The first Horror Highlights of the week has some pretty terrifying things to show you. Horror anthology Blood Clots starring Brooke Smith (Catherine Martin, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991) hits VOD this month! Also: Mushroomhead's Volume III DVD release date and tour details as well as a Q&A with Heretiks director Paul Hyett!
Blood Clots Release Details: Press Release: "Horror anthology Blood Clots, starring Silence of the Lambs’ Brooke Smith, hemorrhages on VOD this August!
Premiering on Vimeo and Amazon, August 3rd, Blood Clots is a collection of horror stories curated by Freedom Cinema, consisting of shorts by New York distributor Hewes Pictures. Featuring cannibals, zombies, and other funny creatures, the anthology stars many recognizable actors such as Brooke Smith ("The Silence of the Lambs"), Harry Sinclair ("Lord of the Rings"), Madalina Bellariu Ion ("Young Pope”), and Kristin Slaysman ("The Last Tycoon", "Masters of Sex") among many others.
The collection is made up of seven short, gore-filled stories that will surely please the fans of the genre. Whether it is an awkward dinner with an ancient creature in "The Call of Charlie", or a rightfully justified fear of basements in "Time to Eat", "Blood Clots" has it all.
The anthology features stories directed by Evan Hughes, Sid Zanforlin, Luke Guidici, Carl Timms, Patrick Longstreth, Timothy J. Richardson, Martyn Pick, and Nick Spooner."
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Mushroomhead's Volume III DVD Release Details: Press Release: "MUSHROOMHEAD to Release New DVD, “VOLUME III”, on August 17, 2018. The Summer of Screams Tour Begins Same Day! Pre-Order Now via Amazon | Watch the Official Trailer Here
Influential Cleveland, Ohio-based metal pioneers MUSHROOMHEAD are thrilled to announce the upcoming release of their new DVD, entitled VOLUME III. The DVD is set to hit retailers on August 17, 2018 via Megaforce Records. VOLUME III will feature over 90 minutes of new material, including stunning new music videos, backstage antics, and exclusive never-seen-before content. Pre-orders are available now via Amazon.
Check out the very first VOLUME III video trailer here, which gives fans an idea of the high-quality video style they can expect from the DVD: https://youtu.be/X7QmFIsOfd0
VOLUME III is the band’s very first release since 2014’s The Righteous And The Butterfly – MUSHROOMHEAD’s most successful charting album, which debuted at #20 on the Billboard Top 200, #1 on the Billboard Independent Chart, and #1 on the Billboard Hard Rock Chart.
In celebration of the DVD release, MUSHROOMHEAD will headline the The Summer of Screams tour this summer, presented by Scream Factory and Dread Central.
The Summer of Screams tour line-up:
MUSHROOMHEAD
Powerman 5000 (9-2 to 9-15)
The Browning
Psychostick (8-17 to 8-31)
Kissing Candice
Unsaid Fate
Voodoo Terror Tribe (8-17 to 8-30)/Earth Caller (8-31 to 9-15)
The Summer of Screams tour dates:
8-17 Indianapolis, IN - Emerson Theater
8-18 Pittsburgh, PA - Rex Theater
8-19 Toronto, ON - Rockpile West
8-21 Manchester, NH - Bungalow
8-22 Poughkeepsie, NY - The Chance
8-23 Virginia Beach, VA - Shaka's
8-24 Spartanburg, SC - Groundzero
8-25 Huntsville, AL - Sidetracks Music Hall
8-26 New Orleans, LA - Southport Music Hall
8-28 Houston, TX - Houston Underground
8-29 Austin, TX - Come and Take It Live
8-30 Laredo, TX - Ethos Live
8-31 Fort Worth, TX - The Rail Club
9-2 Los Angeles, CA - 1720
9-4 Orangevale, CA - The Boardwalk
9-5 Portland, OR - Dante's
9-6 Seattle, WA - El Corazon
9-7 Billings, MT - Pub Station
9-8 Salt Lake City, UT - The Complex
9-9 Denver, CO - Roxy Theater
9-11 Merriam, KS - Aftershock
9-12 Waterloo, IA - Spicoli's
9-13 Minneapolis, MN - Skyway Theatre
9-14 Ringle, WI - Q & Z Expo Center
9-15 Chicago, IL - Patio Theater
MUSHROOMHEAD came together when drummer Skinny formed the band as a side project. The band wore masks to go unrecognized, but after only a few shows they developed a rabid and loyal fan base in Cleveland. They released their 1995 self-titled debut album independently and it went on to became an underground hit, which was history in the making because the band really had no proper distribution at the time. Superbuick followed in 1996 and M3 in 1999, all released via an underground street effort. After the band felt its image and hyper-melodic, heavy style of music was being diluted by other bands jumping into this space, the band started to change their look to reflect nothing out there.
