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The Interview:
So Alex what’s your film BLOOD
CAR about?
In the near future gas prices are over $30 a gallon and a
guy invents a car that runs on blood. That’s the easiest way
to say it. And I should also say that the film is pretty
silly and fun, or to others- tasteless and obscene.
Would you consider this a horror
movie?
Not really. We started with the intention of doing a
horror movie but we failed on that front. It is a comedy,
with some satirical undertones. We like to laugh and write
jokes and poke at people more than try for something
actually scary or horrific. We just want to be sure were
making a movie no one has seen before. That’s the really
important thing.
Did you have any films in mind
while you were writing and shooting the picture? Any
inspirations?
Oh yeah, sure. I’m a huge Sam Fuller fan. The way his
movies have themes that are taken straight from newspaper
headlines is something that always interests me. Roger
Corman’s Bucket of Blood was a big influence too. That movie
is basically about a guy trying to be accepted and get
girls, and to do so he has to do some horrible things. The
idea of people trying to help society through science and it
backfiring on them comes from a lot films. I love that idea.
The guy in our film, Archie, is trying to help society by
designing a car that runs on Wheat Grass and he accidentally
makes one that runs on blood. He has only good intentions
that all go to hell.
Another thing we do in the film is borrow from
everywhere. Myself and the co-writer, editor and DP Adam
Pinney always talk in movies about the way we write and
shoot and edit. It is always something like, “Let’s try a
little thing like the Wild Bunch here or some lighting like
Natural Born Killers or let’s do a gag from The Shining, but
make it funny.” We’re movie geeks so everything is a
hodge-podge of movie references, some of theme we might not
even know about.
So I’m curious. Where does one
come up with the idea of a BLOOD CAR?
Riding in the car, shooting around ideas with Adam Pinney
and Hugh Braselton- someone says, “A car that runs on
blood.” Then we start laughing and throwing around jokes and
we go from there. That’s what we always do when we hang out,
talk about movies and pitch ideas and see if anything
sticks, and Blood Car was not only funny to us, but the idea
was something we could pull off having very little money.
There’s something about the idea of a car that runs on blood
that excuses the movie (to me anyway) from having to pull
out all the big budget bells and whistles.
I noticed your main character of
Archie likes to be urinated on and wear oven mitts during
sexual intercourse. Is this character based on anyone you
know? It’s OK, you can tell us.
Oh yeah. No one has ever asked that, before. When I was
growing up my parents were really good friends with some
really interesting people that liked to party. I was really
young then and could be wrong but I remember seeing Rudy
Giuliani, Barbara Bush, Oliver North and other misfits like
them hanging around (I have a very vivid image of Ann
Landers with her nipples on fire on my 4th birthday) You
should know, my parents were famous for having really
awesome parties that these people could show up to and let
their hair down.
They would always lay under a glass coffee table and
watch Lewis Grizzard poop on it- they thought that was
hilarious. Every time Clarence Thomas would show up there
would be tons of cocaine. (Tons to me when I was 6) They
really got into cattle prods and peanut butter in the summer
of ‘88. Newt Gingrich got his hands on some peyote and my
date for Senior Prom saw him reenacting the Ali/Foreman
fight in the cat box. That ruined my date!
My Dad still jokes about those times and gave me Caligula
on DVD for my birthday and asked if I wanted to watch some
home movies. He’s such a jokester. Lately since my folks are
getting older the parties are a little more low-key, like a
small get-together where Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson
suck off some midgets dressed like Care Bears. Everyone gets
older.
One of the reasons I feel the
film works as well as it does is because of the awesome
cast. Where did you find your principal leads Mike Brune,
Anna Chlumsky and Katie Rowlett?
I’ve known Mike Brune and Katie Rowlett for about 6 or 7
years now, maybe longer. We all went to college together at
GSU in Atlanta. After Blood Car Katie, Mike and I had a huge
falling out. They both just turned into assholes. Mike had
some really promising acting gigs after Blood Car. He got
all kinds of jobs in smaller parts on a ton of television
shows- Lost, 30 Rock, one gig as a WWF manager. And he blew
it every single time. He was always late and “on something”
his yoga instructor told me.
He called Alec Baldwin a fascist in a table read and they
got into a fistfight. He always had a pack of people with
him and none of them had a car or would pay for their food
or drinks. The kicker was when he wrote this script in which
he played Charles Lindbergh and was killing women in St.
Louis with orgasms. He was to star and direct. He went off
his rocker and gained a good 220 pounds.
Katie Rowlett actually realized after the film came out
that the nasty things she said and did in Blood Car might
embarrass her friends and family. She went what I call “God
Crazy” She plays the tambourine and sings in one of these
cool-new-hipster-Christian bands. She speaks to High School
kids about no sex is the only safe sex. She goes to bus
stops and gets kids to pray for prayer in schools. She has a
very superior “I feed the homeless, therefore I can judge
you” tone of voice she uses when leaving sermons on my
answering machine. She has a long list of teachers, youth
sport coaches and YMCA volunteers that she has disgraced
because of religious differences and wild accusations. And
she runs a retreat every summer to help rehabilitate gay
people back into straight ones called Get That Gay Out.
