Exclusive Interview with 'Night Feeders' Director Jet Eller

I really like regional films. Especially regional horror films. There is something about a bunch of non-pro actors doing their best to scare you and or amuse you with limited resources that really speaks to me. These are the real people. The guy who gets his arm blown off? He could be your mechanic. The lady whose tongue gets ripped out? She works at the mini-mart. Etc., etc.
My love for regional, 'Outsider' horror films has taken me into some pretty fetid waters. I have watched about 200 too many horrible home made horror films. But the good ones strike such a chord with me that it makes the unwatchable stuff worth sifting through.
Enter Night Feeders. This film from Asheville, North Carolina's own Jet Eller peaked my interested after I read about it on the excellent movie review site Critical Condition. They gave it a good review, so I added it to the queue.
I sat down on a lazy day off with a few beers and popped in the movie. I really enjoyed it. It is way, way better than 99% of the straight to video horror stuff out there. Its a simple tale of small town southerners versus alien invaders. It looks great, the acting is good, and the special effects (aside from a minimal amount of cheesy CGI) are excellent. I posted a positive review of the film over at the Rue Morgue forum, and none other than the director/writer, Jet Eller sent me a thankful message. We continued to correspond, and just recently I was lucky enough to sit down with Jet (via the internet) and get a little q and a going. So without further ado, I am proud to present the first interview on this site! Welcome, Jet Eller!



Fermented Film: What are your favorite horror films?

Jet Eller: Hands down, Night of the Living Dead. No film ever had such an impact on me. Yes, the acting was bad and it looked like it was shot on burlap, but it had impact. Not only did it break several "rules", but it did it brazenly.


FF: Who are your favorite horror directors?

JE: I liked early John Carpenter. His first few films were great. Ridley Scott is no longer a horror film director, but he has my vote as one of the best. Alien was a masterpiece. He took a simple story and kept you on the edge of your seat.
James Whale and Alfred Hitchcock are also favorites of mine. Hitchcock had such a great eye. I admire Whale because he was a pioneer (Frankenstein).


FF: Does 'Night Feeders' have any influences?

JE: Sure. Jaws, NOTLD, Last Man on Earth, Alien, and believe it or not, Attack of the Killer Shrews.


FF: Donnie Evans is great in this film, is this his first movie?

JE: No, not his first. Donnie and I did a feature together in 1990 called "Marley's Revenge-The Monster Movie". It was shot on 16mm (old school) and took 2 years to shoot. He played a bad guy redneck named Sloth. A very entertaining piece of crap (not Donnie, the movie...but Donnie is entertaining, too).

FF: 'Marley's Revenge'! Whoa, this sounds like fun. Is there any way to get a copy of this film?

JE: This summer, Marley's will be 20 years old and will be available on my website Jetpoweredfilms.com. Probably around late July.
Marley's revenge was a blast to shoot. We had 60 zombies, crazed vigilantes, a 14 foot skelotasaurus, and an Indiana Jones wannabe. Terrible, but a lot of fun for a fan of low budget films. If you only knew the work that went into it.

FF: 'Night Feeders' looks great, what kind of equipment was it shot on?

JE: Believe it or not, we shot it with a Panasonic DVX100. We shot it a 24 Frames per second (to give us a grainy "drive-in" look). This choice bit us in the butt later when we tired to put the CGI aliens in. The blacks were not true enough to match the composite and it gave us a "bad separation".


FF: Why did you choose CGI for the creature effects?

JE: It's a case where our hearts were in the right place, but our wallets weren't big enough. We chose CGI because I wanted something that scrambled in the dark and was vicious. I figured a person in a suit wouldn't work and if we kept the image in the dark, we could hint at odd size and skin textures without having a direct focus on it. Quick moving shots. Unfortunately, we had to make them brighter than I would have liked (to make the blacks go grayer to match the grain of the Panasonic). Shooting HI def would have prevented the problem. Back to the money thing.


FF: I was impressed by the performances you got out of your actors. What is your approach with directing your performers?

JE: I try to stress keeping it natural (easier said than done). But its much easier when the material is written with certain actors in mind. Donnie's part was written for him. What you see is what you get with Donnie. We've been friends for 30 years and I couldn't imagine doing a film without him in it somewhere.
The other actors work in the commercial industry here in North Carolina and I've worked with them on many projects.
If I could give a director's tip, this is it...drop any pretentious "I'm the director" bullshit and loosely work with the actors one on one. You'll get a better performance and the actor will have much more respect for you if you personally take the time and eliminate the problems he or she has about the part. A mass rehearsal without "one on one" can be intimidating to some. They can't read your mind and they look for you to guide them through the scene. With a ultra low budget, you want as much in your favor as you can get.


