JRH Films

Behind The Scenes Of "Night Claws"

2011-05-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

I just posted some behind-the-scenes clips and interviews that I shot last month on the Alabama location of David A Prior's bigfoot movie Night Claws. I want to thank Tara Kleinpeter, Alissa Koenig, David Campbell, Reb Brown and Mr. Prior for letting us get a look at the making of this groovy little movie. It looks like it's going to be very cool; most low-budget horror these days comes off like weak Syfy TV movie but this one is going for a retro vibe full of genre veterans and physical effects. There was even this big embargo on showing the monster, hence it's notable absence. "Don't take pictures of the monster" - it felt like Fangoria 1988 all over again, wonderful.

The behind-the-scenes clip also features some spooky electronic music courtesy of User Assumes Risk.

A Clip From The Upcoming Nightmare Theatre Episode

2011-03-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

Scars of Youth Movie Poster in GUT

2011-03-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to note that a Scars of Youth Poster show up on the walls of a sheltered horror addict in the upcoming horror film Gut.

Gut is definitely going to be worth checking out when it's unleashed - I've been hearing about this one for quite some time, and I think the ultra-creepy teaser trailer which can be found on IMDB and elsewhere pretty much speaks for itself. This one's going to be a winner.

Coming Soon - Synthetic Man, Nightmare Theatre and More

2011-03-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit since the last update but I've been laying low for the past few months, primarily just taking a break from the Synthetic Man shoot. The shoot is done, and now comes the battle which is post. I don't want to drag this one out, though. After I work through some minor software issues I'll be able to get going and finish this one by mid 2011 (though I hate to put deadlines on things).

Along with Mr. Synthetic, I've also started on the new season of Nightmare Theatre, the fantastic creature feature show which just keeps chugging along. In the short term I'm working on getting acquainted with some new equipment, pulling the next few Nightmare Theatre shows together and possibly some other assorted goodies.

FBN Now Streaming On Amazon!

2010-10-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Well it appears that Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare is now available for streaming or download on Amazon's instant movie streaming/download service thingie for your Halloween pleasure. One thing that makes me happy is that - apparently - there's a 5.1 audio option for the service instead of just plain-old stereo, which is one aspect of streaming which has always disappointed me.

Elvira's Movie Macabre New Intro - Coincidence?

2010-10-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a little comparison for you ... the intro to Elvira's rebooted "Movie Macabre" along with the intro I shot/edited for Nightmare Theater roughly two years ago.

The Synthetic Man: Day 7

2010-07-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

The Synthetic Man: Day 6

2010-07-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

The Podcast That Dreaded Sundown LIVES!!!!!!

2010-07-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

The debut episode of The Podcast That Dreaded Sundown is available at Sundownpodcast.com. Listen as we rant and rave about Boggy Creek filmmaker Charles B. Pierce!

Scars Of Youth Soundtrack Available For Free Download

2010-07-09T02:11:00.000-07:00

16 Tracks, 192 kbps MP3 (54 Mb ZIP File)

Tracks:

Title Theme
Memory Fragment
Time and Memory (#1)
Drifting Through Dream Landscape
Sexual Magic
Victory Theme
The Ceremony
Misc. Texture
Misc Dream Texture
Migrating Patterns
Ritual Murder
Twilight
Time and Memory (#2)
Time and Memory (#3)
End Theme
John R. Hand Commentary

Well nothing in life is free ... unless you have the internet, I guess. Before you, I present the soundtrack I composed for my last film in glorious mp3, warts and all. It's a nice collection of strange, moody, Mellotron-soaked atmospherics served in a wash of reverb. I've also included a brief rap from myself on the recording of the tunes. At this point I'm not completely proud of the endeavor but I'm not totally embarrassed it either. I've had to censor the cover image because it might, as my father put it eloquently, "give people a boner." Here's a link to the actual cover.

Get Prepared

2010-06-26T02:19:00.000-07:00

The Synthetic Man: Day 5

2010-06-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

I shot a very short, odd scene where I guy's cellphone explodes and plumes of green smoke rise into the air.

The Synthetic Man: Day 4

2010-06-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

I started out the day putting the finishing touches on the cavernous video "lair" of this character named John played by, well, myself ... Everyone's spirits were up but was just way too hot to shoot the scene in tin shed with no air conditioning. Also, I look like a 15-year-old in the scene.

The Synthetic Man: Day 3

2010-06-19T00:16:00.001-07:00

The Synthetic Man Shoot Day #2 - Omaru

2010-06-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

The second shoot, which took place last night, was comprised of just one scene that's set by campfire light. Our cosmic spiritual warrior OMARU educates our lead character on his galactic origins. It was five pages of very dense sci-fi dialogue but I think it turned out respectable.

The synthetic man shoot day #1 - I almost get stabbed to death

2010-05-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

The first shooting day for my new feature film The Synthetic Man went relatively smoothly with only a few slight hitches. The day started out early for me with a nice uplifting scene where our lead character Richard Chase (played by the excellent Jeff Hartley) kidnaps an old woman (played by the equally-excellent Beverly Promersberger) and beats her to death in the woods. I've earned a special place in hell for even writing let alone planning and executing such a scene. In every film I make I try to do an homage to a classic album cover - in Frankenstein it was Peter Gabriel's Car, then I don't really remember what happened with Scars of Youth but I think this scene looks like that first Wild Man Fischer record, only instead of a paper cut-out I did it with the real thing.

Then comes the point in the day (later in the day around 6:45-7:00 PM) where we shoot the end of the scene, where a crazed intergalactic warrior tries to kill our hero (?) with a stone knife. Exhibit #1 - The Stone Knife:

Angel Ribolla was a late replacement for another actress but she came in and did a slam-bang job. I slapped on a thick coat of Fuller's Earth and Ben Nye Plains Dust and she charged through the woods with this stone knife in this tyrannical rage, screaming her head off like a banshee. When I initially envisioned the shooting of this scenes, I was afraid the actress wouldn't be able to work themselves up sufficiently; what I wanted was less a clean fight scene and more a struggle for life and death, crawling and scraping at each other. This is exactly what she gave me.

She got totally crazy, wildly stabbing into the air until I got too close and she cut my thumb. Then, like a complete idiot, I get behind the lead guy's head for some low angle shots as she's stabbing directly down into the air, right in the direction of my balls - this girl is going absolutely nutzoid and tyrranical with her blade on this rather deadly flight path as my thumb pours blood over the record button. Well I immediately freaked out and yelled cut (actually it was more like "stop stop stop stop stop") but then continued. But all in all, everyone was a real trooper.

Scars of Youth Premieres TONIGHT

2010-05-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

It's going to be interesting what, if any, reaction the film gets. I can personally envision man dIt's on a double feature with Greg Lamberson's Slime City Massacre which looks like a fun film. Also, anyone attending has a chance to win a signed copy of the limited edition Scars of Youth DVD, so you can take the magic home.

Scars of Youth World Premiere at Pollygrind 2010!

