Lost IL indie flays DEAD BODIES
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November may finally be in the air, dearest readers, but the nightmares are not quite over at MFHQ Remote. Plenty of non-horror content is on the way and before then, C-U Blogfidential would like to get a few bonus horror topics out of our jack-o-lanterns before the cobwebs set in. I’ve recently written about films that have been revisited by genre fans as well as restored for genre fans, so, what can be written about ones that never earned a fandom or any sort of notoriety at all? While researching all the details packed tightly into my previous articles about Illinois indie horrors, I came across one particular effort that informally belongs to a pack of non-starter projects made in the Bloomington-Normal area roughly 10 years ago, placed quietly on YouTube by its creator in late 2019. To finally see it is a mild shock!
The curious anywhere can now witness DEAD BODIES EVERYWHERE, a woodland slasher filmed in central Illinois farm country by former Peoria and McLean County resident Shea VanLaningham, one of several participants in Jason Huls’ LATE AFTERNOON OF THE LIVING DEAD (2007) to try their own hand at the micro-budget production thing. VanLaningham went for the throat with a spare and somewhat nihilistic thriller that follows three groups of young people over a 15-year span who meet bloody doom on property haunted by a stock Eighties killing machine, in this instance an abused child-turned-cannibal named Arthur Grigsby. What effectiveness it manages is largely due to the droning music cues, post-production tweaks that affect gauzy Super 8 film in the daylight and inky VHS bootlegs at night, and an overall grimness every time Grigsby gets the blood flowing fast and cheap. I sighed in relief at the end for all the reasons, largely because its amateur nature regularly bogs down the brief 70-minute runtime.
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I do believe these folks were aiming for higher-grade tension and scares. Produced by Catherine Flynn and VanLaningham and starring Melissa Marie Watson, Rito Balducci, Sarah Tongren, Carissa Lund, Ron Rotondo, Steve Christopher, Flynn, and VanLaningham in the “present day” segment, DEAD BODIES scatters the bread crumbs of potential on Grigsby’s grounds and struggles to pick up on the trail of an overall better movie. As well, the pop culture world at large apparently lost the scent very quickly; little can be found on the internet from when the writer/director briefly promoted it – a piece of key art promises “August 2011” for its release – and sold his own DVDs through Amazon. Reviews from the time period can still be read at sites like Horrornews.net and Ain’t It Cool News, both of which tried to give the dodgy DEAD BODIES a fair shake, but then the evidence stops cold until the YouTube upload. I can finally remove it from my unofficial “Mystery Movie du C-U” search list and viewing queue. Whew.
Not long after completing DEAD BODIES, VanLaningham moved from the Midwest to one coast and then the other before settling in Tacoma, Washington, where he works in Web and product accessibility. Outside the office, he has contributed to a handful of shorts by the “60 Second SciFi” collective and produced new shorts of his own such as a TWILIGHT ZONE-type morality play called AND DARKNESS COMES. His newer life in the Pacific Northwest has obviously replenished his creativity, confirmed by a several-year gap in credits on the Internet Movie Database, so I wish VanLaningham the best of luck in exploring film again. As for everyone else involved with DEAD BODIES EVERYWHERE other than busy character actor Christopher, I’m not sure if careers or lengthy hobbies in entertainment followed for them. Additional glances at IMDb profiles suggest “no.” That’s the way a body of film decomposes, I guess.
~ Jason Pankoke
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p.s. Despite outward appearances, I’m not down at all about covering DEAD BODIES EVERYWHERE. If you’ve paid attention to CUBlog for any length of time in our 15-plus years, you know that we readily acknowledge two major tenets in regional cinema – one, all filmmakers have to start somewhere, and two, not all films are created or received equally. DEAD BODIES may be overly “meh” to me as a viewing experience and minor in in the grand scheme, but I’m totally “hell yeah” with its inclusion in our long-standing discussion of the movies of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities (and rural areas) beyond. At least this group of meddling filmmaker kids (circa 2009) got the job done, unlike others I could name. Maybe it’s time to document the AWOL BloNos. I’ve already pointed my fickle finger at the FauxNos…
p.s.2 That said, DEAD BODIES is the direct result of “try and try again” for the meddling filmmaker kids. I have a vague recollection of listening to an old audio interview between VanLaningham and a couple of horror movie proto-podcasters in which he drolly eulogized one of his projects that keeled over well short of the finish line. I didn’t think it was DEAD BODIES and, as it turns out, I was right. This is new to me and I dig the lo-fi time capsule aspect of it. The video also helps us appreciate VanLaningham’s approach to formulating and planning his no-budget flicks. Behind-the-scenes footage features brief appearances from DEAD BODIES cast members Megan Marie Wilson and Christopher.
p.s.3 As I’ve stumbled to get this article finished, another relevant genre feature late to the Halloween party has reared its horror-ble head and lends an illustration to points already made here. (Face it. The C-Universe “is complicated.”) Thanks to a social share by the folks at the Harvest Moon Twin Drive-in of Hoopeston we know about LANTERN’S LANE, the second directorial effort by Watseka native Justin LaReau of Tidal Wave Productions in Los Angeles, which was put into limited release and on streaming platforms by Vertical Entertainment last Friday, November 5. The Daily-Journal of Kankakee reports it was shot last year in northern California but set in Illinois, the story loosely based on a real-life urban legend that concerns a spectral woman who walks a remote road in Iroquois County with lantern in hand. I have yet to watch LANTERN’S LANE and it’s already causing me to see ghosts. Note the graphics and trailer that appear above. And now, hit YouTube for Vertical’s trailer and look below at Vertical’s one-sheet borrowed from IMDb. Grigsby and this upscale goon could be cousins or something. Hrm.
p.s.4 We’re still not done slashin’ away! Our coverage of UNLISTED OWNER is finally on deck and we’ll eventually learn what John Isberg’s FINAL SUMMER does with a subgenre long of ill repute. Should we start a Confidential agent office pool and bet on which friends and neighbors try to make one next?
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