Harris Demel is the brains behind the cool new psychological thriller, Blood Rush, formerly titled Flipped. The movie stars Stella Maeve, Evan Taubenfeld, Ashley Carin, and Michael Madsen. Blood Rush is currently available on VOD from Osiris Entertainment.

For those who haven’t seen the film how would you describe it?
Blood Rush is a psychological thriller about Nicole Diamond, an internationally ­known model, who finds herself in an upside­down car in the middle of nowhere. In the passenger seat is her unconscious boyfriend, pop singer Scott Donnoly, aka, Scotty Dee. Not a soul is around to help, and her legs are wedged under the dashboard. She’s trapped. Danger lurks everywhere, including a small fire under the car, wild animals in the vicinity, and the unknown, life­-threatening physiological effects of hanging upside down indefinitely. With her damaged cell phone, she dials random numbers until she finally reaches someone willing to help – a mysterious man named Casey. However, she soon learns that roadside assistance is the last thing on Casey’s mind.

I co­-wrote the script with my long­time friend and prolific screenwriter, Rob Greenberg, and I think anyone who’s seen this movie would agree: This isn’t your typical horror movie. Of paramount importance to me and Rob was substance, which led us to add the psychological element. At the time, there was a flurry of headlines about domestic abuse involving celebrities. There haven’t been many recent movies that touched on the important topic of domestic abuse, and we felt it deserved a deeper dive. We were aiming for suspense, so the story needed scary, interesting, and unexpected twists to satisfy today’s savvy audiences. At the same time, we wanted to avoid anything gratuitous; everything stemmed organically from the main plotline.

How long ago did you shoot the movie? Does it feel like a long time coming?
Production wrapped in 2014, but as any first ­time filmmaker knows, making a movie is like going to war… Every day is a new battle, and despite your best laid plans, you’re going to take some unexpected hits. In the case of Blood Rush, we had the typical time crunches, torrential rains during outside shots, and budget stresses, but what was atypical was the challenge of having our actors hanging upside­down, literally, for the majority of the shoot. In addition, the initial ending didn’t work when we screened it, so that had to be rewritten and reshot. This movie was difficult to make on all fronts, so, yes, it’s been a long time coming!

And the lead character is…
For the lead, I was seeking a highly ­talented actress who hadn’t yet broken out. We held closed auditions, and as luck would have it, I was hit with a cold (while in Los Angeles, of all places!) in the middle of our sessions. I was zoning out on cold medicine, and then Stella Maeve was up. I’d seen her in The Runaways, and I remember being impressed by not only her performance in that movie, but by the fact that she actually played the drums (and she had good chops, too!). When she started, I was immediately yanked out of my trance. She floored me, and I knew in an instant that I’d found my lead. When I explained the enormous challenges involved in this role to her, her response was, “Let’s do it!” We’re both from the New York area, and I felt an immediate kindred connection. I recognized her ambition and hunger, and she trusted me to push her, to get the best I could out of her, which I’ll forever appreciate. She was great to work with, and wow, what a performance she gave! I’m so happy to see her achieving greater and greater success.

Know anybody this has actually happened to?
Unfortunately… I know of at least one person who’d been in a car wreck where the car flipped. And I have a number of friends who’ve been victims of domestic abuse. So, the story is a concatenation of experiences from some of my friends, as well as actual news stories.

Research is usually required for any script, and my focus was mainly on the physiological effects of being upside­down, as well as domestic abuse. It was fascinating to discover that despite scouring the web and querying my doctor friends, no one seems to know how long a person could hang upside­down before it would become life threatening. The advice I was given was that a half­ hour should be okay, unless the actors became dizzy, in which case they should be pulled out. The domestic abuse research was heavier, and upsetting. There’s a general pattern with abusers and victims, though every instance is unique. We incorporated some of the commonalities into the story line, and I hope it raises awareness.

Whose car did you shoot it in?
We found the car in a junk yard. Its engine had seized, apparently pretty early in its life, hence its good condition. It took three separate tow trucks working in unison to get the car placed properly in the ditch at our main shoot location, and hidden cables secured it. For the driving scenes, we rented a “picture car,” meaning a functioning, matching car. And nowadays, while many movies use green screen for shooting driving scenes, I wanted to be as authentic as possible, so we used what’s called a “process trailer,” which is where the picture car sits atop a platform that’s towed by a special kind of truck. The platform is low to the ground to give a realistic perspective, as if the car’s actually driving. Cameras and lights can be placed on the process trailer, the towing vehicle, or both.

