Hot Picks

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- Tower Rats 2020

- Script of the Dead 2024

- The Bell Affair 2023

- Easter Bloody Easter 2024

- Velma 2022

- Everwinter Night 2023

- Main Character Energy 2023

- Stupid Games 2024

- Bittertooth 2023

- 4 Minutes of Terror: Night Slasher 2024

- Apart 2024

- The Abandoned 2006

- Becky 2024

- The Evil Fairy Queen 2024

- The Black Guelph 2022

- Followers 2024

- Silence of the Prey 2024

- Battle for the Western Front 2024

- Beware the Boogeyman 2024

- Subject 101 2022

- Driftwood 2023

- The Legend of Lake Hollow 2024

- Black Mass 2023

- Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 2023

- The Manifestation 2024

- Spirit Riser 2024

- Garden of Souls 2019

- It's a Wonderful Slice 2024

- Caleb & Sarah 2024

- The Thousand Steps 2020

- The Desiring 2021

- When a Stranger Knocks 2024

- Quint-essentially Irish 2024

- Son of Gacy 2024

- Saltville 2024

- The True Story of the Christ's Return 2024

- Whenever I'm Alone with You 2023

- Jurassic Triangle 2024

- Midnight Peepshow 2022

- Offworld: Alien Planet 2024

- The Swiss Conspiracy 1976

- Sex-Positive 2024

- Here for Blood 2022

- All Over Again 2024

- The Color Yellow 2023

- Des Töchterleins Leid 2024

- I Am a Channel 2024

- The Hermits 2023

- Murdaritaville 2024

- Inheritance 2024

- The Devil's Partner 1960

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

An Interview with Jeff Miller, Producer and Co-Writer of Inoperable

by Mike Haberfelner

January 2018

Jeff Miller on (re)Search my Trash

 

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro


Your new movie Inoperable - in a few words, what is it about?

 

A young woman wakes up in a seemingly abandoned hospital in the middle of a hurricane and soon realizes it’s inhabited by malevolent forces and that she needs to escape before the storm passes or she will be trapped there forever.

 

How did the project come into being in the first place?

 

Chris Chapman [Christopher Lawrence Chapman interview - click here] and I met doing Clowntown, which we both produced. During that he said he had access to medical locations and wanted to do a hospital thriller, and it so happened I’d been tossing around ideas for one as well and had a title I liked, Inoperable.

 

What were your sources of inspiration when writing Inoperable?

 

It was largely Chris’s idea. I think he knew (which we all know) that hospitals are creepy.

 

What can you tell us about your movie's approach to horror?

 

Chris wanted to do a different take on it and not just another typical slasher film. I think we succeeded at that.

 

Do talk about Inoperable's co-writer/director Christopher Lawrence Chapman [Christopher Lawrence Chapman interview - click here], and what was your collaboration like?

 

On the writing side, Chris had very specific ideas about the whole time looping thing. I never quite understood it 100% to be honest, haha. I helped translate Chris’s ideas into screenplay form as well as added some ideas and suggestions of my own, based on my own interest in wanting to do such a film. On the producing side, Chris got access to a great filming location near his hometown of Tampa, FL. He had a lot of local crew there he’d used for a short. I helped secure Danielle Harris as the lead, and we got some other actors on board that we’d worked with on Clowntown. I got David Greathouse, who’d done makeup FX on Clowntown, to come in for this one too, and he and Barry Aslinger did a great job on set. Chris obviously focused on directing during the shoot. I helped with some of the organizational stuff as well as marketing and distribution.

 

A few words about your hospital locations for a bit, and what was it like filming there?

 

It was an abandoned sheriff’s office in Dade City, FL, and had formerly been a hospital. It wasn’t too big, but the winding, empty hallways made it seem more so. I think everyone got lost more than once, and it was a little creepy especially if you were walking around alone. Bobby Marinelli, our production designer, did a great job painting and propping it out to make it look more like a working hospital. Otherwise, there was no hospital equipment and almost no furniture there.

 

What were the main challenges bringing Inoperable to the screen from a producer's point of view? And how hands-on or hands-off a producer are you, actually?

 

I always knew we’d sell it. All of my movies have gotten distribution, and I knew we had Danielle Harris, an interesting story, and a creepy location. I just wanted to make sure during the shoot we had enough scares and blood and gore for the horror crowd. How hands-on or off I am depends on the project. On this one, we had a great production manager (Philip Jessen) and 1st AD (Ashley Eberbach) who kept things running smoothly. On some smaller productions I do much or all of their work. I typically deal with a lot of the financing (though not on this one), organization, casting, and paperwork and often deal with SAG and insurance and contracts and marketing and so forth.

