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.

Halloween 2015 - Part 1

Well it's that time of year again. I've now been blogging for four years. As I type I'm currently watching my 500th horror film. The film of choice wound up being Suburban Gothic, which so far has been pretty funny, as well as featuring a star studded cast including Vancouver darlings the Twisted Twins.

Vancouver Haunted Trolley Tour

They say third time's a charm and that rang true for me trying to go on the Vancouver Trolley Company's Haunted Trolley Tour. After trying and failing to call in time to book a spot on one of their ghostly tours two times in a row this year I was finally successful.

If You Like Punks and Lizards Boy Do I Have a Treat For You

Every once in a while someone shares something awesome with you online. Well when I saw the pitch trailer for something that combines two of my favourite things in my childhood, Punks vs. Lizards, it was one of those videos and all I can say is I want more. When (not if) this gets made into a feature I will be one of the first people in line to see it.

Based on the webcomic of the same name by Noah Van Sciver it stars Tristan Risk and Sophie Mcmullin of American Mary as well as comic book artist Justice Stefaniuk. On the crew side it features Benjamin Calaf (from Company of Heroes 2) in the directors chair with Luchagore Production's Luke Bramley and Jordan Williams behind the camera and Leo award winning make-up artist Caitlin Groves creating the lizard queen.

Here is the trailer and I highly suggest you check out:

Adventures in Horror Gaming: Penumbra Overture

Before I get to my review of Penumbra: Overture I just wanted to let you guys know some good news, I now have an agent! Now that that's out of the way on to the review.

Penumbra: Overture is the previous foray into horror by the team behind Amnesia. It takes place in an arctic mining facility that has been around for decades, but has fallen into disrepair, presumably due to some supernatural presence. From this game you can tell right off the bat that Frictional Games really know what makes for great horrifying atmosphere. It's similar to Amnesia in that the best strategy to survive is avoiding the enemies, some of which are capable of breaking down doors. You can fight back in this one however, just not very effectively due to how hard it is to control any of the weapons you find. We kept talking about how we wished we had a gun.

I've never been so afraid of a dog before.

Now unfortunately this game had a lot of things going against it. Firstly it was just too long and unless you had a walkthrough to read at the same time some of the puzzles made no sense or were just silly. For instance at one point you had to get past an electric fence, you would think there would be a way to turn it off or something, but nope you literally just had to stack boxes and jump over it (my idea, which my guy thought was going to kill us, especially since a tiny bit of steam can kill you in this game). There were also some parts of the game that took way too many tries to get through and I swear we died at least 10 times trying to get past some spiders.

Apparently spider eggs have built in motion sensors that tell them when to hatch.

The real nail in the coffin for this game though was when we were trying to figure out how to solve one of the puzzles, tried a bunch of stuff, relented and used the walk through then when we did what we were supposed to have done it still wouldn't let us advance because of what we had tried to do to solve it. The weird physics of this game meant that we were stuck in this room with no way to get out without turning off the game and hoping it hadn't saved. At that point we gave up, while the story had been fairly interesting it just wasn't worth the frustration we were having. Overall I wouldn't recommend this game because of how frustrating it was. That being said I am curious as to what SOMA will be like once Frictional releases it in a few months.

Were they mining spice all this time?

Adventures in Horror Gaming: Amnesia the Dark Descent

My second foray into horror gaming has been in the world of Amnesia the Dark Descent. Now this time I managed to play a lot more of the game due to it's lack of combat, but whenever I thought one of those monsters was going to show up I promptly jumped away from the keyboard and let my guy take over. I even managed to figure out solutions to a few of the puzzles in this game.

Most castles have rooms full of corpses right? RIGHT!?!

Adventures in Horror Gaming: Silent Hill 2

Recently I started playing horror games so I thought it would be a good idea to talk about my experiences playing them. Of course I haven't been playing them alone, I tried that once and I lasted maybe 40 minutes before I turned the thing off and just said NOPE. It was on the urging of my boyfriend that the first game we played was Silent Hill 2. I really wanted to put the action on beginner, since my gaming skills end at random button mashing in Super Smash Bros., but we ended up settling on playing it on easy mode.

The Creepshow... Show

Earlier this month an opportunity to see a band I've recently started listening to cropped up, so I decided to seize it. It's all thanks to my buddy Topher that I got into psychobilly music and right now The Creepshow is one of my two favourite bands in the genre (the other being Kitty in a Casket). As a part of their 10 year anniversary tour the group came to Funky Winkerbeans here in Vancouver. They brought with them four opening acts the first of which (Lust Luck) amazed the audience not only by climbing all over their stand up bass as it was played, but also setting it on fire! Nothing makes for a better show than a little fire that's for sure.

Now when The Creepshow finally took the stage with current lead singer Kenda nothing could contain my excitement. At the show I got to hear not only some of my favourite tunes like The Devil's Son and Demon Lover (which I ended up wholeheartedly singing along to), but also some songs I was unfamiliar with and plan on investigating further. The band was full of energy pumping up the audience and putting on an excellent show. The next day my neck was very sore as a result of my head banging ways and even the people I dragged along who'd never heard the band before had an awesome time.

If this band from Ontario ever comes to your town I highly recommend checking them out. As someone who doesn't go to live music very often seeing them urges me want to make a habit of going to shows more often. If you want to check out some of their music you can click here.

