UNIVERSAL
DEAD WINS

SWEET!

In 1998, Kelly Parks got his fingers wet by writing movie reviews for this website*. In writing such reviews, he not only had the opportunity to describe how movies, affected him as a story, but to deconstruct exactly how the movie worked on him. The more he wrote, the better he became and the more he understood.

Then came the "Eventuallys".

Eventually, Kelly decided to write his own fiction stories. Eventually he got one published.

Eventually, he produced my short film, LAST CALL. Eventually he funded his first group of short films in a webseries called THE CRUSADER, which starred Colin Cunningham (who would go on to play John Pope in Steven Speilberg's FALLING SKIES).

Eventually, we would make UNIVERSAL DEAD, starring Doug Jones, D.B. Sweeney, and Gary Graham.

I say "eventually" because all of this took a lot of time. LAST CALL was shot in 2008 and released in 2009. THE CRUSADER was shot in 2009 and so was UNIVERSAL DEAD. UD was released in 2010 as a webseries, re-released in early 2012, and then released as a single short film later that year.

Then again, Kelly's goals in 1998 weren't his in 2007. Kelly didn't start writing reviews with the intent of making movies.

For a fact, as you go year after year trying to make things happen, progress can seem excruciatingly slow or even non-existent.

Competing against other talented artists isn't the worst. Actually that's part of the enjoyment, finding a place you never knew you had among peers you never knew existed. The barriers that life throws up isn't the worst. The worst are the people who see you accomplishing something and purposefully put themselves into your path, either to defeat you or ride your coat tails or use you or all three.

They can be frustrating, it can feel defeating.

But here is where the perseverance pays off.

Check out the latest press release from Kelly Parks on his webseries and webfilm, UNIVERSAL DEAD, after the jump.

* THE TERMINATOR was Kelly's first review.