2011 - The year of bullshit happenings (a personal blog)

Glad to see the end of such a shit year. Very little good or productive actually came out of this year. It is very easy to notice how many things went wrong however. Some people say that it's easy to be negative. What I usually find is that those people:
a) Like their job b) Are or have achieved most of their goals and c) Generally have much better luck and lastly seem to have everything going for them in life. Being around these positive people, I've always wondered why this happens. I can only conclude there's a bunch of different factors which they are lucky enough to have. imagine if these same positive people were placed in a country like Japan, specifically the south, where your home was destroyed by a flood, many people you know die from drowning and then you have to worry about the nuclear radiation from the tsunami damaged nuclear power plant. Would you have a positive outlook then? Could you simply ignore the bullshit life threw at you and simply ignore the negatives? I just think people are extremely naive to suggest that thinking positively will give you a truly positive life. As proven in the example above, you can have a tragic event happen out of your control completely, you could be in a car accident that cripples you and causes numerous health issues later because your friend is drink driving, or you could catch a virus or disease that remains for years...

I guess this is why I like horror movies. Horror movies are quite honest, in that they accept that negativity is a part of life. Shit happens. People don't want to admit that shit happens to anyone at anytime. Some are luckier than others but in the end something bad will happen to them as well.

I don't expect 2012 to be a great year. I can only hope this year that I don't have the health problems, the major problems at work, the friendship issues, the dealing with asshole behaviour and the general depression all of this causes.. I'm bound to have one or all of these things happen. I've somehow got to change my environment. I think this is truly the only way I can give life a better chance of being good again.

Once my health is back together I will finally film the short I've been on about since September. I dunno I suspect this film will show my current state of mind.

November Update

Hi guys and girls, just thought I'd update you on the staus of my new short film project.

The original halloween release date for the short on youtube has obviously been missed, this was due to a lot of busy happenings at work and in my personal life during September and October. The Halloween period particularly did not go down well for personal reasons. November has not been that busy, however I have struggled to get a crew together with only 1 person committed to helping me film, as long time filmmaking partner Jag has got his own commitments. 2 crew members that were originally going to help out also have their own committments so can't be involved. Additionally the original actor I really wanted for the lead role is not interested. This means casting will only begin after I've got a crew of more than 2 people together, so far only have 1. I apologise to anyone who thought this film may be out on halloween. I've removed the video blog which said this and will maybe only put it up when the next vlog is there..

The good news is the story has expanded into something much cooler and creepier, and there's even potential for another film related to this one. I've also given the film the title 'Pure Evil'.. Which fits the tone of the antagonist and is quite easy remember.

My main goal is to get one more crew member committed to film on saturday nights, then casting will be done along with other stages in pre-production.

Hopefully my next update I'll have more to say...

-John

RIP David Hess - Death of a horror icon

As you may or may not have heard, David Alexander Hess, famous for his role in Last House on the left (1972), (and the amazing accompanying soundtrack he scored), along with House on the Edge of the Park, Hitch Hike, Swamp Thing, has died peacefully at the age of 75. His acting when playing a realistic villain Krug has always been extremely strong, there's something about the characters he played which were extremely scary, the sort of person you would never like to meet.



Having said that my brother and I met him at Frightfest in 2009 when he was waiting a while to get some coffee (just before the screening of Dead Snow), and in real life, he is very opposite to the characters he has played. He was a welcoming, down to earth guy who advised me to never to see filmmaking in stages or levels, in other words it doesn't matter how much money you make or how successful/famous you are or are not with your films, you are still a filmmaker. Nobody can take that away from you. I think this is smart advice, at the end of the day everyone is equal, art is subjective, a lot of people tend to jump on bandwagons rather than form their own opinion on a film. I have seen many films people consider classics only to think they are pieces of shit and vice versa. Another thing that comes to mind is that if you are making films to be rich or to be successful, you are focusing on the ends rather than the means, and in my opinion you are not a real filmmaker. Real filmmakers make films because they want to. It's as simple as that. David Hess made music because he wanted to, and he acted when he wanted to. He will always be an inspiration to Jag and I and always has been, such as when Jag chose to use Hess' music in our short film 'mUrder' in 06.

