Movies
[OMFG] Our Film ‘V/H/S’ Will Premiere at Sundance 2012, First Look!
It still hasn’t even sunk in…
Our film V/H/S is going to have its world premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival as part of their Park City at Midnight program on Sunday, January 22nd! It’s insane to be mentioned in the same breath as Saw, High Tension, Open Water, The Signal, The Woman and even The Descent. INSANE.
I’ve always been sort of an oddball when it comes to setting life goals. While most people I know shoot for the stars, I always shoot towards happiness. For example, Bloody Disgusting was never meant to be as successful as it is. When Tom and I started the site back in January 2001 we did it out of the pure love of the genre, and because doing things with your friends is not only cool, but also fun. While the site continues to blossom, everything I do continues to be about personal happiness as opposed to making a dollar.
This bleeds into my side projects. I Associate Produced A Horrible Way to Die, which was a friend “experiment”, a way to see if a group of friends could work together to create a great piece of art. I’m proud of the final product and what my buddies were able to achieve. After that, both Tom and myself were fortunate enough to get two more projects off and running – Under the Bed and V/H/S – both of which we’re Producers on. And with both, the aim wasn’t to reach the stars, it was to have a memorable experience with a group of people I respect and love.
This is why I can’t wrap my head around the idea of V/H/S being accepted into Sundance. While the goal is always to make a great movie, personally I just wanted to share an experience with some of the most talented filmmakers I think the world of…
I’ve been a huge supporter of Adam Wingard ever since I saw his brilliant, trippy micro-budgeted Pop Skull. And Simon Barrett has penned an array of solid horror projects from Dead Birds to Red Sands and even Frankenfish. The duo aligned their talents for A Horrible Way to Die, and are also the brains behind the mega-awesome You’re Next!. Neither of them disappoint. Ever.
In June of 2005 I was introduced to Ti West, a young indie director from Delaware, who blew my mind with his incredible micro-horror The Roost. He has since gone on to bring us the ever popular The House of the Devil and the forthcoming supernatural The Innkeepers. His deliberate pacing is something that I’ve always connected with and enjoyed throughout the years.
A fond Sundance memory I have is being introduced to David Bruckner, one of the directors of the 2007 The Signal. We kept running into the trio at the festival and one of my friends would break out into West Side Story with them every single time. They became immediate friends of the site and it’s beyond an honor to have Bruckner as one of V/H/S‘s filmmakers. I have a feeling that after you guys see the movie, he’s going to get awfully sick of having people come up to him and saying “I like you” (a reference to the movie.)
The comedy troop of Radio Silence has been on my radar for years. The team is responsible for not one, but two outstanding YouTube videos that I’ve probably watched more than 1,000 times. This is their first feature project, but I assure that by the time the credits roll you’ll all know the names Chad Villella, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin!
A quite popular and beautifully shot genre film many of you know is I Sell the Dead, which comes from Irish director Glenn McQuaid. McQuaid is also responsible for working on the visual effects in the post-apocalyptic Stake Land. Being that he also comes from the Glass Eye Pix family, he’s someone we knew could deliver an eye-popping splatterfest.
Last but not least comes festival darling Joe Swanberg, who also stars in Ti West’s segment. Swanberg, who has now directed 14 films, gets behind the camera for a Cronenberg-esque vision that was penned by Simon Barrett. Keeping it all in the family, Swanberg also starred in A Horrible Way to Die.
The best way to describe V/H/S without giving anything away is that it’s a new kind of found footage horror film from the perspective of several genre filmmakers we personally know and love. Please join us at the WORLD PREMIERE on January 22 in Park City. We’d love nothing more than to share the experience with a bunch of Bloody Disgusting fans!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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