'Curtain' Gets Into The BoneBat 'Comedy Of Horrors' Film Festival

Tue, 03/20/2012 - 18:09 by Parallactic Pictures   Tags:

Bonebat Film Festival

Just heard that Curtain got into the BoneBat 'Comedy Of Horrors' Film Festival. This is a pretty cool festival, up north in Washington.  One day only.  All shorts.

Here's a link with more info: http://www.bonehand.com/bonebatff.html

You can get screening times, date and even purchase tickets at that link.

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'Curtain' Gets Into The Florida Film Festival! Dates Announced!

Fri, 02/17/2012 - 12:16 by Parallactic Pictures   Tags:

'Curtain' gets into the Florida Film Festival

One of the benefits of Curtain getting into Fantastic Fest last year is how many other festivals then shoot you free submission invites to their own festivals.  One of those was the Florida Film Festival.  Now, getting invited for free doesn't mean you automatically get "accepted" into the fest.  There's still a screening process.  So I'm happy to report that Curtain made the cut and will be playing.  

Here are the two screening dates:

Saturday, April 14 at 12:00 MIDNIGHT at Enzian
Saturday, April 21 at 12:00 MIDNIGHT at Regal Winter Park Village

Curtain is in the Midnight Shorts program.  I like the sound of that.

Pretty sure none of this info is up on their site yet, but if you live nearby, keep an eye out for those dates.

http://www.floridafilmfestival.com/

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Praise For 'Curtain'

Wed, 11/02/2011 - 07:14 by Parallactic Pictures   Tags:

Praise for 'Curtain'

With Fantastic Fest now over, I'm finally able to gather some of the media and praise that Curtain earned in its wake.  So here is a round-up of some of the best mentions we received:

"The undisputed best short of the collection was Curtain, which featured a succubus, a strap-on dildo, and the most hellish lease agreement ever committed to paper. If you somehow manage to get a chance to see Curtain, do so without reservation." - Collider.com

"The stand outs for me were Dennis Widmyer’s Curtain, a horror-comedy where a couple rents a new apartment with a bizarre shower curtain that is to not be removed lest they release a succubus. Clever, well shot, and filled with laughs, it’s worth tracking down." - Film Threat

"Fest regulars Dennis Widmyer and Justin Duprie, who hails from Corpus, wrote and produced the exceptional horror-comedy short Curtain, which makes The Exorcist look tame by comparison." - Slackerwood.com

"A lot of fun and some great demon effects. And definitely watch out for Mr. Pokeyman." - Professor Wagstaff

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Poster For 'Curtain' Tears It Up!

Tue, 09/13/2011 - 09:59 by Parallactic Pictures   Tags:

'Curtain' movie poster

At long last, the poster for Curtain is here, and its a grisly affair, if I do say so myself.  Designed by long-time friend and talented Photoshop technician, Brad Choma, it showcases (what I hope) is an arresting-enough image to people to wanna see the damn thing!  And if that's not enough, I have some fun screenshots as well.  

That's it for today.  Lots more news coming down the pipe.  For now, spread this around, why don't ya?

More on Curtain here!

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'Curtain' Gets Its Screening Dates as Fantastic Fest Announces Its Schedule

Tue, 09/13/2011 - 09:52 by Parallactic Pictures   Tags:

'Curtain' gets into the 2011 Fantastic Fest shorts line-up

Today Fantastic Fest announced its schedule for their 2011 line-up.  As predicted, Curtain will be featured in a shorts block, but this year it seems FF is doing something new and cool with their shorts.  Besides the standard DRAWN AND QUARTERED: Animated Shorts and FANTASTIC SHORTS blocks, this year FF's SHORTFUSE block seems to be dedicated soley to horror films.  In past years, all live-action shorts were grouped together, which made for a long block, making it tough to predict when your film would screen.  So I definitely approve of this new scheduling idea.

Here are the dates/times for Curtain which will be playing twice at the festival:

  • Saturday, Sep 24 at 3:15pm
  • Monday, Sep 26 at 3:10pm

Curtain plays 6th in a line-up with nine other films (which all sound awesome, might I add).  You can see more over at the Fantastic Fest site.  They've also posted their full schedule.

If you're in Austin, TX around that time, I'd love to see ya there!

More on Curtain here!

