Category Archives: Halloween

October 31, 2016 · 10:09 am

Happy Halloween!

via GIPHY

Happy Halloween!

This is my favorite time of year, not just because of Halloween and all of  the fun, spooky stuff that goes along with that, but because of autumn and change of seasons. I like cool, wet weather (and somehow I live in California) and being able to wear pants and sweaters comfortably. I’m also a big fan of pumpkin products (before it was cool) and manage to go Gold at Starbucks at this time each year on #PSLs.

The wife and I have made a few videos about the fall. One of them a commentary on the typical weather we get here in October in California and another a horror short that we made for Fun Size Horror back in 2014. so as a video treat for Halloween here are Part of the Fall and Bloody Mary. Like & Subscribe and tell us what you think in the comments!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Fun Size Horror, Halloween, video, videos, YouTube

October 30, 2015 · 10:51 am

Videos About Fall & Halloween

IMG_9732

The wife had a good idea for a video this year about California’s lack of significant seasonal change. She wrote a great blog about it HERE but if you just want to see the video you can see it below:

And last year I did a short for Fun Size Horror based on a short story I wrote called Bloody Mary. Since it’s the right time of year you can see that below:

Happy Halloween! Be safe and have fun!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Andelon, blatant plug, comedy, creativity, directing, filmmaking, Fun Size Horror, fun video friday, Halloween, scary movies, videos, YouTube

September 8, 2015 · 8:00 am

Home – A Horror Short Starring My Wife

HOME title image

You may remember that last year Rene and I were involved in the Fun Size Horror project, a series of 31 horror shorts that were released the week of Halloween. Rene and I were directly involved in the production of two of them: Bloody Mary, which featured Rene and our niece Katie, and Home which starred Rene and our friend Matt Conde. After the release embargo was over I released Bloody Mary right away – but I thought that I had lost the final file for Home!

During a massive file transfer to my backup drives I found it, and posted it on YouTube for all to see! So please watch and enjoy Home:

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Andelon, blatant plug, Fun Size Horror, Halloween, Home, horror, making movies, movies, projects, scary movies, shameless self promotion, short film, video, videos, YouTube

October 31, 2014 · 1:59 pm

Fun Size Horror HAPPY HALLOWEEN! – More Shorts and A Little History

FunSized_Keyart_color CROP

EDIT: This was originally written for yesterday, but it looks like it didn’t get posted, so I’ve made some adjustments and am posting today. Apologies to my friends who’s shorts aired yesterday that this blog wasn’t a portal for people to see your stuff. -C.A.

The shameless self-promotion train continues today as we have five spook-tacular shorts premiering today: Fun Size Horror web site

Since neither Rene or I have any shorts playing today (although they are absolutely worth checking out, it’s a good mix today) I thought it might be nice to give a little history as to how Rene and I got involved in this project in the first place.

This whole project is the brainchild of my friend Zeke Pinheiro. He’s a director/writer/editor and you’ve probably seen his and my names together before particularly if you remember a horror film that we were trying to get made called The Pom Pom Massacre. The one thing we ran into, time and time again, was a lack of ability to get the film funded. Even after a successful Kickstarter to help get the development funds we needed, we just couldn’t lock the financing down. This happened for a few projects in a row and it started to feel like we were always looking for money and never actually making anything.

Last November I got a call from Zeke while I was on set for a commercial. He said that he wanted to make 31 short films for Halloween and release one every day in October. They would all be self-financed so we wouldn’t need to lock down funding. He and I know too many talented people, if we could just find a few that wouldn’t mind helping us out we’d probably be able to do it. That being said, I was a bit flabbergasted. But, it sounded like a hell of a lot of fun and I’m always up for a challenge so I told him I was in. After that he reached out to Mali Elfman and Michael May, two other friends of ours in the industry. Together we started building a plan.  That plan was to reach out to other filmmakers we know and see if they were into the idea of:

  • Creating a short film at 2 minutes or less. (This idea changed later.)
  • It would be self-produced and funded. (We had no money to offer anyone.)
  • The creator maintaining all rights and intellectual property.
  • They licensing us the right to air it through the end of 2014 on whatever distribution we can get, even if it’s just our own YouTube page, and have the option to participate in a bigger release if they choose.

Simple plans with a simple goal: get projects into production and get them seen by the public.

Thankfully a LOT of filmmakers we picking up what we were putting down and we were pleased to have more projects pitched than we were even able to use!

This is the first of what could be an annual event. So many great little shorts have come out of this and there is so much talent that Rene and I have had the pleasure of working with now. I look forward to how those relationships grow. I hope you’ve enjoyed the shorts this year. Check out the Facebook page and come to the public screening if you’re in L.A. on November 2nd.

See you next time!

Leave a Comment

Filed under acting, Andelon, awesome, business, filmmaking, Halloween, making movies, storytelling, the future, video, YouTube

October 23, 2014 · 1:35 pm

New Site, New Projects and The Age of Ultron!

Website Banner

CurtisAndersen.com is officially back up and, although there’s still some tweeking to do, it’s time to post again!

fUN-sIZE V9

The big thing I want to focus on is the launch of Fun Size Horror which is NEXT MONDAY! Not familiar with Fun Size Horror? It’s 31 micro-short horror films playing the week of Halloween done by over a dozen up-and-coming filmmakers, including yours truly. Follow the links to the WEBSITE and FACEBOOK PAGE. It’s been a hell of a thing getting this together this year, but the projects that I’ve seen come through are really good and cover the spectrum of horror sub-genres. Go check things out and look for Bloody Mary on Wednesday October 29th on Shock Till You Drop.

BM 8

The last thing I want to touch on is the new Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer – omfg.

See you next time.

