#7? #7? WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Uh...man. Just when I think we REALLY can't go any higher...

It's going to be bittersweet if we push Tremors down to move up to #6, because I love that movie. (I totally won't mind pushing Zombie's Halloween out, FYI)

On top of that we've almost broken into the top 50 popular movies, which is way harder to do since you're competing against ALL movies, not just horror(as you can see, over 9,200 movies).

On every front Terrortory has exceeded our expectations.

Big thanks to everybody who has checked it out and left a review!

#8 Plus The Review Game

Wow, just when I think it can't go any higher it moves to #8...exciting! We're at #70 on the popular chart, so moving up slightly on there too.

Anyway, thought we could play a game that I played on FB last week where I show you why reviews don't matter. It's a quiz...but a fun one. I've got some new ones in there just in case you were one of the ones playing along on FB.

These are ACTUAL AMAZON REVIEWS for movies. They are all 1-star reviews for movies that are, by all measure, excellent movies. Yet, someone out there has seen fit to not only rate it a one, but to talk shit about some of the amazing things in them.

The answers will be way down below if you want to see how you did.

1) --"If Zero Stars were possible...
I'm normally a sucker for movies like this, but this one was so bad I didn't even finish. And that really means something."
   --"Not what I expected. ..it was lame"
   --"Very weak writing and flat affectless acting and all the actors wear way too much make-up, looks very silly."
These are reviews for _________________________

2) "My wife wanted this for her Amazon video library. The language is horrible, the plot pathetic and the acting lousy. I don't get the appeal."
This is a review for _________________________

3) "Weak plot. Bad resolution" and "The book was better". I'll give you a hint--think Hitchcock, but your first guess is probably wrong.
This is a review for _________________________

4) "I have always liked ACTOR but my goodness he didn't always pick the best of films during his career. This one is no exception. Don't get me wrong, it has an interesting story line but the effects are so cheesy that it ruins the whole film for me. It had the makings of a great movie but then their effects just kill it."

This is a review for _________________________

5) --"Terrible. These movie makers owe me $4 and 90+ minutes of my life back...i can never recover the wasted times pent hoping this would get better. Did mention that i had wished that the "moviemakers" had decided to hire a qualified audio engineer after they looked at a few filmed scenes? Absolutely unwatchable, unlistenable, useless movie."
   --"Stupid don't waste your time."
These are reviews for _________________________

6) "Lots of foul language, Also quite a bit a sexual hints, promotes sleeping together in high school. And lots of blasphemy (God.d , Jesus/Jesus Christ) all this even within first 5-10
of beginning. Was very disappointed, thought this was an older movie with some values boy was i wrong. went in garbage. Definitely won't buy the rest in this series."
This is a review for _________________________

7) "I am amazed that this film gets so many positive reviews. I love horror films, and I want them to be scary, frightening, etc. I'm not a big fan of the horror comedy genre. There are a few good ones. But, this is not one of them. This is simply a bad comedy, and there are no real jokes here -- just kind of "stupid comedy": the characters constantly simply act stupidly, and that is supposed to be funny. There is nothing clever here. There is no believable character, with the exception of ACTOR. He is the one saving grace, and his professional acting ability shines way above the rest. But the plot, the other actors, the "jokes" are really bad. The special effects are mostly consisting of "melting faces", and were done on the cheap. Good special effects for the time and for a low budget -- but, not very good for scaring the audience. At the time this was made (1985) perhaps it deserved good reviews as a send-up of horror films. But, it really does not stand the test of time, in my opinion."
This is a review for _________________________


8) --"I went in to this expecting to like it, I even paid to rent it through amazon instant movies and I can't get past the first 45 minutes. The acting isn't good, the plot is really lame so far and I just can't even get in to it enough to finish it. I had heard from quite a few people that its a 'great movie of the 80s' so I thought I would try it and definitely am disappointed."
   --"This is a kid's movie. I can't understand that anyone over 14 thinks this is a great movie! Even the main characters are kids."
   --"I'm not one of those who criticizes other films because other people liked them, but I HATED this film. I rarely hate a film. I even liked MAD CITY. But this...this is not cinema! This is filming people and adding bad dialogue! Quite obviously a no-star movie and THE worst I have ever seen. I'm sorry if I offend those die-hard lovers of the film, but that's my opinion."
These are reviews for _________________________

