The Count Gore De Vol Interview

Conducted By: Justin Bozung
Host Of The Mondo Film Podcast

Dick Dyszel aka Influential horror television host Count Gore De Vol is a living legend.  Beloved by millions of horror kids that grew up on the east coast in the 70's and 80's, Dick created one of the greatest horror hosts that ever graced the television airways.

 Over the years, Dyszel has also ran a slew of other characters down your local television antenna.   He created the classic, children's show host Captain 20. Dyszel also carried on the namesake M.T. Graves prior to creating Count Gore De Vol.  Dick also followed in the steps of NBC Today Show mainstay Willard Scott, and took on the role of the red haired, Bozo The Clown.  Over the last 15 years, Dick's been running strong, he was the first horror host to take his show onto the internet for everyone to watch many years ago during the dial-up age. Setting a trend that is so common today -- people need not grab their remote control any longer to check out any horror host imaginable.

In 2010, Dyszel and Count Gore De Vol were the subject of a wonderful documentary film directed by C.W. Prather, EVERY OTHER DAY IS HALLOWEEN. Dyszel also took part in the 2010 Horror Hound convention, horror host reunion, which featured the largest assembly of horror hosts in one spot on planet earth.   After years of hard work, Dick Dyszel is finally getting the acknowledgement he deserves.

JUSTIN: You grew up in Chicago, what made you wanna get involved with television and radio?

DICK DYSZEL:  I loved television.  At an very early age, I had a television in my room.  I had an uncle that was a television repair man.  As a kid, I was also taping myself doing radio plays. I've always been interested in media

JUSTIN: Were you around Chicago during the '68 Democratic convention riots?

DICK DYSZEL:  Actually, I was working.  I had to make a delivery to the hotel the day after.  I was a college kid with long hair, and I was working at a printing firm, and I was supposed to deliver the voting ballots. I was a little nervous. I went down there, and there was smoke all over, and blood on the sidewalk.

JUSTIN: How did you make the move from Chicago, into Kentucky where you created the M.T. Graves  character?

DICK DYSZEL:   It's just like anything else.  I went to college at Southern Illinois.  So you have to go where the jobs are.  I went to school down there, and we had first crack at the markets there when jobs opened up. I worked for a while in southern Missouri as a D.J at a country and western station. About six weeks in, I started to hate the music.  A friend of mine in Kentucky told me about a job opening, so I called and hassled the guy, and I got hired.  The radio station had a construction permit for a T.V station, and I wanted to work in television.

JUSTIN:  So how did you develop the M.T. Graves?

DICK DYSZEL:  Well you have to understand something.  There was no internet.   I was from Chicago, and I didn't even now that Jerry Bishop was doing Svengoolie back in Chicago, and I was at school just six hours away! So when I saw the movie intro's at the T.V station for a film called NIGHT OF TERROR with M.T. Graves, I just decided, why re-invent the wheel, they're already familiar with M.T. Graves. We only did the character for a year.

I was anchoring the news at 10 p.m. on Saturday night.  So I had only twenty minutes to get into the Graves make-up and jump into the coffin.  And that started to wear thin on me.

One night, I was doing the news, and I had a really bad headache. I just wanted to take a nap, so I went into the prop room, and there was this coffin, so I just got in and tried to take a nap.  So I laid in it, and the station manager's wife was visiting, and she walked into the prop room, and she opened the coffin lid, and there I was laying there, and she just screamed.

JUSTIN:  Was it difficult for you to transition from M.T. Graves into Bozo and Captain 20 over the course of those character's runs?

DICK DYSZEL: Not really. Bozo came first. It was my first acting gig. I had to go to Bozo training for a week down in Dallas, Texas.  It was cool.  To switch between Bozo and Captain 20 was easy.  Bozo was copyrighted, so you had to act a certain way.  The others where mine.  My wife just told me that Count Gore  is an extension of my own personality. 

Sooner than later, we got rid of Bozo, and I started focusing on Captain 20.  That character was responsible for the length of my career.  When  you change owners at a television station, the new owners want to play games.   And they fire everyone. But Captain 20 was so popular, that they couldn't just let me go.  Captain 20 saved my bacon!

JUSTIN: One thing I was disappointed with in the EVERY OTHER DAY IS HALLOWEEN (2010) documentary was that you never had a "low" point.  Like Count Gore involved in Thai hooker scandal or something like that.

DICK DYSZEL:  There wasn't any.  Back in the early Captain 20 days, some reporter tried to do me in, but couldn't, it was nothing.  One thing I've always tried to do was keep my professional and personal life separate. I mean, people  I went to church with had no clue what I did for a living.   That was fine with me.  I just wanted to have fun, do my job, make a little money, and live my life.  Did you know that Willard Scott was our first Bozo?  He got fired, cause he broke the Bozo rule. Which is something you never let people know, Bozo's identity.  Cause there is only supposed to be one Bozo.

JUSTIN:  Where did the actual name Count Gore De Vol come from?

DICK DYSZEL:  I get asked that often.  People say, that I ripped off the author Gore Vidal.  Maybe I did, maybe I didn't.  I walked into the station manager's office one day, to talk.  I saw on his desk a book about Lincoln written by Gore Vidal.   We talked about changing the M.T Graves name.  So we fussed about it for a few minutes.  Then finally I just said, " I don't care, how about umm...Count Gore De Vol."  And he loved it.  Now if the book influenced my thoughts, I don't know, I had never read any of his books, but I did every day drive past a funeral home named the Devol Funeral Home for two years?  I don't know....

JUSTIN: How did you get involved with Don Dohler and the film NIGHTBEAST (1982)?

DICK DYSZEL: Well, originally that film started out as a film called, THE ALIEN FACTOR (1976)..  I was tied in with the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. I was helping to promote them.  I met Don through them.  So I had Don on the show, and we have fun.  We started talking about the fact that they are making their own film.  So off camera, jokingly, I said, "How come you didn't ask me to be in your movie?"   So we started talking, and Don re-wrote the part of the mayor in the movie, and we did it.  It was fun, and it created a long friendship with Don.   So I did the mayor in THE ALIEN FACTOR and NIGHTBEAST.

JUSTIN: You sell Count Gore shows on your website.  And there are a ton of collectors out there that swap your shows collector to collector, do you know if any of your Captain 20 shows are still out there?

DICK DYSZEL:  There are clips on You Tube.  Some of them are from the later 80's shows.  People used to record their kids on the show.  You have to understand, until 1980 there where no real Captain 20 shows.  He was just a segway character that appeared in promos. All the Captain 20 stuff in the EVERY OTHER DAY IS HALLOWEEN is all there is.  Well,  I may actually have one complete show somewhere.  

