Kill Vampire Lincoln Productions' Internet Weblog

Directed by Sean Brown, some friends of mine at Southern Illinois University put together this amazing post-apocalyptic comedy epic “Time to Evolve.”

Simply put, the world as we know it is over and humanity’s last best hope for survival is a group of idiots.

This film looks great, and despite being really really stupid people, the characters are incredibly consistent and work. The core group of actors also forms the base of the video sketch comedy group Magic Hugs. Check out their website www.magichugs.com if you have a chance.

To give credit where credit is due, Time to Evolve’s official IMDB page.

I couldn’t let holidays pass without posting this gem. I won’t ruin it by giving away the synopsis to “Rare Exports” a Finnish short by Jalmari Helander.

EDITORS NOTE: This film is a little NSFW (not safe for work), or for that matter children, or impressionable people. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

There is a second (more safe for work) short based on the same characters/company/situation that you can watch on YouTube HERE and they actually recently finished production on a feature version based on the shorts. I highly recommend visiting their production page and checking out the trailer at www.rareexportsmovie.com

To give credit where credit is due, check out Rare Export’s official IMDB page.

I’ve been off a few weeks wrapping up my law exams, my apologies, hopefully this makes up for it. Should have more kickin genre shorts to post soon -a few really neat projects that friends are working/have worked on and maybe even something by us!

Tis the season and all that, here is an excellent Christmas horror comedy short -Rob Cotterill and Jason Eisener’s Treevenge.

It takes a while to buffer, but is well worth the wait – check it out!

Eisener and Cotterill were behind the famous fake trailer Hobo with a Shotgun that floored everyone as an entry to the Grindhouse trailer competition a few years back.

Much like how that trailer succeeded in raw ballsy energy, this does too and as for my obligatory horrible pun, the whole thing comes across as quite pulpy.

Anyway, to give credit where credit is due, check out Treevenge’s official website.

While thinking about Tempbot (see below) I was reminded of another very different, but very great, short from 2002. Directed by Rob Schrab, Robot Bastard! features, as expected, robot ass-kicking action coupled with amazing production design that really has to be seen to be believed.

Schrab has a background in illustration and snappy, pulpy, writing (most notably the cult comic book Scud the Disposable Assassin) and it really shows. The blend of stopmotion, live action, and off the wall set/prop/robot design aesthetics come together in a nightmarish kick to the face. Another video project he helmed you may have heard of is Heat Vision and Jack – featuring Jack Black as the smartest man in the world (during the day) and Owen Wilson as his wisecracking best friend, who is (no joke) also a motorcycle. Rest assured I’ll likely repost that gem as well.

As for Robot Bastard!, you can also download a higher quality version of the short and/or learn more about the amazing people behind it at its official site, or take a look at its IMDB page

Before Neill Blomkamp brought us District 9, he directed this awesome short film.

Although Tempbot was written by Mark Fitzloff, you can see a lot of the common threads between this and Blomkamp’s District 9 -most notably the themes of (ha ha) alienation. Tempbot is certainly more accepted (and ignored) than the Prawns were, and even though I really really liked Christopher and his son in D9 I felt a lot closer to this guy. (to be fair though, that might have just been some latent emotion left over from WALL-E/a recent viewing of Short Circuit)

Together with really well done (especially for a short film budget in 2006) CG incorporation, the production design on the Tempbot is freaking great. That fan is such a nice touch. As much as I like our robot, Tempbot’s busy cobbled together look makes me want to go out to the junkyard and weld together one of my own.

To give all credit where credit is due, the IMDB page for Tempbot is here.

To start off the great genre short film series I present “Super Powers” by John Mitchell and Jeremy Kipp Walker. I know it has been around for a while (2 years is ancient in internet time), but it’s still great.

Anyway, don’t let the awkward framing on the video thumbnail fool you and check it out!

To give all credit where credit is due, the IMDB page for Super Powers is here.

One of the reasons I started up this blogamajig is to take a closer look at some of the great genre short films you can find online. Short form productions, while becoming more and more popular due to the rising Youtube Generation and the falling attention span, are not nearly as lauded as their feature film counterparts. I know a lot of that is economics risk/return and all that, and its sad their isn’t a larger market for them.

Especially since I don’t plan on jumping into a large scale production for at least 10 months (Bar Exam), I find it nice to keep thinking about what makes these movies so darn neat. I want to try and focus specifically on what has become known as “genre” films, ie give me the horror comedies, the superheroes, scifi, apocalypse stories, etc. How the situations, characters, and plot work within the time constraints is fascinating.