"The Summoners" on The Monster Channel

In association with the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival (PUFF), my short horror film "The Summoners" will be streaming online on The Monster Channel, an online television network whose goal is to "recreate the vibe of the great era of independent television, the local TV station, the UHF channel, the progressive public access channel of the 70s/80s/90s." The film will appear in a block of PUFF-curated films on October 17th at 8:00PM and 11:00PM, October 22nd at 12:00AM, and October 23rd at 12:00AM.

Credits for "The Summoners":
Featuring (in order of appearance) Hermes, Jillaine Gill, Katie Lee Hill, Travis Artz, Robyn Nielsen, and The Man-Beast.
Directed, written and edited by Sean Gill. Produced by Sean Gill and Rachel Klein.  Cinematography by Ryan Garretson. Music by Jesse Carlson. Costume Design and Choreography by Rachel Klein. Ms. Nielsen's Gown by Elena Kanagy-Loux. Mask of The Man-Beast by Juanita Cardenas.  Special Thanks to Dario Argento, Happy Faces, Cornelius Loy, Christopher Pike, and Jake Thomas. 

Sean Gill's "Danger Nut" in Spartan

I have a new (very) short story called "Danger Nut" in the Fall 2016 issue of Spartan, a Seattle-based literary journal with a focus on minimalist prose. You may read it online here.

Only now does it occur to me... AMERICAN PSYCHO: THE NOVEL (1991)

Only now does it occur to me... that infamous Bret Easton Ellis alter ego "Patrick Bateman"––a Jason Voorhees/Gordon Gekko-hybrid and misogynistic serial murderer who probably attends underground yuppie Kumites, a character who notably masturbates to the murder-drill scene from BODY DOUBLE, classifies THE RETURN OF BRUNO as his favorite compact disc, and weeps through episodes of ALF––worships at the altar of Donald Trump. And we're not talking a "harmless pop culture cameo" like in HOME ALONE 2: Bateman, the untethered id of the THEY LIVE generation, literally idolizes Trump, between his Big Brother-ish branding of the moneyed cityscape and his amoral personal instruction in the (ghostwritten) THE ART OF THE DEAL. In a way, Trump is the character's mentor, his greatest ambition, his source of comfort. The Trump name merits twenty-seven mentions throughout this 1991 novel––once every fourteen pages. Here are ten of them:

10. "...best of all, The Patty Winters Show this morning was in two parts. The first was an exclusive interview with Donald Trump, the second was a report on women who've been tortured." (p. 256)

9. "I pause, unsure of what to say, and come up with 'Futility... is hard to deal with.'
I am thinking about nothing. It's silent in the office. To break it, I point out the book on top of the desk, next to the San Pellegrino bottle. The Art of the Deal, by Donald Trump.
'Have you read it?' I ask Kimball.
'No,' he sighs, but politely asks, 'Is it any good?'
'It's very good,' I say, nodding. (p. 276)

8. "'We're going to a party Donald Trump's having,' I lie.
'Big fun. Very big fun.'
'Donald's a nice guy. You should meet him,' I say. 'I'll... introduce you to him.'
'Really?' Sean asks, maybe hopefully, maybe not. (p. 229)

7. "'Thirty bucks at the door apiece is not exactly slumming, Evelyn.' Then I ask, suspiciously, 'Why wasn't Donald Trump invited to your party?'
'Not Donald Trump again,' Evelyn moans. 'Oh god. Is that why you were acting like such a buffoon? This obsession has got to end!' she practically shouts. (p. 194)

6. "'Is that Donald Trump's car?' I ask, looking over at the limousine stuck next to us in gridlock.
'Oh god, Patrick. Shut up,' she says, her voice thick and drugged." (p. 93)

5. "'Listen,' she says. 'The Young Republican bash at the Pla...' She stops herself as if remembering something, then continues, 'at the Trump Plaza is next Thursday.'"

4. "'Here.' He reaches into his pocket and hands me a Xeroxed article. 'I just wanted to prove you wrong. Read this.'
'What is it,' I ask, opening the folded page.
'It's an article on your hero, Donald Trump.' McDermott grins.
'It sure is,' I say apprehensively. 'Why didn't I ever see this, I wonder.'" (p. 109)

3. "I look up, admiringly, at Trump Tower, tall, proudly gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. In front of it two smart-ass n****r teenagers are ripping off tourists at three-card monte and I have to fight the impulse to blow them away." (p. 385)

2. "Faded posters of Donald Trump on the cover of Time magazine cover the windows of another abandoned restaurant, what used to be Palaze, and this fills me with a newfound confidence." (p. 163)

1. "Everyone is very uptight at the concert Carruthers drags us to in New Jersey this evening, an Irish band called U2 who were on the cover of Time magazine last week...  Carruthers keeps trying to placate everyone by telling us that Donald Trump is a a big U2 fan..." (p. 142)

Sean Gill's "Have a Lappie with Linda" in failbetter

I have a new short story called "Have a Lappie with Linda," available online at failbetter, one of the web's oldest and best literary publications, and one I've admired for many years. You may read the story online here.

