Kacie Anning.
When Kacie Anning met Greg Daniels, creator of the Us version of The Office, over breakfast in Los Angeles he discussed a futuristic comedy series he was developing.
He related his vision of the show and she responded with her ideas. That was in 2018. Several months later, Daniels made her the biggest offer of her career: direct two episodes of Upload, which had been commissioned by Amazon Prime Video.
Last year Anning went to Vancouver to work on the production, which, co-incidentally, had Simon Chapman as the Dop and Daina Reid among the directing cohort.
Now streaming on Amazon, Upload is set in the near future when people who die can be uploaded into a digital afterlife – if they can afford it.
Robbie Amell stars as Nathan, a young app developer who winds up in hospital after his self-driving car crashes into a truck. After a hasty conversation...
When Kacie Anning met Greg Daniels, creator of the Us version of The Office, over breakfast in Los Angeles he discussed a futuristic comedy series he was developing.
He related his vision of the show and she responded with her ideas. That was in 2018. Several months later, Daniels made her the biggest offer of her career: direct two episodes of Upload, which had been commissioned by Amazon Prime Video.
Last year Anning went to Vancouver to work on the production, which, co-incidentally, had Simon Chapman as the Dop and Daina Reid among the directing cohort.
Now streaming on Amazon, Upload is set in the near future when people who die can be uploaded into a digital afterlife – if they can afford it.
Robbie Amell stars as Nathan, a young app developer who winds up in hospital after his self-driving car crashes into a truck. After a hasty conversation...
- 5/19/2020
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
‘The Devil’s Candy’ Blasts Genre Thrills and the Devil’s Music Into Your Heathen SoulThe director of ‘The Loved Ones’ returns with another intense and suspenseful thriller.
Writer/director Sean Byrne’s debut feature, The Loved Ones, blew festival audiences (including us) away back in 2009 with thrills and suspense born from seeing a character we truly cared about fighting for his life against increasingly twisted and violent odds. It took three years before it actually opened in the Us, but it was worth the wait. Now Byrne’s equally intense follow-up film is finally being released… after premiering at film fests nearly two years ago.
Once again though, The Devil’s Candy is a blistering, intimate, heavy metal-tinged horror/thriller worth waiting for as it drops a loving family into a devilish nightmare where each violent chord brings them closer to a grim and grisly fate.
Jesse (Ethan Embry), Astrid (Shiri Appleby), and their teenage daughter...
Writer/director Sean Byrne’s debut feature, The Loved Ones, blew festival audiences (including us) away back in 2009 with thrills and suspense born from seeing a character we truly cared about fighting for his life against increasingly twisted and violent odds. It took three years before it actually opened in the Us, but it was worth the wait. Now Byrne’s equally intense follow-up film is finally being released… after premiering at film fests nearly two years ago.
Once again though, The Devil’s Candy is a blistering, intimate, heavy metal-tinged horror/thriller worth waiting for as it drops a loving family into a devilish nightmare where each violent chord brings them closer to a grim and grisly fate.
Jesse (Ethan Embry), Astrid (Shiri Appleby), and their teenage daughter...
- 3/16/2017
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
I have a huge appreciation for Australian cinema, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to sit down and speak with several folks involved with Killing Ground, the brutal survival horror film written and directed by Damien Power and starring Aaron Pedersen, Aaron Glenane, Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Maya Stange, Julian Garner, and Tiarnie Coupland.
Killing Ground premiered over the weekend at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, and Daily Dead caught up with Power, Glenane, and Stange to talk about their experiences collaborating on the project, the importance of building trust on the set of the brutal thriller, and much more.
Look for more from the Sundance Film Festival all this week, right here on Daily Dead!
Great to speak with you today, guys. Damien, I’d love to start with you and hear about approach to this project and creating these villains, German (Pedersen) and Chook (Glenane), who you end up getting lost with,...
Killing Ground premiered over the weekend at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, and Daily Dead caught up with Power, Glenane, and Stange to talk about their experiences collaborating on the project, the importance of building trust on the set of the brutal thriller, and much more.
Look for more from the Sundance Film Festival all this week, right here on Daily Dead!
Great to speak with you today, guys. Damien, I’d love to start with you and hear about approach to this project and creating these villains, German (Pedersen) and Chook (Glenane), who you end up getting lost with,...
