Wisconsin-Based Producer / Director Derrick Carey Orchestrates the Offbeat Horror Anthology HOLE IN THE WALL and Brings It to VHS Before Any Other Format! And It Debuts This Coming Weekend at Cinema Wasteland! DIG IT!
Created by some of the headiest horror talent harvested from the home base of murderer and madman Ed Gein comes the Wisconsin horror film underground’s love letter to the crimson-covered macabre, Hole in the Wall. The film comprises a seven-headed directorial attack hinged on a haunted axe that hungers for flesh, wildly warping the viewer into disparate blood-drenched worlds as they venture through the offbeat anthology that is Derrick Carey’s newest indie venture. And the best part? It’s on VHS before any other format. Limited to 50 copies with a portion housed in eye-popping alternate artwork, Hole is making its anti-digital debut at this upcoming weekend’s raddest and baddest horror and exploitation party spectacular Cinema Wasteland. Read on, my fellow Videovores, and put yer eye up to the Hole…
I still collect, but not like the kids that are now. I have a collection that I hold onto. If I see a tape I wanna get, I’ll reach out and grab it. There are some great groups out there now like VHS Misfits that keep alive. Shit, I even collect CED’s. It’s a problem I’m sure all your readers can relate to.
It’s cool to see people dig the hunt for tapes.
Okay, random but fun one… who would win in a fight: Leprechaun or Rumpelstiltskin (1995)?
Did Rumpelstiltskin get to be in a Brian Trenchard Smith film in space? Nah, I didn’t think so. Warwick Davis wins that shit by a mile.
Yo, fair enough! What’s next, mang?
Hole is gonna kind of be my world for a little bit here, dude. I’ve been going non-stop, working on films for about 5 years now. I have one other film that is waiting for sound work to be done before it’s release (Jason Paul Collum’s Safe Inside), but other than that, I am taking a short breather for the next 6 months or so. Do some cons, screen this film at fests, just kinda live for a little bit.
Cory Udler and I have a heavy metal horror film we have written that we’d like to make, so we’ll see. There have been talkings about a lot of projects, some really exciting ones.
The one-sheet for HOLE IN THE WALL. Any chance I could wipe this thing down before I take a peek, mang?
Can you tell us a little but about your film background? Where did the idea for Hole in the Wall come from? Well, for the most part I am a film/video editor. I have worked on a number of documentaries (Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacres and Screaming in High Heels: The Rise and Fall of the Scream Queen Era) and indie features (Swamphead, Dead Weight, Safe Inside). My production house, Rabid Child Films, put out a gross-out monster on the loose comedy a few years ago called Swamphead that has been making the rounds in the underground circuit. Hole in the Wall came together because of the Wisconsin Horror scene. John Pata (Dead Weight, Pity) runs an amazing film festival called the OSHKOSH HORROR FILM FESTIVAL every year. I have either had films screen or been involved with the festival for 4 years now. Through it I have met many passionate, amazing people. Originally the festival only highlighted Wisconsin based horror filmmakers. Through this I met writer/director Cory J. Udler (Incest Death Squad series, Mediatrix, Girl Who Played with the Dead). We hit it off right away. Eventually we wanted to see if we could collaborate on a project together and decided the best way to test those waters would be to do an anthology film. Initially Hole was gonna be just 3 directors, but over the course of production, some people had to drop out or leave, and others took their place. The main theme was always, however, for it to have other Wisconsin based filmmakers be the emphasis of the film. The people that all came together were those we had met from Pata’s Oshkosh Horror Film Festival.
The radical new artwork from Devon Whitehead that will house the new DVD release of SWAMPHEAD from Wild Eye. You can get the totally amazing VHS edition RIGHT HURR.
This is an anthology, so you were working with a bunch of other directors on this one. Can you fill us in on who’s involved with this flick, and the experience of working with everyone to make the film? Here’s the rundown of the shorts included and the directors: I did the wrap around segment entitled The Plainfield Chopper, a short called Our Song is My Blade. Cory Udler – “Ed Gein D.D.S” Rob Michels – “Scumbag” Greg Johnson – “Last Dance” Carolyn Baker – “Siren” Kevin Sommerfield and Steve Goltz – “Glory Hole” The crew of people that eventually came together to produce this film and the shorts in it are 100% in it for the right reasons. Zero vanity, zero ego, all for the art of making subversive gonzo cinema. I am honored to have them all in this film. They stuck with me through thick and thin, as this film took 2 years to finish, and were all amazing people. We all helped each other out anyway we could. In the end, it’s exactly the kind of movie Cory and I set out to make: a big middle finger to convention and a hug and tug for the weirdoes.
A happy crew on the set of HOLE IN THE WALL. That's Derrick down there with the groovy FOD threads, comforting the corpse.
