From Zombos' Closet

Movie Review: Naina (2005)

Zombos Says: Good

It took a few attempts to get Shripal Morakhia's Naina into the DVD player. After the first bottle of Claret, my coordination deteriorated rapidly. I finally loaded the disc and Zombos and I were soon watching this intriguing Bollywood Horror remake of The Eye.

With a matter-of-fact tagline that reads, "Twenty years of darkness, seven days of hell, no one could survive it, SHE DID," we did not have very high expectations. But the Claret made us stronger and more daring.

Then there are the cultural differences: how would a Hindi version of The Eye fit in with the melodramatic and religious aspects of Bollywood cinema? And most importantly of all, would there be singing and dancing?

"Bring on the dancing and singing Gopis," hiccupped Zombos. "If I could stand it in Rocky Horror, I can stand it here."

"There were no Gopis in The Rocky Horror Picture Show," I told him.

"Not dressed as such, but the premise is the same."

"Point taken," I conceded. "But there are no Gopis, nor singing or dancing in this movie."

"What? Impossible! I thought that was a contractual requirement for every Bollywood movie?"

"Apparently horror movies are excluded from that requirement." I said.

I started the movie.

The opening shows the accident that leaves young Naina blind, intercut with a bloody cesarean-section of a still-born baby girl that suddenly comes back to life just as Naina's parents are killed in an accident. Then there is an eclipse of the sun. We move ahead years later to a point where Naina is ready to undergo a cornea transplant operation.

"I am already confused," said Zombos.

I refilled his glass. "There, that should help."

Urmila Matondkar plays Naina Shah with a touch of melodrama—after all this is a Bollywood movie—and grandmotherly Mrs. Shah (Kamini Khanna) is constantly by her side. Yet the coloration of the movie, the cinematography, and, to some extent the somber, bittersweet, piano score give this movie a J-Horror style.

Naina speaks briefly to a boy in the hospital who is undergoing numerous brain operations, before she undergoes surgery to restore her sight. After the operation she begins to see dark figures through her blurry vision. These figures lead patients away. She also hears spooky sounds and sees dead people. Every dead person she sees is dressed in crisp white, neatly-pressed, clothes. It's comforting to know there are laundries in the after-life.

Mrs. Shah quickly pulls out the eligible bachelor photos for Naina now that she can see, and starts working the old marriage magic on her. But Naina is becoming more and more distraught as her visions become more frightening. As Hindi cinema tradition would have it, the psychiatrist Mrs. Shah brings Naina to for help is handsome, eligible, and immediately infatuated with her loveliness—it's love at first sight for both of them. A somewhat derailing Love Boat-styled romantic montage ensues and the horror is put on hold while love is in the air.

"Wake me when we get back to the dead people," said Zombos.

I took a long sip of Claret. And another long sip of Claret.

Eventually Naina sees more and deader people and now they see her. From hanged men dressed in clean white clothes in restaurants, to little girls with little curls in hallways asking, "Have you seen my mommy?" Understandably, she becomes more distraught. Her psychiatrist boyfriend thinks it's all in her mind (no, really?) and she can't convince Mrs. Shah that those creepy black figures and talkative dead people are driving her to new heights of over-acting.

Then there's the elevator scene.

It works well and puts you on the edge of your seat with its scary encounter in a tight spot. After that she's back in the hospital and seeing more creepy black figures. A walk through the morgue as she follows eerie sounds and black figures is done with her as the only moving figure in a frozen room of doctors, nurses, and bodies in various stages of dissection. Gruesome.

At this point in her travails, she begins to question God. You don't see much questioning of God in American horror movies unless some victim or madman is yelling expletives. She questions why God is showing her these sights. He tells her it's time for the intermission.

No, I’m just kidding you, but the movie does stop—remember this is a DVD—with a big "Intermission" shown onscreen. You certainly don't see this in American Horror DVDs or movies either.

I waited to see if a dancing bag of Buttery Sally Popcorn and Mr. Straw jumping into a cup of Coke would appear, singing "Let's all go to the concession stand and have ourselves a snack."

