Adam Polakoff Makes the Cover of 7x7!

Adam Polakoff and I met when we were doing extra work on Peaches Christ's film All About Evil. We've since run into each other waiting in line for Midnight Mass and most recently in the Mission where he advised that he won the cover of the current issue of 7x7 magazine. Congratulations, Adam!!

MIDNIGHT MASS 2009—Linda Blair on The Exorcist

The spirit of Christ compelled me to attend opening night weekend of the 12th edition of Midnight Mass. I'm speaking of the spirit of Peaches Christ, of course, who scored a sold-out crowd for her Saturday midnight screening of The Exorcist, preceded by a dazzling pre-show number "Peaches Will Funk You" (with such provocative lyrics as: "I don't care if your mother sucks cock as long as they be lining up around the block") and enough Regan look-alikes both on stage and in the audience to make your head spin. Idol Worship racked one up for the eternal battle between good and evil by hosting the iconic Linda Blair, who—in conversation with Peaches—revealed some sweet anecdotes about filming The Exorcist.

On the "Cold Room" Special Effects

It took many many months to—first of all—even hire me because of the special effects and the make-up. Billy Friedkin wanted to interview me many times over and talk to my mother and me to make sure I was mentally stable. He knew that was really important because he knew what he was about to do to me. Friedkin befriended my mother; they were like mother and son. The movie couldn't have been done without the friendship he had bonded—he was very crafty, that Billy Friedkin!—but, he befriended my mother and won her trust. She was never on the physical set.

The Exorcist took about a year and a half to film. As a child, I didn't know, "Is this my life? Am I always going to be trapped in this disgusting make-up?" So there I was 13-14 years old, sad and lonely, dressed as the little demon. We were filming in a building in New York and my dressing room was on the second or third floor. The sets were down below. [So on my off-time,] I'd go down and talk to the receptionist about her animals and I'd try and talk to another gal who was a Michael Jackson fan; I was a Donny Osmond fan. I was a child; I needed a friend. So I was looking out the glass doors at the front of the building at the people passing by. Nobody stopped me because at this point there was really no security. It was just me at these glass doors looking out.

All of a sudden there was a homeless person who went by the window. He's looking at me. I'm looking at him. He's looking at me. I'll never forget the look on his face [Blair mimics someone screaming in horror] and that's when I realized he was drunk and what he was looking at! Maybe I set him straight and he never drank again? Or drank a lot?

The cold room in The Exorcist [where you could see my breath] was a set where for three months we filmed in the morning when it would be zero degrees. By the time they lit it—the lights were so hot back then—it would be 17° above and then it would go to 30°. At 30° we would have to stop filming and turn all of the freezer fans back on. So we didn't really have "special effects" per se, like CGI breath coming out of my mouth. The room was genuinely cold and that was real breath coming out of my mouth. Billy Friedkin pushed the effects technicians to be the best that they could be. It was hard.

On the Guns On Set

Many of you have heard the stories about the guns and the swearing and the this and the that and it's all true. The guys were not allowed to have fun on the set. It was a small crew on a closed set. No one was allowed on. No one could see me. There were about 30 crew members who worked probably throughout but only 10 allowed on set at any given time.

Billy had these different guns hidden in different places. He would always tell me when he was going to shoot a gun off and it was really to get shock and awe out of the actors. He'd yell and scream at them, degrade them and do horrible things and I'd be lying in bed, y'know, [in her best demon voice] all strapped up. I'm watching with those contacts and that face and he'd be telling somebody off like you can't believe: "You low piece of shit motherfuckin' cocksuckin' son of a pig!" I'd be thinking, "That sounds pretty bad." He was purposely unnerving them and then he'd shoot a gun. Poor Jason Miller! His having a nervous breakdown on the set was pretty much real.

One day one of the crew threw a rubber duck back over into the set after Billy shot off the gun. It didn't go over well and everyone was fired. Everyone was fired all the time. Even I was fired. We'd all just walk away and a couple of hours later we'd all come back. It was just something Billy did. Every day. It was a lovely, loving set to work on. I'm lucky to be here.

