Dorothea Cosgrave confers with her disfigured father, Ferdinand.

Lance Montgomery, bad cop, comes apart at the seams.

Adanela Cosgrave stops to smells the flowers.

 

The sinister Loren Cosgrave debases a young innocent.

Abe Grieper and Constance Cosgrave go at it!

Tara Montgomery is attacked by her wicked stepmother, Melinda.

Fiona Fuller is the Cosgrave psychic.

Another victim of Dorothea Cosgrave’s evil.

Princess Fedosia examines her new love slave.

Miss Tack, hungry for the Cosgrave fortune, injects Ferdinand Cosgrave.

Tara Montgomery upon seeing her lost fiancé Donny.

George Cameron Duggan Smith Bradley and Boo-Boo Bradley disrupt an upper-crust dinner party.

 Palace of Stains: A Histrionic Soap Opera Featuring A Cornucopia of Sacramento Superstars Premieres at the Crest Theater!

For one night only, on March 24, 2006 at 11pm, the historic Crest Theater (1013 K Street, downtown Sacramento - (916) 442-5189) will screen Bob Moricz's new motion picture entitled Palace of Stains. The doors open at 10:15 and the price of admission is $8. It will be preceded by a short documentary about the madcap making of Palace of Stains by Sarah and Damian Sol.

Instead of throwing himself a birthday party, Sacramento filmmaker Bob Moricz decided to shoot a two hour soap opera featuring the creme de la creme from numerous artistic Sacramento circles. He sent an evite out to anyone and everyone in the local arts community who might be interested in acting in his latest feature. He asked the invitees to specify their dream role in a soap opera.

56 people responded with a vast multitude of role preferences.

In two weeks, Moricz wrote a 120 page script and posted it on his website. Actors had two weeks to learn their lines, assemble their own costumes and come prepared to deliver the goods on April 2, 2005. Did I mention the plan was to shoot the entire feature in one day?

Knowing there was no possible way to shoot everything himself, Moricz recruited local talents Dutch Falconi, Jonathan Morken, and J. Greenberg to shoot simultaneously at different locations in Sacramento. Somehow and somewhat miraculously, they achieved their goal.

The result is a frantic roller coaster ride into the depraved bowels of the human soul. Shot from the hip with nothing but the hot and steaming guts of their collective imaginations, Moricz and his cohorts pull off an impossible feat with an action packed high speed slice of raw and unrefined Sacsploitation! Come, splatter your soul in the Palace of Stains!!!

 

Inside the Membrane of the Superior Frontal Gyrus There's Got to Be Something Wrong:
Bob Moricz, the Auteur Behind Palace of Stains, In Conversation With Producer Lureen Vlad

Q: Why did you decide to shoot a 120 page script in one day? Are you insane?

A: I am not insane. I am super-sane. Actually, I am a super-masochist. A few years ago I shot a 10 minute Super 8 film in lieu of a birthday party. That was a little movie entitled Empressed. It was a fun experience and it yielded some positive results, so last year I decided to step it up about 79 notches. I just wanted to see if it could be done. The irony is that, after the shoot was over, I couldn't look at the footage for eight months due to the high level of stress that went into Palace of Stains. I just wasn't ready to re-visit that crazy place. My brain was screaming during the making of this movie. I was shocked to see myself so calm and composed as I began reviewing my footage.

Q: How long have you been making movies?

A: When I popped out of my mama the doctor thought I was holding an I.U.D. It was actually a small Super 8 camera. I don't know how it got in there, but I know my dad liked to make movies too.

Q: Do you care if people like your movies?

A: Of course I do. That's like asking if I cared whether or not people liked my children. Though I have yet to sire some small humans, I figure I'd love them and I figure I'd want everybody to love them as much as I did. My movies are my children. I love my movies. But I know, realistically, that there is no accounting for taste and that, of course, not everyone will the same way feel about my movies as I feel about them. My movies are my DNA splattered up on the screen for all to see. It is an invigorating thrill for many and a disgusting sideshow for many others. I just gotta be me, you know?

Q: How is Palace of Stains different than your last Crest premiere, the zombie-packed Midnight of My Life?

A: Midnight of My Life was an art movie. I was experimenting with plot, textures, and pacing. Nothing would happen for about 10 minutes, and then all of the sudden a multitude of plot points would sneak up on the viewer unexpectedly. Then, again, nothing. I really liked doing that. Some people really liked it too, and some people didn't really get it or were sort of put off by that kind of storytelling. But Palace is the opposite. It's full-on action for two hours. Nothing but crazy plot lines twisting and weaving in and out of each other, juicy characters appearing, disappearing, reappearing, getting killed off left and right. It's really like a roller coaster ride with no down time, nothing but a bunch of twists, turns, flips, dips, loops, and crashes. It's very exciting and funny. Kind of exhausting, too. But In a good way. Like an entire night's worth of hot lovemaking.

Q: How have you evolved as a filmmaker in the past 15 years?

A: I've developed my own unique style and voice, I guess. I'm a handy editor. I'm way more organized than when I was 15 years ago. I know what I want. I don't think I did back then. I take it very seriously. When I was 18 I was having tons of fun, just kind of blindly shooting in the dark. I guess you can take that literally or figuratively. The more you do anything, the better you get at it. Or you get bored and quit. I'm still doing this and not planning on stopping any time before I die, so that says something.