"Thank god," said Zombos. "I really need to take a p—"

"I'll get more Sherry and Coke."

"Capital idea!" he said, hurrying to the bathroom.

 

INTERMISSION

While we wait for intermission to end, let me direct your attention to how this movie caused a lot of concern when it was released:

 

NEW DELHI (Reuters, 2005) – Indian eye doctors have asked a court to ban a movie in which the heroine sees ghosts after a cornea transplant, saying it will scare off donors and patients. The All India Ophthalmological Society complained to Delhi's high court that the movie "Naina" (Eyes), starring Bollywood bombshell Urmila Matondkar, would reinforce myths about cornea transplants, The Times of India said Friday. "This movie could create a fear psychosis among cornea recipients and their relatives as well as among potential eye donors," ophthalmologist Navin Sakhuja told Reuters. Would-be donors could be frightened off, afraid their eyes would "live on after they are dead," said Sakhuja, a member of the society. "We have a huge backlog of people, particularly children, waiting to get new corneas. His movie adds to misconceptions and could hurt efforts to get them those corneas." Naina's director says the heroine's visions after the transplant following 20 years of blindness are caused by what the donor had seen and experienced in life. "If such objections are taken into account, no horror film will ever be made," the Times quoted Shripal Morakhia saying. The court is due to hear the case Wednesday, but the movie was released nationally Friday. India needs 40,000-50,000 corneas a year but only 15,000 are donated. Hindus believe in reincarnation and that what they do and how they behave in this life affects the next. Doctors say some people fear they will be reborn blind if they give up their eyes.”

 

END OF INTERMISSION

 

Now let’s back to our movie, shall we?

Naina is riding the train, talking to the psychiatrist boyfriend on her cell phone, when a revelation occurs, forcing her to suddenly question not only God, but who she is and the person who donated the corneas. Naina drags her reluctant boyfriend along to a place she's seen in a vision. She stops being a victim and becomes resolute in finding answers. This sudden shift in the story is surprising and suspenseful, and adds an intriguing layer to it. Naina overcomes her fear as she investigates what happened to the eye donor, learns why dead people are attracted to her, and seeks to complete a broken cycle of reincarnation, even as those black figures begin to congregate in larger numbers.

Naina is similar to Premonition and Sixth Sense, but the mixing of J-Horror elements with Bollywood-Horror makes a story that’s part horror, part mystery, part ghost story, and worth a view by any horrorhead looking for something out of the ordinary.

And there's no dancing or singing, either. 

Interview: Drawing Cthulhu With Dave Carson

It is hard to say whether Dave Carson, award-winning pictorial chronicler of the macabre landscapes and alien creatures of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, is illustrating from some creative well of inspiration, or really just simply drawing his own family members during frequent festive get-togethers in crumbling tombs and chilly, aquatic climes.

Whatever the true nature of Carson's disposition, the fact remains that his unearthly illustrations of those things not spoken of, living in those places not visited by sane men--save for him—bring a great, but disquieting pleasure to the rest of us more fearful worshipers of Cthulhu.

Dave put down his drawing implements long enough to answer a few questions scribbled by moonlight and slid beneath his door.

How did you get started in your illustration career?

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a career really. I’ve been illustrating books and magazines since the early eighties or thereabouts, but I also had various full-time jobs while I was doing it, it’s always been a kind of on/off thing with me. There was no way I could support myself solely on illustration. For instance, when I was illustrating H.P.LOVECRAFT'S BOOK OF HORROR, and had about a week to do it, I was in the middle of a six week contract to renovate an old School building. Grueling work to say the least, after which, when I finished for the day I had to get home and do one illustration a day for a week. The friend who I was staying with while the work was going on had to keep me awake with coffee just to get the drawings finished on deadline. Some nights I just fell asleep on the floor with exhaustion.

Of course for the past ten years I have had no other kind of job to get in the way, but now I’m more interested in doing sculpture and digital artwork rather than the laborious process of black & white stipple drawing. I do miss it at times, but I rarely feel that it’s worth the bother of putting pen to paper.

