Jesus and Sinister Lab

Another grand ol’ time with the Shock Stock gang. They’ve fleshed out a killer con that everyone who made it will not soon forget. Thanks to all who supported the magGot gang and all the groovy good times we shared. Seeing Goblin live, Demons in 35mm with the sweet co-stars Geretta Geretta and Bobby Rhodes… and finally getting to throw acting chops around with good ol’ Joe Pilato… Not to mention the all around incredible folks in attendance. One hell of a weekend. We have a few interviews and surprises on the horizon from the con…

magGot premiered a limited run of the upcoming magGot Corner Collection DVD. There were a few smuggled back to the States to share with the world of magGots out there. We also created the final limited release of Our Devil’s Night before it gets it’s final treatment in the coming months… Both of which you can nab at the STORE, while they’re available!

The Profane Exhibit continues to create ripples. Read the most recent press at Severed Cinema HERE!

Plus, Film Bizarro recently threw some love for Let’s Make a… Horror Movie. Dig in HERE!

Premiering a brand new dvd release… stay tuned. After the con, it’ll be available here…

Go to SHOCK STOCK!

From thine magGot’s to you… a lil Valentine.

Available for a limited time only, the ‘DIRTY CONSUMER EDITION’ of Our Devil’s Night. There were only 26 created, with hand made packaging by Skeeter and magGot. If you want one, jump right on to the grimy STORE!

Artwork by Douglas Dij Duerring

TWO screenings of …And Then I Helped will be hitting the Great White North! February 3rd will be with Horror in the Hammer. Through their monthly Fright Night screenings held at The Staircase Cafe Theatre… The short film Day Zero will also be shown! Thine magGots will be attending both…

Remy is a very talent FX artist who has become, as one officer put it “A victim of his own talent”. I will save the space and allow you to read about it here http://supportremy.com/en/index.html In the meanwhile I’ve had the chance to ask Remy not only about the case, but also about his craft. So sit back my Children and embrace the Inner Depravity!

Like many great stories, let us start at the beginning my Son. What started your interest in fx?
I’m gonna be honest with you. I remember watching the making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video as a kid, and it really felt like a punch in the face.  Later as a young adult, what first gave me a lot of inspiration was the main character of the series Hellraiser, the Cenobites.  Creepy.

Did you have any formal training or were you mainly self taught?
I always had a knack for airbrush painting since my teens. I had to find a way to pay for my beer and partying at the time, so I used to paint my friend’s leather coats, motorcycle helmets, hockey goalie masks, cd covers and huge flags for heavy metal bands. Those were the days.
Later i started FX effects, and my first project was a photo shoot in my apartment, with a bunch of friends and I decided to transform her into a corpse.  I posted that pic on the web on some corny geocity website I created, and my friends made me notice that a lot of people went to see that picture. I gained confidence and here I am, still working on new stuff, trying out new stuff, always working on projects as diverse as web series, photo shoots, a few short movies, indie movies, etc.  I’m usually busy.

What was the first project you worked on?
It was my set of photo shoots for Innerdepravity back in 2005. Time flies.

Do you have a “Dream Project” you would like to work on someday if you have not already?
I used to dream to be able to work on Hellraiser set. Someday I wish to be able to work as the creative director on huge projects such as Saw, or anything that will push to a very high level of ultra-violent. Maybe working on the complete set of war movies would be interesting, such as WW2.  I love history, especially the thematic around both world wars, so that would combine both my intellectual interest and my art together in one project.

You are well known for the realism in some of your fx, do you prefer going for realism or going for over the top fantasy make ups?
As much I can work on the fantasy makeups about aliens and such, I prefer to work on realistic FX because what makes it really work is when the audience is wondering if it is reality or not. I like to make people think when watching my art.

How would you do my make up? You know… for those times I don’t want my mistress to beat me to a pulp before I leave the house.
Hmm… funny question. I would totally work on your wrists, sweet Jesus. Last time I saw you Jesus, your wrists were not bleeding and rotting enough, and I also noticed that you did not have enough whip marks, just like what they did to you in Passion of Christ.  I also think that the crown of thorns is so yesterday, I think we should style it to barbwire.  After that, you should be smokin’.

