 Excellent look at the diverse lives and careers of filmmakers If you enjoy reading about low budget and the trashier side of video, DVD, and cinema then Sequelland: A Story of Dreams and Screams is a treasure trove of facts, anecdotes, and fascinating pearls of wisdoms from the world of Hollywood and its outer backwaters. The movers and shakers interviewed are far from household names, but even if you do not know them from Adam that fact should not put you off, these guys have fascinating tales to spins. I am not going to bother pretending I have viewed and marvelled at Puppet Master 5, Leprechaun: Origins or many of the other flicks referenced in the book, but once again, it did not detract from an insightful series of interviews into careers which might not necessarily pick up much media coverage elsewhere. Sequelland is essentially a series of very revealing interviews with eleven filmmakers, who have all had success to some extent, and its strength lies in the fact that author Jay Slayton-Joslin really knows his source material on who are journeymen filmmakers to most readers. He does not waste our time with lame-arsed queries and asks the interviewees unique questions and allows their answers to dominate the flow of the narrative, which he skilfully steers towards his key subject of sequels. What becomes apparent, whatever your opinion on trash-cinema is, Slayton-Joslin sees these filmmakers as artists and is very respectful about their careers and this creates a rapport in which the interviewees genuinely open-up in very engaging chats. The core concept is a brilliant one and the interviews all circle this key concept: What, if anything, can a filmmaker who arrives late in a franchise bring to the party? Is originality expected or possibly even frowned upon? Although the interviews cover a lot of ground this question is the thread which links them all together and I found this fascinating and it got me thinking about films I had not seen in many years. When Adam Marcus directed Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday he became one of the youngest ever directors of a mainstream Hollywood film and according to Marcus the merits of this film are still debated 25+ years later as he attempted to break the mould of the previous Jason films. Personally, I remember it as being utter crap, but what Adam Marcus says interested me enough to mull over whether I need to take another look at the film? More than one interviewee notes that you must look beyond Rotten Tomato and IMDB scores, so I guess we need to look beyond the 24% this film scores on RT! Twenty years later Marcus directed Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, which had a twenty million budget cut down to eight which restricted what they wanted to do with the kill scenes which was an eventful career development. The interview with Uwe Boll, who specialises in films based upon video games, gave a fascinating account of how the death of the DVD market for streaming has really hurt the low budget film world. He frequently made films for between 300,000USD and 500,000USD and although his stuff was rarely seen in the cinema, they always made profit from the DVD market, with the sequels often being made more cheaply than the first on the same set. I cannot vouch for the quality of In the Name of the King I, II, or III, Seed, Bloodrayne I or II and Last Mission but this guy came across as an amiable wheeler and dealing businessman. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Jeff Burr whose first appearance in IMDB dates way back to 1982 and he notes that prospective employers would look him up on IMDB and straight away peg him for “those kind of movies” and has been involved in four relatively well known franchises. In 1989 he directed Stepfather II and the interview details the struggle he had in securing the services of Terry O’Quinn in returning to the role. The original had been a low budget sleeper hit which hit the cinemas and did massive business on video, if you have never seen it try and track it down, avoid the garbage remake lurking on Netflix. Burr notes how unambitious the studio was with Stepfather II and they would happily have released a substandard product, knowing it was still going to make money. Burr also directed Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5 and Pumpkinhead II and was cheerfully philosophical about his involvement with these ongoing franchises and was honest about the diminishing budgets of the Puppet Master films and getting blanked by the director of the original Pumpkinhead who did not want there ever to be a sequel. John Skipp reveals how when he had been hired to write A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, the company behind the film secretly got someone else to write an alternative script and after he was fired from the project his script was given to the other guy! The final result was an awful movie (arguably the worst in the series), which John had to battle to have his contribution honoured in the credits. Peter Webber recounts how he went from making the art house hit Girl with a Pearl Earring to Hannibal Rising, which is widely regarded as the weakest entry in the franchise, but at least he got to chat extensively with Thomas Harris. The interview with Kevin Greutert was also revealing, detailing how his job as editor in the early Saw films, led to him directing Saw 3D and Saw VI and all the problems the series had after killing Jigsaw off too early in the series. Coincidently, I spotted my daughter watching Jackals on the Horror Channel the other night, another directorial effort from Kevin. Others featured in the book include: Ernie Barbarash, responsible for Cube Zero, Stir of Echoes: the Homecoming; Zack Lipovsky, responsible for Leprechaun: Origins; Katt Shea, responsible for Poison Ivy, The Rage: Carrie 2, Stripped to Kill and II and Mary Lambert who directed Pet Semetary 1 and 2, and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary.  The final word goes to the fascinating interview with Kevin Yagher who only directed one major film, Hellraiser: Bloodline which is regarded as one of the weakest films in the franchise. Kevin points out that nobody sets out to make a bad film and this production was crippled with so many problems it was eventually anonymously credited to Alan Smithee. After this disaster Kevin returned to his main area of expertise, special effects, and make-up where he has worked on long running tv shows such as Bones and big budget films such as Face Off. Very recently he has been involved in one of the most highly anticipated film of 2020, Bill & Ted Face the Music. Along the way Sequelland author Jay Slayton-Joslin intersperses the interview with several very personal interludes which I found pleasantly engaging. These cover his love of film, his personal worries and where he hopes life may take him. It was a quirky way to split up the interviews, I got the impression he was a fairly young guy, perhaps not even old enough to remember the golden era of video shops and VHS, but his love of trash, b-movies and horror films really shone through. He sounded like a cool dude to chat about films with. Now, do I really need to watch Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday again? What do you think Jay? Tony Jones   THE HEART AND SOUL OF HORROR REVIEW WEBSITESComments are closed.
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