Another great horror icon has passed, but will never be forgotten.

September update and beyond

I thought it was time to give an update on the status of Freddy vs Jason vs Leatherface: The Final Chapter:

The animated film is on hold due to both technical and personal health issues. The health issue I don't want to go into, but it is distracting me from focusing on anything at the moment because of the worry and the physical pain. I apologize for this delay, and for the trailer saying it was coming soon. The project I originally set out on was ambitious for an inexperienced animator like myself, as I was going to great lengths to make every shot look perfect, which is hard to sustain when problems arise. My skills are not in this field, I know much more about filming people in real time. I am not sure if the animation will get completed any time soon. Audience demand for this has also been incredibly weak, for the teaser trailer, it's taken over 2 months to only reach 137 views... Which is why I'm beginning to think people don't want to see this happen. I cannot promise this will be finished, my heart is not in it right now, and what is the point on working so hard on something (along with the problems I have) on a film which nobody really cares to see! If there's no joy in making it, I won't make it. I'm not gonna make money off it, and if I'm not having fun doing it anymore there is no point. My passions were elsewhere as you'll read below..

Before my health went downhill, August was a great month, not only for brainless partying in the usual clubs and gigs, but also for watching great horror films. My main passion between May and July has been with 16mm film editing and projection, after my dad gave me his old projector.



After a lot of time, money and technical problem solving, the real joy was editing the old fashioned way. In mid August I held a 16mm screening of Night of the living dead 1968 in my back garden with my friends. It was an atmospheric night, we had pizza, a bonfire to keep us warm, popcorn as well as intermission trailers and old cinema adverts..My main duties were as a projectionist and a host.




It was a very successful night and only wish you guys could have been there to experience it.. This is why I will eventually post a video of it on youtube once I get the time. If everything goes well I will hold another 16mm screening next year. There's a certain charm and pride in projecting films which you've edited together linearly, even if the audience is made up of 5 people!


Additionally, I watched 3 movies in Frightfest, a horror film festival in the heart of London.


I saw screenings of movies yet to be released, such as: The Inkeepers, The Wicker Tree and Tucker and Dale vs Evil 'The Inkeepers' was directed by Ti West, it was a pretty decent film in his style of slow build up and was scary when it needed to be however it didn't really match up to The House of the Devil!... 'The Wicker Tree' which is sort of like an indirect sequel to the Wicker Man, is a very strange movie and it would be a stretch to even call it a horror movie, but had the same religious cult themes as The Wicker Man.. It's still worth checking out as it also reminded me of a 70s movie in it's style. Regarding Tucker and Dale vs Evil.... just watch the trailer on youtube it explains it all...


So... What's in store for the future of Horrorville?

At the moment there is a cool short film I had written which I will try to get off the ground if my health comes back to normal, other than that the future of Horrorville is a complete mystery even to me. There are reasons why things have seemed dead with Horrorville since September last year... Reasons I shouldn't say as it could effect a future comeback...

My reaction to the news that The Human Centipede: Full Sequence has been banned in my country

(Contains comical images throughout that don't fit the tone of the blog lol)

If you are not aware and have been living under a rock recently, the sequel to the shocking Human Centipede has been outright banned in the United Kingdom by the BBFC (ratings board) from release on DVD, Download or in theaters for being "sexually violent and potentially obscene". This means EVEN ADULTS cannot see this film.



Firstly, let me point out that whether you hate these type of movies or not, we are supposed to be living in a democracy (so they say), but it's apparent that we are now in a society where an unjustified authority board is banning a person's artistic expression, -(no matter what you call it extreme horror it is still an art form). -The BBFC are no different than the censorship culture in the Nazi regime, omitting what they don't want the public to see. Ironicall the Nazi's were the very skum who actually did sexually abuse, torture and do mad experiments on innocents just like in the movie. Now I thought we were past banning films, I thought that it was an outdated over-reaction buried in the past when the Conservative party was in power in the 1980s/90s, but I guess I was completely wrong. We haven't moved on. Maybe it's a coincidence that A Serbian Film got banned from frightfest last August, and now this movie gets banned outright not long after the Conservatives are back in power... this theory is not the issue though, although I do suspect a snobbish Eton-twat style influence in the BBFC.



