SCARLET
MOON started out as a quickie sex vampire
movie for my last distributor before
TROMA, EI Entertainment. EI
Entertainment had made money with a
softcore vampire flick called CARASS OF THE
VAMPIRE and was looking for more like it.
I
wrote a serious, sexy, "limited in
scope" script. But its not my nature to
do small movies and soon started re-writing
it, expanding it, and off I went doing a movie
about all kinds of supernaturals and even had
Jesus Christ guest starring and the end of the
world being shown in it.
From
the standpoint of a quick buck little weekend
wonder made to make some fast cash, SCARLET
MOON was a major failure. It became a real
movie instead, with a very involved, character
driven plot and dealt with God and Satan and
had satanic vampires, wiccans, santirians, a
devil cult and even what may be the
world's first christian vampire.
SCARLET
MOON is a Warren Disbrow movie, so it had to
have monsters, nudity, violence and adult
language too, and lets not forget a sense of
fun and some laughs.
The
movie also had two name stars involved,
Michael Bruce of the Alice Cooper Group and
Forrest J. Ackerman of Famous Monsters Of
Filmland Magazine. Of course my father was
back as Prof.Hertz and Ruben Santiago came
back to play a different character, Boris
Mushnik.
SCARLET
MOON was suppose to be shot in 3 days
according to the original plan, well maybe a
week. It took years to shoot! Mainly because
the cast was older this time and most of the
time only gave me a few hours on the weekends,
mostly Sundays, to shoot. It took forever. Of
course I was doing the same jungling act of
re-writing the script, changing it, adding and
subtracting characters as actors came and
went. As usual, I wasn't going to let anybody
get in my way of making the best movie I could
for what money I had.
Lets
put things in proper perspective as far as how
long movies can take to make. NIGHT OF THE
LIVING DEAD took over a year to film and I
don't know how long after that to edit. EVIL
DEAD took five years to complete. TEXAS
CHAINSAW MASSACRE took a year I think. Stanely
Kubrick took five years to make THE SHINING.
So the three years or more it look SCARLET
MOON is't too far out of line.
When
it was finally over, and I did a first edit of
SCARLET MOON, it was over three hours long! So
I cut the movie in half and had two 90 minute
movies, SCARLET MOON and DARK BEGINNINGS. Not
a bad deal getting two movies out of one!
I
must say that making SCARLET MOON was utter
torture and brought me to the point of wanting
to quit making movies all together. It was an
awful experience for me. Unlike FLESH EATERS
FROM OUTER SPACE and INVASION FOR FLESH AND
BLOOD, I literally had no crew. There was
maybe 4 or 5 shoots where there was people
around to help behind-the-scenes, but 99% of
the time I did everything. It was very hard
work and very, very depressing. I was angry
most of the time, which is not good.
Part
of the problem was the actors were older
and had less time to devote to the movie and
this drug the shooting schedule out
beyond reason and then they started
complaining at how long it was taking to
finish the movie even though their own lack of
availability was causing the trouble. And of
course actors came and went and I had to
adjust the story to accomodate the
irresponsibility. Isn't life grand?...NOT.
There
were also actors who were egotistical,
self-centered and unreliable. Sometimes even
if they have talent you have to ask yourself
if all the trouble they are giving you is
worth it!
I
got some very good story value out of the
situation and both SCARLET MOON and DARK
BEGINNINGS have entertaining plots and
interesting characters, but once more because
of the frustrating situations I wanted to SCREAM!
I
want my talent to be recognized by
investors so I can make bigger, better movies the
right way. I am producing commercial
product that is getting distributed world
wide but I long for the day I can have the
money to hire a crew and actors and have
better conditions under which I can make
my movies and have them shot in 35mm with
surround sound playing at the local theaters
and looking expensive and polished.
SCARLET
MOON's story was different in that it
didn't have many humans in it. The story was
about supernaturals and about their
relationships to each other. Dominic Gregoria
plays a satanic vampire named Andreas who has
a side kick vampire named Smoke, played by
Colin Reynolds, who is a junkie.
AnnMarie Donato plays Satanya, an artist who
got turned into a vampire in the 1960s and
still lives like she did in the 1960s. Guy
Camilleri plays the evil devil cult leader
Edward Crowely, who thinks nothing of using
babies for satanic blood sacrifices. Crowley's
mistress is Muldavia, play by Francesca
Chirelli. There are other interesting
characters, but I'm not going to talk about
them here.
The
"Scarlet Moon" of the title is a
huge red diamond the size of your fist. It has
magical powers. It is the last of the missing
satanic items from Tara, Queen of Egypt's
secret worship chamber and all the
supernaturals are trying to find it first and
get ultimate power on earth.
I
had footage shot specifically for SCARLET MOON
in various different countries around the
world and built matching sets here in New
Jersey so the story of SCARLET MOON takes
place in different parts of the world too. Its
a challenge and fun to figure out ways to make
a movie look big budget even if its a small
budget.
(to
be continued)