In those days, no one cared about archiving this stuff.  It wasn't until 3/4 tape came out in like '76 that people realized you could put something of quality into archive.  And even back then 3/4 tape was like fifty dollars.  This happens at the networks too.

JUSTIN: How has television changed in the last 20 years?

DICK DYSZEL:  The only constant thing in life is change.  Technology changes fast.  The only change that upset me, was like back in the mid 80's.  The management of the station universally dropped almost all types of production people, and hired only employee's that are geared toward marketing and sales.

JUSTIN: How did you have the foresight to predict that internet horror hosting would be popular?

DICK DYSZEL: Well, as you know, my Count Gore show was the first on the web to stream.  I really didn't have a clue that it would take off.  People were finding me online. Sending me things like, "Why don't you start a Count Gore site?"  So I started looking around, and I kept finding horror host tribute sites.   So a friend of mine created a site for me.  And I really liked the site, but it was still a tribute site.  And I wanted it to have some interaction.   So I started thinking "Can I do my show on the internet?"  At that time you really couldn't cause of the bandwith limitations.   So we decided to do audio at  CountGore.com.   I went to conventions and started interviewing people, and streaming the audio on my site. 

I had to learn web design too.  So I started teaching myself web design, and I was interested in the internet.  So as the internet speeds got better, we started to upload small videos, and then as it got faster and faster, this has enabled us to do full shows on the web.

JUSTIN:  Did you ever think years back that all this time later, you'd have an impact on people's lives?

DICK DYSZEL:  No. I was just hired to do a job.  When people contact me know, I tell them, thanks, cause I didn't know there was anyone on the other side of the camera!

JUSTIN:  Over the last five to eight years, there's been a real interest in horror hosts again.  Can you share some thoughts on how and why that happened?

DICK DYSZEL:  It all comes down to the internet.  There's always been hosts.  Before the net, even in the host downtime, there was always public access hosts.  But with the internet, all these people started popping up, saying that I'm doing this over here, and other there.  So I started telling people that they should keep going.  At the Horror Hound convention in Indianapolis in April 2010, it was so amazing to see 83 horror hosts all in the same building.  How incredible.  It's access, internet, syndication across the U.S.A.  The websites are great.  It's incredible, the energy, professionalism, these hosts are putting in.

JUSTIN:  What do you think the appeal of the horror host is?

DICK DYSZEL:  Well, people wanna be on television. Some people are actors and entertainers by nature. Most of these folks are also great musicians.  I'm not, and it makes me wanna cry.  I can't play an instrument worth a darn.   So it's the perfect outlet.  The need to perform.  And being a host gives them a secure outlet, with support from others.

JUSTIN: Are you the greatest horror host of all time?

DICK DYSZEL:  Oh God No.  I don't think there is a greatest. There can't be a greatest. How can you define that? You're looking at a very small world.  I'd say Zacherle is the best.  He's the sole survivor of the first generation. He's still active. He was in Famous Monster's magazine, he's recorded horror albums.  I mean, c'mon. I've just been lucky. I was in the right place at the right time.

REVENGE OF THE TRAILER - EPISODE 4

How can there be a god in this world with so much evil surrounding us?.....

It's with this question that I bring you Exorcist III aka Legion (1990).   Following the mega success of the 1973 William Friedkin directed The Exorcist, Warner Brothers approached Friedkin and William Peter Blatty about a sequel, but they went their separate ways after a disagreement on the direction of  a possible sequel.  

Exorcist III, is a film that few people saw on it's initial theatrical release, but one that critics gave favorable reviews to.  With the release of Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977, many a communal tongue was weary of experiencing this 3rd film / minor masterpiece years later, and Exorcist III still as of today have yet to find an audience to appreciate it's incredible and mysteriously dark atmosphere, surreal and scary as hell religious imagery and it's many motifs on good and evil. Originally part of a trilogy, Exorcist III would have been the direct sequel to William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration (1980).

The story of the making of Exorcist III is just as interesting as the film itself. It's the classic tale of art versus commerce which still continues to make big strides today via the Hollywood studio.  In this perhaps, too long of an episode of Revenge Of The Trailer, Justin Bozung explains the inspiration behind the film, it's sorrid production, as well as the battle between the film's director William Peter Blatty and studio 20th Century Fox prior to it's release.   With too much to cover in this episode.  Please check out the below extra goodies.

BONUS: The first trailer for the film which still has the film's original title, Legion.   View Here.    The only known footage from the film that was cut that hasn't been "lost".  Watch for it at the end of the trailer. It's the footage of the head of Jason Miller as "Patent X" morphing.   It was cut, as the special effects were considered "horrible" by Blatty during the editing of the film. View Here.

Film As Art: An Interview with Basket Case's Kevin Van Hentenryck

Conducted By: Justin Bozung
Host Of The Mondo Film Podcat

JUSTIN:  What was the driving force for you wanting to become an actor originally?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  The driving force was...I was good at it. I enjoyed it... Most of us are trapped in our own little sphere, and acting is kinda a way to escape that, even briefly you know. What got me into acting, was this girl that I liked, that I had a crush on, and I heard she was in plays. So I said "Well, I could be in play's" so it was a way to meet her and get to know her. And I did. The play we were in together was the last play she actually did, but I was hooked.

JUSTIN:  So basically you got into acting to get a piece of ass?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  To get close to the girl... And that never happened of course, so the rest is kinda history

JUSTIN:  So how did you originally become connected with Frank Henenlotter and get the opportunity to star in Basket Case?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  Well, the girl who actually played the social worker with the glasses in Basket Case, her and I were going out. While I was going to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, she was the register there. She had said a couple of times, "There is this filmmaker friend of mine you should meet." So I did, and we got along really well. I did several parts in an earlier short film of his that never got any distribution, called Slash Of The Knife. My memory of it now is that, Frank was using friends and people he knew in his projects, like "Hey, put down that light, and come in the door and say this!" I was trained as an actor, and I guess he liked the result. So I started giving him a hard time, telling him he should use student actors. I had said "You'll get better results, and they'll do it just for the experience."  Shortly after that, he called me up, and said, "I've got this other film, and that turned out to be Basket Case. 

JUSTIN:  When you read Frank's script for the first time, what were your initial thoughts on the character? Did you have a clear idea in regards to how you'd approach the Duane Bradley character?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  Well, I've never asked Frank about this specifically and I probably should, but it seems to me like it was written for me. Or for someone like me. It was very close to what I was like, or part of what I was like. It seemed really easy to me. When the fit is right, it works. And you don't have to labor it.