Do you ever or have you ever taught fx classes? And if so will you continue to do so?
My first experience teaching an FX class was at the FANEXPO 2011 – under the invitation of my dear friend Rodrigo Godino, who totally gave me a great opportunity for me to teach my art to the public. To my surprise the workshop was jam-packed with students of all trades, from different cities. That was a great experience to see people interested in learning in my techniques because i never went to school for what i do.  I am planning to continue to give workshops as well, after my court case is over, when I will be able to start working on a program, and teach to the new generation.

OK time to get serious… now before we get into the charges brought against you, would you please give our readers a little background on what innerdepravity.com was all about?
INNERDEPRAVITY.COM was a web-based multimedia project I produced and created back in 2005.  The content, a series of short movies along with photo shoots, were displayed by thematics. I am also a special FX makeup artist, and my goal was to put in practice the various special FX techniques I acquired throughout the past years. Access to my website was strictly allowed to a mature audience(18 years old and up), due to the graphic content of my art.

In 2006, I decided to make a DVD version of my work. INNERDEPRAVITY 1 and INNERDEPRAVITY 2 were born. INNERDEPRAVITY 1 was premiered at the SPASM Festival in 2007, and won the award of ‘the most deranged movie of the year’.  An unexpected reaction. Innerdepravity perpetrates the terrible mindset of a serial killer. A tattooed masked man performs many of his killings in many different settings, and every killing is accompanied with a photographic journal of his deviance’s.

You are up on charges of “Corruption of Morals” http://www.supportremy.com/en/case-remy-couture/case-remy-couture.html Do you feel they have any sort of case at all? Or is it all just an effort for them not to look like total dip shits after they realized the error they had made arresting you in the first place?
I feel that this is a complete waste of time and money for anyone involved. They arrested me thinking that there was an actual case, No actual murders, but after they realized and verified that there was absolutely nothing but latex and paint in my home, they probably felt like a bunch of idiots.  Seriously, they ARE a bunch of idiots(pardon my French)! I guess to save their faces now they are trying to say that my work has no artistic value. I mean, come on, all they need to do is to admit they made a HUGE mistake.

How has this effected your personal freedoms in this country? For example can you leave the country? And also they seized a lot of your personal property, have you or will you ever get it back?
Of course I can still travel as long as my trial has not started and that I’m not found guilty. However, all my equipment was seized since 2009 (computer, laptop, my credit cards, my passport,all my bills) and they still have not yet returned anything to me yet. The prosecutor of the Crown, Sophie Lamarre, has worked very hard for them to keep my equipment, hoping that it would stop me from spreading my art. I guess she didn’t know about the internet much, because there are so many fans around the world who have fanpages and are still spreading my work today. Just google Innerdepravity and see for yourself.

As we all know going to court is expensive. Last I heard the bill was over $25,000. Is this still rising?
Well I can’t give you the exact full amount, but it is for certain over 30 000. It can rise even higher depending on how long the trial will take, which can last up to a month.

So your new court date is set for Jan 9th 2012. Are you worried this is just going to be delayed by the prosecution again? It seems to me as if they are trying to wear you down because it’s the only way they can win is if you quit.
Of course it is the oldest trick in the book to try to wear me down, but I will always stand up and fight in the name of freedom of expression. I feel like OJ Simpson, except I didn’t do it, and that I’m not a millionaire.

Anything you would like to add?
Please visit Www.supportremy.com!  Please spread the word and help me battle justice’s injustices! All donations are dearly needed, they will be paying up my lawyers for this huge case. Also, if you would like to help in any way,  don’t hesitate to write to me: remyfx@hotmail.com All suggestions are welcome! Thanks for your support!

You can also check out the facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/CrimeArt

And here is also a link to a trailer for a  doc, detailing the events surrounding His arrest called “Art/ Crime”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The cast is interesting.  It’s not dynamite like the original with Kurt Russell, Keith David, and Wilford Brimley, but it had me peeking out of the corners of my eyes.  It had the dude from °Beerfest°, Eric
Christian Olsen, the one who plays Gunter.  I cannot take this guy’s face seriously since I saw that flick, but he was good in this one. Also, obscurely enough it had Paul Braunstein, whom I know as °Johnny, the only brilliant thing about that awful, awful Canadian subway soap opera ‘Train 48′ (RIP)° He dies early, but hey, I’m pretty stoked that a talent like his wasn’t buried by his own country’s shitty programming. Well cast.

