Exclusive Interview with Hack Movies Main Man: KEVIN STRANGE

My friend and I first discovered Kevin Strange at the 2009 Scarefest horror convention in Kentucky.  Among the films being shown at that convention were Strange's Stiff Jobs, and if you know me a movie with that title must be checked out.  I'm glad we did.  It was our first exposure to the insane world of Strangeville, a place that any fan of Troma and underground horror comedy should be familiar with. Within the last year, Kevin has turned his attention from film making to short horror fiction but is still the evil genius that thought up all this madness and brought characters like Hogan and Cockhammer to life.  I had the honor to interview him and do a bit of a look back and a look toward what the future has in store for all the Hack minions.  Check out the awesome interview after the jump.


Hey man, first off, thanks for doing the interview. 

No problem, brother. I appreciate you taking the time to interview me! I've had some time off the past year, so it's nice to get back into the swing of things with a nice interview. :)

 

Could you tell me about how you made your first movie Dream Reaper?  Had you wanted to make a movie up until that point or was it a spur of the moment type thing?

It was around 2003-2004. I was managing a chain of porn shops that also carried previously viewed non-adult titles. All the dudes who worked there with huge movie freaks and I, while originally drawn to the scene because of the porn, eventually became as obsessed -if not more- than my comrades at work. We would talk endlessly about great movies and great actors, directors, etc. One dude had a film degree and constantly talked about making a movie of his own. My roommate at the time also worked for me at the porn shop. He decided he was a screen writer one day, and I sort of followed his lead. He started shooting shitty unusable scenes in our apartment and the film making bug sort of latched onto me and never let go. I started writing my own scripts and shooting my own short films which I actually finished and put on the Internet. A few people encouraged me to continue, and that's really all it took. I'm an attention whore from way back and even the tiniest bit of encouragement ballooned what little bit of talent I had into an inescapable drive to MAKE MOVIES LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER!

What were your influences to make horror comedy?  Had you thought about any other genres before settling on horror comedy?

Comedy is almost always the first thing that amateur filmmakers cling to because it makes them feel "Safe". They don't have to be taken seriously as artists if they're "just fooling around with friends". Unfortunately not many of these people are funny, nor do they understand comic timing or wit, irony, satire or any of the other elements that make comedy "work". That said, I fell into that category as well, but luckily for me, I turned out to actually be funny and had a natural knack for timing. It also helped that some of my biggest influences in film were the Lloyd Kaufmans, John Waters, Sam Raimis and Peter Jacksons, all of who played around in that blend of delicious 80s horror/comedy that so many of us Garbage Pail Kids from the 80s love so dearly. Growing up my favorite genre was horror. I rented all the Troma, Full Moon, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Streets, just all the cheesy horror that mom and pop shops had in the 80s and early 90s. So Horror and Comedy were all I was ever really interested in creating artistically. My friends and I were the kids in high school printing off pictures of scat porn and telling dead baby jokes. Real obnoxious fucks that did whatever it took to gross people out and get a rise out of the more conservative of our peers. Movies like Evil Dead 2 and Dead Alive, the Toxic Avenger, shit like that just came naturally to me artistically.

At what point did you decide to go on the convention circuit?  Had you been a fan of conventions before hand?  Some of your thoughts on conventions in general?

I'd never been to a horror con before I started Hack Movies. When I was first shooting shitty short films and putting them on youtube, I ran across some other cats out there doing their thing in the horror scene. I studied hard, learned their secrets by backward engineering their trademarked tactics and discovered the lucrative market of selling indie films at horror cons. My very first con I was scared to death that everyone was going to recognize me as a phony. All I had on DVD at the time was Dream Reaper and I wasn't exactly proud of it, you know what I mean? It is what it is and everyone has to start somewhere, but even I knew it wasn't the most entertaining no-budget shit flick out there. I took 80 copies of that fucker, and 10 of my closest associates. We fucking dressed up like monsters, had tons of flyers, even had magic tricks and all kinds of lame shit at our table. About 50 people showed up the whole weekend. We sold 7 DVDs, mostly to other vendors who felt sorry for us, these super naive little kids thinking we were going to set the world on fire with our shitty home movie. Since then we've done dozens of shows and have really learned what makes a successful indie movie work at that level and what will fail horribly. Along the way we've made some friends for life, been a part of some of the craziest parties, and generally made our mark all over the bitch ass face piece of the horror scene.

Especially with the later Hack Movies, it's obvious you were putting a lot of effort into the dialogue.  Who were you influences as far as that goes?

