Your movie Amityville:
Vanishing Point - in a few words, what is it about?
Amityville: Vanishing Point
is about the death of a young girl named Margaret. Her
friends are completely devastated as is the owner of the Amityville boarding
house which they all live in. A very eccentric and obscene detective comes
to investigate the murder and manipulates them into letting him stay
there even though every other resident of the boarding house is a woman.
The girls begin to suspect their friend is alive after all and the
situation escalates. Why
Amityville? And (other) sources of inspiration when dreaming up
Amityville:
Vanishing Point? I
wanted to make a sequel to a famous horror franchise and I thought it
would be interesting to bring a very off-beat style to a classic story.
The film was very inspired by David Lynch and I think this is sort of my
homage to him. I was trying to experiment with subtlety because my last
film was one of the most batshit insane projects I've ever made so this is
a lot tamer but I think it is still very captivating. What can you tell us about your
co-writers Jurgen Azazel Munster, Pailer Ezra and Selena Mars, and what
was your collaboration like? Ezra
wrote the passages from the book Jurgen reads in one scene. He's a very
good writer and he's good at coming up with weird shit. He has a Facebook
page called Sir Isengords Theory Of the Magnificent Spinning Quasi Table
which describes the exploits of a professor named Sir Isengord who's
consciousness has been trapped in a metal box since 1788. It's pretty wild
so I thought it would be cool for him to write some stuff. Selena and
Jurgen came up with a lot of their own lines on the set since I don't use
scripts. They wrote a lot of their own lines on their phones to memorize
them. I should have just credited everyone as a writer but that would
have ended up being so many people! I have described
Amityville:
Vanishing Point as "the rabid sibling of Twin Peaks"
- something you can at all live with, and would you at all like to comment
on that?
I
can certainly live with that. I've been called much worse. The film is
definitely Twin Peaks inspired. Hopefully David Lynch doesn't sue me, but
if he does I might get to meet him which would be pretty cool. At least to me,
Amityville:
Vanishing Point is your first (fairly) straight genre movie - so
do talk about your approach to horror for a bit! Well
I wanted to make a more subtle movie after the insanity of my last film
Dark Prism. I wanted to see if I could make something that sort of made
more conventional sense - I'm actually surprised how
"normal" it ended up being. I don't really know if I want
to make any more straight-up horror movies anymore. I actually really want
to make a superhero movie because I love superheroes a lot. You
also have to talk about Amityville:
Vanishing Point's very own brand of comedy! A
lot of that was Jurgen. He's a really funny guy. I had a few comic relief
scenes planned and Jurgen sort of made it so that his character became
this person who you hate so much but you almost cheer for him sometimes
because he's so funny even though he's a piece of shit and a total sexist.
He's like Dale Cooper from hell. I think that's where a lot of the funny
shit came from. What
can you tell us about your overall directorial approach to your story at
hand? I
wanted to make a movie that was actually scary so I wanted to experiment
with darkness and peripheral vision and something always behind under your
bed or around a corner. What you don't see is very scary to me.
Do talk about your key cast, and why exactly these
people?
Selena Mars is a
very professional and expert actress who I met in a Facebook group
for women in production. I was trying to cast the part of Mrs Ernie and I
could just tell Selena would be perfect for the role and she came down to
New York from Rhode Island just to be in my movie which was so cool of
her. We met in person the day before shooting started.
Amanda Flowers is
a fantastic performance artist and had acted in my film Dark Prism. I
wanted to give her a starring role and she definitely delivered. She's
also experiences real paranormal events so she was very convincing.
Mickala McFarlane
is an artist and model who has been in every feature film I have ever
made. She had a pretty big role in my LEAST conventional film Glamarus so
I thought I should give her a role in my most conventional film.
Jurgen Munster is
a performer who's first speaking role was in my movie Dark Prism. He was
mainly known as the lead singer of a very cool band called The Slut
Junkies. He's naturally a method actor and I think he is like
Nicholas Cage only better. He is very committed and he totally lights up
the screen but he actually takes his craft very seriously and tries to
completely immerse himself in his characters.
Sara Kaiser is a
performance artist who starred in Dark Prism as May West. She's very
good also at becoming certain characters and has a very offbeat
sensibility that really brings attention to the character.
Max Husten is a
really fantastic artist who makes music as Ros Eotb and is also a great
painter. He is really good at becoming different people. He is known as
his recurring character the information man who unfortunately he didn't
get to play in this movie but hopefully next movie he'll be the
information man again.
What can you tell us about the shoot as such,
and the on-set atmosphere? It
was for the most part pretty fun! I think the one thing was we were very
rushed since we made the whole movie in a few weeks. Anything you can tell us
about audience and critical reception yet?
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I think the people who get it like it. I think if you're watching it wanting
something kind of weird and you understand this is not a mainstream movie
then I think you'll like it and those people do love it. Any future
projects you'd like to share? I
don't really know right now. I want to maybe try something wackier, maybe
a superhero movie. I've always wanted to make a superhero movie. Your/your movie's website,
Facebook, whatever else?
Facebook.com/AMITYVILLETheMovie
and Facebook.com/DisckMedia! Anything else you're dying to
mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? You
rock! Thanks for
the interview!
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