We just received a little trailer link from lesser known horror company Psykik Junky Pictures for a new found footage horror film TO JENNIFER, a film that looks a little like the documentary CATFISH.
Okay yeah I know i'm not a huge fan of the found footage genre, this has been made clear on many occasions, but I know there are readers of the site who may be fans, plus if it is anything like CATFISH it could be an okay film. Here is the plot:
Joey suspects his girlfriend of two years, Jennifer, is cheating on him. He is so convinced that he enlists the help of his cousin Steven to create a Video Diary of his attempt to catch her in the act as well as to document the heartbreak she is putting him through. In an attempt to make her feel guilty, he intends to give this tape to her after catching her in the act.
TO JENNIFER is filmed entirely on Iphone 5 and the film will be available in it's entirety as a stand alone App on itunes to be downloaded directly to your mobile phone. The app not only includes the film but also special features which makes it like a DVD in your pocket. No price has been set for the app but James Cullen Bressack, the film's director, promises to keep the cost low. A DVD release is also follow in time.
Bressack said “ "This film was made specifically for the iphone. I am fortunate to have worked with so many amazing people on this project and I think this is a new and unique way to watch a film. This has never been done before and I believe this is a unique new way to distribute a film ,"
The film stars Chuck Pappas, Jody Barton (HATE CRIME), Jessica Cameron (SILENT NIGHT), Maria Olsen (PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3) and James Cullen Bressack and features a cameo from American Mary's Tristan Risk.
Check out the trailer below:
WOW it has been a year since i have posted in the news section....opps...but what best way to kick things back into gear than with the May line up from the Grimm Up North guys.
For those who don't know Grimm Up North are set in Manchester and run the yearly Horror Bonanza that is Grimm Fest. Every fortnight they put on a fantastic film double bill in the city, so if you are up that way why not check them out
ZOMBIE NIGHT - 21st MAY, STOCKPORT PLAZA
Two new zombie movies. THE BOOK OF THE DEAD (THE ESCHATRILOGY) and REEL ZOMBIES.
THE ESCHATRILOGY (BOOK OF THE DEAD) (2012): In a world ravaged by an apocalyptic plague of ravening undead, a mysterious stranger turns up at a secure compound. He carries with him a mysterious book, in which he is chronicling the end of the world…Made on the kind of budget that wouldn’t provide tea and toast for a Hollywood shoot, this UK produced film offers a surprisingly epic tale of apocalypse, marauding zombie hordes, and the struggle to rebuild society. Bold, brutal, and insanely ambitious, this is an attempt to do something very different with the zombie movie. Starts at 7.15pm.
REEL ZOMBIES (2011): What would you do if the zombie apocalypse finally happened? For one hapless team of low budget independent film-makers this worldwide disaster is the perfect opportunity to create the third film in their ‘Zombie Night’ trilogy, using the recently resurrected deceased as their cast. Saves on the special effects budget, right? Only problem is, how well can you stop the zombies from eating your cast? And in a world full of real zombies, who is going to want to watch a zombie movie anyway? … A mordantly funny and macabre mockumentary satire of filmmaking, filmmakers, and the flesh-eating walking dead, filled with big laughs, big explosions and big breasts, Reel Zombies is full-on zom-com gem.
THE SLEEPER & THE BLEEDING HOUSE - THUR 23RD MAY:
THE SLEEPER: It’s 1981 and the girls of Alpha Gamma Theta sorority are having a party. As the new pledges arrive, so does an uninvited guest. Little do the sisters know someone is watching them in the shadows. As the girls shower, study, eat and sleep the stalker studies the girls. One by one he finds the girls at their most vulnerable and murders them. The police hunt for the missing girls and their killer, but will they find them in time? Or will the girls be forced to fight for their lives…
This is an 80s style throwback horror paying homage to the Slasher films of that era. The sleeper plays in a double bill with THE BLEEDING HOUSE.
