Britgeek here.
One of the most spectacularly outrageous films of last year was the collaboration of four devilish directors on a gory, slimy and downright demented anthology feature. I am of course referring to CHILLERAMA, a genre pastiche of tasteless proportions from the minds of Adam Green (HATCHET, FROZEN), Joe Lynch (KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM, WRONG TURN 2), Adam Rifkin (DETROIT ROCK CITY, LOOK) and Tim Sullivan (2001 MANIACS). The result is like Troma's TALES FROM THE CRAPPER, except really, really good and a popcorn bucket-load of fun.
Each film-maker wrote and directed one of four segments. Rifkin opens the film with WADZILLA, the twisted tale of a titanic mutant sperm cell wreaking wet havoc in New York City; Lynch serves up a no holds barred mixture of sex and gore in ZOM-B-MOVIE, which also acts as the wraparound for the anthology; Green takes us back to the Second World War with THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANKENSTEIN; and Sullivan hits the beach in the campy musical extravaganza, I WAS A TEENAGE WEREBEAR.
At the end of last year, Ambush Bug caught up with Green, Lynch, Rifkin and Sullivan to discuss the film and each of their segments at length, and recently, I got to speak with the two stars of I WAS A TEENAGE WEREBEAR, Sean Paul Lockhart and Anton Troy.
BRITGEEK: How did you guys get involved in CHILLERAMA, and did you know of Tim Sullivan prior to the film?
SEAN PAUL LOCKHART: I had been approached by Tim Sullivan. He went to film school with a previous director that I worked with – Todd Stevens – and [he] said why don't you consider Sean Lockhart for this role, because Tim was having a really difficult time finding an actor that was going to do some of the stuff that was happening on screen, and when he approached me I was moving and I'd just come off a film, a much bigger film called JUDAS KISS, and I was just really, really busy, but I managed to find some time and put together a video audition and get it up to him. I guess there was some sort of frustration or anxiety regarding casting me because of my background and Tim Sullivan was a little bit concerned that the other film-makers involved with the project – and you know, there's quite a few of them – might say no, they might veto his decision. But when he approached them with it, finally, they seemed to be pretty supportive, so that's how I got involved. I guess the stars aligned and somehow I found myself singing in a jockstrap.
ANTON TROY: [Laughs] As far as me, I was brought in to audition because, well, I originally auditioned for Sean's part, Ricky, and they called me the morning after I was recommended to Tim by a friend, through [Gabby West], who plays Peggy Lou in the film, and I was recommended to go in for an audition. He called me up that morning, pretty much like, 'Well, I want you to audition for this, I want you to read for two parts, be half-naked, singing, and you're a gay werewolf,' [laughs] so I was terrified. That was the beginning of three auditions … Tim liked me a lot and he originally had somebody cast as Talon already … he ended up being pulled out of the project because his mom didn't allow him to do it or something because of the content and they found out Sean was involved. I had no idea who Sean was [laughs].
SPL: That's the mark of a true straight man, if a straight man steps on set and they really have no idea who I am.
AT: [Laughs] I just thought he was a cute kid, you know.
SPL: Aww. You see, now you're just sucking up. Whatever.
AT: [Laughs] No, serious, I thought what a cute, nice kid. So, they cancelled me right before my callback the next day, which I ended up finding out was because they got Sean, and then I kind of forgot about it for two weeks and I got a call out of the blue and they were like, 'Hey, do you wanna audition for the other part?' I went in, I read and they liked what I did again with the other character … I felt I was always better suited for Talon anyway, and then I read with Sean, and then I think it came down to you and Tim, right Sean?
SPL: Yeah, what happened was we had a Talon already in place and he was a kid of about 19, and when we had a rehearsal, he was kind of closeted and found out just by seeing my face that I was involved in the project, and I think he went home and told his parents and he had [them] call him out of it, which is weird, because he's an adult. It was kind of bizarre for all of us to deal with that sort of thing, because, come on, if you're involved and you're going to back out or something, at least have the guts to make the call yourself. So there we were in pre-production trying to get choreography down and get music pre-recorded so we could be on set prepared, and we're completely re-casting an entire part. When Anton came in we all knew. It clicked, he made me a better actor and that was a go on all points for us, so I think there was no other contender, he was perfect for it.