2010-04-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

Well it's taken long enough, but it appears that my film Scars of Youth will make it's world premiere as the opening film of the Polly Staffle Grindhouse Fest (or Pollygrind) in Las Vegas on Wednesday, May 12th on a "Post Apocalyptic Nightmare" double feature with Greg Lamberson's Slime City Massacre, the follow-up to his eighties cult classic Slime City. Earlier this week I did a short interview on in the Podcast From Hell in order to promote the film fest

Here's the full festival press release:

APRIL 15, 2010 —Thirteen films and more than 30 trailers, music videos and shorts will play over five days at the first ever Polly Staffle Grindhouse Fest, which takes place May 12-16 at the Sci-Fi Center (2520 State Street) in Las Vegas.

Festival creator and director Chad Clinton Freeman, who has been called the "new champion of unabashed B-movie sleaze" by ArrowintheHead.com, announced the PollyGrind’s lineup live via a special Podcast from Hell with HorrorNews.net’s Dai Green on Tuesday.

Five features will get world premieres, seven will have their Las Vegas premieres, and one will be a U.S. premiere. Filmmaker Creep Creepersin will world premiere his films Vaginal Holocaust, Caged Lesbos A-Go-Go, and Orgy of Blood on May 15 in a special Saturday night “triple featuresin.”

The rape-revenge film Vaginal Holocaust and the women-in-prison feature Caged Lesbos A-Go-Go both have all-star indie casts. Sean Cain (Silent Night, Zombie Night), Elissa Dowling (Live Evil), Elske McCain (Killer Biker Chicks) and Shane Ryan (Amateur Porn Star Killer) star with Natasha Talonz (Black Devil Doll) in Holocaust. Caged Lesbos features most of the same players, minus Talonz, plus Monique Dupree (Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned), Elina Madison (Someone's Knocking at the Door) and Ariauna Albright (Bloodletting). The erotic vampire tale Orgy of Blood features Albright, Dowling and Madison, along with Domiziano Arcangeli (Werewolf in a Women's Prison) and Jeff Dylan Graham (Dorm of the Dead).

John R. Hand’s sci-fi arthouse film Scars of Youth kicks off the festival with its world premiere. Scars of Youth, the follow up to Hand’s cult hit Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare, will screen with the Las Vegas premiere of Greg Lamberson’s Slime City Massacre, the sequel to the 1988 cult classic Slime City, for a “Post-Apocalyptic Nightmares” double bill on May 12.

Hand said he was quite excited about being paired with Lamberson’s new film. “A few hours ago you told me about this and I was like wow,” Hand said on the podcast. “I didn’t even know they made a sequel. Slime City is such a classic film.”

Slime City Massacre is a hybrid of science fiction, horror and action. It stars Debbie Rochon (The Good Sisters), Lee Perkins (KatieBird *Certifiable Crazy Person) and Brooke Lewis (Mondo Holocausto!). It also features original Slim City actors Robert Sabin and Mary Bogle, and Roy Frumkes of Street Trash fame.

“It’s ten times the film the first one was,” Lamberson said of his sequel during the podcast. “It was definitely conceived as a throwback to the 80s films. And you’ll hear a lot of filmmakers talking about doing that, but I’m somebody that made the 80s films, so the sleaze is natural in my blood. It’s not something I’m aspiring to.”

The Dead Undead world premieres May 13 to jump start a living dead triple feature dubbed “Zombies-A-Go-Go!” Stuntmen Matt Anderson and Edward Conna, who both have more than 100 stunt credits, co-directed The Dead Undead, which stars Luke Goss (Hellboy II: The Golden Army), Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior), and Spice Williams (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). Soldier vampires take on zombie vampires in the action-horror joy ride.

“I’m nervous and anxious to see what people think of it,” Anderson said of his film on the podcast. “We haven’t screened it anywhere. There have been few people that have seen it.”

The U.S. premiere of German Magariños’ zombie film Zombie Apocalypse Now: A Zombie Hunter will also play May 13. The Argentina import from the creator of Sadomaster caps the night, which also will feature the Las Vegas premiere of Henry Weintraub’s Melvin. Zombie Apocalypse Now can be classified as a comedic torture porn about an outcast zombie hunter, while Weintraub says Melvin is a Revenge of the Nerds zombie film.

Other features at the festival will include the Las Vegas premieres of the cool action film Dead Hooker in a Trunk (the directorial debut of the Twisted Twins Jen and Sylvia Soska), the 70s and 80s horror throwback Frat House Massacre (Alex Pucci), and the anthology Terror Overload (Brant Johnson, Kevin Myhre and Jason Stephenson). Terror Overload, which stars Rachel Grubb (Why Am I In A Box?) and Scarlet Salem (Incest Death Squad), caps the May 14 “Menage a Trois de la Terreur” with a midnight screening.

The Soskas describe their film as Weekend at Bernie’s by way of Quentin Tarantino and admit it started off as a fake trailer. The sisters were inspired by Nova Scotia filmmakers Jason Eisener, John Davies and Rob Cotterill, and their Hobo with a Shotgun trailer, which won Robert Rodriguez's South by Southwest Grindhouse trailer contest.

Screenplay writer Draven Gonzalez said Frat House Massacre is his and Pucci’s answer to the 80s film Sorority House Massacre. Gonzalez likens it to Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left and calls it a twisted, brutal revenge story that is filled with blood, gore, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and some disco.

Grubb, who plays four roles as a homage to Karen Black in Trilogy of Terror, called Terror Overload a good midnight movie. “I think it’s a really good festival for that film. A lot of horror festivals were unable to show it because it was pretty graphic, and has a lot of nudity,” Grubb said on the podcast. “It’s definitely grindhouse and I think it’s going to fit in well. ”

The Las Vegas premieres of Horrid (James Pronath) and Red Velvet (Bruce Dickson) close the fest on May 16 with a “Killer Party” double feature. Three friends travel to the woods for a bachelor party weekend filled with beer, booze, babes and the spread of a cannibalistic disease in Horrid, while a madman slices up a birthday party in Red Velvet.

Henry Thomas (E.T.), Kelli Garner (Bully), Cristen Coopen (Cameron Romero's Staunton Hill), and Eric Junmann (Robert Englund’s Killer Pad) highlight Dickson’s film, which is best described as part romantic arthouse dark comedy and part deconstructive slasher.

“It was born out of mine and my partner’s feelings that we were seeing more and more horror films, but enjoying them less,” Red Velvet producer Sean Fernald explained on the podcast. “What we set out to do was make a horror film with a sense of humor.”

Red Velvet also features one of the last cameos of Forrest J. Ackerman, who passed away in 2008. Ackerman, often referred to as Uncle Forry, coined the term “sci-fi” and appeared in more than 100 films. He also cameos in The Dead Undead.

Ackerman is second only to Lloyd Kaufman as the personality that pops up the most in films screening at the PollyGrind. Kaufman appears in Slime City Massacre, Caged Lesbos A-Go-Go, Zombie Apocalypse Now: A Zombie Hunter, Melvin and Weintraub’s short Depraved.

Also playing the PollyGrind will be the U.S. premiere of John (Arrow In The Head) Fallon’s short The Red Hours and the world premiere of the “midnight movie version” of Las Vegas filmmaker Michael Dunn’s short The Bet.

