Best Documentary

"Nightmares in Red, White and Blue" was named Best Documentary at the 10th Annual Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival.

The film was selected for exhibition from an entry pool of over 250 films. As part of the award, the documentary will be given a special call-out encore screening at the Roving Eye Documentary Festival in April 2010.

Next up: a midnight screening at the 24th Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata (November 7 - 15) in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Early Reviews

"Finally, the horror doc we've been hoping for... a fascinating watch for both passionate and casual fans, made by people who really seem to care about their subject matter."
- The Vault of Horror

"Horror fans new and old will certainly enjoy the film for its scope and obvious high regard for horror films as a whole."
- Horror Movie A Day

A "meat-and-potatoes horror documentary which truly satisfies... Has everything you’ve ever wanted in a horror documentary, without simply showing you random scenes of films of the past."
- HorrorBlogger.com

"An incredibly entertaining documentary that aims to please both the hardcore horror fans and newcomers alike. Beyond that, it works on its own as a fine horror-filled clip show."
- FearNet

"Nightmares in Red, White and Blue delivers a film school semester’s worth of knowledge in one tight and thoroughly entertaining feature, and goes a long way toward validating horror as a respectable film genre. Whether you’re looking to expand your movie horizons or simply ride the nostalgia train, this documentary has it all!"
- Dread Central

"An utterly essential work that gives finally credit where credit is long overdue... You'll have to forgive us. We just died and went to horror geek heaven."
- Irish Film Institute

Sitges

Lux Digital Pictures to Premier Its New Film at the SITGES International Fantastic Film Festival

BERKELEY, Calif., Oct 02, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----Lux Digital Pictures, Inc. (OTCBB:LUXD) announced here today that its new motion picture "Nightmares in Red, White and Blue" (www.nightmaresinredwhiteandblue.com) will screen at the prestigious SITGES International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia (www.sitgesfilmfestival.com) on Sunday, October 4, 2009.

"Nightmares in Red, White and Blue," the Company's widely praised feature length documentary film on the evolution of the American horror film based upon the book by Joseph Maddrey, will premier in the Sitges Especials section of the festival. The Sitges Festival is considered the #1 fantasy film festival in the world and, over their 42 year history, they have consistently programmed and introduced some of the biggest commercial genre films of all time.

Ingo Jucht, CEO of LUXD, said: "To have our film selected for Sitges is a tremendous honor and it positions `Nightmares in Red, White and Blue' among the best and most commercial feature films of the year. We are looking forward to releasing `Nightmares in Red, White and Blue' in early 2010."

October

'Tis the season for fear, and we've got quite a few Halloween-themed screenings coming up in the next month...

October 4: Barcelona, Spain
NIGHTMARES will play back-to-back with the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (introduced by John Saxon!) as part of the Sitges Film Festival's Tribute to the 1980s. Fangoria editor (and NIGHTMARES interviewee) Tony Timpone will introduce the documentary at 10AM in the Cine Prado.

October 4: Hollywood, California
NIGHTMARES makes its west coast debut at Shriekfest, the annual Los Angeles Horror / Science Fiction Festival. The screening will take place at the Raleigh Studios Chaplin Theater (5300 Melrose Ave.) starting at noon. Seats are limited so buy your tickets early! https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82462

October 9: Orlando, Florida
NIGHTMARES will screen at 7:30pm at Spooky Empire's Ultimate Horror Weekend. The festival will feature NIGHTMARES interviewee George A. Romero as one of its guests of honor, along with John Landis, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Tippi Hedren, Linda Blair, Adrienne Barbeau, and many many others (including multiple cast members from the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and the original HALLOWEEN 2)!

October 10: Chesapeake, Virginia
NIGHTMARES will appear in this year's Monster-Fest at the Chesapeake Public Library, between Eric Miller's film TASTE THE BLOOD OF FRANKENSTEIN and a much anticipated documentary on the Old Dominion's favorite TV horror hosts called VIRGINIA CREEPERS. The screening starts at noon.

October 17: Manchester, England
The Festival of Fantastic Films, held each year in NIGHTMARES director Andrew Monument's hometown, hosts our UK debut. The festival will be attended by several icons of British horror, including director John Hough (THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE) and Hammer filmmaker Peter Sasdy.

October 23: Jacksonville, Florida
NIGHTMARES will be featured in the annual Five Points Horror Fest at 7:30pm in the Five Points Theater.

October 24: Providence, Rhode Island
The Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival will screen NIGHTMARES at the Providence Public Library at 1pm. The documentary will be preceded by John D. Reilly's "short thriller" CELERIAC. (Synopsis: "Ce-le-ri-ac, n. An edible variety of celery cultivated for its swollen knobby root. Many claim this type of celery is hard to prepare, so pay attention.") I admit I'm curious....

