Odyssee Pictures

This is just a general message to fill people in on the current state of the film. I'm heavy into post production, just getting the rough cut hammered out and planning some pickup shots in the coming weeks.

This movie is so unbelievably fun for me to watch. Sometimes I sit down to edit and just find myself watching it for an hour, rather than getting any real work done. As much fun as I have watching Domain of the Damned (and oh god, do I), Sweatshop is such a rush for me because it is essentially a complete 180' spin from the sub-genre of horror into which you would want to pin Domain. Where Domain was a slow burn that ramps up into a high voltage action romp with crazy fast cutting, bullets whizzing everywhere, stuff blowing up, monsters bursting through every other wall, Sweatshop is totally on the other side of the spectrum.

Sweatshop is patterned more after the early 80's slasher films, that niche sub-genre that ruled the box office from around 1978 to 1982 or so, and had a brief but high octane resurgence in the mid-to-late 80s with the birth of Freddy and the re-birth of Jason, etc. So what does that mean for the film? Basically, it was like taking that short slice from Domain where the DJs show up and start getting bumped off by a masked slasher, and expanding it to a full film. And that's something I wanted to do very badly. I always watch the scenes with the "Angel of Death" slasher and say "dammit, I wish I could have just made a whole movie about this guy." Because of course the plot of Domain goes a lot deeper than that, and eventually you just have to move on and tell the rest of the story.

So, Sweatshop is my chance to delve right into the sub-genre that started with movies like Psycho, Black Christmas, Alice, Sweet Alice and Halloween, and grew to outrageous levels of thrills, chills and ruby red splatterage with "dozen kids in a blender" flicks like Friday the 13th, Prom Night, Terror Train, The Prowler, and two of my favorite slasher films of all time: My Bloody Valentine and The Burning.

These films, along with italian Giallo flicks like Tenebre and Opera, inspired the slasher portion of Domain of the Damned, and I guess you could say that I got a little taste of the blood and delighted in its flavor.

The story came from my good friend in NYC Ted Geoghegan. I think I said something like "hey send me some loglines, lets see if I can get one of your scripts made so we can work on something together" and when he did, Sweatshop stood out from the pack completely. It was like "oh yes, I have to do this one. Fuck yes."

To bring the ultra-violence to life, Mike Oliver built some major props, Marcus Koch (of Oddtopsy FX) came in later to do some of the more elaborate sculpting and molding work so that we could really do some great, old fashioned latex-ripping splatter, and Kristi Boul (Rancid House FX) headed up the team as the general splatter wrangler and FX supervisor. She also created some of the major makeup pieces, including The Beast's head piece.

Mel House graciously allowed us to use his entire inventory of movie equipment, along with a large garage which he recently acquired for set construction. We were able to utilize that to build one of our most important sets, where we needed to be able to basically wreak havoc and splatter carnage all over the place without anyone kicking us out and calling the men in white coats on us.

One of my favorite aspects of the shoot was that I had cast the film almost entirely with friends. It was a real family film in that since, including people like Ashley, Krystal, Naika and B.D, who all played bit roles in Domain of the Damned, and Peyton, Danielle and Melanie who have all been featured in recent films like Closet Space, The Flesh Keeper, Sway, and most recently Walking Distance. Then there were cool surprises like newcomer Vincent, and contemporary singer/model/actress Julin, who was recently in a cheerleader slasher film called Spirit Camp, and working with her was absolutely indescribable. She plays Miko, the character who appears to have stepped right out of an anime film, and she is so frikkin' hysterical that she has managed to actually steal whole scenes in which she didn't even have a single line. I am definitely looking forward to working with her again soon.

I should point out that all this stuff is happening so fast, most of those movies I just mentioned aren't even out yet!

As we speak, I am inching the film closer to a complete rough cut, and preparing to meet with Dwayne Cathey about the score. And, my god, wait 'til you hear this stuff. These are the most retro and creepy horror cues I've heard since John Carpenter graced the screen with his compositions. Its one of the many aspects of the film that has me absolutely dying to get it finished and see it completed with an audience.

Well, it's back to the grindstone for me. Thanks for following SWEATSHOP guys, and remember to support indie horror!