By MICHAEL GINGOLD
They’re proactively putting their movie out for the big-screen audiences it deserves.
Writer/directors Zack Ogle and Aaron Pagniano are bucking the typical streaming/VOD release model for independent horror features to get their superior fright film IT NEEDS EYES in front of the eyes of theatrical viewers. They’ve teamed with distributor Insurgence to take their movie, which has played and won awards at numerous festivals including Fantaspoa, Macabro, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and others, on a grassroots theatrical tour (see first dates below).
IT NEEDS EYES stars Raquel Lebish, Isadora Leiva and Lydia Fiore. The synopsis: “IT NEEDS EYES follows Rowan [Lebish], a teenager who sinks into increasingly bizarre—and often violent—on-line content until she discovers a missing woman known only as ‘Fish Tooth.’ Convinced the woman is calling out through the screen for help, Rowan is drawn into a spiraling, screen-haunting mystery where her digital obsession puts her in real-world danger.”
The filmmakers and/or cast members will attend all the screenings for Q&As, special performances and afterparties. Dates and venues set so far are:
- March 9: Columbus, OH—Studio 35 (TICKETS)
- March 21: Winston-Salem, NC (venue and tickets TBA)
- May 7: Cranford, NJ—The Cranford Theater (TICKETS)
- May 15: Doylestown, PA—The County Theater (TICKETS)
- May 26: Somerville, MA—Somerville Theatre (TICKETS)
Further screenings are currently being organized in Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia and many more to come, to be announced and updated constantly at the website and social media (@formidablefilefilms) of Ogle and Pagniano’s Formidable File Films.
“When a band plays a music festival, they get paid to be there,” Pagniano says. “Filmmakers have to pay to play at festivals and they don’t get a dime of ticket sales. Then after festivals, the predominant offer now for low-budget films is that you give a distributor your movie for free and they fart it out onto whatever streamer will take it with no advertising. So, inspired by recent success stories like HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, TWO SLEEPY PEOPLE and CHILDISH THINGS, we wanted to ‘go on tour’ ourselves and bring this movie directly to audiences where we can dictate our own schedule and marketing plan. We love going to the theater and seeing independent movies and we’re willing to bet that other people do too!”
“If we want to build the next generation of filmmakers,” adds Insurgence’s Niccolo Messina, “we should create a healthy environment where new voices have the opportunity to show their abilities. The film industry needs a revolution, so we built one.” You can read more about IT NEEDS EYES in RUE MORGUE #228, now on sale.
