Grilling guerilla film-maker Brett Piper's back side (of his films, I mean! His films!)

Because I'm so long-winded or maybe because Brett Piper's a pretty fascinating and super-talented film director, writer, and special effects/stop-motion animation guru, I had to cut our interview in half. The first part can be read HERE. And now...on with the thrilling conclusion!

SRW: Shock-O-Rama is next from 2005, your first (to date) anthology film. The wraparound sequence finds Misty Mundae playing a fed-up scream queen tired of being typecast. In some very funny scenes, we see her fall in intestines (don’t ask), threatened by a weed whacker, and rant about her expected nudity. Was she basically playing herself?

BP: Oh yes.

SRW: The next tale in the film is a fun one set in a junkyard where a guy takes on alien robots (it’s Rob M. again, this time acting more tough with some goofy facial hair). Was the classic Twilight Zone episode, The Invaders, an inspiration?

BP: No, as much as I love that episode there was no connection. I just wanted to build a junkyard robot. 

SRW: The final story was a rare serious story detailing psychological/science fiction/sexual hijinx. Or something. Mainly it just seemed to be an excuse to put in a lotta cool effects at the end. Guilty?

BP: Mea maxima culpa.

SRW: Bacterium (2006) is a pretty serious film for Brett Piper. Everything’s more realistic. Not only does the film detail real world scares (infectious diseases, military overstepping boundaries, panic room politics), but it does so in a dark, unsettling manner. Furthermore, you have a pretty elaborate opening auto/helicopter chase, ending in a seriously fiery way, also unusual for your films. What happened?

BP: Raso at Pop Cinema had this sort of ongoing aspiration to sell movies to the ScyFy Channel (whatever it was called back them). One of the hooks he thought they responded to was everyday creatures becoming menacing monsters. We tossed around a bunch of potential threats until finally I said “What about giant germs?” And that's what we went with. The fiery opening came about when Johnny Sullivan, our stunt coordinator, called me up and said “How'd you like to burn down a barn for this movie?” He knew some firemen who were burning a barn as a training exercise so he set the whole thing up, including doing the full body burn himself. Our producer, Christina Christodoulopoulos, arranged to get us a helicopter for an entire day for only a few hundred bucks by sweet talking the pilot. It was quite a spectacular opening for such a small picture (the cheapest I did for EI/Pop Cinema). Then some clown doing a review said it looked like it was shot in someone's back yard. I guess he burns down barns in his back yard all the time. 

SRW:  (Stupid barn-burning critics...) Okay, the dilapidated mansion used for the main setting is pretty effective. Where’d you find that winner?

BP: That was at an army base, Fort Totten in Queens. We shot in what used to be the officers' housing. Again our producer, Christina C, set that up. She was pretty amazing. 

SRW: Rob comes riding in about 2/3 of the way into the movie and he brings the funny along with him. I knew you couldn’t keep the humor out, Brett (We're kindred spirits)!

BP: Damn right I couldn't. I wanted Caitlin Ross to be the girl in his bed, like their characters had gotten back together again after the events of Shock-O-Rama, but I believe she had moved to California by then. Not that there's anything wrong with Anju McIntyre, who is always a pleasure to work with. Also the army general (colonel? I can't remember) was written for Julian Wells, also someone I'd very much enjoyed working with in two previous movies. I don't know why she turned it down. I sent her several e-mails saying “Are you gonna do this thing or not?” and she finally responded “WHATEVER!!!”. Not very informative. 

SRW: Hey, it’s Muckman (2009), your requisite hillbilly swamp monster film (yay!). Are you more of a Swamp Thing, Man Thing, or Mud Monster (1978 TV movie) kinda guy?

BP: Swamp Thing. The comic book, not the movie. 

SRW: Here you’re indulging in some very astute and amusing reality TV satire again, this time attacking all of those ridiculous monster hunter type shows. Get ‘em, Brett! What struck me about this movie is the strong female leads (while not always likable, they’re gutsy and empathetic). On the other hand, most of the men in the flick are pigs of varying degrees. Then, just when I think you’re a closet feminist, boom, you blindside the viewer with a hot bikini clad girls fighting in the water scene. Is it possible to have your cake and eat it, too?

BP: Wait a minute --- do you have a problem with hot females wrestling in bikinis? You know, one of the many things I hate about feminism is that it's so limiting, both towards men and women. Why can't you be a smart, capable woman and still show off in a bikini? Women can have more than one facet to their personalities, you know. 

SRW: I believe Muckman started your collaboration with Polonia Brothers Productions. (By the way, I was really sorry to hear about John Polonia’s passing). To tell you the truth, this worried me at first; the Polonia films I’ve seen haven’t exactly been…um, stellar. But I needn’t have worried, the quality is still there. In fact, from what I’ve seen of your films, Mark Polonia’s acting has improved as well. Maybe it’s time to check out some of their later films (and I see you’ve done some effects work for them, too).

BP: Muckman was a total collaboration all the way down the line. Except that when Mark suggested we co-direct it I said “I don't think a movie should have two directors. And I want to direct this thing.” So he graciously acceded to my wishes, although he did direct some scenes himself, including one of my favorite shots,  following the Muckman as he prowls through the woods.  But it never would have been made without Mark, that's for sure.

SRW: 2012 saw the release of The Dark Sleep, another change for you (hey, change keeps it interesting, right?). While it’s a return to all things Lovecraftian (other realms, rat creatures, tentacle monsters, etc.), you’re going darker again. It’s pretty metaphysical, kinda like “Davey and Goliath go to Hell.” Are you just keeping things interesting for yourself?

BP: I wanted to do a movie about nightmare worlds so I could go crazy with the visuals. It was originally written under the title Nightmare House (pretty generic). I had the script almost finished when I came across an article about Lovecraft's story “Dreams in the Witch House” which I'd never read. I saw certain similarities so I dug out a Lovecraft collection my pal Anthony Polonia had given me and read it. I was amazed at how much our stories had in common so, since Lovecraft is public domain, I incorporated some of his material (Brown Jenkin, etc.) into my own. The movie became a Lovecraft “adaptation” retroactively. 

