850 Music & Entertainment

A little bit back, we introduced you to Hayride -  an indie horror movie filmed just outside the 850 region that has made a decent splash in the genre.  With the help of distribution via Redbox, Hayride has made its way into a lot of eager hands.

Sherri Eakin is a newcomer to the world of movies, but with a couple genre films already under her belt and more on the way, it is safe to say she is going to be wearing the title of Horror Queen in no time.

What’s your favorite horror movie?
HAYRIDE of course!

Actually, more for sentimental reasons that remind me of fun times with friends as a teenager, I love Final Destination. It’s still fun to watch after many years.

What scares you?
Needles, spiders, tornadoes, and small spaces.

Any new projects we should be on the lookout for?
I recently filmed a really fun scene for the movie Freshwater starring Zoe Bell. Also, I worked on an independent sci-fi feature called Earthrise from my good friend and up and coming director Glenn Payne.

Freshwater features Zoe Bell, did her enthusiasm for doing her own stunts affect you in anyway?
I was so excited to work on a film Zoe is starring in. She is definitely someone I would model my own career after. Stunt work is something I would love to learn more about and hopefully incorporate more into my future work. Tough chicks rock!

What was the best advice that you have been given and who gave it to you?
One of my closest friends and fellow actor told me to try believing in myself and see what happens. It sounds so simple, but letting go and getting out of my own head can be the toughest thing sometimes. I am fortunate to have an amazing group of friends supporting my acting career who are always there to nudge me along and show me love when I need it most.

Do you have an actor who you are dying to work with?
As an actress from Louisiana and Mississippi, I would love to work with some famous natives who have made successful careers. Morgan Freeman (Mississippi native) comes to mind.

What advice do you have for up and coming Horror Queens?
The only way to be successful in this business is if you truly love what you do. Have fun, work hard, and don’t give up!

Learn more about Sherri at her official website: http://sherrieakin.com/

Earlier we introduced you to Maria Olsen.  She just sent a press release our way announcing that one of her current projects is seeking crowdfunding through Indiegogo to wrap up post-production.

A lot of times crowdfunding projects around movies are to help get the movie started from the ground up.  In this case, the principle photography has already occurred and the crew of Reunion are looking for additional funds for post-production (visual effects, sound design, etc).

This isn’t a case where a small budget equals sub-par quality.  The trailer below puts a lot of big studio projects to shame.  As explained on the indiegogo campaign page:

We shot with a Red camera in 4K.  We also plan on finishing our post-production workflow in 4K, so we’re capable of handling the new Sony projectors being installed in theaters across the country.  In essence, we’ve assembled all the components of a professional feature film production outside the traditional Hollywood system so we have complete creative control over our work.  It is an ambitious goal and groundbreaking in its own right.

So what’s the movie about?
It’s a cold, stormy, and thunderous night.  Trapped in his own home, former rock stars Brad Norton and Grant Foley prepare for return of their infamous band when a strange woman shows up at their door looking for her son she calls ”Alan.” Unbeknownst to them, she is guided by a dark spirit and is convinced Brad kidnapped her long-lost son. 

For as little as $5 you can play a role in the completion of Reunion.  For $10 you get your name in the credits… Which is just cool.  Other incentives include signed memorabilia, tickets to the LA premiere, and more.  See the full details here.

And seriously: Watch. This. Trailer.

How do you feel about horror movies’ role in popular culture?
I think horror movies are under-rated by the general public. Too often it seems that watching them is seen as just the favorite pastime of the apocryphal “18 to 35 year old male demographic” and that these films, no matter how well made, have little or nothing else to offer society. This is, to me, not true, and I believe that we are so in love with horror movies because we are in love with exploring the unknown, with seeing exactly what IS in that dark closet with the squeaky door, with figuring out whether the hook-handed killer really IS just an urban legend and, ultimately, finding out what happens to us after we die.

What scares you?
Snakes…snakes scare me…the last scary-snake thing that happened to me was a nightmare that I had about snakes coming out of the walls… I woke up, terrified, and this was the first time EVER that a nightmare has woken me up.

I also fear being helpless, paralyzed and not being able to do anything for myself. The scene in Million Dollar Baby where Hilary Swank is lying completely helpless in her hospital bed is, to me, one of the scariest scenes I’ve EVER seen on-screen…

What role are you the most proud of?
I’m actually proud of all my roles but a couple really stand out:

(1) When I played The Fury / Mrs Dodds in Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief because I did all my own stunts, which meant that I jumped off a 20ft scaffolding again and again and again while trussed up in a flying harness;

(2) When I played Sophomore in The Mudman and The Nurse in Shelter: both of these roles were major supporting roles and both were silent, which meant I had to get the story across by only physical acting; and

(3) When I played the mother in African Gothic: the entire role was performed in my second language, Afrikaans.