- 1/24/2017
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
Simon Chapman has has served as Dp on nearly 50 features, shorts and TV series since 2001, including five shorts from director Damien Power. In 2016 Chapman shot Power’s debut feature, Killing Ground, which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival and is set to screen during the Midnight section of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. In addition to his work with Power, Chapman has shot films for Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones, The Devil’s Candy) and Tony Ayres (Cut Snake). He speaks below about the naturalist thriller Killing Ground ahead of its screening at Sundance. Filmmaker: How and why did you […]...
- 1/21/2017
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Aaron Glenane and Aaron Pedersen.
Stills photographer John Platt.used a Fujifilm X-T1 to shoot stills on the set of Killing Ground, the Australian feature debut from shorts filmmaker Damien Power (Hitchhiker) which stars Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Aaron Pederson, Aaron Glenane, Tiarnie Coupland and Maya Stange.
.
Harriet Dyer.
Platt walked us through his tool-kit:
.In addition to the primary X-T1 I also used a second body, 23mm and 50mm lenses and a 50-140mm zoom lens. The attitude from all on set to the X-T1 was amazingly positive. As each actor arrived on set for the first time I would introduce myself and ask if they would be Ok with me shooting during the take, while the camera was rolling. I also made a point of highlighting the camera.s silent shutter. Every one of them agreed they were relieved to know I wouldn.t be asking them to...
Stills photographer John Platt.used a Fujifilm X-T1 to shoot stills on the set of Killing Ground, the Australian feature debut from shorts filmmaker Damien Power (Hitchhiker) which stars Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Aaron Pederson, Aaron Glenane, Tiarnie Coupland and Maya Stange.
.
Harriet Dyer.
Platt walked us through his tool-kit:
.In addition to the primary X-T1 I also used a second body, 23mm and 50mm lenses and a 50-140mm zoom lens. The attitude from all on set to the X-T1 was amazingly positive. As each actor arrived on set for the first time I would introduce myself and ask if they would be Ok with me shooting during the take, while the camera was rolling. I also made a point of highlighting the camera.s silent shutter. Every one of them agreed they were relieved to know I wouldn.t be asking them to...
- 1/18/2016
- by Staff Writer
- IF.com.au
Aaron Glenane and Aaron Pedersen.
Stills photographer John Platt.used a Fujifilm X-T1 to shoot stills on the set of Killing Ground, the Australian feature debut from shorts filmmaker Damien Power (Hitchhiker) which stars Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Aaron Pederson, Aaron Glenane, Tiarnie Coupland and Maya Stange.
.
Harriet Dyer.
Platt walked us through his tool-kit:
.In addition to the primary X-T1 I also used a second body, 23mm and 50mm lenses and a 50-140mm zoom lens. The attitude from all on set to the X-T1 was amazingly positive. As each actor arrived on set for the first time I would introduce myself and ask if they would be Ok with me shooting during the take, while the camera was rolling. I also made a point of highlighting the camera.s silent shutter. Every one of them agreed they were relieved to know I wouldn.t be asking them to...
Stills photographer John Platt.used a Fujifilm X-T1 to shoot stills on the set of Killing Ground, the Australian feature debut from shorts filmmaker Damien Power (Hitchhiker) which stars Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Aaron Pederson, Aaron Glenane, Tiarnie Coupland and Maya Stange.
.
Harriet Dyer.
Platt walked us through his tool-kit:
.In addition to the primary X-T1 I also used a second body, 23mm and 50mm lenses and a 50-140mm zoom lens. The attitude from all on set to the X-T1 was amazingly positive. As each actor arrived on set for the first time I would introduce myself and ask if they would be Ok with me shooting during the take, while the camera was rolling. I also made a point of highlighting the camera.s silent shutter. Every one of them agreed they were relieved to know I wouldn.t be asking them to...
- 1/18/2016
- by Staff Writer
- IF.com.au
John Seale (Mad Max: Fury Road), the late Andrew Lesnie (The Water Diviner) and Benjamin Shirley (The Pack) shared the prize for best cinema feature at the 2015 Nsw/Act annual awards for cinematography.
Seale also collected the Ross Wood senior judges award for 2015 best entry.
The prize for drama or comedy series and telefeature went to Jules O'Loughlin for Black Sails episode 16 and Bruce Young for The Code episode 4.
Steve Arnold ( JFK - Smoking Gun) and Dave Cameron (The Monster of Mangatiti) shared the dramatised documentaries gong.
The awards were presented on Saturday at the Sydney Masonic Centre hosted by Ray Martin, with Gillian Armstrong as guest of honour. The winners from each of the Acs branch awards will compete for national awards in Adelaide next year, where there is a gold tripod award for each category. From those, the Milli Award for Australian cinematographer of the year is selected...
