TALES OF THE DAMNED (IMAGINATION FILMS)

This is the movie I am best known for and it has been good to me. Filmed over 6 grueling months in 1998 with the largest cast I had ever worked with, a total of 25 actors and 15 crew members. I also had huge transportation problems to over come, stunts to plan and people to bring in from out of state.
Two of the stories were written by others, Soul Eaters was written by Alan Tromp and our narrator and Host Joe Lucier had written Lifelong Friends. Six tales of terror were planned and I got the casting done as I had never done before, oh I did get my friends and co-workers, but I also went to a very lovely young woman named Laurie McFee of the Montana Model and Talent Agency because I needed a special woman for a short story entitled One Strange Lady and I managed to hire a very sexy woman named April Goettle for the part.
Filming started in March of 1998 and I had a budget of $8000 to work with. With all the details worked out filming went fine for the first few weeks, but trouble develpoed when several actors didn't arrive on the set and I had to recast roles quickly. The next problem developed when we were filming the story One Strange lady and our main special effect didn't work. I had hired April for $100 per day and we still didn't have the effect done after her time expired so i had to fork over more money and finish filming her scene two weeks later and this was costly, but we finally got it done.
Derek Koch and his effects group supplied the excellent make up. Derek is a good man and knows exactly what he is doing with make up effects.
The next problem occured when we were filming a story called Lifelong Friends in a local motel room and the rumour spread that we were making a porno film so i wrote a letter to the newspaper explaining that we were making a horror film. I was known in town as a filmmaker, so why people thought of porno is beyond me.
When we finished filming I noticed that the film was a little shorter in running time than i had planned so i decided to use the footgae from Soul Eaters and shoot new scenes..a la Ed Wood. One of these new scenes involved a killer scarecrow, but he kept tripping over everything and we decided against it. You can see this hiliarious footage during the closing credits. Also we has a scene where I played Asteroth, the demon from hell and I had to set myself on fire, so being a low budget film i simply wore a suit, had Derek Koch make me up like a monster, smear vasoline mixed with lighter fluid on my clothes and get set on fire by a blow torch!!
Livingston Montana is one of the windiest places on earth and the wind was blowing that day. people all day had told me not to do this, but I never give up when making a movie. We started filming the scene and the blaze started and it was a rush. The other effects were to be added in later. i burned my legs, never told the crew how much it hurt and moved on to the next scene. This scene never made it into the film, but you can see it after the closing credits. Yes, I am crazy.
The movie finally wrapped in late August of 1998 and then the real fun started........