SRW: Brett, you’re the master of the exploitation title (especially those one word zingers), and the title usually tells exactly what the viewer can expect. Not here. Please explain the title. (I thought it sounded like a Marlowe noir.)

BP: I thought the meaning of the title was pretty self evident. Dark, meaning gloomy or twisted, and Sleep, which is where you have your dreams. Oh well.

SRW: Okay, it’s time to address something I didn’t like to see… Gasp! Is this the first film you’ve used extensive CGI? Tell me it ain’t so!

BP: It ain't so. The only CGI (if you can even call it that) is the floating geometric shapes (based on a dream I had while under ether at the dentist decades ago). Other than that I merely use the computer as a sort of optical printer to do my composites and such.  If I'd had the money I would have done traveling mattes in my earlier movies but they're much too expensive on film. Now I can do them on my computer, but I don't consider that CGI. The original images are still created in the real world through models and paintings and such. It's funny, as far back as Bite Me I had people complaining about the 'CGI” spiders. Nope, stop-motion all the way baby.

SRW: Whew, you had me scared there for a minute. 

Queen Crab crawled out of 2015, but really, it came from the ‘50’s. Another fun throwback, this one opens with a first for you (I think), a child actress. Will you ever work with kids again, Brett?

BP: I hope so. I love kids. There were kids in the original opening sequence of Battle For the Lost Planet/Galaxy, but it was cut and replaced with the old guy on the beach. And one of the package of stories I wrote along with Dying Day had Frankenstein's monster wash up on a beach in Maine where he was “adopted” by a group of kids. Also, now that I think of it, the werewolf story featured a little girl as one of the main characters. 

SRW: (You know, I'm glad to hear that because I hated the old guy on the beach sequence in Galaxy. Didn't fit). 

I got a real Night of the Lepus vibe from Queen Crab, from the neglected child of scientist parents feeding mutant strains of stuff to her pet crab to the titular monster. Am I right or is sometimes a horror movie just a horror movie?
 

BP: I don't remember Lepus all that well, except for some rather nice miniature work with a herd of big bunnies. The real inspiration was Universal's second string sci-fi movies from the Fifties, like Monolith Monsters, with the small town sheriff and all. 

SRW: What began as a comical duo of the sheriff and deputy didn’t quite end that way, as the deputy took a seriously “Lifetime Movie Husband Bad Guy” turn. The sheriff is played by your current actor of choice, Ken Van Sant. I almost couldn’t recall him from the first two features you made with him, but his acting’s growing stronger. What is it you like about Van Sant?

BP: Hell, Ken's just an all around terrific guy. We couldn't make these movies without him. Dark Sleep was shot almost entirely at his house! I don't think there's a movie Mark and I have made that wasn't at least partially shot on Ken's property. And he's always very enthusiastic and eager to work on these things. Couldn't ask for a better collaborator. 

SRW: Back to the fifties and back to the seriously weird abnormal eye motif, we have Triclops (2016). Not much to say about this one, but when I saw it, I breathed a sigh of relief as it appeared to have the most stop-motion animation in it than any other of your films. Just promise me, Brett, you’ll never go all CGI.

BP: I couldn't go all CGI if I wanted to! I don't have the tools. I edit and do my post on an outdated Mac G5! I don't even have stop motion software. I shoot my animation with a second hand digital still camera, one frame at a time. 

SRW: God bless Macs. 

Finally, your latest film is Outpost Earth (2019), which brings us full circle back to the Post Apocalyptic scenario. Are you feeling ready to embark on an entire new run of post apocalyptic adventures, Brett?

BP: Not really. I wouldn't mind doing another one if a decent story occurred to me, but I have no such plans at this time. 

SRW: It’s another ambitious undertaking, possibly the best looking of all of your films. Is this due to advances in technology (such as the dreaded…shudder…CGI)?

BP: Don't give me that CGI crap again, buster. I think I've disabused you of that notion. You'd be surprised how primitive some of the effects set-ups were. I needed a rig for the flying spaceship models so I tore the seat off a desk chair and clamped a two-by-four to the base. The shots of the Outpost itself were done with a miniature in Ken's driveway backed up with leftover foam cliffs from Triclops. Not exactly the kind of thing to impress the folks at WETA. I do agree that Outpost is one of my best looking films, which is partly a matter of cheaper and more efficient technology, but mostly just experience. I'm getting better at my job. Making movies is a constant learning experience.

SRW: Whew, this was lengthy. Thanks for being a good sport, Brett, and answering my sometimes rambling questions. What’s up next for you? Tell the readers where they can find your flicks or you.

BP: Redneck Mutants, now in production! More bug-eyed goofy monster stop-motion high-jinks, with a cast of favorites including Ken Van Sant in a dual role!  Look for it --- I don't know, it'll be out there somewhere!

Brett Piper--Movie-Making Maverick

Meet Brett Piper, legendary (well, at least in my “circles”) Renaissance man of the exploitation/genre world of independent film-making. 

No, this isn't Brett Piper, but it is one of his offspring.

The guy’s been cranking ‘em out for about forty years and not only does he write and direct all of his films, he does the special effects as well (including a lotta painstaking stop-motion work). Brett was kind (brave) enough to show up for an interview. Let’s grill!

Stuart R. West: Hey, Brett, thanks for agreeing to be my guest.

Brett Piper: It's an honor and a pleasure. 

SRW: Before we break down your filmography, I’d like to ask some general questions. I assume you’re not making killer bank by going the independent film-making route, but you’ve been at it since the ‘80’s. I know stop-motion animation can’t be easy (I remember an interview where you said a seven second sequence took days and days of hard work). Why do it?

BP: Oh, come on --- why do painters paint? Why does a pianist play the piano? Why does the President make an ass of himself? Because it's what they do!

SRW: Well, thanks for keeping stop-motion animation alive (and in total agreement, particularly regarding the president). You’re one of the few who dabble in this painstaking artform in this era of soulless CGI. I’m sure your influences are who fans would suspect: Willis O’Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Jiri Barta, Ladislav Starevicz, Art Clokey (Bert I. Gordon?). Do any of the young artsy-fartsy stop-motion animators trip your trigger?