Seale also collected the Ross Wood senior judges award for 2015 best entry.
The prize for drama or comedy series and telefeature went to Jules O'Loughlin for Black Sails episode 16 and Bruce Young for The Code episode 4.
Steve Arnold ( JFK - Smoking Gun) and Dave Cameron (The Monster of Mangatiti) shared the dramatised documentaries gong.
The awards were presented on Saturday at the Sydney Masonic Centre hosted by Ray Martin, with Gillian Armstrong as guest of honour. The winners from each of the Acs branch awards will compete for national awards in Adelaide next year, where there is a gold tripod award for each category. From those, the Milli Award for Australian cinematographer of the year is selected...
- 11/8/2015
- by Staff writer
- IF.com.au
Special mention: Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Genre: Documentary
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshows to dramatized reenactments of alleged real-life events. Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen, and based partly on Christensen’s study of the Malleus Maleficarum, Häxan is a fine examination of how superstition and the misunderstanding of mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. At the time, it was the most expensive Scandinavian film ever made, costing nearly 2 million Swedish krona. Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered, at that time, graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. Depending on which version you’re watching, the commentary is...
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Genre: Documentary
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshows to dramatized reenactments of alleged real-life events. Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen, and based partly on Christensen’s study of the Malleus Maleficarum, Häxan is a fine examination of how superstition and the misunderstanding of mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. At the time, it was the most expensive Scandinavian film ever made, costing nearly 2 million Swedish krona. Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered, at that time, graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. Depending on which version you’re watching, the commentary is...
- 10/27/2015
- by Ricky Fernandes
- SoundOnSight
Producer Bec Dakin realises that aiming to raise up to $150,000 via crowdfunding for a $3 million comedy adapted from a John Birmingham novel is a very tall order, but that.s not the point.
The primary aim of the Pozible campaign, she says, is to build a fan base for The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco, which will pay off when the film is released in cinemas and on digital platforms.
It will be the second feature from Dakin (whose debut was 2008 crime thriller The Horseman) and the first from director Zenon Kohler, who has directed TV commercials and shorts.
.We are starting to build a fan base and we will take them on the journey,. said Dakin, whose day job is a producer at Brisbane-based Cutting Edge, where Kohler is creative director. The screenplay is by Karl Maher, who writes TVCs for an advertising agency.
"It's about starting to share the film...
The primary aim of the Pozible campaign, she says, is to build a fan base for The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco, which will pay off when the film is released in cinemas and on digital platforms.
It will be the second feature from Dakin (whose debut was 2008 crime thriller The Horseman) and the first from director Zenon Kohler, who has directed TV commercials and shorts.
.We are starting to build a fan base and we will take them on the journey,. said Dakin, whose day job is a producer at Brisbane-based Cutting Edge, where Kohler is creative director. The screenplay is by Karl Maher, who writes TVCs for an advertising agency.
"It's about starting to share the film...
- 10/19/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time for one reason: the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. I am including documentaries, short films and mini series, only as special mentions – along with a few features that can qualify as horror, but barely do.
****
Special Mention:
Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft,...
****
Special Mention:
Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft,...
- 10/30/2013
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Production company Jungleboys has teamed up with the ABC to create a charming and familiar comedy series, A Moody Christmas, writes Georgina Pearson.
The plot for ABC comedy drama A Moody Christmas treads a familiar path: London-based son returns home to Australia for family Christmas: chaos ensues. An ode to the Aussie festive season, it spins the story of one dysfunctional family’s attempt at forced civility with a twist – each episode of the six-part series is set on Christmas Day, one year apart.
Created by production company Jungleboys, A Moody Christmas airs at the end of a soft year for ABC comedy with little memorable fare to deliver laughs in 2012. The format of the series, the brainchild of Trent O’Donnell and Phil Lloyd, creators of Review with Miles Barlow, has the potential to finish the year with a chuckle.
ABC executive producer Debbie Lee says it is a...
The plot for ABC comedy drama A Moody Christmas treads a familiar path: London-based son returns home to Australia for family Christmas: chaos ensues. An ode to the Aussie festive season, it spins the story of one dysfunctional family’s attempt at forced civility with a twist – each episode of the six-part series is set on Christmas Day, one year apart.
Created by production company Jungleboys, A Moody Christmas airs at the end of a soft year for ABC comedy with little memorable fare to deliver laughs in 2012. The format of the series, the brainchild of Trent O’Donnell and Phil Lloyd, creators of Review with Miles Barlow, has the potential to finish the year with a chuckle.
