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We have of course talked about this before [click
here], but do bring us up to speed: Your new movie Angel of
Reckoning - in a few words, what is it about?
Thanks for
having me back, always appreciate it. Angel of
Reckoning
is about female
war veteran Rachel Baldwin (played by Jessica Kabasinski) who returns to
her family after military tours overseas. After a short time, there is a
death in her family and some mystery around it. Rachel launches her own
investigation and uncovers a web of crime lords, drug runners, arms
dealers, and pornographers. The picture is a
revenge/vigilante/action/thriller with some subtle horror tones to it.
The
film is unrated but would be a “Rated R” equivalent for violence,
adult situations, and brief foul language. When
we last talked, production of Angel of
Reckoning was still in its
early stages, now it's finished - so how has the project evolved over
time? Yeah
when we talked before we had just started filming and only had a handful
of scenes completed. The finished film clocks in right around the 90 min
mark. In comparison to my other films, I think this one stayed closest to
the script without any re-writes or large adjustments in the filming
stage. With it evolving from my past films, it really starts in three
phases that I believe KillerWolf Films
has drastically improved in (1)
lighting. We have some spectacular lighting in this film. It’s one of
the things I studied and worked hardest on going into this film was to be
able “to tell stories” through lighting as well. Something done well
in a film like Suspiria
for example. (2) Directing actors. We had a good
“team attitude” for the most part and everyone bought into the
project. I had this film written months before production began so I was
able to work with actors/actresses well before shooting to mold their
characters and really tell them what I was looking for from each
character. (3) Photography. I’ll keep it brief, but this is by far my
most beautifully shot work. We keep it simple, yet have a glidecam etc too
which we use in many shots. Angel of
Reckoning
doesn’t look like a
“Len film”, but as your question stated… it’s about evolving.
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Do talk about the look and feel of Angel of
Reckoning for a bit, and how does it compare to your earlier films?
It’s
drastically different in terms of feel from my previous works. Angel of
Reckoning
has a “more serious” tone to the picture than say a Fist
of the Vampire or Apocalypse Female Warriors. Angel of
Reckoning
has a dark feel, sometimes
even bleak and I have not done a picture like that to this point. It was
actually very refreshing to me to do a film like this and I could see me
doing more in this genre.
I actually
even thought of making “Rachel” a character à la Charles Bronson in the
Death Wish-series, where we have 2 or 3 sequels to Angel of
Reckoning
and
put Rachel in different circumstances each time but of course the
vigilante/revenge theme would be the backbone of each story. Though that
direction seems unlikely as Jessica isn’t available to reprise her role
as Rachel and I just don’t see anyone else in that role. So as it turns
out, Angel of
Reckoning
may be its own “moment in time” and just
really serve as a quality project that propelled us going forward to
bigger and better films.
You
also have to talk about your key cast once more, and has the line-up at
all changed since we last talked? And what was it like to work with these
people?
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Jessica Kabasinski |
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Frederick Williams |
No, line-up
hasn’t changed at all. So here goes:
Jessica
Kabasinski as “Rachel Baldwin”. I'm
not sure this story has a real protagonist or antagonist… but I do
suppose she could be considered the protagonist. I worked with Jessica on Blood Mercury
and really felt she had a good screen presence. Charismatic,
tough, beautiful, and whenever she is onscreen your attention is drawn
immediately to her. She had a supporting role in Blood Mercury but I knew
immediately I wanted to develop a project where she could be the lead. She
was perfect for Angel of
Reckoning
and I wrote the character specifically
for her. She has a good, hard-working attitude and I don’t believe there
would have been a better fit for “Rachel” than her. She was attached
to Bite of the Mummy but I had to go in a different direction for that
film.
Donna Hamblin [Donna Hamblin
interview - click here] as “Beverly”. Beverly is a crime boss in the city the story takes
place. She is a woman to be feared by local drug runners, pornographers,
and other assorted criminals. She’s a no-nonsense, iron-fisted woman. I
love working with Donna and she came in as I expected her to and that is
with a clear understanding of the character and what I was asking of her.
I'm certain we will work together in the future on Bite of the Mummy.
Jasmin St
Claire as “Smoothy”. Smoothy is an underground arms dealer. Smoothy
has some “business codes” to which she adheres by and has a “no
BS” attitude towards her business dealings. It’s been 10 years since I
worked with Jasmin, whom I first met on my first film Swamp Zombies.
Jasmin, like many others, got clear direction by me about her character
long before she ever stepped foot on set for this one. So she came in
prepared and ready to roll for the part of “Smoothy”. I'm certain
I’ll have her involved with Bite of the Mummy so stay tuned!
Lisa Neeld [Lisa Neeld
interview - click here] as
“Reagan”. I don’t want to give too much away with her character,
lol. But I've had the pleasure of working with Lisa a few times now and I
have no doubt I will work with her again in the future. In my opinion a
very underrated actress. My
working relationship with her began on my most popular film to date, Skull
Forest, shot a few years ago now.
