A new proliferation

This past weekend at Wasteland proved that there are periods where, quite frankly, I'm hard to escape. Apologies to my enemies who do their best to avoid me because, darn it, I'm just everywhere.

The new issues of both Ultra-Violent and Sirens of Cinema hit the stands this weekend. Sirens, as I've crowed endlessly about by now, is the relaunch of the title once published by Draculina, now put out by RAK Media and edited by moi. Ultra-Violent is a fantastic once-underground mag put out by Scott Gabby and managing editor Art Ettinger. I have a piece in the latter on my hero Scooter McCrae.

At Wasteland, I ran into another hero, Andy Copp, who informed me that he recently posted positive reviews of our movies Severe Injuries and The Resurrection Game. For which I bought him a beer. But he was attending a screening of his own movie, so I drank it for him. (Because I'm a good friend)

I later discovered that Fangoria was running a full-page ad for the movie I wrote for The Asylum, Dead Men Walking.

Fangoria also ran a piece on the film I'm writing for G. Cameron Romero entitled 24 Frames. So a lot of people came over to ask me who the hell I thought I was writing for George Romero's son? (To which I'd grin and say 'Jealous, much?' and they'd say 'Bitch!' and go right for my eyes.) This single piece managed to get all over the place in a matter of hours, as I found variations of it on at least two dozen movie sites. So... okay, that's weird.
And then I got an email that a zombie anthology I'd contributed to, The Undead, just released its cover art. Which you can see here.

Finally, another friend, Roger Beckett, recently returned from his wedding in Indonesia. He quickly told me that he'd had a meeting with a prominent Indonesian director who had - wait for it - heard of me! That's right, somehow, word of my magnificence has reached Asia. (Or the fact that Film Threat can be read all over the world. I'm sure there are people in Outer Mongolia saying "who does this hack think he is?")

So, there you go. That was just one weekend, for pete's sake! You'd think that, with my being this famous, people might actually know who I am... and would give me presents.

And my universe continues to spin...

Thursday night, I'm sitting at dinner with Amy and Bill and I start feeling this cramp in my back - like I pulled a muscle. Within minutes, I'm doubled over and I can't breathe. I can barely see. With that in mind, we excuse ourselves from dinner and I have Amy take me to the hospital.

As I'm turning blue from the pain and lack of oxygen, I struggle to give the half-listening triage nurses my insurance info. The pain won't let up. It's not throbbing - it's just there, constant and militant in its desire to kill me. I felt like something had wrapped around my kidney and was squeezing it.

That's when I realized what was going on. I made a quick, breathless phone call to Jeff Waltrowski, who had endured a similar ordeal earlier in the year. Jeff confirmed my suspicion: kidney stones.

Oh... yay. A brand new horror to confront as I take a brand new shuffle towards the mortal coil. That's right: I'd hit thirty a couple of years back. The warranty has expired on my body.

About a half-hour later, I lay twisted and gasping on a table back in the ER. I still haven't seen anyone. Suddenly, I'm no longer in pain. It didn't taper off - it just stopped. As quickly as it came.

I gave the knuckle-dragging orderlies another ten minutes. Still no visit, but still no return of the pain. So I got dressed and prepared to check myself out.
That's when the orderlies suddenly realized I was still here. As I prepared to leave. Images of lawsuits dancing in their heads, one hulking brute of a life-giver hastened to find a doctor who would at least talk to me before I exited.

The good doctor, a former extra from Gandhi, drew me a nifty little picture of my kidneys and my urinal tract and gave me a quick session on what a kidney stone actually was, in case I failed to dope it out from its far-from-self-explanatory name. What I had probably endured was something the size of a grain of sand (though as tense as I've been lately, I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out to be a particle of a diamond) that had passed through the stem. He had the mouth-breather fetch me a urine strainer to catch it. Not being interested in examining this said-grain any further, I immediately forgot the plastic funnel-shaped screen.

Oddly enough, the only thought going through my mind at the time, beyond "Christ, make it stop!", was "can I spend the entire weekend like this?" I had this thought because it was the eve of Cinema Wasteland, and I wasn't about to miss it. I love Wasteland. It's practically the only show I enjoy doing. And kidney stone, unbearable pain, or no, I was going. Which would have made me just oodles of fun to be around, I can assure you.

But as of today, four days later, I am still pain-free. I should probably return to my physician for an ultrasound to make sure there's nothing else rattling around back there. And I'm sure I'll do this sometime after my visit to an oral surgeon, who will determine whether or not I should have my impacted wisdom teeth removed.

And after that, the kidneys and the teeth, I think I'll go in for some elective open-heart surgery. You know, to round off the year.

New Film Threat piece up

In my ongoing responsibility to expose the filthy underbelly of fandom, I give you this piece about Flashback and Twisted Nightmare Weekends. In other news, Genghis Con Pa is still rolling along. Check out the brand-new updated site.

New reviews and a big ol' gripe

Got a message yesterday that a film festival that requested The Resurrection Game, went through all this rigamarole about banner exchanges and cross-promotion, etc., has not only decided not to show the movie, and to not tell me they weren't showing it, but also never bothered putting up any of our banners on their site. After we had promoted their fest on three of ours.

Now, I'm glad I didn't waste the money on a submission fee to said festival, but if they had requested it, shouldn't they screen it? The same thing happened to us earlier in the year and in both cases, mysterious sets of "judges" were to blame for the final decision. Just a crappy thing to do to people, is all I'm saying.

In the meantime, the movie is getting terrific reviews, as evidenced at Cultcuts and Creature-Corner. In fact, I don't think we've gotten a negative review yet (critical, but not over-all negative). While that will probably change at some point, it indicates, at least to me, that we have a good movie on our hands.

So why are all these festivals asking for it, then dropping it at the last minute? It's not too long - they knew it was a feature! And if it is something like, "lack of nudity or gore", I'm gonna be really mad. Horror fans are always shouting about how they want something different and don't want to be "talked down to" by movies like House of Wax, yet the different stuff doesn't seem to catch a break. Maybe I'm wrong... maybe I've been defending "horror fans", when really actually I've been defending the hardcore fanatics: the guys who know their giallo from their hentai.

Not the regular hard-heads of Middle America who rent anything with bloody letters spelling out the title. The ones who seem to not only make up the majority of the "horror fans", but seem to be ruining it for the rest of us...

Shoddy promoters, horror kiddies, or harcore poseurs? Who's to blame here? Who let Cry_Wolf get made?

A cowboy pisses off the wenches!

So, the other day, I wrote about how I set out looking for things to piss me off, in a masochistic exercise in self-aggrivation. This past Sunday, I did the opposite, though accidentally.

Amy and I made the rash decision to head out to the PA Rennaissance Festival, which we've attended sporadically over the past few years, though we were religious about attending back in the days when Taso (Knightriders) Stavrakis and his company did the jousting and the dueling. The last four or five years haven't been that great, and for the most part, the comedians and acts are exactly the same, year after year.

But this weekend was pirate weekend! Charlie and his family were going. It was an opportunity to hang out with them... and a bunch of pirates! Really, who doesn't love pirates?

All the ads say things like "period costumes encouraged!" Charlie and I always joked that this year we'd go as a cowboy and a retro-50s spaceman (hey, they don't actually specify what period you should dress in! It's all implied, and being an American, I don't take too well to subtlety). Well, I upheld my end of the bargain.

I went as a cowboy.

Amy had on her peasant shirt, but skipped the flowing skirt due to the 80-degree weather. I, however, being of heartier stock, had jeans, boots, a leather vest, neckerchief, hat, and a holster (for water). I'd even borrowed a pair of Bill's spurs for good measure!

We got to the fairgrounds and opted to give blood in exchange for free tickets. It would go to helping out the Katrina victims and would also, well, you know, get us in free.

So there I was: a cowboy amongst a sea of pirates and similarly-overheated mideval types, wandering from hackneyed joust to baudy performances by "Wicked Wenches". When I ventured to yon establishment to purchase my customary turkey leg (sadly, they were out), I found myself being glared at by the beveredge wench.

"There weren't cowboys during the Renaissance," she said.

"There wasn't Diet Pepsi, either."

She didn't like that response, but sold me my drink anyway. However, I didn't get "Another five pounds for the queen, huzzuh!" like the guy in front of me did.

A little while later, I was admonished by a sword vendor: "Dude, you're in the wrong time period altogether."

"Yeah," I said, "I got here late."

I had to admit, I was enjoying being the anachronism, but I wasn't prepared for the actual pissed off looks I was getting from the workers. Even those pretending to be the King and Queen of the Fair seemed annoyed by my presence.

Now, I wasn't actually making fun of anyone. I wasn't even pretending to be a real cowboy - just a guy dressed like a cowboy. But I didn't take into consideration that people who travel with these fairs take not only the fair, but themselves, very seriously. So... okay. The bar wenches can refer to themselves as the incredibly demeaning term "bar wenches", and spill out of their wonderfully- to poorly-made bodices, and the "knights" can wander around with their codpieces outthrust, but woe unto you that steps into the realm of fantasy with any sense of irony about you! This is no place for whimsy!

