Two-Headed Snake Entertainment and Komet Films are happy to announce that pre production is underway on the upcoming Lovecraftian/Barkeresque horror anthology, ‘DARK CONTINENTS’.

The movie draws inspiration from such classics as Clive Barker’s ‘Hellraiser’, John Carpenter’s ‘Prince Of Darkness’ whilst still weaving in the new breed of horror movies like the stunning horror/drama’s ‘The Babadook’ and ‘Starry Eyes’.

Due for release in 2016,’DARK CONTINENTS’ is made up of five segments from four countries, Norway, Belgium, Greece and the UK. Each segment will star a multi talented actor, Tristan Risk (American Mary/Editor) and Miltos Yerolemou (Star Wars 7 and Game of Thrones) are attached to the UK segments.

One by one, four companions aboard an intercontinental cargo liner are stalked by an impossible shape-shifting creature that can toy with the fabric of reality. Five chilling tales to take you back to the era of true terror.

Written and conceived by horror enthusiasts Stu Bedford and Stu Jopia, who recently penned this years zombie thriller ‘Apocalypse’ bring these twisted tales of murder, madness, monsters and mayhem to life with the help of four equally disturbed writers, Yannis Zafeiriou, Sam Hooper, Niek D’Hondt and Yorgos Kasfikis.

Writer/Producer Stu Jopia says, “I want to bring back old school fear, the type of movie that gives you nightmares.”

“The darkness insides ones soul is what scares me and our tales of madness and despair encompass this throughout.” Says Writer/Director Stuart W.Bedford.

Writer/Director Yannis Zafeiriou says, “I would love to explore (and combine) the Lovecraftian “sense of dread against the unfathomable”, with the “unavoidable tragic destiny” that Ancient Greek Mythology is so ripe with.”

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

Location stills and sketches from DARK CONTINENTS

  Here are official sites for DARK CONTINENTS

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4544000/?ref_=nm_flmg_prd_1

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dark-Continents/708447389232741?fref=nf

https://www.twitter.com/dark_continents

https://instagram.com/darkconti

SYNOPSIS:

“One by one, four companions aboard an intercontinental cargo liner are stalked by an impossible shape-shifting creature that can toy with the fabric of reality. Five chilling tales to take you back to the era of true terror.”

Currently in pre-production, Dark Continents‘ press materials namecheck some pretty heady influences: H.P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987), John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (1987), as well as more recent psychological horror gems like The Babadook and Starry Eyes.

The film will consist of five segments set in four countries: Norway, Belgium, Greece, and the U.K. Tristan Risk (American Mary) and Miltos Yerolemou (Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens) are already attached to the U.K. segments. Stuart W. Bedford, Niek D’Hondt, Yannis Zafeiriou, and Alexander Zwart are on board to direct. Bedford and Zwart are also co-writers.

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This is a guest post from Dark Continents author, Paula Stiles, about her new novel "The Mighty Quinn."

Lately, I've been thinking about characters. Quinn Bolcan, main protagonist of my latest horror novel from Dark Continents, The Mighty Quinn, did not begin literary life as a novel character. In fact, he began as the first person, present tense POV character of an experimental little story called “Icebergs and Butterflies,” which you can still find here for free  in issue #18 of OG's Speculative Fiction Magazine from May 2009. The story's form is not particularly experimental for me (I like messing about with odd person and tense. I even sold pro a third person future tense story, once) and it's mainly a small vignette.

The experiment came in the form of the narrator, Quinn, and flowed from my continuing fascination with the idea of the Monster as Hero – specifically, a Hero who defies those Victorian conventions of Gothic and the Golden Age Hollywood Hays Code, and survives the final reel, even prevails.

I wrote Quinn as fully Human, an ordinary man – save for an exceedingly extraordinary power (Confession time: I ripped off the idea for said power from an episode of Space: 1999 that totally creeped me out. Don't look at me like that. It was season one and I was nine). However, the twist in the story is that Quinn has a truly monstrous power, yet is not a monster. He's not some dude in spandex, either. He's just a guy, with perhaps a slightly elevated sense of morality that keeps him from giving into baser impulses that could turn him into a destroyer of worlds.

I wanted to play with the idea that the person's character, not the power, is what makes him/her monstrous. So, someone with a monstrous power can still refrain from using it or even use the power for good. The power can't corrupt unless corruption is already there.

