I can't go back to being a weatherman

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There she be, "Wheel of Death" in all her incredible, gory, gnarly, fun, and funny glory. There is nothing like finishing a film and just knowing it is a success. Not perfect, maybe it had perfection programmed into its GPS and along the route saw a tourist trap that was too good to pass by and soon decided that in its heart it needed to stay there for the night. That is what I'm talking about. Wheel of Death is a wonderfully wild tourist trap of horror comedy that actually delivers the good. 

There are so many points I want to hit but I'll start with the thing everyone needs to know: Craig Bahnsen's performance as Doug the Demon is so impossibly good. I love so many things in this film and hit so many of my goals in it, but the top of the praise heap is definitely Craig. I didn't know in 2019 when we asked him to slap on some JNCOs that he had this in him, but I am so happy he hung around and delivered a performance that makes this film the most rewatchable project I've ever been a part of. Maybe I'm embarrassing Craig, praising him so frequently and loudly, but I don't care. I knew from the moment I started editing the assembly draft he would win the Best Actor award from the event, and I'm so happy that came through. Strip away the music, the effects, the camera work, and Craig's performance would've carried an emergency upload submission. I look forward to people discovering this film over the years and wondering where the hell this delicious character and performance came from.

Where should we go from here... We also won awards for Audience Choice in our screening group, Best Director, and Best Sound Design. Now normally, I'm pretty chill on awards but Craig was the most sure-fire thing I've seen at 48 in a long time and at least the sound design award felt rightly deserved. 

Every year before 48 I watch a few of my favorite filmmakers whose craft I tend to emulate. This year I watched Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz, the Coen's Hail Caesar & Raising Arizona, Fincher's Fight Club, Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, and Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind. These are the filmmakers whose approach to editing and sound sings a siren song my creative nerves can't resist. 

Keep things moving. 

Respect the audience's ability to hold on to something wild. 

Sound design is the film experience. 

Fight Club & Requiem really broke the glass on this for me decades ago, but Edgar Wright has driven the point home with gusto with every project he makes. All of this is to say, Tiny Explosions has been swimming in the deep end of sound design for the last couple years, going for broke with what sounds elevate the story and viewing experience. Still, I hadn't considered winning any award for it until the category popped up at Best of Horror event. I was proud of the circus of sounds that prop up the corners of the film's tent, so winning an award made sense.

So Best Director... full honesty, I just deleted four paragraphs of intricate "Really, Awards?" talk. I don't want to do that, I have done that enough. Instead, I will just reiterate how I was completely shocked to win and while I know I put in a ton of work on this film, it wouldn't be what it is without the intense artistry of Brian Hogan, Nicole Siefken, Chuck Lines, Mark Haugen, and the production help of Matt Clark, Tosh Dillinger, and Gabe Rowold who you don't see on screen but spent their entire Saturday in that barn and did some really eye catching work. I would trade the Best Sound Design award this moment if these people took a Best Make-up/Visual Effects award. Nicole, Brian, and Chuck proved they are the top of class.

I love being a film director, no matter the scale or project. Maybe if the simulation smiles on me I will have a chance to do it on a feature or two, but that's yet to be seen. Let me just close this part by saying my work is generally informed by my fandom of Edgar Wright, Danny Boyle, Darren Aronofsky, David Fincher, and Terry Gilliam; i.e. filmmakers who go for it and take creative risks for themselves and awarding bodies have never been to friendly with. I know for a fact the first time I saw a film from any of these gentlemen I was slack jaw astounded from what they had made. That's what I always aim to do, leave an audience really feeling like they experienced something unexpected.

Every 48 I have a list of criteria for a film. Sometimes I read it like an obsessed madman, other times I completely forget. Since last year's horror project got waylaid by me becoming unexpectedly sick, I wanted to make sure this year we made something that hit our standard. So, I updated my list starting in November 2022 all the way up to a week before this year's Horror competition.

As you can see there are a lot so, quick where I can:

Story, Story... - I feel like we relearn the importance of simplicity every event. I feel like it's a pitchable plot so maybe it's simple.

Would I watch? - Yes. Fun horror comedy that is true to both genres.

No Montage - We've done them too much

Balance dialogue & gag - I feel so. The horror gags don't jumble up the pace or plot.

Film as experience - Kills on screen, no obfuscation - No gaps/gore edits - No Newspaper - Yes, these were pretty much my demands for horror. Show it, have the audience feel it, if someone's injured it happens on camera, and no cheap newsreader narration. There are so many cliches in horror that make me immediately disinterested, so I put them out as hard boundaries. Make your film how you feel is right, but I would rather not do the project than have a newspaper story, tv reporter, or otherwise set up the exposition OR go cheap or off camera with a kill.

Action as story start off - Damn it, no. Last year the film we didn't make -Death Wizard- would've have started with a gnasty kill to set off the stakes and let the audience in on the big bad. Alas, it wont be a 48 film from us. I live for the day our film gallops from the gun to the flag.

Tension - Im leaning yes but comedy tends to deflate a sense of danger. I didn't want to have characters pleading for their life and we didn't have time for it either. Oh well.

Watch out for the flat middle - Look, I am not an in-the-bag horror lover. I dread the stuff you see coming and holding out a story for 2 hours when it clearly should have been 90 minutes. So, we didn't do any side ventures or escapes, things that don't make sense. We through a twist that really makes the funhouse genre shine and gave our demon a completely unexpected dimension, but nothing that feels like we wasted 20-60 seconds of runtime. 

Meaningful action - Action does not mean guns, chases, and kung fu. It means motivated character movement and actions within a scene. I feel we did pretty good on this. No sitting at a table, having a laugh. Been there, not for this film.

Closing Punch - the credit bit is a great call back. The "sudden death" scene could've been stronger. Oh well, it's 48. Can't go back now.



Closing everything out, here's my usual personal favorites of the event. For the first time in years I actually got to see every film and rank them. The problem is I am the toughest judge with the horror genre because there are just so many cheats (slop around a bunch of blood, hide your kills, jump cuts to cover up a lack of practical fx skills, have a character do something that only works in horror plot logic). I set a high bar for us because I quit watching so many horror films when I feel like a filmmaker is wasting my time with cheats or dramatic pace. So I'm not using usual the 48 grading rubic (Creative 45% - Technical 30% - Assignment 25%) or any type of conventional method for picking these films other than what I attempted to do with Wheel of Death and two very specific things: 

1) Did the film deliver on the promise of what it was? 
2) Did the film cut as few horror corners as possible to deliver its story?

My three favorites (excluding Wheel of Death, because... don't be that guy) from Horror DSM 2023:

  1. "Homemade Haunted House" by Cutting Room Floor
    Lots of tone, persistent uneasy feeling, kids in the plot kick it up, great twist that I doubt anyone would've called. Committed to its camera convention and it worked.

  2. Pilgrim in the Basement by TGI Friday the 13th
    Fun twist, funny story, curveball of a film, on the nose humor of first half really worked when SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER. I don't know why it wasn't at Best of City. If I had to guess it's because it is only slightly a horror film.

  3. "Mixtape" by Team Last to Resort to Cannibalism
    The overall winners! Looked great. Aaron Wiese is a good actor.

 See you all next year! Be on the look out for Behind the Scenes for Wheel!

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