9) "I was a huge fan of the original. This was a disipiontment. Though it has better FX the plot isn't very good unlike the firsts very unique and original plot. This is a very good DVD and I hope other better movies get this kind DVD treatment. If you want a mindless Special Effects film this is for you."
This is a review for _________________________

10) "Terrible flick with horrid plot and bad postproduction synthetic 3D. The CREATURES were well done, but the rest of the movie was very poor."
This is a review for _________________________

11) --"This movie is just not good, it wasn't scary, it was, uh, it was dumb. There were probably two frightening moments in the film, but it was almost more of a weird fantasy film than horror? I don't get why I've heard so many people say how scary this is, like i have a very low fear-threshold for horror films and this one just was annoying to be honest."
     --"Terrible."
This is a review for _________________________

12) --"really boring it's like a big crime investigation. I didn't get startled at all."
      --"This movie deserves zero stars, it's awful. Absolutely not suspenseful, it's completely predictable and B O R I N G. This movie is a waste of your time and money. Snorefest zzzzzzz"
This is a review for _________________________ 




SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWERS
And the reason that filmmakers shouldn't taken reviews too seriously...













1) Tremors
2) Jaws
3)  The Birds
4) The Thing
5) Shaun of the Dead
6) Back to the Future
7) Fright Night
8) The Lost Boys
9) T2
10) Jurassic Park
11) Insidious
12) The Ring

Terrortory at #9 and Reviews

Terrortory's doing pretty amazing on Amazon--it's hanging at #9 in the top 10 Horror--not sure it'll be able to push past the big-budget fare above it, but here's hoping. It's actually up to #73 on the Popular list of over 9,000 movies.

Also of note, we've busted through not one million minutes but TWO million at this point. It's very encouraging.

The only downside to all of this is that many of the reviews are, let's say, less than kind. On the one hand it's impossible to ignore, though I try. Many of the reviews I ignore offhand. The ones that mention that it looks like we shot on an iphone or a "90's camcorder" are clearly from out-right idiots.

On the off chance they'd like to know, we shot on: Canon 5D Mark 2 with various L Glass(Smiling Jack) and 5D Mark 3 with rented Zeiss lenses(Wraparound), Panasonic GH4 with rented glass and my cheap Rokinon lenses that I love, Canon 70D(Prowler and Drone) and Canon HV30 and HV40(yes, actually using mini-dv tape).

So if they think the picture looks like an iphone or a 90's camcorder then they're just flat out stupid. (or--as I'm coming to think--they watched it on a phone or kindle with a really bad connection...the movie DOES look like crap if you're watching it that way, but pretty much any movie will)

Those who say the movie "makes no sense"...that's so vague I can't really comment. While there may be a few things that aren't spelled out(like who or what exactly Gotz is), most of it's pretty simple.

SPOILERS - WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST
1) Siren is about a hunter who goes into the Terrortory and is drawn to the Siren's call. As soon as she speaks to him, everything he sees is only in his mind as she draws him closer and closer to her so that she can eat him.

2) Prowler isn't mine, and to be honest Mark and I had a conversation early where I had script reservations. My problem was that it was going to appear, from the way it was shot, that we were hiding the Prowler's identity. That would appear to the audience like it was one of the people in the group doing the killing. So by the end when it turns out to be a stranger the audience will feel ripped off.
But Mark liked it that way, and that's the filmmaker's prerogitive--to do it the way you want to see it. It would have some cool gore and more humor than the other segments.

3) Smiling Jack - The 1st segment I did. It involves a clueless couple that goes out into the woods camping, with the guy planning to propose to his girl. They're being stalked by a pumpkin-headed man, Smiling Jack.

But surprise #1 is that they're not clueless at all. They're there hunting HIM. To either get some great video or actually citizen's arrest this guy who scares kids out in the woods.

They get attacked, but they go after him and eventually discover surprise #2--Smiling Jack is not a man at all. He's a supernatural entity that opens up the skulls of his victims and adds the brains to his empty pumpkin head.