JUSTIN:  When you read the script, how did you feel about the nude scene. And looking back, how do you feel about it now?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  That wasn't in the original script. We spent a long time filming, cause we had no money. So we did half days, cause we couldn't afford to feed the crew lunch. We worked on Saturdays. We'd film some, and then Frank would put together a rough cut of the footage to show people to get more money. Then we'd do some more. And do it again. And, I'm not really sure of the timing anymore, but at one point Frank had this idea for that sequence of me running through the streets nude. As it related to my brother and his escapades, it seemed to me a perfectly natural thing to do. Frank, of course, was right about that and it worked very well.  That scene wouldn't be nearly as effective without that. We did it in February down by my loft in Tribeca, and it was cold as shit. So I was freezing, and it was in the middle of the night. Back then Tribeca was this abandoned derelict old factory neighborhood, so it wasn't too difficult to pull off. It was just very cold and uncomfortable.

JUSTIN:  I have a fantasy rolling around in my head that there is a secret outtake or blooper of you falling during the filming of that sequence.

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  Ouch...fortunately no! 

JUSTIN:  Do you have a favorite memory or experience from shooting the first film?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  You know...Just that it continues to have life, legs, and it reaches people. That we, on almost no budget on 16mm were able to put together a film, that in spite of itself, continues to reach people.  That's the most amazing part of Basket Case.

JUSTIN:  With some time off between Basket Case and Basket Case 2, was it difficult for you to continue on with the Duane Bradley character so many years between them?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  Not really, cause even though I'm not Duane, Duane is me. Actually it was a lot of fun cause we had a bigger budget on two and three, then we did on the first film. We were able to give it a more professional look cause we shot it on 35mm. And, you know it was actually really good, that element of it.

JUSTIN:  Of all three Basket Case films, which one is your favorite?  And now that the story has more or less come full circle, would you consider doing a part four if that opportunity was available to you?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  The first film is my all time favorite... For a lot of reasons, you know one of the things that I tell people about my sculpture. Stone carving takes a long time. I often tell people, cause they ask me "Doesn't it bug you to work on the same thing for a long time?" We did a Rip Van Winkle that took us fourteen years to carve, it's at the top of Hunter Mountain here in New York state. We did it for the summer festival here, and people would watch us. So I always tell people, the longer I work on something the better it is. Because you have more time to consider it and you get to view it from different lights and from different emotional perspectives.  

Plus, the work itself teaches you how to do the work in a funny kinda of a way. Yes, I've often thought that I'd love to do a fourth one, in fact I have a treatment partially written for a fourth one. If I ever did it, it would be -- the twins now but my age. And how they're kinda settled into a life, and there is a set of female twins with their own twisted story.  And one of the primary elements of the fourth one, would be the fact that Belial was never really a character but a caricature.  I would play Belial in the fourth one and we would fully develop his character and the interaction between the brothers.

JUSTIN: In Basket Case 2 and Basket Case 3, your face is featured in the Belial character.  Was that a difficult process to undergo?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  They always took casts of my face. And they would use those to produce the different Belial's, the stunt Belial, the hero Belial ect.. That's a cool process, watching the guys who create that stuff,

JUSTIN:  Well, I'll just be direct and tell you that I have an idea for the fourth Basket Case film.  I envision Duane and Belial going west!  Hear me out on this....The two brothers travel back in time to the old west.  Can't you just see them with cowboy hats on, and riding on horseback up a trail and into the sunset.  Or maybe Belial has a pistol duel in the streets with someone?  Or what about a montage of someone trying to teach Belial to lasso a calf?  I'm thinking we should call it... Basket Case 4: Giddy Up

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  Oh my god..You're a sick man!

JUSTIN:  You're a full time self taught rock sculptor now. In a previous conversation, you had told me that you already had your mind set at becoming a sculptor before you even started to work on Basket Case, right?  

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  Yeah, that's true.

JUSTIN:  You also mentioned to me that your inspiration for becoming a sculptor was when you saw the Ken Russell film, Savage Messiah (1972).  What was it about that film that inspired you?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:   It wasn't so much that film, but during the course of that film they had that actor who played Henri Gaudier and in one scene he has to produce this piece of sculpture to show someone in the morning.  So they steal a gravestone, and they work all night.  In the scene they show a close up of actual carvers hands working a block of stone. I was so turned on to and by the idea of a rock as a plastic medium that for the next several weeks...I...the school I went to was right around the corner from Sculpture House, a sculpture supply place. So I spent a couple weeks, just walking by and looking in the window.  Then I worked up my nerve to walk in. I looked around, and walked out.

Finally I got some money together, walked in, and actually spoke to a sales girl and I started asking her every question I could think of about the tools, stones, and how you do it. I bought a basic set of three chisels and a hammer and I found a rock on the street somewhere and I just started banging on it! What really has propelled me since that moment is the first time I touched steel to stone. Epiphany is too light of a word for it. I had this incredible experience, that this was what I was meant to do. It's like I had angels swirling around my head. And it's a absolute certainty of something, that's really rare in life.  And that's driven me forward since.

JUSTIN:  You're also a musician as well. Have you always been interested in music?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  I've been playing guitar for a long time. I'm a singer and performer, but I could never find someone to play guitar like I wanted so I just ended playing the guitar as well. For years I did the club scene in lower Manhattan, never really got anywhere with it.  I did put together a lot of bands that never really went very far. I'm actually doing a thing up here where I'll be playing on the local radio station in the not too distant future. Plus I still play some small local gigs occasionally.

JUSTIN:  Growing up in Detroit, were you influenced by any of the famous Detroit musicians / groups that were around before you left for New York City for college?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  You know, I had a couple experiences early on, that I'm sure affected me. When I was very young I went to the Michigan State Fairgrounds. I went to meet girls. But there was a triple bill under the tent this one night and the first act was Bob Seger, but not the Silver Bullet Band  It was before. Then it was Alice Cooper's band, but they were just awful and everyone left. Then Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels came on and everyone came back and the tent was jumping. Another time I was dating this girl, and we went to see Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes at this VFW hall in west Detroit, and the stairs had these ramps on them.  So we walked in, and the whole place was filled with members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and their motorcycles. We were the only non-bikers there. They gave us a hard time, but after a few minutes they left us alone. It was a good time. So I must have be influenced by Detroit.

JUSTIN:  When you moved to New York City, did you get into the music that was being produced there at the time?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  I wasn't too serious about my music when I was in Detroit. It wasn't until I got to New York City, that I got really interested in music. I started to go back and examine my early influences. What I do know, what I tell people is that my music is a cross between early Patti Smith, a hint of AC/DC with a pinch of Gordon Lightfoot to season. This should convince people that I'm outta my mind!

