Take a bite outta the New and Improved EAT ME! site!

Big changes have Rocked the EAT ME! website!

What's NEW, you ask?

Well, in addition to the trailers, photos and news, there's now:

*** streaming music from our original soundtrack.

*** the amazingly diverting Escape Brooklyn Choose Your Own Zom-Venture Game starring... YOU! In this fun fast romp, you use your wits to fight your way out of zombie infested NYC.
Many play... few survive. Test your skills and record your fate on the new live message board!

*** Eat Me! Swag at the Eat Me Online Store! Stay warm and look cool in a hoodie that declares Sometimes you get the Munchies, Sometimes they get You. Lots of band t's, mugs and other fun stuff available for your holiday gifting needs. (And FREE SHIPPING* on orders over $25 through 11/22 when you use code "WEHEARTU" at checkout)

***Links to our Facebook and Twitter sites so you can stay apprised of the latest Eat Me! News.

Cold Hands is hoping to be able to announce a release of the ACTUAL MOVIE soon. Once that happens, you will find out here first! Stay tuned!

*You must enter coupon code WEHEARTU before completing checkout. Your subtotal must meet the minimum to receive the free shipping discount. Free shipping limited to Super Saver & Standard International Shipping. Discount is only applied to the shipping charges and does not include taxes or additional charges. Offer valid from 11/18/2009 to 11/22/2009 11:59 PM MST. This offer may not be combined with any other Printfection promotional or discount offers. Orders placed with this discount may be delayed beyond normal estimated ship dates, no refunds or discounts will be given for orders delayed under this promotion.

"EAT ME!" Store Now Open for Business!!

We just recently added a very cool feature to our website where you can order t-shirts and other cool EAT ME! merchandise from printfection.com.

Now you can show your Eater pride AND easily find your kin in a crowd should the zombie apocalypse occur.

And remember: a portion of all proceeds go into funding future Cold Hands Productions.

Support the arts! Buy a t-shirt!

Stoner Horror. A new genre?

EAT ME! was just recently included in a list of "stoner horror" films on the blog Movie Life Online - actually, it appears to be a website for a film called "Evil Weed" which I must say sounds hilarious!

We're mentioned alongside other "doper" films like Evil Bong I & II, The Tripper (directed by and starring David Arquette?) and Idle Hands.

New!!! Escape Brooklyn Zom-Voyage Launching Today!

Cold Hands is delighted to introduce a new addition to the EAT ME! website: The Escape Brooklyn Zom-Voyage, a Self-Guided Adventure Game.

Test your wits and your luck as the game opens in chaotic Brooklyn, where the zombie apocalypse is harshing everyone’s mellow. It’s your job as Band Manager to keep yourself and the band alive and uneaten long enough to get the hell outta the city.

Will you survive, or does a gruesome dismemberment await you? Could a bad decision turn you into one of the walking dead?

I mean, sure, you might have scored okay on a Facebook zombie survival quiz, but you won't really know if you have what it takes to ESCAPE BROOKLYN unless you play the game. It’s fun, it’s free, and if you get out alive, you’ll know you’ve got what it takes.

So what are you waiting for? Check it out now!

Das Boat! (aka how we got our dinghy)

About this time last year we were getting into the thick of production on "Eat Me!". One of the main props we had to procure of course was our boat which Ed Phalen, a very kind friend of the family, let us borrow. We honestly hadn't seen the boat until the day we were set to pick it up, so we weren't sure what to expect. Upon pulling up to his house we saw some things we definitely were not anticipating: No boat. And a broke down trailer.

Cut to myself, Ms. Liz Lee and our 2nd Unit Producer (ok...my mom) staring at the boat which was actually sitting upside down on a dock in Ed's backyard. With no discernible alternative to extricate the thing (other than throwing it in the water and paddling back home) we decided to take matters into our own hands, and low and behold there is video of this ridiculous feat!

Here now for your enjoyment...