One reviewer mentioned they thought it might have been better if Jack had an actual pumpkin on his head. I guess he didn't understand that THAT would clearly have revealed that Jack wasn't a man at all. (the review also blows the fact that Jack's a creature rather than just a guy with a plastic pumpkin mask)

4) Drone Collector - This was Dan's and is pretty self explanatory. Our only worry, which I think is valid, is that people watching will think that little walking drone at the end is controlling all of the flying drones. That was not our intention--we just wanted to explain the typing sounds heard earlier(which we had to add to sell the fact that the drone collector wasn't dead).

5) The Midnight Clown - Again, pretty self explanatory. Other than an FX snafu involving a decapitation and another FX shot that we just couldn't make happen due to wind and logistics, it went okay. It was the cheapest of the segments to do because it had to be--I was basically completely out of money by this time.

The Wrap - Couple rents a house in the Terrortory. Lot of life-size dolls around the house. Power goes out, and someone outside the house makes his way INSIDE the house. Goes into their son's room, then attacks her husband while she's passed out downstairs. She wakes to find a black trash bag bulging in the corner--goes upstairs and finds the doll where her son should be. Goes downstairs to see what's in the trash bag, but her husband is outside the door, bleeding. He's stabbed, falls to the ground, and the figure outside gets in. She strikes the figure, knocking its mask off and we see it's a deformed thing with one eye who can only say "Gotz". She kills it, but still doesn't know where her son is. At that moment, something taps on the glass window--it's her husband, who's now in the midst of turning into a life-sized doll(which is what the creature Gotz does to people when it stabs them).

Then she wakes--this is sort of a "Final Destination" moment. Whether I ever address why she in particular has this vision, in a sequel or whatever, who knows?

All that said, I'm pretty happy with the final movie. We shot it for WAY cheaper than any film I've ever done. The reviews who swipe at it for being "low budget", well hey, guilty on all counts. Anyone who doesn't like low budget fare isn't going to like the movie. Lucky for them, the Ghostbusters remake is still available for them to check out.

Next post we'll play a little game that we had fun with on Facebook about reviews.

Breaking the top 10 and the top 100 at the same time...

I'm pretty happy to announce we just moved into the top 10 in horror on Amazon Prime. It's been slow going, but we're there. I'd be lying if I didn't say the movies above us are pretty intimidating. Can we move through them? Through Cloverfield? Through Halloween...in October?

Fingers crossed.

But check this out:

We're at #93 on the Popular list, out of over 9,000 movies. This is a feat none of my other movies have managed, and there's more competition now than there used to be. I think the highest Garden of Hedon ever got was 129, and that was when it was #8 on the horror list.

The scary thing is that the Amazon metrics are STILL stuck on last Tuesday. I'm pretty sure that as soon as we see Wednesday it will show that we broke a million minutes in 12 days, which will be amazing. That's 6 days faster than Garden of Hedon, and it puts us on a track toward 3 million.

I sent support an email to see what's up. The warning about metrics being delayed is there, but it's starting to get worrisome. Like, they ARE keeping accurate records, right?

It's just my luck that the month we have a legitimate chance at the bonus, the whole system goes down...

#12 on the list / Stats Frozen

Yesterday we were #13, today we're #12.

I feel like if the stats were working we'd be higher. But they've been frozen since Tuesday, and it's not Saturday night.

And even if we're moving slightly on the horror list, it's clear that's not up to date either. It says we've gotten 35 reviews, but yesterday we had 72 and today we have 90. Yet the review meter doesn't budge...

Once I see the stats for Wednesday I think I'll have some cool news...

Terrortory #19 on the Chart...

We're climbing the chart. Broken the top 20 in 12 days. That's pretty exciting, but we still need bigger numbers. We're #67 in the Mystery section and #292 in Popular movies(out of over 9,000 movies).

This past weekend was our biggest numbers yet--we did over 100,000 minutes each day. In money terms that's like $250.00 a day. In people terms that's over 1100 people per day watching the movie. Kinda crazy to think about it that way.