JUSTIN: You've got a CD of your music, that you self produced that's available on your website. Are there any plans to do another?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK: You know if it worked out I'd love to do music too. As you get more into things, you discover how much time they take up. I used to try to do the acting, the music, the sculpting, but I had two kids and that was a wonderful detour. Now that my kids are older, maybe I can return to that. My oldest daughter is away at college, studying acting. She's a natural. I had to work at acting, but she's a natural..

JUSTIN:  Last question. Kevin, what's in the basket?

KEVIN VAN HENTENRYCK:  Well, perspective is everything. Some would say the other self, the alter ego, the dark half. One of the things that makes Basket Case work is that it has these archetypes in it. Everyone has another side to themselves. There is a public side, that's socially acceptable and we all have that other side that we aren't comfortable with. Or, that others aren't comfortable with. That's -- what's in the basket! The parts of us that we keep hidden, that we feel that others won't understand or accept!

For more on Kevin Van Hentenryck please visit his official website here, and follow him on Facebook here.  For more interviews with Justin please visit his official website here.

REVENGE OF THE TRAILER - EPISODE 3

Fans of the GGTMC have asked for sex, seduction, mullets, country western music and something cinematic that features a cameo by the legendary Mick Fleetwood.  This week, Shock Cinema Magazine's own and host of The Mondo Film Podcast Justin Bozung brings you a chord or two about the 1994 southern Texas noir, Saturday Night Special. 

Produced by Roger Corman and directed by Dan Golden, Saturday Night Special is the tale of a honky tonk musician named Travis (Fleetwood Mac's Billy Burnette), who drifts into a small town in the middle of nowhere Texas and takes a job at a bar as their featured musical attraction.  Enter the sexy Darlene (Maria Ford), the beautiful and submissive wife of the rowdy, fishing obsessed and abusive bar owner, T.J. (Rick Dean).  In true film noir fashion, Darlene seduces and sexes Travis into getting rid of her husband, so the two can live happily ever after.   But as is noir tradition, the plan doesn't works out as fate is a real motherfucker. 

In true Corman fashion, Saturday Night Special and it's story was one that Corman produced three times in the early/mid '90s. Corman originally produced the story in 1991 under the title, Kiss Me A Killer.  He would remake Killer as Saturday Night Special, and then again remake the story taking it out of the honky tonk and placing it into a seedy Los Angeles strip club in 1996 calling it The Showgirl Murders.  The amazing Maria Ford would star in both Saturday Night Special as well as The Showgirl Murders. With lots of soft sex, great music, a great cast, and a visually gifted director, Saturday Night Special is part of an essential and still undiscovered genre that fans of the GGTMC will fall in love with following investigation.

While many today are focusing on the late '70s and early '80s horror/sci-fi and exploitation films of the great Roger Corman (thanks to Shout Factory!) no attention has yet been given to the Corman '90s, as this decade of his prolific career and his direct-to-video output is must see. I've dubbed it.. naked noir.

MVT:  The cast, in particular the performances of Rick Dean and Maria Ford.  Ford is one of the most under-rated actresses of her era.  There is a specific and unexplainable innocence that radiates from her as well as a strong and powerful oozing sensuality that will leave any audience pleading for more. Ford is that girl next door that became the cheerleader in your high school that you fantasized about doing very dirty sexual things to.  On initial viewing of Saturday Night Special, Ford's performance at times could be construed as transparent (at the fault of the screenplay), but given the traditional conventions of film noir and the femme fatale aesthetic, Ford becomes a sort of anti-femme in that her performance contributes to the transcendence of the genre's character limitations.   Unlike Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944) or Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Ford as Darlene doesn't solicit male sympathy (as is traditional pattern) from her victim(s), she seduces with purely deviant sexuality and perverts the traditional role into that of becoming a living and breathing "glory hole" for the Travis character. 

These characters have no redeeming social or moral values and the audience doesn't have the want to care for any of them.  This is what makes Saturday Night Special a true standout.

Rick Dean.  The Marlon Brando of B cinema.  Dean, while relegated to playing the "heavy" in everything he worked on during his lifetime, is an incredible character actor who left this earth too early.  Big, brash, greasy and full of self destructive demons, Dean was a unbelievable talent that never got his due.   Both Ford and Dean should have been A-list actors working on bigger projects.

MAKE OR BREAK:  Dan Golden.  Without the visual style of director Dan Golden, Saturday Night Special would be as forgettable as it's first incarnation, Kiss Me A Killer.   Golden is a truly under-rated filmmaker.  Saturday Night Special comes to us with great art direction, cinematography and editing.  With Golden behind the camera, Ford and Dean pushing the story, you can feel the soft core heat coming off your television as if it's a cheap space heater about to burn down your house. Keep a flame extinguisher near by, and for the love of God check out the other films from the Corman/Golden/Ford/Dean team. In particular, Naked Obsession (1989), and Stripteaser (1995), which the later is the greatest B-movie ever made.

REVENGE OF THE TRAILER - EPISODE 2

It's been called a "joyless experience", but I beg to differ.   In this latest installment of Revenge Of The Trailer, Shock Cinema magazine contributor and the host of The Mondo Film Podcast, Justin Bozung, talks about the 1969 "comedy" The Maltese Bippy starring Dan Rowan & Dick Martin.

So when Bippy came out in 1969, it was destroyed by the critics, and it literally drove it's audience out of the theaters.  Of course, when you have two comics, who at the end of the '60s had the absolute hippest and politically poignant comedy series on television there's not much else you can do but give them a movie.  Bippy has a Skidoo (1968) feeling to it, and I think you'll feel the same way, in that you too will be wondering exactly how did something like this even get made in the first place?

It makes complete sense that a studio should give Rowan & Martin a G-rated vehicle in which they star as fast-talking porno film producers who get evicted from their NYC studio and have to relocate to a Collinwood type mansion to solve a who-dun-it in upstate N.Y....Flushing to be exact.  What we have here is an farcical and loving homage to the Abbott & Costello formulation.  Personally, I find The Maltese Bippy to be very funny. There are some wonderful bits sprinkled throughout the film which include a breaking of the fourth wall opening sequence, a weird Dick Martin as werewolf riding a bicycle through town that's reminiscent of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, some weird animation, and a very humorous Laugh-In style ending -- trap door and all, and it has a big cast that will make you beg for more.  Check it Out.

 MVT:  The bookends of the film, in particular the opening sequence of the film, the first of three endings we are treated to,  as well as the wonderful banter between Dick Martin and the other members of the cast.  On Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Martin was notorious for playing the dope and the trouble-maker of the comedy team, and Dan Rowan -- the nice guy alpha.  The roles are reversed here in The Maltese Bippy, and critics ultimately had a major problem with that aspect of this film.  Bippy is very funny... However strange it is.

