Welcome to Berkshire County: An Interview with Director Audrey Cummings

1-What first made you want to become a director?

My first love of film making was when I saw my first movie up on the big screen. It was E.T. and it made me love movies more than anything. Then I started hearing about the man who made E.T. and I became a huge fan of Steven Spielberg. The more films he made the more I wanted to do what he was doing.


2-Can you tell us a little about story of Berkshire County and how the film came about?

Chris Gamble (the writer) and I both love sci-fi, horror and thrillers. We were coming off having worked on a few very complex sci-fi scripts and decided it was time to do something terrifying and fun but with a simpler story line than the mind benders we had just completed. We really loved working on this one and the story came together pretty quickly.


3-So far, what's you pre-production been like?

Amazing. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that it continues to go as smoothly as it has been. It’s also my first time working with producer Bruno Marino and I think he’s just incredible. I would trust any of my films in his hands.


4-The mysterious boy wears a pig mask. How was his mask decided upon? Where there any other looks for him before you settled on that one?

The thought was that these guys are Berkshire pig farmers. The little boy’s mask is really our take on what we envision a baby pig might look like. I worked with a storyboard artist to design the concept art for the masks and then we took them to a special effects make-up place and now we are in the process of creating the actual masks.

5-This is going to be your feature film debut as a director. What kind of pressures have you had to deal with going into this?

My short films have done very well for me and brought me many successes so I feel that I need to deliver a great film in order to keep up with the standard I have set for myself. In short – the pressures are really my own in being the perfectionist type.


6-What are some of the locations you'll be using? Will it be all on location? Any sets?

We were very lucky in having found the perfect location for the isolated home in the country. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect place really. We are shooting a majority of the film at this location but we have several other smaller locations as well including the inside of a cube van.


7-Does the film take place in a modern setting or is it a period piece?

The film is kind of a throw back to the old 70’s babysitter in peril movies that I love so much – but set in modern day and bringing in unique and original twists. One of the terrifying things about this film is that situations like this do happen in real life more often than we want to imagine. And that’s what makes it terrifying.

8-Can you tell us a little about the film's main character and the actress playing her?

The main character is an amazing role for any girl. She is a strong female character who undergoes an intensive and redemptive journey. She needs to learn to stand up for herself and what she believes in, in order to survive. The actress playing her stood out from the very first time we saw her. She has a beautiful vulnerability and is very talented. I can’t wait to get out on set and push her to her limits. I think she’s going to shine.


9-How much of the film have you planned out in your head or in storyboards?

I'm a director who loves to come in all organized and ready to go. That being said on any given day there are about a hundred issues that come up that make you have to change the way you envisioned shooting a scene – but the more prepared you are the easier it is to come up with plan B when you need to.


10-What sort of advice do you have for any aspiring filmmakers about reaching their dream?

This industry is crazy and we’re crazy for being a part of it. But those of us who are committed are committed because we have a deep passion for storytelling that can’t be put aside. If you believe in yourself and what you have to say…anything is possible.

For more info on Berkshire County check out their Facebook page and Berkshire County The Movie.com.

Color Me Blood Red: An Interview with Dante Tomaselli

When I last spoke to horror director Dante Tomaselli he'd just wrapped filming on his fourth feature film, Torture Chamber. It's been a privilege to be able to do these interviews with Dante. They've not only shown the progression of Torture Chamber from idea to film, but give insight into Dante's creative process. Hope everyone enjoys the interview!

How did editing and soundmixing go?

Dante Tomaselli: Before I started picture editing, I spent a few months watching all the footage, getting to know every detail. It got to the point where I could go to any sequence in my mind. After a month of editing, I began the sound mix and as you know, I've always placed a strong emphasis on the sound design, I need complete control over it. I wanted the soundtrack to feel like a seance...or incantation, a spell being cast. A place where people feel powerless and dominated by forces they have no control over. I wanted a kind of Black Mass feel. I collected many thousands of layers of sounds. All kinds of sounds, they could come from anywhere, I place no restrictions. I'm a sound hunter. So I purchased these sounds and mixed them like colors of paint on a palette. I divided the sounds into categories like...low tones, glacial, staccato, and suspense. Months earlier, throughout the writing of the screenplay, I was listening to Halloween 3, music by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth. Just like when I was a kid, I had this album playing constantly....It made me feel younger...and more aligned with the images that I was channeling. I love all those early John Carpenter movies and soundtracks, Halloween, The Fog, Christine... At the same time, the soundtrack to Torture Chamber is personal and it's a continuation of the world I've previously created...a space where picture and sound bleed into each other. You never know what's around the next corner. Colors and sounds are pristine. There are many gates, tunnels, windows, doors, holes. Each portal takes you to the next. For months, I'd go to the post sound studio in NYC and mix Torture Chamber with the engineer, just like making an album. Just me...alone with the engineer...and my sounds. Aside from some dreamy horror piano and subtle strings that I incorporated, tracks composed by Joseph Bishara, I kept this score orchestra free. I'm really getting tired of big budget Hollywood soundtracks. They're so assembly line. Don't get me wrong, I love orchestral music...but I hear the same music in movies, over and over again. It's like an annoying formula. I wanted the sound design on this film to be mostly indecipherable. Subliminal. It's a mixture of moans and breaths and brooding low toned synths and pulses. A witches brew of sounds. I prefer an electronic soundscape. I've always admired composers like Wendy Carlos, Tangerine Dream and Giorgio Moroder.

From first conception, to finished film, how long has Torture Chamber been in your head? And how has it evolved and changed since its beginning?

