Earlier this week, we took a look at five upcoming documentaries we should all be excited about. While those docs were all about specific horror movies and franchises, today we’re here to talk about documentaries that are all about us; the fans. It is the horror fans that keep this genre alive and kickin’, and these three soon to be released documentaries shine the spotlight on all of us who devote our lives to loving all things horror!
A Kickstarter success story, Fantasm is the brain-child of young NY-based filmmaker Kyle Kuchta, who attended his first horror convention at the age of 15 and hasn’t stopped going to them since. So fascinated was Kyle by the camaraderie of the convention scene that he decided to use it to explore the question of why we’re all so consumed by the genre, interviewing fellow fans, business owners, convention coordinators and even the stars we all pay our hard earned money to meet, in an effort to answer that question.
As a longtime convention-goer myself, this is one of the films I’m most excited to see in 2014. Like Kyle, I’m absolutely in love with the convention scene and fascinated by the way us horror fans look so forward to gathering in hotels and bonding over a shared passion for all things spooky, bloody and weird, and I can’t wait to see that second home of mine explored on film.
Fantasm premiered late last year at the Rock & Shock convention, and Kyle is hoping to release it to the masses in March or April of this year. To make sure you’re among the first to know once it’s available, be sure to follow Fantasm on Facebook.
Another way horror fans show their love for the genre is through zombie walks, which have become increasingly popular over the years – to the point that even non-horror fans can often be found dressed up as zombies, shambling around at local events. Omar J. Pineda’s documentary Dead Meat Walking is all about these events, and it tracks the growing phenomenon from its early roots all the way to the present day pop-culture explosion of all things undead. Much the same way that Fantasm sets out to answer the question of why horror fans love attending conventions, Dead Meat Walking answers the same question about zombie walks, Pineda using his camera to find out what makes ordinary people want to tear up their clothes, cover themselves in blood and walk around like dead people.
Featuring interviews with Tom Savini, Norman Reedus and Night of the Living Dead star Judith O’Dea, Dead Meat Walking: A Zombie Walk Documentary will sink its teeth into On Demand outlets on January 28th. More information can be found over on the official website.
A true love letter to the genre, Why Horror? is another Kickstarter success story, one that also explores the reasons why us horror fans are so attracted to blood and guts. The man behind the doc is diehard horror fan and journalist Tal Zimmerman, who sought to find out why he and so many others are repulsed by real world horrors on the news, and yet so obsessed with similar imagery in movies, TV shows, books and video games. Rather than simply interviewing fans and providing insight into the things that make us love horror movies, Zimmerman has taken a more psychological approach with his documentary, digging deep to find out why it is that people get off on the idea of being scared.
In order to find out, Zimmerman not only interviewed big name talents in the horror field, including Eli Roth, John Carpenter and George A. Romero, but directors Rob Lindsay and Nicolas Kleiman also stuck their cameras in the faces of historians, scientists and psychologists, in order to paint as complete a picture as possible of our fascination with fear. “The ultimate examination of the world of horror,” is how Zimmerman describes it.
Why Horror? was fully funded on Kickstarter last November, and is soon headed our way. Keep up to date with the project by bookmarking the doc’s official website.
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