After the screening of CREDO at the Grimm Up North! festival this weekend, a review has been posted on the US film site Quiet Earth. Personally, I think it’s a really fair review. It would be good to know what other people think of it.

Posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 23:13:24 GMT by: projectcyclops

Year: 2008
Directors: Toni Harman
Writers: Alex Wakeford
IMDB: link
Trailer: link
Review by: projectcyclops
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Credo is a low-budget horror film directed by Tony Harman, written by Alex Wakeford and set in London. The film starts off with a group of Catholic students attempting to summon the devil himself. Of the five, Simon (the late Stephen Gately, who carries himself very well) is their leader, with his roots in Irish Catholicism; he’s seemingly obsessed with finding Satan, so as better to defeat him. Poor old Seth however, gets cold feet and runs away from the séance. Next morning, his four friends are all dead from suicide…

We then cut to another group of students, several years later, and they’ve just been evicted from their flat. Jock, a boisterous American… um… jock, has held one party too many and the landlord boots them onto the streets. Alice (MyAnna Burning) is a practical and dedicated psychology student who spends all her time in the college library studying for exams. Timmi is a shy brunette who has a secret crush, and Scott is a well intentioned nerd, who also has a secret crush. With their somewhat token and underwritten black friend Jasmine in tow, the five of them break into Eden Catholic Halls to spend a weekend of boozy fun and Ouija board tinkering.

Hands-down the best thing about Credo is this, and if you really don’t want a slight spoiler then skip to the next paragraph: It’s old-school, it’s cerebral and it’s scary, but there is no horror except that which is suggested. I live for a film that can scare me without resorting to buckets of gore, grotesque make-up or weak CGI, and once Credo gets going, it’s really an effective horror film. After a shaky start which has some pretty dodgy acting, the film finds its feet and we follow the characters through a terrifying journey in which Satan will try his best, through hallucination and time-shifts, to convince each person to commit suicide, so they die in sin and he claims their souls.

Harman has wisely chosen an incredible location for Eden, it’s a huge complex of run-down bedrooms and hallways, full of old mattresses and filthy radiators, broken lights and years worth of dust and grime, and it helps to perfectly set the tone and atmosphere for the film. Scott attaches cameras around the building too, and we get shots on his laptop in night-vision which are used effectively and add to the chills. The music and sound design warrant mention too, as they are simply terrific in turning-up the fright factor and keeping the audience tense as to the next scare, especially the microphone that Scott uses to pick up signals that humans can’t normally hear, that freaked me out completely!

In all – An effective and chilling horror film that uses inventive camera work, imaginative sound design and that overlooked little technique known as suspense and suggestion to create some real scares.

Credo Old Poster Image

Just got back from a CREDO cinema screening at the Grimm Up North! Horror Film Festival at the Odeon Printworks in Manchester.

It was great to see CREDO playing on the big-screen especially as we had a really good audience reaction at what actually was it’s cinematic premiere. The only sadness was that the screening was being dedicated to the memory of Stephen Gately.

For me personally, I loved doing the Q&A’s!

I was on a “Directing Your First Horror Feature” panel where the discussion was all about transferring the skills from making short films to feature films and about what lessons we had all learned from directing our debut horror flicks. There were four directors on the panel, so myself and the directors of three other indie UK horror flicks – SPLINTERED, GNAW and THE FALLOW FIELD.

What really struck me was that we all had very similar experiences – that we didn’t find directing our first feature film that different from directing either shorts or TV, that we all struggled with the night shoots, that finding objectivity in the post-production was our biggest problem, we were all working on our next feature and that actually, all of us were just really normal not-up-ourselves (sorry to use this word) “nice” people who just happened to love horror.

After the screening, I did another Q&A with my producer partner Alex Wakeford and our gorgeous star from Credo, MyAnna Buring, about exactly how / where / why / how quickly etc we made CREDO and again, I just loved talking about it! I could have talked about it for hours. It just gave me a real rush. (Although it was a bit weird, doing the Q&A being surrounded by a dead very bloodied model sheep and decaptitated heads which were part of the Grimmfest Exhibition.)

And I loved talking all things horror with all the other directors / actors / horror fans present.

The thing that really struck me was that I absolutely felt that I belonged in this world of horror and fear. And I felt really proud that a film I directed was one of those being screened. It felt right and it felt good.

So thank you Grimmfest. Hope to see you same time next year.

CREDO screening dedicated to the memory of Stephen Gately

I recently did an interview for the folks of Love Horror about our horror film CREDO, covering how we came up with the idea, how the film came together, spooky stories about the shoot, what we’re doing next and supposedly some words of wisdom to anyone wanting to make their first feature film!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

http://lovehorror.co.uk/?p=2009

Just seen one of the best things in my horror film-making life. Our horror film Credo dubbed in Russian.