Other shorts at the event will include the Las Vegas premieres of Christian Schleisiek’s Babylon 2084, Jeffrey Anderson Bliss’ Telefone, Lucas Figueroa’s Because There Are Things You Never Forget, Pete Jacelone’s Hypochondriac, Michael Ramova’s Slice, William Mager’s Stiletto, Colin Clarke’s Frankenstien vs. Wolfman in 3D, Deborah Haywood’s Sis, and Jason Shipley’s Blood Shed.

Two special showcases will show off shorts from Calvin Lee Reeder and Aaron Mento. Reeder’s off-beat festival hit The Rambler and its sequel The Snake Mountain Colada will screen May 13. Mento’s horror shorts Heathen’s Gate and Absent will screen May 16.

Music videos playing the event will include the world premieres of Elona’s Warrior (featuring a song by Elona), Dunn’s Hallway (Justine Bellinsky), and Alvaro de la Hoz’s Long Goodbye (Lazy). Two Las Vegas made music videos that will be world premiering are Bumfights creator Ryen McPherson’s Jitterbug (Walker Rose) and Ginnetta Correli’s Hippodome Mime. David Wanger’s Anatinus (LIGO), Weintraub’s Scent of Your Blood (Monday with a Bullet), and Rob Prior and Paul Jenkins’ Get Your Dead On (Scum of the Earth) will also screen.

Trailers screening will include Jeffrey Blake Palmer’s The Sleeping Deep, Jamie Heinrich’s Nancy Scanner, Pete Schuermann’s Evil Brain from Planet X, Ramova’s Star Wars Grindhouse, as well as world premieres of Ramova’s Soldier Killer, The Texas Chainsaw Champion and I Piss on Your Grave.
Tickets for the event are $10 per day. Five day passes and three day passes can be purchased in advance for $40 and $25.

Freeman explained on the podcast that this event is being put on with no budget and hopes sponsors, advertisers, donors, etc. will step forward to make PollyGrind the best it can be. All sponsorships and donations will go to Sci-Fi Center maintenance, as well as awards and prizes for winning films, and giveaways for attendees. Freeman said his dream is to also have burlesque, go-go, belly dancers and variety acts perform at the event.

“This is the start of the PollyGrind,” Freeman said. “To make the first year as good as it can be, I’d like to have some other people on board with us. So if there are people that love independent, genre and grindhouse films that want to get involved, I’d love to hear from them.”

New Film in Production - The Synthetic Man

2010-04-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

I've just started production on my latest film, a fun family project titled The Synthetic Man. I guess it's a family project if you live in a family that sits around watching Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare all day long. You know, the cool kind of family.

I'm currently in the process of casting and I've also started shooting the odd second-unit shots of things. More information coming soon ...

Report from the "Gone With The Pope" Premiere

2010-03-13T10:33:00.001-08:00

The world premiere of Duke Mitchell's long-unfinished Gone With The Pope took place last night at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles - an event that's been over 30 years in the making since the film was originally shot and nearly 15 years since Grindhouse Releasing's extensive restoration on it began. Given all the intense speculation and anticipation that had been built up over time, the film itself along the entire event turned out to be a total blast!

For the length of the film, it seems as if the entire theater was fixed on the screen; there were no walk-outs or uncomfortable moments beside the bursts of energy and laughter when Paul (Duke Mitchell) has his big scenes with the "spook" hooker or pushes a big fat girl through a tiny door in order to give his friend Peter Milo a very BIG surprise in bed. I'll leave it to more technically-advanced reviewers to articulate the intricacies of this new cult phenomenon (which I'm sure they will start doing over this weekend) but all I have to say is that the film looks great, sounds great.

L to R - Bob Leighton, Robert Florio, John Murgia, Jeffrey Mitchell,
Jim LoBianco, Peter Santoro and Bob Murawski

The panel discussion afterward with editors Bob Leighton and Robert Florio, cinematographer Peter Santoro, actors Jim LoBianco and John Murgia along with Jeffrey Mitchell (whose incredible songs Jacknife and Whisky are featured in Pope) was simply fantastic as well. Mr. Santoro and the editors were right there with all the technical details regarding the film, Mr. Murgia offered some nice remembrances of Duke and their work on the Jimmy Durante special and Jeffrey Mitchell really connected with the audience with his very personal stories of his father and how his own music wound up in the film. The q&a was videotaped so I'm under the impression that it will eventually show up on the video release but, as Bob Murawski stated bluntly during the program, GWTP can only be seen in theatres right now so if it comes to your area, RUN to the box office and grab a ticket!

The Pulsing Cinema, Revitalized

2010-03-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that I did a small upgrade to the website for my long-running podcast The Pulsing Cinema which will allow me to (hopefully) update things and add new shows a little more frequently.

The Month of Love

2010-02-04T01:19:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh, February, my birth month. I was born on Valentine's Day, so you can just celebrate that date in remembrance of my movies instead of all this love shit.

Speaking of my films, the weirdo movie website 366movies.com posted reviews for both Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare and Scars of Youth which I quite enjoyed reading. The special edition release of Massacre Mafia Style also garned some okay reviews on Mondo Digital, Cinesploitation and the Trash Guru blog but a few of these guys got the source of the DVD wrong - I was able find a 1" video master for MMS which was in the Mitchell's possession. It wasn't taken from VHS, but it was still an older analog video source that I did my best to make look presentable, which I believe I accomplished. Anyway, beyond any minor quibbles they were generally positive reviews and I'm glad that people were able to appreciate some of the sleepless nights that I poured into the project along with Duke Mitchell's own eccentric genious.

That's about it for me right now, beyond that fact that I'm watching lots of Doctor Who and I'm steadily working on the screenplay for this new film which is kind of a strange dream project full all kinds of odd stuff I've wanted to do since I graduated film school, so I'll have to see how that pans out.

Another Day, Another Film

2010-01-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching Merian C. Cooper's follow-up to King Kong, his 1935 adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's "She." What an excellent, technically-innovative film, practically ahead of it's time with all the cutting-edge matte and optical work (an RKO specialty at that point) along with some really neat set design and cinematography, including even a zoom here and there. The new Legend Films DVD release presents a colorized version of the film which was supervised by Ray Harryhausen and it looks absolutely stellar - in fact we learn Cooper wanted to shoot the film in color originally but they cut his budget down only $500,000 for this film. What a neato film.

The year we make contact!

2010-01-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

2010. Wow! The kind of year which cause outbursts of run-on sentences and the cruel abuse of hyphens and ellipses. Damn the grammar police, I'm just happy that 2009 is over so we can shut down the death pool for that year because boy, was that pool getting mighty crowded, and I hate crowded pools as much as you do.

The first film that I watched this year set the right tone - weird. The film was Born of Fire, an unusually obscure and beautiful British film from 1983. Mondo Macabro just released it on DVD with a very stunning transfer.

So what am I working on this year? Many different things. More Nightmare Theatre, more fun, more insanity. Let's see what happens.

Another fun C.O.G. show

2009-12-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm a week late with this post, but last saturday the excellent mad scientist band Consortium of Genius yet again rocked Pensacola. This time it was the Creative Instinct Warehouse where C.O.G. came on very late in the night after Space Ghost's C. Martin Roker played some weirdo 16mm animated films and I showed some weird horror/sci-fi trailers. We also shot some footage for the last Nightmare Theatre episode of the year, making the whole night even more rewarding.

