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Your new movie Massacre - in a few words, what is it about?
A girl wakes up at
the site of a bloody mass murder and can’t remember what happened!
How did the project fall together in the first place? Through
a lot of synchronicities really. That and a lot of hard work! What
were your inspirations when writing Massacre? It
came to me in a very vivid, bloody and violent dream! What
can you tell us about your movie's approach to horror, and is horror a
genre at all dear to you? It’s
a slasher flick with a strong female lead character and yes I love the
horror genre, especially slasher movies - serial killers are my favourite! Since there are quite a few
gorehounds among my readers, you obviously have to talk about the gore
effects in your movie for a bit! There’s
certainly a lot of blood in the film! In fact we shot at my director Erik
Boccio’s apartment and there was just so much blood everywhere - we even
wrote the title of the film on the wall in blood - that we had to get him new carpet and repaint the whole place. It looked like a real
murder scene, it was great! All the FX were practical in Massacre, our
amazing FX artists were husband and wife team Sierra and Josh Russell and
they created some great, gory FX where knives go through heads and
stomachs and more. There’s a lot of stabbing in Massacre! You also play the lead
character in Massacre - so what can you tell us about your
character, what did you draw upon to bring her to life, and have you
written Marianne with yourself in mind from the get-go? I
didn’t have anything in mind for Massacre when I wrote it as it came
from a dream not a conscious thought but it just made sense to play
Marianne seeing as I created her!
Jeff Hilliard, Jeordie White, Pandie, Rob
Patterson, London May on set
photo by Cris Jan Lim |
What
can you tell us about your director Erik Boccio, and what was your
collaboration like? Erik
Boccio is a really talented director who has directed over a hundred
videos for the website FunnyorDie.com
under the name Weirdfellas. He’s also directed multiple other
amazing shorts and music videos, including Pussy Riot’s video for
Putin Lights Up the Fires. He’s really good at getting a story
told in the visual medium. Collaborating with him
on Massacre was great because he really shared the same kind of
vision that I had for the film and he really, really delivered I feel in
bringing that to the screen. I plan to collaborate with him again in the
future. Erik Boccio's definitely a director to watch. You also were in charge of casting Massacre
- so what can you tell us about your key cast, and why exactly these
people?
Honestly most
of the key players involved in Massacre came to me! London May I already
knew and he heard I was making a film and asked if there were any parts
for him in it, so we auditioned him for the role of ‘The Detective’
and he just was so perfect in the audition that we had to cast him. London
did an amazing job bringing his character to life. He has some other great
things coming out soon I hear too so look out for more from London May.
Billy
Morrison who played the role of ‘The Paramedic’ was introduced to me
by our mutual friend and fellow Suicide Girl ‘Moxi Suicide’ at Jeordie
White, one of our two amazingly talented composers’ wedding and Billy
read for the role, killed it and it all went on from there. I’m very
happy with our casting decisions, everyone involved did such a great job!
photo by Kim Millard |
Do talk about the shoot as such, and the on-set
atmosphere!
The shoot
went really well, it was over about three days in Los Angeles. The first
day we shot all the police station scenes, and the second day was all the
blood! Third day was some other smaller shots.
One
thing that was funny that happened on the first day was when Billy
Morrison, who is a really great actor and put his all into the character,
was dressed up in his paramedics uniform for the part, not one, not two,
but three of our other actors who have all known Billy for a long
time walked straight past him without recognizing him! Now that’s a true
transformation! Anything you can tell us about audience and
critical reception of your movie yet? We
had the Los Angeles Red Carpet Premiere on September 17 at Busby’s East
and we had a great turn out. The audience seemed to react pretty well to
the film so we were very lucky there! Massacre has also been an official
selection at several film festivals so far such as the Fantasmagorical
Film Fest, Horror Hound Weekend, Puerto Rico Horror Film Fest and more. It
won an award for the soundtrack at the first festival it played and got
nominated for Best Short Film at the second festival it played which is
fantastic. The $64-question
of course: Where can the movie be seen? Next
the film is going to be playing in the Fangoria Magazine Online Film Fest
which I’m quite excited about as it’s being judged by some pretty
amazing judges including George A. Romero, Tom Savini and Tom Holland.
I’m not sure of all the details of that festival yet but it’s online
so people should be able to tune in on their computers, tablets and
devices to see it. After Massacre’s festival run we are looking into
some form of digital distribution, so stay tuned for more info on that!