ABC executive producer Debbie Lee says it is a...
- 11/23/2012
- by Luke
- Encore Magazine
Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.
As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.
****
Special Mention: Gremlins
Directed by Joe Dante
Written by Chris Columbus
1984, USA
Gremlins gets a special mention because I’ve always considered it more of a comedy and a wholesome Christmas flick than an actual horror film. This tribute the 1950s matinee genre stands the test of time from a time when parents would take their children to family films that pushed the boundaries of the MPAA. Joe Dante is...
As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.
****
Special Mention: Gremlins
Directed by Joe Dante
Written by Chris Columbus
1984, USA
Gremlins gets a special mention because I’ve always considered it more of a comedy and a wholesome Christmas flick than an actual horror film. This tribute the 1950s matinee genre stands the test of time from a time when parents would take their children to family films that pushed the boundaries of the MPAA. Joe Dante is...
- 10/15/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Chicago – Sean Byrne’s “The Loved Ones” is one of those cinematic curiosities so gleefully depraved and unapologetically looney that it appears to have been conceived in an insane asylum. There is no logical reason why this picture should work at all, and yet it has been made with such conviction that I couldn’t help watching it in a state of slack-jawed awe.
The premise is resoundingly simple: boy meets girl, boys rejects girl, girl kidnaps and tortures boy in the secluded privacy of her home. What’s strange is that the girl, Lola (Robin McLeavy), isn’t given any proper setup. She has only a single line of dialogue before her true nature is revealed, though McLeavy delivers it with such painfully vulnerable sincerity that she somehow manages to establish a fully realized character in a matter of seconds.
DVD Rating: 3.0/5.0
Of course, it becomes clear that Byrne...
The premise is resoundingly simple: boy meets girl, boys rejects girl, girl kidnaps and tortures boy in the secluded privacy of her home. What’s strange is that the girl, Lola (Robin McLeavy), isn’t given any proper setup. She has only a single line of dialogue before her true nature is revealed, though McLeavy delivers it with such painfully vulnerable sincerity that she somehow manages to establish a fully realized character in a matter of seconds.
DVD Rating: 3.0/5.0
Of course, it becomes clear that Byrne...
- 9/13/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The ABC is getting physical and there.s one man for the job: popular Aussie comedian Frank Woodley.
One half of the lovable duo Lano and Woodley, Frank is back with a new, entirely-physical show, simply titled Woodley.
Drawing on childhood loves such as The Goodies and Get Smart . not to mention comedians like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton . Frank is taking a unique approach for 2012: all jokes are visual. There.s very little dialogue.
"It's something that I.ve had this sort of weird obsession with for my entire performing career really," the Melbourne comedian explains of his love for physical humour.
.A lot of these ideas would.ve been things that maybe Lano and Woodley would.ve moved towards as well . so in some ways it.s something I.ve been thinking about for five years and in some ways it.s stuff I.ve been working on for 25 years.
One half of the lovable duo Lano and Woodley, Frank is back with a new, entirely-physical show, simply titled Woodley.
Drawing on childhood loves such as The Goodies and Get Smart . not to mention comedians like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton . Frank is taking a unique approach for 2012: all jokes are visual. There.s very little dialogue.
"It's something that I.ve had this sort of weird obsession with for my entire performing career really," the Melbourne comedian explains of his love for physical humour.
.A lot of these ideas would.ve been things that maybe Lano and Woodley would.ve moved towards as well . so in some ways it.s something I.ve been thinking about for five years and in some ways it.s stuff I.ve been working on for 25 years.
- 2/16/2012
- by Sam Dallas
- IF.com.au
By Roxanne Khamsi
(Click here for the original article)
It could almost be enough to make Cruella de Vil consider a nicotine patch: a new analysis has found that films with scenes that show smoking reliably make less money at the box office than their cigarette-free counterparts. The finding, says Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, adds to the case for giving any movie that depicts smoking to an automatic 'R' rating.
Together with Jonathan Polansky, who helped craft anti-smoking messaging in the past and now heads the California-based media campaign company Onbeyond, Glantz reviewed information on 1,232 movies released in the U.S. that were among the top 10 grossing films for at least one week between 2002 and 2010.
Movies with bigger budgets tended to earn more at the box-office, as they were more likely to feature big stars and massive promotional marketing.
