INNER GHOSTS

Behind the Walls of Nightmare is pleased to announce the Kickstarter campaign for the film INNER GHOSTS, which was selected to the Work in Progress section of the 2016 Frontieres Co-Production Market at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Canada.

Here's the synopsis, production details, and information on why a Kickstarter campaign was chosen.


SHORT SYNOPSIS

HELEN is a brain researcher trying to develop a revolutionary

therapy to treat degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. To

prove her theories, she needs to run cognitive tests on ghosts:

beings who apparently can act and remember without the need of

a physical brain suggesting that unresponsive patients whose

brains are too damaged to function can be accessed, somehow,

through their living souls. After the death of her mentor, Helen

finds an apartment inhabited by benign ghosts who agree to be

tested. The problem is Helen renounced her gift 15 years ago after

the loss of her daughter when she made a vow never to contact

the other side again. Things change when an artist called ELSA

begs Helen for some spiritual training hoping to get rid of a demon

who has been haunting her for many years. Helen reluctantly

accepts it unaware of the demon's true goal: finding her. Helen’s

tests with the ghosts are a success. The entities offer her the

design of a device that can communicate with the dead (and

possibly living patients), triggering a set of events that will bring

Helen face to face with the demon she has known all along. After

so many years, two enemies are about to meet for the last time,

showing us that revenge is a dish that’s still boiling hot.

Oh, but there’s so much more happening!

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Title: INNER GHOSTS

Producing Countries: PORTUGAL / BRAZIL

Genre: SUPERNATURAL HORROR / DRAMA

Length: 90 MINUTES

Language: ENGLISH

Locations: LISBON / CASCAIS

Cast: CELIA WILLIAMS, ELIZABETH BOCHMANN

IRIS CAYATTE, NORMAN MACCALLUM, AMANDA BOOTH

ANA SOFIA LEITE, PATRÍCIA GODINHO, JOÃO BLÜMEL

Director of Photography: MIGUEL SALES LOPES A.I.P.

Digital VFX: ANIBRAIN (INDIA)

Written by PAULO LEITE

Produced by PAULO LEITE and GABRIEL AUGUSTO

Directed by JOÃO ALVES

PICTURE SPECS

Shot with: RED DRAGON 5K RAW

Lenses: ARRI / ZEISS

ULTRA PRIME

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

© 2017 BAD BEHAVIOR ONE LDA

WHY A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN?

We wrote, developed and produced INNER GHOSTS because we love horror and we love the people who love horror films. Film is an expensive medium. It is much less expensive than it was 20 years ago, but still quite expensive if you really want to do it right. We are now in sound post and from the development until now, we were able to make every euro count. We took the project as far as we could go with what we had. Now we are thrilled to bring the project to the best community in the world: horror fans! You are the reason why we are doing all this, and Kickstarter has some of the best horror fans in the world! That’s why we are asking for your support. That’s why we are opening our film and ourselves to you.

Sound matters! The film turned out too good. We need a sound post that will do it justice. We will need real music. Real ADR. Real foley. Real sound mix. Real deliverables. So you will get not just the best horror story, you will experience the best film. We want you to experience INNER GHOSTS as true horror fans should!

Our Kickstarter campaign starts in April. Please check out the amazing rewards you can receive by supporting us. http://innerghosts.launchrock.com/.

In next week's post, Behind the Walls of Nightmare will look at the production crew, cast, and intended audience of INNER GHOSTS.

Recent Horror Novel Releases

If you're stocking up on horror reading material, here are some recent or upcoming releases that sound promising:

Adam Nevill's Under a Watchful Eye, which was released in January, is a supernatural thriller that explores the effects of a terrifying, other-worldly stalker on the protagonist's mind as it is engulfed in paranoia.

Ania Ahlborn's The Devil Crept In was released in February. It is the story of a small-town boy investigating the disappearance of his cousin and uncovering a terrifying secret in the process.










Christopher Golden's Ararat will be released in April. This is a twist on the discovery of the ark theme: what awaits humanity inside the ship is a hideous creature with horns.

On another note, my three supernatural novels, The Home Child; Fire Whisperer and Circle of Souls; and The Accusers are available as a spring special in Kindle format for .98 ($1.32 Canadian).

And for fans of Michael J. McCann's crime fiction, Burn Country--the long-awaited sequel to Sorrow Lake, a finalist for the 2015 Hammett Prize for best North American crime fiction novel--is now available.









Happy Reading, everyone!

Zombies with a Touch of Humour

I wrote in a previous post how much I enjoyed the first two seasons of Z Nation, and I'm now watching the third. If possible, it's even campier than the first two seasons and still very enjoyable. (My only complaint is that the "new" Murphy is driving me nuts, and I hope they'll modify his character very soon.)

The show succeeds primarily because it has a strong ensemble cast; interesting story lines; and the ability to laugh at itself--something that's unheard of in The Walking Dead.  Consider this dialogue: the survivors are approaching a vintage sports car and see that there are a number of bodies inside. One of them quips: "I thought it had that new corpse smell." Or consider the parody of Donald Trump in an episode in which two presidential candidates compete to take over the post-apocalyptic world. One of them promises: "I'm going to build a wall to keep out the zombies. And I'm going to make the zombies build it themselves."

