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Interview
By Gavin Schmitt
Like many of the rising talents
today (e.g. Tiffany Shepis, James Gunn), you got your start
with Troma. How does one go from being a Troma employee to
Lloyd Kaufman’s hetero manservant to a self-made man?
Lloyd himself will tell you it’s my
sweet lips that have made me so successful, but it’s not
just that. I learned things about all aspects of the film
industry from Troma, and when I felt I learned as much as I
could, towards the end of 2002 I decided to start my own
company with some friends I met while working there. It took
a lot of perseverance and hard work, but obviously it’s
paying off, slowly but surely.
I have this belief that there’s
an incredible story that connects Troma to Chris Seaver
(director of “Filthy McNasty” and many other wonderful
films), and it involves yourself, Debbie Rochon and Chris.
What is the story?
It’s not an amazingly incredible
story, but Chris Seaver is a huge Troma fan and had sent a
tape in pleading with Lloyd for a job. Lloyd asked me to
review the tape to see what I thought. I watched it and saw
that Chris knew what he wanted and had the drive to try and
make that happen, much like I did, so I told Lloyd we should
contact him. We weren’t hiring at the time, but we kept in
contact and I helped Chris get Lloyd into one of his films.
We became friends and I acted in and helped him produce a
few films, we got Debbie Rochon involved as I had worked
with her through Troma and the rest is history! It’s always
fun working with Chris and the LBP crew, their shoots have
definitely been some more the interesting ones I’ve worked
on, to say the least!
I have heard rumor that you had
a promotion involving smoking vaginas. I think the world
cannot rest until this is elaborated upon.
This was actually 2000 - 2001,
quite a long time ago…word gets around, huh? We were doing a
lot of live promotions for Troma and one of the things we
developed was the Ultimate Tromette Competition, where girls
would compete to become the Ultimate Tromette for a certain
city or town. There was a talent portion, and at an
all-night Tromathon in Long Island we discovered one very
talented lady that could smoke cigarettes and cigars with
her vagina. We liked her so much that we became friends and
she would come around to various live events, and if the
situation called for it, she would smoke. Good times.
How does a project like “Punk
Rock Holocaust” come about? That seems like a lot of work to
involve so many people.
After leaving Troma, I knew that I
wanted to direct a horror movie of my own, and since we were
working with the Warped Tour already the idea just came
together. We asked Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour founder) if he
was into the idea and he was all about it. He even helped us
recruit the bands. We set out to try and kill as many people
as possible and I think we did a pretty good job of
accomplishing that!
I don’t mean to imply Simple
Plan is a bad band or anything, but what’s the obsession
with them in the film? They seem to have by far the most
screen time.
Before we left for the tour, we
sent letters out to record companies and bands to see who
wanted to be involved and Simple Plan’s management was one
of the first who got back to us. It just worked out that
they were accessible enough to shoot as much as we did with
them. We were in a different state every day of the tour and
scheduling was a nightmare, so when we had an opportunity to
shoot something we did it!
Your next adult horror film (so
new that not even IMDB knows about it) is “Evil Head”. What
should we expect from this? “XXXorcist” was a dramatic
improvement over “Re-Penetrator” — will this likewise be
much more advanced?
Evil Head is going to be much
bigger and better than The XXXorcist, it will be the first
proper porno feature I am personally directing. Unlike Re-Penetrator
and The XXXorcist, Evil Head will have a lot more characters
and locations, and it will be a lot more bloody and
disgusting. Also, it will feature all the chainsaw sex and
tree rape that Sam Raimi would have included if he was a
porno director! It’s the Ultimate Experience in Sexual
Terror!
So far, your adult work has been
exclusively with Tommy Pistol and Joanna Angel (with special
thanks to Kylee Kross). How did the three of you meet and
will future productions (”Evil Head” and beyond) continue
with this combination?
I actually met Tommy Pistol through
Troma in 2001 (well before he was Tommy Pistol), when his
sketch comedy group “Cheese Theatre” submitted their videos.
I contacted them and we became good friends, he acted in a
few Troma productions and I helped them out with a few
sketches. In 2003, when Backseat Conceptions started working
with Burning Angel, Tommy mentioned he was looking to get
into the industry. Joanna was just about to shoot her first
movie for DVD release, so I introduced them and obviously it
worked out! We’re all good friends and we work very well
together so I’m sure you’ll see a lot more from us as a
team! Tommy is going to play the Ash character in Evil Head,
and Joanna will have a good role but she is not going to be
the main focus of this film. We’re looking to switch things
up a little so it doesn’t get too monotonous.
