Mailbag Redux

A Polonia Brothers fan writes in:

Hi John, I origionally was a fan of the film Blood Lake. Then I found this film called Canibal Campout with Jon McBride. I also have Woodechipper Massacre.

--Those are Jon's first two movies, done back in the 80s at the dawn of the home video era. I believe they were both shot on plain old SVHS. CANNIBAL is particularly disturbing. A lot of weird stuff went on when they shot it and one or more of the people have died since. WOODCHIPPER was intended to be a comedy and Jon has wanted to do a musical version of it in recent years. A few people in that went on to have careers in the business.

I really enjoyed the films and started doing research online.. this is where I found out about Polonia brothers. The 2 were somehow linked.

--True, SPLATTER FARM was a very notorious movie the Bros shot on SVHS when they were both still in high school. Jon heard about them and contacted them through their distributor (they had the same one at the time). The first one they did together was FEEDERS, which became one if the first SOV (shot on video) movies accepted by the Blockbuster chain. And they soldier on from there.

Yes My husband and really enjoyed Peter Rottentail and we tell all of our friends about it. I also enjoyed RazorTeeth. Splatter Farm is great, pretty twisted but I understand it now.

--Good then explain it to me!

I recently received Feeders 1 and 2 in the mail. I get them off ebay.

--Classics of their time!

Yes, i want to get Among Us.

--Thanks, I am very proud of that one. I had sold a few scripts to other producers up to that point but it was the first one that actually got made into a movie. I was kind of in a downturn right then and thinking about just quitting and reading comics with my spare time. I had a long heart to heart with Jon McBride around then. The Brothers had wanted to hire me to do a Bigfoot movie and Jon was trying to talk me out of it. After I spoke with him I decided just to write a comedic sendup of the entire b-movie industry. When I sent it to the Bros I assumed my career was over. But they liked it and saw a lot of their struggles in there. It has actually picked up a cult following and recently played on the Canadian Sci-Fi Channel, called Space. I actually flew out to Pennsylvania to help with the shoot and ended up playing the Bigfoot that attacks the van at the end. It probably turned out the closest to my original vision. And Jon McBride is great in it.

Do you or did you ever watch Mystery Science Theater 3000? That is great too!

--Hmm, are you saying there is a connection?

I will tell my sister and her boyfriend about you because they enjoy Polonia Brothers too…Peter Rotten Tail was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing at all. If fact my husband and I had to rewatch most of the movie because we were laughing and missed parts. Thanks for the website!

--We live to serve.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.