My style came from an understanding that I wasn't a very good filmmaker. Shit man, I honestly didn't know what the fuck I was doing on a set until around COCKHAMMER. The dialogue and the goofy shit was my way of trying to cover up my shortcomings as an artist. I knew I could write my dick off, I just couldn't do anything else. That caught on with a lot of people. Became my signature or whatever, and I just ran with it. As far as influences, it's really hard to say. I'm influenced by a LOT of different art. I'd say the two biggest influences for Hack Movies are Troma and ICP. Even the shit that Lloyd didn't direct himself like Killer Condom and Redneck Zombies. Basically anything subversive and shocking. I was a Mansonite in High school. I loved the satanic imagery and how much it would unsettle the boring kids. ICP and bands like Gwar and Slipknot brought the theatrics and really crazy offensive story lines to their music. I fed off all that and just tried to push my own envelope as far as what I considered in Bad Taste.  Sometimes it backfires though because I'm a genuinely nice guy and I don't like to really upset people. Some of my movies REALLY upset people and then I'm like "man, what the fuck are you doing? You're just an asshole". hahaha

With effort put into the dialogue, was there an attempt to avoid improvisation or was it encouraged?

That all depended on the actor. Someone Like Thaddeus could basically do or say whatever the fuck he wanted because he was a natural. He understood what I wanted, got my humor and had the acting chops to back it up. He'd look at his lines and then go to town. I don't think I ever corrected a line of dialogue or an actor decision he made. Someone like Joshituso on the other hand just wanted that script and wanted me to direct him. His characters are some of my favorites, but they are strictly by the book with heavy guidance by me. Which is exactly how Josh wanted it. Unlike a lot of shitty no-budget horror comedy, my movies have intricate story lines and a lot of plot. There aren't any random scenes of bullshit, so we had to stick very close to the written material to make sure that all the plot points and items that would come up later in the story were addressed.
I had to fight a lot of the guys on those points. Many indie film sets are looked at as this place to just party and cut up and fuck around with your friends. That shit infuriates me. I have art I'm trying to make and I don't give a fuck that you want to suck your girlfriend's tits. When you're on a Hack Movies set you WORK. We put in HOURS man. We can do a feature film in 9 shoot days. That's a lot of not fucking around, a lot of knowing your god damn lines, and a lot of willingness to stay focused and get the job done. Shit ain't easy, son.

My two favorite characters from Hack Movies are definitely the stoner characters Nixon and Hogan.  Did they come from a specific place or were they purely creatures of your imagination?

Originally they were written specifically for Dead Shit and they were to be two nerdy horror movie fans. Basically just an extension of me and josh's own personalities. But once we got on set, those two fucktards came out of us. I think I looked over at him right before we rolled the first take and said "make em gangster". We turned our hats sideways and Nixon and Hogan were born. After that, as I started writing them as white trash wiggers, I borrowed heavily stylistically from the ICP movie "Big Money Hustlas". Specifically Twiztid's Big Stank and Lil Poot characters. Really obnoxious suburban wigger characters. But by the time I'd done a few of those short skits "Niacin Deficiency", "That's my Bitch" And "Minions for Life", Nixon and Hogan had taken a life of their own. I could write them in my sleep now. I just have to give them a scenario and my fingers just type out what they say and do without any conscious thought on my part. They write themselves.

Dead Shit is referred to as "part 1" but then there was never a part 2. Was that intended to be a series that never caught on?

Who knows what the fuck I was thinking there. I remember I wanted to serialize it and make it free on the web. But it ended up turning out so cool that I gave it its own DVD release. And then instead of going back and doing more Dead Shit movies, Nixon and Hogan became the focus. I guess I felt like with that title, I'd be stuck doing Zombie movies which is super boring. So I just continued Nixon and Hogan instead of that particular title. Going back to "Dead Shit" meant going back to fighting zombies and I wasn't very happy with them the first time. Good call though, way to pay attention to that shit. :)

Speaking of stoners, there is a lot of drug use in the films.  Is marijuana use something you personally partake in or is it purely for the films?

No I don't, but I've done just about every kind of drug. I'm crazy enough without them. Ask anyone who knows me personally, I'm batshit crazy, spontaneous and neurotic without a single drop of alcohol or drug. I can get more accomplished artistically without mucking up my brain with drugs. That's just a personal choice though. All my friends do drugs, it's whatever to me. I could care less one way or the other unless they're wrecking your life or the life of your loved ones. Otherwise party on. As for their use in the films, I guess it's just not Rock N Roll without the sex and the drugs man. lol I love monsters and violence and crazy drug use and hardcore fucking in my entertainment. There's a million stories to be mined from drugs, and quite frankly characters just look at lot cooler getting all Hunter S. Thompson Twisted on drugs than being cookie cutter goodie goodies like me, haha.

Also on that note, what are you guys smoking in the films?  And one last thing, do you know of anybody actually doing the "smoking game" you describe in the intro for Nixon and Hogan Smoke Christmas?