Make Or Break:  The film is a bit windy overall. But at times, moves so fast it's a bit of a struggle to stay on top of the story line.  We go from a porno movie shoot (titles of films produced by the duo include Jungle Lust and Lunar Lust) to upstate New York to a werewolf in a business suit riding a bicycle around town (puts the werewolf character in Turkey Shoot to shame), and then back into a back-stabbing hunt for the sword Excalibur with some eastern Europeans, a pair of bungling local cops and Dracula.  I know...I know...

The Brinke Stevens Interview

Conducted By: Justin Bozung

Host Of The Mondo Film Podcast

It was because of my obsession with Rhonda Shear on the USA Network television series Up All Night (1986-1997) that I was provided a diverse education in all things B-movie growing up in the late '80s. Shear was one of the best late night movie hosts in the final days of the medium prior to the new Renaissance on public access stations across the United States today.  It was because of this show that I saw for the first time, Brinke Stevens in director David DeCoteau's Nightmare Sisters (1988). As time would tell, I would see more of Brinke's work on USA's Up All Night series as the years went by.  Films starring Stevens like Transylvania Twist, Sorority Babes In The Slime Ball Bowl A Rama, Slave Girls Beyond Infinity, and Teenage Exorcist all became some of my favorite B-movies of all time.  I still enjoy Brinke's work all these years later.

Brinke was a key player in the invasion of the B girls during the 80's. She, along with Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer and others were dubbed the "Scream Queens."  To be a scream queen, you had to qualify.  First, you had to be super sexy, gorgeous, and have the ability to act. Next, you had to be willing to shed your clothes, and run around in the woods or in a abandoned house or a bowling alley and escape every monster, axe-man, or anything supernatural that wanted to impregnate you then rip your head off.  And most importantly, you must have the ability to produce the loudest, most deafening ear numbing scream when in danger.

Brinke was a pioneer and more so, the best of the original "Scream Queens".   The loudest scream in B cinema to disrobe in the golden era. I truly miss the queens of the 80's. The B-movies of today, feature the beauty and nudity of the golden days but none of the girls can act their way out of the blood soaked paper bag their stuck in.

What most people don't know about Brinke, is that she is a member of MENSA. She can speak several languages, and she's written several screenplays. The standout being her cheeky 1991 cult film, Teenage Exorcist.  Stevens has appeared in over one hundred and twenty-five movies in the last thirty years.   She's a true icon of the B-movie, and after all these years later is still so incredibly talented and beautiful.  I had no choice but to corner her recently at my local horror convention like a crazed horny axe-man on the loose looking to make all the girls scream... Here's how it went.

JUSTIN: Brinke, you certainly are one of the sexiest and greatest women of B-movie history.  The real "Scream Queens" (like yourself) that could actually act are now gone.  Well, at least they're laying low. Could you share some of your fondest memories of the glorious 80's, when you "Scream Queens" reigned supreme over all things B?

BRINKE STEVENS:  The 1980s were a unique time for "Scream Queens" and sexy horror-comedies.  It happened during the rise of home video, and it made big cult stars of Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, and myself.  Back then, we were just hard-working actresses who took every project that came along... and there were so many cool movies being shot in Hollywood that decade.   As a result, I've since starred in over 125 horror movies during the past thirty years.  Now, B-movies are being made everywhere in the world on even smaller budgets, with lots of new actors and directors.  The low-budget studio system has fallen apart... it's a past era that we can celebrate, but it  will probably never be the same again.

JUSTIN: I read online that you actually had a part in the original William Castle production with Vincent Price, The Tingler (1959) as a small child.  Is that true?

BRINKE STEVENS: Not true, but pretty funny!  The Tingler was actually shot in the 1950's, so I probably hadn't even been born yet.  However, I DID pose for the cover of Mondo Cult magazine recently, holding a prop of the old  "Tingler" monster in my hands.

JUSTIN:  One of my favorite films you've done is Nightmare Sisters.   What was that experience like?  Can you share something about the production that none of us fans know?

BRINKE STEVENS:  That was such a charming little movie!  We shot the whole thing in just four days.  We were very well-rehearsed, which helped a lot -- and you'll notice the camera barely moves or changes angles during many scenes.  And that HAS to be the longest bathtub scene in movie history!  Fortunately, we were all great friends and didn't mind sharing a hot bath together while ad-libbing our dialog.  In the T.V version, the tub-scene was replaced with us three clad in lingerie, romping on a big bed while tossing balloons.

JUSTIN:  You've been amazingly productive in the film industry, writing and acting. Do you think you'd ever be interested in setting into the director's seat?

BRINKE STEVENS:  I've been attached to several projects as a director, but they all fell through in the long run.  I'd certainly like to try my hand at directing someday... I think I'd be pretty good at it.

JUSTIN:  You were the first to grace the cover of one of the greatest cult B-movie magazines ever, Femme Fatales magazine. Looking back,  do you look at the nudity in films and magazines you did -- different now than back in the 80's and early 90's?  Meaning, are you comfortable with the work you did in that vein back then?

BRINK STEVENS:  During the 1980's B-movie boom, all of us actresses were required to do nudity in films.  It just went with the territory, so you had to go along with it.  None of us really minded, of course.  We were all very athletic and comfortable with our figures.  However, when editor Bill George first showed me the cover of Femme Fatales #1, I was like, "O my god, surely you can't put THAT on newsstands!"  But it worked out okay for them, thank goodness.  I'm proud of my past pin-up work, but nowadays I tend to get more age-appropriate roles like mothers, aunts, doctors, detectives, and professors.  In Summer of Massacre, for example, I was actually SO glad to have some meaty dialog scenes (playing the Mom) -- and to not be the young actress who had to get naked, run from a killer, scream, and die horribly in the woods.  Much less strenuous and messy!

JUSTIN:  What does 2010 have in store for Brinke Stevens?

BRINKE STEVENS:  I hope to shoot a new zombie thriller called Deadlands 3 this autumn, and also reprise the Vampira-role in the upcoming Plan 9 remake from Darkstone Entertainment. Three horror movies that I shot last year will be released soon -- The Ritual from Fleet Street Films (I play a serial killer's deranged mother); Joe Castro's Summer of Massacre; and The Boneyard Collection (Irina Bell Films), which has been accepted at the Cannes Film Festival. I just wrote a tribute about Forry Ackerman for the new Famous Monsters magazine (FM #251).  I'm currently working on a new spec script, tentatively titled Fellini in Hollywood, about my amazing encounter with famed Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini in the 1980's

JUSTIN:  Are you still in touch with the girls of your past? Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, or Monique Gabrielle?  Of all those girls who was your favorite to work with?

