Imprint Deep Dive: Deathstalker With Writer/Director Steven Kostanski

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Good morning everybody and welcome to episode number 103 of Imprintcast,
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the podcast dedicated to the Australian boutique label Imprint Films.
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My name is Tony Meeches and usually my partner and
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colleague Mr John Matthews would be with us but unfortunately
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he does have other commitments so he won't be joining us.
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But we do have family here with us, and of course,
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ladies first. It's been a while since we've had her
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on the show, and glad that she's back on for
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this particular episode. And please welcome to the show, Miss
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Suzanne Bolin. Suzanne, how are you doing? And thank you
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for joining in.
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Hello, hello. I'm very happy to be here and talk
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about one of my favourite genres, sword and sorcery.
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Yes, indeed. And of course... Also, our other family member,
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Mr Ron Pedersen. Ron, how are you doing? Good, sir. Good,
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thank you.
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Thank you for inviting me. Yes, like Susan, I grew
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up on sword and sorcery movies in the 80s. I'm
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happy to be here to talk about the genre and,
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of course, Deathstalk Remake.
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Absolutely. And as we said, today's episode, we are doing
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another episode. That is a pre pre-release recording because this
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release of this film is not coming out till September 30th,
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2026 from imprint films. And we are beyond honored to
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have the writer director, makeup designer, costume, and create creature
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designer of this film. And plus many others, Mr. Steven Kostanski, Steven.
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You don't understand how much this means to us. Thank
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you so much for joining in on this episode with us.
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Well, thanks for having me, Tony. I really appreciate it.
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Happy to do it and happy to chat all things
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sword and sorcery, as always. Big fan of the genre.
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That's why I made a movie in it.
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It's great. Absolutely. Well, we're all 80s kids here, and
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of course, we grew up on sword and sorcery, but
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I've got to ask you, Stephen, one question. Probably the
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most important, I don't know, for your career, absolutely. What
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was the film that got you inspired into makeup effects?
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What drove you to this desire to create, just to
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make some incredible creations on screen?
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I mean, all sorts of movies influenced me. I had
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lots of things growing up that definitely pushed me into
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the direction of wanting to be creative and be an artist. Uh,
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but the thing that made creature effects and making as
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a filmmaker, making movies full of creature effects, the one
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that really pushed me over the edge was army of darkness.
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And I feel like every movie I make has a
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little bit of that movie to it because I'm just,
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I'm so obsessed with it. It's a movie I could
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watch at any time of day. Uh, it's just one
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of my favorites. And I remember I, Like, as a kid,
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I was not really into genre stuff that much. I mean,
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I was into sci-fi and fantasy, specifically, like, Star Wars,
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and I was really into Godzilla movies. Horror as a
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genre intimidated me. I was kind of, you know, I
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was scared to dip my toe into that world. And
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I saw an ad for Army of Darkness in a
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comic book I had, and it was the, you know,
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that kind of Frazetta-esque artwork of Bruce Campbell standing on
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top of his car with the chainsaw hand. But there's, like, skeletons.
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One of the skeletons has a Roman helmet. There's just
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so many, like, anachronistic elements in this poster that, as
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a kid, I was like, this looks crazy. Like, what
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is this movie? And so I rented it for the
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next sleepover I had with my friends, and I loved it.
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It blew my mind. I had not seen a movie
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like that that was just packed with imagination in like,
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in every respect, like in the filmmaking, in the creature effects,
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the gore and the set pieces and the action, the
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camera work, all of it was just so off the
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wall and imaginative. And that really got me thinking like, well,
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I want to, I want to do this. And so
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my parents then subsequently bought me Army of Darkness on VHS. The,
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I believe it was the Anchor Bay VHS release at
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that sweet spot, like, kind of just as DVD was
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coming in where tapes would have bonus features at the end. Uh,
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I don't know if you remember that era of tape, but, uh,
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so I watched army of darkness on the Sanger Bay
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tape and it had bonus features and it had the
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making of at the end. And so I watched these
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guys that can be effects making all these monsters and
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they like, you know, any bonus feature that's K and
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B and Sam Raimi specifically, there's lots of like goofing around.
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It's very silly. And that, that was like a hundred
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percent of what pushed me over the edge. Cause I
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was like, Oh, these are like just guys like up
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to that point, I thought filmmaking and creature effects was, uh,
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it was like people in lab coats and very sterile.
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The concept of Hollywood was very inaccessible to me. The
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idea of filmmaking, it's like, Oh, that's like science. That's
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the thing scientists do, you know? And watching the guys
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at K and B just kind of like goof around
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in their heavy metal shirts and make rubber masks. I
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was like, Oh, this is just like, this is just
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guys messing around. Like I can do that. I'm a
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guy I like to mess around. So yeah. After that,
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it was just suddenly everything I was doing was all
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about making my next movie, my short films with my
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friends doing stop motion. I just was fully obsessed with
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the idea of like, I want to make movies that
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are as fun and imaginative as the stuff that Ramey
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is doing with his, his genre movies. Yeah. Yeah.
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What's interesting was with army of darkness is of course,
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as you know, it's a, I think it's the only
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PG 13, um, um, evil dead film, the rest of
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like hard R ratings. And like this one was tame,
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but it was so enjoyable to watch. Absolutely. Because we
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all know evil dead as the, um, probably the most crazy, violent, um,
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insane films that they released. But, army of darkness has
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something to it. And I get what you mean because
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like the walk, like the, the army of skeletons, you know,
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going around, that was, that was amazing. That was really
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fun to watch. And it was, well, I guess you
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can call it kid friendly, I guess.
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Well, yeah, that's worth pointing out is that it was
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a good gateway drug for me to horror movies. Cause
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I worked my way backwards then. And I watched evil
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dead too. And then I watched evil dead. And you know,
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by that you watch it in that order and it
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gets pretty insane. Like, Oh yeah, that's a lot of process,
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but it was the right way to do it. Cause
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by the time I got to the end of evil dead,
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I was like, Oh, I'm fully on board now. Like
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I can handle like the ultimate experience in grueling terror
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because I kind of like did the proper stepping stones
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of the full on comedy of army of darkness, the
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horror slash comedy of evil dead too. And then the
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full on horror of evil dead. So yeah. It led
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me into the genre, held my hand nicely into the genre.
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It wasn't too punishing of a transition as a kid.
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Speaking of a hard R rating, I don't know if
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you realize you have the distinction of having a banned
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movie here in Australia.
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Oh yeah.
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Which is not hard, not hard, considering Australia has always
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been pretty bad at banning and censoring films. So this
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is the Australian release and they cut it down. So
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I actually saw this, so we're going back into your past,
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but I saw this at a Night of Horror film
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festival when it first played in Sydney and it was uncut.
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So I watched this again last night just to remind
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myself and, yeah, I do see it has been cut. Sorry.
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Can you tell us a bit about this one and
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how it feels to have a banned movie in Australia?
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I mean, it's pretty crazy that that movie... I guess
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I'd say that about all my movies. It's crazy that
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it exists. Father's Day especially is such a weird combination
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of elements of Astron 6 and Troma. I mean, I
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was the lucky one in that I was so focused
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on the creature effects that I didn't have to navigate
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the Troma budget filmmaking machine the way Adam and Matt
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and Jeremy and Connor did. I was just making creature
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suits out of garbage and stuff at my workshop. I
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was kind of shielded from the chaos of that. It's
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certainly like a weird outlier in my filmography and also
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very much a time capsule of 2010 when we shot it.
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Cause yeah, I don't, I don't think we'll be making
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a movie like that ever again, but I'm very happy
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that it exists. And what's funny is that for what
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I'd argue is like the most extreme movie that I've
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been involved in. It's the one that like my mom
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went to the theater and watched it and loved it,
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which is crazy. Cause I thought for sure she'd watch
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it and then, you know, tell me how disappointed she was.
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The fact that the movie is, as crazy as it
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is and like, you know, it can be banned in
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some countries. In fact, that's so crazy and yet still
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accessible to, you know, my mom who doesn't watch trauma movies,
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doesn't even know what trauma is. It's like, Oh, I'm
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really proud of that. I'm proud that it's a movie
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that for its, for its extreme, components, it's still accessible
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to a lot of people. So, and it's, and it's
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stood the test of time. Like I watched it in
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the shop, not that long ago, showed a bunch of
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my shop coworkers, the movie, and they, they really enjoyed it.
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I was not expecting them. It was one of those
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situations where we're supposed to be working and But by
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the halfway point, everyone had just put their tools down
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and was just staring at the TV as the movie
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played out because they were so mesmerized by it.
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So, yeah.
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So, have you seen the cut down version?
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No, I'm very curious about it, though. I'd love to
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know what is cut.
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I had to think about it because it's been a
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long time since I saw it in the cinema. And
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at that festival, it did win a whole bunch of
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awards as well, which I noticed that But I think
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what is mainly cut is like dicks. That's what's cut.
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I think there was like a dick cutting scene.
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Yeah, there's a scene where Chris Brockman is, I think
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he's naked and he's holding his dick and he's like
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cutting it with an X-Acto blade and then he sticks
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a needle into it.
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Oh my.
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Yeah, it's a little rough. I can understand them wanting
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to cut that but yeah and actually yeah there's a
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part where he like eats a guy's dick um yeah
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there's quite a bit of dick stuff.
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Yeah so yeah as I recalled it was all the
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dick stuff that is cut out pretty much so it's
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like a dickless movie now which.
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Is so funny considering that like prestige TV and movies
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now I feel like there's a lot of dicks and
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they're done in the same fashion we did them in
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that like it was all fake dicks all those moments
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like they're all prosthetic dicks and now i mean working
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on that show the boys it was just nothing but
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glue and fake dicks onto guys so you know it's
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maybe we're just ahead of our time that's probably.
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I think so maybe someone at the australian censorship board
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is really not into.
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Dicks Yeah, I'd love to know what the deal is
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with your censorship board and why it's so strict, because
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I don't know, I feel like Australian cinema is pretty open-minded,
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so it's surprising to hear when something like Father's Day
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gets axed to shit, what's the logic behind that?
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Yeah, Australia's always been quite serious on banning films and
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censorship in the cinema, so... It's always been a thing,
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but I was surprised that it was kind of still
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happening at this time when this was put out. So anyway,
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I was just really fascinated about that film because it's
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just so out there. And, yeah, at that festival it
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played at midnight, which was great. And, yeah, it was
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a great experience seeing that. So I wanted, even though
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we're talking about Deathstalker, I'm like, I've just got to
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ask about this film.
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Well, that's awesome, isn't it? It's cool that you got
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to see it at a midnight screening. It's such a
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fever dream of a movie, watching it while you're, you know, tired.
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It probably makes the experience even more insane. So that's
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cool that you were able to catch it at its initial, like,
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kind of theatrical run. That's pretty sweet.
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It's okay. It woke me up.
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That's good. That's what you want in a midnight movie.
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You want it to snap you awake.
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I think I lay awake all night after that, so.
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Nice.
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Awesome.
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Can I ask a bit about, yeah, how you started
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out with that Astron 6 film collective?
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Yeah, I mean, we were all kind of like like-minded
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filmmakers living in and around Winnipeg, Manitoba. This is like
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the mid-2000s, so I'm still in university, going to University
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of Manitoba. Matt and Connor were going to University of Winnipeg.
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They're from Kenora originally, which is a town that's like
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two and a half hours outside of Winnipeg. We all
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met at a... Like, I'd known Adam already. He was
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a friend of a friend, and we chatted a few times.
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And I remember, actually, one of the first encounters I
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had with him was in a mutual friend's basement where,
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for some reason, we were just left alone hanging out together.
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And he just... was just like listing trauma movies i
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was supposed to watch and like i think he saw
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like oh this young kid i should like mentor him
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and like teach show him the ropes on movies because
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i was still pretty inexperienced at the time but uh
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we all kind of connected through this film festival this
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local festival that would do would screen indie winnipeg horror
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movies like short films every halloween it was like a
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little mini film festival slash contest And so we would
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submit our movies. And at the time, like we were
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all so small scale that, that seemed like as big
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as it was ever going to get to us was, uh,
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you know, I do my stop motion movies, Matt and
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Connor would shoot their little horror comedies. Adam would shoot
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his movies and we would all submit them and go
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watch them in a theater. And then judges would pick
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the top three. And so our lives kind of revolved
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around this festival for a while. And, there was one
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year where we all had competing movies and we started
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chatting and there was like a competitive, like air to
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everything a little bit where it's like, I I'm looking
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at Matt and Connor being like, who are these guys?
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They're clearly like charming, handsome boys who can do comedy
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really well. And their filmmaking skills are good. And I
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think they're looking at me being like, who's this guy
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that can do effects and stuff and do animation and,
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I think we're all a little threatened by each other,
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but then the more we hung out, the more we realized,
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oh no, we're all just, even though we're such different people,
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we're all passionate in the exact same way. And so
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we started collaborating. I started doing effects for everybody's movies.
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Jer started doing music and titles for everybody. Matt and
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Connor would act in everything. And then before the next
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year's Winnipeg Short Film Festival, or Winnipeg Short Film Massacre,
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it was called. Before the following year, when we all
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had our movies ready, we were like, hey, wouldn't it
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be cool if we all had a video logo at
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the beginning? Because this is, I believe, 2005, 2006 at
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this point. And we're all like, the concept of VHS
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nostalgia wasn't the thing that it is now. So at
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the time, we were like, oh, remember stuff like Vestron
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video or Gorgon video or Wizard video? It's like, we
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should do something like that. And so that's... Adam and
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Jeremy came up with Astron 6. And Jer animated a logo.
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And so we put it before all our movies. So
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then that year's film festival, three of the movies had
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an Astron 6 logo at the beginning. And you can
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hear people in the audience being like, what the hell? Like,
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what the frig is Astron 6? Like, and why do
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they have so many movies in the festival right now?
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And yeah, it was like after that, we really... decided
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like oh we should just all make our stuff together
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like clearly nobody else out there is doing what we're
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doing and we all compliment each other nicely it's like
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we're at simultaneously at odds and complimenting each other in
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interesting ways so let's just keep this going and so
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that led to a few straight years of just us
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constantly shooting short films which then led to us making
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features like Man Board, Father's Day Matt and Adam made
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The Editor Jare and I did The Void even though
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it's not an Astron 6 movie it's like you know
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it's like the spirit is alive in all of these
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things because you know we all still keep in touch
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and so yeah there was like a real heyday I
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want to say like 2006 to what 20 I guess
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the last thing we officially did as Astron 6 was
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Chowboys which we screened in played Sundance in 2019 I
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think it was so we had a good run and
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you know, it's definitely informed all the work we've done since.
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And I still try to put those guys in my
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movies everywhere I can. I mean, Deathstalker really should be
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called Deathstalker goes through Astron 6 land because it's like
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the first character we encounter is Adam and then he
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encounters Matt and then Connor later. So, you know, I'm
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like squeezing that Astron 6 kind of flavor into everything
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that I do. So, Yeah.
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Yeah. Speaking of the void, like I've got my copyright here.
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This is one of my favorites from. from 2016 when
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this came out. When I first saw this film, I
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was literally blown away by it. The one thing I
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love about your film, Stephen, is your insistence, well, I'm
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going to say insistence because I've seen it in most
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of the films that you've seen, of practical effects. There
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is nothing like practical effects to watch in a movie.
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Like CGI, you can tell instantly that it's CGI. But
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with practical effects... It's incredible. Like, I absolutely love The Void.
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And where did you come up with that, as it
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says here, with this twisted nightmare? Yes.
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I mean, it's funny, like, Jer and I came up
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with that. The initial idea for that, I believe, started...
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while we were at Fantastic Fest in Austin for Manborg
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and we were at like a barbecue lunch or like
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filmmaker lunch or something and we were bored and we
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were just kicking around ideas being like well what's next
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and we're just talking about the idea of like what
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would we have made a a serious horror movie. And
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then we just wanted to challenge ourselves because, you know, like,
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Astron 6 especially, and even, like, my subsequent movies, like,
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Psycho Goreman, Deathstalk, or Frankie Fria, it's like, there's a
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lot of humor and it's, you know, it just sets, like,
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a certain kind of tone where, like, well, what if
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we really challenge ourselves to make a scary monster movie?
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Because that seems like almost like an insurmountable task. Like
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that's like a tough mountain to climb because how many
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scary monster movies can you even really list? Like one,
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and I'm not talking like ones where you have to
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kind of like reframe it a bit. And like, like, like,
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you know, maybe it's like nostalgia speaking on behalf of,
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of your opinion of it. It's like, you know, you
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can think of like the thing, uh, I would argue
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like possession, uh, I'm sure you guys could list a
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few like horror movie monster movies. Like, I guess you
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could categorize jaws as a scary monster movie, but it
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just seemed like a really interesting and fun challenge for
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us to tackle. So that was the start of it.
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And that started a very long, like the movies like
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sold as a grueling nightmare, but making that movie was
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more of a nightmare than anything. that is on screen
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it was like a living hell to make that movie
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if I knew what we were going to go through
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to get it made like before I started making it
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before I signed a contract I probably would not make
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it because it took years off my life getting that
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thing done but I do appreciate that people seem to
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love it it's funny you hyped it up so much
377
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but at the time when it came out I don't
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feel like it got a lot of hype, especially when
379
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it played like in the U S I don't know
380
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what people were looking for from it, but I felt
381
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like the, the response was pretty lukewarm initially. Uh, and
382
00:22:19.450 --> 00:22:22.069
it seems like over time, over the past decade, it
383
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feels like people have grown, uh, to appreciate it more,
384
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which I mean, it does seem to be a thing
385
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that happens with a lot of horror movies. Um, you
386
00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:33.559
got to give these things time, but you know, it just,
387
00:22:33.970 --> 00:22:35.849
it sucked at the time to go through help making
388
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the movie and then screen it. And then people are
389
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just kind of like, Oh, okay. It's like, Oh, cool.
390
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That was like five years for that, for that reaction.
391
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So all of that's to say is like, thank you, Tony,
392
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for hyping it up so much. Cause it feels good
393
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this many years later to have people.
394
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I love it. I love it.
395
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Definitely say anyone listening or watching, if you haven't seen
396
00:23:01.319 --> 00:23:03.680
the void and you're a horror fan, you should say it.
397
00:23:04.220 --> 00:23:08.839
Because it's a great horror film. I think I noticed
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on horror forums and groups and stuff, people were really
399
00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:18.779
into it. I mean, over here in Australia.
400
00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:23.660
That's good. I'm happy to hear that. It does seem
401
00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:26.480
like every once in a while it'll pop up. Like
402
00:23:26.539 --> 00:23:29.420
somebody will put it on a top ten list or something.
403
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:34.309
I know a few months back, James Wan... was, like,
404
00:23:34.869 --> 00:23:37.589
kind of, like, live posting that he was re-watching it
405
00:23:37.990 --> 00:23:40.410
and just, like, posting pictures of his TV as it
406
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was playing. And, like, my managers reached out and were like,
407
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holy shit, like, you know, like, the head of Atomic
408
00:23:46.450 --> 00:23:50.279
Monster is, like, watching your movie and hyping it up.
409
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So there's, like, real genre people that appreciate it, which
410
00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:59.359
is really nice. So, yeah, I mean, one thing that
411
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I always say, as an indie filmmaker especially, is, like,
412
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the worst thing you can do is make a movie
413
00:24:06.490 --> 00:24:10.569
that even if it's like initially has some success and
414
00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:12.150
some heat behind it, the worst thing you can do
415
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is make a movie that gets forgotten. And I'm happy
416
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that the void has been remembered and seems to continue
417
00:24:21.400 --> 00:24:26.039
to be remembered and appreciated and revived. And cause especially
418
00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:27.900
in the horror genre, it's like, you know, it's a
419
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community that when they appreciate something, they like keep giving
420
00:24:32.359 --> 00:24:38.210
it love. It's, It's not a disposable thing. So I
421
00:24:38.230 --> 00:24:42.019
appreciate that this many years later it's still being talked
422
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about at all because that's such a hard thing to
423
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accomplish as a filmmaker when there's so many movies, there's
424
00:24:47.779 --> 00:24:50.680
so many shows, there's just so much stuff competing for
425
00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:54.950
people's attention right now. So yeah, it's just really great
426
00:24:54.970 --> 00:24:55.269
to see.
427
00:24:56.470 --> 00:25:00.369
Maybe because it is quite a serious horror that appeals
428
00:25:00.549 --> 00:25:06.099
to genre fans. And wasn't just like a popcorn horror
429
00:25:06.119 --> 00:25:09.269
movie that people kind of casually go and see in
430
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the cinema. Who knows?
431
00:25:12.170 --> 00:25:12.450
Yeah.
432
00:25:12.509 --> 00:25:14.869
Like I think maybe it was more because that was
433
00:25:14.910 --> 00:25:17.230
the movie I made after Man Borg. So it was
434
00:25:17.289 --> 00:25:23.019
maybe a kind of steep drop into grim darkness that
435
00:25:23.099 --> 00:25:26.480
people weren't expecting. I mean, I maintain that the movie
436
00:25:26.500 --> 00:25:29.660
maybe could have been a little lighter at moments. It's,
437
00:25:30.789 --> 00:25:34.069
pretty damn grim but I think that's also just my
438
00:25:34.190 --> 00:25:39.490
personality is that I just I want some levity to
439
00:25:39.549 --> 00:25:44.730
keep me going but clearly the horror genre and the
440
00:25:44.769 --> 00:25:49.009
horror fans there's definitely a big contingent of genre fans
441
00:25:49.029 --> 00:25:53.009
who want their stuff grim and dark so yeah I
442
00:25:53.049 --> 00:25:56.150
appreciate that those people get a lot out of them.
443
00:25:57.710 --> 00:26:01.440
Indeed I'm sure that's what people like about it, the
444
00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:02.759
nihilistic qualities.
445
00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:09.660
I mean, that's definitely a representation of the nihilistic misery
446
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that we were going through as we were making it.
447
00:26:11.549 --> 00:26:16.089
It was like a direct representation of me and Jeremy suffering.