What was the best advice that you have been given and who gave it to you?
I think that the best advice I ever received was in the form of Chris Columbus directing me on the set of Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. He taught me that subtlety works best for the big screen and that you really only have to think something for the camera to be able to pick it up in your eyes.

Do you have an actor who you are dying to work with?
I’d love to share the screen with the actresses I grew up watching when I was a kid in South Africa. Amazingly bright talents like Sissy Spacek, Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Jane Fonda and Kathleen Turner would fill my screen and my imagination, and it would be a dream come true to work with any one of them. There are obviously other actors and actresses who I would love to work with, but these ladies especially shine in my memories!

What is your favorite part about movie making?
There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that my fave time of film-making is when I’m actually on set and the whole production train is in motion. Pre-production, to me, involves a TON of not very exciting work, like spreadsheets, emails and fundraising, while post-production is when the director and editor disappear into their post-prod cave and, a bunch of months later, re-appear with a completed film/rough cut. But those few weeks when you’re actually on set shooting the film are absolutely golden. Even if the shoot is the most difficult to organize ever, those times after the director yells “action” and before he yells “cut” are the most wonderful of the whole experience. That’s when everything slows down and the magic really happens… A well run set is also a thing of great beauty, and it’s wonderful to see everyone working together towards the same goal.

What advice do you have for up and coming Horror Queens?
If you want to work in horror, you have to accept the fact that you’re going to get dirty. Not only dirty as in covered in blood (fake and sometimes, when you hurt yourself, not fake), vomit (usually the interestingly edible kind made of things like avocado and bread), bruises (totally real) and dirt (picked up when rolling around on the ground while covered in blood) but also dirty as in having to explore and take on deep, dark and heavy emotions. You might also have to get naked… Now I get that nudity is a personal choice and that it should never be gratuitous – I actually view nudity as the ultimate expression of honesty, actually – but I would most certainly have had fewer jobs if I had decided not to do nudity. I would have lost out, for instance, being in Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem (where I played a doomed descendant of the Salem witch generation) and on being the – even if I say so myself – AWESOME succubus in Dennis Widmyer’s short film Curtain, which led to my having a leading role in his and Kevin Kolsch’s feature Starry Eyes… I think all that I’m trying to say is: if at all possible, don’t limit yourself.

Any new projects we should be on the lookout for?
My latest releases are The Haunting of Whaley House and Vile, and I do believe that both of these films are available on Netflix and through Redbox. Further films that should be released in the near future and that will be of particular interest to horror lovers will be the animated horror feature, The Amazing Adventures of The Living Corpse (an adaptation of the comic book of the same name), a super-interesting found-footage feature The Levenger Tapes and the ultra-quirky horror/noir/sci-fi feature Way Down in Chinatown, which I also co-produced. The disturbing thriller, African Gothic, will also have its world premier in South Africa in July at the Durban International Film Festival.

Learn more about Maria on her official IMDB profile.

So a bit earlier, we made sure you knew about all that Hard Rock Casino and Resort in Tampa has to offer.

And June brings through a bunch of new events at venue, including a new batch of gaming promotions.

The Lexus giveaway and a concert by The Beach Boys caught my eye.  (I didn’t know the Beach Boys were playing anymore for starters…)  For the full list of events, activities, and more visit the official website.

June 14th is also ‘Founder’s Day, celebrating the anniversary of the opening of the first Hard Rock.  Hard Rock venues across the world are coming up with special ways to celebrate the occasion.  If there is a Hard Rock in your neck of the woods, but sure to see if they have anything going on.

Filmed just outside the 850 area near Mobile, Hayride is a horror film filled with Halloween legends, campfire stories, and a haunted hayride gone wrong.

Indie horror movies come in many flavors, the lower the budget the easier it can be to pick them apart.  Money doesn’t necessarily make a movie, but the lower the budget is the more challenges the crew will face.

Hayride isn’t a perfect movie, but it is a fun little horror movie with a different take on the killer in the woods scenario.  A lot of it is dialog driven, with most of the kills happening in the last third of the movie.

As much as I love horror movies, so much about them can be repeating themes that have been done to death.  Hayride avoids most of the cliches, even making a point to give back stories to all the primary characters.  It also includes little easter eggs that make people like me nerd out.  One of the most obvious ones is the naming of a character: Detective Loomis.