BP: I'm afraid I'd be hard pressed to name one. I sometimes see stuff on line I like. A lot of people like to experiment with the technique, which is great. As it becomes less commercially viable there seem to be more and more people doing it. But I hate Lego animation. Don't ask me why. It just seems like the crappiest level of the art form. Now I hate myself for saying that because it sounds so elitist, but what the hell. We all have to have our standards. 

SRW: One thing I really like about your films is you always have a good sense of humor at play in them. Does this start with your scripts? Is it an organic process with the actors? Is there room for improvisation? Do you intend to make them funny or does it just happen (kinda what goes on with my books)?

BP: I don't think I can make a movie that doesn't take at least a slightly humorous approach. All the best movies contain humor. King Kong has jokes, so does Citizen Kane. And the types of movies I make shouldn't take themselves too seriously anyway. Honestly, if someone asked me for the one piece of advice I would give to make the world a better place (like anyone's going to ask me that) I'd say “Lighten up!” People take themselves too damn seriously. Life is tragic enough without taking any more of the fun out of it. I'm not sure I'm answering your question. Let's just say that Kong and Harryhausen may have been my biggest inspiration, but the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges and The Goon Show, among many others, are right up there too. As for improvisation, I like to encourage it up to a point, but some actors, just a few, have taken that as a license to argue over every scene. You can't be doing that on a five day shoot. 

SRW: Alright! Let’s jump into the Way-Back Machine and travel back to 1982 for Mysterious Planet, your first film. You started out with huge ambitions on a clearly low budget. It’s kinda bold to make a galaxy-hopping, science-fiction saga, but you pulled it off (even if the stop-motion giant 2-headed snail is a better thespian than the human actors). In this film, you’re using animation, matte paintings (there’s a really cool skull mountain), effective miniatures, the list goes on. But I gotta be honest, Brett, the script seems to be formed around the special effects. So, it’s that age-old question, what came first? The script or the special effects?

BP: Mysterious Island. I wanted to make a movie like that but with spaceships. And yes, it was written around effects set pieces (as were Harryhausen's movies). I got into movie making so I could build monsters and bring them to life on screen. 

SRW: You brought things back down to earth for your next film, Dying Day. I was shocked to find out I even had a copy of this hard-to-find film on an extra of the (ludicrous) film Raiders of the Living Dead. The history behind this film is a long and convoluted one, so I’m tasking you with summing it up succinctly and interestingly for my readers. Ready? Go!

BP: I thought it might be easier to sell a package of films than to sell them one by one so I wrote six scripts, intending to shoot them back to back. Some were pretty elaborate (a giant monster movie, another space opera) and some were simpler (werewolf, zombies).  The zombie story was the simplest so I started with that. When it was finished I pitched it to a number of companies including Sam Sherman's Independent International. They liked it, haggled over money, and finally bought it. Then they watched the whole thing and found out it was only something like an hour long. They complained, I shot new footage, which didn't matter anyway because they only used my movie for stock footage in making Raiders of the Living Dead. They kept telling me how thrilled I was going to be when I saw it. I caught it for the first time on USA Network's “Saturday Nightmares”. These are the times you have to remind yourself not to take life too seriously. My sister watched it also and later said to me, “When you made that movie, didn't it have a plot?” The real joke it that when Variety ran a mini-review of the movie the only  parts they liked were the bits of my original footage that were used. Boffo. 

SRW: For what it’s worth, I liked it better than Raiders. Although extremely dark in places and hard to see (hey, I know it’s an unfinished film), and a little hard to follow (thank God for the noiresque narration), there are some effective horror set-pieces. After making Mysterious Planet, were you just itching to do something a little less ambitious? How do you feel about Dying Day now?

BP: I haven't see it since I finished it (nor would I care to). I'm sure it's crap, although it was originally well shot crap. I would guess that the version you saw was a bad transfer from the work print. Look for the splices! 

SRW: Well, anything you learned (or didn’t) from Mysterious Planet didn’t take, because you’re at it again with 1986’s Galaxy! In addition to space travel, planet hopping, wild aliens, you’ve also tossed in the end of the world. What was the budget for this nuttily ambitious film?

BP: About $60,000, a good deal more than Dying Day had cost. And it's original title was Battle for the Lost Planet. I don't know where Galaxy came from. 

SRW: Let’s chat about your use of recurring actors. The first one I noticed is Matt Mitler, who plays unreliable narrator/hero Harry Trent. Is it easier to work with actors you’re familiar with? Do you write to their strengths? (I mean it can’t be a coincidence that this same actor, playing the same character in your next movie, is so cool, he wears his sunglasses indoors; there oughta be a law).

BP: It depends. Sometimes I write parts for specific performers which are then played by other people entirely. The lead in They Bite was written for Deborah Quayle, who had starred in Mutant War. She turned it down (repeatedly) because it was a non-union movie and she didn't want to get in trouble with SAG.  I don't think she made another  movie for twenty years. The lead in Screaming Dead was written for Bevin McGraw from Arachnia, a very talented actress and one of the few bright spots in the making of that piece of crap. She  loved the script at first then changed her mind because she thought making a movie for EI/Pop Cinema would type her as a porn actress which, I think she later realized, was pretty stupid.  Anyway, I sometimes write for people I want to work with again, mostly because casting is the hardest part of making these movies. I'm not working in California where you get all the actors you need at any restaurant. Even casting in NYC is no picnic. The ratio of acceptable actors to applicants is like a hundred to one. Literally.  Once I find actors I'm happy with I tend to stick with them. 

SRW: Okay, while your hero is stranded in space for years, he makes a “pillow woman.” I’m saying it here first, “Wilson” from Cast Away was pilfered from your film. 

BP: Yeah, like they're big fans of my work...

SRW: Again, there are many great effects from the pig-faced aliens to the mutant beasties to the destruction of earth, but what stands out for me are the little things. I love the ending where the blow-hard hero is giving a “rah-rah” speech and his allies walk away. Scripted? Or improvised?

BP: Scripted.

SRW: 1986 saw Galaxy’s sequel: Mutant War. Was Galaxy financially successful enough to warrant a sequel or was this a purely creative decision?