It's funny that the band is so concerned about getting the boat to the dock in the movie, yet us 3 ladies were able to carry it through the yard ourselves!

After this, Ed spent another hour or so fixing the trailer so that the boat would fit on it. At one point he cut himself but kept toiling away anyway. This man shed blood, sweat (and maybe a few tears) to help us out, purely out of the goodness of his own heart. It's just another example of the amazing people we had helping us make this movie possible. Thank you again Ed!

Mail Order Zombie Declares EAT ME! “Really Good!”

A great new review of EAT ME! has rolled in from Mail Order Zombie, a weekly Internet show devoted to zombie and horror movies.

You can download Episode 86 for free from Itunes by clicking here or listen on their homepage here.

It’s a fun listen, full of tasty audio clips peppered like so much buckshot between insightful commentary. Give it a listen! Our review begins about 19 minutes in.

Our Favorite quote from seasoned zombie flick aficionado Brother D:

"with all the zombie movies I've seen in the history of Mail Order Zombie or hell, even in my entire life, I've never seen or considered some of the things that these characters do..."

The review ultimately gives EAT ME! a rating of 4 out of 5 head shots!

Thanks for the great review MOZ!

The story of Floyd

Many people have asked how we lucked into getting such an awesome car for “Eat Me!”. The true story is that Floyd, our 1973 Volkswagen Squareback, has been in the Carman family for many years.

I'd bought a 1973 VW Beetle (“Fritzy”) as my first car in high school but despite many hours of driving around empty parking lots could not figure out how to drive the stick shift. Frustrated, and starting to learn about other old Volkswagen models through the Long Island Volkswagen Club, I set out to find one that was equally awesome, but that was automatic so I wouldn't have to drive stick.

A rare unearthed photo of me with my first car, Fritzy:

I hadn’t seen many Squarebacks before, mostly in old print advertisements and pictures.

To my amazement one day as we rounded a corner not 100 yards from my house, we saw “Floyd” parked in front of a neighbor’s house. And it was the EXACT same color as Fritzy! It seemed almost too perfect, like two long separated siblings would finally be re-united.

The owner turned out to be a very nice guy and our new neighbor who was actually interested in selling the old junker car. I remember that he seemed very bewildered by my interest in the car, mentioning that his young daughter was so embarrassed by it she would make him pick her up a few blocks away from school so that none of her friends would see it.

True, the car was in bad shape but underneath it all you could see it's potential. In the picture below I'm holding up a piece of the car that had fallen off:

It took a few months in the shop to get Floyd to where you see him today but we think it’s all been worth it to preserve such a beautiful car. Since his “makeover” Floyd has gone on to win hundreds of trophies and plaques in various car shows, has been in "Eat Me!" and was even on TV! Here are a few more photos of Floyd in his glory, enjoy!

Floyd with some friends

In top "show car" form

Floyd ignoring his German heritage for St. Patrick's Day
(These 3 photos and photo of me with Fritzy are all copyright LIVC & Howling Dog Studios)

Review from The Zed Word

A big thanks to the "The Zed Word: Zombie Blog" for taking the time to write a thoughtful, complimentary review of Eat Me! It's very cool to be reviewed by a site with a great handle on the zed traditions which we had so much fun playing with in the movie.

Check out the review here:

EAT ME!

What do Madonna, New York City, Prince, Pepsi-cola, and OUR FILM all have in common?

They've changed their names and become GREAT!!!

THE EATERS is now known to the world as EAT ME!
(that's right, exclamation point and all EAT ME!)

Just to clarify: No, the movie hasn't suddenly become soft porn. It's the same movie that you know and love, just with a dynamic new name. Like Prince! Or Google!

We're gearing up for heavy festival submissions and wanted to begin with a title that would reach out and grab our viewers, be they festival screeners, potential distributors, or Johnny Youtubepeeper (You've met Johnny, right? No, YOU ARE JOHNNY! We all are.)