October 26: Dublin, Ireland
NIGHTMARES will be featured in the Irish Film Institute's annual Horrorthon. The IFI touts the documentary as "an utterly essential work that gives finally credit where credit is long overdue," adding, "You’ll have to excuse us. We just died and went to horror geek heaven." The screening begins at noon.

Halloween: Las Vegas, Nevada
Last but certainly not least, NIGHTMARES will screen at 4:30pm on Halloween, as part of Fangoria's 1st annual Trinity of Terrors convention, to be held at the Palms Casino. This is shaping up to be Fangoria's biggest convention ever, and guests will include Roger Corman and George Romero, among many others. Genre icon and NIGHTMARES narrator Lance Henriksen will introduce the screening! Talk about horror geek heaven...

West Coast Premiere

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue will make its West Coast Premiere on Sunday, October 4. The screening is part of the annual Shriekfest Horror Film Festival, held in Hollywood at the longest continuously operating film studio in the country. Nightmares will kick off the final day of a jam-packed weekend of brand new horror shorts and features - many of which are making their West Coast, U.S. and even World Premieres.

DETAILS:
Sunday, October 4 at 12 noon
Raleigh Studios - Chaplin Theater
5300 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038
Tickets $8 - https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82462

For the full Shriekfest lineup, check out their webpage.

BangPOP!

Reprinted from The Maine Edge:

BangPOP! will be screening two documentary films at its second annual BangPOP! Comic and Pop Culture Convention this weekend, Sept. 19...

"Nightmares in Red White and Blue" is a look back at American horror films, with interviews from the industry's most prominent names in blood and guts and a discussion of how the films have evolved through the years. The documentary covers the early days of American cinema, from the earliest monster movies and speculative fiction up until the "Saw" franchise and torture-porn of today. The directors and writers talk about the nature of fear, how the films reflect the collective fears of the nation and how it is reflected on the silver screen, from threats of nuclear warfare and fallout from radiation to stranger fears and paranoia. As our national fears changed, so did the monsters on the screen.

Few things are as fascinating to analyze as what scares us and why. Seeing the evolution of fear in this grisly documentary has the dual effect of making you want to reeducate yourself in the horrible and watch all the films that have inspired the masters of the macabre to date. Since this film covers everything that makes horror great (gore, sex and violence) it's not for the faint of heart and I sure wouldn't recommend it for kids. But it's a fascinating documentary and a must-see for any fan of fear.

"Nightmares" will be shown at 4 p.m. on Sept. 19.

European Premiere

Lux Digital Pictures to Premier Its New Film at the Deauville International Film Festival
September 3, 2009 2:05 PM ET

Business WireAll Business Wire news

Lux Digital Pictures, Inc. LUXD announced here today that its new motion picture “Nightmares in Red, White and Blue” (www.nightmaresinredwhiteandblue.com ) will have its European Premier at the venerable Deauville American Film Festival (www.festival-deauville.com) on Saturday September 5, 2009.

“Nightmares in Red, White and Blue” will be included in a small, select group of the very best recent American documentary films. Screening with the LUXD film at Deauville will be “The Cove”, “Food, Inc”, “The September Issue”, “It Might Get Loud” and “When You Are Strange”. The film’s Writer and Producer, Joseph Maddrey, on whose book the film is based, and the film’s Director, Andrew Monument, will be attending the Festival.

Ingo Jucht, CEO of LUXD, said: “We are very proud to have our film selected for Deauville and to be associated with the most outstanding documentary motion pictures of the year. We are looking forward to releasing 'Nightmares in Red, White and Blue' in early 2010.”

LUXD is comprised of several motion picture development, production, financing and distribution brands that have unique and dynamic strategies to compete in today’s entertainment marketplace.

This announcement contains forward-looking statements about Lux Digital Pictures, Inc., that may involve risks and uncertainties. Important factors relating to the company’s operations could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward- looking statements and are further detailed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission available at the SEC website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements are based on information available to Lux Digital Pictures, Inc. on the date hereof, and Lux Digital Pictures, Inc., assumes no obligation to update such statements.

Lux Digital Pictures, Inc.
I. Jucht, 510-948-4000
info@luxdigitalpictures.com
www.luxdigitalpictures.com

Nightmares Everywhere!

