Change Your Image
intoArt-n-Film
Reviews
Dream House (2011)
Once again, "Studio Heads" ruin the Artist's Work
I went to see this film with great expectations as I'm a great fan of Sheridan's body of work and also happen to enjoy Psychological Suspense/Horror films (NOT slasher film trash). So I was really quite disappointed with this effort by a team that seemed to have so much potential.
But now it all makes sense to learn that the final effort was yanked away from Sheridan; which has resulted in a homogenized and generic thriller made up of (and the result of) idiotic random behind-the-scenes "creative decision making" by Test Audiences(?) and less-than-passionate-about-the-story/genre Studio Heads whose primary involvement was solely in getting a "Horror/Thriller" into theaters by October in order to cash in on the Halloween audience.
Seeing this happen again and again, I doubt they will ever learn. This is the only industry in the world where one (as a Producer) can "fail upward" just because you got something (anything) produced (in the can).
As a final note: There was a fantastic Spec Script floating around a couple of years ago with nearly the same title... "The Dream House." It was somewhat similar, as it involved an Architect & his family who rehab & remodel an abandoned mansion by a lake; but THAT script was a truly terrifying Horror/Ghost Story along the same lines as Shirley Jackson & Robert Wise's quintessential B&W Horror Classic "The Haunting."
With this Dream House turning out to be such a dud and a nightmare, hopefully that spec script will resurface in the near future to make up for this failed effort.
To Be the Best (1993)
Hate to say it, but I worked on this film...
Yeah, I admit it. I was the Production Designer on this ultra-low-budget film... and the first few minutes of Helicopter footage are the best moments in this entire film. As opposed to most other PM films, this had little preproduction time. Rick (Pepin)& Joe (Merhi) heard that the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas was going to be torn down, so we rushed over to shoot there in order to incorporate the demolition of it in the film... but it ended up being delayed by Las Vegas's Building & Safety! Other problems we had... somehow we ended up with less than half the "extras" that we needed to fill in the audience for the fight sequences, and then a key (expensive) scene involving the villain being thrown off the Sand's top floor Penthouse didn't work out because of the bad weather... and Red Horton, our Stunt Coordinator refused to do the jump because of the wind. It eventually snowed. Sooo, all of my Art Department's budget that was spent on replicating the overhanging Portaco in the front of the hotel and the rental of dozens of huge "air bags" went down the toilet. We did end up shooting Red falling through the Portaco "set piece" I built (with the uncredited & UNPAID help of Grand Master Set Builder and Special Effects Artist, Gary Kennedy) but Don "overload" Power screwed it all up by using WAY TOO MUCH flash powder and smoke... so that it overexposed and burned the film. You couldn't see a bloody thing on the dailies except a giant WHITE FLASH! Gee, Thanks a lot Don! Sooo, don't bother watching this, unless you're totally BORED and there's NOTHING else on the tube.