Post by Todd Tjersland on Jun 17, 2006 3:02:53 GMT -8
THE NECRO FILES (1997)
aka PSYCHO ZOMBIE LOVE BUTCHER
Starring Steve Sheppard, Gary Browning, Isaac Cooper, and Todd Tjersland as The Lord of the Satanites
Music by Matt Jaissle
Special FX by Todd Tjersland
Executive Producer Todd Tjersland
Written by Todd Tjersland & Sammy Shapiro
Produced and Directed by Matt Jaissle
Uncut Run Time: 72 minutes
Taglines: "Some People Are Better Off Dead!"; "The Only Files Worthy of an X!"
Summary: From TODD TJERSLAND, the Visionary Overlord of American Horror, comes the most outrageous and shocking motion picture of all time... THE NECRO FILES!
A bloodthirsty cannibal sex maniac named Logan (Isaac Cooper, Anti-Hero) is gunned down by two tough Seattle cops (Steve Sheppard and Gary Browning). But Logan's evil does not lie quiet in his grave! A group of devil-worshipping psychos called the Satanites resurrect the rotting rapist as the world's first Zombie Sex Freak!
The enraged corpse sets out on a rampage of hideous death and torture, defliing and devouring Seattle's sexiest girls! Filled with beautiful victims, sick humor and gruesome special effects.
AWARDS:
1998 Horror Film Of The Year
--Miami Horror Film Festival
MEDIA BUZZ
"The craziest movie I've ever seen!"
--Chris Farley, star of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and TOMMY BOY
"One of the 10 best zombie movies ever made! ...a laugh riot... an instant classic!""
--The Galloping Goremet
"Really Sick And Twisted!"
--Fangoria
"A work of pure genius!"
--Lloyd Kaufman, director of The Toxic Avenger
"A cross between Scream and The Evil Dead!"
--Bloodsongs
"The NECRO FILES is one of the most entertaining pictures I've seen. Todd [Tjersland] has a good touch... he has a great sense of humor."
--Jerry Feifer, executive producer of Witchcraft I-XIII
"Cartoonish, over the top... extreme gore."
--Psychotronic Video
"So delightfully obscene it gives new meaning to the term."
--Brutarian
"Genuinely funny... elbows both Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson in their creative ribs... a definite treat for the FACES OF DEATH crowd!"
--Alternative Cinema
"Fast-paced, funny, Scary and Disgusting... simply the most incredible movie ever made in the erotic horror genre."
--Guilty Pleasures
"Three [out of four] stars!"
--DOOM
"Shot with surprising finesse... truly outageous... doesn't give you a moment to breathe as it pours on the over the top gore and guffaws."
--Shock Cinema
"A winner... THE NECRO FILES is a gorehound's dream... very much like Peter Jackson's BAD TASTE... the zombie monster is the creepiest creature I've seen onscreen in a long time. Fans of sick humor and gore shouldn't miss it."
--SCREEM MAGAZINE
"A sound production... funny and gross... will appeal to fans of
NEKROMANTIK and FACES OF DEATH. I think this movie was released two decades too late. It would definitely have played on a double-bill with LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (and it would have made them both look pale by comparison!). Not for the squeamish..."
--Agony In Black
"[THE NECRO FILES] really delivers on the sex and violence."
--Reel Terror
"One of the most depraved films I've ever seen... really well shot and edited. I've seen a lot of low budget films in my life... and this was probably the best."
--Bad Azz Mofo
"Amazing, funny, disgusting, repulsive and yet somehow erotic... a superior effort from an indy company that delivers on the hype."
--Dark Fantasies
AN INTERVIEW WITH TODD TJERSLAND
Q: How long had you had this script before you finally gave it the "greenlight"?
Todd Tjersland: Since 1993. It went through several more drafts once I decided to put it into production to reflect the changing budget. After doing BACK FROM HELL, this was the picture I wanted to do... But the director of BFH, Matt Jaissle, convinced me to shoot LEGION OF THE NIGHT instead.
Were it not for that, THE NECRO FILES could have been shot on 16mm with a $50,000 budget, but no... Despite the mainstream success of LEGION OF THE NIGHT, I still wish I had used the money to make a bigger, badder version of my baby, THE NECRO FILES. It's my favorite film out of everything I've been a part of.
When it came time to do a third picture, I put my foot down. It was going to be THE NECRO FILES or nothing! Unfortunately, the budget had shrunk considerably at that point.
Q: What are the primary differences between the original script and the final draft you shot?
Todd: Well, the original script was XXX, for starters! Losing that angle was the first thing to go. I had been heavily influenced by Japanese hentai anime at the time... Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend in particular. It seemed only natural to create a "live action" hentai movie... which the Japanese eventually beat me to.
Plotwise, it had a bit more backstory for the Logan (serial killer) character, explaining how he needed to kill "x" number of women as sacrifices to Satan to ensure he would live forever... Manners and Sloane (the cops) were essentially the same. There was a subplot involving the Satanites cult, of which Logan was a renegade from... Logan came back from hell on his own, and the cult summoned a demon up to hunt him down.
Meanwhile, Logan started killing women again, but with each new victim he cannibalized, he became less zombie and more human. There also was some infighting in the cult for leadership, IIRC.
The ending was different. The cult and demon were destroyed, Logan was killed again by the cops, but had his member severed--it was tossed out a window and some smelly homeless bum picked it up and became "possessed" by Logan's evil spirit, LOL.
While a lot of the changes were budgetary, some were made to streamline the plot.
Q: How did you come up with the title?
Todd: I had a short list of titles I really liked, but couldn't make up my mind on, so I called up my friend William Lustig (director of Maniac) and that was the one he liked the best. So, that's the title I went with. I think time has proven that was the correct choice. I can't even recall the other titles now, other than the shooting title of PSYCHO ZOMBIE LOVE BUTCHER.
Q: What inspired the make-up design for the zombie?
Todd: Oh, that's easy! Gianetto De Rossi's make-up for Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979). I wanted something nasty, and the zombies in that movie fit the bill, so that became my inspiration. It was also the simplest type of advanced make-up I could do--there was no way I was going to settle for slathering on green greasepaint and calling that a zombie, LOL!
The make-up process initially took about four hours to apply, but we quickly got it down to three hours; this time remained fairly constant throughout the shoot and the 2003 sequel.
