New York, NY (Top40 Charts) 33 years after its premiere as the rogue, iconoclastic fanzine championing indie film, Film Threat is back. First as a website, FilmThreat.com, relaunched last year, and now as a distribution label, catering to the same demographic that loved the disruptive magazine so much during its print run between 1985 and 1997.
The first release, scheduled for
September 18th, is the micro-budget indie horror film THE THETA GIRL.
THE THETA GIRL, a feature film produced by first-time filmmakers
David Axe and
Christopher Bickel, has been currently ravaging the film festival circuit and building a dedicated fanbase.
"I'm proud to screen for you the trailer for THE THETA GIRL, a film that warped my mind," said Film Threat's Chris Gore at his FUTURE INDIES YOU MUST SEE panel at San
Diego Comic-Con. He went on, "This is the first film that we are releasing under our new 'Film Threat Presents' label. I think you can tell from this teaser, it's the type of film you would expect from us. Our plans are to disrupt the current distribution model by putting power back into the hands of filmmakers using the vast audience we've built over 30 years. THE THETA GIRL, hold onto your seats, there's a lot more coming."
Film Threat is making THE THETA GIRL available for pre-order now on VIMEO and will roll out on other digital platforms in 2019.
THE THETA GIRL was produced on a shoestring budget of $14,000. To put that budget into perspective, the film could have been made 3,571 times over for what it cost Hollywood to make one EMOJI MOVIE. It is the first film for both writer
David Axe and director
Christopher Bickel, and indeed it was the first film for the majority of cast and crew. The film revels in its own "punk rock" rough edges (a result of its extremely low budget and the experience level of the creators) and, as such, has been enthusiastically praised by critics and audiences for its high entertainment value, thoughtful existential themes, and over-the-top shocking content.
The film has already received accolades from critics, one gushing "not only is it possibly the best independent film of 2017 but possibly one of the best examples of low budget filmmaking EVER!" (Full review herehttps://www.imdb.com/review/rw3830050/?ref_=tt_urv )
Billed as an "existenploitation film," THE THETA GIRL follows the trials and tribulations of young drug-dealer, Gayce Delko, and the hallucinogen she peddles. "Theta" was a "fun drug" -- a drug that blew people's minds. Theta was supposed to be a door to Heaven, but when her best friends get methodically and brutally murdered, Gayce realizes theta might also be a door to Hell -- and it's up to her to shut it. The film's tagline is "She brought the pills. He brought the kills."
Bickel describes THE THETA GIRL as "an exercise in sex, drugs, punk rock, brutality, gore, revenge, and self-actualization... but really it's an art film."
THE THETA GIRL was written by
David Axe and directed by
Christopher Bickel, who also shot, edited, and provided sound-design for the film. Axe and Bickel also served as the film's producers under the "Barron Perter Productions" moniker. The film stars
Victoria Elizabeth as "Gayce," Shane Silman as "Brother Marcus," and Darrelle D. Dove as "Derek."
The film has not been rated by the MPAA, but it contains nudity, drug use, adult themes, and extremely graphic violence.
Bickel describes hooking up with Film Threat as "a dream come true," adding "reading Film threat as a kid opened my eyes to a whole world of extreme independent cinema, and made me feel like one day I could eventually do this shit too. And now, however many years later, here we are."
VIMEO PRE-ORDER: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thethetagirl
TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB_6dl9cgWs
PRESS QUOTES:
"One of the best exploitation films in a generation" - Nevermore Horror
"You'll be exhausted or exhilarated, turned off or turned on, but you won't be bored. If your assaulted senses recover by the time the final credits roll, you may even swell with admiration" - Rodney Welch, Free Times
"Raw, unflinching and unapologetic" - Cherry Bombed, Dangerous Minds
"This film explodes onto the screen like the lovechild of Ted V. Mikels and Jodorowsky, skull-fucks you like a tag team of Blue
Sunshine and Blood Feast, and when it's done you will say, "Thank you, may I have another." - Psycho Drive-In
"Far, far better than it has any right to be... This is the kind of movie that microbudget indie producers should be studying to up their filmmaking game." - The Slaughtered Bird
"Plays like a Liquid Sky on LSD for the new millennium." - Joseph Perry, Ghastly Grinning
"In its wildest moments, you can feel the same sort of creativity and mania of young Sam Raimi and
Peter Jackson, cobbling together action and horror out of not-much-at-all." - Cinapse
"Perfectly capturing the look and feel of earlier films THE THETA GIRL carves out its own niche by upping the ante with even more sex and violence than we would have seen in the films it clearly loves so much. This is a kind of perfect distillation of the exploitation genre that would have been a cult classic back in the day...and is destined to be one in today... This is one of my favorite (and possibly one of the very best) films of 2018." - Unseenfilms.net
"The Theta Girl may be showing us the New
Survivor Girl of horror. Gayce, played by the hard stomping, strong gazed,
Victoria Elizabeth Donofrio, shows no interest in being the +1 for anybody - male, female, or other. Finally, a female hero who isn't sexualized! " - HorrorHound
"If you do like it, you'll probably be surprised at how much you like it. There's a lot more going on here than, say, Hobo with a Shotgun (and I say that as someone who loved Hobo with a Shotgun). Watching it, I kept thinking of how much I would have loved it as a teenager; it's the sort of movie I would have driven from town to town searching for, and, once I found it, would have toted it over to friends' houses for late night viewings." -
Boston Hassle
"Fueled by a micro-budget equivalent to that of a used car,
Christopher Bickel directorial debut, The Theta Girl, explodes on screen and fucks shit up... With enough gore to fill a used car, Bickel's creativity shines like fresh blood glimmering in the moonlight. This wild trip of a film is sure to satisfy any gorehound and find appreciation among fans of grindhouse features." - PopHorror
"THE THETA GIRL is a remarkably inventive, psychedelically captivating, micro-budget mind-banger presently mushrooming into the consciousness of indie fright fare fans, particularly those with a bent toward bravura brain blasting derring-do... THE THETA GIRL is a knockout accomplishment by any standards." -- Mike McPadden, Daily Grindhouse
"You have to marvel at how steadfastly it defies good taste." - J.B. Spins
"Shot for only $14,000 THE THETA GIRL is one of the most audacious debut films I've seen in a long time. Full of raw energy, weirdness and a disregard for convention and decency... If Abel Ferrara had remade Larry Cohen's GOD TOLD ME TO with some script rewrites by
David Cronenberg the results might resemble THE THETA GIRL." - Voices From the Balcony
"THE THETA GIRL... is easily the best horror film of 2017. And yes, that's the year of GET OUT and MOTHER. " - Dory Hoffman, The Final Girl.
