After Dark Films Announces Fourth Film in After Dark Originals 2 Series: Children of Sorrow

Los Angeles, CA (May 16th, 2013) ­ After Dark Films proudly announces the fourth film in its After Dark Originals 2 series (ADO2), CHILDREN OF SORROW. A film that delivers a petrifying look into a cult psyche. CHILDREN OF SORROW is directed by Jourdan McClure (Rogue River, Die Maniacs Die!), written by Ryan Finnerty (Rogue River, Smosh), starring Bill Oberst Jr (Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, Take this Lollipop) and Hannah Levien (The Palace Players) .

"We are so excited to welcome Jourdan McClure into the After Dark Family. He's an incredible talent. Children of Sorrow is such a thought provoking and disturbing film. It sparked many debates and was the cause of endless sleepless nights." -Stephanie Caleb, EVP Creative Affairs

Synopsis:

Simon Leach is a very, very sick man. Thriving on despair, pain, and panic, he unites a group of broken and desperate people in the middle of the desert. He showers them with the love and affection they're so desperate for, but Simon has a much greater plan for his followers.

"Belongingness can be a terrifying subject, even more so when acceptance is disingenuous. Children of Sorrow is the nightmare version of that." -Jourdan McClure, Director

About After Dark Films:

After Dark Films, an Independent motion picture studio, was formed in 2006 by director/filmmaker Courtney Solomon and Hong Kong based real estate magnate Allan Zeman. After Dark Films first motion picture film release was An American Haunting (2006) starring Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland. Co-founder and CEO Courtney Solomon wrote, produced, and directed this film under the newly formed After Dark Films banner. After the release of An American Haunting, partners Solomon and Zeman formed a multiyear marketing and distribution deal for Horrorfest "8 Films To Die For" between After Dark Films and Lionsgate Entertainment, with After Dark handling theatrical marketing & releases and Lionsgate handling the distribution of all ancillary forms of media (Home Video, Pay TV, Pay Per View). After DarkFilms released Horrorfest 4 in theaters on January 29, 2010.

Building on the success of Horrorfest, After Dark released the first 8 originally produced horror films in January 2011 under the moniker After Dark Originals. They are currently releasing the second series of films After Dark Originals 2 which is a combination of both originally produced and acquired films.

For more information about “AFTER DARK ORIGINALS 2,” please visit:
www.afterdarkoriginals.com
www.facebook.com/afterdarkfilms
www.twitter.com/afterdarkfilms

Gore Whore's Best and Worst of 2012

2012 is done and over with and, in all honesty, not a great year for horror. Not for me anyway. Choosing five films to add to my "worst" list was a piece of cake but since I'm not a big Hollywood horror person, I didn't see a lot of great ones to add to my "best" list. That said, after much (and I mean MUCH) consideration, I was able to come up with what I think is a pretty solid list.

**Best**

The Cabin in the Woods: Starring Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth and Anna Hutchison

Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods.

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The Loved Ones: Starring Xavier Samuel, Robin McLeavy and Victoria Thaine

When Brent turns down his classmate Lola's invitation to the prom, she concocts a wildly violent plan for revenge. 

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Brutal: Starring A. Michael Baldwin and Michael Patrick Stevens

A family man is trapped and tortured by an unknown assailant (known only as Brutal). As the story unfolds, we find that neither man is who they claim to be.

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Huff: Starring Charlie O'Connell, Natasha Alam and Marie Bollinger

A woman steals her abusive boyfriend's drug money for her three teenage daughters to seek better lives for themselves and a bloody pursuit ensues. 

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Children of Sorrow: Starring Bill Oberst Jr., Hannah Levien and Whitney Nielsen

  

Children of Sorrow, a young woman embeds herself in a cult looking for answers to her sister's disappearance, only to find a dark secret within the cult.

**Worst**

The Innkeepers: Starring Sara Paxton, Pat Healy and Kelly McGillis

During the final days at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, two employees determined to reveal the hotel's haunted past begin to experience disturbing events as old guests check in for a stay. 

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Detention: Starring Josh Hutcherson, Shanley Caswell and Spencer Locke

  

As a killer named Cinderhella stalks the student body at the high school in Grizzly Lake, a group of co-eds band together to survive while they're all serving detention.

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 ATM: Starring Alice Eve, Josh Peck and Brian Geraghty

  

On a late night visit to an ATM, three co-workers end up in a desperate fight for their lives when they become trapped by an unknown man. 

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Playback: Starring Christian Slater, Ambyr Childers and Toby Hemingway

  

A cop investigates the case of a missing local teen, though he discovers a dark secret that has been unleashed in his town, and an evil spirit that will stop at nothing to find its heir. 

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Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines: Starring Doug Bradley, Camilla Arfwedson and Simon Ginty

A small West Virginia town is hosting the legendary Mountain Man Festival on Halloween, where throngs of costumed party goers gather for a wild night of music and mischief. But an inbred family of hillbilly cannibals kill the fun when they trick and treat themselves to a group of visiting college students.

 

Children of Sorrow 2013 - REVIEW

It's not every day I get to attend a film festival in LA so I was really excited about traveling to California for Shockfest Film Festival. Escorted by actor/director Alex Ballar, we made our way to Raleigh Studios for the "For Kids... Not" screening block that included two short films, Adam and Kill Devil Hill (my review here) and the feature Children of Sorrow. I was pleasantly surprised to see a packed audience for the return of the Rogue River duo, Jourdan McClure and Ryan Finnerty.

