When I first met writer E.L. Katz at the 2003 Fantasia Film Festival, he was in the process of getting his first film, Home Sick, produced; five years later, E.L. has several features under his belt (including Tobe Hooper's Mortuary) with Home Sick finally hitting DVD later this year from Synapse Films.

E.L.'s a nice guy with a good head on his shoulders, devoted to making quality horror films and not stupid remakes. In the few years he's been making movies, he's been through a lot, and now he's dispensing some very practical advice to indie genre filmmakers on his MySpace blog. If you want to make a low-budget horror movie (but don't know much about filmmaking or distribution) then this is a must-read. Here's one example:

"For the most part... gore won't save your film.

Gore is fun... we all love it, and a couple of well executed splatter scenes are always appreciated, but going overboard will not save your film. Distributors now days want enough gore that they can show to their over-seas buyers... but too much will just turn them off. The only thing a super gory film will achieve is a nice show reel for your FX artist."

Read the rest of his very illuminating piece right here.