We're also going to be experimenting with the art and copy to try to best capture the unique spirit of our zombie comedy. So check back for updates.

As an indie, our biggest challenge is just getting the right people to stop and WATCH. We see this rascally title change as a fun, easy way to make people take a second look, and hey, there's no arguing that it's anything but a perfect match for the anarchic spirit of the movie.

So keep checking the updates, and tell all your friends EAT ME!

A Zombie Cinderella Story

Things have been changing mighty quickly in the past few days in the land of all things EATERS. We had a *mystery guest*, who turned out to be an established NYC producer, attend our New Filmmakers screening last week. Evidently, he liked what he saw, because we are now in talks to take Eaters onto the world stage. It's terribly exciting, and we will keep all cast, crew and fans updated as things develop.

On a sad note though, in order to protect the best interests of the film while we develop a big picture plan, we've had to put a hold on our festival screenings. This means that we have had to withdraw from the Revenant Film Festival, which is a bummer. Based on the remaining line-up, we're sure that Revenant will still be a great fest full of awesome zombie madness.

Stay tuned for details!

Fests and Festivities

The Eaters team passed a fantastic night yesterday at the Anthology Film Archives where The Eaters screened as part of the New Filmmakers NY Series.

The turnout was amazing and the crowd was wonderfully responsive. We made a lot of new friends and were able to reconnect with some familiar faces. It was hard not to be blown away by all the people that came out to support our indie film. It reminded us in a very real way just how truly remarkable the NYC film community really is.

We love you NYC artists and supporters!

IN OTHER TRULY EXCITING NEWS:

We've just been invited to screen at the Revenant Film Festival in Seattle, Washington!

On September 26, "Eat Me!" will screen with four other carefully curated zombie films at this one-day celebration of cinema's flesh-eating darlings. We're extremely honored to be chosen for this highly selective fest, which received film submissions from all over the globe.

It is also notable that Revenant will be our first non-New York festival. We cant wait to take our zeds to the West Coast and see what all that fresh air does to them.

Stay Tuned for more details!

NY Press Article: Eat Me! Brooklyn’s zombie auteurs flesh out the details of "The Eaters"

"New York Press chatted with Katie Carman (director, producer) and Elizabeth Lee (actress, writer, producer) to talk about fusing the searches for blunts and brains..."

Check out the full article here.

Zombies v. Vampires

Earlier this year, Time Magazine declared "Zombies the New Vampires" based on the ascendancy of flicks like Dead Snow, the upcoming Zombieland and books like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." And that's not even considering the realm of video games, where zombies have been dominating for years with the "Resident Evil" and "Left for Dead" series.

But Vampires wont die quietly (as anyone who has seen the finale of The Lost Boys knows). New vampy movies and tv series are being trotted out on a continual basis to rapturous adoration. There's of course the Twilight series with its dreamy sparkle vamps, True Blood on the tv with its human blood abstaining vamps, and a new bloodsucking flick, Thirst, from Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook.

The entertainment industry is responding to our demand for hungry undead monsters. But is the vampire camp growing soft?

I haven't yet gotten to see Thirst, which, considering Chan-Wook's other works, will probably be edgy and disturbing, but the majority of recent vampire flicks tend to lean pretty hard on the tender romancing while sacrificing the ghoulish, undead, will-eat-your-kittens-for-breakfast aspect of vampires that made them popular in the first place (Nosferatu, anyone? That dude was Not sexxy).

There have been a few exceptions, notably, 30 Days of Night, but it's beginning to seem that vampire culture is losing its dark soul.

Many of these "modern" vampires bend over backwards to avoid feeding on people. You know who would never think to do that? A zombie.

Zombies are reliable for ruthless, merciless destruction. You can't seduce a zombie. You can't convince it to eat a Big Mac instead of your face. You would never want a zombie to "change" you into one of them. Their monsterness is undeniable and repellent. It makes them fun to watch. It makes them even more fun to kill.