Debbie Dutch [Deborah Dutch
interview - click here] as “Bobbi”. Bobbi is sort of an ally to Rachel in the story, even if
she doesn’t directly know it. Bobbi is a veteran go-go dancer at a large
club in the city. Bobbi provides Rachel with information on drug runners,
arms dealers, pornographers in the area. Debbie is such a nice person and
is well-loved by my cast & crew. She’s just a happy, pleasant person
to be around. Frederick Williams [Frederick
Williams interview - click here] as “Detective Trufont”. Trufont is a detective assigned to
the case of a plethora of dead criminals piling up. Trufont is a veteran
on the local police force. Frederick is an experienced local actor to
Northwestern Pennsylvania and is super professional. His vast array of
talents extends from motion pictures to live theatre to commercial spot
work. Especially with the combination of Fred’s talent plus him living
very close to my productions; I see us of course working together in the
near future.
What can you tell us about the shoot as such,
and the on-set atmosphere?
On set a
typical day would go like this: Me, associate producer Ruth Sprague, and
editor Chris Young [Chris Young
interview - click here] would arrive to set and get everything together. Get
our lighting, our blocking, our shots etc etc all together. Typically the
performers would arrive to set about an hour after us and after an initial
briefing and some direction, we would start rolling camera.
The cast was
very dialed in to what we were looking to achieve with this film. We only
averaged maybe 3 scenes per day shooting but this allowed us to
concentrate on quality in each and every shot instead of trying to rush
the day’s shoot to just fill a quota.
As
in my previous films, I don’t get to socialize much with extras,
production assistants, location owners,
etc as I'm just too busy keeping us on task for the day. I always
regret this BUT… I’m not there to be a friend, I’m there to direct
and shoot a picture that 60 people are involved with and I need to be on
point. When something fails? They don’t fail. I fail. I’m the head of
the dragon so to speak. When something succeeds? We all succeed. Angel of
Reckoning
definitely had a crew that adopted the “three musketeers”
mantra of “all for one, one for all”. Everyone was out to make
everyone else look good, not just themselves. The $64-question of course,
when and where will the movie be released on the general public?
Angel of
Reckoning
will open with a private showing 2/28/16 in my hometown of
Erie, PA. That showing is already sold out. After this showing im sure
we’ll do a showing a month or two later for the general public. After
that point, we’ll make a determination if we are going to submit to a
festival or two or bypass that route and go directly for a home video
release. I'm not a big festival guy, as with the types of pictures I do I
feel it’s best to get my works into viewers' hands as quickly as I can
and move on to the next KillerWolf Films project. Any
future projects you'd like to share?
The next film
I’m doing is a collaborative effort between myself and the gang at Red
Letter Media entitled Bite of the Mummy. At first, it was a joke kind of
thing but then got some legs from their fans and there appears to be a
good-sized audience for this picture. Red Letter Media is handling the
concept and script writing and I’ll be producing, directing, and
casting. In terms of casting, I’m sure fans of Red Letter Media will be
happy and on my end fans of my previous efforts should be happy as well.
You’ll see some KillerWolf Films
mainstay actors and actresses while
some I had to move on from as we try to increase the quality of our
productions in front of the camera and behind the camera. More information
on Bite of the Mummy will develop here over the winter time.
After Bite of the Mummy I just might delve into a more dramatic film I’m
writing currently entitled Yellow. Yellow is a drastic departure from my
previous works but I believe I’m just about ready to do that. I know
I’ll need a great group of actors/actresses to pull this one off. It
centers around an autistic boy with family problems (divorced parents,
trouble in school, etc) who uses martial arts to focus and goal set in his
life. It’s a dark film, like Angel of
Reckoning, but without the
“action component” of it. It’d be more along the “feel” of films
like Out of the Furnace or Buffalo 66… but as I said, I feel just about
ready for this one. Your/your movie's
website, Facebook, whatever else? Pretty
much we just use Facebook to keep in touch with the “fans” (I hate
that word, lol - “viewers” maybe better… idk) -
https://www.facebook.com/len.kabasinski.
From there you can go to a page like
https://www.facebook.com/angelofreckoning
(the specific page for Angel of
Reckoning).
Anything else you're
dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
About a month
ago, we re-released an older film of mine, Warriors of the Apocalypse
and
re-titled it Apocalypse Female Warriors.
The new DVD is loaded with extra features like 2 audio commentary
tracks (one by Red Letter Media and then another one by myself and special
edition producer Chris Young [Chris
Young interview - click here]), a still gallery, trailers, and more. Apocalypse
Female Warriors has been moving well on Amazon currently and
they’ve had trouble keeping it in stock (which is nice! Lol). Chris
Young really put together a great DVD and the film is also about 12-15
mins shorter than the original version.
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I have another
older film that is nearing completion and its called Blood Mercury. This
film involves a renegade agent who goes on the run with a deadly chemical
warfare virus. This film really will serve as the end of the “old way”
of doing things for me. It was filmed in FREEZING temperatures in
Northwestern PA. this picture has been editing off and on for going on 2
years now but it looks like it will be completed any week now. No DVD
release is in sight just yet but im anticipating it to be summer time. Of
note for this DVD release will be the bonus feature of Bridal Party
Massacre, a 30 min short film I did before Skull Forest that a great
editor (Kameron Devine) came aboard years after filming and finished it
up. It’s the only short film I’ve ever done to date. So the Blood Mercury
DVD should be worthwhile then. For fans of my films like Ninja:
Prophecy of Death or Skull Forest… they might enjoy Blood Mercury.
Thanks
for the interview!
Thanks
again for having me and I hope to talk to you again as Bite of the Mummy starts!
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find Len Kabasinski at adultvideouniverse.com