BP: Not a creative decision at all. Lost Planet/Galaxy was sold to some goniff who wanted me to make another one for him but kept shooting down all my ideas. I finally realized what he really wanted was the same movie all over again so I wrote a sequel and Harry Trent flew again. 

SRW: Again, Harry Trent’s up to his neck in bad-boy/good-guy planet-hopping shenanigans (and take off the damn sunglasses already! You’re indoors. Honestly!). And, hey! There’s infamous character actor Cameron Mitchell (who shows up at the 1:04 mark only to exit a few minutes later). I’ve read Cam was hard to get along with in the later days. Was his “video box marquee value” worth it?

BP: He shows up at the beginning? Probably to sucker all those Cameron Mitchell fans who rented the movie just for him. The movie was drastically recut after I handed it over so I wouldn't know. Mitchell was a pussycat. I enjoyed working with a him great deal, even if he was only there two days. By the end of the first day we were swapping old time show business anecdotes like we'd worked together all our lives. Later, though, in an interview with Fangoria he denied any memory of the movie. I fired off a letter saying “Cameron Mitchell said ours was the worst location he'd seen in all his years in the business --- you'd think he'd remember that!”

 

SRW: Okay, Brett, here’s where I noticed the first instance of one of your recurring themes: the enhanced eyeball. (I know, weird, right?) There’s a cyborg bad guy and a battle wagon with eyeballs! You revisit this theme quite a bit. Um, some past trauma? Or just cool effects?

BP: What? A battle wagon with eyeballs? I have no idea. And wasn't the cyborg an alien mercenary and not really a villain? Anyway, the movie I'm working on now has another bug eyed guy, so maybe you're on to something. 

SRW: 1990 was a big year for you as we finally (finally!) leave what I like to call your Post Apocalyptic era. But you’re up for destroying the world one last time with A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell. Yikes, that’s some title. But then when I found out who released it, it was no surprise. Boom! You were Tromatized! I’ve read this was your most popular film. I’ve gotta ask…was that the original title? Or did Lloyd Kauffman (notorious cheapskate and bad taste monger behind Troma Studios) force that on you? Was there any other interference?

BP: The original title was The Dark Fortress, and it took place on another planet, not a post apocalyptic Earth. Lloyd had nothing to do with the making of the movie. He bought the finished movie and re-titled it Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell. A great title. I laughed my ass off. 

SRW: Was your experience with Troma a good one? Educational?

BP: Making movies is always educational. Mostly you learn about things you never want to go through again. Although I wrote a sequel to Nymphoid which I pitched to Troma. Lloyd liked it, and all he wanted me to do was raise the money, produce the film myself, and then hand it over to him. I politely declined. He got pissed, thinking that I'd reneged on a deal, even though we never had a deal. In time he got over it. In fact, when I saw him again at a convention in New Jersey he'd gotten over it so well I don't think he even remembered me. 

SRW: I noticed a matte painting in the film that bears a suspicious resemblance to Troma’s signature logo/opening of an orange-hued skyline. Do I need to get my eyes checked?

BP: I have no idea. It rings no bells.

SRW: Moving along to one of my favorite of your films, 1996’s They Bite. Everything seemed to gel here: you’d created characters I actually liked and cared about; the comedy’s very funny; there’s good chemistry between the decidedly offbeat leads (a porn director with artistic ambitions and a scrappy, down-on-her-luck ichthyologist); the greatest wet t-shirt contest scene ever disrupted by a monster; and naturally, great effects. Did you decide to change things up a bit? The overall tone seems more playful than before.

BP: Bill Links wanted me to make him a movie with “fish monsters and tits”. Apparently he believed such a combination couldn't fail. His template was Humanoids From The Deep, which was kind of a nasty picture, but the script I sent him was something else entirely. “It's a comedy!” he said. “Bill,” I said, “it's a movie with fish monsters and tits. How serious did you expect me to make it?”

SRW: Which brings us to the “white elephant” in the room. Of course I’m talking about the legendary thespian, Ron Jeremy. I don’t even want to know how he ended up in your movie. No, wait, scratch that, I DO want to know…

BP: The white, hairy elephant with the enormous trunk. Links hired him. I guess they were pals and Links thought the Jeremy name would help sell the movie. He was a pretty talented performer and a monumental pain in the ass. 

SRW: While not as ambitious plot-wise as your Post-Apocalyptic cycle, the movie still has a lot of ambition. It serves as a fun exploitation/monster flick, but is also a loving pastiche of the ‘50’s wave of sci-fi films, from the music to the question mark ending to the famous quote, “Keep watching the skies.” And I’d be remiss without mentioning the hilarious, brilliant black and white monster movie trailer dropped into the film as a character’s nightmare. One of my favorite things you’ve done. 

BP: Invasion of the Fish F@#$ers. That was almost fun. If I'm not mistaken we shot that mostly in one night with strippers Links had shanghaied from a nearby club. He brought them by one night with absolutely no warning. We just sort of winged it.  The crappy looking monster suits in that segment were supposed to be the real monsters in the movie, made by a guy in upstate New York who'd worked on one of the Toxic Avenger movies. The suits were so bad they were falling apart as we took them out of the box. I actually had to make them look better before we could use them as our crappy suits. 

SRW: There’s also a lot of satire in the film. You take jabs at porn, filmmaking, censorship, and a very meddlesome producer. Gotta ask…was he based on someone from your past experiences?

BP: No, he was based on someone from our then current experience. 

SRW: Here we enter the second phase of your career, the Voyeuristic/Eyeball Era! We start with Draniac (2000), a transitional film. There’s a marked shift in tone. The settings become more insular and not as varied and the stories generally rely on one big idea instead of a lot of them. Basically, you’ve decided to stay on earth for a while. Was this for budgetary reasons or had your interests changed?

BP: Mostly budgetary reasons. Drainiac was, after Mysterious Planet, my cheapest movie to date, and it was made ten or more years later.  

SRW: I’d also noticed a new influence creeping (see what I did there?) into your work: H.P. Lovecraft. (Well, the “Miskatonic Road” name-drop was kinda a giveaway). I see more Lovecraft horror than science-fiction in this set of films.

BP: Probably. Drainiac and The Dark Sleep are my only overtly Lovecraftian films, although contrary to what it says on the box Dark Sleep was not “based on”Lovecraft's work. 

