Lucifer Valentine: The Godfather of Vomit Gore by Owen Keehnen

If you think you've seen it all, think again. In 'Slaughtered Vomit Dolls' writer/director/editor Lucifer Valentine 666 takes cinematic repulsion to new levels by introducing "vomit gore" to the horror world. 'Slaughtered Vomit Dolls' is the first of Valentine's proposed trilogy of flicks which feature gore blended with gratuitous scenes of the actors actually regurgitating. It's the supreme test for the seasoned horror veteran. This artfully crafted and envelope pushing film also features a fantastic breakout performance by Ameara LaVey as prostitute/stripper on the brink of madness and suicude. Recently I had a few moments to chat with Mr. Valentine about the film, his vision, and the world of vomit gore.


 

  Okay, before we get to the "meat and potatoes" of the interview can you do me a favor and describe the room where you're answering these questions?

Hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, my hot, blind, half-naked sister wandering around aimlessly bumping into things, 18 foot high ceilings, dried bloodstains on Tommy Hilfiger pillows and bed sheets, razorblades, condoms, 24 lit candles, incense/incest in the air.

So it's tough in movies to discover a new horror sub-genre yet your first writer/director/editor movie 'Slaughtered Vomit Dolls' is championing the new extreme of "vomit gore". How did that development come about?

Well, I have always been obsessed with the most extreme movies I could find, and I always made extremely violent drawings and disturbing music for my whole life; then, when I got a bit older, I became an Emetophile around the time that I met and was dating/living with Ameara LaVey. I was constantly shooting stuff with my video camera for several years on end, but when Ameara asked if she could live with me, I just said sure, but you\rquote re gonna get videotaped pretty much at all times cuz I am always shooting; she said "sure ! what do you want me to do?" Well, my sexual relationship with Ameara had me dominating her, she was always extremely submissive with me, and doing all manner of Emetophilic sexual acts, and so I just kept on shooting as I normally would. We realized right away that the footage we were getting was very fascinating to look at and was very dramatic and disturbing, so I came up with various scenes and her character, Angela Aberdeen, Ameara agreed to a 24/7 Method acting/ Master/Slave agreement, and we kept on shooting like that for about eight months.

Are you trying to push the very limits of gore and break new ground by eliciting a physically sick response?

Yes that's definitely part of it; I love the idea that SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS causes pronounced physical responses in many viewers because it can make some people nauseous. Quite often when people have a revolting physical response to my movie they are partially blinded to what they actually saw onscreen and their memory of a particular scene will be "bruised" , i.e. sometimes exaggerated and/or bear psychological bruising which I think causes knee-jerk reactions like the now clich'e "it's just a bunch of people puking!!" and the classic "there's absolutely NO PLOT, NO STORY . . ." etc etc. I also love to have prolonged gore scenes like the eye gouging or brain eating/puking scene in SVD, and not cut away from a scene like that after a few seconds, I LOVE the idea that an entire scene or even sequence/section of a movie can be comprised of an unspeakably gory act for several minutes at a time. So, when I have an entire movie that I've shot, like SVD or the second Vomit Gore movie ReGOREgitated Sacrifice, I love to have many scenes that are incredibly over-the-top on the vomit/gore scale, and with that it's also very important to me to show an interesting connectivity and/or parallel or overlapping planes of consciousness and story events/elements that connect the scenes like a kind of tapestry that gets stitched together. For example, Charles Manson's girls took turns sewing him a beautiful vest that is a tapestry of many different meaningful images and scenarios based on his relationships and experiences with the different girls in his Family. So when the vest was complete and Manson wore it, you could see the "Gruesome Tapestry" , as it were, that had been stitched together representing his Family; each girl would chose slightly different colors, thread, material, and depict a scene that is specific and meaningful to her relationship with Manson and would usually epitomize that relationship, and it is the overall combination of the interconnected, intertwined, colorful and bizarre scenarios that share a common context, that makes the final product coherent BECAUSE of it\rquote s patchwork form: in this example it's a vest for their leader Manson, but in my case it's not a vest but a movie and each gal is represented beautifully and horrifically based on our experience together which is depicted in a scene that I shoot.

Do you have a personal favorite scene in the movie which you think is the sick extreme?

Yes I have a favorite extreme scene, but it\rquote s not even in the final movie that was released because my lawyer and executive producer advised me that we would potentially have lots of problems with the scene so I cut it. I knew this was likely to happen before I even shot the scene with Ameara, so, in SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS, when you see her in the bathroom near a bath tub and she is holding a wooden crucifix and gets undressed, you will see that I have taped a pair of scissors to the wall as a bitter joke to myself knowing that this scene that I absolutely LOVE will likely never be shown to the general public.