Dante: Well, I was very depressed when I didn't get to shoot The Ocean, the movie I was planning. I had it all ready-to-go with Adrienne Barbeau as the lead. I was so looking forward to shooting the film in the unique locations I scouted in Puerto Rico. I had Adrienne Barbeau over my apartment in New Jersey and we went over the character; it was a dream come true. I thought the money was there. It wasn't. Some more time passed, too much time...and soon Adrienne was starring in a play about Judy Garland...so she wasn't available for a period. Around this time, I was told that the money was in fact in place and we had to cast someone quickly. I knew that Margot Kidder read the script and was interested in the lead...a psychic haunted by visions of a watery apocalypse. The money turned out not to be there again. I paused and found some new producers. Soon Dee Wallace read the screenplay and came onboard. We were all ready to start production...again. Dee was so committed and loved the script. We had beautiful conversations where I felt her depth of emotional attachment to the project. I was so moved. When the money wasn't there again, I felt like I betrayed her and everyone because in the end it all goes back to me. I'm the one to blame for not getting the film off the ground. Consciously or unconsciously, I create the events that happen in my life. So I was depressed and defeated and angry. I channeled that rage and conjured a new low budget horror film. Torture Chamber. I wrote it throughout 2008. I knew I wanted to create a movie about a demon of blasphemy and murder. Something that returned to the puzzle-like feel of my early films, but faster-paced and more engaging. I wanted to create pure cinema...on a low budget. When I visualized Torture Chamber, it had a kind of epic exuberance. I imagined unspeakable sin...eternal damnation...a family in deep psychic pain. Around the end of 2009, everything started to come together financially...and in early 2010, I was literally planning the shoot. During this time, I was scouting locations non-stop. In late May, I started principle photography. I shot Torture Chamber in 19 days. For the entire rest of the summer, I immersed myself in the footage...and then in September and October I began picture editing...Next was the sound mix. It was December...January...winter...There was so much snow in New York City. So many snow storms. I was in my own little world, constantly hunting for sound fx and previewing all kinds of compositions in my mind, editing layers of audio design in my mind. I was in a trance. It was just me alone with my movie...and my hand-picked sounds. I finished my first cut in the summer of 2011 but it was too long. Once I trimmed, and I trimmed a lot, twenty three minutes, the sound temperature changed. I spent a few more months in the studio, giving the film more of an aggressive, nightmarish vibe.

Working with your actors, where there many rehearsals before filming? How much leeway did they have to ad-lib? How much input did you give them about their characters?

Dante: There was some rehearsal. This was the first time I was working with many child actors and I had a casting agent, Pamela Kramer, who helped me find these performers through her database. With Pamela, we had some rehearsals together in a studio in New York City. Mainly, I believe once on set it all begins to click. Everything falls into place when the actor is in the frame, in the world of the scene. I give pointed input before the camera rolls but once we are shooting I allow for experimentation and ad-libbing...if it feels right. Whatever works. It's an exploration to deliver the best scene. Overall, though, everyone pretty much adhered to the script. We had tutors on set, as required through child labor laws, and those actors could only perform for a limited time. Scheduling was rough. Plus our locations were spread out around New York and New Jersey, in all different locations.

There's a tendency in modern horror films to make characters unlikable and stupid. What steps did you take to make your characters different than the usual horror victim?

Dante: I don't really watch most modern horror films but I know what you're saying. I do believe in the lone disposable victim, though. I've had one character in every film...a random death...that sets the tone. At the core, this is definitely a movie about a family in deep psychic pain. The characters are revealed through dreams, flashbacks and hallucinations. They're revealed though their surroundings. Torture Chamber is about madness, being trapped in childhood. There's a scene in the kitchen during a family dinner. It's the heart and soul of the movie and spotlights the unhealthy family situation. We see that the mother is very religious and conservative and has a special bond with her older priest-son. The Dad is disconnected, drunken, chain-smoking cigarettes, immersed in a sports game that is droning in another room. And there's little Jimmy, without his facial scars, innocent looking, frightened. The food looks intimidating. He just can't eat. Everything around him overwhelms...shapes, feelings. Young Jimmy, a pyromaniac, sees his brutish father as a cloud of smoke. There's emotional violence in the air.

What challenges did you face budget wise?

Dante: Well, the budget on this film was $200, 000 so I really had to plan each and every shot way in advance. Other independent films have been shot in 19 days, it's been done before, but usually when you have a low budget like this and such a small amount of shooting days, you try to consolidate and film all in one main area. I did the opposite on this film. I allowed the locations, and there were many, to be completely spread out, all over New Jersey and New York. The crew had to pick up and move to another site a lot. And there's a lot of artwork and production design in Torture Chamber. So many props and sets for a film of this budget. Plus my crew was fairly large, as usual. I had such a talented, hardworking crew on Torture Chamber. We had crew and some actors...staying in a motel in a small mining town in New Jersey and other crew members were picked up each day in a van or truck that would bring them back and forth to the locations. Many craftsmen I've worked with already were there but there were just as many new entities involved. Prior to the shoot, I spent almost a full year looking for the right settings and I had the NJ Film Commission helping me all the way. NJ Film Commission...invaluable. The locations, the settings, were so specific...and an important part of the fabric of the movie. Scheduling the production was a logistical nightmare. Everyone around me was saying it was impossible...too many locations. How can we ever move the crew around so much? But I stood my ground and made sure, for the most part, that we filmed in the settings that I scouted and fallen in I love with. Before filming, I did a lot of storyboarding...and fantasizing.

Who's been handling those cool posters for the film? They definitely evoke a 70's feel.