The vampire set is now overdue for a bloody swing back towards its more vicious roots; the genre's cool factor has been heavily depleted by its fuzzy figureheads. But until that swing happens, zombies will always be there, steadfast in their hunger; the monster that will never let you down.

Our Director Gets Her Brain Picked by the Zed Word Blog!

Our lovely director Katie Carman was interviewed by "The Zed Word, Zombie Blog" this week!

Katie spills the details on all things Eaters. You might even learn something! Check it out here:

http://zedwordblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks to the Zed Word Blog for the great interview!

Hello, Brooklyn.

Despite a number of political and economic challenges, New York City remains at the heart of American cinema.

Among all U.S. workers employed in the motion picture and sound recording industry, one in ten calls New York home, which is just second to L.A. County.

In 2008, there were more than 27,000 shooting days in New York City, up from 15,000 in 1993, according to the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting.

Manhattan, of course, serves as the nucleus of the city's film industry.

But what about Brooklyn?

A simple search on IMDB found that there have been at least 1,554 movies and television episodes filmed--at least partially--in Brooklyn.

There's the obvious: Saturday Night Fever, the Cosby Show and Do the Right Thing.

Meanwhile, there's the not-so-obvious:

· Buffalo Bill's Wild West Parade (4 episodes in 1900);
· Debbie Does Dallas (1978);
· Ben Hur (the 1907 silent film);
· Peter Pan (a television version produced in 1960); and
· Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie's 2009 production, starring Robert Downey Jr.)

And our Eaters is one of the more recent additions to the Brooklyn canon, with scenes filmed in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bed-Stuy.

But in the end, we're still New Yorkers. So, join us at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan on August 4 for a screening of "Eat Me!" at the NewFilmmakers Summer Series.

Don't mess with my Beastie, jerk!

When creating a genre movie, particularly a monster flick, it's up to the filmmakers to put their own unique stamp on the beasties or risk going unnoticed, unrecognized or even worse- unwatched. Sometimes the attempts at re-telling the tale of the same, time-worn monsters in a different way leaves us with a weirdly mixed bag of sparkle vampires, teen werewolves, and boobarellas gone wild. Creativity is one thing, but when you mess with "the Facts"- watch out.

Nowhere is the disagreement over the "true nature" of a monster more divided than with our undead, hungry hero, the zombie.

Perhaps because they are "us" or perhaps because their inherent simplicity makes them so much fun, new interpretations of the zombie can cause die-hard fans to take up (severed) arms against unrealistic or unreasonable portrayals of this most stalwart of monsters.

We are currently living in the age of the super-fast (28 Days series), super-smart - (in zombie terms mind you)( Day of the Dead) and super-subservient (Fido) manifestations of the classic zombie. While some viewers may scoff at the fleet-footedness of the ghoulies in "28 Days" (or outright deny that they are in fact, zombies) or wrestle with the implications of zombies that can learn, or (WTF?) develop emotions, they are all part of one big-flesh eating family.

Our Eaters set a new model. Created by a radioactive blast that keeps the corpses alive and fantastically ravenous, our zeds are neither smart nor particularly fast. Some of them are markedly more aggressive then others. Some attack. Some don't. Or at least, some Eaters are slower than others when it comes to figuring out how badly they want to eat you.

But beware, children, letting a drop of your blood fall free around an Eater. That will get you noticed, in a very, very bad way.

"Bloodlust?" I hear you say, dear reader, "That's vampire shit!"

Well, not anymore. It's EATER shit, friends. The zombie world has changed again.

The director's chair: you can't sit there, woman

Much has been written about how women have been portrayed in horror films, and a good chunk of it suggests strong female characters have usually played second fiddle to the horny male adolescent fantasy.

There are many exceptions, of course. Perhaps most famously, there’s Alien (1979). And more recently, Mitchell Lichtenstein's Teeth (2007) made some noise for shaking up the genre.

