The Wake

There is one ultimate B movie. One that is so extreme in its intentionally bizarre and stupid nature that it can claim to be the most deranged film ever created. This film involves Clive Barker, Texas, llamas, barnyard hanky panky, and some ultra-ridiculous dubbing. This, the be all and end all of B films, is the horror comedy cult classic from 1997, Barn of the Blood Llama (available from bijouflix.com), directed by Texas madman Kevin L. West. I’ve decided for your benefit to present to you a discussion with this autere of insanity. Enjoy!

The Wake: Do you realize that Barn of the Blood Llama is a classic of twisted cinema? Hell, it plays a fairly notable influence in a film I am hoping to shoot soon called Murdeer.

Kevin West: I could only hope we’d be able to warp others when we unleashed this thing on civilization. Hearing your words, I feel that maybe our prayers to the Gods of Bad Cinema haven’t been completely ignored. I knew BOTBL had a reputation within the special ops troops in Kosovo. While no one’s said anything, I think they use the film as part of their torture interrogation techniques. I take it Murdeer is about more than a cuddly fawn with deadly ticks.

The Wake: Would you agree with the description of your directing style as “Ed Wood on Crack”?

KW: Ed Wood, yes. But this thing you call crack. Our minuscule budgets allow nothing as classy as crack. It would more likely be paper bags filled with dollar store paint thinner diluted with gasoline. I especially like Ed Wood’s highly unerotic but comic nudie pictures like Orgy of the Dead and the finally released on DVD, Necromania. A textbook medical case of “auteurism.”

The Wake: Who were your greatest influences as a filmmaker?

KW: Besides Ed Wood Jr. I would include, of course, Divine-era John Waters, Russ Meyer and Fellini. I always loved the shockingly mundane, amateurish nature of Andy Warhol’s cinema. Also, some Mexican, East European and white trash horror, sci-fi and corn porn flicks shown as part of drive-in triple feature packages impressed me greatly.

The Wake: What are you proudest of with your film “career”?

KW: That it’s still being called a career.

The Wake: What in your film career are you least proud of?

KW: Never making a dime. There are a number of projects I would love to see turned from scripts into films. One is about televised capital punishment. And a Reagan era period-piece concerning nuclear reactors, a rubberized mutant baby and steroid addled high school hooligans. Alas, there’s a realm of money and financing that must be realized before anything occurs cinematically and that’s comprised a constant stumbling block.

The Wake: For those who are unaware of your films, tell us, why the hell should they bother?

KW: For the same reason people shouldn’t vote Republican. Democracy is about all points of view and straying from the norm. Religions are interchangeable these days in their righteous mission to make everyone world over conform to their particular interpretation of what’s acceptable. Intolerance is definitely something to be avoided. I try to make movies that illustrate the consequences of adhering to feeble belief systems. Also, no one’s education is really complete until they’ve been exposed to the World o’ Wool tourist trap, inbred brothers Gibby and Jug, and toxic cud-spewing killer llamas all in the same 80 minutes.

The Wake: What is your ultimate goal as a filmmaker?

KW: At present, my main obsession is to get the Rowdy Roundup festival ready before any other cast or crewmembers bite the dust. Ultimately, I would love to be a writer on humorous episodic projects like Arrested Development, The Simpsons or Comedy Central’s axed Strangers With Candy. I can come up with absurd little 3 to 5 minute sketches easily. Developing these fragments into feature length works though – that’s almost as frustrating as turning contaminated stem cells into viable human organs.

The Wake: What do you do for “real” work?

KW: No one at my office has ever been able to figure that out. I get paychecks from the University of Texas for performing video services for various departments. These services range from digitizing video, to taping lectures to post-production editing and graphics that make Texas politicians look like they’re not lying sacks of pestilence.

The Wake: How the fuck did you get Clive Barker to appear in BOTBL?

KW: We trapped him. Clive was appearing in Austin to promote his new line of comic books. Luckily, one of our actors, Raven Greywolf, a woman who’d appeared in one of his films while living in England, hastily introduced us to him. We’d already prepared giant cue cards of his speech so before he could leave the studio after his presentation, our noisy cameras were rolling and he was our “hostage” for 15 minutes. He seemed to appreciate that we were using clunky Super-8 film cameras to create our opus. That, and he’d always wanted the opportunity to wax philosophically about Male Berserk Syndrome.

The Wake: Any advice for other no budget filmmakers?

KW: Like another filmmaker friend says, “you can’t make a movie without lying to people.” Say or do whatever you must to interest actors, secure locations, acquire props and get “free” set materials. If you can’t pay anybody, you have to feed your cast and crew like kings. Try to turn disasters into assets. If an actor quits in the middle of production, cast someone else as that character, finish filming, and include dialogue about that character having split personalities. Use the Internet to publicize your masterwork and look for international markets for your film. Sometimes even your hometown won’t recognize your “achievements in arts and science” until you’re big in Serbia or manage a midnight showing in Manchester, England.

The Wake: What do you think of heavy usage of gore in films?

KW: I’m all for it, especially real life gore. New generations of Americans need to see nightly graphic footage ala Vietnam of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians being blown to bits while Bush slashes social services and demands tax cuts for the uber-rich. Then the gore would only be as gratuitous as this whole Iraqi boondoggle that’s killing our kids and ruining the economy.

The Wake: Any last words, advice, complaints, rants, plugs you’d like to make?

KW: See rant above. Plugs: I swear on a stack of illustrated Korans that Rowdy Roundup: Night Of The Killer Piñatas is going to be exhibit ready in 2005. For more info: www.rowdyroundup.com. Thanks for this opportunity to vent and to spew. My blood pressure has lowered several points already.