I was a Guest of Hono(u)r!

On Wednesday, 20 October, 2010, I caught a plane for the USA so that I would be able to attend Shock Around The Clock, an annual 24-hour horror film marathon in Columbus, Ohio, that was happening that weekend (23-24 October).  The organisers of the event - all of whom I consider to be friends - graciously invited me to attend as a Guest of Honor (Honour, for Australians!) to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of my short film, Night of the Living Bread.  They even paid to fly me there!

About Night of the Living Bread:

When I was attending the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program of the School of Film at Ohio University, my first year (1989-1990) film project was a short parody of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968).  Instead of zombies rising to attack the living, it was slices of bread.  (Years ago, I was telling a couple of co-workers about the film.  One of them turned to the other and said, "You know, a stupid movie!"  And I thought, "OK, fair enough...")

At the time, I was attending annual 24-hour film marathons that were being held in Columbus, Ohio.  They would have a science fiction event in April and a horror event in October.  I wanted to have the world premiere of Night of the Living Bread (NotLB) at the horror marathon in October 1990 and the organisers agreed to show it.  The cast and I did what we could to make it an event - making NotLB "Action Figures" (a slice of bread in a plastic baggie with a card telling you which figure you had - Frenchie, Whitey, Heel #2, etc.), Bread Badges, NotLB Trading Cards, etc.  And the crowd  seemed to really like the film!

That motivated me to explore other markets for the film and it ended up doing pretty well.  It won the Audience Vote at the Hamburg (Germany) No Budget Short Film Festival (which came with around $1,500 prize money), as well as getting accepted at a bunch of other festivals and even getting invited to a few.  Columbia Pictures picked up the film for television syndication sales in North America.  They packaged it with the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead and when it was shown, I called a bunch of the markets to get their ratings information.  Based on that, I estimated that approximately one million households watched my film.  The film was also included on the deluxe laserdisc package for the original (1968) Night of the Living Dead, and then later on similar packages on video and DVD.  And, when George A. Romero finally watched it, he personally called me and said he thought it was "a hoot"!

But it was the film marathon events where "Bread" was really at home.  While in film school, I made two more Bread Films - Loaf and Another Bread Film, or: A Shameless Marketing Ploy.  Both had their premieres at the film marathons.  Loaf was science fiction and Another Bread Film fit right in at a new event for schlock/exploitation films.  Eventually, my films became a staple at each of the marathons.  That waxed and waned over the years; but just when you thought The Secret Bread Empire was dead, the films would be shown again and would get new fans.  I even made another film, Sandwich, in 2007.

So it seemed appropriate to go where it kind of all began to celebrate the 20th anniversary.

About the event:

It was great!

Due to the essential and irreplaceable efforts of Dave Zecchini, we were able to create the Deluxe  Edition DVD which contains all four Bread Films, as well as a bunch of extras, including recently-recorded commentaries by me on all the films, and even an Easter egg or two.  I gave a copy of this DVD to everyone who attended the marathon.

And, due to the kindness of Matthew Johnson, proprietor of Seventh.Ink - http://www.furyshirts.com/ - all the attendees also got a "Night of the Living Bread" badge.  Matthew came up with the a T-shirt (and badge) design for "Night of the Living Bread" without being aware of my film.  When I found his online shop, I ordered a bunch of the shirts for myself and the cast of the film.  When I told Matthew about my film and the 20th anniversary event, he offered to supply me with a bunch of the badges for a greatly reduced price.

On Thursday (the day after I arrived in Columbus), I spent the day preparing new "Action Figures" to distribute in the "swag bags" for the attendees, too.

Friday was spent preparing large Bread Empire banners to flank the auditorium.  Think Nuremberg 1934 (but without all the nasty stuff that came later).  My thanks to Steve Herminghausen for all of his help at the last minute (the last several hours, actually)!

