1091 Pictures Snatches Creature Thriller ‘Tar’; Jim Klock To Co-Star, Co-Direct ‘Slayed’; MPX Acquires ‘Electric Jesus’ Sales Rights – Film Briefs

1091 Pictures has picked up North American distribution rights to Tar, and indie thriller that it plans on releasing with exclusive theatrical run targeting drive-in theaters starting in early October followed by a digital rollout October 20. Timothy Bottoms, Aaron Wolf, Tiffany Shepis, Max Perlich and Graham Greene star. Wolf directed the film, set in the murky depths of Los Angeles’ world-famous La Brea Tar Pits wherein lies an ancient secret – a creature that, awakened by subway construction, emerges to terrorize its unsuspecting victims in a desperate fight for survival. Howling Wolf Productions partners Aaron Wolf and Tim Nuttall wrote the screenplay and produced. The deal was negotiated by 1091 Pictures’ Emma Manfredi and Sam Curphey for the filmmaker.

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Filmmaker Jim Klock (Green Book) has a new feature. Slayed, an indie horror described as a cross between Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silent Night, Deadly Night, marks the second installment of a three-picture deal between Klock’s Code 3 Films production banner and genre distributor Terror Films. Klock co-directed and co-stars in the pic, which is set five years after a Christmas Eve massacre in Harris County, AZ, when a crazed killer returns to an impending condemned water-treatment plant to terrorize and kill again. Only this time, the lone survivor from that tragic night is waiting to make this Santa-clad monster pay for what he did. Co-director Mike Capozzi also stars alongside Kyra Kennedy (Blue Bloods) and Coel Mahal (Don’t Ask Nancy). Klock and Darrell Martinelli produced the film with executive producers Phil Snow and Terror Films’ Joe Dain. Klock is repped by Nick Terry at Zero Gravity Management.

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Motion Picture Exchange has secured global sales rights to Electric Jesus, an ’80’ throwback music-comedy featuring Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club), Brian Baumgartner (The Office) Shawn Parsons, Rhoda Griffis and Claire Bronson. Written and directed by Chris White, it’s a story about a never-famous 1980s Christian hair metal band that spends the summer of 1986 playing rock music meant to “make Jesus famous.” The film, which was produced by Chris White and Emily Reach White, will be presented to buyers at the forthcoming Toronto Film Festival. White, Ryan Bury and James Andrew Felts are executive producers.