It is a nice set up for a new face in the slasher genre, and with a sequel already in post-production – it could be the creation of a new cult icon.

It was recently released, including as a redbox rental.  For links to all the distributors, visit the official website.

Earlier this month, Hurt made a stop through Destin. Before the show we had the opportunity to talk to vocalist J. Loren Wince about the Rock4Revival Tour, Hurt’s appreciation for their fans, and more.

“I just try in some small way to do the very complicated thing I do for a living, and then try to do some good with it,” a noble goal from Wince.

“There was one concert to try and help out disaster relief and they said what if we could keep doing this? We sat down for a little while, and I said I’d have to check out the charity and after I checked it out it seemed like it was truly a worth wild cause so I went for it.”

And that is how the Rock4Revival Tour came to be. A single idea that snowballed into multiple tours, bands, and cities. Learn more at http://www.facebook.com/rock4revival

When it comes to Hurt, they haven’t quite reached household name statues, mostly due to their refreshing take on staying true to who they are. “We aren’t trying to be contrary. It just makes perfect sense – so you want to do something special and change someone’s life by doing exactly what everybody else does?”

“I think it is really a testament to the fans. Basically we made it in spite of ourselves because of the fans. We pretty much have made ever stupid move you can make on purpose because we still believe that art is individuality. And if somebody immediately tells you the formulaic way to do something, we are like, why would we do that?”

“I think if you are a wholehearted musician, somebody gets the underlying intent, then maybe they like the author instead of the book.”

“It is just the diversity in the music and we definitely reserve the right to do that. We have the kind of fans that support, and I am grateful for that. We aren’t going to stick to one thing that we always must do – because it’s just not a good idea.”

Perhaps most moving was Wince’s true concern that the recent addition of VIP packages to this tour had left fans with the wrong impression.  Nearly every interview I do, I end with a broad question along the lines of ‘anything else you’d like to make sure is out there?‘. Answers typically float to an upcoming release or something that the band wants to promote, never have I gotten an answer like this. Even Wince’s body language changed, as he emphatically made the point that fans are important to him.

“Just recently we started selling VIP packages so people could come hang out, watch sound check, get t-shirts, stuff like that… There seemed to be a backlash because I’ve always maintained that you never have to buy anything to meet me. And that is still true. At the end of the night I am going to go hangout any chance I get. Sometimes it is not logically possible or sometimes I have the flu or something. But any chance I get, I do that.”

“It is much easier to have a personal conversation with up to only ten people – and that is why there is a limit – than it is to have it with 200. Just due to the fact that people in the clubs have to go home, people get rushed and hurried, and I have no control over the closing times of the venue.”

“I just want it to be known that I stand by that you never ever have to buy anything to meet me. Just be in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately if there are several hundred other people, the time you get to hang out is drastically smaller. I just don’t want to give anybody the wrong idea.”

“I know how I get to do this crazy shit for a living and I am never going to forget that. I still remember working hours after end just wishing that someone would listen. I’m not going to forget that.”

With the interview fully winding down, Wince said one of the truest phrases about the dichotomy of the music world. “‘Oh my god I just met a rock star,’” Wince says in an upbeat voice repeating what he’s heard from fans. “No,” says Wince, “You just met a musician.”

“We are like a blend of rock and metal. You can expect really high energy and a lot of singing, a lot of screaming. We try to bring it every night as hard as we can.”

That is what I call a band mission statement.

Righteous Vendetta were a late edition to the Rock4Revival Tour that featured Hurt, but they were out to make the most of it.

A spur of the moment interview with lead singer Ryan Haye, revealed an extremely upbeat personality who was enjoying every moment of being on tour.

“We actually started out as a hardcore band. We used to be like heavy heavy. Like all screaming, beatdown, and sludgy guitars. Then we started maturing as songwriters and as musicians.”

They recently released a self titled album, their third release as a band, but first showcasing their new sound.

“The band is based out of Cody Wyoming. That is where I am from. And then everybody else is from different parts. The band started in Wyoming when me and the guitar player were in college. He is from Montana and the other guitar player is from Montana. Our drummer is from Texas and our bass player is from Florida.”

So how does a band from all over the states come together? “We found out drummer on YouTube. Josiah is the guy that lived in Florida, used to be in a band down here that we knew really well. Their band broke up and so we stole him.”

Righteous Vendetta stuck to their promises at Club LA. Blasting a blend of hardcore, metalcore, and post-hardcore to make something just inside of radio friendly. A truly energetic stage show, the band was a lot of fun to watch and didn’t hold anything back.

Learn more at www.righteousvendetta.com.