Richard Stanley
☼ Born on 22 December 1966, in Fishhook, South Africa
Biography
Richard Stanley is the award-winning South African-born filmmaker, who made a name of himself with his first feature film, the sci-fi movie Hardware (1990). A low budget movie about a mad-dog android loose in an apartment was released in 1990. Critics slammed it as a Terminator rip-off, yet the film became a financial success. The 1.5 million dollar budget was paid back quite handsomely and continuation was imminent.
In 1992, Stanley followed Hardware with Dust Devil (1992), a story based on the myth of a Namibian serial killer. A fallout with the distributors led to the re-cutting of the US version, while the bankruptcy of the British-based production company Palace Pictures temporarily shut the post-production down in Europe and the film remained mauled or unfinished, depending how you look at it. Finally Stanley himself managed to finance a new, restored print from the original negative, which has later gained a cult following similar to Hardware.
His third feature was to be The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), an adaptation of the famed H.G. Wells novel. Unfortunately it ended up a victim of creative disputes, leading to him being sacked a few days after production began. The finished film, released in 1996, carries little to no resemblance to the version he was originally set to make, using only about two words of his original script.
This, however, hasn't beaten the visionary filmmaker down and horror movie fans are now waiting for him to come back... with a one mean veng
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eance.
In the role of actor
78/52 (13/10/2017)
The shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho is broken down and analyzed in 78/52. Created with 78 set-ups and 52 shots, the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has become one of the most iconic sequences of film history. With its use of quick cuts and suggested nudity and violence, the scene broke many taboos from the time. Multiple individuals, […]
78/52 (20/07/2017)
This review was originally published as part of my coverage of Hot Docs 2017 The shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho is broken down and analyzed in 78/52. Created with 78 set-ups and 52 shots, the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has become one of the most iconic sequences of film history. With its use of quick cuts and […]
78/52 (05/05/2017)
The shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho is broken down and analyzed in 78/52. Created with 78 set-ups and 52 shots, the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has become one of the most iconic sequences of film history. With its use of quick cuts and suggested nudity and violence, the scene broke many taboos from the […]
In the role of director
Color Out of Space – TIFF19 (12/09/2019)
A New England family’s farm is infected by an alien organism in Color Out of Space. Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage) lives on an isolated farm with his wife Theresa (Joely Richardson) and children Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), Benny (Brendan Meyer), and Jack (Julian Hilliard). One night a glowing pink meteor falls and crashes on the farm. […]