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Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! DVD released today Support do-it-yourself aquatic monster comedy!

DVD now available on amazon

What people are saying about the movie: "…good-natured fun is in abundant supply! (Who says you need an even adequate budget when you have heart?!) I loved every minute of it!" - John Paizs, director of classic film Crime Wave "hugely enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny" - DVD Verdict "an homage to old-time horror and old-time Americana" -Thomas M. Sipos, Hollywood Investigator "I cannot resist a monster movie with a gill-man costume so beautifully goofy and ghastly all at the same time. And it's still better than most of the CGI monsters we see in low-budget movies these days." - Foywonder, Dread Central click to watch the "Riverbeast" teaser Official Facebook ShockMarathons MoternMedia YouTube ShockMarathons site

Copyright © 2013 | ShockMarathons | All rights reserved. HEAR OUR REVIEW OF THE FILM  ON THE AMD PODCAST HERE

Butcher's Hill

We are big fans of independent film over here in the Diner and we are always on the look out for vibrant, interesting new productions.

Occasionally one such feature, short or web series falls into our inbox and intrigues us enough that not only do we, of course, take a look but then immediately after watching it we feel compelled to share it with everyone else and sing its praises.

In this case that short film is called Butcher's Hill and it's a wonderfully macabre and beautifully designed take on the Hansel and Gretel fairytale.

No annoying CGI monsters taken down by a crossbow wielding Hawkeye against a green screen here, oh no, just good old fashioned, atmospheric film making that is like a wonderful breath of fresh air.

Details:
Year made: 2008
DIRECTED BY: JASON NOTO & RORY KINDERSLEY
STARRING: TIMOTHY CHALAMET, JACKIE RHOADS and TATE STEINSIEK  "You won’t believe where filmmakers Jason Noto and Rory Kindersley take you in this bloody twist on the Hansel and Gretel story that will leave you stunned. Left to fend for themselves, a brother and sister venture into a remote cabin where a bounty of treats costs more than expected"

The most striking thing about the short is the detail and design. So rich, so creative, so tactile almost that from the smoke in the trees, to the crumbs of the cakes, to the rough wooden floor boards of the house, you are completely immersed in this familiar yet stunningly strange and foreboding world. There are welcome overshadows of Terry Gilliam here and the better of Tim Burton's films, a tough thing to pull off but done with a wonderfully restrained elegance to the filmmaking. 

As the tension builds and the short moves into its final moments there is a delicious sense of dark humour that I reveled in. 

Lastly the performances of the two children in the production is fantastically unselfconscious, just the right side of playful and never annoying.

We'd be interested to know what you think, so please, watch for yourself.
FEATURING an Exclusive Introduction by Filmmaker Jason Noto

Presented by Fear.net

The filmmakers are attempting to expand this to a full feature in 2014 and have a Kickstarter campaign starting July 2013, the press release and details of are below but we would urge anyone who watched the short and was inspired, surprised and excited by the talent and creativity on display to support the feature.
We here at The After Movie Diner wish them the best of luck.

PRESS RELEASE

APRIL 29 New York, New York (Monday April 29, 2013) 
– From the Award winning writer and directors Jason Noto and Rory Kindersley, BUTCHER’S HILL, their short fantastical film, celebrates its online premiere today Monday April 29 2013 on FEAR.net. TV to over 40 million homes nationwide. 

The infamous short film swept the genre festival circuit with its brutal decapitation scene in 2008 garnering wide acclaim from critics and bloggers internationally. Now for the first time ever it reaches its bloody hands across the nation in all its HD glory. And furthermore, the team has decided to re- launch their efforts to develop the short film into a heart pumping, blood curdling, feature film in 2014 with the support of London based content innovation studio, Fablemaze.

Fablemaze is a brand and content experience studio specializing in forward thinking interactive ideas and distribution platforms for today’s marketplace. Launched in 2007 and helmed by Toby Cook and Matt Cook, Fablemaze brings together the vision and excitement of filmmaking with the innovation of interactive design to make unique experiences for brands, agencies and entertainment. Also on board, esteemed producer Brian W. Cook has joined the team as Executive Producer. 
In a career spanning over 40 years, Brian W. Cook has worked as a Producer and Assistant Director with some of cinema’s most respected talents, including five films with Michael Camino, three films with Stanley Kubrick and two with Sean Penn. His producing credits include ‘Colour Me Kubrick’, ‘The Pledge’ and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’. 
 Additionally, Award winning Special make-up effects studio Ill Willed Productions (The Amazing Spider Man, Piranhaconda) will provide effects for Butchers Hill. IWP Founder Tate Steinsiek quickly became a horror fan favorite on SYFY’s special effects competition, FACE OFF and has been featured in Fangoria, Rue Morgue, The New York Times, and Variety. 
Award winning Composer Adam Balazs (The Butterfly Effect 3,The Secret of Moonacre) has also signed on to Butchers Hill. 

“Butcher’s Hill is an homage to all the great Brothers Grimm tales of our child hood. We wanted to create an unflinching look into the world of dark tales in all its gruesome glory,” explains Kindersley. “And after the economic collapse we struggled like most indie filmmakers to find support but now we’re ready to go with new and exciting momentum to get Butcher’s Hill killing again.” 

The production has launched the facebook fan page https://www.facebook.com/butchershillthemovie, which will track the development of the film with regular updates from Jason and Rory. It will feature videos of the films progress, including behind the scenes casting, production meetings, and interviews with key production staff. 
Fans and supporters will also be able to connect to the Butcher’s Hill KickStarter campaign, (launching on July 1st 2013) which will enable them to to contribute towards crowd-funding in exchange for Butcher’s Hill themed gifts, such as credits and special edition DVD’s, and even participation in the films production.

