Los Angeles, CA – January 25, 2018 –
“Waiting for her is bitter family dysfunction and the nightmare of her last childhood memory,” writes Burkley.
Jeff Kopas (“An Insignificant Harvey”, “Dogasaur”, “The Other Side”) and Doug Taylor’s (“Splice”, “A Christmas Horror Story”, “Darknet”) newest Canadian psychological thriller, “BLOOD HONEY”, has psychologists across the U.S. captivated by the mental state of the lead, Jenibel Heath, who returns to her family’s isolated island lodge where the demons from her childhood reappear, sending Jenibel down a traumatic and terrifying path, with no distinction between reality and her hallucinations.
TriCoast Entertainment has begun the launch “shrink wrap”, a specialized psychologist analysis providing ‘shrink’s commentary’ – one in which they provide an accredited professional and psychological point of view into Jenibel’s mind, self and experiences throughout the film, applying it to real-world psychology and providing new insight into overall mental health to assist in raising awareness.
We’ve had psychologists across the U.S. attempt to diagnose and figure the paranoid and delusional mind of Jenibel, but lucky for Melissa Burkley, P.h.D. from North Carolina at Chapel Hill, got to interview the brains behind the psychosis in ‘Blood Honey’ with Director, Jeff Kopas.
Burkley’s psychological analysis and Q&A with Director Kopas was published on The Writer’s Laboratory on January 17th, 2018. Burkley utilizes the Writer’s Laboratory to advise writers on how to incorporate psychological principles, as well as research into their fiction writing to make it more authentic.
She opened the exclusive interview article with, “As both a psychologist and fiction author, I was super excited to land an interview with award-winning filmmaker Jeff Kopas, the writer and director behind the new Hitchcockian thriller Blood Honey.”
Some highlights from the interview between Burkley and Kopas:
Q: Melissa Burkley, P.h.D: “So you say you want to write stories that have a meaningful message. What is the message you wanted to get across with Blood Honey?”
A: Jeff Kopas: “I strongly believe you can’t be happy as an adult unless you resolve the sins or trauma of your childhood. Blood Honey is an extreme scenario, but that is the idea behind it. Everyone has issues from their childhood, to varying degrees, and it is impossible to be at peace as an adult if those aren’t resolved. I think that is a universal theme that everyone can relate to.”
Q: MB: “Blood Honey is chock-full of psychological themes such as trauma, suicide, mental illness, repressed memories. Did you do research on these psychological concepts during the writing process?”
A: JK: “Yes, one hundred percent! I had a couple of psychologists here in Toronto that I kept showing the script to as we were writing it, to make sure we were in the realm of believability. And to my amazement, they kept coming back with case studies to back up the events occurring within Blood Honey.”
Photo: Director of ‘Blood Honey’ – Jeff Kopas.
Q: MB: “Throughout the film there are times when the viewer doesn’t know whether what they are seeing is real or a memory or a hallucination. As a result, it fits into a recent trend in fiction and film known as the “unreliable narrator,” like Gone Girl and Girl on a Train. I was curious about your opinion. Why do you think modern audiences are so drawn to unreliable narrator stories?”
A: JK: “That’s a really good question. I think that maybe it’s because storytelling has continued to evolve. We broke this fourth wall in the last few years in a mainstream way, and I wonder if people are less upset by being tricked by a narrator now. I wonder if an audience would handle it the same way thirty years ago as they do now. So many of these stories with unreliable narrators, like House of Cards, have the narrators breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience. And you know that maybe they’re not being completely honest with you, but that’s in part because they are lying to themselves. So I wonder if that’s opened up a window for writers to do that. The unreliable narrator is certainly not new, I just think, as you said, there is a recent trend. I also think it is just storytellers trying to find a unique way to tell their stories. This is a tool that is more readily available now.”
Read the full article here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-social-thinker/201801/review-new-psychological-thriller-blood-honey.
About Melissa Burkley, Ph.D.:
Photo: Melissa Burkley, P.h.D.
Melissa Burkley, Ph.D., received her doctoral degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has worked as a professor for over a decade, conducting research on sexism, racism, and social interactions. She enjoys combining psychological science with fiction writing and as such, has written chapters for several “Psychology of…” series, including the Psychology of Dexter, Twilight, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She has also co-authored a motivation textbook called “Motivation Science” published by Pearson.
In addition to non-fiction works, she also writes novels and short stories and has a blog entitled “The Writer’s Laboratory” that discusses how authors can improve their writing by including psychological principles into their stories. She is the author of ‘The Social Thinker’ – How we think about ourselves and others.
For more information, visit her website at www.melissaburkley.com.
Capturing the ultimate nightmare of battling childhood trauma is lead of Jenibel by captivating and emotional Shenae Grimes-Beech (CW’s “90210”, “Degrassi: The Next Generation”). Alongside is well-known actor, Gil Bellows, film-famous for the 1994 classic, “The Shawshank Redemption” with support from Krystal Hope Nausbaum as Jenibel’s sister suffering from Down Syndrome, who utilized her real-life experiences living with the disease to become a role model in her community through her pivotal roles in “The Rainbow Kid” and “Between”.
The star-studded cast of ‘Blood Honey’ continues with stellar performances from Don McKellar (“The Sensitive Skin”, “Blindness”, director of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”), Kenneth Mitchell (“Star Trek: Discovery” – TV series, Freeform’s “Switched at Birth”, “Jericho”, “The Astronaut Wives Club”), Rosemary Dunsmore (“Orphan Black”), Natalie Brown (“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”, “Dawn of the Dead”, “The Strain”) and Morgan Kelly (“A History of Violence”, “Being Erica”, “The Lookout”).
Watch Jenibel face the inescapable memories from her childhood trauma until the end for the world’s ultimate film plot twist moviegoers haven’t seen in a long time. Watch the trailer here and for more information about “BLOOD HONEY”, please visit the film’s official site: www.bloodhoneymovie.com.
“BLOOD HONEY” will be available on DVD + VOD platforms on January 29th, 2018: iTunes, Sony, Xbox, InDemand, Sling, DISH, GooglePlay, Hoopla, Fandango and Vudu.
If you are interested in reviewing ‘Blood Honey’ and/or would like to organize an interview with the cast and crew, please contact jenna@tricoast.com. Please contact for additional questions and resources such as screener requests.
BLOOD HONEY (2017, 95 min.) Directed by Jeff Kopas. Written by Jeff Kopas and Doug Taylor. Editor: Mike Reisacher. Cinematographer: D. Gregor Hagey. Original Music: Amin Bhatia. US, English. Lumanity Productions, Manitouwabi Films, Vitality Media Productions, TriCoast Entertainment.
PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Lumanity Productions, Manitouwabi Films, and Vitality Media Productions
About TriCoast Entertainment:
A new home for story-driven American films, TriCoast Entertainment is a full service media company that creates, produces, manages and distributes unique and unusual entertainment. Bringing together filmmakers, distributors, financiers, and technologists, TriCoast Entertainment embraces change by redefining the production and distribution model for indie filmmakers, providing them with low cost tools, financing, and worldwide theatrical and digital distribution, along with market feedback and storytelling opportunities tools, financing, and worldwide theatrical and digital distribution, along with market feedback and storytelling opportunities.
Media Contact
Company Name: TriCoast Entertainment
Contact Person: Jenna Wilen
Email: jenna@tricoast.com
Phone: 310 458 7707
Address:11124 Washington Blvd
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Website: http://www.tricoastworldwide.com