FEO AMANTE AND ROGER SCHECK AT THE FANGO 2008 IN LOS ANGELES. " I DESPISE 'FANBOYS' WHO CAN'T KEEP THEIR COMPOSURE AT A HORROR CONVENTION." -Feo Amante

WITH THEIR HUNTER-SEEKER ALGORITHM AND TELEPATHIC MATRIX, THE SPACED CREW WAS IMPERVIOUS TO PROBE ATTACK!

From Eric Halsell
MAXIMUM MARKETING
FESTIVAL DE CANNES - JOHNNY SUNSHINE: MAXIMUM VIOLENCE will be featured as a TOP 10 release by our distributor, Brain Damage, at the Cannes Film Festival and Market in 2 days! Cannes starts Wednesday (in Cannes, France, of course!) and continues for 10 days.

To put this into perspective: The Hong Kong film festival yields the lowest licensing revenues, as Asia has such a rampant piracy problem. There is only about a 2-week profit window for distributors in Asia, so they don’t pay well for foreign films. Cannes, however, drawing most of Western Europe, is the best paying foreign market of the year. Since Johnny Sunshine received licensing requests that amount to more than the total budget of the film just at Hong Kong, expectations are VERY high for our sales performance at Cannes. Our partner, Sean-Michael Argo, is there now, and we are incredibly excited to see how things look when the dust settles at the end of the festival!

The Johnny Sunshine Blog site us up!!!! TheSprawlNews.com.

So – blogging, eh? This is a huge component of our Marketing Effort: films like CLOVERFIELD got as big as they did because of the online buzz about them, predominantly because of dedicated blog sites. Johnny Sunshine is generating a great deal of buzz on the web already, and this is the next step. The blog site was developed by one of the first hard-core Johnny Sunshine fans who saw the screening, and he has asked me to invite everyone to log in (it's wicked easy) and discuss Johnny Sunshine. Cast and Crew PLEASE BE AWARE: this is a FAN site, not a corporate site, so it’s not ours to just drench with inside jokes. This blog site (hopefully the first of many) is a forum to discuss and opine about Johnny
Sunshine the film. Some of you may be asked, however, to drop in to the site and either write in character, or to talk about the making of the film. Other than that, PLEASE DO SIGN ON!… but do it as a fan, and enjoy the site and engage in it’s commentary. Again, this is a vital portion of our Marketing effort – PLEASE BE INVOLVED!

Extreme Scream – Johnny Sunshine featured on Versus Network (cable, DirectTV, Dish Network) “EXTREME SCREAM” is a new 30-minute TV show that shines the spotlight on independently produced horror films. Broadcast Nationally on VERSUS Every Thursday, Late Night 3:00am Eastern, 2:00am Central, 1:00am Mountain, 12:00am Pacific

Promo piece on YouTube.

Johnny Sunshine Theatrical, Television and Video release on Second Life! Check out the world of 2nd Life. It’s a 3D virtual online world where you create your own avatar, buy land, and live a second, virtual life. It touts several million users, called residents. For entertainment, in-game residents can go to the Theater, rent movies, watch television, listen to on-line radio, etc. Johnny Sunshine is getting a theatrical release in-game and 2 weeks later will go to video stores and TV broadcast "in-game". Release dates pending.

Dissolve Pictures now has it's own YouTube Channel.

We just got this established, and we’ll be uploading trailers, teasers, etc. This will be a great way to spread the word, and get people to the trailers.

ARKANE: We are entering the final stages of post on Arkane. This has been a time consumer to be sure, but the color-grading, HD up-sample and effects tests are finished. We only have a couple of actors left to get into the recording studio, and Dan’s scoring is sweet. More on this as it develops. Arkane has already garnered distribution interest, and from some big names. No chickens counted before they are hatched – we’ll keep you all posted. But it is safe to say that expectations are growing far beyond what we anticipated, particularly at this stage! Johnny Sunshine, jarring as it may be, has started us down the road to true industry legitimacy, and this is more evidence of just that!

More info at:

Variety.com.

TerminatorChronicles.com

TerminatorFiles.com

FirstShowings.net.

BLU-RAY -
Nada

These are the movies -

ABOMINABLE - gets a new cover and a new release. Please read my review.

BLOODSUCKING BABES FROM BURBANK - Seriously, with a title like that you're expecting THE EXORCIST?

BRAVESTARR: THE MOVIE - An animated movie from 1986. A space-boppin' poppa of a Shaman, with mystical powers (what's the point of being a Shaman without mystical powers?) yoinks a kid onto his spaceship - which is okay in this case because the boy's planet gets destroyed by a really evil varmint named Stampede. The planet was full of peace-loving people, so they were sitting ducks. Turns out the boy was prophesied to be a savior with special powers (by whom? All of the dead people from his planet? Some savior!). Bravestarr has four special powers that, while they sound pretty cool, ain't gonna save your planet from destruction. So the Shaman goes and crashes his spaceship on Stampede's home turf, called - ahem - New Texas. On Planet bustin' Stampede's home planet, Bravestarr grows to become a super Marshall (?). So Bravestarr's new mission is to protect the people of New Texas from the further hijinks of Stampede.

THE CAR - Please read my review.

DEVIL TIMES FIVE - Criminally insane kids infiltrate a wealthy man's house, with cold blooded murder on their little minds. This is from 1974 so guess who the presumptive bad people are?

THE FOREST - The good thing about this 1983 Campers-terrorized-in-the-woods-by-a-cannibal flick, is that it tries to be more than just a Campers-terrorized-in-the-woods-by-a-cannibal flick.

