I first got into contact with Greg Lamberson a few months ago, when I asked for a promo copy of the cool "Johnny Gruesome" CD. Little did I know back then that Greg is not, as I first thought, a rock musician, but rather a B-Movie filmmaker and horror novelist. And since I'm a total horror nut myself, I took the chance and ordered a DVD copy of his late 80s splatter flick "Slime City" right away... I had never heard of that vintage low budget gem before, but from what I read on IMDB and certain review websites, the film sounded as if it would be totally up my alley. And what can I say, when I got the DVD and watched "Slime City", my expectations weren't disappointed at all!! This flick is totally kick ass and definitely deserves to be filed right next to other radioactive classics such as "The Toxic Avenger", "I Was A Teenage Zombie" and "Class Of Nuke 'Em High"!!

If you're into the gruesome and grotesque yourself, be sure to grab a bottle of beer, put on one of your old Ramones LPs and take some time to read this interview I recently did with Greg via MSN. He's been a helluva cool guy to talk to and the stuff he had to say should really be of interest for all B-Movie freaks, bookworms, indie filmmakers and other horror guys alike!!
 

Introduction
(Introduction · Filmmaking · Slime City · Slime City on DVD · Slime City Massacre · Greg's novels · Cheap Scares!)

Greg: Vie geht es inen?

I'm fine! Do you wanna do the interview in German? ;)

Greg: Nein!  I took one year of German in 1979, and 2 weeks in 1980.  All I remember is, "Ich heisse Fraulein Braun.  Schliessen sie das fenster!"

At least that’s more thanI remember from the Spanish courses I took two years ago. But anyway, here we go... in an interview with Rogue Cinema you once said that you’re a ”horror guy, plain and simple” and that your work as an artist will always be some kinda horror-related. Can you still remember when and how your fascination for the eerie, dark and macabre arose first?

Greg:  As far back as I can remember: my mother raised me herself, and we used to walk to a nearby movie theatre when I was 4 years old.  She'd buy me comic books, and in those comics were ads for a series of glow-in-the-dark monster models we had here, the Aurora line.  That did it: I cut out the ads and moved them around on my TV, then bought the models, then stayed up late to watch the movies that inspired them.

Can you still remember the very first horror film you ever watched?

Greg: PINOCCHIO GOES TO MARS!  I had a very liberal mother and I grew up with TV.  I saw episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, which creeped me out.  I'm going to guess that the first real horror flick I saw was DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE.  I was a Hammer kid, not a Universal Classics kid.

What is the special something that makes gothic novels and horror films so fascinating and enthralling? Why has your interest in the horror genre not ceased at all in round about three decades of being a fan, filmmaker, novelist and fanzine editor?

Greg:  I've always believed that horror, more than any other genre, allows people to experience raw emotion.  That's very powerful.  When I think of "gothic," I think of traditional gothic archetypes: the big house on the hill, the stormy cliffs, the abandoned castle...and these are evry romantic, classical concepts.  I've never outgrown horror because I love monsters, but I've never felt it was something I NEEDED to outgrow.  Horror continues in other adult entertainment forms as well, like crime dramas.  Everyone is afraid of something.
 

First steps as a filmmaker
(Introduction · Filmmaking · Slime City · Slime City on DVD · Slime City Massacre · Greg's novels · Cheap Scares!)

In the mid to late 80s you started to actively take part in the “industry” by working on the sets of cult classics such as “I Was A Teenage Zombie” and “Brain Damage”. What was it that made you chose to be not only a mere fan anymore, but also to actively contribute to the making of horror movies?

Greg: I knew as a child that I wanted to be a storyteller; first it was a comic book artist, then a stop motion animator.  When STAR WARS came out, I knew that filmmaking was the medium that incorporated all of those different approaches.  That was in 7th grade, and I knew from that point on that I wanted to go to film school and be a filmmaker.  Living in a small town before there was an internet, I knew nothing about independent films; that happened when I moved to New York City.  BASKET CASE was playing as a midnight movie and THE EVIL DEAD and THE DEADLY SPAWN both played at a theatre I managed.  As it turned out, I hated film school!  So I left after one year to make features, and got the Production Manager position on I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE.

What was it like to work with a horror icon like Frank Henenlotter, for example, and in what way did working on the sets of a film like "Brain Damage" help to improve your skills and knowledge as a filmmaker? What could a guy like Henenlotter teach you that your lecturers at film school couldn't?