Only now does it occur to me... A WOMAN'S FACE (1941)

Only now does it occur to me... oh, just watch this––it's a little ditty I call "Joan Crawford is Having None of Your Unflattering Light Sources."

"Fanny the Frugal Foodie" at Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival

"Fanny the Frugal Foodie," a short film I wrote and directed (starring Jillaine Gill, and with original music by Jesse Carlson), is set to screen at the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival on October 7, 2016 alongside Bobbin Ramsey's feature, Dead Body. More details are available here!

Only now does it occur to me... THE LONG HOT SUMMER (1958)

Only now does it occur to me... that when weather this stifling comes around, the only solution is to watch some Southern Fried Sleaze-O-Rama! (As previously documented in my reviews of THE BIG EASY, TIGHTROPE, and THE PAPERBOY.) Today, that meant watching THE LONG, HOT SUMMER, a lurid, golden age melodrama based on three works by William Faulker ("Spotted Horses," "Barn Burning," and THE HAMLET) and featuring sweaty Paul Newman:

well-oiled n' corpulent Orson Welles:

steamy Angela Lansbury (chuggin' all the beers):

moist Joanne Woodward:

clammy Tony Franciosa (best known to me from Argento's TENEBRE!):

and damp Lee Remick:

(among other perspiring members of the Actors Studio).

Directed by Martin Ritt (HUD, HOMBRE, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD) and set to a sensationalized score by Alex North (SPARTACUS, CLEOPATRA, THE MISFITS), this is a film about handsome strange-uhs and busyin' youh-self with the vapours and the juleps and the pink lemonade, and it contains more Faulknerian sexual entrendres than you can shake a swampy, Bayou-drippin' stick at. In short, I enjoyed it quite a bit. 

Also worth mentioning is the DVD cover, which features a pull-quote from a VARIETY review:

"...Strikingly Directed...Steamy With Sex." 

Apparently confused by the review's lack of attribution (it's from an uncredited "staff" review) the DVD producers decided to go with the first name they saw: Martin Ritt. And thusly, THE LONG, HOT SUMMER's DVD cover came to feature a rave recommendation seemingly uttered from the lips of its own director!

(And if you dig Faulknerian wordplay, might I direct you toward a piece I wrote for McSweeney's last year called "Winners of the Yoknapatawpha County Spelling Bee, 1929-1940.")

Only now does it occur to me... POUND OF FLESH (2015)

Only now does it occur to me... that we may now fulfill our lifelong dream of seeing Jean-Claude Van Damme once again waking from a near-death experience in a bathtub full of ice, since UNIVERSAL SOLDIER never really did enough to scratch that itch.

Jean-Cold Van Damme stayin' cool in '92...
 
....and 2015.

If you're confused about what's going on, everything you need to know about this film can be summed up by the tagline: "They Stole His Kidney––He Wants It Back."

The above shot is the exact moment he discovers the aforementioned missing kidney, and as you can see there's a lot of classic JCVD "pathos face" combined with a lot of patented JCVD "posterior views," both of which really play to his strengths as a performer. (Remember, I theorized in my review of BLOODSPORT that the entire subplot with the female Kumite reporter existed solely to shoehorn in a gratuitous JCVD ass shot.) Perhaps it is unsurprising that JCVD is an executive producer of this fine film.

But wait, there's more––check out this scene, set in a discotheque:

I don't know if you can adequately tell from the still frame, but JCVD is clearly standing in front of a greenscreen. This is confirmed in the following shot, when JCVD's body double walks past, on set.

(Clothed) backside of Jean-Faux Van Damme on the left. Though Daniel Bernhardt is the only true Jean-Faux Van Damme I will ever need.

Now why on earth would they need to greenscreen this? I was under the impression that trashy discotheques were essentially JCVD's natural habitat. Truly a mystery for the ages.

Finally, for those of you assigned to "Splits Watch," we do indeed see one of his notorious splits, performed in slow motion alongside a moving car:


While the leg extension is not up to 'golden age Cannon Films'-levels, I'm willing to let it slide, cause the man is in his fifties. Also, JCVD is apparently the star of a new Amazon-distributed Comedy-Thriller series. How 'bout that?