Trash Fans should read this cool article in the Sacramento Bee about TFO!
By Carla Meyer
cmeyer@sacbee.comPublished: Friday, Jul. 10, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 22TICKET
- Photo by Bryan Patrick – bpatrick@sacbee.com
- Photo by Bryan Patrick – bpatrick@sacbee.com
- Photo By Bryan Patrick bpatrick@sacbee.com
In the world of horror and exploitation films, there’s a fine line between trash (gross but fun) and garbage (gross, period).
The organizers of the Trash Film Orgy, which starts Saturday at the Crest Theatre, try to heed that line whether programming other people’s films for their weeks-long midnight-movie series or shooting their own movies.
“I love horror movies, but I like the ones that have something of a sense of humor,” said Darin Wood, 43, a partner in TFO with his wife, Christy Savage, 39, and Amy Slockbower, 35. “Some (horror films) are just too gritty.”
And this is coming from a guy who, as a director, included loving close-ups of headless necks in 2008′s “Monster From Bikini Beach,” the first full-length feature from TFO Productions, which previously made several short films. But movies carrying the TFO stamp tend to mitigate the gore with a high camp factor.
Kicking off with the cheeseball 1980 sci-fi epic “Flash Gordon,” the Trash Film Orgy concludes Aug. 15 with the 1970s “blaxploitation” film “Black Belt Jones.” In between, TFO will serve up such gems as “Satan’s Cheerleaders” and “Chopping Mall” (hint: There’s no Macy’s).
Accompanied by elaborate stage shows, games and heckling from audience members, the midnight movies usually attract a core audience of 250 people or so who, Savage said, will “come to pretty much anything we show.”
She isn’t sure how the economy will affect attendance this year. But the film series already has bucked the recession in one way: Callson Manor, a haunted house that sets up shop in Roseville around Halloween time, is helping underwrite the event.
“It’s our first sponsor!” Savage said with a laugh. TFO also might draw in bigger crowds than usual by showing “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” the 1992 Kristy Swanson-Luke Perry film that begat the Sarah Michelle Gellar TV series and the ensuing madness, in some circles, for all things “Buffy.”
“There’s a certain amount of what we call butts-in-seats movies” that TFO always shows, Savage said. Though they might not fit the “trash” requirements per se, these pictures fit the midnight-movie bill because of their large cult followings.
“They help offset things (financially) so we can show other movies.”
Now in its ninth year, the Trash Film Orgy has become part of the Sacramento cultural landscape. In terms of the total TFO agenda, however, the film series is only part of the picture.
Now readying its second feature film, the Wood-scripted “Planet of the Vampire Women,” TFO Productions has established a business plan, retained the services of an entertainment lawyer and is seeking the participation of investors in “Vampire,” budgeted at $25,000.
” ‘Monster From Bikini Beach’ was more of our hobby project, and ‘Planet of the Vampire Women’ is more of our business project,” said Slockbower, joining Wood and Savage on a recent afternoon at the place where much of the TFO magic happens: Wood and Savage’s backyard in midtown Sacramento.
Outside the couple’s live-work space lies a bounty of plywood, Styrofoam and monster parts – and just enough room for TFO organizers and volunteers to fashion props for stage productions and films.
Graphic artists by trade who met in the early 1990s as co-workers at Tower Books on Watt Avenue, Wood and Savage handle most technical filmmaking details as well, including the stylized, shimmering depictions (Savage is the cinematographer) of go-go dancers in “Bikini Beach.”
“Our stuff is slicker than a lot of what you see people doing” with other ultra-low-budget films, Savage said. Indeed, “Monster From Bikini Beach” might be one of the better-looking movies ever made for $5,000.
Part of the fun lies in the film’s constant winks at the audience, from frequent references to the rampaging beast of the title as “semi-aquatic” to a main character’s eroticized shower dream sequence that stars only … herself.
The film impressed DVD distributor Maxim Media, which picked up international rights to “Bikini Beach.” TFO is still negotiating domestic distribution for the DVD, currently available only through the TFO Web site, www.trashfilmorgy.com.
“We do a lot of low-budget independent horror, (and ‘Bikini Beach’) was a cut above,” Maxim acquisitions director Dustin Lowry said by telephone from the company’s headquarters in Tempe, Ariz. “The production values were good. … It was a different take. It was very campy but maintained that midnight-movie feel.”
Maxim recently made a deal, Lowry said, to sell the film in Japan, where monster movies always are big.
Buoyed by positive response to “Bikini,” Savage, Wood and Slockbower plan to start shooting “Vampire” in September and, eventually, to earn their livings entirely through TFO ventures.
Savage and Wood always had moviemaking in mind, even before the explosion of readily available and relatively inexpensive digital filmmaking technology made the idea more feasible. And Slockbower, who met Savage and Wood via her ex-husband – “I kind of won Trash Film Orgy in the divorce,” she jokes – now shares the same goals as her business partners.
Trash Film Orgy “was always kind of a hobby thing” for her, Slockbower said. “But I started getting the itch as well after ‘Monster From Bikini Beach.‘”
Slockbower, who works for a real estate and tax-preparation firm, and is, all agree, the most practical of the TFO principals, helps harness the TFO‘s greatest resource: the many volunteers who work on its stage shows and films.
The community that has sprung up around TFO provides most of his social life, said Wood, who otherwise works mostly solo on art projects and scripts. Last fall, during an extended period without new TFO projects on which to collaborate, “It was like, ‘I don’t have any friends,’ ” he said with a laugh.
But this period also was particularly productive for Wood, who churned out three scripts, one of which particularly excites him.
“There is a giant armadillo in it,” Wood said, beaming. “It’s so cool – it has a real Southwest vibe to it.”
Giant armadillos, vampire women, semi-aquatic monsters – no matter the focal point of TFO-made films, they will follow a proven exploitation-horror formula, Wood explained:
“Every five or 10 minutes, you have to show blood or have (a woman’s) top coming off.”
TRASH FILM ORGY
The ninth edition of the 18-and-over midnight-movie series starts Saturday night.
All shows take place at the Crest Theatre, 1013 K St., Sacramento. Doors open at 11:30 p.m. Tickets are $9.50. For information: (916) 442-7378
Saturday: “Flash Gordon.” A soundtrack by Queen highlights this intentionally camp sci-fi film.
July 18: “Satan’s Cheerleaders.” Evil lurks in a high school gym in this 1977 film.
July 25: “Chopping Mall.” Hot on the heels of the success of “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” TFO shows this 1986 film about evil security robots chasing hapless teens in a mall.
Aug. 1: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” This precursor to the television series featured a more Valley Girl-esque, equally likable vampire slayer.
Aug. 8: “Lady Terminator.” This ultra-violent 1987 film is only loosely associated with the American “Terminator” franchise. As in, it’s a rip-off from Indonesia.
Aug. 15: “Black Belt Jones.” Bruce Lee‘s “Enter the Dragon” co-star Jim Kelly takes on the mob in this 1974 movie.
Definitely worth seeing!
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Founder of the Fraternal Order of Cyber-Amish. 
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