Sea of Dust (film)

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2006 horror-fantasy feature starring Tom Savini and Ingrid Pitt takes its name from the boundary separating reality from religious "truth," a boundary epitomized by Prester John's Sea of Dust.

A stylistic tribute to the sixties work of Hammer Films and Italian genre director Mario Bava, Sea incorporates the Prester John myth into its heady stew of surrealism, social satire, and comic invention. Pitt has gone as far as to call it "one of the best films I ever worked on."

[edit] News

July 2006:

Tom Savini recently took a break from shooting the new Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez feature Grind House to complete his Sea of Dust ADR.

[edit] Press Release

With the launch of the revved up website at Sea Of Dust, the creative geniuses behind SEA OF DUST, which stars genre icons Tom Savini and Ingrid Pitt, are strutting their skill in flamboyant style. The website gives every indication that SEA will be a surreal and disturbing film, one that will bring major studio ambience to the Indie Horror market.

Savini chose to headline SEA because he was impressed by Director/Screenwriter Scott Bunt’s highly original script. The film promised to be a much-deserved tribute to Britain’s Hammer Films and the work of Italian maestro Mario Bava. Genre great Ingrid Pitt (The Vampire Lovers, The Wicker Man) also signed on, giving SEA OF DUST a legitimate claim to the Hammer “blood line”. Soon, other notables, including Stuart Rudin (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) and the fast-rising Pete Barker (SIMPLE LIFE, SATAN’S WHIP), joined the ensemble.

While the stars may have signed on for the script, Director Bunt obviously strove to give his film added dimensions. The SEA website augurs a dark tale, but also a film of breathtaking imagery and color.

The site opens to a translucent cerulean ocean that seems to be floating in a Salvador Dali painting, and a haunting tagline appears: “There are things in life that man should leave alone …hateful, horrible things … but we breathe life into them anyway”.

English composer Jasper Drew’s striking composition “Desire” plays in background.

Then, the stylized, penetrating eyes of Savini hover over this strangely beautiful scene, set within a half-mask that is almost reptilian in its malevolence. With the classically-trained Drew’s score and intriguing imagery as a backdrop, SEA is trumpeting its status as a quality film to be experienced on multiple levels.

The web site journey that follows is as beautiful and thought-provoking as the opening frame. We see a classically composed mansion scene and Savini presiding in formal villainous black cape, as ingénue Troy Holland is led away by two very lovely but scary twin girls, reminiscent of the apparitions that inhabited a generation’s nightmares after The Shining.

Details about the film, cast and crew are presented in accompanying blood-red frames that sweep across the scenes, leaving trails of spattered blood. The imagery on each page is an orgy of color and gothic horror, presented with modern attitude. The Cast is introduced, with Savini’s impressive bio leading the way, next to a fabulously evil and erotic image of character actor Pete Barker happily whipping blonde beauty Sarah Dauber. The glee on Barker’s face is obvious, but is Dauber enjoying her suffering? With her head thrown back and her jacket pulled down to display bare shoulders and a corseted frame, the young woman seems as much in ecstasy as pain.

The page titled “Behind The Scenes” shows images, in quick succession, that include a bloody knife pulled from Holland’s arm, the lovely and talented Darby Totten in a mesmerizing pose, Dauber’s surrealistic whipping beneath the gaze of classical statuary, Stuart Rudin swinging a deadly axe in one shot, and in the next frame amiably chatting with the director after the bloody axe has been implanted into his chest. The stump of a mostly headless peasant woman’s body shocks, the twin girls bedevil us, a tortured and bloody village girl suffers in a medieval dungeon, and Savini menaces and controls young Holland like a puppet.

SEA OF DUST promises to be a beautiful and mind-bending journey from a largely veteran cast and a daring new director. Explosive action and state-of-the-art gore effects are melded with breathtaking cinematography and a diabolically clever script.

An homage to the classic Hammer Films of the 50’s/60’s, and a loving tribute to the works of Italian maestro Mario Bava (BLACK SUNDAY, BLACK SABBATH), Bunt’s epic social satire has something for every horror fan: mythical monsters, cannibalistic harpies, mesmerized assassins, torture dungeons, possessed innocents, evil aristocrats and mind-boggling special effects by Josh Turi (WENDIGO, UNFAITHFUL).

SEA OF DUST: a must-see film experience for every devotee of the horror genre.