Sundays are, overall, the biggest day for online viewing period--all my movies show that.

The big problem now is that we've got super-stiff competition now on Amazon. I mean, look at those titles we're competing with. The Others? The Woman In Black? The Mist?

And Terrortory cost less than one day of craft service on any of those movies...

So if you're thinking about putting your movie on Amazon, think about how to distinguish your flick from all of these bigger budget movies standing in the way of your flick and a viewer.

I'll tell you--way #1 is your poster. Make sure your title is big and readable, and your picture eye-catching. I've seen some super shitty posters that look like they were made by a photoshop beginner, and I know it's tempting to try to do it yourself.

But don't. If you're not a graphic designer then find one who will do it for you. In case you never saw my little article I did about one-sheets, check here:
http://www.kangaskahnfilms.com/1sheet/

Terrortory Makes An Impact

First off, check that out. Today Terrortory showed up on IMDB's movie meter at 4,705. That's insanely high for an indie film. Hell, I think that's higher than any other of my movies have gone other than Fear of Clowns(which peaked at 192 back when it was released).

So that's cool. People are watching the flick, or hearing about it, and heading to imdb. A good sign.

As for Amazon, the first time it showed up on the list it was 115. It moved up quickly from there, and as of Sunday was at #31 out of almost 1100.

That's a pretty fast move. Much faster than any other film I've put on Amazon.

The big question is going to be can it go higher than Garden of Hedon went(#8) and stay there for a while? The competition is fiercer than it was when GOH debuted, for starters, and we need some real staying power to have a shot at 2 million minutes in one month.

That's sort of the arbitrary number I think we need to hit to have a shot at the Amazon bonus. I could be wrong. Could be 3 million. I just don't know, and Amazon doesn't give you any hint.

They did release this notice about August's stars, which released 50 of the 100 movies that got the bonus.
http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/amazon-video-direct-top-studio-digital-partners-1201878900/

Honestly, as tired as I am of the whole grind of making no-budget movies, I'd be lying if I didn't say that now that the weather's turning cool I'm feeling the pull to shoot something.

Rough Couple Weeks Part 2

It's the epic conclusion to the two-part series!

Minus the epic part of it. But first--pictures!

 The rare-to-see Australian Brett. This animal is rarely sighted during the day, and for good reasons--it's very tempermental.

 My buddy Dom, who I've known for years and years.

 Fellow filmmakers Jason Delgado and Jeremy Todd Morehead, whose Easter Sunday comes out soon! Check it out when it does--I'm looking forward to it.

 It's Fredpool. Get it? Freddy Krueger and Deadpool? I thought it was kind of clever, but what do I know?

My brother from another mother. No, seriously, we both came out of different vaginas on literally the same day, same year. (Well, the different vaginas is still hearsay, for all I know)

ANYWAY

I headed up to the convention after noon. Wasn't taking that much stuff, so didn't have to get there too early. The load in, as always, was a pain in the ass. The loading ramp is this 45 degree down ramp, and in this case it was still wet from the rain...

I won't bore you the way the attendance bored me on Friday night. It was slow. Handed out flyers and talked to people, but not that many to talk to.

And we(the dealers and whatnot), as always, were confused by why they close off the room between the celebrities and dealers. The room looks so big and spacious without the wall, but once they close that wall you have two very small rooms that aren't particularly inviting.

Couple dealers I know went to complain, but to be honest the convention runner isn't too interested in hearing from us. Don't get me wrong--he's a fairly nice guy in general who really knows how to run the NJ Monstermania, but he's never really been able to get a grip on the MD one, and doesn't seem interested in figuring out how to fix it.

Whatever. I still go because it's so close and it's a chance to hang out with friends I don't see that often.

Friday night I came home instead of hanging out--had to make sure the Amazon launch worked out, and sure enough at midnight the link suddenly appeared to add to the watchlist. It was on!

That took quite a load off of me. If it didn't show up, I was gonna be in some trouble explaining, you know?

SATURDAY
We went up early--me and my buddy Zig--got there around 9am. The place got pretty crowded, we handed out tons of flyers. Met a lot of people, wandered around and saw the sights.

