Tag: Streaming

Decade of the Dead: A Blood-Soaked Retrospective on the Ultimate Zombie Horror

Decade of the Dead is available now on Digital and On Demand. Courtesy photo,used with permission.

Zombie horror movies captivate audiences with their unique blend of fear, survival, and societal commentary. The mindless, relentless nature of zombies taps into primal fears of death and the loss of individuality. These films often explore themes of isolation, survival instincts, and human nature under extreme pressure. As characters face an apocalyptic world, viewers are drawn to the tension between personal survival and moral choices. The unpredictable chaos of a zombie outbreak mirrors our anxieties about societal collapse, making these films both thrilling and thought-provoking. Ultimately, they offer an adrenaline rush while exploring the darker sides of humanity.

Dark Star Pictures is thrilled to announce the release of Decade of the Dead, a gripping and action-packed zombie horror film, now on Digital and On Demand. This chilling new chapter in the zombie apocalypse genre is a standalone follow-up to the 2012 cult hit Dead Season, which will be re-released in conjunction with Decade of the Dead.

 It is available on YouTube, Google Play, Fandango, and Apple TV. (Gold Dust PR, 2024)

Set against the eerie backdrop of a tropical island overrun by the undead, a group of survivors, ten years after a zombie outbreak, seeks refuge with an isolated community—only to uncover a sinister zombie-worshiping cult determined to dominate the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Decade of the Dead stars Sean Patrick Thomas (Cruel Intentions, Save The Last Dance), Jenna Leigh Green (“Sabrina the Teenage Witch”),  Shane Johnson (“Power”), Branscombe Richmond (The Scorpion King, Mortal Kombat), Dean Geyer (Zoey 102, “Glee”).

Decade of the Dead – Ten years into the zombie apocalypse, Rachel, Tweeter, and Ben, live in a world without hope. While scavenging the Caribbean, they happen upon The Sworn, a zombie-worshiping cult of the worst remnants of humanity. The Sworn not only worship the dead but consume the living and enslave those they fail to convert. Rachel is captured and reunited with her long-lost sister, the high priestess of The Sworn, who leads the cult with Grinner, a blood-thirsty, fanatical brute, but the reunion is short-lived as they battle to make it off the island alive.

Filmed entirely on the island of O‘ahu with a talented local production crew, Decade of the Dead was co-directed by Adam Deyoe (Psycho Sleepover, Dead Season) and O‘ahu-based filmmaker Fairai Richmond. Flynn Forest Productions’ producer Loren Semmens, partnered with Bryan Spicer (Magnum P.I., Hawaii Five-0) and Sight & Sound Productions to execute the ambitious production.

Decade of the Dead offers an imaginative twist on beloved genre classics like The Walking Dead and Lost. The film creatively utilizes iconic O‘ahu locations, to craft a gripping and uniquely Hawaiian take on the zombie genre. The film made its world premiere at the 2023 Hawai‘i International Film Festival, where it was celebrated for its innovative approach to the zombie genre and its authentic representation of Hawai‘i’s filmmaking talent. 

The Art of Isolation: The Emotional Journey of Me, Myself & The Void

The out of body indie dramedy Me, Myself & The Void is now available for streaming on major Video On Demand platforms worldwide. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Black comedies blend humor with darker themes, exploring taboo subjects like death, morality, and societal dysfunction. This genre often highlights the absurdity of life’s challenges, using satire to provoke thought while entertaining. By comparing comedic elements with grim scenarios, black comedies encourage audiences to confront uncomfortable truths and reflect on the human condition. Films like Dr. Strangelove and Fargo exemplify this style, revealing the complexities of human nature and the often absurd realities of existence. The humor can be unsettling, but it ultimately invites viewers to find laughter amid despair, creating a unique and memorable cinematic experience.

In today’s movie news, there’s a new comedy/black comedy out on digital: Me, Myself & The Void.

