick Warburton who also finally has a role showcasing his range where he plays it straight and I had such a fun time talking to the director about his choice of casting Patrick when we primarily know him for his time with Seth McFarlane.
Simon Pegg in Inheritance
This one is sure to surprise most of our readers on the site who waiting to see Simon Pegg try something different and I’m really glad he chose to do this movie. The plot is also never weak in this film. Even at almost two hours it never feels like it drags.
As were all hearing news about our old pals from the original Scream reprising their roles. News today came that David Arquette is also coming back as Dewey Riley. This is all suggesting that this new installment isn’t a reboot but indeed a sequel.
COLUMBUS, OH – Nightmares Film Festival (Oct. 22-25) wants to expose you to the twisted fever dreams of entombed genre filmmakers through its new 2020 program, Shut-In Shorts.
The new category – unique to this year’s festival – is for horror, thriller and midnight shorts of five minutes or less shot under the restrictions of social distancing and shelter in place orders during this year’s COVID-19 pandemic. “We created Shut-In Shorts in response to the indomitable spirit genre creators have shown throughout the pandemic,” said NFF Co-founder and Programmer Jason Tostevin. “We want to celebrate their ability to disturb and delight us by getting creative under remarkable constraints.”
Top films in the category will be official selections of Nightmares Film Festival, regularly ranked among the top genre fests in the world. They will also be rewarded with live online screenings by Bloody Disgusting’s digital showcase, World of Death, during which WOD founder and host Tony Wash and Nightmares directors will join the filmmaker for discussion and Q&A with the audience.
In addition, to honor many filmmakers’s challenging circumstances, Tostevin said the submission fee for Shut-In Shorts will be $5, and will not go up with future deadlines. “Encouraging creativity and production among genre makers is a big part of why Nightmares exists,” said Tostevin. “So while traditional shoots are suspended, we wanted to give our film family an avenue to be recognized for continuing to tell stories even in very difficult times.” Submissions for the new category, as well as all other Nightmares programs, are being accepted through FilmFreeway at https://filmfreeway.com/NightmaresFilmFest.
Regarding NFF 20, Tostevin and Chris Hamel, co-founders, have said they will make a determination at the end of the summer about whether “the most welcoming genre networking event in the world” (Film Coterie), will be held live this year.
