From Our Shelves To Yours

As submitted to us from Peter Bakewell taken in a UK branch of HMV

Dead Hooker DVD Sold Out On Amazon, Reviews Are In

According to those in the know, the first run & release of Region 2 Dead Hooker In A Trunk DVDs have sold out completely and a second run of discs are being promised soon from those at Amazon (Artwork from Australian release pictured above) The features and some of the menu images from the UK Bounty Films version have been released, along with a semi-favorable review, on DVD Beaver:

Edition Details:
• Directors' Commentary with Jen and Sylvia Soska
• Production Commentary with C.J. Wallis, and Jen and Sylvia Soska
• Deleted Scenes (16:9; 5:37)
• Behind the Scenes Featurette (16:9; 14:33)
• Discussion with actor Carlos Gallardo (16:9; 1:44)
• Theatrical Trailer (16:9; 2:22)
• Preview Trailer (16:9; 2:56)
• Festival Trailer (16:9; 1:13)

14 DVD Chapter Titles:

01. The Night Before The Morning After
02. Youth Group
03. A Dead Hooker In The Trunk
04. Visitors
05. Getting To Know Goody Two-Shoes
06. Losing Limbs
07. Burial
08. Cowboy
09. Heavenly Advice
10. The Hooker's House
11. Catching The Killer
12. A Face From The Past
13. Friends To The Rescue
14. End Credits

DVD Menu Art By Bounty Films:

Bounty has also sent around a good chunk of screeners to various established UK print magazines and websites. TotalFilm Magazine reviewed the film and had this to say:

Hobo With A Shotgun might be getting all the buzz, but…there's another grindhouse gem equally worthy of your attention, out on DVD on Monday. 
Like Hobo With A Shotgun, Dead Hooker In A Trunk easily lives up to the promise of its title. If you want a nuanced plot, watch Chinatown. If you want a thrill-ride that'll occasionally make you spit-take your popcorn and Coke, watch Dead Hooker In A Trunk. Case in point, none of the characters have proper names, they all go by ridiculous nicknames. But that doesn't stop you from falling in love with each and every one of them.

Ben Bussey, a self-proclaimed fed-up-with-DV-Low-Budget-Horror film writer for the popular genre website Brutal As Hell, has already once previously, and positively, reviewed an earlier/rougher edit of the film and had the task of doing a second review for the DVD release now complete with our final DVD-exclusive spit-shines.

Ricki Gagne[sic], CJ Wallis and of course the Soskas themselves are genuinely...people you enjoy spending an hour and a half with. It is their charisma as individuals, and overall chemistry as a group, that will bring people back to watch this movie over and over. And their work is all the more impressive when you consider all but Gagne were doing multiple jobs on the film; the Soskas multi-tasking is established, plus CJ Wallis was one of the principal cinematographers, as well as editing the film and composing and performing the music. They’ve made a debut feature that, for all its flaws, really does stands apart; that’s a rare thing, and worthy of celebration.

The second run of the DVDs are available and apparently also nearly sold out. Rumor has it the distribution deal for a North American release has been finalized with a major company that couldn't be a better fit.

Continuing in this vague fashion, it looks as though Fortyfps will be doing the pre-release marketing campaign for a major motion picture starring two people you have definitely heard of. More info coming, as it is allowed.

Dead Hooker In A Trunk Officially Released On DVD

Over the past couple months our micro-budgeted co-venture with Twisted Twins Productions, "Dead Hooker In A Trunk," has been shopped around and sold to various companies around the world to distribute on BluRay, DVD & VOD, complete with exclusive new DVD content we made for the releases.

The first deal announced was with Bounty Films in the UK and today marks it's DVD & department store release - marking the first FortyFPS project to receive such treatment. The Amazon page for the film doesn't have much up aside from some version of our trailer that is like watching it through a cold glass of water.

Bounty sent us a low-res image of the cover art they drafted up which I can't find, but it can be described as a mash-up of this and this. We would love to see photos of your copy so click and e-mail us? The North American releases, we are told, have all been sorted out and will be able to be announced to all of us shortly.

Many things coming in the next months including some solo music and some arranging for Kayleigh Goldsworthy, a new soundtracking project (the first segment has been mixed over the past few days) and principle photography on American Mary (which will have it's own major announcements coming as well, more often than not on our not-so-random blog called Abstrakt.Me)

Thanks to The Girls for asking me to be around in the first place. Onto the next one...

The Rose Nominated Best Music Video Of 2010

Adding a significant amount of extra icing onto our sappy story cupcake, our Sarah Slean video for The Rose has been nominated for a Leo Award in the Best Music Video category - the fourth nomination in as many years. The Leo Awards, in the words of Wikipedia, are...

