THIS FILM IS A DEADLY SIN: A REVIEW OF FAT KID MASSACRE

As of late, the horror genre seems to be overwhelmed with remakes and found footage films.  Whenever an original concept is brought to light, genre fans cling to it not necessarily because of its high quality, but simply because it's different.  A short film was recently brought to my attention with an incredibly unique premise, but unfortunately fails to deliver a quality final product.  Brought to us by BDHR Entertainment (run by the man behind Big Daddy Horror Reviews, Brandon Sites) FAT KID MASSACRE is (according to the crew) "a touching coming of age story that revolves around a former fat kid who got muscular and good looking, but who struggles with identity issues as his former friends - THE FAT KIDS - bully him on a constant basis. As a cruel prank is set into motion, a killer arrives on the scene to make sure these fat kids pay for their glutony and unhealthy lifestyle, including death by Twinkie suffociation!"  I copied this description off of their official indiegogo fanpage, spelling errors included.  Based solely off of the short film version that has been circulating the internet, I think that the writers behind this film are giving themselves a little too much credit.  This film was a borderline abomination, an insult to horror filmmaking, and stole nine minutes and twenty seconds of my life that I will never get back.

First of all, the acting by the three "fat kids" are absolutely treacherous.  Writer/Producer Brandon Sites cast himself as one of the fat kids and he looked like he was smiling with pride after delivering every single line.  His acting style reminded me of Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, in that every time he said a line that "sounded black" he'd smile at what he presumed to be his own brilliance. The only difference, is that Brandon Sites has absolutely no concept of vocal rhythm and delivers lines reminiscent of the old women preaching "all senior citizens should have life alert" followed by an unnatural smile.  The first three seconds of the damn short show the fat kids stuffing their faces and you can see Brandon Sites trying not to smile while shoving food in his mouth.  I have nothing against writers/producers/directors acting in their films, but usually...they can actually fucking act.  To make matters worse, Brandon and the other "fat kids" are supposedly the old friends of former fat kid "Ian-The Skinny Bitch". Ian looks easily twenty years younger than all of them, which forces the believability of their friendship completely out the window.  It's unfortunate, because Ryan Sandefur, the actor playing Ian, actually plays a "bitch" quite well.  The only problem is that he's a halfway decent actor surrounded by a gaggle of guys who wouldn't have even been cast as Tree #4 in a community theatre production.

The final seven minutes of the short film is nothing more than one of the fat kids tied to a chair by a masked man who "taunts him" with weapons until finally forcefeeding him Twinkies until he dies.  For seven minutes we're given nothing but a poorly lit room with a dull build up to an unsatisfying pay off.  All the while, forced to listen to the annoying and unconvincing whines of a fat kid tied up to a chair. I can't even give them credit for having an unique kill, because we've seen the "feed the fatty to death" kill before in plenty of other films. (I'm looking at you, Se7en).  The dialogue is mind-numbingly poor and clearly forgot any sort of common sense in the process. When the fat kids are bullying the skinny bitch, one of the men states "You went behind our backs and lost all the weight".  Okay, this kid is not only about 200 pounds lighter than the lot of fat kids, but he's also built like a god damn GI Joe.  Lost weight behind your backs?  YOU WOULD HAVE NOTICED THE WEIGHT LOSS.  So unless their friend went on a three year hiatus or a stint on The Biggest Loser, the audience's suspension of disbelief just isn't strong enough to believe that.  Continuity problems aside, THE DIALOGUE HAS IMPROPER SYNTAX.  "You're just a scared, little, pathetic, kid from Georgia who amount to nothing."  I believe the word you were looking for was "amounted" not "amount".  Then again, maybe the line delivered was supposed to be "amounted" and in that case, Brandon as an actor really, really needs to work on his enunciation. I hate to say it, but he is the largest reason why this short is so terrible.  His acting is distracting, and his writing brings it down.  The camera work is rather good and the editing is very clean.  The biggest problem, is Brandon Sites.

