Talking in Our Bed for a Week

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

I was as surprised as anyone when my new film SCARECROW COUNTY hung on for four straight weeks in the Amazon Hot New Releases in Horror.  Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy or has seen it on some other platform.

And I was extremely flattered by this interview and review of a film I wrote, SHARK ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, by the British website The Schlock Pit.  I am appreciative that the people there give thoughtful attention to the b-movie world, and are good writers to boot.

They used just a few snippets of an interview about the writing of SHARK ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, so I thought I'd share the whole of what I wrote back when they asked a few questions via email, probably more than they wanted to know.

Mark had asked me to write all the scripts for a three-movie deal with Wild Eye that all already came with titles and basic descriptions; the caveat being is that he needed all three in six weeks. I'm to the point in my career where if I write something for somebody, there has to be a reason; and I have always been interested in director Thomas Carr, who once shot 6 b-westerns in 30 days (I wrote about it here), which I think not enough has been made of. So I thought this might be a neat challenge.

I had NEVER written this fast in my life; typically I can write a full script in three weeks, if I'm pushing it. I think I worked on these an average of 10 days each. They were written at a fever pitch and honestly I didn't remember a lot of detail until I saw the final product, and even then wasn't sure what I thought up and what Mark added.

Rewind to when I wrote my first movie for Mark, AMONG US, and he had a three-picture deal afterwards and asked me to write all three in a year, and I wasn't sure I could write three movies in one year! In that case I rewrote two and then wrote a third from scratch.

The first was PSYCHO CLOWN, which was turned into PETER ROTTENTAIL. I took John Polonia's handwritten script and rewrote it as I was typing it into a screenwriting program. Next I did a rewrite of RAZORTEETH, then my original script was DEMONS ON A DEAD END STREET which remains one of my favorite scripts but didn't get made.

PETER ROTTENTAIL has been rated one of the worst horror films of all time by Nerdly, and Fangoria did a whole podcast dedicated to it; as well as all the people who watch it on Easter every year. RAZORTEETH disappeared almost without notice; and frankly, which is worse? To me, at least, it's the latter.

So for this new trilogy of scripts: AMITYVILLE ISLAND was the easiest of the three for Wild Eye; I had written a movie for Mark a few years before called DOCTOR ZOMBIE that had not been made, but I noticed had a lot of similar beats as the Amityville premise. It was heavily influenced by Mark's love for ZOMBI 2 and TOMB OF THE BLIND DEAD with my own interest in LUST FOR FREEDOM thrown in. So I knocked that together quickly and it has been noted by reviewers that it has a little of everything, and all of it crazy, as I intended. I wrote another one whose title I will hold back as it hasn't come out yet, but it was full of time travel and dinosaurs and alternate timelines and I had a blast with it. My favorite script of the three. I hope it streets yet this year.

ALIENS VS SHARKS (the original title) was the hardest to get my mind around for some reason so I saved this to write last. But once I got going it started cooking, and again I don't exactly remember writing it. In fact I went back and read the outline before responding to this email. It came with a four-page outline with a lot of the beats, mostly the effects that were going to be made or on hand, and a little bit of story. I made the Jenni Russo character a therapist when she was a photographer in the original, because I wanted to include an alien abduction storyline; I think the other characters were pretty much as presented in the outline. I thought the treasure hunters were a neat touch in the original. I thought the movie was very ambitious, but especially the third act, which I thought was going to be too much to get on screen in a workable way, so I toned it down quite a bit. My ending, which featured a group of teens on the beach Frankie Avalon-style inadvertently re-starting the whole mess, was not used, and I think the whole part with Dave Fife was created so that Mark could work with Dave before he moved. I think I had somebody quoting a lot of Shakespeare which was cut out, understandably enough. Otherwise, by and large what I wrote is up there, for better or worse.

It's funny now, but I can see the seeds of my own later movie, THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, in this script, including the therapist and the character obsessed with westerns. I always try to hang my stories on things I was interested in, and one in this case is a lawman who is basically on his last day on the job and isn't going to be a lawman any more, and what that means. Honestly, I had also buried a family cat in my back pasture and thought it might be a good set piece for a movie, and that's in there, too. Just all the flotsam and jetsam you pick up through life, interest in culture, interest in other people. Whether people see it or not, I try to put in elements that might resonate with someone besides aliens shooting rayguns or whatever. I think Jennie Russo and Titus Himmelberger are both enjoyable in this. I thought Titus gave his lines an especially eccentric read and it turned out like I hoped. Jeff Kirkendall is good as always. I try to write for the people I know Mark is going to use, but sometimes he changes it up or introduces somebody new, so it's always a nice surprise.

