With a mysterious title like Sin-Jin Smyth, and a talented cast that includes Roddy Piper and Jeff Conaway, this is one horror film high on my must-see list. Here's the synopsis:
Sin-Jin Smyth takes place over Halloween weekend. Two Federal Marshals receive orders to cross the state border to the small town of Shin Bone, Kansas in order to transfer a prisoner during a tornado warning. Nothing is known about the prisoner except his name: Sin-Jin Smyth. The film is based, in part, on an old legend that tells of the Devil appearing simultaneously in the high plains of India and a quiet cemetery in Kansas at midnight on Halloween.It's the film's tagline that hooked me: "Every Halloween at midnight, the Devil simultaneously appears in two places... the high plains of India, and a quiet cemetery in Kansas."
I wanted to find out more about the creative force behind this upcoming horror film slated for October release — writer and director Ethan Dettenmaeir, and here is the interview we recently had. You can also check out Sin-Jin Smyth in-depth at Wikipedia.
ZC: Reading your Wikipedia entry, it is mentioned that you "worked as a writer for producers such as Jon Divens, Idiom Films, Rock A Way Pictures and BMT Films Canada". Can you elaborate on that experience, both the positive and negative aspects (if any), and how it helped shape your current approach to directing?
Ethan: Any day you get a paycheck in this business is a good day. Certainly a better day than the day shift on one of the many 'shit' jobs I've worked in my life so, I'm not in a position to complain. Some of the work as a script doctor is less creative than I would like, but I understand what my job in that capacity is... to give the producers, or star, what they want... better dialogue, better action, a different third act... whatever they want. So you can get creative but only in an existing framework — i.e. a pre-existing script. It's not like creating something from a blank page where you can do damage however you see fit!
Article comments
1 - Flame
hi.. i just wanna know, when sin-jin smyth will be acually released.. everybody is waiting since over a year or something..
please give an anwer.. thanks..
bye Flame
2 - Iloz Zoc
The distribution, as in who will do it and how the film will be released, is still pending. It's finished post-production, so as soon as a distributor can be set up, the film will be released.