When did you begin drawing Lovecraftian landscapes and their denizens?

1978. Seriously. However, I’ve been doodling all kinds of monsters my whole life.

What is it about Lovecraft's alien, ichthyoid characters that fascinate you?

Possibly it’s that I’ve always been interested in animals, natural history and the sea, as well as having a life-long obsession with all things weird. That’s what inspired me to start drawing them. I love all those winged, tentacled, gelatinous masses, starfish-headed things, deep ones and others that shamble through his writings.

There seem to be a common misconception that H.P.L’s entities aren’t clearly described. I have no idea why this should be, as many of them are fleshed out in great detail. I don’t know how many times I’ve read that “Lovecraft’s descriptions are vague to say the least”, or similar nonsense. Just read THE CALL OF CTHULHU for instance, a clearer description of Cthulhu is hardly possible. 

Why do you think Lovecraft's mythos continues to be a popular and influential fictional and graphic wellspring?

It's taken some time for Lovecraft to reach the audience he now has. When I discovered him back in the mid 60's relatively few people outside of fantasy and horror fandom had heard of him until all the paperbacks of his stuff became very popular later that decade. They influenced a whole new generation of writers who had never even seen a copy of Weird Tales. I guess the Cthulhu Mythos appeals to artists on the basis of its incredible possibilities and scope for their imaginations, and writers for the same reasons.

How do you do it? Tell us about your creative process from inception to finished drawing.

I do a pencil rough and ink it in, usually with Rotring technical pens – no great secret process. Just hard work, long hours, a sore back, strained eyesight, etc.

Who are your favorite illustrators and why?

Lee Brown Coye is my favorite. His work was extremely strange and remarkably original. Harry Clarke’s work is also outstanding.

What question would you like to be asked and what's your answer?

Q : “Hey DC, did you see on the News that R’lyeh has risen in the Pacific?”

A : “I already knew.”

What's your favorite Lovecraft story? Why?

It's 'The Call of Cthulhu' without a doubt. I love ‘the piecing together of dissociated knowledge’ element throughout the story, and the references to artists and sculptors being more susceptible to Cthulhu's dreams appeals to me.

What is the easiest and the hardest thing about being an illustrator?

Easiest is being able to work through the night and sleep during the day. Hardest is being broke all the time.

Movie Review: Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Zombos Says: Excellent

Journeys end in lovers meeting, or so the saying goes. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson do have one rough journey, though, before that ending comes.

Spider-Man 3 is the movie Superman Returns should have been. Take one iconic American comic book character, stir in lots of terrific, dizzying action, add a measure of relationship-woes, sprinkle a dash of rocky romance, and what Sam Raimi cooks up for the third time in a row is a movie that captures the emotional and visual charge of the comic book art form for the big screen like no other superhero movie has done since the original Superman.

Just make sure you sit farther back in the theater to catch it all: it gets rather hectic and you may spill your popcorn trying to keep up with Danny Elfman's exciting music and all that web-slinging mayhem.

Spidey's doing pretty well. He's on top of the world; and when Spidey's happy, Peter's happy. Filled with a cocksure attitude that he can take on anything, his Spider-sense doesn't warn him about those dark clouds on the horizon. He's so wrapped up in his alter-ego's success, he can't see that Mary Jane's really hurting from a career stumble, or that Norman Osborn's sinister heritage has been passed onto his son, Harry.

If that weren't enough to upset his cozy web, there's the meteor rock that crashes, releasing a spidery creepy-crawling black sludge that wants to make friends with him in a really bad way; and then he finds out that the man who killed Uncle Ben, is not the man he cornered in the warehouse back in Spider-Man 1. The real killer of his uncle is Flint Marko, who escapes from prison only to get his molecules shaken and stirred with a pile of sand during a particle-reactor fusion test.

