COUSINS BROTHERS PRODUCTIONS
Blake and Brent Cousins headed back into the Big Island rain forests to make "Night Marchers Two: Return of the Ka'ai."
Marching onward Big Island filmmakers Blake and Brent Cousins' sequel to last year's "Night Marchers" -- "Night Marchers Two: Return of the Ka'ai" -- will open tomorrow at Consolidated's Pearlridge multiplex.
The Cousins brothers of Honokaa
return with a sequel to their movie
about Hawaiian ghosts
"Night Marchers"
Not rated
Playing at Consolidated Pearlridge
No star rating available
By Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comThe 78-minute, $60,000 film -- 14 minutes longer and double the original's budget -- contains more special effects and has a cast of 100, Blake Cousins said in an interview from Cousins Brothers Productions office in Honokaa. All the post-production and special-effects work was done in the small town where the pair recently purchased a video/DVD rental store.
Though the original film reportedly made a profit, the 31-year-old twins also have a lucrative, less publicized business to finance their independent filmmaking.
The Cousins are perhaps Hawaii's most successful paparazzi.
In the year 2000 alone, their photos of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf frolicking on a Kauai beach earned them about $250,000.
The Cousins' pictures hang in security offices of some of the state's most luxurious hotels, which attract celebrities favored by the tabloids. The brothers have also captured lucrative candids of Jim Carrey and Don Johnson, and their files reportedly contain dozens of images of 150 of the world's most prominent film and television stars.
Blake Cousins laughs when asked about the brothers' photo business, saying they have "outlets" for selling photos and "networks" of hotel executives, actors' agents and management who, for a finder's fee, will reveal a subject's vacation schedule and other information.
"It all helps," Cousins says.
He describes the "Night Marchers" sequel as "a fantasy/action/adventure/special-effect extravaganza" based on the true story of a pair of ka'ai -- woven sennit caskets discovered in 1946 in Waipio Valley -- that were believed to hold the remains of the deified 15th- or 16th-century chiefs Liloa and Lonoikamakahiki. They were placed in the Bishop Museum where, in early 1994, they were stolen and reportedly returned to the valley.
In the movie, the ka'ai are stolen for profit, and menehunes help in the return of the caskets to their sacred resting place. The Night Marchers rise from the dead to waylay any who are disrespectful to the aina, Cousins said.
"The film is a cross between 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,'" he said.
Special effects re-create ancient battles and a 70-foot tidal wave hitting Waipio Valley. For more information, check out the Cousins' Web site at www.nightmarchers.com.
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