On Audiences Being Unable To Disassociate Between An Actor And A Character

People would ask me way back then, "Have you seen the movie?" Or even today, "Well, you didn't see the film, did you?" Of course I saw the film! They never had a premiere for The Exorcist. They wanted to qualify for the Academy Awards® so The Exorcist was released on Christmas Day in New York City. That's the perfect Christmas movie, don't you think? But here was the reaction to the film: if I wanted to go anywhere, I couldn't go anywhere. When movies were released back then, there were 10 movies released, not 150 like today, so I was easily recognized. Let's say I was going into The Gap to buy some pants, and people would see me and truly be frightened. I was the Devil! You could see it in their eyes. They would back up and run. They would either run to me or away from me; it was one or the other. But I did represent that possibility of demonic possession.

On Being Outcast As A Child Star

Americans were truly ... surprised by The Exorcist. No matter where I went, I had to have a lot of bodyguards because I became a freak. Many many years ago I was very good friends with Michael Jackson and we would talk about how difficult it was to be pigeonholed. We would talk about prejudice and being misunderstood. During Michael's memorial the other day, it came to mind—knowing that I was coming to San Francisco, which has such a strong gay community—that we (Michael, myself, you) have all been pigeonholed into being misunderstood, have all experienced prejudice, have all been outcast.

In one film Elizabeth Taylor played my mother and she had been a child star. I went to see Patty Duke in Wicked and she also had been a child star. Each one of us had something in common. Child stars are taught repetition, repetition, repetition, do it the same, do it the same. Child stars are trained to be like little machines. Adult stars don't learn the same way.

Cross-published on Twitch.

07/14/09 UPDATE: "Let Peaches Funk You" is now up on YouTube:



Also, here is further backstory on Linda's being cast in The Exorcist and the 25th anniversary roadshow:

MIDNIGHT MASS 2009—The Evening Class Interview With Joshua Grannell

Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ) and I met up at the Duboce Park Café the Monday after Pride Weekend. As Peaches, Joshua had survived his Pilsner pork pull; an event he agreed to in support of his beloved BLT community. "Every year," Joshua admitted, "Peaches seems to do less and less [at Pride] in an attempt to reserve energy for the next eight weeks [of Midnight Mass]." Being that it's now official that this is the last year of Midnight Mass at the Bridge Theatre ("Peaches Christ: R.I.P."), I felt it compulsory to find out what's up. Although our conversation was primarily to serve my upcoming Fangoria article on Joshua's recently completed first feature All About Evil (I'll let you know when that hits the newsstands), I took time to probe about the summer swan song of the 12th season of Midnight Mass.

* * *

Michael Guillén: As Midnight Mass launches into its 12th Summer season, will there be any preferential glimpses into All About Evil?

Joshua Grannell: There is a trailer being made for All About Evil. It's going to be cool! The first people to see the trailer will be at one of the Midnight Mass shows this summer. We'll show it there before we even put it on line. The first look at the trailer will happen at one of the shows, though I can't say exactly when yet because that depends on the delivery. But during the finale of this year's Midnight Mass, it seems so appropriate to have Elvira and Peaches present the world, our world, the Midnight Mass world, with a sneak peek of at least one scene from the movie.

Guillén: What I find intriguing is your professional awareness of a measure of scale. The artistic project of Midnight Mass has its unique and appropriate scale; but, the scale of the film All About Evil is much larger and cannot be contained by Midnight Mass. Thus, it only makes sense to me that—though it might seem that All About Evil should premiere at Midnight Mass—it somehow is not appropriate to scale. A trailer at Midnight Mass, however, sounds just right.

Grannell: Being a cult film aficionado and someone who champions cult movies, we've not yet even released the film and people refer to it as something cult. That drives me nuts because we don't deserve that yet. We aren't a cult film. We're attempting to someday hopefully be a true cult movie—that would be wonderful—but, you can't make a cult movie; it becomes a cult movie. If the fans decide to embrace All About Evil and put it up on a pedestal and watch it over and over again, then maybe sometime down the line we can refer to it as a cult movie. But it's not a cult movie yet. It's brand-new and it needs to find its audience. The movies that we screen at Midnight Mass are tried and true, beloved films; but, as a segue into this feature film, you're right, yes, a trailer seems wholly appropriate. Maybe someday we'll be able to create a Midnight Mass presentation out of All About Evil; but, I would much rather have that be after people have embraced the film and decided to love it and understand it, y'know?

Guillén: I have to ask the obvious question because some people were upset when they heard the news that this is the last year of Midnight Mass at The Bridge. Was it your decision to discontinue Midnight Mass? Was it the theater's? What's happened that Midnight Mass is now shifting away from The Bridge?