Greg: Jimmy Muro, who went on to direct STREET TRASH, was a friend of mine in college (he didn't garduate either).  And Jimmy had worked as a Production Assistant on BASKET CASE, which made him a star in class.  Through him, my late comrade Peter Clark and I met Frank, who frequented a video store where we worked.  Frank and his producer, Edgar Levans, set me and Peter up with our entertainment lawyer so we could form The Slime City Company. 

So there was a relationship even before BRAIN DAMAGE, and I had--and have--enormous respect for him.  Peter and I actually shot SLIME CITY before we worked on BRAIN DAMAGE, and we delayed our post production so we could work on that film.  Frank is an incredible historian, and people stop whatever they're doing when he feels like telling a story.  He also knows exactly what he wants in terms of shots, which is rare; people say they know what they want, but they don't!  If I'd worked on BRAIN DAMAGE first, SLIME CITY would have been a better film.  My second film, UNDYING LOVE, released on VHS as NEW YORK VAMPIRE, but not yet available on DVD, has much better direction than SLIME CITY. 

I don't want to give the impression that I had poor teachers at The School of Visual Arts, though; I studied production with Roy Frumkes, who is a good friend now.
 

The making of "Slime City"
(Introduction · Filmmaking · Slime City · Slime City on DVD · Slime City Massacre · Greg's novels · Cheap Scares!)

Ah, I didn't know that you worked on "Brain Damage" after "Slime City"... but never mind, as you've just mentioned that flick (“Slime City”), let's talk about it a little bit. You wrote and directed it in 1986, as far as I know. What was it that finally made you take the step from working on other guy’s films (like "Plutonium Baby" and "I Was A Teenage Werewolf") to creating your very own piece of horror history?

Greg: Everyone thinks I worked on BRAIN DAMAGE first because it came out first; that was a $900,000 film, like STREET TRASH, so they had the money they needed to finish what they started.  SLIME CITY was a $50,000 movie, and I only had $35,000, so it took me two years to finish.  As soon as I left SVA I ahd a plan: I wrote SLIME CITY and told Peter, "We're going to make this movie." 

Then he and I worked on I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE specifically to learn how to make a feature, as opposed to the silent Super 8 films we made at SVA.  So SLIME CITY was the goal. After we finshied shooting the film, we worked on PLUTONIUM BABY for about two weeks, did some editing on SLIME CITY, and moved on to BRAIN DAMAGE.  So those four films really happened within a very short time span, with STREET TRASH going on in Brooklyn as well.

Though the budget of $50,000 (or even only $35,000) looks really, really tiny when compared to Hollywood’s standarts, it still seems like a helluva lot of money, if you consider the fact that you’d just been a 22 year old film student back then. How the hell did you manage to raise all that money for your project?

Greg: It was a different economy.  Home video was new and people paid $80 for big films and $60 for films they'd never heard of, which meant the stores were buying them for $60 and $40, and distributors were making a fortune. Peter and I—and our third partner, Marc Makowski—put up $20,000 between us and convinced friends and family to kick in the other $15,000, and then a foreign sales rep advanced us $20,000 on top of that.

If I understood it correctly, you mentioned in the audio commentary of “Slime City” that all the guys in the crew worked on the set for free. However, this includes not only friends of yours and first time actors, but also pros like “Splatter University” star Dick Biel, “Street Trash” director Jim Muro or “Class Of Nuke ‘Em High” special effects artists Scott Coulter and Tom Lauten. How did you get all those people to work for free on your project?

Greg: Jimmy offered to do a day of Steadicam for free as a favor.  Scott and Tom had a $7,000 SFX budget, and I'm sure they paid themselves something out of that, though not much.  And Dick Biel—I saw him just a few years ago—was like any other actor, willing to work so he could act and build up a reel.  Everyone was committed to the project and saw that they could get a good reel out of it.  I'm glad you recognize who Dick is! I wish I had credited him, "And starring Dick Biel as Irish O'Bannon!"

Yeah, I got a VHS copy of “Splatter University”... though I gotta confess I only recognized him cause you mentioned his involvement in that flick in the audio commentary. To be honest, “Splatter University” isn't exactly one of my fave films. I think they should have given that Wolf guy and the other teenagers more screentime. But anyway, back to “Slime City”....