448
00:26:17.349 --> 00:26:21.390
Like that put on screen very vividly. So yeah, maybe
449
00:26:21.430 --> 00:26:24.529
that's also why I bump on it a little bit,
450
00:26:24.609 --> 00:26:29.250
because I'm just seeing my own personal hell that's also
451
00:26:29.289 --> 00:26:31.450
why I haven't really revisited the movie in a very
452
00:26:31.509 --> 00:26:35.109
long time, because I feel like it'll just trigger a
453
00:26:35.170 --> 00:26:38.569
lot of buried trauma that I'm trying to move past.
454
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But again, glad people love it, and glad that it's
455
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still being talked about.
456
00:26:43.930 --> 00:26:47.480
Yeah, it's great, I'll tell you that. But before we
457
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:50.319
get to Deathstalk, I've got to talk about one more film,
458
00:26:50.380 --> 00:26:53.400
which of course you're wearing the shirt for, and I believe,
459
00:26:53.500 --> 00:26:57.079
and I know this was a huge hit in Sydney
460
00:26:57.140 --> 00:26:59.079
cinemas when it was at Monster... I believe it was
461
00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:00.240
Monster Fest, I think.
462
00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:01.940
Oh, sweet.
463
00:27:02.119 --> 00:27:07.009
Psycho Goreman. Like, this was... Now, this was something. I really,
464
00:27:07.180 --> 00:27:08.250
really enjoyed this one.
465
00:27:08.789 --> 00:27:09.029
It was.
466
00:27:09.049 --> 00:27:09.549
Thank you.
467
00:27:09.950 --> 00:27:12.250
It was definitely not what I was expecting, to say
468
00:27:12.289 --> 00:27:16.289
the least, but it... Yeah, the inside cover out here
469
00:27:16.349 --> 00:27:18.930
from Simon Sherry. He did a damn good artwork, as
470
00:27:18.970 --> 00:27:19.289
you said.
471
00:27:19.349 --> 00:27:19.849
Awesome art.
472
00:27:20.549 --> 00:27:24.059
Yeah. And I believe this is the... Was this the original?
473
00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:27.500
No. yeah I mean I think that was one of
474
00:27:27.519 --> 00:27:31.400
the first posters we had done done by the artist
475
00:27:31.500 --> 00:27:37.039
Blitz Cadet yeah it's I think that was the Beyond
476
00:27:37.099 --> 00:27:42.660
Fest poster for the movie it was crazy that the
477
00:27:42.700 --> 00:27:45.279
movie came out it was supposed to premiere at South
478
00:27:45.319 --> 00:27:50.000
by Southwest I think it was like March 22nd 2020
479
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:57.150
and I don't know if you remember that month Oh.
480
00:27:57.230 --> 00:27:59.690
I remember. I think we all remember that month.
481
00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:05.779
It was a rough month for everything. One of my
482
00:28:05.819 --> 00:28:09.400
biggest career disappointments is the fact that what I'd argue
483
00:28:09.539 --> 00:28:11.960
is what should have been my most successful movie came
484
00:28:12.019 --> 00:28:15.240
out at the worst time to be releasing a movie.
485
00:28:16.700 --> 00:28:19.819
What I did appreciate though was that the festivals that
486
00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:22.640
did play apparently went over really well. It's good to
487
00:28:22.680 --> 00:28:27.779
hear that it went well at MonsterFest. yeah I know
488
00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:29.839
Beyond Fest I think they did it was like a
489
00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:33.180
drive-in screening too where they like everybody was in their
490
00:28:33.220 --> 00:28:37.259
cars watching it I don't know they found it was
491
00:28:37.299 --> 00:28:42.200
interesting watching film festivals try and navigate a pandemic because
492
00:28:42.259 --> 00:28:47.400
it led to some fun interesting screenings but yeah absolutely
493
00:28:47.839 --> 00:28:48.940
very proud of that one.
494
00:28:49.500 --> 00:28:52.420
It's a good one I wrote a feature on it
495
00:28:52.779 --> 00:28:56.019
for a magazine here in Australia when it came out
496
00:28:56.420 --> 00:28:59.140
and it was just a normal kind of one of
497
00:28:59.180 --> 00:29:04.140
those free magazines for the community like a we call
498
00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:07.289
them street press here they've got music and film and
499
00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:10.410
okay they're in all the shops and all the bars
500
00:29:10.509 --> 00:29:14.490
and whatever and yeah I used to get really just
501
00:29:15.130 --> 00:29:18.730
normal films to write about and then I got that
502
00:29:18.769 --> 00:29:21.900
and I'm like oh that's perfect so I wrote a
503
00:29:21.940 --> 00:29:28.160
feature about it and um The creatures in that are, like, fantastic.
504
00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:32.359
I really like the brain. The brain guy.
505
00:29:32.420 --> 00:29:33.759
Everybody loves Alistair.
506
00:29:33.940 --> 00:29:35.190
Yeah, the brain.
507
00:29:35.210 --> 00:29:36.710
Such a sad goof.
508
00:29:37.450 --> 00:29:41.420
Yeah, and the... Is it, like, biogas? That Biocop kind
509
00:29:41.539 --> 00:29:41.859
of guy?
510
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:43.539
Yeah, Biocop shows up at one point.
511
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:47.529
But why are you so mean to Biocop? Like, his
512
00:29:47.589 --> 00:29:49.450
life is just so awful.
513
00:29:50.569 --> 00:29:55.349
Yeah, but it's funny watching him suffer. You know, it's like...
514
00:29:55.750 --> 00:29:59.400
It's just Three Stooges logic. It's like, you like watching people...
515
00:29:59.890 --> 00:30:03.339
get beat up and knocked around I don't know I
516
00:30:03.380 --> 00:30:07.940
feel like it's just something so endearing and also I'd
517
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:12.519
argue relatable about Biocop like sometimes sometimes you wake up
518
00:30:12.539 --> 00:30:14.009
in the morning and you're just like I don't want
519
00:30:14.029 --> 00:30:17.410
to be here anymore but you drag your ass through
520
00:30:17.430 --> 00:30:19.990
it and you just do it and that's Biocop that's
521
00:30:20.029 --> 00:30:22.269
his life he.
522
00:30:22.150 --> 00:30:24.309
Just doesn't get a break no he.
523
00:30:24.289 --> 00:30:28.089
Really doesn't and I will take any opportunity to drag
524
00:30:28.130 --> 00:30:31.140
that guy back back on the job and make them
525
00:30:31.160 --> 00:30:32.839
do stuff because i love.
526
00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:37.559
It ron have you seen psycho gore man or the void.
527
00:30:38.039 --> 00:30:39.539
No i'm afraid i haven't sorry i'm a bit out
528
00:30:39.579 --> 00:30:42.779
of my element so i apologize.
529
00:30:42.529 --> 00:30:44.630
Well that's it we're having a double feature here soon
530
00:30:44.650 --> 00:30:47.190
for those two you gotta watch them they're.
531
00:30:46.990 --> 00:30:50.349
Great that's quite a roller coaster of a double bill.
532
00:30:50.109 --> 00:30:53.109
Oh you've done work i've done i've done crazy double
533
00:30:53.150 --> 00:30:56.190
features before like um One time I had a Ken
534
00:30:56.210 --> 00:30:58.779
Russell double feature with the devils and crimes of passion.
535
00:30:59.099 --> 00:30:59.900
That was a good one.
536
00:31:01.680 --> 00:31:06.220
One time I did, uh, Sophie's choice and ghostbusters. It
537
00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:06.839
was pretty good.
538
00:31:07.660 --> 00:31:10.380
That was some, that's something.
539
00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:14.660
I don't remember why we landed on that, but yeah, watching, getting,
540
00:31:14.779 --> 00:31:17.900
doing ghostbusters. Second was very weird. It was like, Oh,
541
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:20.549
I had to process the last movie, but I guess
542
00:31:20.630 --> 00:31:22.450
I'll laugh at Bill Murray now.
543
00:31:22.769 --> 00:31:26.039
So, yeah, Oh, doubles.
544
00:31:26.130 --> 00:31:26.519
I love them.
545
00:31:27.339 --> 00:31:28.150
Oh, so do I.
546
00:31:28.500 --> 00:31:32.720
The oddest double I ever heard of was Cheech and
547
00:31:32.779 --> 00:31:36.440
Chong's next movie plus 2001 A Space Odyssey, and that
548
00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:36.920
was in New Zealand.
549
00:31:36.940 --> 00:31:38.900
I don't know. That kind of makes sense, though.
550
00:31:39.039 --> 00:31:39.640
It works.
551
00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:41.079
Maybe it does, yeah.
552
00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:42.119
It does work.
553
00:31:42.579 --> 00:31:44.849
Yeah, if you have it in your mind, that makes sense.
554
00:31:45.470 --> 00:31:48.109
And the one that really upset the locals was Maniac
555
00:31:48.170 --> 00:31:49.269
and I Spit on Your Grave.
556
00:31:50.369 --> 00:31:51.490
Oh, that's harsh.
557
00:31:51.650 --> 00:31:52.849
They wound a lot of people up.
558
00:31:53.819 --> 00:31:58.079
Yeah, that's a pretty, like, grim... Oh, I couldn't get
559
00:31:58.140 --> 00:32:01.279
any good in that. You'd need to take a shower
560
00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:09.680
probably between movies to just... Maybe a bath. Yeah. Islam. Indeed.
561
00:32:09.700 --> 00:32:12.930
All right, we'd better talk about Deathstalker.
562
00:32:13.410 --> 00:32:18.529
Absolutely. This is, of course, Imprint Films are releasing this
563
00:32:18.569 --> 00:32:22.160
on September 30th, 2026. And of course, we're talking about
564
00:32:22.259 --> 00:32:33.059
the new Steven Kostanski film, Deathstalker. Who is he? They
565
00:32:33.099 --> 00:32:34.420
say he was once a knight.
566
00:32:37.509 --> 00:32:44.130
Before the war against the Dreadites.
567
00:32:44.230 --> 00:32:49.400
Surgeon with a sword. Dreadites!
568
00:32:50.819 --> 00:32:51.369
Oh, wow.
569
00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:04.890
The answers to only one name. I. What name would
570
00:33:04.910 --> 00:33:05.210
that be?
571
00:33:24.829 --> 00:33:25.990
Deathstalker.
572
00:33:28.170 --> 00:33:29.009
My old friend.
573
00:33:30.329 --> 00:34:04.960
Come and get it. The mighty Deathstalker! I saw this
574
00:34:05.019 --> 00:34:07.000
for the first time a couple of days ago because
575
00:34:07.059 --> 00:34:10.139
it only screened once, I believe, in Sydney. I think, Ron,
576
00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:11.199
you were there at that screening?
577
00:34:11.610 --> 00:34:12.230
That's right, yes.
578
00:34:12.789 --> 00:34:16.170
Monster Fest last year, last October. Oh, Monster Fest. Oh, okay.
579
00:34:16.289 --> 00:34:16.690
That's good.
580
00:34:17.349 --> 00:34:22.849
It was almost a full house, and it was all Conan,
581
00:34:22.889 --> 00:34:24.030
Sword and Sorcery fans.
582
00:34:24.050 --> 00:34:25.170
They were all people my age.
583
00:34:26.050 --> 00:34:28.989
In the theater and they're all cheering it on. Like
584
00:34:29.329 --> 00:34:35.610
it was, um, like watching a fight, you know, it was,
585
00:34:35.630 --> 00:34:38.269
it had that kind of air about it in the cinema.
586
00:34:38.289 --> 00:34:42.730
And it was, it was so much fun. It reminded me.
587
00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:45.920
Of, I did kind of structure it like a, it's
588
00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:48.599
like a tournament fighting movie. Almost. It really is just
589
00:34:49.340 --> 00:34:54.119
fighting one, one escalating bad guy situation after another. So,
590
00:34:54.980 --> 00:34:56.980
That's the kind of crowd reaction I wanted to have,
591
00:34:57.059 --> 00:34:57.320
for sure.
592
00:34:57.360 --> 00:34:59.880
It was kind of like rock and roll wrestling meets gwa,
593
00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:04.579
kind of thing. And I thought it was great. And
594
00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:06.679
the fans loved it. It kind of reminded me when
595
00:35:06.699 --> 00:35:08.260
I was an 11-year-old kid, I was taking a seat
596
00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:09.139
at the Beastmaster.
597
00:35:09.960 --> 00:35:10.659
Oh, nice.
598
00:35:11.119 --> 00:35:14.139
And I just remember how wild it was to me.
599
00:35:14.199 --> 00:35:15.739
I said, wow, this is really intense.
600
00:35:16.699 --> 00:35:20.030
It just reminded me of Estevez from Repo Man.
601
00:35:20.070 --> 00:35:23.510
And I just remember that bat thing sucking out the child.
602
00:35:23.170 --> 00:35:24.159
And all the blood coming out.
603
00:35:25.190 --> 00:35:27.269
I just started shaking in the theater, you know, my
604
00:35:27.289 --> 00:35:30.670
11-year-old me, me shaking. But, I mean, after when I
605
00:35:30.670 --> 00:35:32.719
watched Gwar, I had that air about it. I mean,
606
00:35:32.760 --> 00:35:34.539
watching Death Talk, I had that air about it.
607
00:35:35.360 --> 00:35:39.719
Yeah, Beastmaster was a big inspiration, for sure. Beastmaster, Krull
608
00:35:39.739 --> 00:35:42.420
was a big one. Weirdly, it was like kind of
609
00:35:42.500 --> 00:35:45.920
every movie except the original Death Stalker, even though when
610
00:35:45.960 --> 00:35:49.500
I watched it, I realized, like, oh, it actually does, like,
611
00:35:49.619 --> 00:35:57.719
some of the structural stuff is very similar, like, thematically, but... Krull, Beastmaster,
612
00:35:57.739 --> 00:36:00.800
a bit of Legend, The Sword and the Sorcerer is
613
00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:06.340
another good one. There's lots of Conquest. I just re-watched Conquest.
614
00:36:06.380 --> 00:36:09.460
That movie rocks. I don't know if you've seen Fulci's Conquest.
615
00:36:11.480 --> 00:36:14.780
There's lots of weird sword and sorcery movies that I
616
00:36:14.780 --> 00:36:18.869
want to reference more than anything. I was treating this
617
00:36:18.929 --> 00:36:22.550
as this should be I don't want to say kid-friendly
618
00:36:22.570 --> 00:36:26.039
because it's violent as hell, but this was trying to
619
00:36:26.079 --> 00:36:27.900
be a bit of the Army of Darkness to the
620
00:36:27.960 --> 00:36:30.539
sword and sorcery genre for me, where it's like, I
621
00:36:30.559 --> 00:36:33.340
want people to watch this one and be like, oh,
622
00:36:33.380 --> 00:36:36.239
I love the kind of tactile vibe of all the
623
00:36:36.300 --> 00:36:39.079
violence and the creatures and the puppets and stuff. And
624
00:36:39.099 --> 00:36:42.989
then that leads them into the pit of classic sword
625
00:36:43.010 --> 00:36:45.750
and sorcery and get into stuff like Conan and things
626
00:36:45.769 --> 00:36:46.550
like that.
627
00:36:46.590 --> 00:36:47.889
Oh, it's definitely there.
628
00:36:47.929 --> 00:36:51.769
Conan is the big literary sword and sorcery one. It's
629
00:36:51.809 --> 00:36:55.829
got the Dante-esque story line He's suffering.
630
00:36:56.650 --> 00:37:00.150
Yeah, Conan, that movie's on another level, I think. Every
631
00:37:00.170 --> 00:37:02.210
time I watch it, I'm like, is this one of
632
00:37:02.409 --> 00:37:05.329
the best movies? Because it sure... It is.
633
00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:06.909
It's immovable.
634
00:37:06.929 --> 00:37:10.090
It sure hits so hard every time I watch it.
635
00:37:10.139 --> 00:37:13.340
It's such a... The thing I like about the genre,
636
00:37:13.380 --> 00:37:17.360
and that movie specifically, it's so passionate. There's just a
637
00:37:17.440 --> 00:37:21.769
real passionate energy to it. Arnold.
638
00:37:23.010 --> 00:37:23.250
I'm.
639
00:37:23.150 --> 00:37:26.030
Just so convinced I'm so in it. There's no snark.
640
00:37:26.469 --> 00:37:31.079
There's no like winking at the camera. It's just like, no,
641
00:37:31.099 --> 00:37:34.780
we're following this guy's revenge journey. And it's so satisfying.
642
00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:38.880
And the, the conviction that everyone is like delivering their
643
00:37:38.920 --> 00:37:44.070
lines with, uh, like James Earl Jones, uh, his mom,
644
00:37:44.110 --> 00:37:48.829
his big monologue about, about power. And when he makes
645
00:37:48.869 --> 00:37:51.269
the girl jump off the cliff, uh, Like all of
646
00:37:51.309 --> 00:37:53.760
that stuff, I'm just like, this is so fucking awesome.
647
00:37:53.820 --> 00:37:57.739
Like movies, no modern movie can pull this off. So
648
00:37:58.139 --> 00:38:01.260
that Conan to me is, that's like the gold standard
649
00:38:01.300 --> 00:38:05.199
of not just story and fantasy, but I feel like
650
00:38:05.260 --> 00:38:08.179
in movies in general, it doesn't get any better than that.
651
00:38:09.070 --> 00:38:10.769
Yes. Yeah.
652
00:38:10.789 --> 00:38:15.530
Oliver Stone said in his autobiography that he wanted to
653
00:38:15.550 --> 00:38:19.920
be bigger than that. He wanted to be like Ralph Basquiat,
654
00:38:20.019 --> 00:38:23.250
full of monsters and creatures. But they just scaled down
655
00:38:23.289 --> 00:38:27.250
and down and down to it and minimized it.
656
00:38:27.469 --> 00:38:30.989
Which is interesting, because when I first watched it as
657
00:38:31.030 --> 00:38:34.070
a kid, especially post-Army of Darkness, I was like, I
658
00:38:34.090 --> 00:38:38.469
want more monsters in this. But watching it as an adult,
659
00:38:39.010 --> 00:38:41.780
with a little bit more life behind me, I'm like, no,
660
00:38:41.860 --> 00:38:45.260
the I don't want to be distracted by monsters because
661
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:49.079
I'm so invested in his personal journey that it's like,
662
00:38:49.099 --> 00:38:52.199
that's way more, it's way more compelling, way more interesting
663
00:38:52.559 --> 00:38:54.519
to me. Not to say we don't have some cool monsters.
664
00:38:54.539 --> 00:39:00.250
Like that snake is pretty weird. The snake transformation is cool. There's,
665
00:39:00.329 --> 00:39:02.750
there's lots of, there's lots of juicy shit to eat
666
00:39:02.809 --> 00:39:05.409
up in that movie, but yeah, I don't know. There's
667
00:39:05.429 --> 00:39:08.769
just like a very grounded reality to that movie that
668
00:39:08.869 --> 00:39:13.179
is unmatched. I don't think any other, any other sword
669
00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:15.579
and sorcery movie pulls it off in the same way.
670
00:39:16.380 --> 00:39:20.400
And that is where, um, like sword and sorcery differs
671
00:39:20.579 --> 00:39:25.969
from like other genres. So like adventure, historical swashbuckler, that
672
00:39:25.989 --> 00:39:31.690
it does have these outsider characters and they're, usually amoral and, like,
673
00:39:31.769 --> 00:39:37.280
Deathstalker is quite an amoral character and they're usually driven
674
00:39:37.429 --> 00:39:42.039
by personal gain or adventure, not like these big kind
675
00:39:42.119 --> 00:39:48.510
of heroic save-the-world things. But they get dragged into... something
676
00:39:48.699 --> 00:39:52.269
greater than themselves. And that's like how the genre kind
677
00:39:52.329 --> 00:39:56.690
of works. And that's definitely the case with the first Deathstalker.
678
00:39:57.369 --> 00:39:59.769
And also, I think, your Deathstalker.
679
00:40:00.409 --> 00:40:02.869
Oh, definitely. That was what appealed to me. Exactly what
680
00:40:02.889 --> 00:40:05.829
you're saying is like, you have characters who are just
681
00:40:05.889 --> 00:40:10.510
surviving in these universes, these kind of uncompromising, punishing universes,
682
00:40:11.250 --> 00:40:18.190
fantasy worlds, and against their will, they are forced to become...
683
00:40:18.369 --> 00:40:21.710
a hero in some way, but it's like, while at
684
00:40:21.730 --> 00:40:25.429
the same time using their, their survival skills, the things
685
00:40:25.449 --> 00:40:27.670
that they use to just like look out for themselves,
686
00:40:27.710 --> 00:40:30.150
that ends up becoming assets for them down the road
687
00:40:30.289 --> 00:40:33.409
as they, as they fight these insurmountable evils. It's like,
688
00:40:34.530 --> 00:40:38.820
it's like unit fantasy worlds that these movies occupy, a
689
00:40:39.780 --> 00:40:43.840
traditional hero would never succeed. And that was also something
690
00:40:43.860 --> 00:40:46.530
I tried to suggest, like with the, uh, like the
691
00:40:46.610 --> 00:40:49.630
kingdom that keeps being alluded to the Abraxian kingdom and
692
00:40:50.210 --> 00:40:52.449
like the, the heroes and the warriors of that, like
693
00:40:52.909 --> 00:40:56.789
they're way more traditional heroes. And that's why they're just
694
00:40:56.829 --> 00:40:59.099
getting wiped out. Like, that's why it just starts with them.
695
00:40:59.539 --> 00:41:01.460
The guys in the cool gold armor are just getting
696
00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:07.420
massacred because, you know, they, they follow like very traditional
697
00:41:07.739 --> 00:41:10.869
concepts of good and bad and, Deathstalker, the guy that's
698
00:41:10.909 --> 00:41:13.860
essentially a vulture that comes along and just steals their
699
00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:17.159
stuff so he can buy some booze and a pulled chicken.
