Well I
first spotted Joe Zaso when I
bought the DVD of Nikos
the Impaler as I was curious of Felissa Rose's work. The
film was very Z-grade and it
lacked but both did a fine job in
it. Then I realised that like
Felissa, Joe also had a cult
following too and gained a
reputation in low budget horror
films. Not only that, him and I
got in touch and he sent me some
of his filmwork like 5
Dead on the Crimson Canvas,
Guilty Pleasures and And
Then They Were Dead. He
has a great attitude towards
others and has his own film
company too.
Joe Zaso
was a native New Yorker born in
Queens where many celebrities
were born and raised in.
At
the age of 6 Joe knew he wanted
to be an actor and like to
perform in school plays when he
was 9 or backyard plays with the
neighborhood kids where he lived.
His brother - who is now a
pediatrician - used to make home
movies (sci-fi movies and vampire
movies) and that inspired me to
make his own. His first movies
even as a child were horror
movies and was a fan of them.
Joe
got his first taste of
professional acting when he was
21 years of age doing a regional
theatre productions of I
Hate Hamlet and Red
Scare on Sunset as well
as numerous extra work in TV and
film. He also took some scene
study and movement for actors
courses.
Joe
also made national and
international appearances as
Spider-Man, Captain America and
The Incredible Hulk for Marvel
Entertainment.
Not
only that, Joe is also an avid
bodybuilder and is cast mainly as
tall, brawny villains
Joe's
first horror film was The
Hypnotisem which was a
take-off on The Fury.
The story was about telekenetic
teenagers causing people to bleed
and authories chasing after them.
Joe
then formed his own film company
titled Cinema Image Productions
in 1996 and created the horror
film 5 Dead on the
Crimson Canvas as he
played the title role named Bill
Streeb which was a take on
Italian horror films as Bill is
an estranged brother of an artist
who was murdered and tries to
investigate it. The film was
Winner of the 1996
FANTAFESTIVAL-Rome, Italy plus it
was one of Joe's most memorable
work.
Joe
also worked on a short unfinished
project titled
Frankenstein Reborn
which also starred Debbie Rochon
when she was just getting her
name out there before being
crowned as a scream queen. She
then starred with him in a few of
his other projects like in Alien
Agenda and Rage
of the Werewolf. Both
films have a following in the
underground film industry and
many viewers noticed him in the
flicks.
A
film moderator named Ted
Georgehan enjoyed Joe's work in Rage
of the Werewolf and got
an audtion for him in an
Italian/German horror flick
planned to be shot in Rome named Demonium
which was going to be directed by
Andreas Schnaas as he has gained
a reputation for directing ultra
gory and cheesy German horror
flicks most notably the Violent
Shit trilogies. Joe
planned a holiday trip in Rome
and when he won the role as the
brutish Russian artist and sleazy
womanizer Viktor Plushnikov his
visit there was longer than
planned. Joe found it to be one
of the most interesting and happy
experiences of his life and very
surreal working in Rome in real
castles with the Italian crew.
While
Joe and Andreas was in San
Sebastian, Spain for a showing of
Demonium the two
of them discussed the possibility
of Andreas coming to New York to
make a video feature which
returned to the style of his more
successful Violent Shit movies
as Demonium was
not well-received and was a
finanical failure due to lack of
sales to foreign territories
(mainly because of the lack of
dubbing needed for the
broken-English-speaing cast). So
Andreas went to New York to shoot
a slasher/splatter flick in the
Troma Team vein titled Nikos
the Impaler as Joe
played a college teacher named
Frank Heller and his girlfriend
is played by scream queen Felissa
Rose as they take their student
to a museum to learn a history of
a mutant barbarian who perished
centuries ago but returns from
the dead and slashes people away.
This
project was stressful for Joe but
it did give him publicity to gore
hounds who enjoyed watching him
in the film at the Weekend
of Fear Festival in
Germany.
Another
film that was well received was a
children's direct-to-video
action/horror flick in the same
vein as Goosebumps
titled the Adventures of
Van Helsing: The Lost Scepter.
Joe has a supporting role in the
film as Simon Magus is a fallen
angel, the son of Lucifer. He is
mainly a demon, but a
vampire-style one. The film was a
take on the popular motion
picture Van Helsing but was
released a week before. The film
was produced by the Wal-Mart
store company.
Joe
continues to work with his film
company and has recently worked
more horror flicks. Recently what
came to DVD was a horror
anthology titled Red
Midnight in which he
plays a fallen angel named Lt. Angelo Santana
disguising himself as an FBI
Agent to track down a satanic
killer in the final chapter of
the film which was noted to be
the best one of them all and the
chapter was shot in Rome, Italy
while the rest were shot in Long
Island, New York.
