John Oak Dalton

"Not 'Hollywood Independent' - writer John Oak Dalton is the real Real Thing." --Cinema Minima."Very weird and unpopular b-movies and comics."--Blogalicious. "After watching the film I am left to wonder if he had some childhood trauma he is not telling us about."--IMDB user review. "Screenwriter John Oak Dalton wanted to be in Hollywood. Instead, he's in the rustic kitchen above the Germania General Store, stirring a pot of boiling hot dogs." --The Harrisburg Patriot-News.

Sunday, October 30, 2022

Monster Mash

This blog post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

It's Halloween season, but I've fallen behind on all the spooky movies and spent a couple of pretty fall weekends camping instead, a fair enough trade. But if you are behind yourself, and want to catch up, you still have time to watch at least one of the ten movies I've written for other directors that are currently free on Tubi:

REEL MONSTERS

NOAH'S SHARK

SAND WORLD

ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE

JURASSIC PREY

AMITYVILLE ISLAND

SHARK ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

AMITYVILLE DEATH HOUSE

RAZORTEETH

PETER ROTTENTAIL

Or to make it a true devil's dozen, here are both of my directorial efforts as well.

This one isn't out yet, but the trailer for JESSE JAMES UNCHAINED dropped, a film I wrote and helped produce during COVID.

I finally caught up to BROADCAST SIGNAL INTERRUPTED which I liked a lot, and you will too if you get kind of spooked thinking about that weird Max Headroom thing that happened in Chicago way back when. Also caught NOPE and BARBARIAN, both of which I enjoyed for originality even if I thought they unraveled a bit at the end. That's light for me but not bad overall.

I have a really excellent book recommendation for my readers, one I have told everyone I know IRL to read and sent to a friend for his birthday: THE EMPLOYEES by Olga Ravn. It's like if the Strugatsky Brothers were showrunners for THE OFFICE and that's all I will say about it.

Longtime readers know that both me and this guy Tom Cruise and a couple other people had movies grind to a halt during COVID. It's been hard to get the machine running to get back to it. But slowly, and then quickly, I'm working on a new movie to shoot in December.

Way back in October 2013, a young writer named Richard Pierce, eager to break into the b-movie world, wrote me an email. Fortunately for him he didn't follow my advice too closely and is now living the sweet life in Vegas writing Lifetime movies like KILLER PROFILE and STUDENT SEDUCTION. But fortunately for me he can't shake his love for really cheap b-movies, so when Lifetime rejected his pitch for a movie called SMART HOUSE he asked if I was interested in working on it with him.

It's about an influencer trapped in a smart house seemingly gone crazy, and I have to say it really kindled my interest, and we kicked ideas back and forth and started writing the first of five drafts on September 14th, and now Richard is flying out here the first weekend in December and we are starting production December 3rd with my great movie partner Henrique Couto. Richard had all the good ideas, and I wrote all the eccentric characters and took out everything that costs actual money. We may end up a dangerous combo.

Hopefully the weather holds, and I can assemble the cast and crew I put it together for. For various reasons this is kind of a secret project, so the only place you can get real updates is right here.

Although I am still working through a cocktail of various pills for hypertension, we have had a beautiful fall in Indiana. Wishing the best wherever you are--and Happy Halloween!