I’m a terrible promoter.

I know this because of the annoyance that I feel from everyone else’s incessant caterwauling about their own projects.

I know that you’re supposed to shout your name and product from the rooftops at every available opportunity, but it gets on my nerves, kind of like the phone solicitor who calls every day at 6:00pm.

So that is the reason that I don’t blast out every day GAME OF THE YEAR! TIVOLI THEATER, ST. LOUIS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, SUNDAY NOVEMBER 15th AT 9:30pm!!!!!

Tickets are $10.

I know that I should scream it out every single day, I just don’t do it.

I’ll be honest-I love my movie. I’m very proud and happy to have made it. It brings me joy each and every time that I watch it.

I want all of you to love it, too.

I think that you will.

AMPHETAMINE

This was it. The big one. My first feature. It all started off as a vaguely-formed dream sometime back in late 1999.

Before Frank Wang was ever completed, I knew that I wanted to do a feature-length crime film.

Actually, I was obsessed with the idea.

A few months before Tom died, I saw the movies “Swingers” and “Jackie Brown.” Both different, both awesome. I was already a big fan of Tarantino, and it seemed that right around this time a wave of low rent style hit-man movies were coming out. “Lock, stock, and two smoking barrels”, and even “Fight Club” come to mind. Yes, I know the latter isn’t a hit-man movie, but the style is similar to the others.

The point is, this type of movie was a huge influence on me during this period. Had I an inkling at the time of the harsh and indifferent world of indie filmmaking, I probably never would have made AMPHETAMINE.

That would have been a shame, because for all of it’s flaws, it isn’t a terrible movie. Really, for a first-time feature made with no appreciable budget (and done by a crew of rank amateurs, no less) It’s actually fairly decent.

An interesting run-up to production was that sometime between wrapping RESTLESS SOUL and starting AMPHETAMINE, Eric Stanze had approached me about directing some quickie horror films for a New York company called Sub Rosa Studios. For whatever reason, I passed, but instead recommended Wildman for the job. He and his people, along with Johnny V, Lola, Jethro, and Wanda, cranked out a couple of low-budget schlock horror movies. This would cause some trouble later on.

We originally shot the AMP trailer in early 2000, and I’d been showing the thing to anyone who’d look at it for a year-and-a half. There was a fair amount of excitement about the project, but the Johnny V debacle sort of derailed things for a bit. We would have to start the casting process all over from scratch. And, as of the RESTLESS SOUL premiere in June 2001, I still didn’t have a completed script, either.

If we were gonna get this sucker going by December (2001), a mere six months away, we had a hell of a lot of work to do.


PRE-PRODUCTION

First things first, I had to get the script into some semblance of order. All I had were some slightly related scenes, so I firmed those up, and then wrote other scenes to connect them. The entire plot was more-or-less inspired by four films - “The Big Hit”, “Reservoir dogs”, “Swingers”, and “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly”. It was not a direct rip-off, but the influences are very plain to see. I think I had it mostly bashed out by August.

Step two was casting. The old methods of using friends and picking up random whores in bars wasn’t gonna cut it this time. We set everything up at the Gov’t Cheez theatre (which was originally called the Centro Socialle, I think, but was now named-along with Gov’t Cheez themselves-the Tin Ceiling.) and had an open audition for the film.

The Bullet Pen crew was there to tape the auditions, and other 88mm and Tin Ceiling folks were on hand to help out as well. It was a huge success, over a hundred people came out. We managed to cast the entire film (with a few exceptions) from the people who turned up. A fair number of these people have since become 88mm regulars, and some of them have been involved in every project since then.

A curious thing happened at the auditions, though. Wildman, who was helping with the taping process, handed out his card to the first five or six people who came in to read for a part.

“I’d like to talk to you about a project I’m working on,” he kept saying to them. This really bothered Skip, Jethro, and myself. I finally took him aside, and said “Uh, look, Wildman, If you want to cast people for your own shit, do it at your own audition, OK?” he responded with “No, dude, I was gonna talk to them about AMPHETAMINE, that’s all, man.”

Yeah, OK.