The actual storyline is absolutely ridiculous and if this is supposed to make me want to donate my hard earned cash to fund the feature version of this film, I'd rather donate my money to Chik-Fil-A before I'd donate to this garbage. I'm not here to rip on someone's hard work, but this film is part of a trend that desperately needs to end.  I'm talking about the kickstarter/indie gogo projects undeserving of our attention.  The writer/producer has been putting on social networking sites that he sees this film as a "future cult classic". In the words of the incomparable Kristin Wiig, are you fucking serious?  I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but are you fucking serious?  The fact that people are actually donating to this piece of trite garbage makes me want to swallow drain cleaner.  The crew has shown promises of having Scream Queens Season 2's Sierra Holmes in the feature version and I want to just shake her and ask her what in the actual hell she is doing being associated with something this unwatchable.  There are so many wonderful, terrific, well-deserving films that must resort to indiegogo or kickstarter to help aide them in getting their films made, and then there's shit like Fat Kid Massacre that's only positive use would be using the disc as a coaster.  I'm all about supporting indie films, I am one of the largest supporters of indie films, but just because you're low budget...doesn't mean I have to support you.  Money can't buy a good storyline, and it can't prevent one either.   

To Sierra Holmes, Ryan Sandefur, Kaylee Williams, Alisa Lova, Aley Kreinz, and Shawn C. Phillips, I don't care how desperate for work you are, this is something that should be scrubbed from your resumes, immediately. Normally I'd post a link for the indiegogo, but honestly, this film doesn't deserve your money. If you really want to seek it out, you can do it for yourself.

J BUCKNER SHOWS GREAT POTENTIAL WITH DEBUT SHORT: I AM ALIVE

This past weekend, I was one of the privileged individuals able to witness the world premiere of J Buckner's short film I AM ALIVE based on the short story "I, Zombie" by AE Stueve.  Over the last month or so, there has been a decent amount of promotion for this film and I was nervous that watching the film would drive me to eat my words.  I'm glad to say that this isn't the case at all, whatsoever.  While I AM ALIVE is in no way a perfect short, the promise that J Buckner and his crew showcases with their debut (legitimate) film is something that cannot be ignored. 

Now, I use the term "legitimate" lightly because I am a firm believer that there is a sense of legitimacy in everything that is created.  However, the filmmaking experiences that J Buckner have on his resume before I AM ALIVE tiptoe between the lines of "hilariously slapstick" and "a bunch of weird kids with a flip cam".  The desire to create a film stemmed from a series of webshorts and fake trailers created by J Buckner, his wife, his friends, and his band Galactic Moustache.  The filmmaking bug had bitten and Buck was hooked.  I AM ALIVE is the first genuine project from this group of people under the name Studio On Mars.

The story of the short film surrounds a Post-Zombie Apocalypse society where the nation has begun to rebuild and restore a sense of normalcy.  Somehow a calming cure has been discovered and zombies are able to regain many of their human like attributes.  Deemed a burden by society, the re-living undead must find a way to gain solace knowing the rest of society views them on the same level as a pitbull or a homosexual in North Carolina.  It reminding me a bit of S.G. Browne’s BREATHERS, but that wasn’t a bad thing in the slightest.  As far as the screeplay is concerned, I found the dialogue and pacing to be very well contrived.  After reading the short story, it is clear that J Buckner has a grasp for finding humor in situations that may not be up front with comedy.  He makes very interesting choices integrating outside characters as well as which parts of character development from the short story to include.  The dialogue was very realistic, true to the heart of the source material, and flowed nicely.  There were no lines or moments that felt "off" or dull.

Throughout the film, there are little bits of "confessional" shots very reminiscent of The Office.  I rather enjoyed the decision to have the characters break the fourth wall, however, it would have been more beneficial if each character remained in the same position during their confessionals.  There were two characters who were shot from different angles each time they had a confessional and it distracted from the effect.  The same would be said about the camera distance from each character.  The same two were shot far closer than the rest of the group and it always forced my eyes to adjust, taking me out of the moment or the expected pattern my brain was craving.  There are also interview shots taken from "people on the street" and there is an over-abundance of background noise in these shots.  As much as I'd like to criticize the filmmakers for this, it would be incredibly cruel to do so.  It's a debut film, and they're not shooting with James Cameron's equipment.  It's low-budget, I'll cut them some slack.