(Click here for the original article)
It could almost be enough to make Cruella de Vil consider a nicotine patch: a new analysis has found that films with scenes that show smoking reliably make less money at the box office than their cigarette-free counterparts. The finding, says Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, adds to the case for giving any movie that depicts smoking to an automatic 'R' rating.
Together with Jonathan Polansky, who helped craft anti-smoking messaging in the past and now heads the California-based media campaign company Onbeyond, Glantz reviewed information on 1,232 movies released in the U.S. that were among the top 10 grossing films for at least one week between 2002 and 2010.
Movies with bigger budgets tended to earn more at the box-office, as they were more likely to feature big stars and massive promotional marketing.
- 10/10/2011
- Huffington Post
The Loved Ones
Directed by Sean Byrne
Written by Sean Byrne
2009, Australia
Some folks may think The Loved Ones is too new a film to place on the list of my favourite Cult films of all time, but the truth is The Loved Ones really does have a cult following – sadly for some rather unfortunate circumstances. The winner of the first ever Midnight Madness Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, it never found a distribution deal, even two years after its world premiere. There are rumours as to why this is the case, but that is not important. What is important is to know that The Loved Ones is one of the best horror films of the last decade. Lucky for me I had the chance to catch the film three times (twice at Tiff, and once at Fantasia), but until some deal is reached, I’m sure...
Directed by Sean Byrne
Written by Sean Byrne
2009, Australia
Some folks may think The Loved Ones is too new a film to place on the list of my favourite Cult films of all time, but the truth is The Loved Ones really does have a cult following – sadly for some rather unfortunate circumstances. The winner of the first ever Midnight Madness Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, it never found a distribution deal, even two years after its world premiere. There are rumours as to why this is the case, but that is not important. What is important is to know that The Loved Ones is one of the best horror films of the last decade. Lucky for me I had the chance to catch the film three times (twice at Tiff, and once at Fantasia), but until some deal is reached, I’m sure...
- 8/26/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
It all started with the vision of a kid in a bloody tuxedo, tied to a chair. Who is this kid? How did he get here? Who’s done this to him? And most importantly, how is he going to get out? Miguel Gonzalez talked to the creators of The Loved Ones to find the answers.
Knowing horror is a popular genre, Tasmanian writer/director Sean Byrne saw an opportunity to create his first feature– if only he could find a point of difference that would make him stand out from the pack; from the countless generic horror films saturating the market. His inspiration came from classics such as Carrie and The Evil Dead, taking the prom sub-genre into a cabin in the woods, and turning prom rituals like the dancing and the crowning of the king and queen
into the actual instruments of torture. Byrne then had the tuxedo...
Knowing horror is a popular genre, Tasmanian writer/director Sean Byrne saw an opportunity to create his first feature– if only he could find a point of difference that would make him stand out from the pack; from the countless generic horror films saturating the market. His inspiration came from classics such as Carrie and The Evil Dead, taking the prom sub-genre into a cabin in the woods, and turning prom rituals like the dancing and the crowning of the king and queen
into the actual instruments of torture. Byrne then had the tuxedo...
- 11/2/2010
- by Miguel Gonzalez
- Encore Magazine
Australian rockers Wolfmother have come under fire from anti-smoking campaigners for their decision to go ahead with a gig in Indonesia despite their misgivings about the event's sponsorship by a cigarette company. The band was rumored to have pulled out of a slot at the upcoming Java Rockin' Land festival in Jakarta next month after a statement from frontman Andrew Stockdale slamming the endorsement deal with a tobacco firm was posted online.
The group's Australian agent subsequently confirmed the show would go on for the musicians, even though Stockdale initially "freaked out" when he heard about the sponsorship agreement with cigarette maker Gudang Garam.
But anti-smoking groups are not happy with the decision and have criticized Wolfmother for not making a stand against the advertising of tobacco. Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University, has also slammed the band and cited other acts, including Alicia Keys and Kelly Clarkson,...
The group's Australian agent subsequently confirmed the show would go on for the musicians, even though Stockdale initially "freaked out" when he heard about the sponsorship agreement with cigarette maker Gudang Garam.
But anti-smoking groups are not happy with the decision and have criticized Wolfmother for not making a stand against the advertising of tobacco. Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University, has also slammed the band and cited other acts, including Alicia Keys and Kelly Clarkson,...
