We Are Zombie Men...

My buddy Brian and I have been mucking around with a music generator these past few months, and with me writing the lyrics and him prompting the tunes, we've accidentally gone and made a whole album of tracks - some of which act as a prequel/re-telling/sequel for the "I Am Zombie Man" series of literally no-budget short films I made many moons ago.

We've called ourselves We Are Zombie Men, and the album is called Bolivian Bliss. You can check it out on the the WAZM YouTube Channel:

Bolivian Bliss

Bolivian Bliss (Alternative Cuts) 

I used Microsoft Designer to prompt the images of Zombie Man and his new beau Fan Girl.

A quick FAQ after the jump...

Space Cop (Jay Bauman & Mike Stoklasa, 2016) Review

Find more movie reviews here.

“Ugh, he'll be fine. I accidentally set my gun to stun.” Years in-the-making by a band of fan favourite B-movie reviewers from the Internet, sci-fi comedy Space Cop has turned into something of a punching bag by its own creators, but is that a fair assessment?...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

OCD Film Fest Vol. 2 - Full Streamed Event Video...

The International OCD Foundation's second film festival took place via live streaming platforms, and For Want of a Nail was included amongst the selection of films.

 

The recording of the stream is now available to view online via YouTube - CLICK HERE TO WATCH - and features Q&As with the filmmakers.

 

Event organiser Ethan Smith recorded a Q&A with me (the screenwriter) and Ali Causion (the producer), which can be seen after FWOAN is played - you can find us at 1:16:00.

 

 

FWOAN at the OCD Short Film Festival 2021 & OCD Film Fest Vol. 2...

For Want of a Nail will be appearing as part of the line up in the 2021 OCD Short Film Festival, organised by the OCD & Anxiety Center of Minnesota.

OCD and Anxiety Center of Minnesota is a mental health clinic in the Twin Cities that specializes in treating obsessive compulsive disorder using evidence based methods. Our mission is to decrease the amount of time it takes to be diagnosed with OCD and receive effective treatment, expand treatment accessibility, and spread awareness about what it means to have OCD.

We are looking for films to help fulfill this mission, as well as:
- Help others understand the depth of OCD
- Fight OCD stereotypes
- Challenge mental health stigma
- Raise awareness on the more taboo forms of OCD

FWOAN will also be showing as part of OCD Film Fest Vol. 2, put on by the International OCD Foundation.

The event will be streaming live online via the IOCDF's social media channels, including YouTube, on Friday 15th October between 8pm and 10pm (EST), which will be 1:00am Saturday 16th October for UK viewers.

Second episode of "Vince & Percy" web series...

"For Want of a Nail" actor Clark Alexander (along with Nick Oliver) is the co-creator and co-star of satirical comedy web series "Vince & Percy #YODO" and the second episode has just gone live - check it out.

FWOAN Actor's New Web Series...

Clark Alexander, who played Marty in "For Want Of A Nail", has a new web series coming out soon on YouTube called "Vince and Percy: #YODO". It's a send-up of vloggers and vlogging culture. I've personally had an early looksee at one of the episodes and it had me cracking up. Check out the trailer below:

UPDATED: View the first episode now!

That's TV Surrey - Report on FWOAN

"For Want Of A Nail" has just been covered in a video report by That's TV Surrey, featuring interviews with Producer Ali Causon and Director Lucy Joan Barnes. You can check it out via YouTube or on their Facebook page.

You can also view That's TV Surrey in the local area on Freeview channels 7 and 8.

Click "READ MORE" below for the Facebook embed...

Rob Zombie's "Gore Whore" music video...

I'm a big fan of Rob Zombie's music, so naturally I was rather excited to see his new music video for "The Hideous Exhibitions of a Dedicated Gore Whore"...



Not only does it mark the return of the 'Living Dead Girl' (Sheri Moon Zombie) and boast a gaggle of gnarly-looking undead ghouls, but it features Doyle (of Misfits fame) as a bubblegum-chewing tattooist Frankenstein's Monster. Great song, great video (especially so after the, I'll be honest, rather disappointing quick-fire video for "Medication for the Melancholy") ... so anyway, check it out.

Claycat's DOOM...

Do you like Doom? Do you like Lee Hardcastle's gleefully gory style of claymation? Then sink your chompers into this like cracker!

This Cat is NED...

Do you like puppets? Do you like cats? Do you like puppet cats with a sense of humour in the general vibe of people like Will Forte? Then how about the web show This Cat is NED?

This isn't a sponsored post, I just happened to stumble across this recently and it tickled my fancy - so I figured I'd share it. They seem to do episodes every two weeks, 1 to 3 minutes per episode, and at the time of posting they've got 33 episodes. Dig in and enjoy - I certainly am.