And then Saturday and Sunday was the event - 12 noon to 12 noon!  I had arranged for much of the original cast to be there: Robert and Gina Saunders, Stephen R. Newell, and Steve Herminghausen.  Unfortunately missing were Vince Ware (I don't know where he is these days - Where's Ware?; if you know, please tell me!), Katie Hughes (formerly Katie Harris; she's living in Japan), and Michael Saunders (he was supposed to be there, but was a no-show).

When it came time for the Bread Films, I did a little introduction.  The films were shown, followed by a surprise collage of Bread Moments from marathons of the past.  Then the cast and I went to the front and talked about the incredible experience of people actually caring about our film 20 years later, as well as answering a variety of questions the audience had.

Afterwards, we all went out to the lobby, in case anyone wanted their DVDs autographed (since someone had approached us earlier).  Amazingly, there ended up being a line!  It was great fun chatting with fellow marathon attendees who liked the films.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and I felt it was a wonderful way to celebrate 20 years of The Secret Bread Empire!

Here's a list of the films that were shown and my quickie thoughts on them:

Frankenstein (1910) - Interesting as a cinematic artifact, dull as a movie, and appropriately short.

Frankenstein (1931, James Whale) - Good, classic Universal horror fun.

13 Ghosts (1960, William Castle) - I sacrificed this so that I could get some sleep (I started the Marathon in a deprived state) and be more awake for other films.  I've seen it before and my memory was that it was gimmicky fun, but not that great of a film.

Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) - Still an amazing classic!

Dressed To Kill (1980, Brian De Palma) - I was looking forward to this, as I had not previously seen it.  Wow, I knew De Palma was known to be heavily influenced by Hitchcock, but I had no idea this was virtually a remake of Psycho.  Well, if Psycho were remade as softcore porn with 1980s sensibilities.  As one of my friends said, "De Palma's films are interesting, but I always feel like I should take a shower after watching them."

Island of Lost Souls (1932, Eric C. Kenton) - I missed the first half or more of this, as I and the "Bread" cast were in the lobby, signing autographs and chatting with people.  What I saw when I came back was very cool, though, with a wonderful performance by Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau.  And the film print was beautiful!

Martyrs (2008, Pascal Laugier) - Torture porn, but with a point.  I leave it to the individual viewer to decide if the point justifies the torture porn.  (I'm certainly not opposed to violence or gore in films - and I've frequently sought it out - but if it's not presented with some level of wit, I just find it dull.)

House (1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi) - A Japanese take on the haunted house trope with the typical Japanese wackiness that comes across as psychedelically surreal live-action anime.  Some people found this to be amazing, but the repetitiveness and lack of cohesion just lulled me off to sleep.  (As many know, I'm all about story, story, story!)

They Came From Within (aka Shivers, 1975, David Cronenberg) - Cronenberg's sex zombie apocalypse is still a delight!

Robogeisha (2009, Noboru Iguchi) - I was rather interested in this, but the usual Japanese silliness and lack of narrative cohesion took me out (again).  Wow, these films are tough for me at a Marathon!

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986, Tobe Hooper) - Sacrificed for sleep to make sure that I would be awake for the final film.  I did wake up for the last 20-30 minutes and just found it to be a shrill, ambling mess.  Ugh.

Prince of Darkness (1987, John Carpenter) - I had not previously seen this, so I was interested.  I find John Carpenter to be an intriguing director who occasionally hits a home run (Dark Star, The Thing, possibly In The Mouth of Madness) but is frequently muddled and overly fond of ambiguous endings.  This film is more the latter than the former, and it's kind of a mish-mash of some of his earlier films (Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, and The Thing).

All in all, it was fun to be exposed to new (to me) films and see some classics again, all in the company of like-minded enthusiasts!

And, finally, if you want some more information, here are some links to check out:

Newspaper Article - The Other Paper (Columbus, Ohio)

Newspaper Article - Delaware (Ohio) News

Attendee Report - Aaron Einhorn

Attendee Report - Joe Neff (cinematically erudite co-host of the Marathon)

Attendee Reports - From The Marathon's Forum

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 is one of the most enjoyable films I have seen in a long, long time.

Laugh and cry, folks, laugh and cry. Sometimes at the same time.

(Four stars out of four, of course.)