FF: The gore effects in 'Night Feeders' are excellent. Can you tell me a bit about the effects and who created them?

JE: We had a fellow named Andy Boswell handle those effects. He worked on Evil Dead 2 and tons of industrial films. He was also the fisherman with the life vest at the beginning of the film.


FF: Another Asheville, NC indy director is Joshua P. Warren. Are you familiar with his first and last film, the infamous 'Inbred Rednecks'?

JE: That sounds like fun! I've heard of him only through his Ghost books and paranormal activities. I didn't realize he had made a feature, also.


FF: Another indy genre vet who made some 'small townsfolk versus aliens' films was the late Don Dohler. Are you familiar with Don's work?

JE: Oh, yes, of course. Galaxy Invader was one of my favorite no budget films. Alien Factor was another one that reeked to high heaven, but it was fun as hell to watch.


FF: How do you feel about the current state of horror films, major and indie?

JE: I keep waiting for the new face of horror to show up. I'm not complaining about the great movies I've seen over the years, but most have become mirrors of other films. Nobody seems to have the balls to try something different. Remember how The Exorcist changed the way most people thought of horror? They brought in factors you just aren't suppose to bring in...#1 Harming a child...#2 Using religion so strongly in a film...#3 masturbation with the cross? Holy smoke, nobody's suppose to do that! A true assault of a filmgoing experience...I loved it and I miss it.
Just around the corner, one is waiting.


FF: What were the biggest challenges of the 'Night Feeders' production?

JE: Deer hunters...REAL deer hunters. The farm we rented to shoot on was in deer hunting country. We didn't know it but a lot of the hunters used the house as a hunting cabin (illegally). We were threatened with physical harm (said they were going to shoot our asses if we didn't leave). We didn't and they (or somebody) came back and destroyed our house set...completely.


FF: What's coming next from Jet Eller and co.?

JE: We just finished shooting "Never Feed The Troll". It will be available on the website this summer, also (BTW, the site is up, but not in a completed form). Night Feeders was sold to a worldwide distributer about 4 years ago. I refuse to go that route again. Distributers get so much of the money, there's nothing left for the filmmaker. "Never Feed The Troll" will be distributed by us, Jet Powered Films...at least for now.
I have written 15 scripts over the years and I hope to continue shooting my own projects. I'd really like to do another horror/comedy. I have one in mind, but we'll have to see how "Never Feed The Troll" does.
Three of my scripts are biographies, my favorite being "The Harpes" which I co-wrote with the decendant of Micajah and Wiley Harpe. If you don't know who these guys are, do a Google search and prepare yourself for monsters that even Leatherface couldn't rival. Absolutely terrifying story. America's first serial killers.


Special Thanks to Jet Eller for conducting this interview. Even specialler thanks to Jet for being an independent filmmaker who makes awesome horror movies! Keep up the good work!

The Top 2 Movies of the 2000s

Because I am lazy, I will just post my top two films of the past decade, if you want me to tell you why, just shoot me a message or leave a comment. I think they are both pretty self-explanatory.

2.
I count Kill Bill parts 1 and 2 as one movie. And what an amazing movie it is.

1. The Best Movie of the 2000s IS

In my opinion, Wet Hot is one of, if not the funniest, comedies ever filmed. It is definitely the best movie of any category for the past ten years. It completely set the tone that the best comedies of the 00s followed. Its a perfect film. That's my 2 cents.
Now that this is out of my system, stay tuned! Tons of crap coming soon!

Pulp Fiction: Messenger By Edward Lee

I'm a voracious reader, and Horror has been one of my favorite genres of fiction since I was old enough to read. I'm kind of sick of writing about movies for minute, so as a change of pace, I'll be throwing in reviews of the juicier, pulpier stuff I've been polluting my brain with lately.



Disclaimer: the review I am giving this book is not on the same rating scale as all literature. This is so out there, you couldn't review it with the same rating system as say, Moby Dick. That would be like stacking up The Toxic Avenger against The Hurt Locker . The only thing these works have in common is their medium, so I've decided to rate this book on its merits as a work of Pulp Horror alone. And in that arena, this book kicks serious slimy demon butt.

