DVD Talk review of 'Whispers from a Shallow Grave'
02-17-07, 03:14 PM
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DVD Talk review of 'Whispers from a Shallow Grave'
I read Bill Gibron's DVD review of Whispers from a Shallow Grave at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=26468 and...
Wow. I'm so delighted you enjoyed our show so much... not...
For someone who wrote a rave about my pal Ron Ford's TIKI, found watchable things about ZOMBIEGEDDON, and thinks TOXIC AVENGER is as funny as it tries to be, your 18-thumbs-down critique is puzzling to us (that is, Trudi Keck, Gerry Brodin, JR Bookwalter and myself). I've never gotten such a resolutely negative notice in my life, and even on WHISPERS FROM A SHALLOW GRAVE, so far you're in the minority of one-- ahh, but that's what makes horseraces interesting.
A couple of minor points, if I may.
No, it isn't an backyard home movie shot on S-VHS. We shot on DV and mini-DV, edited on an Avid, yadayada. The production was, however, primarily a two-person operation (Trudi and I), despite the many people who helped along the way, a day here, an hour there.
I'd love to agree with you and say I tried to emulate the style of IN COLD BLOOD, but unfortunately, I've never seen it. RASHOMON, yes, and that was an obvious influence in several ways. However, I'm not Kurosawa... nor did I have Toho Studios behind me.
"This infamous fixture of the hack horror genre, responsible for such notable nonsense as Evil Spawn and the uncharacteristically good Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora..."
Oooh, touche! I'm infamous? Goodness. Does that mean I'm up there (down there?) with David "the Rock" Nelson and TV Mikels, or tossed into the bigger pot with Fred Ray, Big Battling Uwe, et al?
Suggestion: if you go for a critical body-slam, get the facts right, that way it stings more and the critque has the ring of veractity. I didn't direct EVIL SPAWN, I directed & edited a variation of it called THE ALIEN WITHIN. Blaming me for EVIL SPAWN is like castigating Bogdanovich for PLANET OF THE PREHISTORIC WOMEN (or is it WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET?). An after-the-fact patch-up job on someone else's movie scarcely is fodder for the auteur theory. (More than a casual glance at my IMDb page would've told you that.)
I have to assume you've never seen FLESH & BLOOD, THE HAMMER HERITAGE OF HORROR, or 100 YEARS OF HORROR, or WE REMEMBER MARILYN, or THE NAKED MONSTER. I have gotten nice reactions to CINEMAKER, the 4-volume instructional video I did for Charles Band, for what it's worth. Other people seem to think these things turned out all right. I'd like to think those were more "characteristic" of work that I'm capable of, rather than, say, a three-day clip show with voice-over, or a patch-up job on someone else's movie.
Yes, our intentions were probably grander than the realizaton. Could I-- or, assuming you're blaming everything on me, another director-- have done better with a Lifetime Channel budget of a million dollars, a full crew and top professionals in all the roles? Hmmm... could be. However, it was essentially me and Trudi (while both working full time) and our actors, when we could get them, all for less than fifty thousand dollars of our own money. Could we have made a slicker film had we just done what everyone does: limit the scope to four kids in a haunted house with zombies outside, and a half-dozen five-minute sex scenes to slow the story to a crawl? Sure, probably. But we wanted to do something serious, and something different from a run-of-the-mill, shot-on-video piece-o'-crap. It was a change for me, and certainly a challenge to Trudi, her first time in a lead role plus co-production and editing duties.
I think you liked Gerald Brodin's performance... either that, or you hated it. He was supposed to be "the bad guy," and you didn't like the character, so I guess that's one mark in our favor. And, heck, at least you granted the show the equivocal "Rent It" catagory, rather than dismissing it entirely.
Incidentally, when you wrote of Brodin, "The things he does, and the cavalry manner in which he acts..." I'll assume you meant "cavalier," rather than suggesting he was riding to the rescue with the uniformed troops from Fort Apache.
Thanks for sitting through the whole movie. Sorry you didn't care for it. Maybe next time.
Wow. I'm so delighted you enjoyed our show so much... not...
For someone who wrote a rave about my pal Ron Ford's TIKI, found watchable things about ZOMBIEGEDDON, and thinks TOXIC AVENGER is as funny as it tries to be, your 18-thumbs-down critique is puzzling to us (that is, Trudi Keck, Gerry Brodin, JR Bookwalter and myself). I've never gotten such a resolutely negative notice in my life, and even on WHISPERS FROM A SHALLOW GRAVE, so far you're in the minority of one-- ahh, but that's what makes horseraces interesting.
A couple of minor points, if I may.
No, it isn't an backyard home movie shot on S-VHS. We shot on DV and mini-DV, edited on an Avid, yadayada. The production was, however, primarily a two-person operation (Trudi and I), despite the many people who helped along the way, a day here, an hour there.
I'd love to agree with you and say I tried to emulate the style of IN COLD BLOOD, but unfortunately, I've never seen it. RASHOMON, yes, and that was an obvious influence in several ways. However, I'm not Kurosawa... nor did I have Toho Studios behind me.
"This infamous fixture of the hack horror genre, responsible for such notable nonsense as Evil Spawn and the uncharacteristically good Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora..."
Oooh, touche! I'm infamous? Goodness. Does that mean I'm up there (down there?) with David "the Rock" Nelson and TV Mikels, or tossed into the bigger pot with Fred Ray, Big Battling Uwe, et al?
