BloodAndPopcorn™️

Podcast Dedicated to All Things Horror, Grindhouse, Offbeat and Cult. And popcorn. With butter. Extra… butter.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

New Podcast Episode Up.

SCREAM 7 Dominates.

Sydney Prescott is the penultimate final girl.

Everything ends badly otherwise it wouldn't end, The Last Drive In is no exception.

https://t.co/DpCR1Wh0Nu

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

After experimenting:

ChatGPT: way too supportive like your mom. Everything is amazeballs.

Grok: A little more critical by wants to encourage you to keep going.

Perplexity: Hard to please. “Consider with revisions” is the common feedback.

Claude: Very detailed. Gets granular. Probably the closest to human coverage for free services.

Greenlight Coverage (fee based): Very hard to please and very, very detailed. Takes 30 mins to read. Gets into the DNA and provides casting suggestions for three different budget levels. Probably the best but it costs.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

@KevinAdams26 Put him on your fantasy team. Antonio Gates numbers coming!

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

I just can’t with Brooke Shields after she did Johnny Drama dirty. Not watching her new show.

Cc @mrdougellin

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

Gosh... it sure looks like Curry Barker is, ya know, Directing the film. Time for the naysayers to come to terms with their cope.

[ٍmyah @myahsfilm]

im watching the mona lisa being painted

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

There are actually companies forming to help filmmakers do this. They work with theater chains to attain screens for filmmakers for a small percentage of gross. Rather than a filmmaker selling the rights to their film to a standard distributor. At the end of the day, they get the box office minus theater and booker % and retain the rights to their work.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

@TMZ What's the point of this? Val had been open about this later in life. Admitted he got a big head, became difficult to work with, and was regretful for those times but also considered them learning experiences.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

@AVARY Like to see Luke Grimes screen test for it.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

@THR Envy.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

Not sure what it is entirely, but I kept getting an Amy Steel (F13: P2) vibe from Inde Navarette, "Nikki" in OBSESSION. There's some facial similarities, her demeanor.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

As often happens, the town will learn the wrong lesson from BACKROOMS and OBSESSION. Rather than admit its time for new voices, they'll try and reverse engineer it and that's how you'll end up with something like Pedro Pascal starring in CORRIDORS.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

@WolfmansGotNard And it absolutely IS intentional. The demand all media fit within their world view is tiresome. Excellent film.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

@bradmiska Can't see that. I mean, it was front loaded so there "should" be a drop. But I also kind of think there are lot of people who were uncertain about this film, not knowing what it was, and word of mouth may get them in week two. So the drop might be minimal.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

Man, there is a lot of cope from 30 and 40 something filmmakers with stalled or fledgling careers on here today.

Look, I get it. A lot of us followed the model we have been told for decades we had to follow in order to break our way in. And we were told just stick with it and be patient. "It takes time".

Meanwhile, the model was changing beneath our feet. It happens. It's happened before (guy makes his first film after working at a video store for years and is suddenly a hot Writer/Director right out of the gate), and it will happen again.

Let's not pretend Parsons and Barker didn't earn their shot. It was not just handed to them. They saw YouTube as a proving ground and opportunity while most everyone else saw it as something to occupy your time while taking a shit. They did the work. Cranking out short after short, got feedback in real time and generated a following.

Instead of living in denial and claiming it's all a fluke or some kind of sham, take advantage of the moment and change course.

Go make your film while the town is now understanding new voices are absolutely necessary to save their business.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

After M. Night Shyamalan landed big with THE SIXTH SENSE, the expectations were huge. I just hope Parsons and Curry are prepared for it and just do what they want to do. You’re in a position where you don’t have to play somebody else’s game. Set your own table.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

I'll do a podcast episode on this shortly, but there are going to be a lot of narratives that come out of this. Most of which are going to be incorrect or self serving reads. But there is something happening here. It just may not be what many think (EDIT: and my opinion isn't necessarily any more accurate, but I do strive for objectivity and attempt to put aside confirmation biases).

When TERRIFIER 2 landed big, and delayed their streaming release in time for Halloween, and even added MORE movie screens to meet demand, the "experts" told us that it was an anomaly exclusive to the TERRIFIER films. Couldn't be replicated. Neither could their unique distribution model.

LONGLEGS. Well, Nic Cage and a great online marketing campaign. Nice success story but you would need all of those lightning in a bottle elements to align perfectly again.

Then TERRIFER 3 landed huge. Again -- it's a unique situation. Pay no attention.

Then IRON LUNG rang the cash register with its unique distribution model. Again, too unique, Mark Applier's fan base showed up. Can't be replicated.

That brings us to OBSESSION and BACKROOMS. Ignoring all of the "these Directors didn't really Direct these films" nonsense, there is no question the success of these two films are the latest examples of a long forming trend. While the narrative is going to be that the Kane Parsons (BACKROOMS) and Curry Barker (OBSESSION) have a huge YouTube following who showed up, much like Mark Applier's audience, that narrative fails to ask the right question.

Why do they have such a significant YouTube following?

The answer is: They are offering something different than the assembly line of IP films which all look like a copy and paste of the previous IP film they are a sequel to. LONGLEGS and TERRIFIER do not have a similar YouTube linkage. But they share the same DNA as BACKROOMS and OBSESSION in they are new voices offering something different. Even if a little familiar. Familiar is fine. Copy and paste and regurgitate is not. And nearly every time something comes along that's different and is well made, starting with the script, it tends to find an audience and does well. You do not need to spend $250 Million on a film to make a return on your investment. You do not need major stars. You just need energetic filmmakers with a vision who have been working tirelessly, through trial and error, to hone their craft.

Maybe now someone will listen, instead of writing off the trend as an anomaly.

[Variety @Variety]

Box Office: 'Backrooms' Stuns With $81 Million Debut, 'Obsession' Has Another Unprecedented Jump, 'Mandalorian and Grogu' Suffers 70% Drop https://t.co/rsgPxCV5eg

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

BACKROOMS is legit. Its retro vibe resonates on multiple levels, and the simplicity, especially with its use of skewed, empty space, is genuinely unsettling.

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

This is actually the correct take. In the 1960s studios saw how serving up the same old thing wasn't working anymore, and they turned to younger Producers and executives to point the way forward. This is how we got the second golden age of cinema in the 1970s. New voices. New concepts. New ways of executing ideas. This era gave us the "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls".

We're at a similar point in time now. IPs are no longer reliable. No longer churning profits the way they used to. Ata the same time we're seeing prod cos afraid to say "yes" to original ideas because making films is expensive. It's risky to gamble on a new voice. But the reality is they have made it expensive, thinking they absolutely HAVE to cast major stars.

You don't.

You also don't have to spend $200 Million on a film just to eek out a 5% t0 10% profit.

Better to take the minimal $5M to $10M risk on an original idea and original voice. Even if the film comes out subpar, the ROI is still pretty much locked in at that level.

The franchises/IPs of today, like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and FRIDAY THE 13th were the independent films of yesterday.

Enough with the $200 Million blockbusters.

Take a little more risk at less cost. It works. We've seen it.

[Variety @Variety]

Jason Blum Opens Produced By Conference Comparing the Low-Budget Horror Boom to 'Edgy Movies' With a '70s Vibe https://t.co/4swHKO5Z1p

[BloodAndPopcorn™️ @BloodPopcornPod]

I can confirm Managers have been searching YouTube for the past three years, that I know of, looking for filmmakers who have been releasing their shorts on the platform and have generated significant followings. The Film Festival circuit is fading as the only means by which to get noticed.