A
film that's now in
post-production is titled Demon
Resurrection which will
soon be out as well either at
film festivals or direct-to-DVD
which Joe has a supporting role
in it.
5
Dead On the Crimson Canvas
1996. The film that Joe got
noticed. A nicely done film but
very low grade. The flick was
trying to aim towards the Italian
horror genre.
Joe does well in
this one as he plays an estranged
brother of a brooding artist
named Bill Streeb as he tries to
investigate the killings as more
are committed in a very gruesome
way. He goes on numerous deadly
adventures and even gets drugged
at a cafe and starts
hallucinating.
Joe also has a sex
scene with the lead actress
played by Liz Haverty who is the
wife of his estranged brother.
Joe does a great job towards the
ending where there's very intense
scene when he finds out that his
brother is still alive. At the
end Joe's character goes crazy.
The film is very psychedelic and
it won an award at the 1996
Fantafestival in Rome, Italy plus
it had a great review on
Cinefantastique Magazine in 1997
as best outlaw video when it had
a video release after the film
festival showings.
Gulity
Pleasures
1997. 2 horror shorts
onto one feature and what have
you got? Guilty Pleasures.
Joe Zaso stars in the first one
as a detective who helps a
troubled woman named Silvia track
down a killer who is giving her
threatening phone calls and is
slaughtering nude models.
Silvia
has a steaming affair with Joe's
character as Joe had to perform a
nude scene in the film.
Eventually we all find out that
the mysterious killer is Joe.
The
next short film was written &
directed by Joe and is a better
story too.
It kind of reminds me
of a show written by R.L. Stine
of a wannabe actress wanting to
break into showbiz along with an
old friend who wants a reunion
even if she has to kill for it.
Joe did a great job with the
story as it was well written and
seemed to know what he was doing
when he directed the piece.
The
film was made on a very Z grade
level and is a little uneven but
for independent b-films that's to
be expected.
Addicted to Murder 3: Blood Lust 2000. I had fun watching the first flick and then the second one lacked more. Yet this one was the best out of all of them about a transformed vampire hero named Joel Winter (Played by Mick McCleerly) trying to terminate all of the deadly vampires in New York City as Joe just has a special appearance in this one for about 4 minutes in two different scene's.
He is a little too over the top and acts a bit silly as a character named Dan who acts opposite of Sarah K. Lippman whom is a transformed vampiress from the second flick as Tricia and is eager to know on how to become one and then in the next scene he acts dark and evil and proves that he is not human at all.
There's an attack scene when she tries to bite him on the neck and someone destroys him with some powder as there's neat cheesy computerised lighting effects and he turns into a skeletal corpse.
Joe didn't seem too keen on this project as you could tell by his performance in it. It was made on a cheap camcorder and it gets confusing taking place mainly at a jail cell with different characters halfway through as it looked like a 2 story anthology but was alot of fun to watch.
Demonium 2001. Joe travelled to Rome, Italy to have a supporting role in this one directed by trashy German gore filmmaker Andreas Schnaas about an elderly man is murdered in his lavish Italian castle. When his friends and family arrive there for the reading of his will, the murderer has plans to continue his gory killing spree.
Joe plays an arrogant and obnoxious douchebag named Viktor Plushnikov trying to solve a case on what is going on in the castle and he fools around with women as well as treating them like crap afterwards. He delivers his part well by behaving this way. He appears halfway through the film and the ball is rolling a great deal when he struts his stuff.
Some well done stuff and shocking gruesome moments. His role defientely gets what is coming to him in the end as he gets hypnotised which is unexplainable as to how he was like this but others were as well and heading to his death bed.
Nikos
the Impaler
2003. After Joe starred
in 'Demonium'
down in Rome with director
Andreas Schnaas, Andreas came up
to Joe's hometown of New York to
shoot this film and casted him as
the lead named Frank Heller who
is a University teacher that
takes his students to a museum to
learn the history of this ancient
cannibalistic mutant Barbarian
named Nikos as legend was he said
he'd return one day and with bad
luck he did and slaughters his
students at the museum.
Then him
and his girlfriend (Who is played
by scream queen Felissa Rose) are
both on the run around Manhattan
from Nikos.
Apparently Joe's
character had a secret about him
which Nikos knew about as he
supposed to be a descendant of
BERIX, who was around during the
year 1000.
Joe and Felissa had
great chemistry working together
as a couple but the story was
very rushed and of course, low
grade but the film in general
focused on just the gore and
killings.
Joe had very mixed
feelings about the film in
general. In the beginning Joe
started off happily enough and he
worked VERY VERY hard on it. But
after a few weeks of working on
it, it indeed became the WORST
experience of his life. He
was the line producer (in charge
of all issues with cast and crew
and organizing and such) and the
lead actor as well as the
chauffeur, costume designer, etc.