I think when you have a movie titled ALIENS VS SHARKS you are either in or out when you hear the title, and the rest doesn't matter. You are going in it to have a good time. So for this kind of movie, or all three of these movies, I like to try to make them funny, with a lot of nods to horror fandom, lots of energy and outlandish situations and characters. I'm not sure every viewer is in on the joke, but that's what I hope. I think the biggest thing to note is that I have never been involved with a movie that comes from cynicism; these kinds of movies are made by people that love the genre for people that love the genre. Horror fans, by and large, are the most loyal and devoted and will follow you where you want to go, whether you have the money to make the trip or not.

I badly want to see THE SUICIDE SQUAD for my upcoming birthday but I think I'm not going back to the movies quite yet.  I will, however, watch the Mooreland Fair Parade, which leaves tomorrow from my large side yard (as agreed to when we bought this place) and shoots straight down the road a mile to the fairgrounds.  It's always fun to tailgate with the grandkids and check out the fire trucks, floats, and horses from up close.

It seems like we took one step forward and two steps back; hope all is well with you and yours, and thanks for reading.

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.

Mott the Hoople and the Game of Life

Sometimes work leads to more work, which is why I haven't boomed out a secret e-newsletter for a little while.  I have been getting up early, working through lunch hours, and working into the night when I would rather be binging on WESTWORLD on a new script project that is due quickly.

It's funny how many parallels there are between the first screenplay I ever had turned into a movie, the Bigfoot mockumentary AMONG US, and the most recent (lucky thirteenth) one, a retro-styled Bigfoot movie titled IN SEARCH OF (ISO).

When I was working on the set of AMONG US, Mark Polonia was asked by a distributor to produce three more movies that year, and he asked me to write all three.  At that time I didn't believe I could write three screenplays in a single year, so we agreed that I would re-write two and the third one would be an original script.

The first became the infamous PETER ROTTENTAIL, which was a rewrite of a handwritten script called PSYCHO CLOWN, and it has entered the halls of infamy by being rated one of the Worst Horror Films of All Time by the British website Nerdly, and no less an august publication than Fangoria devoted an hour-long podcast to its wonders.  I did the rewrite over a delirious long weekend and I think it's raw and funny but obviously your mileage may vary.

The second rewrite was of a piranha movie called RAZORTEETH, which made nary a ripple, so to speak, a worse fate than its predecessor.  Only about 25 percent of my rewrite made it to the screen through various production hiccups and I think now it is a bit of a rarity.

The deal came apart before my original screenplay DEMONS ON A DEAD END STREET was filmed, and I have been sorry about that all these years later as I think it is my best screenplay that has never been made (the second best is a science fiction screenplay I wrote called TETHYS).  It once looked to be produced in New Zealand when the rights came back to me but that didn't work out either, so I have it around if the day ever comes that somebody might want it.  I just this weekend heard from a friend that a colleague of his had sold a screenplay, with all rights attached, over Craigslist, so there's that.

So on the set of IN SEARCH OF I learned Mark was working on a three-movie deal and again asked me to be a part.  By now, almost 15 years later, I have learned through much trial and error that I can crank up a screenplay in three or four weeks.  But what caught my attention about this one is that all three screenplays would be more or less shot back to back, more or less on the SyFy Channel model with crazy premises, and would all be needed in about six weeks.

Challenge accepted.  Loyal readers know that I have made much of the accomplishment of stalwart b-director Thomas Carr, who in 1950, at the very ass end of the b-movie western era, took a pair of aging former Hopalong Cassidy sidekicks and a handful of rewritten scripts and shot six c-grade oaters in 30 days.  That these are all watchable, and in fact enjoyable, is a tremendous achievement and not talked about nearly enough today (and you can buy them all cheap as THE BIG IRON COLLECTION on Amazon).

These new scripts are all high-concept titles, but I will again take a page from better (comic book and fiction and newsletter) writer Warren Ellis and give them all non-disclosure-like codenames here (and by high concept, I mean like the guy who thought there should be a bunch of movies about sharks that get sucked up into tornadoes).

One idea which I am going to codename KRASNIKOV caught my fancy right away, and I broke my landspeed record by writing it in two weeks.  The distributor told Mark that they had to be weird and crazy and as loyal readers know I don't have to be told that twice.

A week after and I am halfway through the one I am calling SEQUENCE SIX which started off nutty but got a little nuttier when Mark called last night and said "put some zombies in it."

The third one which I am calling THE HORRIBLE ASP, because I just heard that REM song, I have had the most trouble wrapping my mind around, even though it was the only one that also came with an outline.