The result is a villain, the Sandman, that provides much of the onscreen action in swirling sand clouds that pack quite a wallop--and pathos. He's not all bad, just morphed that way. He desperately keeps trying to steal the money needed for his dying daughter's treatment, but Spider-Man keeps getting in the way. Thomas Haden Church is perfect as the Sandman. His angular face, striped-shirted athletic build, and ability to convey the internal struggle with the regret for the decisions he's made add up to one of Spider-Man's strongest, yet more vulnerable foes.

Venom is not so vulnerable. That creepy-crawling sludge has no internal struggle to slow it down. It just needs someone with enough anger to make it thrive. It finds that anger in Peter. His need for revenge on the man who murdered his uncle is all consuming, and feeds the black parasite what it needs. It consumes Peter and his Spidey costume, creating a darker, more aggressive, more callous Spider-Man and Peter Parker.

In a funny then serious show of his newfound over-confidence and aggressiveness, Peter makes the relationship with Mary Jane worse and uses Gwen Stacy to do it. He also goes after the new Daily Bugle staff photographer, who played dirty, with a vengeance; again making a bad decision that will lead to the creation of a much more powerful foe.

As Peter and Spider-Man struggle with the choices to be made, Aunt May, and Ben (in flashbacks), try to help him find his way out of the darkness. But will he make the right choices to rid himself of his more sinister self? And when the Sandman and Venom team up to end Spider-Man, how will he survive their combined onslaught?

Raimi proves once again who's your Superhero Daddy. He and the special effects crew create a swirling, spiraling, exhilarating ballet of web-slinging aerial combat that sizzles across the screen. In between the slugfests, he captures the difficult relationship between Peter and Mary Jane, the growing relationship between Peter and Gwen Stacy, and the trade-offs of being everyone's hero.

Spider-Man 3 is the perfect kick-off to this summer of the cinema, where more potential blockbusters wait in the wings. 'Nuff said.

Movie Review: Dinocroc (2004) Croc of What?

Zombos Says: Fair

How does one describe a movie that's bland? I'm fighting the temptation to go off on a tangent with sentences with the word 'crock' in them. While that might help spice the review, it's an obvious but cheap shot.

This movie is a crock. Its bland by the numbers characters and action, with bland superficial dialog, and less than stellar computer graphics work. Jake Thomas plays Michael Banning, and actually does as good a job as any of the other actors; but he's not given much to do. At least they didn't spike his hair. Thomas spends the movie riding around on his bike looking for his dog Lucky, the three-legged run-away.

Then there's the evil corporation, Gereco--stop me if you've heard this one about an evil corporation--conducting secret genetic experiments on man-eating monsters. Rabbits won't suffice? These experiments blend the genes, by accident, of a Sarcosuchus and a dinosaur. The resulting monster escapes its holding pen because an idiotic scientist walks right in--as it's killing everything else in the pen--leaving the door wide open. She gets her throat ripped out as she tries zapping it with a pocket-sized stun gun.

Joanna Pacula plays the evil mouthpiece for Gereco, Paula Kennedy, who denies everything even as they send their top, man-eating monster hunter to recapture the monster. Using Lucky, the three-legged dog for bait, Lucky really turns out to be lucky and high-tails it just as the crafty hunter gets eaten instead, leaving only his legs behind. The CGI blur happens fast, but dotes on those legs.

One of the highlights in this film--I'm stretching a mile here-- is what, unexpectedly, happens to Thomas as he goes searching for Lucky late at night in Gereco's wildlife preserve. What happens ends too abruptly. What should have ended abruptly are the dialog exchanges between the crocodile hunter they bring in, Dick Sydney (Costos Mandylor), the Grant's Lake Animal Shelter control officer, Diane Harper (Jane Longenecker), and Michael's brother, Tom Banning (Matt Borlenghi). The action bogs down when an old romance--queue the piano tinkling--is rekindled and the hunter tries some really bad pick-up lines.

A predictable insert-scene-here time-killer has two drunk hunters poaching on the Gereco wildlife preserve; quickly scratch off two poachers. To speed things up, the Gereco scientist hunting the monster spills the beans about the whole mess to Harper and Tom and they volunteer to help. As they search in the preserve, they come across a pile of man-eating monster doo-doo and the scientist quips "Holy sh*t."