Joe had a few fans with this one.
The film reminded me of a Troma
Team film as it had the same
qualities such as the gore but
like Troma Team horror film's had
alot of slapstick comedy too as
well as some nudity and extremely
trashy too. Yet not as disgusting like Troma thank goodness. Not only that, the
film had cameo's by many familiar
b-film actors like Troma Team
president Lloyd Kauffman. The
music throughout the film had a
heavy metal score too.
Machines
of Love & Hate
2003. Instead of
starring Joe turned to producing
for this one as that pays well in
the end (Think of Ron Howard,
Shaun Cassidy or Rob Reiner as
they moved from acting to
producing or directing).
Joe did
well for this one as I give him
two thumbs up as a producer.
Plus, he got great raves for his
work on this.
The film has many
twists to it of a hitchhiker who
was run over accidentally by a
beautiful woman and then taken to
her home. There, he deals with a
dysfunctional family that have
some dark secrets and the
hitchhiker goes through
hallucinations and then they
start to become real as he fears
his death with them.
Very much
like a British style production
although it was in New York.
And
Then They Were Dead
2003. While Joe was in
production with 'Nikos
the Impaler', he worked
on this video project.
Joe plays
an oddball guest named Dr. Mark
Reinbolt who is also sexually
attached to a maid named
Gabrielle (Played by scream queen
Darian Caine). But Reinbolt is
married to a woman named Rebecca
(Played by Lynn Macri who worked
with Joe in '5 Dead On
the Crimson Canvas').
He
sees Gabrielle taking a shower in
a peep hole while Gabrielle gets
slashed. He also accidentally
kills his wife in the film but
gets murdered himself at the
mansion he is at which is run by
cannibals.
A bad film but has
some interesting moments the odd
time. Darian's shower performance
is very similar to her shower
performance in Nikos.
Red
Midnight
2005. This is no doubt
Joe's best performance as a
fallen angel named Lt. Angelo
Santana who
disguises himself as an FBI agent
looking for a cult follower who
is doing satanic sacrifices in
Rome including kidnapping a Nun
before Hell breaks loose but he
has a deadly plan himself.
I
loved how Joe portrayed this
character as he was very bad ass
like in the film and shows great
action sequences surrounding him.
'Red Midnight'
is a horror anthology with three
chapters including this one which
was titled 'Pilgrimage' and his
chapter was shot in Rome of
course and was on the best budget
compared to the other chapters as
this was a very DV type flick.
Joe also produced this film with
his own company. A film worth
checking out if you don't mind no
budgeters as all the stories are
very unique and well acted
none-the-less.
Barricade 2007. Joe has the lead in this 'Wrong Turn' meets 'Hostel' type of ripoff. Filmed in Germany.
He portrays someone who reunites with two old friends and goes travelling to Germany to camp out there only to be terrorised by a family of deformed looking cannibals.
He does fairly well in his role as there's a scene he exploits himself a bit to go skinnydipping in a lake as well as getting caught in a trap and then struggles against the cannibals later on.
However, this film is amateurish junk and made on close to a no budgeter but I've seen worst. Still this was inexcusable. Gorehounds may enjoy the slaughterings in this one though but that was the only moments worth watching.
Tales of Poe 2014. His role is pretty small in this one which is a horror anthology which is 3 chapters based on Edgar Allen Poe's stories and was written by cult icon's Bart Mastronardi, Alan Rowe Kelly & Michael Varrati.
Made on quite a low budget but it's an enjoyable one with a solid cast and plotlines too. Plus it had many b-movie celebrities from flicks we've seen in which alot of the times were only cast in badly made flicks but this isn't one of them making this piece way more enjoyable.
There were 3 chapters in all as Joe was seen in the last one titled 'Dream' which is a somewhat experimental fanasy horror type on a patient in a deep dream and ends up in strange situations as well as the characters very creepy like in which he has a role as a gravedigger burying this patient alive with plastic over her preventing her to breathe which looked psychological.
Zaso himself was hard to notice as he wore a cloak and had a beard but looked the part okay. Nothing too special on what he did but so far this is the best film I've seen him in.
She Wolf Rising 2014. Joe has a cameo in this terrible story that's confusing of a scream queen actress in a film who's a werewolf but it's a film in a film once again showing more terror that's not great folks.
It seems to focus on two horror geeks discussing one of them encountering the scream queen actress and his adventures which she turns and so fourth as there's decent effects but still confusing as to what unravels in each scene.
Joe plays the role of a dream demon standing there topless while there's a near lustful scene happening which looked perfectly twisted and he laughs maniacly on what is happening here. His role wasn't too bad and came across well onto the camera.
It had fair special effects but that did most of the talking as sometimes the story couldn't be fully understood at all. Oh well!
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