The movie is fundamentally different than the Carpenter film in the casting of a female in the lead. This is Mary Elisabeth Winstead (a distant cousin of Ava Gardner whom our very own Mr. Ben Tatar gave sweet sweet coitus to, back in the waywaywayback!).  She is excellent as Kate, the American scientist enlisted to help a bunch of Norwegian yokels at an arctic outpost to dissect a newly discovered alien trapped in a block of ice.  There is a calm and underdone gravitas of everyone’s performance that really anchors this prequel to the original. Not trying to outdo the cool parts of the original with more firepower and a hip young cast.  This one is as bleak and frustrating as the original, with a slightly less claustrophobic feel.  Oh, and if you’re worried about a happy ending, not to worry, my dark-souled friends.

Another Canadian, Kim Bubbs, is one of the film’s two females in thefilm. She was there at the the screening and she explained that there was a concentrated effort to use some puppetry and practical F/X mixed into the current digital stuff to absolutely honour the Carpenter original’s tone and magic, and I’m ecstatic to say it did. I did feel they cannibalized °Alien/Aliens° with the design of the um, alien at first, and there were some face-sucking er, uh aliens and such, but at this point it would be like being mad that Iced Earth’s new album copies Judas Priest AND Black Sabbath.  FOR SHAME!!

I hate digital effects, buuuut they are needed for new sci-fi, fantasy, horror projects, so get used to it. I think they waited long enough to make this prequel, in order for some of the higher ups at Universal to truly appreciate what made the Carpenter version so bloody spectacular. If  they made it back then McReady would have returned as the Thing-Overlord and spouted sly alien one-liners, maybe even rapped!

If you go in with a clean palette and are willing to overlook some minor modern F/X chicanery you will be thrilled with this remake/prequel/clone/alien/pizza/thing.

Skeeter

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve heard the term “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” all my life. While I’ve always figured they were specifically talking about New York City, after seeing this, I now fully believe they were referring to SLIME City.

Slime City is the debut feature of independent filmmaker-turned author Gregory Lamberson, and it was made near the end of what I feel is one of the greatest periods for independent genre film making, the eighties. This was an era that birthed such bat-shit crazy classics as Basket Case, Combat Shock, From Beyond, Street Trash, etc. This was a period of rampant disregard for conventional film making, rivaled only by the seventies. Slime City marked the end of an era. It was an unbelievably satisfying end, but an end nonetheless.

The story involves young Art student Alex (Robert Sabin) who has just moved into his first apartment, hoping that living on his own, rather than in a dorm would convince his virgin girlfriend Lori (Mary Huner) to move in with him, and thus, have sex with him. Things go awry pretty  quickly when one of his neighbors, aspiring poet Roman (Dennis Embry) gives him some mysterious elixir and “Himilayan Yogurt” made by the long-dis ceased father of their landlady, Zachary, notorious alchemist and occultist. He’s seduced by his sexy next door neighbor Nicole (Ironically, also played by Mary Huner) and so begins his downward spiral as the spirit of Zachary (Played in a dream sequence by Daniel Frye) slowly takes over his body, turning him into a deformed, slime-covered monster who needs to kill to maintain his normal appearance. Much splatter ensues, with blood and gore showing up left, right and center, but would you have it any other way?

Slime City comes off as a movie that takes place in some kind of parallel universe where cops befriend prostitutes, mysterious mediums offer information of grave danger for only a dollar, and your average hobo is actually quite well read, and a bit of a snazzy talker. In short,this movie rules! The film’s shoestring budget never becomes too apparent, as the effects, cinematography and music all work very well. In particular, the last fifteen minutes or so will surely be etched into your brain for years to come. The performances by all are quite believable, and fun to watch.

All in all, you really can’t go wrong with Slime City. It’s original, fast paced, and as I mentioned earlier, bat-shit insane. It’s crazy plot is never boring, and despite it’s insanity comes off as oddly believable.

Why?…………………………..

…………………..Fuck you, that’s why.

Click here to view the embedded video.

-Justin

It costs money to make movies and it doesn’t cost money to write books.  Also, I could never make a living making low budget horror films, and I’m finding I can survive writing novels. I don’t want to tell stories set in one apartment just because that’s all I can afford; I want to tell big, action packed stories with a lot of characters, violence, gore, and nudity. And monsters.  I want the freedom to create the wildest monsters I can imagine, not just those I can afford. I’ve written eight books since 2004, versus four features since 1986.