How did Stella do being hung upside down like that for so long?
Stella was a warrior. If this wasn’t the toughest role she’s ever taken on, it had to be right up there. And I doubt there are many actors in the world who’d be up for such a role or who could even pull it off. And if you think hanging upside down for long stretches is difficult, add to that literally freezing temperatures, wolves up in your face, snakes crawling all over you, and then all the actor stuff, like memorizing and delivering lines, and all the blocking. Stella’s incredible performance under all of those incredibly difficult circumstances speaks volumes to the enormity of her talent.

But we can’t forget Evan Taubenfeld, who played Scotty Dee, Nicole’s boyfriend. He too, was hanging upside down, and for the scenes where his character was unconscious, Evan had to return to the same exact position and remain completely still, which is actually extremely difficult.

The two of them were great to work with and they’ll forever be my heroes.

How did you go about getting distribution – did it get a festival run first?
We entered a couple festivals, targeting only the biggest ones, and they passed, which may have been because this movie is quasi-­experimental in nature. It’s also sort of cross-­genre, making it difficult to put in a box. At the same time, with technology and the lower cost of making a film nowadays, more movies are being made, meaning there’s more competition, (certainly when it comes to festivals), and there are some extremely talented filmmakers out there, too. But I quickly realized we didn’t need to go the festival route, because the whole purpose of that was to acquire distribution, anyway. So, we simply went directly to distributors, and then it was a matter of picking out the one we felt was the best fit.

What made Osiris Entertainment the right home for the movie?
Osiris really understood the movie, and that meant a lot to me, and we were on the same page in terms of the best roadmap. And now that our deal is underway, I have to say I’m very happy with the decision, as they’ve been tremendously supportive. Of course I want the movie to be successful, but I hope their decision proves to be fruitful for them as well.

Rock Hard \m/

Watch the trailer above and check out the synopsis below. The Invitation hits theaters and VOD on March 25th.

The Invitation Synopsis:

In this taut psychological thriller by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Jennifer’s Body), the tension is palpable when Will (Logan Marshall-Green, Prometheus) shows up to his ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard, Into the Woods) and new husband, David’s (Michiel Huisman, Game of Thrones) dinner party. The pair’s tragic past haunts an equally spooky present: Amid Eden’s suspicious behavior and her mysterious house guests, Will becomes convinced that his invitation was extended with a hidden agenda. Unfolding over one dark evening in the Hollywood Hills, The Invitation blurs layers of mounting paranoia, mystery, and horror until both Will — and the audience — are unsure what threats are real or imagined.

Rock Hard \m/

Well, let’s get some background. For There Is No Door, Crocket takes his personal experiences with the harrowing illness of depression and concocts a dark and spooky world in the film. Here’s what he had to say:

Two years ago, a friend of mine committed suicide. This came as a complete shock to me, and, as is so often the case, I only found out after the fact that he had struggled with depression for much of his life. This started me reflecting on how depression has run in my own family for generations, more specifically on how the suicide of an ancestor of mine was kept quiet and often alluded to as an accident. As a filmmaker I wanted to find a way to cope with and understand my conflicting feelings about these events, and what eventually surfaced was a story that explores how depression is swept under the rug, hushed in conversations, and kept secret from people outside and even within a family. That story is this film—There Is No Door.

There Is No Door Synopsis:

Over the course of her childhood, a girl named Sam contends with a severely depressive curse that increasingly impairs her ability to live beyond the confines of the family home. The further she sinks into her depression, the more often she sees a mysterious door that intermittently appears in the hallway where her uncle vanished many years before…

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Rock Hard \m/

See what I mean?

The point here is that the Martin Rutley-directed and Andrew Rutley-penned Amnesiac (2013), which will be available via VOD on September 1st and DVD on November 5th, looks creepy as hell. The film is a blend of supernatural horror and psychological drama as it counts the cost of loss, guilt, and reckless desperation of one deeply disturbed young woman and the afterlife of one equally disturbed dead man.

Amnesiac is a psychological horror at its purest, chronicling the creation of a malevolent haunting born from the depths of a tortured mind at the heart of the film’s narrative. In true literary fashion, this narrative gradually subverts the viewer’s assumptions, eventually revealing the horrific truth hidden beneath layers of calculated deceit.