700
00:41:19.340 --> 00:41:23.239
He's the one that gets stuck. He's the one that
701
00:41:23.260 --> 00:41:26.989
gets burdened with the task of saving this universe because
702
00:41:27.010 --> 00:41:30.809
the other guys, the traditional goody-two-shoes guys just aren't good
703
00:41:30.849 --> 00:41:33.789
enough for it. I think that's a theme that carries
704
00:41:33.809 --> 00:41:36.480
through a lot of the fantasy genre. It's something I
705
00:41:36.519 --> 00:41:37.119
really enjoy.
706
00:41:38.500 --> 00:41:43.320
And throughout the Deathstalker series, we do have a few
707
00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:48.000
different Deathstalkers. Can you talk about the casting of Daniel
708
00:41:48.039 --> 00:41:51.400
Bernhardt in this one? And, of course, he kind of
709
00:41:51.440 --> 00:41:55.489
started out, I know, in Bloodsport and a whole bunch
710
00:41:55.550 --> 00:41:59.730
of action movies. So, yeah, because it's a big role
711
00:41:59.789 --> 00:42:02.730
to fill. It's like a famous role.
712
00:42:03.670 --> 00:42:06.889
Yeah, I mean, Daniel seemed like such a perfect choice
713
00:42:06.989 --> 00:42:11.900
to me because the character I was writing in my head,
714
00:42:12.059 --> 00:42:14.059
even at that early stage when I was just coming
715
00:42:14.119 --> 00:42:17.679
up with the movie, I think I was watching, it's
716
00:42:17.719 --> 00:42:22.030
like Bloodsport 4, The Dark Kumite, and just watching him
717
00:42:22.070 --> 00:42:26.050
in that, I started, the gears started turning on this
718
00:42:26.090 --> 00:42:31.230
idea of like Deathstalker being an older, wiser, kind of grizzled,
719
00:42:31.250 --> 00:42:35.269
a little bitter Deathstalker who's just seen everything. That idea
720
00:42:35.329 --> 00:42:39.539
was fun to me, and watching Daniel, like, fight in
721
00:42:39.579 --> 00:42:43.860
a weird tournament in this blood, this fourth blood sport
722
00:42:43.900 --> 00:42:46.800
movie that at the beginning, I believe says it takes
723
00:42:46.840 --> 00:42:49.690
place in New York city, but it's clearly like Bulgaria
724
00:42:49.789 --> 00:42:53.849
or something. Just that, just the absurdity of that. I'm like, wow,
725
00:42:53.889 --> 00:42:56.530
this guy's been in the straight to video trenches, but
726
00:42:56.550 --> 00:42:59.550
then he's also done giant movies. Like, you know, he's
727
00:42:59.610 --> 00:43:02.429
in matrix reloaded. He has a substantial role in that.
728
00:43:03.010 --> 00:43:07.280
He's like trains like Bob Odenkirk. He does all, he,
729
00:43:08.119 --> 00:43:12.039
he's done everything. And I liked that. I, the idea
730
00:43:12.059 --> 00:43:14.219
of bringing someone to the role that you just look
731
00:43:14.239 --> 00:43:15.960
at their face and you're like, I know this guy
732
00:43:15.980 --> 00:43:19.559
has lived a full life. Like that was exciting to me.
733
00:43:19.619 --> 00:43:23.300
And so when I came up with this idea for
734
00:43:23.320 --> 00:43:26.550
a death stalker in my head, it's a sequel treated
735
00:43:26.630 --> 00:43:30.389
as a reboot because the money people needed to be
736
00:43:30.429 --> 00:43:32.989
that way. But to me, this is death stalker five
737
00:43:33.030 --> 00:43:35.489
and it's years later. And he's just kind of like
738
00:43:35.869 --> 00:43:37.869
worn out and been through so much shit that he's just,
739
00:43:38.409 --> 00:43:40.829
kind of over it and i wanted that to parallel
740
00:43:40.869 --> 00:43:44.010
daniel a little bit in that you know he's older
741
00:43:44.090 --> 00:43:48.349
wiser had like 30 plus years of a film career
742
00:43:48.909 --> 00:43:53.139
where he he's acted done stunts fight choreography he's done
743
00:43:53.219 --> 00:43:57.239
everything and so he basically just he just was death
744
00:43:57.260 --> 00:44:00.340
stalker there was no like how do i guide him
745
00:44:00.420 --> 00:44:02.199
into this role i just felt like no he is
746
00:44:02.900 --> 00:44:06.639
he's the guy because he literally is living that life
747
00:44:06.719 --> 00:44:09.369
right now. Just like kind of a, a parallel version
748
00:44:09.429 --> 00:44:13.909
of it. So it was, there was no discussion of like, Oh,
749
00:44:13.909 --> 00:44:16.110
should we get a different guy? It was just like, no,
750
00:44:16.130 --> 00:44:18.849
we'll get Daniel. And you know, we, we hopped on
751
00:44:18.909 --> 00:44:20.929
a zoom call and we chatted a bunch and like
752
00:44:20.969 --> 00:44:26.219
became friends instantly. Uh, he's a very passionate, uh, passionate,
753
00:44:26.300 --> 00:44:29.800
creative guy. Like he's also a filmmaker and you know,
754
00:44:29.820 --> 00:44:33.449
we just brode about filmmaking and movies we liked and,
755
00:44:34.099 --> 00:44:35.940
me being a nerd i just couldn't help myself but
756
00:44:36.039 --> 00:44:39.199
like grill him for stories about working on all the
757
00:44:39.239 --> 00:44:42.119
various projects he's been on so it's just like a
758
00:44:42.159 --> 00:44:45.400
really good match it was just a fun dynamic and
759
00:44:45.510 --> 00:44:47.730
it just it bled into what we were doing on
760
00:44:47.809 --> 00:44:51.090
set and i think he crafted a really fun version
761
00:44:51.130 --> 00:44:54.670
of this character that stands on its own which i
762
00:44:54.710 --> 00:44:57.710
thought was important because i did not have any interest
763
00:44:57.769 --> 00:45:01.739
in trying to just remake anything from those movies. That
764
00:45:01.780 --> 00:45:04.619
was why I took this project on. I was like, oh,
765
00:45:04.679 --> 00:45:09.500
I'm just going to make a Steve Kostanski fantasy action
766
00:45:09.639 --> 00:45:13.860
epic in the same way that Jim Wynorski made his
767
00:45:14.260 --> 00:45:19.690
fantasy action comedy with Deathstalker 2. That's very much just
768
00:45:19.849 --> 00:45:22.230
a Jim Wynorski movie. So my logic was, well, I'm
769
00:45:22.250 --> 00:45:25.150
just going to make a Steve Kostanski movie and I'm
770
00:45:25.170 --> 00:45:26.530
going to do it the way I want to do it.
771
00:45:27.070 --> 00:45:29.289
And I'm not really going to feel beholden to anything
772
00:45:29.530 --> 00:45:34.960
too specific. And Daniel, when Daniel like became like solidified
773
00:45:35.139 --> 00:45:36.800
into the role, I feel like the whole thing came
774
00:45:36.840 --> 00:45:39.380
together around that because I could just see it in
775
00:45:39.420 --> 00:45:42.210
my head. I was like in love with the idea
776
00:45:42.250 --> 00:45:46.750
of pitting Daniel Bernhardt against a bunch of Steve Kostansky
777
00:45:46.829 --> 00:45:50.610
rubber monsters. That's the movie I want to watch. That's
778
00:45:50.710 --> 00:45:52.980
the movie we're going to make. So, yeah.
779
00:45:53.920 --> 00:45:56.780
And right from the beginning, from the opening scene, it's
780
00:45:56.860 --> 00:46:03.320
like ultra-violent, gory, so the audience knows what to expect
781
00:46:03.420 --> 00:46:08.489
and that introduces us to this approach which is horror
782
00:46:08.590 --> 00:46:14.010
and creature-based rather than those 80s films that have that
783
00:46:14.090 --> 00:46:18.710
kind of eroticism to them. They're kind of like almost
784
00:46:18.769 --> 00:46:22.679
like Playboy movies. They've got that aspect to them. And
785
00:46:22.719 --> 00:46:28.079
you've definitely moved away from that. Can you talk a
786
00:46:28.119 --> 00:46:32.010
little bit about how you decided to approach it as
787
00:46:32.090 --> 00:46:36.369
horror and that those elements, did you think maybe they're
788
00:46:36.409 --> 00:46:38.590
not relevant today?
789
00:46:38.610 --> 00:46:42.230
I mean, it was a thing that I was batting
790
00:46:42.250 --> 00:46:44.489
around as I was coming up with the movie a
791
00:46:44.550 --> 00:46:47.590
little bit, but then as I developed it and as
792
00:46:47.650 --> 00:46:51.510
I wrote it, committing to this idea of him being
793
00:46:51.639 --> 00:46:55.269
older and beat up and tired there was just no
794
00:46:55.369 --> 00:46:58.590
room in the movie for that it just felt extraneous
795
00:46:58.670 --> 00:47:00.789
it felt pointless so I committed to this idea of
796
00:47:00.849 --> 00:47:05.369
like okay when I watched the first Deathstalker that poster
797
00:47:05.449 --> 00:47:10.199
promised me a big ogre monster thing and that's not
798
00:47:10.260 --> 00:47:14.960
in the movie but there's also a scantily clad lady
799
00:47:15.019 --> 00:47:18.320
on the poster and it delivered on that so my
800
00:47:18.360 --> 00:47:22.659
version what I'm promising is like the other half of
801
00:47:22.719 --> 00:47:25.659
that poster I didn't get is what I wanted to make.
802
00:47:26.199 --> 00:47:28.760
It's like, I'm going to cram all the monster shit
803
00:47:28.940 --> 00:47:32.199
that those four original Deathstalkers didn't give me. Those are
804
00:47:32.219 --> 00:47:35.690
all going to be in this one. So it's just
805
00:47:35.949 --> 00:47:39.590
delivering on a promise that I felt wasn't fulfilled earlier
806
00:47:39.650 --> 00:47:43.530
in the franchise and basically flipping the script on its head.
807
00:47:44.130 --> 00:47:46.469
So yeah, I mean, and I just like hard committed
808
00:47:46.489 --> 00:47:49.630
to that much to the disappointment of some fanboys and
809
00:47:49.670 --> 00:47:53.289
that's fine. But, I mean, to me, it's like I
810
00:47:53.550 --> 00:47:57.090
made the movie I wanted to make, and I'm very
811
00:47:57.150 --> 00:47:59.920
proud of it, and I'm happy with how it turned out.
812
00:48:01.579 --> 00:48:06.440
And I have to reassure listeners that there are boobs
813
00:48:06.639 --> 00:48:10.079
in the movie on the swamp creature, so you do
814
00:48:10.119 --> 00:48:14.579
get to see some. There is a fantastic swamp creature.
815
00:48:14.599 --> 00:48:19.969
Yeah, we got some nice boobs. big titties on a
816
00:48:19.989 --> 00:48:22.630
swamp monster and we got also a severed cock at
817
00:48:22.769 --> 00:48:25.369
one point I would argue that the movie is very
818
00:48:25.429 --> 00:48:29.369
horny just not in the way that not in the
819
00:48:29.409 --> 00:48:31.510
way that you'd throw a sticker on the box saying
820
00:48:31.570 --> 00:48:36.579
starring playboy playmate Barbie Benton or whatever which honestly that's
821
00:48:36.619 --> 00:48:39.980
the only thing I am disappointed about is to stay
822
00:48:40.119 --> 00:48:43.860
authentic to the franchise I wish that I'd cast a
823
00:48:43.900 --> 00:48:48.360
Playboy Playmate somewhere just to imitate that sticker that I
824
00:48:48.429 --> 00:48:50.630
saw in the box when I looked at the box
825
00:48:50.650 --> 00:48:52.909
as a kid in the video store and it being
826
00:48:52.949 --> 00:48:55.309
like oh Playboy Playmate Barbie Benton and I remember my
827
00:48:55.349 --> 00:48:58.670
dad seeing it and being like oh interesting so yeah
828
00:48:59.369 --> 00:49:02.050
sad that I couldn't do that but happy that I
829
00:49:02.110 --> 00:49:05.800
got to jam it full of the most monsters I've
830
00:49:05.840 --> 00:49:07.219
ever put in a movie ever.
831
00:49:08.280 --> 00:49:12.199
And I must say that in the first couple of films,
832
00:49:13.119 --> 00:49:17.829
it's very unfortunate that the women seem to lose their
833
00:49:17.869 --> 00:49:22.050
clothing quite a lot while wandering in the forest. And
834
00:49:22.110 --> 00:49:26.010
by your movie, you seem to have addressed the fabric
835
00:49:26.090 --> 00:49:29.989
shortage that was happening in the first couple of films,
836
00:49:30.360 --> 00:49:34.159
which I can only assume in this, you know, fantasy
837
00:49:34.239 --> 00:49:39.159
landscape kingdom that they couldn't source enough fabric for. only
838
00:49:39.219 --> 00:49:43.750
just enough to make the smallest of G-strings. So that
839
00:49:43.809 --> 00:49:48.070
was great to see that the kingdom has full access
840
00:49:48.130 --> 00:49:49.349
to fabric again.
841
00:49:49.090 --> 00:49:51.380
By your film. Well, I can also tell you that
842
00:49:51.409 --> 00:49:56.260
the actors appreciated it as well. We're shooting in northern
843
00:49:56.360 --> 00:50:00.239
Canada in Sudbury in April, I think, so it was
844
00:50:00.699 --> 00:50:05.090
really cold. And, you know, technically Daniel was the most
845
00:50:05.159 --> 00:50:09.210
scantily clad person in the whole movie, and yeah he
846
00:50:09.230 --> 00:50:12.360
was cold as hell he had a rough go a
847
00:50:12.389 --> 00:50:18.099
few times navigating Canadian spring so yeah that was another
848
00:50:18.139 --> 00:50:20.300
element too was like do I want to torture these
849
00:50:21.099 --> 00:50:25.699
poor actresses by like having them in scantily scanty outfits
850
00:50:26.079 --> 00:50:30.750
so yeah it necessitated layering everyone up and giving them
851
00:50:30.889 --> 00:50:34.110
furs and coats and things which aesthetically was what I
852
00:50:34.170 --> 00:50:38.309
wanted and it also just helped out to yeah not
853
00:50:38.349 --> 00:50:41.329
make people miserable on set, which is always something you
854
00:50:41.349 --> 00:50:42.750
should aim for as a director.
855
00:50:44.409 --> 00:50:47.670
And in the film, so obviously, you know, you're the
856
00:50:47.769 --> 00:50:51.699
practical effects guy. We've got all the practical effects, but
857
00:50:51.820 --> 00:50:56.800
there's matte painting, there's stop motion animation. So you really
858
00:50:56.860 --> 00:51:00.940
go for everything in this film. Can you talk a
859
00:51:00.960 --> 00:51:05.579
little about all those different kinds of like practical effects
860
00:51:05.659 --> 00:51:06.889
that you've incorporated?
861
00:51:06.909 --> 00:51:10.019
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's funny that people are like,
862
00:51:10.079 --> 00:51:12.980
it's cool that you shy away from visual effects, like
863
00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:16.440
computer effects and stuff. And part of the sad reality
864
00:51:16.480 --> 00:51:18.980
of my low budget filmmaking world is that I just
865
00:51:19.039 --> 00:51:22.400
can't afford the effects. It's like the only option in
866
00:51:22.460 --> 00:51:25.400
a lot of cases is me building a thing in
867
00:51:25.440 --> 00:51:28.219
my little basement shop, like next door to me right now,
868
00:51:28.280 --> 00:51:30.739
like all the stop motion in desktop or I did
869
00:51:31.320 --> 00:51:36.230
myself in my basement, like built everything myself and, All
870
00:51:36.250 --> 00:51:39.179
the matte paintings, a lot of them were done for
871
00:51:39.679 --> 00:51:42.559
very cheap. It was really like, had to call in
872
00:51:42.599 --> 00:51:44.760
all the favors to make them happen. And I brought
873
00:51:44.780 --> 00:51:48.800
them in from multiple sources. Same with all the miniatures
874
00:51:48.900 --> 00:51:51.400
as well. So there's a lot of like labor of
875
00:51:51.460 --> 00:51:54.210
love from people who just wanted to make cool fantasy shit.
876
00:51:55.230 --> 00:51:57.449
But yeah, I really, from the beginning, I was like,
877
00:51:57.590 --> 00:51:59.650
we have to go this route. We have to do
878
00:51:59.690 --> 00:52:03.590
matte paintings and miniatures and stop motion because shooting in
879
00:52:03.650 --> 00:52:10.230
Northern Canada is, Unfortunately, it's not as picturesque as Argentino,
880
00:52:10.250 --> 00:52:11.769
which I think is where they shot the first one.
881
00:52:12.789 --> 00:52:16.010
Or we're not shooting in the Czech Republic or wherever
882
00:52:16.090 --> 00:52:19.869
where there's ruins and there's castles and you could just
883
00:52:19.929 --> 00:52:22.800
take a budget movie there and find a castle and
884
00:52:23.039 --> 00:52:25.780
there's all your production value. We didn't have any of that.
885
00:52:25.920 --> 00:52:29.559
So it was a lot of sets as well. Early on,
886
00:52:29.679 --> 00:52:34.010
I knew that I had to commit to, I don't
887
00:52:34.030 --> 00:52:38.320
want to say a budget TV aesthetic, but there's shots
888
00:52:38.360 --> 00:52:41.000
in this movie that feel like they could be in Xena,
889
00:52:42.119 --> 00:52:46.179
like a show like that, or Mortal Kombat Conquest, which
890
00:52:46.239 --> 00:52:49.159
starred Daniel Bernard, where it's stuff where you can tell
891
00:52:49.179 --> 00:52:51.940
you're in a studio, even though it's supposed to be outside.
892
00:52:53.199 --> 00:52:57.019
Me and my cinematographer, Andy Appel, we committed to the
893
00:52:57.159 --> 00:53:00.119
unreality of the look we were doing. We were like,
894
00:53:00.699 --> 00:53:04.530
we want this to feel... we want the artifice to
895
00:53:04.570 --> 00:53:07.010
be tangible to people. We want that to be part
896
00:53:07.050 --> 00:53:10.210
of what's enjoyable about this film. And so, so yeah,
897
00:53:10.250 --> 00:53:14.860
committing to practical effects and to, to like matte paintings
898
00:53:15.340 --> 00:53:19.239
and miniatures, all these like handmade things help fill out,
899
00:53:19.559 --> 00:53:21.739
fill out the world in a way that we also
900
00:53:21.789 --> 00:53:25.130
just couldn't because of our budget. We just didn't, we
901
00:53:25.150 --> 00:53:28.320
didn't have these things at our disposal. So that's how we,
902
00:53:28.900 --> 00:53:31.920
we were able to realize the universe was through, through
903
00:53:31.960 --> 00:53:32.760
practical effects.
904
00:53:34.280 --> 00:53:37.639
And is that the first time you've like put stop
905
00:53:37.960 --> 00:53:40.030
motion animation into a film?
906
00:53:41.329 --> 00:53:44.809
No, I mean, there's stop motion in, there's a bunch in,
907
00:53:45.070 --> 00:53:48.530
in father's day. There's some stop motion stuff in that. Uh,
908
00:53:48.650 --> 00:53:51.769
Manborg is full of stop motion. I mean, I started
909
00:53:51.829 --> 00:53:54.469
in stop motion. That was my original, uh, kind of
910
00:53:54.530 --> 00:53:58.239
like filmmaking technique that I did, uh, in my early teens.
911
00:53:58.320 --> 00:54:01.619
Cause I, I knew early on when I got into filmmaking,
912
00:54:01.679 --> 00:54:05.500
I don't have friends that are actors, I don't have locations,
913
00:54:05.539 --> 00:54:07.420
I don't have a good camera, but I can make
914
00:54:07.699 --> 00:54:11.230
little figures and animate them. And so then that just
915
00:54:11.989 --> 00:54:16.809
carried into every subsequent movie I've made. Like, Psycho Goreman
916
00:54:16.849 --> 00:54:19.289
has stop motion in it, Frankie Frico's got a whole
917
00:54:19.329 --> 00:54:22.139
bunch of stop motion as well. The whole, like, mine
918
00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:26.000
cart chase at the end of Frankie Frico is stop motion, so.
919
00:54:26.500 --> 00:54:28.699
I try to find a place for it in all
920
00:54:28.739 --> 00:54:32.000
my movies because it's just fun to do. It's like,
921
00:54:32.280 --> 00:54:36.559
especially compared to the chaos of production of like being
922
00:54:36.639 --> 00:54:40.579
on set on a location, shooting a movie and navigating
923
00:54:40.599 --> 00:54:44.539
like a hundred crew members. It's fun to, uh, to
924
00:54:44.559 --> 00:54:46.460
be able to just sit in my basement and put
925
00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:49.800
some music on and just incrementally move a figure like,
926
00:54:50.340 --> 00:54:52.840
you know, millimeters at a time for hours on end.
927
00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:57.150
It's like, dare i say therapeutic by.
928
00:54:57.050 --> 00:55:02.969
Comparison and the um animation in death stalker it's like
929
00:55:03.070 --> 00:55:07.769
really classic it's very like ray harryhausen but obviously that
930
00:55:07.969 --> 00:55:12.329
that really influenced army of darkness as well in what they.
931
00:55:12.110 --> 00:55:14.820
Did jason and the argonauts is one of my favorite
932
00:55:14.860 --> 00:55:18.019
movies as like that one my love for that definitely
933
00:55:18.099 --> 00:55:21.619
predates army of darkness and is maybe why i was
934
00:55:22.429 --> 00:55:25.110
so into army of darkness because i as a kid
935
00:55:25.159 --> 00:55:27.559
like really young i remember watching like clash of the
936
00:55:27.599 --> 00:55:31.099
titans jason the argonauts the sinbad movies like all the
937
00:55:31.159 --> 00:55:34.679
harryhausen stuff uh my parents were just like feeding me
938
00:55:34.719 --> 00:55:38.210
that constantly and so yeah that's where my love of
939
00:55:38.269 --> 00:55:42.489
stop motion really started and the skeleton fight sequence in
940
00:55:42.750 --> 00:55:45.610
jason the argonauts is like one of my all-time favorite
941
00:55:45.829 --> 00:55:49.610
stop motion sequences it's like so complex. I still don't
942
00:55:49.710 --> 00:55:52.030
fully understand how he was able to pull that off
943
00:55:52.090 --> 00:55:55.570
at the time on, on old like analog technology too.