Thursday 23rd May, Dancehouse
Facebook is a wonderful thing really, while searching through the news feed i come across possibly my favorite bit of horror news that i have heard since they announced Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D. Yes everyone's favorite killer doll is BACK! in the sixth installment of the Child's Play series. Already in production the film is Titled CURSE OF CHUCKY and the plot seems to focus more on just Chucky and not Tiffany and their HE/SHE child.
“Nica (Fiona Dourif) is grieving over the gruesome suicide of her mother when her domineering older sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) arrives with her young family in tow to help settle their mother’s affairs. As the sisters butt heads over Nica’s plans for the future, Barb’s young daughter comforts herself with a grinning, red-haired talking doll named Chucky (voiced again by Brad Dourif) that recently arrived mysteriously in the mail. But as a string of brutal murders begins to terrorize the household, Nica suspects the doll may hold the key to the bloodshed. What she doesn’t know is that Chucky has a personal score to settle. He’s determined to finish a job he started more than 20 years earlier, and this time he’s going to see it through to the bloody and shocking end.”
Is this instead of the rumoured remake? i sure hope so, and with rumours of a spin off in the works too i am sure there is going to be alot of Chuck to go around in 2013
From Mark Tonderai, the man behind the British horror gem HUSH, comes HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET a creepy new horror horror starring HUNGER GAMES star Jennifer Lawrence.
Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence)and her mother (Elizabeth Shue) move to a new town only to find that they are living next door to a house where a young girl murdered her parents.
Locals claim that the girl mysteriously vanished after the incident, but as Elissa becomes close to the girls brother (Max Thieriot), she learns that a dark and terrible secret still lurks within those walls and this sinister story of murder is far from over.
Below are some sneak peek photos and the official trailer to get your teeth into. Can this film save modern day cinema released horror? leave your comments below
Vampire Horror UMBRAGE: THE FIRST VAMPIRE is heading to The Horror Channel this month for it's UK Television Premiere. Drew Cullingham's stars Doug Bradley (HELLRAISER) who plays the role of Jacob, and antiques dealer who unleashes supernatural forces on to the world in the form of Lilith, the mother of all vampires. Cullingham says about this film: “The main birth of Umbrage was the cowboy-vampire figure, Phelan. I had for some time been carrying this character around in my head. Mashing horror and western together is not completely original, I know, but I just wanted to cross a cowboy with a vampire. Vampires can sometimes be a little effete, but add a gruff cowboy veneer to that and you have a whole different kettle of fish”. UMBRAGE: THE FIRST VAMPIRE can been seen on June 22nd at 10.25pm.TV: Sky 319 / Virgin 149 / Freesat 138 www.horrorchannel.co.uk | twitter.com/horror_channel
It may be unlucky for some but for us horror fans this new poster art means only one thing! The road to Film4 FrightFest 2012 is getting closer.
This years poster art comes from top illustrator Graham Humphreys and designer Paul Johnstone and mixes the Olympics (which finishes a week before the fest) and Friday the 13th to celebrate FrightFest's 13th event.
Graham said last week: "This year's 13th FrightFest illustration took it's obvious reference point and gave it a Royal Jubilee, Tower Of London beheading. It is an affirmation of who is top dog in the fearstakes - and a medal winning gesture."
Paul added: "We've taken Graham's fantastic illustration and framed it within the FrightFest template so that it's instantly recognisable to fans of the festival. Also we’ve started to number the posters this year to create a ‘collectable’ of the posters for FrightFest fans”.
The announcement of the opening and closing films are to be announced Friday June 8th, with the full line up being released June 29th.
After i (and many other websites) published the story of the shady goings on over at Undead Press it has come to my attention after reading Horror Author Brian Keene's (THE RISING, CITY OF THE DEAD) blog, that Alyn Day, one of the authors who we spoke to regarding her treatment, has received a message of a somewhat menacing nature. Below is a screen grab of the message from Facebook. you will notice that this is the first message from Anthony Giangregorio since 2011...