Dinocroc Vision kicks in as the monster gets hungry. I don't mind monster-point-of-view vision--I love the Snake 'o Vision in Snakes on a Plane--but here it's not very inspired or enhancing. Another oddity is how all these would-be hunters carried only single-shot rifles. What, automatics would've blown the budget? The thing's as big as a mobile home and they hunt it with pea-shooters.

The scientist goes down for the count when the group crowds a skimpy motor boat and tries to hunt Loc Nesses' land-legged cousin with single-shot rifles and tranquilizer darts. More people get eaten as people crowd the water's edge for some relaxing horror movie-victim involvement. The local sheriff's Keystone Cops deputies get eaten. Lot's of people get eaten. Mostly off-camera or in "shaky-cam" CGI blurs. There's no suspense, no build-up to a climactic ending that brings the beads of sweat to your brow.

I really really wanted to see Lucky either get eaten or save the day. Instead, they use other dogs to lure the monster into a trap. The animal-loving Harper doesn't go along with this so she's cuffed along with Tom after he tries to help her. But Tom is a metal-sculpting artist. He lights up the acetylene and before you can say I should have watched Rogue, they're racing ahead of the dog-eating monster to release each and every stray dog chained between the monster and the trap. As they race against time to free the dogs and come closer and closer to the trap, the hunter finally does something and jumps in to lure the monster away from them. They start yelling "Dick! Dick!" as the monster gets closer to him, in passionate close-ups of concern. It is funny I admit.

The trap is sprung, but since they only have one bolt cutter to release all the chains holding the trap's doors, the sheriff must race from one end of the long trap to the other to release the doors to lock the monster inside. But the monster gets out and chases Harper and Tom some more. It finally gets run down by a train and Tom determinedly walks over to its stunned, prostrate body to poke it in the eye with a metal rod. It doesn't move.

Not much in this movie does.

Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o'Gold Part 4 Going Dutch Can Be Murder Slaughter Night (2006)

Part 3 

Zombos Says: Good

"Ya know," said Curly Joe, "that supernatural slasher film from the Netherlands just popped into my head. Must be all this walkin’ through these dark, creepy tunnels; reminds me of the old mine they were trapped in."

"You mean Slaughter Night?" I asked.

"Yep, that's the one"

"Yes," I said, pausing to hit my flashlight, hoping to make it a tad brighter. "At least we aren't being chased by the ghost of some maniacal killer who cuts people’s heads off."

What sounded like a maniacal laugh echoed down the tunnel, bouncing off the walls with a screech like gritty chalk on a blackboard. We looked at each other, then walked faster in the opposite direction from where the sound came from. Never hurts to play safe, I always say.

 

The backstory within Slaughter Night would have been a more engrossing movie, but overall this 1980s-styled slasher is still a Dutch treat with good acting, an eerie story, and a moderate pace moving the action along. Although the overuse of shaky-cam blurs that action at times (probably intentionally to lessen the strain on the budget), and an unexpectedly jarring point-of-view for some scenes, along with a few head-scratching plot logic lapses, all come together to almost weigh the movie down, but at least the earnest victim by victim mow down is lively enough.

There's something evil afoot in the Province of Limburg as children are mysteriously kidnapped. When the latest victim is snatched a clue is left behind, leading the local constabulary to the home of one Andries Martiens (Robert Eleveld)--just as he slices off the head of another poor kid. Martiens' basement is definitely not a rec room in the usual sense: there are heads mounted on poles stuck in the earth, and lots of candles cast a nice warm glow over the glistening , maggot-crawling faces of the dead. It's Voodoo and Satanic Mass nastiness Martiens has been conducting, paid with ritual slaughter to buy his passport to Hell and back again. He's pissed his parents died without leaving him an inheritance and he's hellbent on making the trip to annoy them into revealing where the family fortune is. With four heads for the compass points and four heads to represent the elements, he's off accruing all the frequent flyer miles he can between Hell and Earth.

