Pretty much your entire filmography as a director will be released
on Blu-ray come spring as The Scarlet Fry Collection - so how did
that release come about?
I'm glad you asked. My latest film Scream
Machine, featuring Lloyd Kaufman, creator of Toxic
Avenger, was released in 2015, and prior to that I
was putting out films every two years, I had decided to take a break, I
got engaged, moved to another state and just enjoyed life for a while. I was doing some small projects but for the most part
I decided to just lay low for a while. One day I had decided to type "Scarlet
Fry" into the search engine online, and to my surprise I saw that people were
still reviewing and enjoying my films. I decided to call up a
distributor I knew whom I had worked with in the past and said "I
have five films under my belt all of which had distribution, is there
anything that we can do with them?" To my surprise he told me yes
and had decided to release them all at once... It was a great idea since
they had gained cult status over the years. The Scarlet Fry Collection
then came to light. To make it special for the fans who kept the films
alive and for the new Scarlet
Fry fans it was decided that The Scarlet Fry Collection
will be released on Blu-ray, and to celebrate this release you can get a T-shirt and
poster as well. The T-shirts are available for purchase now
& The Scarlet Fry Collection will start pre-sales on Jan 2nd ! I will also be
offering a signed Scarlet
Fry trading card to the first 10 People
who buy one and post a picture of themselves with their Blu-ray on the Facebook fanpage.
Talk about each of the
individual films included inThe Scarlet Fry Collection for a bit!
Ok well, the first film I made was a SOV piece that I filmed while I was
working for Camp Video & later Even Steven Productions.
At that time I was acting and had just done a part in the film Satan's Storybook,
directed by Michael Rider. Me and Mike had always made movies together
for fun before he went on to do Satan's Storybook. At that time I decided to
throw my hat into the ring and did my first anthology Scarlet Frys
Horrorama. I loved the classic horror hosts like Zacherley the cool
ghoul & Vampira, and decided to host my own anthology. That was
released on VHS in the late 80's and has become a very rare cult classic,
it was later released on DVD. I followed up Scarlet Frys
Horrorama with Scarlet
Fry's Junkfood Horrorfest which featured Alice Cooper's daughter Calico
Cooper. We changed the look of the host and decided to take a more brutal
approach the film which did really well. We also had Alice Cooper's
band members Ryan Roxie & John Corabi do a song for the
soundtrack. Scarlet
Fry's Junkfood Horrorfest was released on several compilations
as well as a single release. After that we put out
the cult classic Nightmare Alley, which was deemed as
"Grindhouse
meets Creepshow". We brought back the classic host and put that out with
Brain Damage Films. It is now long out of print and became a very
hard to find film which featured David C. Hayes [David
C. Hayes interview - click here] who had been in a ton
of horror films (Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, Vampageddon &
more),
and Danny Maranino, lead vocalist of the North Side Kings, who
gained fame for knocking out Misfits lead singer Danzig
in a disagreement they had back stage. The knockout went viral and
he had gone on to write a book, Never Punch a Rock Star. Nightmare Alley
was produced in Phoenix AZ and featured a lot
of local and mainstream cult stars like Mykel Sane, formerbassist of
the Los Angeles rock band Saigon Saloon, Steve Davis of The Glass
Heroes & Vinent Bocchini from Van Buren Wheels &
Thee Unfortunates.

|
Following the success of Nightmare Alley
we cashed in
on the VHS craze with the film Death
by VHS, which was actually
written before the film V/H/S. For this one we decided to take the
host out of the equation and put out an anthology that told its own
story. This was originally going to be called "Scream Machine" but with
the smarts of the distributor Death
by VHS was born. The new
title worked perfectly with the story, and we gained a lot of
attention with a different group of horror fans who had a
fascination for SOV films and VHS movies. That was a really fun
movie to do.
Since I still loved the name Scream
Machine for a movie, I had
decided to make another film which was titled Scream
Machine. This
time we had given Scarlet
Fry a co-host, Paul C. Hemmes [Paul
C. Hemmes interview - click here] & hired Troma's
Lloyd Kaufman, creator of the Toxic Avenger to play the roll
of Uncle Lloyd himself. Scream
Machine was a great film we did, a
lot of very creative ideas on that one I don't want to spoil for the viewer, but
you're in for a ride with Scream
Machine for
sure. Do
also talk about the extras in The Scarlet Fry Collection, and to
what degree were you involved in creating them? The
extras will include (tentatively):
- Re-mastered movie files - Commentary tracks - Trailers - SRS trailers - and more!
We always like to showcase other filmmakers and their titles as well,
you will have plenty of great extras with the collection. I'm
assuming you have re-watched all of your films when compiling The
Scarlet Fry Collection - so how do you feel you've grown or evolved as
a director over the years?
The last thing I did was a short faux trailer for Troma's
Grindsploitation, which is available on Blu-ray as well. I noticed a lot of growth there,
we did a piece called The Gardener which I would love to one day turn
into a full legnth feature, I think a lot of it is the time you take and
who your partnering up with. The Gardener I did with Richard Stoudt
[Richard
Stoudt interview - click here],
director of Voices from the
Grave, I think it was one of the best
trailers in the compilation. I'm also working on another anthology which
will be my return to the scene, it's tentatively called Drag Queen Horror
Time and is sort of a spoof flick. Also, how has your on-screen
alter ego Scarlet
Fry developed from Scarlet
Fry's Horrorama to Scream
Machine?

|
 |
 |
Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
The links below will take you just there!!!
|
|
 |
|
Absolutely.
When I created Scarlet
Fry I never wanted him to be stuck with just one look, which was why we made him a
redneck zombie for Scarlet
Fry's Junkfood Horrorfest, the classic top hat wearing ghoul for
Nightmare Alley &
the wicked plague doctor in Scream
Machine, next up is Drag Queen Horror Time, which
I think says it all. Since all of your films are of the
horror variety in one way or another, is that at all a favourite genre of
yours, and what kind of horror do you prefer as a viewer?
I love all kinds of horror films but my favorites as a viewer are the classics
like Universal
Monsters, Hammer films,
and I love guys
like Paul Naschy [Paul Naschy
bio - click here] and Vincent Price [Vincent
Price bio - click here] as well, although my films are largely
influenced by people like Herschell Gordon Lewis [Herschell
Gordon Lewis bio - click here], Troma
& John Waters. I have a wide range of love for the genre which has always been
my favorite ever since I was a little kid reading Famous Monsters
magazine and Fangoria. The
$64-question of course, when and where will The Scarlet Fry Collection
be released?
It will be released by SRS Cinema and pre-sales will start Jan 2nd. We are
also offering posters and T-shirts, you can just get the films or an
unbelieveable bundle - https://srscinemastore.com/products/scarlet-fry-collection-the-blu-ray
Any future projects you'd like to share?
I am currently writing a new anthology piece that will be the return of Scarlet
Fry, which is tentatively called Drag Queen Horror Time! Your/your
movie collection's website, social media, whatever else?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/878098167048686
Anything
else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? That's
all folks I think there is something here for everybody ,and remember
these are limited so make sure when it goes on sale you get yours right
away before they are gone. Thanks
for the interview!
|