Kickstarter Weekends Special Report: MALICE - Metamorphosis

There’s been a reason for the lack of updates the last few weeks and I may share them with you soon but today I am compelled to do a special Kickstarter Weekend. I’m going to talk about MALICE: Metamorphosis, which is a sequel to MALICE: The Webseries which was the first KS project I talked about on this blog which led me to starting my Kickstarter Weekend posts. I’ve decided to dedicate an entire post to this one project because I have a lot to say about it [EDIT: And I had to cut a lot of it out because it was rambling, but that’s kind of an indication of my feelings on it].

However just because I’m dedicating a lot of time to MALICE doesn’t mean we can ignore what we talked about last time. So before we discuss the new project let’s revisit some older ones.

Geek Bar Chicago: Funding Successful!

Final Earnings: $44,538 ($9,750 Goal)

As it reached its goal in a day there should be little surprise to see that Geek Bar’s campaign succeeded. It will still be a while before it’s done but once building is complete I plan on spending a decent amount of my time there.

Final Fantasy VII - The Web Series: Funding Suspended!

Final Earnings: $0 ($400,000 Goal)

Whether or not this project would have reached its particularly large goal isn’t certain but sadly it never got a chance: Square Enix got KS to take the whole page down due to “Copyright Violation”. I get it: you own a copyright and you need to protect it. But man, that just seemed harsh. I mean how many fan films based on copyrighted material have been produced in history? And lately how many of them have been funded through Kickstarter? (Answer: A lot) Maybe it was the scope of the project that freaked someone out or maybe it was the fact they actually called it “Final Fantasy” rather than something more original (Inspector Spacetime learned that the hard way) but it still kind of sucks that fans were not allowed to recreate their favorite video game as a live action experience. Shit like this makes you appreciate how gracious George Lucas was when it came to Star Wars fan films.

Anyway as I understand it was the KS page that got taken down, not the whole production but without the funding there’s no way it could work out. The people behind the web series had been attempting to contact Square Enix about the situation but they gave today (September 1st) as a deadline for themselves for when they give up the whole thing and as far as I’ve heard they’ve received no response. This web series will likely never happen. In related news Final Fantasy games have kind of sucked for the last twelve years.

Chroma Squad: Funding Successful!

Final Earnings: $97,148 ($55,000 Goal)

Lately I have become suspicious of indie video game companies using crowd funding for a list of reasons (for instance, the number of companies that had to go back to ask for more money and the large amount of creators who went bankrupt even after getting more than their original goal). That said Chroma Squad is a video game about managing a Super Sentai TV show…so there was no way I wasn’t going to go crazy over it! It managed to do very well for itself, going more than forty grand over the goal, and I hope it ends up working well. Time will tell and I have to say I’m a bit more cynical about this sort of thing than I was a year ago.

Okay, enough of the flashback. A whole blog dedicated to MALICE after the jump.

MALICE: Metamorphosis

A lonely cabin at dusk? No way that can go wrong!

Goal: $12,000

Deadline: 11:59pm EDT , 9/13/13

Last summer I discovered Kickstarter and crowd funding in general. While not all of it was good (and I’m still waiting on a few promised things over a years after I gave money) the exchange of ideas, especially artistic ones, with people willing to give a little bit of cash to help people achieve their dreams has been one of my favorite things to see and be involved with since that time. I love writing about various crowd funding projects and its actually felt like one of the more satisfying segments on this blog. I do not know that I would have bothered doing this however if it wasn’t for MALICE: The Webseries, which was one of the first projects I came across. What started as me seeing a really cute girl in an adorable bunny hat holding a rifle and wanting to know what the hell was up with that image turned into me dedicating a noticeable portion of my life to championing the idea artist making art for people without corporate and executive interference. Now, over a year later, the creators of Malice are trying to create the next chapter of the story.

For those of you who don’t know and/or don’t feel like clicking the link in the intro Malice: The Webseries is a web series (duh) created by filmmaker Philip Cook and Eagle Films. A horror and supernatural themed show Malice tells the story of Alice (played by Brittney Martz, who I'm a big fan of), a teenage girl whose family has just moved into her mother’s childhood home. However a series of increasingly bizarre and terrifying events begin taking place on the property eventually leading to Alice deciding to fight back against the darkness that seems to be taking hold of her life…with violence, obviously. The show isn’t perfect by any means; it has its share of problems. But overall I really liked it as it does represent a lot of what I love to see in fiction, primarily that of a strong female lead character. It has been well revived and gained a lot of critical acclaim. I tend to use this show as the standard by which I judge other KS projects I have been meaning to review the series but I keep not having the time to sit down and re-watch the whole thing to give it a fair shake but I’m sure if/when I do I’ll have a lot to say on this subject.

I'm assuming this isn't anything kinky, but I don't know that it's not

So anyway Malice is a really fun series that clearly seemed like it was meant for more stories to be added to it. Thus here we are with Malice: Metamorphosis, a sequel to the previous series that takes place a year later. The project reunites the cast and likely is the result of lessons learned from the initial production. This is a very exciting prospect. The problem is that with less than two weeks left to get their funding so far they aren’t doing great. With a goal of $12,000, $4,000 more than the previous effort, they’re more than ten grand away from the finish line as of this writing and kicktraq.com is currently is not being very optimistic about them achieving that goal the way things are now. I’m not sure exactly where this has gone wrong but the simple truth is that this project needs help…desperately.

I greatly encourage everyone reading this to check out this project and also take a look of the series so far (click here for the youtube channel). If you like what you see you should think about pledging and even if you can’t spare the money tell your friends; the more this show is shared the better its chances. I really want this project to succeed. It’s a fun series that has a lot of potential for growth and, because it was the catalyst for getting me to start doing Kickstarter Weekends, I feel strong connection with it. Also creator Phillip Cook and star Brittany Martz both took time out their schedules to thank me for writing about Malice last year and I never forgot that. Plus Martz is a really talented actress who I think has a bright future ahead of her…and more importantly following her on twitter is what eventually led me to trying Red Velvet Pop Tarts, which was obviously a good decision. 

Anyway I hope you’ll consider helping make this happen because I would like to continue covering Malice for years to come if at all possible. Also I insist on more usage of the bunny hats. 

They look friendly but I suspect they plan on terrifying me with this show...

Visit Malice: Metamorphosis’ Kickstarter page.