Another thing that inspired me was a scene from an indie Canadian film called Lola. There's a subtle improv scene in the middle where the heroine (Sabrina Grdevich) is traveling to central BC. She has a bout of vertigo outside one of the cars and is semi-rescued by a nameless working class guy (Ian Tracey) in a worn leather jacket and jeans. He takes her back to his seat, where he gives her some water and they aimlessly chat.

A very interesting bout of subtext ensues as the Grdevich's heroine ostentatiously dodges all of his questions. This is to be expected, since she has fled a messy situation in Vancouver that includes witnessing a murder and stealing the dead woman's identity. What isn't to be expected is how he tells her all of these personal details about his life, but subtly and skillfully avoids telling her anything that could truly identify him. We don't know where he came from or where he is bound.

My impression of her was of a butterfly – bright, transient, and insubstantial. My impression of him was of an iceberg, with the old factoid that it appears to be all above surface, with no secrets, while 90% of it is actually hidden underwater. She thought she was hiding secrets while broadcasting her guilt via body language; he was hiding secrets while pretending to be open and guileless. And then, due to my natural fascination for horror, I naturally translated this into a fantastic context, where her needy nature became vampiric and his mystery became...something else.

And then it took me forever to sell the damned thing. Obviously, I did, eventually, but its experimental and vignette-y nature got in the way. What I kept hearing, though, with each rejection, was: “Your narrator is really interesting. I'd totally read a novel about this guy. You should write one.”

So, I did.

Bio: Possessing a quixotic fondness for difficult careers, Paula Stiles has driven ambulances, taught fish farming for the Peace Corps in West Africa and earned a Scottish PhD in medieval history, studying Templars and non-Christians in Spain. She is the author of horror novel, "The Mighty Quinn, co-written supernatural

To continue my recent trend of female artists, a guest post of mine on Tracie McBride's blog. An Excerpt:

This is the third in a series of author interviews to promote the Tales of Darkness and Dismay series from Dark Continents. I introduce John Irvine, the co-author of the collection April Fool and other Antipodean horror stories, which can be purchased from amazon here.