SRW: Not to say Draniac’s without humor. There’s still plenty of that in the plumber exorcist, the annoying Jerry Lewis character, and other things. The exorcism’s an undisputed highlight. There’s an invigorating anything goes sense to the scene. Was Hammer Film’s The Devil Rides Out an influence? Was the film structured around that sequence? Do you sometimes rush through dialogue scenes to get to the fun stuff?

BP: Less Hammer films, more Hong Kong ghost stories. In fact a friend of mine brought her fiance, who was from Hong Kong, to see part of the movie and he picked up on the Chinese influence immediately, which was kind of gratifying.  And the scene the movie was structured around was actually the girl in the bath tub, which makes it one of the least gratuitous nude scenes in movie history, contrary to what some might say.

SRW: From 2002 comes Psyclops, where you’re really embracing your voyeuristic/eyeball theme. This movie’s about the ultimate voyeur, a (semi) mad scientist who fuses with an otherworldly video camera. Lotsa influences here from Brian DePalma’s voyeuristic prowling camera to Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window). A character even quotes Hitchcock. Lovecraft again, maybe even a little Cronenberg. But I wonder if the film’s not a comment on the intrusive nature of so-called “reality” TV. Or is it, just, you know, an icky, gooey, messy horror film?

BP: It was an attempt to save some bucks by shooting part of the movie on video! Not a very successful attempt, I might add. 

SRW: Heh, yeah, not one of my favorites. Alright, we’re introduced to another of your go-to actor guys (five films in a row!), Rob Monkiewicz. Through the films, it’s interesting to watch Rob’s evolution as an actor. Here, he’s clearly uncomfortable in his own skin, playing against type as a pseudo-nerd tucked into a button-down shirt and spectacles, when he’s clearly a body-building slab.

BP: True. After Psyclops I'd write parts that fit better with Rob's persona. He was a pleasure to work with and I'd still be using him if he hadn't given up on all this nonsense. 

SRW: Arachnia (2003) is a movie my wife will never watch. I seem to recall your having said that it’s easier to animate bugs than fictional creatures. Is that why you use so many in this run of films?

BP: It's easier and more fun and they make great monsters. Just ask your wife!

SRW: After the darker Psyclops, the humor in Arachnia is very much in evidence again. In fact, it seems like it’s nearly a spoof as you check off all requisite items from the exploitation/horror checklist: plane crash; a cabin in the woods; old timer with shotgun; stuffy scientist; bimbos; gratuitous bathtub scene; Skinemax saxophone; horny comic relief guy (HIM I could live without.) Script by checklist?

BP: Yep. It very much was a deliberate spoof, an homage if you will to old fashioned drive-in movies. 

SRW: Rob’s back and a little more confident. First, he’s shed his glasses. Second, he’s freely more macho. Did you and Rob actually “work out a character” or did he just take screen direction? How do you prefer to handle actors?

BP: Yes, as I said I was writing for a known quantity now. I like to hire actors I don't need to direct. This doesn't happen very often but when it does it's a pleasure. Donna Frotscher from They Bite is a perfect example. The only directions I had to give her were things like “You stand here” or “You come in on his line.” Other than that she was perfect. As John Huston said,  95% of  direction is casting the right actors. Otherwise my motto is let 'em do whatever they want as long as it fits in the movie. It makes the actors happy and it saves me a lot of grief.  Once in a while an actor will ask me why they're not getting more direction. My answer is “You're doing fine, I'll let you know if there's a problem.”

SRW: Screaming Dead from 2003 introduces (inexplicably) popular softcore porno actress, Misty Mundae, to your films. How was she to get along with?

BP: At first she seemed pleased to finally be in a “real” movie. We developed a bit of a rapport. But I don't think she was happy with her place in the cinematic universe, and her relationship with the studio was deteriorating, so although we got along fine on Screaming Dead things became increasingly difficult on the successive movies. 

SRW: The film’s clearly about exploitation as art (and is certainly one of your kinkier movies). The artist in question here is a sleazy photographer taking pictures of models in a purportedly haunted building. The theme is played upon again and again, cleverly encapsulated when we see a reflection of the artist’s subject in his eye. Do you consider yourself, as a filmmaker, the ultimate voyeur? Or is that a title best saved for we, your audience?

BP: All movies are voyeuristic by nature, aren't they? But that's not really what Screaming Dead was all about.

SRW: Okay, I missed that one. Brett, tell me…all lofty pretensions aside, is this just a sexploitation riff on The Haunting of Hill House?

BP: Nope. It was a dig at some of the slimeballs I've met in this business.  It was about the way some aspiring actresses will allow themselves to be abused and sometimes degraded by so-called “artists”, frequently by people who are less interested in making a movie than in playing domination games with naive girls. I've seen those kinds of games being played and they pissed me off.  Remember the scene in the movie where Rob says to the photographer “For fifty bucks I could have your legs broken, but in your case I'd rather do it myself?” That was me. I said that to another “director” who was pulling that kind of stuff with some actresses I knew.

SRW: Good on you!

Bite Me! (2004) is a lot of fun. It starts frenetically with many different couples in varying scenarios and never lets up. (I’d say it’s my favorite right up there with They Bite.) You simply can’t go wrong with a plot detailing strippers fighting killer bugs. Plus there’s a fifty foot statue of Godzilla behind the strip club. There’s an almost kitchen sink approach to the entire enterprise, but it works. Did you approach this film the same way as your earlier ones?

BP: Mike Raso came to me with the title and an idea about killer bugs. It seemed okay to me so I wrote up a script and away we went.

SRW: The cast is uniformly great (even Misty Mundae). The women are all strong in their own right (strippers as feminists!). Even when detailing clichés (the lazy stripper, the terrible stripper, the stoned stripper, etc.), they embrace their roles and seem to be having fun with it. Rob’s back again, this time flexing some acting muscle and creating a different kind of character. I saw an interview where you wrote the parts for the actors. I imagine that’s a very effective way of getting to the end result in a satisfying and efficient manner.