Technically, he now had two features under his belt, the Sub Rosa films “Last House on Hell Street” and “Insaniac”, although both were actually written and executed by Wanda. I even acted in “Insaniac”. This served to really pump up Wildman’s ego. And why not? On paper, at least, he was doing better than I was.
Still, I didn’t appreciate him trying to hijack the auditions.

Next, we went location scouting-man did AMPHETAMINE have a lot of locations! I think the final count was more than thirty. Pretty much every bar and greasy-spoon diner that I frequented was made use of.

Jethro and I broke down the script. Skip tried to help with that aspect, but he was never quite on the same page with the two of us, so instead I set him to look for cool cars. We ended up with a ‘69 Plymouth Valiant, and one of the actors had a friend that owned some old, bad-ass Buick something-or-other.

In November of 2001, Nivy and I went out with the main cast and did a promotional photo shoot. That was probably the last really relaxing time that I had involving the movie. I mean, I enjoyed working on it and all…. but it was more stress than I ever could have imagined.

Oh, and the budget? Riiiiiiight.

Sometimes, I get so very, very depressed. Art, in any form, can really crush your spirit.

I’ll wallow in the depression for a while, until the anger kicks in.

The anger fuels the fire, and the fire drives the man.

This man wasn’t made for quitting.

This man will impose his will upon that which seeks to destroy him.

I won’t stop. I’ll re-direct, I’ll slide, I’ll put my head down and dig in, but I won’t stop.

Too much stuff to do…but that’s better than too little.

Now where was I?

Today I was driving to go meet with my friend Sis to have lunch at Red Lobster. We usually try to do this once a month or thereabouts, because neither her significant other nor mine are big fans of seafood.

Anyway, I’m sitting at the stoplight on Loughborough ave, right at the Schnuck’s, before you get onto highway 55.

There’s this scruffy-looking dude at the corner there, holding up a sign that says “mattress liquidation sale!”

One of those shitty, probably $6 bucks an hour-type gigs that you say to yourself when you see them, “Man, I’m glad that’s not my ass out there.”

So this car comes up from out of the Schnuck’s lot, pulls onto Loughborough, puts on it’s flashers and illegally parks on the street.

A fat-assed, shitbag of a man gets out of the car, trundles over to the sign-dude, and starts yelling at him.

Now, I can’t hear a word of what’s being said, but I can guess well enough, by the way this fat fuck is pointing from the sign, to the traffic, and back to the guy.

This prick must be the owner of the store, and old sign-dude just ain’t being lively enough.

I mean what the fuck? From my point of view, he was doing a bang-up job. Stand there, hold the sign, there you go.

I guess fatty wanted a song-and-dance routine out of poor sign-dude. Well, if it were me out there, I would have taken that sign and shoved it straight up fatty’s ass…but what do I know?

Why do people have to be such assholes all of the time? How about a little respect and common decency once in a while?

I didn’t see how it all turned out, because the light turned green, and I was off on my merry way.

Well, the people who saw GOTY at Archon 33 seemed to like it, as far as I could tell anyway. I mean, they laughed, which is good. Now, one jerk (who didn’t watch the film) told me that “Gamers 2 : Dorkness Rising” was a better gaming movie.

That ain’t what made him a jerk, though; Everybody is entitled to their opinion. What made him a jerk was the fact that he interrupted me as I was talking up my film to somebody else.

Me : Game of the Year is hands-down the best gaming film ever. Ever! In fact it’s…

Jerk : Uh-uh. Nope. I don’t think so. Gamers 2 is way better. Go see that instead.

Me : Uhhhh….have you even seen GOTY?

Jerk : I think I saw part of it.

Me : Huh.

I guess that’s the problem with people. No common courtesy.

People are assholes.

Still, the fact that we had anybody come to see it at all, since it went up against the Grand Masquerade on Saturday, and was scheduled at 10:50pm on Friday, is a minor accomplishment.

Also, this was an experiment in non-promotion.

That doesn’t work out so hot.

Gotta push it like it’s what you need to live!

Because it is!