Ellen (Hannah Levien) is on a mission to find out what happened to her sister. Her last known location was a compound in Mexico where she had gone to "find herself". Simon Leach (Bill Oberst Jr.), the enigmatic leader of the cult, happily accepts her into the fold and introduces her to their way of life. At first she's hell bent on finding out the fate of her sister but the longer she's there, the more she starts buying into the cult type rhetoric and is systematically sucked into their lifestyle. Simon uses his influence to break them down one by one, exposing their weaknesses and leaving them completely vulnerable so he can step in and fill the void. He convinces them that his way is the only way and eventually manipulates them into doing the most horrific things. 

The thing with most Indie films is that often times they will suffer in one area or another because of a lack of funding. It seems inevitable these days that a film either has a great cast or a great visual story. Thankfully, McClure seemed to have a strong grasp on the casting part of this conundrum. What had to be an emotionally draining experience on them, each and every cast member played their part to a tee. It's been a while since I've seen a film where the commitment of the actors was so fierce. Oberst dominates the screen (as always) and gives the performance of his career. It's hard to know his personality and imagine that he could even come close to capturing a character with this degree of sadism. He is nothing less than mesmerizing on screen, especially in this film. The perfect storm of perversity.

Shot in four different perspectives, Children of Sorrow delves deep into the inner workings of cult life. We get little glimpses from Hannah's camera as she secretly films her infiltration of the camp. Father Simon records his ventures citing posterity reasons. Mary (Whitney Nielsen) takes the reins when Simon decides he wants to be in front of the camera. Lastly, we have the security cameras. This is where we get to see the true Father Simon. In front of the camera, he may seem like a confident, loving person but behind the scenes, he's really a self hating, manipulative, controlling con artist that gets off on playing with people's emotions. In my opinion, there is nothing more horrifying than the deliberate terror that one human can inflict on another and writer Finnerty weaves quite an entangling web of truly intense horror. 

While I thoroughly enjoyed this film and will highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a hard core psychological horror, I did feel at some point the direction of the film got lost. I'll explain... the first quarter to half of the film, the main focus seems to be all about Hannah finding her sister but somewhere in the midst of this, it shifts and becomes all about Father Simon. It's possible that it was intentional and that the more she became seduced into the family, the more irrelevant her story became. In which case, I would've liked to have seen a smoother transition into that story line. However, this absolutely does not take away from the fact that this is a truly terrifying look into the cult psyche. Forget jump scares and things that go bump in the night, this is how real horror is done.

Bill Oberst Jr. Wins Top Prize at Shockfest Film Festival

(Nov 21, 2012) Director Jourdan McClure's Children Of Sorrow has won the top prize at Hollywood's Shockfest Film Festival. The found-footage horror feature about a desert cult received The Shocker Award following its Los Angeles premiere at Shockfest.

Bill Oberst Jr. won the Best Actor Award for his role as cult leader Simon Leach in a surprise win over better-known nominees Tom Sizemore and Joe Esteves, brother of actor Martin Sheen. The Shockfest awards, in the form of ghoulish decapitated zombie heads created by make-up artist Shaun Martin, were awarded in a midnight ceremony in Hollywood at historic Raleigh Studios.

It's the second time in a row that Children Of Sorrow has had multiple wins at a festival. McClure's movie won Best Feature and Best Acting awards in it's first showing at the Sacramento Horror Film Festival last month. For Bill Oberst Jr. the Best Actor win is his third major award of 2012, following a Daytime Emmy Award for Facebook's Take This Lollipop and the Golden Cobb Award for Best Rising B-Movie Actor.

In the film's first published review, film critic Mike Thomas gives Children Of Sorrow 5 stars, calling it "a study in true horror." McClure says that Children Of Sorrow will continue to make the festival rounds with an eye towards a 2013 release date. The film's trailer is below:

Children Of Sorrow brings Oberst's onscreen death count to 75, by methods ranging from cannibalism in 2009's Dismal to a fireman's axe in the just-wrapped horror feature Ditch, now in post for a 2013 release.

Children of Sorrow Trailer Released

The first trailer for Children of Sorrow, from Rogue River director Jourdan McClure and writer Ryan Finnerty has just been released. In the film a young woman embeds herself in a cult looking for answers to her sister’s disappearance, only to find a dark secret within the cult and an even darker secret within herself. 

Director Jourdan McClure says, "Children Of Sorrow" is unlike anything I thought I would do. It’s really my attempt at a P.O.V Mocku-horror film with roots in the slice of life genre. The story is told through the lenses of diegetic devices. This is not found footage but this style utilizes elements of the FF aesthetic along with the documentary presentation to make something unnerving and interesting.”

The film stars Bill Oberst Jr. as self-help guru Simon Leach, Hannah Levien and Whitney Nielsen. 

The film’s official synopsis:

“A young woman embeds herself in a cult looking for answers to her sisters disappearance, only to find a dark secret within the cult and an even darker secret within herself.

COS is pretty unlike anything I thought I would do. It’s really my attempt at a P.O.V Mocku-horror film with roots in the slice of life genre. The story is told through the lenses of diegetic devices. This is not found footage but utilizes elements of the FF aesthetic along with the documentary presentation to make something unnerving and interesting.”

Director: Jourdan McClure
Writer: Ryan Finnerty