Dante: Sean Hartter has been handling most of those posters. For Torture Chamber, I would message him about what I needed. Like for one poster, I said I needed a possessed boy's face on a black page. I supplied him with the tagline, Jimmy is 13-years-old. Possessed by an unholy power...Sean came back with a fantastic poster. He knows that my films are 70's style and he injects that into everything. My favorite poster that he created from scratch, Jimmy is 13-years-old. And he has escaped...It's an outline of grinning boy with a white possessed-looking eye. It's very Italian horror, which matches this film. I think Torture Chamber rides the line between arthouse and grindhouse. Sean's poster of the shadowed boy captures that and makes it very accessible and appealing. Sean also contributed a few sound textures in the movie. I created the smoky poster with Christie Sanford as Mrs. Morgan, burning, singeing. Should all sinners be damned? That's actually a tagline for Desecration that I never used. It fit the world of Torture Chamber.

In many of the stills we've seen so far there's a Gothic feel to the settings. Were you influenced by any of Hammer's films?

Dante: There is definitely a Gothic feel to the entire movie. I'm not influenced by Hammer's films, though. I do love British horror like Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, Pete Walker's films and Tales from the Crypt. The images in Torture Chamber came from the deep pit of my psyche. The places I conjure are nightmares that I need to replicate. My nightmares, growing up, were extreme. Sometimes I still fear putting my head on the pillow and going to bed. I try to replicate the look and feel of those childhood terrors. Colors and sounds are pristine. I see in my mind a misty image bursting with light, color and design. Glowing, electrified. Usually someone is trapped. In Torture Chamber there are people constantly trapped. We shot a big portion of the film in an actual underground mine in New Jersey. I was so glad because for a while, it seemed that I had to shoot certain sequences on sets. Shooting in the cavy mine perfectly matched the idea of the movie being encased in rock. After a while you begin to feel buried under there and it looks like the caverns of hell.

The world seems to get crazier every day. Do you feel we need the cantharis that horror provides more than ever now?

Dante: Oh definitely. For me, making these films. it's almost like painting. That's exactly how it has always worked for me. Horror films are a form of...art therapy...though it's rarely ever described that way. You can't get to the light without going through shadows. I'm a Scorpio and it's my nature to move through the rocks in shadows. Torture Chamber is encased in stone. That's a repeating image, in all my films. In a past life, or vivid nightmare, I was buried under rocks.

How does this score compare to your previous ones?

Dante: It's very electronic...and satanic. Right from the opening credits theme, which I composed, there is a wall of sound...churning, swirling. It's a bit of a preview of the collection of sounds to come. It's best to experience this film in stereo...loud. Any other way diminishes it. You get the feeling of floating, dreaming, being locked in a...psychedelic dungeon. You won't know where it's leading, suddenly the audio takes a turn. As the movie progresses, sounds trigger colors and patterns and vice-versa. Shapes are emphasized. Shapes of sound. Sometimes it should feel like an out-of-body-experience...or ecstasy trip. Taste color. Touch sound. I had some excellent composers on board like Joseph Bishara, Kenneth Lampl and Allison Piccioni. They never actually viewed the footage. That was my wish. I would give them direction, descriptions of scenes and they had the script. I like to know what's in a composer's imagination. That's more interesting to me. It feels fresh and experimental when it's juxtaposed with the right images. If it doesn't work at least I tried. As the film's main score composer and sound designer and writer and director, it's my job to pull all the details together. In addition to Bishara, Lampl and Piccioni, I had a few other of freelance musicians contribute some devilish sound textures or sound fx that I mixed and edited with other sounds, layers of audio paint that I own. My brother, Michael Tomaselli contributed some twisted aural textures and pulses. He composed the opening and closing themes to my first film, Desecration. As a listening experience, Torture Chamber's ambient tracks are ethereal and brooding. It's a soundtrack for a dark-night-of-the-soul.

Many independent horror directors broke into making studio films by directing for one of the franchises. Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween. How would you feel if you were offered the chance at one of these franchises?

Dante: I love every one of those movies, especially Halloween, so I'd be honored and excited.

How close are you to locking down distribution?

Dante: I just finished the film so I really can't answer that yet. I know it's definitely on the horizon.

Have you thought about what your next film will be?

Dante: Alice, Sweet Alice. A re-imagining of my cousin, Alfred Sole's 70's horror movie. Yes, the mask will be back. We've got to keep it in the family. There's something in the blood.

http://enterthetorturechamber.com

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Torture-Chamber/147512888619829

Wendigos, Stooges and chili monsters: An interview with Alan Madlane

Alan Madeleine --who works under the stage name Alan Madlane has acted in such films as Frostbiter and P.I. Blues. Written for CREEM magazine. He's worked as a Zookeeper. Hung out with Ron Asheton, lead guitarist for Iggy and the Stooges. And is a member of MENSA. Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Alan about the making of Frostbiter and his interesting life.

Your IMDB page states that you've been a magazine writer, critic, a college instructor and a zookeeper! That's quite diverse, could you tell us a little about some of those jobs and what lead to you becoming an actor?

Alan-Well, I’ve certainly always been one of those people who’s been seemingly compelled to try my hand at a lot of different things. Interestingly, that background often turns up in actors, including ones who actually get paid a decent wage to do what I do for almost nothing, ha ha, why am I laughing? The short(ish) version is: I originally went to college for pharmacy; read B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two and veered off into Behaviorist Psych, then into Sensory Psychology; had sent some unsolicited record reviews to CREEM in 1977, and ended up getting assigned an album to review every month, then was asked to come in and help put together an issue in August of ’78 because they were on deadline and had an editor walk on them, which led to a stretch of working there as an Associate Editor (although it took awhile for them to get my name up on the masthead as such); went back to school in 1980 and took a lot of creative writing courses, esp. in poetry; ended up w/ a Bachelor’s in English; was going to go for a Masters in “Lexicography” at Indy State, w/ a TA set up, but bailed; did a short 8mm film with a friend of mine in 1980 while still finishing my Bachelors; DJ’ed for my college station too; got cast in a lead role in the first play I read for in 1982-3 (Kreton in “Visit to a Small Planet”); tried moving to L.A. several times in the 80s without a plan, money, or even the commonest of senses; waited tables a lot, of course; back in Michigan, among other things, I bartended two nights a week in a strip joint; went back to school and put myself through a Masters Degree by working a clerical job for Wayne State University; worked as a librarian until I fucked that up due a gambling issue I developed; took a few years to get to be a zookeeper at the now-defunct Belle Isle Zoo; still worked at libraries, but mostly part-time or as a sub; taught English at Macomb Community College for a couple semesters; and now I write for a small city newspaper in the Detroit area. Thirty one years in film, twenty nine on stage, and still about as low income as it gets, but that’s my fault too. “It’s all my fault!”


