Following the success of our win at the annual Blobfest Short Film competition, we were asked to submit a trailer to Newt Wallen’s movie project, Midnight Show. It’s a collection of ‘70s style grindhouse trailers of movies that don’t exist. We haven’t yet been officially accepted, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed.
Sanj happens to be a fifth degree black belt in Kenpo. Martial arts movies were fairly common in the ‘70s and fit right in with the grindhouse theme. Now all we had to do was scare up a number of black belts, henchmen, women in distress and a villain. We didn’t need much of a premise. It’s all about the action. Yours truly plays the most evil small time landlord in history.
The premise is childishly simple. Evil landlord enters with henchmen. Man and his three (yes, three) wives couldn’t pay the rent. Landlord has a henchman rip out the man’s heart and hilarity ensues. Women are kidnapped and the heroes fight for justice – Stir Fried Justice. Yes, that’s the title we went with. Highbrow entertainment is not what we’re going for here. Filters were applied to make it look like we shot it in the Philippines on an exceptionally low budget and we think it shows.
While the film looks like it’s been beaten up, the sound does not. This is the first time we’ve had a production scored from end to end. Our resident musician, Shmoolie, did a fantastic job of emulating the sound of a sleazy ‘70s action flick. The voicing was intentionally out of sync as it always was in those old school martial arts films. We had the actor say one line for the camera, then record another line that was spliced in later.
While Midnight Show is being pitched we’re keeping the trailer offline, but decided to share a few choice stills. This may not be zombies, but we enjoyed making it and Sanj got to wear one of his signature propeller beanies.