Gotham grindhouse

WINNING ENTRY:

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Names: John Morena, 29; Frank Mosca, 30; Stephen Franciosa, Jr., 29; Bill Lappe, 42; James McSherry, 45

Production troupe: Sold Out Films (Morena, Mosca and Franciosa are also in a separate company called Harrington Talents)

Location: City Island, Bronx

Philosophy: “Our filmmaking influences come from classic films of all genres, especially horror. The five of us grew up on horror staples dating back to King Kong and Frankenstein. The company's vision is to stay away from formulaic techniques and emulate films that broke the mold for their times.”

Other projects: Doughboys, Seekers, Even Steven

8 movies that inspired the trailer: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Evil Dead, Hellraiser, Reefer Madness, Sex and Fury, The Devil's Rejects, Dead Alive

Filmmaker Q&A:

The full name of your trailer is Foot Fiend and Heathen High School Splatter Fest Part 666. Where did you come up with that idea?

Bill: The way Foot Fiend came about, James and I had met this “movie producer” who had a foot fetish and he was just a goof. We would talk to him and he’s always looking down at girls’ feet.

James: It was an inside joke. Every time we saw him, we’d point out the shoes of pretty girls walking past just to evoke a reaction.

Bill: So we said, what if we do a character who’s a producer and he tries to lure girls so he can look at their feet and dismember them. It started as a goof, then became more serious. The grindhouse trailer is tongue-in-cheek, but the original concept was that it’d be more of a psychological thriller like Seven.

John: Foot Fiend was going to be Billy’s first feature. The serious version may still see the light of day.

What about Heathen High?

John: That was totally derived from the contest. Frank, Steve and I all came up with concepts and we combined the best of them. One idea was called Heathens, and that was just a bunch of werewolf-beast characters murdering girls. Then another idea was Splatter High with slashers killing naked cheerleaders in the shower, stuff like that. Then we had some undead ideas, zombie ideas, and all of those kind of melded into one.

What are your favorite parts of the finished trailer?

Steve: One of the scenes that really worked was the shower scene with the girl and the samurai sword. It’s an homage to a Japanese B movie I bought at a festival called Sex and Fury. In that film there’s a slow-motion sequence where the girl gets out of a bathtub and attacks everybody naked. It’s so interesting because you don’t see that in film anymore, especially in America.

Where do you cast these girls? Are they dirty?

Frank: You’d think that, but it is not the case. We mostly called actresses from other films we’d done to come help us out.

John: Actually, two of the girls were last-minute replacements. The two girls we originally cast couldn’t come because one of them got, like, tonsillitis and she was giving a ride to the other girl. We were shooting for Heathen High in the locker room of a gym here in the Bronx, and we saw these two girls who were working out. We said, “Hey, do you want to be in a movie?” And they did it. They were very shy, though.

Tell me about the blood. Is there a secret formula to it?

John: Corn syrup and food coloring.

Frank: That’s pretty much the classic. There is theatric blood that you can buy, but it’s all the same base. We had about two and a half gallons of it, maybe three.

John: A lot of it came out of a sprayer so it looked like more.

Do you argue over the properties of the blood? Do some people like it thicker and others more runny?

Frank: It’s more dependent on the scene—how long the blood’s been sitting there or if it just spurted out. Now Billy, who was a cop for 20 years and saw a lot of blood, he’ll sit there and tell you what you need to use.

Bill: Blood gets thick after a while and it turns brown, like a dark chocolate syrup. Most movies spread around too much blood; after the body is dead, the heart stops pumping. And they love to use bright-red, vampire-type blood. It is bright when it first comes out, but it turns dark quickly.

John: He’s very adamant about what blood and guts are supposed to look like.

How important was it for the trailer to have a New York setting?

Frank: Every movie we do, we try to infuse New York or the Bronx into it. Especially with Foot Fiend, it was very important for us to get an elevated train. You see the platform in one shot.

Bill: I’m from the Bronx and I love shooting there. One day I want to film a horror story on the streets of the Bronx.

Are there any grindhouse areas left in New York, or the Bronx in particular?

Frank, John (in unison): Hunt’s Point!

John: Hookers on one corner, murderers on another.

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