FWOAN at IOFF...

The Independent Online Film Festival has officially selected "For Want Of A Nail"!

See the listing on their website HERE.

Find out more about the festival by visiting their Facebook page HERE and their website HERE.

FWOAN Selected for Overcome FF...

The film festival announcements just keep on coming for "For Want Of A Nail", our short film about OCD. Today's news is that we've been officially selected for the Overcome Film Festival 2018.

The Overcome Film Festival especially encourages and welcomes the entries of filmmakers all over the world who wants to share their experiences in overcoming adversity or any other factor that has contributed to their growth as a person and motivated them to celebrate their existence. It is the focus of the film festival to give survivors a voice and a venue to share their life experiences and provide hope to others regardless of where they come from in the world.

Prior to this whole #FWOAN project I had not spoken at all about my experiences with OCD. Oakhill Productions' call for short scripts coincided with a time when I was recognising that my compulsive routines (which I'd also kept hidden away) were gaining more power as well as complexity. To claw some of that power back from my OCD I wrote "For Want Of A Nail" (our official website is HERE). That act was something in itself, but having my script chosen, and then to be very involved in the whole production, provided certain challenges that are hard to explain, but which I had to tackle. Dealing with your OCD isn't a simple thing, of course, and there's plenty more to wrap my head around, but FWOAN has provided challenges and opportunities that have all been for the better and I'm very proud of the final product.

Check out their Facebook page HERE and their official website HERE.

Sleaze Fiend Magazine - Issue #3 Preview

It has taken a little while, but Sleaze Fiend Magazine is back for a hell-blazing return in this 76 page extravaganza of scintillating filth! This issue is dedicated to the down 'n' dirty biker movies of the 1970s in 'Death on Wheels: A Bikesploitation Retrospective', detailing more than twenty different entries in the genre including "The Glory Stompers", "The Savage Seven", "Naked Angels", and "Sleazy Rider".

Our other main feature in this sizzling outing is 'Hot Flesh & Cold Steel: Decades of Depravity - The Women In Prison Genre', which examines some key entries in the sub-genre including: "Bare Behind Bars" (the movie that clothing forgot), "Sadomania" (Jess Franco's muckiest directorial effort), and "Caged Women" (learn more about squeaky bums and a novel way of staying hydrated) among other sinful sights.

We've also got Streeborama slingin' some much needed revolutionary fervour about as he details "Easy Rider" and "Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song", wrapping it all together as he rails against 'the New Millennium of Mediocrity'. Furthermore, there's another entry in 'The Manson Files' and a few more tidbits besides (such as a review of "The Humans" comic book series). Elsewhere in the issue we have a few career retrospectives: two for a pair of icons of horror cinema who sadly passed away since our last issue - Wes Craven and George A. Romero - and another for the late Rene Bond, star of various adult films from back in the heyday of mucky movies.

Independently produced - by fans, for fans - and featuring some tasty artwork, this glossy cover mag with a hard spine is sure to rev your hog's engine and send your wildest daydreams hurtling back to a simpler, sleazier time when exploitation cinema ruled the dusty back roads of America!

Order yourself a copy of SFM#3 by visiting our store HERE.

Follow us on Facebook to stay up-to-date and chat with fellow sleaze fiends.

Sleaze Fiend Magazine - Issue 3 is here...

It's been a bit of a while since our bumper size Issue #2, but finally - after finding a new print company - we're ready to put the new issue out there!

The long awaited Issue #3 has finally arrived! This issue is filled with BIKES, HIPPIES, LSD, SAVAGERY BEYOND YOUR WILDEST IMAGINATION & MUCH MUCH MORE!

You can pre-order it HERE.

FWOAN's going to Swinge 2018...

After yesterday's announcement about "For Want Of A Nail" being accepted into the 10th annual REEL Recovery Film Festival in Los Angeles, we've got our next festival acceptance just in - this time in the UK at the 6th annual 2018 Swindon Independent Film Festival (aka FilmAtSwinge - part of the Swindon Fringe festival of theatre, music, and performing arts). The event runs between the 4th and 6th of April - our film will be shown on Thursday 5th April during the afternoon (2pm-5pm) session.

For more information about the IFF at Swinge 2018 visit their website HERE.