"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...

Ethical Theory (2014)

A three part series of short educational films covering Meta-Ethics, Kantian Ethics, and Situation Ethics.

In many ways this was the toughest series to edit in a while. The challenge was to visualise complex philosophical theories - which are relatively straight forward to explain on the page in words - but which are very tricky to illustrate. However, we succeeded, and this time we also used specially commissioned artwork to help us bring these complex ideas to life.

Below you will find more information about the series, including video clips for each film.

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

New short film coming soon...

Last week I shot a new short film with Sean ("Trapped", "Signing Off", "Skinner") and his brother Ben ("Trapped", "I Am Zombie Man 2") - editing is underway, and so here's a couple of preview screenshots.

The film will be posted up on my YouTube Channel as soon as it's done, which won't be too long.

"Zhombeez!" (2000)...

I dug this out of my vaults today and uploaded it to YouTube.



Many years ago now - during the summer of 2000 - I made a simple stop-motion experiment with zombies that I crafted out of clay. Inspired by George A. Romero's "Day of the Dead", I also created an army figure styled somewhat after Captain Rhodes and did my own - rather basic (it was my first, and pretty much only, attempt at stop motion animation) - re-enactment of the infamous scene from Romero's landmark horror flick.


Click "READ MORE" below for more information about "Zhombeez!"...

Trailer Fest: "Berberian Sound Studio"...

Fans of Italian Giallo flicks should find this film to be to their liking. I know I'm looking forward to seeing it!

"Peter Strickland, the director of Katalin Varga, returns with a very different tale with Berberian Sound Studio. Set in 1976, Toby Jones plays a documentary sound engineer who finds himself employed by a notorious low-budget Italian horror studio. Uneasy in his new environment and surrounded by a world he finds alien, he throws himself into his work, failing to notice how life is slowly beginning to imitate art. An homage to the classic Italian Giallos of the period, Strickland's film is another triumph.

In cinemas nationwide from 31 August 2012"

"The Problem of Evil" - a new educational DVD...

Joe and I recently finished a new educational DVD titled "The Problem of Evil", which deals with one of the most fundamental ethical issues relating to theology and the philosophy of religion. The clip below (which we referred to as "the Russian sequence") from The Irenaean Theodicy (the third of five films to be featured on the soon-to-be-released DVD) was my favourite experience while making this DVD.



I was given a quote from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" and had to design, shoot, and edit the whole sequence from the ground-up to match it. Shooting in rural Herefordshire - independently, on a low budget and with few resources - we had to make our idyllic surroundings fill in for the wilds of Russia.

You can view more sample clips from the upcoming DVD release of The Problem of Evil by visiting the Ethics Online YouTube Channel.

Evil Dead II, in clay, the Lee Hardcastle way!

Evil Dead II ... in clay ... with cats ... from Lee Hardcastle. Nuff said, now ruddy well watch this!

Obscura - a new short film...

This is an experimental mood-piece about someone who may, or may not be, a Crime Scene Photographer. It was inspired not only by Antonioni's "Blow-Up", but also "Another Way of Telling" by John Berger and Jean Mohr, in which they wrote about, and illustrated, the idea that there is a friction between the photographed moment, and the memory of the moment itself, which the photograph resembles.



It was pieced together from a disparate range of various photographs and footage that I have gathered over the years (specifically, in this case, between 1999 and the present day). Enjoy.

"Obscura"...

Today I was fiddling around getting a few shots for a new little short experimental film I'm working on called "Obscura". It was just a little idea I had, and having realised that I'd not shot any new short films (that are fictional pieces anyway) for my YouTube Channel in a while, I figured it was about time I put something together - so I had this idea involving an old stills camera from the 1950s that we've got in a drawer somewhere.

The film won't be anything fancy or too involved, but just a bit of fun playing around with some cool/creepy visuals. I'm thinking it'll be 2 minutes long (or no more than 3 minutes), and I'm going to use a variety of photos and footage - some new stuff shot specifically for this, and some old stuff from my archives that I'll re-purpose for this weird little film idea ... sort of a collage of various stuff from the last few years, and even as far back as 1999. Anyway - that's something I'm chipping away at in some spare time - but the big thing at the moment is getting a new educational DVD (titled The Problem of Evil) finished off.

Sean Connell at the Manhattan Monologue Slam...

Sean Connell - an acting buddy of mine who appeared in Trapped [Part 1, Part 2] (2005), Signing Off (2008), and Skinner (2009) - is currently in New York, and recently he appeared at the Manhattan Monologue Slam. You can view his monologue in the above video, and read about his experience via his blog (also linked to in the links section down there on the right).

You can also check him out in my short film from a while back, Skinner, below.