Butcher’s Hill is scheduled to shoot in the fall of 2014. For more information on Butcher’s Hill visit https://www.facebook.com/butchershillthemovie.

Oblivion Review

A 70s style, thoughtfully paced and beautiful looking attempt at straight sci-fi that starts off intriguing and descends into an action fueled string of seen-it-all-before sci-fi cliche twists.

The just second time director (also creator of the graphic novel on which this is based) has vision by the bucket load but no sense of timing within the story telling and can't really mount an exciting action sequence.

Loved the design, though and Tom cruise's performance was tremendous. It's crazy that I like him more and more as an actor but with this, Jack Reacher and the Mission Impossible films he's proving himself to really just be a watchable, enjoyable and, in this, a damn fine actor. Having seemingly dropped the annoying, chest thumping earnestness that plagued his younger, dramatic roles. In this he is just the right level of wistful, cheeky and action man so as to be intriguing and an engaging protagonist for us to be stuck with for 2hrs plus. Good thing too as the entire film hangs on his diminutive shoulders. Also a good thing that his space suit mirrors those collarless leather jackets his prizes above all others.

I didn't much care for the English redheaded actress in the film, Andrea Riseborough. She seemed too young, too serious, too annoying and just not well matched to the subject matter or her leading man. True her part doesn't really give her much to do and yes a certain reveal in the film later explains away some of her characters inability to embrace Cruise's character's romance with Earth but even so, while it's clear she is a talented actress, her performance grated with me and felt out of place.
The rest of the performers in the film were satisfactory considering the one note parts they had been handed out. Morgan Freeman has a cool "Oh look it's Morgan Freeman" entrance that they sadly ruined in the trailer but apart from that his purpose is to be the kindly, wise but strong African American sci-fi character cut from much of the same cloth as Lawrence Fishburne in The Matrix.

Overall the film is literally every science fiction film ever made rolled into one but with a great design and enough new for you not to mind what it's got in common with previous films such as 2001, Moon and even Independence Day.

In a film that needed to balance lofty ideas, a few twists, an epic sense of romance and explosive action I am not sure it 100% succeeded and the score, sadly, doesn't help this by being flat and instantly forgettable but for a second time director, if you like proper Sci-Fi and want to see a riveting Cruise performance, well you can't go wrong.

A flat 7 out of 10 cool 70s looking airline lunch.

Just What the Hell is Talkshoe?

Get accustomed to Talkshoe!
What is Talkshoe I hear you cry!? well it's the place where we host The After Movie Diner podcast.
Don't have iTunes? Don't worry!
Confused with the listening/downloading instructions on my website? aren't we all!
Then come on down to Talkshoe - works exactly like iTunes, Podomatic, Podbean etc and it's all there. Every episode as an easy to download MP3!!
Link to Facebook, Twitter, get our RSS Feed, share us on any website you can think of!
EVENE Rate & Review us with none of the membership hassles of iTunes!!
Get accustomed and acquainted with Talkshoe!!!
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/110745

It's also a huge community of live shoes, phone in shows, podcasts etc. You can visit and, probably, never have to leave!

The Story of Droning by Mark 'Despair' Cousins

Just tried to make it through the first two episodes of The Story of Film by Mark Cousins and gave up. The man is one of the most pretentious, humourless, mumbling, egotistical, pompous and downright bizarre men to have ever existed. While Hollywood in the 20s you imagine to be glamourous, exciting, vibrant and innovative he makes them dour, tedious and monochrome all the while disparaging fantasy, effects, romance, performance, urgency and story telling in favour of long drawn out Danish films in which people weep in a still black n white shot for 40 minutes.
I knew it was all utter nonsense when Cousins interviews other pretentious arse head Lars Von Trier about Dryer and Von Trier stammers and dribbles through an utterly pointless and horribly shot interview segment saying 'I don't know why he's great but he is'. Oh well that's ok then Cousins.
At one point, while randomly and casually discussing the birth of documentaries, Cousins actually says "Seemingly they were only co-directors, the other director being life... itself"
Jesus!

Lastly the documentary is so utterly horrible to look at. Amazing clips are presented with no life to them, the interviews are unlit and discoloured giving them the look of 3 day old dried sick and the footage he took from around the world is bleak, too slow, shot on cheap video and unimaginative making the world a cold and ugly place to look at. The whole thing is accompanied by the dreariest music Cousins could find (probably from his own personal collection of Latvian dirges) that makes it have the feel of a 'help you quit smoking' hypnotic video from 1989.
How can you take an art form so full of innovation, creativity, life, excitement, message, propaganda and importance and reduce it to this droning, creaking, plodding, monotonous, opinionated and slanted 15 hours of tedium?!?

Some review on imdb described it like he was trying to hypnotise an otter. I can't beat that.

I imagine that a dinner round Cousins house takes place in a cold grey room, on a bare, rough table (because, you know, poverty and despair are "REAL"), while Russian funeral marches play on a small wind up, war time gramophone and the 7hr Eric Von Stroheim film Greed plays on a loop, projected on a blood stained sheet next to a bare window, while his wife sobs uncontrollably into the mash potatoes and Cousins drones on saying "These are the worst mashed potatoes so far in the story of Cousins, there's no cream, no butter, no taste and yet think again, look closer, the preparer has left the skins on, the skins are red. Maybe the red potato symbolises hope amongst this futile dinner time. Maybe it's just a potato. The server leaves it ambiguous and who am I to ask?"

It all makes you want to scream and say cheer up you miserable bastard!
If I manage to wade through any more I will let you know.

Twat.