All I Gotta Do Is Act Naturally

This post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, which you can subscribe to in the right column of this blog.

 

Yesterday I soft-launched the news about my directorial debut feature to a couple of trusted friends in the horror news and reviews business, and my pal Matt Storc at Horror Society jumped right on it.  So the news is out that I am directing THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE with my old friend Henrique Couto producing.

Director Henrique Couto (BABYSITTER MASSACRE) and screenwriter John Oak Dalton (HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW) are teaming up for the fifth time on one of Dalton’s screenplays—only this time they are wearing different hats, with Couto producing (and serving as Director of Photography) and Dalton directing. THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE will begin shooting this spring in rural Indiana.
"John Dalton is one of my favorite collaborators, so helping him take the director's chair was a no brainer for me," Couto said.
“I have wanted to jump over to the director’s chair for a while, after working on the sets of some of the movies made from my screenplays,” Dalton said. “This is a script I feel strongly about, one that I have wanted to get out there.”
Erin Ryan (CALAMITY JANE’S REVENGE) will play the title character, Jill. At the outset, Jill escapes from a notorious serial killer who has kept her prisoner in a crawlspace. She tries to work her way back to normal with the help of a therapist, but becomes inserted into the therapist’s strained marriage with a failing screenwriter. Joni Durian (ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE) and John Hambrick (SCAREWAVES) play the troubled couple.
Others in the cast include Tom Cherry, Rachael Redolfi, Jeff Kirkendall, Joe Kidd, Iabou Windimere, Chelsi Kern and fellow director Andrew Shearer.
“It’s psychological horror, with hopefully some good twists and turns,” Dalton said.
Prolific b-movie director Mark Polonia , who Dalton has penned seven screenplays for--including JURASSIC PREY and AMITYVILLE DEATH HOUSE--has signed on to edit. This marks the second time Dalton, Couto, and Polonia have collaborated after this summer’s Bigfoot movie IN SEARCH OF.
THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE is slated for release in 2018.

Readers following closely at home might realize this is THE GIRL WITH THE GRINDHOUSE HEART, renamed.  I wrote this screenplay in the fall thinking I might direct it--it features my Mid-Century Modern house prominently, a small cast, and nothing too hard to figure out in the staging (I think).  I have wanted to direct a movie for quite a few years, but the timing has never been right.  After spending some time this summer on the set of IN SEARCH OF, and paying close attention to Mark and Henrique's work, I thought the stars might be in alignment.

I knew if I did it I would have to gather my tribe--all the people I have wanted to work with whose names I tucked away over the years.  I knew I wanted to write the central part for Erin Ryan, and I knew I would write a part for my old friend Tom Cherry, who does local civic theater and public access television and an old-time-style radio show (he's going to play the town sheriff).  Mark and Henrique have been my closest collaborators--I've written about a dozen movies combined for both of them--but I also wanted to seek out my old microcinema friend Jon Solita, b-movie director Andrew Shearer (who was the first to congratulate me when I came out of self-imposed exile a few years ago and started writing again), actors Jeff Kirkendall (who lives in New York state, so you will hear him on the telephone), John Hambrick, and Joni Durian, and a lot more.  There are all the actors I've met in Dayton, and some other b-movie friends who I hope can contribute yet.

Some I reached out to can't be there this time, either through their own timing or more often geography, but that's why I am working on WOKE UP BLEEDING when this one isn't consuming my free hours, because the old adage goes when you are working on a movie you have to be able to tell people you have another one going.

I'm glad the news is out, and I can talk about everything going on as we close in on the first weekend in March and start rolling.  Stick around and I promise to have behind-the-scenes stuff here throughout the process.

Lightning and Thunder

This post first appeared earlier in I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, an e-newsletter you can subscribe to in the sidebar of this blog.

People always ask me if I watch the Oscars.  I never have.  My interests are so far removed movie-wise it might as well be a whole different industry.  My heart has always been with the DIY, be it movies or zines or comix or bands.  I used to say if I watched the Oscars I would feel like a homeless guy looking at Trump Tower, but now Trump Tower isn't a funny thing to talk about any more.

I started on a new project--actually a rewrite of an old favorite.  I have two or three I really wish would get made some day, and this one is probably at the top of the list.

Back when the first screenplay I sold (that got turned into a movie), AMONG US, was being shot, the director was offered a three-movie deal.  That director, Mark Polonia, asked if I would write all three.  At that time, way back in the early 2000s, I didn't think I could write three movies in a year, so I offered to do rewrites over two existing scripts and write one new one from scratch.

Funny to think I just wrote three movies from page one for Mark Polonia, on another three movie deal, in six weeks.

Anyway, one was a rewrite of a John Polonia script called PSYCHO CLOWN that became PETER ROTTENTAIL, which Nerdly has rated one of the Top Ten Worst Horror Films of All Time and Fangoria devoted an hour-long podcast to, and the next was a rewrite of (I think) Mark's script RAZORTEETH, but the deal fizzled out by the fourth one, which was called DEMONS ON A DEAD END STREET, and was kind of a Gremlins-type film.

I liked it so much that a few years later, when I was working up a project with a New Zealand director on the exact opposite side of the world from me, I did a rewrite of it, making it more of a straight supernatural film called URAMESHIYA (GHOST SCREAM) because I was on a bit of a Japanese horror kick at the time.  Unfortunately the pieces didn't come together again and I stuck it in my back pocket.

Recently I went a year without a writing deal, or more accurately a deal I wanted, and I have promised myself not to wait around any more for stuff to happen.  So I wrote a project just for myself this fall, and am digging this one out to rewrite once more.

And it needs it--it has videoconferencing instead of Skype, no mention of social media, and more--and maybe a fresh coat of paint will give it a third life.  This time I want to call it WOKE UP BLEEDING.

And if nothing is brewing when I get done with this one, I have one more--kind of a nerd Terminator I wrote in longhand, a long time ago, in a huge burst after waking up with a migraine--that could use a freshening up that I have never given it.  It is really only one of about three or four spec scripts I have ever written.  Everything else I have been hired for, and sometimes the poster and title were already there.

I have nothing to complain about.  I finally sat down and penciled out an accurate count, because I've lost track, and since 1999 I have sold 38 screenplays, 12 of which turned into actual movies with the 13th one in post-production right now.  That means about one third of the movies I have sold turned into actual movies, which is a good batting average in the business, I think.  And if I'm not forgetting anyone, that is spread among nine different directors.

So I am going to spend some winter nights and early mornings like this one working on WOKE UP BLEEDING and see if I still like it as much as I remember.

Thanks for sticking with me.