Leave a Comment

Filed under business, comic movies, geek, Halloween, horror, independent film, making movies, movie trailers, rene, video, YouTube

October 31, 2013 · 5:14 pm

Happy Halloween!

I love me some Halloween!

Fall is my favorite season of the year, with it’s crisp air and rain and cloudy days, and Halloween is a great “party” right before the formal end of the year holidays.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I also like getting scared and this is the perfect time of the year to do it! So I present to you three movies that I think make for fun Halloween watching.

All three are anthology films. I like anthology films for Halloween because you get a lot of horror bang for your buck and aren’t committed to only one story for the whole duration of the movie. Also, if you are in a party setting, you don’t feel bad if you miss ten minutes while you hit on the hot Snow White on the other side of the room.

Hubba hubba!

So here they are:

CREEPSHOW

With creators like Stephen King an George A. Romero it has quite a bit of horror cred. Made in the 80’s (and it shows) I find that this still holds up as a time capsule of how movies were made back then, especially when it comes to the practical effects. It’s not scary like Exorcist scary but it is fun. Here’s the trailer:

CREEPSHOW 2

While the first Creepshow is campy, Creepshow 2 is actually more on the scary side. King and Romero join forces again and raise the ante. With segments like “The Raft” and “The Hitch-hiker” there is a lot of suspense added to the gore. Here’s the trailer:

Trick ‘r Treat

There is a lot of history behind this movie getting released. You can read about it HERE, but what I like about this movie is that it celebrates Halloween and tells you scary stories at the same time. Plus, Sam is a pretty cool mascot for the holiday.

I truly love this movie and think it makes for a great Halloween tradition. Here’s the trailer:

Do you have a favorite Halloween movie? Tell me about it in the comments. Also, if you’d like to watch these and other great scary movies why not try Amazon Prime? Click the banner below for details and a free trial!

 See you next time! Happy Halloween!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Halloween, holidays, scary movies, videos

October 21, 2013 · 11:41 pm

How The Exorcist Changed My Life

I love scary stuff. Movies, haunted houses, books and stories, all of these – especially if it’s a particular month in the fall – are right up my alley!

In fact the thing that got me into the idea of film making is the one movie that, to this day, still scares me to the core: The Exorcist. 

From Wikipedia: The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted by William Peter Blatty from his 1971 novel of the same name. The book, inspired by the 1949 exorcism case of Roland Doe,[3][4] deals with the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her child through an exorcism conducted by two priests.

The film features Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller, Lee J. Cobb, Linda Blair, and (in voice only) Mercedes McCambridge. It is one of a cycle of “demonic child” films produced from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, including Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen.
The Exorcist was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. on December 26, 1973. The film earned 10 Academy Award nominations, winning two (Best Sound Mixing andBest Adapted Screenplay), and losing Best Picture to The Sting. It became one of the highest-grossing films of all time, grossing over $441 million worldwide. It is also the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture.
The film has had a significant influence on popular culture.[5][6] It was named the scariest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly[7] and Movies.com[8] and by viewers of AMC in 2006, and was No. 3 on Bravo’s The 100 Scariest Movie Moments.[9][dead link] In 2010, the Library of Congress selected the film to be preserved as part of its National Film Registry.[10][11] In 2003, it was placed at No. 2 in Channel 4‘s The 100 Greatest Scary Moments in the United Kingdom.
Here’s the trailer:
The song Tubular Bells sets me on edge. 
The movie plays on the deepest “fight or flight” instincts in my brain. The idea that some entity could invade my body and do horrible things triggered in my brain at an early age and possession became the one thing that truly scared me through my childhood, as did the things associated with that idea. 
I ate up stories about Ouija boards and anything paranormal that people could tell me. In fact, when I was a pre-teen, I was convinced that I’d grow up to become a professional parapsychologist, busting ghosts and finding proof of things from beyond! 
Obviously that didn’t happen, but all that spookiness still had an impact. My fear of The Exorcist caused me to be a bit obsessive about it. I felt that if I understood every nook and cranny of the movie, and all of the aspects of its creation, it might help me not be as scared of it. I read up on it, watched every documentary that existed (I especially enjoyed the one that came in the 25th anniversary box set: “The Fear of God”), and just generally cataloged every scrap of information that existed. 
I have a great deal of respect for the making of the movie. The sets were chilled to get authentic breath fog during the exorcism, the sound of bees in a jar were laid low into the sound mix during scenes to build tension, practical effects and use of light and shadow helped to build an atmosphere that sets the viewer on edge. Director William Friedkin even shot off guns during scenes to scare the actors. Horribly abusive, maybe, but it was a dedication to storytelling that produced amazing results. Because of the care put into the film it still holds up today.

In fact even writing this entry has me all anxious and set on edge. It has been years since I’ve watched this movie and just the pictures and little bits that I’ve seen to add to the post has me nervous and jumping at every noise. I haven’t even been able to get up the gumption to watch the trailer embedded in this post.

It is this effect that I aspire to as a storyteller. Maybe not scaring the pants off of people, per se, but making a permanent impression and doing work that is as powerful decades later as it is when it’s released. The Exorcist was a triumph that spawned less effective sequels but has made an indelible mark on popular culture. It is spoofed, imitated and has crossed over into different mediums. My friends over at All Puppet Players are doing a puppet version in Arizona. Follow the link to learn more! It has become more than just a movie.

I’ve actually scared myself. So I’m going to go, but I hope you all have a happy Halloween! I know I will, but I probably won’t be watching The Exorcist.

See you next time!

Wanna watch The Exorcist or Exorcist related content? Why not try Amazon Prime? Television and movies and free 2-day shipping!

Leave a Comment

Filed under filmmaking, Halloween, scary movies, The Exorcist