OK, same old stuff, but a better resolution file. You can go to www.gotymovie.com to check ‘em out. Or, click the handy GAME OF THE YEAR link on the left side of the blog page.

Or do neither, and sit alone in your own misery for all I care. The choice is yours.

GAME OF THE YEAR will be screening twice at Archon 33, a  Sci-Fi & Fantasy convention in Collinsville, IL at the Collinsville Gateway Center Oct 2-4.

The screenings are :

Friday, Oct 2 @10:50 PM

Saturday, Oct 3 @ 6:10 PM

The one day rate for registration is FRI $30  SAT $40

So, If you’re planning on going there already, it’s money well spent. Either way, it’s money well spent.

I will be there on Friday night for a Q&A after the show, GOTY Actor Travis Estes will be there Saturday for a Q&A after the show.

The first thing that you realize, when you wake up the next morning after working in a haunted house, is you have no voice. Screaming and hollering at the top of your lungs for six hours a night kills it for the first week. After that you get used to it.

I’m pretty sure that I was the Swamp Monster for just the first couple of nights. I basically refused to go back into the water, so a new guy, I think it was a kid named Bruce, got that ill-fated gig. It pretty much became the standard practice to put the new people into that scene, because after a night or two, nobody else would do it.

I moved into the basement. I believe that I ended up with a cheap Dracula mask and a cape, and I think I was in some sort of prison cell, with an arc-welder or some shit like that. I would drag it across the bars, making a bunch of sparks fly everywhere. This scene sorta sucked too, but at least nobody could get at me very easily, because I was in a cage. It stank of Ozone, though, and the cape constantly caught on fire.

Plus, the basement was creepy. Nobody was really around me, and when you were by yourself, with no customers coming through, it sometimes got a little weird down there. Truth be told, I guess walking through any haunted attraction alone is a bit creepy, but this place definitely had some spots in it that just didn’t feel right. I never saw anything, but every once in a while, usually near the end of the night, you’d hear odd things… footsteps, whispering, shit like that.

Anyway, a couple of friends of mine worked there as well, BigMan and Lucky. I think BigMan worked there in ‘89, and if anything, he was more work-challenged than I was at that point. I’m pretty sure that he was let go after a week or two.

Lucky worked there in ‘90, and there are chiefly two things that I remember about his time on the job :

1. Some girl who worked there had a crush on him, and she was not exactly a beauty queen. He spent most of his time trying to hide from her, the best place being the tunnel, with was full of thick, choking, artificial fog. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Tunnel Monsters later developed Emphysema. She eventually caught up with Lucky and planted a nasty, drunken kiss on him. As he described it, “Her tongue was all cold and slimy tasted like cigarettes.” Yummy.

2. One night before our shift started, we were screwing off, and I was chasing him through the house. Since this place was pitch black in spots, I was trailing my left hand along the wall, so as to avoid a wipeout. Well, I suddenly felt a painful snik! on my hand, and then felt blood gushing out. Lots of blood.

What I had done was this-I caught the area between my pinky and ring finger on a nail, and pretty much tore it clean through. It hurt like fuck and I actually lost a lot of blood, but no way in hell were they gonna let me go to the hospital to get it stitched up. Oh, no. Instead, I just wrapped a dirty rag around my hand and sucked it up for the rest of the night. In fact, you can still see the scar today.

I don’t recall when or why I was transferred out of the basement, but I ended up for the remainder of the season working upstairs, in some new scene,”The Brew-Master’s Hall” or some fucked up name like that. This scene consisted of a big, cast iron pot, full of dry ice and fuck knows what, all set up behind a little waist-high railing. I kept the cape, but got an upgrade to a Nosferatu-looking mask. I did the same sort of schtick as in the cage, but instead of yelling “Get out of my prison” I was yelling “Get out of my Brew-Hall” or something like that.

The main drawback to this scene was the fact that I was pretty much out in the open. Now, the guy in the next scene-the Butcher shop-was a huge, hulking maniac who covered his area with pig guts, blood, entrails, and God knows what else. His prop of choice was a gigantic (and very real) meat-cleaver. He told me, “If anybody messes with ya little buddy, just give a yell, and I’ll come fuck ‘em up.”

