As announced, the next movie will be Chthonic, a sound horror film with a contemporary setting. We've already started shooting and will continue this coming week. This one is the result of five attempts to come up with a script I could shoot on my limited resources. Back in August I wrote a script which I loved but it was swiftly apparent to me to be too ambitious at the moment. I shelved it and decided to novelize the story for publication through my label, LCL. Then I wrote another entire screenplay within the following two weeks -- a very Hammeresque story which I also really liked -- and again decided it, too, was beyond my present means both materially and logistically. So there I was with two freshly completed screenplays in a period of four weeks but still no script I could shoot, as pleased as I was with my prolific month as a writer. Over the next few weeks, I developed two additional treatments, during which it was obvious I was trying to bring out a particular story. Ultimately, what became Chthonic has direct elements from the second script and the treatments. The story I crafted is finally something I can do, though not without a couple of relative challenges which I look forward to.
I don't want to say too much regarding plot specifics until a trailer has been released. I plan to release a short trailer at the Hell's Bells premier event, so we're focusing on certain scenes in the next couple of weeks of shooting. Haunting is the main theme; personal haunting. The two main characters are haunted by their pasts, each in different ways.
It also happens that ghosts and such are the easiest scary things to pull off on a microbudget. Fortunately also, the concept of the super-store helps in that department. When I was a kid there was no such thing as a year-round Halloween shop where all sorts of great costume, make-up and set dressings can be purchased by the enterprising filmmaker. Chthonic is not a gory movie (I don't do that) so if you like spooky atmospheric style, it's a movie you'll really want to see. I must say that some of the things I did visually with Hell's Bells will likely find their way into Chthonic, where visual style is concerned. The new film will be in black and white, for starters. There will be more scenes requiring set up visuals as I'm working on a Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur-meet-Herk Harvey vibe, at the moment. As always, one cannot exactly predict what will come from the filmmaking process, so I can't tell you what to expect beyond these style allusions. What I like about the process is what is created as I shoot and I've just started, so all I can honestly say is that it's going to be an attempt at a stylish horror movie about ghosts.
Well, there's my insomniac's report on Chthonic for today. I'll bet you're glad to read about anything but the Hell's Bells premier event!.
I don't want to say too much regarding plot specifics until a trailer has been released. I plan to release a short trailer at the Hell's Bells premier event, so we're focusing on certain scenes in the next couple of weeks of shooting. Haunting is the main theme; personal haunting. The two main characters are haunted by their pasts, each in different ways.
It also happens that ghosts and such are the easiest scary things to pull off on a microbudget. Fortunately also, the concept of the super-store helps in that department. When I was a kid there was no such thing as a year-round Halloween shop where all sorts of great costume, make-up and set dressings can be purchased by the enterprising filmmaker. Chthonic is not a gory movie (I don't do that) so if you like spooky atmospheric style, it's a movie you'll really want to see. I must say that some of the things I did visually with Hell's Bells will likely find their way into Chthonic, where visual style is concerned. The new film will be in black and white, for starters. There will be more scenes requiring set up visuals as I'm working on a Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur-meet-Herk Harvey vibe, at the moment. As always, one cannot exactly predict what will come from the filmmaking process, so I can't tell you what to expect beyond these style allusions. What I like about the process is what is created as I shoot and I've just started, so all I can honestly say is that it's going to be an attempt at a stylish horror movie about ghosts.
Well, there's my insomniac's report on Chthonic for today. I'll bet you're glad to read about anything but the Hell's Bells premier event!.
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