Los Angeles, CA--Echobend Pictures is excited to kick off their slate of exciting and original features with the worldwide video on demand release of Me Myself & The Void, a black comedy set in the human mind, where a man must confront…himself. Me Myself & The Void is available on digital platforms including Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video. (Justin Cook PR, 2024)

Me Myself & The Void is an Echobend Pictures feature directed by Timothy Hautekiet from a script he co-wrote with Nik Oldershaw. Jack De Sena (Avatar: The Last Airbender, All That) stars as a struggling comedian caught at a crossroads in his life, while trapped outside the bounds of space and time. He is forced to question who, where and what he is, reflecting on his life and those in it, including Chris W. Smith (De Sena’s comedy partner in their popular sketch comedy channel Chris and Jack) and Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Raya and the Last Dragon).

The supporting cast is rounded out by Akilah Hughes, James Babson, Sophia Esperanza, Kristen Carey, Darren Dupree Washington, Danielle Dallas Roosa.

Me Myself & The Void world premiered at Dances with Films and went on to screen at fests around the world. At FilmQuest, Me Myself & The Void won the award for Best Ensemble Cast and scored nominations for Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Editing and Best Score.

Ahead of the worldwide release, director/co-writer Hautekiet shared: “Above all else, I hope the film offers an engaging mystery with many laughs. I wanted to frame a whodunnit around a relationship and have our hero searching through his own memories for clues to uncover what happened. The film has an emphasis on mental health and seeks to start a conversation about modern relationships, ambition and isolation. This is the film I needed five years ago before I began to take my mental health seriously.”

A down on his luck stand-up finds himself in a void world, hovering precariously between life and death. It is in this void that our hero, Jack, must discern how he ended up face down on his bathroom floor and find a way out before it’s too late.

Me, Myself & The Void
Producers: Ryan Blewett, Zubin Asaria, and Ryan Turner for Echobend,
Executive Producer: Zubin Asaria
Run Time: 85 minutes

Still from Me, Myself & The Void. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Wineville: Brande Roderick’s 70s-Inspired Horror Debut

Wineville is available to view on Video on Demand/Digital. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Horror movies captivate audiences by tapping into our primal fears and anxieties, using suspense, surprise, and the macabre to elicit strong emotional responses. From classic monsters and haunted houses to psychological thrillers and supernatural entities, these films explore the darker side of human imagination. They often reflect societal fears and personal anxieties, offering both a mirror and an escape. With their eerie soundtracks, unsettling visuals, and intense narratives, horror movies create a unique blend of entertainment and terror. They not only provide a thrill but also a cathartic experience, allowing viewers to confront their deepest fears in a controlled environment.

If you like horror movies, there’s a new one out this month. Dark Star Pictures has released the 70s-inspired, wine-soaked horror/slasher Wineville. It is available on VOD/Digital and Physical Media including Fandango at Home, Apple TV, and Google Play Movies & TV. (Gold Dust PR, 2024)

Wineville is the directorial debut from producer/star Brande Roderick who is best known for her role as Leigh Dyer on the television series Baywatch. Roderick has also appeared in various films, TV and reality shows, including Starsky and Hutch, The Nanny Diaries, and Celebrity Apprentice. Roderick will appear in Hulu’s upcoming four part docu series After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun.

Set in the 70s, Wineville follows a woman who, after escaping her abusive father as a teen, is forced to return to the family vineyard to settle his affairs upon his death. She discovers that the dark secrets she left behind have only grown more sinister over the decades, fermenting into violence and death.

Additional cast includes Carolyn Hennesy (General Hospital, Cougar Town), Texas Battle (Hard Kill, Coach Carter), Casey King (Star Trek: Pickard) and Keaton Roderick Cadrez. Wineville was written by Richard Schenkman (The Man From Earth), who also produced alongside Roderick, Robin DeMartino, and Todd Slater.

“Wineville was influenced by 70s horror classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Last House on the Left. I wanted my first feature to be not only in the horror genre that I loved so much growing up, but to also pay homage to the flavor and style of that decade’s films that made such an impact on me.” – Brande Roderick 

Shot at the historic Galleano Winery, the film references the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, one of California’s most infamous true crime cases. The heinous crimes garnered significant notoriety due to their brutal nature and the subsequent investigation, which ultimately led to the renaming of Wineville to Mira Loma.

