Prominent indie production house Dark Sky Films and upstart Snowfort Pictures are combining forces to produce the 70s style influenced horror film
Starry Eyes.
Starry Eyes tells the story of Sarah Walker, a determined and desperate actor who would do anything to land her first big role. Unfortunately this leaves her prey to a satanic cult who has been operating as Hollywood's gatekeepers since the Golden Age. They have the power to make her a star, but it comes at a terrible price.
What follows is an occult tale of paranoia and possession that explores themes of transformation, body horror and a woman going through a psychotic breakdown. Ira Levin meets David Cronenberg.
The filmmakers, Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch, along with Snowfort producer Travis Stevens, launched a successful Kickstarter campaign back in February and production has finally begun on the film. We have included the campaign pitch video below. MPI is handling international sales at Cannes. With their distribution power and might be assured that the film will have a strong run on the festival circuit before appearing on multiple platforms theatrically and on VOD.
SNOWFORT PICTURES AND MPI/DARK SKY FILMS ANNOUNCE PRODUCTION UNDERWAY ON
Cannes (May 18, 2013)- Elevated genre production company Snowfort Pictures and MPI's Dark Sky Films, the preeminent independent producer-distributor of high quality genre film announced today that production is underway on Dennis Widmyer & Kevin Kolsch's Hollywood set occult tale, STARRY EYES. Snowfort Pictures is producing, while MPI will handle international sales at the 2013 Cannes Marche du Film.
Starring ingénue Alex Essoe, the horror story is being described as a contemporary take on movies such as Rosemary's Baby. The cast is rounded out by Amanda Fuller (Cheap Thrills, Last Man Standing - ABC Television), Fabianne Therese (The Aggression Scale, John Dies At The End), Pat Healy (Cheap Thrills, Compliance, The Innkeepers), Shane Coffey (Pretty Little Liars - ABC Television), Marc Senter (Brawler, Red White & Blue), Nick Simmons and Noah Segan (Looper, Deadgirl).
The screenplay was penned by Widmyer & Kolsch and developed with the help of Snowfort's Founder/CEO Travis Stevens who is producing the film. The writing/directing team previously worked together on Postcards from the Edge: The Chuck Palahniuk Documentary and the horror film Absence. The film is being executive produced by John Jarzemensky, Aaron Koontz, Giles Daoust and Gena Wilbur.
Widmyer and Kolsch looked to the past for inspiration; "Starry Eyes utilizes the same approach genre films from the 1970's used, where the horror stems from the character and what they are going through and where the horror represents the internal working of a character."
Stevens adds "We're setting out to make a scary film for sure-and 'Starry Eyes' is as unsettling a film as you can get. But this is also film about a generation who feel entitled to fame, and an industry that feeds off that desire. And our hope is that the audience will be just as frightened by that dynamic as they are by the stunning special FX make-up."
MPI'S Dark Sky Films brand includes the successful genre films The House of the Devil, Stake Land, The Innkeepers, Frankenstein's Army, Hatchet III and Stitches. Snowfort Pictures has had a busy year, with two films premiering at SXSW (Big Ass Spider! and the Audience Award Winner Cheap Thrills, both screening at the Marche du Film) and Jodorowsky's Dune that premieres in Cannes as part of the Director's Fortnight program.