So, my adventure at the Sundance Film Festival 2012 is more or less over… Grabbers, my second feature, had its premiere there and the last week has been a dizzy whirlwind of flights, interviews, speeches, photographs, handshakes – and a few beers. All set against the spectacular backdrop of the snow-capped mountains that loom over Park City, Utah, where the festival is held.
The reaction at Sundance has helped me understand what people are seeing (and not seeing) in Grabbers… One evening we jokingly christened it a “rom com with mon”, “mon” meaning “monsters” (we were riffing on Shaun Of The Dead and their tagline “a rom-zom-com”) – and I think that’s probably what it is. It’s a monster movie comedy, NOT a horror comedy (important difference) and at its heart it’s a love story, a gentle character study, Irish to the tips of its fingers. In amongst the drunken madness and tentacled aliens…
Grabbers seems to have found its fans – the mentions on Twitter have been overwhelmingly positive. A big thankyou to everybody who wished us well, it makes the hard work worth it!
Written on a Jumbo Jet somewhere over the Atlantic — Sunday 29th January 2012
