A House is Not a Home Available on DVD

It's been nearly three years since we saw the trailer for Christopher Olen Ray's A House is Not a Home and the film made a splash at the Burbank International Film Festival.

Now, after a limited theatrical release, you can pick up the movie on DVD...pretty much anywhere, including Amazon and your local Walmart.

If you don't find it on the shelf in the store, consider asking them to order it for you; maybe they'll pick up an extra copy or two when they're putting in your order.

In case you've forgotten or you missed it the first time around, here's the trailer again. Or, you could just skip right over it and let the story be a surprise when you pick up your copy.

Richard Grieco Fans - the 4th Annual Flicker Awards are For You!

If you have enough of an interest in Richard Grieco to be reading this blog, you won't want to miss your opportunity to vote in MatchFlick's 4th Annual Flicker Awards. Both AE: Apocalypse Earth and A House is Not a Home are heavily represented among the nominees. A House is Not a Home--which Richard co-produced--has four nominations:

Best Breakout Film
Best Boogeyman (the house itself)
Scariest Film
Best Haunted House Film

I haven't seen a lot of press surrounding this film, but it did take Best Horror Picture at the Burbank Film Festival when it premiered in September.

I know a little more about AE: Apocalypse Earth, having actually seen the movie and also interviewed writer/director Thunder Levin. A year ago, you couldn't have convinced me that I'd get excited about the category of Best Mockbuster Twin, but AE: Apocalypse Earth truly deserves a win in this category. If you have any doubt, check out this earlier post in which I compared The Asylum's knock-off to Will Smith's After Earth.

The second AE: Apocalypse Earth nomination goes to Costa Rican supermodel Bali Rodriguez in the category of Best Warrior Woman.

It takes just a minute or two to vote, and they're not requiring registration or anything you might want to avoid--why not take a moment right now and help ensure that Richard's films take five of these awards (6 if we count Bali's).

A House is Not a Home Wins Best Horror Feature at Burbank International Film Festival

A House is Not a Home is interesting for a number of reasons. One is that Richard is listed as "co-producer," on the film, a role he hasn't played often in his movie career. Another is that A House is Not a Home star Gerald Webb, in his interview on the red carpet at Grieco's recent gallery opening, said the film was the first-ever straight horror film with a primarily black cast.

No word yet on a general release date for the movie, but it premiered last week at the Burbank International Film Festival and walked away with the award for Best Horror Feature Film. Richard's appearance in the trailer is brief and creepy and we haven't heard a lot about his "character," so this one should hold some surprises. Here's the trailer, in case you haven't seen it. I'll update with additional festival and/or general release information.

Current Richard Grieco Movies

First, an apology to regular readers: much of this post will be a re-run for you.  I have a good reason, though--in the past week, we've had more than 500 brand new visitors.  That's a lot of people looking for information about Richard, and I want to make sure that his current projects are easy to find.

So first, a quick recap of current/upcoming Richard Grieco films (click titles to view trailers):

AE: Apocalypse Earth has Richard and Highlander star Adrian Paul battling for survival on a strange and hostile planet.  It's available on DVD May 28, and you can pre-order it now through Richard Grieco's official website store.

After Midnight is a paranormal mystery from Fred Olen Ray, also starring Tawny Kitaen.  No release date/information seems to be available for this one yet, but it is slated for later this year.

A House is Not a Home remains a bit of a mystery to me, even after watching the trailer.  It's about a family that moves into a new house and is driven to move past their problems with one another and work together when they're haunted.  I think Richard is the thing that's haunting them (or one of them), but it's tough to tell for sure.  One thing that caught my attention about this one was that Richard is listed as a co-producer.

In addition to those three movies that are slated for release this year, there are two kind of floating around in the sea of uncertain futures right now.

Cats Dancing on Jupiter was apparently completed in 2011 and has done the festival circuit, but not been more widely release as yet.  It appears that the producers are holding off on a DVD release in hopes of a theatrical release, and I'd love to see that.  The movie also stars Amanda Righetti from The Mentalist, former Disney star Annalies Van der Pol and once-upon-a-time teen heartthrob Rex Smith.  The storyline involves two young women whose seductive games don't end as their targets hope--unless that poor slob at the bar really wanted to end his night being dismembered in someone's barn. Side note: Richard has some very interesting blond streaks in his hair in this one, probably because his character appears to be a pretentious ass.

The other wildcard is called Coachella Massacre, and appears to be a horror movie set at the Coachella music festival.  Other than that, this one remains a complete mystery: it's still classified as "under development," the usual sources don't offer up much (read: any) information and the few casual inquiries I've sent out to people involved have netted no response. 

I saw a Tweet this week that said "I wish #RichardGrieco played in more movies," but that isn't really the issue:  I think what we all wish is that Richard's movies were better promoted so that fans weren't sitting around wishing he'd make a new movie when he's actually cranking them out lately.

Side note: It's not just about the movies!  If you've been out of the loop for a while, you really should check out Richard's artwork.  You may know that he's been painting for most of his adult life--he apparently started developing his current genre on the set of If Looks Could Kill--but in the past few years it's become much more than a hobby.  He's done at least one gallery show and is selling paintings for tens of thousands of dollars. 

Regular readers:  I'll be back with something new in a day or two.  I'm gathering information on the likelihood that Richard will appear in the second 21 Jump Street movie and how we may be able to help make sure that happens.

Upcoming Richard Grieco Movies

I've written quite a bit about AE--at least, given the small amount of official information available about the film.  But that film just caught my attention because of the odd sprinkling of information about it and that camouflage-painted woman.  While I've been speculating about AE, I've been entirely ignoring two other upcoming films. 

One of them, A House is Not a Home, is slated for release some time this year and actually has a trailer.  You'll have to pay close attention to catch Grieco in this trailer; I don't think he's one of the good guys.  Here's the official synopsis:

A House Is Not A Home: Ben (Webb) and Linda Williams move the family into a dream home in a last ditch effort to save their troubled marriage. Despite the good intentions, they can't shake the feeling that they're being watched by something. Their unimaginable fears are realized when things inside the house take a supernatural and sinister turn. Ben and his family flee for their lives but it's too late. The house isn't finished with them trapping the family in its labyrinth. The Williams must come together as never before to fight for their family, their lives and escape.
 

One thing that interested me about this film is that Grieco is listed as a co-producer in the IMDB credits.  I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I hold out some hope that it bodes well for the relative quality of the movie compared with some past endeavors.

IMDB also shows Coachella Massacre in pre-production status with an undetermined release date.  Since this one is still classified as "in development," very little information is available.  IMDB isn't revealing anything and FestivalFocus doesn't seem to know anything.

The one source of information I've been able to find is Director Dan Frank's Twitter account.  He mentioned the film, which is apparently centered around the annual Coachella Music Festival, quite a bit back in the fall.  According to Frank's Tweets, Grieco will be playing the role of Danny Thorn who is "pretty bad ass." Frank said the role was perfect for Richard and he was excited to have him on board.

I'm sure we'd all be excited about that, too, but Frank's Tweets about the film die out in the late fall, not long after he announced Grieco's participation. The last mention is in mid-November, when he responds to a question saying that he is still working on funding and "working out the cast for the budget he has."  It's not clear what that means for the project's future:  I can't tell whether Coachella is moving forward at all, whether there's any timetable in effect or whether the cast announcements from last October will hold in view of the funding issues.

I've inquired and will update if I learn anything more concrete.