Velvet Road

Velvet Road - L. Gustavo Cooper (2011)

"Amidst the racial tensions of the Deep South in the early 60s, a plague runs rampant. Bobby is trying to save his infected wife and their unborn child from the disease spreading across the South. This short film depicting a zombie apocalypse in the Deep South explores the social issues of prejudice and racism."

I think most of us who have been sitting and watched this short movie have a pretty safe life and a decent bright future, despite all the everyday problems like when the car breaks down, or you do not get permission to fuck your wife because you have behaved clumsily according to the female gender norms. If we have a reasonably secure life with job and family and we are asked: What's the worst that can happen to you in life? I think most people would answer that the worst that could happen is that your children are killed in any way. It is intended that the children should survive their parents, BUT, it's definitely not like that in all parts of the world.

Recently, I started to discover that short films often have a deeper message to convey, and although this short flick deals with racism, which is actually really widespread disease in many countries today. My reflection and attention moves anyway to Bobby's desperate struggle for his wife who is infected and their unborn child. This is a fight that he probably understands how it will end but do not want to realize, so he fights to the unavoidable end in despair. If we look at the world as it exists today, many people almost live in a similar situation as if it would be a zombie invasion if we change the zombies to starvation or civil war.

If we now return to the movie itself, everything is almost perfectly done. The actors act very convincing, the special effects are wonderful and it´s a damn good director's debut of L. Gustave Cooper. Let's hope that this talent does a feature film in the future because it feels hard to find something bad in Velvet Road. The only bad thing about this movie might be that it is just a short movie; you actually want to see more.

Links: IMDb, Facebook, Trailer

Klagger

Klagger – Casey Crow (2010)

Happy at heart Perry (Matthew Aycock) goes out to an abandoned factory to check it out. A seemingly ordinary day at work, but this day he will experience his worst nightmares because the factory hides a terrible curse named Klagger (Matt Willis). No one will survive entering the Klaggers domains ...

The director behind this short flick is the Texas-born Casey Crow and this is the second flick in a short time where I get the experience of the wonderful feeling of Texas with beautiful country music, sun and dust. I begin to slowly start to understand that there are two types of short films, those with a slightly deeper meaning which leaves me a bit pensive and those flicks that are more straight-ahead-horror and you gets mad when it ends. Klagger belongs to the latter category of short film. You get a good feeling from the beginning when Perry steps into the abandoned factory that will soon be scaring the crap out of him and... I tell no more; instead I leave you to see it for yourself.

The production and cinematography are just perfect and I really love the tension of that something will happen soon and it does for sure. I love the scene when Klagger appears standing still and watching his next victim. Poor Petty, his life is running low…or? Camera angles and the factory interior is higher the mood of the movie, the only thing that I miss a bit is the gore.

Links: IMDb, Facebook, Trailer

Interview: Roberto Del Piccolo

Roberto and Maurizio Del Piccolo founded the production company Moviedel Productions in 2009. The purpose was to produce high quality low budget films and video shorts. Their small highly specialised team manage all stages of film production, including special effects, digital FX, pre and post production, music, editing and make up. After released a few short films, they have now released its first feature film "The Hounds". A scary and creepy story about some friends who are camping in the woods, but something terrible broods in the forest.
Read my review of The Hounds here.

Tomas Larsson: When did you get the idea to shoot The Hounds? What was the inspiration behind your story?

Roberto Del Piccolo: We had the idea just for fun. We were planning to shoot a medium-length short, then we changed our mind and decided to write the screen play for a feature film, even if we weren`t sure to shoot it!
What inspires us the most is the every-day life routine that can turn into a nightmare or something unexpected, i.e. when your ordinary life turns into your worst nightmare.
We read some articles on newspapers that trigged our imagination, so The Hounds was about to born.

TL: The Hounds is clearly an unusual film. Do you think people will enjoy it?

RP: Well, nobody knows, we know for sure that people and critics agree so far and they enjoyed The Hounds!

TL: Do you have a favourite director?

RP: Yes, we adore Sam Raimi`s camera angles and we like the “Spanish” wave of directors... as I am a little older than Maurizio I love Wes Craven, Romero, Carpenter, Argento & Bava... but we like to build our own style.

TL: Is the music, sound and colour correction superior in quality compared to the usual indie standard?

RP: We invested a lot in terms of time and money on those issues. The sound is Dolby 5.1 for Theatrical release; Stefano Di Fiore worked with Argento before, so he is an expert, so he decided to help us to have the best sound fx, the Colour correction is from Technicolor and the music from Pierluigi Pietroniro, a well known Italian musician that embraced the project with natural enthusiasm.
DOP is born Swedish but lives in Italy, Tommaso Borgstrom, he ensured professional touch either way on colour correction and camerawork.