944
00:55:55.869 --> 00:55:57.750
So yeah. Great movie.
945
00:55:59.730 --> 00:56:04.010
And, um, so at the moment with like kind of
946
00:56:04.110 --> 00:56:09.010
cinema goers and the movie watching public at the moment,
947
00:56:09.190 --> 00:56:13.449
I find there seems to be this real preoccupation with
948
00:56:14.090 --> 00:56:18.079
re like realism and, um, the story has to be
949
00:56:18.219 --> 00:56:23.559
really plausible and everything has to be really believable and
950
00:56:23.840 --> 00:56:30.380
that maybe we've lost our appreciation of fantasy or suspending
951
00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:36.079
belief and using imagination when we're watching films. Maybe if
952
00:56:36.119 --> 00:56:38.889
you want to talk a little about that because this
953
00:56:38.989 --> 00:56:45.030
is a work of pure fantasy world-building imagination and also
954
00:56:45.210 --> 00:56:51.579
fantasy do you think that the artistry is really like
955
00:56:51.659 --> 00:56:57.519
more important than say realism or I don't know how
956
00:56:57.559 --> 00:56:59.599
to ask the question, but there you go.
957
00:57:00.079 --> 00:57:03.550
I get what you're saying. And yeah, I'm pretty bored
958
00:57:03.800 --> 00:57:09.289
of realism. I think there's like a difference between realism
959
00:57:09.530 --> 00:57:14.510
and emotional truth and this is me getting real like
960
00:57:14.929 --> 00:57:19.840
a university film student right now, getting on a soapbox.
961
00:57:19.920 --> 00:57:26.159
But like, I feel like movies that are like hailed
962
00:57:26.219 --> 00:57:30.079
as like the greatest movies of all time, like, you know,
963
00:57:30.119 --> 00:57:32.889
like Kubrick films and stuff you watch, like even some,
964
00:57:32.909 --> 00:57:35.949
like the shining to stay within the genre we're talking about,
965
00:57:35.969 --> 00:57:40.480
like something like the shining it's like, there's lots of weird,
966
00:57:40.679 --> 00:57:44.099
unrealistic things happening in that movie, but there are, there
967
00:57:44.159 --> 00:57:48.139
is a feeling and a tone to it that it
968
00:57:48.199 --> 00:57:53.909
achieves that feels very real and immediate and, and, and
969
00:57:53.949 --> 00:57:59.230
like really unnerving and unsettling. And I, I don't think
970
00:57:59.269 --> 00:58:03.690
it's a movie that needs to be more realistic. You know, like,
971
00:58:03.710 --> 00:58:07.050
I don't know. You don't watch classic movies and go like, Oh,
972
00:58:07.070 --> 00:58:10.289
I wish, I wish this was more realistic. It's like, no,
973
00:58:10.690 --> 00:58:13.230
I like the artifice of film is important.
974
00:58:13.650 --> 00:58:13.989
I don't know.
975
00:58:14.030 --> 00:58:17.150
I feel like some of it is like a bit
976
00:58:17.190 --> 00:58:19.849
of a side effect of people becoming a little bit
977
00:58:19.949 --> 00:58:24.309
too intellectual with cinema. And it's not to say like
978
00:58:24.789 --> 00:58:28.860
analyzing or dissecting things isn't important and fun, but I
979
00:58:28.889 --> 00:58:32.739
just worry that like everybody is an expert now and
980
00:58:32.840 --> 00:58:37.360
everybody's a critic and everybody's got their like, angle on
981
00:58:37.389 --> 00:58:41.380
like what this movie means and so we're kind of
982
00:58:41.420 --> 00:58:45.920
losing some of the like the opposite of intellectual is
983
00:58:46.019 --> 00:58:48.119
like the just kind of like the feeling like the
984
00:58:48.159 --> 00:58:51.639
innate feelings of watching movies like to me that's that's
985
00:58:51.659 --> 00:58:55.099
what drives all of my films and why i make
986
00:58:55.119 --> 00:58:57.300
the choices i make is that i don't i usually
987
00:58:57.340 --> 00:59:00.519
don't have like a 10 page essay explaining why i
988
00:59:00.559 --> 00:59:02.510
want to do a thing i'm like well this feels
989
00:59:02.679 --> 00:59:06.739
right because i i know the feeling i'm chasing in
990
00:59:06.760 --> 00:59:10.039
this moment of this movie and like I know what
991
00:59:10.099 --> 00:59:12.980
i need to to climb the ladder to get to
992
00:59:13.039 --> 00:59:17.760
that moment and it's not necessarily just hyper realism uh
993
00:59:18.059 --> 00:59:22.280
to get there you know so it's like i feel
994
00:59:22.300 --> 00:59:25.269
like fantasy should be like a tool in a filmmaker's
995
00:59:25.349 --> 00:59:28.289
toolkit you should be able to lean into it to
996
00:59:28.329 --> 00:59:32.590
evoke feelings and evoke like a dreamlike quality movie should
997
00:59:32.710 --> 00:59:36.909
feel like, should feel like dreams. They should, even if
998
00:59:36.929 --> 00:59:40.369
they take place in reality, it's, it is ultimately a fantasy.
999
00:59:40.750 --> 00:59:44.690
It's a performance. So why not lean into that? Yeah.
1000
00:59:44.750 --> 00:59:51.519
I don't like people who hyperanalyze movies and nitpick like
1001
00:59:51.719 --> 00:59:54.960
continuity errors or things like that. I'm like, what are like,
1002
00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:59.619
what are you doing, man? Like, yeah people are kind
1003
00:59:59.639 --> 01:00:04.789
of turning into wet blankets at times it's like that's
1004
01:00:04.989 --> 01:00:08.530
I don't know it's just not for me you know
1005
01:00:08.590 --> 01:00:11.010
like I want things to be weird and wacky and
1006
01:00:11.110 --> 01:00:15.550
crazy and I like I don't know I like when
1007
01:00:16.530 --> 01:00:19.389
a filmmaker takes a big swing and does something weird
1008
01:00:19.579 --> 01:00:22.820
and I'm like maybe it didn't land for me but
1009
01:00:23.000 --> 01:00:27.039
that's more that's more compelling to me than somebody that's
1010
01:00:27.099 --> 01:00:32.400
just like, here's a brutally realistic and straightforward interpretation of
1011
01:00:32.460 --> 01:00:34.860
an idea. It's like, no, I kind of want to see,
1012
01:00:34.880 --> 01:00:39.360
cause I feel like I'm just really rambling now, but
1013
01:00:39.380 --> 01:00:42.079
it's like, I want to see, I want to see
1014
01:00:42.139 --> 01:00:46.139
that director's vision. I want to see their perception of
1015
01:00:46.719 --> 01:00:51.690
reality and, embodied in that film and not just a
1016
01:00:51.750 --> 01:00:54.659
commitment to like well this is how reality works and
1017
01:00:54.719 --> 01:00:56.500
how we all perceive it it's like no I kind
1018
01:00:56.519 --> 01:00:58.900
of want to see again to go back to Kubrick
1019
01:00:58.960 --> 01:01:02.420
it's like how he perceives reality is how his movies
1020
01:01:02.800 --> 01:01:07.659
exist and how Tarantino perceives reality is the world that
1021
01:01:07.699 --> 01:01:11.780
his movies exist in like all the greatest filmmakers think
1022
01:01:11.820 --> 01:01:14.349
like that John Carpenter even it's like he's a good
1023
01:01:14.389 --> 01:01:19.440
example of like he crafts his realities also around the
1024
01:01:19.500 --> 01:01:23.539
kind of musical implications of his movies. Like the, the
1025
01:01:23.599 --> 01:01:26.900
score is such a character in itself for all of
1026
01:01:26.940 --> 01:01:31.110
his films. The score that's not, there's nothing to do
1027
01:01:31.119 --> 01:01:33.130
with realism. It has everything to do with him trying
1028
01:01:33.150 --> 01:01:36.190
to evoke a tone and a mood. And so that
1029
01:01:36.230 --> 01:01:39.210
to me should always be the priority, not is this
1030
01:01:39.329 --> 01:01:40.769
realistic or not.
1031
01:01:42.409 --> 01:01:42.550
Yeah.
1032
01:01:42.570 --> 01:01:45.550
I think all that nitpicking, it's like really joyless.
1033
01:01:46.769 --> 01:01:47.150
Yeah, agreed.
1034
01:01:47.289 --> 01:01:52.289
And often when I read that kind of stuff, I think, well,
1035
01:01:52.670 --> 01:01:54.050
it can't be very fun.
1036
01:01:54.070 --> 01:01:56.179
Yes, yeah.
1037
01:01:56.360 --> 01:02:00.659
Watching a movie from that perspective, it's just rather than
1038
01:02:00.739 --> 01:02:04.579
just letting go and taking it all in. And I
1039
01:02:04.619 --> 01:02:08.099
guess that is what I personally love about fantasy and
1040
01:02:08.159 --> 01:02:10.739
horror and fantastic cinema.
1041
01:02:11.639 --> 01:02:14.820
Yeah, yeah. Like I want to be taken on. a
1042
01:02:14.860 --> 01:02:18.429
journey through somebody else's imagination because I feel like that
1043
01:02:19.030 --> 01:02:26.590
that will feed my imagination more than just some bleary
1044
01:02:26.829 --> 01:02:33.469
gray representation of reality you know like I I want
1045
01:02:33.489 --> 01:02:36.329
to see other people's imagination I want to be blown
1046
01:02:36.369 --> 01:02:39.010
away by stuff that I've never seen before or ideas
1047
01:02:39.050 --> 01:02:42.940
that I've never considered or and it doesn't necessarily have
1048
01:02:42.980 --> 01:02:47.000
to be like big epic genre stuff but just like
1049
01:02:47.159 --> 01:02:50.659
even just on a more human level finding interesting ways
1050
01:02:50.719 --> 01:02:55.400
to tell compelling stories and not just being like it
1051
01:02:55.440 --> 01:02:58.659
has to be reality all the time so yeah and
1052
01:02:58.739 --> 01:03:02.179
again I think that that is a symptom of our
1053
01:03:02.260 --> 01:03:08.530
like letterboxed culture of everybody's gotta write their review and
1054
01:03:08.590 --> 01:03:10.789
give it's like I give this movie two and a
1055
01:03:10.829 --> 01:03:14.699
half stars because of this it's like okay cool I
1056
01:03:14.719 --> 01:03:17.860
don't know. I'm really turning into an old man now
1057
01:03:17.900 --> 01:03:20.659
where I'm like, I miss the before times where all
1058
01:03:20.699 --> 01:03:23.900
my movie reviews came from my friend Kieran and his
1059
01:03:23.960 --> 01:03:26.760
brother Max sitting in their basement. That's the basement where
1060
01:03:26.800 --> 01:03:28.639
I met Adam Brooks and he talked to me about
1061
01:03:28.679 --> 01:03:31.659
drama movies. But going over there and them being like,
1062
01:03:31.679 --> 01:03:33.820
we just watched this movie called Man Bites Dog and
1063
01:03:33.840 --> 01:03:35.739
then they'll talk my ear off about that for a
1064
01:03:35.760 --> 01:03:40.599
half an hour. There's something way more human and rewarding
1065
01:03:40.659 --> 01:03:46.449
about that than seeing somebody's snarky two-sentence take on a
1066
01:03:46.510 --> 01:03:51.070
thing on social media. Anyway, rant over. I've got to
1067
01:03:51.110 --> 01:03:54.110
stop ranting now.
1068
01:03:54.730 --> 01:03:59.389
But that's the point of cinema. You're going to escape reality.
1069
01:03:59.630 --> 01:04:03.730
I don't understand. That's how I go to the movies.
1070
01:04:03.769 --> 01:04:08.409
Every time I go and watch something, my reality, out
1071
01:04:08.449 --> 01:04:11.210
of my mind, just enjoy the film and enjoy what
1072
01:04:11.250 --> 01:04:11.530
it is.
1073
01:04:12.380 --> 01:04:17.150
And even like, you know, like I fully agree with
1074
01:04:17.210 --> 01:04:19.989
the escapist logic, but I also feel like it works
1075
01:04:20.050 --> 01:04:22.849
as a bit of therapy too, where whatever I'm going through,
1076
01:04:22.889 --> 01:04:24.829
if I'm watching a movie, even has nothing to do
1077
01:04:24.849 --> 01:04:27.610
with whatever shit I'm dealing with in my life. It's like,
1078
01:04:28.340 --> 01:04:31.679
I like it when I can kind of use the
1079
01:04:31.739 --> 01:04:36.139
catharsis of that movie to just reset my brain to
1080
01:04:36.219 --> 01:04:38.659
deal with, to go back and deal with that problem.
1081
01:04:38.800 --> 01:04:41.429
It's like, it's not so much like running away from
1082
01:04:41.590 --> 01:04:44.190
stuff and hiding in a movie theater so much as like,
1083
01:04:45.050 --> 01:04:50.619
I need to like recharge my brain with some imagination and, uh,
1084
01:04:50.820 --> 01:04:55.559
and some, some imagination, some storytelling and some, some emotion
1085
01:04:55.639 --> 01:04:57.739
to then kind of like give me the energy to
1086
01:04:57.780 --> 01:05:00.420
go back to facing the shit in my life, I
1087
01:05:00.460 --> 01:05:02.920
think is what, what movies are important for. And if
1088
01:05:02.980 --> 01:05:07.070
all you're doing is nitpicking and pulling them apart, it's like,
1089
01:05:07.110 --> 01:05:10.289
that just seems more like a, an exercise in anxiety
1090
01:05:10.489 --> 01:05:14.289
than in, you know, the therapy that movies should be.
1091
01:05:15.409 --> 01:05:17.369
That's a good point. Absolutely.
1092
01:05:17.389 --> 01:05:20.130
Yeah, I'll take it further. Like David Lynch said in
1093
01:05:20.170 --> 01:05:24.739
an interview, you know, movies create worlds, create universes. And
1094
01:05:24.880 --> 01:05:26.380
that's all I care about when I watch a movie.
1095
01:05:26.519 --> 01:05:28.820
I want to be in that world for a couple
1096
01:05:28.840 --> 01:05:31.260
of hours. Like I sat for once upon a time
1097
01:05:31.280 --> 01:05:34.420
in America on the big screen yesterday, and that's four hours.
1098
01:05:35.179 --> 01:05:35.559
I loved it.
1099
01:05:35.869 --> 01:05:37.699
I just love how it takes you into that world
1100
01:05:37.719 --> 01:05:41.360
of beautiful music. It's a nice slow pace. It's back
1101
01:05:41.400 --> 01:05:44.940
and forth from old age to childhood, how they become
1102
01:05:44.980 --> 01:05:47.840
who they are. And it's fascinating in every sense. And
1103
01:05:47.860 --> 01:05:49.269
the whole audience is glued to it.
1104
01:05:50.639 --> 01:05:51.469
Yeah. Yeah.
1105
01:05:51.570 --> 01:05:55.929
And like the kind of filmic techniques of it take
1106
01:05:55.969 --> 01:06:00.250
you on this nice ride. It sucks you in. It
1107
01:06:00.269 --> 01:06:02.309
absorbs you for a few hours and it spits you
1108
01:06:02.349 --> 01:06:07.750
back out. It's like... Yeah, that's what I want from
1109
01:06:07.789 --> 01:06:09.889
all my movies, that kind of experience.
1110
01:06:11.969 --> 01:06:16.920
I have endless questions, but I wanted to know, do
1111
01:06:16.960 --> 01:06:20.039
you have a favorite creature from Deathstalker?
1112
01:06:21.420 --> 01:06:25.039
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to put any of
1113
01:06:25.079 --> 01:06:27.260
them down. I think they're all amazing. I love all
1114
01:06:27.280 --> 01:06:31.599
of them. But I'd say Scarabus is kind of sitting
1115
01:06:31.619 --> 01:06:36.139
at the top for me, just because... I love mummies
1116
01:06:36.860 --> 01:06:39.670
and he's a bit of a mummy. He's so many things.
1117
01:06:39.690 --> 01:06:42.269
He's such a great example of a Steve Kostanski creature
1118
01:06:42.309 --> 01:06:45.610
design because I was like, I want a mummy. I
1119
01:06:46.150 --> 01:06:50.130
also want a Cyclops. I also want him to be
1120
01:06:50.190 --> 01:06:54.440
like Voldo from Soul Calibur, like kind of a weird
1121
01:06:55.280 --> 01:06:59.480
kind of androgynous twisty guy. It was just so many,
1122
01:06:59.699 --> 01:07:02.789
I was just piling things on. to see what would
1123
01:07:02.849 --> 01:07:05.289
stick and what he could turn into. And it evolved
1124
01:07:05.329 --> 01:07:07.250
into this idea of like, Oh, there's like this golden
1125
01:07:07.269 --> 01:07:11.769
kind of like spider attached to this guy's face. And
1126
01:07:11.809 --> 01:07:17.710
that's essentially puppeteering this zombie, this mummy and turning him
1127
01:07:17.750 --> 01:07:20.329
into this fighting machine with a saw blade, a spinning
1128
01:07:20.409 --> 01:07:23.590
saw blade on a chain that he chucks around. It's
1129
01:07:23.630 --> 01:07:28.139
like such nonsense that I love it. It's straight out
1130
01:07:28.179 --> 01:07:32.030
of mortal combat. this movie was made 25 years ago.
1131
01:07:32.050 --> 01:07:34.570
I feel like McFarlane toys would have made a figure
1132
01:07:34.610 --> 01:07:38.079
for this guy already. And you know, 15 year old
1133
01:07:38.119 --> 01:07:42.260
Steve would have bought it immediately. Yeah. I just had
1134
01:07:42.280 --> 01:07:44.960
a lot of fun designing that guy. It was another
1135
01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:47.340
great example of like working in tandem with the costume
1136
01:07:47.360 --> 01:07:51.579
department who did like Chelsea, who headed up that department.
1137
01:07:51.599 --> 01:07:55.010
She was so fantastic at kind of extending stuff that
1138
01:07:55.090 --> 01:07:57.510
I came up with. Cause that was really a case
1139
01:07:57.550 --> 01:07:59.969
of like, I sculpted a mask and some hands and
1140
01:08:00.030 --> 01:08:03.380
she did all the mummy shit wrapped around them. And
1141
01:08:03.389 --> 01:08:07.280
it just all worked so beautifully together. I just kind
1142
01:08:07.300 --> 01:08:09.579
of like made the process really fun to be like,
1143
01:08:10.219 --> 01:08:12.219
I came up with a head and a rough concept
1144
01:08:12.260 --> 01:08:14.019
of what this thing is. And let's see what you
1145
01:08:14.039 --> 01:08:16.340
come up with. That's, that's how I like to design
1146
01:08:16.380 --> 01:08:20.170
my creatures. I'm not a big fan of like fully
1147
01:08:20.930 --> 01:08:24.920
committed to like visual designs. Like I don't, I don't
1148
01:08:24.960 --> 01:08:28.140
like to be like, here's a Z brush painted image
1149
01:08:28.420 --> 01:08:30.100
of what I want the thing to be. Just make
1150
01:08:30.140 --> 01:08:34.609
that exact thing. I kind of like having a sketch
1151
01:08:35.029 --> 01:08:38.369
or partial sculpt of something and being like, here's a
1152
01:08:38.550 --> 01:08:41.510
starting point. Let's go, let's go on this journey and
1153
01:08:41.550 --> 01:08:44.409
see what comes out the other end. And so Scarabist
1154
01:08:44.720 --> 01:08:47.500
I think was a really successful example of doing that.
1155
01:08:47.579 --> 01:08:50.039
I'm just being like, I have an idea in my
1156
01:08:50.079 --> 01:08:52.670
head of all this kind of, shit that maybe shouldn't
1157
01:08:52.729 --> 01:08:55.270
fit together, let's figure out how to make it fit together.
1158
01:08:55.810 --> 01:08:57.409
Turned into something super fun.
1159
01:08:58.829 --> 01:09:00.909
Did you have a favorite question? Tony?
1160
01:09:02.350 --> 01:09:06.760
Well, I gotta say, Doodad's my favourite. I thought Doodad
1161
01:09:06.800 --> 01:09:10.960
was such fun. Patton Oswalt did the voice very well,
1162
01:09:11.020 --> 01:09:14.720
by the way. How was it working with Patton Oswalt?
1163
01:09:14.760 --> 01:09:17.880
Because I love Patton Oswalt's comedy and I love But
1164
01:09:17.939 --> 01:09:19.680
one thing I did love about Patton Oswalt is his
1165
01:09:19.720 --> 01:09:23.979
passion for cinema because I have seen so many interviews
1166
01:09:24.100 --> 01:09:28.569
with him about his love of film and filmmaking in general.
1167
01:09:29.270 --> 01:09:30.789
How was it working with Patton Oswalt?
1168
01:09:31.109 --> 01:09:33.970
I mean, it was amazing. It was like a dream
1169
01:09:34.010 --> 01:09:35.789
come true getting to work with that guy. I didn't
1170
01:09:35.829 --> 01:09:38.229
even know we were going to get him, but he
1171
01:09:38.630 --> 01:09:41.210
agreed to do it. I had him, I'd actually met
1172
01:09:41.250 --> 01:09:44.449
him through another project that we were shopping around that
1173
01:09:44.489 --> 01:09:46.210
he was attached to. So I talked to him on
1174
01:09:46.229 --> 01:09:48.619
Zoom a little bit here and there. And so he
1175
01:09:48.659 --> 01:09:50.539
was familiar with my work, and he wrote a really
1176
01:09:50.600 --> 01:09:55.500
nice Twitter review of Psycho Goreman when it came out.
