Exclusives
SCREAM ’09: ‘The Graves’ Writer/Director Brian Pulido
While on the red carpet for the 2009 Spike TV Scream Awards, we caught up with Brian Pulido, writer/director of After Dark Films’ The Graves, one of the 2010 “8 Films to Die For.” Beyond the break you can read about a new viral website being launched to promote the film’s January 29th release, along with potential DVD extra features and his next project, Damnation.
In The Graves, two inseparable sisters, Megan and Abby Graves, are taking one last wild road trip before Megan has to start a new job. The journey includes a trip through remote Arizona in search of a kitchy roadside attraction. Instead, Megan and Abby happen on Skull City Mine, a weather-beaten, abandoned mine town converted into a self-guided tour. What seems like a fun day in the sun turns into a mind-bending fight for survival against menaces both human and supernatural.
“GRAVES is coming out January 29th,” Pulido tells Bloody Disgusting breaking the news about a new viral website launching this month. “Sometime right around Halloween we’re going to release a website called SKULLCITYMINE.com and that’s gonna give people a nice inside view of the terrible environment that the girls from the movie end up in,” adding, “that gives people an inside look into the people that run the mine.”
As for extra features, there could be a lot on the DVD. “[It’s] too early to tell. What we’re providing besides the obvious behind-the-scenes, we’re going to provide some visual comics `cause it’s related to the movie, we have a little documentary on the strange locations we shot at, all sorts of commentary tracks and a couple other unique things. We tried to make sure it was different.”
“After Dark has been spectacular, I’m having a great time,” he says of After Dark. But after this hits theaters, he’ll be getting behind the camera for a new horror film entitled DAMNATION.
“I’m finishing two more scripts. I have one called DAMNATION that’s about a family of con artists that perform exorcisms in small town American,” he reveals to Bloody Disgusting. “When they go to this particular town, they actually unleash a horde of demons into the town. We shoot that next March again in Arizona.”
Exclusives
‘The Haunting of Pennhurst’ Exclusive Clip Trains Scare Actors For Historic Haunt in Tribeca Doc
The past and present collide in haunting, poignant ways in the genre documentary The Haunting of Pennhurst, which sees a Halloween haunt serve as a reclamation of true historic horrors.
Ahead of its world premiere at the 25th Tribeca Film Festival, we have an exclusive clip that sees scare actors in training for the Halloween season. The catch? This haunt is opening at the historic Pennhurst State School & Hospital site, a facility that caused immense harm to its disabled patients over decades of its operation.
In the documentary, “For over seventy years, Pennhurst State School & Hospital was called a place of care. What happened inside killed over half its population. It closed in 1987, leaving behind unmarked graves and an unresolved history. Today, on those same grounds, disabled performers – many living with the same conditions that once sent people to Pennhurst – put on their makeup, pull on their costumes, and prepare to scare people for a living.
“Through grit, compassion, and buckets of blood, the eclectic performers of the Pennhurst Asylum haunted attraction are wrestling with a space that is at once a lucrative business and a gravesite.”
The upcoming documentary hails from directing trio Nathan Stenberg, Mike Attie, and Katarina Poljak, who explore their socially-relevant subject through archival footage, first-hand accounts, and an immersive verité.
“Pennhurst has haunted us since we first passed through its dragon-tooth gates; the horrors of the institution echo through the site today. We are so grateful to bring this film to the Tribeca Festival, particularly the Escape from Tribeca section, which feels right for a story where past and present bleed together. We hope audiences leave unnerved and asking the same uncomfortable questions we did,” Attie, Stenberg, and Poljak said in a statement.
Watch the clip below that sees disabled and neurodivergent scare actors learning the ropes of a Halloween haunt, reclaiming the site’s grim history in the process.
Tribeca Screenings:
- Public 1 (Premiere) Screening – Friday, June 5 at 9:15PM at Village East by Angelika
- Public 2 Screening – Sunday, June 7 at 3:15PM at Village East by Angelika
- Public 3 Screening – Tuesday, June 9 at 6:15PM at Village East by Angelika