What a backstory!

Unfortunately this filled-with-possibilities period piece ends too quickly with Martiens' capture and we jump to the present day into a frenzied nightclub scene. Kristel (Victoria Koblenko) and her High School buddies are out partying, but when her car refuses to start, she calls Dad (Martijn Oversteegen) to pick them up. One of her friends, Lies (Carolina Dijkhuizen), the Tarot-card reading seer, accidentally mentions Kris' plans to leave town. After he drops her friends off, Dad and Kris argue themselves into a fatal car wreck. Kris blames herself for her dad’s death. After the funeral, her mom asks her to go to Belgium to pick up her Dad's manuscript. Sure, why not? I suppose FedEx would have been too expensive. He was working on a book about serial killers, writing it at the mine museum where Martiens did his dirty work. Packing her friends in the car along with her guilt, they head to the mine.

A montage of road trip antics set to rock music--what the director considered rock music, anyway-- is mercifully brief and they arrive at the mine. She finds her Dad’s tape recorder and listens as he explains the Satanic aspects of Martiens' serial killing and the need for eight heads to open the gateway to Club Hell.

She also finds a Ouija board--always useful for getting into trouble in a horror movie--a heavy and rather large music box, and his thick manuscript. She stuffs all this in her already cumbersome backpack, and LUGS IT on a last-minute tour of the historic mine. Her friends join her. They huddle around the tour guide as he tells them how Martiens' met his end in the very tunnels they will now walk through. A condemned murderer, he was given one slim chance at life if he could survive being a "fireman," the role an unlucky convict played years ago, sent into methane-filled tunnels to ignite the firedamp. He didn’t play the role for long.

A gimmicky and jarring use of point of view has them mugging the lens, ruining an otherwise atmospheric tableau in another montage of kids running wild down in the mine; until they realize they've been locked in.

To while away the time they whip out the Ouija board from Kris’ backpack to communicate with Martiens, the maniacal, head-removing butcher since they have nothing better to do. Lies explains the intricacies of the planchette and board. In little time they summon Martiens who promptly possesses one of the idiots. She takes out the tour guide first.

Going through the horror movie victim's litany of things-that-will-certainly-get-you-killed, her friends start getting the axe, the pick, and the shovel on the receiving end. In-between the mayhem and carnage, Estrild and Kris whip out the Ouija board again to dial up Dad for some fatherly advice on coping with Martiens.

Dad’s cryptic advice stymies them for a bit. While they figure it out, Martiens keeps possessing her friends one by one and chasing after the others. Unnecessary shaky-cam fuzziness ruins the details of death, but the panic-acting is frenzied to a turn, providing satisfying denouements at proper terminal velocity.

There's one more moment when the Ouija messaging board comes into play, helping Kris realize why the music box she's been lugging around is so heavy (and should have been left in the car except the plot needed it here).

All in all, while Slaughter Night uses gimmicky camera work and the standard horror movie mechanics of shock, drop, and die, it's still watchable and involving.

Part 5

Interview: Edges of Darkness' Jason Horton

Three interconnected tales of terror set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse...

• A young vampire couple struggle to survive as the zombies eat up all their food.
• An obsessed writer powers his computer with a chip that runs off the life force of others.
• A survival nut takes in a woman and her child who are on the run from a group of renegade priests hell bent on destroying the child.

...Welcome to The Edges of Darkness.

Currently in post-production, the indie horror thriller is written and directed by Jason Horton and Blaine Cade, with makeup effects by Tom Devlin. Actor Lee Perkins plays a renegade priest battling the anti-christ in one of the tales of terror.

Jason was kind enough to chat with us about his work.

With Rise of the Undead and Edges of Darkness, you seem to have a flair for "end of the world and zombies, too" movies.  Why is that?

I’ve always been fascinated with end of the world stories. Extreme circumstances seem to bring out the “real” in people and I don’t think there is anything more extreme than an apocalypse.