Grannell: Yes, it was my decision, along with the group of people who created Midnight Mass 12 years ago. While making All About Evil, we had to start prep for this season and had to table everything until we were done shooting the film. Usually, we would have been booking movies, powwowing, creating a marketing campaign, prepping for the summer; but, we didn't have time because we were working on All About Evil. When we finally sat down to do it, there was this sense of exhaustion, a feeling of frustration, and the heaviness of having done something for 11 years, and racking our brains to keep it fresh, new, exciting and interesting and relevant not just for the fans but one another. I always said that once it stopped being fun, we would figure out a way to rechallenge, repurpose, redo it, revamp it.

We all looked at each other and I said, "There's something about this season that feels like maybe this is the last one?" Everyone nodded in agreement. It has nothing to do with anything other than that we've done it for 12 seasons of 7 to 8 weeks of back to back shows. It's been amazing. We still love it. I think this Summer's going to be so special because we know this is the last. Part of it is that—in order to rechallenge and repurpose Midnight Mass—we've gone on the road, and we loved that; but, we want to do something new for San Francisco. All I can say is the plan is to create bigger and better shows with all that work and energy that goes into the pre-show, instead of tearing it down after one or two nights and having to do something new the next week; to really enjoy it, to savor it, to let as many audiences come to see it as possible, and to not feel so rushed and hurried. Lately, we've been hitting this wall with Midnight Mass in the Summer season where we can extend all this energy on a show like Barebarella and try to create this fun, theatrical experience, we do it for one night, and then those costumes get put away and I have to wake up on Sunday morning and start thinking about the next five shows.

What it's become really is that the shows have become so special and important to us that we want to take them to the next level; but—in order to do that—we have to give ourselves instead of a week to get ready for the shows, let's give ourselves four or five weeks and do the show for two weeks. That's what's really going on. We're not abandoning Midnight Mass, we're not walking away from Midnight Mass, we're strengthening it through rechallenging ourselves, trying something new.

Guillén: In its current incarnation, Midnight Mass is kicking off in style with your opening weekend Linda Blair doublebill! Rollerboogie on Friday, July 12 and The Exorcist on Saturday, July 13. With Blair there for both screenings! How did that all come about?

Grannell: Linda Blair has been on my list of dream guests for years. In the world of cult movies and the kinds of films that we love and celebrate at Midnight Mass, I have to say that's a very short list these days. So many of the fantastic people we would have liked to bring over the years are no longer with us and we've brought John Waters, Tura Satana, Mink Stole.... Linda Blair's a household name. She was so young when she started making movies. She's so vital and fabulous and made all these amazing incredible films that we love and she's just someone who's been on that list. We actually approached her about coming last year and she expressed interest. Unfortunately, we had a schedule conflict. The weekend I had open, she was on the East Coast. So we tabled the idea to see if we couldn't make it work this year and I was super-thrilled to find out that—not only are we going to be able to do it—but, she's excited about it.

Guillén: Have you met her?

Grannell: I have not. But she is friends with Cassandra Peterson and I'm pretty sure that Mink knows her too. That helps, y'know. It's funny how in this world of show business there are pockets of it that are quite small. When you're interested in certain kinds of movies, people know each other. I was able to get a good recommendation from Cassandra. Perhaps! [Laughter.]

Cross-published on Twitch.

QUEER ICON—San Francisco Premiere at Roxie Film Center

In full disclosure, I am one of the talking heads in Mike Black and Carole Summer's Queer Icon: The Cult of Bette Davis, a documentary that examines the many aspects of the gay fascination with Bette Davis, featuring film clips of Bette's most iconic moments, juxtaposed with camp burlesques of her by Matthew Martin, Charles Pierce and Arthur Blake. Featured is a profile of Martin, highlighting his long identification with Davis, and interviews with fans, entertainers, and gay cultural historians exploring the link between the gay community and Bette.

One of those interviews is with film historian Matthew Kennedy (Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory), who—when I asked him how he felt about his participation in the project—responded: "I loved having the opportunity to ponder what makes Bette Davis great and why I love her. She's so much more than easily imitated grand gestures that drag queens find so hard to resist. What a pure creature of the cinema she was—imagine if she had been born before movies were invented. It's almost unthinkable. A select few stars seem made for the camera, almost as though their very existence depends on the moving image. She was one of them."

As for having his sequence filmed in the auditorium of the Castro Theatre, Kennedy commented: "It was an honor to be interviewed in the Castro. And a little intimidating. It's hallowed ground!"