Ed Lee has a reputation in the literary horror world as being the most intense, most grossest, most disgustingest writer there is. Apparently his mass market novels published under the Leisure Books imprint are somewhat toned down when compared to his small press, hard to find work. If this is Ed Lee toned down, I can't even fathom what his 'hardcore' stuff is like. I mean, how much more intense and nasty could fiction possibly be? Are his small press books printed on poisonous paper that burns your fingers when you turn the page? Is the copy printed in a font that eventually makes your eyes bleed? Does the book explode when you close it? The only way any book could be harder and nastier than this book is if it did those things.

Back in 2006, when my discovery of the works of Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon stoked my post Stephen King interest in horror fiction, I picked up Ed Lee's newest novel, The Backwoods . I figured 'hey, if all these authors I love love this guy, he must be awesome.' The book sucked. Really hard. In fact I couldn't even get more than about 80 pages into it. It was embarrassingly bad. Since then I've never picked up another book by Lee, until the other day when I was doing laundry. I forgot the book I was reading at that time at home, so on the way to the laundromat I stopped into the local library. I picked up this book, read the summary and the first page and decided to give old Mr. Lee a whirl. I read the first 70 pages in the laundromat. I wonder if the little Mexican kids there thought I was weird, this big bearded dude reading some creepy looking book with his eyes bugging out of his head, turning the pages as fast as he could.

The premise is pretty silly sounding: The Messenger, a mysterious demonic figure possesses postal workers in a small Florida town and uses them to carry out his heinous acts. Lee takes this idea, and basically pumps it full of steroids, LSD, crack and demon blood and lets it loose. This is one king-hell, rip-snortin' beast of a horror novel. Its also very well plotted and actually has a soft tender side that doesn't beat itself over your head, but is there enough so that you actually care about the main characters.
I think that's the book's greatest feat. Combining mayhem, gore and violence that goes as completely over the top as it definitely does here with characters you actually care about is not an easy feat, and Lee pulls it off seemingly without effort.

The Messenger is an amazing villain, as well. I don't want to go into too much detail into what he does and how he does it, as I don't want to give away too much and ruin this book for someone brave enough to read it. Lets just say that he's one of the most nefarious bad guys I've come across in a horror novel, and I read tons of horror fiction. The level of nastiness is cranked up to 11 here, and all because of this one bastard.

Also there are some deliciously clever twists towards the end that will seriously take you by surprise.

Basically, if you like pulpy horror, you have an iron stomach and are brave enough, give this book a try. You won't be disappointed. (But it may make you question your own sanity for reading these kinds of things.)

Jennifer's Body: The Almost Classic Horror Film of 2009

I thought 'Jennifer's Body' looked lame. Megan Fox is the kind of actress that looks out of place unless there are giant cgi robots fighting around her. She pretty much always looks like she should be in a Maxim photo shoot. Which is why people think she is hot. By people I mean dudes who judge hotness by looking at Maxim. By those dudes, I might mean douchebags, but if I were to go ahead and say that, I might lose half of my 20 or so readers. (Fuck you, Boston Phoenix.) Okay, where was I? Oh yes, Megan Fox is a terrible actress, and she's good looking in a way that I don't agree with. She looks computer animated. Seriously. Try to watch her try to act. Her face looks completely unnatural. Like it needs to be completely motionless to be admired. Plastic surgery, maybe. Not into it, personally.
The worst thing about 'Jennifer's Body' is that Megan Fox is in it. This movie is one smart, funny, deeply cynical and satirical bastard. Minus Megan Fox and released with a lower profile, this would have been the 'Heathers' of ... what do you call this generation, the lower case generation z?
If you are anything like me, you are pretty sure that 99% of these intensely terrible pop-punk/emo/hipster bands kill virgins to get large. I don't want to give anything else away, but this film surmises just that. The cheesiest, crappiest, emo hipster bands sacrifice virgins to Satan. I couldn't agree more. Beyond that, the movie is excellently written, the CGI is kept to a minimum and the worst thing about the movie is Megan Fox. Awesome.
It really feels like an incredibly smart film got dumbed over big time by 20th Century Fox, hence Megan Fox, etc. If this had been an indy flick, minus Megan Fox, it would have been a sensation.

A Quick Political Aside: Jesse Ventura for President 2012!