The casting pool was clearly limited, but 90% of the characters were well cast.  My only gripe is that the woman chosen to play a doctor would never in ten thousand years be viewed believably as a doctor.  The shame is that the actress playing the doctor is incredibly fun to watch, but would have been better suited in a different role.  It wasn't a matter of bad acting, it was just a poor casting decision.  Otherwise, all of the actors brought a different flavor to each of their characters, and they were all very unique, yet unified.  It was a joy to watch these different personalities mesh cohesively during their sessions and remain particular when viewed alone.  What impressed me most was Jen Poland's portrayal of the character "Rachel" a valley girl.  While Jen didn't exactly look the part of a valley girl, her character voice was absolutely PERFECT. It's all too often that an actress gets carried away with a valley girl voice, but Rachel really grasped the perfect balance.  J Buckner also starred in the short and was the most natural on screen.  If he chooses against filmmaking, he's quite a solid actor.

One of my major qualms with the short has absolutely nothing to do with the short itself, but rather the environment in which it was presented to me.  The short film premiered after a series of the webisodes and fake trailers that brought the Studio On Mars to what it has become today.  While I completely understand wanting to show off the roots before getting to the tree, the earlier work is in a completely different world than I AM ALIVE.   I am alive is a much more traditional comedy while the earlier works are of an entirely different flavor.  Imagine sitting through a Troma movie marathon and then jumping into Shaun of the Dead.  While both are considered comedies, they speak an entirely different language.  The second time I viewed I AM ALIVE, I had already seen the earlier trailers and I enjoyed myself far more than I did with the first viewing.  I didn't have to suffer through a transition period of switching gears of different genres of films.

As expected, the makeup design from Zach Shildwachter was fantastic.  It was unified yet diverse and believably showed a progression of the different stages of infection.  One of the characters was to look "cured" and yet still very undead and the results looked like a more naturalized Pavi from Repo! The Genetic Opera.  I also found the costume design to be well thought (whether it was intentional or not is beside the point).  All of the zombies wore shades of brown, black, and gray giving them a sense of stability in contrast to the "normal people" who were shown wearing patterns, bright colors, or graphic t-shirts.  The lighting was also well done for all of the interior shots, but a bit harsh in some of the outdoor shots.  It almost felt as if the film was living in two different worlds, which for this story, actually sort of works.

Ultimately, I would really like to see what J Buckner and the kids from Studio on Mars could do with a bigger budget, a larger casting pool, and better equipment.  The creativity and passion is evident within the final product (can I also go on about how strong of an editor Buckner is?) and I am excited to see what else is to come of them.

I AM ALIVE: WORLD PREMIERE JULY 15TH IN CLEVELAND, OHIO

A little over a month ago I spoke briefly about an up and coming zombie short film from Justin Buckner titled I AM ALIVE.  It seemed to have sparked some interest from some of you readers and luckily for you, I've got the inside scoop on how you can find a way to see it!

Tickets will be available for $6 each and can be purchased on www.beachlandballroom.com or else tickets are available for purchase from the cast and crew. I've already got my ticket scored away and this event looks promising and more than worth the six dollar entrance fee.  All of the proceeds from the event will go towards entry fees to submit I AM ALIVE to the film festival circuit.  If that doesn't win you over, all of the cast and crew will be at the screening to party it up with the attendees; meaning yes, you can party with the zombies.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

Along with the premiere screening of I AM ALIVE they will be showing a couple of other short skits from these fine folks that have been filmed over the last year. The director's band, Galactic Moustache, (that's a hell of a name) and their production group Studio on Mars have been creating music videos and web based skits and will screen some of the most popular shorts.

DON'T TOUCH THAT MOUSE, THERE'S EVEN MORE!

Following the screening there will be live music performances by 

Presque Vu and Galactic Moustache.

 For those counting at home, that means you get a handful of short films, awesome web skits, music videos, two live band performances, and the opportunity to support indie film making. I'm surely going to be there with bells on and so should you. 

