It Came From Underground October 22, 2010
by Cory J Udler
This week I’m not going to bitch about reviewers or verbally sodomize distributors. Instead I’m going to focus on an event last weekend and the people who made it incredibly memorable.
John Pata, the director of Better Off Undead, put together the first ever Oshkosh Horror Film Festival at the Time Theatre downtown Oshkosh, Wisconsin. John is a super passionate champion of indie horror and was kind enough to include my latest opus, Incest Death Squad 2, as part of his line-up for the day. The event focused on indie horror films made exclusively in Wisconsin.
The theatre itself is fantastic, a perfect setting for such an event. It was 12 hours of shorts, features and question and answer sessions. When you walked in the door, John had t-shirts emblazoned with “SUPPORT INDEPENDENT HORROR” at the ticket table. Yep, this was MY kind of event!
The first film was Fenris Unchained, an epic zombie/Norse God flick shot in Eau Claire, Wisconsin from Kristopher Bishop and Aaron Rigby. I was fortunate enough to see the true premiere of the film last year at the Madison Horror Film Festival and have been flying the flag for it ever since. As always with the Fenris Unchained group, they were well represented with Aaron, Riley Freyholtz (blood crew) and actress Jamie Solberg in attendance. Poor girl had to drive 3 and a half hours in a van with those guys. She’s a fucking trooper!
Next up was Derrick Carey’s Between Fathers and Sons. Not what you would classify as a “horror film” and one that stood out from the crowd of boobs and blood flicks that filled up the rest of the fest. Derrick’s film was a short film full of emotion and reflection that was classy and yet still managed to send a chill down your spine. Derrick and I talked at great length throughout the day, and he has assured me that his next project titled Swamphead is nothing but good old fashioned Troma-esque gore and hilarity! Cannot wait!
Bob Ekdahl’s The Last Summer was up next and was a true treat, as it starred a young lady by the name of Kylie Hodges whom I knew because she was an intern at the tv station I work at. Bob’s film was loaded with some super great performances and one liners and, once fully completed and tweaked, will be an underground hit, mark my words!
Donn Kennedy’s Backwoods Bloodbath splattered the screen with its own special brand of revolting awesomeness next. You’ll be able to see this flick in all of it’s gory..er, uhm, I mean glory soon, and you should. It’s a fucking treat!
Chaotic Evil from Mitch and Jason Zuleger, a nice, fun short slithered on next, and after talking with Jason it was easy to see that this flick came from a place of pure love of the horror genre. I had my Incest table set up next to them, and had a great time talking shop and getting to know more about their production.
Oooh, then it was that Incest Death Squad 2 movie. People were sufficiently drunk by this point so, just as all screenings of my 2 movies have, it had a nice midnight screening feel to it. I was proud to have Melissa Murphy, Carmela Wiese, Joe Price and John Wendt in attendance, along with Jesse Dahlke, who is a big fan and supporter of my flicks. This was really the theatre premiere of IDS2, as you may remember, the world premiere was free online on September 17th, so this was nice to have some of the cast in attendance. I was super fucking stoked with the way the movie looked on a big screen, too. And yes, all the boobs looked PHENOMENAL!!!
The night ended with Brain Damage Film’s latest acquisition Horrid from James Pronath. Seriously, Horrid was the biggest hit of the entire festival! How can you not love a movie like Horrid I ask you? Well, you’ll all get the chance to see it soon as it’s about to become available every-fucking-where!
On a personal note, the Oshkosh Horror Film Festival was just exactly what my sad ass needed. As a filmmaker, when you don’t have a theatre release if even for just one night, it’s hard to gauge how you’re doing. Being in a theatre with people laughing, cheering, groaning, talking to the screen, that’s what I fucking thrive on. Some did NOT like it, and that’s fine. I’ve never had anyone say “meh, it was ok”. They either LOVE the shit out of it, or hate it more than anything they’ve ever hated before. That’s exactly what I want. It was amazing to meet these filmmakers, hear their stories, talk about their next projects, chat about people we knew in common and just be around the fans that came out to support independent horror. Seriously, we all know that the fans took a real chance on coming out to see films starring people they didn’t know made by people they’ve never heard of. But I don’t think one person left the festival thinking they didn’t get their money’s worth. And for that, I salute John Pata and every single filmmaker, actor, producer, blood wrangler and boom guy who put their blood, sweat and tears into their films and screened them at the Oshkosh Horror Film Festival. It’s events like this one that remind me of the fact that independent horror is really, truly where the excitement is. This is where the passion lies. This is one of the last pure, unfiltered forms of expression. I thank each and every person who came out, and even those who hated my movie. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I can’t wait for next year.
Hey, if you sick freaks are in the Chicago area this weekend, I suggest you make time to head over to the Portage Theatre for the Horror Society Film Festival. It’s the world premiere of Slices of Life and also a 35mm screening of..wait for it…wait for it…A Serbian Film. The guys from HS have gotten a fuck ton of flack for screening the movie, and with all I’ve heard about it, I’m dying to see it! I’ll be there, hocking IDS movies, and I have a special guest at my table all weekend-Matt “Putrid” Carr. You may know Matt’s work from HorrorHound magazine or maybe from all of the heavy metal album covers he has designed over the years. Matt is a one of a kind artist and person and I’m super stoked to talk VHS horror flicks with him all weekend. Matt was the inspiration for “boobies on the back”, meaning, if you were to flip over a VHS box at the video store and there were “boobies on the back”, you knew you had a winner. If you have a copy of Incest Death Squad 2, flip it over. Yeah. That’s because of Matt. Also, if you’re aware of the Gorgon Video VHS release of House of the Devil, I have it on good authority that he MAY have been the inspiration for that as well.
Keep it sleazy, ya’ll.