Secondly, it's ONLY A MOVIE, there is NO EVIDENCE that horror films have ever turned anyone into a psychopath, there is no evidence disney films have made psychos normal either! On a sidenot, there is evidence however that the establishments stupid one sided propaganda news (ITV, BBC, SKY NEWS, CNN, FOX NEWS, ABC NEWS etc.) influences 1000s upon 1000s of citizens to join up to risk their lives to foolishly fight wars to kill others brutally, and by the way, ALL WARS ARE UNJUSTIFIED, and are all based on lies by Politicians (the same class of people who like banning films in there little censorship boards). The main reasons war happens is because of profit, power and religion. Very rarely is it self defense, and never should it be supported in any way. Nobody seems to care about how damaging the news can be in influencing negative decisions. Some people would rather blame movies for the horrors of the world.. If people listened and tolerated everyone's different view/religions/ideologies, then war wouldn't exist. "War is over!...... if you want it" -John Lennon. No one on this planet has a natural right to control you! So how can it be justified for a small group of people to CONTROL what the majority can or cannot see?



Thirdly the horror genre, like many other genres needs to transcend or push the boundaries in order for the genre to survive, otherwise it will go the way of the dinosaurs or the Western, in filmic terms. The Human Centipede film series is an example of the bar being raised, expanding the genre a little bit further. Therefore I have always been open to films which offer something new or different from current trends that end up transforming the genre, be it the the Blair Witch Project, Last House on the Left, or Psycho. These films massively shaped the modern and postmodern horror genre. Without these films which pushed the boundaries in their own way, the genre wouldn't look the same. Imagine if Hitchcock never made Psycho, you know, the film which has transgressive scenes such as a cross dressing murderer, voyeurism, a thieving protagonist who unexpectedly gets killed half way in the movie, a twist ending, an unsubtle music score. Without Psycho, there would be no Black Christmas (1974) which inspired Halloween (1978), which in turn inspired Friday the 13th and the entire slasher genre. Additionally filmmakers whose careers are outside the horror genre were also inspired by Hitchcock's work in Psycho. Without Psycho, the horror genre could have possibly died back in the late 60s, sticking to the old Universal horror style formula and got boring to people, dying like the Western genre has. We would have been stuck with Hammer horror, (the Universal studios formula but with colour), which pretty much died in the late 60s.. Colour didn't save the Western genre either. And if you think the western genre is still alive, name another movie other than True Grit that came out in the past 3 years. It's no longer an existant genre. It is a one off thing now. Anyways going back to the horror genre, without Last House on the left, we wouldn't have extreme exploitation horror movies such as I Spit on your grave, Cannibal Holocaust, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc.. Without Cannibal Holocaust, we wouldn't have the plot for the Blair Witch Project, and without Blair Witch Project, we wouldn't have REC, Cloverfield, Paranormal Actiity, and The Last Exorcism. Without the post-modern Scream, there wouldn't be I Know What you did last summer, Urban Legend, Halloween H20, Cherry falls etc.. And without Saw you wouldn't have Hostel, the torture genre, and the Human Centipede.



Now you may be thinking, how can he compare the masterpiece that is Psycho, to a piece of trash like the Human Centipede 2? If you are still asking this question, you obviously haven't understood the last extensive paragraph... Horror is meant to be transgressive and at times original. Horror is meant to scare the viewer, not just be entertaining. You know films have muliple purposes and the unique thing about one spectrum of the horror genre is that it has a different purpose from the other 85% of genre cinema. In that sense and i've always thought this, original groundbreaking horror is close to art films, as art films are an expression of an idea that is not necessarily meant to entertain the viewer, but to express something through a medium. Art is also challenging at times at what it puts accross. So are Horror films. which are not necessarily meant to entertain the viewer. Horror films CAN (but not always) have the sole purpose of scaring the viewer in one way or the other, deliberately making them feel uneasy for 90 minutes. There are 3 different modes which define the horror genre, that scare the audience:

-Creeping them out (the feeling of goosebumps you get in presence of the unknown)
-Digust - feeling sick and uneasy from something gory or implied gore through editing and sound
-Shocking your audience - putting something on screen that society hides away from - a graphic rape for instance.