Of those jobs, which did you enjoy the most?


Alan-Oddly, I look back fondly on my late teen years as a landscape laborer, for the simple fact that you could see the real fruits of your work by the end of the day. Conversely, waiting tables felt, to me, like being a gerbil on a treadmill – same shit, different day. CREEM of course was a wild ride, and I loved the zoo (well, the animals, if not all of the people), and teaching, if not for that amount of pay vs. class size. 

Your IMDB page also mentions that your a member of MENSA. Can you tell us about how you became a member and what that entails?

Alan-I was lucky in that my mother, who was not good in math, was a reader, and my dad was somewhat the opposite, so I gained in aptitude on both brain-sides from spending time with each. Now, I don’t mean to say my mother was Tolstoy, nor my dad Einstein, but they got me going in both directions, and they also both enjoyed science, and that’s what those standardized tests measure. If those tests hadd been based on mechanical aptitude or spatial relations, it might’ve been a different story, because neither was oriented along those lines, although both my grandparents were a bit better with that stuff. Anyway, I did fine on my ACTs in 11th grade, in spite of having been stoned throughout much of high school, but it wasn’t until I took the GRE for grad school and got those scores back that I thought to apply to MENSA. MENSA will accept a certain level of score from a number of standardized tests, or you can take their own test. Frankly, I think they’d just be happy anyone cared enough to even apply to be in anymore. I’m kidding there, actually, but not by much.

How did you come to be cast in Frostbiter?

Alan-I bought my first Stooges album – Fun House – when I was 12 or 13, so I of course knew who Ron Asheton was. I had also seen him perform live a number of times, starting in the late 70s, with Destroy All Monsters and then, later, Dark Carnival. Imagine my surprise when, doing a play in about 1985 for the Ann Arbor Civic (a community theater), I came back into the dressing room after a show, and he’s sitting there – he was acquaintances with another actor, whose name I believe was Paul Urbanski (I hope I have that right, still) – and we struck up a short conversation. A year or two later, I bumped into Ronnie in a bar, and he mentioned this film he’d been cast in, which was Wendigo, and that he thought he might be able to get me in if I was interested. Frankly I was just flattered as hell that he even remembered me from that long before, and was thrilled to jump into the project.

Frostbiter was originally titled Wendigo until Troma  retitled it. How did Troma come to own the rights to the film?

Alan-My understanding of that story – and it could be a total load of, ah, fiction – is that Tom Chaney (the director) and maybe Dave Thirry (the AD) actually took the film to Cannes one year in the early 90s. Bear in mind that the principle photography was completed by, I’m gonna say late ’88, maybe early ’89, and then there was the requisite post, including some ADR for us to do as actors, and so it wasn’t screened for a while after that. We held the premiere at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, and then nothing happened with it for a while. Then they took it to Cannes supposedly, Troma scraped it up, it actually screened on Cinemax a couple of times real late at night, and then finally got a VHS release in ’95 or ’96. And here I am, answering questions for you related to it in 2011. It’s like the beast that won’t die, in a good way. I last ran into Tom and Dave at Ronnie’s “life celebration” after he died unexpectedly in ’09.

Your character of Nick sort of disappears. We never see him killed and he doesn't comeback like the other victims. Did he survive?  Was there any scenes cut?

Alan-The script originally called for Nick to come back zombified as well, but they just ran out of time, or film stock, whichever came first, so we’re left to presume he bit it because he fell down in the snow and screamed like a little girl instead of running, or tripping the black guy. I was kind of bummed that I didn’t get to do that scene, although after watching everybody else go through the trauma of getting gooped up with red Caro, I was a little less sad than before.

One of your fellow cast members was Ron Asheton, lead guitarist for Iggy and the Stooges. What was it like working with him on set?

Alan-Ron was always great – always. Never threw any star fits, nor anything of the kind. Perhaps he felt that, since he was newly embarked into acting, he would keep it all humble and grasshopper-like, but the truth is that was just Ronnie’s way. From having done this movie together, we developed a really nice relationship. I would occasionally visit him at his mother’s home, sometimes even dropping in unannounced, and he was often home, and always welcoming. He got into cigars, and then making his own beer, and so we’d sit in his tiny den off the kitchen, watch TV and smoke and drink a little, and swap stories, although I have to say that, as good as mine sometimes were, his were absolutely better. That man had a great rock and roll book in him, and I’ll leave it at that. Only after the Stooges had their late career resurgence did it get harder to see him, as he was often out of town. The last time I saw him may have been after Little Stevens’ big garage band concert on Randall’s Island in like 2003 or so. We managed to talk on the phone some after that, but he was really on the move from then on.

There's many effects in the film. The chili monsters. The hag. A bat thing, Zombies and the title monster. They're very impressive for a low budget film. What sort of effects budget did the film have?