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'Down The Hatch:' Our 2011 Fantastic Fest Bumper

Fri, 09/09/2011 - 11:56 by Parallactic Pictures   Tags:

It wasn't enough for Kevin and I to have Cutain playing Fantastic Fest this year.  Noooo.  Kev just had to get more involved.  (And God love him for it!)  A few weeks ago he pitched me his idea for a bumper.  The theme this year is 'Altered States' which means... well, I'm not really sure what it means.  But I think I do.  Anyway, the pitch came with only a few days left before the deadline.  But it was so bizarre, that I just had to see it, so I pushed him to round up the boys and go shoot the damn thing.  And Kev didn't disappoint.  He directed the whole thing in an afternoon and then uploaded me all the footage via FTP that night.  Then all day Sunday I edited it together and we finished it in time for the Monday deadline.

The bumper stars Jamey Lord and Joshua Chaplinsky.  Hope you enjoy it.  Just stay away from any sort of egg products after, for I fear we may have ruined that food for you henceforth.

Check out our 2009 bumpers, Ice Cream!!! and I Is Demon Cat.

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'Procrastination' Commercial For LitReactor.com

Thu, 09/08/2011 - 12:56 by Parallactic Pictures   Tags:

On October 1st I am launching a new website venture called LitReactor.com. The site will feature a writers workshop, monthly classes taught by published authors and industry professionals and a bustling online magazine. To help promote the launch of the site, I had the idea of shooting a sort of promotional commercial. With Kevin in town that week for the Script Pipeline awards ceremony (our script Shed was a finalist) we got together with our buddy Brian James Fitzpatrick and cranked this whole thing out in 8 hours straight.

This is the first promo in a series we have planned to cover the different obstacles writers face when committing to their craft. In it, a man deals with the writer's most teasing seductress... procrastination.

For more, as well as a free PDF containing 8 pages of writing advice from authors like Chuck Palahniuk, Neil Gaiman, Bret Easton Ellis, Jack Ketchum, Amy Hempel and more... head on over to LitReactor.com!

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Trailer for 'Curtain'

'Curtain': Short Film Trailer (2011)

An unemployed deadbeat runs into a heap of girl-trouble when he's forced to choose the lesser of two evils: the succubus haunting his bathtub or the psychotic girlfriend lying in his bedroom.

Credits: Written & directed by Dennis Widmyer. Produced by Justin Duprie. Shot by Martim Vian. Starring John Hermann, Natasha Snow-Needles, Paige Kimball and Maria Olsen.

Learn more about Curtain here.

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Who We Are

Dennis Widmyer (left) and Kevin Kolsch (right)

Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer first joined forces in 1993 when they began writing screenplays together.  In 2003 they formed Parallactic Pictures and later that year, co-directed Postcards From The Future, a documentary on critically acclaimed author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Choke).  They followed this up in 2006 with their first narrative feature, a dark, mysterious character study called Absence.  Made on a micro-budget of only $30,000, Absence became the duo's unofficial graduate film school and propelled them to a new level of filmmaking. Working with a large ensemble cast in multiple locations, the shoot spanned almost four weeks. Stay tuned for some long-awaited exciting news on Absence.

Following this experience, Kevin and Dennis focused the next few years on short films and in quick succession made Throwaway, an award winning horror about the perils of talking to bums; Identical Dead Sisters, an experimental film about revenge, obsession and absolution; EXT. LIFE, a dark and surreal coming of age drama about an aspiring actress who suffers an out-of-body experience, and most recently, Curtain an over-the-top horror comedy about a bathroom haunted by a succubus.

In-between all of this they continued to write together, catching acclaim for their horror script Shed, about a couple who encounters a deranged madman after discovering his latest kidnap victim in the shed of the cabin they're staying in for the weekend.  To date, Shed has gone onto to win the Eerie Horror Film Festival, the Great Lakes Independent Film Festival, and has placed as a semi-finalist at Screamfest, and a quarter-finalist at both The Page Screenwriting Awards and Scriptapooloza. 

Currently, the team is developing Shed as their second feature film.  You can stay up to date on their projects by checking out the News section.

Parallactic Pictures is the film company of writer/director/producers Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer.  Formed in 2003, PP is the banner for all of their independent film projects.  Parallactic Pictures are currently developing their next feature film, Shed, an award winning horror script about a talented medical student burdened by an unwanted pregnancy who stumbles upon a bound girl in the woods and is forced to defend the life inside her from a deranged mother and son duo hell-bent on taking it from her.