The days really go by fast. Never enough time to talk to everybody.

My lead actor from "Garden of Hedon", Richard Cutting, actually came down from Connecticut and hung out for a while. I showed him his segment from Terrortory, plus a segment he was on set for. Told some stories.

Then we went downstairs to the bar. Vodka drinks in hand. Hung out the rest of the night there, talking to people like filmmaker Brad Twigg and some actor friends of his, as well as actress Judy Furlow from Fear of Clowns and her husband.

I sort of wish I'd gone to a couple of the panels, but when the choice is chat & drink or sit and listen to people talk...it's easy.

My buddy Dom and Brett--who are usually the last guys standing with me at 3am when all the wussies have gone to sleep--went to bed EARLY. Couldn't believe it! Now I know we're all getting old...

SUNDAY
It was back to dead again on Sunday. Gave away fewer fliers, but took actual pictures of people, which I always forget to do. And Dom introduced me to the Greatest American Hero, so all is forgiven.

We packed up early and got out of there. Ate a 5 Guys dinner, and that was it.

I was honestly too tired to celebrate the relief of having it all over. The news of the premiere was spreading to a lot of web sites, and I wanted to start taking a look at the numbers...

But Amazon's metrics were collapsing--frozen--so I didn't get to see much at first. When Terrortory debuted on the chart it was 113. The next day it's here--we broke into the top 100 much faster than any other movie I've put up.






Fingers crossed we can break into the top 50, then the top 20, and even--dare I hope? The top 10...

Terrortory Music

I promise I'll get back to the rough week story, but I have to take a moment to talk about the music of Terrortory.

I've been kind of quiet about it because I wanted it to be a little bit of surprise of the style in the movie. I was originally going to go for what I normally love--orchestral. For me it's always been the mark of a serious movie, and I've loved it as far back as I can remember.

But things came up, and the film took longer to finish than I thought, and my usual composer Chad Seiter was working on the ReCore game for Microsoft that had him flying to London to conduct sessions with the Philharmonic Orchestra...

We scrambled for a replacement. A buddy of mine said he knew of a guy in the UK named Terence Jones, so I contacted him. He did a test scene for us and he was very good.

Here's where you can hear the score for Terrortory and buy the soundtrack:
https://terencejonesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/terrortory-ost

The only thing was, he didn't think he'd have time to score the whole thing in the time we had. That led me to go with the backup plan I'd had in my head for a while...

I've been a synth fan forever...I mean, I'm an actual child of the 80's. I grew up on that stuff. So I'd been a member of a synth FB group for a while and I put out a call to a few of those guys and said "Hey, anybody interested in doing music for segments of my movie?"

I figured if each segment was done in the old-school synth style--which has been making a comeback since Drive/The Guest/It Follows, and more recently Stranger Things--then it could be cool.

First guy to come back was a dude named Daniel Deluxe. He didn't have a lot of time, because he was getting ready to go on tour. He's pretty well known. You can hear some of his stuff, including his very cool Corruptor album here:

https://soundcloud.com/daniel-deluxe

I gave him Smiling Jack, which is probably my favorite segment of the bunch, and he went to work. Hit it out of the park, man. It was great. A few tweaks, and we were good to go.

Got a couple of other people who tried segments but either weren't experienced enough yet to do it up to what I was looking for, or like in one case, quit after a day because they didn't realize just how much work it was.

Another guy got back to me. His name was Ben Moseley, and his musician moniker was "Bishop of Battle". I mean...it was kismet, right? (for those who don't know, that's the name of the villain in one of the segments of the 80's horror anthology Nightmares, which I watched the crap out of as a kid)

I gave him Siren. We went back and forth to get it where I was happy, but man was he talented. The Siren piece is haunting, and reminiscent of things like the Vangelis Blade Runner score.

You can hear some of his other stuff(including a cool Oingo Boingo cover) here:

https://soundcloud.com/bishop-of-battle

But it didn't end there...

I had nobody for Prowler, so I asked Ben if he'd be up for doing that one also. He watched it and said "Sure". He wanted to do it a little differently since it has a lot of humor in it. He referenced the funny "Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"segment from Creepshow as the sort of thing he'd be trying to do.