TL: So that means that you decided to go for a theatrical release?

RP: To be honest is not us to decide that! We like to think that on the big screen we would make you jump when the tension comes!

TL: Why did you decide to shoot the Hounds in English? Was it challenging working in a foreign language?

RP: Well, English language film features are the most viewed everywhere. We like the way English and American actors work, even if the underground is full of talented unknown artists, from every country of the world. I don’t like Italians working in English unless the English is fluent. I think that the acting comes un-natural a bit OTT (over the top) and forced.
Working in a foreign language was good because all the staff was informed months before about our expectation. They were very professional, so we were lucky on this choice.

TL: Do you think that there will be a new renaissance in Italian horror?

RP: I do thinks so! History repeat itself and I am sure we are already living the new born of Italian horror. Some people gets annoyed because we cannot provide Bava`s or Argento`s masterpieces yet, but what people should know is that we have by far smaller budget than them and the money comes from our pockets. This is a proof that we want to come back and give Italy something to be proud about. We are ready if a proper investor knocks at our door.

TL: Do you have any more projects ongoing? Can you give us some clues? What genre will it be?

RP: We have 4 more projects ready to be shot. Every project is different; we have got the gory-creepy-scary story, the pure horror “edge of the seat”, the ghost tense story and the funny (not so funny) horror comedy.
I can`t give more clues, I´m sorry!

TL: Thank you very much for your time, we would love to see more of your films in the future!

RP: Thank you and thanks for your time too.

Roberto Del Piccolo
roberto@moviedel.com
www.moviedel.com
www.thehounds-themovie.com
Watch The Hounds Trailer at: YouTube

The Puzzle & The Sweet Hand of the White Rose

Davide Melini is an Italian filmmaker and has made 4 short films so far in his career. He has also worked in Rome, as assistant director, in some features (the last one is in Dario Argento's "Mother of Tears: The Third Mother"). The Puzzle was shot it in one day with a budget of 300 Euro and has been screening on numerous international festivals (with the award as '3rd Best Italian Film' at the "Rome International Film Festival").

The sweet hand of the White Rose have won several awards (for example the '2nd Best Independent Film of the Year' at the Italian festival "Indie Horror"; the 'Best Cinematography' award at the Spanish festival "Cesur en Corto"; the "Honorable Mention" at the American festival "Tabloid Witch Awards") and has been screened in a lot of countries (US, Spain, Italy, South Africa). The short has also been selected in the official competition in many prestigious festivals, like the "Málaga Spanish Film Festival", the "David di Donatello Award" and the "South African HorrorFest" (that is the most important festival of terror in Sout Africa).

Both movies have been broadcast on "Coming Soon Television" (Italian TV) and on "PTV Málaga" (Spanish TV) and received many great reviews around the world like US, Canada, England, Austria, France, Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, South Africa and Australia

I must admit that I enjoy see gory killings in movies but that have nothing to do with death in real life or that I never reflect on my life and what’s happening around me or in the dirty, mean world. When it comes to horror I usually don´t want to have neither political nor human reflections about situations around the world, because I see this on the news every day. I have noticed lately when it comes to short movies they often incorporate stories that makes you stop and think about the meaning of life and injustice in the world. I feel shorts are a perfect tool to reach out important messages you want to tell others.

The Puzzle

The first short is only about five minutes long and I was thinking, how to I write a review about a 5-minute-short-movie? A woman gets a phone call from her son who wants her money but she refuse and hang up the phone. Later, she begins to make a puzzle that later make her terrified. After seeing the movie, I gave it a little thought. I drew parallels, if life is like a puzzle. When you have solved the puzzle and the last piece is placed the life is over. All the pieces symbolize life events during your lifetime and everything must be in order to work. Thinking in these terms, I want a puzzle with many different pieces and not just a big blue sky.

The Sweet Hand of the White Rose

To make the story short, it's about a man tormented by an accident that kills a little girl on a bicycle. As with The Puzzle it has a message and that's the most important. Once again I let you read my thoughts and my reflection on the story. The accident happens because he is a bit careless when driving because he has driven the road so many times before and his girlfriend, calling on the cell phone makes so he lose concentration on his driving. I think many of us recognize ourselves in this situation where you are careless just because you have done the same thing so many times, especially at work. You get a form of false sense of security. Occasionally people accidentally do things or says something that might have major consequences for others but also to you. I have been close to collide with my car once because I was in a hurry to a music festival and made a senseless decision. I´m still alive and thank God for that so be careful and think twice when it might be necessary.

The film is on the whole very well done in the story, cinematography and the actors who acting in the movie makes a very good job. Thumbs up for this little piece of “thinking” work.

Links: The Puzzle, The Sweet Hand of the White Rose, Davide Melini