Drew Turney
Video on demand, in case you haven’t been following this column (or the news in general), has arrived. At the 2014 SXSW Film Festival, online video platform Vimeo – who committed $10m to support emerging filmmakers – said VOD platforms had enjoyed 168m users worldwide by January this year, which continues 80 percent year on year growth.
Sony is the latest player to jump in, with graphic novel adap Powers set to release on the Playstation soon. The story (a blend of superhero fantasy, crime noir and police procedural) will be produced by Sony Pictures TV, which follows an increasingly common business model and highlights an interesting aspect of the whole VOD philosophy.
In the old media days studios or productions companies made movies or TV show, then distributors or TV networks bought the rights to show them to the audience for a cut of the profits.
Playstation and Sony Pictures TV, of course, are both owned by the same company (Sony). The same’s already true of all the other former distributors like Netflix making their own shows. The line between producer and exhibitor is blurring, and while it’s too early to ask whether we’ll see a return to the antitrust days of the late 1940s (when the US government forced the Hollywood studios to divest themselves of their distribution interests), it’ll be interesting to see how things might change.
Out now; emerging horror maestro Ti West’s ”The Sacrament”, about a documentary crew who arrive at the isolated home of a rural religious sect that seems idyllic at first but which harbours dark secrets.
Straight-to-video star Eric Roberts stars in ”Camp Dread”, a parody of 80s summer camp slasher movies.
And the sequel to the blistering Aussie slasher horror Wolf Creek is also available, with star John Jarratt again lighting the screen up with menace in ”Wolf Creek 2”.
Outside horror, you can still check out the ace Brit low-budget sci-fi ”The Machine”, which we loved here at Moviehole.