Wineville
Rated R for graphic violence, graphic language, intense themes of incest, and sexual content.
Run Time: 1hr 40 min

Wineville. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Upcoming new animated sci-fi thriller: Max Beyond

Max Beyond will be available for digital download starting April 23, 2024. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

In today’s movie news, I have some exciting news about a new action thriller that will be available as a digital download in the US next month. It’s an animated sci-fi movie called Max Beyond. Gamers should take notice of this movie because there will be a spin off video game coming next year and this movie serves as an introduction to the backstory and characters to the game that is currently in production. (HaZimation, 2024)

The Max Beyond game immerses the players into the same world, action and obstacles as seen in the movie, but taking a fresh approach of this being a co-op based game, where both characters have to help each other to restore reality and escape the facility known as Axion, with the engaging game mechanics and alternative timelines.

HaZimation is excited to share that their animated action-thriller Max Beyond will be available on US Digital Platforms from April 23, 2024.

Max Beyond tells the story of Max, a young boy held captive in a research facility. Using his ability to create rifts in the fabric of spacetime across parallel universes, he searches for the reality in which his brother Leon, a former-marine, manages to rescue him. With attempt after attempt ending in Leon’s death, the strain starts to take its toll on both brothers. When Max discovers his captors are using his power against him, he realizes he must stop focusing on how the story ends and rewrite the story from the beginning.

The cast includes BAFTA-award winning actor Jane Perry, Dave Fennoy, and Cade Tropeano. Motion capture performances from Ace Ruele and Alex Kong.

Max Beyond is directed, co-written and co-produced by Hasraf ‘HaZ’ Dulull, co-written by Stavros Pamballis, and co-produced by Paula Crickard.

“What if you had the ability to reset dimensions to find the right moment that will save your brother, but the more you do it, the weaker you get? Strap in for Max Beyond, a tour de force rollercoaster ride of big & intense action, with edge of the seat thrills and emotionally charged characters as the story pulls the audiences into the mind-bending multi-universe.” – Writer/director Hasraf ‘HaZ’ Dulull

The film’s executive producers are Yariv Lerner, Amy Gardner, and Jason Potter. The music score is by Miroshot, a band known for their experiential music featured in SXSW 2022.

Run Time: 92 Minutes

Max Beyond utilizes the latest ground-breaking Realtime animation technology called Unreal Engine, the same engine tech used to power video games like Fortnite. Using this approach has also enabled HaZimation to take a Transmedia view to expand the story and universe of Max Beyond into a video game (Consoles + PC).

Making it as a streamer

Black flat screen computer monitor on wooden desk. Photo: Roberto Nickson/Pexels.

While it used to be something on the outskirts of the culture, now streaming is a hugely popular thing to do. Not only that, it can even be very lucrative, with many people making quite a lot of money this way. You can approach streaming in so many different ways – gaming is a particularly popular genre – and it’s something that you can bring your creativity to easily in order to make the most of it. Here are some tips that you may want to consider if you are trying to make it as a streamer.

Find Your Niche

First of all, you should think about finding a niche that you can get into. While you might already know the genre of streaming you want to try, you’ll ideally want to get more specific than that and land on a particular type of streaming. So rather than just gaming, are you going to be playing certain kinds of games, or talking about particular topics within gaming? These are the kinds of things you need to be asking yourself if you want to make it as a streamer. It will help you to make much more of your experience and get a lot more out of it.

Behind the scenes of a female content creator. Photo: Ivan Samkov/Pexels

Develop An Audience

It can take time to build an audience with anything, and that’s no different when it comes to streaming. But if you want to make sure that you are developing an audience as well as you can, there are quite a lot of ways in which you can do this, and it’s something that you are definitely going to want to think about. Mostly it’s a case of just doing your thing and seeing who follows, but you might also find that some practical marketing can help too, especially if you want to start making money from it.

Monetize It

Speaking of which, you’ll have to figure out what you can do to monetize the streaming that you are considering. This is something that can be quite simple to achieve, but there are a lot of potential ways to do it and you’ll have to make sure that you are aware of what approach is best for you. As well as that, you’ll need to put the systems in place to accept money. Knowing how to accept credit cards as an adult entertainer is going to help a lot, and it’s worth looking into as soon as possible.

Keep Going

Ultimately, with this kind of thing you really then just need to persist. If you can do that, and keep going, you are going to find that it helps you to make it as a streamer much more effectively, and it’s amazing how much that can help. So make sure that you are keeping at it no matter how hard it seems to get. If you can do that, you’ll find that you end up in a situation where you are really able to make it work for you.