LFLS on the IMDB

2009-12-04T22:25:00.000-08:00

There's now an IMDB page for my Duke Mitchell Documentary Like Father, Like Son. More info should be uploaded to it within the next weeks! Also, a special promotion for the DVD is coming soon...

Scars of Youth in Shock Cinema

2009-10-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

Check out the new ad for the Scars of Youth DVD in Shock Cinema #37. It's finally out on the newstands this month!

My Duke Mitchell Documentary

2009-09-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I wanted to work on the release of Massacre Mafia Style was to do some form of a documentary on Duke Mitchell, which I was able to do with Like Father, Like Son. While I'm still working on everything, check out these excerpts on youtube. I shot the documentary in HD, 16:9 24p so that's how it will be presented on the final DVD.

Duke Mitchell Documentary Videos (Youtube)

Duke Mitchell Documentary Opening from john Hand on Vimeo.

Working Day and Night...

2009-08-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Working on a DVD release is fun, but I can definitely understand how easy it is to miss a street given how "on point" I need to be everyday in order to stay on schedule and get things done.

It's been massacre-ing my sleep, but it's going to be worth it. I guarantee it.

By the way, I'd like to thank the excellent Marc Morris for those Executioner pre-cert. cover scans!

Goodbye Kodachrome

2009-06-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

So all the major news outlets have picked up on Kodak discontinuing Kodachrome, their namesake. They're obviously doing this so they can pull out that Paul Simon concert footage that's been burning a hole in their pocket and slap it on the news. That's great, because I like Paul Simon. They can also make this thing into some kind of rallying cry for the death of film, but it's just another stock, right? Perhaps it's a little more than that. It's ridiculous if you ask my opinion - it's kind of like if McDonalds stopped selling burgers. It fits together with where Kodak needs to go, I guess.

The product effectively died in 2005 when Kodak dismantled their main processing lab in Lausanne Switzerland because processing wasn't environtmentally free or the lab property was really valuable, whatever, something like that. Right now the only place to develop the film is Dwaynes Photo in Lawrence, Kansas. That's where Stan Brakhage developed some of his film (according to the imdb at least) and it's also where I developed all the footage that shot for my first film Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare. Perhaps the news of it's impending doom at that point forced my hand into starting the film.

One odd little tidbit is that any Walmart that utilizes Fuji for it's film processing was able to process Kodachrome Super-8. You simply dropped the film in a photo envelope with the direction to process as K-14 and they would send it directly to Dwaynes with a relatively short turnaround. This was how I processed every single bit of Frankensteins... footage, through Walmart. I never lost one reel and I even had a tracking # from Fuji from the mailer so I could check on the status of the processing.

So what can I tell you from the balance of a feature film with the stuff? Well, Kodachrome was a pain to shoot, really. It has limited latitude and it require a significant amount of light to expose properly, then it turns very muddy if you underexposed.

Still, properly exposed on a beautiful sunny day? The green, blues and reds are just mind-blowing, and the skintones just look fabulous as well, It's just got the timeless sheen of technicolor. It's a reversal stock, but those colorations are still very present when the film's telecined, even though I wish I'd had the money to transfer to some uncompressed HD format because I really thought the DV compression really crunched those colors down. Still, I'm happy with final results even though when they made the Unearthed Films DVD they messed up on the gamma, washing out those colors slightly, but that's another nightmare unto itself.

As I pull myself out from the stacks of tapes, photos and USB hard drives...

2009-06-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

...I say hello! I'm still alive, and I'm still working on the Massacre project. Hopefully I should have a little more to report about this very soon.

Up Next: Massacre Mafia Style on DVD

2009-05-02T11:58:00.001-07:00

Well I'm not sure if it's any big secret, but the project that I'm working on right now (actually what I've been working on for some time now) is the production of a limited edition DVD release of Duke Mitchell's grindhouse epic Massacre Mafia Style. The preliminary cover art is pictured above. By the way, I mention "grindhouse" but I should note that Grindhouse Releasing never had the rights to the film and doesn't have anything to do with this DVD release, though they do have the rights and film elements for Duke's unfinished follow-up film Gone With The Pope.

I'm working on this project with Duke Mitchell's son, Jeffrey Mitchell, and beyond being the first official DVD release it's essentially the first North American home video release that's fully authorized by Mitchell's family (hence the "Family Edition" title) because after Duke passed away this film became a cinematic orphan, and the guy who bought a limited amount of foreign rights took the whole thing over, re-titled it The Executioner and made a quick buck off the video rights. It's quite sad actually. All I can say is that the story of Duke Mitchell is just as interesting, if not even moreso, than what the film Massacre... would suggest. Some of the special features that we're working on are pretty mind-blowing.

As more information becomes available it will be posted to massacremafiastyle.com.

U.A.R. and C.O.G. definitely R.O.C.K.

2009-04-19T23:08:00.001-07:00

I had a great time this weekend at the local Consortium of Genius show, which also featured fellow technician User Assumes Risk on the bill. The electronic paranoia of UAR as usual was excellently disturbing, and if you ever have a chance to check out Consortium of Genius, or COG, I would definitely go for it; where else are you going to see a Mad Scientist rock band with a holographic drummer, all powered by an Amiga 3000? It's a rare event. Everyone put on one hell of a show. I also managed to shoot some nice HD video of UAR's set.

User Assumes Risk - 4/17/09 from john Hand on Vimeo.

Convention Fun

2009-03-31T14:10:00.001-07:00

Wow, March just seemed to drag on and on. February was slightly strange because I had my birthday, I turned 30, and then it just suddenly seemed to flip into this "March" thing. In any case, the month finished off nice because I had a neato time at Imagicon last weekend where I got to hang with George Bonilla from ZP International, TCM 2's Bill Johnson and TCM 1's John Dugan. Everyone was happy and everyone seemed to respond well to the House Where People Die trailer when I showed it to them. Also, we ran into Paul F. Tompkins and he proved to be a very nice fellow.

I want to thank Amy for taking this nice photo of Mr. Dugan and me rapping about stuff.

DVD Now Available

2009-03-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

The official limited-edition DVD release of Scars of Youth is now available for the low, low price of $15, shipping in the US included! This is for a real pressed DVD by the way, no recordable DVDR that might not play in your grandmother's old Zenith Divx DVD Player from 1944.

You can check out more information on the DVD or place your order at JRHFilms.com.

Another Small Update

2009-02-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

So just to keep everyone in the loop, I've been working on getting this Scars of Youth into some festivals along with getting ready for my neato self-released DVD, which FYI will be a very nice release from a geeky technical point of view, I.E.16:9 progessive encoding, 448 kbps 5.1 Dolby Digital audio, dual-layer with all the trimmings. Very soon, if I feel like it, it'll go up for sale on the jrhfilms.com website.

The big project I've been working on for the past couple months is the newly-rebooted Nightmare Theatre creature feature show which is broadcast on the last saturday of the month on the local cable station WUWF from 10:00 PM to midnight CST. It's basically the same old public domain movies but we're definitely trying to infuse the show with a very edgy, psychotronic "Night Flight" vibe. It's a show full of music videos, strange short subjects and tons of old drive-in and intermission promo material wrapped around movies like Horror Express or Bloody Pit of Horror. It's a lot of work coming up with a two-hour show every month but I think it's worth the effot. I encourage everyone to check out the streaming video version on the WUWF website and if there any horror-themed bands with music videos you want shown please send me an email.