As far as the zombie thing goes, one of my earliest cinema memories is of my older brother taking me to see a midnight showing of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. It moved me like no other film had. Ever since I had a thing for zombies. So when it came time to do my first movie (ROTU) it seemed like the only choice. Having them be a part of Edges was sorta my way of making up for some things that weren’t so right about Rise.

How did you become interested in independent filmmaking?

I always wanted to make movies. Exploring that in the realm of Independent moviemaking made the most sense to me. I’ve worked on a few bigger features and just didn’t fancy working another 15 or 20 years in the trenches before I got a shot to direct, and then have
to do it under someone else’s thumb. When you’re doing it all yourself, you have only yourself to answer too and only yourself to blame if things go wrong (or your co-director.)

What is it about horror filmmaking that draws you to it?

I love movies. All kinds. But there’s something especially fun about working in horror. You get to explore more of the human experience. Create new and unique worlds that could never exist, and see how real people would react in them.

Plus there’s just something about the visceral fun in watching a woman shove a bowling ball through a zombie’s head.

What challenges did you face making Edges of Darkness and how did you meet them?

I suppose money is the cliché answer, but it’s so true. When you’re doing something for little money, no one gets paid what they’re worth. And even though most of the people who worked on it are friends, it’s still a pretty big favor to ask someone to invest so much
time into something that may only compensate them months or years later. I overcame that with preparation.

Being prepared keeps things moving, that way no one thinks I’m just wasting their time figuring out what I want.

Which directors influence you the most and why?

Romero: To me he’s created the definitive view of an apocalyptic world, and did so with rich character work and social relevance.

Peter Jackson (especially his earlier work): His love for movies shows in every frame.

Tarantino: He opened my eyes in ’92 to a whole slew of things. Hong Kong Cinema, Walter Hill, Peckinpaw, French New Wave, Blaxploitation.

Joss Whedon: For really nailing home the notion that you can make a joke in your work without making your work a joke.

Did you have to compromise between your role as co-writer and co-director on Edges of Darkness?

Not really. The only compromises that were made were due to time or physical limitations of the sets and locations.

Even though the three segments intertwine, they also very much stand on their own. I wrote and directed Undone (the anti-Christ segment, and Overbite (the vampire segment) Blaine wrote and directed Entanglement.

What's next on your list of projects?

Next for me is most likely a prequel of sorts to Edges. Following the earlier exploits of the Vampire Couple. It’s larger scale and should be a lot of fun.

Can you share with us any funny or interesting stories regarding the filming of Edges of Darkness?

Don’t work with animals. There was originally a dog in Blaine’s story. He brought the dog to the set. It was a huge, horse of a thing. It sh*t all over the warehouse and wouldn’t do anything we needed it to do.

The cast and crew were complaining so Blaine decided to axe the dog. He replaced it with a rat. It works better than it sounds.

How did Edges of Darkness come about?

I was working in LA. Shooting and cutting ultra low budget features for several different companies and getting pretty burned out. I was watching these cats turn out pretty shoddy work for next to nothing, turning it over and making quite a bit. It was disheartening. I was tired of working for people who were really only in it to make a buck.

I met Stephen Kayo while camera oping on a project of his. Convinced him that quality work could be done for little money, and started work on Edges.

What advice can you give to independent directors just starting out?

First, watch more movies. You can never see enough. Love movies. If you don’t love movies, don’t direct. Go work at a bank. I’m sick and tired of running into directors and producers in Hollywood that don’t even like movies. They don’t watch them. WTF?

Second. Make movies. Work on someone else’s. I went to film school. I wouldn’t give that time back for anything. But my real education happened on sets. I did Rise of the Undead right after film school. I did Edges after working a few years on sets and in post production.
You only have to glance at the trailers to see the difference.

What's the one question you would love to be asked and what's your answer?

What’s you’re favorite color? Blue.

Can you give us a "day in the life of an independent horror director?" What's it really like?

Get up. Work on something else. Making your own flicks doesn’t always pay the bills. Then put every other waking minute into finishing your current project or prepping the next or watching a movie.