In 1988 “Slime City” hit the big screens in New York for the first time. Though it just ran in cinemas for a few weeks and didn’t get a huge, nationwide release, it must still have been totally awesome to see your film being shown infront of a crowd on a big cinema screen. Can you still remember what it felt like to attend the very first public screening of “Slime City”?

Greg: The very first screening of SLIME CITY was the premiere at the Waverly Twin, where both BASKET CASE and I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE had their midnight runs.  It was a disaster!  The theatre rented a 16mm projector, but the projectionist was too lazy to move the 35mm projector out of the way, and half the screen was out of focus the whole time!  He'd adjust the image and the other half would go out of focus!  Seriously, one of the worst nights of my life--until UNDYING LOVE had its premiere in '92, and the projector's plug fused to a wall socket and shut us down for 45 minutes in the middle of the screening!

But the actual midnight run for SLIME CITY—at another theatre, the Bleecker Street Cinemas—was amazing: we played for six weekends, which was very respectable, and sold out four or five of them.  People laughed and screamed and walked IN during the middle (instead of OUT), and it was just wonderful.

In the following years the movie got released on VHS in the US and several other countries. Were these legit releases and did you ever get any royalties for sold VHS copies or were those tapes mostly bootlegs printed without your awareness and permission?

Greg: We had a legit VHS release in the U.S. with Camp Motion Pictures, which paid us an advance on the first 2500 copies—$13,000—then disappeared in the middle of the night before paying us the next $13,000 they owed us.  Our foreign sales—the ones we know about—were also legit, and we ultimately saw about $3,000 on those after our foreign sales rep recouped the $20,000 he advanced us and deducted his fees and percentages.  But he could have sold it to additional countries without us knowing it, or pocketed additional money; a lot of these guys are outright thieves.  When we went to his house to get our materials back, it was a MANSION with a two-level basement and a screening room—all paid for with the blood of indie filmmakers, I'm sure.

Just out of own interest I wonder if you know if there’s a German version of “Slime City” availible as well?

Greg: No!  But I'm not surprised.  I'd love to see a copy and find out the name of the distributor.  If they licensed it from POP Cinema/Shock-O-Rama, I'm owed money!  VHS, DVD, or TV?

No idea. I've never seen a German version of it... I was just asking because the German versions of 80s horror flicks are in most cases completely hilarious, because the translation is so bad. I'm  not sure if I'd still enjoy films like "Shock 'Em Dead", "I Was A Teenage Zombie" or even "Beast You" as much as I did, if it wasn't for the hilarious German audio layer. So if there'd ever be a German version of "Slime City" I'd definitly try to get hold of it...

Greg: Oh, I misunderstood.  I'm glad I didn't call the POP/Shock-O-Rama people fucking scumbag thieves, because I like them!   Germany was a tough market in the 80s, I don't know about now.  Every year or so Mike Raso from POP asks me if I still have an M & E track so he can sell some country, but I lost it years ago.  I keep saying, "So what?  They don't have subtitles?  Purists like subtitles!"

Hardly any movie gets released over here with subtitles only... the only one I can think of right now is "Necrofiles 2" and I don't think that one was a massive hit when it comes to sales... but anyway, here's one question I forgot to ask earlier on...

One aspect of “Slime City” that really impressed me were the tremendous splatter effects. While a lot of midnight movies from the 80s turn out much more “un-bloody” than expected, “Slime City” is a true feast for all gorehounds. Was it hard to realize all those effects, especially the ones of the big finale, on such a tight budget?

Greg: Well, the whole movie was a challenge, but I think $7.000--20% of the money we had to get the film in the can--was pretty good back then.  Scott and Tom were renting a house about a mile from the house I rented, where we shot the film, and they set up their workshop in the basement.  A guy named Gary Yee ran foam latex for them, and Dan Frye was their assistant and straight make-up guy.  A four-man team is pretty good.  But it was grueling, and it took us 5 days to shoot the ending--20 hour days.  I've always run very civil sets, so it wasn't like the dinner scene in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or anything; we were very professional and treated everyone well.  But it was HARD.
 

"Slime City" DVD on Retro-Shock-O-Rama
(Introduction · Filmmaking · Slime City · Slime City on DVD · Slime City Massacre · Greg's novels · Cheap Scares!)