With your adult horror films,
what is the target audience? Are we supposed to be turned
on, repulsed or amused? I don’t know what you do in your
free time, Doug, but if a girl is vomiting blood, that’s
usually time for me to leave.
With the horror-pornos, it
initially started as a joke for Halloween in 2004. Joanna
saw Punk Rock Holocaust and wanted me to do something for
their website, so I did what I wanted to see… something I
thought people could have fun with. It was kind of a natural
progression for me, going from places like Troma and that
extreme to working in the porn industry, I wanted to combine
the two. I didn’t really think much about what the target
audience would be. Shortly after the release we found out
that there is a good amount of people who are into zombie
sex, people were hosting parties and having sleepovers
featuring screenings of the film! It even won an AVN Award
in 2006 for “Most Outrageous Sex Scene”! I love the varied
reactions we get for the film, whether you’re disgusted or
excited, you’re definitely affected in some way!
You recently (May 5, 2007)
completed the NYC Zombie Crawl. How did this drunken revelry
play out and when will Chicago or LA get a chance to join in
on the fun?
The NYC Zombie Crawl was a bloody
good time! We crawled from the east village to the west
village, bleeding and recruiting new zombies (and victims)
along the way! The event was inspired by a similar event we
attended, the Philly Zombie Crawl, and a love of all things
undead. After the Philly Crawl I was still craving brains
and did some research online…seeing that NYC did not have
anything like that going on (and being from NY) I figured
we’d get everyone to “bring out their dead”! We had a great
turn out and we plan on doing a lot more in NYC. There are
zombie walks going on all over the world, you just have to
know the right ghouls to get in on it! Check out
ZombieWalk.com, there is a message board that has news
on zombie events all over the world! And the NYC site is
NycZombieCrawl.com.
You have a new show called
“Strip for Pain”. I haven’t seen it, so you’ll have to do
your own publicity here: what is the show and how can the
sadists of the world get a glimpse of these ladies?
Strip For Pain is America’s Most
Dangerous Gamvdze Show, which pits three men up against the
girls of Burning Angel. The girls inflict increasing levels
of pain on the contestants (which include fire,
electrocution, whipping and much more), and if they can take
the pain, the girls strip. If a contestant can take the pain
all the way, the girls will take it all off and give the
winner a lapdance. We’ve been performing the show live in
nightclubs for the last four years, and recently, we just
finished a TV Pilot for the show, which is available on
BurningAngel.com and
HotMovies.com. You can get more info on the show at
StripForPain.com.
Have you had that moment yet
where someone you idolize actually tells YOU how much of a
fan they are of your work?
I’ve worked with a lot of people
who I was a fan of growing up, but I think the biggest
thrill so far has to be meeting Stuart Gordon (director of
Re-Animator) and signing a Re-Penetrator card for HIM! He
loved the idea and said he knows he’s made it now that one
of his movies has been made into a porno! Also, Adam Rifkin
(the Dark Backward, Detroit Rock City, etc.) is a fan of my
horror-porn work too…somehow I ended up talking to him on
MySpace of all places…
You have stated you’re a fan of
Takashi Miike, known for his excessive violence. Likewise,
“Punk Rock Holocaust” holds the record for most on-screen
kills. Would it be safe to say you’re a big fan of
(simulated) blood, gore and excessive violence?
Saying I am a big fan of blood,
gore and excessive violence is definitely an understatement!
My parents refused to let me watch horror movies when I was
younger, so of course I found a way to watch them… I still
remember the first time I saw Faces of Death…I think blood
is a beautiful thing, it’s very cinematic, and sexy girls
look even better covered in blood! It makes for great paint
too! Everything looks better bloody!
Alright, Doug. We’ve covered
vomiting, pornography, blood, gore, public intoxication and
more. Is there anything I left out that your fans should be
watching for in the future?
Aside from the new Strip For Pain
TV Pilot and Evil Head, I’m working on finishing up Punk
Rock Holocaust 2 for DVD and limited theatrical release,
that should be out in the fall. You can keep up to date on
PunkRockHolocaust.com. Also, I’ve been working on a
still photography series called “Post-Mortem Pinups”. It’s a
series of girls in their final death positions, either
through suicide or murder, “Femme Fatales in Fatal
Positions”. We’ve got girls that are dismembered, drowned
and hit by cars amongst many other ways to die. It started
as a hobby, but now it’s kind of an obsession. What can I
say…I like to kill people! You can check out the previews at
PostMortemPinups.com, we’ll have a lot more murder in
the coming months!! And of course you can keep up to date on
all our main production details at
BackSeatConceptions.com!
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Filmmaker
Doug Sakmann
