To celebrate the US VOD release of REBORN today, executive producer John Penney of Dark Arts Entertainment has shared this video which reveals how the project was developed from a basic outline to a multi-award winning feature film.
The original idea for REBORN came from producer student Jeannie McGinnis who met script consultant John Penney whilst attending a Raindance LA course presented by Rough Diamond Productions. Penney introduced McGinnis to writer Michael Mahin who fleshed out the idea to a 90 page screenplay.
Following a meeting at Cannes Film Festival genre director Julian Richards joined the project and the screenplay was refined to a point where it was ready to start pre-production. Richards embraced the nostalgic “Frankenstein meets Carrie” ingredients of the script whilst also adding a meta twist involving iconic 70’s director Peter Bogdanovich.
Richards and casting director Valerie McCaffrey worked together to assemble an impressive cast of 80’s genre icons including Barbara Crampton, Michael Pare, Rae Dawn Chong and Monte Markham. New blood was added in the form of Chaz Bono and Kayleigh Gilbert.
Working with an ultra low budget REBORN was shot in 15 days at various locations in Hollywood including the Los Angeles Film School on Sunset Boulevard, which doubled as a hospital, police station, agents office and psychiatrist office. Suitable residential locations were more difficult to find as Richards sought an “old Hollywood” look. Eventually, legendary horror director Brian Yuzna came to the rescue offering his Hollywood hills home as a key location.
Impressed with his work on Jackson Stewart’s Beyond The Gates and Graham Skipper’s Sequence Break, Richards chose Brian Sowell as cinematographer and together they decided on the classical visual style and retro colour palette.
With little budget or shooting time to consider practical effects, UK/Austrian VFX company ADA Digital were engaged to create the special effects and post production was completed in the UK with Richards long time collaborators Mark Talbot-Butler as editor and Simon Lambros as music composer and sound mixer.
UK genre specialist Jinga Films boarded REBORN as world sales agent and the film received its festival premiere at FrightFest in London followed by a market premier at AFM in Santa Monica, where it was quickly snapped up for US distribution by Vertical Entertainment.
REBORN has now screened in over 40 festivals worldwide, garnering 5 awards including Best Horror Feature at Mad Monster Party, Best Sci-Fi Feature at Another Hole In The Head, Best Director at Fantasporto, Best Director at Roswell and Best Score at Horrible Imaginings.
REBORN is now available in the US to stream or download from the following platforms; Apple TV/iTunes, Amazon Video, VUDU, Google Play, Microsoft Movies & TV, Sony Playstation, FandangoNow.