1177
01:09:56.300 --> 01:10:00.659
And so he's appreciated my work in the past. And
1178
01:10:00.760 --> 01:10:02.380
so we reached out and got him to do it,
1179
01:10:02.380 --> 01:10:04.149
and it was one of those things where it's like, oh,
1180
01:10:04.180 --> 01:10:06.420
he's available for six hours on this day, so I
1181
01:10:06.439 --> 01:10:08.300
hope he can get all the dialogue in that time.
1182
01:10:08.319 --> 01:10:11.590
It was really just like, cross your fingers and hope
1183
01:10:11.619 --> 01:10:15.449
it works. So he was in L.A. in a sound booth,
1184
01:10:15.510 --> 01:10:19.029
and I was up in probably here in winnipeg you
1185
01:10:19.069 --> 01:10:21.350
know at my computer we're over zoom going back and
1186
01:10:21.409 --> 01:10:24.069
forth and he's he's reading the lines and i'm giving
1187
01:10:24.109 --> 01:10:26.819
him notes and you know it's just a fun dynamic
1188
01:10:26.880 --> 01:10:31.739
dynamic because that guy he's a pro he just on
1189
01:10:31.760 --> 01:10:34.720
top of being passionate and passionate about film he's also
1190
01:10:35.859 --> 01:10:38.600
like he's just done all of it it's similar to
1191
01:10:38.659 --> 01:10:41.539
daniel it's like he's just he's been through it all
1192
01:10:41.899 --> 01:10:44.260
he's been in every type of thing he's done like
1193
01:10:44.979 --> 01:10:48.689
voice work he is no stranger to So it was nice.
1194
01:10:49.229 --> 01:10:51.449
I love working with guys like that who are just,
1195
01:10:52.050 --> 01:10:56.409
they're so dialed in on, on what, knowing what's required
1196
01:10:56.449 --> 01:10:59.779
of them in the moment. And they're like, you know, you're,
1197
01:11:00.340 --> 01:11:02.819
I've signed the contract. You paid me. I'm here. Let's
1198
01:11:02.859 --> 01:11:07.140
do it. They're like super pleasant to work with. Yeah.
1199
01:11:07.319 --> 01:11:08.859
It was just a great time. I can't hype them
1200
01:11:08.899 --> 01:11:11.739
up enough. He was, he brought a lot to the
1201
01:11:11.800 --> 01:11:14.890
movie and, and it was just like a great vocal
1202
01:11:14.909 --> 01:11:17.840
supporter of everything I do. So, Yeah, I love it.
1203
01:11:19.180 --> 01:11:21.819
But of course, we can't forget the physical performance of
1204
01:11:21.920 --> 01:11:25.439
Undo Dad, who was, I believe, portrayed by Laurie Field? Yes.
1205
01:11:25.699 --> 01:11:29.170
Yeah, Laurie's awesome. She did a great job. Had never
1206
01:11:29.210 --> 01:11:34.590
done creature performance before, and I always give my creature
1207
01:11:34.670 --> 01:11:37.350
actors this speech when they're new to the game of, like,
1208
01:11:38.229 --> 01:11:41.409
this sounds cool, like, being a creature in a movie
1209
01:11:41.470 --> 01:11:46.770
sounds cool, but like, you're gonna be miserable, you're get
1210
01:11:46.829 --> 01:11:49.989
shit glued to your face every day. It's going to
1211
01:11:50.010 --> 01:11:53.409
be hard to talk, hard to move, hard to do anything.
1212
01:11:53.569 --> 01:11:55.470
People are going to be staring at you all the
1213
01:11:55.529 --> 01:11:58.079
time being like, Oh, look at that freak over there.
1214
01:11:58.520 --> 01:12:01.779
Like that's going to really mess with your head. You know,
1215
01:12:01.840 --> 01:12:04.020
I like warned her of all the shit she was
1216
01:12:04.039 --> 01:12:06.239
getting into and she was so fine with it and
1217
01:12:06.300 --> 01:12:11.010
game and just like, I also having just hyped up,
1218
01:12:11.069 --> 01:12:14.210
like working with a professional who has, you know, had,
1219
01:12:14.210 --> 01:12:17.020
30 years of experience in the industry it's like working
1220
01:12:17.039 --> 01:12:19.210
with somebody like Laurie who's just a grounded down to
1221
01:12:19.310 --> 01:12:22.949
earth like wonderful lady who lives like a real life
1222
01:12:23.210 --> 01:12:26.529
and has no real skin in the game as far
1223
01:12:26.609 --> 01:12:31.350
as like you know like filmmaking or anything like that
1224
01:12:31.380 --> 01:12:34.039
it's like she just saw it as a fun opportunity
1225
01:12:34.460 --> 01:12:36.479
and it was just fun to work with her and
1226
01:12:36.539 --> 01:12:40.619
work with like a real human being who just like
1227
01:12:40.640 --> 01:12:44.130
I don't know she just kept everything grounded Everybody loved her.
1228
01:12:44.229 --> 01:12:48.670
She was so constantly pleasant to be around. It's a
1229
01:12:48.729 --> 01:12:53.470
role that could have very easily turned another actor sour.
1230
01:12:53.510 --> 01:12:56.810
They would have gotten mad being stuck in that mask
1231
01:12:57.090 --> 01:13:03.829
every day for weeks on end. She really brought her
1232
01:13:03.899 --> 01:13:07.909
A-game every day. Her and Daniel had a very funny dynamic.
1233
01:13:08.439 --> 01:13:12.779
It's funny watching her scenes Without Patton dubbed over top.
1234
01:13:12.859 --> 01:13:17.670
Because she sounds so Canadian. And it's like very funny.
1235
01:13:18.909 --> 01:13:23.630
Hearing a little goblin creature. Speaking a very thick Canadian accent.
1236
01:13:24.250 --> 01:13:25.569
Yeah.
1237
01:13:25.770 --> 01:13:30.640
It's very charming. So yeah. The whole team was amazing.
1238
01:13:31.479 --> 01:13:35.520
Yeah. The whole team was amazing. I can imagine that
1239
01:13:35.579 --> 01:13:38.560
this film. Was more of a dream to work with.
1240
01:13:38.909 --> 01:13:41.609
to work on than The Nightmare of the Void. Was
1241
01:13:41.649 --> 01:13:42.909
that correct?
1242
01:13:43.609 --> 01:13:47.289
Yeah, I think initially, I mean, this movie certainly had
1243
01:13:47.399 --> 01:13:52.060
its struggles. It's my most ambitious movie. The thing that
1244
01:13:52.119 --> 01:13:54.220
I missed about The Void was like, oh, The Void,
1245
01:13:54.260 --> 01:13:58.159
we were in an old high school shooting that movie.
1246
01:13:58.819 --> 01:14:01.960
And I guess just production logistics I missed. I liked
1247
01:14:02.119 --> 01:14:04.220
that that movie, we just went to the same place
1248
01:14:04.279 --> 01:14:11.829
every day. Whereas Deathstalker, we'd be out in these quarries
1249
01:14:11.890 --> 01:14:15.170
and things, out in these wild locations. And this was
1250
01:14:15.189 --> 01:14:21.239
definitely a movie where we had giant ambitions with pocket
1251
01:14:21.300 --> 01:14:26.340
change for a budget. And we really pushed the limits
1252
01:14:26.380 --> 01:14:29.119
of what you could do with very little money. We
1253
01:14:29.159 --> 01:14:31.859
could only afford two horses. So trying to get the
1254
01:14:31.970 --> 01:14:35.470
most out of those two horses was stressful. Now when
1255
01:14:35.529 --> 01:14:38.789
I watch original death stalker i just get mad because
1256
01:14:38.810 --> 01:14:40.930
they have so many horses in that movie and i'm
1257
01:14:40.970 --> 01:14:44.109
like how did you guys afford like 10 horses in
1258
01:14:44.149 --> 01:14:46.829
this shot i believe in the so there's a box
1259
01:14:46.850 --> 01:14:49.890
set coming out with death stalker one two and my
1260
01:14:49.930 --> 01:14:54.010
death stalker yes i did commentaries for both of them
1261
01:14:54.029 --> 01:14:57.510
and i'm pretty sure the rant i just gave uh
1262
01:14:57.689 --> 01:15:00.930
is in that commentary somewhere i think every time every
1263
01:15:00.949 --> 01:15:04.829
time there's like lots of extras or horses, I start
1264
01:15:04.850 --> 01:15:06.930
to get mad. I'm just like, why does this movie
1265
01:15:07.029 --> 01:15:09.390
have all this stuff when mine can't?
1266
01:15:10.770 --> 01:15:15.149
So that's the imprint release, which we're talking about here
1267
01:15:15.189 --> 01:15:20.529
on Imprintcast. Sorry, I'll just show another release. So that
1268
01:15:20.569 --> 01:15:25.810
was the first one, The Shout Factory. But the extras
1269
01:15:26.050 --> 01:15:29.609
are carried over from this release to the Australian release.
1270
01:15:30.689 --> 01:15:35.079
which we're getting with Deathstalker 1, 2 and your film.
1271
01:15:35.119 --> 01:15:38.560
It's got like a crazy lenticular case, but we'll go
1272
01:15:38.640 --> 01:15:41.979
through all of that. But, yeah, the commentaries are really
1273
01:15:42.039 --> 01:15:46.350
fantastic and there's also a really great feature which is
1274
01:15:46.430 --> 01:15:50.210
carried over to this release that's coming out, which is
1275
01:15:50.529 --> 01:15:55.210
all about the stop motion animation, which you did. So
1276
01:15:55.250 --> 01:15:58.350
that will be on the Australian release as well and
1277
01:15:58.430 --> 01:16:01.960
I recommend that. to everyone that picks up the release.
1278
01:16:02.020 --> 01:16:04.960
Cause that's really interesting showing behind the scenes.
1279
01:16:06.140 --> 01:16:09.880
Yeah, that was a little video I cut together. Cause
1280
01:16:09.920 --> 01:16:12.920
I took a bunch of time-lapse footage of me animating
1281
01:16:12.939 --> 01:16:15.939
the skeletons for the movie. Something I'm trying to get
1282
01:16:15.979 --> 01:16:18.000
better at is I realized like I'm doing all this
1283
01:16:18.260 --> 01:16:21.020
weird practical stuff. People probably want to see these things.
1284
01:16:21.060 --> 01:16:23.189
So I'm trying to film myself more as I work.
1285
01:16:23.470 --> 01:16:27.090
And so, yeah, I cut that little five minute BTS
1286
01:16:27.130 --> 01:16:29.600
featurette on the stop motion. I wish, I wish I
1287
01:16:29.659 --> 01:16:33.390
could have done more for the release, maybe down the road, uh,
1288
01:16:33.510 --> 01:16:36.170
I'll be able to cut together a full creature effects
1289
01:16:36.210 --> 01:16:39.750
behind the scenes. Um, but yeah, you know, there's only
1290
01:16:39.829 --> 01:16:40.949
so much time in the day.
1291
01:16:41.489 --> 01:16:44.909
So I have to say, I'm sorry. I really liked
1292
01:16:44.930 --> 01:16:49.319
the little frog creatures. Like that's random, but like in
1293
01:16:49.359 --> 01:16:53.319
the foreground and just getting around. And it really reminded
1294
01:16:53.399 --> 01:16:58.539
me of say, um, star Wars, how like there's just,
1295
01:16:58.939 --> 01:17:02.140
there's something happening in the foreground, there's the action in
1296
01:17:02.159 --> 01:17:06.600
the middle, and then there's kind of something happening above.
1297
01:17:07.180 --> 01:17:12.939
And I saw that kind of approach in layering creatures,
1298
01:17:13.100 --> 01:17:16.399
all these kinds of things in the shot.
1299
01:17:16.859 --> 01:17:17.060
Yeah.
1300
01:17:17.119 --> 01:17:19.319
And that was very Star Wars to me. And one
1301
01:17:19.350 --> 01:17:22.569
of my favorite things about Star Wars is all the
1302
01:17:22.609 --> 01:17:26.329
just weird little creatures that pop up all over the place. So,
1303
01:17:26.810 --> 01:17:27.789
I loved the frog.
1304
01:17:27.970 --> 01:17:28.390
I loved it.
1305
01:17:28.390 --> 01:17:30.630
I'm like, oh, it's a little frog.
1306
01:17:31.310 --> 01:17:34.590
Well, we actually brought them back later in the movie
1307
01:17:34.630 --> 01:17:37.510
when we get to the climactic scene in the courtyard.
1308
01:17:38.510 --> 01:17:42.550
The reason for that was because the courtyard we shot in,
1309
01:17:44.189 --> 01:17:47.609
I guess it was frog mating season or something, but
1310
01:17:47.689 --> 01:17:53.180
there was just frogs ribbiting everywhere in the background. And
1311
01:17:53.239 --> 01:17:56.260
our sound guy was like, you're not going to be
1312
01:17:56.300 --> 01:17:58.979
able to clean this up. Like this is, this is
1313
01:17:59.140 --> 01:18:03.319
in every line, every thing people are saying in this sequence,
1314
01:18:03.359 --> 01:18:05.189
this like 10 minutes of movie, you're just going to
1315
01:18:05.199 --> 01:18:09.729
hear frogs. So in that moment, me and my first
1316
01:18:09.810 --> 01:18:14.090
AD and my DOP jammed out this idea of like, well,
1317
01:18:14.130 --> 01:18:17.329
what if there's just like evil frogs everywhere? So then
1318
01:18:17.430 --> 01:18:19.569
later when we did block two, we got this shot
1319
01:18:19.850 --> 01:18:23.310
of people walking by and there's like frogs with glowing
1320
01:18:23.369 --> 01:18:26.760
red eyes and And the whole reason for that is just, like,
1321
01:18:27.220 --> 01:18:29.859
just a visual explanation of, like, why you're going to
1322
01:18:29.920 --> 01:18:33.479
hear frogs for the remainder of the climax of the movie.
1323
01:18:33.579 --> 01:18:35.390
But it was a great excuse to bring the frogs
1324
01:18:35.439 --> 01:18:38.829
back because they're awesome. They look so cool. And, yeah,
1325
01:18:38.850 --> 01:18:42.069
they're a direct reference to the frog that shows up
1326
01:18:42.270 --> 01:18:44.569
in Return of the Jedi. I believe he's outside of
1327
01:18:44.850 --> 01:18:48.939
Jabba's palace the first half of the movie. I'm also
1328
01:18:48.979 --> 01:18:52.100
a big fan of just put a creature everywhere in
1329
01:18:52.319 --> 01:18:56.159
the movie. Put some weird thing that as an audience
1330
01:18:56.199 --> 01:18:59.119
member you can go like, well what's that guy's deal?
1331
01:18:59.399 --> 01:19:02.409
Why aren't we showing more of him? I like the
1332
01:19:02.470 --> 01:19:05.689
randomness of that. That's the kind of imagination I really
1333
01:19:05.750 --> 01:19:09.149
love in fantasy and sci-fi movies especially.
1334
01:19:10.039 --> 01:19:14.680
Speaking of universes, so we've mentioned Star Wars, but I
1335
01:19:14.779 --> 01:19:19.600
cannot resist asking about how your career has led you
1336
01:19:19.640 --> 01:19:24.100
to boldly go, where no one has gone before, to
1337
01:19:24.149 --> 01:19:27.060
the world of Star Trek. So I just, as a
1338
01:19:27.100 --> 01:19:29.229
big Trekkie, I had to ask about that.
1339
01:19:29.489 --> 01:19:34.109
Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, I mean, my time involved
1340
01:19:34.189 --> 01:19:41.270
in the unfortunately now-concluded star trek run in toronto ontario
1341
01:19:41.470 --> 01:19:43.350
where they kind of set up shop and they did
1342
01:19:43.390 --> 01:19:48.100
discovery and strange new worlds and section 31 and starfleet
1343
01:19:48.140 --> 01:19:52.439
academy uh i did a little bit of time early
1344
01:19:52.579 --> 01:19:55.930
on on discovery just being called out as a as
1345
01:19:55.979 --> 01:19:59.350
a makeup artist doing dailies because my day job is
1346
01:19:59.409 --> 01:20:02.649
prosthetic effects and i'm in the union there so i'll
1347
01:20:02.670 --> 01:20:07.130
get called out for all sorts of random projects when
1348
01:20:07.149 --> 01:20:10.770
they need lots of people to glue Klingon heads on
1349
01:20:10.810 --> 01:20:15.319
or whatever. So that's what that was. Somewhere in the
1350
01:20:15.380 --> 01:20:17.899
first few episodes of season one, there's a lot of
1351
01:20:17.939 --> 01:20:20.979
Klingons hanging out. So I got called in to help
1352
01:20:21.060 --> 01:20:24.630
assist with gluing on some Klingon makeups for that. And
1353
01:20:24.710 --> 01:20:26.869
then I think I came back and I did some
1354
01:20:26.930 --> 01:20:30.779
life casting for some actors for later seasons. And then
1355
01:20:31.020 --> 01:20:33.460
my most recent stint on it was I worked on
1356
01:20:33.720 --> 01:20:37.930
season two of Starfleet Academy, which isn't out yet. But
1357
01:20:38.109 --> 01:20:39.770
I got called in to do a bunch of sculpting
1358
01:20:39.810 --> 01:20:42.869
for that, which was super fun. Getting to sculpt aliens is...
1359
01:20:43.510 --> 01:20:46.590
I mean, can't say no to that. That's like a
1360
01:20:46.689 --> 01:20:49.470
dream job for me, is sculpting aliens for a big
1361
01:20:49.789 --> 01:20:53.060
sci-fi series like Star Trek. So, yeah, it was a
1362
01:20:53.079 --> 01:20:56.079
good time. It's unfortunate that it's now concluded. I don't
1363
01:20:56.100 --> 01:20:59.909
know what's going on with... If they're doing, like... hard
1364
01:21:00.010 --> 01:21:02.939
reset of what Star Trek is going to be, but
1365
01:21:03.409 --> 01:21:06.800
it seems like, for the time being, the run that
1366
01:21:06.819 --> 01:21:10.760
we had in Toronto is concluded. I guess we'll see
1367
01:21:10.779 --> 01:21:13.699
where they go, but maybe it'll come back. Who knows?
1368
01:21:15.420 --> 01:21:19.550
Sorry, controversial question. Star Wars or Star Trek?
1369
01:21:21.109 --> 01:21:26.069
I would say Teenage Steve would be like Star Wars
1370
01:21:26.250 --> 01:21:31.260
all the way, but then after... meeting my wife, Lisa,
1371
01:21:31.319 --> 01:21:33.520
who's a huge Star Trek fan. She got me on
1372
01:21:33.579 --> 01:21:38.560
board TNG and more specifically deep space nine. And after
1373
01:21:38.600 --> 01:21:42.909
getting through deep space nine, I don't know. It's like,
1374
01:21:43.189 --> 01:21:45.609
I'm my mind right now is definitely leaning in a
1375
01:21:45.670 --> 01:21:49.369
Star Trek direction, but that could change tomorrow. And when
1376
01:21:49.390 --> 01:21:52.810
people ask me these, these Sophie's choice type questions, it's
1377
01:21:52.949 --> 01:21:55.819
usually a day to day kind of thing in terms
1378
01:21:55.899 --> 01:21:58.590
of where I'm leaning and, but today I'm going to
1379
01:21:58.630 --> 01:21:59.989
commit to Star Trek, I think.
1380
01:22:00.569 --> 01:22:03.829
I totally get that. And yeah, Deep Space Nine did
1381
01:22:04.029 --> 01:22:08.310
really change everything. I think for Star Trek, it was
1382
01:22:08.369 --> 01:22:11.670
like a bit different. It's like got the war aspect.
1383
01:22:11.729 --> 01:22:13.170
It's yeah.
1384
01:22:13.229 --> 01:22:16.550
Amazing. Well, that, that not to go on a Deep
1385
01:22:16.569 --> 01:22:19.489
Space Nine tangent, but that's when I was like, oh,
1386
01:22:19.529 --> 01:22:24.159
now they're working in like Star Wars type space opera
1387
01:22:24.180 --> 01:22:27.840
drama and Into Star Trek. For me that's when it really.
1388
01:22:28.840 --> 01:22:33.119
Coalesced into a thing. That I fell in love with.
1389
01:22:33.159 --> 01:22:37.149
Not to say I don't love the original series. TNG
1390
01:22:37.210 --> 01:22:40.029
is awesome. But there's like. There's a coziness to that.
1391
01:22:40.770 --> 01:22:44.489
Whereas Deep Space Nine. I just loved the drama. And
1392
01:22:44.609 --> 01:22:48.989
the fun pairings of characters. Like seeing like Quark. And
1393
01:22:49.350 --> 01:22:52.250
Odo go on adventures together. Like come on. It's like
1394
01:22:52.270 --> 01:22:57.510
you're just pairing characters. space weirdos together and like trapping
1395
01:22:57.529 --> 01:22:59.850
them in an elevator together on the top of a mountain.
1396
01:22:59.930 --> 01:23:02.829
It's that you can't beat it. It's the best.
1397
01:23:06.029 --> 01:23:08.560
One thing we haven't, one thing we haven't mentioned before
1398
01:23:08.659 --> 01:23:11.520
we go on a little bit more about Deathstalker is, um,
1399
01:23:11.800 --> 01:23:14.119
the female cast of the movie. I believe there are
1400
01:23:14.199 --> 01:23:17.020
two main females. Of course, the first one is, um,
1401
01:23:17.520 --> 01:23:22.359
Christina or, or Yalo. I don't want to mispronounce the surname.
1402
01:23:22.479 --> 01:23:22.979
Or Elio.
1403
01:23:23.039 --> 01:23:29.119
Yep. Yeah, she plays Brisbane. And how did you cast her?
1404
01:23:29.140 --> 01:23:31.500
Because I thought she did a damn good job as Brisbane.