Also, in March I'm going to be a guest at a convention down in the inaugural Imagicon which be an interesting experience. I think it's a little up in the air whether or not I'm showing Scars of Youth at the con. I remember the first time I showed Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare was at this sci-fi convention where everyone left 20 minutes to their Magic cardgame or whatever and I spent the night watching the film myself. At least I managed to get really trashed and make Billy West do his "red" voice.

New Trailer

2008-12-30T17:19:00.000-08:00

Scars of Youth Trailer - "Face The Future" from john Hand on Vimeo.

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

If had a nice picture of a bunny or a snow cub wearing a Santa Clause outfit I would post it, but since I don't I will simply wish everyone a happy christmas.

SOY at the IMDB

2008-12-21T17:22:00.000-08:00

Scars of Youth now has an Internet Movie Database listing at the following url - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1339163/. Take a deep breath (not TOO DEEP!), click on the link and enjoy, then repeat until exhausted.

"The House Where People Die" Trailer

2008-12-08T01:41:00.001-08:00

The House Where People Die - Trailer from john Hand on Vimeo.

Click on the above video to view it in full HD at Vimeo's website.

"The House Where People Die" Stills

2008-12-07T01:54:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a fun weekend, hanging out and shooting your fun little grindhouse (buzzword buzzword) horror movie trailer, this time for a little ditty called The House Where People Die. We actually end up making this film since it was so fun putting the trailer together.

I wanted to call the film The House Where People Get Killed but I believe the other title is classier. In any case, House... is the brainchild of Mike Ensley and I shot/edited it. In another day or so I should have the full short up online in decent HD-ish quality, but here's few still to wet your appetite, some even from a few deleted scenes.

John R. Hand Interview Segment

2008-12-01T18:57:00.001-08:00

A Slight Update

2008-11-26T17:50:00.001-08:00

Just to let everyone "in the know" on what's been happening with the film, this friday (black friday to be exact) we're having a local preview screening for the film and I hope to premiere it at a larger festival next year. I've got a little interest from a couple fests but we'll see how it all goes.

As well as pursuing distribution for the film, I also hope to self-release the film on DVD in a very limited edition which I might be announcing very soon. As far as DIY distribution goes for me, the reasons are both financial and quality-related. To be quite honest, foremost in my mind was quality because with Scars of Youth I want a top-shelf release in a 16:9 progressive transfer (downcoverted from the 1080p HD source), Dolby 5.1 audio with all the special edition trimmings. Also, when you make a film at a certain budget it almost makes sense to self-release given the current indie film climate, which can at times be as desolate as any post-apocalyptic landscape

Two Boots Pioneer Closes

2008-11-03T00:54:00.000-08:00

Sadly, the East Village's Two Boots Pioneer Theater just closed with a Halloween night screening of Night of the Living Dead. They gave my first film Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare a week-long run in 2006 and for that I shall be eternally gratetful to both Ray and the ole' Pioneer.

I was there for the week of FBN (along with some of the other films that screened around it) and what I saw was really pure class. The Pioneer could screen 16mm, 35mm or video, and I've been to more than a few festivals and smaller theatres where the video projection is handled really haphazardly but in the case of Pioneer it all seemed to go relatively smoothly and I was impressed by the little details such as the interesting choice of entry music, which changed given the type of film they were showing.

So I hope in the future something can come of the place and I hope that the adjoining video store with the big Swinger's Massacre poster keeps going as well.

Second Review Online

2008-10-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

There's another review of SOY available now at BadLit.com.

First Review Online

2008-10-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

The first review of Scars of Youth is available over at Quiet Earth.

Right now I'm still in a holding pattern, hoping to premiere the film at a festival in early 2009. I've gotten some interest right now but we'll see how it goes.

Scars of Youth Completed

2008-09-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Just to give everyone another little update on the status of my film, I just completed a cut of the film which should now be on it's way out there into the world and should hopefully premiere at some point later this year or early next year. Again, I want to thank the entire cast and crew for really pulling together and making something very interesting.

I've also updated the Press Area section of the official website with more stills and information.

A Little Update

2008-08-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

Just to give everyone a head's up, the fast weeks I've been working on post-production on the film, most only the film's soundtrack. I'm close to getting it finished though.

I'd also like to mention that the last issue of Video Watchdog (#142 to be exact) features a review of Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare.

Scars of Youth Day 22

2008-07-15T02:03:00.001-07:00

I shot a few more insert shots, beginnings/ends of scenes today. Also I went back and re-did a few close-ups that I didn't completely have.

Scars of Youth Website Goes Live

2008-07-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

You can check it out at http://www.scarsofyouthmovie.com right now. There's not much there that's not already available here in the blog but at least it's all in one place.

Scars of Youth Day 21

2008-07-09T00:24:00.000-07:00

On monday we shot the last big scene in the film left to shoot, where Paul visits a strange man in a bio tent and unusual things happen to both of them. As usual, I was filming right at the edge of sundown so toward the end of the shoot I was cranking up the gain but I doubt you'll notice it in the final product. Also, we made some other shots which allowed me to nail down the editing on the last scene in the film, which I hope has an impact on the audience because it ends with a shot, then a quote and then "the end." There's no end credits for the film - all of the credits will be at the front.

Scars of Youth Day 20

2008-07-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

This shoot day actually took place on saturday, yesterday, or two days ago I should say, and it took place in between these multiple thunderstorms which have been screwing up my shoots for the past two week. This time I photographed some important elements of Jeremy as well as re-did a couple things which I don't think worked the first time.

For the past week I've also been working pretty much day-and-night to get a cut of this film done. So far I've got about 45 minutes rough cut, very little to no sound work, and I've got one major scene to shoot along with some other insert shots.

The New Trailer

2008-07-05T16:36:00.001-07:00

Here it is in all it's sparkling flash video glory.

Scars of Youth Trailer from john Hand on Vimeo.

Scars of Youth Day 19

2008-06-23T19:20:00.001-07:00

Today was another maintenance shoot with Jeremy, where I shot a few various elements from other scenes.

Scars of Youth Day 18

2008-06-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

Today I shot a very strange "execution"-type scene with my friend Wade Best. It was rainy as hell, incredibly overcast but overall the shoot went well.

Scars of Youth Day 17

2008-06-20T02:52:00.000-07:00

On June 17 and 18 I was focusing on doing some shots of the moon. I was primarily shooting on the 18th, the full moon, which the screenshot is from below.

UAR

2008-06-15T23:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was able to engage in a nice little diversion - helping out to put together as well as film User Assumes Risk's stage show. We basically Amanda Edingtion, wrapped her up like some strange biomechanical monkey and then blasted lights into her face for an hour. Of course numerous things went wrong but the final results were interesting, to say the least.

User Assumes Risk - June 14, 2008 from john Hand on Vimeo.