I leave you with the music video for The Devil's Son

Where Have I Been These Past Few Months

For those who read my blog on a regular basis you may have been wondering that. Well I'm here to answer that (and trying to write posts more frequently).

Netflix Recommendations: January 2015

Alrighty, was your New Year's Resolution to watch more horror movies? Well if it was then I'm here to help with my recommendations for Canadian Netflix this month. As per usual new additions to this list are bolded and I only speak of films I've already seen.

-Afflicted

Two friends plan the trip of a lifetime in this found footage film, documenting the journey for a website they've created, but after a chance sexual encounter one of the two friends starts to undergo some unexpected and violent changes.

-The Den

One woman's research project exploring the world of random online video chatting turns dark when she witnesses what she believes to be a murder on the titular chat program

-The Sacrament

Based on the Jonestown massacre this film is a modern smaller scale retelling of what dreadful things occurred brought to us by Ti West.

Best of 2014 in Horror

Here (in no particular order) is my list of the best horror films of 2014, or at least the ones I knew were released in 2014 when I saw them:

I will now never purchase an antique.

Oculus

This is one of the few films that has had me leaving the theatre with a feeling of dread. This tale of two siblings' attempt to clear their father's name and destroy what drove him to madness artfully mixes flashbacks and the present. Of course things don't go as planned. It's really hard to explain what makes this film so good to others because the best way I can describe it without spoiling anything is that it's about an evil mirror that kills people. Sounds like a bad 70s B-movie right? Well just trust me when I say it is awesome and you should check it out when you get the chance.

So why weren't there more shirtless scenes in Downton Abbey?

The Guest

I went into this movie expecting an average thriller with a buffed up Matthew Crawley, what I got instead was an amazing dark comedy with a buffed up Dan Stevens and a plethora of genre actors. The actors bring their a-games which isn't hard with such a witty script. And of course what tops off this piece of art is the beautiful cinematography and stand out soundtrack. I can't remember the last time I heard such a great soundtrack.

And here's to more shirtless Daniel Radcliffe scenes in the future.

Horns

I've been a Joe Hill fan ever since I read Locke & Key, so when I found out one of his books was being adapted into a movie I was thrilled (it was filmed in Vancouver!) This movie was like nothing I'd seen before, the closest thing I could compare it to was John Dies at the End. It artfully used the west coast setting to portray a story of love and betrayal with Daniel Radcliffe looking progressively more badass as every minute of the film passes. Although I wasn't a big fan of the third act it was still an awesome film that stuck with me.

ABCs of Death 2

This is a great example of a sequel surpassing it's predecessor. Learning from the shortfalls of the previous film (segments like L and F spring to mind) ABCs 2 managed to improve on pacing, there was never a moment where I was waiting for a segment or the movie to be over, as well as having more memorable and innovative shorts than the previous film. Definitely the anthology film of the year.

Well you never really use your pinkie anyways.

Cheap Thrills

The best of the "What would you do for money" films I saw this year, Cheap Thrills brought some great performances by both some name actors, such as scream queen Sara Paxton, and lesser known actors like Pat Healy as the down on his luck family man lead. It's the well defined characters that make this movie shine, along with some particularly gruesome scenes that show how desperate some people can get.

The Editor

Astron-6 knocks it out of the park with this homage to Italian giallo films. Not only does it manage to be laugh out loud funny, but it also shows how far the group has come as filmmakers. The stylized cinematography was beautiful and the plot managed to continue to raise the stakes even past the climax. While at times, especially the end, you were left scratching your head and wondering "what does it mean" that is what made the film work. I can't wait to see what Astron-6 comes up with next.


Now there were also some films I didn't get a chance to see, but was really excited for and will be finding as soon as I can, so here is a list of them:

The Babadook, Dead Snow 2, Starry Eyes, It Follows, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Housebound and Late Phases.

Halloween Hangover 2014

I've been a terrible horror blogger this Halloween, I think I have a couple good reasons though. Between two horror photoshoots, acting in a short film on Denman Island, Thanksgiving, The Rio Grind Film Festival and going to The Show From the Crypt I've been a bit busy. Need proof? Here are some photos:

 We'll start with photos from my ghastly shoots with BD MacDonald Photography, make-up by Erin Geer.

 

 

Halloween Netflix Recommendations 2014... Finally.

Yes I should have done this weeks ago, but I've been a bit busy this month between being on set, visiting my family for Thanksgiving and doing multiple horror photoshoots. To make up for it this month's recommendations will be solely horror movies and nothing else since that is what October is for. Without further ado here is what you should be watching on Netflix Canada this month (Bold = new):

-All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
What seems like a traditional slasher flick will surprise you with how some friends choose to start their senior year of high school.

-Nurse
The film follows a sexy psycho as she tries to add a little love to her life. Lots of T & A.

-Resolution
A forced week of sobering up in the middle of nowhere ends badly for a pair of high school friends who've lost touch with each other.

El Gigante Puts Both the Lucha and the Gore into LuchaGore

With the right balance of horror and heartbreak, mostly horror or course, LuchaGore Productions latest film El Gigante (based on Muerte con Carne by Shane McKenzie) shows that they are a force to be reckoned with in the world of indie horror.