A quick political aside, then I'll get back to my snail's paced inventory of the Top Ten Movies of the Oughts. I watched this speech today and it really spoke to me. Cheesy 'reality' show aside, Jesse Ventura is a very smart guy, and I agree with much of what he says. The Democrats and Republicans have driven this country into the ground while furthering their own power. Its a natural progression, I suppose, the government's only goal seems to be furthering their power and influence at the expense of the common people. Its sick, either way, whether the Republican oil and military complex or the Democratic drive to expand the government's role further and further into the private sector. Either way, they win, we lose. This speech is great, even if you don't agree with Jesse, you should be able to appreciate a good speech for what it is. I personally think any American politician who is comfortable with the people overthrowing the government is a breath of fresh air. Enjoy:

Top Ten Movies of the Oughts: Number 3

Grindhouse

This double feature is the ultimate gift from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to their hardcore fans. It is also a tribute to just how much fun going to a ratty Times Square movie theatre or a drive-in was back in the 80s or 70s. I was too young to experience this back then, but I have spent most of my adult life scouring the world for the rarest, weirdest, gnarliest films I can find on VHS or DVD. This film is a gift for people like myself. Its Q and Rodriguez's homage to the weirdest and wickedest aspects of underground cinema. Each of the movies aren't the greatest movies ever made, but they both are fun and fit the concept perfectly. Out of the two, I like Deathproof the best. Some of the most exciting car chase footage ever, expertly directed by Tarantino. This package didn't translate very well to DVD. For some reason, when you watch these movies on TV they lose their power. This is a double bill, two for the price of one movie going experience. The fake trailers, the whole presentation is so cool and fun. I remember having a really great time at the theatre when I saw this film. The whole theatre was yelling, laughing, etc. This movie is really about how much fun going to the theatre could and should be. An awesome concept, delivered in full.

Top Ten Movies of the Oughts: Number 4

4. Rambo


If your nose wasn't turned up at my list yet, I bet it is now. Yep, Rambo is one of my favorite movies of the past decade. Beyond the surface-level reasons that a rad dude would like this movie "its wicked frickin gory, dude!", lurks possibly the most insane anti-war film ever made. Its perfect, when you think about it. The tail end of 8 years of terrible government, war at home and abroad, the shadowy aftermath of 9-11, where the country's deepest fears and darkest impulses were lived out day to day on a global stage. The past decade has been a non-stop war. So, here comes Rambo to save the day. Pickup trucks with American flag stickers on their bumpers jammed the multiplexes to see John Rambo defeat Old Glory's enemies, just like he did in the Reagan era. The 2008 Rambo was different, however. Stallone went completely batshit insane on growth hormones and made one of the most unrelenting, dark, and horrific action films ever. If you feel good about war after you see this movie, you have some serious problems. When I saw this film in the theater, the tension was palpable. There were older guys there, who looked like Nam veterans, there were dumb kids, and there were my friends and I. We all thought we'd be in for a jolly old over the top romp. The level of viciousness, the completely disgusting and terrible stuff on display in this film made me really uneasy. A little part of me wanted to have fun with the film, but I was absolutely revolted and sickened by the actions of the bad guys, the 'Burmese' army. Burma is now known as Myanmar, but maybe Stallone kept the old name to avoid a lawsuit, or something.

This isn't gore for gore's sake, either. Stallone filled this film with innocent people, women and children being butchered to show you what is really going on all over the world. If the big, bad U.S.A is all for what is right and good in this world, why aren't we trying to stop the genocide in Myanmar, or the Congo or anywhere else in the world where the only law is respect the man with the biggest gun? Fact is, if there is nothing that serves the wishes of the government and the economy, there is no reason for us to be the good guys. Stallone doesn't spell this out for the audience, but if you are a thinking person, this movie will stick with you and really make you think. I remember I couldn't sleep the night I saw it. The violence is so intense and sickening that it will haunt you.

Stallone really makes you hate the bad guys to the point where you are just really, really excited to see them get theirs. And, oh boy, do they ever. The aging Stallone, hulking around sullenly, is more menacing than he was back in the 80s and in the dark, rainy jungle, as he stalks his prey, the film almost becomes like a Friday The 13th movie with Rambo instead of Jason. I mean, he even machetes people. This movie is a work of pure whacked out, sick brilliance, and I think its the best and most effective anti-war movie I've ever seen. Its also one of the only truly great action movies of the past decade.