This was a great sentiment, and one that I completely appreciated, but the fact was that there was no way he would be able to fight his way back through a crowd of customers in time to do me any good. I’m being general here, but we essentially had four groups of people who came through Thayer Ashton’s :

1. Drunk Redneck assholes
2. Drunk Preppie assholes
3. Pretty girls
4. Black people.

Groups 1&2 were universally disliked, and were the main source of the nightly brawls that took place there.

Group 3 is of course self-explanatory, and the best part of the job.

Group 4 tended to be the best customers, though, because they actually got the concept that a haunted house was supposed to be a cheap scare, and you were supposed to have a good time. I’m sure that being in late 80’s/early 90’s Jefferson County, Missouri-Cracker Central-was scary enough all on it’s own.

Well, to make a long story short, when I’d go into my song-and-dance in the Brew Hall, a number of things would usually happen. Some asshole would threaten to kick my ass for scaring his girlfriend, some girl would totally lose her shit and rip off my mask/punch me in the face/kick me in the balls, or people would actually get scared and run screaming through the scene. Usually, it was one of the first two.

Things were better in year two, 1990. There were still fights every night and all sorts of bullshit, of course, but this time around, I actually started out in (and stayed in) a cool scene.

At this time in my life, I had long Rock-n-Roll hair. This proved to be advantageous for a change, because I was allowed to go without a mask as long as I painted my face up in some fashion. Have you ever worn a rubber Halloween mask for any length of time? If you have, then you know that they are hot, and you can’t see or hear very well in them. In short, Halloween masks suck. Instead, I chose a KISS motif.

My new location was inside the Foyer, just off of the front porch. I had a little secret door that I would peek out of, located in the back of the main room. In the Foyer itself was a coffin, with this poor sucker playing Dracula inside of it.

The reason that I say that is, half the time when people would enter the house, he’d pop up out of the coffin, and either get punched in the face or the lid slammed down on his head for his efforts. I tried to help him out as best I could, but no way in hell would I switch jobs with him.

My gig worked like this. When the Chain-saw people in the woods scared the people up towards the front porch, they’d usually regroup for a second before venturing into the house proper. I tried to time it so that when the last person in the group hit the top step, I’d go howling out of my little room, jump through the front door, and hit the lintel (above the door) with my baseball bat (one that I’d carved ‘Customer Crusher’ into) which would make a surprisingly loud noise, and then I’d run around the porch freaking people out.

A few times, though, I misjudged my timing, missed the lintel entirely, and bashed some poor fucker on the head. He’d hit the ground, gushing blood, and I’d hot-foot it to hide back behind my secret door. People would get all kinds of pissed off at this, but they wouldn’t know who I was, or where the fuck I’d come from, or where I’d gone off to. Security would usually deny any knowledge of me, and usher them on through the house.

Worse shit than that usually happened on a nightly basis in that place in any case.

Everything was building up to the big Halloween night finale. On that night, however, the rumor spread through the staff like wildfire that we were not going to be receiving our final checks (the biggest of the season) because the Feds were after the owner, and he had skipped town with the payroll.

I have no idea what the true story here is, but I do know that the actors almost all went on strike that last night, and refused to make any effort to scare anybody coming through the place. Mostly, we stood around on the porch, complaining bitterly about ‘The Business’, and laughing at the customers who had paid six bucks for nothing.

I believe, as a show of solidarity, the only thing we did was to say “Fuckin’ Boo” as the people filed through. Yes, despite threats of violence from security, We stuck to our little strike, Halloween 1990 slipped away, and many disappointed customers took that long bus ride back to the gravel parking lot.

Thayer Ashton’s Mansion burned down a couple of years later, the end of an era. It was possibly the greatest haunted attraction in Jefferson County, maybe even the world. There will never be another like it.

I can’t exactly say I have fond memories of the place, but at least it was interesting.

I never did get that last check, either.

Thayer Ashton’s Mansion

A long time ago I worked at a haunted house. For two years, (two seasons) 1989 and 1990. Thayer Ashton’s was the premier haunted attraction in Jefferson County, Missouri. I’m sure that some motherfucker will try to tell you that ‘The House on Haunted Hill’ was where it was at, but fuck them.