Scars of Youth Day 16

2008-06-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, I love days, or should I say evenings, like these where you can really go down, bottom of the barrel, video gain all the way up and see what kind of an image will come out. Today we shot the scene which kind of ends Paul's relationship with his mother, mostly at night, by a lake. It's a really moody and sad scene.

Scars of Youth Day 15

2008-06-08T00:31:00.000-07:00

Yet again I had to scuttle the afternoon shoot because systematically people fell out, which was fine because I had my hands full for this ritual murder scene I shot around eight. I want to thank Amanda, Jeremy and Bruce for showing up promptly and helping to create this little scene.

The scene is kind of half-dream logic, half weirdo paranoid fantasy of mine. The idea is that this ritual murder - some kind of strange psychological figment of the main character feelings for his mother and father - is all being captured by some kind of vintage tube camera in a television stage of sorts for some creepy futuristic sacrifice. In order to realize this effect I actually tracked down a vintage tube camera - a Panasonic PK 750 - along with a tethered VTR module (the camera plugs into this VHS VCR with a long cable) and shot most of the scene with this camera until the scene reaches a cresendo and we switch to HD. It's kind of been a dream of mine to fool around with one of these old analog cameras because you can get these smeary analogue motion artifacts that are just impossible with solid-state cameras. The sad thing is that now that I have the money/time to acquire this vintage analog equipment I've gone HD and the whole game is flipped upside down. Oh well.

I took raw footage from panasonic on location and immediately recorded the raw image to a minidv camera from the A/V outs on the VCR. I could've possibly risked recording the scene on actual VHS but for some reason I don't trust those nearly 30-year-old tape heads. I then kinescoped the minidv footage - videotaped a monitor in HD using a 1/12th shutter speed which virutally eliminated the hum bars and gave the motion this weird static feel that I liked. Also, since we're shooting 16:9 HD I reformatted the image (I shot it loose anyway) to about 1.66 and put black bars on the sides.Then I rendered the footage in black and white, both to match the look of the other dream sequences and because the color on this camera is shot. I do admit that the colors in broad daylight are really neat though, all streaky neon greens and blues. So was it worth all trouble getting that vintage gear when the final product was so heavily processed? Perhaps not, but it was fun anyway. Also, I finished up a few moments I wanted to shoot between Paul and Helen.

Here's a bit of the rushes from today. It's also available on youtube as well.

Scars of Youth - Ritual Murder Rushes from john Hand on Vimeo.

First Teaser Trailer

2008-06-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a high-quality version from Vimeo. There's also a version available at youtube as well.

Scars of Youth Teaser Trailer from john Hand on Vimeo.

Scars of Youth Day 14

2008-06-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

Today I shot a couple scenes featuring Amanda's children Matthew and Megan in a very ominous scenes where the worker in a white suit implants something into their hand with a machine while our lead Paul looks on.

Scars of Youth Day 13

2008-05-24T18:43:00.001-07:00

I guess it makes sense that shoot day #13 might start out with some problems, which it did - first of all my friend had a to play a show so I couldn't shoot the scene I'd been planning so I had to run around and complete last weeks work with those scarred "villagers." Lemmie came back and did another fantastic make-up job. Also, I completed some crucial shots of Paul listening intently the output of this strange "cylinder player," which is the futuristic equivalent of a wax or steel cylinder player only it uses lasers to read the data from a shiny, small cylinder.

Scars of Youth Day 12

2008-05-17T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today we shot the scene where Paul is being spied on by a couple of strange figures from across the pond. I'd really like to thank Stephanie Barnes and Casey Grubbs for showing up on such short notice and also like to thank Lemmie Crews for some truly stellar make-up effects. Presented below is before/after shots of Ms. Barnes and Grubbs.

Scars of Youth Day 11

2008-05-16T20:33:00.001-07:00

Helen looking out over a cliff. One shot...okay, multiple shots, multiple takes, multiple options. Decisions, decisions.

Scars of Youth Day 10

2008-05-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

What a long,strange shooting day. The very beginning and end of the film with Paul and Helen.

Scars of Youth Day 9

2008-05-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

I got together with Jeremy and shot a few short connecting scenes along with some alternate angles and scene beginnings/endings, nothing too big, but I was happy with the results.

Scars of Youth Day 8

2008-05-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today I shot a number of scenes with Ferrin "Danny" Thomas, who plays the important role of a mysterious man. I was recording production sound today in a kind of "dual system" setup, using a Sony MiniDV camera as the audio recorder from the hidden lavalier mike.

Scars of Youth Day 7

2008-04-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

After having to cancel last weekend's Saturday shoot, I regrouped today today with more scenes of Paul...some of the more sedate dream material, the unveiling of the knife, a strange white fence and some worm wrangling.

Scars of Youth Day 6

2008-04-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

Today I shot some more dream/flashback sequence footage with Amanda and my lead actor Jeremy's young son Donovan.

Scars of Youth Days 4 and 5

2008-04-18T00:27:00.000-07:00

Day four featured none of the principles - it was just some night shoots of various elements which comprise some of the black and white imagery in the film. Day five was another night shoot with Amanda.

Scars of Youth Shoot Day #3

2008-04-11T14:41:00.001-07:00

Shoot #2 was last Saturday, where we re-shot a few scenes from the day before and just generally tried out a few more idea. On the third day, today to be exact, I continued on the same path, getting various elements and trying a few new ideas. Again, I shall include some very small screenshots.

Scars Of Youth Shoot Days 1 and 2

2008-04-04T20:21:00.001-07:00

I just got through the first couple days of principle photography on my new film with relatively few hitches.

A Few More Mags and Interviews

2008-03-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

It appears as if the German Virus Magazine did a review of the FBN DVD in issue #20 but I haven't been able to track down a copy of this one yet. Also, the new issue of Paracinema Magazine (which is issue #2 to be exact) features a retrospective article by Matt Whoolery on the history of Super-8 features from Nekromantik forward which has a sweet little FBN mention.

Also, I should mention that Matt also did a neat little interview with me recently.

And, to be a completist, here's another interview with me at Soiled Cinema.

Scars of Youth: Now Casting

2008-02-19T02:07:00.000-08:00

JRH Film's next production "Scars of Youth" is now looking for cast/crew. Check out the full details over at that special page at jrhfilms.com.

Nominated for a Rondo!

2008-01-24T03:49:00.000-08:00

Gee whiz, you turn your back for a minute and several months go by. Such is the life of a time traveler.

In any case, I just found out the FBN DVD recieved a Rondo Classic Horror Awards nomination for "Best Independent Production on DVD" right along there with Chainsaw Sally and Vampira: The Movie. Great work guys, just getting the nod is fun enough.

Magazine Articles and More

2007-10-09T00:58:00.000-07:00

Screem #15 includes a fairly in-depth interview with me where I discuss the making of this FBN film, Super-8, Cinemagic, Buio Omega and some of the screenplays I've got ready to go. I'd like to thank Travis and everyone and Screem for putting the whole thing together.

The newest issue of the long-running UK Sci-Fi Lit Mag Interzone (issue #212 to be exact) also featured a review of FBN but I haven't found a copy yet so I don't know much about it yet. About the only tidbit about that FBN screening that I could find online was some guy's blog where he compared the film to Blair Witch and didn't like it very much. Oh well, I have no idea of how the audience as a whole felt. I'm just happy that I was included in the shows but their screenings of those Coffin Joe films sounded fun.