Likewise interviewed is impresario Marc Huestis, who was instrumental in facilitating the interaction between Black and Matthew Martin. "Congrats to Mike & Carole for finishing film, he offered. "Anything with/about BETTE DAVIS has to be entertaining, no?!"

But with customary aplomb, it was Peaches Christ who scored the poster pull quote: "There's a collective understanding that she is God." When I asked Joshua Grannell how Peaches became involved in the project, Joshua replied: "They emailed me about participating in the film and it was during the Midnight Mass season and I said, 'I love Bette Davis and I would love to participate and the best way to catch me is to come to the show with your camera and we'll do the interview at the Bridge Theatre.' That's what they did. They set up the camera and we did the interview. Often my brain is so dumb when I'm in drag—as far as memory goes or whatever, there's no filter over my mouth—so I'm looking forward to the screening because I have no idea what I said."

As for interacting with Matthew Martin: "Matthew has never done Midnight Mass and I've never shared the stage with him outside of performing on the same nights at Trannyshack. However, we knew of one another before we ever met. He'd seen me and I'd seen him and I was certainly an admirer of his so—when we met some years ago—it was like we had always known each other. Ironically, Matthew made his Baby Jane movie right around the same time we were making All About Evil. Here was another opportunity for him to either be in our thing or for me to be in their's; but, we were doing it all at the same time."

As Michael Fox has written at SF Weekly, Davis' appeal "derives from her ambisexuality in combination with such timeless personas as the holy-terror diva, the stalwart solitaire, and the camp heroine." Fox adds: "More than simply a lovefest, Queer Icon questions whether gays still need a role model like the fabulous Miss D. The film will surely find an enthusiastic audience when it plays the queer capitals of New York and Los Angeles, but [Thursday's] world premiere is bound to be an only-in-San-Francisco event. It won't be tedious, darling."

Matt Sussman concurs at Flavorpill: "That been-around-the-block moxie; that sultry sophistication; and, of course, those eyes. There are many reasons why Bette Davis was one of the greatest actresses ever to grace the silver screen, but her x-factor has long held—indeed, continues to hold—particular sway over gay men."

Queer Icon: The Cult of Bette Davis boasts its San Francisco premiere at a one-off screening at the Roxie Film Center on Thursday, July 2, 2009, at 6:00, 8:10, 10:20PM. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased in advance at www.blacksummers.com. Photos courtesy of Black Summers Productions, LLC. Photo of Matthew Martin as Bette Davis courtesy of Marc Huestis.

DEADGIRL / SOMEONE'S KNOCKING AT THE DOOR—The Evening Class Interview With Noah Segan

Having already spoken with Gadi Harel when he accompanied Deadgirl to San Francisco's IndieFest earlier this Spring, I welcomed the opportunity to follow through with Noah Segan who was in town filming Peaches Christ's All About Evil. During down time on the set at San Francisco's Victoria Theatre, Noah and I sat down to talk.

* * *

Michael Guillén: It's a great pleasure to meet you, Noah. I've become a fan of your work by way of Deadgirl. Recently I interviewed Gadi for that film. Then I went back and caught Brick.

Noah Segan: Have you had a chance to see Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever?

Guillén: Not yet.

Segan: I'll tell ya, I've seen the current cut and it's fantastic! I was invited to a Fangoria panel at their last convention for the Cabin Fever film. Of course, there were a few people who had seen Deadgirl at the time; it hadn't really gotten out there yet. It started with a festival run. A lot of people had seen Brick. So there was some overlapping of people who thought they might be fans of the Cabin Fever film. I feel really good about it. I feel it will slot in nicely.

Guillén: You've done about nine films in the last year or two.

Segan: In the last couple of years I've done about 10 movies, yeah; I'm lucky. And I produced my first film last year. Are you familiar with Chad Ferrin and his work? He did the Troma film Unspeakable, The Ghouls, Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill!, and I produced his last film and starred in it as well: Someone's Knocking At the Door.

Guillén: Paul Sado—who wrote your mini-biography for IMdb—said that you were self-educated and too intelligent to graduate from high school. Is that true?