Various substances have been used throughout the years to simulate the Colombian Smoke Weed made so famous by those Strangevillian Stoners. Mostly it's cigarette tobacco, which is brutal because I don't smoke. I'm usually throwing up from Nicotine overdoses by the time we're done filming a Nixon and Hogan scene. Some of the actors that do smoke weed refuse to use the fake shit cause they see it as being a poser or fake or some shit. So sometimes it's (allegedly) real weed, sometimes oregano, sometimes it's tobacco. All kinds of shit. One thing's for sure though, it always tastes like fucking ass and leaves me wishing I'd cast someone else as Hogan. lol
I have not heard of anyone trying the smoking game actually. hahaha. If anyone actually pulled it off, they'd probably end up being the first medically documented case of a marijuana overdose. Let me know if you decide to give it a go! :)

You recently closed up shop with Hack Movies.  Do you think we will ever see any of these characters again or is the book closed?

The thing about what I do, man, is it takes soooo much fucking time and effort to get one of these movies made. There are dudes I know who shot feature films 3 or 4 years ago who still don't have them edited. What the fuck is that bullshit? I'm so fucking bored with a movie by the time it's written, shot and edited that I can't even watch the screenings. I just go outside and bullshit with people. I can't imagine taking yeaaaars to finish something. So my turnaround is like 3 months max. Then I'm on to the next one, and the next. We did 3 movies in one year and I thought I was going to drop dead from a heart attack. The stress is unimaginable with all the scheduling conflicts, egos on the set, production fuck ups, reshoots, shitty sound, etc etc etc and the worst part about it is the fucking end result still looks like a low budget movie. Don't get me wrong, COCKHAMMER and SMOKE XMAS look like they cost a shit load more than we actually spent on them, but they sure as fuck don't translate the enormous workload that goes into them. That, coupled with the shitty Internet piracy world we live in makes these things almost impossible to make a financial return on without constantly being either in production on a movie, or on the road promoting them. And even then I stress my colleagues out to the point that I haven't spoken to a couple of my closest friends in over a year. I'm sorry to sound like a whiny asshole, but for what goes into making Hack Movies a reality, and with what little money I get back...shit just ain't worth it, son. That's why I turned my focus to what I was actually GOOOD at this whole time: The writing.

You've since turned your mind to writing short fiction if I'm not mistaken.  Is this is a direct result of toiling in the horror comedy scene for too long or just something that you are also interested in?  What are your plan for the future and where can people check out what you are up to now?

Once I took a step back from Hack Movies and gave myself the opportunity to expand my imagination beyond writing scripts specifically for movies with 500 dollar budgets, it was like a light bulb went off above my head. I was like, "OOOOOH, NOW I get it!" Suddenly my monsters are destroying entire cities, my plagues are wiping out civilizations. Giant floods caused by alien invasions are corrupting our wildlife turning them into crazed beasts. Shit is fun as fuck, dude! And I don't have to worry about budgets or shitty actors, or scheduling conflicts, or expensive cameras and lighting equipment. I don't have to worry about replacing my editing rig every year. All I have to do is throw a notebook in a backpack and hike my crazy ass into the woods alone, and come out with some of the best shit I've ever come up with. All for free!
It turns out too, that there's even a newschool genre of horror fiction called "Bizarro" that's almost exactly the kind of shit I've been writing all along with Hack Movies. So if you've been a fan of the nutsoid brain piece of Kevin Strange, be on the lookout for a TON of fiction coming straight at your bitch ass mouth holes. Don't be scared homie. I know most of my fan base isn't into reading, but I know a lot of you used to peep those GooseBumps books out from back in the day. The shit I'm going to be popping off is going to just like that sweet shit, except made for twisted ass adults such as myself. I'm going to have a website up soon dedicated to my fiction and hopefully you'll see some novels creeping their way onto Amazon.com in the final year of our civilization, 2012. And if you're really an illiterate fuckbag in this Internet age, well, I'm gonna release those fresh ass Book On Tape things on my website too, so fuck you, there's no excuse not to close your eyes, roll up a fatty, and let Kevin Strange take you on a trip as you know only I can, Mothafako!
 In the meantime, you can follow all my progress in my writing career at www.facebook.com/kevinstrange and look for some fiction readings to hit http://www.youtube.com/kevinstrange in the very, very near future. it's coming, minions. It's coming. :)
As for Hack Movies. Never say never. Film making is my first love, it's just a pain the fucking ass in these broke ass financial times where you motherfuckers refuse to buy anything that you can steal on the net for free instead. I'm sure the bat signal will show in the skies over Strangeville once more. Just don't hold your breath pieces. ;)

Thanks man.

No thank you, brother. It was about time for me to get in here and let the indie world know that they can't get rid of one of the masters of indie horror schlock. I ain't never going away.