Last but not least, if you're interested in reading some of my favorite Halloween-time movies, Pollystaffle.com just published a helpful list for you. An eclectic list perhaps, but I wanted to pick some more obscure movies like The Mangler, stuff nobody picks.

Macabro

2007-09-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

I wanted to thank everyone who might've caught the screening of FBN last week at Macabro? I guess it played at the Cineteca National but it might've shown up at some of the other festival screening venues around Mexico City. Hopefully I'll eventually get some information regarding how the film was recieved, because I'm interested about how it went down given that it was shown with subtitles.

Macabro 2007 Update

2007-08-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

The Macabro 2007 Festival page was updated yesterday with the final list of films showing. It looks as if FBN is included in the same program as Claire Denis' The Intruder.

First German-Language Review

2007-07-31T01:18:00.000-07:00

I'm fairly sure that the Mondo Bizarr blog just posted the first review of FBN in German. I've ran the piece through babblefish and it appears very positive. I think at one point he even compares the soundtrack to "The Boards of Canada," which I thought was rather neat.

New Review

2007-07-28T02:11:00.001-07:00

Check out this new review at DVDSchlock - "...one of the most original films I have ever seen," that's neato.

It also appears as if FBN is the lowest-rated DVD in the "Frankenstein" category at Netflix. Oh well.

Recolorization Experiments

2007-07-20T03:17:00.001-07:00

I've always wanted to shoot a film in color, convert it to black and white then go back and totally recolor the image similar to vintage photo "tinting" or the recolorizing of ye' old cinema classics. As much I disliked all that colorized revisionist crap, there's was always something about those plastic, greyish skintones which always fascinated the hell out of me. It feels part technicolor, part otherworldy, especially when it's done right with clean-looking source material. I like it in the same way that I liked redubbed films where the dialogue tracks sounds like it's resonating above every other element because it was recorded in a studio and wasn't properly "world-ized," to misuse a Walter Murch phrase. In this same respect, in colorized images the colors seems to almost be fighting each other; it feels painful but there's something undeniably artistic and satisfying about it when it's done in the right spirit. Sometimes it also reminds me vaguely of some Europeans films with very odd color schemes, like the way that Jean Pierre Melville tried to pull down the colors and get these steel-greyish skintones.

A little proof of concept image is in order here:

The first image is the raw minidv frame, the last one is what happened after I converted to black and white then selectively recolored it, and the middle frame is the color correction which actually made it into the final film (along with a bunch of grain and other stuff). The middle frame unfortunately isn't the exact one as the other two because in the final film that frame is hidden by a fade-up from black but I thought I'd include it anyway for reference. The retouching is a little rough here but I suppose you can get the idea. Perhaps this image wasn't the best example because there's not a wide range of grey values and her hair gets lost there in the black over on the right, but I just randomly picked this one to see what I could do. Of course with modern color correction you can isolate both specific colors or parts of the image and carry out what I suggest with far more accuracy and ease than turning the entire image monochrome and redoing all of the color, but it might be fun to try it anyway.

More New Reviews and Interview

2007-07-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot to mention that DVD Maniacs, The Spinning Image, Obscure Horror and Fatally Yours all posted new reviews for the DVD last week. Thanks guys!

Also, I just did a new interview over at Cinehound.

Official Selection - Macabro Festival 2007

2007-07-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

I found at last night that Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare has been selected to play at the 2007 edition of the Macabro Festival in Mexico City this August. When I have more concrete details about date and time I'll let everyone know. I guess this will be the first non-US showing of the film.

More DVD Reviews

2007-07-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

I just like to thank Miltos at Cinehound and William Simmons at SexGoreMutants for really nice review of the new FBN DVD, while on the not-so-nice front, I get a slight feeling that the guy who wrote the DVD Verdict review wasn't too crazy about the movie.

In addition to print reviews, the live Cult Radio A-Go-Go live broadcast featured a review of the DVD which was the best audio review I've gotten since the Splattercast show and the Dead Pit review which, well, I'd rather not think about very much.

DVD Reviews and Other News

2007-07-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Here's another review of the film courtesy of Movies Made Me Do It. Nice choice of stills as well.

In online retailer news, a bunch of new European companies are carrying the Unearthed release. Even Asian Cult Cinema has a product listing with some screenshots. I also noticed Absurd-Online.dk is carrying FBN for 149,00 DKK, so there you go. The page also reports that the DVD weighs 200 grams, so there you go as well. There you go.

Also, someone just told me that Kim's Video in NY is renting the new FBN DVD. Apparently they were also selling the DVD but it's out of stock! Well, out of stock at Kim's at least, not everywhere in general. So there you go yet again. If anyone else sees it on a videostore shelf I'd be interested to hear about it.

First DVD Review Online

2007-06-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

Via 10bullets.com.

Screening in St. Augustine FL.

2007-06-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that FBN is being shown today by the Weird Film Society of St. Augustine down here in Florida.

Here's a link to the Myspace event page with the the address and other info about the event.

Cult Radio A-Go-Go Audio Interview

2007-06-17T01:08:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to thank Terry and Tiffany over at Cult Radio A-Go-Go for doing a live interview with me during Saturday Night's show where I discussed FBN and other horror/cult movie-related topics. The internet feed runs 24/7 but they've recently been doing some excellent live show during the weekends where are turning out to be a lot of fun.

You can listen to the isolated interview segment here, though I believe it might end up in the show's daily rotation.

More Misc. Notes

2007-06-16T12:06:00.001-07:00

The JRH Films website has been updated slightly with a bit more contents and images of the front and back of the DVD which you can find by clicking on the DVD covers on both the front page and "store" page.

I also just noticed that the blog Zombiemart ran a short piece on the FBN DVD. Creature Corner and Sleazegrinder also made mention of the DVD as well. The DVD was also Polly Staffle's Pick of the Week. The film is also mentioned as a footnote in SF, Fantasy and Horror Review's piece on Frankenstein (1931).

Wow, June

2007-06-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

So the Frankenstein DVD is out, it's June and not much is going on. I've recieved so many comments and questions dealing with the sound design of FBN that I just finished working on this nearly hour-long documentary where I take people step-by-step through the creation of the film's 5.1 Dolby Digital track. I share a few tips, expose a few more secrets and just generally babble on about everything from doing all the foley myself, dubbing the film and even composing the entire score using a pc keyboard. I think it's interesting stuff. I'm going to try to get this documentary out there later this year.

I guess most of the end of May was taken up with dealing with the Unearthed Films DVD. I only had a chance to catch two films - Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and Melville's Army of Shadows. Melville as usual is just brilliant. For some odd reason, WWII movies almost always have cool-sounding titles like Army of Shadows, Slaughterhouse Five, Overlord, etc. Even if you don't like the movies you know you're in for some kickass title which you'll feel good about saying to your friends.I had seen Mishima many years ago on VHS and this new DVD with the new english narration by someone other than Roy Scheider made for an interesting listen. Overall, I'd say the experience is about the same. Apparently Criterion is slated to re-release Mishima later this year.