 

What can you tell us about your key cast, and to what extent were you involved in the casting process?

 

I secured Danielle Harris as the lead, and we also got Katie Keene, Jeff Denton, and Chris Hahn, all of whom Chris Chapman [Christopher Lawrence Chapman interview - click here] and I had worked with on Clowntown (and actually Chris Hahn played Paul Bunyan in my film Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan, so he and I went further back) . I also helped cast Cher Hubsher, one of the evil nurses – I’d met her a month earlier at a wrap party in L.A. for another movie and found out she was from Tampa and had actually been a nurse! So that was a cool coincidence.

 

A few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere?

 

It was in January/February in Florida, and I remember it being chilly for much of the shoot. It was a professional atmosphere. I thought Giorgio Daveed, our D.P., got some inventive shots. One day we had real cow or pig guts for the freezer scene, and it smelled terrible and I think someone threw up. I insisted on smearing them around the freezer because otherwise they were sitting in Tupperware containers and didn’t look particularly nasty.

 

Anything you can tell us about critical and audience reception of Inoperable yet?

 

Because of its quirky time-loop nature, I think some people don’t know what to make of it!  But I think others have enjoyed it for all the right reasons. Danielle Harris is a total pro, never missed a mark, and she won Best Actress at FearNYC fest.

 

Any future projects you'd like to share?

 

The past couple of years have been crazy productive and busy. I’ve been fortunate. The Russian Bride (with Corbin Bernsen) and The Toybox (with Denise Richards and Mischa Barton), are recently completed and should be coming out this year. Bug (my first drama) is coming out this spring. A few that I helped executive produce – Strange Nature, Mandy the Doll, and Angels Fallen – should also come out this year. Ouija House (with Mischa Barton, Tara Reid, and Dee Wallace) is in post-production. Death Kiss, an action-revenge thriller co-starring Daniel Baldwin and Richard Tyson, is currently filming.

 

What got you into the movie world in the first place, and did you receive any formal training on the subject?

 

I always had a creative mind and wrote my first screenplay at age eighteen. I graduated from the Media Arts program at the University of South Carolina. I wanted to be a screenwriter and was mentored by James Lineberger, who had co-written the movie Taps, starring Timothy Hutton and a young Tom Cruise. I wrote a bunch of scripts and actually got paid for one, but nothing was getting made, so I got into producing kind of out of necessity and soon found I enjoyed it. Freakshow, an anthology horror film shot in South Carolina, was my first feature credit.

 

What can you tell us about your filmwork prior to Inoperable?

 

I had a fair number of writing and producing credits prior to it. My first three movies were made in South Carolina before I made the move out to Los Angeles. My first credit in L.A. was for a script I created and co-wrote (with Gary Jones) and sold to The Asylum called Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter’s Cove. It’s a fairly cheesy film but ended up selling to the SyFy Channel. I wrote and produced a few more after that before Chris and I met during development on Clowntown. It turned out he and I had gone to the same college (University of South Carolina), so we shared a lot of stories the first time we met, which was kind of awkward for the others at the meeting.

 

Going through your filmography, one can't help but noticing that many of your films are of the horror variety - is that a genre at all dear to you, and why (not)?

 



Yes, horror movies scared and fascinated me as a kid – that power to make you look under your bed at night or turn away from something disturbing on the TV. Most of my films have been horror, and that’s perfectly fine with me.

 

Writers, producers, filmmakers, whoever else who inspire you?

 

What I call the “holy trinity” – John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper. Lately I really like Mike Flanagan’s work. As a producer, I love Roger Corman [Roger Corman bio - click here].

 

Your favourite movies?

 

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Halloween (1978), Scream, Rocky, Angel Heart, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) …

 

... and of course, films you really deplore?

 

Nothing comes to mind offhand, and even if it did, there’s a chance I may work with that filmmaker someday, so I’d rather not say!

 

Your/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever else?

 

www.zoryafilms.com/inoperable

www.facebook.com/millmanproductions

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find Jeff Miller
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find Jeff Miller here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai

Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?

 

If you like – or think you may like – Inoperable, check out some of my other movies on Amazon Prime (since we get paid by view!) or wherever fine movies are sold: Clowntown, Edgar Allan Poe’s Lighthouse Keeper, Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan, and The Burning Dead. Kill ‘Em All (starring Jean-Claude Van Damme) is also worth a peek

 

Thanks for the interview!

 

You’re welcome.

 

© by Mike Haberfelner


Legal note: (re)Search my Trash cannot
and shall not be held responsible for
content of sites from a third party.




Thanks for watching !!!



 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!