Collaborative Post

 

New hit show on Tubi: About the Authors TV

About the Authors TV on Tubi profiles the world’s greatest storytellers. Photo: Google

If you are a fan of books and entertainment in general, this is a series worth checking out. The new streaming series on Tubi, About the Authors TV, profiles and tells the story behind some of the world’s greatest storytellers. Seasons 1 through 4 are available now. I know what I will be bingeing next. (MVD Publicity, 2023)

The documentary/lifestyle show’s new seasons 3 and 4 feature the creators of Oscar-winning The Martian movie, the Lincoln Rhyme franchise, Star Wars, Fox’s Bones TV show, the Indiana Jones film franchise, HBO’s True Blood, billion-dollar box office hit Rambo, Apple TV sensation Shining Girls, Donnie Brasco, The Goonies, Poltergeist, Netflix’s Blonde, Longmire, Trollhunters, Spike TV’s The Mars Trilogy, Sundance’s Hap and Leonard, Judy Moody, the Dark Hunter universe, and more.

Born out of the Covid-era boom of new shows that rose to popularity with 2020s viewing audiences, the show targets both the readers of these authors and aspiring writers alike. About the Authors TV has grown to over 2 million viewers and counting in the past two years since Tubi began airing the show.

Seasons 1 and 2 featured episodic interviews with best-selling writers Scott Turow, Karin Slaughter, T.C. Boyle, Brad Meltzer, Ian Rankin, Catherine Coulter, Heather Graham, Chris Bohjalian, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, John Lescroart, Tess Gerritsen, F. Lee Bailey (in his final TV interview), Mindhunter’s John Douglas, Laurie R. King, Steve Alten, and Rob Bell, in more than 60 episodes.

Seasons 3 and 4 features another 68 of the world’s best-selling authors with Joyce Carol Oates, Andy Weir, Jeffery Deaver, Barry Eisler, James Rollins, JA Jance, Dr. Kathy Reichs, Daniel Kraus, Homer Hickam, Craig Johnson, Sara Paretsky, Erica Jong, Charlaine Harris, Joe R. Lansdale, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Ret. FBI agent Joe Pistone, David Morrell, Dean Koontz, Riley Sager, Victoria Aveyard, Kim Stanley Robinson, Candice Fox, Lauren Beukes, Christopher Paolini, Jay McInerney, Janet Fitch, Jeanine Cummins, Charles and Caroline Todd (in her final filmed interview), Megan Miranda, Christina Lauren, Joyce Maynard, novelizer James Kahn, Ruth Ware, Dr. Naomi Wolf, JD Barker, Lois Lowry, Mary Kay Andrews, Megan McDonald, Jay McInerney, Ben Mezrich, Hank Philippi Ryan, and more.

Patricia Cornwell declared to her 1.1 million Twitter followers that she had “a BLAST!” on the show. Gillian Flynn selected About the Authors TV as one of only four media appearances celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Gone Girl, alongside the Today Show. Legendary Irish author John Banville recently said, “I enjoyed our talk, and I must say I’m full of admiration for the panache with which you carried the thing off – you managed to mention all of my books in a neat hour. A pleasure to deal with a professional.” Joyce Carol Oates found her episode to be “brimming with enthusiasm & energy!”

Host/Creator Jake Brown, himself an award-winning author of 55 books says, “We’re so grateful for the opportunity to continue our relationship with Tubi TV and MVD Entertainment in delivering 68 more episodes over Seasons 3 and 4 as we work to make About the Authors TV the largest streamed episodic archive of author interviews across all genres and generations. With 80 more new episodes coming in Seasons 5 and 6, being filmed now, and recently completed Science Fiction and UK Editions, as well as an upcoming Horror Edition, there are hundreds of more episodes coming and we hope readers, aspiring authors and fans of each specific author will take a look and join our growing audience!”

About the Authors TV airs on Tubi and recently landed its first sponsor in partnership with International Literary Properties. Visit their YouTube Channel for daily promos from newly interviewed authors, extended previews of upcoming episodes and early exclusive premieres. The series is shot weekly at a Nashville, Tennessee-based studio and edited by the team of Ray Riddle, Allan McCall, Jake Brown, and Chris Lucas.