For context, if you have not done so already read the pinned message from La Reine Margot in the Breaking News board.
I am going to start with an apology. Red Feline is our host and sponsor of this board so many of us enjoy. But, like many others here, I have not paid enough attention to their business and their offerings in the GIMP content space. We devote much discussion to Cruel World and Electric City and others - and they deserve it - but so does Red Feline.
Apology accepted. Most of the registered members have many other interests in mind than what we share in this forum. That's totally obvious. And the new format of the forum... not so new anymore, lends itself for the atomization of interests. And there are so, so many. Some have three, four times the number of posts more than the average. One case in point is Mature Ladies.
I can totally understand the lack of interest.
The GIMP site is open to all tastes. And although I agree that we deserve some attention, it's not obligatory, but it could be nice to have more than a very few people paying attention to what we have to offer.
I have owned a few of the Red Feline titles in the past, but the DVDs have since been lost, and I was not keen to install a proprietary video player to view their downloaded content. BUT, after reading the post I mentioned I decided to go back and take a look. I should say that two of the GIMP themes that do nothing for me are crucifixion and BATS, so there is an explanation but not an excuse why I have tended to pass on Red Feline since they lean so heavily into the crux theme.
When we first began this journey, we had one film,
Red Feline On The Cross, with our dear Camille in the leading role of a martyred woman who at the end suffers a nasty crucifixion. But before she's nailed the cross, Camille suffers a lot of torture. A lot. When we released that film, in the early days of the internet and before the existence of DVDs, Streamline, and so on, one year before this site was even created, we found some kind of niche. The little original investment of less than 500 dollars turned into a money making movie, one that continues today.
One thing that I'd like to point out is that Jac had made a very famous movie before, a docu-drama on Haiti. That film's budget was over 500,000 dollars and it took 8 years to make. Mostly raising the money and traveling a lot to make it, it include clandestine shooting inside Haiti, post production in Cuba, lots of work in the US and Canada. That film was a critical success, but it never recovered the half a million dollars. It was sold to TV in the US, England, Germany and other countries. It opened at the Cannes film festival, in 1988, to fantastic reviews and an enthusiastic audience that included none other than Graham Greene.
Jac travelled for almost three years from festival to festival to grand accolades, awards, reviews, sales ... and yet...
Jac, his coproducer and a friend at the Hotel Nacional, Havana, Cuba.
Red Feline on the Cross was released in VHS format -remember those?- The first VHS was sold in February. By April the film was making over 1000 a week... and it grew from there. It made money... lots of it. We were selling it at 70 dollars a tape. Crazy right? That film began an industry, small, yes, but an industry, nevertheless, that now has more than 40 films out there.
The niche we found was one very much into CRUX. That term did not exist the way we know it now, it came to be soon after the release of our film. So, naturally, our films have CRUX in them, but that's not all they have, they have a lot more.
This afternoon I rented "Justine" on Vimeo (less then $4 for a day) and found it to be really good. It is a period piece with quite good acting and production values featuring very beautiful actresses and a series of (simulated) whipping and rack scenes. I think the acting really sells these scenes and I thoroughly enjoyed them. The transitions between scenes (often filler in other videos) were interesting enough to keep me from fast forwarding, and they built a sense of suspense and dread that added to the overall feel of the movie. Keep in mind it is 90 minutes long! It does end on a crux scene, but it is short so no issue for me.
JUSTINE (2017) is our most successful film of late, after
Maleficarum (2011) which continues to be the number one seller after all these years. Justine is catching up, it might go over Maleficarum at some point.
It's a great film, with an engaging story, based on De Sade's novella, where Justine has endless monologue and a lot happens to her. To be honest, if one were to use the entire book for a film, it would be a very looooooong film, better yet, it can easily be made into a long, very long series.
But for the film Jac decided to take those elements that he liked the best, choosing the main characters from a big bunch to tell one part of Justin's tale of horror, where Jac included a CRUX scene which is not the book.
So, this evening I bought "Agent X" (interrogation is a GIMP theme I very much enjoy). To my surprise, it played in my browser straight from the web site without installing the player. That may not be true for all titles and internet connections, but is was very much appreciated. This is a GIMP-lovers delight - 98 minutes of pretty much non-stop torture, starting with face slapping, and including a pretty decent electro scene, whipping, and a "drowning" scene that was pretty weak given that the water bucket barely fit the victims head - but her acting sold it pretty well. It too ended on a crux theme, but in this setting I was ok with it. I really liked the fact that the editing implied total continuity, there was never a "now she is in a different restraint" cut. Each scene ended with the victim conveniently passing out so she could be moved without resistance. For the most part these transition looked quite believable (no, you can't hold up a totally limp body by one wrist while securing the other one...).
Agent X was made a couple of years before
Maleficarum and at that time it was our best seller. Another one of those films that cost little to make, but sold very well.
It was early in Amy's acting career. For her it was a way of shaping up her acting and directing skills. It was also a way of gaining a large audience.
If you are still reading, here is the TLDR: if you have not looked at the Red Feline catalog in a while, or think their content is not for you, go and scan through it; you may well find a gem or two!
For my part, "Fantom" and "Dead but Dreaming" are on my list for future purchases. And if Red Feline plans another movie like "Agent X" and is looking for crowd funding I will be first in line! (Isn't there another "Agent" movie that has been mentioned but not released?).
Dead But Dreaming is one of those films that was the fruit of a long plan in the making. When it was finally made, it had all it needed to be a great film. Good story, good production values, everything. Worth seeing.
I can say that we have some good films coming up. Three of those are in the line of
Agent X. One of them is
Agent Honey Trap, where Jac and Mila have a lot of fun torturing poor Dani.
If you did manage to get to this point, all I need to say is that we have great films and it's worth seeing them. A lot of people do.
And going back to my original intent. I'm still waiting to know if there are enough people willing to contribute to make this site a lot better and more secure.
Thank you for your attention.