Mention In Fangoria's DVD Chopping List

2007-05-27T10:31:00.001-07:00

Having grown up on Fango Magazine, I'm well-acquainted with their "Video Chopping List" which used to provide vital information on horror-related home video releases back in the pre-internet era. The Fango website published a very nice article on FBN and included the Unearthed DVD in the online list (now known as the "DVD Chopping List") but I didn't think it was getting into the print version. Then suddenly, last night, Mike from badlit.com alerted me to the following pages within Fangoria #264:

The first page just has a quick write-up on FBN along with the DVD technical specs (commentary, photo gallery, trailers) but the second page with the still accompanied by that signature Fangoria pun? That just gets me all choked up inside. I love it.

A Few Updates

2007-05-26T21:59:00.001-07:00

Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone; it's been a really wild week for me. To everyone who ordered the DVD, it should be arriving soon and everyone who I'd promised a copy to should be getting it very soon as well. I just noticed that Xploited Cinema is now stocking the DVD as well.

Last but not least, I just created an account at the new Divx video website (which is kind of a Youtube on steroids) so that anyone can what some nice higher-resolution version of the trailers for FBN.

Unearthed Films Newsletter - FBN and POAK

2007-05-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

Frankenstein's Bloody Nightmare May 22nd and Philosphy of a Knife Update

Dear Gorehounds and Dead Women,

Hope all is well in your undead section of the world. It's quite sticky and maggot infested here at Unearthed Films Headquarters. I guess we kept too many dead bodies laying around for our own good. Anyway, looks like we have another film coming out, it's actually today of days. It's called Frankenstein's Bloody Nightmare and it's directed by John Hand. This crazed individual is the master of Pulsing Cinema and he has made a film that is close to his black encrusted heart.

What is it about you may ask? Well, here's the synopsis…

Brilliant young Victor Karlstein finds himself lost in an abyss of personal turmoil and professional stress after the woman he most likely seemed to love dies while under the care of his own mysterious medical facility. Determined to keep her alive, Victor uses his mechanically-enhanced reanimated corpse to murder young women in order to furnish "raw parts" for her new body, among other devious things.

A grainy echo of experimental and fantastic films of years past rendered in wild splashes of saturated super-8 cinematography, Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare is the debut feature from writer/producer/director John R. Hand.

This film is quite experimental and John has a knack for disturbing images and far out visuals. It maybe a little to far out for some of you but for those of you that love the throwback films of the 70's with a dash of David Lynch, then this is what you get.

On the fore front of our assault on your senses, we have This Hollow Sacrament from Greg Stechman, A reality based serial killer flick with real war footage taken from Iraq, Gareth Evan's Footsteps, A low down and gritty British film that takes you into the seedy underground of violent video photography, Carmilla, the Lesbian Vampire by Vince D”Amato. Originally released as Vampires VS Zombies but we have the uncut version of it. The Hari Kari Series all in Gorno-vision and the sequel to the gorebuster hit Red Room, RED ROOM 2. We have plenty more films like Mercy from Patrick Roddy which is now getting rave reviews around the web… more splatter from Germany and Japan that is almost to numerous to mention.

On the flip side, I have to tell you something. Come over here… get real close… closer… closer… It's done.

Philosophy of a Knife that is! It's finally finished; our 1st film and I do have to say. Holy Crap! We just finished watching it over at Rhett's house on his huge TV and my god! It's a sight to behold. I've seen a lot of films before and I have seen a lot of documentaries and I have never seen anything like this! It's a gorehounds wet dream of shock, gore and torture all while learning what a secret section of the Japanese Government was doing to learn about the secrets of what the human body can handle. Every single experiment is recreated and never before seen facts are disturbingly brought out to the forefront for everyone to see.

My jaw hit the floor on several of the gore scenes and this film will go down in history unlike any other gore film since it is the 1st of it's kind. I really couldn't believe what Andrey Iskanov did in Russia to come up with the special effects. It's amazing and runs 4 hours long. The documentary is split into two parts and I do have to say, Discovery Channel, eat your heart out! We will be showcasing this at film festivals around the world and see what the critics and other companies have to say about it.

Anyway, I have to get the rotten corpses out of the library to get ready to move. I think our headquarters is getting a little too hot and the smell is starting to get to the neighbors. Maybe I should set it on fire to conceal the evidence. That's a great idea so I'm off for some kerosene. Talk to you later.

Stephen Biro
Megalomaniac
Unearthed Films
www.unearthedfilms.com

FBN DVD Released

2007-05-22T04:50:00.000-07:00

Finally, the promised day arrives. May 22, the release date of Frankensteins Blood Nightmare. While I have the opportunity I'd just like to thank the cast and crew that stuck by me while I was putting the movie together helped me to make the entire project "come alive." I'd also like to thank all those people along the way, the critics, theater exhibitors and other filmmakers who gave me support along the way. It just wonder what's going to happen after the movie goes "out there" in the wild.

Film Threat Review

2007-05-19T03:15:00.000-07:00

I think it's safe to say that the Film Threat.com reviewer didn't enjoy FBN very much, as evidenced by the cartoon logo giving a confused expression on the page. The only bad thing about this one is that it seems to have tipped the Rotten Tomatoes rating of the film toward the negative.

FBN on Netflix

2007-05-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that a listing for FBN has shown up on Netflix, a week early but still it's interesting.

New Reviews

2007-05-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

Cannibal Cam wrote an okay review for FBN in the latest issue of Hacker's Source where he says that the film was perhaps a little too "boundary pushing." Fair enough. Also just in is a review by Barbara May from They'reComing.com where she has some very interesting things to say about the whole issue of the main character's "intimate" moments with the monster.

In other news, I've slightly updated JRHFilms.com and put a nice pseudo-hynpotic slideshow thingie on the front page. You gotta love it.

May Days

2007-05-07T03:41:00.000-07:00

Of course, the big thing happening for me this month is the release of Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare on DVD from Unearthed Films on May 22. As I've noted before, the DVD includes the full version of the film presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and it also includes a commentary track, a very short "making of" segment along with some trailers and stills. A nice little package I think. I'm really happy with all the work that I've seen Unearthed put into the release and it's available for pre-order from Amazon, Deep Discount DVD along with the other usual online suspects. It'll probably also show up on a few shelves at various retailers who are brave enough to stock it without fear of the DVD either biting or causing the DVDs around it to melt. FBN don't play nice. In any case, I'm sure if you pick it up it'll make a nice addition to your weirdo film collection.

Still seeking Euro Festivals and Distributors

2007-04-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'd just like to remind everyone that Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare does not have a foreign distributor yet, so any interested parties can contact my sales agent Cine Sales for more details on that.

More importantly, FBN has yet to have a European premiere so if anyone's interested in booking the film outside of the US they should let me know.

Jodorowsky Resurfaced

2007-04-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

I spent most of the weekend getting hoplessly entangled within the new Alejandro Jodorowsky DVD box set and, to say the least, I really loved the hell out of it. The set contains excellent remastered versions of El Topo and The Holy Mountain along with a copy of Fando Y Lis which look roughly the same as the old Fantoma DVD and a version of Mouchet's documentary La Constellation Jodorowsky which actually looks a hair better than that old Fantoma release. After all these years, the mole has finally found the light.