It's like any cliquish gathering, I suppose. Horror fans don't like it when non-horror fans show up. Anime fans don't like people to scoff at them at their own convention. Gamers don't like being shaken down for their lunch money at their own gigs. So I guess my showing up in American Western garb was psychologically depantsing a lot of the Renaissancers.

Which, I suppose, begs the question: why did I go in the first place?

To be perfectly honest, I was in a silly mood. I'm not afforded a lot of opportunities to dress like a cowboy, and I wasn't about to pass this one up. I wasn't there to actually piss people off, but, on the other hand, I'm not sorry it happened. I knew I looked ridiculous, but I wasn't implying that anyone else was. I just wanted to have a little fun. That I wound up having fun at your expense, little miss "no cowboys during the Renaissance", only added to my enjoyment.

Geez, folks. You're saying "thee" and "thou" and selling pretzels on sticks and wearing wool in the middle of summer. Give a cowboy a break!

Searching for comforting rage

With all that's going on in the world these days, I shouldn't force myself to go looking for things to upset me.

I woke up, read the paper, and was gripped with absolute enimity. New Orleans is underwater, thousands upon thousands of people have been left with nothing, countless people dead or injured... and there's looting going on. Not people panicked for clean water or medicine, but folks raiding stores and ruined homes for appliances and clothing, to sell to the victims at high prices, and then justify to reporters and police that they "deserve" the things they stole! And now there's a shoot-to-kill order in Louisiana to prevent such things (to which I say, "Bravo and aim for the brain!")

Because, as a society, there are always new levels of low to plumb. Whatever the horrors we face on a daily basis, there is always someone around the corner waiting to exploit your tragedy for their gain.

Look at the gasoline situation. Because oil rigs were damaged, because there is a coup going on in Nigeria, the price of gasoline - a necessary and vital evil in this society - has skyrocketed over $1.50 more per gallon over the past two weeks. Most of those "in charge" will say that is because the price of a barrel rose because of these problems, etc. But tell me - look me in the eye and tell me - that the oil companies are NOT benefitting from these higher prices. Tell me that there are execs who are not sitting back, puffing on a cigar and hoping that the world-wide misery lasts forever. Tell me that, then tell me another one.

(And hey, all you hard-line conservatives out there who voted our current administration into office, I want you to fix things. You did this. I didn't vote for things to go this way. My guy didn't make it to the White House (but... but... things might still be this bad if HE had been in office... right? Yeah, sure...). So I'm holding all you Red Staters responsible for the current situation in the world today. We are the single most-hated country in the world (sure, we sneer at Luxemborg, but they're not ruining anyone's lives), our "liberation" of Iraq was a land-grab excuse that backfired on us all, we're mocked, scorned, abused and are both directly and in-directly responsible for world-wide famine. Don't throw your fucking flag in my face, don't tell me that if I don't like it I should leave - where is there to go? - don't whistle Dixie, piss on my head and tell me it's raining. Don't blame the war (we started it - yes we did! Don't quote 9/11 at me, either!), don't blame the hurricane, don't blame the Democrats or Republicans (neither party is the real culprit - the current administration is made up of something different entirely), don't blame Pat Robertson and his cry for assassination, in fact, don't blame anyone at all but yourselves. You pulled that lever - you prolonged this agony. Now go and do something about it. If my guy had won on my vote and things were still this bad, I'd be out doing something, trust me. But this ain't MY fault and I'm not footing the bill for it. If you voted Red and you're bitching about the high price of gas, point the finger at yourself. Fuck you - fix this!)

So with all that - and an ongoing family crisis, and friends of mine in severe pain caused by others - what do I do?

I look up Citizen Kane on Netflix to read the bad reviews.

There are reviews that give this movie a single star for its efforts. People bandy about "boring", "predictable", "disappointing", etc.

And there it was: the familiar rage.

Because, really, it had begun to dissipate a tad. I turned the page of the paper and saw just how many people were rallying to help the flood victims down south. Because as loathesome as a civilization as we Americans can be, we do chip in for a crisis. We dig deep when it hits home hard. We put aside being our ugly, Capitalist selves, as a whole, and help out others who are hit with tragedy. We did it for the Tsunami victims, too, so it's not just empathy for the home-grown. Looters be damned - you're all scum and you know it - the rest of the country is heeding the call.

And the gas will eventually come back down to something we'll all consider reasonable, though we'll never see a $1 in front of that decimal ever again. We won't; trust me. But it'll happen. And we'll all start to wise up and clamor for hydrogen fuel cells, which will someday turn Big Oil into Big Hydrogen. And the circle of life - in this case, the snake eating its own tail, for that is our civilization - will go on.

After my umbrage had subsided, and I started to see the good in the world, I just HAD to sabotage myself. I had to go looking for trouble. And stupidity. And arrogance. And yes, there is such a thing as a wrong opinion. And being contrary for the pure sake of things.

But for fuck's sake, there was a review on there that actually used the age-old, Internet message board battle-whine: "It's the worst movie I've ever seen!"

And they were talking about Citizen fucking Kane!

You know what the worst movie they'd ever seen before that was?

The Godfather, Part II.

And that's when my old friend outrage showed up, bags in hand, ready to stay. I had him pull up a chair, and we played "Live, live, die," the rest of the afternoon.

Because these are the clowns upon whose backs we're riding upon. These are the looters in cyberspace. They're ransacking our culture, rather than our goods. They're dumbing down our society and poisoning our collective subconcious with their asinine spoutings. I don't know that there's enough yang out there to counter this yin. I really don't.

And just as they were out to upset people, there I was, feeding into it, begging to be upset. I walked into the trap clearly marked "Trap: Do Not Walk". I did it to myself. Because I wanted to be outraged. I want to know that there are wolves at the door, even if I have to go out and leave a trail of M&M's for the wolves to follow. This is my disease. I was the guy at Roarke's Drift calling up neighboring villages and asking them to send more Zulus.

It's me. I've come to the conclusion that I can't bear to see the forest for the trees. I have to look at the garbage littering the beauty. I have to see what I know I'm up against, even if I have to use binoculars and a road map.

I'm not seeing the generosity; I'm seeing the parasites. I wasn't seeing the five-star ratings; I was looking for the one-stars.

And if I don't stop doing this to myself, I'm going to go mad.

And the only comfort I'll have, as I rest the gun barrel between my teeth, is that I was right all along.

And dammit, that's hardly a comfort!

The Ever-reliable IMDB

I'd like to thank whoever screwed up my IMDB listing. Yes, it was very nice of you to want to help. However, if you're such a fan of the bassist Mike Watt, why don't you know that he and I are not the same person?

If you're such a fan of his, why couldn't you look at the listing - just glance at it - and realize that the frontman for The Minutemen was NOT in Gladiator Eroticus and did NOT write and direct The Resurrection Game?

Yes, I realize that this is the fault of the IMDB for making it very easy for the average keyboard jockey to make updates to any page they wish to. Shame on them for asking for assistance.

But, seriously dude? You're an idiot. And a terrible fan.

For one thing, look at the top of my listing where it mentions my age.

32.

Watt the bassist was in his 20s when he fronted The Minutemen. Shouldn't that tell you something if you're such a fan?

Further down, where it lists my biography, and it mentions the slew of magazines I wrote for - Cinefantastique, Femme Fatales, Film Threat, etc... Are any of these listed in Watt's Hoot Page? Hmm, Captain Fan?

Now, there are a ton of people far less cool than one of the greatest living bassists for me to be confused with. I'm flattered by the confusion, really. I'm sure Mr. Watt is less-so. On the other hand, he probably doesn't get the miscommunique that often. The last time I spoke to him on the Film Threat boards, he had gotten a single email asking him if he were the FT writer, so he told me I could be THE Mike Watt, and he'd be THE OTHER Mike Watt, because, as a bassist, he was comfortable with being in the background.

That was very nice of him.

I don't take umbrage at the mistake. I take umbrage at the fact that you spent a great deal of time messing with something I'd spent a great deal of time putting up. Yes, in the great scheme of things, it's the IMDB, and matters not in this world of high gas prices and wholesale overseas slaughter. But, again, you're obviously a great fan of this man.

So, again, why didn't you know that I'm not him?

Go pick on Bruce Campbell... he's really Glen Campbell, the singer. Or didn't you know that?

Back on the road

August: first weekend Chicago, second weekend Cleveland, fourth weekend Baltimore... tomorrow we're back on the road to hit the New Jersey show, Monster Mania. A lot of our friends are going to be there, including Debbie Rochon, Joe Knetter, Sid Haig and Suzie Olber, and Robert Mayr and Glenna Chao (our once-a-year Horrorfind friends). Should be a good time and a good opportunity to promote Genghis Con a little further. Still, it's yet another weekend where we're driving for an insane amount of time. And there's not much of an end in sight.

I mentioned to Amanda Rossi, at The Asylum, that we were heading to Horrorfind a few weeks back. She responded that she'd never been to Baltimore. I realized, essentially, we hadn't either. Yeah, we'd been to Horrorfind every year for the last five years, and were there again for the ludicrous Creepcon show many years ago, but we've never actually been to Baltimore. At least, not where we spent any time in the actual city.

