Slaughter Movie House: 'ABCs of Death'

Friday, March 8th, 2013

@ Screenland Armour

I first heard about ABCs after seeing V/H/S, which I loved.  I was very excited for another anthology film that also included Ti West (among many others).  ABCS of Death was released onDemand a month before the theatrical release, but I held out to get that first time experience with the crowd.  And I think I made the right choice.

ABCs of Death is exactly as they describe it, "26 ways to die."  Twenty-six directors from all over the world each made a short film depicting a death that represented a letter of the alphabet.  Most of the shorts were funny and some very, very strange.  My friends and I really enjoyed trying to guess what word was going to be.  They got a couple right, I was never even close.

Adam Roberts (Screenland Armour) asked me if I wanted to host opening night and my response, "I'D LOVE TO!"  Check out the photos HERE.  Our next event at Screenland Armour is Slaughter Prom and we are showing Carrie.

Still from Marcel Sarmiento's segment 'D is for Dogfight'.

Slaughter Movie House: 'House on Haunted Hill'

Monday, March 4th, 2013
@ Czar Bar

It has been busy around here lately.  With our Dead Weight screening being held at Screenland Armour only a week prior and wanting to devote all our promoting efforts to that, I decided to show a classic at our first Monday Czar event.  There are plenty of people who have never seen any black & white horror flicks.  There also happens to be quite a few good ones that are public domain, like House on Haunted Hill, Carnival of Souls and Night of the Living Dead.  Which means anyone can screen it for free!

Our next event at Czar Bar is Monday, Arpil 8th and we are screening Girl Gone Dead and Popularity Killer (short).

Flyer by Atomic Cotton

Slaughter Movie House: 'Dead Weight' + Q&A

Saturday, February 23rd, 2013
@ Screenland Armour

I was first introduced to Dead Weight through working for DownRight Creepy.  They received a screener of the film and I was lucky enough to borrow it.  I was blown away.  The cinematography is breathtaking.  It is one of those movies that leaves you speechless, shocked, and empty.  Eric Havens (DownRight Creepy) describes it best, "A pretty damn bleak and troubling story."

Last summer/fall I went to a ton of horror conventions and got to know the Dead Weight crew pretty well.  They are, for the most part, from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
July: I met John Pata (co-director, co-writer, editor) and Joe Belknap (lead actor) at Days of the Dead Indianapolis.
August: John came to KC for Crypticon.
September: I went back to Indianapolis for HorrorHound Weekend where I finally met Adam Bartlett (co-director/co-writer) and Aaron Christensen (actor).
October: The weekend before Halloween, on my way home from Minneapolis, I met up with John in Iowa City at the Landlocked Film Festival.  There, I met another member of the DW crew, Nick Elert (composer).
I am now proud to call these guys friends.  Mr. Pata helps me a lot, especially with booking films for Slaughter Movie House.

I wanted to bring DW to Kansas City.  I normally play independent horror first Mondays at Czar Bar, but I thought this was too heavy for the bar.  I wanted to wait until we had the option to use a theater.  And, honestly, I would barely consider this a horror film, more of a thriller/drama.

In November I emailed John and told him I was ready to get serious about putting this screening together and that if at all possible I would love for him, Adam and whoever else could make it to come!  I asked Adam Roberts (owner/operator) if he would be interested in letting us host it at Screenland Armour.  Not only did he say yes, he offered us a Saturday evening!

The event was an OUTSTANDING success.  Screenland Armour has 2 theaters and we originally planned to use the smaller of the two.  I was so nervous with them traveling all this way, but the turn-out was so great that we had to move into the larger theater!  After the film, Eric lead a Q&A with John, Adam, Joe Belknap, and Jess Ader (actor).  It was such an honor that they made the trip down here.  I couldn't have asked for more.  Thank you everyone!

Check out all the photos by Anna Perry HERE.

Adam Bartlett, John Pata, Joe Belknap, me, and Jess Ader.  Photo by Anna Perry.

Quick Reviews: Winter Horror

SPOILER ALERT!

There have been quite a few horror-ish films to come out in the last couple months and here is what I think about them.

Alexandra Daddario in 'Texas Chainsaw'

Texas Chainsaw 3D:   
5/10
I am a huge fan of the TCM franchise, it is my favorite.  I would like to give this film another shot because I was not impressed.  The opening is great, when we get to see all of the footage from the original.  Then we see the outside of the house, which was dead-on and I appreciated that.  We go inside and it looks almost brand new, like someone forgot to dress the set?  The people don't fit in,  it doesn't look like 1974.  These kind of details kill me.  Beyond all my shit talking, I did like the new story/angle.  I just don't know if I can personally handle TCM being set in present day.


Mama:
5/10
The story had potential and there was some freaky imagery but I hate CG.  It's bad enough looking at the ghost, but they can't even go outside and shoot a scene ACTUALLY in the mountains?!  Is that asking too much?  This isn't Lord of the Rings.

Nicholas Hoult & Teresa Palmer in 'Warm Bodies'

Warm Bodies:
7/10
I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that this movie is right up my alley, even more-so if I was 14 when it came out.  It's a star-crossed lovers story, with zombies.  I grew up loving Romeo and Juliet, thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio.  It is a very sweet movie that has the simple message: love and unity can heal the world.







Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters:
5/10
This was just your typical action movie, with horror elements.  It was entertaining but shallow.  The most memorable part was this big scene towards the end with tons of witches and their make up was INCREDIBLE.


Dark Skies:
7/10
This set up seems very familiar: the house in the suburbs, the family and then the kids turn creepy.  The difference being that it's aliens, not ghosts or the devil.  The first glance we get of the alien made me yell, "OH MY GOD", and shrink back in my chair.  The whole movie was pretty terrifying.  I think the trick to making monster/aliens/ghosts scary is only getting a tiny glimpse of them.  It's best to leave most up to the imagination.

Keri Russell & Josh Hamilton in 'Dark Skies'

Slaughter Movie House: '100 Tears'

Monday, February 4th, 2013
@ Czar Bar

Flyer by Atomic Cotton

My birthday is February 6th, you could say that is where my obsession with the number came from.  I'm not sure.  The first Monday event at Czar was so close to my birthday and I had the perfect movie to celebrate with so I made a party out of it.

100 Tears is a film by Marcus Koch about everyone's worst nightmare, a serial killer clown.  I met Marcus last year at Texas Frightmare Weekend.  He always goes, and was there last year with Bloody Bloody Bible Camp (we screened at Slaughter last August).  Marcus is an incredible special F/X artist who worked on BBBC and our April feature, Girls Gone Dead.

I learned while promoting this event that almost everyone is deathly afraid of clowns.  Some of my friends refused to come!  Berry Anderson pointed out, in her write-up in the Pitch Weekly, that the technical term for the fear is coulrophobia.

Everyone really got into the theme!  Rod Zirkle came out and airbrushed everyone.  Greg Chaffee made some artifical intestines for us to pose with.  Anna Perry (photographer) brought cake, Gary brought balloons, and everyone sang Happy Birthday!  It was a great night.  Check out the rest of the photos here.

Popcorn Horror Interview

In case you didn't know, February is Women in Horror Recognition month.  I saw Popcorn Horror tweet something like, "If you're a woman in the industry- email us and tell us what you do!"  So, I did and they responded saying they'd love to feature me.  Popcorn Horror is phone app that pays cash for your 1-20 films and fans can watch for free.

Read the interview below or click here.