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Owen: Hey Jennifer, do you recall the
first time you were scared by a movie?
Jennifer: When I was about 7 or 8, my
mom and I were visiting some of her friends in
upstate NY. Their house was in a wooded area by a
lake, and didnt have air conditioning so we
had to sleep with the windows open. One of the
nights we were there, we all decided to
stay in and watch movies. Well, the movies that
they chose to watch were Friday The
13th and Cat
People. I liked horror movies and
I think I had even seen Friday the 13th,
so I thought I could handle it. I was sleeping on
the sofa bed on the first floor of the house with
windows right beside the bed. OH MY GOD, I was so
terrified that Jason or some other crazy killer
was going to burst through the window during the
night. I kept waking up my mom all night because
I was so terrified. Thats the first memory
I have of a movie really scaring the shit out of
me.
Owen: As a costar (as 'Ice Cream
Girl) and co producer of 'Chainsaw
Sally', tell me how that cult hit came
about?
Jennifer:
JimmyO and April Burril had done a stage play
called Silver Scream and
they decided to make a movie out of it as sort of
a demo for the play. They came up with the
character Chainsaw Sally
to promote the movie, the stage play, and their
website as a horror hostess. In 2003, the Burrils
were showing Silver Scream,
the movie, at a convention in Maryland called
Balticon. Sally was
introducing all of the films that were screened
at the convention. One of the audience
members was Mark Redfield of Redfield Arts.
So, after Silver Scream,
Mark approached Jimmy and April Burril to tell
them that he enjoyed their film. They
traded contact information and a few days later
Jimmy Burril called Mark Redfield to discuss a
project that he was thinking about. (I think it
had something to do with space vultures.) Then,
Jimmy mentioned that horror hostess
Chainsaw Sally was getting a lot of
hits on the web and that maybe he could do a
movie about her. Well, Mark was like Come
on over, thats a great idea! So
thats how it all started.
Owen: 'Chainsaw Sally' is receiving some great press for it's
special brand of "outrageous
horror". How did you manage to
get Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen and
Herschell Gordon Lewis (of 'Blood Feast' fame) in
the cast?
Jennifer: Gunnar Hansen came across the
www.chainsawsally.com site on the Internet and
e-mailed April Burril to tell her how much he
liked her character and the site. She said that
she flipped when she got the e-mail and at first
questioned whether or not it was really him
writing to her. After she was convinced that it
really was Gunnar they started chatting a bit
on-line. JimmyO Burril had already started going
over ideas for the Chainsaw
Sally film and figured Hey,
you never know until you ask! so he just
flat out asked him if he would be in the movie
and if he would play Sallys dad. He
said yes! JimmyO immediately called Mark
Redfield, who is the producer and plays
Steve in the film, and said
OH MY GOD! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE
THIS! WE HAVE GUNNAR HANSEN!
As for
Herschell, the Burrils had been huge fans of his
for a long, long time. I think JimmyO said that
the first movie he ever rented in a video store
was a Herschell Gordon Lewis film. Again,
it was just a matter of contacting him and asking
if he would do it. He also accepted!Its
funny because I think Chainsaw
Sally was the first film that
Herschell acted in. JimmyO was so nervous to
direct this famous cult director that he grew up
idolizing. On top of that, Herschells
scenes were scheduled on the first day of
shooting! The first day is always a bit nerve
wrecking anyway because everyone is still kind of
trying to get in synch with each other. But
Herschell was great! Jimmy had nothing to worry
about. Herschell took direction very well and
really listened and understood what we were
trying to accomplish with his character. He
totally got it. Hes the quirky local
hardware store owner who innocently sells Sally
all of her tools.
Owen: Did they both have a big
awareness of their cult status among horror fans?
Jennifer: I think both Gunnar and
Herschell are aware of their cult status but
neither of them plays on it. They are both very
friendly, easy to get along with people.
Gunnar attends a lot of the horror conventions
and always has a line to get his autograph. I
think its great that he can have that many
people idolize him and still be so down to earth.
He really appreciates his fans.
Owen: Did you gush over them or
restrain yourself?
Jennifer: I
was very good. One of my jobs as associate
producer was to pick Herschell and Gunnar up from
the airport and take them to the hotel. So, we
were able to chat on the drive back from the
airport. We just talked about general things, not
really about movies. It was very friendly and
professional.