For more information click the links below

More info on the film- www.facebook.com/iamalivemovie.com

More info on the venue- www.beachlandballroom.com

Galactic Moustache- www.galacticmoustache.com

Presque Vu- http://presquevumusic.com/

I AM ALIVE: A SHORT FILM BY JUSTIN BUCKNER

As many of you know, I'm a total bleeding heart for indie filmmakers, short films, and zombies.  I've seen my fair share of zombie shorts in my day and a reoccurring theme that has been plaguing the genre is the lack of one thing. Originality.  Horror movie monsters tend to stick to very specific rules and utter failure tends to follow those that stray off the course. (I'm looking at you Twatlight), but every once in a while, someone throws a spin interesting enough to force the audience to practice an old theatre technique of "suspension of disbelief" and they completely go with it.  Zombie films have fallen into a trap of following the same storyline with the same character archetypes and the same end results.  The strange thing is that directors still like to live in this fantasy world where humans don’t already know to aim for the head, or think the bite is "just a bite".  However I've been lucky enough to hear about Ohio bred director, Justin Buckner in association with Studio On Mars productions and their promise of a new zom-com short film based on the short story “I, Zombie” by AE Stueve. Starring Joe Brown, Justin Buckner, Larena Crohe, Jaden DeVogel, Jake Greener, James Lovern, Gina Nemecek, Jen Poland, the film surrounds a Post-Zombie Apocalypse society where the nation has begun to rebuild and restore a sense of normalcy.  I found the premise to remind me a bit of S.G. Browne’s BREATHERS, and that isn’t a bad thing in the slightest.  We also need to point out that the absolutely smashing makeup job (and some camera work) was done by The Blood Sprayer’s very own Zach Shildwachter, but he’s too damn modest to ever accept the praise.  The film released its trailer yesterday and all I gotta say, is that I can’t wait to see the thing in its entirety. It’s incredibly inspiring to see someone put a new spin on a monster we all love so much, hopefully more filmmakers will take notice.

Be sure to keep updated on the film with pics, screenings, and other goodies via the

I Am Alive FaceBook Page.

ALMA: THE CUTEST VIDEO TO GIVE YOU THE CREEPS

Thanks to my friend Justin for sending me the link to this.
Creeeepyy

MAC ELDRIDGE'S BLOOD ON THE PLAIN NEEDS YOUR HELP

It was a little more than a year ago when I first featured a review and did some of my best promotional work through the blogging community for a short film entitled Chemical 12-D. The short film that could seemed to explode throughout the horror community and the blogosphere could not stop fawning over such an aesthetically pleasing zombie short with barely any dialogue, but a killer storyline.  Now, a year later, Mac Eldridge and his crew needs our help.  I recently contacted Mac asking if he'd like to send a message to all of you out there in DotW land, and this is what he had to say

"I was honored a bit over a year ago when BJ and her blog reviewed a short film of mine, Chemical 12-D.   The review was kind to the film, and from there, the short propelled itself in the blogging world and also in the festival circuit.  It was because of her first review that Chemical 12-D was written up so well from websites and blogs across the board and now I am here because of my next project, Blood on the Plain.  Unlike 12-D, BotP is a mixture of genres between western and horror, and is also a short film for the feature we plan to make.  We have already shot one weekend and have come out with some incredible footage, and now we're in process of raising $5,000 to shoot the final weekend- the big horror scene.  What I'm asking for now is your help.  The horror community has been extremely receptive of me and my work, and I want to give everyone an even better project, but I need your support to do so. The producers and I wanted to tell you that we're offering percentage points if anyone is interested in owning a percentage of the film.  Basically, 100 bucks get you a half percent of the short film.  Once the film makes money, the investors are the first to get their money back (its guaranteed by me).  From there, they make a half percent after they are paid back in full.  That also includes if the short gets sold to make a feature. If you are interested in making a larger donation (and want to talk logistics) please feel free to contact BJ so we can get in touch"

-Mac Eldridge

ALRIGHT, YOU HEARD HIM.

HELP OUT WATER COOLER PRODUCTIONS BY DONATING TO THEIR INDIE GOGO PAGE

HERE!