Academy Award winning artist.director for Special Effects Make-up, Chris Walas, GREMLINS, THE FLY, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and many others. has teamed up with his daughter, Zena Walas, a professional fabricator, puppeteer and wardrobe sorceress whose work appears in the movies BEAR and YEREN, as well as other productions, for a really cool and interesting puppet short film via KICKSTARTER. The film is called “The Inheritance” which creates a rich and dark visual environment that pays tribute to the classic horror films of Hollywood, while still retaining its own unique look and feel.
Below is from their Kickstarter page.
Check it out!
About this project
Here’s the trailer we’ve put together to give you some idea of the look and tone we’re going for!
THE TRAILER!
ABOUT THE FILM
The Inheritance is a puppet short film that strives to create a rich and dark visual environment that pays tribute to the classic horror films while stamping it with its own unique look and feel. Using a variety of rod, hand, mechanical and marionette techniques for the puppets will allow us a range of wonderful and visual characters. As much as is possible will be done in camera and practically to retain a more visceral and consistent tone. Which means building a lot more sets and miniatures and using live effects as opposed to doing the work digitally in post production.
THE STORY
Somewhere in the mountains of darkest Eastern Europe, a young man arrives at the castle of his bloodline to claim his inheritance, a title and an ancient castle. But instead he finds mistrust, mystery, monsters, mutants and mayhem that lead him down a nightmarish path to his ultimate destiny as he faces the true nature of his ancestor’s spirit.
THE FILMMAKERS
CHRIS WALAS
Chris Walas is an old school and award winning monster maker and film director from way back, having created iconic images of horror and creatures in such films as GREMLINS, THE FLY, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and many others.
ZENA WALAS
Zena Walas is a professional fabricator, puppeteer and wardrobe sorceress whose work appears in the movies BEAR and YEREN as well as numerous theatrical productions.
Chris and Zena have been making short films together since Zena was a little girl and The Inheritance is their most ambitious project yet.
Creating an entire world from scratch for our film will not be cheap and we need your help. The Inheritance will be a horrific and fun journey and we sincerely hope you will join us in making it happen!