1405
01:23:32.399 --> 01:23:35.579
You know, she really clicked for me in one of
1406
01:23:35.720 --> 01:23:38.880
the chemistry reads. So we did auditions and we did
1407
01:23:39.340 --> 01:23:43.239
self-tapes and then chemistry reads, which are like where you
1408
01:23:43.270 --> 01:23:45.909
have two actors play off of each other. And we
1409
01:23:45.989 --> 01:23:52.579
did a chemistry read with Daniel and Christina. And they just....
1410
01:23:53.850 --> 01:23:54.090
I don't know.
1411
01:23:54.100 --> 01:23:59.189
Their dynamic was so fun and her energy was so like,
1412
01:23:59.210 --> 01:24:02.130
I don't know. She just, there was like a kind
1413
01:24:02.170 --> 01:24:06.010
of disdain and dismissiveness to her and a casualness and
1414
01:24:06.029 --> 01:24:11.439
a realness that made me so like really just fall
1415
01:24:11.460 --> 01:24:14.460
in love with the idea of her playing Brisbane. You know,
1416
01:24:14.500 --> 01:24:20.270
like I just, it just felt right in the conversation itself. I,
1417
01:24:20.869 --> 01:24:24.470
I really felt like, okay, she's the character now. She's Brisbane.
1418
01:24:24.670 --> 01:24:28.199
Because those are the important moments to me, where the
1419
01:24:28.300 --> 01:24:32.659
kind of quiet interactions between characters, more than selling big
1420
01:24:32.739 --> 01:24:35.699
epic fantasy stuff. Because that's part of my problem with
1421
01:24:36.699 --> 01:24:39.279
some of the budget genre fantasy stuff, is I feel
1422
01:24:39.310 --> 01:24:43.189
like it's a lot of elevated fantasy talk that doesn't
1423
01:24:43.250 --> 01:24:47.329
have any real emotion or resonance to it. And so
1424
01:24:47.369 --> 01:24:49.869
I wanted to try to find people who could sell
1425
01:24:50.699 --> 01:24:53.619
the humanity of it, and I thought she really sold it.
1426
01:24:54.800 --> 01:25:00.670
Hmm. And another cast member was Nina Bergman, who played Grendel,
1427
01:25:00.909 --> 01:25:05.149
the head of the thieving council, I believe. Yes. She
1428
01:25:05.210 --> 01:25:08.689
had a great accent, I've got to say.
1429
01:25:09.760 --> 01:25:12.380
Oh, yeah. That was a character where it's like, she
1430
01:25:12.439 --> 01:25:17.199
needed to leave an impression. When you're on a quest movie,
1431
01:25:17.579 --> 01:25:21.289
where it's like, you're just kind of going from set
1432
01:25:21.329 --> 01:25:24.069
piece to set piece, place to place. When you encounter
1433
01:25:24.109 --> 01:25:26.729
a character, they have to be memorable. They have to.
1434
01:25:28.630 --> 01:25:33.689
They've got to leave their mark on the audience. Nina
1435
01:25:33.750 --> 01:25:36.310
really just... In her read, it was similar. It was
1436
01:25:36.380 --> 01:25:40.340
a chemistry read with her and Daniel. In that chemistry
1437
01:25:40.399 --> 01:25:43.399
read was when I figured out, oh, hey, maybe there's
1438
01:25:43.500 --> 01:25:46.479
history with the two of them. Because that actually wasn't
1439
01:25:46.560 --> 01:25:49.500
on the page. That was not there initially. And she
1440
01:25:49.520 --> 01:25:53.100
just brought that energy to it. And once that locked in,
1441
01:25:53.159 --> 01:25:56.619
I was like, oh, okay. Now this is interesting. The
1442
01:25:56.699 --> 01:25:59.420
idea that maybe they had a thing for a bit.
1443
01:25:59.479 --> 01:26:02.659
And so when he left the Thieves Guild, he's leaving
1444
01:26:02.739 --> 01:26:06.359
her as well. So she's bitter about that. And I
1445
01:26:07.140 --> 01:26:09.939
don't know. You're just adding a layer of subtext to
1446
01:26:09.979 --> 01:26:13.359
their dialogue now that makes it more interesting and more compelling.
1447
01:26:14.060 --> 01:26:18.159
And yeah, I mean, her performance totally sells it. Her
1448
01:26:18.199 --> 01:26:21.569
physicality we had a lot of fun coming up with
1449
01:26:21.609 --> 01:26:25.970
her just sitting uh sitting on her big weird throne
1450
01:26:26.029 --> 01:26:28.439
that we found and giving her little things to do
1451
01:26:28.449 --> 01:26:30.460
this is like what i like doing with actors is
1452
01:26:30.539 --> 01:26:32.939
just giving them business to do while a scene's playing
1453
01:26:33.020 --> 01:26:34.819
out because i hate when people are just standing and
1454
01:26:34.899 --> 01:26:38.199
talking it's like no i want you like doing something
1455
01:26:38.659 --> 01:26:41.489
while the conversation's happening so her like look at it
1456
01:26:41.550 --> 01:26:44.609
stuff like the like riches that these people are bringing
1457
01:26:44.670 --> 01:26:46.970
her her just kind of casually tossing them aside and
1458
01:26:47.029 --> 01:26:49.550
her eating her apple and I don't know. It was
1459
01:26:49.590 --> 01:26:52.630
just like, there's a lot of like fun, fun stuff
1460
01:26:52.829 --> 01:26:56.130
like for her to play around with. Yeah. I thought,
1461
01:26:56.189 --> 01:26:59.029
I thought it was a super fun, super fun time
1462
01:26:59.069 --> 01:27:01.310
working with her. Yeah.
1463
01:27:02.350 --> 01:27:05.189
But there was one, one small performance. I got to
1464
01:27:05.229 --> 01:27:08.260
tell you about for me, it was so memorable because
1465
01:27:08.279 --> 01:27:12.880
it was so hilarious. Prince Baldor, you know, he is
1466
01:27:14.260 --> 01:27:17.619
the flamboyant Prince and he got, and he always says, um,
1467
01:27:18.130 --> 01:27:20.829
I'm feeling a bit cold. Can I have a blanket?
1468
01:27:21.250 --> 01:27:25.100
I'm sorry. That really kills me. Every time when I
1469
01:27:25.140 --> 01:27:28.560
saw that moment, it was so funny. That was another
1470
01:27:29.079 --> 01:27:31.739
character choice as well. Did you feel that in that
1471
01:27:31.800 --> 01:27:36.279
moment that there had to be some comic relief before
1472
01:27:36.840 --> 01:27:39.579
extreme violence or all that stuff?
1473
01:27:39.619 --> 01:27:43.960
Yeah, I mean, that sequence with Prince Balder, like it
1474
01:27:44.079 --> 01:27:49.670
comes right before... in screenwriting terms, the Dark Knight of
1475
01:27:49.710 --> 01:27:54.479
the Soul moment where people get separated, Deathstalker is quote-unquote dead.
1476
01:27:56.460 --> 01:27:58.420
So to lead up to that with something a little
1477
01:27:58.460 --> 01:28:02.060
lighter and more fun made sense. And casting Connor, of course,
1478
01:28:03.140 --> 01:28:08.529
that was just a no-brainer. I'm going to slot in
1479
01:28:08.590 --> 01:28:13.310
my Astron 6 guys wherever I can. And I wanted
1480
01:28:13.329 --> 01:28:17.050
to give him something nice and juicy. especially since I
1481
01:28:17.090 --> 01:28:19.670
mean I gave him his own entire movie with Frankie
1482
01:28:19.689 --> 01:28:23.289
Frico but he had an extended cameo in Psycho Goreman
1483
01:28:23.310 --> 01:28:26.010
that got cut out so he basically has like one
1484
01:28:26.050 --> 01:28:27.689
or two lines in that movie and I feel bad
1485
01:28:27.729 --> 01:28:30.090
about that so with this one I wanted to give
1486
01:28:30.130 --> 01:28:32.850
him a full scene to chew on and yeah I
1487
01:28:32.890 --> 01:28:35.829
just gave him the room to play around and it
1488
01:28:35.890 --> 01:28:38.210
was a lot of fun it's like scenes like that
1489
01:28:38.250 --> 01:28:42.340
are fun to do for me because I don't like
1490
01:28:42.380 --> 01:28:44.520
he's doing all the leg work I just have to
1491
01:28:44.579 --> 01:28:48.420
point a camera at him and him and his assistant
1492
01:28:48.479 --> 01:28:51.020
played by this guy Don who I really love they're
1493
01:28:51.060 --> 01:28:55.090
just their dynamic is like old man like helper basically
1494
01:28:55.189 --> 01:28:59.529
is like Alfred his butler so you know, bringing him
1495
01:28:59.569 --> 01:29:02.510
his cloak and he's too old to really be doing anything,
1496
01:29:02.829 --> 01:29:03.850
any physical labor.
1497
01:29:03.869 --> 01:29:04.710
I don't know.
1498
01:29:04.729 --> 01:29:06.430
It was just like a really, that was a fun
1499
01:29:06.449 --> 01:29:08.569
day on set. We had a lot of laughs that day,
1500
01:29:08.590 --> 01:29:11.250
lots to play around with in the edit, lots of
1501
01:29:11.270 --> 01:29:11.770
fun footage.
1502
01:29:12.890 --> 01:29:16.569
And you did bring in the humor from the second Deathstalker.
1503
01:29:16.670 --> 01:29:20.949
So for those that don't know, the first Deathstalker plays
1504
01:29:20.979 --> 01:29:25.460
as a pretty straightforward, like sword and sorcery. But the
1505
01:29:25.520 --> 01:29:30.939
second one is like almost a, um, of a swashbuckler
1506
01:29:30.960 --> 01:29:34.859
it's got all swashbuckler elements more so than kind of
1507
01:29:34.880 --> 01:29:38.550
sword and sorcery and it's just basically a comedy really
1508
01:29:38.770 --> 01:29:44.149
it's just full of one-liners and innuendo but you brought
1509
01:29:44.210 --> 01:29:48.909
that humor and combine that with the serious aspects.
1510
01:29:49.550 --> 01:29:52.529
Yeah well Deathstalker 2 is definitely my favorite of the
1511
01:29:52.590 --> 01:29:55.729
franchise like I can put that movie on any day
1512
01:29:55.789 --> 01:30:00.310
it's so fun Jim Wynorski uh master filmmaker in my
1513
01:30:00.350 --> 01:30:04.140
opinion he's made some real real bangers in his time
1514
01:30:04.300 --> 01:30:06.939
but death stalker 2 it's like just such a well-paced
1515
01:30:07.520 --> 01:30:11.119
movie and it's it does the comedy thing right where
1516
01:30:11.159 --> 01:30:14.399
it's like there's just so many jokes and bits and
1517
01:30:14.520 --> 01:30:17.630
one-liners that even if one doesn't land or if one
1518
01:30:17.670 --> 01:30:19.649
makes you like roll your eyes we're on to the
1519
01:30:19.710 --> 01:30:22.170
next one like five seconds later you're on to the
1520
01:30:22.229 --> 01:30:25.319
next joke so it really doesn't matter Yeah, the movie's
1521
01:30:25.340 --> 01:30:28.020
so crammed full of stuff. It was a big inspiration
1522
01:30:28.079 --> 01:30:33.649
for my movie. Maybe not necessarily, like, tonally exact. Because, yeah,
1523
01:30:33.670 --> 01:30:36.029
it does feel like it's so silly it's a parody.
1524
01:30:36.550 --> 01:30:39.289
And I wanted to have a little bit more gravity
1525
01:30:39.369 --> 01:30:41.890
to what I was doing. Just in terms of, like,
1526
01:30:41.909 --> 01:30:44.640
the energy, the flow, the momentum of it, I really
1527
01:30:44.779 --> 01:30:47.579
like and appreciate. And the timing of a lot of
1528
01:30:47.600 --> 01:30:49.739
the humor. I think it's a lot smarter than people
1529
01:30:49.779 --> 01:30:53.119
give it credit for. Like, there's some really well-timed, well-executed
1530
01:30:53.159 --> 01:30:55.489
jokes that... And even though I sort of do a
1531
01:30:55.529 --> 01:30:58.609
similar gag in mine, the best title reveal in all
1532
01:30:58.649 --> 01:31:02.670
the Deathstalkers is still Deathstalker 2, when the lady says,
1533
01:31:02.729 --> 01:31:06.310
I'll have my revenge, and Deathstalker 2. And then flames
1534
01:31:06.380 --> 01:31:11.039
come up, and it says Deathstalker 2. Still makes me laugh.
1535
01:31:11.680 --> 01:31:15.600
Still a great moment. So, yeah. Highly recommend it. If
1536
01:31:15.619 --> 01:31:18.920
you're going to watch one of the original run of Deathstalker,
1537
01:31:18.939 --> 01:31:21.840
there's obviously... I have to hype up my own because.
1538
01:31:21.659 --> 01:31:23.119
That's what we're talking about.
1539
01:31:23.220 --> 01:31:25.380
Of the first four, if you're going to watch one,
1540
01:31:25.439 --> 01:31:29.229
I'd say watch Deathstalker 2 because it's always a good,
1541
01:31:29.310 --> 01:31:31.270
every time I put it on the shop, people are
1542
01:31:31.289 --> 01:31:34.010
like right into it. We always have a fun time.
1543
01:31:34.310 --> 01:31:37.130
It's just a good, it's a good party movie, especially.
1544
01:31:38.470 --> 01:31:42.850
And Jim Wynorski was known for Chopping Mall. I'm sure
1545
01:31:42.930 --> 01:31:46.850
heaps of people have seen Chopping Mall, but to prepare
1546
01:31:46.890 --> 01:31:50.289
for this episode i was like looking at his filmography
1547
01:31:50.390 --> 01:31:53.149
he also did not of this earth return of the
1548
01:31:53.210 --> 01:31:57.300
swamp thing but i became quite obsessed with his film
1549
01:31:57.449 --> 01:32:00.819
parodies that he does and some of the titles are
1550
01:32:00.859 --> 01:32:07.939
so great the hills have thighs yep the bear wench
1551
01:32:08.439 --> 01:32:11.979
project which is his version of the blair witch project
1552
01:32:12.000 --> 01:32:16.600
there's about four of those we've got The Da Vinci Co-Ed,
1553
01:32:16.619 --> 01:32:21.890
and The Devil Wears Nada. So I haven't seen any
1554
01:32:21.899 --> 01:32:25.670
of those ones, but I must say I'm quite intrigued.
1555
01:32:26.289 --> 01:32:27.149
And that's just.
1556
01:32:26.949 --> 01:32:28.569
The tip of the iceberg.
1557
01:32:28.590 --> 01:32:34.710
I definitely stopped at his mid-90s outfit, and I've read
1558
01:32:34.770 --> 01:32:37.550
those titles and seen clips of them, and they're not
1559
01:32:37.649 --> 01:32:39.850
quite in the same vein as the movies of his
1560
01:32:39.890 --> 01:32:44.909
that I love and put on a big pedestal. I
1561
01:32:45.029 --> 01:32:48.649
love that he just keeps going. That guy, he's one
1562
01:32:48.670 --> 01:32:53.529
of a kind, Jim Wynorski. No other filmmaker like him.
1563
01:32:54.189 --> 01:32:57.170
I love that he's just still doing what he's doing. Again,
1564
01:32:57.250 --> 01:33:01.270
he's made some of my favorite fun movies out there.
1565
01:33:01.289 --> 01:33:07.460
Return of the Swamp Thing is highly recommended. It's my
1566
01:33:07.520 --> 01:33:08.800
favorite version of Swamp Thing.
1567
01:33:11.460 --> 01:33:13.960
One thing I've got to mention also, because as we all,
1568
01:33:14.279 --> 01:33:19.909
as we love fantasy films, they have majestic orchestral musical scores,
1569
01:33:20.470 --> 01:33:23.729
but your Deathstalker, I've got to tell you, has an
1570
01:33:23.869 --> 01:33:29.449
incredible metal score, and I absolutely loved it. Blitz Berlin,
1571
01:33:29.930 --> 01:33:31.840
they did the music for your film, and I believe,
1572
01:33:32.479 --> 01:33:35.659
I noticed, from what I read, Slash from Guns N'
1573
01:33:35.699 --> 01:33:38.520
Roses is the executive producer of the movie, but was
1574
01:33:38.560 --> 01:33:43.640
also in Blitz Berlin, and I love the music score
1575
01:33:43.659 --> 01:33:48.819
for this film in particular. It certainly matched it perfectly,
1576
01:33:48.850 --> 01:33:51.199
in my opinion anyway. It really did.
1577
01:33:51.829 --> 01:33:53.909
Well, I mean, I've had a long relationship with the
1578
01:33:53.949 --> 01:33:57.710
guys at Blitz Berlin, like me and Martin. We have
1579
01:33:57.729 --> 01:34:00.189
such a shorthand at this point. It was so easy.
1580
01:34:00.810 --> 01:34:03.010
I mean, I shouldn't speak for them. They did a
1581
01:34:03.430 --> 01:34:05.189
ton of work in a short period of time, but
1582
01:34:05.210 --> 01:34:07.430
as far as on my end, it was a very
1583
01:34:07.529 --> 01:34:11.630
easy process telling them what I wanted. and what I
1584
01:34:11.670 --> 01:34:14.430
imagined for this score. I mean, they did, they did
1585
01:34:14.489 --> 01:34:17.189
some work on the void. They did the score for
1586
01:34:17.210 --> 01:34:21.060
psycho gore, man, for Frankie Frico. And now does stalker. Uh,
1587
01:34:21.100 --> 01:34:23.760
I hope to continue working with them on future stuff.
1588
01:34:24.739 --> 01:34:27.460
Cause we, again, the shorthand is great. The work they
1589
01:34:27.500 --> 01:34:29.460
do is amazing. I also love that. I just see
1590
01:34:29.500 --> 01:34:32.359
them getting like better and more advanced the further they go. Uh,
1591
01:34:33.100 --> 01:34:35.539
I mean, it probably helps that I keep challenging them
1592
01:34:35.600 --> 01:34:39.300
with different movies from different genres. Like every movie we do,
1593
01:34:39.319 --> 01:34:42.930
the score is different. Like, Psycho Goreman, I was telling them,
1594
01:34:42.970 --> 01:34:45.229
make it feel kind of like Highlander a little bit,
1595
01:34:45.270 --> 01:34:49.979
like a little Queen-ish at times, like kind of rock opera-y.
1596
01:34:50.420 --> 01:34:53.460
Frankie Frico is very much like, give me a Richard
1597
01:34:53.520 --> 01:34:57.340
Bain score from a 90s Full Moon movie. And then
1598
01:34:57.380 --> 01:35:04.079
with Deathstalker, it was like, I want definitely more John Williams,
1599
01:35:04.520 --> 01:35:07.279
a bit more Jerry Goldsmith. I want it to feel
1600
01:35:07.300 --> 01:35:10.100
like an epic sweeping score, but also... cause I'm a
1601
01:35:10.119 --> 01:35:12.840
big fan of the doom games and the composer for
1602
01:35:12.880 --> 01:35:17.140
those games. Uh, I'm totally blanking on his name right now,
1603
01:35:17.159 --> 01:35:20.859
which is insane, but those are like very orchestral and
1604
01:35:20.899 --> 01:35:26.729
metal scores, uh, Mick Gordon. And so that, you know,
1605
01:35:27.130 --> 01:35:30.909
that's where they kind of melded the orchestral and metal
1606
01:35:30.989 --> 01:35:34.470
components to the death starter score. And so just to clarify,
1607
01:35:34.489 --> 01:35:36.489
slash isn't a part of blitz Berlin, but he did
1608
01:35:36.550 --> 01:35:39.630
contribute to the score, uh, him and Bear McCreary made
1609
01:35:39.670 --> 01:35:42.689
a theme song that plays over the end credits. Yeah.
1610
01:35:43.229 --> 01:35:46.670
And then Blitzman took pieces of that and integrated it
1611
01:35:46.710 --> 01:35:49.609
throughout the movie. And then also, I believe they brought
1612
01:35:49.649 --> 01:35:53.859
Slash in to just do some guitar solos sprinkled throughout
1613
01:35:53.920 --> 01:35:54.380
the movie.
1614
01:35:55.060 --> 01:35:55.319
Okay.
1615
01:35:55.760 --> 01:35:58.680
Yeah, it's easily my most epic score to date. I'm
1616
01:35:59.640 --> 01:36:01.800
very proud of it. I listen to it all the time.
1617
01:36:02.539 --> 01:36:06.159
It's a great driving mix to put on if you're
1618
01:36:06.199 --> 01:36:06.949
stuck in traffic.
1619
01:36:07.949 --> 01:36:08.890
It certainly is.
1620
01:36:10.810 --> 01:36:13.659
And shall we talk just briefly a bit because we're
1621
01:36:13.699 --> 01:36:17.439
talking about this set coming out with the first two
1622
01:36:17.479 --> 01:36:21.140
Deathstalker movies. We'll talk a bit about the first one maybe,
1623
01:36:21.159 --> 01:36:25.180
just so people maybe that haven't seen it. So this
1624
01:36:25.279 --> 01:36:28.810
is a German Blu-ray.
1625
01:36:29.289 --> 01:36:29.569
Yeah.
1626
01:36:29.869 --> 01:36:32.510
So that was the first Blu-ray and it's this cool,
1627
01:36:32.989 --> 01:36:36.090
it's got a book. I can't open the book. It's
1628
01:36:36.130 --> 01:36:40.659
got boobs in it. But anyway, yeah, it came out
1629
01:36:40.720 --> 01:36:45.180
that and I realised that this is uncut. So it
1630
01:36:45.220 --> 01:36:49.760
does actually say uncut. So here we go, Australia again.