We are continuing to roll out Nightmares in Red, White and Blue at numerous festivals and conventions in the weeks leading up to Halloween. Here are the confirmed screenings so far:

September 5 – Deauville American Film Festival in Deauville, France
September 19 – Bangpop! Comic and Pop Culture Convention in Bangor, Maine
September 21 – Athens International Film Festival in Athens, Greece
October 4 – Sitges Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain
October 9 – Spooky Empire Ultimate Horror Weekend in Orlando, Florida
October 9 – Monster-Fest in Chesapeake, Virginia
October 17 – Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester, England
October 22 – Horrorthon in Dublin, Ireland
October 24 – Five Points Horror Fest in Jacksonville, Florida

We also have a big Halloween weekend screening in the works! Check back for more announcements…

Nightmares in Athens & Barcelona

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue has been accepted into two more festivals: Athens International Film Festival in Greece (September 16 - 27) and Sitges Film Festival in Barcelona (October 1 - 12).

For the uninitiated -- Sitges is the #1 genre film festival in the world, as well as one of the most popular festivals in Europe. This year, Sitges will honor actor Malcolm McDowell as well as Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. Screenings will include the much-anticipated [REC]2 (2009) directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, Moon (2009) directed by Duncan Jones, Grace (2009) directed by Paul Solet, Thirst (2009) directed by Chan-wook Park, and Yatterman (2009) and Crows Zero II (2009) directed by Takashi Miike. The festival will also be screening the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)... with John Saxon in attendance. Need I say more?

Athens has not yet announced its full lineup, but opening night will feature a series of documentaries on the theme of Internet horrors: We Live in Public (2009) directed by Ondi Timoner, Graphic Sexual Horror (2009) directed by Barbara Bell and Anna Lorentzon, and Art & Copy (2009) directed by Doug Pray. Keep an eye on the festival website for more information.

Nightmares in Rhode Island

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue will make its North American debut at the Rhode Island International Film Festival on Thursday, August 6, at 9:30pm. The screening will take place at the Columbus Theatre Arts Center, and will be preceded by the 2009 Australian short film The water was dark and it went forever down, directed by Miranda Edmonds.

A second screening will be held at midnight on Friday, August 7, at the nearby Cable Car Cinema in Providence. The documentary will be preceded by three 2009 horror shorts: Danse Macabre by Pedro Pires, Thirsty by Andrew Kasch, and The Babysitter by Kristen Gray.

Nightmares in Deauville

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue has been accepted into this year's Deauville Festival of American Cinema! The festival will take place in September, and the documentary will be featured in the "Les Docs de l'Oncle Sam" category -- alongside Boy Interrupted (a 2008 nominee for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival), Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim's It Might Get Loud (a profile of guitar heroes Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White), Food Inc. (an "unflattering look" at America's corporate-controlled food industry), The Cove (an environmentalist exposé shot off of the coast of Japan), The September Issue (a profile of Vogue magazine's editor-in-chief Anna Wintour) and When You're Strange (a brand new doc about The Doors singer Jim Morrison, featuring never-before-seen footage).

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director of Delicatessen (1991), Alien: Resurrection (1997) and Amelie (2001), will chair the festival jury this year, and high profile guests will include Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Andy Garcia and Robin Wright Penn. Deauville will also pay homage to the late Robert Aldrich, director of The Big Knife (1955), Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).

Screen Media Snaps Up NIRWAB

Screen Media Ventures, LLC has acquired the documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue for distribution in all media in all territories outside of the U.S. and Canada.

They will be screening the film this month at the Cannes Film Festival.

Plans for U.S. and Canadian distribution are pending - stay tuned!

Q&A

Reprinted from Jim Blanton's Fantasmo Cinema blog

* JIM BLANTON: The documentary is based on your book of the same title from 2004. Was the idea of doing the documentary in your mind while you were writing the book, or is it something that came later?

JOSEPH MADDREY: When I wrote the book I wasn’t even thinking of it as a book, let alone a documentary. The first half of the book (the chronological section) was the outcome of an independent study in college. The documentary idea came from the people at Midnight Movies, who bought the adaptation rights and then, a year later, hired me to make the documentary. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity.

*You explore two primary concepts in the film, firstly that these films are reflections of the time and place in which they are made, and secondly that they involve the struggle of the individual or “outsider” with some type of threatening entity. As a lifelong horror fan, did these elements jump out at you initially or coalesce during your research? Were there any other aspects you found competing with these in developing your thesis?

Growing up, I was constantly watching and reading about horror movies – always searching for things I hadn’t seen. (This was the age of mom and pop video stores, when finding the really good stuff took some legwork.) I kept a running chronological list of titles and that was how I started noticing thematic similarities among films from particular time periods.

