Written by: Abbie Bernstein (FANGORIA Contributing Journalist)
Submitted by: Sharon Snyder
“SHADOW PUPPETS” depicts a nightmarish situation — a group of people who don’t know where or even who they are, locked in a strange facility and menaced by a homicidal supernatural force — but its release is a dream come true for writer/director Michael Winnick.
Most horror films in Shadow’s $1.2-million budget range go straight to DVD, but Winnick’s movie is hitting the big screen at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills, CA June 22-29, with the possibility of
expansion/extension before its DVD release via Anchor Bay July 24. The cast includes BUFFY’s James Marsters, CANDYMAN’s Tony Todd and STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE’s Jolene Blalock.
Winnick believes those names helped get “Shadow Puppets” onto the big screen. “Because of all the fan support, we just knew we had to get it playing somewhere for at least a week. Especially after the James Marsters and Friends convention on the Queen Mary, where we showed about 10 minutes of footage and they seemed to like what they saw.
James’ fans really took the film under their wings and have been promoting it, the Tony Todd fans have picked it up, and we believe Jolene [Blalock’s] STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE fans are about to come on board.”
Executive producer Morris Ruskin of Shoreline Entertainment, the company that made “Shadow Puppets”, adds, “A lot of fans seem to be researching this film [on the Internet]. It’s phenomenal. Every film you make, you have a hope that it’s going to break through on a certain level. You don’t know until you know, but there’s a sense of excitement on this project, so my feeling is that we genuinely have a winner here.”
If Jolene Blalock is going to prance about in that outfit, who would ever try to escape?