There is a gem of a line buried underneath the trailer’s two bickering sisters and the crying baby loop, which is, “This is how people end up in psychiatric wards.” That should give you an idea of the level of obsession contained in the film.

Amnesiac (2013), from Hungercut Films, stars Jon Stolez, Gemma Deerfield (also the film’s producer), Edwina Lea, Katya Greer, and Leon Florentine.

Amnesiac (2013) synopsis:

In the wake of losing her baby, lonely Kate Faulkner has become dangerously obsessed with the occult, much to the horror of her only sister, Bec. One night, Bec and her boyfriend, Thom, visit Kate in order to try and make her see the danger of her obsession. Through the use of a Ouija board, they make contact with a mysterious spirit who offers to help Kate in her mission to find her dead son. But events soon take a menacing turn when the séance participants discover the true motives of the mystery stranger at their door and the dark, eerie place of child sacrifice known as Wyke Wreake.

Rock Hard \m/

13 Classic Films To Satisfy Your Halloween Horror Cravings

Before we get started, I just want to say that this is my view on the best classic horror films and not the ULTIMATE list. If you read this and start to think, “Hey, why isn’t such and such movie on this list?” don’t feel bad. I had a lot of options. Too many options. If I had wrote about every single movie I had come across that I wanted to showcase, we’d be here until January — and I wouldn’t dare deprive you Americans of turkey or presents for you shameless gift hoarders or the dark rites for… well, those of you who worship something else.

That being said, I hope to introduce some timeless classics to people who might not have otherwise given them a second thought or maybe reintroduce a few oldies but goodies.

It seems like fewer and fewer people these days truly recognize anything that was popular before the mid to late ’70s, if that — especially not horror from before then. Those who are about to die in classic horror movies, we salute you!

No.13 Awakening of the Beast (1970)

Awakening of the Beast (1970)

Awakening of the Beast is the brainchild of Brazilian actor/filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins, also known as Coffin Joe. He appears as both himself and Coffin Joe in this film. Coffin Joe was the prominent character in a horror movie trilogy (At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, and The Strange World of Coffin Joe — check ’em out!) and makes another appearance here.

The first part of this film starts out like a black-and-white PSA about drug use and the horrors of the devil’s hallucinogens. Dr. Sergio, a psychiatrist, appears on a TV show with three other panelists to discuss the LSD experiments he has supposedly performed on four volunteer drug addicts in order to support his claim that drugs cause sexual perversion. He presents a series of documented events that he recounts to his colleagues who argue against his case. Dr. Sergio gathers the four volunteers, and after an injection, instructs them to stare at a movie poster (it just so happens to be The Strange World of Coffin Joe).

Now, if you’ve stuck with the movie for this long, the payoff comes around this part. The movie switches to a psychedelic panel of colors, and the events of the film become surreal and delirious. It’s shades of Alejandro Jodorowsky, except with a distinct exploitative feel that will leave you confused and oddly intrigued.

No.12 Haxan (1922)

Haxan (1922)

Benjamin Christensen set out to make a film about how superstition and undiagnosed mental illness fueled the hysteria of the witch hunts. Part one of the film catalogues the appearances of witches and demons using some of the most bizarre paintings, woodcuts, and photographs that you’ll ever lay eyes on. The second part of the movie features a series of theatrical, dramatic vignettes that retell tales of medieval superstition and beliefs, including Satan himself joining in on the action by luring a woman away from her marriage bed and wreaking havoc on a group of monks. Sounds like a good time to me!

I won’t ruin the last two parts of the film, but instead I’ll tempt you into watching it by adding that the film was banned in both Denmark and the U.S. for what were considered graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. The countries that allowed its showing cut it heavily. A bit of a shame considering that the film cost two-million Swedish kronor to make — unheard of in 1922. Luckily it’s now a public domain film that you can see for free right now on YouTube! Gotta love those common property laws.

No.11 Kwaidan (1964)

Kwaidan (1964)

Probably the most well-known Japanese folktale included in the film is “The Woman of the Snow,” or the tale of the yuki-onna. In traditional Japanese folktales, the yuki-onna is a beautiful young woman who appears during snowstorms/snowfall and preys upon unsuspecting mortal men. It’s a little formulaic for horror by today’s standards and deadly women in fiction is nothing new at this point, but there’s something distinctly spooky about the tale of the yuki-onna.

I won’t lie; the stories of Kwaidan are somewhat predictable, but the more keen observer will appreciate the beauty in this piece of cinematic high-class horror.