Check it out for yourself  if you're looking for something new in zombie land!

The Enfield Poltergeist

I watched The Conjuring 2 on DVD recently and really enjoyed it.  I hadn't heard of the case investigated in the movie, but was intrigued by it and decided to do some research to share with you.

This is the story behind the case:

In August 1977, Peggy Hodgson called police to her council home in Enfield, England, after two of her four children claimed that furniture was moving, and knocking sounds were heard on walls. A police constable said that she saw a chair slide on the floor and "was convinced that nobody there had touched it."  Later claims included allegedly demonic voices, loud noises, thrown rocks and toys, overturned chairs, and children levitating. These claims attracted considerable press attention, and the story was covered in British newspapers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror, until reports of these incidents came to an end in 1979. (Source: Wikipedia)

The case has been widely discredited as a hoax--similar to the Amityville horror alluded to in the beginning of the film. The main reason for this is that Janet Hodgson admitted to and was caught on tape fabricating some of the events. However, she claims to have invented only 2 per cent of them because she was afraid that investigators would not believe her. She maintains to this day that the majority of the supernatural events did happen. To read a recent interview with her, please click here.

The psychic investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, convincingly played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, have also been dismissed as benign, but delusional in their search for ghosts and demons. But others such as Maurice Grosse of the British Society for Psychical Research steadfastly maintained the authenticity of the events. (Grosse, a character in The Conjuring 2, died in 2006.)

You be the judge after listening to the actual voice recordings at the time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OWgImgIRic

StokerCon 2017 Registration Is Open

The Horror Writers Association's second annual convention will be held aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, from April 27-30, 2017.


Many well-known horror/dark fantasy writers will attend, including the following:


George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones
Elizabeth Hand, Wilding Hall, the Cass Neary series
Chuck Wendig, Star Wars: Aftermath, the Miriam Black thrillers
Peter Crowther, the Forever Twilight cycle
Bill Bridges, White Wolf’s World of Darkness, The Silver Crown
Tananarive Due, Ghost Summer, the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series
Gretchen McNeil, Possess, Ten, I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Stephen Graham Jones, Mongrels, When the People Lights Go Out
Becky Spratford, The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror (Second Edition)
Nancy Holder, five-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, will serve as the event’s Toastmaster.


In addition to attending the prestigious Bram Stoker Award® dinner on Saturday, April 29, attendees can enjoy panels, presentations, Horror University classes, The Lucky 13 Film Festival, a mini-academic conference coinciding with the convention, special programming for librarians on Librarian’s Day (Thursday, April 27), high tea with your favorite horror authors, ghost tours and a harbor excursion for early arrivals.


For more information on how to register for the convention, please click here.

Byron A. Martin Named Best Independent Film Producer--Canada

In case you missed this, below is an excerpt from the press release announcing the award:

(Toronto, ON) – December 20th, 2016. Canadian producer Byron A. Martin of Byron A. Martin Productions Inc., known for having produced some horror shorts such as A TRICKY TREAT and SERPENT'S LULLABY, has been awarded the distinction of Best Independent Film Producer - Canada by the 2016 Entertainment Awards (TMT NEWS).

LINK: www.tmt-news.com/2016-byron-a-martin-productions-inc

"Honoured to be awarded," wrote the Toronto-based producer in a statement he posted on social media.

The 2016 Entertainment Awards aim to reward the key players within the entertainment industry. In recent years, the entertainment business has evolved, changing how the world conducts business alike across a variety of industry platforms.

Surges in demand for quality entertainment corporations has paved the way for creativity, efficiency and cost effectivity thus providing organisations with an invaluable reach to clients and customers in all stages of entertaining.

The 2016 Entertainment Awards highlights the key players, creative individuals and innovative firms who have provided the world with new, cutting-edge techniques. They cast a centre stage spotlight on those, who through creative flare, commitment and hard work have developed and shared their ideas to fundamentally evolve the business world and the lives of consumers for years to come.

Byron A. Martin is an award-winning producer that develops independent film, television and documentary projects. To date he has produced almost 100 hours of television, filming projects in fifteen countries. He has produced projects for Disney, Sony, Universal, Turner, and Bell Media and managed productions for some of Hollywood’s leading producers (Jerry Bruckheimer, Sam Raimi, Lauren Shuler Donner, Raffaellla De Laurentis, Mark Canton, Dick Wolf, Laurence Mark, John Singleton, Ralph Winter and Don Carmody).

For more information about producer Byron A. Martin and Byron A. Martin Productions, please visit their social media sites:

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/bampinc/?fref=ts

TWITTER: @ByronAMartin

SITE: www.ByronMartin.com

IMDB: www.imdb.com/name/nm0003072/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

The Lost Gallows of Salem

Archaeology reports that the site of the gallows where the ill-fated victims of the Salem witch trials met their deaths in 1692-93 has now been identified as Proctor's Ledge. This site was first proposed by historian Sidney Perley in 1921, and his findings have now been validated by a research team.

Nineteen people met their deaths at this bleak location, pictured above. (A twentieth victim, Giles Corey, was pressed to death by stones.)

To read the full text of the article, please click here.

To learn more about the Salem witch trials, please click here.