Since the news hit the internet like wild fire Giangregorio has closed down the facebook pages for OPEN CASKET and UNDEAD PRESS, showing that he would rather run for the hill and try to intimidate the authors who spoke out then fight his corner. This is not the first time Giangregorio has been in hot water, Brian Keene also tells of the blatant breach copyright at the hands of Giangregorio who stole had wrote stories set in the world of George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, stealing key characters. Brian post the following:
**"Several years ago, Anthony Giangregorio wrote and self-published (via his Undead Press imprint) several novels set in the world of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. These were novels featuring the same trademarked cast of characters, without the permission of George Romero or the other rights-holders. And it stopped qualifying as fan fiction the moment Giangregorio sold them via Amazon and other retail outlets."**
** I don't own the blog post. all rights belong to Mr Keene**
Normally we at snakebite stay out of issues with authors and publishers, I think the last time we wrote a news story on this kind of thing was the Dorchester Publishing royalties row, but I have been reading a lot on Facebook and twitter about the shady goings on over at Undead Press. When up and coming author Mandy DeGeit sent in her story ‘She makes me smile’ into Undead Press’ Cavalcade of Terror anthology she was overjoyed to hear that it was accepted. After waiting for her books she had order to arrive she finally had the book in her hands only to find that not only did the editor change the name to ‘She Make’s me smile’, something the goes to show the PROFESSIONAL editor has no grasp on basic grammar, but there were several major changes made to Mandy’s story without her knowledge. On her blog Mandy said “They turned a non-gendered character into a boy, they named the best friend, they created a memory for the main character about animal abuse. They added a suggestion of rape at the end… I feel like they ruined the suspense in the story.” As a published author I know that editing does take place, I also know there may be the odd word changed here and there, which is what happens in the publishing world HOWEVER the thing that has annoyed me in the situation is the fact that whoever has edited this story has edited this work had no right to add a section in to the story without discussing this with the writer (even I know this!). What is worse is what happen after. Mandy contacted Anthony Giangregorio highlighting the issues to receive one of the most unprofessional emails I have ever read: “Wow, I truly can’t believe that email. you go girl. this one one hell of a story about dealing with unstable writers lets see. on the contract, it clearly says publisher has the right to EDIT work. you signed it. are you saying you are a dishonest and immoral person and will now try to deny you signed the contract? well i have a copy right here and as for the story. the editor had a hard time with it, it was very rough and he did alot to make it readable. despite what you think, your writing has a long way to go before its worthy of being printed professionally. we did what we had to do to make the story printable. you should be thankful, not complaining. ah, the ungrateful writer, gotta love it the contract also says any disagreements you have about the contract must be filed legally in Massachusetts and when you lose, you must pay all court costs. so, we are done here. any more correspondences from you must be from your lawyer. i will then send any of those letters to my lawyer and they can hash it out as i dont waste my time arguing with writers over legalities. thats what lawyers are for. you are so funny. thanks for this email, it truly made my day.” This is truly disgusting behaviour from someone who is suppose to be a professional publisher. We spoke to Mandy via Facebook who told us: In regards to the whole issue with my story and Undead Press, this whole predicament has been a strange roller coaster of emotions.
When I first saw the changes in the book, I was angry, really angry. (It took me a few days to calm down enough to post the blog. Had I not waited, there would have been a lot more expletives and &*%$# symbols in my post.)