What’s the film all about? What can Tapeheads expect from taking a peek into the Wall? It’s a hard film to really describe in a traditional sense because the stories and wrap around don’t relate in a way most anthologies do. The inspiration behind the wrap around segment came from Richard Linklater’s Slacker, in the way that the focus and emphasis of the film scene to scene changed with who was in coming and going. The wrap around plays with the films in similar ways where an object in the room or the voice of a person will transport the viewer into another place and story. The wrap around segment, The Plainfield Chopper is based on an old Wisconsin legend with ties to Ed Gein in Plainfield, Wisconsin. In Dennis Boyer’s book Northern Frights, he details the story of an old ax bearing Viking spirit that inhabited people and forced the possessed to chop people up. This person was never caught. Supposedly, this spirit is what possessed Ed Gein to commit his atrocities. The film, however, is about an ax that possesses its owner and forces them to bathe in the blood of their victims. Greg Johnson (Incest Death Squad series) plays the Chopper character who, along with a rural feral boy played by Draven Wagner, bring a body back to his shed and slowly through the course of the film take the body apart little by little until a glorious orgy of blood and gore to close out the film. H.G.L., Texas Chainsaw, Coffin Joe, and the Guinea Pig films inspired the wrap around segment. My second film, Blade is the back-story to the Chopper film. The other films that the Chopper story warps out to include one about a coven of witches that resurrect Ed Gein through a dentist’s chair, a John Waters inspired over the top drag piece about white trash families, a thoroughly disgusting serial killer film, and a psych-out Italian horror inspired piece about a singer who takes a drug and becomes the angel of death. The stories never settle into familiar territory and all have a very distinct voice behind them. They feel good together.
Some grisly and gory glory from HOLE IN THE WALL. Looks like someone was axin' for it, mang.
Did you do a DVD release for this film? What inspired you to put it on tape? Actually, no! We haven’t released this to DVD or any other format yet. VHS is it’s first release. With Rabid Child’s first film Swamphead, we did the exact same thing where we released a limited 50 tape run before anything else. That initial tape run is how we ended up getting in contact with Briarwood Entertainment and now it’s coming out this next month nationally through Wild Eye Releasing. So we wanted to do the same thing with Hole. That Swamphead tape pops up on VHS collector’s boards so often it shocks me. There’s something about the VHS format that keeps the audience honest. The people that buy these tapes aren’t the same assholes that rip DVD’s and post them to the web. We appreciate that. Also, we are old VHS hounds ourselves. EVERY LAST ONE OF US involved in this film.
A look at the upcoming analog edition of HOLE IN THE WALL breakin' loose this weekend at CINEMA WASTELAND. I hope these cases are beer proof, mang!
Can you give us some specs on the VHS release? Color variants? Extras? The VHS version is premiering at Cinema Wasteland in a couple weeks, right? The tape will be a limited release of 50. The film has trailers of other films from the creators of Hole and the film itself. We are selling 2 variant covers for this release, 10 of a neon red and blue and 40 of a more traditional cover. We will be selling it exclusively, to begin with, at Cinema Wasteland first weekend of October. If there are tapes left after the show, we will sell them at our online store that will open in the next month.
A closer peek at the alternate artwork edition for HOLE IN THE WALL. The colors, Duke, the colors!!
Are you a Videovore yourself? Do you still watch / collect tapes? What do you think of all the VHS appreciation and celebration that’s made a comeback over the past few years? I absolutely am. It’s been an addiction I have had since being a child of the VHS boom of the 80’s. I grew up with VHS and Cable television. I scoured videos stores and movie catalogs for tapes to find and buy. Now, with the whole VHS culture and retro appreciation, it’s kinda fun to see what obscure tapes are starting to resurface that I remember getting back in the day. Also, It’s great to see some of the directors from that era get the respect they deserve like TIM RITTER and GREG LAMBERSTON. I grew up watching Truth or Dare: A Critical Madness, Creep, and Slime City. I had a band that wrote songs about those movies…
Whoaaa, mannnn, trippppyyy. Is this 3D? Oh, mannnnnnnnn....
Anything else you wanna say to all the analog-obsessed magnetic munchers eyballin’ this blog? If you wanna learn more about us, or just are into horror podcasts, I run a series of podcasts through the title of ASTRO RADIO Z. It can be found on iTunes, Spreaker, Stitcher, and anywhere you can get podcasts. It’s devoted to underground, cult, exploitation, and independent horror cinema. I have guests ranging from filmmakers, musicians, critics, and fans. It’s a good time. Concerning Hole, however, keep an eye out, you degenerates!! Hole in the Wall will be coming to other non-VHS formats such as DVD/BluRay and VOD in the future. But, if you want to get your grubby little magnetic mitts on the limited run of this fucker, get your ass to the best underground cinema convention in America, CINEMA WASTELAND in a couple weeks. Cory and I will be there to chat, drink booze, and shake all your hands… maybe more if you buy a copy.Hey, man, that sounds a little VHScandalous, indeed! SO BE IT! And as if you didn’t already know, Cinema Wasteland is THE place to BE, Tapeheads! So groove your caboose on out to the middle of Ohio, get Cinema Wasted and snatch up your copy of Hole in the Wall so you can bask in this analog-committed blood belcher! If any copies are still analog available and VHSurvive the wild and crazy Wasteland weekend, they’ll be put up for sale for all the online video munchers to consume. Stay tuned to the Official Hole in the Wall Facebook page for all the analog availability updates, mang! You’re gonna dig it.
Groove and Groove and Don’t Leave Home Without It, dude.
Josh Schafer