Last year AACTA and MONSTER PICTURES partnered on Australia's ultimate horror and genre film development initiative, AACTA Pitch: ISOLATION in Partnership with Monster Pictures.

This inaugural Pitch Partnership was a huge hit with over 200 entries and a strong field of finalists. Monster Pictures in partnership with Chris Brown’s production company PICTURES IN PARADISE, optioned five of the first round finalists’ projects. They are now working with the teams to develop their projects and take them to market. Find out more. 

AACTA and Monster Pictures are teaming up again in 2021 to bring you AACTA Pitch: BITE. Call for entries will open on August 30 with more details to be released soon. 

Grant Hardie, of Monster Pictures, sat down with us to talk about the Horror space. 

Why Monster Pictures?

There’s a very distinct moment in my younger life that lead me here. I saw a book called The Movie Treasury of Horror Movies in Myer Dandenong when I was about 7-8 and it fascinated me. My mum noticed and brought the book for me that Christmas and I immediately became obsessed with Horror movies (I still have the book to the book to this day). Back then (the 70’s), they used to play Hammer Horror films a lot on TV on a Friday and Saturday after midnight. I’d wait for my parents to fall asleep and the sneak out to the lounge room and watch them. This further cemented my passion and it just carried through to my adult life and proved a driving force behind me founding Monster Pictures, I just wanted it to be what I did with my life.  

What attracts you to horror and genre film making?

Being a kid when the videotape and rental store boom happened in the early 80’s meant that a lot of my teenage years was spent watching what would now be considered the classics of horror. So first and foremost, it’s because I love the films and I come at it from a fan’s perspective. Also like a lot of horror fans there’s a massive nostalgic component that drives me, I wanted to live the dream and do what I have loved since I was a kid for a job. Monster Pictures was born of this, but on a business level when I founded the company with my business partner Neil Foley, we saw a what was happening overseas with other companies specialising in horror and genre cinema and we saw a very clear opportunity to fill a gap in the market in Australia.

What makes Australian Horror and Genre films unique?

Since the 70’s Ozploitation era when Australia really earned its stripes, we’ve maintained a reputation as a highly regarded source of horror and genre cinema. Maybe it’s our colonial heritage, but loneliness, loss and the bleakness of our geography pervade our films with an overwhelming sense of menace. Fans from around the world really respond to this and love what we do, and that’s important.

What words of advice do you have for aspiring horror and genre film makers?

The genre has and always will be fan driven, so make sure you are making films for them. They’ll be your biggest and most passionate supporters and will make all the difference to the success of your film. It’s extremely vital to keep this in mind at all times.

What is the future?

Finding and supporting new ways to help connect filmmakers to audience is the key to success. As a distributor, Monster has to consistently come up with new and innovative ways to do this. Our collaboration with AACTA has really borne out some exciting and meaningful results and we're really excited to be moving into year two with AACTA Pitch: Bite. As a collective industry we have to band together to do this. Monster has some really meaningful relationships with several companies that support us in this endeavour, and we recognise and respect their support. After all the more success that we as distributors and exhibitors achieve, then the more we are able support the filmmakers and take financial risks.

AACTA Pitch: BITE in partnership with Monster Pictures is a development initiative focussed on fostering up and coming voices in Australian genre film making and fast tracking new and exciting film projects. More details will be announced soon.