Thursday, March 14, 2013

Slaughter Movie House: 'ABCs of Death'

Friday, March 8th, 2013

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'.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

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

Monday, March 11, 2013

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.