Writer and director Chad Clinton Freeman has a dream and he’d like your assistance in making it come true. His new project, Parabella Nigel: Saiko Saikik Witch Bitch, is in the planning stages, but it’s a little low on cash. So, Freeman is trying something novel to fund his film’s $16,666 budget: he’s looking for financing online. No cast or crew attachments will be made until funding is in place.
Knowing no one would support a project they knew nothing about, Freeman has created and posted a teaser trailer online HERE. The clip, which is just a little over a minute long, was made from public domain footage to give fans and investors an idea of the film’s mood. The project is being described by Freeman as a “slasher noir about a psychic that may or may not be a serial killer.”
“[It] isn’t quite a horror film and it isn’t a film noir project either. It is, however, a highly stylized and unconventional psychological thriller with quirky characters and dark humor that features lurid and exploitative elements. There’s a psycho killer on the loose snuffing out victims in a graphically violent manner via cinéma vérité visions. There’s the mysterious female psychic that we root for, who is as odd as she is sexy. There’s the hard-boiled detective who is determined to get to the bottom of things and, of course, there are all of those interesting and offbeat players.
“It’s going to be a mind trip of a film that is sort of like Saw meets The Sixth Sense on crack,” said Freeman, a producer on Amateur Porn Star Killer 3D and Killer Biker Chicks. “This is a dark and ugly story that I hope to turn into a beautiful film that is part arthouse and part grindhouse. I hope to make a project that is creative, full of energy and has something to say.
“Paranormal Activity was made for less than $20,000 and it killed at the box office,” Freeman said. “That film reminded me of how important guerilla marketing is in this business. So I thought if social sites can help build that much buzz for a movie once it’s made, then perhaps it’s possible to get people interested in a project based on its pitch and have them rally around to help fund it.”
Parabella Nigel: Saiko Saikik Witch Bitch will be the feature-length debut from Freeman’s Polly Staffle Films. The production company’s first short film, Super Undead Doctor Roach, was a 48 Hour Film Project that later became a 2009 Arizona Underground Film Festival selection.
Freeman is a Las Vegas-based mass media specialist and is best known for his entertainment website PollyStaffle.com, which has been on hiatus this past year. He has also been a part of the independent films Silent Night, Zombie Night; One Long Day; and Breath of Hate, among others.
The clip he put together has a cool sensibility, and if nothing else, Freeman seems to have a talent for catchy titles. I wish him luck and remain cautiously optimistic. If you want to help kickstart Parabella Nigel: Saiko Saikik Witch Bitch, go HERE. Who knows, this could be your chance to break in to the movie buisness.
~Theron Neel
As a writer that covers the horror beat, I am woefully uneducated about the adventures of America’s legendary psycho killer, Ed Gein. Sure, I know the basics: he lived with his mom; he dug her up after she died; he dug up other corpses and killed people, repurposing their skin and bones. I also know he inspired films such as 
Ez’s mother always warned him against pleasures of the flesh, and it’s strongly implied that he’s a 50-year-old virgin. Though his mother isn’t truly gone—I mean, hell, she’s seated right there at the table—let’s face it, she isn’t the company she used to be. So Ezra decides to take a wife (literally). After a deadly comical misadventure with a family friend who uses her dead husband’s spirit as a tool of seduction, Ezra chooses a cocktail waitress at a nearby bar. As you can imagine, things do not go well for her. She ends up at his house, in her underwear, surrounded by Ez’s growing collection of corpses, whom she gets to know better than she’d like. Eventually, Ezra (completely) loses his grasp on reality and gets sloppy in his courting, which leads to his capture.
Considering the subject matter, I was expecting a bloodier movie. But then I remembered this flick was made in 1974, before horror movies became the splatter fests they are now. The lack gore here isn’t an issue. As with most things artistic, less is more. When we do see what grue there is, it’s all the more effective due to the restraint employed by the filmmakers. Today’s torture porn producers could learn some lessons in moderation from Deranged.
When I interviewed writer/actor 
Note the “eventually” in the previous sentence. One of the things that most impressed me about Deadgirl was that, for the majority of the film, I had no idea where it was headed. I could not predict what was going to happen next, which is an admirable quality in a horror film these days. But, truthfully, I don’t think Deadgirl really is a horror film. At its core, it’s a study of friendship and the way life pulls people apart. Sure, there’s a zombie, but she’s really just the mother of all complicating incidences. This film is the story of Rickie and J.T. and the results of the choices they make. These are two dead-end kids with no real future ahead of them. Finding the deadgirl is the best, and worst, thing ever to happen to them. And the decisions they make will prove pivotal. And though Rickie struggles to do the right thing at every turn, it soon becomes clear that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Shiloh Fernandez and Noah Segan are both wonderful in roles that are, essentially, the ego and the id. Fernandez plays Rickie as a little boy lost, overwhelmed by events but always struggling to be good. Segan’s J.T. is the blustering loudmouth everyone knows. Haaga’s script is very well crafted, depicting adolescent male camaraderie quite realistically. It eventually pushes us to the edge of comfort while delivering enough black humor to make the lurid subject matter palatable. Though violent, Deadgirl never seems exploitative.
As I mentioned earlier, Deadgirl has been polarizing audiences everywhere, with good reason. The deadgirl is brutally abused in the film, though when given the chance she can take care of herself, all feral growls and gnashing teeth. But I think her character is an interesting, though unsettling, plot device. She acts as the canvas on which the male characters paint their souls. And through her brutalization, we see who and what these characters are. Is that a good enough reason to portray such horrific cruelty onscreen? That’s a question I can’t answer for you. I recommend you see this film with some friends and decide for yourself. If nothing else, Deadgirl is sure to provoke a spirited conversation—and that’s never a bad thing.
“What’s in the basket?”
As children, Duane and Belial were quite happy as one, but their father insisted they be separated. And though the operation was a success—with Duane being the surviving entity, as they say in business—Belial was not disposed of effectively. So, of course, Duane retrieved Belial from the trash and stashed him in a basket. Belial then wreaked vengeance of a biblical sort on their father, and the boys were raised by their amazingly sympathetic aunt, who sensed their secret but told no one. 
As you might expect, Duane and Belial’s tale spirals downward from there. In print, the plot of Basket Case seems grim, but onscreen it manages to be fairly amusing in a dismal way. While watching the movie, I got the feeling there was a subversive layer of symbolism at play. As I wondered earlier: what’s really in the basket? Could it be Duane’s repressed homosexuality? You be the judge. 
