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Your new movie Creeping
Crawling - in a few words, what is it about?
Creeping
Crawling
is an anthology horror film with three stories about people's
psychological relationship with various insects. Since
your film plays with the fear of invertebrates - is that at all a fear you
can relate to, personally? LOL, I actually think that people
will be surprised about the way buggys are woven into these stories. I
didnt want to do a creature feature in the traditional sense where unclad
women were being stalked by invertebrates. All the stories are sort of
about different kinds of personal madness with a little fetish thrown in.
The message is one about the personal hell we all create. But I do hate spiders, lol. (Other) sources of
inspiration when writing Creeping
Crawling - and what can you tell us about your co-writers Tracy
Nichole Cring and Joshua Owens, and what was your collaboration like?
Tracy is my
wife and she had the idea for all three stories. We let a cat in our house
off the street and it infested the house completely with fleas. We bombed
the shit out of it using 5 times the recommended chemical amount and when
we came back to see the carnage we wrote two of the stories with the odor
of pesticide still stinging our nostrils. In other words we may have been
a little affected.
Josh Owens
is a brilliant friend of mine and he has an amazing demented sense of
humor. When the final story Bugger needed to be written, we let him run
with our idea and he took it to some wonderful and wacky places.
How
would you describe your directorial approach to your story/stories at
hand, and your approach to the horror genre in general?
I wanted
each story to sort of represent three different kinds of suspense and horror films.
R.I.D. was informed by British haunted house movies (The
Legend of Hellhouse and Burnt Offerings). We were in talks to
have Karen Black actually play the Entymologist who does the wraparound.
Grubbery has
more of a late 70s style where it is about horrible things happening but
nothing supernatural occurs. The parts of films like Don't Look Now or even
The Exorcist that really stick with you are the loss of a child or the
barbarism of Regan's treatment. Most of the horror people experience is at
the hands of family not ghosties or ghoulies.
Bugger is a lot more slash and flash 80s. It also is funny which
harkens back to
Critters or Ghoulies.
As far as
directing it is all about performance. When you have great people around
you who worry about lighting and camera etc, you can try to bring out the
characters and make them as real as possible.
Creeping
Crawling also has a humouristic note to it - so what can you tell
us about the movie's brand of comedy?
This is my
first feature horror film. I like to surprise people with where a story
goes. I would never advertise this as a horror comedy because then you
have to be funny a certain percentage of the time, but when you keep your
tongue in cheek it tells the audience that we can have fun and even make
fun of ourselves. The characters who talk to the professor who leads out
each story are purposfully stereotypical of teen horror films.
In the story
of Bugger that Josh wrote we decided if we are gonna show this one scene
we are gonna go all out (If you've seen it you know the one Im
talking about, lol). You gotta go balls out or in this case worms out.
What can you tell
us about the key cast, and why exactly these people?
Well Anna
Shields [Anna Shields
interview - click here] was cast as an Emergency measure the night before shooting. She is
a star with mega wattage. Beautiful funny crazy sexy she does it all.
Laura LaFrate from America's Next Top Model, I met her at a
fashion show and kinda was smitten by
her kick assness.
Sara Von
Ouhl is a regional model but also a huge cinephile. She was a partner of
mine on a movie review show. She has something so classy about her and I
wanted to break her down to a truly vulnerable place.
Raine Brown
has been in numerous successful horror features, and when I sent her the
script, together we came up with this "Velma" like horror
convention conspiracy theorist character.
Chuck Girard
is a friend who I knew had leading man potential if he would just be given
the chance.
I could say
so much about each of the actors in this movie, Sheree Spargo who actually
reminds me of the afore-mentioned Karen Black... Kevin Craig West as the
long suffering boyfriend is wonderful... I am a fan of all of them.
A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere?
We
shot each section separately so it was like making four short films. I
think that gave us a chance to really change the mood and style. I am very
organic when I film. I wait to see what might happen. You have to plan but
then you have to let go. If people are not having fun they will remember
that they are missing Jeopardy and go home. Do
talk about critical and audience reception of your movie so far for a bit! People
seem to dig it. I am not curing cancer with this movie, lol. I just want
people to have a good time and maybe see a few things they never saw
before. Contact me on Facebook if you want. I love telling stories and hearing
everyone's opinion. Any
future projects you'd like to share? I have a bunch. I
currently have 7 movies in various developmental stages. I shot a film
last year called Hobo Heyseus, which is sort of a spiritual hippie
drama. This June I am doing my largest film to date entitled This is Nowhere which is about a 15 year old girl whose family
run a motel populated by the outcasts of society. What got you into
filmmaking to begin with, and did you receive any formal education on the
subject?
I learned
filmmaking from the "School of Hard Cocks" - wait did I say that
right? Lol.
My wife made
a film when she was 18 and won some equipment. We started writing and
producing for others together and learned just by doing. We just finished
our 17th feature film which means that we have found 17 right and wrong
ways to make a movie. More like 1700.
What can you tell us about your filmwork aside
from Creeping
Crawling?
I can tell
you that if independent digital film is ever gonna truly compete with
Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking, we are gonna have to change our mindset.
We have to overcome them with ideas and character-driven stories. If we do
not need all the bullshit they do to make a film and can still have the
goal of entertaining with amazing scripts, we will bury the 100 million
film with 100 one million Dollar films or even many more.
The cost of
promotion will continue to go up but the cost of filmmaking has dropped.
Stop wishing you can be one of the big boys! They are dinosaurs walking
towards tar pits man.
How would you describe yourself as a
director? Jesus... uh, fuckin awesome. Lol, I have been called
an actor's director, which makes me very happy. I love actors. Any director
who minimizes actors needs to go back to delivering pizza. It is all about
performance. Filmmakers who inspire you? Coppola,
Ashby, Capra, Polanski, Carpenter, PT Anderson, Mann, Kubrick, De Palma,
Weir, Corman [Roger Corman
bio - click here]. Your
favourite movies?
Dude, that is
an impossible question. I would name 10 in every genre. I will tell you my
favorite horror film: Carpenter's The
Thing... it is perfect. Scary, claustrophobic, gooey, fun, bleak. It
captures the way people can turn on each other depending on
circumstance... plus Kurt Russell has a kick ass sombrero.
... and of course, films you really
deplore?
I truely
despise:
Comedy
without any edge (Medea).
Pretentious period drama (Merchant Ivory).
Any torture porn sequel (Saw,
Hostel,
Vacancy) - go make more originals!
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I
also totally do not get most of the Italian directors Fellini, Argento etc. Its like you make one good film that canonizes you and then you are
allowed to make dreck after that.
Your/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever
else?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Creeping-Crawling/257652957611863?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/jon.cring?fref=ts
jrcring@gmail.com
creepingcrawling.webs.com
Anything else you are dying to mention and I have
merely forgotten to ask? Please let me know what you think
of the film after you have seen it. Share it around too. Thank you for
letting me blather, lol. Thanks for the interview!
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