Office Horrors Kindle edition is now available for purchase. This is an earlier release than originally intended for this little macabre novella. You can get it now on the Amazon Kindle store for only $2.99! But, if you're the type of person that prefers a physical copy no worries! The paperback version of Office Horrors will become available on July 1st! And, as a special promotion, if you buy a physical copy you can also purchase the kindle version for a reduced price of 99 cents. It's a quick and exciting read with inspirations rooted in splatter film from the 1980s. So needless to say there is a bit of gore and mayhem to wet your appetite. Feel free to read the sample on amazon or on www.officehorrors.com.
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The time is soon upon us. As July comes closer so does the release of Office Horrors, my serial novella about a horrible evil living beneath a college campus office. Originally the story was going to be released as a Kindle Exclusive. But thanks to the constant request and demand there will also be a print version available for purchase! The print version clocks in at about 132 pages. Both versions should be available to purchase via Amazon sometime early July. We're pushing for a July 5th release at this point. I just received the final touch up requests from my editor and am finalizing the cover art. Here is to hoping that it works out! If you haven't heard of Office Horrors yet or simply want to know more about the book you can read the first few chapters on www.officehorrors.com. Well, as some of you probably already know, I love independent horror. Be it films, books, comics, or anything macabre, I am all for supporting the hard working creators behind the independent works of the macabre we see coming out each year. I also love, love, love, the classic horror comics from the 1950s. I basically have them to thank for much of my macabre enjoyment as a child. Well, I'm very excited to promote the kickstarter for The Mortuary Collection. It is an independent anthology horror film that seems to take its inspiration from some great works of the past such as Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside, and of course those classic EC horror comics! It looks like it will be a classic anthology tale with lots of macabre atmosphere and--of course--gooey gore! The filmmakers are trying to raise $50,000 to film the first segment of their "The Babysitter." This one looks to be promising in so many ways! So if your a horror fan--especially one who likes the goofy gore of the 80s or classic gothic--then go ahead and support their kickstater HERE! I'm sure we won't regret it! And also check out their awesome promotional video below! Last week I reviewed an independent horror film called Night Things. It is a new twist on the "cabin in the woods" horror trope. We are lucky enough to have had an interview with the filmmakers--Ryan Notch, writer, and Ward Crockett, director--about what went into creating this creepy and innovative independent horror film. See what they have to say below. A.S.O.H. - Many horror fans may not have heard your independent horror film Night Things yet. Can you share a little bit with readers about Night Things? RYAN - Night Things is an indie horror film, shot in the mountains of Colorado, which has a unique 70's look. We shot it on vintage equipment, wanting it to be fundamentally different from the multi-million dollar Hollywood productions that so often don't bring the terror. WARD - Night Things is a low-budget, feature-length sci-fi/horror film that stars Kathryn Gould and Joey Thomas. The movie was shot on Super 16 film, which seems like an odd choice in these days of badass HD and UltraHD and so on, but it was a choice we specifically made to make the movie stand out visually. We shot the film primarily in Colorado and did some additional photography (mostly special effects shots) in and around Chicago. Most of the post work was done in Chicago, with the awesome Katy Mindeman of Particle Audio doing the sound design and post mixing. A.S.O.H. - The story line is definitely a new twist on the “cabin in the woods” horror trope. What inspired this type of story? RYAN -I had this idea of an evil engine of some sort spewing out entropy (a common theme of mine) and tormenting people in an apartment complex. Through collaboration with Ward this evolved into an engine keeping ghosts trapped in a cabin in the woods, and finally into the current form. I couldn't tell you for sure which ideas came from Ward and which came from me at this point, we would always shoot a TON of emails back and forth. WARD - The original story was about ghosts trapped in a sort of netherworld bubble. This idea came from my days dog- and horse-sitting on my brother’s farm out in the middle of nowhere; the idea of a remote farm populated by ghosts sounded like a great premise. But as much as we liked this seed idea, we couldn’t seem to find the actual story. I grew up reading H.P. Lovecraft and have always been fascinated by the concepts of cosmic horror, strange machines, otherworldly horrors, etc. Ryan shares this love of Lovecraft, and once we decided that a machine was responsible for our ghosts and netherworld, the story quickly changed from being about ghosts to being about people who’ve gained a sort of immortality by “virtue" of being trapped in this bubble. The funny thing about the movie being set in the classic cabin in the woods is that we wrote the story to be flexible enough that we could use whatever location we could find and use for cheap and for a long period of time. Other locations we tried to get included a farmhouse, a condemned house in the Denver burbs across the street from my apartment complex, a condemned indoor mall, and a