BP: Well, it should have been. The whole idea of setting the movie in a strip club came when I asked the actresses what kind of parts they'd like to play and the woman who was  supposed to be the lead said she wanted to play a stripper before she got too old. So I wrote the script accordingly and then she bailed on us before shooting started. I had to rearrange all the parts, like musical chairs. Misty was supposed to play the lazy stripper but she got bumped up to the lead, everyone else got shuffled around. Caitlin Ross, who ended up in the lazy part, was originally supposed to play the cop. We ended up one short so the cop was finally played by a singer who I met at a recording studio next door. She did her best. 

SRW: Well, I'm cutting us off right there. Join us again in two weeks for the conclusion of Brett Piper's extensive career retrospective interview where he'll share more tales of toiling in the film-making fringes. Same bat-time, same bat- channel...

Mike Mendez: Horror Comedy Independent Filmmaker Hoot-and-a-Half!

I’ve been a fan of filmmaker Mike Mendez’ horror films for some time. Every film he churns out is a mini-masterpiece of B-movie fun and mayhem (um, maybe excluding one, of course. But we’ll get to that soon enough), very funny and stylishly made. Graciously, Mike has volunteered to be tossed on the Tornado Alley grill. I did my homework and watched a Mendez-ival. Hold on folks…

SRW: Hey, Mike! Thanks much for visiting. Let’s start by talking about your awesome 1996 debut, Killers. This little flick’s a sleeper, has a way of sneaking up on the viewer. Usually film debuts are a learning ground. But I sense you were very much in control, knowing where it was going and, as always, the editing’s very impressive. Am I right? Or was it a lucky accident?

MM: I think every movie is a bit of experiment and the end result will differ from what you had in mind, some for the better, sometimes for the worse. With Killers the experimental side of it was that you had two creative voices, you had the writer/lead actor Dave Larsen & you had me. So any lucky accident would be the melding of these two voices & the lack of a budget. Everything else though was very controlled. I'd been making films since I was 10 years old. So by the time I got to my first feature I'd had a fair amount of experience, and I had story boarded that film (as I do all my films), but on that one I may have over storyboarded. The edits were very planned out because there was a lot of transitions from one scene to the other. I haven't done that since. Not sure why. 

SRW: The movie’s got a lot going on. There’s a strange “cult of killer” theme, a very strong female cop and references to Once Upon a Time in the West AND Free Willy. Toss in the spaghetti western styled stand-off, I’m detecting a strong Sergio Leone influence.

MM: Well, sure, I've always loved Sergio Leone, he was always the best at stylized gun fights, but as far as the cult of killer thing, that was a reflection of the times. We made it in the late 90's which was the hey day of the OJ Simpson & Menendez cases. So the idea of the celebrity killer was really prevalent back then. "Natural Born Killers" touched on the same idea. It was just in the zeitgeist back then.

SRW: I mentioned your editing which I think is stellar through-out all of your films. Are you your own editor or do you share the chores?

MM: Lately I've been my own editor. It's usually a way for producers to save money, but over time I've grown to enjoy the control. I don't enjoy the amount of work it takes, but I do enjoy having total autonomy over the edit. In fact that's the best way to know if my film has been tampered with. In the last 10 years if I have sole editing credit, it's my film & I'm happy with it. If you see another editor listed with me, then something funny went in behind the scenes. We'll see if the pattern of me editing continues. I have equally strong arguments for both sides of it . 

SRW: Mike, you know how to build good dread (maybe not such a good thing in real life, but in movies, it’s a bonus!). The opening sequence is cut to The Doors’ “The End” and, I think, is a much more effective use of the song than in Apocalypse Now. Okay, level with me, Mike…did you actually get the rights to use the song? (If not, we’ll just mosey along, pretend like I didn’t ask the question).

MM: We did not get the rights to it, but in the official release,  the song was replaced with Iron Butterfly's "in a gadda Davida". My directors cut has the song that we used in festivals & in a release in Germany on DVD I believe.

SRW: I consider myself a jaded, seen-it-all genre movie buff. But by cracky if you didn’t pull the rug out from under me 2/3 through the film! Never saw that twist coming! (Stupid! I’m so stupid!). 

MM:  That's Dave Larsen, the writer/ star who came up with that.  Sadly Dave isn't with us anymore. That movie is as much his baby as it is mine.

SRW: Okay! Mike, you came “roaring” back in 1997 with, um…Bimbo Movie Bash. (Yeah, I know, right?) It’s a patchwork job made up of clips from various ‘80’s z-movies (sadly, I was able to identify most of them). While you did your best to attempt to put a story around it, it’s kinda a mess. A mess Roger Corman would be proud of. Defend yourself, Mike.

MM: Sure. Well, first off I made this before Killers. I'd say it's my first film, but I don't consider it mine & I don't consider it much of a film. It was an editing job really, something I did with my friend Dave Parker. At the time he was working with Full Moon productions. They had a cd rom game called "Bimbo Movie Bash" and they wanted to make a movie of it using clips of their existing movies in their library. I've always been a fan of Woody Allen & I loved his first film "What's up Tiger Lilly?" Which was a Hong Kong film that was re-dubbed, changing the plot line & turning it into a comedy. So I thought this would be a fun approach to do with these movies, so we sold it as a parody of "Independence Day" with a cheesy plot line of a bunch of bimbos trying to take over the world.  Sadly, it did not go our way, and producer Charlie Band, decided against redubbing the movie, and wanted us to use the original audio. So really, my whole plan went up in smoke and ultimately it just became a bunch of clips of bad movies.  The movie is pretty unwatchable I feel, except for a few moments that turned out funny.  Not worth it to sort through the movie to find those tiny gems.  I really wish it didn't have my name on it as a director, cause we really didn't direct anything, really just edited.

SRW: Were the “Joe” clips with Joe Estevez your original creation? I couldn’t place those and they were probably the highlight of the movie, very amusing.

MM: Ha, yes there were certain clips we had fun with despite everything. One of those were the Joe Estevez clips from a gem called "Beach Babes From Beyond Infinity".  That was more the weird style of humor the movie was intended to have. As tough as I am on the film, there’re some funny bits and again, I almost felt it was a colossal exercise in creative editing. It could have been so much more.