When the book was published, a friend of mine who hadn’t read it yet said, “But did you write about why you, personally, are interested in horror films? That’s what I want to read about.” Of course, I hadn’t. Another friend read the book and commented that, while he understood my thesis, he believed that the true appeal of the horror genre was its universal themes – fear of death, fear of change, fear of the outsider, etc. So in conducting interviews for the documentary, I tried to pursue the historical, the personal and the universal.

There are countless other concepts that we might have explored in the documentary if we’d had more time. Ultimately, the challenge was not finding things to say, but narrowing the scope and creating a coherent narrative.

*Your book and the film manage to cover a tremendous amount of ground (basically the entire history of American horror cinema) in a fairly concise number of pages/running time. I found it interesting that there was such a parallel in terms of the economy you were able to employ in both formats, given that they could have easily spiraled into epic length. Was this part of the design from the outset, or did it happen naturally?

I didn’t really plan the book that way – I just have a natural tendency to economize when I write. Some people appreciated that about the book and some people didn’t, but I never tried to write a definitive book on the subject. I just wrote about the things I was most interested in at the time. With the documentary, we consciously tried to keep the narrative moving at such a fast pace that the viewer’s mind would never wander off of the subject.

*One thing that is striking upon viewing the documentary, is just how many giants in the field you were able to conduct interviews with. Folks like John Carpenter, George A. Romero, Roger Corman, Larry Cohen, etc. The interviews largely stick to the general subject matter of the film, rather than delving into discussing each filmmaker’s catalog of hits. In taking this approach, it explores a different avenue than you usually see in discussions with these individuals. Did the avoidance of gushing fan types of questions aid your efforts in opening up discussions?

When I started, I didn’t dare to hope for some of the interviews I ended up getting. And honestly, when I was sitting in the room with some of these legendary filmmakers, it was hard not to stray off topic – I had to constantly remind myself that I was fishing for soundbites for a specific narrative. Even so, there were some gushing fan questions (John Carpenter said he was sick of talking about that damned William Shatner mask).

For the most part the interviewees seemed eager to talk about films other than their own. The trick, with short interviews, was knowing what films to ask them about. I read a ton of interviews with all of these guys before we sat down and turned the camera on, so I knew which films they had claimed as influences. In my experience, filmmakers – and storytellers in general – love to talk about their influences.

*No doubt you have a truckload of additional interview footage that you weren’t able to include due to time constraints and relevance to your themes. Is this something fans may look forward to seeing on a future DVD release (hint hint, nudge nudge)?

There are definitely a few extras that should go on any DVD release – answers that didn’t really fit the specific narrative of the documentary, but would be of interest to fans. For instance, I started every conversation by asking the interviewees how they first became interested in movies. For me, every single response was compelling. There were also some great anecdotes about getting into the business – Carpenter learning to edit at USC, Bousman campaigning for the director gig on Saw 2…

*In my opinion you scored a major coup in obtaining your narrator Lance Henriksen. First off he’s a fixture in horror/sci-fi filmdom, and secondly he has such a wonderful voice. I have to imagine given the part the subject matter has played in his career, he has some degree of fondness for the material. Did you observe this to be the case in working with him on the project, and do you feel that vibe enhanced his performance?

I couldn’t imagine anyone better for this project than Lance, and it was a thrill to work with him. I think he does have a particular affinity for genre films, but based on my own experience of working with him and on what I’ve heard from other people who have worked with him, he brings the same level of enthusiasm, talent and dedication to everything he does. Roger Corman said that the great thing about working with Vincent Price was that he put himself 100% into whatever he did, no matter how silly the role or the film might seem at times. I think the same thing can be said of Lance. He’s humble, down to earth, and very comfortable in his own skin… I think that demeanor enhances everything he does.

*You are credited as writer and producer on the film, and Andrew Monument as the editor and director. Having talked with you a little bit about how you two worked as a team on this, I know it was an interesting process. As the creator of the source material, was there a time initially where you considered assuming the duties of director? Did you find letting go of a certain amount of “authorship” control difficult?

I was responsible for the narrative and the interviews, but visually this is Andrew’s film. If I had been dealing with anyone else, I would have been reluctant to relinquish control, but Andrew and I had worked together in the past and I was confident that we would see eye-to-eye 95% of the time. Since I’m on the west coast and Andrew is on the east coast, we had to work independently most of the time, but we never had any significant creative differences. I can’t imagine being able to do that with anyone else, so I’m glad he was as excited to do the project as I was.

*Something that occurred to me while watching the film, is that there are a number of examples of horror films/filmmakers from Canada (particularly in the 70’s and 80’s) that echoed what was happening here (e.g. early David Cronenberg, My Bloody Valentine, Black Christmas, Prom Night, The Burning, etc.). Did you find universals like that in your research, in which the trends driving American horror films frequently crossed borders?