They are wrong.

Thayer Ashton’s was the shit.

The story was that ‘ol Thayer Ashton was a river-boat captain back in the 1800’s, and he made some money somehow or another, then dutifully built this spooky old mansion outside of Kimmswick, MO….and then of course hacked up his family with an axe.

I don’t know about any of that bullshit, but I do know the place was old as dirt and creepy as hell, so either way it worked out.

I’m not sure how I found out about this golden employment opportunity, but I am sure that I was a young slacker out of work in 1989. The first day of on the job was at a trailer where we were assigned, by some sort of lottery, our ‘characters’ that we were going to play for the season. With my typical luck, I went dead last…. and ended up as Swamp Monster. I’ll get into that hell in a minute.

We were actually called actors, and the owner-a chiseler and a cheat if there ever was one-was dead serious about us putting our all into it, each and every night.

I believe that this place was open for about two months each season, September-October, and our pay was on some kind of ‘sliding scale’ system. We started off at around four bucks an hour, and I think that by closing night (Halloween) we were making the princely sum of eight or nine.

A typical night started off like this :

5:00pm arrive at the off-site headquarters (the trailer) for a briefing. This was also where customers would park at, and take a bus over to the mansion, a couple of miles away.

6:00pm an old school bus (blaring Metallica, usually) takes us to the mansion. Roughly 1/4 of the staff is already drunk or high at this point.

6:15pm offload at the mansion, go to wardrobe, gear up, secure weapons/drugs/alcohol.

6:45pm get to your scene, get ready to rock!

7:00pm 3/4 of the staff is now drunk and/or high. Customers start to arrive, the nightly brawl begins.

You see, haunted attractions back in the day were nothing like they are now. For one thing, it was cheap, only about six bucks to get in. For another, there were none of these ‘no touching’ policies that are in place now.

It was all-out war, Actors vs Customers.

So anyway, back to my first gig, Swamp Monster. This place was a huge, sprawling compound, with dense woods in front, a gigantic, multi-storied mansion, a basement, a back area with a boat, a swamp, and finally, a huge-ass tunnel.

I was located in the swamp, across from the boat, right before the tunnel. My costume was a haphazard affair, consisting of some stinking, leaky waders (quickly filled with water), an old crusty brown rain coat, old rubber gloves, and a goofy-looking fish-man mask. My job was to stand in this foul-smelling, chest high water, and splash out to this little bridge, and then attempt to give people a last scare before they hit the tunnel.

In theory, simple. In practice, a fucking nightmare.

The chain-saw people in the woods would drive the shrieking people into the house, where they would fight and scratch their way through, out the basement, through the evil Pig-Farmer’s yard past the boat, (some kind of old-ass pontoon thing), and over my bridge. I would then slosh and stumble forward through the filth and muck to flail around at their legs.

They would, without fail, curse me and step on my hands, kick at my head (sometimes connecting) laugh and go about their merry way. In short, it sucked ass.

The old captain across the way (on the boat) took pity on me, invited me to come aboard, and me, him, and his first mate took turns sharing his whiskey. Since the boat had a long bow that actually stuck out into the tunnel, we came up with a plan to keep me out of the swamp altogether.

They would be at the back of the boat and would scare people forward, into the tunnel. I would then run along the bow, and launch myself off the front, about eight feet in the air, also into the tunnel. I would then bounce off of a wall, try my best to scissor-kick a customer in the head on the way down, and generally run around scaring the shit out of people.

It was all going like clockwork until security came along.

SECURITY - What the fuck are you doing out of the swamp?

ME - What? This is better!

SECURITY - We don’t give a shit! That’s where you’re supposed to be, get back in there!

Despite my pleas and arguments, back into the swamp I went. The only solace that I had was a rusty old chair that I found to sit on, back in the bushes. I spent the remainder of my swamp time in a dazed stupor, nursing a terrible sore throat and a hacking cough.

Eventually, though, it was on to bigger and better things. I moved inside the mansion.