AT: I just got to slap him around and that kind of stuff and he liked it.
SPL: Yeah, just a little bit.
BG: So what were your first impressions when you read the script?
SPL: You know, honestly, I wasn't phased. I was a little bit worried about how campy it was prior to doing it, because I want to go in a more dramatic direction with my acting career. I did ANOTHER GAY SEQUEL and played a Merman in that. Actors who don't work very much don't worry about being typecast, but when you have a background like me, you definitely don't want to become synonymous with a particular kind of film, like camp, because camp isn't necessarily everyone's favourite, but I was on board because of the writing and the fact that it was campy. Tim Sullivan really knows what he's doing and the music was ridiculously good. But I wasn't phased by the content much. I guess I should've been, but I come from an area of the entertainment world where that's all normal, all that kind of stuff. Werebears. Well, not werebears. Now I'm getting myself in a hole.
AT: [Laughs] I was terrified when I read it. It was one of those things where it was kind of terrifying to read but it was very funny. I thought it was well written but there were things in the script that I was a bit leery of. One thing in particular was the shower scene … But what ended up happening was... it was kind of one of those things that I just let go to the universe. I auditioned for it, I thought Tim was really awesome, very cool, seemed to know what he wanted and that sort of thing, and then Sean and I had really great chemistry, and it sort of went away when I auditioned initially and came back to me and I was like, oh god, and they ended up giving me the part and ... recording the songs the next day and filming like two days after that. It was a really, really cramped schedule … but I thought it was really well written, funny... like I said the content worried me a little bit in some ways. I thought, oh my goodness, how is this gonna look? Because CHILLERAMA at the time... none of us knew exactly what it was going to be, which is why it was an interesting project. Each segment's done individually and each director was kind of doing his own thing, but we weren't sure whether this werebear thing was gonna go anywhere. I think Sean and I didn't really get the magnitude of the piece until we saw the whole thing put together, but I'd say two days into filming we started to see the tone of the piece and how Tim was directing it and his vision, and then I felt a lot better about it, because after that it was like, okay, he really knows what he's doing, and when I started to see Lin Shaye act as Nurse Maleva with Sean and Gabby and how everything sort of fit together.
SPL: It reads so much raunchier than it really is, and a lot of stuff was actually changed, too. As actors it was nice because we could actually influence that, and Tim was open-minded to that possibility, because sometimes you get on set and you're forced into something and you've got to know your work because if there are too many people with too many opinions, nothing goes. That was thankfully not the case here.
AT: There were things in the script that we were supposed to make, like after we do the whole dance number, in that ending scene there was supposed to be like some silver rod sticking out of my butt basically that I get knifed with. They made a prop for it and everything and halfway through the filming, Tim pulled me aside and he was like, 'You know what, this has become so much more than I originally envisioned and you and Sean are bringing so much more depth and whatnot to the characters, that I just think that certain things in the script need to change because I don't want to cheapen it,' is basically what he said to us. We re-wrote the ending scene on the spot, that whole thing where it's “werebears need love too,” and he told us what he wanted it to be and then it ended up being a really nice scene where Sean and I kind of have this goodbye to Talon. We kind of approached it as it would be, you'd have two people that, even though they're different, sort of found each other and clicked and they're having to say goodbye now, and I think that would make anybody sad.
BG: With the tagline of CHILLERAMA being “The Ultimate Midnight Movie!”, are you guys familiar with the same almost grindhouse kind of films that inspired it, or did actually making one introduce you to that style of cinema?
SPL: I definitely have a lot to learn and I fully recognise that my film education has just begun … I don't have a whole lot of experience with it.
AT: I've always been a fan of not necessarily grindhouse B-movies, but like Clint Eastwood and James Dean, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and things of that nature. My whole vibe in general is a bit nostalgic I guess you could say. But I think what happened was after we got the piece, Sean and I really started to do a lot more research because it was sort of like being introduced to us and we went back and learned more, because one thing about the film-makers of CHILLERAMA, like Tim, Adam Rifkin, Green and Lynch... they’re all very passionate about B-cinema and grindhouse movies, and they're all really knowledgeable, so it's kind of kudos to them that they have such an idea that I think even a lot of people nowadays don't understand, but I thought they were very effective in how they do that. I've seen movies like GRINDHOUSE obviously, I've seen some older B-cinema, like one of my favourite movies is AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON … We knew it was supposed to be like BEACH BLANKET BINGO and I'd seen clips of that before, I think as well as Sean had, and then Tim was very cool, too.