More #FWOAN related announcements as-and-when.

"Kung Fury" - rogue cops, laser raptors, and who else but those damn Nazis?

Okay, so I'm a little late to the party on this one, but with so much on the World Wide Web vying for your attention - and with the vast spread of 'clickbait' headlines hovering above wasteful nonsense that never delivers and is only there to 'generate hits' - sometimes you can overlook a good thing.

Sometimes you can overlook a great thing - like Kung Fury - a thirty minute short film from David Sandberg and Laser Unicorns Productions that crams in more neo-1980s fun than you can shake the entire decade at. In the words of the filmmakers themselves: "Kung Fury is an over-the-top 80’s action comedy that was crowd funded through Kickstarter. It features Kung Fury, a Kung Fu renegade cop who travels back in time to kill his Nemesis, Hitler. The film features nazis, dinosaurs, vikings and cheesy one-liners."



The full version of the film is freely available to watch on YouTube HERE.

It was sitting on my 'Watch Later' list for a couple of months, and when I finally got around to viewing it I thought to myself "Why on earth have I waited this long to watch this?!" - so in case you're not one of the 19.8 million hits that this fantastically crazy short film has received GO AND WATCH THIS NOW!

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

Sleaze Fiend Magazine Issue #2 Review...

Issue 2 of Sleaze Fiend Magazine - an independent zine written by fans, for fans, covering all things to do with exploitation cinema - has arrived and is now available to buy.

I'm one of the staff writers on this publication which is run by Bat32 (I contributed a review of Strip Nude For Your Killer for Issue 1, and wrote one of the main articles for Issue 2), and below you'll find my take on this second outing for SFM.

Click "READ MORE" below to get a glimpse inside...

"The Racket" (2014)

"The Racket", is an independent documentary short film on which I worked as editor, sound designer, and script consultant.

About the film:
Written to mark the centenary of the First World War, exposes the immense profits made during the war -- a war that claimed 20 million lives yet created 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires, in America alone. Adapted from the speeches and writings of Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated soldier in US history, The Racket combines Butler's intense respect for the ordinary soldier with critical dissent against the growing corporatism he believed to be corrupting the ideals he'd willingly die to protect.

Watch the trailer:

Sleaze Fiend Magazine Issue #1 Review...

"Sleaze Fiend" is a new and independently produced magazine aimed at fans of the grottier corners of cinema, produced by Exploitation Cinema Planet (who also put out the Exploited Cinema podcast).

I'm one of the contributing writers to this project - of which there will hopefully be many more issues (I believe the aim is to publish quarterly) - so let's dive into the issue and see what devious delights are waiting for us.

Click "READ MORE" below to join us and plumb the depths...

Dead Genesis (Reese Eveneshen, 2011) DVD Review...

Indie filmmaker and zombie fan Reese Eveneshen (Writer/Director/Cinematographer) previously made waves on the low budget indie zombie flick scene with his 2007 remake of Night of the Living Dead, and with the follow-up film – Dead Genesis – Eveneshen seeks to tread familiar ground with a serious approach and bloody-minded ambition.

“It's not a war, it's us kickin' ass!” Beginning on Day 1 of the zombie apocalypse, we are quickly whisked through to Day 231, with the crumbling of society, and a push-back by the living, scanned-over with highlights. Families are literally torn apart (in an eye-widening first five minutes that separates the men from the boys), lawlessness takes over, and the 'War on Dead' begins with local militias becoming heroes of a resurrected New Media Corporation. Stories of hope and survival are transmitted to survivors as mankind sets about taking back what's theirs – but at what cost to their humanity?

Click “READ MORE” below to continue reading, and see more screenshots...

The Problem of Evil (2012)

This five-part series of educational films, aimed at 16-18 year old students of theology and religious studies, discusses some of the complex ethical issues surrounding one of the biggest questions: if there is a God, why is there evil in the world? Examining various theodicies linked to the topic, The Problem of Evil has one central evil at the heart of it – to help tie everything together – and that is the Holocaust, represented sensitively-but-honestly with stunning archive film.

 

The main four films (which I shot and edited) provide the in-depth starter knowledge to help inspire and sustain informed and passionate debate within the classroom, while the fifth film (for which I wrote the script and edited) provides an optional brief history of the Holocaust, from the election of Adolf Hitler, through the end of World War II, and beyond to the present day.