Alan-I don’t think the budget was separated out that way, and I heard different figures over time, but it seems that the overall budget was somewhere between 125 grand and maybe twice that. We were shooting straight to 16mm, and in those days film stock and developing were expensive as hell, and I think I heard they blew through about 50 g’s just for that. How they afforded it, I don’t know, but I believe in the end they were whoring out the crew to wealthy auto execs. I kid. They weren’t auto execs. Seriously, how they found the money, whose relative they offed, I just don’t know. I do know that I wish I had one of those chili monsters to call my own.

There's many references and homages to The Evil Dead films in Frostbiter. Was the cast and crew big fans of the films?

Alan-Certainly there was fondness on Tom’s part, at least, and then of course there was the big Three Stooges influence (listen to Ron’s reading of his line, “I’m a doctor!,” for example). The Stooges, who began life as The Psychedelic Stooges, actually got the Three Stooges blessing to use even that much of the name. As Ron told it, they said okay, as long as it wasn’t the Three Stooges. So the film was kind of a melding of an Evil Dead story line with a Three Stooges sensibility, and music that mowed down dialogue whenever possible.

What have you been up to since making Frostbiter?

Alan-Well, aside from the chronic self-pleasuring, there’s been lots of acting. I presume that’s what you’re more interested in. Yes, lots of acting, much of it on the stage. Film-wise, I did something called “P. I. Blues,” which was a rip-off of a Bob Hope film from like ’47 called “My Favorite Brunette.” That film got into the Ft. Myers Beach, FL film festival in maybe 2003, and so my friend John DeMerell, who was the lead, and I drove down and spent the weekend checking it out. They treated us real well, and we got to chat with Tim Curry, who was one of the two guests of honor for that year. What’s wrong with this picture: Tim Curry showed up, and hadn’t worked for seven months. The other “Guest of Honor,” Hilary Duff, who was maybe 14 or 15 at that time, was “too busy” to attend, and had to send a video regret?! Way to go, Hollywood. Cater to those 11 year olds. Just wait until your lives flash before your eyes right before you die, and you realize what you have done, filth. But the one film I’ve done that I’m still hoping someday sees the light of day is called “Dirty Trousers,” a horrible title for a really original piece of work by these two young lads, Dan Land and Tom Horvath, who I’m going to someday slay, if they continue to refuse to finish the post production, currently in year… six? Seven? I wish I knew. I must remember to kill them soon. Seriously, it’s a really fine piece of filmmaking. I think.

Any parting words?

Alan-Avoid this industry like the plague. If the plague somehow finds you anyway, do not scrape or grovel. If you want standard fame, then find that core part of your personality and play it to the hilt. It’s all in your headshot, as casting directors have the attention spans of fleas. More than that, it’s all luck, and talent rarely has much to do with it, except when it does. Have you noticed all the tremendous child acting talent over the last 10 to 15 years? These kids are better than I may ever be, and my only revenge will be their inevitable crack habits and sad descents into irrelevance, where I already dwell. Not that I’m bitter. Otherwise, if like me you don’t give a tinker’s damn for your “career,” and just want to have a ball now and again making weird movies that may or may not ever even come to be, well then just do what I did: Whatever that was. 

Disheveled in the woods: An interview with Mark Joseph Peek

Mark Joseph Peek is a true Renaissance man in the very low budget independent film industry. From acting to producing to writing, Mark has done it all! Working with Mad Angel Films, Mark is bringing us a myriad of independent entertainment!

1)What first made you want to get into movie making?

Mark: I've been watching movie my whole life. Later, in my early teens, I started to watch for camera angles, story, etc. It was then that I started buying the scripts for my favorite movies. They taught me the structure. Then, when I went to college, I picked film production as a major. Eventually that lead to drama and learning how to "act'. I wrote a few short script while in college, but not anything substantial until after graduating. I had a few experimental (unofficial sequels and studies of genre) that I was able to show around.

2)You've both acted and written, of the two which do you prefer and why?

Mark: Writing, most definitely. Writing takes a bit more time, but you're able to just go "all out". Yeah, you might have to change that, but the restrictions, at least in what I do, are a lot less than when I act. When acting, I'm always second guessing myself, while in writing its just a 'balls to the wall" type of attitude. When I spend months on a script, it doesn't feel like working, but one day acting on set is enough to make me want to become a blackout drunkard.

3)Were did your love of Horror films come from?

Mark: Sitting down with my older brother to watch Carpenter's Halloween for the first time, when I was about 11 years old. And then Friday 6. Up until then, I couldn't even think about horror movies without going into a panic attack. But, watching them with him, I realized that they were just fun, and I was taking them far too seriously. I was a small time collector and lover of the genre until I met you and Dan. I finally met people that shared the same love and I could actually discuss them with. From there on in, I've tried to watch every horror movie out there. I'm a glutton for punishment.

4)Tell us all about how you first got involved with Mad Angel Films?

Mark: An actress friend of mine had posted pictures of her on set in a Mad Angel Films (the legendary Brackish) on her MySpace page. After looking at them, I added the company myself. They posted an audition for their newest movie The Abandoned. I went, auditioned, and got the lead. Heh. Now, I weasel my way into all of their productions. It was on the set of the Abandoned that I told them that I also write. Matt, the supreme overlord, had an idea for the next project and asked if I could help. Star Cross'd was born.

5)Call you tell us a little about how Star-Cross'd came about?

Mark: I seem to have already answered that. Man, I have to learn to read ahead. Anyway, in more detail, Matt had the basic plot of Star Cross'd and said he wanted it to be a live action anime that was born of Shakespeare. Obviously, by the title, there's a lot of Romeo and Juliet, but we didn't want to make just another version of that story, so we added assassins and girls in schoolgirl outfits. I also added a lot of MacBeth and even used a direct quote from Richard II at the very beginning.

6)Three Days in the Woods is a fun throwback to old school backwoods slashers. What where some of the inspirations behind it?