[SPL laughs, bemusing Anton and I.]
AT: [Laughs] Sean, what'd you do? … He wanted a certain look and feel and everything, but at the same time he gave us certain things to reference, like 'I want you to look up this artist and get a feel of these different musicians from the '50s and '60s.'
BG: Did he show you any of those kinds of films to help you along when you were in production?
SPL: Our experience with the nature of the film was compartmentalised a little bit because, while it is a grindhouse anthology feature, obviously we were very focused on our segment of it, so we didn't really know what to expect, as Anton said earlier. We didn't really concern ourselves with the rest of it. But as actors, like anything else, you do your research and make sure you become familiarised with the tone and the time period, and that requires music and other films and other parts from other movies that you're written to mirror, because you see it all the time in screenplays, particularly writers when they want actors or readers to understand their screenplay, they will say, 'Like a so and so character,' so there you have your first reference for where you need to start with your research and we did plenty of that. Good actors do that, it's part of their job.
AT: I think for us as actors we didn't approach it so much as “we're making a grindhouse film,” it was more “let's just make a good film … what can we do to bring this with the information that Tim's given us and materialise it, but also bring aspects of ourselves to those parts so we can realise this vision.”
BG: And what was it like working with Tim?
SPL: Oh it was hell. He's got such an ego and he won't stop hugging people. It just drives you nuts, he makes you want to bring a knife to set. No, I'm kidding. No, he's really great, like I said he's really open-minded to collaboration. A lot of directors will get you in there and they take a steel shoehorn and wedge you into the position they want you, and they don't give you any room to come to set with an opinion, so obviously Tim's not like that, and as you can see, the project works because he was so open-minded and so willing to collaborate with us … the greatest part of working with Tim Sullivan is that you work with him once and you do good by him and you've pretty much got a director on your side willing to get you work. He's a major cheerleader for people. So the two of us on our own have been able to pick up some bigger projects because of Tim Sullivan's support.
AT: Tim is great. I've learned, and I think most of us have learned, so much just touring with CHILLERAMA and hanging out with Tim and doing press and things like that, because Tim is really a smart guy, he's an effective director. Whether people love or hate WEREBEAR, I think he absolutely achieved what he wanted to achieve with it, it's like BEACH BLANKET BINGO, it's got bright colours and cheesy, catchy tunes and beautiful boys and all this kind of stuff, which is what it is, which is what it's supposed to be. And big hairy, burly guys.
SPL: [Laughs] That's normal.
AT: He's really great. I think he really cares about his actors' feelings on set, he takes time. Even when I was concerned about the shower rape scene for instance, he took the time to talk to me, he was like, 'This is how it's going to play out, you don't have to worry about it, it's not going to be pornographic or anything like that,' and he kind of set my mind at ease. But yeah, it was a bit stressful at times, on set at least. We were shooting out in the scorching heat of Malibu and Sycamore Canyon. Or was it Sycamore Cove?
SPL: Sycamore Cove Canyon, actually [laughs].
AT: There you go [laughs]. Sycamore Canyon Cove or whatever ... That hairdo I have, I probably had a can of hairspray a day 'cause it was just so hot and it would melt off you … I had to wear that 20-pound leather jacket and we were dancing on the beach and all that. But the other problem we had, too, was we were trying to shoot so much because with such a tight budget, we'd be losing daylight and things like that doing the wrestling scenes and whatnot, and we were like hustle hustle hustle, because we don't have time to mess up, so a lot of times, when you're working with Tim, even though he's a nice guy and he's professional and whatnot, you have to be professional. You can't be somebody that's not prepared, I guess you could say.
SPL: Yeah, the pace was definitely gruelling. We only had five days to do the entire project and we were shooting on location at a beach where we had porter potties and an outdoor shower, it was like camping and shooting a movie at the same time, but not your choice when you've got a gruelling schedule.
