New River Voice columnist Charles Smith offers his enthusiastic endorsement of horror films and the fact that October is upon us.

Horror films are a part of my life in the way that family dinners are a part of the lives of others. My fondest childhood memories involve staying up until the early hours of the morning with my insomniac grandmother watching films like Warlock II: The Armageddon and The Howling II. There’s nothing quite like waking up on your grandmother’s couch at 3 a.m. to the sight of her sewing a pair of pants to a werewolf orgy playing in the background.

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Coal Country, the new film from Evening Star Productions, tells the story of the dramatic struggle happening in central Appalachia communities around mountaintop removal coal-mining. In these communities, miners and residents are locked in conflict: Is mining and processing coal essential to providing good jobs, or is it destroying the land, water, and air? (more…)

After a year in production, Horse Archer Productions has released a much anticipated documentary about the old time music and culture of Appalachia called Why Old Time? that is getting attention in some surprising places.

In just three weeks of Internet sales from their Web site, Horse Archer Productions has sold copies in every state of the union, plus sales in Canada, England, Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Australia, Finland, and even Japan.

“When we started this documentary we began asking why so many people in the 21st Century were drawn to music that was old 100 years ago,” said Chris Valluzzo, co-producer and co-director of the full length feature documentary.

As the team traveled through the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, they started to get a sense of the far reaching impact of the music outside the region.

Since much of the filming took place at fiddler’s conventions and organized events, the crew frequently found themselves interviewing people who had traveled anywhere from a few miles to a few thousand miles just to play with friends.

“That is a big part of the whole experience,” said co-producer and co-director Sean Kotz.

“What sets this music and experience apart from the highly commercial experience of most popular music is the fact that there is not really a line between audience and musician because they tend to be one in the same.”

Why Old Time? is Horse Archer Productions’ third feature documentary and they feel their experience with their first film, 2007’s  Hokie Nation, was incredibly valuable in their more recent production.

Horse Archer also released The Henry Reed Legacy on DVD in June. That film documents the life and impact of Giles County old-time fiddler Henry Reed and complements Why Old Time?.

Director/writer Michael Mann and Johnny Depp take aim at summer in their new gangster flick Public Enemies. In this biopic chronicling the life of the notorious and much-adored bank robber John Dillinger, the dynamic pairing have embraced all the demands of a grandiose period piece. And if history is any indication, the revered director and perhaps Hollywood’s biggest star are more than capable. (more…)

Lights, camera, action! On April 7, Radford University students gathered at the Bonnie Hurlburt Student Center auditorium to watch videos that were submitted last month from fellow contestants to a competition that ROC-TV sponsored.

Participants could enter their films into six categories of the Highlander Film Fest: comedy, documentary, horror/drama, experimental, and animation. Entries were judged on production, quality, creativity, attention to detail, and editing techniques. A large body of art and media studies majors submitted videos into the film festival. (more…)

Brian Seay offers his thoughts on a new CBS series.

Starting April 9, CBS Network will premiere a new 13-episode murder mystery series called Harper’s Island. This show is about a group of family and friends traveling to a secluded island off the coast of Seattle who die off one by one. Now if anyone thinks this is an original idea that just brilliantly came from the pen of a scriptwriter or the mind of some director from today’s crop of modern filmmakers you are dead (no pun intended) wrong. (more…)