...the awards program for the British Columbia film and television industry, celebrating excellence in artistic achievement. Held each May or June, the Leo Awards honour nominees and winners in 13 program categories and up to 19 craft categories. The Leo Awards Red Carpet continues to be the largest red carpet event in Western Canada attracting the glitterati of the BC film and television industry, including stars and celebrities from US-based productions.

The awards will be handed out at The Fairmont Hotel on Saturday, June 11th. If you have not seen the video, you can view it below or get the whole story by clicking here.

FortyFPS Designs Cannes Ad, Guest Directing American Mary

American Mary is soon to be off to the South Of France with co-producer Evan Tylor and IndustryWorks Pictures, traveling to this year's 64th annual Cannes Film Festival. Our teaser poster will be paired with a newly designed, full-sized 8.5" x 11" trade-ad featuring the delightful Katharine Isabelle. The ad is a mash-up of images torn from iconic American magazines. Click the preview image below to view the print.

If you would like to have the poster for yourself or help promote the film, I have uploaded the original full-sized file so you can download and print the poster from home at full press quality. Semi-Gloss if it is handy.

Also, as announced by the film's co-director Sylvia Soska on Facebook, I will be guest directing a key 9 minute sequence in American Mary, the specific details of which are being kept under wraps by request. The Twins have mentioned in recent interviews that after American Mary, they will permanently transition away from acting in their films into working exclusively behind the scenes. Whatever assumptions that could be made connecting these two unrelated statements are probably true.

Official American Mary Teaser Poster Design Released

27" x 41" featuring Paula Lindberg as Ruby RealGirl. Concept & design by CJ Wallis, FortyFPS Productions. Click the preview image above for various different sizes and resolutions.

CJ Wallis: "Canada's Best Kept Secret Weapon"

Theron Neel has always been a loyal supporter of Dead Hooker In A Trunk. We featured a quote from his review for the online promotional trailer called "Mayhem."

Theron, who currently writes for Fangirltastic one of the largest horror websites online (formerly "Pretty Scary,"), sent me an e-mail about doing an interview with me. The resulting article was so unexpectedly glowing that a few messages similar to the one below were passed along to us in various ways. An excerpt:

Some people are just so talented that it really isn't fair. CJ Wallis is one of those people. You probably haven't heard of him, but Wallis is an enormously gifted director, actor, cinematographer, producer, editor, writer and musician...Totally not fair.

I first became of aware of Wallis when I saw Jen and Sylvia Soska's Dead Hooker in a Trunk. As the character called Goody Two-Shoes, Wallis has a starring role in the Twisted Twins' exploitation sensation, but he also shot and edited the flick, composed the score and worked on the effects team. It could be said that while the Soska sisters built the Dead Hooker car, Wallis was clearly the motor that made it run as well as it does.

You can check out the entire article here and sincere thanks to Theron for the wonderful gesture.  Join FortyFPS on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Kint Terrors In A Trunk

Knit-Terrors are unique, custom made dolls made my artist Laurie Pizzi. Laurie has created a set of characters for the actors of Dead Hooker In A Trunk which will be made available on her site shortly. If your tastes aren't so obscure, she also does several horror terrors including Pinhead, Jason, Freddy and Jigsaw.

Noisography Reviews Elective Single

Recently named one of the Top 30 music websites across Canada by the CBC, Noisography has posted a review of "The Stitch-Up Of Bloody Mary," the first single and video from Elective, our musical side project with Kayleigh Goldsworthy. The review was written by Mr. Dan Nightgale

Video/Single Review: Elective - "The Stitch-Up Of Bloody Mary" 

The music sounds like a lot of Ableton Live loops piled on top of each other but the quality is good and the drum (bongo?) sounds are deep if a little repetitive. 

The vocals go high above most of the instrumentation and is clear and pleasing, and sometimes I start to worry that she's going to run out of breath with the run on sentence lyrics. A few layers move in and out on top of the drums with gentle chimes and a sliding bopping bassline.

The repeating chorus straddles the line between cliché and nostalgic but the vocal quality is very appealing and the layering makes for an emotionally moving and sweeping musical landscape. It's the peak of the relatively short song, followed by a 15 second denouement and a sudden halt to the drum landscape and it's over. 

The video is pretty straight forward: artsy dancing girl. There's lots of nice cinematography and it's high quality and well shot. If you hadn't seen the new Radiohead video it would be a little easier to dismiss this as lacking in substance, but if it's good enough for Thom Yorke, it's good enough for CJ Wallis (who did it about a month earlier, just for the record).

You can check out the recently published webpage for the Elective/Bloody Mary video on our website by clicking here which has a little bit about the concept behind the editing and some production things.