Drug of choice? I suppose alcohol would be too boring… no, my addiction is to sloth. Laziness. Indolence. Hopefully this will improve. Or not. Whatever. My surgeon told me after replacing three arteries to my heart three months ago that I would “feel like a new man.” That has concerned me somewhat as I’ve always been strictly heterosexual. Favorite childhood toy? I once swapped with a pretty young girl a beautiful, fully functional tip truck that my dad had made for me for her cane doll’s pram complete with doll in lovely hand-knitted clothes and fluttery eyelashes. Apparently I cried up a storm when I had to give it back. As a horror writer, do you frequently consort with the devil or any number of ancient gods? Bacchus and Peter Pan are the only two gods I owe fealty to. They’re both practical deities, and who doesn’t lust after that funky chick Wendy? Bacchus and his fluid advice fuel the madness from wherein my dubious genius flows. The horror part is completely separate. For that, I visit various writer’s blogs and websites to view the appalling mess being made of a perfectly good language. Hard to believe so many “authors and editors” seem not to have a working knowledge of the English language. Those are the devils that keep me on the straight and narrow as a writer in English.  Tell me about your collection released by Dark Continents. Tracie McBride, a writer I respect highly, asked recently if I’d like to offer a 20,000 word e-book for the collection. I told her that if I added together all the stories I’ve ever written I doubt they’d make 20,000 words. However, she came to my rescue by offering to contribute a couple of her own longer stories to take up the slack. That was a very generous offer which I snapped up immediately. We decided on an Antipodean theme as we’re both Kiwis. She is now resident in Oz, and I spent 28 years or so bumming around that wonderful continent, returning to NZ in 1996. I began writing two years later. So she and I have a lot of experiences in both countries… I have quite a large file of Oz and NZ stories and poems, mostly not horror. I’m grateful to DCP for putting this collection together, and to the ladies who have done all the hard yards. How would you describe your writing? If you had to pick a new genre, what would it be called? Not sure how to answer this question. Given that I write about swans and love affairs as well as cannibalism and dismemberment I don’t know how to describe my writing. Honest… someone with a better literary education than me could do it better. I have a tendency in my fictional stuff to be a smart-arse. I am addicted to clever (so-called) twists at the end of a story. Not always, but often. I suppose because I find horror such fun to write. A new genre? Hmmmm… humor horribilus? How would you describe your creative process? Random. I’m undisciplined. Totally. I write flash fiction because I can bash out a story in 20 minutes or so. I’ve written stories of less than 200 words, for example. It’s a bit like writing poetry but without all the line breaks. My “creative process” is adventitious, haphazard, unpremeditated. Usually, the story drags me along behind like a hapless puppy on a lead, and I end up somewhere I don’t yet recognize. It’s a fun way to write… Tell me a secret that you’ve never told anyone else.  Hah!  Of course, if I told you a “secret I’ve never told anyone else” I’d have to kill you to keep it a secret. Then I’d have two secrets. Hmmmm. Now, there’s an idea… um, what’s your address again? Promote yourself here. What other publications would you like your readers to know about, and where should they follow you? I was extremely lucky to be picked up by a traditional publisher with my first ever collection, Man of Stone. Not horror, it’s all about my own life, an introspective and somewhat revealing collection of poetry. My second collection, in conjunction with genius cartoonist Dave Freeman, is a wacky look at the life of my pet rat Brian called Rat atouille for the rindless. Brian survived the 60s and has some stories to tell! All artfully illustrated by Dave. I put together a joint collection of poetry with an American lady, Lori Grim, called Dare to Fly. A lot of it is about anger and uncertainty and madness. Did another joint collection with a troubled American teenager called Dandelions to Razorblades, a rather sad collection, but very relevant. I’ve also edited (as a contributor) about 10 anthologies. There was also a travel book, Culture Wise NZ, on NZ I co-edited for an English publisher. Recently, DCP launched at the World Horror Convention in Texas April 2011 two large format books of mine: Blood Curry, which is a personal collection of speculative poems, stories and recipes, and also a poetry horror anthology, Anomalous Appetites, containing work from many well-known poets with illustrations by some of the best genre artists on the planet. Both books are fully illustrated. All the above books, and more, can be seen at my website: www.cooldragon.co.nz where there are samples and purchase links. 9. One last question. Where did you hide the bodies, John? A) In the one place they’ll never be found. Inside. Here’s the trick: first, strip the meat from the bones. That’s the fun part, especially if the person is still alive! Now, here’s a chance for you to be a part-time philanthropist and donate all the bones (in small packages, long bones cut into pieces) to the local dog rescue shelter. Time to clean and wash out the main intestines thoroughly. Add the following for every five pounds weight of fresh, juicy, red meat:

1) 8 ozs of the corpse’s kidney fat 2) 10 jalapeno chillies, fresh and chopped fine 3) 2 brown onions, minced 4) 6 teaspoons minced garlic (or more to taste) 5) 1 tablespoon oregano 6) 1 tablespoon cumin 7) a ½ teaspoon of tarragon 8) a ½ cup of fresh blood from the currently deceased

  Mix thoroughly with the hands (love this part) and then fit your sausage spout to the mincer and feed the meat in batches through your mincer, adding a ½ cup of the fresh blood slowly into the mincer hopper, filling the sausage skin. Twist into links every 6 inches. Easy,eh?

  Here’s a further chance to gloss up your civic image: Donate most of the sausages to the local Salvation Army Homes for Wayward Girls and Boys. Make sure you eat what’s left. That’s proper closure. Can’t be sloppy about protocol.

AJ: So, who is Autumn Christian?

AC: Autumn Christian is known in some circles as an anarchist collective of radical hippie savant children or a fall Baptist church festival. In truth, Autumn Christian is a girl who lives in Austin, Texas and writes dark stories, tests videogames, and occasionally is led to believe she’s the reincarnation of Philip K. Dick. Mostly because of coffee induced delusions.

AJ: Well then, during one of your coffee induced delusional states do you ever feel like Dr. Seusse or Charlie Brown?

AC: No, but there was one time I thought my ex-boyfriend was Edgar Allan Poe, but only because he refused to shave his beard and I hadn’t seen sunlight in four days.

An interview about me and my e-novella, A Gentle Hell. Check it out. My dad said it was the best thing he ever read, and I am sure he is not biased at all.

An excerpt:

2 – What are your feelings in reference to LEGO’s?