The person doing Drone quit--too much work. So I'm scrambling, and I ask Ben..."I know you're not done with Prowler, and we're like 3 weeks out from the premiere...any chance you'll be able to do Drone also?"

And like a boss, he said "Send it to me and let me see." I did, he took it on, and he hit all of them out of the park. Saved my ass, I can tell you that.

Somewhere in there I also got all of Terence's orchestral score to the wrap-around, and it was excellent. I barely asked for any changes. It builds slowly and by the end really brings on the horror.

The final piece was the end credit music. I wanted it to be a fun, 80's pop style music. My temp music I laid in was "Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride". That sort of thing.

I spent days listening to songs on soundcloud from synth groups. I made a list of my top 8 and sent it to Zig. We decided which four were the best, and I emailed each of the groups to see if they were interested.

Well, happily for me, one named Foret De Vin got back and said they'd consider it. They read the contract and said, "Let's do it." Here's the song over the end credits--so 80's it's awesome! They're from Sweden, and Europe seems to be having a major 80's revival...makes me want to move there.
https://soundcloud.com/foretdevin/hold-the-night-feat-robert-beachgrove

Get on their Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/foretdevin

If you like these guy's music, buy some of it--help support these talented guys, because they're amazing and willing to help out us indie filmmakers.
(and if you're not familiar with soundcloud and bandcamp, there are usually links to the musicians FB/Twitter/etc on the right side of their soundcloud page, so give them a Like!)

Blumhouse Features An Exclusive Clip of Terrortory...and why that's so cool for me

First off, the link to the article is here, so go check it out!


http://www.blumhouse.com/2016/10/03/exclusive-check-out-a-clip-from-the-new-horror-anthology-terrortory/

Story time! I'll try not to get too purple with my prose.

Years ago I finished Fear of Clowns 1. I had no inkling to do a second, especially with how disappointed I was with the finished movie. With the exception of the last half hour, it really wasn't the movie I'd set out to make.

But I made a cool teaser, and had a talented graphic designer I'd met online named Erik Ashley do a cool poster. I was looking for a distributor, but hadn't sent out any copies yet.

I woke up one day to find I had a message on my phone from someone who said they were with Lionsgate, and wanted to speak to me about acquiring FOC. I thought--One of my friends is a real asshole, messing with me like that.

But the number was in California, so I called it. I was shocked to find out it was actually Lionsgate. The person I spoke to tells me, "We've seen the poster and the trailer, and we love them. We can't believe nobody's used that title for a movie yet, either."

They tell me--send us a screener, but it probably won't matter--we want the movie. The only rub was, they didn't want to buy it directly from me. They wanted a producer's rep.

(that may sound weird to you, but the bottom line is that many young filmmakers don't understand deliverables and dealing with contracts, so the movie company doesn't want to have to hold your hand through it--if you get a producer's rep, THEY will hold your hand and save the movie company time)

Lionsgate told me, get any rep you want. But here's a list of some of the ones we deal with a lot.

I did my research, talked to some other filmmakers who had used some of the reps, and found one that seemed good. We talked, and they were very cool. But they wanted to stress--there was no deal on the table yet. They would talk first with Lionsgate, but there was no guarantee it would land there.

I told them--and put it in writing in THEIR contract--there are only two companies I am signing this movie to:  Lionsgate or Anchor Bay. At this time, those were the places for horror. They were the ones putting out all the best horror. (you gotta remember, this was like 2002 or so)

Anyway, Lionsgate came through right away and the rest is history.

The reason I tell you this story is because Blumhouse is now IT. They are, far and away, creating the best horror movies. Insidious, The Purge flicks, Sinister. Under-appreciate flicks like Creep, Oculus, The Visit and more. These guys appreciate horror, and they take risks. They bankroll a lot of small horror movies to see what works and doesn't work.
http://deadline.com/2015/05/blumhouse-panel-produced-by-conference-1201435034/

Then last year they started the Blumhouse web site, which is the biggest time-suck in history, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. There's a TON of great articles, day after day, that will ensure you don't get all your actual work done.

