Surveillance

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljzjYh0g6fI


(Edit: now that June 26th is past and all the positive reviews for this film have come in, I've published a list of some of my favorite quotes at this link: www.talkingdogstudios.com/news/ )

One of my guilty pleasures for most of my adult life has been horror films that get so outrageous that you have to laugh - 1986's House and 1987's Evil Dead 2 being examples from way back when. The last few years of what the media have come to call "torture porn" (grim films like Saw and Hostel) are definitely not what I'm talking about here.

Last blog I talked about a new classic from Sam Raimi, creator of the original Evil Dead/Army of Darkness series, and also now famous as the director of the blockbuster Spiderman movies: the film is called "Drag Me to Hell" and it has a level of inventiveness and an outrageous sensibility that makes this film exactly what I'm talking about: even when bad things happen, we as an audience are allowed moments to laugh at how unbelievably horrible it all really is. Some would call this style "black comedy", and as long as you can appreciate how "black" our main characters' futures can get in movies such as these, then I think "black comedy" is an entirely appropriate term for this, one of my favorite kinds of movie.

Imagine my thrill, then, to be allowed to work with Jennifer Lynch, who co-wrote and directed a film that will be in select theatres in North America later this month: "Surveillance". The image at the top of this blog is from the apple trailers website. Here, from YouTube, is one of the trailers for the movie:


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk5Lrgf3iQ

I'm honored to say that my company, Talking Dog Studios, created the music and 5.1 theatrical sound for the movie, which was invited to appear last year at the Cannes Film Festival where it received a standing ovation. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film these nice comments: "The film looks great, with cinematographer Peter Wunstorf using different stock and inventive angles to good effect while Todd Bryanton's score helps maintain a constant undercurrent of dread. Lynch fills the screen with elements that some viewers of the film will want to go back to watch more than once..."

Watching the trailer, you'll get the impression that this film is going to be ultra-violent and dark, and that's not far off the mark. But within this film, there is also a quirky sense of the absurd, and a slightly surreal approach that tells us the apple has not fallen far from the tree, as Jennifer Lynch's father is of course David Lynch, who acted as executive producer of the film. I'm sure this film is going to find an audience who will want to watch it many times over, and for me I think that is because as dark as this film gets, there is still a bemused humor that keeps peeking out to save us from being completely dragged into the abyss.

I do hope those of you who are fans of this genre will go out and see this movie. And enjoy the journey!

Rob Bryanton

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