A couple of minutes ago you've already mentioned the “Slime City” DVD on Shock-O-Rama. Please let me know some more detail about it. How did you get into contact with Retro-Shock-O-Rama and what was it like to work with them? Are you satisfied with the work and effort they put into releasing and promoting “Slime City”?

Greg: My second film, UNDYING LOVE, is a vampire thriller, sort of a downtown, downbeat film noir. It's my favorite film of mine and it was well reviewed during its midnight run.  But the video market changed drastically in 1990; nobody wanted low budget stuff anymore, nobody was paying anything, we went through one foreign sales rep after another.  Finally, we hooked up with E.I. Cinema in 1997 and they released it on VHS as NEW YORK VAMPIRE and did okay with it.  I'm not the perfect fit for them because I'm more interested in horror than they are, and they're more interested in nudity and goofy humor.  But I've known Mike Raso and Jeff Faoro for more than 10 years, I like them, I believe they like me, and we make the best use of each other that we can. 

They re-released SLIME on VHS for me in '99, the 10-year anniversary.  And then they put out SLIME on DVD.  I went out to New Jersey on my own dime and supervised the 16 x 9 transfer, giving the film proper framing.  For that alone I'll be eternally grateful.  Despite some wear and tear on the 16mm print we used, I think the DVD looks gorgeous.  And I'm happy with the DVD itself, with NAKED FEAR and my little documentary.  It's a nice package. 

And through POP I became friends with Paige Davis, who does their marketing, and Justin Wingenfeld (who directed SKIN CRAWL), who runs their warehouse, and other people at the company.  If they would only finance my films, I'd call it a happy little family, but as I said, we want to make different kinds of movies.  If they'd release UNDYING LOVE—under THAT title—I'd be happier.

The DVD version of “Slime City” features a different cut than the original 80s version. What are the main differences between both versions of the film?

Greg: The original version featured amateurish opening titles and out of focus ending titles!  A few scenes ran longer--30 seconds here, 10 seconds there--and I cut them down for a faster running time.  I also cut out some stuff that embarrassed me (and I obviosuly don't embarrass easily!).  Scott had this idea of gradually graying Robert Sabin's hair so that at the end he would have hair just like Zachary, the occultist who possesses him.  So we shot Robert's hair getting gray, but when we got to the ending the slime made the gray run out and it didn't matter!  When Mary Huner shows up at the ending for their big date, I had her make a joke about his hair, but I decided it was better to just not acknowledge it; instead, we open the scene with them making out on the sofa.  Then the next scene, with them in bed after having had sex off screen, featured the most embarrassing, coy dialogue I've ever written, so I cut almost all of that almost out.  So that last act is kind of abrupt—"Huh?  They had sex???"—but I don't care; we get to the climax faster.

Has the DVD release re-increased the interest in “Slime City” a lot? Have many people, who missed the film in the 80s, found out about it through the DVD?

Greg: Hell yes!  A week doesn't go by when I don't get fan mail on this thing.  A guy in Ireland and a guy in Spain both said the same thing: "I saw this when I was a kid, it was my first gore film so I've seen it 100 times!"  I go to conventions and young guys come up to me--sometimes with the DVD, sometimes with the original VHS tape--and tell me they love the film.  I don't take that lightly, it means a lot to me—they're the target audience.  The DVD came out two and a half years ago, and yet every time a new review goes up on-line it's always the same story: "I don't know how I missed this thing but I love it!"  Look, 20 years have passed, and I've never had an unrealistic view of the film: it is what it is, and you have to approach it with a certain attitude to appreciate it.  I'm thrilled that so many people have discovered it and like what we did so long ago, when we didn't have a clue what we were doing.
 

The long-awaited sequel: "Slime City Massacre"
(Introduction · Filmmaking · Slime City · Slime City on DVD · Slime City Massacre · Greg's novels · Cheap Scares!)

That's great to hear that the DVD version of the film is doing quite well... is that also one of the reasons, why you've finally started to work on the sequel, which will go by the title "Slime City Massacre"?

