Anchor Bay Uk is gonna release Van Bebber's CHARLIE'S FAMILY in a 2 DVD edition: among the extra there will be the documentary IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, which contains interview of many indie filmakers shot during the Fantasia Filmfest.
Among them there is, of course, Richard Stanley!

Bought this just for the Richard Stanley interviews, which are waaay too short unfortunatly.

I gotta say that even though I do enjoy B movies and gore movies the 'Charlies Family' film is an absolute waste of film. And thats coming from someone who owns everything from Slipstream (Mark Hamill) to Split Second (Rutger Hauer) So Im quite a fan of none mainstream cinema.
But Charlies Family was desperatly amaturish to the point of being laughable.

If you watch the documentry you get the feeling that while Stanley is obviously enjoying himself and getting along with everyone, there are moments where he seems to be thinking 'what the hell am I doing here'. No wonder he wrote and dusted off so many scripts after the festival, I could have produced better films than half the people there with one arm tied behind my back!

Funny, when I saw the interview I immediately felt somewhat sorry for Stanley. To me, he seemed rather hurt and disappointed on the way things had been going for him, professionally. After incidents like DUST DEVIL and MOREAU, one obviously has build up his confidence again to mount another production. The best part of the interview is when he starts talking about THE SECRET GLORY, (paraphrasing) "something to make me feel like a filmmaker again". So there's a sort of faint emotional arc which can be seen throughout the interview, starting from very bleak moments into a glimmer of hope. Or maybe it's just me

I should dust off my MANSON FAMILY disc and finish a transcript.

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Oh, and I enjoyed THE MANSON FAMILY for what it was. Granted, my opinion was affected by the backstory (read Polanski's autobiography for starters), as well as the film's journey to the screen.

I should get the UK edition of the movie to see the documentary.

As for the movie, I liked it - it's better than Van Bebber's previous feature DEADBEAT AT DAWN, which really rocked only in the last 10 minutes.

It's not a masterpiece, but it works...