Mark: I'd be remiss to not say I Spit On Your Grave. That's the main one. Last House on the Left. Eaten Alive...Chainsaw. Moon Stalker was a pretty big one. Savage Weekend. A lot I didn't notice until I was finished. These great movies are a part of my sub consious, I guess. Should I be scared?

7)What can you tell us about the making of Three Days in the Woods? And were was it filmed?

Mark: The entire Three Days experience was fun. Well, except for a pretty psycho actress, and her needing closure after a scene. From writing to editing it was a blast. I was also planning my wedding to by beautiful wife (who is also in the movie) so it got a little hectic at times and there were some on set fights... mostly my fault, that I truly regret, but other than that, it was great. I think you can see it when you watch it. Hopefully it's as fun to watch as it was to make. A few parts were shot outside of Utica, NY, but the majority was shot in the great Adirondacks. Hope Falls and Cliff was where we shot the big bloody ending. Great places to shoot this type of movie up there. We were originally going to shoot in the ghost town of Tahawus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahawus,_New_York) but a big tragedy happened on my end and filming had to shut down until the next summer. When that happened, not only did we lose locations, but we had to take out an entire subplot. Some of which was filmed and edited out, but we think we erased all mention of it. I hope...

8)What lessons have you picked up from working on low budget films?

Mark: Write what you can afford! As mentioned before, I like to go balls out in scripts, but we can't always realize it. So, I've learned to write two versions of big scenes, one balls out and the other a bit less. Our highest budget was $500, so I can't write giant explosions or alien spacecraft plummeting to Earth. Some day. Our highest budget item is food. We pay our actors in food and free copies of the movie. That in itself is double edged sword. While, you get actors that are dedicated and aren't in it for the money or fame. you get some with the "I don't care, you're not paying me attitude". That comes up a lot in scheduling. We've had actors that were late for their call or didn't show up at all. But, we have no leverege since we don't pay them. We've learned how to get around it though. I brought my theater training into play and brought the idea of understudies to the mix.

9)What's next for Mad Angel Films?

Mark: A zombie film called Half Dead to be shot in the fall and a top secret sci fi / horror thing to be shot in January. Both written by Matt Peters and myself.

10)Do you have a final message for our readers?

Mark: First, if you're interested, we are very welcoming of new people. If you have a script, want to act, help out on set or whatever, we welcome you. Contact us at www.madangelfilms.com.

Secondly, come check us out. We have showings of our films every now and again, plus we're trying to get into a convention or two

Thirdly, keep the dream alive... help keep me from becoming a poor disheveled man...

Wind Beneath My Wings, Fist In My Face

Hell's Trap (Trampa Infernal) (1989)

Director: Pedro Galindo III

Writers: Pedro Galindo III, Santiago Galindo

Starring: Pedro Fernández, Edith González, Charly Valentino and Toño Mauri

Nachos make for a great snack. Who knew Nacho was the name for a hero too? I didn't, not until I witnessed the greatest 70 some minutes of south of the border slasher love ever.

Mullets are cool says Nacho

Nacho (King of mullets) and his best buddy Charly (A Mexican Sammo Hung?) enjoy betting on their paintball games against local a-hole Mauricio. After he latest crushing defeat at the hands of Nacho, Mauricio loses it. He decides the best way to get Nacho is to challenge him to a bear hunt! And not just any old bear. No, this one is supposedly responsible for killing some hunters. So, Nacho and Mauricio head into the woods for a little bear hunt. Along for the ride are Charly (Of course!), Alejandra (Nacho's hot, punch-happy girl), Javier (Mauricio's best bud) and their airhead (Cannon fodder) girlfriends. Our gang checks in with local arms dealer and roadside living crazy Jeremias, before heading out into the countryside for some bear whooping. Unbeknownst to our gang there's is Jesse, a crazed ex-Vietnam vet, who happens to like living in a cave and is "still at war...with everybody!" Though Jesse has no girl, he does have a mask, a shit load of weapons and many traps. By nightfall Jesse is on the hunt for our intrepid bear hunters.

Time for paddle ball

Just when we thought we'd run out of crazed slashers, along comes Hell's Trap or Trampa Infernal if you'd prefer. Trampa brings the sizzle and it brings the steak. We get a brisk pace. At a nearly 77 minutes this sucker doesn't have time for holding hands. But it does have time for some paddle ball. We get some basic setup and then it's off to the woods. No muss, no fuss. You want your backwoods stalk 'n' slash fix quick and Trampa knows it.

Paging Mr. Awesome

What about the characters? Well, Nacho is Nacho. He's an all around cool dude, loves his best pal Charly, loves his stonewash, his mullet and his girlfriend. Speaking of which, that Alejandra is a feisty one, or would that be fisty? She hasn't met a face she wouldn't like to sock. Not only does she like to punch, she also looks damn good in denim. Then there's Charly, he may be fat and sleep a bunch, but he's as much a hero as Nacho. There's more then a few instances here where Charly comes through. If this was an American made slasher Charly would be just your stock fat character to be killed off and nothing more. Which brings me to Mauricio, Javier and their girlfriends. These four are your stock horror characters. A douche, his buddy and their bubble headed gals. If there's one fault I had with Trampa Infernal it's them. These guys are there simply to make bad decisions and get killed. Nothing more.

Hood Ornament

That just leaves one more character worth mentioning, one awesome bag of badass killer named Jesse! Besides sporting a white mask and snazzy blonde wig combo Jesse likes wearing the Fred Krueger sanctioned finger blades. Unlike your Freddy or Jason though Jesse also likes to bring it with a bow, grenades and an M-16! He's also an ace at making booby traps.

Trampa? Infernal? Indeed!