Segan: No. Sado was intelligent enough to write that. He's an old buddy of mine from New York and a very smart writer who imparted a love of Terry Southern, Sam Peckinpah, Monte Hellman, Warren Oates, and '60s counterculture upon me. He put that up on IMdb years ago before I had even done Brick. Over the last few years as I've worked more and become a little more well-known, and done press, and had proper biographies printed, I keep expecting that IMdb biography to be pulled down. It's hilarious; but, it's not professional. I keep expecting some business person to yank it down. I keep telling people I work with not to take it down. I want to see how long I can go with this absurd bio on IMdb. My favorite quote is: "Noah's favorite actor is Warren Oates, who died, as Noah expects to do one day as well."

Guillén: I truly admired your performance as JT in Deadgirl. I recognize it as a difficult performance. Do you tend to accept roles where the characters are barely likeable?

Segan: [Chuckles.] I think I'm the most likeable character in the world in Brick. I'm the sweetest guy in the universe. Dode is one of the most heartfelt people in the world.

Guillén: JT, however, is another story. Are unlikeable characters challenging for you? Is that why you choose them?

Segan: I don't know. I tend to not look at the roles in terms of likeability or even in terms of good and evil. I've been lucky in that the roles I've performed that I find the most fulfilling are ones that are conflicted; ones where the character or the circumstances are ambivalent. Deadgirl is a perfect example of that. The whole film is about ambivalence, and the conflict of youth, masculinity, friendship and power. There's a lot of that in Brick as well. It's easy for me to do those roles because I'm personally conflicted. I'd like to think most actors are. I'd like to think that most actors who immerse themselves in their work do so because they're trying to answer questions about themselves. There's some catharsis in that as well. I'm a pretty nice guy. [Laughs.] I'm not really a jerk; but, I think playing jerks helps me be a nice guy. It's definitely therapy, man.

I look at my character JT in Deadgirl and I see a guy who really does want to be liked and who wants to be strong, powerful and helpful to his friend. He wants to achieve a level of success in a way. His relationship with the dead girl, with Jenny Spain's character, is one where he's trying as hard as he can to get somewhere in life. He thinks he's found the girl of his dreams. He thinks he's going to have a future. He thinks he's hustling on his way somewhere. It's tragic. It's more apt to say I have a tendency to play tragic characters than evil ones.

Guillén: Can you speak to your attraction to genre films?

Segan: I'm a fan of Peter Jackson and these guys that push the envelope into different genres within the horror genre. That's the beauty of working within a genre. When you have these established rules and your audiences are aware of them, then they're also aware when you break the rules. It's obvious when you break the rules and make that joke or go too far or don't go far enough. That's a great challenge. There's a great delight in that. That's why I like genre fans and why I'm a genre fan and why I like working in those environments. If you really want to read a manifesto, you should read this piece I did for Bloody Disgusting after Deadgirl played Toronto. They just fucking let me go off and I gave them this manifesto on genre films and westerns. They printed every fucking word, which is the beauty of writing online. It's the ultimate soapbox. If you want to look that up, it's my best piece on where it's all coming from for me.

Guillén: Were there challenges preparing for the role of JT?

Segan: Right before I was to start Deadgirl, I was off in a far faraway land shooting another movie. I was concerned about how to negotiate the role of JT and how to remain in the zone. Simply enough, remain in character or to be able to get back in touch with the character on a regular basis, right? I was also about to move. I had secured a new apartment on the other side of town. I lived on the beach and was moving towards the city. I was bitching and moaning, to be honest with you, at these other actors on this other set, concerned about how I was going to stay in character and have a handle on the character. It's fairly easy for me to figure out the arc of a character, especially in something as well-written as Deadgirl. You read the script and take your character out. You see where he goes and you try to figure out where he's been, maybe where he's going afterwards, what he's doing when you don't see him; it's a little crossword puzzle. But how do you keep that up? How do you maintain that?

I was talking about it to some other actors who I respected and one of them said, "Well, when I was working on a film that put me in a similar situation, I moved out of my house. I stayed in a hotel somewhere even though I was shooting in a location near where I lived. I lived in this hotel. I didn't own anything. I didn't have any belongings. I was quiet and alone." Knowing what I was going through at the time with moving, I decided that was my opportunity to do something similar. When I boxed everything up at the old apartment, I paid an extra month's rent, left everything there, went to the new place, put up blackout curtains and lived there alone without anything on the walls, no pictures of my mom or my sister, no clothing of my own. I had a blanket but it wasn't my blanket. It didn't smell like me, you know what I mean? That was the important transition: to make sure that I could be alone. The important part wasn't remaining in character, it was insuring that nothing came into the character that wasn't supposed to be there. When I was not working—which on a set like Deadgirl or All About Evil—you're only not working a few hours of the day; but, it was important to me that during those few hours I was shut down. It was almost like those hours didn't exist.