 

Editing this series provided some interesting creative challenges (as evidenced in the third video clip below), not only in continuing to produce visually-arresting educational films that didn't resemble the staid affairs I remembered from my own high school days, but also in sensitively dealing with tragic subject matter – most specifically the Holocaust. The main four films all exhibit sequences relating to the subject, but the key was to not push too far with the footage, while maintaining an honest and educational approach to the material.

 

However, we also felt that it was important to provide an optional extra on the DVD – the aforementioned The Holocaust: A Brief History – which fully lays bare the horrors of those events in a truthful manner that avoids audience manipulation. It isn't required viewing in a class room, but teachers have been provided with the choice to show it, or alternatively utilise the script (provided on the DVD with comprehensive teacher's notes).

 

Once again, by working on an educational DVD, a challenge was offered to create strong and interesting visual representations of the complex theological issues and ideas being put forward by the narration. I was able to tweak and improve upon previously used techniques, as well as try out some new ideas across all the films, to keep the presentation fresh and absorbing.

Click “READ MORE” below to watch preview clips of all five films featured in The Problem of Evil, and see what people think of the films themselves...

All In The Game (Gary Ugarek, 2011) - Review

Gary Ugarek, who has previously given us indie zombie flicks Deadlands: The Rising, and Deadlands 2: Trapped, switches gears entirely with his third outing as Writer/Director/Producer: moving from the undead to the mean streets of Baltimore’s drug-pushing gangs. As a fan of HBO’s The Wire, Ugarek’s inspiration is clear, and indeed he pulls an Ace out of his sleeve by snagging members of that cast for this truly independent feature – where the extremely tight budget works triple overtime in delivering a sense of scale and scope that is usually missing from similarly low budget flicks.

Once upon a time in charm city, we’re introduced to our main cast: Vince (Chris Clanton), Ontario (Nelson Irizarry), Littles (Kelvin Page) and Lucky (a terrifyingly charming Micaiah Jones), and they’re all looking to climb the ladder. As the gritty narration informs us, you’ve got 5 to 8 years ‘in the game’ with many falling foul of the law sooner or later – it’s a tough business, but evidently in the toughest areas of Baltimore there’s little in the way of options. However all is not well in the present day, as Ontario mocks “I have a dream: money, ho’s, and clothes” – the young up-and-coming ‘welfare babies’ are in need of a reality check – they’re not invincible and they aren’t worth a damn if they’re not willing to push back against the tide.

 

Sick of getting screwed over when plying their criminal trade, Vince, Ontario, Littles, and Lucky hit the pavement to find out who is cramping their style and stealing their business. Working their way up the chain, we come to one of the high points for the film – a brutal interrogation of Raymond, a lowly money launderer, who lays out the list of guys who’ll soon be entering the crosshairs of our boys. Clouded by smoke, step forward Lucky (the scene-stealing Micaiah Jones), who makes exceptionally dark comedy from beating the truth out of rivals.

 

So begins an audacious and bloody ascent up the business ladder for these guys as they set their sights on the Caprisci crew, which feels like a meeting of worlds – The Wire versus The Sopranos. It is in these later stages of the film that we really get to see the fierce determination of Irizarry’s Ontario, the considered calculations of Clanton’s Vince, and the ever-ready eagerness of Page’s Littles … and of course, more of Lucky’s dangerous magnetism.

 

Being an indie production, naturally there are some technical issues – the audio needs work in places, and there’s a few rough edges and slow focus pulls here and there – but the ‘deep shadows and brilliant highlights’ look to the stark black & white cinematography (presented in 2.35:1) blends well with the chosen documentary aesthetic.

 

Bolstered by a hip hop soundtrack and an efficient running time (74 minutes, including credits), Ugarek’s latest outing proves to be a fresh change of direction that offers new opportunities both in the looks (thanks to Habib Awan and Seann Ikon) and the substance (thanks to a dramatic genre shift). There may be a few points in the script that don’t quite convince, but with a gritty and determined approach, and an arresting cast, fans of indie productions and The Wire should be well served here.

For more information, please visit the film's Facebook page.