Welterweight denim queen

A Fast, fun and straightforward little slasher. Trampa Infernal is 77 minutes well spent south of the border. Nacho is the man! Jesse is pure awesome. Charly has your back. Alejandra, oh Alejandra...call me! Bring the denim. I don't mind an occasional punch. Just watch the face.

Romeo and Juliet do the Highlander

Star-Cross'd (2009)


Director: Matthew A. Peters


Writers: Matthew A. Peters, Mark Joseph Peek


Cast: Kenn Pagano, Catherine Presite, Mark Joseph Peek,  Erin Henry and James S. Cacciatore

Remember Highlander The Series? I sure do. I wish there was something could make me forget it. But it's there every time I watch the original Highlander. I admit I watched it for a few seasons as well as watching all the unnecessary sequels. I dug the idea that there was this story playing out down through the ages. One that involved people who couldn't die and had seen the world change over the centuries. They lived normal lives secret from us. linked by destiny. Living and fighting till a time when there would be only a handful of them left. The first Highlander was near perfection but everything that followed was just not needed and bled the concept dry.

So what does this have to do with the film I'm reviewing? Let's have a look.

There's a mob war brewing. Two families and all that, fighting for territory. A plan is put forward to unify the families by having the boss's daughter Gwen marry Marcus. The plan would give him power and all that. So he sends Aiden (Not the band), his brother to keep an eye on her. That goes just like you'd expect. A few flashbacks latter the two are doing the Romeo and Juliet thing as they take off on the run. Marcus and gal pal Delia in pursuit. Through flashbacks we find out that Gwen, Aiden, Delia and Marcus have liked these lives before (In funky Renaissance Fair garb no less!). It's all destined to end badly unless our lovers can change their destiny.

Like the Immortals of Highlander these four are linked through the ages. But unlike there it's reincarnation that brings our four together. Though we get to see their past, they only have a faint inkling of this. They never actually know. There's no knowledge of who and what they've been and seen. Just a sense of something more. Personally I would have liked to seen more of these past live perhaps. We see one instance. How many times has this happened? Why? It would have also been nice to have them remember their past as well. But such a things can be difficult to pull off. Both  in the acting and production. That's the thing that hurts the film. It's limited. It's incredibly low budget. The ambitions of the story greatly outweigh what can be done. There some action to be had. There's a car chase. Some gun and sword battles and brawling that for what was mostly likely peanuts play out okay.

Acting wise it's the leads. Not to be cruel but they just didn't have the chops to pull off the love story. I never gave a crap about them. The lack of chemistry there hurt because if you don't care about the Romeo and Juliet's in a love story, then what else is there. But, I can say the rest of the cast performs fine for a low low budget piece. See, I know two of the actors in this film. They're friends. I won't say who, but I will say it's interesting to watch people you know well in a film. Even a very (very) low budget one. It's even more interesting when you try to review it.

I can't praise or damn this film. It's no better or worse then a lot of the stuff Lionsgate puts out on DVD. There's some stuff I liked here that was hampered by the limitations of budget and experience. But with perseverance any limitation can be overcome. Wow, I just sounded all inspirational there for a second, like Gene Hackman in Hoosiers.    

An Impossibly Funky Interview with Mike White

This is the 50th interview on The Cathode Ray Mission. Wow! Sure doesn't seem like we could have gotten so many people to talk to us. Some more then once! Poor souls. For the 50th interview I had the great honor of talking to Mike White of Cashiers du Cinemart. Cashiers du Cinemart is a magazine and a webzine about independent film, published and edited by White. The print version began in 1994 as a fanzine and evolved over the late 1990s into a magazine format. The title is a parody of French film magazine, Cahiers du cinéma. It ended publication in 2008, but continues on as a webzine. Recently White released Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection.


When did Cashiers du Cinemart begin? And what were it's origins?

Mike White: I started writing about film when I was in college. At the time, the University of Michigan was far more of a film *theory* school than a film *making* school. I began learning how to read a film and enjoyed the various interpretations that writers (like Tania Modleski, Robin Wood, Laura Mulvey) had of the same subject matter. Moreover, I enjoyed jumping into the fray and putting my own spin on things. I got so into the groove of writing about movies that, after graduation, I didn't know what to do with myself. Combine that with a crappy job with long, unsupervised hours and you've got the making of either a domestic terrorist or a fanzine writer. I opted for the latter path.

How did the book Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection first come about?

White: A couple of things brought me to Impossibly Funky. First, Clint Johns, the zine distribution guy at Tower Records -- a prince among men -- had suggested doing a book years ago. This was around the time that some zinesters were coming out with collections and I contemplated throwing my hat into that ring. I wrote up a proposal and sent it away. By the time I should have gotten an answer, I got notice that Tower had gone into Chapter 11. Cue "Sad Trombone" music. The idea stuck with me and a few folks told me I should do a "best of" issue of the zine to catch people up that hadn't read the early issues. However, instead of doing another issue of the zine I finally folded around 2007 when my bank account was empty, my credit cards were maxed, and my garage was filled with copies of my last issue -- a few of my major distributors and many of the mom & pop stores I had relied on all closed their doors between issues 14 and 15. The book idea stuck around and I finally sat down with Mike Thompson (a long-time CdC-contributor) and Lori Higgins (a friend, proofreader, and fan) where we fleshed out the first version of the book. The rest, they say, is history.

There are interviews ranging from people like author James Ellroy, Bruce Campbell, Dr. Demento, Crispin Glover and Taylor Negron. What were some of your favorites?

White: Our firsts always are our favorites, aren't they? In that case it was Bruce Campbell who took time from his busy schedule to help out a zine from his old home town. That really put the wind in my sails. I've had great fun talking to everyone I interviewed, even James Ellroy who kept having me turn off my tape recorder. I think readers will enjoy the interview I did with Keith Gordon most of all. Articulate, open, and funny as hell, talking to him was a huge treat.