Greg: I never wanted to do a sequel before.  That foreign sales rep asked me to do one and I said, "For what budget?"  He said, "The same budget."  I said, "Forget it!"  I don't think the story warrants a sequel.  But 20 years after, the film is successful because fans today are re-discovering what fans had in the 80s: FROM BEYOND, BASKET CASE, FRANKENHOOKER--good low budget stuff with latex effects instead of CGI.  Subversive cinema made for a niche audience, by filmmakers with a rebellious streak who didn't want to soften their material just to get "the widest audience possible." 

This is SLIME CITY's 20th anniversary.  The actors and I have been showing it at film festivals, which has been a blast.  The fans asked for a soundtrack CD, so the composer and I produced one out of our own pockets.  The fans also asked for a sequel... and I started thinking... and came up with a story that I really, really like.  I pitched it to Robert and Mary at a film festival a couple of months ago and thought about it some more.  Then a writer friend offered me $10,000 to get it going.  That's a fraction of what I need to do this right—1/15 th!—but it was enough to get me to write the script, which I did in one week.

You've just mentioned that there's something about the old splatter classics of the 80s that almost all new horror films lack: that daring do-it-yourself approach with handmade effects instead of cheap computer effects and real passion of the filmmakers and other people involved instead of the mere will to multiply the budget... so i wonder if you'll go the oldschool way with "Slime City Massacre" as well and get the fans some vintage, oldfashioned effects, for example, instead of soulless CGI. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of new horror flicks, too, but in 90% of all cases it's the old B-movies that I prefer, cause they've just got that very special flair and magic...

Greg: SLIME CITY MASSACRE will be a celebration of the 70s and 80s styles of filmmaking that I love--that's the reason for doing it.  So most of the effects will definitely be old school.  This time, four characters get possessed instead of one--our heroes--and they'll each have very distinct latex appliances.  At the same time, we'll be combining old fashioned effects with newer techinques: a friend of mine, R.J. Sevin, who is a horror publisher, did an amazing test shot for me of one of the brains for this new version: he fashioned a brain out of materials he had handy, affixed two rods to it, made it crawl across his kitchen floor, and then erased himself digitally.  And he did all of this in just a few hours! So it will be the best of both worlds: latex appliances and rod puppets coupled with some green sceen and other digital techniques.  But you won't see any CGI Slime Heads.

That sounds really cool. I'll definitly keep an eye on “Slime City Massacre” and buy the DVD  when it's out. Do you already know when you'll start shooting?

Greg: Like I said, this just started coming together a month ago.  I've already got a script that I'm happy with, concept sketches and posters, SFX and music demos... but it takes money to make a movie, and this is a big, ambitious project in the low budget realm; I call it DAWN OF THE DEAD MEETS FRANKENHOOKER.  We've just put together our investment proposal and will start showing that around soon. 

I want to do this independently, without any executive producer or distributor telling me to change my script.  But as you know, the economy is the U.S. is looking very bleak so it may be hard to find the money we need, despite the excitement for this.  On the other hand, I have 3 books being published over the next 2 years, and that will definitely help get people to pay serious attention to this film's prospects.

I  really cross my thumbs and hope that you'll find some more investors soon. Would be totally awesome to see that movie being made. BTW, it might be a bit off-topic, but when you said that you're going to combine the best elements of oldschool B-movie filmmaking and modern techniques, I just had to think of the “Grindhouse” movies, that were released last year...

Though I gotta say that "Death Proof" bored the hell outta me, "Planet Terror" was one of the coolest and most well-made splatter films I've seen in years. Did you like that flick, too, and do you think that the success of such a vintage, "back to the roots" splatter film could also make it easier for you to find investors for "Slime City Massacre"? Though, of course, hard to compare those two projects to one another...

Greg: I have a 2-year-old daughter right now, and between taking care of her in the day and writing at night, I only see a couple of movies a year.  This year it was SWEENEY TODD and RAMBO ,and I loved them both.  I didn't see GRINDHOUSE, and they've released the features separately on DVD, which is bullshit.  I'll see them eventually, when they're paired up the way they're meant to be seen.

I held off writing the script for SLIME CITY MASSACRE for as long as I could, because I knew that once I committed the ideas in my head to paper the project would take over my life.  So I intend to make it, hopefully this summer.  But if I have to wait a year, until the books I mentioned are published, I will.

Remakes of 80s (and older) classics seem to be quite popular in Hollywood these days. If Lionsgate or some other studio would knock on your door tomorrow and offer you a $10,000,000 budget to remake the original “Slime City”, would you accept that offer?

