Attendance, Press, Reviews

ATTENDANCE:

(ONE SCREENING ONLY): 243 tickets sold

Florida Film Festival 2009 Official Site

PRESS AND REVIEWS:
ORLANDO WEEKLY

(Justin Strout) - 3 of 4 Stars

[excerpt]

"UCF’s Danny Daneau makes his feature directorial debut in this haunting mood piece about a brother and sister who are left by their parents to tend to the family’s farm in the 19th-century West. Tethered to isolation by the vast mountain range before them, they discover the horrors a mind can play when left to its own devices, and the deeper disquiet of time’s passage. Daneau couldn’t have chosen a tougher platform for his first time out, asking very young actors to command the screen alone for the film’s entirety with sparse dialogue and action." See Source Article Here 

PARK CITY RECORD

 "Utah Sets Precedent for First Student Film Incentive" (Taylor Eisenman) 

[excerpt]

" 'Monster in the Attic' was a valuable learning process for everyone involved, according to Harrel. "We helped hammer out the details," she said about the pilot program. Peters also brought on Sterling Van Wagenen, the co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival and former chairman of the University of Central Florida Film School, to help with the logistics of the program. Harrel said that while there were a lot of kinks along the way, like a long casting process and challenges raising money, once they got on-site in Kanab, it was a pretty smooth shoot. 'It was nice to have our crew in town and be able to walk onto the set,' she said. 'It's such a huge opportunity for universities from around the country to be able to come to a place as magnificent as southern Utah and be able to film there.' " See Complete Article Here

WASATCH JOURNAL

 "Little Hollywood Rides Again" (Christy Karras)

[excerpt]

" Danny Daneau is the first recipient of a new $15,000 incentive offered to college students and recent graduates. He used the funds as seed money to raise about a quarter million dollars to make a ghostly pioneer-era thriller with the working title A Monster in the Attic. He fell in love with Kanab - despite the fact that he is from Florida, didn't know much at all about Utah until a couple years ago, and filmed during the summer, when temperatures can rocket to 110 degrees or higher under a merciless sun."

See Complete Article Here

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

"Kanab Re-Welcomes the Western" (Mark Havnes, Rosemary Winters)

[excerpt]

" The director of 'Monster in the Attic' said Kanab and surrounding areas are magnificent for his movie, which stars Melissa Davenport and Jake Johnson, both 10 years old and experienced actors. ... Daneau said the premise of the film - his master's thesis - is children dealing with fear of the unknown. He draws a parallel between the monster in the title with the Boo Radley character in the book and film, 'To Kill a Mocking Bird.' Producer Erica Harrell said townspeople have been generous with help. By Hollywood standards, the move is 'ultra-low budget, she said: A mere $175,000.' "     See Complete Article Here