Universal Records saw the release of XX (a combination of the past independent releases) in 2001. In 2003, XIII was released, spawning the single "Sun Doesn't Rise" which was featured on MTV: Headbangers Ball and the Freddy Vs. Jason soundtrack. The album also featured the hidden track "Crazy", a song originally recorded by Seal. The album debuted at #40 on the Billboard Top 200 charts and sold 400,000 copies worldwide. In December 2005, the band signed with the pioneering rock label, Megaforce Records (Metallica, Anthrax, Ministry) and released Savior Sorrow in 2006 and Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children in 2010. In 2014, the band released The Righteous And The Butterfly, which debuted at #20 on the Billboard Top 200, #1 on the Billboard Independent Chart and #1 on the Billboard Hard Rock Chart.
Expect more clips and information to be released leading up to the release of VOLUME III!
MUSHROOMHEAD online:
www.facebook.com/mushroomheadofficial
www.youtube.com/user/mushroomheadfilthy
Megaforce Records online:
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Q&A with Heretiks Director Paul Hyett: "10 Questions with Paul Hyett, director of HERETIKS
What first attracted you to actor Gregory Blair’s script?
Paul Hyett: When Templeheart gave me the script of HERETIKS (although it was a different title at the time), the one thing that really grabbed my interest was the opportunity to do a creepy period horror, set in 17th Century England. I’d already shot a war-set film, a contemporary werewolf film and there was an opportunity to do a film set in the 17th century where young girls were put on trial for witchcraft, of which some were drowned, hanged and so much worse. It was a truly dark and fearful time in the history of England, one that I was keen to portray on screen, and adding to that a supernatural element, was hard to resist.
What did you and your SEASONING HOUSE co-writer Conal Palmer bring to the final screenplay?
Paul Hyett: Conal and I did an extensive rewrite, as I remember, at the time it had vampiric nuns. I was keen to ground it and get rid of that story element but I loved this tale of these younger girls brought to this priory, so worked more on the relationships between the younger girls and hierarchy of the older nuns. And then we brought in the mythology of the supernatural element of the film, creating the flashbacks and why the priory was haunted. We then a did a lot of work of Persephone’s journey and the background she left behind and then really worked on all the characters one by one, we really wanted to give everyone their own unique character and background. We also brought the themes of religion more strongly forward and both Conal and I especially worked on the dialogue to give it a more olden style. And after working on the slow burn build up, I felt the film needed to go full tilt in the last act, thankfully Templeheart liked the direction we were taking it.
What a coup casting Clare Higgins, the HELLRAISER icon herself, as the Reverend Mother. What was it like working with her?
Paul Hyett: It was wonderful to have Clare. I grew up with the Hellraiser films, so to have her on a film of mine was great. She was a consummate professional, and she really anchors the film. It’s hard for an actor when they’re portraying a character that you don’t want to give away their true intentions too early, and I think Clare got it pitch perfect.
And Michael Ironside is another genre icon too, it must have been fun directing him?
