"Playful and imaginative..."
Winner, SXSW Film Festival Special Audience Award
"Four Eyed Monsters" is a hip, uber-modern love story, and so is the real-life social experiment on which the film is based. When Arin Crumley, a shy videographer with relatively little dating experience, met disillusioned art-school grad Susan Buice, the two hesitantly begin dating with only one explicit rule: they would never speak in person, but only through passed notes, MySpace messages, sketches, animations, videos, music — and of course, sex.
Sharing co-credit as writer, director, editor, cinematographer, animator and lead stars, Arin and Susan loosely re-enacted the fears and fantasies of their real-life coupling over 14 months, and the fruits of their DIY labors became "Four Eyed Monsters." Made with raw honesty, a bold artistic spirit, and a depressing handful of maxed-out credit cards, their clever exploration of post-millennial romantic angst was nominated for two Spirit Awards and beloved at festivals like Slamdance, SXSW and GenArt. Yet the most unexpected circumstances had yet to come...
Wanting to reach out to new audiences and maybe someday get out of debt, Arin and Susan demonstrated grassroots ingenuity by thinking toward the Web 2.0 world. With the help of a custom-designed zip code tracker, they launched their own theatrical release in multiple U.S. cities based upon where their largest numbers of online requests came from. They broke ground as the first feature-length film to be screened on YouTube, as well as the virtual world of SecondLife. Then they cemented their place in indie-film history by recording all the behind-the-scenes innovation in two popular seasons' worth of video podcasts that were promoted on MySpace and iTunes. Where the story goes next is the start of a conversation about technology and the nature of relationships themselves. See what all the buzz is about as "Four Eyed Monsters" premieres on IFC.
"Four Eyed Monsters" premieres on IFC on Friday, April 25th. Then catch the podcasts on IFC.com, posted daily starting April 26th (including the all-new podcasts #9 through 13). The "Four Eyed Monsters" DVD, including the film, podcasts and soundtrack, will be available exclusively at Borders on April 29th.