Your leading actress in the film, Ameara LaVey, has been getting phenomenal reviews as Angela Aberdeen. How did you go about casting her in the role? With a movie like this what was the audition like?

Well, as I mentioned in a previous answer, Ameara LaVey was my girlfriend at the time, she had been in some adult films and we had some common friends in that realm so that's how we met, she got kicked out of her place and asked if she could stay with me, and I said it was no problem as long as she doesn't mind behind videotaped, at all times, at MY discretion, no matter what, while doing anything that I told her to do. Was there anything she refused to do? Actually no, as part of our agreement, Ameara COULD NOT refuse to do anything I told her to do; we had a Safe Word that she could have used, although she never did, to get me to stop at any time to discuss anything and tell me her concerns, take a break, or just quit the scene or movie all together, but the important aspect to note is that her using of the Safe Word could only occur amidst her already attempting to do whatever scene it may be, so the idea there is that she would at least have to TRY any scene that I could think of no matter what. But, if after invoking the Safe Word and it\rquote s inherent context, if Ameara LaVey wanted to tell me to fuck off and die and walk out on that scene or the movie forever it was MY OBLIGATION to absolutely let her go without question. There was a scene called "The Maggot Joint" , in which Ameara's character, the prostitute Angela Aberdeen, is in a sleazy hotel room where she is brutalized and repeatedly raped for money by her customers, and we see Angela at the end of a night rolling a joint filled with maggots (although we actually used Meal Worms: beetle larvae). Ameara was terrified of the "maggots" squirming and kind of jumping around on the table in front of her, and was having incredible difficulty doing the scene and it was taking forever so I just decided to forget about it so it's not in the movie, but she tried over and over again to roll the maggot joint even though she was very frightened.

And are all the vomit scenes in the film genuine, they look like it -- and if so how did you get the actors to do this? Were there any tricks?

Yes all the vomit scenes are real. All the actors are my friends whether or not I've known them for a long or short period of time, and there's never any discussion or convincing or talking people into puking, they all know me and know what I'm about, so it's just understood that if you're on a Lucifer Valentine Vomit Gore set, as a performer, you will be puking.

However, the gore as well as the film itself is also very stylized. Did you want to explore the juxtaposition of the gorgeous with the grotesque? Did you have any cinematic influences in that realm?

Well the "gore-geous and the grotesque" has always been an innate part of my lifestyle due to my nature, background, and types of friends that I seek out and am sought by, and I always had a video camera surgically attached to my hand since I was young, however, I LOVE and had stylistic influences early on from David Lynch, John Waters, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Spinell, G.G. Allin, Andy Kaufman, Pier Paolo Pasolini the wonderful and caring people who made the first Guinea Pig movie, Brett Easton Ellis' book American Psycho, Harmony Korine, Larry Clark, Paul Reubens, Anton LaVey, Kenneth Anger, and Crispin Glover to name a few of the important ones.

What has been the predominant viewer reaction?

Great !! Open-minded groovy people who like art and music usually love SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS and my work in general. I have met so many incredible and super kool wonderful people through their responses to my movie. Initially, there were some people on various discussion boards who had a negative outlook on the existence of Vomit Gore and SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS, and they're certainly entitled to their opinions, but most of those folks clearly stated that they felt horror/gore movies need to adhere to strict rules often relating to their views on Hollywood "professionalism" and linear plots and conventional rules of pre-established filmmaking, which is the exact opposite of me and my kind of filmmaking so I just ignore negative squares like that because they are is so boring and I focus my energies on kind, interesting people.

I've heard so much about this film on the net and sites and message boards and stuff. Everybody has an opinion. What has been your favorite of all the things your movie has been called?

"The Sickest/Goriest/Most Disturbing movie ever made" , I like seeing those lists people make with their favorites, and I like the quote "No Budget-Handicam-Art Gore-Garage Shocker" as a description someone used in a review I saw somewhere.

And this is the first of a vomit gore trilogy - can you give us a teaser as to what we can expect from you next?

ReGOREgitated Sacrifice, the second Vomit Gore movie in the Trilogy, continues to document Angela Aberdeen's Death; as we see her passing through various planes of consciousness we learn more and more about who Angela Aberdeen is and her origins by focusing on the characters that emerge as aspects of her disintegrating mind as she dies from her suicide by drowning.

Something tells me you can't get 'Slaughtered Vomit Dolls' at your local Blockbuster. How can we pick up a copy?

People can order SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS by going to the official website !! www.slaughteredvomitdolls.com

So I am curious -- what repulses you in everyday life?

Negative energy from human beings repulses and sickens me; I am repulsed by people who do not listen to others, never learn and therefore do not understand the people they come into contact with.

Thanks for the chat Lucifer.

THANKS !! this was fun.