Summer Glau

Way back at Frightfest 2009 news broke that Joe Lynch was going to be working on a new film, incredibly entitled Knights of Badassdom.

It was John Landis who ‘announced’ it on stage and explained how the script had originally been brought to him but deciding it wasn’t right for him, he recommended Lynch.

Lynch actually described the tone of Knights of Badassdom as “very much, An American Werewolf in London”.

A year has passed since then and this summer Lynch shot the film in Spokane and is currently immersed in editing it.

Although there have been no posters or trailers yet (the kind of things that normally get people excited) anticipation is beginning to build around this film and potentially rightly so as this really could be great and here are five reasons why.

1. Joe Lynch

Lynch has actually only directed one feature length film and it was Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, a straight to video sequel to a pretty terrible film. What was so surprising about Wrong Turn 2 though was that what looked on paper to be destined for mediocrity turned out to be a darn sight better than anyone was expecting. With a hit and miss script and a spirited but slightly lacking cast Joe Lynch managed to pull something quite remarkable out of it. His enthusiasm and love for genre cinema is apparent in the film and it is these qualities that could help make Knights of Badassdom a really enjoyable film.

2. The premise

Knights of Badassdom is written by Matt Wall and Kevin Dreyfuss and Lynch describes the film as a “heavy metal horror adventure”. The film involves live action role playing that gets very real.

Here’s a breakdown of the plot (Supplied by Matt Wall via AllianceLarp)

STORY LINE: A huge group of dedicated, costumed LARPers (Live Action Role Players), dressed like knights, elves and various characters, give up their cell phones and take to the woods for the Central New Jersey Knights of Badassdom Adventure Society, where they are set to re-enact a dungeons and dragons scenario right out of the mythical Middle Ages. After being dumped by his sexy girlfriend Beth, Joe reluctantly decides to join Eric and his Larping friends in the woods rather than stay behind and feel sorry for his newly single status. There he meets hot, ass-kicking, intimidating huntress LARPer Gwen, and finds himself a surreal adventure wilder than he ever imagined when a make-believe wizard casts an all-too-real spell from an ancient book he bought on Ebay, releasing an actual demon with a taste for human blood — and souls — that starts systematically decimating the players in this suddenly deadly “game.” Will our guys become the heroes they have been pretending to be before time runs out?…

3. The gore/special effects

With special effects supplied by Spectral Motion (who have worked on the Hellboy films amongst other things) combined with large swords and Joe Lynch’s love of inventive kills, Knights of Badassdom is sure to splatterific (if that’s not a word it should be) and contain some pretty great practical effects and a lot of fake blood. Coming via Joe Lynch’s blog the below image gives us an idea of what we might be in store for.

4. The cast

Lynch has assembled a great cast for Knights of Badassdom, with Summer Glau, Steve Zahn, Ryan Kwanten and Peter Dinklage all confirmed. You can see Miss Glau pictured above holding a really big sword (lets be honest, for a lot of us that picture alone sells the film). Although there’s no information on the roles that each actor has in the film the list of actors is a pretty interesting selection.

Steve Zahn has had a recent peak in his career thanks to appearing as a recurring character in David Simon’s Treme and is a really solid and likeable actor.

Ryan Kwanten seems to be destined to be a star with his popular performance in TV series True Blood and his fantastic performance in Red Hill and after the latter in particular I’m really looking forward to seeing what Kwanten does next.

Peter Dinklage is an intelligent actor who seems to have a great eye for picking interesting films and this could be one of them.

5. The music

Bear McCreary (who is probably best known for scoring Battlestar Galactica) is scoring Knights of Badassdom and with Lynch’s affection for metal and the description “heavy metal horror adventure” I think we can expect something loud and heavy with shredding and some nice drop D power chords.

We will of course be bringing you all the news on the film as soon we have more.

Let us know in the comments if you’re excited about Knights of Badassdom.