After anger came sadness, mostly occurring when Undead Press emailed me saying my story was altered because it wasn’t good enough to be published in the first place. *(I would have been more than happy to make changes for them, had Undead Press just said something)
Sadness aside, in comes amazement. This would be the moment when my blog exploded. I was floored by the outpouring of support I was receiving, but also very upset (again) at the stories that were surfacing from my blog. I wasn’t the only one he’d done this to…
Overall, this was a sobering experience for me. I know now what to watch out for when submitting and signing contracts and I will be very careful in the future. However, I’m glad it happened, the fifteen minutes of fame were very cool and I’ve made tons of new friends in the writing world. Also, more and more people are finding out what happened and raising awareness about this is important to me.” You see it yourself dear readers and as a writer I am angered and that isn’t even where this story stops! ANOTHER author has been screwed over by Mr Giangregorio who has taken this awful behaviour to a different place altogether. This time Alyn Day, who had dealt with Giangregorio under his other publishing umbrella OPEN CASKET PRESS, had submitted another story to be placed in the anthology called ZOMBIE TALES only to find his story butchered to a point where half of the names and details and even the title was changed without her knowledge. On Alyn’s blog she tells the story: “The anthology was released under the name of a different publisher, Undead Press, and my story was no longer my story. It had been butchered. I sat in my living room with one of the 6 copies I had purchased, flipping through the pages, eager to see my words in print... only they weren't my words. It wasn't even my TITLE. Parts of my story had been cut out, names and details had been changed, things I was never made aware of and had never agreed to. I sat there in numb shock. Here was my name, attached to a story I no longer felt connected to. People were going to read this, it might be their first, possibly only, exposure to my work and what they were going to find were the words the editor had ascribed to me, which were very different from my own. My heart sank. I threw the book at the wall. What the hell was I going to do?” We even managed to grab Alyn for a few words. She told us: In light of everything that has gone down with Undead Press since Mandy DeGeit's initial blog post, I have to say that I'm glad I spoke up, even if it took seeing a friend get hurt the same way I was to motivate me. My hope is that Anthony Giangregorio won't be able to do this to anyone else, that through sharing information about his business practices that people will google before submitting. It's sad that it took what ended up being a public shaming for this to happen, but in the end the fact that people are now aware of what has been going on makes it worth while. Being published is an amazing feeling, there is nothing in the world like seeing your name in print, and taking that away from someone by putting your (subpar) words in their mouths or under their names is just deplorable. I feel truly sorry for anyone else who was taken in by Undead Press/Open Casket.I am not in the habit to name and shame but I think this is where I draw the line. I don’t like it when authors are screwed over and at the end of the day if the story had issues or the publisher wanted changes the author should ALWAYS be contacted so the AUTHOR can make the changes. I am one of many people to write about this and I won’t be the last. I will right now offer an open invitation to Mr Anthony Giangregorio to contact us at snakebitehorror@live.co.uk and give his side of the story and explain the unprofessional email to Mandy DeGeit. OR have any other Snakebite readers fallen for this publishers ways? contact us and tell us your story.
The Manchester Monster Convention will be taking over the Sachas Hotel on the 14th and 15th of April. The event will be a fun packed event full of Q&A 's Book Signings and a Monster Movie Triple bill from our friends over at Grimm Up North. Saturday 14th April11am Before Dawn - a new British horror film set in Yorkshire Dominic Brunt (Actor/Director) and Neale Myers (Cameraman/Digital Effects Artist) will be showing clips from their new Yorkshire horror movie, Before Dawn, talking about the movie and answering questions. 