The same goes for most of the cities we visit. Okay, there's no real sense in visiting Cleveland, but I've seen very little of New Jersey, even though we're there at least three times a year. We've driven to Tennessee, through West Virginia and Kentucky, been up and down the East Coast more times this year than I can count. But we don't really see anything beyond the hotels and the highways. It's a weird way to experience America. It's even more surreal to realize that you're in a city you've never been in before, and you're hanging out with people you'd seen just a week before, but have never seen outside of a hotel ballroom.

I have never seen Sid Haig during the light of day. Nor half the con guests I've become friendly with. I'd met the late Matt McGrory (The Devil's Rejects) countless times and the last words we'd exchanged were "see you in a few weeks", as we were bound to run into each other again at one show or another. But never in a real social setting. There would always be a table and/or a line of people between us.

We have these monthly family reunions with people that I've either only ever seen on movie theater screens or in subterranean furnished-and-carpeted caverns, surrounded by hundreds of other people who are, possibly, feeling the same surreal disconnection I feel. Which is why you should never stop to think about the convention circuit... or your head starts to hurt.

...

One last very important thing: our friend, actress/model/singer Ryli Morgan is in the hospital for a very serious heart operation. Take a few minutes to send her and her husband, Mark Baranowski, some good karma for the weekend.

More to come soon

I just conducted an interview with Fred Vogel of Toe-Tag Pictures, over at his shop. It was a very good interview, and I hope it'll make a good article.

But while we're on the subject of writing - I implore everyone who is a writer, in the vicinity of this blog, to check out this article.

Anyone who wants to write, is currently writing, for print or online, heed this article's advice!

New interview with moi

Patrick Desmond, who wrote and directed the star-studded horror/action film, Absense of Light, conducted an interview with me regarding The Resurrection Game. You can check it out here. My name is spelled "Watts" in the title and in the nifty little intro given to me by my friend and editor Dave Dreher, but I've been assured that it'll be fixed soon. It's a good interview, though.

Back from yet another show

Wiped out from three days in Cleveland for the Twisted Nightmare Weekend. Three days of drinking, partying and avoiding any danger of possibly making money (well, Amy made money... I just sat there and tried to stay awake). Got to see old and dear friends: Debbie Rochon, Lilith Stabs, Joe Knetter (for the 2nd week in a row), the Low Budget Pictures crew (!), Brinke Stevens, Don, Megan and Tom--the fine folks at Cleveland FX, the lovely crew of Specter Studios, good ol' Henrique Couto, Pam and Jeff from Hell's Orphans, Tom Sullivan and Pat Reese, Mr. Ted Raimi (another group of people to whom deja vu is just an everyday thing) and an undoubted slew of people I'm forgetting. Not to mention those responsible: Robyn Griggs and Keith Kline!

Bill Homan came up and we shot a few promos for Genghis Con with both Necro-Phil and Bill's latest creation, MINI-PHIL! Look for those to show up on the official site very soon.

So now we have two weeks off before Horrorfind. The vacation will be nice.

There will be con coverage of this and Flashback going up soon. Until then, check out new pieces over at Fangoria and B-Movie and marvel at the wonder that is me.

Latest news from the front

Last few weeks were the usual whirlwind I've come to expect from my life. I'm no longer a slave to the Post Office. My first tour came to an end and they decided not to renew it. There was a full-timer at another office, see... now he works there making three times what I was. So... yay.

I hired on at Cameron's company, Camop, but I'm doing commissioned sales. It could be a while before I earn enough to keep eating... Anybody need a website? Give them a call. (Hey, how many of you would die to tell people that your website was designed by George Romero's son?)

We took a trip up to Chicago for Flashback Weekend. More on this in a later post. Suffice to say, another nine-hour car trip is not in our future any time soon. Chicago: do something about your traffic, willya? It shouldn't take the same amount of time to go twelve miles as it did the previous 500!

Still, we got to hang out with Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Joe Knetter and Ted Raimi. Got to see J.R. Bookwalter, Ariauna Albright, Hugh Gallagher, Pam and Ken Kish of Cinema Wasteland and Pam and Jeff from Hell's Orphans! And there was a rumor that Bruce Campbell was there too, but sequestered as he was downstairs, under the jealous eye of his publishers, we didn't get to see him. Maybe at Horrorfind...

Now we're gearing up for Twisted Nightmare in Cleveland, which is usually more akin to an indie swap meet, but hasn't failed to be a good time yet. If you're in the area this weekend, drop on by. I'll be the one standing off to the right of Joe Knetter's naked ass, gouging my eyes out with a melon-baller.

New post up at the Dead Men Walking blog. With hot and sexy pictures to go with it. Check it out!

The rant that fizzled...

I was going to write this enormous rant about journalism.

Inspired by my previous rant about indie filmmaking, I was going to go on this enormous tirade against the so-called "techno-journalism" that ruined the world of entertainment reporting with sloppy "cut-n-paste" interviews, which seems to have invaded the wonderful world of print, if Entertainment Weekly is any barometer of the current state of pop writing.

And I may still do this.

But not today.

Today, I'm celebrating the completion of the first new issue of Sirens of Cinema under my editorship.

Rick and Bob first approached me in mid-April, and we got the job done, from scratch, in about three months. This isn't akin to breaking land-speed records, but it's pretty amazing considering most of us involved were new to the game (at least to the positions we'd found ourselves in). And I think there's a lot to be proud of here. We're going to have a great Dave Nestler cover... it's gonna be swell.

So couple that with the final installment of my Land of the Dead premiere coverage going live on Film Threat and the incredibly-supportive Paul Scrabo's posting terribly dorky pictures of me from the Film Worker's Film Festival up on his site, and I'm feeling pretty good about the world today. Why ruin it by focussing on the evils that surround my specific skew?

I think I'll just finish up a few things today and enjoy, for once, some good karma.

Adding to our culture

(I started writing this yesterday, but my computer crashed before I could hit "post". I wasn't sure if I could recapture it, or even if I wanted to, but I'm having one of those rare days, both quiet and disquiet because I have nothing in particular that I have to do, so I figure I’ll give it another shot. I have to write something today, so it may as well be this.)

Invariably, at whatever job I’m holding down or enduring, the word gets around that I write and make movies (“invariably” because I usually tell people, to prove to them—and to myself—that what I’m doing now is my job and not who I am). And also invariably, after the mixture of bemusement and indifference works its way through the office or dock, someone will suggest, “You should make a movie about this place.”

To which, someone else will answer, “No one would ever believe it.”

And God knows movies have been made about more mundane subjects, so I generally nod, or crack wise about something going on with the establishment, and then we move on. Or the conversation will veer towards the fact that I don’t make any money doing what I’m doing, and that the movies have not granted me international success and fortune, because, obviously, I’m here, doing what I’m being paid to do, and not out hobnobbing with the stars. Just as they were and were not. So then, invariably, the subject will be gradually dropped, as they return to their careers and the things that fill up their lives outside of work.

These jobs are usually whatever I can get at the time I need them, so it’s rare that I get to work with anyone who has any frame of reference for the film community I live in. Working at a rural post office at the ass end of Pennsylvania, just a few short miles from the West Virginia border, bringing up Shockheaded or Witchouse 3 is the same as discussing life on the moon. No reflection on the people I work with—this is just beyond their realm of experience. “Movies” to them, are whatever just came out at the theaters or at the Giant Eagle video section. For most “average” people, and this is a hard fact we’re all in the community very aware of, our movies would be viewed as some sort of cute experiment and not “real” movies.

Maybe the same can be said about foreign films to some of these folks as well, or quiet, but big budget, “indie” films that spew from Sundance annually. The most in-the-know people at my post office reference “indie” films like Run, Lola, Run and Sideways and act like they’re on the verge of joining a secret society for having seen them. I suspect that you throw Scrapbook or even Tromeo and Juliet at them, or any kind of punk underground movie, and they wouldn’t know whether to watch it or feed it.

Which makes our jobs just that much harder, doesn’t it? It’s impossible to make a movie, doubly-so to get distribution for it, and triply-so to get anyone to watch the damned thing if it does come out. So what is “impossible” cubed? What is the outcome of these Herculean tasks we’ve set for ourselves? And why are we so content to litter our narrow market with junk? Because we’re constantly told by distributors that only sex and gore sell? We need higher body-counts. We need a higher tit-count? Push the envelope—but not too hard. Serial killers are in, in, in.

Okay, so you make a crappy serial killer film and get distribution for it and then what? Make another one so you can get that one distributed? Further add to the bigotry that all indie-made horror movies are shitty and shot-on-video? Why is it that even when we do things right, it’s still wrong? Because the market dictates what we will make, comes the answer, and the market is set by analysts who know just what the audience wants to see and nothing beyond will play.

I’ve made this rallying cry before: what if we defied the “markets” and gave the audience something it didn’t know it wanted? What if we all started making intelligent horror movies, the kinds we all grew up on? What would the “market” reflect then?

No, there’s nothing wrong with escapism. It’s intrinsic—often the only thing keeping guns out of mouths at the end of the day. The working public needs its bread and circuses.

But as a culture, we need more than that. Every movie we make, in some way, adds to the zeitgeist of the culture we live in. Not just the snarky “ain’t I cool for knowing this” pop culture, but our collective unconscious, what makes our society more than just a collection of drones who work day in and out and wage war on different collectives. When we add shit to the culture, we’ve added nothing but shit. Add something interesting, even if unsuccessful, and you’ve added something that might just resonate enough to reach beyond the target audience hungry for boobs ‘n blood.