I think it’s easier to draw comparisons between popular trends in Canadian horror and U.S. horror than it would be to draw comparisons between U.S. horror and European or Asian horror. Your examples show that Canadian filmmakers certainly jumped on the slasher movie bandwagon (though, admittedly, only after Bob Clark provided John Carpenter with the idea for Halloween). I didn’t focus on Cronenberg too much in the book or the documentary – not because he’s Canadian, but because he’s such a unique storyteller. I believe that the man is a true genius, and I thought I’d need a completely separate narrative in order to discuss his work properly.

*The film has a really nice flow to it, but one of my favorite bits was a Friday the 13th montage of Jason attacks. Seeing all those kills from the Friday films in quick succession hammered home just how much violent imagery they contain (and that I had viewed over the years). Even so, I couldn’t help but laugh while watching them because, strange as it may seem, I’ve always found those to be innocent and goofy despite the content. Conversely, if you were to do a montage of the Saw or Hostel films, which are just as over-the-top, I think my reaction would be pretty different. Do you find that same sort of qualitative difference in the teen horror films of the 80’s vs. those of today? If so, how do you account for the distinction given the similarity in nature (e.g. superhuman or faceless killers dispatching hapless victims in creative fashion)?

I can’t take any credit for the F13 montage – that’s all Andrew (and of course John Muir, who gave us a provocative soundbite to illustrate). Andrew was the one who realized that we could create a montage of gruesome murders in such a lighthearted, playful tone. I think this was true because of the direction that the series took over the years – since the mid-80s, fans have known not to take Jason too seriously. Tom McLoughlin talked about consciously adding tongue-in-cheek humor to the series with Jason Lives. I think that was the first instance of self-parody in the series. It was the modern-day equivalent of pitting Frankenstein and The Mummy against Abbott and Costello. It’s also the film that re-introduces Jason as a superhuman zombie, rather than a vengeful human being. As Darren Bousman points out in the documentary, the later films in the series give us undeniable cues that we’re not supposed to think of Jason as “real.” By contrast, the Saw and Hostel series haven’t gone the way of self-parody yet, and the monsters are still very human.

*One point you highlight in the documentary is that the filmmakers who delve into horror are frequently outsiders, and typically do not come from a conservative point of view. Going back to the 70’s and 80’s slasher films for a moment, it has frequently been observed that they seem to support a socially conservative point of view in that freewheeling behavior is punished with severe consequences (i.e. death). In an interview segment John Carpenter dismisses this suggestion, at least in terms of the granddaddy Halloween, stating that the film was just an assignment. That may be, but the overwhelming number of films which adopted this structure makes one wonder. Do you feel given your thesis, that the culture of a particular time period influences the message of the films, that Carpenter is a little quick in his dismissal of this trend? Or is there something to the observation that these films were pushing a certain set of values, even if subconsciously?

First of all, I don’t think that John Carpenter was dismissing the trend of slasher movies in general. He was just speaking about one film – Halloween. That film has been identified as the trend-setter among slasher films, but Carpenter himself didn’t consciously set out to create the trend or reflect the conservative movement in American culture.

That said, I think that a lot of great horror films do subconsciously reflect cultural trends, because serious-minded filmmakers are in tune with the world they live in. I believe that 100%. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t other things going on behind the films… As I said, we could have made several different documentaries exploring several different theses, utilizing clips from the same films. We could have structured it to explore the auteur theory, like the second half of the book, and it would have been a different beast altogether.

I do think of many of the people I interviewed as cinematic “outsiders” – and I believe they thought of themselves as outsiders at some crucial point in their lives (if not now). Most of them got interested in horror films when they were kids and were still trying to sort out their personal beliefs and find their place in the world. Mick Garris said that the horror genre is about “arrested development,” and in some respects I think that’s true – in a lot of cases, these horror filmmakers are still exploring the fears of adolescence, still examining personal beliefs.

Those kind of explorations go deeper than politics, so I don’t think we can say that the horror genre is essentially either liberal or conservative. There are two lines of thought on the subject. One says that this is an inherently conservative genre – it reinforces our fear of the outsider. The other says that it is inherently revolutionary – it prompts us to champion the outsider. I think that the best horror films do both.

*Okay the BIG question – when and where will fans be able to see this fantastic documentary?

I wish I had an answer for that, because I really want people to see it. Right now, we’re submitting to film festivals and shopping for a distributor. I don’t know where it will finally end up, but I’m hoping for some kind of release by summer.

Coming Soon

In the future, this blog will host news about screenings and distribution of the feature-length documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film.

Stay tuned...