The Incredibly Slow Murderer.. Director Richard Gale Speaks About YouTube Controversy

Last week, I wrote about the controversy surrounding the posting of the entire short film, The Incredibly Slow Murderer with the Terribly Inefficient Weapon, on YouTube. As soon as I saw that the video had been pulled, I contacted the short film's director, Richard Gale, to get the inside scoop. Gale wrote me back immediately and explained things from his perspective:

I was reading Andrew Sullivan's blog like I do most mornings, like reading the morning paper, and all of a sudden I see my film, The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon, on his blog! The blood rushed to my face-- I knew someone had put it on You Tube. The person who did it was a guy in Hungary who somehow (I don't know how) got a copy and uploaded it. He didn't mean any harm-- he gave me credit on his page and posted a link to my site. And it got crazy amounts of views-- about 50,000 views within 48 hours, and was ranked as the #18 Top Rated Film on You Tube when he took it down at my request-- It was a really tough thing for me to do when it was going viral like that. So why take it down now?

The problem is-- it's been booked to exclusively play in several film festivals for the next few months.

Also, I'd like to see if I can sell the short to Comedy Central, or Sundance Channel, or IFC... and having it on You Tube eliminates those options. Plus, when a video is going viral -- as the filmmaker you want to be in control of the YouTube page to help guide interested traffic to your other works. I plan on releasing the film in a few months on You Tube, and later this Fall on DVD with a bunch of extras (including a full 90-minute "excerpt" from the 9-hour feature film).

In the meantime, this was a wild couple of days for myself and my friends who worked on the film -- it's served as a "marketing test" that lets us know this film is in demand by a lot of people, and that's a great thing.

So, count yourself lucky if you were one of those 50,000+ people who got to see TISMWTTIW last week as it is terribly funny and extremely efficient filmmaking. If not, get your butt out to one of the several film festivals listed in the above link where the short will be playing.

Support your indie horror filmmakers.