In today's horror highlights, watch the short films Eternally and Rat, and read a Q&A from the creators of Beast Mode!
Watch the Short Film ETERNALLY: "My name is Tim Montijo. I am a filmmaker and composer living in Los Angeles. I am a huge horror fan and spent the last 5 months in quarantine making my animated short "Eternally". It has Zombies, gore, and lots of horror references. But it also has alot of heart. It was a monumental amount of work. I hope you can take a moment to check it out, and let me know what you think!"
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Watch the Short Film RAT from Todd Strauss-Schulson: "Over the course of the 4 days leading up to the election, I went to SoHo with a few friends, in the middle of the night, to shoot something weird and sweet and melancholy to match our moods and try to capture the surreal energy of the boarded up city we love. As we were shooting, clips of us filming the Rat went viral... and it hasn't really stopped."
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Q&A with CHRIS FREEMAN & SPAIN WILLINGHAM – Co-writers, director of BEAST MODE
Chris Freeman and Spain Willingham give us the gory 411 on their new film BEAST MODE, which is released on digital in the U.S and Canada on Tuesday!
I have to know, who is Huck Saxton based on!?
Chris : Well if I said an actual name he might sue, so well just say it’s based on all the Hollywood Bad Boys from the 80s and 90s - anyone who punched the paparazzi or smashed up a hotel room, and I say 80s and 90s because there’s no Hollywood bad boy anymore, unfortunately or fortunately..
Breen Nash? Inspirations?
Chris: Too many inspirations to list. I worked for Michael Mann for a few years and there was a Breen lurking at every turn. Our Breen, however, still has a soul and a chance for redemptions. That would be the difference between real life and reel life characters.
Spain: He is like every producer in Hollywood: meaning they come to LA wanting to make movies and then they succumb to the Hollywood lifestyle within a few years, and it becomes less about making a quality film and more about what kind of caviar their having for lunch. Breen is very close to that..
The film itself -- - it’s a real throwback. Can I ask about some of the films that played muse here?
Chris: Films like Aliens, The Stuff and The Thing convinced me that monsters were real at an early age. I just didn’t know the monsters would be real people. We really wanted to incorporate that 80s film sensibility, along with a Risky Business lifestyle, elements of The Player shenanigans and of course, American Werewolf in London, which is one of my favorite films of all time. sheltered but entitled, into our hero’s journey. The 80s gore with any bizarre premise or strange twist.
For me it was a blend of Frank Henenlotter, Stuart Gordon and early David Lynch, because all 3 of those guys had a freedom in their movies that was unmatched! We wanted it to feel 80s but NOT in a retro kind of sense, we just wanted it to be not in reality like too many 80s horror comedies tried to do, and there’s just not enough of that in movies these days!
Have you seen the ‘Hollywood’ you explore in the film?
Spain: I lived it! I didn’t work within the studio system like Chris did but I got to hang out with a lot of Celebrities and experience how they work, vibe out and everything in between so I got to experience it, we tried to satirize that in a big way and I? think we succeeded.
Chris: Being around A-list actors in the early 2000’s while working on tentpole features opened my eyes to the decadence and carnality of Hollywood. I found myself seated at a table with Billy Corrigan, Marilyn Manson and Tim Burton once (yes, just the 4 of us) after an awards show and it was beyond surreal. It was like hanging with alien lifeforms. It was awesome and strange and slightly sad too in a way. We did our best to capture some of this in the film.
Are we setting up a franchise here or do you see this as being a one-off?
Chris: OF COURSE! The cream can’t be contained to Hollywood! It’s been around for centuries. Our next target is D.C. and the world of politics. Because “The Cream” turns people in to what they really are inside, we figured politicians would be even worse than the Hollywood elite. And we will cetainly be bi-partisan as we lampoon them!
ABSOLUTELY - I can’t say much about the follow up YET, but I will say this: We are bringing back the TOO! Beast Mode TOO is way cooler than Beast Mode Two, and yes, we have an idea for the 3rd and 4th one as well! STAY TUNED!!!
ON DVD AND DIGITAL DECEMBER 1, 2020
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