Yes, it is a real knife sticking into that block. In fact, that’s the award my film friend Kevin received for his film Malediction in the 2006 Phoenix Fear Film Festival. So far, I think this is the first festival the feature has been in since its premiere about a year ago, and wouldn’t you know it won the Audience Award! Malediction has been a work in progress for the past 3 years or so and is only now finally coming together as a “commercial cut” which is likely to have some mild distribution in the future. Many of you probably know this but this film is the first full feature length movie I scored music to. It was also the inspiration to the Suite from Malediction I wrote for the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra about 2 years ago although the suite and the film score couldn’t be more different from one another. Working with reaaaallly talented film people like Kevin in an independent environment is really just a load of fun! No one has any money so everyone does everything. For Malediction, I wrote about 60 minutes of original music and I ended up editing a solid 30 or 35 minutes of the film. I was also on set many days to help out with various tasks or to just watch. Some people have big dreams to score that major blockbuster someday and that’s great (so is the money), but for me, right now, independent, low budget film is near and dear to my heart and I hope I continue to collaborate with many young, aspiring filmmakers in the future. Trash City, who sponsored the festival also gave this review on the film:

There isn’t an awful lot new here - we’ve all seen the “guy hassled by ghost until he solves the mystery” storyline before. Yet the execution here is tidy enough to make for a decent time, with a good visual sense and some striking moments. When Jason (Parks) hears a neighbourhood house may be haunted, he and his teenage friends stage a night-time visit. From there on, Jason suffers a series of increasingly disturbing visions, that point to a terrible, undiscovered crime having been committed there, but the police find no evidence to justify opening an investigation. After he shares this with a teacher reputed to have some psychic gifts, she encourages him to make contact with the afterlife. Can Jason unravel the past and quell the restless spirit that torments him?

While a low-budget work, the technical aspects are nicely handled, and for much of the time, the makers work within the limitations effectively. Sound and music are particularly strong, and the film also contains a surprising number of well executed and integrated FX shots. The main weakness is a script which, as noted, is just too familiar, and contains some clumsy elements: if I stumbled across a blood-spattered tape hidden in a wall, I’d watch more than 30 seconds (a minute’s patience would have resolved the entire mystery). The same elements could have been re-arranged to better effect, and some judicious trimming might have helped as well. For example, one of Jason’s friends has a blood-spattered dream, an aspect which goes nowhere. Still, as a debut (apparently) feature effort for Phipps, it’s got promise, with a careful eye on the commercial side as well as the artistic one.

C+
September 2006

I particularly like the “sound and music are particularly strong” part!

Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you already know I’m a nerd, but I bet many of you didn’t know how big of a nerd I really am (or was… or am). Here goes: I collected Hot Wheels cars. I haven’t bought them for about 8 or 10 years now so I don’t really collect them any more (I’m still cool, right?). If you do the math, that would make me about 10 - 12 years old during my crack-like Hot Wheel addiction. Now, it’s not bad to collect things; I’ve collected coins (geek), rocks and minerals (nerd), and magic tricks (dork) in my elementary school days. Some people collect Star Wars figurines and some other people even collect unique japanese watches (super geek). But what the hell is a 10 year old doing collecting hundreds of dollars worth of Hot Wheels cars (still in original packaging… don’t want to diminish the value)? The only reason I bring all this up was I was cleaning out some boxes today and decided to move my cars from old, weathered cardboard boxes to new, state-of-the-wall-mart, plastic boxes.
I counted just under 500 individually packaged cars, along with a slew of special edition gift packs, McDonald’s kids’ meal cars, trea$ure hunt limited editions, 24k gold series, blah blah blah.I even came across some of mom’s original 1968 cars that she used to play with that grandma gave me and my brother and my mom. The olive colored Custom Cougar with the the black top and redline wheels alone, out-of-the-box and much played with is worth about $200. So yeah, I’m a nerd.