But when it comes to celebrated directors...well, we can't do much but scratch our heads.

We went back and looked at the award winners from nine horror film festivals--both famous and not so famous--and couldn't find one woman whose work had been given the top prize for a feature film.

(for the record, the festivals we looked at were: Saturn Awards, New York City Horror Film Festival, Toronto After Dark Film Festival, Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, Dark Carnival, Sacramento Horror Film Festival, Fright Night Film Festival, Screamfest LA, and Shriekfest).

Sixty six prizes awarded over the years and not one woman. That's a really bad batting average.

We did manage to find one woman with an award-winning film: Yfke Van Berckealer. And that was for a 37-minute short film (Zombie Love) at 2007's Zompire: The Undead Film Festival, which is held annually in Portland, Oregon.

To be fair, Hollywood hasn’t fared much better. Just three women have been nominated for a best director's Oscar award--but no winners.

Are we overlooking an award winner? Let us know.

A day without sunlight, but with some hot news!

Cold Hands daytripped it out to Bellmore for the long day of events that composed the closing Gala of the Long Island International Film Expo. We met some interesting people and were happy to see THE EATERS nominated in the Best Long Island Feature Category. The overall event could have used some serious tightening (we the audience sat in a dark theater for four hours on the most beautiful of summer afternoons- I kept thinking, if this were at a restaurant at the Nautical Mile, we could all be looking at boats, and seagulls, and longshoremen!) Anyhoo. We were happy to be recognized in a city that as treated us well.

In other super-exciting news, the treatment for our next feature has gotten us into the quarterfinals of the Ultimate Filmmaking Competition. There are still many hoops to jump through, but we are psyched to be in the running for the awesome cash prize.

THE EATERS have also gotten a shout out from women-in-horror site Pretty Scary. Thanks ladies! Check out the link here -
http://pretty-scary.net/content/katie-carman-and-elizabeth-lees-zombedy-eaters-trailer

More photos from our June 26th Premiere!

We just got our hands on some additional photos taken at our premiere June 26th. Many thanks to George McClosky of Perfect Photo!

Here's a shot of the crowd in the lobby area of Anthology. We had a packed house!

Another shot of the lobby:

Here's a great shot of the cast & crew (Liz, we lost you there behind Ed X!)

Making our little speech before the screening:

Here's a cool view from the audience (with a little help from Photoshop on the screen. Thanks George!):

May the "Eat Me!" banner always fly high.

This past Wednesday, Cold Hands got a little undead and took to the streets with the new, glorious Eater Banner. We descended upon the huge, outdoor screening of Evil Dead II at the McCarren Park Ballfields in Brooklyn stocked with our army of postcards and our corpse like grins.

Our deadness and our amazing banner at first received only curious looks from passersby, but soon, once it was realized that we would not actually bite, we were approached by many friendly zombie lovers.

Some of them had interesting things to say.

One chap, seeing Katie staggering in a zed-like fashion, an EATERS postcard in her outstretched hand, remarked "You're a zombie! Gimme THAT!" and snatched it away. Thank you, sir.

Another said "You shoulda had a bike messenger zombie in your movie." Sir, we Do have a bike messenger zombie in our movie. Report to the Anthology on August 4th!

Others wanted to quiz us on other zombie movies. One individual ate the postcard, proving... we're not sure. Another man offered to sell us a zombie survival guide. We pointed out our macabre appearances and shrugged ---A little too late for that, pal. But thanks anyway.

Most however, simply expressed enthusiasm for the walking dead, and amusement that the film was shot locally. The Eater Banner will no doubt be making many more appearances this summer, but we consider its inaugural flight to be a great success.

"EAT ME!" escapes to Long Island (International Film Expo, that is)

This past Tuesday, Eat Me! was screened for a crowd of hungry zombie fans at the Bellmore Movies, in Bellmore, Long Island. We amassed a seriously respectable crowd for a late Tuesday evening. There was a brief Question and Answer session with the filmmakers after the screening, in which the two inevitable questions were voiced:

What was the budget for "Eat Me!"?