BG: What was it like shooting a musical compared to a normal film?
AT: I think the musical element of the film... some people totally get it, love it in CHILLERAMA, and you have other fans that think it's the devil, because they're like, “What is a musical doing in my horror film?” [laughs] “I think you're so gay!” And they go drink their beer and fart somewhere or something. I really liked the musical aspect. The music was another thing that terrified me, originally. I've always been someone's who's apt to sing, but probably apt to doing in the shower. I sing here and there, but it was one of those things at the time –
[At this point, we were deafened by a noise on Sean's end.]
AT: Are you in a wind tunnel, Sean? [laughs]
SPL: I'm sorry, I'm walking down the street. Sorry!
AT: It was terrifying because you know you have these songs … like Love Bit Me on the Ass and Do the Werebear and Don't Look Away … the songs are funny, but you wonder how they're going to be perceived when we sing [them]. Sean and I didn't have a lot of time to study and get a vocal coach or hone our skills and stuff like that. When I booked it was ten o'clock on a Friday night. I had to be at the studio to sing at like ten the next morning … We started filming two days after that, so we really got thrown into this whole thing, and it was great because it was exciting … I think the piece is memorable whether people like it or not, that's how I feel about it.
SPL: The music was terrifying, I agree with Anton. I really don't consider myself a singer and never have at any point in my life … I had four songs and two of them are duets, but in CHILLERAMA, they actually cut one of the songs out because it just didn't fit with the progression of the segment, so when you watch WEREBEAR on its own, there's actually more music in it. I had to re-record music more than once to make sure it was right, and you can see that I struggled with it. It's funny because I did this and I'm not really that proud of it, but even despite that, I've managed to pick up other movies and other roles where they want me to sing and I don't seem to understand it, but if it works and people like it, then great. I'm not gonna not take work [laughs].
AT: It really did give you a feel on set like you were in a '60s beach film, like it was old Hollywood or something … which was fun. The choreography and stuff, the dance routines and whatnot, that was a mixture of first singing it, and we had Josh Brodis, who was our choreographer. He would hash out some stuff for us to do and we would start with that for instance, and then Sean and I would bring our own flavour to it or ourselves to it … even when I did the werebear song at the end, part of it was a routine, but part of it was when Josh was telling me what to do and I was like, 'Well, that's great, but I don't want it to feel like a musical production as far as it's all pretty camp, I want it to feel more like a performance,' 'cause you know characters like Elvis back in the day, or James Brown, you went and you saw a performance and there was kind of a rawness about it, so I wanted to mix up a combination of improvised things in the midst of the dance routines.
BG: Just before the end of last year, Anton, we saw your mockumentary short, THE MAN BEHIND THE BEAST, premiere online. Where did you get the idea to make that?
AT: I was doing so much travelling around and stuff for CHILLERAMA that I got together with my producing partner, Roy Tighe, and he does these very funny viral skits on the internet ... I said it'd be great if we could do something to extend the experience of CHILLERAMA, so we were like, okay, what do we do? It materialised into we knew that we wanted to do a project, but we didn't know exactly what we were going to do, and then I wanted to make a mockumentary, 'cause I've always been a fan of WAITING FOR GUFFMAN and these stupid little spoof documentaries that look almost real, but they're not. So we had that idea and then sat down and looked for an angle. He said, 'What lines do you have in the movie?' and I said, 'Well, I say things like “Did the bite put the beast in you or let it out?” and “Tastes like chicken, huh baby?” … He was like, 'Tastes like chicken, that's it!' so we just started with this idea and then he followed me around to pretty much every event that I went to for probably the next two or three months, and we would just go up to people like Kane Hodder and even Adam Rifkin and very quickly explain the idea: 'Hey, this is what I'm doing, it's about this tagline that I said in the movie and it blows up and makes me an international star,' and they thought it was hilarious and were happy to be a part of it. One of the things about CHILLERAMA is that it really is different from so many other movies on a couple of different levels.