university laboratory. Two weeks before shooting, we still had no location, and my dad brought up the fact that one of his buddies—a great guy named Lee Bergen—owned a cabin up in the Rockies. He let us use it for free and for as long as we wanted. And so we chuckled a few times about the fact that we were shooting a "cabin in the woods" film. A.S.O.H. - Were there any horror films or horror novels that you borrowed elements from for Night Things? RYAN - For me it almost always comes back to Prince of Darkness, by John Carpenter. My favorite horror movie, and probably the only one with the guts to combine quantum physics, aliens, and the Devil. I saw it when I was a little kid, and to this day dream of it. You'll also see some elements of Lovecraft in the movie, aliens as inherently incomprehensible beings. Lovecraft had a way of making the incomprehensible synonymous with evil, and I think the theme works well with horror. And if I am being honest, there is also some Secret of Nimh in there. I consider Mrs. Brisby to be the best written female heroin in the history of cinema. Not every woman hero needs to be a barbarian/karate master/cold blooded killer. In fact I think it takes away from women to assume the only way they can be a hero is to take on male traits of violence (though of course Alex has some of those). Brains, courage, and caring can win the day too. I wanted the two female leads to represent a range of these aspects. WARD - Kubrick’s The Shining has always been a big influence for me, and a few of the eerie shots in the film came from there. Kubrick’s symmetrical compositions also inspired some of the visual design. The sound design of Robert Wise’s masterpiece The Haunting was a HUGE influence as I was working with Katy on the sound design, even though this isn’t a haunted house film. The Haunting taught me the power of sound design more than any other movie. Another influence was everything John Carpenter, particularly Prince of Darkness (and the opening title is straight out of The Thing). A.S.O.H. - Do you usually choose horror as your genre of choice when making films? Why? RYAN - Almost always. Before I started working with Ward I would almost exclusively work in sci-fi, but Ward was such a die hard horror guy that I knew to work with him would mean learning horror. To my surprise, I was better at writing horror than I had ever been at pure sci-fi. I just had this understanding of how it worked. I could read Lovecraft or Matheson and see how they were doing it. WARD - I love making movies in any genre, but horror and comedy are definitely my favorites. I love horror probably because I grew up watching too many horror movies and it’s in my blood. Sadly, horror catches a lot of flak and is often accused of, among other things, being an unserious genre. But horror is great because it allows us to take a step back from our fears and attempt to understand them. Stories help us understand life and ourselves. Fear, though unpleasant, is a part of who we are, and we need frightening stories to help us understand the darker parts of our minds, lives, communities, societies, etc. I love comedy because sometimes you gotta relax and freakin laugh. Laughter is a great catharsis. Used well, horror and comedy are a nice combination because horror winds you up, and comedy snaps the tension. I did a web series called Completely Normal Activity that blends my two favorite genres. Shameless plug: you can watch two seasons of Completely Normal Activity online. A.S.O.H. - Did you need to do a lot of research in order to create the science fiction elements of the story? RYAN - If you consider the fact that I have read about a 1,000 sci-fi novels in my life to be research, then yes. But as for the dark matter science, it's a bit of an easy push in science fiction at the moment, because we know so little about it. It's something like how people used to write about what space was like before anyone had been there, you could kind of be lose with the rules. That being said, I never put anything in a book or movie that I know for a fact goes against the known rules of science. Even though it's fiction, I want there to be a truth to it. WARD - We did some research on particle colliders and quantum physics to come up with some of the sci-fi elements. Ryan and I also share a love of all things science fiction. Star Trek was not a small influence. Although we obviously had to make up a lot of stuff, we were dedicated to using real terminology and creating logical explanations for everything in this fantastical world. A.S.O.H. - I was really impressed with some of your actors. How did you find and choose actors to play the roles in this movie, specifically the two female leads? RYAN - Traditional auditions, held in a meeting room at a local library where Ward had volunteered. It was our first major auditions, previously we had just picked who we could find. Auditions turned out to be a LOT tougher than I had imagined. Specifically I mean telling the bad actors from the good. They've all worked up their audition routines to shining perfection. To my shame and Ward's credit, he is the one that insisted on a call back audition for Joey. Somehow I missed her acting skills on the first audition. A mistake that became very clear during the second audition, when we had her run some lines with other actors. There was no question after that. Kathy, on the other hand, did not come to that audition. We had worked with her on a short film we did a few years before (she was nursing her first baby at the time, which lead to some hilarious antics and forced breaks, the perils of low budget film-making). When we found that no one else was quite up to Joey's level, we got the idea to contact her again and found she was as beautiful and talented