We’re all hungry. Everyone who makes movies outside of a studio, with our own tiny pockets of money, yearn to make bigger movies, to actually make a living doing this. So why start the career with the first steps taken adding to the mire? Why not make something that makes people think while they cheer the killer and drool over the naked girl? Even if the movie falls flat on its face, at least you tried to do something a little unusual. Why tell a story if its been told a thousand times before and a hundred times before better? Tell a story only you can tell. Don’t worry about developing a style. Tell a fucking story. And maybe a future generation will discover your movie for themselves and think it’s pretty cool and go on to be inspired to make something of their own. Now we’re adding to the culture, rather than just spreading the manure around. Ain’t none of us getting rich off this stuff. The best we can hope for is to make something we’re proud of at the end of the day. But project yourself into the last days of your life and look back. Do you really want to leave behind a legacy of noisy, forgettable schlock? Let Michael Bay have that epitaph.

New Dead Men Walking blog entry

Just posted a new installment of the Dead Men Walking blog. It's a fucking tease. I'm sorry. I'll have actual information soon.

Why I've been too busy to post...

It's been a long couple of weeks. As usual. Most of the past few days have been spent editing the relaunch issue of Sirens of Cinema--which entails hunting down writers who were just dying to contribute, then vanished soon after pitching, hounding folks for pictures and generally wrestling with multiple programs just to beat the stuff that I had into some sort of order. I knew it was going to be hard work, so at least none of the above came as any sort of surprise. Still, I always believed that Sirens could be something great. I think we may be on the verge of that now. Our new issue should hit the stands in September.
Our very first Genghis Con ad runs in the new Videoscope magazine, hitting the stands soon. It was a little weird to see it in there. There's no escaping this show now. It's in print! We have to put it on!
I have a couple of pieces running up on Film Threat right now. First and foremost is the next installment of my Land of the Dead Premiere coverage. I'm really proud of this piece. It might be my Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas... or, at least my Thin Thighs in 30 Days.
There's also my interview with David Latt, whose version of War of the Worlds either just hit the shelves or is about to. It's really good. A terrific adaptation of the novel. You will believe that C. Thomas Howell can fly... or at least act.
My review of Death Defying Acts is running too. You can read about Debbie Rochon's adventures trying to sell this movie at Cannes in the new Videoscope too. (See how it all comes together? Call me a hack, will ya?)

Observing my life from a safe distance

I've said it before: I lead an odd life.

I started the day at 5am, finishing up an article about my adventures with Cameron Romero and his company, hobnobbing at the Pittsburgh Premiere of Land of the Dead with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Greg Nicotero.

From there I went and spent a couple of hours at the Post Office, doing my time as the fill-in janitor while the full-time guy is on vacation.

I came back about 9, sat down and began editing the relaunch issue of Sirens of Cinema magazine, laying out my interview with Amber Benson and giving the once-over to pieces on Amy, Debbie Rochon and Brinke Stevens.

About 2 pm, I had to call it quits so I could make my second shift as postal janitor.

Around 5, I stopped at the stables to feed our horses. I didn't see another living soul until Amy came home about 6:30.

Came home, found our dogs lying in the grass on the front yard. I put them back in their fenced-in run, found the hole they'd dug under the fence, filled it in with a cinder block I found lying under the porch. I surveyed the weeds and vowed to call around to our neighbors this weekend to see if I could borrow a few sheep.

Went inside. Returned email from various indie producers and collected more pictures for the issue and my next Film Threat article.

Right now, it's so quiet, it would be almost unnerving if I wasn't so used to it. I haven't heard a car go by in almost an hour.

I knew I wasn't a city person; I'm still not sure if I'm a country person. But looking back at how I spend my average day, I can't get over how weird it is being famous and unknown at the same time.

Anyway... here's a new Severe Injuries review from Kevin Smith's Askew Reviews site.

Quick update

There is more coming soon, but I wanted to make everyone aware that I started a new blog dedicated to the movie I wrote for The Asylum, Dead Men Walking, which goes into production next week.

Check out this new blog here.

Brief snippets from the Premiere...

There will be more, but I'm fighting a number of weird panic attacks today, no doubt brought on by exhaustion from the past few days...

After Amy and I put in so much time at the CamOp offices, I think Cameron knew he wouldn't have made it home alive if we hadn't at least gotten to MEET Quentin Tarantino... Hey, I broke the goddamned story, I deserved at least a handshake. Thanks to a number of weird little "fires", I didn't get an introduction, so I introduced myself to the man who influenced our current generation of artists.

I told him we were putting together a gift basket of "Pittsburgh-made" movies (mostly ours, Project: Valkyrie, Low Budget Pictures' Mulva 2 -- I HAD to, come on!!, so what if it was made in Buffalo) and he said, "Dude, that's the coolest thing anyone's offered me all night. I can't wait!" Which made me feel good.

The second coolest thing: when I met Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, I gave them my cards, with a third one for Nick Frost. Simon said, "Oh, YOU'RE the Mike Watt people were telling me about. Nick's gonna put this on his desk!"

Because, apparently, Nick Frost played "Mike Watt" in their Spaced show in the UK. So the fact that I had a ready-made in helped break the ice. They were really nice guys. They got a gift-basket too. We didn't do one for Rodriguez. I didn't have any more discs, I didn't know he was coming until the last minute, and I doubt he'd give a shit one way or another.

I gave Savini a hug after the screening for his turn as "Machete Zombie", which I believe he did to get up the nose of Leonard Lies from Dawn of the Dead (who plays "Machete Head Zombie")... Tom looked like I'd handed him a live rat and would probably have preferred that.

Before we went in, Nicotero said to us, "I really want to know what you guys think of my work on this. I'm actually nervous."

"Oh, yeah, I heard you really laid down on the job, man. No effort whatsoever..."

"No, man, seriously, we went all out--"

"Greg, come on, I was kidding."

"Told you I was nervous."

Afterwards I shook his hand. "What did you think? Really?"

"Greg, you already had my admiration. You don't need compliments from me. Who the hell am I?"

"Someone whose opinion I want, dammit!"

...Those were my highlights. Oh, and when Amy and I, separately, met Michael Jordan and both said, "Hey, you were in Space Jam!"

New Clothes

This morning, I made another ever-dangerous pass at mowing our front yard with our riding mower (aka "The Mangler vs. Children of the Corn"). Since my back injury in May (not related to "The Great Crash of Early Last Month", but adding to the suffering), I haven't been able to keep up with it the way it needs it (blood sacrifice, moonlight curses, binding pentagrams burned into it with napalm), and as a result, small families of pygmies have moved into the denser growths closer to the woods.

Because it is so thick, I can't even get close to the actual wooded part, and I'm going to have to get a neighbor down with one of their industrial machines to recarve the path that goes around our property. I own 30 acres but can only traverse fifteen feet. The rest is jungle.

I got best results this morning by driving to the top of the front hill, releasing the clutch and letting gravity bring the mower down in a less-than-graceful arc, braking just before I leap the cliff and hit the paved road beyond. This helped prevent the mower from stalling and kept me from further straining my injuries through such strenuous activies as steering. Now I have a deep and roiling sea of mulched cuttings to deal with.

And, of course, as I was doing this, I was thinking about my recent shopping excursions.

With the Land of the Dead premiere tomorrow, Amy and I decided to splurge just a little and update our waredrobes. She only ever buys clothes for conventions these days. I only get new clothes when someone in the family dies. Or I see a t-shirt I like at the aforementioned conventions. As a result, I still wear things I wore religiously in college.

So I was bound and determined to buy a new dress shirt and a new pair of pants. Hell, I might even buy two dress shirts.

Now, having finally accomplished these tasks, I am left to wonder why the hell women enjoy shopping so much.

For one thing, two dress shirts and a new pair of slacks set me back $70.

For the second, the two shirts I bought, when I got home, were magically transformed into "things I actually did not want, nor, I'm certain, did I buy". Actually, the correct "for the second" was the actual buying process.

To purchase these shirts, I had to venture into department stores usually reserved for cutting through on my way from the parking lot to Suncoast. Department stores that are vast mazes of ugly clothing and uglier people, who would be indistinguishable from the multitude of manniquins if not for the rippling texture of their skin. Normally, the amount of time I spend in stores such as these are proportionate to the ease at which I find the doors opening into the mall proper. In short: very little at all.

But I was forced, in the name of "updating my waredrobe", to venture into the depths of these consumer hearts of darkness in search of a pair of coverings that cannot be found at Wal-Mart. To get to them, I had to frequently dodge the hunchbacked elderly who cluster like molecules around random fabrics alledging to be "housecoats", keeping the grandma haute couture alive for future generations (or rather, future past generations).

I had to travel deep, fighting my way through a gauntlet of parfum-iers, who alternately spritz you with toxic clouds of fragrance or try to lance your jugular with little scented razor-edged wedges of cardboard.

And finally, upon reaching the ludicrously-titled "Men's Section", had to dive deep into the dregs of so-called fashion to find a mere two shirts that my body will not reject like a tainted liver.