Owen: You
have also been featured in John Waters' latest 'A
Dirty Shame' --- was he aware of 'Chainsaw
Sally'?
Jennifer: I believe he was aware
of the project. We were shooting Sally
at the same time he was shooting A
Dirty Shame. Baltimore has a small
but up-and-coming film community and just about
everybody knows, or knows of everyone else. I was
told that he knew of the project but I
didnt get to ask him about it because he
was very busy directing everyone at the location.
Owen: What was it like working
for him in the movie? What's something
unique he does as a director?
Jennifer: He was very funny in a
perverse sort of way but was very professional at
the same time. Most of the key crewmembers he had
worked with for a long time so it was like a big
family. I was a sex addict so at one
point I had to run up to Chris Isaac and attack
him. Waters was like just run over to him
and feel him up. I was fine with that
direction! It just sounded funny coming out of
his mouth that way. He really seems to be having
a good time doing what hes doing and he
wants you to have a good time as well.
Owen: Tell me a little something
about 'BloodShadow'
Jennifer:
"BloodShadow" opens with a
woman (my character) waking up not knowing who
she is or what has happened to her. Soon after,
she realizes that she is being chased but she
doesn't know why. She comes to realize that she
has been bitten and is a vampire. There is also
this guy that she finds who is trying to protect
her and lead her to the "safe place"
for creatures like herself. Meanwhile, on her
journey she has to constantly escape her
pursuers. It takes place in sort of an alternate
universe. It's not really the future or the past.
Kind of like "Escape from New York".
There are a lot of experimental elements and a
lot of action sequences.
Owen: You also just finished
your work as April in 'The Last Ride of
the Raven' also filmed in
Baltimore. Do you plan on moving out of the
city or can a substantial career be made there?
Jennifer: The Last Ride Of The
Raven is a comedy set in Baltimore
and Ocean City, MD directed by George Rivers.
Its about a guy whos trying to get
his older, slightly slow, but very talented
brother out of trouble because he got roped up
with the wrong crowd. So him and his friends
steal his fathers prize possession, a car
named The Raven, to
go to Ocean City to rescue his brother. Along the
way they meet a bunch of crazy characters and
have to deal with them as they search for the
brother. It should be a fun film to watch. To me
it seems to be a cross between American Graffiti
and a Waters film.
To answer the second part of the question, I want
to get some really good experience before I move
to LA or New York. In those cities, you are like
a small fish in a big sea. There are so many
people who want to be actors. I figure that
I might be a step ahead by gaining experience
before moving to one of those cities.
Owen:
I also see you are Rosalind in 'Terror in
the Tropics' which "costars"
Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney
Jr. What's the story there? How does
that work?
Jennifer: Modern technology.
Gary and Sue Svehla of Midnight Marquee are
allowed to use footage from some of these great
actors films. Sue Svehla, who wrote and
directed it thought it would be a cool idea to
mix the old footage with new footage to create a
whole new movie. A lot of it was shot with blue
screen and sets that would match the scenes from
the Lugosi, Chaney, and Karloff films. I recently
saw a rough cut and its looking pretty
cool.
Owen: What's next for you?
Jennifer:
Right now I am working on a new film directed by
Mark Redfield called The Death Of
Poe. Again, I am helping with the
production end as well as playing a role in it.
Its about the last week of Edgar Allan
Poes life. Very little is actually
known about what happened to him but, it is known
that a week before he died he traveled from
Richmond, Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland.
Several days later he was found, very ill, and
taken to the hospital where he spent his final
few days in a delirious state. The film sort of
fills in the gaps touching on theories of what
happened to him during those missing
days. I will be playing Mrs. Moran,
the wife of the doctor who cared for him while he
was in the hospital and who prepares him for
burial. We have a really great cast and crew and
the locations that weve chosen really
capture the feel of the 1840s. There are
some wonderful old buildings from that era in
downtown Baltimore. For this film, I know that
Mark Redfield is very influenced by the styles of
The Elephant Man and In Cold
Blood. It should turn out to be a
beautifully shot film.
Owen: What's
something that makes you scream in real life?
Jennifer: Being tickled! It
makes me scream like a banshee. I cant take
it. Its torturous to me. I am the biggest
puss when it comes to being tickled. Even the
threat of it gets me tense. |
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