Can you tell us a little about your love of the film Black Shampoo?

White: "He's bad, he's mean, he's a loving machine. But when he's mad, he's mean, he's a killing machine." That tag line along with the image of Mr. Jonathan (John Daniels) wielding a chainsaw on the back of the video box took my friends and I by surprise; almost as much as the movie itself. Back in high school my friends and I tried to take in all manner of movies but we particularly found a love of blaxploitation films. I think it was a combination of the action, the clothes, the music, and the low-budget aesthetic. Black Shampoo was one of our first forays into blaxploitation and it was our favorite. Though it's a relatively straight-forward story of boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy kills mobsters with a chainsaw and pool cue to win back girl, we found that it worked on many levels. And, the more we watched it, the more we loved it. Maybe love isn't a strong enough word. We would have boiled bunnies for that movie.

I'm a big fan of the regional filmmakers of the '70's and '80's. Filmmakers such as Bill Rebane, Don Dohler, Donn Davison and Charles B. Pierce. Do you see such filmmakers as these a thing of the past? And do you have any personal favorites from that time period?

White: I've got to plead ignorance on this one. I can't really recall much regional filmmaking going on around Detroit except for Sam Raimi, Josh Becker, Scott Spiegel, et. al. and those boys had the good sense to get the fuck outta Dodge as soon as they could. I don't know if it's just a Detroit thing or not but the Motor City isn't overly supportive of "smaller" artists. If you go away and make it big then we'll laud you and say that we knew you when but try to make it in Motown and you're facing a major uphill battle. In my own case, I've gotten a lot of support for my zine, video projects, and book from outside of Detroit (especially in Baltimore) but there's not a lot of love for the homeboy in his home town.

Cashiers du Cinemart championed the independent film. Have there been any recent independent films that you've really be blown away by?

White: I've not seen a whole lot of Indie fare lately and, truthfully, I don't count most of the stuff that comes out to art house theaters as "independent" film. Most movies that have the Sundance seal of approval also carry the stink of Hollywood with them. I like my independent movies truly independent, thank you very much. No big stars, no big budgets. Give me a movie that expresses the love of filmmaking or that has a story that needs to be told.

Getting off my soap box now, I'll say that my favorite films I saw in 2010 have been a couple of documentaries about films and filmmaking; Clay Westervelt's Popatopalis and Michael Stephenson's Best Worst Movie.

Cashiers du Cinemart featured articles about unmade or various versions of films such as Alien 3, Superman Returns and Dune. How did you go about finding the info on many of these films?

White: The short answer is "dogged research." The longer answer involved tracking down screenplays and magazine articles, spending a lot of time and money on ebay, making phone calls; everything short of banging on doors. I wrote the majority of my Alien 3 piece when the internet was still in its nascent stage so all of my research was offline. When it came to the Superman Returns piece, there had already been a lot written about the tawdry tale of the film coming to the silver screen but I didn't want to do a hack's job of quoting other people's writing. Instead, I tracked down everything on my own and did my best to uncover some of the screenplays that were only rumored to exist. At times I had to resort to my patented brand of wheedling and chicanery.

Cashiers du Cinemart is known for openly mocking the basic tenets of film criticism. Do you feel that you've had an impact on the way film is criticized?

White: I could only hope to have that kind of influence but I still imagine myself as being as effective as spitting into the wind.

Do you see any change in way films are reviewed now as opposed to the days of Siskel & Ebert?

White: My friend and partner-in-crime Mike Thompson always refers to Siskel & Ebert as "the thumbs" and I always found this appropriate. They reduced themselves to their appendages. At the end of the day, their brand of televised film criticism came down to a binary system, invalidating the nuances of good film criticism. I don't see a lot of today's brand of film criticism getting away from that cockeyed up/down view of reviews. It's easy to say "I love it" or "I hated it." Give me the reasons why -- and make them good. Or, better yet, tell me the qualities of this mediocre genre film that are really interesting. Film criticism shouldn't be a series of stars, a thumb, or 140-character blurb on twitter. I'm not saying that there's a minimum character count for good criticism but there should definitely be a minimum thought count rather than a gut up or down. If you're critiquing films you need to do your job and put some thought into things. Otherwise, you're just a film reviewer.

With so many film blogs and websites like Rotten Tomatoes, do you see critics like Roger Ebert becoming a thing of the past?

White: I could throw some tomatoes at Tomatoes but really I should take aim at the people that base their opinion on a number or, worse, those film reviewers that use that same number as their premise for a review. "This movie must be bad because it only got a 35 on Rotten Tomatoes." Again, I encourage people to think for themselves. Sure, it feels good to have your opinion validated by others but you need to have an opinion in the first place to really get the satisfaction you seek. Likewise, it's okay to go against the flow as long as you follow your head and your heart. There are innumerable movies that undoubtedly have high Rotten Tomato scores that I can stand and vice versa. That's fine by me. I know why I like or dislike things and can usually defend them. Those indefensible movies that I know are bad on some level that I love all the same fall into the category of "guilty pleasures".

There have been times that I wished Roger Ebert was a thing of the past -- especially when he was on "At the Movies" giving away the endings to new releases before I'd had a chance to see them. I respect what Ebert has done outside of television and I know that there's not going to be a good televised version of film criticism for the public. People want thumbs, stars, hearts, ribbons, bones, tomatoes, etc.

Any advice for all us film bloggers?

White: I'd like to count myself amongst the film blogger community so this advice is to my peers and myself -- slow down and think about things before blurting out something on your blog. And, don't forget to proof read. Noun/verb agreement and punctuation still mean something, even in the 21st century.

Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection
Now Available! http://bit.ly/bIt33l