Of course, an epic feature like "Eat Me!" that spans two boroughs and an extra COUNTY has a hefty price tag--- and that's not even counting the "Love" that was involved (love is so difficult to commodify that the world bank has given up trying to assign it a dollar amount). Because of these, and other accounting difficulties, the producers had to demure and shy away from revealing any actual figure. We can say however, that we did produce the film on a shoestring, and that that shoestring is now covered in fake blood.

Will there be an "Eat Me!II" ?

This is one of our favorite questions. Not only because we like to imagine that people ask it because they love the movie and want to see more of the characters (and eventually watch the surviving characters get eviscerated by eaters) but also because the potential sequel names are so very tempting. Here's a sampling ---
Still Eatin'
Hungry For More
Second Helpings
The Main Course
Save Your Fork, There's Pie!
Undigested
Are you gonna finish that?
If anybody can think of any more good ones, we'd love to hear em.

Please accept our apologies for the sporadic posting. It's been a busy week with our first festival premiere! We promise to update you very soon with all the latest news.

Stay Tuned!

Greetings!!

Lots of fun news to share. Our premiere last Friday went really well, and the film had a great reception. We hope the trend continues into next week when we have our 1st Festival Screening!
Don't forget: Tuesday, July 14th at 9:30pm at the Bellmore Theaters, THE EATERS will be screening with a few other shorts films as part of the Long Island International Film Expo. $1 of every ticket purchased will go to the North Shore Animal League, which is awesome.

Because we're taking part in this amazing festival, we've gotten mentioned in a few newspapers. The first and most exciting being The New York Times. We also were mentioned today as a film of interest in Newsday.

We hope you're all doing well and enjoying your summer!

"EAT ME!" in the blogosphere!

Much thanks to the zombie fan community at large this week as we got two shout outs from the world of zombie media!

The first is thanks to Geoff over at Revenant Magazine, the premiere magazine for everything ZOMBIE! Thanks Geoff!

We also just found a lovely write up of THE EATERS on Amanecer Zombie complete with an awesome photo layout. It looks like a fantastic website - wish they had an English version though!

Our NYC Premiere is in days and we're SO super thrilled to show you all the film! Stay tuned for all the latest news!

New Trailer!

"EAT ME!" chosen to screen at TWO New York Festivals!

We're thrilled to announce that a work in progress version of "EAT ME!" has been selected into to two long established New York festivals, the the Long Island International Film Expo and New Filmmakers in NYC.

Our screening as part of the Long Island Int'l Film Expo will take place Tuesday July 14th, 2009 at 9:30 pm in a small theater on Long Island in Bellmore, NY. The theater is walking distance from the Long Island Rail Road which is a 45 minute ride from NYC. Here is the information from their website regarding getting tickets:

If you would like to purchase advance tickets for a screening, you must submit payment (Money Order Only) of $9.00 per ticket (non refundable), made out to South Shore Entertainment Corp.

Send to:
South Shore Entertainment Corp.
P.O. Box 93
Massapequa, NY 11758-0093s

Money Orders MUST be received at least three days prior to screening. You will then receive a voucher through the mail and your name will be added to the guest list at the theater. You will need to check in at the Box Office window the day of the screening. If your voucher does not reach you before the screening, your name will be on the guest list. Be sure you specify the date and time of the movie block you wish to see.

Also, please be sure your phone number is included in case of a sell out.

Our NewFilmmakers NYC Screening is taking place Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 8:00 pm at Anthology Film Archives, the same place we are having our premiere screening in June! Tickets to that event are easier to get, and are available at the box office before the screening for $6.

Our film in both festivals is surrounded by a ton of short films, and at Anthology followed by another feature that sounds pretty cool, STATE OF ROCK.

We hope that you can join us at one of these screenings!