The Man in the Rabbit Mask

For those of you who don't know with Ready to Burst coming to completion (we had an amazing wrap party/private screening recently) I've already started work on my next directing project, The Man in the Rabbit Mask. Akuma Films is producing this and we're seeking funding through the Storyhive pitch program so we can make this the best film possible.

Our film takes place in Miranda Falls during the 90s where two preteen girls play a deadly game during their sleepover. They summon the demonic entity Mr. Rabbity who has some sinister plans for these girls. Our cast includes Holly Burr and Iris Truong as the ill fated girls, Katherine Slingsby as an exasperated mother and Chris Walters as the man behind the rabbit mask. You can vote for us on Storyhive here once a day until noon Sept. 23rd.
You can also find us on Facebook here and on Twitter here.

See Me, Hear Me

August was a pretty great month. I've acted in two short films and did my first interview for a podcast! The first short film I was on set for was Off World Pictures latest short, Ghost Can, which was made especially for The Rio Theatre's Dead on Film Festival. That meant that, due to the submission deadline, from the beginning of shooting they had around 20 days to complete it post production and all. I'm proud to say they did an amazing job. All the effects worked out great and we managed to get some pretty cool locations. One of those locations was a local amusement park where the security kept driving past us, but luckily not once did they harass us for filming there.

It was accepted into the Dead on Film Festival where it had a great reception from the audience, people were even yelling one of my lines at the screen. In fact the people enjoyed it so much that, drum roll please... it won both Audience Choice and the Judge's Choice (aka the Zoscar) for best film!

The Zoscar is so heavy with badass that it requires two hands to hold it.

This is what victory looks like.

Next let's talk about the interview I did. Earlier in August I was interviewed by Voodoo Pixie and Mama Fortuna for their Dark Entries podcast. I had an awesome time chatting with those ladies and you can listen to our ramblings here or search for Dark Entries on iTunes (be sure to rate and review, which if you listen to as many podcasts as I do you will be used to hearing people say)

Finally let's talk about the Run & Gun 48 hour film competition, put on by This is a Spoon Studios and VanChan, which I was once again an actor in. The project I worked on this year was called The Babysitter and was directed by Dana Bontempo. In it I play a terrible mother who leaves her daughter in the hands of an incompetent babysitter with catastrophic results. The film premiered this past Sunday and it brought home the Audience Choice award as well as Best Director. So I suppose you could say after this past month that the people love my work.

On the Red Carpet with actress Treychel Anderson.

Once Again, Where Have I Been?

So I did it again, fell off of the face of the Earth, but once again I had some very good reasons. Not only was I on set for a role in the feature film, Valley of the Rats, but (and this is what's really been taking up my time) I've been directing my first short film! (which I also wrote and star in) The title of this brief horror flick is Ready to Burst and things are going quite well so far. We're in post production which is much speedier than I'd expected and everything is looking way more awesome than I could have ever hoped it would.

A bit more about the film, it's horror of course with a bit of a sci-fi element and is a co-production between Bad Cookie Pictures and Off World Pictures. It follows Kate as she and her boyfriend Dylyn try to bring a new life into this world, although it might take more than Kate bargained for. I usually describe it as Rosemary's Baby meets Alien with a dose of body horror thrown in for good measure. We've got some awesome creatures FX by Carolyn Williams and our director of photography/editor is Jordan Barnes-Crouse. The awesome producers who kept me from going crazy so far are Christopher Graham (also our production designer) and Cecilia Yus Cornejo (queen of logistics and paperwork). I also was able to cast amazing actors - Lee Shorten (of The Man in the High Castle fame), Malcolm Stead and Gigi Saul Guerrero (of Luchagore Productions).

These two photos were taken by Sam Stringer.

As for my first experience of being the leader on set, it was surprisingly great. Seeing my vision come to life in some of the shots almost brought me to tears. We actually managed to stay almost entirely on schedule for the whole shoot which was amazing since some of the days we only had our location for a limited amount of time. We also had our share of problem solving on set the biggest of which was losing a location the day before we were supposed to shoot there and having to find a new location while we were on set. It's moments like that in which you are thankful for awesome producers. We managed to find another location and I think the film is better for it.

This and the next 4 shots were all taken by Bren MacDonald.

The cast and crew on Day 4 before we wrapped.

I'll do my best to keep the blog updated as the film gets completed, but I'm also moving so I might fall off the face of the Earth again while that's all going on.

Women in Horror Month 2016

It's that time of the year again, the month of my people, Women in Horror Month. Before I get too much into what's going on for it this year I want to start off by talking about how it seems that a lot of women who specialize in horror seem to be born in this month. There's Gigi of Luchagore, Jill of Sixx Tape Productions, myself of course and Carolyn of Off World Pictures was only one day short of being born this month as well. I'm sure there are many more, but this just struck me as interesting this year.

The Best of 2015

As a horror fan 2015 has been a great year with so many cool (mostly independent) new films coming out. Allow me to share with you my top 8 films for 2015 and why I loved them in no particular order.

The boys are ready for a night on the town.

What We Do in the Shadows

I figured I should start off this list with what is probably the best horror comedy of the year. This movie was hilarious. It knew the vampire genre like the back of it's hand and was able to use that knowledge to create many jokes. All the characters are well crafted and the film is insanely quotable. There's even some decent blood effects in it if you desperately need gore.

The Creepy Christmas of 2015

Well Christmas this year has been great for those of us who like our holidays a little more horrific. This year saw the release of Michael Dougherty's follow up to Trick'r Treat titled Krampus.

Halloween 2015 Part 2: The Spookening

Well the Halloween season has now ended and I'm the worst blogger ever, but boy was it a busy day. First things first, as you already saw, I was watching movies like a maniac in the morning to make it up to my 500th film. I was also able to share the edited results of a photoshoot I had done back in 2014 for the Halloween season. Photos are by Bren Macdonald and make up by Erin Geer.