12.30pm Q&A with Sam Stone and David J HoweSam is the author of the Vampire Gene series, and David has written numerous books on Doctor Who. Both authors will be reading from their work, answering questions and generally talking vampires, monsters and Who. 2pm Tales from the Crypt: Two Real-Life Vampire CasesTalk by Geoff Holder, author of Paranormal Glasgow and Paranormal Cumbria, covering the hunt for the Vampire with Iron Teeth, and the infamous case of the Vampire of Croglin Grange 3.30pm In Search of Real MonstersTalk by Richard Freeman, Zoological Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology Book Signings:Geoff HolderSam StoneDavid J. HoweMonster Movie Triple-Bill - 6pm till LateIsland of Lost Souls - An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. Lovecraft's Whisperer in the Darkness - Written in 1931, H.P. Lovecraft’s iconic genre-bending tale of suspense and alien terrors is brought to life in the style of the classic horror films of the 1930s like Frankenstein. Grimm up North 2011 Festival favourite. Reel Zombies -Demand for Zombie product is at an all time high after it has been outlawed, filmmakers seize an opportunity to do something they were never able to before on their meager budgets, make a memorable zombie film. This time, however, through using real zombies, the film will have an authenticity and production value previously unattainable. Sunday 15th April11am How to Make a MonsterA talk on creative writing, horror and monsters by Rick Hudson. Rick's work has been published by a wide variety of magazines in the UK, US and Europe as well as appearing in collections and broadcast by the BBC. He is currently working on a documentary for the BBC and a film for a leading Hollywood studio. 12.30pm Psychopaths, Deviants and Serial Killers, Oh My!A talk on the psychology of 'human monsters' by Jacquelyn Bent, who is currently completing a doctorate in Criminal Psychology at the University of Huddersfield 2pm Q&A with Leah Moore and John ReppionGraphic novelists, creators of the Wild Girls series, the Albion series (with Alan Moore and Shane Oakley) and the Raise the Dead series (with Hugo Petrus). The duo have also created The Complete Dracula and The Complete Alice in Wonderland, and are currently working on the Thrill Electric, a motion comic set in Victorian Manchester. 3.30pm Writers Panel: Readings and Q&AWith Wayne Simmons (author of Flu and Fever) Simon Bestwick (author of The Faceless, Tide of Souls and Pictures of the Dark) and Scott Stanford (author of Dorothy - The Darker Side of Oz and Abaddon Rising) Book Signings:Leah Moore & John Reppion Wayne SimmonsScott StanfordSimon BestwickThere will also be a MONSTER MARKET full of great horror items:Amanda Norman Photography - Photography gifts and handmade jewellery inspired by classic horror Cosmic Workshop - Leather armour, costume pieces, props and gifts Becka's Insects - Handcrafted wire beasties Artist Emma Horsfield - The Countess - Alternative Portrait and Dark Artist Ave Satanas - Satanic Clothing Brand Wigs Up North - Wigs and Make-Up Comma Press - Small Press Publisher Art4walls Limited - Hammer Films Art - Limited Edition Prints Aly Fell - Illustration For tickets to this event and more info on the venue and the event in general click HERE!
The dead will walk the streets (well a cinema screen) on Manchester on April 27th when Grim Up North Presents a special triple threat of zombie goodness.
 _Juan of The Dead (Pre-Release Screening):
Official media refer to the attacks as isolated incidents provoked by Cuban dissidents paid by the US government. Little by little Juan and his friends start to realize that the attackers are not normal human beings and that killing them is quite a difficult task. They’re not vampires, they’re not possessed, but they’re definitely not dissidents; a simple bite turns the victim into other violent killing machine and the only way to beat them is destroying their brains…
 __ War of The Dead (Northwest Premiere):
At the beginning of World War II in 1939, in a secret bunker near the border of Russia and Finland, the Nazis began “Anti-Death” experiments on captured Russian soldiers. Two years later the project was abandoned with all records destroyed on the orders of Adolf Hitler and the test subjects buried in mass graves nearby.
Soon after those events, an elite squad of US soldiers is teamed up with a Finnish task force and sent on a mission to seek out and destroy the bunker along with any inhabitants remaining there. Following an ambush en route to their target, during which the Allies lose a considerable number of men, to their shock and horror they later find themselves face-to-face with the same enemy soldiers they had eliminated in the earlier skirmish. The big problem this time around is the enemy is more fearless than before and much harder to kill. After all, they’re already dead.
(look out for the Snakebite Horror Review of this title in the coming weeks)
 _The Return of the Living Dead (Remastered):
In this genre defining classic, , three men and a gang of punks must do what they can to quell the threat that the now undead pose to an unsuspecting town., after the accidental release of chemicals that bring the dead back to life,
To Purchase tickets to this event, or for more information for the event, head on over to the GRIMM UP NORTH website by clicking HERE.
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