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Please share this with your friends, click on the “like” buttons, post it on facebook, and retweet the links!  The bigger the audience we build now, the bigger the impact the film can have when it premieres in a few weeks.   Composer Peter Tinari and I are finishing up the music and sound,  and the film will be complete soon.

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Thanks as always for your support.

Sincerely,
Paul Cuoco
Writer/Director – The Specimen

Killed in a wave of small-town hysteria motivated by a hate crime, Mercy Hawkins (Emilee Harris) is resurrected by a mysterious healer to seek justice against her attackers. Newly reborn and hell-bent on revenge, Mercy has little memory of who she was or how she died. To learn the identity of her killers, she must reclaim her past, her memory, and uncover the brutal secrets surrounding her death. First on Mercy’s hit list is Psychobilly (James Pomichter), a pack-rat serial killer with strange powers – and a secret connection to Mercy’s demise. As she confronts her first adversary, Mercy will learn that though her painful past is a weapon that can be used against her, sometimes a broken heart is the only power that can save the world. A sexy, surreal vision from director Antony Teofilo and producer Paul Cuoco that follows in the spirit of The Crow and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Mercy also pays homage to the “schoolgirl slasher” genre popularized in Japanese anime films. Steeped in mythology and rich detail, Mercy provides a first glimpse into The Tales of Earlytown, an epic new saga in which the death of Mercy Hawkins is only the first in a series of strange events that will change the world forever. In Earlytown, secrets (and bodies) rarely ever stay buried. Given time, your sins will always find you… and when they do, woe to the wicked: Mercy is coming, and she has forgotten the meaning of her name.

For more information on the film please visit the following Mercy websites:

Mercy on Audience by Withoutabox

Mercy Channel on Vimeo

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Glazed is the story of listless Viet Nam veteran, Bill Malone. The disheveled and beleaguered vet sits in the dark chain smoking cigarettes. Bill doesn’t want to talk anymore. A calm voice in the room encourages him to continue. Bill relents and again recounts the events of that terrible day he can never forget or forgive. With a strange unknown guilt he describes a Viet Nam as he remembers it, scary, dark, and alone. Through his raw and painful words, we are taken back to the day where his friends were all massacred. Shots ring out in the jungle as a terrible firefight roars in the distance. Bill runs to aid his comrades, but is too late. His friends are dead and he is left truly alone in the jungle. Thoughts of his wife flash across his mind like a ghost haunting him, but the jungle is alive and now it is he who is hunted. Bill flees for his life, but cannot outrun the demon who chases him. Alone and without any remaining ammunition, Bill must face his demon or be consumed by it. Losing his will to carry on, he hesitates in desperation. Thoughts of his wife push him through, and the final confrontation with his demon begins.

Directors Statement:

There are times in your life when you feel very strongly about an incident, a circumstance, or a person. Things happen to you everyday that affect how you think, act, and react tomorrow. The world can change on a dime and usually will. This became extraordinarily evident to Jeff Loach and I during the production of Glazed. A film in and of itself about just that: the precariousness of life and love and sudden change.
It was early in 2001, months before 9/11 that we first decided we wanted to make a film about American soldiers and the aftermath and continuing battles of its survivors. We wanted (in that world of relative peace) to remind people of what the American soldier has done for us over the years, and to think about what we are asking of our soldiers when we send them to war. The horrors they will have to endure and the psychological effects war can have upon them. And so, we crafted the story of Glazed, an exploration into the psyche of a veteran who in the blink of an eye, lost everything in his life, both at war and at home and its effect on him still years later.
We went into production during the summer of 2001 with conviction, purpose, and a sense of responsibility. As we moved into post-production the unthinkable happened: 9/11. The entire world changed. Our feelings for our film changed. Our conviction and sense of responsibility changed. We began to question. Was this story appropriate now? Americans are uniting over tragedy, they don’t want to be reminded of what’s at stake when you wage war. So, we decided to shelve the project.
By the winter of 2004, the world had changed again. The U.S. for the first time had invaded a country on a pre-emptive strike. The country and the world was now divided over whether or not we should have gone to war. The American people began to forget what we have asked our soldiers to do for our protection. The message of Glazed had become appropriate again.
With renewed conviction, purpose, and sense of responsibility, we dusted off our tapes and files and carried on. We completed the film filtered through our changed eyes. Is the completed film a searing look at the U.S. Government and their treatment of soldiers? No. Is it a Michael Moore-like political Pandora’s Box meant to spark controversy and ire? No. Is it a small film about how the world can change on a dime, and how we’ll never be the same? Yes, and we think in this post 9/11 world, that that’s something we can all understand.

For more information please search here, visit the the  official website or download the press kit.

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Inheritance is a labor of love based on director Paul Cuoco’s experience of learning that his Grandfather was a liberator at the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. Using his Grandfather’s photographs combined with thorough research, Cuoco crafted this film to honor his Grandfather and all of the men who witnessed these atrocities first hand, as well as to honor the memory of those who were forced to endure it. The following is a short synopsis of the film itself: On the eve of his Grandfather’s funeral, a young man receives his inheritance. It is not a dowry of riches, but instead a simple manila envelope containing photographs and a letter. As the befuddled young man sifts through the worn and tattered photos he can not believe his eyes. The images are horrific. Image after image of dead bodies neatly stacked in rows. Ovens filled with half-burned human corpses. In shock, he slowly sifts past the horrible imagery to the letter, and reads his Grandfather’s words, a powerful and impassioned recounting of that fateful day, April 11, 1945, when he and his company came upon the Buchenwald concentration camp. His Grandfather describes through haunting words and ghastly photographs the horrors of the camp, its effect on him, and the shame he felt for locking these feelings and images away for fifty six years. He pleads to his grandson that this can never be forgotten, it is now his burden to bear, and this is his Inheritance.

Directors Statement:

Inheritance is not quite a work of fiction. It is a dramatization of my own experience days after the death of my Grandfather where my father and my brother found a dusty old box while cleaning out his things. Inside they found the holocaust photos which are so prominently displayed in the film. They called me immediately, and sent me copies. I asked for them, though I wasn’t sure if I truly wanted to see them. While my Grandfather didn’t do anything as dramatic as writing us a letter as he does in the film, I felt that we were meant to find these photos and share them with the world. I could feel the gentle hand of my Grandfather encouraging me to make this film. He as well as these images haunted me from that day through the completion of the film, when I finally felt a sense of peace.

I want to thank my Grandfather, Anthony Cuoco, for his bravery, his example, and our freedom. I have done my best to honor him and all the men who served and witnessed this atrocious crime, as well as the victims themselves who toiled for years in those camps. I hope the film lives up to his and their expectations and in the end its intended purpose. As I wrote in the screenplay, “this cannot be forgotten. It cannot happen again.”

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For more information please search this site, visit  the official website or read the Press Kit

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