1631
01:36:49.779 --> 01:36:54.869
What we had in Australia previously on VHS and DVD
1632
01:36:55.449 --> 01:37:00.550
must have been cut. So I'm hoping and I'm pretty
1633
01:37:00.670 --> 01:37:07.090
sure that this edition coming out will be uncut. so
1634
01:37:07.149 --> 01:37:11.069
that it will be similar to the US editions, which
1635
01:37:11.329 --> 01:37:17.029
were uncut. I mean, yeah, basically it just had more boobs,
1636
01:37:17.329 --> 01:37:23.829
if that's even possible. More boobs. So if that was
1637
01:37:23.869 --> 01:37:28.029
a draw card for you, you can pick up the
1638
01:37:28.069 --> 01:37:31.949
set that's coming out. You know, if you are upset
1639
01:37:32.130 --> 01:37:37.789
that the, latest Deathstalker only had the swamp boobs, then
1640
01:37:38.109 --> 01:37:40.850
the uncut version will give you more, so that should
1641
01:37:40.909 --> 01:37:47.800
make up for that. So, yeah, so that one and
1642
01:37:47.850 --> 01:37:52.079
number two were cut. They have extended sex scenes. They've
1643
01:37:52.119 --> 01:37:57.039
got a little bit more violence, I noticed, so we
1644
01:37:57.079 --> 01:38:02.369
should be getting that. And the first Deathstalker, which was
1645
01:38:02.430 --> 01:38:07.689
directed by James Spardellati. I can't say it. It's such
1646
01:38:07.710 --> 01:38:13.699
a tongue twister. James Spardellati was part of, like, Roger
1647
01:38:13.760 --> 01:38:18.560
Corman's sword and sorcery cycle from the 80s. So they
1648
01:38:19.260 --> 01:38:24.970
produced all these sword and sorcery pictures in Argentina because
1649
01:38:25.189 --> 01:38:30.199
Argentina was going through a economic crisis their film industry
1650
01:38:30.859 --> 01:38:35.359
had really suffered and Corman saw that he could make
1651
01:38:35.439 --> 01:38:39.300
pictures there like on a bigger scope for not much
1652
01:38:39.420 --> 01:38:43.000
money and it was of course in the wake of
1653
01:38:43.039 --> 01:38:49.840
the success of Conan the Barbarian and Beastmaster, Excalibur, all
1654
01:38:49.899 --> 01:38:55.239
those films. And the director had actually worked on Beastmaster
1655
01:38:55.359 --> 01:38:59.720
and some of the crew came over from Beastmaster to
1656
01:38:59.779 --> 01:39:05.909
work on that first Deathstalker. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah,
1657
01:39:05.989 --> 01:39:10.630
so this cycle of films also included films like The
1658
01:39:10.670 --> 01:39:15.930
Warrior and the Sorceress in 1984. Wizards of the Lost
1659
01:39:15.989 --> 01:39:23.369
Kingdom from 1985, Barbarian Queen also from 1985. They were,
1660
01:39:23.470 --> 01:39:27.930
of course, like the whole genre, heavily informed by the
1661
01:39:28.050 --> 01:39:32.359
art of Frank Frazetta and Boris Valero, who did the
1662
01:39:32.539 --> 01:39:37.859
iconic poster artwork, which attracted you to Deathstalker in the
1663
01:39:37.899 --> 01:39:41.340
first place when people went to the video store and
1664
01:39:41.359 --> 01:39:47.399
it promised sex. and often the covers were better than
1665
01:39:47.420 --> 01:39:50.989
the films. So that's what people say. I would argue
1666
01:39:51.010 --> 01:39:55.670
I really, really enjoy the films. But you definitely knew
1667
01:39:55.729 --> 01:40:02.409
what to expect. Apparently that first Deathstalker had up to
1668
01:40:02.409 --> 01:40:06.260
400 extras in some scenes and they were paying them
1669
01:40:07.600 --> 01:40:12.079
as little as $ 3 a day. Apparently they're in Argentina. Yeah.
1670
01:40:13.000 --> 01:40:15.840
So they really kind of made the most of it.
1671
01:40:17.359 --> 01:40:21.130
It's a sword and sorcery film firmly in the realm
1672
01:40:21.250 --> 01:40:28.289
of exploitation cinema with sex, violence, all those really un-PC
1673
01:40:28.750 --> 01:40:33.500
things that we love about 80s films and these films
1674
01:40:33.560 --> 01:40:39.500
in particular. It had Richard Hill as Deathstalker and he
1675
01:40:39.579 --> 01:40:45.500
returned for Deathstalker 4 in 1991. It, of course, starred
1676
01:40:45.680 --> 01:40:50.699
Playboy cover girl Barbie Benton as Cordiel and she was
1677
01:40:50.779 --> 01:40:54.409
also Hugh Hefner's girlfriend for quite a long time. She
1678
01:40:55.069 --> 01:40:58.289
was well known for being on the Playboy cover many
1679
01:40:58.350 --> 01:41:04.220
times and other kind of B movies and, like, tits
1680
01:41:04.279 --> 01:41:08.630
and ass spectacles like this but i'd say that she's
1681
01:41:08.710 --> 01:41:14.630
probably overshadowed by lana clarkson who played uh kyra and
1682
01:41:14.750 --> 01:41:20.149
she was also later the barbarian queen and she was
1683
01:41:20.270 --> 01:41:25.720
famously murdered by phil specter and he claimed that she
1684
01:41:25.779 --> 01:41:31.600
committed suicide but she died from um being shot Apparently
1685
01:41:31.619 --> 01:41:34.189
it came out in court he had threatened other women
1686
01:41:34.229 --> 01:41:38.510
with guns and he was ultimately convicted of her murder,
1687
01:41:38.770 --> 01:41:42.369
so he did murder her. But his defence and the
1688
01:41:42.449 --> 01:41:48.630
media treated Lana with this really disgusting misogyny. They painted
1689
01:41:48.710 --> 01:41:53.300
her as a washed-up B-movie star who was really unhappy
1690
01:41:53.359 --> 01:41:56.579
with her career because she had apparently appeared in all
1691
01:41:56.619 --> 01:42:01.710
these awful films and, She was apparently embarrassed by her
1692
01:42:01.789 --> 01:42:05.310
body of work. But this was not true. So I
1693
01:42:05.350 --> 01:42:09.590
just wanted to take this moment to say that Lana
1694
01:42:09.630 --> 01:42:14.359
was so well loved for her barbarian sci-fi and these
1695
01:42:14.460 --> 01:42:18.720
horror roles that she did. She's really beautiful on screen.
1696
01:42:18.819 --> 01:42:23.260
She's really charismatic, great presence. She's super fun and she's
1697
01:42:23.359 --> 01:42:27.680
really powerful as a warrior woman. And I just want
1698
01:42:27.699 --> 01:42:31.079
to mention that she should be remembered as such because
1699
01:42:31.159 --> 01:42:35.699
she got treated really, really badly at the time of
1700
01:42:35.760 --> 01:42:38.899
her death. So I just wanted to say that about
1701
01:42:38.960 --> 01:42:40.680
Lana because she is very lovely.
1702
01:42:40.699 --> 01:42:45.729
I also just want to point out there is a,
1703
01:42:45.779 --> 01:42:49.859
I believe a UK DVD release of Death Stalker that
1704
01:42:50.149 --> 01:42:51.979
on the cover, you can look this up, you just
1705
01:42:52.119 --> 01:42:54.890
Google image search it. It's a blue cover with a
1706
01:42:54.989 --> 01:42:59.130
sword and the, text on the case aside from just
1707
01:42:59.149 --> 01:43:04.949
saying Deathstalkers says featuring Lana Clarkson victim of the Phil
1708
01:43:04.970 --> 01:43:10.729
Spector murder case like that's like on the DVD as
1709
01:43:10.850 --> 01:43:15.960
a selling point for the movie which is insane that's
1710
01:43:16.039 --> 01:43:18.500
outrageous yeah.
1711
01:43:17.920 --> 01:43:22.060
That's disgusting yeah so that's why I just wanted to
1712
01:43:22.100 --> 01:43:25.899
take a moment in this episode to send you know
1713
01:43:26.079 --> 01:43:30.770
our fan love because she was awesome in these roles.
1714
01:43:30.930 --> 01:43:37.630
Like I've always loved her, great presence, love a barbarian lady,
1715
01:43:38.229 --> 01:43:41.689
totally awesome because these films sit in that kind of
1716
01:43:42.250 --> 01:43:49.189
dichotomy between exploitation where they obviously objectify women for fun.
1717
01:43:49.430 --> 01:43:54.270
That's fine. It's fantasy. It's innocent, you know, in that sense.
1718
01:43:54.449 --> 01:44:00.220
But they also... portrayed women in these roles that were
1719
01:44:00.279 --> 01:44:04.119
quite atypical to mainstream cinema as well so there is
1720
01:44:04.159 --> 01:44:11.460
that weird kind of split there that they embody like
1721
01:44:11.579 --> 01:44:17.069
both objectification and empowerment so it's just whatever you take
1722
01:44:17.170 --> 01:44:20.020
from it I think and I always you know, took
1723
01:44:20.119 --> 01:44:24.539
them as, like, really amazing, like, strong warrior lady characters
1724
01:44:24.970 --> 01:44:27.569
and absolutely loved that because, you know, the guys get
1725
01:44:27.630 --> 01:44:31.630
their he-man and their muscle man with the sword and then,
1726
01:44:31.750 --> 01:44:35.029
you know, lady comes out and fights and is powerful
1727
01:44:35.729 --> 01:44:38.920
and does the same things basically. That's what I've always
1728
01:44:39.000 --> 01:44:44.819
loved about the genre. But I do know that when, yeah, and, like,
1729
01:44:45.220 --> 01:44:47.800
I don't want to spend time talking about him. But
1730
01:44:47.840 --> 01:44:51.729
when Phil Spector died recently, they actually, here in Australia,
1731
01:44:52.310 --> 01:44:59.630
did an obituary on the news and did not mention
1732
01:45:00.029 --> 01:45:04.090
the murder. They talked about his musical career, and I
1733
01:45:04.170 --> 01:45:07.010
just thought, yeah, fuck you, basically.
1734
01:45:07.729 --> 01:45:08.630
Yeah, that's gross.
1735
01:45:09.850 --> 01:45:13.630
Yeah, I was disgusted. And I'm sure like a lot
1736
01:45:13.670 --> 01:45:16.949
of people, this is a tangent, in news now there's
1737
01:45:16.970 --> 01:45:20.470
a lot of like younger people. They just copy stuff
1738
01:45:20.550 --> 01:45:23.949
from other news sources. It's kind of not like it
1739
01:45:24.130 --> 01:45:26.630
used to be and they've just gone, oh, yeah, this
1740
01:45:26.710 --> 01:45:30.039
guy died, he did this, this, this, without even knowing
1741
01:45:30.060 --> 01:45:35.180
what he did. So anyway, we remember you, Lana, and
1742
01:45:35.460 --> 01:45:37.539
we love you as the barbarian queen.
1743
01:45:38.520 --> 01:45:40.899
What I love about her performance too is I feel
1744
01:45:40.920 --> 01:45:43.979
like she sells it. well and that you can speak
1745
01:45:44.010 --> 01:45:47.770
to like the other actresses in these movies uh even
1746
01:45:48.430 --> 01:45:52.170
like my personal favorite monique gabrielle who is like yes
1747
01:45:52.210 --> 01:45:56.210
maybe giving a bit of a silly take in death
1748
01:45:56.229 --> 01:45:57.869
stalker 2 but like i don't know there's like a
1749
01:45:57.930 --> 01:46:03.409
conviction to all the performances that i do think elevates
1750
01:46:03.470 --> 01:46:08.590
these things out of exploitation a bit like like lana's
1751
01:46:08.609 --> 01:46:11.680
deliveries I don't know. I just, I feel like there,
1752
01:46:11.840 --> 01:46:16.960
there's a legitimacy there that, that makes things, I don't know.
1753
01:46:16.979 --> 01:46:20.079
It just tells you on the universe, the Deathstalker universe.
1754
01:46:20.739 --> 01:46:23.420
And like, there's, I don't know. It's just an effort
1755
01:46:23.439 --> 01:46:25.100
that I feel like if a movie like that was
1756
01:46:25.149 --> 01:46:29.409
being made now, I feel like the actress playing that role,
1757
01:46:30.609 --> 01:46:32.529
even like playing Death Star, it's like, there'd just be
1758
01:46:32.569 --> 01:46:35.850
more winking, I think. And so, yeah, I don't know.
1759
01:46:35.869 --> 01:46:40.439
That's something I always enjoyed about the Deathstalker movies. specifically
1760
01:46:40.939 --> 01:46:44.640
and like the male and female actors is that they're,
1761
01:46:45.039 --> 01:46:48.279
they're just felt like a commitment to the bit that
1762
01:46:48.340 --> 01:46:52.659
was the movie and a commitment to like the universe
1763
01:46:52.680 --> 01:46:56.899
that they occupied. Like I, I never got, I never
1764
01:46:56.939 --> 01:46:59.050
got a sense that people were like looking into the
1765
01:46:59.090 --> 01:47:01.510
camera and being like, like rolling their eyes and be like, Oh,
1766
01:47:01.529 --> 01:47:03.909
I'm doing a fantasy movie here. It's like, there was
1767
01:47:03.930 --> 01:47:07.090
like a legitimacy to it and like a real professionalism
1768
01:47:07.149 --> 01:47:11.819
and an effort despite the budget, but maybe betraying some
1769
01:47:11.859 --> 01:47:15.970
of the visuals, it's like, I always felt the performances were,
1770
01:47:16.199 --> 01:47:19.390
were legitimate and like the effort was always there and
1771
01:47:19.430 --> 01:47:22.090
that helped carry these movies a long way.
1772
01:47:23.050 --> 01:47:26.850
And she is fabulous in Deathstalker too, because she plays
1773
01:47:26.869 --> 01:47:31.270
the dual role. So she's the princess and she's the
1774
01:47:31.449 --> 01:47:35.210
evil princess. So she's, she's in dual roles, which would be,
1775
01:47:35.859 --> 01:47:39.750
It was really fun. Apparently she really liked the evil
1776
01:47:39.850 --> 01:47:43.210
princess role because she got to be evil and nasty.
1777
01:47:44.130 --> 01:47:49.689
But she was a model, Playboy or Penthouse, I can't remember.
1778
01:47:49.810 --> 01:47:53.239
She was, you know, another cover girl that, as with
1779
01:47:53.319 --> 01:47:55.880
the tradition of these films, they would get the cover
1780
01:47:55.899 --> 01:47:59.199
girls to be in them to sell the movie and
1781
01:47:59.260 --> 01:48:01.239
as a bit of a novelty. And I guess there
1782
01:48:01.300 --> 01:48:05.689
is that expectation, which is a misconception sometimes, that these
1783
01:48:05.779 --> 01:48:11.130
ladies can't act, you know, or that they're dumb or something.
1784
01:48:11.970 --> 01:48:17.050
And her performance, you know, is totally the opposite because
1785
01:48:17.050 --> 01:48:21.189
um apparently you know she was unsure how to approach
1786
01:48:21.300 --> 01:48:25.859
the role and she was told just to be herself
1787
01:48:26.659 --> 01:48:29.680
and be genuine and be and you you really get
1788
01:48:29.760 --> 01:48:35.239
that her personality shining through and she delivers comedy perfectly
1789
01:48:35.760 --> 01:48:38.359
and that's a really hard thing to do it's actually
1790
01:48:38.479 --> 01:48:43.050
really hard to be funny especially when in this kind
1791
01:48:43.090 --> 01:48:47.329
of artificial sense of acting it's super hard to be
1792
01:48:47.470 --> 01:48:51.340
funny and she does it she's evil and she's funny
1793
01:48:51.939 --> 01:48:55.920
and for the whole movie she really really carries it
1794
01:48:56.000 --> 01:48:59.779
she has great interaction with death stalker so yeah i
1795
01:48:59.800 --> 01:49:04.199
reckon she makes the movie she's got so many good lines.
1796
01:49:04.279 --> 01:49:07.760
Oh yeah well her chemistry with john terleski as death
1797
01:49:07.779 --> 01:49:10.079
stalker i think is one of the best parts like
1798
01:49:10.779 --> 01:49:13.039
I really enjoy when the two of them are bouncing
1799
01:49:13.100 --> 01:49:17.159
off of each other. Their banter is super charming and yeah,
1800
01:49:17.319 --> 01:49:20.420
it just brings like an energy to the movie that
1801
01:49:20.779 --> 01:49:24.090
a very Jim Winorski energy to the movie that I
1802
01:49:24.149 --> 01:49:27.329
really like. I think, I think they're both really awesome
1803
01:49:27.630 --> 01:49:29.529
in those roles. Yeah.
1804
01:49:29.789 --> 01:49:33.289
And part of this eighties wave of sword and sorcery
1805
01:49:33.550 --> 01:49:36.310
is that there was this kind of, like you said,
1806
01:49:36.399 --> 01:49:41.529
there's no irony. There's no, wink wink like you said
1807
01:49:41.550 --> 01:49:48.270
it's quite almost naive in playing there's a yeah a
1808
01:49:48.329 --> 01:49:53.039
naivety to the genre in you know building this fantasy
1809
01:49:53.100 --> 01:49:57.680
world and these like crazy scenarios but also playing it
1810
01:49:57.840 --> 01:50:01.579
quite genuine and as it is and i think that's
1811
01:50:01.659 --> 01:50:06.470
a lot of the appeal of the genre Because, yeah,
1812
01:50:06.770 --> 01:50:09.310
now a lot of things are approached with that kind
1813
01:50:09.350 --> 01:50:12.869
of ironic, this is silly, I know that I'm being silly,
1814
01:50:12.890 --> 01:50:19.130
you know, self-aware thing. They're totally kind of not, yeah,
1815
01:50:19.260 --> 01:50:20.720
not self-aware.
1816
01:50:20.729 --> 01:50:21.899
Yeah.
1817
01:50:22.359 --> 01:50:24.939
Yeah, well, sincerity, I think, is important. That's something that
1818
01:50:25.000 --> 01:50:29.359
I push on all my actors and, like, through Deathstalker especially,
1819
01:50:29.439 --> 01:50:32.100
I was like, yeah, this is going to get wacky
1820
01:50:32.159 --> 01:50:35.829
and crazy and you're fighting a lot of like inanimate
1821
01:50:35.970 --> 01:50:41.229
rubber objects and like barely moving puppets. But despite that,
1822
01:50:41.430 --> 01:50:45.300
like treat it like this is the most serious situation
1823
01:50:45.340 --> 01:50:47.340
you've ever been in, in your life. Cause it's only
1824
01:50:47.460 --> 01:50:51.880
funny if, if you believe the, the people on screen
1825
01:50:52.359 --> 01:50:55.300
are like in that world and in that moment, if
1826
01:50:55.340 --> 01:50:58.420
they're winking at you and they're throwing shade over any
1827
01:50:58.460 --> 01:51:01.090
kind of drama that's happening, like it just, it doesn't work.
1828
01:51:01.210 --> 01:51:04.590
It's a real thrill, like post guardians of the galaxy, uh,
1829
01:51:05.100 --> 01:51:07.699
problem which like I love that movie I think it's
1830
01:51:07.739 --> 01:51:11.979
great but I feel like that kind of started this
1831
01:51:12.140 --> 01:51:17.439
wave of kind of like ironic filmmaking ironic performance of
1832
01:51:17.520 --> 01:51:21.149
like let's be serious for a second and then let's
1833
01:51:21.159 --> 01:51:23.710
stop and be like well that just happened like wasn't
1834
01:51:23.750 --> 01:51:27.630
that crazy and yeah it's like a style of filmmaking
1835
01:51:27.689 --> 01:51:30.829
I really don't enjoy and that's something that's real nice
1836
01:51:30.909 --> 01:51:35.229
about the classic Corman era not just of the sword
1837
01:51:35.250 --> 01:51:38.529
and sorcery movies but like all Corman budget movies like
1838
01:51:38.850 --> 01:51:42.750
I was just re-watching Carnosaur the other day and that
1839
01:51:42.789 --> 01:51:47.949
movie's real dead serious and it's friggin Carnosaur it's like
1840
01:51:47.989 --> 01:51:51.510
a big puppet dinosaur in it so you know like
1841
01:51:51.789 --> 01:51:53.810
that helps me enjoy the film when you know that
1842
01:51:53.899 --> 01:51:59.300
everyone's got like everyone's committed to making this movie work
1843
01:51:59.800 --> 01:52:04.859
and not just being like I'm above this. I'm going
1844
01:52:04.880 --> 01:52:07.760
to roll my eyes now. Like if you're, if the
1845
01:52:07.800 --> 01:52:10.180
people on screen act like they're above it, then there's
1846
01:52:10.239 --> 01:52:12.270
no way that the audience is going to be engaged.
1847
01:52:12.350 --> 01:52:14.189
Cause they're like, well, you're not into it. Why should
1848
01:52:14.229 --> 01:52:16.069
I be into it? So, yeah.
1849
01:52:16.869 --> 01:52:20.890
Good point.
1850
01:52:21.029 --> 01:52:22.590
Anything else we need to cover?
1851
01:52:23.800 --> 01:52:26.659
I think we just about done everything because as we,
1852
01:52:26.760 --> 01:52:31.420
as Suzanne mentioned, The original Deathstalker, Deathstalker 2 and Steven's
1853
01:52:31.479 --> 01:52:35.770
Deathstalker is in this one beautiful set, both on 4K,
1854
01:52:36.250 --> 01:52:41.229
UHD and Blu-ray, six-disc steelbook edition.
1855
01:52:42.170 --> 01:52:43.369
Lenticular cover.
1856
01:52:43.729 --> 01:52:45.430
Lenticular cover, absolutely.
1857
01:52:45.590 --> 01:52:49.880
I'm sold on the lenticular cover. I already own so
1858
01:52:49.899 --> 01:52:51.619
many versions of Deathstalker.
1859
01:52:52.399 --> 01:52:57.569
I don't own any. I've seen Deathstalker. 1 and 2.