No.10 Spider Baby (1968)

Spider Baby (1968)

The Merrye siblings live in an old, decaying mansion along with their guardian/chaffeur Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.). Their unique syndrome makes them regress mentally, socially, and physically starting at puberty. The siblings, Ralph, Virginia (Jill Banner), and Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) come from a long line of inbreeding and exhibit extreme signs of madness, all while managing to be delightfully and childishly playful.

If that doesn’t sound as disturbing as it should, let me reinforce it with some examples: Virginia is the titular Spider Baby because she enjoys trapping her victims in her “web” and “stinging” them to death with two butcher knives. One of the first kills in the movie happens almost immediately when Virginia does just this to a delivery man and keeps his ear as a trophy in a box. Ralph (played comically, weirdly, and more than a little creepily by Sid Haig) is, ahem, a sexually charged simpleton who traverses the house via a dumbwaiter. I wonder if they make medications for that sort of thing these days.

The plot thickens when greedy cousins Peter and Emily come to take possession of their land by becoming the childrens’ legal guardians.

Though it’s absurdly funny in some places, perhaps without intentionally being so, Spider Baby manages to be a solidly freaky and kitschy horror flick that perfectly encapsulates the more schlocky and comedic horror of the decade.

No.9 Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

The story starts in 1917. Baby Jane Hudson is a vaudeville child star, performs for large crowds, and even has an expensive doll made in her likeness. She’s also a spoiled brat with a very jealous sister. Jumping forward to 1935, both sisters are now stars, but their roles are reversed: Baby Jane’s sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) is the one who performs for her adoring fans, while Jane’s films have flopped. Jane (Bette Davis) has taken to drinking to cope with her lack of stardom.

One night after a party, the sisters is in a car wreck, though it’s unclear which of the sisters was actually driving the car. Blanche becomes crippled from the waist down. In the present, Jane and Blanche have both retired. Though Blanche is crippled, she’s the considerably more well put-together sister; Jane is a mean alcoholic who wears horribly caked-on makeup. Jane abuses Blanche, who is now dependent on her, in a variety of cruel and twisted ways that make you cringe.

Although the roles are campy, Crawford and Davis act them well and still manage to deliver a punch. It’s truly a gothic horror tale at it’s finest, right down to the sets. Not to mention, this is an infinitely quotable film. I’ve made myself a promise that if my burgeoning career as a writer fails, I’m going to open Baby Jane’s Discount Liquor, and any customers who say, “But you are, Blanche! You are in that chair!” will get the aforementioned discount. Remember this, dear readers. Come get your hooch at Baby Jane’s Discount Liquor!

No.8 Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Rosemary’s Baby takes every woman’s most primitive fear and wraps it up neatly with a bow. The idea of having anything wrong with your unborn fetus would be nightmare-fuel for most women, but poor Rosemary (Mia Farrow) truly gets the short end of the stick in this classic tale of Satanic rituals, kooky neighbors, and every mother’s worst nightmare.

Rosemary and actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) have just moved into the Bramford, a 19th-century Gothic New York apartment building. Their nosy-ass neighbors, the Castevets (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer), are meddlesome but seem harmless enough… until suddenly Guy takes a liking to them. Shortly afterward, mysterious and eerie things start to happen around Rosemary and Guy.

Guy lands a part in a play because the original lead goes blind rather inexplicably. Guy, afterward, suggests that he and Rosemary have a baby. On the night of the child’s conception, Minnie Castevet brings the two a chocolate mousse dessert that Rosemary says has a chalky aftertaste. She throws the rest of it out, but evidently eats just enough to get pregnant with Satan’s child! I know, that sounds super zany, but the demonic rape scene is actually pretty freaky — as is the rest of the film.

Did I mention this is directed by Roman Polanski? Yeah, that Roman Polanski. Creepily enough, the year after this movie was shot, Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was famously stabbed to death by the Manson family. The movie really becomes all the more potent if you go into it knowing that morbid little tidbit.

The whole film is shot in a dark, brooding way that will make your skin crawl from the disturbing yet subtle horror used. The movie builds to a climax that leaves your heart creeping with dread in your chest at what you already know will be the outcome.

For an added treat, check out the cover of the Rosemary’s Baby theme song by Fantomas… you know, one of Mike Patton’s groups besides Faith No More. It will, if nothing else, put you into the Halloween spirit.

Find out which horror classic ranked at Number 1 on after the jump…