‘MURDER PARTY’ Director’s Revenge Film ‘BLUE RUIN’ picked up by RADIUS-TWC

One of my favorite films to watch during the holiday of Halloween is Murder Party. It was one of the first, if not the first, film to introduce me to Magnet Releasing. It is the perfect blend of horror & comedy as a lonely social outcast is invited to a party on Halloween night. I highly recommend everyone check out this film, especially closer to the holiday. Little to my knowledge (kicking myself now), the director of Murder Party hosted a Kickstarter campaign to gain additional funding for his next feature, Blue Ruin.

There is a great article on Blue Ruin and its unexpected journey to Cannes from the Los Angeles Times that I would recommend reading by clicking here. To paraphrase, I’ll quote the LA Times here:

A few months ago, Jeremy Saulnier had risen early for a flight to Cleveland when he saw a message in his inbox. It was in French.

The 36-year-old New Yorker was traveling to the Buckeye State to shoot corporate videos, which the director had been doing to pay the bills since his filmmaking career fizzled six years before with the disappointing performance of his first movie, a genre comedy called “Murder Party.”

The email that morning was from programmers at the Cannes Film Festival. They really liked a rough cut of his new effort, an unconventional revenge drama titled “Blue Ruin,” which he and his wife had liquidated their retirement accounts to make. The programmers seemed interested in showing it in the festival’s Directors’ Fortnight section.

Saulnier also had to get creative with his budget. In addition to saying goodbye to their IRAs, he and his wife refinanced their home and maxed out well over $100,000 on a credit card. Since much of the money was, as Saulnier puts it, “theoretical,” he took to Kickstarter to secure enough liquid cash so he could trigger actor deals.

Well, it looks like it all turned out for the best for Saulnier as the film, according to Deadline, has been picked up by Radius-TWC, the same company distributing Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives starring Ryan Gosling.

Twitch Film nabbed a trailer of Blue Ruin that you can watch below. I really can’t wait to see this one but also wish I knew about this campaign last year so I could help out. I’m just glad everything worked out as I would be even more bummed if the goal wasn’t reached.

Trailer

(Thanks to Twitch)

Clip

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