They've hired some great writers and talent, from my buddy Rob Galluzzo to another guy I've known online for years, Ryan Turek, to others I haven't met but have read many times like Rebekah McKendry, William Bibbiani, John Squires and more.

So to be featured on their web site is a huge honor for me. I think Blumhouse is the present and future of horror, and the good news is that they're not just in it for the money--they all have a sincere love of horror, and that's why they're succeeding.

There you have it! Maybe next time I'll tell you how I met Rob G--it involves a hotel room, an early screener of Feast, and Adam Green. (not joking)

Whew! Rough Couple Weeks! PART 1

Just got back from the Monstermania Weekend promoting Terrortory's release. That's me and the Greatest American Hero, William Katt.

But let's REWIND...

It's September 23rd. I've submitted to be published the actual Terrortory movie...I've set it so that it won't be live until October 1st, but I want it to be published so it will show up in Amazon's database for people to add to their watchlist.

Amazon REJECTS the title late on the 24th. They say "Misleading Synopsis". They don't give any other help, which is just another exhibit for how mediocre-to-bad their Video Direct Support is.

So I send them this email:

I just got an error on Terrortory that reads as this: 

"Synopsis - Misleading Content:
We are unable to publish your title as the synopsis provided contains content which
is misleading and/or an inaccurate representation of the video content. Please
update the synopsis and resubmit your title. For more information, see our Content
Policy Guidelines. "

Nothing in my synopsis is misleading. This is the synopsis:
EXCLUSIVELY PREMIERING on AMAZON PRIME until October 31st! In the vein of Creepshow
and Tales From The Crypt comes this anthology horror featuring six tales set in the
nightmare land called the TERRORTORY! 

The movie is exclusively premiering on Amazon Prime until October 31st, at which
point we will make it a pay-only title. The movie is in the vein of Creepshow and
Tales From The Crypt, and it has 6 stories in it.

So what's the misleading part of this?

But I don't have time to wait for their reply. I have to get this approved. So I modify the synopsis slightly and resubmit. Another day and another rejection. I'm starting to sweat, because if this isn't approved by the 28th, it may not show up in time to be live on October 1st...

The new rejection clarifies that my synopsis implies that Amazon endorses my movie. I disagree--it simply states the fact that it's exclusively available on Amazon. It's true. We're not playing it anywhere else. The fact that Amazon's being anal about it is just stupid.

Whatever. I delete that sentence and resubmit.

It gets approved after a couple of days, but it doesn't go live until midnight strikes the first minute of October 1st.

But before that we have the premiere. REWIND AGAIN

The weather was terrible. Pouring rain, which led to massive traffic. I knew this would mean no cool pictures of the crowds of people under the marquee--they'd all be huddled inside to avoide the crappy weather.

 I needed to get to the theater early so I could test the blu ray and make sure it was cool. We had the limo show up, and headed out.

I started getting a lot of texts and emails from people who were gonna come, but said the weather was too shitty or the traffic was bad, etc. I don't blame them--it was disappointing, but I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing in their place.

I get to the theater and nobody's arrived yet. I rush in and get the blu ray to the projectionist guy. He puts it in and the disc is fast forwarding with some weird shit. I just assume he's doing that. But he opens the window and he's like "Is that how it's supposed to look?"

I'm like, "No." He messes with it and gets it working. Sounds good too--the Dolby mix plays nicely.

Fast foward--we get a decent crowd. Not as many as would have come if the weather had been nice, but definitely a healthy bunch--I'm guessing around 250. They laugh in most of the places I'd hoped. There was a couple of places where I thought there'd be a laugh but there wasn't one.

Most people seemed pretty happy with the movie. We got differing opinions on which ones were best, but the leaders seemed to be Siren and DC, with Smiling Jack coming next.

Funny aside--my kid was only supposed to watch the part he's in, but he bullied his mother into letting him watch all of it, much to my parents disapproval. They were all up in the private balcony overlooking the theater.

Afterparty was fun, had some drinks, shot the shit with people I don't see that often.

But in the back of my mind I was heading to the next challenge--the very next morning I was heading to Monstermania to spread the news of Terrortory on Amazon...

TO BE CONTINUED