BRINKE STEVENS:  Occasionally, we all meet up at conventions (like this April's  Monsterpalooza in Burbank CA.).  We really look forward to such reunions, and the fans seem to love it too.  We're always gotten along so well, and I wish I could see these gals more often, but we live in  different states now.

JUSTIN:  One of the more interesting things about your early career are all the uncredited appearances you made, in some really important and memorable films of the 80's.  Was that difficult for you to be getting all these walk on roles and not getting credit for it?  Or did you just look at it, as something you just had to do to achieve your next step?

BRINKE STEVENS: When I first started out in Hollywood, I had walk-on parts in Body Double, Three Amigos, Psycho 3, This Is Spinal Tap, and many more.  I was just so glad to be earning a living!  It would be another five years before I'd become a recognizable name in the horror industry.  So yes, everyone has to pay their dues so to speak, and those were mine.

JUSTIN:  I'm a huge fan of the anthology film you did with Michelle Bauer and Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski called Scream Queen Hot Tub Party (1991).  Any chance we could get everyone on board to do a sequel?

BRINKE STEVENS:   It was so iconic of that era... I'm not sure a sequel would go over as well now.  It was a really fun, wacky project and I'll always think of it fondly.  Fred was one of my most favorite filmmakers, and it was always such a pleasure to work with him in the 1980's and 90's.

JUSTIN:  Whats one thing that no one knows about you?

BRINKE STEVENS:   Last year, I was an official guest at San Diego Comic-Con, where I was honored as one of the original founding members way back in the 1970's.  In 1974, I'd won First Place in their first Masquerade contest, as "Vampirella" -- and I was pretty much put in charge of running the Comic-Con masquerade for years after that.  I watched it go from a tiny comic book club in college, to a huge extravaganza attended by over 125,000 fans now. I was also the very first actresses to ever sit behind a table at any fan convention and sell her own autographed photos.  Now, of course, it's become a nationwide industry.

For more with Brinke Stevens pleas check out her official website here.  For more interviews by Justin, please check out his official interview archive here.

The Rick Sloane Interview

Conducted By: Justin Bozung
Host Of The Mondo Film Podcast

Rick Sloane is best known as the creator of the 1980's USA Network late night direct-to-video staple, Vice Academy (1989) starring former adult film star Ginger Lynn and horror goddess Linnea Quigley.  The film is a goofy comic strip of sexy big hair chicks bumbling their way through police academy training amidst internal cover-up and corruption.  With the heavy rotation of the film on television in a now long gone era, Sloane would go on to produce five sequels for the franchise to date, and they've all been so successful that he now refers to his Hollywood Hills home as "the house that Vice Academy built."

There's a particular Ed Woodian bad movie aesthetic to the Vice Academy series, but the films will leave you on the verge of a softie and heartily laughing as you swab your tongue in your cheek, as well as a sparked interest in Sloane's other work such as the Rick Sloane / Wings Hauser messy team-ups Marked For Murder (1989) and Mind, Body & Soul (1992).   Or my personal favorite, the Citizen Kane of stripper-on-the-run-for-a-crime-she-didn't-commit films, Good Girls Don't (1993).

In addition, Sloane also directed the 28th worst film of all time according to IMDB, Hobgoblins (1988).  While Hobgoblins has been slaughtered by critics and fans alike, it has shown incredible staying power and entered into cult film status over the last twenty years. As a follow-up, in 2009 Sloane directed Hobgoblins 2 which instantly hit the internet for download against the wishes of Sloane before it was officially released on DVD, causing a legal stir which was promoted heavily by Sloane and the mainstream media, opening up even wider the on going debate about the potential damage digital downloads have on the artist. More on that later.

Across the board, there is a wonderful blend of comedy, comic book, horror, and exploitation in the work of Rick Sloane that doesn't take itself very seriously, but where does it come from?

Sloane grew up in Hollywood, and as a teenager was obsessed with Roger Corman films and film-making. While still in his late teens, Sloane was offered a job working for 20th Century Fox marketing the horrible sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Shock Treatment (1981).  Sloane also owns one of the biggest Archie comic book collections on planet Earth.  He's a self proclaimed Archie expert of sorts, contributing commentary to anything new being published on the classic comic character.

Regardless of Sloane's bad movie aesthetic, or any of his six cock teasing Vice Academy films, Rick Sloane has influenced many. His Vice Academy series feature some of the funniest comedy writing seen in the B movie direct-to-video '80s. Love him or hate him, Rick Sloane is quite an American original, and a master of the golden turkey.

JUSTIN:  So let's talk about your Rocky Horror days.  Can you shed some light on how all of that got started for you, and how you landed at 20th Century Fox?

RICK SLOANE:  I never quite grasped the Rocky Horror phenomenon to be honest.  I tried repeatedly to create a similar cult following for my early features.  The Visitants (1986) has the most Rocky Horror feel of all my films, though it never did find its audience.  I even dressed the lead female alien as Magenta in her space suit.  I didn't plan for Hobgoblins to develop a cult audience, which makes more sense that it was the one that developed its own following.  It's just not something you plan, it has to happen on it's own when fans embrace something.

But to answer your question, my first job was working in conjunction with Fox to promote Rocky Horror and its successor, Shock Treatment.  I put on a total of four conventions, all between when I was age seventeen to nineteen.  It was great experience to be in high school and have a drive-on studio pass to Fox's  lot.  I climbed in their massive trash bins and brought home discarded film and sound rolls.  I erased a demo mix from The Empire Strikes Back and mixed my first feature over it.   The sound mixing house couldn't understand how I could afford high end ninety dollar a roll sound stock, until I told them it was from the trash.

JUSTIN:  You've said that you were greatly influenced by the Joe Dante and Alan Arkush film Hollywood Blvd. (1976) for Roger Corman?  What do you like so much about that film?  And how has it influenced your work directly?

RICK SLOANE: I originally studied to be an animator, though being rejected from Cal Arts for three consecutive years certainly put a damper on that.  I've always said if it wasn't for the movie Hollywood Blvd that I would probably not be a film director.  When I entered film school, I settled for Los Angeles City College, I thought of feature films as being something that cost over ten million dollars and that it was an opportunity which very few film students would ever achieve.

As a joke, the film history class instructor screened Hollywood Blvd.  Introduced as a feature shot in a week for twenty-five thousand dollars, I instantly wanted to see what kind of film it was.  Everyone else hated and ridiculed the film, I was in complete awe.  It's the total inspiration behind every film I've made.  Full of in-jokes that embrace its cheapness and an entire script written around existing stock shots, it's an amazing film to this day.  The other students mocked the film and said that no one involved would ever go on to anything successful.  Director Joe Dante later did Gremlins (1984), art director Jonathan Demme later did Silence Of The Lambs (1991). Even the stock footage is borrowed from Corman features directed by Ron Howard and Francis Ford Coppola. Every aspiring low-budget director should watch Hollywood Blvd, it has more teaching power than an entire semester at film school.