Greg: I couldn't turn that down.  Who could?  Like I said, I have a 2-year-old daughter, and my lifelong obsession with creating horror has put me in debt, not a mansion.  But I'd rather they paid me $10,000,000 for SLIME CITY MASSACRE, because that's the movie I really want to make and see!

If you’d (re-)make a movie with such a budget, what would you change? What things would such a huge buget allow you to do, that you can't do with the budgets you're usually working on?

Greg: First of all, to get a budget like that you have to cast big name actors, and that eats up half your budget!  Then you have to shoot union, and that eats up more.  And before you know it, you're really making a $2.5 million movie.  But I'd do it in a minute—JOHNNY GRUESOME would make a great $10 million movie, and I won't be surprised if it becomes one.

Just in case it would really turn out that way, what big name actor would you cast as the "headbanger from hell", Johnny Gruesome?

Greg: The four main characters are all teenagers, so it would probably have to be whatever teenyboppers had a hot TV shot at the time.  I'd have to cast bigger names in the adult roles,I honestly have no idea who.  I wrote the JOHNNY GRUESOME screenplay back in 1984, after I wrote SLIME CITY, and refamiliarized myself with the characters when I wrote the novel.  That's 23 years that those people have been living in my head, so they look like real people to me, not actors.  In this case, I'd welcome a producer saying, "You HAVE to cast so-and-so, or there's NO DEAL!"
 

Greg's novels: "Personal Demons" & "Johnny Gruesome"
(Introduction · Filmmaking · Slime City · Slime City on DVD · Slime City Massacre · Greg's novels · Cheap Scares!)

Next to being a filmmaker, you’re also the author of the critically acclaimed horror novels “Personal Demons” and “Johnny Gruesome”. When and why did you first decide to become a novelist as well?

Greg: I made three micro-budget horror films: SLIME CITY, UNDYING LOVE, and NAKED FEAR.  They were all labors of love, made with very little money, and I'm proud of each one of them.  But none of them led to a filmmaking career for me.  I'm pretty confident of my writing ability, so I decided to take an unproduced script, THE FOREVER MAN, and turn it into a novel, PERSONAL DEMONS.  And that book is the best thing I've done.  It won the Anubis Award for Horror, which was judged by T. W. Wright, one of my favourite authors.  But it was published by a small press, so few people even know it exists. 

I’ve been to conventions where people have told me it's the best book they've ever read.  When you hear something like that, you have to believe you're on the right path.  JOHNNY GRUESOME was just published as a Limited Edition hardcover—250 copies, signed and numbered, illustrated.  The reviews have been excellent, but small press publishers have no money to promote their books.  All of that work falls on the authors. So I co-produced a rock CD, GRUESOME, based on the novel; and two on-line comics, which won Best Comic Book at the New York City Horror Film Festival, and a collectible mask—and I directed a music video starring Misty Mundae. 

And after all this work, a publisher called Medallion Press has acquired the book, and they're publsihing it as a trade paperback this October, and it will be available in bookstores all over the country, and eventually all over the world, and they're going to market the hell out of it, which is a first for me. They've also acquired PERSONAL DEMONS, which they're going to publish in October 2009, and they have first refusal on the novel I'm writing now.  So who knows?  I may make a career out of this yet.

If you compare writing a film script and writing a novel to each other, what are the main differences? And what kind of writing do you personally like better?

Greg: Screenplays are simple for me to write.  I've written a few now for other low budget filmmakers, who I charge very little because I write them so quickly.  Structure, characterization, story beats... these come to me very easily.  Writing novels is definitely more satisfying, though.  But the whole process of making a movie is more exciting.

I'd still like to know if you could ever pick only one of these two professions (writing and filmmaking) and abandon the other for the rest of your life?

Greg: I can write a novel and I don't have to worry about budget; all I need is time, and I can still have a family life.  And there's always a chance that I can sell a novel to Hollywood and possibly write a screenplay based on it.  I can start a novel, finsih it, and sell it to a publisher in one year's time—but not necessarily make a living at it. 

Or I can make an independent horror film and struggle 2, 3, or even 4 years to get it finsihed, and then worry about getting it distributed.  Based on my personal experiences, I believe I can still have the best of both worlds as a novelist.  There aren't a lot of people out there who can write novels AND make movies, so I think all of this hard work has the potential to pay off if I live long enough...
 

