I think it’s probably my life’s quest to find some way to “balance the absurd with the smart,” so imagine my joy when Brutal as Hell’s Keri O’Shea wrote a fabulous review of the Bram Stoker fest films in which she concludes that trippin’ does just that.  Now if I can just apply this new found skill to my personal life, I’ll be jammin’!  Check out the full review HERE.  And I SWEAR I’ll document my own full account of the wondrous event soon.  Halloween (and AFM season) is a rather busy time of year for this horror gal and I simply haven’t had a moment to breathe much less blog is all.  I shall reanimate soon, really I will…

Google alerts failed me.  Our producer Agustin found a new trippin’ review that nearly made me act like the girl I pretend not to be.  I was truly moved.  Thanks, APOCALYPSE LATER for such a wonderful review! I’m almost speechless (which is unheard of as those in the know will undoubtedly confirm.)  In other news, trippin’ will screen at this year’s B-Movie Festival in Syracuse with two acting award nominations!  Congrats, to Zed Wilson (as himself) and Nicole Buehrer (Jizz) for your best supporting actor / best actress nods!  Well deserved, my friends.   I am currently in Indiana for a few days before jetting off to Whitby, England for the fabulously fantastic Bram Stoker Fest and a shot at a Lovecraft-inspired guerilla filmmaking project if all lines up.

Phew!  It’s been a seriously crazy summer/fall with nary a moment to keep up – writing deadlines, film projects and I just turned in final grades for my horror film class which was quite the adventure.  Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not at Notre Dame anymore, but it was a great experience teaching at a performing arts college and  I look forward to more adventures soon.   Hopefully, things will calm down enough to catch up on our  recent adventures we’ve been unable to share due to this non-stop schedule.  But there are simply no idle hands at Deviant these days (and we do miss our Devil spawns.  Fortunately, one should be making his appearance rather soon.  Details forthcoming….)

One of the most rewarding moments for a writer/directrix is when she realizes somebody truly saw the movie she set out to make.  Jonathan Weichsel of Film Radar has done just that in his fabulous review of trippin’ found HERE.

We here at Deviant try to take what I describe as a ‘Warner Brothers cartoon” approach to our storytelling…   See, I noticed as an adult revisiting Bugs Bunny cartoons that there is no way I could have possibly understood half of the references and sophisticated humor therein as a child, and yet I adored Bugs Bunny when I was clearly too young to fully appreciate it.  I realized that this is the kind of storytelling I want to strive for – one can engage in it on a surface level and find it entertaining.  But for those who crave more, there are other levels of things happening – social commentary, pastiche, new approaches to old conventions and tropes.

I’ve been amused by the wide range of responses we’ve gotten from trippin’.  Some think it’s a comedy, others a horror film, others a drama in the vein of The Big Chill. Some prefer the more deliberately-paced beginning, others find they’re more engaged once the real mayhem commences; some love the surprise that comes with the transition from one to the other.  Some are more about the characters, while others prefer the kooky, twisting plot developments.  Most love the drug trip regardless.  Some like the satire and playful teasing of standard genre conventions, while others don’t see it as a parody so much as a new way to approach an old idea.

One really can’t get too precious about her own work.  Once you share it with the world there will be as many interpretations as their are spectators who consume it.  I’ve enjoyed this journey and getting to know this world we created through a variety of different eyes. Nonetheless, it was a true treat to read today’s review and see our movie reflected back as the one I envisioned as we first headed into this crazy adventure.  The horror academic in me was particularly excited that somebody recognized the significance of 2 choices I intentionally made in regards to who would die and in what order.   Thanks, Jonathan, for the wonderful review!

Hey, Team – it’s always rewarding to receive a favorable review of one’s film, but it is even more so when said review is as wildly entertaining and insightfully detailed as Bob Freville’s delectable discourse on trippin‘ found HERE.  Freville, an indie horror director himself (read an interview with him HERE) made this writer positively bubble over with joy with his line:

“The truth is boring,” one character says early on, explaining the film’s enhanced treatment of its source material and going far toward rationalizing the runaway popularity of Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity and similar faux-docs.”

Thanks, Bob and Kotori and congrats, Team!