Four Walls

 This post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

Timehop showed me this image just the other day; that brief, shining moment when I had four movies I'd written in Family Video at the same time; especially memorable to me in that writing HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW and JURASSIC PREY is what coaxed me back out of self-imposed exile, because I really wanted to write a movie called HAUNTED HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW and I really wanted to write a stop-animation rubber dinosaur movie.  Working with friends Henrique Couto and Mark Polonia was also a bonus.

My latest for Mark is DUNE WORLD, which I wrote in quarantine and is already out.  One of my favorite things is when I write a script that gets turned into a movie that gets turned into a tee shirt, and it's happened more often than one might think.  

It is obviously a mockbuster, but it's more Philip K. Dick and Samuel R. Delany than Frank Herbert, with a coda from the Strugatsky Brothers.  I finally had a chance to see it, and was happy to see director Mark Polonia really leaned into the psychedelic sci-fi elements.  Who knows what the world will think of this one.  The trailer is here.

It is leaking out there that I wrote a movie for Henrique Couto called JESSE JAMES UNCHAINED and after a few COVID-related fits and starts over the last year or so it finally wrapped in Ohio.  I worked as a Production Assistant two days on set--one very cold, one very hot--and it was neat seeing it come to life.  I got to be there to see scenes with John Hambrick and Rachael Redolfi, who appeared in both of my films, and work with some people who crewed mine as well, Eric Widing and Buck Marinara.  I had forgotten it is more boring to PA than to direct but it was fun to hang around anyway.
There's more coming.  I believe three more I have written over the last few years are in post or completed.  One is going to be announced pretty quickly, I think, and is for an established b-movie director I had not written for prior and always wanted to.  Could be a big year for releases.

As the doors slowly open up again everywhere, I was happy to see my old friends at Film Scene back at it. I hope to return to Iowa City one day with another film but until then will happily rep this shirt they sent me.

The Midnight Hour live horror podcast invited me to be interviewed on their show which I only agreed to when I learned it started at 10 p.m. and not midnight because I'm in bed by then.  They said they have a lot of questions for me, which actually worries me a bit.  You can check it out here July 25.

After a year of driving the highways and byways hunting Little Free Libraries to stave off the isolation, somebody went and put one in my town, just a half mile away.  Check it out if you are ever around.

Our summers on the Back Five are full of projects and weekend trips.  Hope you are enjoying yours, and thanks for sticking with me.  More soon.

I See You've Got Your List Out, Say Your Piece and Get Out

This post first appeared in my e-newsletter, I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, which you can subscribe to in the sidebar.

I finally took my own advice and went to a horror movie convention last weekend, Days of the Dead in Indianapolis.  Many years ago I went on the convention circuit to meet people in the industry--not the folks you have to stand in line two hours to get an autograph from, but the ones stashed in the corner of the vendor room, burning their own DVDs.

I have always said in the b-movie world you need to prove you are a normal person, who can meet commitments and deadlines and get along with everybody.  The great filmmaker Alex Cox, whose film Repo Man I watched over and over at one time in my life, refers to it as kibun-- the Korean word that means a general harmony, respect, peace of mind, that you need to make a movie.

I had just walked into the lobby of this big hotel/convention center out by the airport when I bumped into a Polonia Brothers fan I knew from the interwebs but had never met IRL.  Not five minutes later, an actor who is going to be in this upcoming secret project I have called Twice Shy in my e-newsletter walked by as well.  So worth going already.

Days of the Dead provided a "Blue Track" for independent filmmakers, and I couldn't have been happier.  I got to watch an Independent Filmmakers' Panel and was surprised how many Indiana people were on it.  It was good to see, because I've never thought there was much of an Indiana scene, but this panel gave me some hope.

I could have broken the bank in the vendor room at just at two tables, Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, side by side.  These companies are doing heartfelt restorations of movies that, in the early 2000s when I was first on the scene, you would be thankful to find on nth-pass VHS bootlegs with handwritten labels.  I just had to by a restored Blu-Ray copy of Dolemite, which I first saw on loan from a friend in the early 90s, when I was first trying to figure out how to break into the scene, and inspired me to keep going.  I also bought one I had never heard of, the Axe/Kidnapped Coed Blu from two-and-out director Frederick Friedel, two 70s psychological horror films made for pocket change that pack a wallop, like the best of Andy Milligan or Jean Rollin.

Regional horror films, and films where people make something out of nothing, is where I always find my inspiration.  More recent films, like the all-in horror films from Bandit, like Harvest Lake and Plank Face, are current examples, and I got to meet these guys, who are making very challenging films physically and emotionally.

The guys who made Night of Something Strange were so friendly that I bought their DVD, and was pleased to find internet pal Wayne Johnson in it, as well as Michael Merchant who was in a film I wrote called Amityville Death House. It is as rude a horror comedy as you will find, so be warned.

And naturally I bought a homemade DVD with the title written in Sharpie, She Was So Pretty by director Brooklyn Ewing, who was so interesting on the Independent Filmmakers' Panel that me and my pal Brandon Bennett both decided we could spend five bucks to figure out what she was talking about.  It is awash in technical difficulties, but is such an unfiltered creepfest, featuring an unsettling central performance by Jerry Larew as a serial killer and Corey Rutter as a motor-mouthed cop, that it is worth a look for b-fans.

Some people I wanted to talk to didn't give me the time of day, which reminded me that people in general aren't that interested in meeting writers, but other people I didn't know existed did, so it was worth it to go.  I will be looking for some more opportunities for conventions this season, and see where it takes me.

See you next time.

Sightings

After fifteen years of screenwriting, and around ten movies released, I finally found one of my movies in the wild, at a video store in Richmond, Indiana.  A strange feeling.  A pretty eye-catching cover in that retro way.  Please let me know if you see it loose in society at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

I Heard You On The Wireless Back in '52

Today a movie I wrote, AMITYVILLE DEATH HOUSE, is available at video stores, retail stores, Amazon, Netflix, bit torrent sites, Times Square bootlegs, Hong Kong market rips, out of the backs of panel vans, and outlets everywhere. If you see it in the wild, give me a shout.

I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well, And I'm So Hot 'Cause I'm In Hell

I've been talking for a long while about a movie I did under nondisclosure, and here it finally is.  It's hard to believe, but this is Eric Roberts, Fred Olen Ray, Mark Polonia, a chick turning into a spider, some Amityville hocus-pocus, plus lil ol me. Check out the the teaser trailer here.