Racks upon endless racks of hideous and over-priced jackets, pants, and ties enscribed with seizure-enducing patterns. It was there, this very weekend, that I learned that 70s porno-collars were back in style, with horizon-line points and a width equal to a wedge of the finest Pepperidge Farm cheese. I also learned that the salespeople that work there do not necessarily shop there.

And there are clothes out there made from fabrics that are not found in nature and are not, I believe, actually created by man, either. And these fabrics have names like "Sateen". I never once wanted to own anything made of "Sateen", but I had to admit, I liked the look.

Finding two shirts in the same style, of the same cloth, in the exact size I took, was a task worthy of Heracles. One that I promptly failed at, as I discovered upon returning home. Somehow, on my way back from these textile torture gardens, my "Sateen" shirts had undergone a transmogrification: one grew a full size too large and the other evolved into a cloth wholly unlike the "Sateen" tag that it boasted. This non-"Sateen" cloth could be used to cut diamonds. The too-large genuine "Sateen" shirt could be used to house a family of four.

I discovered this, of course, after I had finally disassembled the shirts from their packages, removing countless pins, folds, tags and bits of cardboard and plastic that held them together in a dense and symetrical origami that made them resemble doorstops rather than actual dress shirts. This ordeal took roughly three hours and a team of four strong men.

And I was stricken with the Lovecraftian horror of having to journey back to the store to exchange them.

Which I did.

But this time, a salesman was eager to help me. Very eager. Not only did he grow up out of the floorboards behind me, fluttering around to assist in my plight, but I think he wet himself during the transaction.

He measured me, to get the exact fit of shirt required. Back and front. Including the inseam.

And then he dove into the myriad racks of what were, to my eye, identical shirts arranged in identical configurations separated only by their prices and the logos of their incestuous creators: "Geoffrey Beane" on one side "Calvin Klein" on the other. House payment on one side, car payment on the other.

The impeccable salesman was muttering as he went about painting the roses red -- "16 neck... 16 neck, oh dear... Not sure I have the black in "Sateen", but let's look, shall we? ... Yes, 32-34, perfect length if I ever saw one... Arrow-brand? How did this get here? I'll have to look into that little faux pas..."

And he was not speaking to me.

Finally, my shirts were located. The colors I wanted. The desired "Sateen". In my size. Obviously, the man was an expert.

The dreaded "return" part of the transaction arrived, and I sat in dread as he sifted through the tags rescued from the trash; I watched, perspiration dripping, as he sorted the individual bags, and scanned my receipt. I was certain that the entire event would be rejected at the last by my omission of some vital piece of cardboard found beneath the collar at the back.

But it went through. And I walked out of that store a poorer man, but the proud owner of two shirts that would not only fit, but would somehow disguise the fact that I am more of a t-shirt-and-jeans kinda guy and that I can dress like this at will and comfortably.

The shirts are not comfortable. Nor are the pants. I look in the mirror and am reminded of the time I wore a suit to Horrorfind, in anticipation of a business meeting taking place that afternoon. A friend remarked, "Why all the trouble? Did you see how they" [meaning the producers I was meeting] "dress?"

"Yes," I replied, "but they're not trying to impress me."

So all the time I spent, growing up, rebelling against my parents world and their desires for me to wear a necktie to "look professional" are finally bearing down upon me, worming into my conscious and sub-conscious like Ceti eels. I have become a "business-casual" man.

And I don't like it one bit.

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The "Indie Horror" Algonquin Round Table... for lack of a much-needed better term...

Back in 2002, my good friend Bill Hahner came down to our place to shoot his scenes as Lilith Stabs' character's boyfriend, "Steve" for Severe Injuries. At one point, Bill is on his hands and knees, in his boxers, wearing a top hat, and providing Lilith an ottoman for her ridiculously-high-heeled boots.

He turns to Amy and I and says, "How do you do it?"

"What?"

"How do you constantly get your friends to travel and be in these bizarre movies?"

I looked at Lilith. "Yeah," she said.

I shrugged. "You tell me," I said. "You're the ones who traveled."

They didn't have an answer, obviously, and we continued with the shoot.

I was reminded of the scene in Burton's Ed Wood, where Bill Murray's "Bunny Breckenridge" asked Depp's "Wood" the same question. "How do you get all your friends to get baptized so you can make a monster movie?"

There is no answer to the question. I have no friggin' idea. For some reason, we have this tightly-knit (if not tightly-wound) group of people who will constantly come through for us, regardless of whatever bizarre thing we come up with. They're there for movies, for conventions (both going-to or actually holding ... *ahem* Genghis Con...), photo shoots, etc. Bill, Lilith, Tim Gross, Charlie Fleming, Francis Veltri, Jasi Lanier, Debbie Rochon, Stacy Bartlebaugh-Gmys, Jim Steinhoff, Nic Pesante, Jeff Waltrowski... They've become part of the Happy Cloud Pictures family, for as far as that goes. They're all wonderful people, they're all ridiculously talented, and Amy, Bill Homan and I couldn't possibly be more grateful.

And, obviously, we're not alone in this craziness. Chris Seaver at Low Budget Pictures has put together an outstanding group of people he relies on for his insanity; the same goes for the Crazy Ralph crew, the Wicked Pixel family, the Gonzoriffic commune, the Tempe Productions company... in order to survive in this business, you need more than a company or a repetory, you need a family. In the truest sense of the word. Folks who will watch out for you, stick up for you, and do whatever you need in order to make your dreams happen. And thereby making your dreams their dreams.

I get cynical about this business because it is so ruthless. Often, you're up against people for whom their success is not enough, they need your failure as well. Or you're up against the decision-makers who screw you in the time-honored tradition of "it's just business".

But I'm often very optimistic, too, because I really do believe that good things do happen to good people. Maybe not all the time (okay, definitely not all the time), but luck or Karma or balance or whatever, it's all cyclical. Life isn't always filled with shit, just as is it isn't always filled with parades. To succeed in this business, making art or "art", you have to be smart, strong, and tenacious. Talented helps too, but--and Jennifer Lopez thanks the her Lord for this fact every day--it's not a requirement.

On one message board or other, someone asked if there really is an indie film community. And this question pops up every now and then, and the way I answer it depends on my mood. It's easy to say "no" and dismiss the very notion of community, but then again, that "no" is becoming more and more difficult to assert with any kind of assurance any more. Happy Cloud Pictures didn't get to where it is today (wherever that may be) by existing in a vaccuum. We have very loyal fans, and we have, as I've pointed out, an outstanding support base of friends and family.

Does that mean that years down the line, TV movies will be made about the DV Algonquin Round Table that meets up at Chiller twice a year, with Seth Green playing me and Alexis Bledel playing Amy (or whoever)? Probably not.

Do I think that we're all contributing to an exponentially-increasing body of work called "independent horror" that is slowly making its way, unsuspectingly or otherwise, into the lives of those not only seeking it out, but those also stumbling into its path now and then?

Definitely.

I think that very many of us are making an immeasurably valuable contribution to the medium and those ripples through our culture will be noticed eventually. "Independent horror" is more than a niche-cult any more. I think, in a lot of ways, it's become an artistic movement, for better or for worse (with both ends of the spectrum adequately on display at any given time). Perhaps its influence will only be noted on the same lines as the "drive in" movies were -- the best of the exploitation films that continue to be popular today. I don't think we've reached the broadest area of our target audience yet. But I do believe that they'll find us eventually.

"Independent horror" is a rich, multi-faceted, ever-evolving thing. There's room for all of us. And I think it's exciting. The good and the bad and the mediocre. Every movie ever made is somebody's favorite movie. (Just as the following is true, appropos of nothing: "everybody is somebody's hero"... chew on that the next time you start feeling down about the state of things...)

I don't think we've even begun to hit our stride yet. If you consider that this current wave of indie filmmaking started in the very early '80s, when the VHS home-video camera boom coincided with the first of the video rental chains. There is still a great demand for product from an even bigger variety of outlets. I think this demand will continue to grow in voraciousness, just as the outlets will continue to evolve (internet, on-demand, DVD culture, etc). And for the best of us, who continue to hone our skills and grow as artists and storytellers, I really do believe that the best of our efforts will be rewarded in time.

And it's not just that I have to believe that to continue to survive emotionally in this business. I look at what my friends and peers are making, the good and the bad, and I love what I see on the base level: creativity unleashed.

Boring people and exciting LAND OF THE DEAD news

There’s a girl at work—all of 23 or 24—and for some reason or another, we don’t get along. I’m not sure why, and I’m not sure I care. Maybe it’s because I’m the only one there even remotely close to her age. She prefers flirting with the folks twice her double-decade, perhaps. Just speculation on my part. She doesn’t have a lot of patience for my inexperience, so I just try to stay out of her way.
At any rate, I’m passing, pushing a cart full of mail, and she’s talking to one of the carriers. I hear this: “Oh, I’m wild! I start here at five in the morning, work until three or four, then my boyfriend and I party all night. Then back here at five. I’m serious,” she tells the carrier—Ronny? Ricky?—“I’m a wild girl. You’ve never met anyone like me!”

And I just could not help thinking, “Kid, you’re not even as interesting as the most boring person I know!”
A twenty-something party-girl post office clerk. Sorry, but you don’t compare to:

A dancer-turned-engineering student who went on to be an activist for women’s rights in the horror genre.