as ever, and luckily agreed to do the film. WARD - We held open auditions in Englewood, CO, and were lucky enough to find most of our very talented and dedicated cast, all wonderful to work with. We had worked with Carl Anderson on a 48-Hour Film Festival project and had him in mind for the grandfather pretty much from the beginning; he’s a really nice guy and he loves playing crazy and evil. We found Haidyn Harvey, who plays Julie, via her acting website, and we pretty much cast her based on her impressive experience. As for our leads, we had worked with Kathy on a short film called The Pill (also viewable online) several years before but had lost touch with her. Thankfully she saw the casting notice and came in and nailed it. Same for Joey. She was a recent grad of the theatre program at the University of Northern Colorado, and, aside from her natural talent, her skill is a real testament to the quality of their program. Kathy and Joey are top-notch pros, awesome to work with. A.S.O.H. - What hardships and joys did you encounter in making and filming a movie with such a low budget? Were conceiving things such as special effects difficult? RYAN - Fuck yeah they were! I mean the budget for this thing was two levels below the amount that Hollywood considers a "low budget film." Actually the entirety of Night Things was conceived as a movie for us to make that would conform to that budget, rather than be constrained by it. We tried to never write an effect we couldn't think of how to do at that moment. For the most part this paid off, but some effects (like falling into a pit) still proved extremely difficult. Other effects, though, are VERY doable on a low budget. Our makeup effects guy Jesse Buchholtz could do amazing guts with nothing more than corn syrup, flour, and moxie. And the lighting effects were all a matter of learning some cool limitations of film and a light meter. But you run into some crazy problems on low budgets that you don't on normal ones. Things like the producer having to use a shovel to repair the washed out road to the cabin so the cast can get home ok. Or broken toilets, or having no phone service of any kind on set, or near fires from stacking equipment on the stove. Even little things like struggling for months to get IMDB to properly list your movie become huge tasks with no money to throw at the problem. When it comes down to it, there are things you can't do on a low budget, so don't try to. Instead concentrate on what you can do. You can find great actors and do fifty drafts of the script so you have great dialogue for them. You can find great composers and special effects people in your town that want to show off their talents. WARD - I think part of the joy of working on a low budget film is that it’s a real team effort. Everyone, cast included, ends up doing more than just their one job, and I think everyone (hopefully) has the feeling that they had a big hand in helping shape the movie into what it is. Another great thing is that the small scale of the production forces you to be creative to solve problems and tell the story. The Night Things themselves are a good example of that. A massive puppet or CGI effect was beyond the scope of the production, so we had to come up with a creative solution to characterize these monsters and give them a presence in the film. The greatest difficulty is that everyone is working for little or no pay. It really is a labor of love. Nobody can quit their day job to work on a low budget movie, so you can’t have the crew you want every day. That was a huge challenge, especially on the days we shot in Castlewood Canyon, where the cave scene takes place. Even with extra help on one of those days, it was tough, and it would have been great to have the trappings of a larger production. There were a couple days up at the cabin when Ryan and I were the only crew—camera and sound. A.S.O.H. - Do you, and Last Night of April, intend to make more horror films in the future? RYAN - I've moved onto horror novels, and have a few available digitally on Amazon and Barnes & Noble right now. As good as I am at film making, I'm even better at writing scary shit in print. However, Last Night of April does have another completed script called "The Walpurgis Room" that we wrote together. It is an absolutely incredible piece of horror just waiting to be made into a movie, and I sincerely hope one day Ward will make that movie. WARD - Ryan has a number of horror novels and a short story collection available on Amazon. I am finishing up a short horror film called Between that I’ll be submitting to film festivals this summer, and my MFA thesis film will be a feature-length dark thriller about a Manson-like cult. Ryan and I co-wrote a higher-budget film called The Walpurgis Room that I plan to make at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. And I’d love to make a sequel to Night Things—the story has been germinating in my head for the past year or so as we’ve prepped this film for distribution. And of course (shameless plug #2) you can watch my low-budget improvised horror-comedy web series Completely Normal Activity at completelynormalactivity.com. A.S.O.H. - Is there any final things you want to tell readers about Night Things? RYAN - This movie will scare you. It doesn't look like the Hollywood films you are used to, but it's smart and creepy and you won't forget it. And if anyone out there has an interest in making their own films, we have two great commentary tracks on there that tell how we did it. WARD - I'm happy that the movie is out therein the would for people to see! I'll be working on the HD version this summer to be released on streaming services. So keep your eye open for that! Thank you! |
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