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