Paul Hyett: It was wonderful, a childhood dream. He was so lovely to everyone, really chatty, and just was so approachable to everyone on the cast and crew. It was great talking to him about Scanners, Total Recall and so many other films of my youth. He was so full of stories and anecdotes. I’d love to work with him again in the future.
Your actress muse Rosie Day turns up again, as she also does again in your next movie PERIPHERAL. Is she your lucky charm?
Paul Hyett: Haha, yes, Rosie and I love collaborating at work together and we’re great friends, so yes, we’ll keep working together.
Hannah Arterton is your lead in both HERETIKS and PERIPHERAL, so Rosie might be replaced? Say it isn’t so?
Paul Hyett: No, of course not, there are lots of reasons why you use certain people for certain roles, sometimes due to availability, schedules and also the right fit for the role. For example, I saw Rosie as the perfect person to play Shelley in PERIPHERAL and she nailed it perfectly, and Hannah I saw as the character of Bobbi, and she, in turn, nailed that role. I look forward to working with both Hannah and Rosie in the future. They’re truly talented actresses and lovely to work with.
The Priory is a wonderfully evocative location, where is it?
Paul Hyett: We split the shoot into two places in Wales, the upper floors were shot at Margam Castle and the lower floors were shot in Tretower, a medieval court. They were beautiful locations, we just had to be very careful, bringing in specialists just to supervise a lit candle, so you can imagine the bigger FX sequences were challenging. But the locations were beautiful, the grounds around the outside, were so vast and breathtaking, I feel it gives the film a more realistic feel then if you’d just built sets.
We’re seeing a lot of nuns in horror at the moment, why has it become a trend?
Paul Hyett: I don’t know why, although I’ve noticed a trend of religious horror getting more popular over the last few years, horror seems to have these trends, whether it’s postmodern social commentary, or home invasion, torture porn etc., it’s always trying to work out what is going to be the trend in a year or two? With HERETIKS we felt you couldn’t go wrong with a retro-style religious period horror featuring nuns.
What was your biggest HERETIKS challenge?
Paul Hyett: I think mostly shooting in real locations, like Margam Castle and Tretower court, there could be no drilling in walls to attach anything like stunt cables, you couldn’t throw blood about in case it stained the medieval stonework, we also had to build sets within these locations but couldn’t attach or drill them into the actual location, we just couldn’t risk anything, but I think the biggest challenge was the endangered bats that were a protected species. We couldn’t harass them, distress them, and certainly not harm them. We risked a large fine and a prison sentence. So whenever one flew out, we had to call cut and let it fly about and do its thing until it was happy for us to continue. I remember one scene that we needed a fireplace roaring in the background for continuity, and a bat had got itself settled in the chimney, I did seriously consider going in with a stick if no-one was watching.
Pleased to be back at Frightfest? Tell us some of your favourite memories from past appearances.
Paul Hyett: I love Frightfest, it’s been so important in my formative years in the last decade or so and I feel so wonderfully supported by Alan, Paul, Ian, and Greg, from my time as a prosthetics artists to my first movie, and their continued support to Heretiks. If I had to choose a memory, it was the phone call telling us that we’d been selected as the opening film for THE SEASONING HOUSE, and then the actual screening at the large Empire screen was the best night of my life.
HERETIKS plays at Arrow Video FrightFest on Sat 25 August, Cineworld Leicester SQ.
Tickets: http://www.frightfest.co.uk/2018Films/heretiks.html"
Tamika hails from North Beach, Maryland, a tiny town inches from the Chesapeake Bay.She knew she wanted to be an actor after reciting a soliloquy by Sojourner Truth in front of her entire fifth grade class. Since then, she's appeared in over 20 film and television projects. In addition to acting, Tamika is the Indie Spotlight manager for Daily Dead, where she brings readers news on independent horror projects every weekend.
The first horror film Tamika watched was Child's Play. Being eight years old at the time, she remembers being so scared when Chucky came to life that she projectile vomited. It's tough for her to choose only one movie as her favorite horror film, so she picked two: Nosferatu and The Stepford Wives (1975).
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