For one I think it's just such a niche movie, which can be good and bad, but it makes it more timeless, whereas you have a lot of horror films that I think sort of fall away … and it was also a passion project for everybody, a lot of the talent, not including Eric Roberts and people like that, a lot of the talent was new - we're all passionate, we want to see it succeed, all the directors are very passionate about it; everybody's very giving of their time, so if you did have an idea, generally everybody would listen to you and at least humour you on it, so I went around and even asked Sean if he wanted to be in it. I wanted it to be like this semi-fictional experience of what happened to me after the movie, and we really did it in a nutshell as sort of like a promo piece for CHILLERAMA, but also like a way to give an extra gift to the fans, so they'd have another funny experience to go with the movie outside of that. The perfect thing to do for a spoof is a spoof documentary.
BG: Having directed the short, do you have any plans to direct anything else in the future?
AT: Yeah. I'm gonna continue doing a couple of small projects like that, most likely for internet or festival distribution ... but we want to keep doing stuff like that. My whole vibe is I don't want to do something unless it's good [laughs], so if I have a great idea or even Sean and I collaborate on something, I'm always open to stuff, but we want to do something that has a place and has a time.
BG: We're going to premiere the CHILLERAMA music video on AICN soon. Is there anything you can tell us about that?
AT: It's with Psycho Charger, the band that did a fantastic job of doing the CHILLERAMA theme song, and I believe... I don't want to say too much about the video 'cause I haven't seen the whole thing, but it's pretty much like a rockin' Tim Sullivan music video. It's probably got some horror elements and things like that, and I'm sure it's got some nice snippets from CHILLERAMA.
BG: Earlier, Sean, you mentioned the adversity that you thought you might encounter on CHILLERAMA because of your background. Have you actually been faced with it on other projects, or is it just something you worry about?
SPL: For me the bigger factor is just getting the roles because the tough thing is, I don't think a lot of film-makers expect me to be professional or expect me to have the personal abilities that I have. I've a lot to learn as an actor, but as far as adversity goes, when people take me on for a project, they really take me on and they embrace me, and at that point I don't really seem to have to deal with a lot of people who are prejudicial or are judging me because of my background, and I'm thankful for that. Anton, for instance, as far as I know he never seemed to bat an eyelid to the fact that I have this previous career, and the same thing goes for really any other actor I've worked with so far. But then again, I've missed out on a lot of opportunities because certain actors have refused to work with me, or certain directors have felt that I was more of a gimmick and I didn't have much to offer as a legitimate actor, so that's been the real problem for me, but it's started to change. I've managed to book a lot of gigs for 2012 and I'm busy enough that I'm not even taking auditions, so I think they're all good things for an actor that has a colourful repertoire like I do [laughs].
BG: Have you always had an interest in acting?
SPL: I grew up in school and I was more concerned with directing, and that's still where my interest lies, but for me right now acting, I really do enjoy it. I love really any aspect of storytelling. My mother was a writer and I'm a writer myself, so for me, being an actor and being a director, that's just one more feather in the cap. I'd love to gain experience in the process of film-making by doing and not by sitting in a class. That's what acting is about for me, it's largely about becoming acquainted with the process and the atmosphere of working on a film and creating those kinds of projects. I actually just finished my first short screenplay and I'll be directing that in March and I'm really pretty excited about it. When I started my previous career, I thought any acting or directing had gone out the window because I just assumed that that was the end of it. You do a certain kind of work and you project yourself out there in a particular kind of light, and obviously it's going to affect things like becoming an actor or the way people see you.
AT: I think we live in a different time. One thing about Sean and myself is that we're both multi-talented, very ambitious guys. We're not just actors, we're actors and collaborators and whatnot, and I think that's why Tim has continued to work with us, because we bring a lot to the table and we all work well together and like each other. I personally come from an entertainment background. My grandfather was a famous Hollywood stuntman, did all the Westerns back in the day, and my mom was a professional mime … I kind of came to it naturally that way, but it's something we enjoy doing. There's no guarantees in life and we're all just riding the ride, you know.
Many thanks to Anton and Sean for their time. CHILLERAMA is now available on DVD and Blu-ray online and in stores across the US. And here's Anton's spoof short, THE MAN BEHIND THE BEAST, for your delectation.
Do the werebear!
TTFN.
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