Suggestion: if you go for a critical body-slam, get the facts right, that way it stings more and the critque has the ring of veractity. I didn't direct EVIL SPAWN, I directed & edited a variation of it called THE ALIEN WITHIN. Blaming me for EVIL SPAWN is like castigating Bogdanovich for PLANET OF THE PREHISTORIC WOMEN (or is it WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET?). An after-the-fact patch-up job on someone else's movie scarcely is fodder for the auteur theory. (More than a casual glance at my IMDb page would've told you that.)
I have to assume you've never seen FLESH & BLOOD, THE HAMMER HERITAGE OF HORROR, or 100 YEARS OF HORROR, or WE REMEMBER MARILYN, or THE NAKED MONSTER. I have gotten nice reactions to CINEMAKER, the 4-volume instructional video I did for Charles Band, for what it's worth. Other people seem to think these things turned out all right. I'd like to think those were more "characteristic" of work that I'm capable of, rather than, say, a three-day clip show with voice-over, or a patch-up job on someone else's movie.
Yes, our intentions were probably grander than the realizaton. Could I-- or, assuming you're blaming everything on me, another director-- have done better with a Lifetime Channel budget of a million dollars, a full crew and top professionals in all the roles? Hmmm... could be. However, it was essentially me and Trudi (while both working full time) and our actors, when we could get them, all for less than fifty thousand dollars of our own money. Could we have made a slicker film had we just done what everyone does: limit the scope to four kids in a haunted house with zombies outside, and a half-dozen five-minute sex scenes to slow the story to a crawl? Sure, probably. But we wanted to do something serious, and something different from a run-of-the-mill, shot-on-video piece-o'-crap. It was a change for me, and certainly a challenge to Trudi, her first time in a lead role plus co-production and editing duties.
I think you liked Gerald Brodin's performance... either that, or you hated it. He was supposed to be "the bad guy," and you didn't like the character, so I guess that's one mark in our favor. And, heck, at least you granted the show the equivocal "Rent It" catagory, rather than dismissing it entirely.
Incidentally, when you wrote of Brodin, "The things he does, and the cavalry manner in which he acts..." I'll assume you meant "cavalier," rather than suggesting he was riding to the rescue with the uniformed troops from Fort Apache.
Thanks for sitting through the whole movie. Sorry you didn't care for it. Maybe next time.
Last edited by Ted Newsom; 02-17-07 at 03:26 PM.
03-02-07, 12:28 PM
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Editorial 2nd chances
It's rare in life that we can go back and un-do mistakes we have made, unless you're a character on MY NAME IS EARL. Our gentle reviewer was able to correct his minor typo ("cavalry" to "cavalier"), but alas, I cannot go back and drastically alter the script I wrote and shot ten years ago.
However, I can now go back and see that Bill Gibron's real intent was to praise our work, which is most gratifying. Somehow in my heart I knew such an insightful writer could actually see the care and intent which went into our little project. The problem was, I only looked at the superficial aspect of the review. Examining his work more carefully, I found the true meaning, hidden between the lines of what, apparently, was a scathing and dismissive critique. In fact, I wish we would've had this review before we released the film; we could've used some of these as advertising blurbs:
"...truth mixed with psychological subtexts to show what drives a person to kill... unusual and inventive ...meshing of reality with fantasy...
"Newsom makes photographer turned murderer Charles Rathbun into the kind of despicable villain who demands painful, persistent vivisection as a means of satisfying our need for cinematic justice. The things he does, and the cavalier manner in which he acts has us hissing at the screen ...
"... the believability of actor Gerald Brodin's turn as Rathbun ... the similarly unsettling undercurrent of perversity and hatred he shows make us dread every moment he's onscreen...he's so good at playing reprehensible ... something incredibly unhinged about the way Gerald Brodin plays the role of Charles Rathbun. It's ...the most ...evil histrionics ever captured on a camcorder
"Between the flashbacks, the fantasy sequences, the shifting between black and white and color to distinguish between the truth and Rathbun's fictional version of events... Newsom gets points for trying to dress it up in a manner that makes a ...compelling case study..."
My eyes have been opened.
However, I can now go back and see that Bill Gibron's real intent was to praise our work, which is most gratifying. Somehow in my heart I knew such an insightful writer could actually see the care and intent which went into our little project. The problem was, I only looked at the superficial aspect of the review. Examining his work more carefully, I found the true meaning, hidden between the lines of what, apparently, was a scathing and dismissive critique. In fact, I wish we would've had this review before we released the film; we could've used some of these as advertising blurbs:
"...truth mixed with psychological subtexts to show what drives a person to kill... unusual and inventive ...meshing of reality with fantasy...
"Newsom makes photographer turned murderer Charles Rathbun into the kind of despicable villain who demands painful, persistent vivisection as a means of satisfying our need for cinematic justice. The things he does, and the cavalier manner in which he acts has us hissing at the screen ...
"... the believability of actor Gerald Brodin's turn as Rathbun ... the similarly unsettling undercurrent of perversity and hatred he shows make us dread every moment he's onscreen...he's so good at playing reprehensible ... something incredibly unhinged about the way Gerald Brodin plays the role of Charles Rathbun. It's ...the most ...evil histrionics ever captured on a camcorder
"Between the flashbacks, the fantasy sequences, the shifting between black and white and color to distinguish between the truth and Rathbun's fictional version of events... Newsom gets points for trying to dress it up in a manner that makes a ...compelling case study..."
My eyes have been opened.