We sold Credo to a Russian distributor and they’ve just launched it with a new poster!

Credo in Russian

I love it – makes Credo look like a sci-fi time-travelling horror all about people holding up skulls setting fire to themselves which is exactly what it is, apart from the sci-fi time-travelling fire skull part!

Apparently the title has been changed to: Sign of Darkness

To me, that’s a better title than The Devil’s Curse which Lionsgate called it.

But the best thing is watching clips of our film dubbed in Russian. It’s fantastic. Makes it much scarier! Loving the accents and the expressions in Russian.

Here’s a link to a clip: video.raid.ru

And to watch more clips, copy and paste this in to Google:

Знак тьмы

Go Russia and the Baltic States!

So I thought after unleashing our horror feature film CREDO in the UK then life would get a bit less hectic. Hmmm. I was wrong.

Suddenly, things that were set in motion months and even years ago are all starting to happen right now, all at the same time, then I’m also initiating new projects…

Back to Credo. It’s selling ok and having it’s own little life. In fact, I was really excited to find it stocked in my local HMV! It’s had a good run of publicity -  on GMTV, This Morning, The Mirror, Mail on Sunday etc and had lots of net coverage. As we’re also selling from our own website – www.altofilms.com – we’ve having to fulfil orders on a daily basis (that’s me stuffing the envelopes!) so numerous trips to my local post office.

Meanwhile, I’m about to launch a factual special interest DVD series (details to be announced soon) and in fact, a duplicating company is replicating 1000’s of DVD units as I write this. So lots of technical conversations about artwork and DVD authoring spec’s plus lots of business discussions with the fulfilment company (we’re having another company fulfil the orders on this DVD series as there’s only so much envelope-stuffing a girl can do!)

Meanwhile, our film workshops seem to be gaining momentum and proving to be much more successful than we first thought – with people messaging me daily asking for details about the next workshops and what we’re planning on running next… (The next workshop is on June 20/21 – two days of practical workshops on directing).

Meanwhile, we’re also setting up our next feature film to shoot later this year.

Meanwhile, so then I thought, I know, I have a few seconds spare each day, so why don’t I try and set up 10 short films, each 10 minutes long to be shot over 10 days. And you know what – other people are starting to switch onto this idea and actually it might just work….

Meanwhile, there’s my blog to write and I haven’t even mentioned my ongoing mission to contact the ghost in my kitchen!

Is it just me or is every UK indie film-maker this busy?

Our Brighton Film Workshop!

Our horror film CREDO is now on sale on DVD in the UK in shops and on-line!

The last couple of weeks have been really exciting as there’s been  quite a bit of publicity in the press and on TV: a clip from CREDO was shown on GMTV and This Morning and we had press coverage in the Mail on Sunday, the Mirror, the Telegraph, the Metro and quite a few regional newspapers plus coverage on MSN, Yahoo, Virgin Media and also I think Credo is also going to be in a couple of film magazines. (Let me know if I’ve missed any!)

This is amazing considering CREDO is a small indie film with not much in the way of a marketing budget and with no advertising!

What is really exciting is that it’s finding an audience – people are writing their own online reviews and comments on CREDO and suddenly it’s got it’s own life, which makes me feel immensely proud!

Meanwhile, as we’re also selling the DVD from our own website, we’ve also become a little DVD fulfilment factory – processing online orders, printing address labels, stuffing envelopes, weighing parcels on our kitchen scales combined with numerous trips to the local post office.

I always seem to be served by the same lady at the post office counter and every time, she  tries to flog me the full range of Post Office phone cards, travel insurance, foreign currency exchange etc etc and each time I smile and politely say “No thank you” but inside I am screaming “You’ve asked me three times today already thanks!”

We’re also about to launch another DVD series in a couple of weeks (a factual series with nothing to do with horror!) – so things are about to get a whole lot busier…

So our horror movie CREDO is being released in the UK by Guerilla Films on DVD on May 25th. Running time is 93 mins. Cert 15.

This will be the extended edition including the very special 11 minute prologue featuring Stephen Gately in his fantastic feature film acting debut.

But by special arrangement with our distributor, what is really exciting is that you can buy it direct from us, the film-makers at www.altofilms.com and you’ll be the first to see it!

Credo DVD

To celebrate its release, if you do buy CREDO from us (and you can pre-order it from the site right now!), then you will also get a set of 4 specially printed CREDO postcards for FREE. These postcards are available nowhere else in the whole world so it’s a bit of a coup.

Credo Postcard Set

On top of that, you can also buy the official CREDO poster – again available nowhere else. And Credo t-shirts are also coming soon.

Credo Poster available now to buy!

And we have also have links to buy our list of our all-time favourite horror movies.