1860
01:52:57.569 --> 01:52:59.289
I haven't seen 3 or 4 and, of course, I
1861
01:52:59.329 --> 01:53:03.250
just saw Stephen's. I don't own any versions of Deathstalker,
1862
01:53:03.289 --> 01:53:05.710
so it was a great opportunity to discuss this release,
1863
01:53:05.729 --> 01:53:11.770
which I'm definitely owning, for sure. And I don't know
1864
01:53:11.810 --> 01:53:14.180
what more to say. Ron, do you have anything to
1865
01:53:14.229 --> 01:53:17.800
say before we... Now.
1866
01:53:18.180 --> 01:53:21.039
We've covered everything, everything Deathstalker universe.
1867
01:53:21.060 --> 01:53:21.659
This is great.
1868
01:53:22.579 --> 01:53:25.500
Stephen, it's very interesting you mentioned the first Deathstalker, the
1869
01:53:25.579 --> 01:53:28.789
poster art. That's what sold me as a kid. I
1870
01:53:28.810 --> 01:53:30.789
was 13 years old. It just got released on video.
1871
01:53:30.810 --> 01:53:32.189
And I thought, oh, wow, look at this.
1872
01:53:32.609 --> 01:53:35.329
Got to find a pig monster. I thought I'd be
1873
01:53:35.369 --> 01:53:38.390
full of pig monsters. And then it turned out to
1874
01:53:38.430 --> 01:53:44.939
be a Playboy showcase. Warrior guy was just horny loser.
1875
01:53:45.000 --> 01:53:48.119
He just wanted to get laid. He gets in a
1876
01:53:48.180 --> 01:53:49.460
fight so he could have sex.
1877
01:53:49.520 --> 01:53:51.779
And he's like, oh, come on. This guy's boring.
1878
01:53:52.039 --> 01:53:57.739
Well, was it Jim Winorski that said, like boobs are
1879
01:53:57.779 --> 01:54:03.220
the cheapest special effect I think that maybe I'm misquoting
1880
01:54:03.640 --> 01:54:06.199
but like you can tell that that was the methodology
1881
01:54:06.560 --> 01:54:10.939
with those movies was like well the guys will rent
1882
01:54:10.960 --> 01:54:14.220
this they'll initially be disappointed that it's not on the
1883
01:54:14.279 --> 01:54:19.020
level of like Conan or something but will like distract
1884
01:54:19.050 --> 01:54:22.449
them with boobs long enough that they'll forget about it
1885
01:54:23.510 --> 01:54:28.909
well You know, that made sense back in 1983 or whatever,
1886
01:54:28.989 --> 01:54:35.300
but it doesn't really fly in 2025, 2026 in this case.
1887
01:54:35.319 --> 01:54:38.100
When everyone used to go to the video store and
1888
01:54:38.140 --> 01:54:42.000
they would put, like, the gore and the boobs on
1889
01:54:42.039 --> 01:54:45.720
the back cover, and it's like, you'd go through looking
1890
01:54:45.760 --> 01:54:48.989
at all the, like, horror videos and stuff and find
1891
01:54:49.029 --> 01:54:53.649
the goriest pictures on the back or, like, boobs.
1892
01:54:53.770 --> 01:54:54.369
Like, ooh.
1893
01:54:55.109 --> 01:54:59.329
Whatever, and then you'd hire that one, and sometimes it
1894
01:54:59.369 --> 01:55:02.670
would be great, sometimes not so great, but yeah.
1895
01:55:04.350 --> 01:55:06.149
I do miss that era, and I wish we could
1896
01:55:06.189 --> 01:55:09.210
go back to it. I miss, I'm sure you guys
1897
01:55:09.250 --> 01:55:13.569
do too, just missing the video store aisle and not
1898
01:55:13.609 --> 01:55:18.409
knowing what you're going to get, and just that I
1899
01:55:18.449 --> 01:55:20.579
can feel it still when I think back to it,
1900
01:55:20.619 --> 01:55:26.039
that vivid feeling of discovery, of like, gone you've like
1901
01:55:26.119 --> 01:55:29.680
opened the Pharaoh's tomb almost and there's just like artifacts
1902
01:55:29.920 --> 01:55:32.979
everywhere and you're like what the hell is this movie
1903
01:55:33.140 --> 01:55:35.859
Ice Pirates that looks crazy why is it in a
1904
01:55:36.079 --> 01:55:38.770
box for some reason you know and just like picking
1905
01:55:38.819 --> 01:55:42.630
up random stuff but also just the fact that if
1906
01:55:42.670 --> 01:55:46.210
you picked up one movie in some cases like Ghoulies
1907
01:55:46.270 --> 01:55:48.390
it's like oh well there's also there's four of them
1908
01:55:48.449 --> 01:55:50.890
or Deathstalker there's I'm not just looking at one I'm
1909
01:55:50.909 --> 01:55:52.949
looking at four and I remember as a kid that
1910
01:55:52.989 --> 01:55:55.550
being part of the cell as well was like well,
1911
01:55:55.569 --> 01:55:59.989
they made four Carnosaurs, so there must be good, right?
1912
01:56:02.310 --> 01:56:09.250
You know, that was Roger Corman's thinking, actually, perfectly. So
1913
01:56:09.390 --> 01:56:15.029
all of those films, like Deathstalker, Barbarian Queen, like that,
1914
01:56:15.270 --> 01:56:17.569
what is it, Wizards 1, whatever.
1915
01:56:17.649 --> 01:56:21.060
Yeah, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom. That one, yeah.
1916
01:56:21.380 --> 01:56:24.829
Yeah, there's two of them. So apparently his reasoning behind
1917
01:56:24.909 --> 01:56:28.789
that was so when the first Deathstalker was released, it
1918
01:56:28.850 --> 01:56:33.300
actually did quite well in cinema for such a modestly
1919
01:56:33.439 --> 01:56:39.319
budgeted picture. It made between initially $ 11 and $ 12 million
1920
01:56:39.460 --> 01:56:45.380
back then. So it like grossed 11 times approximately what
1921
01:56:45.420 --> 01:56:47.819
it cost to make. So it was, you know, really
1922
01:56:47.880 --> 01:56:51.239
successful and then did really, really well on video and
1923
01:56:52.430 --> 01:56:56.270
for years and also on TV, so selling it to
1924
01:56:56.310 --> 01:57:02.550
TV and it playing on TV. And Corman's thought was that, okay, well,
1925
01:57:02.609 --> 01:57:07.149
this did well, so we make a second, second one
1926
01:57:07.300 --> 01:57:11.319
and a third one, and it's basically like you're still
1927
01:57:11.399 --> 01:57:14.899
promoting the first one with a sequel, but it makes
1928
01:57:14.979 --> 01:57:19.079
it appear more successful than it is. So even if
1929
01:57:19.140 --> 01:57:22.680
the film was not successful... make another one and people
1930
01:57:22.720 --> 01:57:26.920
will think, Oh, well that must've been really successful because
1931
01:57:26.960 --> 01:57:30.300
there's a second one. So I'll, you know, I have
1932
01:57:30.319 --> 01:57:32.779
to go see the first one and the second one.
1933
01:57:33.659 --> 01:57:35.899
Yeah. And even like, as a kid, I remember the
1934
01:57:35.939 --> 01:57:40.239
logic being like, like I'd watch one, it wasn't great,
1935
01:57:40.539 --> 01:57:43.239
but I'd still rent the other ones. Cause I'm like, well,
1936
01:57:43.260 --> 01:57:45.699
maybe the other, maybe they get better, you know? And
1937
01:57:45.770 --> 01:57:50.329
it's thinking back, that's such like such shrewd marketing logic.
1938
01:57:51.460 --> 01:57:54.500
for these budget film companies like a full moon or
1939
01:57:54.600 --> 01:57:58.329
empire pictures or something where it's like maybe it gets
1940
01:57:58.390 --> 01:58:03.609
good by trancers four it's like i totally get it
1941
01:58:03.689 --> 01:58:06.329
it's like you see on the shelf not just one
1942
01:58:06.390 --> 01:58:09.569
movie but like four or five movies and it's like
1943
01:58:09.590 --> 01:58:14.189
well there's there's four lethal weapons that so and those
1944
01:58:14.229 --> 01:58:17.399
are big movies there's four death stalkers those must be
1945
01:58:17.579 --> 01:58:21.539
big movies too so yeah clearly i need to start
1946
01:58:21.579 --> 01:58:22.760
doing this if i want to.
1947
01:58:22.699 --> 01:58:27.260
Start i think sorry sorry what's next for you? If
1948
01:58:27.300 --> 01:58:30.439
you can say anything or what would you like to do?
1949
01:58:30.539 --> 01:58:34.720
Like what universe or world would you like to venture
1950
01:58:34.779 --> 01:58:35.520
into next?
1951
01:58:36.619 --> 01:58:39.619
I have a project lined up for next year. I
1952
01:58:40.399 --> 01:58:43.930
think we're going to shoot like May or June. So
1953
01:58:43.949 --> 01:58:46.489
I'm putting the pieces together for that still long ways away.
1954
01:58:46.510 --> 01:58:49.710
It could fall apart at any moment as movies tend
1955
01:58:49.729 --> 01:58:52.210
to do, but it's kind of going back into the
1956
01:58:52.270 --> 01:58:55.369
serious realm of something like the void. It's a monster movie.
1957
01:58:55.810 --> 01:58:59.489
And I'll spoil anything about it. But, yeah, it's like
1958
01:58:59.529 --> 01:59:05.329
kind of a darker horror film with a monster. And so, yeah,
1959
01:59:05.350 --> 01:59:09.380
that's what I'm in the process of developing and doing
1960
01:59:09.520 --> 01:59:13.340
early prep for right now. I mean, I have all
1961
01:59:13.380 --> 01:59:19.050
kinds of scripts floating around in conversation with people about stuff. It's,
1962
01:59:19.770 --> 01:59:21.850
you know, it's a hard industry to really, like, lock
1963
01:59:21.930 --> 01:59:25.909
in what the next... week even of my life is
1964
01:59:25.949 --> 01:59:28.829
going to be I've been working a lot in effects
1965
01:59:29.029 --> 01:59:31.170
as well I've been doing a bit of work on
1966
01:59:31.189 --> 01:59:34.689
the new season of Reacher and there's been some indie
1967
01:59:34.729 --> 01:59:38.590
movies I've done some work on so yeah I don't
1968
01:59:38.609 --> 01:59:43.430
know it's just bouncing between effects work and developing projects
1969
01:59:43.529 --> 01:59:47.470
for directing and then yeah just spending time at home
1970
01:59:47.569 --> 01:59:50.289
with my family which has been a lot of fun
1971
01:59:50.649 --> 01:59:52.489
so yeah And.
1972
01:59:52.489 --> 01:59:55.909
Is there any particular genre or kind of thing that
1973
01:59:55.930 --> 02:00:00.029
you would love to do? Like space, like monsters in,
1974
02:00:00.090 --> 02:00:02.270
I mean, you've done the psycho gore man, but like
1975
02:00:03.270 --> 02:00:07.710
in space or like supernatural or vampires or anything kind
1976
02:00:07.770 --> 02:00:09.800
of with monster stuff.
1977
02:00:10.659 --> 02:00:10.899
Yeah.
1978
02:00:10.920 --> 02:00:13.180
I mean, I have a sci-fi horror script I'm trying
1979
02:00:13.220 --> 02:00:16.739
to get off the ground. That's very, uh, it's kind
1980
02:00:16.760 --> 02:00:19.180
of in the world of say like an event horizon
1981
02:00:19.520 --> 02:00:23.399
or even a moon trap, if you know, moon trap. Yeah.
1982
02:00:24.079 --> 02:00:26.840
I just really want to make stuff with biomechanical monsters.
1983
02:00:26.960 --> 02:00:30.060
So I wrote a script that has lots of those
1984
02:00:30.140 --> 02:00:33.279
in it. So, but it's tough. Like I work in
1985
02:00:33.319 --> 02:00:35.680
the indie world where you get no money to make
1986
02:00:35.699 --> 02:00:39.909
your movies, pitching people a sci-fi horror movie. It's a
1987
02:00:39.949 --> 02:00:42.250
tough sell because people are like space. So what you
1988
02:00:42.289 --> 02:00:46.199
need like spaceships and stuff. And that's, They just see
1989
02:00:46.220 --> 02:00:49.489
the budget skyrocket. So it's tough. But I do feel
1990
02:00:49.550 --> 02:00:52.210
like things are starting to maybe come together for it.
1991
02:00:53.729 --> 02:00:56.329
But yeah. We'll see what happens with that one. But
1992
02:00:56.369 --> 02:00:59.170
that is where I'd like to go. Because I keep
1993
02:00:59.210 --> 02:01:04.350
trying to tackle different corners of the genre. It's like
1994
02:01:04.390 --> 02:01:13.180
I did sci-fi kid family tokusatsu action with Psycho Goreman.
1995
02:01:13.720 --> 02:01:13.960
I did.
1996
02:01:14.640 --> 02:01:19.579
little troublemaker monsters with Frankie Frico did sword and sorcery
1997
02:01:19.619 --> 02:01:23.859
at death stalker. I'd love to do budget sci-fi horror, uh,
1998
02:01:24.439 --> 02:01:27.619
with this next one, which I also feel is very
1999
02:01:27.659 --> 02:01:30.640
in keeping with the Roger Corman theme I have going
2000
02:01:30.720 --> 02:01:34.420
because he definitely has his run of sci-fi horror genre movies.
2001
02:01:34.439 --> 02:01:37.720
And that's part of what inspired this is I was like, well,
2002
02:01:37.760 --> 02:01:41.779
he did the death stalker run of fantasy movies, you know,
2003
02:01:41.819 --> 02:01:44.550
his sci-fi horror movies, uh, got a lot of traction
2004
02:01:44.590 --> 02:01:47.369
too i'm a big fan of uh forbidden world and
2005
02:01:47.869 --> 02:01:51.550
galaxy of terror as well so yeah sort of inspired
2006
02:01:51.609 --> 02:01:54.170
by it by those types of films and those types
2007
02:01:54.189 --> 02:01:57.729
of budget sci-fi films specifically so it's a genre i
2008
02:01:57.789 --> 02:01:59.850
really want to play around in at some.
2009
02:01:59.689 --> 02:02:04.420
Point and i just had a personal comment about psycho
2010
02:02:04.439 --> 02:02:09.340
gore man that um I love how diabolical that little
2011
02:02:09.380 --> 02:02:12.819
girl is and I think it kind of reflects how
2012
02:02:12.939 --> 02:02:17.079
diabolical little girls can be when they're kind of thought
2013
02:02:17.140 --> 02:02:20.460
of as, you know, sweet and often, you know, in movies,
2014
02:02:20.539 --> 02:02:23.800
sweet and then we get these diabolical girl characters and
2015
02:02:23.899 --> 02:02:27.939
I like the bad seed or whatever. I love a, like,
2016
02:02:28.100 --> 02:02:31.939
diabolical girl and she is one of the most diabolical
2017
02:02:31.960 --> 02:02:34.949
girls screen and I love that you know it's this
2018
02:02:35.210 --> 02:02:38.930
evil galactic monster like the ultimate evil but she is
2019
02:02:39.010 --> 02:02:43.229
like way more evil and menacing and I love that
2020
02:02:43.250 --> 02:02:46.760
because so many of those 80s films are all about
2021
02:02:46.880 --> 02:02:50.899
boys right yeah they're all about but you know like
2022
02:02:51.159 --> 02:02:54.510
the gate and the explorers and whatever they're all about
2023
02:02:54.560 --> 02:02:57.909
boys yeah I found it kind of funny and some
2024
02:02:57.970 --> 02:03:01.170
reviews and some people said, Oh, that girl's so annoying.
2025
02:03:01.229 --> 02:03:04.680
And I thought, no, we've had like the whole eighties
2026
02:03:04.760 --> 02:03:08.880
was full of annoying boys. So now we've got a
2027
02:03:08.920 --> 02:03:10.460
diabolical girl and it was.
2028
02:03:10.460 --> 02:03:11.159
All for me.
2029
02:03:11.180 --> 02:03:13.590
Awesome. I found it so hilarious.
2030
02:03:14.050 --> 02:03:16.810
I appreciate that because it is true to life. Speaking
2031
02:03:16.869 --> 02:03:20.409
from experience with like people in my life who have
2032
02:03:21.250 --> 02:03:24.869
young daughters, like, yeah, they're all weirdos, they're all crazy,
2033
02:03:25.029 --> 02:03:28.050
and it's awesome, and why are we not capitalizing on this?
2034
02:03:28.170 --> 02:03:32.670
It was very inspiring to talk to some of my
2035
02:03:32.710 --> 02:03:35.189
friends' kids and just be like, oh, you're totally in
2036
02:03:35.220 --> 02:03:39.779
your own universe, and you make your own laws, and
2037
02:03:40.060 --> 02:03:42.239
the world works the way you want it to at
2038
02:03:42.279 --> 02:03:44.939
that age, and that's just such an interesting time to me,
2039
02:03:44.979 --> 02:03:47.439
and that's when the idea really came together, and I
2040
02:03:47.479 --> 02:03:51.119
was like, what could stand up to an intergalactic like
2041
02:03:51.220 --> 02:03:55.060
space warlord it's like yeah obviously like a 11 year
2042
02:03:55.079 --> 02:03:58.199
old girl who just is like mean to her brother
2043
02:03:58.420 --> 02:04:02.119
like of course she would have the attitude to stand
2044
02:04:02.199 --> 02:04:04.439
up to that guy and not just stand up to
2045
02:04:04.479 --> 02:04:06.920
him but like piss him off and annoy him as
2046
02:04:06.979 --> 02:04:10.020
well like know how to get under his skin so
2047
02:04:10.340 --> 02:04:12.539
yeah thank you I appreciate that it's always good to
2048
02:04:12.579 --> 02:04:16.909
hear when people connect with that character because yeah she
2049
02:04:16.970 --> 02:04:20.090
is annoying but that's the whole point that's again true
2050
02:04:20.109 --> 02:04:20.529
to life.
2051
02:04:21.270 --> 02:04:24.489
I found her a joy. That's great.
2052
02:04:24.689 --> 02:04:28.319
Next time I talk to her, I'll let her know. Yeah.
2053
02:04:28.520 --> 02:04:29.000
Loved it.
2054
02:04:29.460 --> 02:04:29.979
Amazing.
2055
02:04:30.920 --> 02:04:31.319
Oscar.
2056
02:04:31.960 --> 02:04:35.659
And speaking of joys, it was an absolute joy and
2057
02:04:35.699 --> 02:04:37.970
a pleasure to have you on the show, Stephen. Thank
2058
02:04:38.010 --> 02:04:42.670
you so much. Most importantly, for your time to talk
2059
02:04:42.689 --> 02:04:46.430
with us about your new film, Deathstalker means the world.
2060
02:04:47.180 --> 02:04:49.359
Oh, thank you. Great chatting with you guys. This was
2061
02:04:49.420 --> 02:04:52.090
super fun. I'm always down to go on these weird
2062
02:04:52.100 --> 02:04:55.930
deep dives into genre movies. These are the conversations I
2063
02:04:55.970 --> 02:04:59.149
like having. So you guys want to do it again sometime?
2064
02:04:59.229 --> 02:05:00.510
Let's make it happen.
2065
02:05:01.229 --> 02:05:01.550
Done.
2066
02:05:01.590 --> 02:05:01.890
Yeah.
2067
02:05:01.989 --> 02:05:05.689
Thank you so much for being so generous, generous with
2068
02:05:05.729 --> 02:05:10.909
your time. And yeah, it was awesome because like I mentioned,
2069
02:05:10.930 --> 02:05:16.479
I've been kind of, following since father's day and before
2070
02:05:16.539 --> 02:05:20.640
that and reading about like astron six in room or
2071
02:05:20.699 --> 02:05:24.390
magazine and stuff way back when. So yeah, it was
2072
02:05:24.489 --> 02:05:25.069
really great.
2073
02:05:25.090 --> 02:05:28.010
Well, that's awesome. It was super fun chatting with you guys.
2074
02:05:30.149 --> 02:05:34.039
Thank you so much. And, um, Once again, I'll mention
2075
02:05:34.060 --> 02:05:37.600
this one more time. The Deathstalker series, the Deathstalker collection,
2076
02:05:37.640 --> 02:05:42.079
which includes one, the original Deathstalker, Deathstalker 2 and Steven's
2077
02:05:42.140 --> 02:05:47.250
version of Deathstalker. They'll be out on September 30th, 2026
2078
02:05:47.250 --> 02:05:50.289
from Imprint Films. And then I believe a couple of
2079
02:05:50.329 --> 02:05:53.729
weeks later from other retailers here in Australia. And of course,
2080
02:05:54.510 --> 02:05:58.409
Imprint Films ships worldwide. So wherever you are in the world,
2081
02:05:58.989 --> 02:06:02.630
make sure you grab a copy because... it's a great set. Definitely.
2082
02:06:04.029 --> 02:06:06.159
Once again, Steven, thank you so much. And of course,
2083
02:06:06.199 --> 02:06:09.720
thank you to my family, Suzanne and Ron for joining
2084
02:06:09.739 --> 02:06:14.520
in on this episode. And, um, yeah, we'll discuss more
2085
02:06:14.649 --> 02:06:16.829
soon and we got plenty more to do. We've got
2086
02:06:16.850 --> 02:06:20.989
plenty more episodes planned for you, everybody. So, Thank you
2087
02:06:21.029 --> 02:06:23.229
so much, everybody, and thank you all for joining in
2088
02:06:23.270 --> 02:06:26.489
on this episode, and hope you all have a good one.
2089
02:06:26.890 --> 02:06:29.430
See you soon. Thank you for listening and watching this
2090
02:06:29.489 --> 02:06:32.989
latest episode of Imprintcast. Imprintcast is a part of Someone's
2091
02:06:33.010 --> 02:06:36.600
Fair Productions podcast network. Thank you so much for listening
2092
02:06:36.619 --> 02:06:38.340
and watching, and hope you all have a good one.