"Cheap Scares! - Low Budget Horror Filmmakers Share Their Secrets"
(Introduction · Filmmaking · Slime City · Slime City on DVD · Slime City Massacre · Greg's novels · Cheap Scares!)

Now it's a good time to talk about "Cheap Scares!", I think, cause actually this book kinda combines both of your professions, since it's some kinda instruction guide of how to make a lowbudget horror movie. When did you get the idea to write such a book and what filmmaking secrets will you share with your readers?

Greg: I toyed with the idea of writing an instructional book a couple of times, but dismissed the idea because it sounded like too much work and I don't have enough free time as it it.  Then a writer friend, Nick Mamatas (whose novella UNDER ONE ROOF was just published in Germany as Unter meinem Dach!) encouraged me to write a proposal.  I did, and the first publisher I submitted it to, McFarland & Company, picked it up.  50% of CHEAP SCARES! LOW BUDGET HORROR FILMMAKERS SHARE THEIR SECRETS is based on my own experiences, and the other 50% is in depth interviews with J.R. Bookwalter, Scooter McCrae, Roy Frumkes, Larry Fessenden, Brett Piper, some up and coming filmmakers, an entertainment attorney, a distributor, and a VP of marketing for another horror distributor.  It's a very thorough book, and one that I believe will be around for a long time.

As you just said, you've got a lot of cool people to contribute to “Cheap Scares!”, like e.g. J.R. Bookwalter (writer and director of “The Dead Next Door”) or Roy Frumkes (writer of “Street Trash”). How did you get those guys and all the others to take part in the making of “Cheap Scares!” and what was it like to work with them?

Greg: About two thirds of my interview subjects are friends or at least people I know, and the other third I approached cold.  As with this interview we're doing now, most filmmakers are willing to discuss their work.  Although I run a horror website, Fear Zone (www.fearzone.com), I generally don't conduct interviews. 

I bought a phone recorder and picked these guys' brains!  I spent at least three hours interviewing each one over the phone, and then I spent forever transcribing those interviews--and then I had to cut out two-thirds of each one or the book would have been 1,000 pages long!  Each one was great to speak to, but I was particularly pleased to finally "meet" Scooter McCrae.  We've run in similar circles for many years, and know some of the same people, and in talking to him I felt like we were kindred nutjobs.  But between the transcribing and assembling all of the photos, it was a huge undertaking, and I'll never attempt anything like it again.  I did get to put together my "dream team" of horror filmmakers, though, which was really cool.

If you’d chose one more guy (no matter how famous) to take part in “Cheap Scares!” as well, whom would you chose? Why?

Greg: I would choose the one person who turned me down: Frank Henenlotter!  Frank is a very private person and I respect that he wishes to remain that way.  He was on the fence when I asked him, because he was going into or coming off BAD BIOLOGY.  He said he's do it when the film was finished, which would be now, but that was too late for my deadline.  But he IS represented in the book, both through my anecdotes and Scooter McCrae's, and I have several photos from FRANKENHOOKER because I interviewed James Lorinz and Stephen Biro, the president of Unearthed Films. 

There is another person I’d include as well: Don Dohler, who died last year.  His magazine CINEMAGIC and some of his films like THE ALIEN FACTOR were real inspirations to my generation. He had agreed to participate, but sadly died.  His son Greg was kind enough to let me use some photos of him, though, and several of my other subjects speak kindly of him.

I personally am quite a fan of those lowbudget filmmaking do-it-yourself books... two of my very faves are “ Make Your Own Damn Movie!” and “Rebel Without A Crew”. If I’ve already read those two books, what could “Cheap Scares!” still teach me that I haven’t already learned from Lloyd Kaufman, Robert Rodriguez and Co?

Greg: I found the Rodriguez book really entertaining, but something of a fantasy, especially in today's climate.  CHEAP SCARES! cracks low budget horror filmmaking from creative partnerships to marketing finsihed films.  It covers the business and legal end of things, and really concentrates on two areas where I feel most low budget filmmakers are weak: storytelling and marketing. 

I devote a chapter to screenwriting, and then I discuss screenwriting with each of my subjects; I devote a chapter to an interview with an entertainment attorney; a chapter to a film distributor; a chapter to a VP of marketing.  All of this in addition to really interesting filmmakers discussing their careers and offering advice of their own. 