The UK version of the DVD includes a 24 minute behind the scenes CREDO documentary called the “Five Essentials of Horror” which gives you the real insight into what making a low-budget horror is really like.

But there’s also a very special bonus feature. It’s a never seen before interview I did with Stephen Gately where he talks about his supernatural experiences, his belief in demons and his lifelong ambition to die in a horror movie…

So just think, if you do buy CREDO or anything from our site, it’ll most probably be the director herself that looks at your order, puts the DVD / postcards / poster into the envelope or poster tube, sticks on the label and pops along to the local post office to send them off. How is that for personal service from a film-maker!

Yesterday I discovered that the British Board of Film Certification (BBFC) has classified Credo a horror film and given it a 15 rating.

BBFC 15 Rating

For me, that’s really exciting news.

I’ve never had a film classified before and it’s a process that every film has to go through before it’s released no matter how big the movie. So our film has been classified by the same people who do massive budget Hollywood blockbusters.

I love that the fact that the panel of BBFC strangers have sat down together in a darkened BBFC cinema and watched Credo from beginning to end including all the DVD Special Features. Then afterwards, they’ve discussed its genre, its content and how graphic the violence is. All without anyone from Credo being there.

Most important, the 15 rating is for us the perfect rating. It means that everyone over 15 is more likely to think, this comes with a “contains strong violence” warning and so this might be a scary horror film, I’ll buy this!

And everyone under the age of 15 will also think, this might be a scary horror film, I’ll buy this (although obviously they’re not supposed to be allowed)!

If it had been rated 12 or 12A, then there’s a danger that people would think it’s too soft and not a horror film.

If it had been rated 18 – then I think the lack of slasher gore might disappoint some people.

So it’s official. Credo is a 15. It’s a horror. And it Contains Strong Violence.

And that’s it, forever more, those tags will stick. All because that’s what some strangers in a viewing theatre thought one wet and windy March morning.

Suits me.

Last week it was all rush rush rush and big time pressure as we needed to deliver the master-tape of the new UK version of Credo plus the Special Features for the DVD (details to be announced soon).

We were up against a tight deadline as the film has to be authored and certified in both the UK and Ireland which all takes time and the UK distributor said Feb 20^th was the last possible date to supply the tapes.

So in order to do this we had to get our original Credo rushes tapes back from “dead storage”. These are the only copies in existence so they are extremely valuable. Imagine a huge “Raiders of the Lost Ark” style warehouse, hundreds of feet across, thousands of feet deep. Now imagine our tiny cardboard box containing our 90-odd HD tape rushes buried somewhere deep inside the warehouse. It’s called dead storage because it’s not easily accessible, as was proved the case…

Stupidly, for some reason, when we dropped off the box of Credo rushes on the day before Christmas Eve 2007, we didn’t get a reference number. It’s a lesson to us about never doing anything important on the days leading up to Christmas!

The storage place was closed for Christmas and so early in the New Year last year, we contacted the storage place to get a much-needed reference number. But they couldn’t give one to us. It wasn’t on the system. They seemingly had no record of our rushes…

So for all of last year, I honestly thought all the Credo rushes were somehow lost for eternity. But I thought that’s ok, we won’t be needing them for a while, if ever… Until now. Until we were up against a really tight deadline.

Anyway. Finally, tracked down the rushes (big time phew!) and got them transferred to a format we could actually work with – for various reasons, we shot on HD Panasonic Varicam which records at 59.94 fps which means we then had to edit NTSC style at 23.98 fps involving a 3:2 pull-down which makes things really difficult for a PAL 25fps edit. Needless to say, lots of numbers, lots of conversions, lots of technical headaches (see our technical guru Steve Shaw’s website for all this kind of stuff), lots of nights dreaming of frame-rate transfers….

But on top of that, we needed to shoot a new interview for the DVD Special Features as our UK distributor said the original 24 min behind the scenes documentary we made last year all about the 5 Essentials of Horror wasn’t quite enough, so we had to hire kit and arrange an interview at short notice…

Meanwhile, just to add to our stress-load, we were running our first film workshop last Saturday about our experience of making Credo. I had some fantastic flyers printed up to promote the workshop but then discovered that the courier company had mistakenly delivered my flyers to my neighbours house and worse, the neighbour had gone away on a business trip for a few days. So I could see them through the window but couldn’t actually get to them. I did contemplate breaking in but thought that wouldn’t be great for neighbourly relations…

The long and short of it is that it all got finished and delivered on time and everything is sorted. The horror happening behind the scenes had a happy ending.

Now I’ve just got to stop dreaming of number-crunching frame-rate conversions…

Quick one. We’ve just had a new poster designed for Credo ahead of its UK release.

Let me know what you think!

Credo poster