JUSTIN:  As a writer and director, do you take criticism well?  How do you feel about bad reviews been written about your work?

RICK SLOANE: Earlier in my career, I used to be mortified by bad reviews.  After Hobgoblins, I learned to embrace them.  Some of them are really clever, my personal favorite is  "If a lack of talent were a crime, Rick Sloane would be serving a life sentence."  The few films I've made that received positive reviews, such as Marked For Murder and Good Girl's Don't are barely known today.  My career is primarily based on the success of my lesser polished films like Hobgoblins, which no matter what anything thinks of it, was a very profitable movie.

JUSTIN:  You seem to be one of the most ridiculed filmmakers of all time.   With that being said, it's mostly those film snob types that talk poorly of you and your work. So to stick it to those types properly like they deserve, what's one film that is critically lauded that you think is just a horrible film, and why?

RICK SLOANE: One very successful film, that I truly despised, was The Blair Witch Project (1999).   I don't care how much money it made, it was worse than nails on a chalkboard.  More poorly made and as pretentious as most student films, with that annoying  shaky camera, ninety minutes of walking in circles with nothing happening.  They find a pile of twigs and it's supposed to be scary.  And that ridiculous non-ending.  Its huge grosses were based on the internet buzz they had, which obviously cost more  than the movie itself.  Plus, no one seemed to noticed that it was all stolen from Cannibal Holocaust (1980).

JUSTIN:  In past discussions that you and I have had, I know you too are a huge fan of Showgirls (1995).  In fact you've been quoted as saying that Showgirls is one of your all time favorite films.  Besides the obvious appeal of Showgirls what else do you see there, that people should be paying attention to?

RICK SLOANE:  I truly love both Showgirls and Lindsay Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  Or as I like to call it, "I Know What Killed My Career." Both of those films are so God awful.  You wonder what the lead actresses were thinking when they signed on.  Maybe they read better on paper.  I've watched I Know Who Killed Me, more of the two films, something compelling about stigmatic twins and an amputee stripper.

JUSTIN:  If a producer met with you and said, "Hey Rick, here's five million dollars, make anything you want." Do you have that one project that you're sitting on that you're just waiting for the right time, money or opportunity to make? 

RICK SLOANE: I wrote a superhero movie twenty years ago which never was made.  I've always considered it my best script.  Ten different film distributors read the script, they all said the movie would make a lot of money, but they couldn't afford to produce it because of the heavy special effects it required.  It was called The Adventures Of Captain Icon.  It was about a fictional World War II comic book superhero who is accidentally brought to life in the present day by a teenage boy who avidly collects all the original comics.  The villains quickly appear afterward, they're known as the "trio of treachery." Master Gestapo, Madame Seductress and Doctor Hypodermic.  They attempt to finish their final mission from  1945, to steal an atom bomb and destroy the United States.  Since the War ended and the final issue was never published, Captain Icon doesn't know how to stop them, and it's up to the teenage boy to find the original artist to learn how to defeat them. With so many special effects shots done on green screen today, it would cost less to make, but it's still an expensive movie which would also need name actors for all the lead.

JUSTIN:  Can you tell me some about how one of my favorite of your films came about, Good Girl's Don't?

RICK SLOANE:  I loved working with Julia Parton so much on Vice Academy 3, that I wanted to create a vehicle for her.  It was heavily borrowed from Thelma & Louise, except one of the two leads is a stripper.  I think it's the best film I've made, though hardly anyone has seen it.  It had the highest budget of all my movies, but never became as successful as  any of the Vice Academy films.

JUSTIN:  How important do you think pay cable and USA Network in the late '80s was to the longevity you've had with your career?  Do you think your films would've got as much exposure had you not been working with USA Network?

RICK SLOANE: USA Network paid me an obscene amount of money for the Vice Academy films over their seven year run.  I didn't ask for much for the first film, but once it brought in the highest rating the show ever had and they started asking for one sequel after another, I asked for top dollar.  they generally would license a film for two years, then let the  contract expire.  They kept renewing all my contracts and the films just kept making money.  i was completely locked into an exclusive contract with them, and when they were sold to Seagram's, they didn't renew USA's Up All Night and I had no other outlet for my movies.  I stopped making films for a number of years after that, but was grateful to finally make a comeback with Hobgoblins 2.  I've always had success with sequels, though this one had its problems with major internet piracy within twenty-four hours of its release.

JUSTIN: With the B-movie industry essentially now gone from television, how do you feel about the industry now?  Is it more difficult for you to get a project off the ground, than it was -- say fifteen years ago?

RICK SLOANE:  I'm still waiting for another quirky show to air B-movies, but none of the stations have interest in campy movies today.  I'm still planning another film for 2011, but I'm aware I'll never get the same financial return I did twenty years ago.  I'm still deciding between a Mean Girls / Heathers type movie, which I'd have the most fun making, or an urban legend killer film, like Candyman or Dead Silence.  The first twenty minutes takes place in the mid 60's, I've always enjoy making period pictures.  I'll probably have to go to a small town outside of California to recreate an entire city block from that era.  It's far too cost prohibitive to attempt in Los Angeles.

JUSTIN:  After the whole rumored fall-out you had with Linnea Quigley on Vice Academy 2, how did you come to cast Elizabeth Kaitan for the final Vice Academy sequels?

RICK SLOANE: Linnea had agreed to return for Vice Academy 3, but her agent told her not to do it.  I'll never forget the rude phone call I got from her agent, "I think this script is far beneath Linnea's abilities, (is such a thing possible?)"   I had just worked with Martin Sheen and Wings Hauser in Marked For Murder  and didn't need to bother negotiating with Linnea's agent. I did feel badly that Linnea took such bad advice, she had a period of a number of years where no one hired her after that.  I remembered that Liz Kaitan had read for Hobgoblins a few years earlier, and that she had replaced Linnea in Assault Of The Killer Bimbos (1988).   She was my first choice and she stayed on for four of the Vice films. Liz always received the most fan mail by a large margin, so i guess it was meant to be.

JUSTIN: So do you think you've got another Vice Academy in you?   Could we see something like a Vice Academy Part 7 or Vice Academy 2000?  If so, what would it be about?