I think it's a real inspiring piece of work, and yet I don't paint a rosy picture of the business to sell more books; the market has become incredibly glutted because so many people are making mini-DV films, and the distributors aren't paying anything for this stuff.  I tell it like it is, and no one else is doing that in books like this right now.

I know what you mean, as I said, I really enjoyed Rodriguez' book but nevertheless you're right that it reads almost like a fairytale and maybe one upstart filmmaker out of a million will make a similar career...

Greg: That was also a different time, when indie films were hot and you felt like these guys could do anything.  For about five years, it was another Golden Age in terms of quality and innovative ways to raise money.  But the corporations get their hands on everything sooner or later, including "independent filmmaking."  There's nothing more independent than being a micro-budget horror filmmaker. 

If the situation's that bleak, what would you say, why should filmfans from all over the world still pick up cameras and make their own movies, even if that means they've got to sacrifice a lot of their spare time and money, always being well-aware of the fact that they'll most likely not even make back the few hundreds or thousands of bucks they've invested in a new camera and boom mike... what is the magic of indie films and indie filmmaking?

Greg: I interviewed a kid named Justin Channell.  He made his first feature, a vampire comedy called RAISING THE STAKES, when he was 16—for $110.00!  He made his second film, a hip indie zombie comedy called DIE AND LET LIVE, when he was 17 or 18, for $1,000—and it was picked up by a distributor!  He beat the odds because he made a good, funny movie with a real original quality to it. 

What I stress over and over in CHEAP SCARES! is that low budget horror filmmakers can only succeed one way: by making good movies.  And that's why I spend so much time on story, because that's the key to making a good movie.  A bad director can make a decent movie out of a good script, but a good director can't make a souffle out of shit.

I totally agree with you in this point. I watch quite a lot of movies, I guess, and I can hardly think of anything with a bad story and boring characters, that turned out halfway decent nevertheless... this goes for multimilliondollar features like the horrible "Ultraviolet" as well as for short clips on youtube...

So I personally am really glad to hear that you put so much focus on storytelling in your book. With software like “After Effects” & co, almost everyone can do a realistic headshot or a fancy light sabre duel on his computer, but telling a coherent and enthralling story is a completely different pair of shoes...

Greg: Yeah, a lot of filmmakers pay the least amount of attention to the foundation of the whole enterprise.  Who CARES if you can generate a mile-wide mothership on your laptap?  That's boring after 5 seconds.

The good thing about this surely is that there are lots of people out there (me included) who'd really do themselves a favor if they'd buy your upcoming book. Can you already say when it will be out?

Greg: I finished it a couple of months ago, and McFarland is editing it now.  It's a BIG book, with a lot of photos and sample screenplay pages.  They haven't given me a publication date yet, but I've suggested they take advantage of all the promotion Medallion is going to do with JOHNNY GRUESOME in October.  They know their business better than I do, though, so they'll determine the best time to publish it.  The good thing is they get their books into libraries all over the world, and they keep them in print for a long time.

That sounds awesome. I'm sure that after having read that interview quite a few of our readers might be quite interested in that book, as well as your other works. What would you say is the best way for them to stay up to date about any news on your books, movies, etc?

Greg: My main website is www.slimeguy.com, which links to www.johnnygruesome.com, where people can read the JOHNNY GRUESOME comics, watch the GRUESOME music video, and sample some of the GRUESOME CD songs.  I also send out a monthly newsletter, The Gruesome Gazette, which covers all of my publishing and film news, and people can sign up for that at either site.  The Gazette is really the easiest way to keep track of me. 

If I'm not mistaken, we're already chatting for almost three and a half hours now. so probably it's good to come to an end soon. so, as a last question, I wonder if there's anything that you always wanted to be asked in an interview, but never have been asked so far. If so, here's your chance to ask that question to yourself and answer it!

Greg: The question I'm dying to be asked is, "Where were you when America's Nightmare finally came to an end and George Bush's presidential term came to an end?" But I don't know the answer to that yet...

Thanks for your time and effort, Greg! Are ther any famous last words you’d still like to share?

Greg: Unfortunately, the only words I'm famous for are, "You crazy bastard!"

Questions: March 2008 by Tobi
Answers: March 2008 by Greg Lamberson