A pure horror film will include 1, 2 or all of these 3 elements. Human Centipede mostly falls into the shock mode of horror. However, if you are lucky you come accross a film which does the following:

-An Original Ideology or idea/or subplot running in the background that is in itself scary (e.g. 'Martyrs', 'The Human Centipede')
-Raw ingredients the filmmaker skillfully places within the film that the audience uses their imaginations to create fear within themselves without much effort



There are more techniques that can be listed, (not including the multiple subgenres with horror, or the crossing of different genres) but to list all of this and it's intended purpose would sidetrack my main argument too much.



What I am saying is the horror genre has multiple purposes for it's audience, and needs to transcend itself into something new every once in a while for it to survive as a filmic genre for the coming years. For this reason alone, the Human Centipede franchise needs to be embraced by horror fans, at least given a watch. It should not be banned. We are responsible adults. Your not gonna let your kid watch something that extreme because it will frighten them way too much. It doesn't make sense why you should you be treated like your kid by the BBFC, them acting as father/mother figure dictating and teaching you that this film is too bad for you to watch.


Do you like being treated as a child? Do you like being asked to have your chewing gum taken out your mouth?

I haven't seen this movie yet, and thanks to the BBFC, it will be a bit of an inconvenience now to watch it. I predict some other countries will also ban the film as humans like to jump on a bandwagon. If you truly want to see this film, you will find a way: either by a torrent download or a foreign import..

In the meantime, keep an open mind and don't believe everything you read, see, or hear

-John Mitchison

May update

Once again it's been a while since our last update.

Because of technical issues, the animated film has been delayed for months up until recently. We are now completely able to shoot and edit in 1920 X1080i HD.

However everyone knows May is a busy month full of activities from every direction, and the same applies to my life and the people around me whether I choose it or not. As a result filming will most likely take place in June and/or July. But I will make it my goal to release this animated film before the end of the summer.

In the meantime, we currently have 2 new videos of re-edited and improved versions of our 2 biggest short films:

Red Handed followed by Grave Danger. Recently, original rushes for both movies were discovered to be completely intact, and since I was never 100% happy with both films, I thought they needed touching up in different ways. They are the same movies, but with some needed improvements.



With Red Handed, I deliberately made it look older than it already feels- in the vein of an intense 70s exploitation movie. This includes scratches, burnt frames and film distortions, some older sounding music tracks, and a re-design of the titles. Additionally, we surrounded the movie with these cool old theater adverts, and previews of coming attractions, 2 are for films yet to come out..




Regarding Grave Danger, this re-edit was much more straight forward and involved creative touch up work mainly on the 3rd act of the movie which I had been dying to do since it's rushed release back in 2008. The subliminal "color code" meaning in the movie is now complete. Additionally the ratio will be 16x9 full screen, with no black bars or stretching of any kind. However, the best imptrovement to this re-release will actually be the upload quality. Youtube users will be able to select the quality they want to watch it in at rates which are 10 times higher than the pixelated version that was released in 2008.

So all of this news may raise the question.. Will Horrorville Productions actually film a short or feature length movie with humans, rather than animated shorts and re-releases??

Yes. This year. Not sure when exactly though!

February update - the return

-The Sony PMW EX1 camera arrived in late December, the necessary accessories that we needed for it arrived by mid January, spurring me on to write a new short film.

-I am currently filming our next project: the third entry to our animated VS series and the follow up to Freddy vs Jason vs Leatherface 70s style.. This short will be different in the way it looks visually but will be just as fun to watch and have some unexpected twists like the last short, but should be in the same vein as the others with more work put into it than the last two. I'm looking forward to filming the rest of it and finally uploading it on youtube after almost a year of absence on there.

Hopefully this short will mark the return of Slashville Entertainment, as I plan to produce, write and direct new films to be released this year onwards..

As far as Jag goes, he told me he is too busy at the moment to make films, we shall see what we shall see..

-John