A former-dominatrix who, at my age, just became a grandmother.
A homeless girl who put herself through a number of prestigious New York acting schools.

A bi-sexual model who became a fire-eater and stunt-woman.

A kid from a small town in Maine who moved to Pittsburgh to study special effects and co-founded a movie production company.

I could go on.

Yeah, kid, you’re a real wild girl.

After we saw Big Fish, Amy and I were thinking about how we could have told the same story, but without having to exaggerate about the unique people in our lives…

***

In other news, I spent a good part of yesterday in Cameron Romero’s office, hanging with Cam, Chris, Jason and Joe-the-Intern, watching them lose their minds over the upcoming Pittsburgh Premiere of Land of the Dead. I’m in the middle of writing a piece about it for Film Threat, and I’ll post the link here. (Actually, I'll post it now: http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.asp?Id=1480)

But needless to say, I couldn’t get them to confirm or deny that not only will the premiere have Romero, Sr., in attendance, along with folks like Tom Savini, Tom Atkins and half the cast of Day of the Dead, not to mention the ‘N’ in KNB, Greg Nicotero, but also Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (Shawn of the Dead)!

And—and—and—Quentin friggin’ Tarantino!

Not so far-fetched. Quentin and Greg are friends. Edgar and Simon and Quentin are friends. They’re all Romero friends. Greg’s a Pittsburgh guy. Why the hell not?

But Cameron won’t tell me. “You’ll know when you know,” he says, with a big shit-eating grin on his face that I’d love to knock off, but I won’t because he carries a gun. “And,” he says, “you’ll be the first to know.”
And I take that as a promise. ...

And it was. About two AM, my cell-phone rings.

It's Cameron.

"It's a go!" he says. "Simon and Edgar are flying into JFK on Wednesday, and we're arranging for them to fly in from there. Quentin is flying in either with Greg or around the same time."

This morning, on local radio station 3WS, Greg does a quick interview about the event, mentioning CamOp (the first time it's even brought up in conjuction with the event, with so much emphasis in the past on the Steeltown Production Project which is being benefitted by the proceeds - a charitable event, after all) and Simon, Edgar and Quentin.

According to Quentin: "There is no better place to see Land of the Dead than Pittsburgh!"

So... holy hell! I get to meet Quentin Tarantino next week and hang out with Greg Nicotero and the Shawn of the Dead guys!

I'd better buy some new clothes. Something that doesn't say "slept in". ...

Oh, and click here for more info...

Another long-ass day where I spent much of my time both lighting a candle and cursing the darkness (in broad daylight no less)...

Ever wake up and just feel grumpy for no apparent reason? That's been my whole week. Just can't shake it and it taints the whole day.

So what do I do to cheer myself up? Attempt to mow the Triffids in front and trim the mess created by "He Who Walks Behind The Rows" in the dog run (if it were titled Children of the Weeds, of course).

As everyone knows, I am ill-suited to physical labor. I tend to break easily. Having still not fully healed from my career-ending injury at the Post Office, perhaps trying to force a hand-driven gasoline-powered trimmer through shoulder-high brush was not the best idea I came up with today. But it needed to be done.

I started around 9:30 AM. The thermometer read 72. So, great, my outdoors was room-temperature.

The thermometer lied.

About 10:20, I actually had a visible trickle of sweat running stream-like through the center of my face. Where sweat isn't usually found.

I got about two-thirds of the dog run trimmed. The lousy dogs can swim the rest of it until Saturday, when it's actually supposed to cool off.

Because of the near-constant rain we're to have between now and then.

And we all know what rain does to weeds, right?

Never one to learn from my instincts, I immediately attempted to mow the front yard, where the weeds were hiding small colonies of antelope at last investigation.

I got through one circuit before the wheels started to spin in the wet and the mud and before the engine began stalling from the weeds inhibiting the blade motor.

So I gave that up.

I will now be calling on a neighbor kid to mow with his father's trusty combine. And once he's done, I'll ask him politely to allow me to hurl myself under as well.

After that, I went immediately to physical therapy, where an insanely chipper young woman intern chirped at me throughout much of my implied relaxation. Then had me do very strange exercises for my shoulder that did little but eat up time.

I come back home and get to read a bizarre press release-cum-apology-letter from Nick Palumbo on a variety of message boards, wherein he talks about the "controversy" surrounding his insanely dull "movie", Murder-Set-Pieces. The alleged film is more boring than it is shocking, so the thing read more like a piece of PR designed to stir up peoples' interest in the final product, which is, I'm told, having a hell of a time finding a home on DVD. Though his post does promise that it will be "officially rated XXX". (Which is just stupid if you think about it... or even if you don't think about it.)

Instead of being entertained, it just added to my irritation. Not to the point where I was yelling obscenities at the computer, but close...

So that was my day, how was yours?

Anyway, news... It occurs to me that my news will be celebratory, but vague (so it will be closer to "masturbatory", but what else is new?).

I sold a script.

It's a zombie script. Zombies in prison. I pitched it about six months ago to a company out in LA that I'm friendly with (or, rather, I'm friendly with the people who work there, not the actual company). They liked it and suggested changes so that they'd like it more. And more importantly, their buyer would like it more.

So I made the changes. I had no real emotional attachment to it yet, so I made the trims and additions they wanted.

Then there were more suggestions... it just wasn't good enough for their buyers, who, apparently, have very specific ideas about what the general public wants to see in a horror movie.

The general public, it can be surmised, being the average 13-year-old.

So I made the changes, thinking "isn't a third draft supposed to improve a script? Not make it crappier?"

But about midway through the new draft, I remembered something.

I'm a really good writer.

Not just, you know, okay. I kick some serious ass as a wordsmith. And you can tell - because I use words like "wordsmith".

So by the time I finished the third draft, with the revisions in place, I realized that I really liked this script and would really like to see it made the way I wrote it. And at the same time, I realized that it probably won't get made line-for-line the way I wrote it, but at least I gave it a damned good effort.

I've never written work-for-hire before. Or, rather, I've never sold anything I'd written for-hire before. Things usually fell through before I got to see my name on a check.

This time, the producer called to tell me that they loved the script, all the partners loved the script. And it's going into production in July.

This July.

Five weeks or so.

To which, I replied, "Holy shit, that's a hell of a turnaround!"

They have a director lined up, casting begins next week. They're all set to move on this thing. And they're paying me for writing it. It's not a tremendous amount, but it's more than "nothing", which is what I'm used to.

So that made me do a little happy dance.

I got this call on Friday. The night before we won the award for The Resurrection Game.

Right after the call, we got an email from an acquaintance wanting to option The Resurrection Game. There's some planning and negotiating to be done here, but still, it's a solid offer.

And that was my past weekend. A series of weird and unexpected rewards for very, awfully, ridiculously hard work.

So, of course, me being me, I have spent the time following all of these rewards scanning the floor before me, searching for the big white X that I will undoubtedly be standing on sometime in the future.

That "X" has not shown up yet. Doesn't mean it's not there and doesn't mean it won't show up.

But for the time being, I'm allowing myself to be, cautiously, very happy.

Okay, so I got up about 5am, started retyping the final draft of a script that got lost during the Great Crash of Early Last Month for a prospective producer.

Went to work and sorted mail for two hours.

Came home and realized that I didn't have to retype the script after all - my scanner has an OCR setting.

Did that and reformatted.

Tried unsuccessfully to trim the dog run. It's half-an acre of lawn that the dogs don't use for much beyond an escape route, but it's overgrown right now thanks to the rain and heat. There are Triffids slowly overtaking the house. If it ever dries out, I plan to mow as well. Which is always fun...

Took my dog to the vet. He has high cholesterol (it's a thyroid thing) and is prone to seizures. He didn't enjoy the trip.

So now I'm home, the sun is 40 feet from the surface of the Earth.

And I'm looking at this award I got from the Pittsburgh Filmworkers this past weekend (as I'm sure you've already read all about the festival, there's no reason for me to recap). The little plaque reads: "Best Film, June 4, 2005, The Resurrection Game"

Then it has my name, "Mike Watt" (in case you forgot), right underneath the title.

Which, of course, got me thinking about the auteur theory.

Despite all my bitching and grumbling about this movie over the past near-decade, I do not consider this to be my movie. The Resurrection Game belongs to everyone at Happy Cloud Pictures, but, to be honest, it belongs most to myself, Amy Lynn Best and Bill Homan. We went through the whole mess together from start to finish.

Yes, I wrote the script.

Based on ideas and concepts Bill had already dredged up about the future existence of zombies. The idea of fighting "cancer with cancer" creating zombies was actually inspired by an early AIDS vaccine that involved genetically-engineered strains of cancer. And since Bill was convinced that a zombie plague was actually going to occur - and we bought into it on the premise that "hey, what if he's right?" and assisted in helping him pick out apartments for us on the basis of "most easily barricaded" - it was a natural inspiration for a screenplay.

Yes, I directed the movie.

But primarily the technical aspects of it. I worked with the DP and his AC (whoever those were at the time), and dictated where the camera would be, what lighting we should use, etc. For the most part, Amy directed the actors. There were even times she was the DP.

Yes, I edited the movie.