SRW: Three years later, you came back swinging with The Convent. Here I really think you hit your stride. It’s a great horror comedy. As I write horror comedy myself, Mike, I’d like to pick your brain over the subject…I never really sit down and say, “Hey, I think I’ll write a horror comedy!” More often than not, I have a straight-up horror tale in mind, but it just sort of naturally evolves into the quirky side. Do you definitely plan to make comedies?

MM: Well, "Evil Dead 2" is my favorite movie, so I tend to always be trying to hit that tone, but it is where I feel my natural voice as a filmmaker lives.  I like funny characters in horrible situations.

SRW: The opening sequence is fantastic. Economic, stylish as all get out, very cool. Hard to go wrong with a bad-ass school-girl taking a bat and shotgun to nuns in a convent. The film never slows down from there, running from one great sequence to another. The movie’s gloriously over-the-top and hyper violent, but the comedy you instill makes it palatable. I think without the humor, it’d be a bit much. Did you ever consider making it a straight horror film?

MM: Honestly, no not really. I felt someone was giving me the opportunity to make a movie about demonic nuns. I had to have some fun with it.

SRW: I gotta ask, Mike…what with all the satanic nuns running around, did you have a bad Catholic upbringing?

MM: 12 years of Catholic School. I don't know if I'd say I had a bad run, but it will definitely leave an impression. We're talking about a religion whose main symbol is a bloody dead guy who's been crucified. There's a lot of dark shit in the bible.

SRW: All of the genre stereotyped characters are here: bitchy cheerleader, pompous idiotic frat boy, dweeby eager to please pledge. It was a pleasure to watch them die at your hands! (Although I sorta wish “Mo” woulda survived; very cool character). Mike, when I say this, it’s meant as a compliment: this is the best movie a 14 year old boy (and me!) could ever wish for.

MM: Yeah, I kind of wish Mo lived too, but these films are a collaboration with the writer, in this case the very talented Chaton Anderson.  I think she related more to the lead, Clarissa. I related more to the Goth kids.

SRW: Adrienne Barbeau puts in a late hour appearance as a take no mercy heroine. Are you a fan of her work with John Carpenter?

MM: Of course. Plus Creep Show & Swamp Thing. She's a legend!

SRW: The dialogue is very funny and natural. Do you strictly adhere to the script or is there improvisation going on?

MM: Good question, I think in those days I was a little more faithful to the script, so we stuck to our already zany script. But I would say that Saul the Prince of Evil character, definitely improv'd a lot.

SRW: It wasn’t until 2006 when you released your next flick, The Gravedancers. This time you opted for a straight horror flick. And it’s by far your scariest film with lots of creepy imagery. I’m thinking I saw some Mario Bava inspired goings-on. Am I off base?

MM: Nope you are correct. There were a lot of influences like The Haunted Mansion at Disney Land, but Bava's "Drop of Water" segment from "Black Sabbath" was definitely in there.

SRW: Black Sabbath's one of my all-time fave flicks. In The Gravedancers, there’s a very nice usage of ambient sound to ramp up the chills. How important is sound and music to your films?

MM: Extremely. Back then I was lucky enough to be working with composer Joseph Bishara, he's gone on to be the man behind the soundtracks for films like "Insidious" & "The Conjuring."

SRW: A recurring theme in your movies, Mike, is the past always plays a part of the present. Past sins are never forgotten. Am I giving this more thought than you do?

MM: I mean you're right, but I can't say I'm consciously trying to say this. But I agree, we're all responsible for our own actions, and sometimes those actions have repercussions.

SRW: You know, this movie came out in 2006 and you had paranormal investigators, the whole lot. One year later, Paranormal Activity hit and made it a “Thing.” You were ahead of the pack, Mike!

MM: Yes, a lot of good it did me ;) (sarcasm)

SRW: There was quite a layover until your next film in 2013! Is financing that tough? Or did you take some time off to take paying gigs?

MM: A combo of both.  "Gravedancers" left me absolutely nowhere in my career. Plus the world was changing. The economy crashed, the DVD market went away. It was a tough time. I really thought it was over for me. So I made a real attempt to make a living editing, which I still do from time to time.  It was a long while before someone would give me an opportunity, but sometimes opportunity comes in unexpected ways.

SRW: The next movie? Big-Ass Spider! Possibly my favorite of the bunch. What a great, evocative title! It tells you exactly what you’re gonna get. However, I’m worried…IMDB (not the most reliable of sources) now has it entitled “Mega Spider.” What happened? Red Box and Red States?

MM: Some of the foreign territories preferred to call it Mega-Spider, so the IMDB started to reflect this.  It's been corrected since ;) It was originally entitled "Dino-Spider" when I first got the script. From reading it, I felt the movie could be more than that, so began a 2 year argument to call the movie, "Big Ass Spider!" Thankfully I finally won.

SRW: My wife’s a huge arachnaphobe. So when she walked in on me watching the movie, I quickly scrambled for the remote, shutting it off. Like I’d been caught watching porn. Only far worse.

MM: Sorry?

SRW: Anyway, this movie’s tons of fun. Again, you hone your editing and directing skills into a stylish and effective narrative device. The opening is great; a tease of things to come and very compelling. As ylu mentioned earlier, I imagine you meticulously story-board your films before shooting?

MM: Yes, storyboarding was a habit I got into from a very young age.  When you have limited amount of film, I always thought it was best to plan it out as meticulously as possible. It helps in all sorts of ways. So it's a habit I've kept up

SRW: Greg Grunberg is so effortlessly charming as the everyman hero, the bug exterminator who just wants to score a date with the leading woman. Who can’t help but root for the schlubby guy? Great casting. Tell me Greg’s like his persona and not a diva.

MM: Greg is a wonderful, wonderful human being. He brought so much to the character. The movie wouldn't be what it is without him & Lombardo Boyar.

SRW: These days a lot of fan-boys hate on CGI effects. You use a lot of them in Big Ass Spider. If I’m not mistaken, the most you’ve used to date. But they work here, I think, adding to the rowdy b-movie fun. Do you enjoy working with CGI? Or would you rather kick it old school?