FRIGHTWORLD - I was called upon a few times to create a book cover design using Mike BoHatch's cover art as the frontispiece (DECADENCE TWO). Now the guy went and made a movie!

GRIZZLY RAGE - It's about one mad bear. It's also from Dimension Extreme, so there's that.

IT CAME FROM THE LAKE - From 1978. Worst DVD Cover Ever! Monster from the lake gets on dry land and starts eating people. This was originally called MONSTROID, which sounds a whole lot better. The original poster was far cooler too! Stars John Carradine (SHOCKWAVES, THE HOWLING)

KILL THE SCREAM QUEEN - Girls respond to ads for newbie movie starletts, but the movie is really a snuff film.

MERCY - This week's weird would be the 2006 tale of a man released from prison after 25 years. A formerly violent criminal, John returns to the outside to find that the whole world has become vioent and unpredictable. From his nutso parole officer to his whacked out landlord and more, this is not the world of normalcy that John left, but one that he and people like him created.

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE - Two movies running at the same time. On the surface it's MST3K, and the movie they are lampooning is THIS ISLAND EARTH. MST3K gets its re-release, that's all. Nothing special has been done with this one, but as before, both the spoof and the unspoofed movie are on this disc.

SERIAL MOM - From 1994 comes this Collector's Edition of a serial killing Mom saving her brood... but who is she saving them for?

TEETH - Two words: Vagina Dentata. Look it up and you have the plot for this movie.

TO BECOME ONE - Murderous mad scientist in this 2002 flick at least has a truly mad and possibly murderous idea.

ZOMBIES ANONYMOUS - A brave attempt to take a Horror trope and get Japanese Horror weird with it. I'd check it out just for the effort!

Secret Story: For Those Who Scroll

The dark of the Movie theater. How trusting we all are to sit in the dark with hundreds of total strangers, also sitting in the dark,

Right - Behind - Us.

I remember my days of working in the Movie Theater as a young lad. After a while, I got bored with the novelty of seeing free movies, the SAME movies, several times a day in chunks, scraps, and pieces. Then there were the rude folk. Those human droppings who try to waste everyone else's money and enjoyment by making stupid remarks, kicking the seats in front of them, and/or being generally obnoxious. I would always be the one, chose by the management, to go quiet the "loud" ones because I was pretty good at it. I'm a big guy and I was good at getting obnoxious people to be quiet.

I could always be counted on to go in; make the noisy people in the audience silent, and come back out. No muss, no fuss: not ever

Truth be told though, even in a 12 screen theater, it was hard to keep quiet about the people who wouldn't leave after the movie was over: the people for whom an ambulance had to come and take them away.

No witnesses of course: total strangers, no one knew each other. The folks seated in the dark, didn't see what happened, or maybe did see but were secretly delighted at the plight of the obnoxious moviegoer who had harassed them so. Hmmm. I didn't really think of that at the time. I probably should have given that more thought.

In any case, the first three times it happened, the manager was very tense about having to call an ambulance and the subsequent arrival of the police. And yet she didn't fire me, and she didn't send someone else: I was THAT good at my job. One day she was told that if the police or ambulance had to come one more time, they would close the place down, there would be an investigation, and they would release it to the news.

So . . . did my boss turn me in? Did she fire me?

No. She just stopped calling the ambulance: No ambulance, no police. Whenever somebody couldn't leave, she would send me alone to go with the great big plastic garbage cart to clean up the screen room for the next show.

Soon, obnoxious people weren't coming to our theater as much. Everything was fine for many months, almost a year. My manager was promoted out of the theater and they sent someone else to run the show.

One summer day, two days after school let out, we had one screen room with an ENTIRE ROW of rude noisemakers, disrupting others and daring the other moviegoers to do something about it. I remember that it was a very hardcore horror movie: a gory blood and guts kind of flick; really attracts a select type of fan. As always I first asked the noisemakers to please be quiet in respect to the rest of the patrons. That works about half the time.

"You think you can make us be quiet?" was the response. Well of course I could. I knew that, though I guess they didn't. There were many of them, so I couldn't be furtive, quick and silent as usual - but - I did make them be quiet.

I silenced them during the loudest, most screamingest part of the movie.

- Just as the film broke.

- A blinding bright shutter blade of light froze me and exposed me 24 frames in one second.

The automatic sensor alarm on the projector alerted the manager in her office. This was her first time with me and my methods.

She arrived in time to see the result of silence. She stood there gaping at me and my work. Then the stunned crowd rose to give me a standing ovation. Some of my new "friends" helped me move the silent people out to the dumpster. They clapped my horrified manager on the back and swore how they "would always come back to THIS theater!"
"This one really takes care of their customers!"
She left the screen room in a daze while I cleaned the screening room, only to ask my co-workers to call the police. Her surprise at me was compounded by the response she got from them. I'd worked at the theater for years and many of them had worked with me nearly as long. So of course they knew me and what I did. I'd been at it for a long time.

After closing, the new manager asked me to "Please help me lock up."
When everyone was gone, she courteously gave me the day's receipts, over $30,000 dollars in cash, and asked me to "Please quit." and never come back.

I'm not stupid of course, I clearly understood her reasons and I appreciated her being up front with me.

I finished college and got my degree. Now I'm a police officer. The TV show COPS is coming to our city next week to spend a month riding and taping us. The Police Commissioner himself has given me that time off: a bonus vacation with pay.

-Feo Amante