Anna Chlumsky lived in/beside/around a dumpster behind my
apartment. After the My Girl thing she couldn’t keep her
head together and from what I hear had some tough times. I
always caught her going through my trash, looking for half
finished beers and heels of bread. She would draw crude,
avant-garde headshots on cardboard with ketchup and mustard
packets and submit them for projects. As a joke, one of the
guys in our production office brought her in for a reading.
Everyone laughed and thought it was so funny to watch her
struggle through the lines for the Vietnam Vet character in
Blood Car- but I could see through her shit covered face and
knew that if we cleaned her up and got her a better looking
glass eye should could probably pull off a pretty awesome
performance.
Were there any major changes
from the original draft of the script and the final product?
Oh indeed there was. There used to be a whole subplot
involving one of Archie’s students. It just didn’t work so
we changed some things in the edit room and shot a couple
extra scenes. Things always change from idea to actual
footage and you have to adapt to whether things were better
or worse than you planned. We added the dead baby ending and
the agents in the control room in post too. We also once had
a drag race scene in the film manly to tip our hats to Two
Lane Blacktop. Boy, that scene was a nightmare.
If the Blood Car could talk what
would its catch phrase be?
Save Gas…Drive BLOOD CAR. Or Hey Hey Hey! I’m the Blood
Car- Look at me! (Uhhh that was terrible)
It seems like the majority of
horror films I watch these days are completely unoriginal.
Yours is the complete opposite. Were you guys intentionally
going for something off beat and different? It seems like
you could have easily had a killer car running around town.
I don’t like to know what is going to happen in a film.
It is just boring. I want to be entertained and not see
something I have seen a million times. Adam Pinney says it
best, “What’s your favorite cover band?”
If you have an idea to do something exactly as it has
been done before- I don’t really see the point. Originality
is essential in making movies. Or putting two ideas together
that no one has done. That’s why I watch movies- too see
something new. So the idea of just doing some killer car
movie never really crossed our mind, you can’t really get
excited enough to embark on a feature film with no money and
get people to help you out if you’re doing some half assed
idea. Maybe you can get half assed people in on that. So
yes, we are always going for something intentionally off
beat and different. If people want to view something that
will play it safe and do something that won’t be too
challenging or different they can turn on the TV, right?
Did you have a favorite moment
in the film? Mine is the sex scene in the junk yard. I just
love the idea of a brunette taking it from behind in a pick
up truck surrounded by dirt and crushed cars. That’s almost
as awesome as wearing oven mitts during sex. So what’s
yours?
My favorite moment in the film in when I’m watching it
with an audience and they realize that Archie is going to
put Mrs. Butterfield in the trunk. It holds a really wide
shot for quite a while and the audience collectively goes,
“Ahhhh, I get it.” All together. It is a great moment. I
also like the moment in the film when we see Lorraine’s
(Anna Chlumsky) doodle on her note bad. That shot usually
sends someone towards the door. I like when people have
polarizing opinions of a film. If you make something for
everyone you’re really not making anything for anyone.
So have you seen any other
horror flicks that have caught your eye in 2007?
Yeah. Murder Party was fun and funny. It is out on video
now and in early 2008 The Signal will be out in theatres.
Pretty awesome movie- nothing like Blood Car. I also saw
Susperia for the first time in 2007. I know it came out in
the 70’s but it is so damn cool. And I saw my first Russ
Myers film in 2007 called Up! IT IS A WORK OF GENIUS.
Everybody steals from that guy. Wait, that’s not horror. Was
The Host a horror film? Really loved that movie.
What are you working on next
Alex?
All of us here at Fake Wood Wallpaper are all working on
the next movie. Mike Brune has a short he wrote and directed
called The Adventure www.theadventurefilm.com that will have
its World Premiere at the International Film Festival of
Rotterdam. That’ll be cool. We are doing a 35mm blow up of
the short, which looks amazing. Hopefully you’ll see it at a
film festival near you, or hopefully you can request it at a
film festival near you.
Myself, Adam Pinney, Mike Brune and Hugh Braselton are
all writing feature length scripts which involve
Existentialism, fireworks, divorce, plagiarism, armed
robbery, Little League Baseball, dinosaurs with laser guns,
incest and a giant bull. So hopefully you’ll be seeing our
next feature film real soon.
Thanks so much for the
interview, any final thoughts or comments?
Not really, was that not good enough for you? Jeez you
got some nerve, pal.
Associated Links:
• BloodCar.com
Official Site for the film Blood Car
• BloodCar.com
Watch the Trailer for Blood Car
• Imdb.com
Alex Orr profile on IMDB.com
Special Thanks to
Alex Orr for this awesome interview!
Interview is property of RabidGrannies.com
Thanks for Reading!
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DIRECTOR
ALEX ORR