MM: I have always been an old school practical fx guy. I was very nervous about the leap to cgi. I previously had had only fairly negative experiences using it. But, I did feel that I was being close minded and should be more open to new technologies.  The big difference was that we had a very eager company out of Pakistan that was very eager to show off what they could do. They were very talented and blew us away with what they could do. They kept pushing us to go further, at first. Then we all got in the spirit and I'm sure, drove them close to insanity. But it really changed my approach to filmmaking. CGI was always a bad word for me, but then I realized how far it had come and what a great tool it was.  I still think over reliance on CGI is a bad thing, but there are some things you just can't do practically. A 50 foot tall spider is one of them.

SRW: Last year you directed a segment for the anthology, Tales of Halloween. Like all anthologies, some of the tales are better than others. But we’re here to talk about you, Mike, not these other guys! So…Friday the 31st. Short, super violent, gory. Very, very silly spoof about a Michael Meyers type serial killer running afoul of a cute lil’ alien. Limbs are chopped and dropped. How long did it take you to come up with this idea, Mike? 

MM: I'll explain how it came to be in the next question. As far as my segment. It was the opening scene of a screenplay I've always wanted to make.  But, I knew that the opening itself would be able to stand alone if I wanted to do it as a short.  So I felt this is a rare opportunity to do anything I wanted, and this is what I wanted to do. 

                                  

SRW: What—or who--is “The October Society?”

MM: The October Society is a group of filmmakers that currently live in Los Angeles, except for one. They are all friends and support each others work. They came together for a movie called "Tales of Halloween" in the spirit that we would all go further together than if we did it individually. Think of it as The Avengers of horror.  It all came about because we were all friends in real life and decided to make a movie together.

SRW: Another John Carpenter reference (several, actually)! Adrienne Barbeau again as the radio DJ/narrator, practically lifted from The Fog. Someone’s a big Carpenter fan (um, not “The Carpenters” but you know what I mean…).

MM: I'm a fan of The Carpenters too ;) But I think any self respecting genre fan considers himself a Carpenter fan. On "Tales of Halloween" you had some pretty massive ones.  I would say certainly Neil Marshall, Dave Parker and myself  really kind of pushed the theme through the movie.  We were really enamored with the idea of Adrienne Barbeau recreating her character from "The Fog" to narrate the piece.

SRW: Okay, moving on! Lavantula finds you still working out your giant spider phase. (Not sure I ever did understand the title; unless it’s a reference to L.A.). Am I correct in assuming this was a Sy-Fy TV movie?

MM: Yes this was a total, work for hire for Syfy channel. My first tv movie. The title came from the idea of Lava + avalanche + tarantula = "Lavalantula".

SRW: As much flack as the Sy-Fy flicks get, there’s no denying their popularity. Plus, it’s the best place for b-genre movie directors to show off their wares these days, I think. There’s a surprising cameo/in-joke to Sharknado! How’d that come about?

MM: Yeah, I figured if there was ever a time it was acceptable to do one of those movies, it would be during the height of the "Sharknado" craze.  Syfy wanted to link these movies so badly, they got Ian Zeiring to make a cameo. People think it's a shared universe and technically I guess it is, because Steve Guttenberg returns the favor and makes a cameo in "Sharknado: The Fourth Awakens". So the question comes up, when will there be a "Sharknado vs. Lavalantula"? The truth is probably never, because the movies are owned by two competing companies. So I don't ever see it happening. Hopefully the world will find the strength to go on without it. ;)

SRW: You had the unenviable task of repackaging Steve Guttenberg as an action hero! Not an easy job, I wouldn’t think. But he plays with the character and the script wisely laughs at him as a washed up action movie star. (“No bug movies!” Lol.).Was it your intent to create a cult of celebrity satire disguised as a giant spider movie?

MM: I always liked the idea of a story about an actor that was kind of a wuss in real life, but then had to rise to the occasion and adopt the persona that people perceive him to be.  That was what sort of hooked me about "Lavalantula." I felt there was an opportunity to make a movie about a character that had to be the hero he always pretended to be.  I don't think anyone really cares or picks up on that in a movie named "Lavalantula" but that's what I was going for at least.

SRW: Guttenberg’s final rallying speech is a riot, playing on the self-importance of Hollywood “insiders.” Do you like being on the outskirts of Hollywood, Mike? So you can continue your vision? Or would you rather sell out and cash in? (Loaded questions, I know.)

MM: I would love to sell out, lol. No one is offering. The truth is that's half true. I like making my strange little movies, but it would be great to be able to make them for someone else with a budget. Being an indie filmmaker sucks from a financial point of view. There's hardly any money to direct these things now that budgets are so low.

SRW: The most stunning thing about Lavantula (besides Nia Peeple’s distracting cleavage, of course) was when I discovered “Marty” was played by Michael Winslow! The sound effects guy from the Police Academy films, for God’s sake! Haven’t seen him since then. Did you seek him out, Mike?

MM: Absolutely! Steve Guttenberg thought it would be cool to get him in a cameo, but then I thought it would be funny to keep going with it and try to get as many members of the Police Academy cast as possible.  We got four of them, but that was enough to go into that out of the box area that I'm so fond of.  Now it was the cast of "Police Academy" vs. Lava Spiders, and that strikes me as funny.

SRW: Okay! You’ve just completed two very interesting sounding films with Dolph Lundgren and Henry Rollins (two, um, very warm and cuddly leading men). Can’t wait to see them! Tell the Tornado Alley readers what they’re about and when and where they can expect to see them.

MM: I did a terrible film with Henry Rollins, I won't even mention it's name. It was the smallest budgeted movie I had ever done and I was quite excited about it. For reasons that I don't fully understand the producers of the film decided to not involve me in the final stages of post production. They recut the movie, took out much of the gore and violence, and didn't involve me at all with the music, visual fx, sound and color correction.  The end result is a festering pile of shit I'm embarrassed to have my name on.

The other film I did is called "Don't Kill It" starring Dolph Lundgren. We had a blast on this movie. It was a bit of a return to my roots with movies like "The Convent". It's a bloody blast of a movie. It premiered at Fantastic Fest and will be hitting VOD and limited theaters on March 3rd. I'm really excited for people to see it!

SRW: There you have it, folks. Mike Mendez, one of my favorite low-budget filmmakers working. Do yourself a favor and check out his fun flicks.