I am hoping that in about three more weeks I will have them all done.  I am to the point in my career that I only work with the people I want to and do projects that are interesting to me.  And I have always wanted the kind of Nerd Extreme Sports Challenge that Thomas Mann took on, all those years ago.

I'll let you know soon about my progress.

I got pretty good feedback on DEMONS ON A DEAD END STREET from the Polonia Brothers. Need to flesh out the ending a bit. Even my wife, who makes me pick up spiders in the house with napkins and carefully deposit them on the back porch, was calling for more bloodshed in the finale. I guess I just hate killing people in scripts, unless they deserve it. The only people who bite the dust thus far are a racist, an abusive boyfriend, and some devil-worshippers. I'll see what I can do. Maybe if I make one of the characters a Republican it will be easier.

Here's some more from AMONG US:


CUT TO:
EXT. SMALL-TOWN STREETS -- DAY
Billy paces down the sidewalk.
BILLY
You know, that's cool. That's one person. I'm going to meet with some other people when I'm in town. We premiered "Hunger of Bigfoot" at the drive-in here about ten years ago. I'm going to do a poster signing at the video store here.
GREENBAUM (O.S.)
Billy? Billy D'Amato?
Billy turns and sees BOB GREENBAUM, a serious, scholarly sort, walking towards him. Billy juts out his hand.
BILLY
How you doin'?
GREENBAUM
I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Bob Greenbaum. I teach at the community college now, but back when you did the "Bigfoot" thing here I was writing for the local paper and I interviewed you.
BILLY
Bob, nice to see you again.
GREENBAUM
I'm glad to have caught you. I was hoping to catch you at the poster signing later.
BILLY
Well, come on out.
Greenbaum starts rooting through a briefcase.
GREENBAUM
I will, I will. I've been writing a book. Interviews with movie directors, based on some of my early stuff from the paper. I'd love to update your interview. Here's a rough draft of the manuscript.
Greembaum hands Billy a sheaf of papers, which he thumbs through.
BILLY
Hey, that's cool.
GREENBAUM
I just got Lance Randas and Victoria Sloan added.
BILLY
What are you calling this book?
GREENBAUM
"Virtual Drive-In."
Billy flips back to the front of the book.
BILLY
The cover says, "Virtual Drive-In: the Wanna-Bes and Fringe-Dwellers of Today's Bargain Basement Cinema."
Greenbaum just looks on.
BILLY (CONT'D)
Sounds kinda long-winded.
GREENBAUM
Yeah, well, everything after the colon is being added by the publisher. What can you do?
BILLY
Yeah, I been there.
He hands the manuscript back.
BILLY (CONT'D)
I'll see you later, then?
GREENBAUM
(nods)
Sounds good.
Greenbaum moves off, and Billy looks into the camera.
BILLY
See? Down one minute, up the next!
CUT TO:
EXT. VIDEO STORE -- NIGHT
The video store is brightly-lit against a quiet night.
CUT TO:
INT. VIDEO STORE -- MOMENTS LATER
Billy sits at a folding table with a stack of posters. Besides a disinterested video clerk, the room is empty.
Then CLAY, a young fan in a black death-metal t-shirt, comes in and makes a beeline for Billy.
CLAY
I'm a really, really big fan.
BILLY
Thanks, bro. How 'bout an autographed "Bride of Bigfoot" poster?
Billy upcaps a pen, but the kid exposes a bare arm.
BILLY (CONT'D)
That'll wash off...you know, if you shower at some point.
CLAY
Could you carve it into my arm? I have a knife.
(beat)
No, that's bad.
(beat)
You know, your movies helped me through some rough spots. You know, help me get out some bad feelings.
BILLY
Uh-huh.
(beat)
Hey, Ray, could you come over here?
CUT TO:
EXT. VIDEO STORE -- AFTERNOON
The night wears on.
CUT TO:
INT. VIDEO STORE -- LATER
Clay has pulled up a chair and is talking earnestly.
CLAY
So in "Bigfoot House Party" there are three different guys playing the bigfoot. In the break-dancing massacre scene, is that Paul Allen, Ray Steele, or Todd Carpenter in the costume?
BILLY
Hmmmm...don't remember that one. Ray?
CLAY
Because I think it's Paul because he's a little taller. Me and some other dudes have a six-pack riding on it.
BILLY
Uhhh...I don't remember exactly.
(looks around)
Where did Ray go?
Clay just nods for a long moment.
CLAY
It's cool. It doesn't matter.
Another more SURLY FAN comes in, to Billy's relief. He starts to look over the posters.
BILLY
Hey, how are you?
SURLY FAN
These your movies?
BILLY
Sure.
SURLY FAN
They suck.
The surly fan turns away dismissively.
In a flash, Clay is up with his hands around the guy's neck. The room is in a clamor.