What got you back into films?

Once the filmmaking bug infects you, it never really goes away.  For me, my three early features – SLIME CITY, UNDYING LOVE, and NAKED FEAR – were the equivalent of film school.  I knew I could use everything I’ve learned to make something decent, maybe even good.  The result was SLIME CITY MASSACRE, which is the first film I’ve made that I’m happy with.

What are some of the challenges/ differences of writing a screenplay as opposed to writing a novel?

For me, there are very few challenges in writing a screenplay, unless I’m writing one for someone else and I have to convince them that my way is the right way.  I’ve written four scripts for other people, quick jobs when I needed cash to pay my mortgage.  Each one took me about three weeks, and that was while being a full time, stay at home parent.  Movie pacing comes naturally to me, so I can whip them out pretty quickly, and I have yet to say, “Boy, does this suck!”  I also have a very improvisational style which allows me to create story points as I go along.  If I had a hook up in the TV industry I could probably make a fortune.  But at what cost, Jesus?  At what cost?

Slime City is now considered by many to be a cult classic. What brought about doing a sequel with Slime City Massacre?

I had 20 years to read and re-read the reviews for the first film, and I thought, “I’ll show them!”  WI started thinking about a sequel when I did 20th anniversary screenings of SLIME CITY at film festivals and horror cons in 2008.  The ideas came fast, even though I didn’t want them to, and I knew that if I wrote the script I would have to make the movie.  And I wrote the script…

Is there a chance of making it a trilogy?

It’s inevitable, isn’t it?  I have to make a third one so I can bullshit like every other franchise filmmaker: “I always intended it to be a trilogy!” and then I can come up with some lame excuse if I do a fourth one.  I’m pretty confident there will be a third one, I know what the story is and I’ve started the script, and it will be even more outlandish than the second one.  I have no idea when I’m going to make it; I have several books to write before then, and eve another movie I want to make, and the economy is in the toilet.  It’s not like this is a big franchise like FRIDAY THE 13TH or A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, where fans said, “We need our Jason and Freddy fix every year!”  SCM needs time to find an audience, just like SLIME CITY did.  I won’t wait 20 years this time, though.

Jake Helman (‘Personal Demons’, ‘Desperate Souls’, and ‘Cosmic Forces’) has become one of my new favorite characters. What was the inspiration behind him?

My first three novels – Personal Demons, Johnny Gruesome, and The Frenzy Way – were all based on unproduced screenplays of mine.  I wrote the Johnny Gruesome script around the same time I wrote Slime City, so it has similar sensibilities.  Personal Demons was my attempt to write a much bigger budgeted story, for the adult horror fans in the room.  I love crime dramas and harboiled noir as much as I do horror, and I wanted to mix all of those elements together. I also wanted to create a hero who would piss his pants in terror from time to time and really get his ass kicked.  I really punish Jake, which forces the reader to sympathize with him.  After three books, people say, “Oh, my God, what are you going to do to him this time?”

What made you decide to treat him as more than a one off character?

When I wrote the script, I plotted out a trilogy.  If the films had been made, I really could have said, “I always envisioned it as a trilogy!”  When I started writing the novels, I figured I would write 6 – 10 books.  Right now, I think it will be two different series of 6 novels, so 12 in total.  Jake Helman is my favorite character to write, I think he’s a real badass, so I’ll keep putting him through hell for as long as Medallion Press wants to publish his adventures.

Where did your fascination with fantasy/ horror elements come in to play?

Dunkirk, New York, where I lived alone with my mother, who bought me comic books when we walked home from our single screen theater.  In those comics were ads for the Aurora monster model kits, which led to me collecting the models and then seeing the movies that inspired them.  I’ve loved monsters as long as I can remember, and I’m excited in that Cosmic Forces, I’ve created one that I know is really cool, my take on Cthulhu, although with a completely different and surprising origin.

When did you begin writing?

Like all kids, I told stories at a very early age.  I cut out those Aurora monster model ads and moved them around our black and white TV screen.  My mother was an English teacher and an artists, so she encouraged all of my interests, even when I had teachers who tried to beat them down.

