Bio•Slime Gets Contagious

The slimy horror film once known as Bio • Slime has undergone a name change.

Fangoria reports writer/director John Lechago as saying:

“Since [Cannes], Contagion was offered as the alternative title for the international market, and every buyer seemed to prefer that one ... We are making a point to include ‘John Lechago’s’ in the title—not because of my raging ego, but because there are actually a few movies out there called Contagion, including one coming up from Steven Soderbergh."

Doesn't seem like a great idea to me -- and it's much more conventional and uninteresting as a title. Oh, well. The film itself still looks excellent.

Meanwhile, here's the latest trailer:

• Source: Fangoria via Avery. Written by Robert Hood.
• Previous Undead Backbrain articles: Bio•Slime Drips from the Walls; More Tentacles, More Bio•Slime; New Bio•Slime Trailer Oozes the Good Stuff. And one from Undead Brainspasm: Getting into the Bio-Slime.

No Budget Horror: One Dark Night

One Dark Night is a short [10 minute] sci-fi/horror film that came about when three UK school friends dreamed of making it big in Hollywood -- and then decided that a step in the right direction was simply to make some enjoyable films and have a good time while doing so.

The plot is simple. When fragments from a small meteorite come crashing down all across the UK, all hell breaks loose -- in the form of alien bugs that hatch from the fragments and subsequently have a rather deleterious effect on human victims: the bugs bite and paralyze them, then crawl inside and take over the body. Victims' eyes go black and the skin turns pale. The creatures' main plan is, of course, to enslave mankind. And there's a lot of the little buggers.

 

 

 

 

Oblivious to what's happening around the country three guys are having a lad's night in watching their local football team playing on TV and drinking a crap load of beer. Their game suddenly gets disrupted when the picture on their TV dies.

Trailer:

Original Test Trailer:

We asked producer/director Paul Dowers about the project.

The script for this film and the film itself was originally written and shot in 1998 in hi8 format. As it was one of our very first attempts at making a horror/scifi film, we were never really satisfied with the outcome and our abilities at the time. Twelve years later I stumbled across the original script and decided that the time was right for a remake. Everyone else seems to be remaking old films, so why not us.

This time around we are slightly more experienced, with many short films under our belts.
Technology has also moved on so much in the last twelve years, which makes it easier for a bunch of amateur film makers like us to add our own special effects, such as the motion-tracked CGI zombie makeup, the meteor and bugs in this film.

The original "One Dark Night" was 9 minutes long.

Note: you can see the trailer for the first 1998 version of the film on Vimeo here.

How did Barking Mad Films come about?

At the time there weren't any video clubs in our area so we decided to start one ourselves. Our first film was called "Life's a Bitch", a comedy about an under-the-thumb husband who hires a hitman to kill his wife but forgets to insure her. Our second film was the original version of "One Dark Night". On and off we have made many films since these, each better than the last -- learning as we go and meeting some great people along the way.

The Future?

We plan to continue what we enjoy doing, that is, making movies and one day in the not-too-distant future we will be releasing a feature film. The script is being working on as we speak.

Meanwhile, the "remake" version of "One Dark Night" was completed about two months ago and Dowers is waiting to hear if it gains entry into the Newport international film festival. "If accepted," he commented, "it will be premiered in the first week of December at this festival. But it's early days yet and I plan to enter the film into other festivals, too."

Several early films from Barking Mad Films are currently featured on Undead Backbrain's Weekend Fright Flick: Paul Dowers Festival.

• Source: Paul Dowers; Barking Mad Films website; IMDb. Researcher: Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood

More Monster Cruise News

We've had word that Jim Wynorski's monster comedy, Monster Cruise, has been picked up by "All Channel" for North American TV distribution. Avery has also confirmed that there is a DVD, but no details are available at this time.

Below the poster we have the first teaser trailer for the film, which reveals a few interesting facets of the film we didn't know about -- namely that the monster isn't the only cryptozoological curiosity that inhabits the lake! We also have an exclusive clip from the film.

Meanwhile here is the first teaser trailer and an exclusive SFX clip showing the monster:

Clip:

• Previous Undead Backbrain article
• Monster Cruise on Undead Brainspasm
• Source: Bill Dever via Avery Guerra

Bleak Sea Isn't Looking Quite So Bleak

Once a conceptual trailer in search of completion, the giant sea-monster flick Bleak Sea (under the direction of Giacomo Cimini) now appears to have a home -- none other than production company Working Title, who have on their resumé films such as Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, the Matt Damon vehicle Green Zone, the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man and Burn After Reading, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Bridget Jones' Diary, Mr Bean's Holiday and Rohan Atkinson's spy epic Johnny English, as well as the Simon Pegg/Mark Frost films Hot Fuzz and much-anticipated close-encounter comedy, Paul.

This information comes via the website of literary agency Curtis Brown, who happen to represent Stavros Pamballis. Pamballis is currently working on the script of Bleak Sea. This has also been personally confirmed by director Giacomo Cimini, though he was unable to give us any further details at this time.

As we reported in May on Undead Backbrain, Bleak Sea concerns a British submarine, which at the height of the Cold War, is searching for an elusive Soviet weapon in the depths of the North Sea, but instead finds a far more terrifying enemy lurking in the deep. Below is the poster (which will no doubt change as the in-development project continues). Note that the "far more terrifying enemy" appears to have tentacles. This will be important later.

The trailer won the Trailermade 2010 competition and was rather spectacular. You can check out details of the production as it was back then, and view stills (though unfortunately the conceptual trailer has been withdrawn from circulation), here. Obviously the actors appearing in the trailer may not necessarily be the ones in the final product.

In an interview on the Opium website director Giacomo Cimini evasively expands of the influence of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (whose famous quote is referred to on the poster) and the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, the Cthulhan work of whom has clearly influenced the nature of the undersea beast in the film. Other reveals are the fact that Bleak Sea is set in the 1960s (yes, I know... the Cold War era), its "primordial idea" was initially triggered by David Twohy's under-rated submarine ghost flick Below, and the trailer was shot in a real HMS class Oberon -- inside the HMS "Ocelot”, docked at the Royal Navy Museum in Chatham (UK). Check out the interview here.

Another giant monster flick to look forward to!

• Source: Curtis Brown website, Opium website via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.