RICK SLOANE: Of course, I had a script for Vice 7, though I seriously doubt it will ever be made.  Action pay-per-view wanted the film, but they asked me to shoot hardcore sex scenes, which I declined.  The Commissioner's first wife returns after her career as a lap dancer didn't work out.  (There was a scene of her dancing with her thong'd butt waving in front of a drunk patron's face and she lamented, "Some men can have talent staring them right in the face and not even know it).  I wrote the part for Tane McClure, another actress I always enjoyed working with.  She tries to ruin his current marriage to Miss Devonshire, but not because she still loves him, she wants to steal the lottery money they recently won.  My favorite line she says to Miss Devonshire, who still hasn't had sex with her husband a year? Does he still make love three times a day like he used to?  On the bathroom sink, on the dining room table, in public restrooms?"

JUSTIN:  Most of your non-franchise films do not have a official DVD release.  Can you shed some light as to when we could see an actual DVD's released of the reminder of your films?

RICK SLOANE:  I'm currently working on DVD bonus material for many of my earlier films.  Some are re-issues, some will be first releases.  I've completely re-edited Mind, Body and Soul into a new film, which will be re-titled Devil's Passion  It's the only film I've done that I didn't do the post-production myself, and I've always felt it was poorly edited and mixed.  It was also banned in fourteen countries, which was a kiss of death back in the 90's.  Today, an unrated movie is a huge plus, so maybe the film will finally find its audience.

Good Girl's Don't was buried in a box set with no bonus material.  We actually shot a documentary while the film was being shot, which will be shown for the first time.  It will also have the rarely seen trailer.  I've always been proud of this movie and really hope that fans will want to see it.  My personal favorite film I've done is The Visitants, which has never been available on DVD.   I reassembled the original cast for reunion interviews like I did with Hobgoblins.  This was the movie that I always hoped would find a cult audience, though it's basically a lost film that very few people have ever seen.

I shot a new interview with Mary Woronov for the re-issue of Blood Theater (1984).  The DVD will also include footage from the 25th anniversary theatrical screening I had at a local cinema.  It was great to see my film son the big screen again, as well as answer questions from fans.  I'm also going to add all the fake grindhouse trailers I made in film school.  The Clown Whores Of Hollywood appears in the original version, it will now be joined by Chainsaw Chicks, Nightmares Of The Lost Whore and Amputee Hookers .  I may even add scratches and film damage to give them a truly distressed look, which is fitting for this type of movie.  Finally, a re-issue of Bikini Academy (1996).  With cast reunion interviews and other added bonuses, such as using the correct mix where you can hear the dialogue.  A previous version was never quality control checked and the sound  mix lost all the dialogue under the sound of the ocean.

JUSTIN: Of all your films, which one are you the most proud of?

RICK SLOANE: My best film is still Good Girls Don't, but my personal favorites are The Visitants and Vice Academy 4 and 5. 

JUSTIN:  What do you want your legacy to be after you're gone from here?

RICK SLOANE: I've always avoided being a director for hire, so I've always written the scripts to every film I've made.  I don't think I've ever sold out and I've never made porn on the side.  I hope to be remembered for my body of work, and not just Hobgoblins.  I truly hope my comparison to Ed Wood and Uwe Boll is not my legacy, I'd like to be  thought of as a cult director in the same vein as John Waters.

JUSTIN: How do you feel about the film industry vs. the internet?  Anyone can go out and buy a cheap HD camera for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, make a movie, and distribute it for free online.  Is that something you think is a good thing?  Do you see any type of backlash that could come from such?

RICK SLOANE: I'm a film purist, if digital video was that good, they wouldn't add "film look" in post.  though I've reached a point where I'll probably do my next film on digital, which will be the very first time. I think viewers have gotten wary of direct to DVD releases with great box art and an unwatchable movie inside.   It does bother me to hear people brag that they learned Final Cut Pro in two days and consider themselves editors.  You need to edit three features to become adequate and five to become good at it.    I still think if you can edit an entire feature in five days, that's its just an assembly of shots, not a true edit.  I was trained at sound editing by Steve Flick who won an Academy Award for Speed (1994).   I've never been certain if anyone notices, but my films have elaborate sound mixes that you will rarely find on any movie with a miniscule budget.

JUSTIN: With the buzz for Hobgoblins 2 abound, I've noticed that it's out there for easy download, how does that effect you?  Is it good exposure for the film?


RICK SLOANE: That's a touchy subject for me.  Hobgoblins 2 was pirated onto thirty-five websites for free viewing within one day of its DVD release.  I'm sure it cost me many potential DVD sales.    It's incredibly rare that anyone bothers to bootleg a direct to DVD release, it generally happens only with theatrical releases.   Many people told me that I should be flattered by that, but the low DVD sales actually prevented Part 3 from being made.

JUSTIN:  I know you're also working with Dark Horse Comics on a few things as well, right? 

RICK SLOANE: I have a massive collection of Archie comics, which I've collected since I was seven years old.   I have almost 3,000 Archie comics, beginning with Archie's first appearance in 1941 through 1975 when I stopped buying the new issues.  I still have the Archie lunchbox I carried to school every day when I was in the second grade. 2011 is Archie's 75th anniversary and I'm going to be contributing to many of the Dark Horse books on Archie.  I became somewhat of an Archie authority when I started writing for the Overstreet Comic Price Guide when I was thirteen.  Archie #1 was only worth $40 at the time, within five years I had raised its value to $700.  Today, an excellent condition copy will actually sell for close to $30,000 dollars.  Not bad considering Archie used to be considered the lowest rung of comic collecting.

JUSTIN:  Any chance of a reunion with Ginger Lynn? I know there was a bit of a falling out there. If you could both get in a room or on the phone with each other, do you think old friendships could be mended?

RICK SLOANE: It's funny you mention Ginger Lynn.   I recently contacted a mutual friend to see if Ginger was interested in doing an interview for the new version of Mind, Body & Soul.   I never got a response. Ginger has always discussed the film in interviews as the worst movie she's ever done, though she places the blame on me, not the fact that she was hung over every day, three and a half hours late and never knew her lines.  It would have been nice to have her do the interview, but without her involved, I can truly trash talk about what a pain she was to work with at that time.

JUSTIN:  What's one non movie related aspect that people don't know about Rick Sloane?

RICK SLOANE:  Not sure what's left to tell.  I was a straight A student in grade school and I'm still one of the most hyper-competitive people you'll ever meet.    I don't believe in failing at anything I do and every hurtle I tackle, I'll always finish, no matter how difficult the journey.   I had goals at eighteen of shooting my first feature at twenty-one, having three completed by twenty-five, having one released by a major studio and buying a house before thirty. Everyone laughed at me, but I achieved every single one by twenty-eight.  Not bad for being told in film school that I had no talent and should choose a different profession.

For more on Rick Sloane please visit his official website here.  And for more interviews by Justin please visit his official website here.