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Life After Death
New Aussie horror film Fragment is impressing overseas and looks set to come alive on Australian screens soon.
Producer Kelvin Crumplin - who came on board to co-helm the psycho-horror experience Fragment with director Andrew Miles - is a person who believes nothing should be issued by the half measure. And with forty years in the Australian industry under the belt, his latest project is indeed the full flagon; imagine Reanimator fermenting in Stephen King's frontal lobe before being bunched to the press by Dario Argento and served to a scuffle on Elm Street - and you might get the idea.
It is no wonder that Fragment is taking the global horror circuit by storm. It has now had a successful run at the Shanghai Film Festival, Film4 Frightfest and Abertoir Horror Festival - to name just a few - while only narrowly missing out on inclusion in the international 8 Films to Die For ‘After Dark Horrorfest' DVD.
The story itself centers around a young photographer who is hit in the head by shrapnel (courtesy of a deadly Depleted Uranium shard) while working in the Gulf War. Once he returns home he begins to suffer a sort of vertigo of reality, culminating in his perceived ability to photograph dead things and bring them back to life. The ante is upped when he comes across footage of a snuff movie that was filmed in his apartment before he moved in. He is obsessed by the image of the murdered girl; he takes her picture. Once she enters his life (trailed closely by the ghost of her dead killer) reality, hallucinations, dreams and nightmares suddenly decide to play chicken with his head.
"It was an ambitious film from the very beginning," concedes Crumplin. "We did it over every weekend we could manage for over a year to get this in the can. I donated the use of my film lab as an investment, along with my camera equipment." Crumplin's expertise and background in certain technical aspects (among other things he owned and managed Movielab) proved invaluable to Miles and the crew.
Crumplin was able to corral support from seasoned quarters such as Multivision, Audioloc, Optical and Graphic (O&G), Movielab, Connelly FX Team and Armz FX (amongst others). "I also ended up coming along as producer and second unit director," he says. "This was a very difficult project to do, particularly as it was drawn out over the course of a year. The actors stayed with us, but the continuity over a year made things very difficult, and then I needed editors and a post house. I also ended up putting my hand up and contributing some cash. But once I start something I always finish it".
Given the ambitious elements in the mix Fragment holds its centre remarkably well. While produced as an intensive labour of love, the result has been lauded as an accomplished and full-bodied horror film; served in a pitcher of Hitchcockian psycho-suspense and swizzled with implicit gore, the production values are indeed as smooth as a blood slick. And the efforts of all involved have slowly started paying off. "We went to Cannes in 2008 with our sales agent Odin's Eye and the film started to move," says Crumplin. "And we then took it to the American Film Market it 2009 and - wow - it is selling. It's doing very well in Europe with sales to German-speaking Europe, and it is under negotiation in the US, UK and Japan. Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia have bought it and it has gone across the Middle East."
While Fragment has not found an Australian distributor, Crumplin is determined to see it live on the big screen. "If necessary, I am going to do my own work as a distributor under Multivision Entertainment," he says. "It really works on the big screen. Most places in the world it is already going theatrical. In Australia there are already have five or six independent cinemas interested in helping with this. I am going to do my own work - not only for my film, but I am going to look at other Australian films that have some real crunch."
And when Crumplin speaks, it is impossible not to believe him.
For more on Fragment, head here.