But each and every cut was scrutinized by Amy and Bill. They were the producers and had as much input into things as I did. In fact, a lot of the initial editing was done on our in-home upright Moviola while shooting was still going on, so they had almost immediate access to the thing as I finished it.

Yes, I cut the negative.

But Amy did as well. Maybe not as many reels, but that's because she was busy at her full-time job, making sure we had the money for me to sit at home and cut the damned negative.

And yes, I re-edited the movie countless times digitally, but see the above previous mention of "editing" and you're back where we started.

We all had something to gain and/or lose by the completion of The Resurrection Game. To say that I'm the author, or that I'm responsible for this "Best Movie" is ludicrous.

And this is something we all three agree on as partners in and founders of Happy Cloud Pictures. We dislike the auteur theory. So much so that we never include "A Film By" credit in our productions.

We always start with "Happy Cloud Pictures" presents. That way, every member of HCP can feel proud of the final product.

More importantly, they can feel responsible for the end product.

That's the final reason to disregard the auteur theory: sure, it's fun to accept the credit; it's more practical to spread around the blame.

But, ultimately, we haven't made anything we aren't proud of by the end of the day.

And I refuse to add the word "yet" to that sentence.

....

For those of you who are not utterly sick to death of reading about The Resurrection Game are recommended to check out my new "Random Acts of Mike Watt" article over at b-movie.com.

Yes, that's right, The Resurrection Game took home the Pittsburgh Film Workers' award for "Best Film" at Saturday's festival. Which was a real honor, by the way, as we were competing against the marvelous Dr. Horror's Erotic House of Idiots (which I and Amy and Charlie Fleming are also in, in case I forgot to mention a million times previously). No hard feelings from Paul Scrabo, though, as Dr. Horror's won "Best Production" and got its own hefty trophy.

The actual festival went pretty well, I thought. There was some confusion throughout the week as to in what order the films would play and what time the actual event started (some said the doors opened at 6:30, some said 7:00... those who said 7:00 were right), but all-in-all most things went off without a hitch.

The hitch, of course, was provided by me and my miraculous Karma.

I was not looking forward to watching this movie again. The anticipation of dread from seeing The Resurrection Game in a live audience made sitting through Dr. Horror's difficult enough. Worries ran through my head: "I just hope the disc plays all the way through." "I just hope the audio isn't too hot."

I had brought 12 DVDs with me, each containing the new cut of the movie. For some reason, the thought struck me that there might be an errant Spicy Sisters Slumber Party hidden amongst the unlabeled DVDs. But what were the odds that I would pull one of these out of the 12? Add to those odds the fact that I grabbed four out of the box and stuck them in the plastic bag to be brought into the theater with me. 20,000-something to 1 against, by my calculations. But still, I had to narrow those odds down to 112% by vocalizing this concern in the form of a joke. To wit: "Watch: I accidentally stuck a Spicy Sisters in one of these cases and that's the one I gave them."

Which is precisely what happened.

Now, the fine folks at the Rex Theater had been doing soundchecks all week. They knew which DVDs would play right away. There was no guesswork involved.

Except that I didn't know this when I gave the co-ordinators a copy of the new cut.

And the Rex guys didn't know that the disk was a new cut, apparently, so just popped the disk in and walked away.

And then The Spicy Sisters began to play immediately.

And this was followed by some running around and frantic searching for another Res. Game DVD.

The emcee, our own Tim Gross, laughed it off and re-introduced us. This did wonders for my nerves, of course.

Add to all that the fact that neither Amy, nor I, nor Bill could sit still long enough to watch it for any length of time. So we hung at the back of the theater with Cameron Romero and Jason Ralph, pacing back and forth and wincing... wincing primarily because the levels were so damned loud! The opening gunshot rattled bottles in the lobby.

Five people asked the guy in the soundbooth to "bring the levels down". Sound guy was a hippy with a long beard (in which, I'm sure, were hiding several Japanese soldiers unaware that the war had ended), who usually responded with "Huh?" and then "No, man, they're fine. I checked them on Tuesday."

After the sixth person, ears bleeding from treble and intestines ruined from bass, begged him to "bring it down", he finally brought it down. A bit. A hair. I didn't notice much difference, but then my ears were bleeding too.

A few seconds after person number six had made the audio request, I feel someone touch my shoulder. In a crowd, it's not advised that anyone do this. I don't like it.

I turned around and saw hippy sound guy. "You the filmmaker?" he said.

I confirmed this.

"Some of the dialogue is only coming out of the left channel."

"Okay."

"Listen."

I did. I couldn't tell if it was or not, standing, as I was, to the rear and left of the theater.

"Okay," I repeated.

"Thought you should know."

"Nothing I can do about it now," I said.

"You should know, though."

Then he went away. Then came back a few seconds later, touching me again to get my attention.

"Hear it?"

"What do you want me to do about this?" I asked, shouting to be heard.

"Well, you're gonna have to re-mix it if you want this to be a serious film."

"You can hear that it's coming out of one channel?" I asked.

"That's my job, man."

"But you can't tell that it's too fucking loud?"

"Hey, you needed to know."

"There's nothing I can do about it. Go turn it down and leave me the hell alone."

And he did. And walked wide of me the rest of the night.

But I fumed for the rest of the night as well. "If you want it to be taken as a serious film??" Yeah, I'll tell the two companies that are currently bidding on it that the dialogue needs a stereo mix. I'll get right on that.

If my head doesn't cave in from the over-modulated and distorted levels. Thanks, hippy guy. You made my night.

Now, I realize there was probably an infinite amount of better ways to have handled the situation. One, possibly, would have been to borrow a gun. Had the awards been given out already, I could have beaten the hippy to death with it. Or I could have thanked him and turned away from him.

But I was nervous as hell. I had my own crew giving me shit the whole way through the movie because they were nervous about seeing this thing too. I had family and friends and peers I hadn't seen in close to a decade in the audience. My blood had turned to straight-pins in my veins because I was viewing the fruits of seven years for the first time and it was too fucking loud and I couldn't make out half the dialogue through the distortion.

And I really needed criticism from this man, who was undoubtedly annoyed by six people asking him to do his job just...a...little...BETTER!

Everyone's a fucking expert.

But the movie seemed to go over really well with everyone. There was ample applause at the end. Because we were so far back, assaulted by distortion, we couldn't really gauge how the audience was reacting, though. They all jumped at two crucial points at the end, so I took that as a good sign. I couldn't hear laughter over the raging bass, so I'm not sure how some of the lighter moments went over. I was assured, however, that it was not that loud from the center of the audience to the front. It was louder the further back you were. Which indicates a crappy sound system to me, but what the hell do I know?

I only know that, at the end of the night, people were coming up to us and congratulating us on making a great movie. And the award really started to mean a lot on the drive home, when I looked at the back of the program and saw some of the movies that had been submitted, by filmmakers I knew or had heard of, that hadn't been accepted for the festival. There were some top-notch guys in that list, people who I'd gone to school with, people I'd met at fests and conventions. And The Resurrection Game had beaten them all for a top slot in the first annual Pittsburgh Filmworkers Association Film Festival.

So at the end of the night, Amy and I went home with a "Best Film" award --represented by a heavy statuette of The Gill Man (either Ben Chapman or Ricou Browning... I forget who did the swimming) from The Creature from the Black Lagoon sculpted by Eric DeLaVega and cast by Chris Pirt (both terrific artists and instructors at the Savini School).

And looking back, yeah, maybe I should remix it, maybe I should replace a couple of sound effects here and there.. but refer to my last post. I ain't gonna. The Resurrection Game is done. And folks seemed to like it.

As reported in Fangoria, The Resurrection Game is done.

It feels really weird to type that sentence. I still can’t quite wrap my mind around it.

Done.

Finished.

With a new dialogue track freshly scrubbed and polished by Cameron Romero and about 60 minutes of new music by Jason D. Ralph (perfectly complimenting the music previously composed by Paul McCollough and Mike Shiley), the movie is complete.

I spent most of the past weekend beating various parts of it into submission: raising levels here, lowering them there, mixing effects, placing and replacing music…etc. Then I screamed at my PC, with its virtually quaint Pentium III processor, then begged, then cursed, then physically attacked, until I got a good file rendered out.

This took about three tries. Rendering out a final .avi in Premiere is a pain in the ass, particularly with a Pentium III behind it, and it takes six, eight, nineteen hours, depending on what you want it to do (although I’ve yet to determine a rhyme or reason to the rendering time). So the first couple I wound up with were filled with glitches—some my fault, some the computers, some I’m convinced are the result of Satan’s meddling.

For a while, I was sure the movie itself was working against me. Actually, I’ve had this feeling for five years now. It was almost a given over the years that The Resurrection Game is the movie that didn’t want to be seen. For two years, I hand-cut a scratched and abused work-print. To the audience, the picture was bad, first, as we distributed a bootleg on VHS, shot off the flickering screen of a flatbed editor. So I hand-cut the negative and got it transferred to DV… then taught myself Premiere (when I started on this movie, digital editing was a mere concept to me, like evolution—I knew about it, but I had no real physical contact with it) to re-edit it again.

So now we had a beautiful looking movie. But, as was witnessed at the sneak preview screening at the 2004 Pittsburgh Comicon, it was determined that the sound was the new culprit. This was the result of a dialogue track mixed from the original mag stock scratch tracks that I had originally thought was all that remained of the elements. I discovered that the original original elements—the ¼” tape from the Nagra recorder that we used on the set to capture the dialogue—had not only held up, but were in pristine condition.