- 9/25/2010
- by AceShowbiz.com
- Aceshowbiz
Director: Sean Byrne Writer: Sean Byrne Starring: Xavier Samuel, Robin McLeavy, Victoria Thaine, Jessica McNamee, Richard Wilson, John Brumpton At some point in the recent past, we find the Brent (Xavier Samuel – scheduled to portray Riley in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) and his father driving along a rural road debating about their respective generation’s music taste – it’s the typical scenario, the music they each love is considered to be horrible noise to the other. A bloody young man is suddenly in front of their car and Brent careens the car into a tree. The accident leaves Brent emotionally scarred because his father died as a result of the crash. In the present, Brent and his best friend Sac (Richard Wilson) are discussing their plans for their upcoming high school dance. Brent’s girlfriend Holly (Victoria Thaine) has her house to herself for the weekend (so we all know...
- 3/10/2010
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
When Australian horror film The Loved Ones had its world premiere as part of the Toronto International Film Festival I had the chance to sit and talk with director Sean Byrne about his loving ode to the high school years. I've been sitting on the interview ever since, waiting for the film to actually go into wide release somewhere, but it's a good one, I'm tried of waiting and with the film about to screen at SXSW, now seems like a good time.
TB: So I'm guessing from this movie that you really liked high school.
Sb: (laughs) Oh, I hated high school, yeah. I think high school is such a pressure cooker environment, and there's a need for acceptance, and there's bullying. It's a really complicated, confusing part of everyone's life, which hopefully we can all relate to one way or another. It's a launch pad for all sorts of psychological damage.
TB: So I'm guessing from this movie that you really liked high school.
Sb: (laughs) Oh, I hated high school, yeah. I think high school is such a pressure cooker environment, and there's a need for acceptance, and there's bullying. It's a really complicated, confusing part of everyone's life, which hopefully we can all relate to one way or another. It's a launch pad for all sorts of psychological damage.
- 3/7/2010
- Screen Anarchy
The Loved Ones Directed by Sean Byrne Sean Byrne's debut feature, The Loved Ones, crosses various horror touchstones, touching on teen angst, torture porn, melodrama and conventional slasher tropes. It's a gore-filled shocker that goes for laughs by paying homage to the outlandish low-budget video nasties of the '70s and '80s, blending together Misery, Saw, Prom Night, The Evil Dead and Carrie. The fusion of these horror classics makes The Loved Ones one of the best offerings at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. Bound to provoke reactions from more sensitive audience members, The Loves Ones is destined to become a cult fave. Leaving most viewers with their hands over their eyes and a smile grinning from ear to ear, this dark horse independent gem is a guaranteed wild and unforgettable ride. Director Sean Byrne who slaved away making shorts, is a prime example of the raw...
- 9/25/2009
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
The Loved Ones Directed by Sean Byrne Sean Byrne's debut feature, The Loved Ones, transcends various genres, teen angst, torture porn, melodrama and your average slasher flick. A gore-filled shocker that goes for laughs by paying homage to the outlandish low-budget video nasties of the '70s and '80s, blending together Misery, Saw, Prom Night, The Evil Dead and Carrie. The fusion of these horror classics makes The Loved Ones one of the best offerings at this years Toronto International Film Festival. Bound to provoke reactions from more sensitive audience members, The Loves Ones is destined to become a cult fave. Leaving most viewers with their hands over their eyes and a smile grinning from ear to ear; this dark horse independent gem is a guaranteed wild and unforgettable ride. Director Sean Byrne who slaved away making shorts, is a prime example of the raw talent emerging in the horror scene down under.
- 9/20/2009
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
The demise of several characters at the recent, packed world premiere of The Loved Ones during the Melbourne International Film Festival had the audience cheering. Perverse, demented and unpredictable, The Loved Ones is one messed-up little tale of unrequited love, powered by a sense of humor and grindhouse sensibility that’s sure to please a wide horror audience (and may even convert chick-flick devotees) if it’s allowed to. The Loved Ones is the first feature by Australian filmmaker Sean Byrne, and it definitely won’t be his last.
Fango caught up with Byrne, who has previously made a number of short films (including the supernatural Advantage, which played at last year’s New York City Horror Film Festival), a week prior to that first public screening of The Loved Ones, and he was understandably running on nervous energy after what he describes as a few “filmless years.” Then again,...
Fango caught up with Byrne, who has previously made a number of short films (including the supernatural Advantage, which played at last year’s New York City Horror Film Festival), a week prior to that first public screening of The Loved Ones, and he was understandably running on nervous energy after what he describes as a few “filmless years.” Then again,...
- 8/25/2009
- by no-reply@fangoria.com (Michael Helms)
- Fangoria
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