A world where the night never ends…
Just four years after The Crow, filmmaker Alex Proyas returned with neo-noir science fiction movie Dark City, ushering us into a nightmarish world no one seems to wake up from. All these years later, Proyas returns to that rich, visionary universe with the short film Mask of the Evil Apparition, which is playing as part of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival beginning tonight.
In the 20-minute short, “A young woman with no memory searches a deserted nocturnal city looking for something or someone. Only problem is she can’t remember who or what. She encounters twin brothers who may be her salvation, but one of them warns her that the “Mysterious Ones,” a nefarious group of clones, are after her. Another woman in disguise also offers to help, but can she be trusted?” The brand new short is being described as “a film about identity by visionary filmmaker Alex Proyas, made entirely with virtual production, and from the Dark City (1998) cinematic universe originally created by Proyas.”
The virtual presentation will also feature a Q&A with Alex Proyas and filmmaker Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2, Mayhem), and Bloody Disgusting was able to preview that this afternoon.
During the chat, Proyas reveals that a Dark City series is in the works!
“Dark City right now is really an intriguing one to me because we’re developing a series, a Dark City Series,” Proyas explains to Lynch.
He continues, “Which we’re in the very early stages [of] but I’m having to reanalyze in order to construct a new story. I’m having to go back and kind of jog my memory as to what we actually did and what I think worked and what I think didn’t work and reevaluate my own film, so that’s been a very interesting experience as well which I’ve not done before.”
Proyas also chats about the 2008 Director’s Cut of Dark City, which allowed him to go back in and restore his original vision for the movie – as best as he possibly could, at least.
“You know, it tested very poorly and I was forced to do certain things I didn’t agree with and we made good to a certain extent in the director’s cut,” he recalls. “Because you couldn’t completely resalvage it. I mean the whole point of a director’s cut is the illusion that we resalvage what we’ve done originally. But you can never do that. Often it’s just impossible. In those days we shot on neg and the negs being cut. And its been cut in a certain way and it’s very, very hard to go right back to what you originally designed. So you do like a hodgepodge version of it. Certainly it’s closer to my original conception than the theatrical cut was, but it is still not exactly what my original conception was. You would have to go right back to dailies to do something like that.”
You can watch the original trailer for Dark City below. Rufus Sewell starred as John Murdoch, “A man who struggles with memories of his past, which include a wife he cannot remember and a nightmarish world no one else ever seems to wake up from.” The cast of the 1998 movie also included Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, and Richard O’Brien.
Make sure to grab your tickets for Mask of the Evil Apparition, streaming as part of Popcorn Frights. We’re told, “Both the Q&A and film will be available for everyone in the US to access starting at 9pm EST tonight, August 12th, through the duration of the fest, August 19th.”
‘Mask of the Evil Apparition’