So I transferred these to DV, with the irreplaceable help of Eric Fleischauer and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. And then I imported every line of dialogue into Premiere and replaced the entire sound track sound-wave by sound-wave. Resulting in a nearly-pristine dialogue track and my going blind for two hours.

Then I had further computer problems, like the aforementioned crappy .avi files.

Then my high-end DVD burner died.

Then my computer crashed, erasing both hard drives. Forcing me to recapture the entire movie from a tape-back-up and start over again with the new tweaking.

Then the floods came.

And some locust (just enough to gum up the works).

Then the Earth opened up and swallowed my house and all the master files.

Then an electromagnetic pulse shot through the universe, rendering useless all the world’s electronic devices.

But through it all, ultimately, I survived, and so did The Resurrection Game. And it’s playing its first film festival on Saturday. The Pittsburgh Filmworkers Association is putting on a fest and it’s running Dr. Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots and then us. Since Amy, Charlie Fleming and I are in Dr. Horror’s (so are Debbie Rochon and Jasi Cotton Lanier, for that matter), there’s going to be a lot of us on that screen tomorrow.

And this fest makes moot all of my excuses. The movie is done. I’m not going to do anything else to it, for good or ill. So I won’t be able to say “we’re almost done” any longer. “It’ll be finished soon,” the pat answer to “why does it sound like that?” is no longer valid.
<>Now we have to stand by our choices, to be hailed or hanged by the work.

Saturday is gonna be interesting…

On Tunnel Monkeys and Vogon Poetry...

Took some time out of our ridiculous schedule to see Revenge of the Sith. I'm ecstatic to say that I actually liked it, and didn't come away with that sick feeling of disappointment that I had with the previous two "prequels". Of course, the Lucasfilm Painchip imbedded in my neck (the one we all got with our first order of Star Wars figures back in 1978) prevented me from overtly voicing my displeasure with the new trilogy...

Revenge of the Sith is by far the best of the new movies. That really isn't saying a lot, I know, but it is, for once, a good movie. Is it great? No. But at least it didn't suck as much as the previous. (That's all I ask for out of Hollywood anymore, to "not suck as much".) There was, of course, reams of awful dialogue and wooden acting (and when you didn't get wooden, you got ridiculously over-the-top, ala Palpatine, but why nitpick here?). There were also way too many tunnel monkeys.

(For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase I just made up, Lucas re-released his epic snooze-fest THX 1138 in a brand-new, tricked-out special edition (of a movie no one really liked in the first place). During a crucial chase sequence near the end, he litters the image with new CGI of what looks to be monkeys running through the tunnel alongside the cars. Therefore, when referring to needless CGI laid into a scene existing simply to clutter the frame, you must now use the term "tunnel monkeys". I'll be looking in on you periodically to make sure you do this, so don't try to get anything past me!)

Still, it was a relatively satisfying movie on its own right. Lucas should have simply made this one and let the other ones fester in the back of his mind. And, of course, he should have Rick McCallum killed immediately for telling him that Jar-Jar Binks was a good idea.

Onto other things...

My rarely-updated webzine, Hollywood is Burning is hosting a screenplay contest. As a result, I've gotten in a couple of pretty good scripts to review and judge. Also as a result, I've gotten in a lot of horrible, awful things, filled with horrible dialogue, improper formatting, and illogical plots. In short, the sure-fire hits of next summer. However, sifting through some of this stuff is like reading Vogon Poetry. You just can't do it.

(Another note, now that The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been released as a swank big-screen movie -- and a good one at that -- Amy pointed out that we geeks have now lost the secret handshake. You used to be able to walk up to people at cons and sort the "knowing" from the "unknowing" by simply saying things like "42", or "care for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?", or "Hey, you hoopy frood, know where your towel is?", or "Say, isn't that the ravenous bugbladder beast of Traal?" If they fixed you with a blank stare, you knew to slowly back away and make sure they don't follow you. No more. Hollywood robbed us of our code words. Now you can say those sorts of things to any Joe Idaho who wandered into the movie on the promise of seeing robots and shoot-outs. At least I take comfort in the fact that on many messageboards across the vast wasteland that is the Internet that there are many confused and not-the-least-bit impressed with Hitch-hiker's. "It was trying to be funny. It wasn't funny. I wanted more of the green aliens. They were kewl. The robot was funny, but the rest was just stupid." This makes me feel more secure, somehow, that there are still those out there who can tend to our crops and sell us Slurpees without our feeling any guilt that we've put the cows in charge of our convenience stores.)

And thus, I end on a parenthetical aside...

Detached, but accomplished, sorta...

With the bad back and the job-hunting (endless, ENDLESS amounts of job hunting) I felt pretty run-down and flattened yesterday. Add to that the anxiety of putting on Genghis Con in November, trying to finish a screenplay for our next production, editing SIRENS OF CINEMA, and putting on a screenplay contest that few people seem interested in, and you've got the makings of a Burmese Tiger-Trap of depression.

But then I got an email from a for-real producer who is officially kicking a script of mine "upstairs" to his partners-that-be with his recommendation that the movie be made.

And that still hasn't sunk in yet. I'm a bit of a pessimist. I'm terrified of celebrating something (even a minor something) until it becomes set in stone. Still, it's a terrific step in the right direction. The script was a work-for-hire that I had no emotional attachment to, but around the third draft (which was odd in and of itself), I started to become very proud of the thing. If they make it right, it'll be a fun, cool, gory and darkly funny movie.

But, still, it hasn't sunk in yet. (Add to that the fact that I really can't talk about it until the stone has been chiseled and you get a vague blog about a tangenital accomplishment.)

Blew out my back at work last week. Started this new job at the Post Office, and it only took me a week to injure myself while slinging hundreds of pounds of mail between 2 and 10 in the morning. Obviously, I'm looking for a new job. Since the injury, I've been in and out of hospitals and doctor's offices all week. Not something I'm looking forward to continuing.

In between all of that, our computer glitched, which forced us to reformat both hard-drives--including the one that had all of the Resurrection Game files on it. Thank god for tape backup or I'd be doomed to re-editing from scratch. Again. Not something I would want to repeat.

So with all of that, I finished up the new draft of Dead Men Walking for the production company The Asylum and things look good that it might actually be produced by them. I'll post more when I know more.

Started the new script for what will most probably be our next feature, Banshee, which will be our attempt to start a new franchise. It'll be a fun, straightforward horror script (or as straightforward as we can get). See if you can guess what the monster is.

Since we started talking about Banshee, people have already asked us "What about WonderDom? What about Razor Days? Well, those are still in the works. We were hoping we could intice Troma into splitting the WonderDom bill with us, but they're wrapped up in Poultrygeist. Razor Days is still very much alive and kicking, but we need money to do this one. It won't work on the cheap or on the fly the way the others would (and the way Severe Injuries did). So we try Banshee. And this one, if all goes as planned, will be really cool, I think. I'm trying to make an intelligent body-count movie, anyway.

Oh, and I was recently named editor of Sirens of Cinema Magazine. Look for our first issue to hit the stands around September, with stories on and/or by Amy Lynn Best, Brinke Stevens, Debbie Rochon, Sherri Moon, Linnea Quigley, and more. Pretty excited about this one too!

Finally, here's a new review of SEVERE INJURIES...

So we survived yet another Chiller. I'm still not sure if I prefer setting up at this show, or just going and hanging out. Both are equally exhausting, it seems. This time around, Amy and I hauled our company partner, Bill Homan, up to Jersey. He's not big on crowds to begin with, coming from Maine, but he held up surprisingly well! Of course, both he and I were rapidly changing religions when we hit I-495 and Amy realized she'd booked our rooms at the wrong hotel--then proceeded to merge in and out of traffic while cancelling one reservation and making another. In Jersey, by the way, you don't merge in traffic so much as you fuse. It was a harrowing journey to say the least.

And for the second year in a row, Amy and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a crowd of a couple hundred people. Like last year, we were surrounded by friends, though, including a couple of my oldest and closest friends (Bill, Justin Wingenfeld (Skin Crawl) and his wife Trinity, and Debbie Rochon -- all of whom I've known forever), and a few new ones (Mike Gingold, Alan Rowe Kelly (I'll Bury You Tomorrow...).

But we're back now, resuming our Clark Kenting at our respective jobs. I just landed a grueling one at the local post office, working on a loading dock with giant steel cages on wheels that have tried to kill me several times since I began.

In the meantime, we work on our own things, including Genghis Con (our own show in November... because, you know, why should life be easy?), a few new productions and the Hollywood is Burning Screenplay Competition. I just want to see what's out there with this last one. And if I can help a few people out with certificates that say "Winner of the Hollywood is Burning Screenplay Competition", then it's all gravy, ain't it?

...

A few new pieces I haven't mentioned yet:

Faces of Schlock review.

My coverage of Cinema Wasteland

The Atrocity Circle review.

Sixteen Tongues review (shoots a hole in my "I hate to do reviews" gripe, doesn't it?)

My rant on why I loved Sin City

and finally, My piece on The World Horror Con

Let me know what you think!