What came first, wanting to write novels or to make films?

I don’t really vie them as separate interests.  I always knew I wanted to be a story teller, and the method of storytelling went through different permutations: “I want to be a comic book artist, I want to be a stop motion animator…”  I knew I wanted to make films when STAR WARS came out, but I wanted to write books, too.

The internet seems like a double edged sword for independent film makers. Your thoughts?

The internet is a great place for people to give their films away for free, or for people to pirate films and download them illegally.  It’s also a great place for people to act like assholes, especially indie horror filmmakers who are more concerned with stirring up trouble than making good films.  It’s ugly out there, with a lot of white trash egomaniacs thumping their chests and stomping their feet because the internet provides them with a forum to act like bullies.  Slime City Massacre is available on the PlayStation Network, and it will also be available on iTunes, and I think that’s really cool.  But those downloads don’t have all the extras the 2-disc DVD has, and they cost just as much.

On your live journal you mention that you have 5 different projects on the go (hmm… sounds like magGot Films) how do you cope with balancing so many projects at once?

I really only work on one at a time, but it feels like I’m juggling because I’m also promoting them.  This month I’m writing a zombie novella for a small press, and then I’m starting a big book project for Medallion that could take me a year.  In October, Cosmic Forces is being published (it’s actually in a lot of bookstores now), and Slime City Massacre is getting a theatrical release from IFN, “indieFilmNet.”  I also help run the Buffalo Screams Horror Film Festival at the end of October, so I’m watching a lot of great indie films now.  I’ve honestly got more going on right now than I’ve ever had happening in my life before, and I actually have had to look at some of the distractions and say, “You’ve got to go.”

Describe yourself or your work with a Haiku

Do I look like I read or write poetry?  “There once was a girl from Nantucket…”

www.slimeguy.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re not eaten in the first 30 minutes… your heart will not beat for the final act.

Enter the abyss beneath 17th Street, in the Strip District. Pittsburgh’s brand new haunted attraction, spewing 30,000 square feet of madness!

TERROR TOWN!!!

Right off the bat I love this neo-slasher because the first thing you see is our very own Mr. Ben Tatar on the menu screen. “Don’t be afraid…Touch it!” he says, gesturing to a cadaver. Chromeskull:
Laid to Rest 2 is a sequel that starts exactly where the first left off, ala Halloween 2 (the good one).  Since the first installment director Rob Hall has grown tenfold in the chair. Where the first was
more spastic and tonally uneven, Chromeskull is a solid, well-paced and pondered slashbanger, with the dramatic tension of a Terminator film (makes sense since Hall was involved in the Terminator TV series).

Brian Austin Green whips out his acting junk, absolutely squashing his David Silver reputation, playing the loatheful, almost hulking, overachieving assistant in Chromeskull’s underground thrill kill cult. He’s bent on becoming the next great media murder artist, thinking he could surpass the level of sadism and efficiency benchmarked by Chromey.

This is where the theme of it kinda skews from the old school hack’n'slash formula. Chromeskull is apparently a rich motherscratcher who kills out of pure sensationalism, he won’t even waste a kill when the camera’s not rolling! This is different from the usual modus opperan-DIE (forgive me) of say Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees, who kill out of revenge and mental illness. That puts a little neo-spin on it. Not necessary but….cool!

Other than the killer and the killers assistant, there are also good performances from the victims, ahem, heroes. Danielle Harris and a returning Thomas Dekkar round out the cast in fine fashion.

So let’s get to the killer.  Ex-hardcore screamer Nick Principe goes eerily mute again, returning as the titular character, a graceful, lumbering menace. Not since Kane Hodder have we had such an amazing physical presence in a baddy.  I can’t wait to see this big bastard in a more substantial speaking role. I’ve met him, believe me, he has personality to spare! Somebody cast him NOW.

The FX are the true star of the show as bodies are splayed left and right, up and down, and around and around…”BARRF!” This is some of the greatest mix of practical effects with just a touch of digitals to clean up the seams. This is truly an FX masterpiece for the ages!

There you have it boys and girls. Waited for it, tracked it, even helped out in a teeny tiny way, bought it, watched it…. LOVED IT! Go out and buy this one. It’s made just for us, by folks just like
us.

Skeeter

Click here to view the embedded video.