Guillén: And because of the controversial relationship with women in Deadgirl, it was important for you not to have contact with the women in your life?

Segan: Yes! It was very important for me not to have contact with the women in my life. There weren't many women on set other than Jenny Spain, who played the dead girl, who also understood what I was going through. She was sensitive and one of the most professional people on that set. At the very beginning of the process I also took Gadi and Marcel aside and I said, "Look. I'm not the kind of actor in general who feels like he needs to be patted on the head every time he does something well, as much as I appreciate it when someone pats me on the head or the back." I said, "In this particular case especially, whatever attention you would normally think to give to me, give it to Jenny instead and leave me alone. Just let me be in my weird, dark place and I promise you it will be worth it.

Guillén: Which it was.

Segan: You can keep yourself occupied on a set, especially if you had as much stuff to say as I did in that movie. I had a lot of homework; but—while we were shooting—it was important that when I was off that set, I was not in my own head. I wasn't Noah. I was no one. It wasn't that I needed to be JT 24 hours a day; it was just that I needed to get this gross, vitriolic, chauvinist, violent person to go away, and Noah needed to go away, so I could be in an empty place.

Guillén: I understand that Someone's Knocking At the Door will be playing Another Hole in the Head?

Segan: Yeah. I want to try to coordinate something with All About Evil and Hole in the Head to, perhaps, have Darren and/or Joshua come by on the day of, do a little introduction to my film and then, afterwards, maybe show a minute-long teaser of All About Evil. Or have Kris Boxell, our graphic designer, come by with some artwork. More than anything, it occurred to me that many of the people who helped out on All About Evil are not Hollywood movie people. It'd be nice to give audiences a taste of All About Evil because it may be six months to a year before the film is finished and able to be seen by a wide audience in theatres. It'd be nice to keep the San Francisco vibe going.

Guillén: How did you become involved in being the producer for Someone's Knocking At the Door?

Segan: I'd been introduced to Chad Ferrin through Trent Haaga who wrote Deadgirl and who is a very close friend of mine. Trent and Chad have worked together a bunch. Chad and I had similar taste in film. We hit it off and became buddies. He sent me the script for Someone's Knocking At the Door. It had been presented to him. It was the first time anyone had ever asked him to direct something he hadn't written. He called me up and said, "Someone just sent me this script. I'm going to do some work on it. You've got really good taste in movies, do you have time to take a look at the script and let me know what you think? Maybe give me some notes on it? I don't know where to start." The next thing we knew it was a couple of months later and we had taken the script apart and put it back together again. It was very much a different kind of film. Our executive producer and investors liked the direction in which we were going. There was a role in it that, ostensibly, I could play that we had created that would be fun to come in and do. We started putting the movie together and the next thing I knew I stepped in as a producer, not only helping with the development of the script but the locations, hiring the crew, auditioning actors.

Guillén: Would you like to do more of that in the future?

Segan: I had a fun time doing it—I really did—and I'm still involved in the post-production process, the artwork. The festival premieres have been exciting.

Guillén: Can you provide a short synopsis of the film?

Segan: Someone's Knocking At the Door is a contemporary take on the classic '60s-'70s grindhouse grossout sex drugs rock and roll movie. It's a psychedelic story of murder, mayhem, rape and deviancy.

Guillén: Oooooooh! It sounds perfect for Hole in the Head.

Segan: It is. And the soundtrack is hip. It's by this band The Mae Shi who I met playing The Screamers in the movie I did about The Germs. They're out of L.A. They're a really interesting band, lots of unique sounds, kind of punk rock meets synthesizer, very Devo kind of sound. I became buddies with them on the set of What We Do Is Secret and I thought they would be a cool addition and take Someone's Knocking At the Door into a different direction. Not only did the band provide some cool mixes of their songs for the movie that became part of the movie, but Brad Breeck—one of the leaders of the band—did our score. So it's a ground-up collaboration for the music and sound. We use a lot of his score as sound effects. Those were the cherries on the icing on the top of my producing cake.

A reminder that Someone's Knocking At the Door will be screening twice at San Francisco's Another Hole in the Head Film Festival; on June 8 at 7:15PM and June 13 at 11:45PM. Chad Ferrin is expected to attend.

Cross-published on Twitch.