Any future
projects you'd like to share? I
have a lot of future projects going on, I never stop! Currently
I’m writing the feature version of Massacre, I have another horror
short I’ve written called Blood Bath which I’m looking to start
getting into pre-production on soon, and a TV series I’m developing
called Teeth. I also am about to release my debut novel Seraphim
Song under the name ‘Pandie James’ on Amazon. Pre-orders are
available now and it officially releases November 16 worldwide. The novel
is a bit different from my usual horror fare in that it’s more in the
urban fantasy / paranormal romance genre, but don’t worry it's not too
different - I mean the Devil himself makes an appearance in various forms
in the story! I actually wrote Seraphim Song a very long time ago,
when I was a teenager even, and forgot all about it. I found the file on
an old hard drive a few months ago and decided to edit and update it a
little for 2015 and release it as my debut novel! What got you into acting
to begin with, and did you receive any formal training on the subject?
I
studied film theory and script writing at university when I was getting my
BA Degree in Media Studies. I also took classes in television studies and
more so I learned a lot on the other side of things there, whilst also
taking drama and music classes in high school and then later when I moved
to Los Angeles I took some quite intensive acting classes to help hone the
craft. I’m not sure exactly what got me into acting, it’s just one of
the things I’ve always been drawn to, creating and telling stories
whether through writing, acting, playing music, drawing or modeling and
more. I do remember creating and putting on a lot of my own plays by
myself or with the neighbours’ children or my cousins as a child though,
I was already writing, directing and producing as well as acting! What
can you tell us about your filmwork prior to Massacre?
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photo by Jenna Kraczek |
I wrote,
directed and played the lead role in my first film when I was in high
school. It was a vampire flick that I made for one of my creative tech
classes. It was very, very edgy, in fact so edgy that I couldn’t turn it
in or I might have been expelled!
After
that I did all kinds of things movies, TV, music videos and more. Besides
making movies, you've also been in a host of music videos, including one
by David Lynch - so what can you tell us about those, and how does
shooting a music video compare to acting in a movie? Shooting
a music video can be very long hours all at once because generally
they’re trying to get it all shot in 1-2 days and are basically going
for broke, whereas with a film there’s a lot more leeway in that it’s
usually being shot over a lot more days, weeks or months so they don’t
have to cram absolutely everything into the one or two day shoot. Having
said that, shooting movies can be really long hours too. One of the main
difference with music videos as opposed to film is that usually there’s
a lot less dialogue, if any at all and it’s definitely all about telling
a story in the visual medium. I mean all film is about that but music
videos take it to another level, using only the image and its accompanying
soundtrack to tell the story, little to no dialogue to help it along,
it’s quite an art. As
your name readily suggests, you're one of the Suicide Girls - so
what can you tell us about your work with them? I
became a Suicide Girl in 2005 when I was living in New Zealand, which is
where I grew up, though currently I am in Los Angeles. There were no
Suicide Girls in the country at the time so I thought I’d apply and they
accepted me. Becoming a Suicide Girl is one of the best decisions I’ve
ever made. It’s an amazing community to be a part of. What not
quite that many people might know, you have a Bachelor of Arts degree in
Media Studies and are a music journalist on the side - so what can you
tell us about that aspect of your career?
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It's
not really something I do on the side, I do everything always all at once,
you know? I'm always acting, modelling, writing, filmmaking etc, it's all
always 100%. It's just at the moment I'm taking a slight hiatus from the
music journalism due to other projects absorbing all my time but I am
probably
going to change that up very soon! Actresses,
filmmakers, writers, whoever else who inspire you?
I
have many, many inspirations in my life but one of them is the French
writer Anais Nin not just because of her way with words but also because
of everything she represents - being a strong, unique voice and a definite
badass for her time among other things. I have her portrait
tattooed on my left thigh. Your/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever
else? You
can find Massacre at:
www.facebook.com/massacrethemovie
or @massacremovie on Twitter/Instagram, plus there's
www.massacrethemovie.com
Or you can find me on Instagram/Twitter/Tumblr/Periscope at @pandiesuicide
or www.facebook.com/pandiesuicide
Thanks for the interview!
Thank
you!
-Pandie
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find Pandie Suicide at adultvideouniverse.com
